The Liberals, NDP, and Greens Should Unite to Form a New Party

On the basis of this week alone, progressives are in for either four or, some have said, twenty years of soulful weeping. It's downright despairing.  I mean what's the use of following the House of Commons' deliberations when the outcomes will always be forgone conclusions arrived at by the Harper Regime's autocratic, mean, and twisted thinking?

What's to be done? Well there is always grassroots organization and massive protests about particular issues - letter writing, tweeting, blogging, marching, etc - but such a strategy while it is cathartic and may attract the media and therefore public attention will not sway this fascistic government one bit. Get real, eh? Besides, the conventional rhetoric of protest as a strategy has in general lost its edge because it has become so predictable and so commonplace.  It no longer startles.  Protest smotest says the general public and the government says even less.

There is always genuine guerrilla revolution - and it may actually come to that if the effects of global warming become  increasingly manifest  here in Canada - but for the moment that would seem a very drastic albeit not necessarily a totally undo-able choice under extreme circumstances.

So what could be done that is practicable and practical?  Well, this may sound a bit crazy, but the Liberals, NDP, and Green Party could get together to form a new party of progressives.  True, there is a significant conservative element in each of these parties and that's a good thing as a check - some conservative principles in and of themselves have value - but the progressive elements in all three parties far outweigh that conservative component. Of course each party would like to preserve its respective brand, and of course there would be hard negotiation and unpalatable compromises. But if things continue as they are this week, all three of these parties, I predict,  will feel themselves becoming increasingly frustrated and trapped, as will the 60% or so that did not vote for the Harper Regime.  This possibility may very well present itself in such a strained context.

In the meantime, perhaps we in the grassroots ought to begin lobbying each party in an effort to bring them together to initiate at least discussions of the possibility. It may be, under our current institutional system of government, the only way to get our country back.