Activism on an issue is almost always in conflict with political partisanship. I don't see why this is so difficult to understand, but the fact that it seems opaque to so many is sort of evidence of how much things have changed in the past few decades. This used to be understood.
This is a blunter version of an earlier thread.
If you're a political partisan but are fighting an issue - housing, Site C, whatever - your allegiances are split & your strategies will be different than if you weren't a partisan. You won't seek traction against your party.
This situation is particularly dire under First Past the Post, which is a system designed to support larger parties & pull them all to some sort of artificial "centre" while virtually disqualifying smaller parties. Many won't vote for 3rd parties due to FPTP's lesser evil logic.
When the large parties likely to win are both have to pander to the same centre voting margin, you get, eg, the NDP behaving exactly like the BC Libs on a vast majority of key files (esp Energy, Forests/Lands & Mining). Obvs FPTP is not the only reason for this, but it's there.
But back to the main point: you can't get traction against political parties & their govts if you're a partisan, because there are too many times when you'll have to weigh the need to extract wins for the issue you're fighting vs. the harm or discomfort it will cause your party.
You can now observe open partisanship, often quite manic, in individuals in most big ENGOs now as well as some housing fights. Do those people not see how this looks, let alone the damage it does? It's like an open admission of split loyalties. It so clearly neuters your fight.
Maybe watch orgs & call them on this, if you are a member/supporter of their work:
Either open partisanship during an election (the very moment when they must do the opposite, since elections are the best times to extract promises from pols) or suspiciously wan stances.
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Important WSJ article on Canada's rivers drying up while we keep building dams anyway, including #SiteC. It's paywalled so I'll include the whole article in this 🧵
Diversify into renewables now! BC can't until it ditches the deceptively named Clean Energy Act.#bcpoli #cdnpoli
Had Bing Thom not died prematurely, he would have gone after @AIBCconnected for its gentleman's agreement rule that architects can't criticize other projects. Reportedly a certain major arch'l firm in Vancouver reported Bing to AIBC for his letter opposing #105Keefer. #vanpoli
@AIBCconnected Bing Thom intended to go after AIBC's muzzling rule & publicly ask them:
"What is the point of architecture if there's no discourse? What is the role of the architect in society? Do we have a public responsibility or are we just hired guns?"
@AIBCconnected Bing's death was a terrible loss for public discourse in Vancouver. BTW he also helped us with a fight I co-founded against the proposed downtown casino expansion (we beat the expansion partly thx to him). You could count on him to do the right thing. AIBC tries to block this.
My elderly family member, whom I kept free of Covid for 3+ years but who finally caught in in an unmasked BC hospital last week, is very sick on Day 9. Rapid test still shows a bright red line. For health issues she can't take Paxlovid. She's in a rage at you, @adriandix. #bcpoli
@adriandix "I'm furious at the hospital and at all the unmasked healthcare workers, but I'm more outraged by @adriandix and Bonnie Henry. The govt is ultimately to blame."
@adriandix She asks: "Why aren't they following science?"
"They kept taking my mask off for tests and procedures - and they weren't even wearing masks when they did it."
I’m a rural BC hospital taking an elderly relative to ER. No masks on staff & visitors but aggressive efforts to make everyone sanitize their hands, despite the fact that the diseases helping to crash the health system are airborne. We are truly living in an age of disinformation
*I’m IN a rural BC hospital. I am not a hospital. But you got that
Look at the handwashing fixation of @IPACCanada & the blindness to airborne transmission & masking stretching back many years. Every year they suggest infection control is largely a handwashing issue. It's as if all the airborne diseases do not exist. Why?
@BCGreens@SoniaFurstenau Here's the timeline of John Horgan's involvement with Teck Resources before he left office. Judge for yourself:
In Dec 2021 the feds indicated they were considering referring Teck's selenium pollution in the Elk Valley to the internat'l joint commission (IJC) #bcpoli
@BCGreens@SoniaFurstenau Feds became involved because Teck's selenium pollution was a longstanding issue. (Recall the fines)
March 2022 Teck lobbied the feds asking that the Elk Valley pollution not be referred to the IJC.
April 12 Teck lobbied Horgan's Chief of Staff & deputy mins of Env & Energy+Mines
The BC govt can fudge the death stats from Covid all it wants ("that death wasn't FROM Covid, it was WITH Covid" etc).
The real truth is the "excess deaths" number - that is, how many of us are dying now vs. before pandemic, minus other factors like poisoned drugs & heat dome.
This is why data modellers like @MoriartyLab focus on excess deaths as the real statistical truth of Covid impacts over time. The problem tho is that over time, elevated deaths from Covid will start to be the "normal" death rate, against which we're comparing new Covid deaths...
This problem is being discussed in several chats I'm in that include Covid science & medical types and public health advocates. What happens when we can't use excess deaths as reliably to get around the govt's obfuscation around Covid's serious health impacts on the public?