Where is the Beef in the NDP? a poem about political cowardice prompted by Mr. Doer's Appointment to Washington, by Andy Taylor

"The CCF is a federation of organizations whose purpose is the establishment in Canada of a Co-operative Commonwealth in which the principle regulating production, distribution and exchange will be the supplying of human needs and not the making of profits."

"We aim to replace the present capitalist system, with its inherent injustice and inhumanity, by a social order from which the domination and exploitation of one class by another will be eliminated, in which economic planning will supersede unregulated private enterprise and competition, and in which genuine democratic self-government, based upon economic equality will be possible. The present order is marked by glaring inequalities of wealth and opportunity, by chaotic waste and instability; and in an age of plenty it condemns the great mass of the people to poverty and insecurity. Power has become more and more concentrated into the hands of a small irresponsible minority of financiers and industrialists and to their predatory interests the majority are habitually sacrificed. When private profit is the main stimulus to economic effort, our society oscillates between periods of feverish prosperity in which the main benefits go to speculators and profiteers, and of catastrophic depression, in which the common man's normal state of insecurity and hardship is accentuated. We believe that these evils can be removed only in a planned and socialized economy in which our natural resources and principal means of production and distribution are owned, controlled and operated by the people."


The Regina Manifesto
Adopted at First National Convention Held at Regina,
Saskatchewan, July, 1933.




Where is the beef in the NDP
That makes it Socialist?
Lots of crunchy granola in the NDP
with side orders of arugula
many fresh organics to be had in Wolesly.

But what about the working-class
you betrothed in your youth?
where is The Regina Manifesto
you claim birthed your party view?

the land was to belong to the farmers?
And the factories to the workers?

O O O O Mr NDP!
What streel have you taken
to your futon synthetics-free bed
in place of your cooperative spouse?

Woe, woe
and a thousand times 'woe'
Woe unto the lost sheep
and woe unto the bloody Shepherds!

Laytons, Doers, Darrell Dexters,
Strutting fools, ambassadors of neo-cons:
A Social Demockery
of premier Regina Free Trade signers

Look to the rock from which you were hewn
and to the quarry from which you were dug
if you want to join hands together
to let Canada go free
and lift off the curse
of property.

So long as you dither and dabble
in middle class ideas and palaver,
black and white cannot unite
And get on the right track.

From Winnipeg, or Jane Finch, or reservation:

Join together fellow workers
Black, brown and white can all be reds!

there is an honour in
jettisoning
all these reasonable parties
with their 'possible' ideas
from the dead wood dead world:

for nothing that
now exists
in Canada's parliamentary cabal
has the leadership
to guide a pack of boy-scouts
from Bloor to Yonge
(as for their leadership abilities)

So sign me up
Pin me quick!
I'm proud to shout
I'd rather be Red
and let these
dead bury their dead