POSTED ON BEHALF OF DOUG

In fact Canadians want medicare expanded to fully include dental care, vision care and drugs. They are willing to pay higher taxes if needed to achieve this.

Teachers are in fact, mainly liberals much as i would prefer them to be social-democrats. In the Robarts-Davis period many were red Tories but the conservatives threw that away by becoming neo-conservatives.

Teachers are natural moderate progressives Wynne type Liberals or Horwath NDPers. They are trade unionists (by law statuatory) they work in the public sector so they believe in the public sector, they make lower middle class wages which acts as a conservative influence but they see the poverty and general lack of equality in society on a daily basis.

In every democratic nation, teachers are an integral part of the organized left. Nothing surprising. Quite natural really. They don’t need propoganda or indoctrination to arrive at these conclusions.

When they look at how public education works, they naturally extend that to health care making nurses their natural ally. American Federation of Teachers just merged with the nurses union.

George Lakoff is a psychiatrist and a brilliant political analyst due to his insights into the human brain

He maintains that moderates do not believe half of the right issues and half of the left on issues. He talks about major studies of Democrats, Republicans and moderates (switchers). Generlly R’s agree with the GOP on almost everything. D’s agree with the Democrats on almost everything. Moderate choose their politics a la carte.

The bad news for education reformers is that moderates tend to agree 100% with Republicans on:

the budget, low taxes, the military, crime and punishment, international affairs, and SOME social issues.

They agree with Democrats almost 100% on health, education and the environment.

As a result is is virtually impossible for conservatives to ‘convert’ their roughly 1/3 share of the health, education and environments debates. into 50% or more.

People want high quality health and education at no cost beyond taxes delivered by the public sector. They want very strict regulations of the environment.

Canadian public opinion is very similar. It is WAY beyond OISE

Doug I don’t understand what you mean when you say that public opinion is way beyond OISE. 

What I do understand is that the article cited should not be taken lightly.  Is the OISE as sinister and deluded as the article claims?  It’s worth investigating.  If the article is true, then this isn’t about right and left winged politics anymore, it’s about the indoctrination of our children by sick individuals who are in very powerful government positions.  Where are the police?  Where is the media—especially CBC.  Our province needs to get to the bottom of this and find out what’s going on.   

Doug’s point about public leanings was surely correct 20 years ago, it is precisely “the Laurentian consensus” described in Bricker and Ibbitson.  http://www.cbc.ca/books/2013/03/how-the-political-landscape-is-changing.html  But there is a huge demographic shift underway in Canada.

It’s easy to brush away the silly political analysis in that book, but the demographic and cultural shifts the authors describe are dramatic.  New Canadians want the same high-quality services as the rest of us, but have little faith in the ability of government employees to deliver them.

Ontario just got 15 new seats in Parliament, and the expectation is that the provincial riding map will change to match.  12 of those new ridings are in the fast-growing suburbs of Toronto, and we will soon be hearing from them. 

POSTED ON BEHALF OF DOUG

Doesn’t matter even a little bit. Only half of Conservatives support ‘reform’ agenda. Conservatives at bottom 30% but only 15% support public money for private schools. Cut the pie 20 different ways public opinion remains the same.

Tories scared to death to take on privatization of health and education. They can read polls.

Definitely an interesting realm to point the flashlight around in and see some of the very peculiar aberrations of today’s humans viewed through various lenses of choice.  Perhaps Mr. Doug could sharpen his pencil a little more and be a bit more specific on how he defines “lower middle class income”.  On another side of the coin, we bump into healthcare, it is not clear to me that pasting a public or private stamp on this package will change it much..just shuffle the chairs on the Titanic some.  There are no miracles in healthcare until humans start dying a lot sooner than the current trend.  One of the unintended consequences of improved health and longer life is/are all the chronic care expenses associated with extended life…not withstanding the percentage of our teaching alumni who will and are surely dramatically outliving their tenure(years of retirement vs. years of work) in the trade so to speak. 

Many miles to go before we sleep. Oh that life could be so glib and simple as Mr. Doug likes to make it.  BTW. Mr. Doug are you “lower middle class” in income..don’t forget to provide us with your contextual definition for this status.  I am not holding my breath. Snake oil somehow strikes me as your stock and trade.

POSTED ON BEHALF OF DOUG

Malkin referred to her health course and the instruter saying “can’t do what she or he want to do. Public opinion is not there.” it is exactly the same with education.

John Tory believe public funding of private religious schools was his ticket to Mississauga (Muslims) and York region (Jews and others). Milton, Niagara Fundamentalist Christians…. he found out that a huge piece of the Tory base abandoned him due to a deeeeep belief that NO religion should get funding and he was throwing gas on the RC fire.

Privatizing health and education in Canada is practically impossible since there is no political support for it. Even in USA the clock is beginning to move backwards as more and more studies pile up that privatization delivers nothing of value.

Lower middle class yes that is where teachers belong

Upper class mainly business real estate inherited money (think Bromfman, Hal Jackman, Conrad Black)

Upper middle class ( established doctor, lawyer, architect, think $200K per year)

Lower middle class (teacher, nurse, journalist, small biz…. think $100K or less)

Working class (firefighter, construction, factory labourskilled, truck driver…. )

Lumpenproleteriat (unskilled factory, unemployed… black market… some food services)

Mr Dee has a uniquely divergent view of income class stratification.  The following link more closely reflects the general view of family income while losing the ideological interpretation.

http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/progressive-economics-forum/2011/07/what-middle-class-income-these-days

Perhaps it is time to reframe Mr. Dee. It is never too late.  There is life after ideological stagnation.