[salsa]

Do these 43 Down morons honestly believe that there's any hope in hell that their 43 approved councillors will get elected?

 

[JWBF]

I am incredibly bored, at home, on Saturday night so went to that 43 Down page and started looking at the profiles of the people who support it. https://www.facebook.com/groups/1512707135630047/ This is a page one of the supporters started. She's obviously a TCHC tenant who is very upset with TCHC, but yet she supports the Fords. She's had nothing but problems with TCHC, spoke to Rob about it, and because she spoke to him (not because he actually did anything) she supports Doug. Sigh! She alleges a lot of things on that page from a sexual assault, to a TCHC board member (I think? It's kind of hard to follow) getting a 15 year old pregnant. Anyhoo, if you're bored, check it out. It's a wild, grammatically incorrect read.

Quite a few of the members only have other members as their fb friends and post mostly pro-Ford things (with some racist, sexist, anti-Liberal posts in between).

Unfortunately there are lot of incidents in certain "blocks" and buildings, including drug, sex, and senior abuse crimes. TCHC was going down hill under Miller but has only gotten worse under Ford, especially with Gene Jones.

It's a joke to most residents the supposed help Ford promises, and I do not blame those who have been abused clinging to any kind of hope.

 

[Scarberian]

Unfortunately there are lot of incidents in certain "blocks" and buildings, including drug, sex, and senior abuse crimes. TCHC was going down hill under Miller but has only gotten worse under Ford, especially with Gene Jones.

It's a joke to most residents the supposed help Ford promises, and I do not blame those who have been abused clinging to any kind of hope.

Agreed. Let's not lose sight that the people Ford exploits for their own gains, can still be people.

 

[CalgarianExOntarian]

Rob Ford isn't representative of any larger group. He's a special story. I don't know that his ability to dodge all consequence (but cancer) is the result of his fair pink skin or his maleness so much as his shamelessness. I remember that after a debate a couple months ago organized by some black citizens group where carding was discussed I mentioned here my disappointment that neither Chow or Tory thought to highlight the difference in the way the police and other authorities respond to the Mayor's criminality versus the way they treat some black kid on the street. So I'm not unaware that some people have advantages others don't. I'm even aware that I have some as a white male. Privilege as it is used here is a social science theory; it's a framework. Does it describe observable dynamics? Sure. But it is some universal force that shapes everyone's fortune? Not really. I see it being tossed around freely lately. Maybe because unlike racism it requires no action from its perpetrators, just passive acceptance, so it can be applied so widely. Plus it has that irresistable argument hammer within it. Anyone who doubts any claims needs to "check their privilege".

Like Ford, Tory is a special situation. His place in the world is the result of tremendous advantages granted him as the son of a guy who was advisor and best buddies with a couple of Canada's richest men. He's 1%. As a white guy who has never really thrived in the world (mostly my own fault, but whatever) I don't know that I want him nodding in agreement and spewing platitudes on the supposed advantages that I'm said to share with him. Anyway, Tory's good fortune of birth seems to make him a bit tone-deaf sometimes. I'm not so sure he keeps up with what the activist university kids are discussing these days.

This.

I'm not going to address every good point made in the quoted post, because (a) it's late and I'm tired and (b) even at the best time of day and well-rested, I'm not sure I'd be up to the task.

I agree that RoFo's shamelessness is a big part of why he casts such an ugly shadow over the 416 and far beyond.

To go on, and to speak for myself, I think that the RoFo phenomenon is mostly a weird and rare combination of shamelessness, ignorance, stubbornness, garbage-can-itude, some kind of awful Ford charisma, and a nihilistic attitude adopted by a bewilderingly-large-to-me number of voters.

To get back to your main point ... It's not that Rob Ford and Doug Ford are white and male--that helps them electorally much more than it hurts them, but it's clearly only a tiny part of the whole story.

As to Tory ... one of the many depressing things about him is that as an allegedly well-connected, well-educated and super-experienced person running for Mayor of The Big Smoke, IT OUGHT TO BE AUTOMATIC for him to care about non-white and women T.O. residents and their families, and put them tied for first with all other voters, even when he's asked a tricky, leading, BS question. It is not too much to ask for. Good municipal politicians coast-to-coast handle that kind of thing the right way several times per day.

 

[JWBF]

Do these 43 Down morons honestly believe that there's any hope in hell that their 43 approved councillors will get elected?

It's amazing what fundamentalism can accomplish, especially with the weak minded.

 

[nohostages]

If the judge is actually *in* judge regalia in the crack-smoking video, that's amazing.

I know, I keep envisioning the album cover from Bad Habits by the Monks. It had a sexy nun on the cover. A naughty lady judge. Toronto sure is distancing itself from its old moniker "The Good". Happy Birthday Sweet Lou. And jimmi.wow the leaves are awesome in cottage country n'est pas?

 

[Kat_YYZ]

Cheers Jimmi T. It's my birthday. Spent it putting up signs in Ward 2. Now enjoying a very tasty bottle of downtown elite Chardonnay.

happy (belated) birthday!

 

[Greg Banks]

Have any of you come across the "43 Down" movement ( to "fordify" city hall). There's a FB page:
https://m.facebook.com/43down?__tn__=C

Why not go over to the Toronto Council Races pages
43 Down has been discussed as well as the antiMLTT slate, the Toronto Labour slate, AFUITBS' "Challengers to Watch" along with their endorsements, the newz4u.net slate and other saundries....

 

[TRA]

Why not go over to the Toronto Council Races pages
43 Down has been discussed as well as the antiMLTT slate, the Toronto Labour slate, AFUITBS' "Challengers to Watch" along with their endorsements, the newz4u.net slate and other saundries....

Doug introduced 4 councillors in Scarborough yesterday as part of the "43 Down" (although he is not officially endorsing anyone, apparently). So I wondered how much airtime this slate has been getting.

 

[pattycakes]

Great blog about leadership:

http://thestrengthoftheabsurd.wordpress.com/2014/10/11/toronto-needs-a-leader/

 

[Greg Banks]

Doug introduced 4 councillors in Scarborough yesterday as part of the "43 Down" (although he is not officially endorsing anyone, apparently). So I wondered how much airtime this slate has been getting.

People at UT like to accuse me of inside baseball (it is justified) however 43 Down is the most inside of baseball...I would suggest until yesterday the only people who took any notice of 43 were select members of IHTWOMRF, UT and those endorsed...

 

[pattycakes]

People at UT like to accuse me of inside baseball (it is justified) however 43 Down is the most inside of baseball...I would suggest until yesterday the only people who took any notice of 43 were select members of IHTWOMRF, UT and those endorsed...

Agreed. Maybe this is Doug's team that he's referred to a couple of times. IIRC two of the four are up against an incumbent. so they don't have much of a chance. Without name recognition, it's almost impossible to win.

 

[Roy's Square]

On the sign count a few Tory and a few Chow here on Roncesvalles and in Parkdale. A lot more Charmaine Emerson signs than Gord Perks. she was out canvassing on Landsdowne this morning too. I haven't seen Perks at all out and about at all except for one of the Roncesvalles street festivals this summer. He and another guy walked past a campaign kiosk and he turned to his pal and said "who the fuck is that guy?" I can't remember the guys name who was running.

I've been all over the northern half of that riding (mine) these last few weeks, and I'd say Gord is definitely winning the sign battle there. Charmaine Emerson is certainly a presence, but the only place I've noticed a density of her signs is on the actual block where she lives and the houses the next street north where I presume she's made an impression during their regular alley parties.

Chow appears to be beating Tory, and I've seen a grand total of three Rob Ford installations: two rather dodgy houses on otherwise nice streets plastered with them, and one sharing a lawn with a Gord Perks sign, which I cannot understand.

On the canvassing front, Gord has actually been by our house a couple of times and got to meet my kids, which is always fun. Charmaine I saw at the Polish festival, but I haven't seen her or any of the mayoral candidates at my door.

 

[ParkdalePetunia]

Agreed. Let's not lose sight that the people Ford exploits for their own gains, can still be people.

Completely agreed. If what she's posted is true, she needs serious help. Rob promising her things, giving her false hope is a huge problem. She needs legal representation. It's just very hard to see people who are struggling supporting someone who has no intention of actually helping them.

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

For those unaware, this is Tory's full quote:

John Tory full statement: “White privilege? No, I don’t know that it does. I think there are people left behind, and what I think they need is a hand up from people of all skin colours and religions and backgrounds.â€

So he clearly does acknowledge the existence of a societal disadvantage towards some people. So... out of touch Tory or media spin? I think the latter.

He's being torn apart (by some people) for not unilaterally adopting the specific term thrown at him in a scrum. It's not like he put forth an argument there's no such thing as racism, or that he gave some Doug Fordesque tail of pulling himself up by his bootstraps despite facing numerous disadvantages, just like anyone else. That's what's being implied.

I'm not going to speak to Campaign John Tory, who has done several things I find concerning, but Pre-Campaign John Tory was very active in organizations dealing with priority neighbourhoods etc. and while one could quibble about policy approaches, I think it's absurd to suggest he doesn't "get it." If the question was asked, "Do you think a black person from Regent Park faces more obstacles in society than a John Tory," i suspect he would have easily said "Of course. " But he didn't immediately agree that "White Privilege" exists and so the "Progressives" (or, more to the point, the people who think it's their job to define progressivism for everyone else*) are going to roast him for it.

*I'm thinking, as one example, of NOW Toronto editor who tweeted earlier this week that the Green Party was "not progressive," because they voted alongside Harper on the ISIS motion, when, as it turned out one member had done so in a free vote. But as NOW Editor, he gets to say who is allowed to come to his "progressive" party and someone on the Greens got dis invited. Tory won't be on the xmas card list either.