New owners took over The Georgia Straight two years ago. That quickly led to changes that are not reader-friendly. However, their website still offers useful commentary and is particularly worth visiting when Martyn Brown’s work appears. His latest column is a critique of a person often seen and heard in BC media.
Baldrey vs. Appadurai—he’s baffled by her aggressively progressive NDP leadership campaign
NDP leadership hopeful Anjali Appadurai has discovered that it doesn’t take much to set Global News reporter Keith Baldrey’s hair on fire.
All she has to do is stand up for what she believes in: urgent climate action, fair wages for unionized public sector workers, and radically progressive government...
Keith Baldrey, the billionaire Shaw family’s representative in the BC Legislative Press Gallery, is often baffled when people take on principled causes. If he doesn’t ignore aspiring reformers, Baldrey is prone to misrepresenting or ridiculing their views.
He exudes contempt for those who fail to stand and salute higher-purpose-people. The commentator who pushes any government or industry agenda at hand says those holding alternative views are activists, unworthy of public attention.
After John Horgan reversed the NDP’s years-long opposition to Site C, Baldrey chortled “Oh boo hoo. Boo hoo hoo” to the “losers” who objected to BC spending billions of dollars on a destructive and unnecessary megaproject built to worsen the climate crisis.
Mr. Brown continues about misinformation targeting the unwelcome person competing for NDP leadership:
First, contrary to what Baldrey suggests, Appadurai is not “running AGAINST the party” she seeks to lead.
She is running to reclaim it as the force for progressive change that once defined the NDP in the first place, long before it morphed into the business-as-usual party it now is, having tilted ever further to the center-right under Horgan’s tenure.
Serious pundits should applaud rational debate of issues. Ms. Apparaduai wants to make this logo genuinely absurd by enabling voters to differentiate between the governing party and the official opposition.
Martyn Brown again:
Indeed, it’s the NDP itself that now seems so ashamed of what it now represents, it won’t even post its own Constitution, policies or principles on its party website, as I noted in my last article.
Brown points out that each new BC NDP member must pledge to accept and abide by the party’s Constitution, principles, and policies, but none of these are published and readily available to prospective members. I suspect this promise will derail Anjali Appadurai’s brave efforts. Rather than supporting policies decided by BC NDP leaders, this grass roots campaign opposes them fully. That is not allowed.
Appadurai’s wish for NDP renewal — which Baldrey labels as radical — lists policies to improve liveability in the province and actions to elevate humanity’s chance of surviving more than two or three more generations.
Brown makes a point about Anjali Appadurai that Baldrey missed or ignored:
Win or lose, she’s mainly running to force that uncomfortable debate about the need for progressive change…
Judging by his body of work, Keith Baldrey and other old-boys in BC’s political punditry do not see goals enumerated by an uppity young adult as worth serious consideration. Life was so much easier for them when women in politics applied stamps, stuffed envelopes, made pots of tea, and left political debate to experienced people paid to decide which issues that matter.
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IN-SIGHTS 
Does Baldrey now endorse the Horgan NDP? Look at the bright side: The NDP are only incompetent. The Liberals were incompetent and corrupt.
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Punditry in general is much more interested in the horse race aspect of politics than they are in either the theory of practice of governing. This, of course, distracts from the multiple failings of successive administrations at all levels and keeps a curtain of intellectual chaff between the electorate and the puppet masters of the elected.
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Good Day
I hesitate to reply but must to try and see if someone can post a reasonably good answer to the following question.
So why are we still on this path of what seems like existentialism instead of something along the line of morally right for the common good?
We once lived in a so called democracy but that has been captured by the power brokers, oligarchs unfortunately and the elected officials of government dance to their tune and that tune is played throughout the controlled power broker owned media.
We elect officials on what we feel is the direction we need to move and they nod and agree. Once in office we now find through their actions they have lied. The overseers of the political power hand the script to their elected members and they must follow the script.
We have to look in the mirror to see perhaps a big part of the problem. We are either out gunned in numbers by the voters who put these people into power; don’t bother to vote or we are very complacent, ill informed and don’t have the critical thinking skills to see through the propaganda we are being fed or we just don’t care.
Some thoughtful answers and heaven forbid possible solutions appreciated.
A Trojan horse with a progressive Wrecking Ball party inside would be a good start headed up by the charisma of a Donald Trump persona but with a mandate heading in the opposite direction. It would only last one term perhaps but some real change could take place. If something does not happen real soon than the last one leaving please turn out the lights.
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I think you answered your own question. Number 3, obviously!
And that’s not likely to change, until something mor insidious happens.
And what will that be?
Don’t know! Perhaps Ms Appadurai will shed some light?
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When the first atomic bombs were detonated in 1945, scientists behind the weapons celebrated. In the 1940s and 1950s, nuclear bomb testing in Nevada spawned a spectator culture. Thousands of unsuspecting people lived within miles of the first test site. Thousands were casualties of radioactive fallout.
Gradually, we realized the harm and came to understand that a few deranged people could unleash this form of energy and destroy the world. Scientists like Manhattan Project director Robert Oppenheimer and Albert Einstein expressed regrets about their contributions and worked to control nuclear proliferation.
Many of us grew up with advertising that talked about “cleaner burning” fossil fuels. Even esteemed organizations like MIT promoted the need to exploit natural gas resources in 2009. Many of us removed electric heating and cooking systems and installed gas appliances. We thought we could save money without harming the environment.
In 2022, we may know about fossil fuel dangers and have gained awareness about climate change and actions needed to moderate threats. But many lack information or pay little attention. Today’s social media encourages narcissism and self-absorbed young people haven’t begun to worry about their long-term future.
Ignorance, misinformation, and human credulity are useful to economic interests. A food company profits by convincing us that their peanut butter is better than another brand. That may be harmless but when fossil fuel producers convince people that producing and consuming more fossil fuels today is good for the planet’s future, injury to the planet results.
If reason could explain and moderate human behaviour, the world would be a better place. But self-interest establishes a giant barrier to needed changes.
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In my observation there seems to be a common belief that at some nebulous point in the past, we enjoyed a democracy that wasn’t captured by power brokers who controlled the message and called the shots. Anyone want to take a stab at putting a date on that point?
I don’t think it exists.
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Lew
“We once lived in a so called democracy” I think you may ascertain
the quote may imply we did not live in an actual one ever..just to be clear.
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BS Baldry is in fine company with Vague Palmer and Vanilla Bill.
What can I say, BS Baldry in the school of Fox (Faux) news with a well vered corrus of Alternative facts and fake news, which is now so common with Canada’s media.
The NDP are in a crisis and Premier Horgan “has left the building” and government is running adrift. Everything is falling apart in the province as Horgan in his ‘huffmobile’ ignores all.
Vision Vancouver’s ‘heir apparent’, David Eby and the party apparatus seems scared of Ms. Appadurai, and for good reason, they want to keep the current old boys/girls network alive for a few more years, so friends and insiders can reap the benefits of the BC taxpayer.
It seems Appadurai could cause the current party to self destruct and this has a lot of party members very worried. So in the end, they will “shoot” the messenger by ignoring the message of global Warming and climate change.
This also is a big worry for big business and their man, BS Baldry, in BC because real solutions means smaller dividends for the shareholders.
Horgan will go down in history as one of BC’s most absent premiers which in the time of crisis, simply vanished from the stage.
BS Baldry will also fade away has BC’s version of Lord Ha HA or Tokyo Rose, where propaganda, replaced real news.
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Martyn Brown: “Indeed, it’s the NDP itself that now seems so ashamed of what it now represents, it won’t even post its own Constitution, policies or principles on its party website, as I noted in my last article.”
I checked — and yes, it is difficult/impossible to find the BCNDP’s constitution. I gave up after 15 minutes, though I may have other off-line sources to check out.
This reminds me of a recent airline flight and the on-line check-in. It warned of potentially dangerous goods, such as explosives, knives and camera and laptop batteries. I was guilty of the last two items… but I could not proceed with the check-in without clicking the box “I am not carrying dangerous goods.” [√]
I figured security staff would sort it, which they did without a problem.
It will be interesting to see how the BCNDP deals with potentially ‘Trojan’ new members, who have clicked an unknown box just to inside the gates.
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