Re: [Marxism] Re: Stephen Lewis book

[Marvin Gandall <marvgandall@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Peter McLaren" <mclaren@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "Activists and scholars in Marxist tradition"
<marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, December 04, 2005 1:40 PM
Subject: [Marxism] Re: Stephen Lewis book


> Lewis is a legend in Canada, is married to Canadian journalist  Michele
> Landsberg. He is the father of Canadian broadcaster Avi  Lewis, who
> married journalist and author Naomi Klein.
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He's also the former leader of the Ontario NDP and son of David Lewis, who
along with Tommy Douglas, were the two leading lights of Canadian social
democracy in the postwar period. Lewis Sr. succeeded Douglas as national
leader of the NDP.

Stephen, as Ontario party leader, was instrumental in hounding the NDP
left - the so-called Waffle - out of the party in the early 70s. Despite its
frivolous-sounding name and sometimes questionable policies, the Waffle
represented a serious threat to the party leadership and engaged the
attention of the national media in its efforts to move the party to the left
on Vietnam, Quebec self-determination, and public ownership. Some of us on
the list were active in the Waffle as members of the Canadian USec section,
the League for Socialist Action, and differences over the League's
orientation to both the Waffle and the NDP became entangled in the larger
split then unfolding between the SWP and the European groups influenced by
Ernest Mandel.

Lewis, a strong speaker and talented politican like his dad, put his
leadership on the line in calling for sanctions against the Waffle, which
prompted the departure of its main forces, who in any case already believed
they could successfully challenge the NDP from outside as the Movement for
an Independent and Socialist Canada. The MISC quickly faded into obscurity.
A minority of the Waffle leadership gravitated towards the LSA - or rather,
to its pro-European wing - and later formed a rival "sympathizing section of
the FI" in opposition to the League.



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