NDP was a single issue party that had wider support among middle class, at that time Liberal voters than radicals. I think it was Garret's first foray into any

NDP was a single issue party that had wider support among middle class, at that time Liberal voters than radicals. I think it was Garret's first foray into any kind of activism. From memory his rock band were mostly fairly moderate private school boys with the kinds of concerns about the state of the world that tend to cross party affiliations. In the 1980s nuclear apocalypse seemed somehow extremely likely in a way that is hard to relate if you didn't live through it. It didn't belong to party politics at all. The NDP went from that base to became a front for the pro-soviet communist party while the cold war was still very much on, thus completely undermining its original purpose and relegating it to useless and disillusioning its founders including Garret. If you were tasked with trying to destroy it as a political force given they had a fair amount of support you couldn't have done it more effectively. Seems advertising a protest in favour of journalistic freedom then flipping it to be about a bunch of other unadvertised issues and bundling it up in a petition is /exactly/ what I'm talking about. Assange's PR skills suck but I somehow doubt they suck that badly given how scared he evidently has been about what he is still facing. Being persecution by the USA in a supermax prison.