Michael Hardner

I only have one comment on this Hugo: WAL-MART and BLOCKBUSTER dictate the content of movies and CDs that they sell. Here in Canada, if I rent from BLOCKBUSTER, I'm getting the version that was "approved" by WAL-MART and BLOCKBUSTER not the original version of the film. Yes, there is more than one media conglomorate to choose from. I believe there are 6. That's oligopoly.

These are good counter examples, but they came after the industrial revolution, 100+ years after independence. I don't agree. Corporations ultimately have only the profit motive. If they can circumvent safety without the public finding out about it, then they may take that chance. I don't agree. Television ads are persuasive, and can convince people to vote against their own interests. They cost a lot of money to buy, and the politician is beholden to the company that donated that money. These big companies constantly lobby for loopholes to environmental laws etc. How is that benign ?

Are people happy with seeing their wages drop, though ? They wouldn't sell as many in Ontario, though. Making $30K a year, would force many families to go back to one car. Remember Henry Ford. I can't connect the dots here. Are you saying people don't want to enter the trades because they're not unionized ?

Actually, the US constitution didn't really allow for slavery, and this was tested at the Supreme Court level, but that's an aside. Yes, everything has grown since then but more significantly things have changed structurally. I'm not arguing that point. I'm just saying that the fast food companies have enough lobbying clout to put a law like that on the books. Can you imagine such a thing happening in 1776 or even 1956 ? But big business has so much of a role in our lives now compared to then. It controls our entertainment, the food we eat and even the air we breathe. Such was not the case in 1776. And the economy exists to better the lives of the people, not the other way around. Economic gain is not just measured on the bottom lines of the biggest corporations, but in the wealth and well-being of every citizen. The auto companies lobbied against air bags in the 1970s and were able to convince President Nixon that the cost of these devices would increase car costs to the detriment of the industry. Undoubtedly, lives were lost. How many ? And what would have been the economic damage of implementing air bags at that time ? We can only guess at these things, but the point is that these policies affect all of us and an informed and involved electorate would result in better decisions being made. I see what you're getting at, but I don't agree that socialism produces monopolies of economic power. It produces heavier regulation and greater wealth distribution. But, again, that's another argument... What we have in our society today is an evolution of socialism and pure capitalism. It's useless for us to argue the benefits of one system over the other because neither of these options is viable for today. My issue with Aug91 is that people shouldn't use the same arguments for mom-and-pop small businesses as for large corporations. They're different animals.

Again, this eliminates a whole range of relationships between the corporation and its society. WAL-MART is not simply a "bigger store' any more than a tiger is a "bigger kitten". It employs a signifcant percentage of the labour force. ( I've heard 1% as a figure for McDonalds and WAL-MART. This would have been unheard of in 1776) It lobbies governments on every level. It influences trade agreements, labour legislation, and can even impose content changes on the CDs and films it chooses to sell. Would a store in 1776 have had enough power to change Thomas Paine's common sense ? Of course not. There were no corporations in 1776. There was no legislation limiting liability. In 2004, fast food companies are able to get the Senate to consider a bill limiting their industries liabilities against class action lawsuits. There were no consortiums, that bid on huge defense contracts as well as contributing to political campaigns. There was no corporate agriculture industry experimenting with new life forms, and creating environmental problems with mega-farms just individual farmers. There were no global media empires like Viacom, FOX, Time-Warner etc. There was no Microsoft - not just a company, but the central nervous system for business and the world at large. If MS went bankrupt, there would be severe reprecussions for the entire economy. There were no businesses like this when the US constitution was written, nor could they even have been imagined. The US would do well to completely revamp the constitution to adjust to the new realities of today but it would never fly politically.

You're incorrect. The Canadian Alliance has advocated for changes in health care, and the CPC will probably do the same. As for making it affordable, the current system is affordable. It could be managed better. That's a pretty arrogant attitude, and anti-democratic as well. After Bob Rae, Mike Harris elected two back-to-back majorities in Ontario. Saskatchewan votes NDP. Did Ontarians "get smarter" ? Are Ontarians are smarter than Saskatchewites ? (my word) And - as has been pointed out, the universities have been hotbeds of leftism. I guess this means that stupid people go to university and smart ones don't. You can see the traps that you fall into when you espouse that kind of thinking. There are smart people on all sides of the political spectrum. I believe that political leanings are born out of one's experiences more than one's intelligence.

Hjalmar: This is over-simplification. Why is it a direct result of labour unions powers ? There are many other forces at play here. Are you saying that if there were no unions, over all wages would be higher ? If so, you haven't explained why, you just stated some data. As has been stated above, organized labour created the middle class and created a power base that enabled workers to share general wealth and prosperity. I think the problem we're seeing is that the average wage is going south, due to globalization, automation and other factors. Seeing as 2/3 of the economy is consumer spending, I think the government would do well to look for ways to increase wages. What would happen to Ontario's economy if the autoworkers all went down to $15/hr salary ? Do we want a society where you need a university degree to earn more than $15/hr ? Who would benefit from such an arrangement ? It seems to me that you're looking for the opposite to happen. If that's your goal, you don't need "right to work" legislation. The factors I mentioned are working towards your goal.

Blackdog, get your argument out of the sewer please. Yes, there are many improvements in our society as you pointed out, but this doesn't address my point that the foundations of democracy haven't changed that much and they didn't anticipate these other significant factors. At the time of the American revolution, newspapers had no pictures. The press printed out long reasoned arguments that were read and mulled over by the electorate, the "public". It should be pointed out that this group didn't include women, non-Christians, other minorities, or (I believe) non-landowners. Town hall meetings were used to enact democracy on the local level. These methods of forming public policy were revolutionary, and they were perfectly suited to what that young nation needed. And to speak to my previous point, what happens in government today is far more complex than the founding fathers could have appreciated. The mercantile class was essentially a group of small businesses. The founding fathers couldn't have anticipated the influence and secrecy under which a WAL-MART or McDonalds or whatever would weild today.

Sir Springer: Some of these ideas don't seem so bad, but I didn't hear the specifics of the Healthcare plan during the last election. I guess it could be the Liberal media covering it up, or maybe it was just a poor job of communicating the idea. There are counter examples, where a politically astute right-wing party "framed" an argument a certain way, so to speak, and won the election. The party that succeeds in defining the issues their way wins the election. That's politics. As for the tax plan, I'd like to know what the reduction in tax revenue would be and where the cuts would be made.

I'm not sure what you're saying here, but it seems like you're omitting a whole range of relationships between a corporation and people. Corporations not only sell things, but they employ people, they lobby for legislative changes, they insure people, they buy and use land and natural resources, they produce waste etc. etc.

By that principle, I guess you must also be a Chretien fan then. On affirmative action, it's important to note that most programmes stipulate that the individual must be qualified. Those that don't are flawed, IMO. These programmes seem to be created to introduce certain groups into higher-paying jobs, from which they've been excluded in the past. I think the government should be paying more attention to the general problem of lower wages in this new economy.

Well, the top tax rate under Ike was something like 92%. He was a Republican. These terms - right-wing, left-wing - really are meaningless today. Right-wingers supposedly don't like government intevention or taxation, yet they tend to support anti-homosexuality legislation and increased military spending. Left-wingers decry the poverty of the third world, yet resist globalization that boosts the economies of said countries. Left-wing parties in North American can be far to the right of European right-wing parties. They can also be far to the right of right-wing parties of twenty, thirty years ago. It might help to clarify if you break it down into time-frames, country (even in North America, it seems that the CPC is closer to the Democrats than the Republicans with their advocacy of universal health care) and social/economic issues.

You are correct, Hugo. However, corporations bear only a passing resemblance to the capitalist ventures of that era. The founding fathers couldn't have anticipated such things as limited liability, multinationals, mass electronic media, lobby groups etc. These entities DO result in concentrations of power that individuals are almost helpless to resist. As a consumer, you sometimes have other choices but as a citizen you have few options if you are pitted against a multinational corporation.

The State Department says that they are "deeply troubled" by these events. Yahoo! News Does anybody know whatever happened to Bush's "roadmap for peace" ?

The "public" has been molded into an aggregate of consumers. Opinions aren't formed the way the founding fathers intended, but rather, through advertising. Since "the customer is always right", who can blame people for refusing to compromise ? The entire concept of compromise seems to be lost on most people, yet it is the key to western democracy. This, IMO, is at the root of the polarization, apathy, ignorance of the electorate.

Promises of the future.... promises of the past... Nostaligia time ! Does anybody remember 'The Red Book' ? What a great fad that was ! How about Preston Manning moving into Stornaway ! Reform MP refusing pensions ? Abolishing the GST ? Michael "Blast from the Past" Hardner

Maplesyrup... Here's a blast from the past. Previous Thread on MapleLeafWeb I'm still holding on to the "predictions" thread for the next general election. We'll ALL be wrong on that one, by the looks of things. As a side note, the original MapleLeafWeb poll proved to almost be a "scientific poll" of the eventual outcome. Harper: 9 votes Clement: 2 votes Stronach: 7 votes Amazing, huh ? And by her winning, a lot of the PCs, including former Prime Minister Joe Clark, who have left the party, will return.

If you cut taxes to zero and create one single job as a result, you can truthfully say that "tax cuts create jobs". But the question is: at what cost ? President Bush is in Ohio today trying to portray himself as someone who creates jobs, specifically mentioning manufacturing jobs. This is a tactial error. Exporting manufacturing jobs is good for the world economy but bad for working people in America, especially in non-union jobs.

The articles don't specifically say what the various individual and organizations purported to "support NAMBLA" believed. But these types of articles intentionally don't differentiate between these things so that they can draw a blurry line between mainstream homosexuals and extremists, pedophiles and the like. Case in point, they equate allowing NAMBLA to march in a parade with agreeing with what NAMBLA says. It's intentionally misleading.

I think you have it backwards. No one anywhere cares about Jack's grandpappy. But the people of Quebec won't wholeheartedly support anyone who speaks French with an accent. The people of the west want someone from out there, if certain posters are to be believed. And the prejudiced Ontarians vote for people from anywhere, as long as they feel that that their choice can manage the economy.

You see, Angustia, you yourself have been fooled by the article in question. Have you ever heard of the famous quote from Voltaire: ":"I do not agree with a word you say, but I will fight to the death for your right to say it." I support the right for Nazis to state their views, but it doesn't mean I support Nazis. You seem to equate supporting a group's right to free expression with supporting the goals of that group. Articles like the one you posted purposely blur the line, making it sound like someone supports the goals of the group their advocating for. It's intellectually dishonest. But luckily, most intelligent people don't fall for these simple dirty tricks any more.

I'm in favour of rights for pedophilies, too. Any rights that are already guaranteed under the constitution should be granted to them, allowing for legal restrictions based on criminal acts, etc. So will somebody please now write an article saying that I advocated "rights for pedophiles" ? These articles, usually published by WorldNetDaily and the like, often fail to provide any context for their accusations. What does it mean to be a "NAMBLA" supporter ? Does it mean that you support the right for them to express an opinion ? That makes me a supporter of Nazis, Communists and almost any group out there. Joe McCarthy's methods shouldn't be used in 2004, at least not successfully.

It seems to me that Harper is still being his colourless self in the face of this Liberal scandal. How would Mike Harris or Ralph Klein have acted as opposition leader ? The one politician who seems to be most outraged by this is Martin, based on his on-camera performance. And his personal approval rating seems to bear this out.

Bushmustgo is right. Marriage was "eroded" when divorce came into law. The only change in society that could possibly come from gay marriage is that some married straights could be offended. Unfortunately for them, the constitution doesn't guarantee the right for individuals to not be offended.

And this from Yahoo! News yesterday: Warren Buffet, one of the most savvy investors ever, says that corporations have TOO favourable a situation, tax-wise. Yahoo! News article