Black Dog

Here: I'll giveyou a hint:

Peter McKay is a slimeball. This is the guy who, during his campaign to become PC leader, pledged he would not merge the party with the Alliance, then promptly merged the party with the Alliance. And now he is upset because he's the one getting shanked in the back? Oh the irony... Given that we're talking about the party of Stockwell Day, Myron Thompson and Jason Kenney (to name but three), methinks you've got your equine anatomy backwards.

Harper is not a neocon, at least in the American sense of the word. He's a small-government/private enterprise wonk who lacks the bloodthirstiness of his southern coutnerparts. I doubt it. It's a movement rooted in American values of militarism and nationalism, qualities Canucks, by and large, don't possess. Granted, but the fact remains that the idea of creating benevolant democracies around the world is secondary to maintaining U.S. hegemony. Indeed, the unspoken, yet obvious, assumption is that these imposed democracies will still answer to the United States. That's kind of a fact of political life. here in canada, the Liberals claim to represent al Canadians, while in the states, the Bushniks take his incredibly slim re-eelection as broad approval of their agenda, even though, as you said, millions of people across the political spectrum disagree with them.

Reply to Kristol

From the kristol article:: It's interesting to note that many architects of the neocon movement were former leftist Trotsykists. It appears the neocon movement absorbed the far leftist utopian worldview, as well as their fondness for an all-encompassing, all-powerful State. What makes neoconservativism dangerous as a guiding philosophy is that it has no moral centre. The expansion of American power is not a means to an end, such as improving the world, but an end unto itself. Why? The clue lies in their belligerant foreign policy views: the neocons are the servants of the war economy, their unstated goal to keep the symbiotic relationship between industry, lobbyists and the state healthy. The clue to Bush's motivations lies in his past. As a businessman, Bush was, on the surface, a failure. However, he still made a lot of money for himself by convincing others to buy in to his dead end ventures, and then dumping his own stock before the bottom fell out. Now he's doing the same thing, pushing policies that benefit his cronies (and gee, do you think there's a plum spot on some board of directors awaiting him afte rhis term ends?) while taking the shareholders (now the American people) for a ride.

And I'm sure the Christian Maronite/Druze anti-Syrain "grassroots" had no outside help padding their numbers? Riiiiight. No: calling a race a "death cult" is racism. Nor will they ever be. Yawn. I'd give credit where credit is due. This not one of those times. As for Bush (how odd that you keep refering to your exalted leader as "Bushitler"), you're right Bush was responisible for tyoppilin he governments of Iraq and Afghanistan. Using military force, he attacked one country that posed no threat to the U.S. and then overthrew another government in an attempt to catch a terrorist who subsequently escaped, then set up a regime that has no control over any of the country outside the capital.

The issue is not a simple one of environment versus development. Drilling in ANWR won't do much to alleviate dependence on foreign oil or lower prices: according to the Energy Information Administration, there's only about 10 billion barrels of oil there which is about what the U.S. consumes in one year. That figure is itself misleading, as it covers the entire area, including large portions of ANWR that lie outside the coastal plain and are not part of the current exploration proposal. Also, ANWR will take about 10 years to come online. Once it does, its production will peak at 875,000 barrels per day: but not till the year 2025, by which point the US is projected to need a 35 million barrels per day. So, even if ANWR drilling was ecologically sound, its doesn't make much sense economically. Unless you're in the oil business or have friends who are...

I don't know if I'd realy characterize Bush as a neocon. His dalliance with some of the more reactionary elements of social conservativism and his own professed beliefs in this area bely that designation. A neoconservative, or neocon, is primarily concerned with the application and expansion of (in this case,) American power and influence on a global scale, by military means if necessary. Prominet neocons in the Bush admin include Cheney, Rumsfeld and Perle. The thing about neoconservativism is that it is so divorced from the traditional definition of conservativism and so monomaniacally focussed on foreign policy, that it would be better termed "warmongerism" or some such.

Leftists who support dictators for these reasons are as represntative of the left as Stormfront or other neo-Nazi organizations are representative of the right. Say, wasn't that around the same time that Dick Cheney's Halliburton was kicking millions back to Saddam so they copuld keep pumping oil? Why yes, yes it was. What of the other 1 million who rallie din support of Assad and Syria? Of course, I can't expect someone who gets their info from Fox to know jack all about Lebanon. Egypt where U.S. client Mubarak is finally allowing someone to run in oppossition to him in an election he will surely win? Saudi Arabia, which is allowing small, regional elections wherein women will still not be allowed to vote and only half of the officials will be elected (the rest appointed by the absolute monarchy in opower)? I'm reminded of August 1991's line about the left confusing the symbol with reality. That's exactly what all the election-fetishists on the right are doing: confusing voting with real democracy. Ooh a little racism to go with your disinformation. Nice. Yeah: and Canada was all alone, I'm sure. There were two main reasons the Soviet Empire fell - first was its own internal cannibalism, waste, and rot, and the second was decades of American Presidencies which opposed it. And Reagan's "tough" approach to Communism led to the U.S. crawling in bed with folks like Saddam Hussein and Ferdinand Marcos, and bolstered hardline elements within the Soviet Union. As for that last ludicrous statement, there's plenty of reasons to hate Reagan. Like his inbridled stupidity.

That's one of the things people miss in any discussion of taxes. What do we get for our taxes? Scandanavian countries are among the highest taxed in the world, yet also enjoy the highest quality of life anywhere. The United States, with its pro-business attitudes, ranks poorly on many fronts when compared with other industrialized nations. Canada's shame is that it can't make up its mind which way it wants to go, so we get the worst of both worlds.

For people who think Canada's public broadcaster is too biased.... Under Bush, a New Age of Prepackaged TV News

Lemme guess: Syria is a grave and gathering danger to its neighbors, to the United States, to the Middle East and to the international peace and stability? It's a danger we cannot ignore? Right? Jesus. You lot can't even be bothered to come up with a new pack of lies to push your agenda.

Right on cue, James Wolcott , one of my favorite commentators, had this to say about moderation in his blog today.

You hit on something interesting though: sex is everywhere. Sex is the main subject of 90 per cent of network TV programming, and the hook behind 99 per cent of advertising. Yet despite the ubiquitousness of sexual imagery and "nudge-nudge" innuendos, frank talk of sex and sexuality is still strictly verboten. You can see the results of someone's violent, gory demise on CSI, but you can't say "vagina" on TV. When was the last time the "think of the children!!" crowd railed against violent imagery the way they lit up the switchboards at the sight of Janet's booby?

Silencing Sex

Sounds like its time for a Tobin Tax!

What would you rather be hearing about?

Let me get this straight: the father of the New Deal, a program that would probably be derided as naescent communism today is somehow less "liberal" than Clinton, a president who incorporated conservative economic policies, including welfare reform, which destroyed the most durable legacy of the New Deal? Or John Kerry who voted with the Republicans to go to war? Please.

Being a moderate means you have to try and please everyone which, more often than not, reults in dithering and equivocating. Doing the right thing usually menas pissing some people off. But such is life. prove it. Take the last election: did John Kerry, the so-called "most liberal senator in America" take one bona-fide liberal stance? Did he say 'The Iraq war was wrong"? Did he say "we need a single-payer health care system like every other industrialized country in the world"? Did he say "we need to curb trhe influence of corporations on the political process"? Sid he stand up for gay marriage or the right to choose? Did he stand up for anything? No. The difference between him and Bush was one of degrees because the political establishment in America speaks for the same interests regardless of party affiliation.

Huh? Hardly. What you have is teh Republicans racing to the far-right and the Democrats close behind. Take the Dem's recent aquiescence to the credit card industry's demand for harsher bankruptcy laws, for example. The Democratis establishment is in thrall to the same special interests that guide the Republicans, while the rank and file seem to believe that their defeats over the past 4 years have been the result of the party being "too liberal", which has resulted in a shift to the right. This has left Americans with little real choice, which is no wonder so many couldn't care less about the political process. As for your point about moderation, I don't belive moderation in itself is a virtue. Canadian politics is rife with moderates who stand for nothing. You need principles and the strength to act upon them.

See, that's one of the thing I like about the CBC and the idea of a public broadcaster in general. Because such broadcasters don't have to rely so heavily on commercial revenues, they can give some attention to issues or subjects that otherwise would get lost in the commercial din. This is hardly unique to the CBC, but is standard media practice today. Can you give some examples? What's a "leftist issue" anyway?

I disagree. True conservatives belive in individual freedom above all else. (Which is why conservativism is better referred to as classical liberalism). Even the neo conservativism of the Bush inner circle doesn't really meet your criteria. Nor does "compassionate conservativism" do anything mor ethan pay lip service to religion and "values". The current G.O.P's ideaology is centred around using the ower of the state to consolidate political and economic power in the hands of a few elites.

Actually there isn't. Which makes sense, given the lack of evidence of any stockpiles or programs. Okay: you do work for NewsMax,don'tcha? Oooh: another reliable source. Even if we accept for a second that the stories regarding the alleged Jordanian operation, there's nothing to say that any of the materials involved came from Iraq.

Do you work for NewsMax? "These reports" are over a year old. And while dodgy fringe publications like NewsMax can trumpet them all they want, I'm curious to know why they don't mesh with the very real, very offical (and recent) accounts by the United States' own intelligence services. No signs that weapons were smuggled I did a quick search on this story. Sure enough, the olny place it appeared was in sketchy right-wing publications and blogs, always quoting "unnamed Jordanian officials" and other secondary sources. Frankly, given the reliability of the right-wing news apparatus (hello, "Jeff Gannon"!) it's no wonder none of these allegations ever picked up legs.

Yeah, I know I'm sick and tired of being saturated with art, literature and music. Is there no where I can turn for celebrity gossip and info-tainment? Will the press stop covering artists and academics and give some press to the real heroes: the rich and attractive? We need our national broadcaster to set the standard here: shallow, not deep! Seriously: what do you mean by "relevant" programmming?