Black Dog

Not of every single one. But it's a serious problem. I hyave no doubt that thr examples I listed are teh tip of the iceberg. Exactly. They have no concern for anything but the bottom line. Why should we place our trust in such institutions? That's becasue I wasn't commenting on that matter, only BBM's statement.

I think Hugo's stance has been pretty evident: he doesn't support any state. Fair play. And really, if the biggest affront to your civil liberties as a Canadian is the inability to watch FoxNews, you should be thankful. Under discussion over here.

Not to turn this into a pissing contest, but ... You wil be assimilated, resistance is futile. The black helicopters are on their way. Why is it that so many Americans are incapable of distinguishing between pig headed obstinenece and true resiliance? So why are you trolling a predominately Canadian message board? Surely there's other venues available for you to beat your chest. Real big of them to release all thos ewrongly imprisoned people. Too bad they waited until after the realities of torture and wrongful imprisonment were made public.

In the age of Enron, Halliburton, "golden parachutes", Martha Stewart, Tyco, outsourcing, downsizing, layoffs,. tax shelters and widespread corporate malfiesnce: why should we?

I'm not sure you were watching the same debate I was. Kerry came off as confident and assurred in contrast to Bush's hunched, stammering delivery. My favorite moment was just before the closing statements when Bush completely zoned out and had to be guided back to the topic by the moderator.

Hey look! The trailer park has a broadband connection!

What does longevity have to do with anything? How long did Rome stand? The British Empire? I respond by pointing out there are numerous examples (Latin America in the 80's being a good one) where U.S proxies engaged in a considerable number of atrocities against civilians. I'm not saying the U.S. is evil or incapable of doing any good. I'm saying the narrative which paints the U.S. as perpetually acting soley in the interest of freedom and democracy is a lie. That was the figure quoted to the Red Cross by U.S. inteligence officials. How about the sodomy? The beatings? For heaven's sake people: you both have been droning on about this for ages, yet haven't offered a sdhred of evidence that anyone is excusing the beheadings or saying the U.S. is the only one who mush adhere to the geneva statuates. So either back up your statement or shut up about it already. W...T....F? That settles it: you're a moron.

You convieniently ignore the voices of the tens of thousands of Muslims world wide who have condemned acts of terror perpetrated in the name of Islam. Islam is not a monolith.

Gee, that's swell. Thing is, when America's interests and things like, say, democracy, clash, the former will always trump the latter. I understand that such is the way of nations (particularily the powerful ones), and I'm consistently amazed by the ability of Americans to acknowledge this while still buyinginto the national myth of America the benevolant global policeman. The U.S.A, despite it's high-minded rhetoric, is not special, nor is it blessed above all others by providence. It's just a country, albeit a powerful one, capable of both great good and great evil. Please show me the memo that appointed Canada #1 Defender of the World. Who said it did? Yeah, prisoners were released: after the fact. "Besides: it was only a little torture..." That's rich coming from someone with such a tenuous grasp of logic and total ignorance of the facts of the issue he's arguing.

Gee, that's swell. Thing is, when America's interests and things like, say, democracy, clash, the former will always trump the latter. I understand that such is the way of nations (particularily the powerful ones), and I'm consistently amazed by the ability of Americans to acknowledge this while still buyinginto the national myth of America the benevolant global policeman. The U.S.A, despite it's high-minded rhetoric, is not special, is not blessed above all others by providence.

Everyone's condemning the kidnappings and beheadings. Even Mutquada al-Sadr. Shiite Cleric Al-Sadr Condemns Beheadings

You made my point. Realpolitik: that is a policy of placing the national interest above and before all other considerations (ncluding democracy and human rights) is teh driver of U.S. foreign policy, not some benign sense of noblesse oblige. A picture worth a thousand Kurds. So: it's better to act in self-interest and cause harm than not act at all? Huh. Weird. I would argue that Canada places far greater value on peace and diplomacy (who negotiated the release of U..S hostages in Iran?) than our southern neighbours. Beating, torture, sexual and psychological accault is. That's what happened. I'd be interested to see you laugh off having a broom stick rammed up your ass. Between 70 and 90 per cent of those incarcerated at Abu Ghirab prison were innocent of any wrong doing. The majority of the prison population were picked up during random sweeps. They didn't deserve to be there and they didn't deserve the treatment they recieved, especially from the very people who claimed to be "liberating" them from tyranny.

My response indicated that something doesn't have to affect me personally for me to be concerned with it. By your logic, canadad should have turned away U.S.-bound flights on 9-11, since that catastrophe wasn't our problem. Except "you" are. Abu Ghirab. DU. Napalm. "Collateral damage"....

I find the association between popularity and quality to be pretty specious too. For example: the premiere of the reality show, "My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance" was seen by 19.6 million people. 50 million plus watched the finale of "Friends". And "American Idol" draws in excess of 15 million viewers per episode. By using Monty's logic, these shows must rank among man's greatest artistic achievments. Are you so naive as to think that the opinion cited by FoxNews commentator's don't reflect the network's ideological slant as a whole? Furthermore, do you think, in this age of "experts" and "pundits" that people make that distinction?

When will the dunderheads of the right cease parroting this tired O'Reilly lie? Daily Show viewers out fox Fox. The most biased name in news MISPERCEPTIONS, THE MEDIA AND THE IRAQ WAR The "Liberal" media?

Funny: both examples you cite were former U.S. clients. How does that fit your narrative that the U.S. is a paragon of democracy or human rights? If anything these examples show how the U.S has been wiling to subvert and supress those ideals in service of its own economic or political interests. They didn't take Saddam out of the kindness of their hearts, they didn't remove the Taliban so that girl's could go to school. It's realpolitik, baby. Funny: where was the U.S. during all those? the day Saddam gassed the Kurds, Donald Rumsfeld was shaking the man's hand in Baghdad. Canada is no saint in it's own dealings with the developing world, but you can bet any harm we've caused or allowed is a mere fraction of that which the U.S. has undertaken. Yeah, we also hate them because they're so darn popular. World views of the U.S.

What next: "The Sky: Blue?" DO you have any proof that government is growing? As I pointed out in another thread, the Canadian federal government axed thirty-five thousand people from the rolls between 1993 and 1997 alone. The total civil service employment as of about 1999/2000 is a grand total of, wait for it, 275,000 people, serving a country of over 30 million. That's a mere 0.92% of the Canadian population. Shit, the civil service isn't even keeping pace with population growth. I find calls for the continued slashing of the public service to be a little off base, considering so many of the problems we see today (declining health care and education, crumbling infrastructure) have been compounded by the vigorous cuts to government services at all levels during the past two decades. That's not a coincidence. 1. Taxes at the bottom end are high relative to income levels due to the existence of the PST, GST, medical insurance premiums user fees for government services, and so on and so forth. In other words he kind of regressive measures favored by groups like the Conservatives. And sure, our taxes can be considered high, but relative to what? Your own skewed perspective that takes no account of what it takes to run a country that has a functioning social safety net instead of that joke they call a safety net in the United States? We're certainly not getting as much bang for our buck precisely because political conservatives have been conducting a no-holds-barred war on anything to do with government provision of services and taxation except insofar as it has to do with anything that coddles rich people, like the preferential treatment of capital gains, or corporate welfare.

Trudeau was never in the NDP. He supported the CCF, the ND's precursor, but his views on individual rights moved him towards the Liberals in the '60s.

Well, BigTurd, it's the duty of any decent huiman being to oppose injustice, corruption and ignorance: all hallmarks of U.S. foreign policy embraced by the Bush administration. Not all of us like to keep our heads buried in the sand. What is this, high school? Grow up. The sheer arrogance of such a statement is precisely why people think of USians as "Ugly Americans".

No. We've proven sufficiently that Bush's policies do not differ vastly from how previous presidents have handled comparible situations. Most of your critisisms of Bush, BD, are along the lines of how he talks, how he got there or how smart he is. Most of all you hate his religion, as small part of his presidency. No your hatred is quite irrational. If you're saying that all presidents throughout U.S. history are corrupt liars, you'd get little argument from me. I'm a firm believer that Democrats and Republicans are essentially the same party, representing a narrow set of interests. And none of this would bother me (Americans get the government they deserve), but for the fact that they all seem compleed to export misery to the rest of the world. Which is why I'd rather have the lesser of the two evils in charge.

Time was heroin and other opitates were commonly used and did not have anywhere near the damaging effects they have today. It was only after drug use became a criminal, rather than a medical, matter that many of the social problems associated with drug abuse become widespread. As Hugo pointe dout, many of thos eproblems are side effects of the illegality of drugs and not of their use. We need to get back to the old approach of regarding addiction as an illness rather than some character flaw. I think SIS's are a good step in that direction.

Bill O'Reilly is a gas. he's funnier than The Daily Show, albeit unintentionally. This reminds me of when O'Reilly claimed that the Paris Business Review proved his contention that the boycott of French goods was seriously damaging the French economy. Only problem was, there's no such publication. He lied. I love Bill O'Reilly. He's a parody of himself and of delusional doctrinaire right wingers, oblivious to facts and completely innoculated against any other ideas. Only problem is that there are so many people who take hhim seriously.

U.S military experts, CIA estimates and the day-to-day situation on the ground all point to continuing decay of the situationin Iraq. Either you stole your points either from another MLweb poster or you're poth working from the same G.O.P talking points. In either case, it's irrelevant, as they are all worthless. In order to be worth a dambn, you'd have to prove that anybody here would call any of Clinton's deeds cited "good". Explain this. There's been ample crticism of Bush policies, which alone are grounds enough to dislike the man. factor in his personality...well, it seems Bush hatred is perfectly rational. It seems defence of Bush is much like the man's policies: faith-based.

First: you can stick your ad hominem attacks where the sun don't shine. Second: in your view, because Israel had to struggle for its survival, that gives them carte blanche to do unto others as others have done to them? Ever wonder why there hasn't been an Arab Israli war for so long? Because Israel is teh best armed, best-trained, largest, most powerful military in the region, backed unquestioningly by the U.S.A. There is no threat to Israel's survival. The rhetoric of perpetual victimhood is used to justify expansionism and aggression. I wonder how much you'd enjoy life in squalid refugee camps, ruled by a foreign military power, with no rights or protections. You really don't know what you're talkiing about, do you? In other words: "look over there! Those guys are worse!" Well, I got news for you: it's the left that campaigns dilligently for human rights around the world. It wa steh left that brought South African apartheid to teh world's attention. the left cried out over teh crimes of the Suharto regime in Indoenesia and Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Today, it is the left that has brought places like Sudan to the headlines, while smug, amoral right-wingers count the money they make from doing business with the world's thugs. The left is not responsible for what the mainstream media chooses to focus on: there's many reasons the Middle East is neswsworthy and recieves so much attention. It has nothing to do with anti-semetism. That argument is as tired and empty as the rest of your rhetoric. Argus: That was the text of the draft resolution. There's no resolution number because it was vetoed.

Exactly. There's a strong strain of anti-intellectualism running through American culture. Clinton was derided as "slick", while Kerry is being painted as a stuffy elitist out of touch with middle America. The fact that George Bush wouldn't know middle America if he ran it over with his limo. It doesn't matte rthat george Bush is a Conneticutt born, Ivy-League attending scoin of wealth and privilege: his image is that of "plain folks", of a God-fearin' everyday Joe that the average American can relate to. The very real disconnect between the image and reality doesn't even register. And it certainly doesn't register on TV.