WIP

There is only one way to stop the power of a picture of the body of a drowned three year old washed up on the beach: find some means...any means to assassinate the character of his father....film at 11....on Fauxnews at least!

And your right on that slippery slope on the way down False Equivalency Mountain. There is no reasonable argument for making any equivocal comparisons between circumcision and what should be called female genital mutilation!

And what about at the unconscious level? Either you've never been in this situation, or you're just making it up as you go along; because any honest reflection will show all of the cultural standards you have internalized in life. The guys who get the most complaints of sexual harassment always respond with the same kind of excuses: 'it was just a joke', 'I was just kidding' etc.. It doesn't matter what the problem is, if someone lacks any capability for self-reflection, they will never correct the problem! Because unless our intuitive responses to....whatever the problem or situation...are called up to the frontal cortex-level of processing, we keep making the same mistakes over and over again.

EP is more akin to Freudian Analytical Theory or most Economics these days, than it is to physics! The problem isn't only being able to partly explain phenomena; the problem is these are theories that always have answers and never run out of explanations....including explanations of why their previous explanations were wrong or led to gross errors. As I've seen genetics explained in more recent times, the old nature vs. nurture debates are either/or explanations without any validity. As most geneticists and scientists in related fields see the story: environmental factors affect which genes are switched on to code proteins right from the very beginning when we are still in the womb. The interweaving understanding of environment and genetics explains prior mysteries like why so many women who were pregnant during stressful times during WWII had children with mental as well as physical disabilities and behavioural problems as the children grew and on into adulthood. Now, back to my original point: any effects of culture on the genetic programming of succeeding generations is going to be cumulative in effect/ so the cultural circumstances that have occurred during the longest period of our history will greatly outweigh any counter-trends that have occurred in the last 5000 let alone 100 years. Also, evolution does not create nice, even transitions from one form to another. Many physiologists believe that alot of our dietary and related problems come from a fundamental problem that we are still in transition from a vegetarian-to an omnivore creature. Even if we have made physical adjustments to adding animal protein to our diets, we produce our own cholesterols and don't need more from animal products, and we still carry along that long digestive tract that puts us at risk the greater the amount of meat and dairy products that are added to the diet. If we completely go vegan...which hasn't been an option for quite a few thousand years for most people, we can suffer some negative fallout from missing some animal products. So, it's a catch 22 and we have to settle somewhere in between....but in our time we are obviously binging on the animal side! When it comes to culture, two British epidemiologists: Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett collected the largest and most overwhelming evidence for the case that our relative wellbeing is most influenced by the equality/or lack of equality in the societies we have to live in. Any time I've brought the issue up previously, someone is going to mention ' well, we can't all grab spears and make pottery and go live in the forest!' Obviously! But, the evidence that comes from anthropology adds weight to the argument that we need to be striving for more equal societies today....not doing the exact opposite...which has been the direction we've been trending in since WWII....and the reason why the world is...or may be past the point of no return today. Refer to above...there is no such a thing! The two cannot be separated. The same patriarchal forces that put the men in those mines, also gave them dominion over women as free housekeepers and nursemaids when they are too old and sick to work. A lot of this and further argument can be cleared away with the question of whether you believe we have group or class interests or all of our interests are individual? Because my biggest objection to MRA propaganda is the same one I have against 'reverse' discrimination when the debate is about race issues. Not every white man gets much benefit out of a society that overtly (as in fascism) or covertly (as in the crap framed around individualism we have) that is based on white male supremacism. In the antebellum south, most southern whites did not, and could not afford to be slaveholders. In fact, their lives were greatly impoverished by all of the free labour at the disposal of a minority of wealthy southern white patriarchs, who ended up owning most of the good land and most of everything worth owning! And yet these southern rubes were the ones who fought and died to preserve slavery in the south! Their main motivator was psychological, since economic factors would have led them to want to end slavery and seize the lands and the ill-gotten gains from the southern aristocracy. But they didn't, because at least when there was slavery, they didn't have much, but they were at least not in last place in the hierarchy. That was threatened by Abolition, and it was the primary reason why the low class southern whites filled the ranks of the Ku Klux Klan and demanded repressive measures be instituted to keep newly freed slaves "in their place!" When it comes to gender issues, a lot of oxygen can be spared by getting to the issue of whether the female half of the population is an oppressed group, with most of the same problems as any oppressed minority in a class-based system or not. If women are usually in a weaker position and subject to violence, or even the threat of violence and back away in response to intimidation, then they are not truly equal in our society today...and many women, like most men, have become used to the way things are, and may not even be aware of how unfair or unequal our world actually is....although since most women are in the workforce today, they likely have a better understanding of the picture than a lot of women did two, three or more generations ago, when their roles and their lives were fixed set pieces planned in advance from early childhood. The report is talking about crime in general, not domestic violence...where the relatively greater capacity to cause physical injury places women at greater risk as the severity levels increase...many more women are killed by their spouses than the reverse as a result. When it comes to crime, consider that....if you think back to your teenage days, you would place yourself in situations where you would be at risk much more than teenage girls would. Gang rivalries...even stupid school rivalries led to fights. Another difference is the way men and women respond to threats. If someone cuts me off while driving, my first instinct will be to hit the horn. If they respond with abuse, I might...and have in the past...escalated the situation and got out of the car. It's something I try to avoid now because I'm older and supposed to think before acting, and when you jump out of the car, you never know what you'll be facing...these days it could be someone with a gun! Point being, just tallying up the stats doesn't give us much understanding without examining the situations that lead to violence. One thing you can't deny is that females of all ages even, are at risk of sexual attacks from guys who see an opportunity. It's not something we worry about when we go out at night! Since I'm running out of time, I want to get to some sort of synopsis on how I see gender issues on the grand scale. After returning in recent years to my earlier interests in history and anthropology studies, I believe that the story of progress we are told has advanced us since the agricultural revolution through modern times mostly has it all backwards! Until relatively recent history (less than 5000 years ago) almost all human societies maintained a balance of power between male and female domains within the communities. This started coming unglued when men developed ways to monopolize control of food supplies....the first being raiding and plundering other groups and even enslaving them as free labour. Around the same time, some men started noticing for the first time in human history that only one man could be the father of a child. That seems obvious to us moderns, and evolutionary psychologists take our modern presumptions and impute them on to our forebears; but until about 4 to 5000 years ago, the whole motivation for men taking control over women's reproduction didn't even exist! The hunter/gatherers in recent times indicate that most men in societies with concepts of "partible" or partial paternity....or without any clear theory of paternity just felt a collective obligation to provide for the children within their extended family...exception would be boys coming into manhood who would be initiated and taken on as part of the hunting party. Not that we can unlearn all of this, but in our time we can make a few necessary shifts, like slowing down and eliminating the business of waging wars, and give greater priority to domestic concerns like health and education for example...which are being defunded, and when these institutions fall apart, guess which gender gets stuck with most of the burden of providing free health and education services? Just sayin that any honest MRA's are going to realize that women are not their enemies, and if they are really concerned about violence and human wellbeing, they will see that we need a shift back towards an equal balance rather than increased feudal domination by big boss men!

I know a lot more women who have had to spend their 'golden' years caring for ailing husbands...including those injured at work or through sicknesses acquired on the workplace. It's an example of where women are expected to be nurturing and provide 24/7 nursing care ever-after. Not many men will do the same, and if they don't sue for divorce they just stick her in a nursing home. I'm in a situation where my wife's health is trending downwards and most guys I have talked to are less than sympathetic, except for one older friend who spent 10 years of his retirement looking after his ailing wife. It would be nice if sort of gender-nonconformity received some respect in our world, but it's a burden we share with all of the married women who find themselves in similar positions when they get older

To clarify the point, I don't care whether it's men just reacting on impulse and lying to themselves about underlying motivations, or whether they take the time to craft rhetorical arguments as a diversion....it's still a lie on a basic human fundamental level. Because, the same cultural dynamic that led men to band together to form hunting parties in early human history, has carried along most of the same baggage into modern times. In brief, men tend to define themselves by what they do/not who they are; and work is so important, that our identity has been largely defined by what we do for a living. Case in point would be all of the English surnames came into the English language mostly based on the man's occupation, rather than location or patrilineal heritage. Defining ourselves by our work has certainly fallen out of favour in our money-centered modern era, where what we own and how much we earn are the defining characters of manhood...since the chain has been broken by the privileged elites who earn by making their money "work" for them, and these largely idle rich had to come up with new standards to define their manhood! But, since I got a firsthand look at what happened in a workplace when the first female apprentices were hired, I can say for a fact that the experiences of all sorts of hostility and harassment are not figments of feminist imagination, but are accurate descriptions of the major stumbling blocks placed in front of women who enter any non-traditional jobs. Now, what I was talking about, was I thought I was one of the cool guys because at least on a conscious deliberative level, I didn't like/nor agree with the attitudes of the mostly older guys that these women can't do these jobs and shouldn't be here. But, after a few assorted sexual harassment lawsuits landed on the company, and they decided to arrange a little quick orientation on gender issues, I noticed that deep down, I must have picked up that same threat to the value of my work on an unconscious level, when I recalled off-hand mentioning a few times to others about work that 'I had to train or work with a new guy today'...when the "new guy" was a woman. Why did I say guy, instead of girl or gal? You be the judge! And I already mentioned that patriarchy wasn't set up to benefit ALL men! The point is that the levers of power in our world are still controlled by small bands of wealthy, powerful men, and the few women who may be part of the club act like men....like Maggie Thatcher or Hillary Clinton as you mention below, understand the game and try to appear more manly than the men on the stage: And, as I already said, the Hillary's and the Carly Fiorina's are men without the penises! The first thing Hillary Clinton did when she became a senator was try to get on the Senate Defense Appropriations Committee....reason being that she wanted her name associated closely with masculine virtules...and what can be more masculine than being part of the clique that decides on who to kill and how to fund the killing? The fact that this strategy backfired on Clinton because the Bush regime change operations were such a cluster****, is karma for all self-aggrandizers who choose the political sphere for personal gain.

The biggest bribes and the most egregious corruption is obviously not going to be displayed front and center! Look how much work Greenpeace had to do to trace some of the money that Exxon hands out to the merry band of useful climate-change denying misfits around the world. Front groups are created, front groups within other front groups, many of these liars, like the Korean-born US climate change denying scientist (name escapes me right now) have only been unmasked by their own stupidity...i.e. when they brag about it on stage and didn't consider that their conversation could be recorded. In politics, favours are handed out like candy to politicians and even top government administrators on leaving office...which are not usually prosecuted unless the payoff is too blatant and obvious, or occurred too quickly after leaving office....such as an incident with a top Liberal MPP in Stoney Creek a few years back, who sold a house for more than twice what he payed for it within a year of the original purchase....to a homebuilder he had regular dealings with while in office. In the US, some of the biggest payoffs aren't coming from the banks or corporate America, but from the Saudi and Gulf States governments, who find ways to reward the US politicians they like once they retire. The best analysis available of the "revolving door" between government officials going from government to the businesses they supposedly regulate is found at Open Secrets - Revolving Door subheading. The shocking thing is that the US political system has become so corrupted that even when they are exposed, these obvious corporate payoffs are perfectly legal today! And, if there's one reason why most of us non-Conservatives in this Country are going to ignore whatever crap you have on the NDP or the Libs in our Election, it's because we'll vote for anyone who will unplug the Harpercons before they have the chance to turn this country into US-style "democracy."

I especially find it ironic that Obama has promised more billions of free weapons to the Saudis; and in case nobody's paying attention, Saudi Arabia and Qatar are conducting a war against the civilian population of Yemen right now...which includes dropping cluster bombs on civilians....which are made in the USA....ground zero for international terrorism is we're judging by where the guns&ammo originates. Also worth noting that...even if the waves of refugees from Syria, Iraq and Libya begin to subside in a year or two, this genocidal war in Yemen happening right now will be the source of the next wave of refugees, once they are able to get out of the soon to be failed state of Yemen. I wonder how the conservatives will be packaging that story and framing it for the next round of refugee headlines in the news!

So, when Harper&co. get flushed down the crapper next month and...if we have the first ever federal NDP government, are you going to become a socialist again?

The way conservatism is formulated in our time, it sure as hell looks like an ideological framework built around selfishness and self-interest. That can appeal to a lot of people with personal ambitions, but the conservative approach becomes cold and calculating when they respond on these sorts of issues. Everyone who doesn't think like them notices pretty quick that they have no capacity or willingness to try to understand what life is like for people that are different than them.

So, because you say you are an African, you speak for all Africans in all regions and African nations! And you have the direct, inside line on how every Muslim in the world thinks also....thanks for the insight!

Jordan isn't a very big country, and...according to the latest numbers I find on UNHCR, they are hosting more than a million refugees, mostly from Syria and Iraq....thank you war on terror! And that's likely why everyone who's a monthly contributor to UNHCR gets regular reminders ever since these regime changes started, that they need more money and resources to deal with increasing refugee crises caused by wars and climate change in Africa and Asia....btw how many of you conservatives here crapping about refugees taking over contribute a nickel to UNHCR or any other aid organizations dealing with refugee problems? Personally, I prefer getting to the source of problems, and one of my beefs with building and maintaining refugee camps has been that it allows the US and allied colonial powers...including Canada and Europe...to just sweep the problem aside and never talk about it, until the refugees start showing up on your doorstep! Now it's time for Europe to shit or get off the pot, and it's too bad they weren't confronted about their meally-mouthed support of US adventurism before! The US is further away and leaving Europe high and dry to deal with the waves of refugees that have largely been created by the Bush/Obama administrations!

I've said it before that I'm betting the ones preparing for Muslim invasion don't know any Muslims personally, or likely have never spoken to a Muslim in person. But, if we use the US example, right wing anti-immigrant hysteria does not depend on religion; the hysteria about Mexicans taking over "Our" Country applies using most of the same tropes. The same arguments and tactics have been in use since the nativists of the 1850's started fomenting hysteria about Irish immigration. My main objection to this crap is that nobody talking about costs...of any kind, are acknowledging that refugees and even the substantial portion of immigrants, are victims of forces beyond their control...many of which actually still controlled by western colonial powers. When millions of people pick up and move en mass to refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey etc., and then want to go to Europe a few years later, they are not moving for the weather or because they are footsoldiers for the Islamic Conquest of Europe...and related idiocy!

And for starters, EP falls flat when it tries to equate every cultural artifact...including modern culture...with survival adaptations. If we actually want to find genetic traits contributed by forces of natural selection, then we have to start with the premise that the human social groupings during the majority of our species' history in Earth will outweigh any possible genetic changes that have occurred in modern times, and even as far back as the beginnings of agriculture and settled communities. So, if we can accurately determine how paleo (not modern) hunter/gatherers lived and interracted with each other, that will serve as the necessary guide for what we should and should not aspire to. The simple fact that human societies have been all over the map on these issues is proof enough that there is little in the way of genetic predisposition involved in any society's attitudes about gays or transgendered people. By and large, the extreme repression of gays in our culture is a JudeoChristian legacy, that can't be separated from the way our patriarchal, invading and plundering forebears viewed things. Even with that, it was only circumstances that led the followers of patriarchal despots and their angry sky-gods to condemn and vilify the small percentage of the population that doesn't follow the pattern...so to speak. How is this egalitarian? Our ancestors were indeed egalitarian; but that's likely because the requirement for cooperation in small hunter/gatherer bands far outweighed any advantages that might be gained by allowing the exceptional hunter to become a tribal leader. So, one of the major confusing traits that anthropologists described when they studied the last remaining, uncontaminated hunter/gatherers in the Amazon, Africa and Asia was what they called Status Leveling behaviour. What would invariably occur whenever a hunter made the big spear throw or the big catch, was that the others in the party would immediately reign him in with mocking and even insults if they caught him trying to celebrate his success. During most of human history, rewarding success was not seen as a desirable characteristic....and evolutionary psychologists don't do much of a job trying to explain the change in attitude. Our predisposition for egalitarianism is likely the major contributing factor to the dysfunction on all levels that occurs as societies (like ours) become increasing unequal and stratified into smaller and smaller income and wealth divides. What tribes are you or this idiot with the video trying to contend value the lives of women more than men? The longer lifespans for women have more to do with surviving the rigors of childbirth than anything men in most societies have done to make things easier for women! In most societies, women do most of the work providing food and water, along with caring for home and children. And then we get to violence against women...how many women are abused and even murdered by their supposed protectors. In times past, there were codes of chivalry and gentlemanly behaviour in Victorian Era times; but these were only availed to upper class women to start with, and the chivalry was patronizing...used more to restrict and constrain women than it was to make life better and easier for women. What would improve the societies we have today, would be to begin with recognition that our ancestors were egalitarian...not because of any efforts for gender balance...but because in the vast majority of hunter/gatherer groups, the contributions of the women of the family group were equal and more often more important than the big trophy contributions of the men....like the successful hunt. I'd like all traditional family talkers especially to consider that their traditional family was the product of a breakdown in human culture that occurred after we began settling into fixed communities. That's when marauding warlike plunderers discovered it could be easier to make a living by killing and stealing from others, than to do the work to grow the food themselves. And the occupation of being a warrior was a male preserve in most warrior cultures also...but not exclusively. And, when we jump to today: gender equality is largely legal and theoretical, but if we look at the numbers of who controls the levers of power in politics and business, it's still a boys club. And then add in the violence that still gets directed at women by men with fragile egos who need control, and the opposite of the prevailing message here and throughout MRA crap is that women are losing ground on issues that affect them...like reproductive choice, and having equal representation in political and economic leadership. The rest.......the gender wage gap is real and cannot be fudged away regardless of creative neoliberal analysis; there are few homeless shelters for women compared to men; cancer research...considering that until recent times surgeons were doing expensive and invasive breast removal as breast cancer treatment, it's hard to see where that extra money benefited women with cancer; assorted throwing crap at the wall like Boko Haram...if there was so much concern for the kidnapped girls, why didn't the Nigerian Government make a decent effort to get them back? since they knew where they were being held and dispersed to; Anita Sarkeesian....not being a gamer, I don't know much about her, but I'll have to check out her feminist frequency site...and I'm sure I'll find much more that I agree with her on than the MRA trolls that are trying to harass her and shut her down; NHL????? You're going to blame the monstrosity that has engulfed pro hockey on feminism? give me a break; and last but not least: the trope that MRA's and other migogynists toss up when they claim patriarchy benefits women is to ignore the class structure entirely. Patriarchies were never set up to benefit all men, just men who were important enough to be elevated to more privileged status. Patriarchy abuses and impoverishes the lives of most men, but provides the carrot of being king of their own castle if they get married...so they may be overworked and abused by the men in power, but when they get home they can take it out on their wives and children!

Have you considered the fact that dangerous jobs in construction and industry were regulated to exclude women in the past, and I can tell you first hand, that even today, women have a hard time getting into these traditionally male jobs even though the legal restrictions have been removed. Women who try to enter construction and industrial trades today are still subject to extreme mental and even physical and sexual harassment because too many pea-brained guys don't pull up their innate discomfort that women doing their jobs will lower the status of that occupation, for rational re-examination! Any guy who says it doesn't bother him...at least at first...if a woman is doing and can do his job is lying! But regardless, some dingbats who make a living bashing other women are no different than the uncle toms like Herman Cain or Ben Carson,regarding racial inequality, who stroke the egos of the group with the most power in patriarchal societies...like ours! Did Karen Straughan ever try any trades or get into an apprenticeship program? I doubt it. Bullshit. You think the women who are married or involved with men who are injured or killed in dangerous jobs, don't feel the impact? In many ways, it's worse for them, because they will feel the consequences if they have a husband crippled in a work-related accident, and there is little they can do to make the jobs safer.

I think you and the more rabid band of Neocons here are missing a key point: categorical rejection of Muslims...including Muslims who are already living in Canada for christs sakes!...are going to be more inclined to reject mainstream secular culture and more inclined towards extremism, the more they are rejected and despised by the majority population. And don't kid yourself, I know enough Brits and Scots to have somewhat of a handle on how warmly they welcomed the first (mostly wealthy) Middle-eastern, Pakistani and Indian immigrants back in the 70's. None of them who were recently from the old country ever mentioned religion when they talked about "Pakis!" They didn't give a crap if they were from India, Pakistan, or were Hindu, Muslim or Christian....they were darkies....and that's all it boiled down to! FWIW, the fundamentalism of Pakistani and Indian Muslims didn't occur until after Saudi madrassahs entirely replaced the education system in Pakistan. The divide would have ended like it does with most immigrants - once their children start going to public school. So, thank Tony Blair for facilitating the creation of education ghettoes by privatizing the public school system there...following the plan of Neoliberalism to privatize all public services. If England has an Islamic extremism problem today, it's one largely of their own creation! This is the point where it needs to be emphasized that conservative thinkers...who sound the alarm and start building walls and fortresses as soon as they see someone who looks and acts differently from them! Being a liberal thinker...especially in troubled times...is the pov that actually takes real courage. Because giving people the benefit of the doubt when hysteria first rises up, takes time and a little reflection to keep the bridges open and talk to people who've had totally different life experiences. I just hope Canada reacts differently than Europe....especially Hungary...portraying themselves as defenders of Christianity in the face of muslim invasion, when in reality, the Syrian and Libyan refugees....that's right REFUGEES, are fleeing conditions that have largely been set in place first by climate change-induced desertification, and then by clumsy greedy American foreign policy which Europe as well as Canada has been in full support of!

This might be interesting to weigh in on.....but not on a holiday...especially when the weather's nice outside! I think I'm going to have a hard time taking it all seriously after seeing professional self-hating woman- Karen Straughn video at the bottom of the post.

Among my too-many podcast subscriptions, I collect NPR's All Songs Considered to see if there's anything new that I might like....and if not, the hosts - Bob Boilen and Robin Hilton are usually fun to listen to anyway. Scrolling down the page to their Aug. 25th episode, I've listened to this show a couple of times, and what really jumped out at me was a song they played about 10 minutes into the show, from a small indie group with no record label calling themselves Sjowgren. The song "seventeen" is an instantly catchy pop song that sounds like a cross between some of the girl pop groups of the mid-60's and 80's new wave...or maybe it's just me. Anyway, one thing Bob Boilen really got right is Sjowgren isn't making it easy for anyone to follow them by having such a difficult name. When I got home, I couldn't find anything matching showgrin on Youtube or any search, so I had to cue up the show again and hear Bob spell out the name for me...as I typed it in: s-j-o-w-g-r-e-n and finally pulled it up on Youtube. Anyway, give it a listen if you have the time, and ask the most common question on the Youtube page: why isn't this bigger and getting more play?

The side that's at war with nature! Specifically on carbon, the side that says let's go with a flimsy argument claiming CO2 will have limited greenhouse effect as percentage increases (doesn't address ocean acidification), based on limited...but increasing understanding on how heat is collected and distributed in the oceans and atmosphere of a complex living system. The precautionary principle would argue for assuming the worst to avoid any unforeseen catastrophes; but that hasn't been the line of thinking of climate change denial. Is human life expectancy in the 20th century following in synch with production of fossil fuels? For starters, average life expectancy is a dubious measure for human health and vitality....let alone planetary health! The rise in life expectancy has mostly been accomplished through safe drinking water and proper sanitation, to eliminate many lethal water-borne diseases that caused high infant mortality from the beginning of the agriculture age through the early part of the industrial revolution. When it comes to the issue many people believe that our life spans are much longer than in pre-industrial times, it's totally bogus once high infant mortality rates are separated from that scale. For example, in the Wikipedia entry on life expectancy, it's noted further down that a study of English nobles (a segment of the population who lived better than average, but also were the only group with clear records) who lived to age 21, lived on to 64 between 1200 and 1300, and to 71 from 1500 to 1550....less than the average life expectancy today, but not a great deal less as some would imagine! And once we ask the question: are people living well in their final years today, anecdotal evidence based on the numbers who are sick and infirm, would indicate that those extra years aren't doing a whole hell of a lot of good. Modern techno-utopia is becoming a story of keeping a lot of sick people on life support! So much for life expectancy. But what is this doing for the life expectancy of the human race as a species?

I would go with a premium member service that charges a set monthly or annual fee. I've tried a couple where premium members get a few perks like access to special subforums etc..

So, why are so many of these migrants fleeing Turkish refugee camps and trying to get into Europe now? And why is Turkey allowing smugglers to load them up on boats for the dangerous voyage?

Define involved? Because the US and Israel have been involved on a covert level in Syria for decades. Ten years ago, the US didn't seem to be in a hurry to regime change Syria when they were sending Maher Arar and other accused terrorists there to be interrogated and tortured for information...but all that changed a few years later when they are supporting "moderates" to overthrow the Assad regime along the pattern of the Libyan regime change earlier in the year. There was unrest and demonstrations brewing in Syria in recent years, which began as climate change has caused severe droughts in Syria and Jordan in recent years, leading to farmers leaving their land and flocking to the cities. But that unrest has been encouraged, and funded and armed...just as it was in Libya. No one had any illusions about the nature of the Assad Government in Syria, but back when US foreign policy had an element of sanity, they recognized that Syria was divided sectarian nation that could descend into chaos if there was an attempt to overthrow the government. And if the US has decided that they need to spread "freedom" to the Middle East, why haven't they started with the brutal dictatorships in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States? Which are not only oppressive despotic regimes that squander their nations' immense wealth, but they are also the fountainhead of the brand of Islam that Al Qaeda and ISIS adhere to. 90% of what ISIS teaches comes from Saudi clerics.

ISIS would not exist if it wasn't for the mess created through regime change in Iraq. The demagoguing of certain dictators like Saddam Hussein, Assad and Qadaffi, makes no sense when US policymakers have protected useful dictators and mass murderers with the other hand....as in Saudi Arabia, Gulf States, Egypt and until very recently - Guatemala. Too bad almost nobody is following this story, but the whole debacle of the Guatemalan President - Molina, being removed from office and charged with corruption...and likely war crimes also, should be a major story in the news also. The reason it's not is likely because Molina was a henchman of the long-disgraced and finally prosecuted Ephraim Rios-Montt, who was set up in power by the Reagan Administration under their bullshit excuse of fighting the spread of communism. Rios-Montt, Molina and a whole host of School of the Americas graduates populate an infamy list of the worst war criminals in the world....so why isn't the US identified as the worst purveyor of war crimes, terrorism and evil in the world? Only because they own the goddamed show! But, getting to Putin and the recent charges that he is "interfering in Syria." The latest story is that Putin...who some Washington observers were speculating, was about to cut Assad lose and let him fall, appears to be digging in his heels and not willing to let another regime change turn another Russia ally into anarchy and a failed state! Russia has a naval base in Syria....which may be Russia's only foreign naval base...compare that to the thousands of fully equipped and lilypad bases the US has around the world. Plus, if international law means anything...whether you like Assad or not, he is the president of the Legitimate, recognized government of Syria! Not the so called "moderate" rebels that Moosehead...I mean John Kerry talks about! So, if the rumours are true that Russia is going to send in 1000 Russian soldiers and set up another base, they are dealing with the recognized government of Syria, while the US, Canada and a ragtag assortment of anti-Assad forces like Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, are supporting dubious Islamist forces that will likely patch over to the ISIS motorcycle club after the fighting is over.

This is the point where a little schooling on primary issues has to be added to the discussion. Because gravitating towards oil and other resource development provides quick easy money for a nation...or lower level government, but has clearly identifiable negative effects invariably combined with it. The general principle of Resource Curse, where economies rely on natural resource extraction and export subvert democracy, increase stratification of wealth and have a detrimental effects on economic growth not directly related to resource extraction, have been known for at least 30 years, as economists have scratched their heads trying to figure out what's wrong with OPEC nations and other resource-rich third world nations. But oil specifically is the most corrosive of resources...except maybe for rare earth elements. Maybe things would have worked out better for us if we hadn't glommed on to the free tradeBS, but with billions pouring in to Alberta to develop "unconventional oil" or bitumen, the next thing we know, we have a Dollar at par with the US, and the sudden rise of the Cdn Dollar starts wiping out manufacturing and even agricultural exports. Now that boom and bust cycles of freewheeling capitalism have suddenly knocked oil prices in half and devastated the oil economy, we just might be saved from this trainwreck created by Harper Government policies. The full negative effects of oil go beyond driving up the value of national currencies, as noted 10 years ago by Princeton economist - Michael L Ross The Oil Curse: How Petroleum Wealth Shapes the Development of Nations Ross focuses on the effects of sudden oil wealth in poor countries, but if we check the boxes, we find the same effects on a more limited scale, on the Canadian economy, if we take note of the fact that unending...almost permanent PC rule in Alberta didn't finally come to an end until Albertans were left with the prospect that the tarsands economy was about to crash down upon them. The stratification of wealth and incomes...including along gender lines, happened in this Country also! It's not just something for the Middle East to deal with, and Harper deliberately set this up, so he should take the fall and fall hard for this failure!

I've given up on the fight against thread drift on this one, since the only people who are openly hostile enough to care about what a party at 4 to 5% in the polls is saying or doing are the oil industry shills or related global warming-denying extremists.