WIP

In libertarian paradise, the people with the most money have the most freedom. It's like one political theorist who's name I've forgotten said a couple of centuries ago: 'the public vagrancy laws apply equally to the beggar as to the rich man.'

There are so many negatives that never get factored in, such as increased carbon footprint because of the necessary expanded supply lines and transportation needed for finished products....think of all of the giant freighters crossing the Pacific in recent decades. Free trade forces workers to compete globally and reduces their bargaining power in free trade arrangements that are written up to allow manufacturers to abandon North American plants for cheaper locations with little or no penalties. If their imported products made with sweatshop labour had to face stiff tariffs and other punitive measures, they would be more inclined to stick around. Then again, a better solution would have been to give worker-owned coops a fighting chance against the powers of the big corporate way of doing business. Coops exist on the fringes and aside from Spain, have had difficulty enduring because they are targeted by owners of capital, and receive no help even from the local governments where they are trying to keep industries operating. Free trade has been a ruse to re-establish colonialism informally and even bring back slave labour, as one of the recent scandals facing the Obama Administration has been their efforts to give Malaysia back their favoured nation status in spite of allowing the use of immigrant slave labour. Globalization moves obvious crimes such as slave labour, child labour, environmental calamities, out of sight and out of mind for the western consumer. That's why two years ago, when Bangladeshi fires and factory collapses were briefly a big story, some alternative media were reminding us of the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire in New York in 1913. When more than 100 mostly immigrant women died while unable to get out of that decrepit building in New York's old textile district, the public outrage went national and there were demands for labour reforms and health and safety regulations. But when they move the offending crap half way around the world it becomes a minor story and is overshadowed by the promise of $10.00 shirts!

If by 50% you're referring to the power stations in Niagara Falls taking 50% of the water from the Niagara River, that's by the rules of an international water diversion treaty signed by Canada and the United States back in the 50's. Obviously if power stations diverted all of the water before it reached the Falls, that would be the end of tourism! So, the plants on both sides of the River take 50% of the water during the daytime hours and 75% of the water at night during the off hours to fill two water reservoirs - one at Queenston, and one on the US side for the Robert Moses Plant....which was on land seized from the Tusquarora Iroquois....but that's another story! Anyway, now that a new tunnel has been built on the Canadian side to take the remaining extra allowed water capacity, there's no more room to grow new hydroelectric capacity in Niagara.

Yes, I believe the new underground tunnel, which takes water from the Upriver has been completed. I grew up in Niagara Falls and the power stations were part of our local history taught in school. In the 80's, a third power plant that would be built alongside the first two, was proposed. But, as I haven't been paying too close attention to the story, it seems that plans were scaled back and instead they just built a third underground tunnel for the generating stations downriver at Queenston (Adam Beck #2 had two tunnels built to supply water, the first plant built in the 20's had an open channel cut through the city that takes water down to Queenston). I have a friend who's a rock driller, and had been working on the tunnel construction. I'm not sure what he's working on now or if all the work has been completed there. But, while I wasn't paying attention, it seems the powers-that-be decided that building a new generating station wasn't necessary for whatever reasons....I'm not finding anything on Google or other search engines on the specifics of what happened to Sir Adam Beck III.

Going back to that UN report condemning both the Israeli Government and Hamas of war crimes, what I find insulting and a demonstration of how weak UN institutions are is that they have the need to present the story as a "both sides do it" narrative, with no recognition of disparities in power between an armed government and a much more limited resistance movement.

well, thanks for the Israeli edition of empty-headed rightwing propaganda. I've been hearing "Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East" ever since the 6 day war. Most of us never heard the other side of the story on the rise of Zionism and founding of the modern state of Israel....the animosity and disruptions started when Jews from Europe started offering big money to buy up land from mostly absentee landlords in an area where deeds and land titles had little or no meaning...and the progression towards ethnic cleansing of the territories seized to found the nation....so they never got off on the right foot to begin with, even back in the days when the first Zionists were mostly secular Jews trying to escape Europe and have a homeland of their own. Israeli governments seemed to be a lot more liberal and generous to the Arabs they occupied, since they represented a minority (about 10%) of the population. But after taking more land in the 6 day war, and then electing extreme Likud governments who didn't recognize international law regarding territories conquered through warfare, the progression of Israel has been towards greater and greater militarization, greater disparities in wealth among Jewish populations (let alone including Palestinians), increased religiosity and extreme re-interpretations of history (it's the only way to try to justify the modern narrative of the right of return). So, Israel today bears a remarkable similarity to the ancient Greek city of Sparta...which became so dependent on maintaining armies to control their colonies and large slave population at home, that the whole culture and ethos of Sparta became nothing more than constant warfare! And modern day Sparta has so much clout in international geopolitics...including having America by the shorthairs and being beyond criticism, because Israel is the place to go for expertise in counter-insurgency tactics (it wasn't invented by David Petreus) and design of new weapons systems in their twin weapons and counter-insurgency testing labs: the West Bank and Gaza US Takes Counterinsurgency Lessons From Israel US police get antiterror training in Israel on privately funded tripsThere is an old saying though:"live by the sword, die by the sword," and if it wasn't for our growing reliance on the use of force to enforce unwilling nations into full compliance with western terms (something Canada resisted until the Harper Era) we wouldn't be following this kneejerk response of always siding with Israel and looking the other way when they commit war crimes and violate all of the international laws that get tossed around: beginning with moving Israelis looking for their own land into new settlements in the occupied territories. We bring all of the various and unexpected forms of blowback upon ourselves by being part of this operation and doing nothing...not even stepping back from unqualified support of Israel.

You don't say! I think most "regular folks" figured that out after what's happened with every "free trade" agreement so far.

No, they abandoned single payer because Obama...and just about every other corporate Democrat like his hand-picked point man for the ACA - Max Baucus, take large amounts of money from the health insurance industry, big pharma and the private hospital corporations...the usually unmentioned 3rd major opponent of health insurance reform. There were radical left Democrats in Congress arguing for a Medicare expansion or at least a public option to buy into Medicare, and Obama sold them out because his money comes from the private insurance industry and they want as little real healthcare reform as possible!

Someone will have to start history threads sometime! On the US healthcare issue though, I can't let it go without noting that the primary fuel for the Bernie Sanders Campaign is his promise to expand Medicare into a national health insurance program...like we and the rest of the developed world have. On that count, Obama's middling half-measure - Obamacare, will be scrapped long before it has a chance to leave any legacy.

Is that from a national poll? If Canadians don't give Harper the boot, we'll be stuck with Harpercons for another four or five years, and what's worse: Harper has already made systemic changes that are difficult to unwind; once he gets us signed up with TPP, TTIP and TISA, there's no point to elected government anymore!

Complete bullshit! The freer the trade, the freer the controllers of vast amounts of capital to use their money as a means of dictatorial control of people. If you want to be even more of a serf to big money, just keep supporting the new rounds of trade negotiations. Farming should have remained local (just like Europe has resisted ending their protectionist policies until lately) and so called "protectionist" organizations like the dairy and wheat boards protected smaller farmers from being driven out of business by Big Ag....like the Americans did around the time Willie was doing his Farm Aid concerts. Too bad nobody at Farm Aid understood why all the small local farmers were being driven under, and could only whine about the problem....just like the benefit concerts for climate change and starvation.

Obama's healthcare plan is managed private insurance...exactly what the Republicans proposed 20 years ago as their fallback position when they were afraid the Democrats were going to expand Medicare into a universal program. It's a stopgap measure at best...in some US states, people save money buying a policy on the new health insurance exchanges, other states people have to spend more. Over time, the costs of this managed system will keep rising faster than a public system with just one insurer. No part of the plan deals with uncontrolled, rising costs of prescription drugs. The truth is that Obama did not want to get the troops out of Iraq, but was forced out by the Maliki Government, which refused to extend the occupation deadline signed with George W Bush. If that makes Obama the peacemaker, how does that balance out the wars and regime change attempts started by Obama since taking office. Libya is a total disaster...but nobody hears about it because of pro-war media and a Republican opposition that can only go in one direction: to the right. All they can do is yack on and on about that strange consulate in Benghazi while never examining turning Libya into a state of complete anarchy loaded with US weapons...many of which have been sold on the black market. Then there's Yemen....supposedly with the constant drone bombing of one target after another, this war crime tactic was supposed to maintain peace and eliminate Al Qaeda. Now their Saudi allies are bombing everything in sight, Al Qaeda is stronger than ever, the US has had to abandon operations after a full scale sectarian civil war broke out. Syria=clusterf***, Iraq could fall apart at any point, and the only way to beat ISIS is to put troops back on the ground there. Is negotiations with Iran a success? We'll find out in the near future. 1. The US is ending the embargo and restoring relations with Cuba because they have no good options to justify the status quo. Almost no other nation recognizes the ban on doing business with Cuba, and with Russia and China putting big money in during the past year, it's the only way for the US to exercise any control or influence with Cuba. 2. Obama spent 7 years doing nothing on climate change, and then tosses out this feel good package late in the 4th quarter when the next president will have to see it through Congress! Plus, offshore drilling and even Arctic drilling has been approved before this deal was announced. 3. The "strong" US economy did not trickle down to average wage earners as wages increased one quarter as much as the rate of inflation. With China going in to major recession, the prospects for the US are no better than Canada, Brazil, Russia, India and many other nations that have already stalled out. Then there is that looming iceberg - derivative investments, which are even larger than they were in 07, still unregulated, and still inflating the values of stocks and bonds. That whole thing could fall on Obama's watch...or blow up after the next president takes over. Every US president concerned about their legacy, has a huge incentive to start wars and engage in international conflicts, because the "great" presidents are all wartime presidents. Jimmy Carter was the only recent president to keep America out of war....and he's rewarded with a low ranking that can't be justified even if you try to blame him for the whole recession years of the 70's. And Nixon had his Watergate...which under today's media rules, would more than likely have been dumped from the rotation for a feature on the Kardashians. Nixon opened the door for diplomacy with China and the Soviet Union and was winding down the Vietnam War....so a lot on his resume should have given him a higher score. Ford was punished for giving Nixon a pardon rather than face the national turmoil of a long impeachment trial of the former president. He made some structural changes to reduce the powers of the presidency to try to prevent the kinds of overreach that Nixon made....but every president after Ford has been clawing back more control. One president with a high ranking that is totally unjustified is Andrew Jackson! Right now, I'm reading a book on the history of slavery in America called "The Half Was Never Told", which covers a lot of the economic information that has never been included in books on slavery. For Jackson's part, he was hugely popular in the 1830's for the economic boom that came with his leadership....which was fueled by seizing more native territories with his indian wars, and allowing slaveowners and their slaves to set up new cotton plantations. Banking regulations were relaxed to provide easy credit for those buying slaves and moving out west, and like other booms, it all went bust in the 1840's when Jackson was safely out of office. The depression of the 1840's shrunk the economic power of the south and fueled a small, anemic abolitionist movement in the north, that led to a serious power struggle between north and south that eventually ended up with a Civil War....but historians prefer to blame the weak leadership of James Buchanan because he happened to be in the White House when the war broke out. And then Lincoln gets no. one because he ended the war! Take it all with a grain of salt I guess.

I don't believe wells and mines should have ever qualified as depreciating assets. Maybe the machinery used in development could apply, but it should never have been extended to the resource itself, which should have always been regarded as a public asset. If that would have made resource extraction more costly, consider the fact that these are "non"renewable resources....once their used up, they're gone! The course of western history in recent centuries has been to just take it out of the ground as fast as possible and go dig somewhere else when you run out. Obviously not the strategy for any civilization that intends to stick around for any great length of time. We'll see how that turns out! I pay hydro bills in Ontario, so I know how much it costs. Stopping coal-fired generating stations was a necessity. That coal-fired station in Nanticoke was the single greatest source of air pollution in southern Ontario. Now, it might be a good idea to start phasing out those nuclear plants, that keep costing us money and will eventually put us at risk of our own Fukushimas. The way forward with renewables will mean more localized, smaller sources of electricity rather than big megaprojects. I don't see a future with renewable electricity running anything close to the amounts of energy we are burning through now either. It will take greater conservation and a lot less extravagant living going forward. But if we're going to get past our present ecological jam, a shift to renewable energy sources is essential. Take away the subsidies for fossil fuels and nuclear...that's one that wouldn't have ever got off the ground without government subsidies...and renewables will be much better bargains by comparison.

Mulcair and Trudeau will try to weasle out of those carbon reduction targets....as will every other western leader...just like they've done other time so far. Elizabeth May is the only one who would stop Tar Sands, but the Green Party's not going to form a government. Shutting down the tar sands seems like it will be accomplished by those same market forces you've become a fan of lately, since collapsing world economies are going to suppress oil prices for the next few years, and keep them below levels where tar sands exploitation is profitable.

That's all you got? The most important issue of our time, and the furthest you want to delve into it is post a link from an oil-funded think tank. I'm still not seeing any evidence that you spend any amount of time thinking through issues, or can provide reasons why you changed from left to right. As for that flimsy Heartland attack on Naomi Klein - if the writer did any amount or research other than a google search, would know that Naomi Klein is an anarchist/ not a marxist! There's a difference...a very crucial difference; because a left anarchist may share many or most of the same goals as a marxist, but anarchists seem to think they can change the world without taking over or overthrowing the political system, while the Marxists know that having marches and occupying parks means nothing if you don't take control of the levers of power in a society! But, at least Naomi Klein points out the absurdities of trying to make capitalism eco-friendly. I guess Heartland is really on the ball. Her book: This Changes Everything has been out for a year, and they're just finding out about it now. Wait till they read James Hansen's new study showing sea level rise is increasing exponentially, and sea levels will likely be three meters higher by 2050.

Well you have an unfair advantage, since you could fit your slogans on a twitter post, while I have to pull up a whole lot of history to demonstrate that these atheist movement leaders are lying when they say they are not part of a broader agenda.

There have been tensions brewing between Shia and Sunni since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.....which oppressed everyone equally. After the fall, when Britain and France were carving up the Arab World, they did many stupid things which we have a legacy today: dividing Kurdish populations among four states instead of granting them an independent nation; and either deliberately or through omission, making sure that Shia's were kept from ruling themselves...even in countries where they formed the majority, like in Lebanon, Bahrain, Iraq and even in Iran, as the western-friendly Shah was believed to be trying to revive the ancient Persian religion of Zoroastrianism as part of his grand scheme of a new Persian Empire....and yet, back then the US was willing to sell Iran all of the weapons and nuclear technology they wanted to buy. Today, in the here and now, there has been an obvious secret war against the Shias financed and armed by Saudi Arabia, that attacks Shias all across the Middle East. And the US and Israel are as secretly as possible facilitating that war! So, with these and other sectarian wars going on in their homelands, should it be any surprise that it would show up in countries that they've emigrated to? Back in the 90's, even here in Ontario, there were incidents of vandalism involving Croatian and Serbian Orthodox churches occurring while that war in Yugoslavia was going on....can't say this surprises me any.

In the years to come, an honest assessment of American history....if it ever happens....will have to peg Barack Obama as one of the greatest epic failures of all time for many reasons, but continuing the Wall Street bailouts was the first sign that the Hope and Change You Can Believe In slogans were just that: empty slogans! When Wall Street banks were failing and had to be bailed out, the Federal Reserve was authorized secretly create billions of dollars in new money to loan to effectively insolvent banking institutions (Quantative Easing) Barry had the perfect opportunity to drop the hammer on them and demand tough concession in return. Hell, he could have even called for nationalizing the banks temporarily (as some European nations did to their banks) and there's not a damn thing the Republicans in Congress could have said about it. Because, if we recall that whole Tea Party movement...prior to being coopted by the Koch Foundation...began as protest against the bank bailouts. If Obama was a real liberal, he could have followed the advice of liberal economists like Paul Krugman and Robert Reich, and delivered the financial aid in the form of renegotiating the often fraudulent mortgages that first line lenders wrote up during the boom years. Problem was Barry was already in the banker's pocket when he was plucked out of Chicago to be their pick over the expected favourite with plenty of Wall Street connections - Hillary Clinton. Barack brought in Rahm and Summers and Geithner, and he signed off on everything on the Wall Street bankers wish list! That's why after thousands of Americans lost their homes while seeing major banks escape their debt obligations, the eight years of shattered credibility, has led to the remaining Democrats getting excited about the old guy with white hair who would otherwise be expected to be getting ready for retirement. With Elizabeth Warren passing on the opportunity, the remaining Democrats have been looking for this kind of candidate since they got stabbed in the back eight years ago! Those economists are talking about the rich people who hire them, when they say free trade is a good thing! Today's round of trade agreements have almost nothing to do with trade in products, but has moved on to demanding national and regional controls regulating services be ended, and the big holdup with TPP and other related pacts is the US want to extend their version of patent and copyright law internationally. But, if we go back and examine the economic consequences of NAFTA and other trade pacts, they have enriched the owners of capital and impoverished everyone else, and wages have been driven down to where many of those who think they are middle class aren't actually middle class anymore! And free trade has intensified our present ecological calamities by increasing transportation output and making economies more and more specialized rather than using local production. It would depend on whether Sanders is willing and able to use the "bully pulpit" of the presidency. Even in today's era of five corporations controlling 85% of US media...and controlling most of the public media through grants and donations, when the President speaks, the media has to listen....even on Fox News. *worth noting that Obama seems to be willing to use the bully pulpit for something he cares about: the TPP! He wasn't willing to use it to allow other promises he made....like a Medicare buy-in option, closing Guantanamo, ending wars....so, the Bernie fans will have to hope that...even after being disappointed every four years, this one will be different!

Start by putting an end to subsidizing the oil industry through capital cost depreciation allowances on oil and gas wells....same with other mined resources. Those tax loopholes were intended for buildings, machinery and other things that are actually built or purchased by the business that have to be maintained or replaced. They should NEVER have been extended for natural resources discovered/not created by the business and deplete for the simple reason that they are nonrenewable! If it wasn't for such loopholes, growth capitalists are going to claim that economic growth over the years would have never reached today's levels, but so what! Now we are in a situation where our industrial output worldwide is more than a 100 times what it was at the turn of the 20th century, and looking for new fossil fuel resources to exploit has carried on faster and faster until we have hit a point where the cheap, easy stuff is almost gone, and the oil developers are trying to blackmail us into financing their continued development of the dirtiest, most ecologically destructive carbon that's left on the planet! And if all of the props keeping petroleum at artificially low costs were removed (especially allowing industry and commerce to offload their environmental costs on the public commons), we would have already been transitioning to renewable energy sources years ago. Sure, more expensive energy has a dampening effect on economic activity, but that is an inevitability no matter how you slice it (I just wish the renewables boosters were more up front about that fact), and we are going to have to deal with slower....much slower economic growth worldwide in the coming years. When economists and policy planners 40 years ago were faced with the bad news about upward trends in population growth and resource costs, their response was to apply all of the "innovations and new technologies" to squeeze more resources from the earth....including fresh water....now, we are at a point in time when the only choices on how to live in a more finite world are to either scale back our demands drastically or have huge wars that literally kill off billions of people to start over again! The present global policy initiatives coming out of Washington these days indicate that the US is becoming more and more aggressive and pushing towards that total war option. That's why we have to keep in mind that, for the most part, we are ruled by psychopaths who will risk anything to achieve their objectives! On the subject of economic growth, NO political leader of any party is going to be honest about the present global situation (assuming they're all aware of it) because success or failure at the polls depends on promising voters that Canada....a now almost completely dependent on resource exports economy....will somehow skate by all of the stalling and collapsing economies around us...including the US and China. US politicians are telling their people also that they will not be affected by the economic collapse unfolding in China....let's see about that next year! A blogger I've checked in on on a weekly basis for several years - Dave Cohen: Decline of the Empire, has a handy short essay on the vanishing of China's economic miracle and how it is already affecting major economies around the world....with handy hypertext links. So, if you're going to vote for the party that will restore economic growth in Canada.....stay home on election day!

Great! Now show me the Quebec politician of any party who hasn't been a "soft separatist?"

I've asked you on another revived thread for your reasons behind your changed worldview. For my part, I followed the prevailing wisdom of the mid-70's to 2000 that socialism failed and even liberal Keynsianism caused economic stagnation in the 70's. Then economic booms that generally improved economies starting in mid-80's was proof that the hands-off policies of non-involvement from government except for tax cuts, was the best way to manage economies. Much later I learned that the big part of the 70's stagnation was the sharp rise in oil prices when the OPEC Cartel gained effective control of international oil markets. Then the resulting flourishing of new oil developments outside of OPEC led to the North Sea oil coming online, Mexico and Russia becoming major international non-OPEC exporters of oil, and sure enough....oil prices fell dramatically in the 80's just in time for Maggie Thatcher, Ronnie Rayguns and other conservative cretins to take credit for the new blood flowing through their economies. And what's happened in more recent years? Well, back when I was in high school, I read the dire warnings about uncontrolled economic and population growth were going to have when we would start reaching the end of nature's limits. The problem back then, was that the first line of Cassandras assumed logic would prevail and everything would gradually wind down for the next 30 to 50 years (according to the Limits to Growth Summit Report). But, what actually happened was that scarcities led to the drive to squeeze more and more ketchup out of the bottles! So, we've had economic booms that since the 80's can't match the economic losses of the declines. And as the situation today gets more desperate, business leaders (especially in oil) show themselves to be essentially psychopaths and politicians play along, even (in the case of the US) using military forces to leverage trade terms and expanding Neocolonialism to extract the wealth from more and more nations. This latest turn in (full spectrum dominance) makes our time more dangerous than any time during the Cold War. And if I consider what I've learned over the last 10 or 15 years with the other big threat - abrupt climate change, I'm more radical leftist now than I ever was in my youth! Because I don't see any choice anymore. It's not about which system will provide the best living standards; it's about which system has a chance of restoring sanity in the world: one of winner take all/might equals right OR let's provide the basic essentials to people and reduce our collective demand on our Earth's carrying capacity.....which was mentioned by someone else earlier as our overshooting of planetary resources put us past Earth Overshoot Day a few days ago already. If I try to relate this to our political drama: I am likely an unenthusiastic NDP supporter (unlike my youth) because the problem of Linda McQuaig in Toronto saying the truth about tarsands, has revealed the two-faced nature of the federal NDP on environment issues. The NDP is trying to have it both ways....keep their newfound Alberta constituency onboard and wear green when climate change and environment are the topic of conversation. But, as I've said before....like many other Canadians, Harper is so toxic that he and his new Conservative Party have to go.....even if it means gambling on whatever Justin Trudeau would lead us into.

You've said twice that MH dug up this thread, yet this is the first new post in three years on this thread! I don't pay attention to fights between forum members, but the reason why there is bipartisan skepticism about your convictions and authenticity is because you post dogmatic, inflammatory statements like the OP, without supporting evidence or justifications for your views. And now, apparently you've switched polarity and are arguing the other side, but still not showing your homework! I've changed my opinions on issues too since I first signed up here 7 years ago. At that time, I think I lost appreciation for libertarianism and was transitioning to some sort of liberalism. I was mostly oblivious to the intrigues of empire that underly all of the foreign policy issues that get superficial treatment in the media. And I certainly was a fan of "new atheism" when I first arrived here, since that was the main subject I was posting on, and.....I'm no longer a fan! But, even though I've been in and out over the years, sometimes taking long absences between any activity here, I can show the reasons why my worldview has shifted over the years from more or less mainstream thinking to the radical leftist views of my youth, that I thought I left behind by my mid-20's. So, if you want to prove that you are a flesh&blood thinking member of society, show your evidence and the reasons for what you believe now, and why they are different from three years ago. It's not important whether or not anyone agrees now or then. What's important is having what are hopefully justifiable reasons for those beliefs.

So, you're a socialist in name only! We can use a new acronym: SIN or SINO, to go with the RINO's and DINO's and is it possible to have such a thing as a LINO? Not sure, since during my life time, Liberals have stood for every issue....as long as it was popular.