WIP

I've long had a feeling that the complaints of reverse discrimination are rooted in the fear of loss of privilege. If one group (white, english speaking men) has become comfortable being in charge, then reforms intended to assist women and minorities are viewed as attacks on white males. At work, we've had an example of how difficult it is to stop a manager from deliberately discriminating against people they don't like. In brief, it was noticed by South Asian employees that since the time our Human Resources manager(who was recently fired) assumed her position about four years ago, no Indians or Pakistanis have been hired, and the ones working for the company who have applied for promotions, have all been denied. When the union filed a grievance and wanted her hiring methods examined, she had a record of plausible reasons (at least in the eyes of upper management) for every decision she made, so nothing happened - until the smoking gun was found recently in the form of an email that was sent to the wrong inbox, where she confided to a friend that as long as she was in charge of H.R., no "turbanheads" would get through the door! And that's the problem with claims of having a colour-blind society. If someone is discreet, they can discriminate freely without any proof that there is any misconduct.

Oh yes there are! And I've already listed them above. Failure to enforce the law (polygamy and bigamy are still criminal offences) is already being interpreted as de facto recognition of polygamy. That charter of rights challenge could easily be shot down since the Supreme Court has already determined that Freedom of Religion provisions are not absolute. If they threaten individual or public safety, the religious practises of a community are over-ruled. This has already been tested in cases such as Jehovah's Witnesses who refuse to allow their children to have blood transfusions because of religious beliefs. If there is one glaring weakness of secular liberalism, it's this principle of privatizing issues regarding religion,ethics and morality, so that issues of conscience are never examined in public. This is part of the reason why abortion is always a contentious issue! Liberals refuse to take a stand on the moral implications of abortion at various stages of life, passing it along as "the right to choose," instead of taking a stand on if, when, and what stages abortion is an ethical procedure. The only ones who talk about the moral implications are the conservative pro-lifers, and since religion is a private matter, their primary reasons for opposing all abortion right from the stage of fertilization are never addressed in the public debates of the issue. So it becomes one more social issue that can never be settled.

Well, I'm not exactly on the left, but I am for freedom and making public policy decisions based a rational examination of the evidence...............so I guess that makes everyone who is not a raving fundamentalist loon some sort of commie by that line of thinking. If you believe that polygamy is okay because it's in the Bible, and gay marriage is bad because Mosaic Law advocated stoning homosexuals to death, then your notion of good and bad is tied to adherence to an arbitrary set of rules; not which institution will actually cause harm to others. Simple fact is that gays are a small minority of the population, so it does not have the opportunity to have as much impact on society as if polygamy came back in style! Besides, most gay couples (even lesbians)have few children, and those that do raise them in what are otherwise typical two-parent households. My son had a friend in the early grades who had "two mommies;" I'm not sure how they handled all of the gender identity issues, but before they moved away a couple of years ago, there was no sign that the two kids exhibited any signs of gender-nonconformity (usually an advance indicator that a child may be gay when they reach adulthood). On the other hand, if you look at polygamous communities like Bountiful or that one in Texas, or Muslim countries that allow polygamy, the first thing that jumps out at you are the large numbers of children ( "be fruitful and multiply"); these women are baby factories and obviously will have no opportunities in life other than producing offspring for their patriarchs! The alarm raised by the population explosion among those early Mormons in the 19th Century was a key reason why Americans, who had become tolerant of the many oddball cults that grew up during that time, could not tolerate this one. If there are any more reasons needed to shut down these polygamous compounds, there is another crisis created by polygamy that wasn't addressed in the previous articles posted: these communities end up with surplus boys who are driven out of the community because the patriarchs fear that unmarried young men will be competition for their women, married or otherwise! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Boys_of_Polygamy

Oil is not going to be reigning supreme much longer! Of the 20 largest oil fields in the world, nine are already recognized as being in decline; some of the others may be as well, but state oil companies in OPEC countries have an incentive to exaggerate their oil reserves. The U.S. and most western nations have done little or nothing to reduce the demand for oil, and newly industrializing countries like China and India are increasing the world demand for oil. Increasing demand at a time of decreasing supply will sink any faint hope of seeing $20.00 a barrel an oil in the future. And that $10.00 a barrel number is based on figures from the major oil fields where finding and lifting costs are the lowest. To meet the increased demand for oil, new wells have to be put in areas that were previously considered too costly. And since you mentioned Alberta, most of their oil is locked up in the Athabasca Tar Sands, where extraction, capital costs, and the costs of upgrading crude bitumen to synthetic crude, puts the total costs of new mining operations at between 36 and 40 dollars per barrel. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athabasca_Tar_Sands#Economics The tar sands raises another issue in that virtually all of these new hard to get oil developments are environmental nightmares that poison land and ground water and make a huge increase in CO2 emissions. Ways to phase out the dependence on oil may be needed for environmental reasons as much as economic realities.

The Democrats will win because so many Americans want Republicans to lose, as noted by Bubermiley earlier. Most of the reasons are to find a way to exact some revenge on George Bush for the War and state of the economy, but since they can't vote him out of office, they have to turn their wrath at the Republican heir to the Bush Whitehouse. McCain has personal flaws, especially his angry outbursts, that may become as much, or even greater issues than the complaints about Hillary and Barach Obama. http://youtube.com/watch?v=VYoL8CNKT54 He's been able to keep it reigned in better this time around than he did in 2000, but all it will take is one Howard Dean moment and any slim chance he has of winning goes out the window. When people are really up in arms against the government, they're in a mood to vote the people they hate out of office, not vote in the ones they like. Under these disastrous conditions, the Democratic nominee will just have to do what John McCain is doing now, sit back quietly while John McCain is attacked for the economic problems and an endless war. As far as I know, the Republicans have received more largesse from the Saudis than Democrats, but they are no different than other large corporate donors who buy influence on both sides of the political aisle. There must be some reason why Jimmy Carter got a nice retirement gift from the Saudis!

Limbaugh could be the most dangerous man in America (and on the planet) if man-made CO2 emissions are the primary cause of recent global warming! There has been an aggressive campaign of denial sponsored by energy companies, but it's guys like Limbaugh who try to make it cool to produce as much pollution as possible, who cause the greatest harm! And I'm not making up the possibility that Rush is gay and either in denial or living a double life. The rumours are always being circulated by members of the Democratic Underground, but there are reasons why rumours have persisted for years. Limbaugh's marriage to Marta was likely an attempt to quell the rumours. http://www.pssht.com/biography/rush_limbaugh.html Amazing how the family values crowd can continually turn a blind eye to failed marriages and drug abuse problems also! When Limbaugh was busted for his oxycontin addiction a few years back, I would have thought he would have been rejected by this crowd. But their Christian values are only used against the people they view as enemies of the cause! Like I said, Limbaugh is a Republican before all else, regardless of his rhetoric during the Republican Primaries! And that prescription drug plan is an obvious example. How vigorous was the protest against Bush over the plan. Did he threaten to withdraw his support of Bush's re-election in 2004? Not that I remember! Limbaugh and all of the other Bush loyalists would have been spewing bile if it was offered up by Bill Clinton or a Democrat. It was all part of Karl Rove's permanent Republican majority strategy, and since Limbaugh believes in one party government, anything a Republican leader proposes has to be accepted by the masses.

No, allowing two men or two women to get married does not open the door to allowing polygamy. There are public safety issues at stake in the case of polygamy, since its legality comes to attention interwoven with patriarchal religions (L.D.S. & Islam) that are based on an unequal standard between men and women. Women are restricted to one husband, where a man can have multiple wives. The wives and their children, have to vie for the attention of one man, so every legal examination of polygamy - like the Bountiful Community - comes away with the conclusion that the family structure violates the provisions for equality, and that they should supersede the guarantees of freedom of religion. And there is a recognition that polygamous unions will result in large numbers of children who are not adequately provided for. In many cases, the second and third wives are set up in separate residences as single mothers and they and their children are supported by the welfare system. In some cases, there is a prevailing culture of female subordination in polygamous households and this is particularly harmful for female children (Wing 2001: 817). For female children, their mother is the most important role model through which they may glimpse their own future. While not without its roots in patriarchy, the legal system and socio-economic structure of Canadian society is informed by the value of formal equality, which feminists and many others believe should stress the freedom of a female to choose her own path in life and associate with anyone she desires. However, this is certainly not the reality of the family environment in the typical polygamous Bountiful household. The idea that a man is the dominant voice in a household and that various female subordinates must vie for his attention is not one that ensures optimum freedom for young females to choose their future direction. These lessons are also negative for the male children in the family, as they learn their notions about women and their unequal status from their family experiences as well. Polygamy as practised in Bountiful is harmful to children, women and society, because it perpetuates a value system premised on the idea that women have no place in a community as fully equal citizens. Certainly, a value system predicated on the concentration of political and religious authority in the hands of a few men is one that neither respects nor fosters free, critical thought and independent action. In Bountiful, the children of polygamous unions are raised in an environment where women are told what to believe and are controlled entirely by men; they are conditioned to believe that women are subject to the will of their husband. Furthermore, they see that although their mother only has the one husband to whom they owe complete devotion and loyalty, that male can have as many wives as he wishes. http://www.swc-cfc.gc.ca/pubs/pubspr/06624...0683-4_7_e.html Limits on Freedom of Religion in Canada While the justices of the Supreme Court of Canada seem to disagree on whether the limits to freedom of religion should be applied during the Charter s. 2(a) analysis or during the Charter s. 1 stage, they do recognize that there are limits to the right. These limits appear to fall into one of three categories: conflicts with other rights, harm (individual and public safety), and significant societal interests. While there are no legal decisions indicating how the court might view polygamy law as a limit on freedom of religion, other cases provide guidance as to how such an issue would be decided. In Amselem, the Supreme Court of Canada noted that often individual rights will compete with each other. In fact, although a broad and expansive interpretation of freedom of religion should be taken initially, the court noted that "our jurisprudence does not allow individuals to do absolutely anything in the name of that freedom."123 The court went on to say: Even if individuals demonstrate that they sincerely believe in the religious essence of an action, for example, that a particular practice will subjectively engender a genuine connection with the divine or with the subject or object of their faith, and even if they demonstrate non-trivial or non-insubstantial interference with that practice, they will still have to consider how the exercise of their right impacts upon the rights of others in the context of competing rights of individuals. Conduct which would potentially cause harm to or interference with the rights of others would not automatically be protected. The ultimate protection of any particular Charter right must be measured in relation to other rights and with a view to the underlying context in which the apparent conflict arises.124 In Amselem, the majority of the Supreme Court held that the intrusions or effect on the respondent's right to personal security and right to enjoy property (by allowing the appellants to exercise their freedom of religion) were minimal and could not be considered as imposing valid limits on the exercise of freedom of religion.125 http://www.swc-cfc.gc.ca/pubs/pubspr/06624...0683-4_8_e.html These problems all show that allowing polygamy raises many problems for society that allowing gay marriage does not. So they should be treated both ethically and legally as two separate issues.

Right! What would be a new idea is making them a practical alternative that could replace gasoline powered cars. What's the good of being there if it's too dangerous to explore and develop the oil, and get it to America?

The problem with election finance reform is how to stop sweetheart deals that are done on a handshake and a promise of rewards to the politician after retirement. Notice how many politicians immediately become lobbyists the day after they retire, usually for the same firms they were supposed to be regulating while in office. The Saudis have a long-standing reputation in the U.S. that any politician or State Department or other official will be appropriately rewarded for doing their bidding after they leave office. If politicians can cash in after retirement, it's hard to directly connect them to their paymasters.

To get back on topic, I want to add a few thoughts about John McCain, since he's been able to safely hide in the shadows lately. Listening to the radio earlier, I heard Rush Limbaugh, the prescription pill-addicted, closeted homosexual leader of conservative radio, expounding on how well John McCain was doing in recent polls and how he's going to win the election. It seems Limbaugh has changed his tune since I last listened to his show. Before McCain won the Republican nomination, Limbaugh has said previously that he would never support McCain, but since his first loyalties are to the Republican Party beyond all else, he's in the McCain corner now. But Limbaugh is going to have his bubble burst this fall, along with the other diehards who think there is a hope in hell of continued Republican control of the White House. Once the General Election starts rolling, McCain will have to explain why he went from maverick Repubican in 2000 to being the insider when he started his 2008 campaign. The Iraq War is going to be hung around his neck like an albatross, and his character flaws, which were last presented by the Bush Campaign in 2000, are going to be out there on display. Up till now, his cosy relationship with the Washington press core has kept some of his indiscretions from being given much attention. Kind of ironic, sing the right is always claiming that the media is biased against them. McCain has proven that the line about the media being against conservatives is bogus, and that a politician of any stripes who is friendly to reporters and responds quickly to requests for interviews, is going to get an assist from the so called "drive by media." But a Democratic fall campaign will dust off Karl Rove's dossier on McCain and go through the new material being offered by left wing writers and bloggers: http://rawstory.com/news/2008/McCain_tempe...in_92_0407.html

Nato had no reason to exist after the breakup of the Soviet Union! At least as far as Canada and the United States are concerned. Instead of enlisting Russia as an ally, the Bush Administration has tried to peal away former Soviet republics by expanding Nato and for some stupid reason, going along with the Europeans objective of expanding the E.E.C. into Eastern Europe. I can't see why they got involved in the Ukranian elections a few years ago. How does making the Ukraine part of the E.E.C. benefit American interests? It was just one more opportunity to piss off the Russians, along with: oil deals in former Central Asian Republics, the Air War on Serbia and the invasion of Iraq, they put Russia back in the hostile camp. Now that oil has become so expensive, it looks like a cooperative strategy would have made alot more sense!

Either the political risks of invading Saudi Arabia are too great, or the Saudis have bought enough influence, especially in the Republican Party, to forestall any hostile actions against them. This could partly explain why the Bush Administration refuses to blame the Saudis for propagating jihadism abroad with their funding of madrassahs and mosques built around the world; not to mention the fact that the vast majority of jihad warriors are surplus young Saudis from poor families, who are sent to fight in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the previous wars, so that they dont' overthrow the monarchy back home. The problems of Islamism all start with Saudi Arabia, not Iraq, or even Afghanistan! As long as those alternative fuel ideas are coming from the present administration, then oil reigns supreme! At a previous State of the Union address.......I can't recall which one off hand.........the idiot in chief tossed up that longstanding utopian vision of a future hydrogen economy. Which is as meaningless as promises to send a manned mission to Mars, since the production of hydrogen would require a massive increase in electrical generation capacity. And as usual, there was no mention of how this would be accomplished. And then there's ethanol. When the oil-based fertilizers are factored in to growing the corn for American ethanol, more oil is needed to produce a gallon of ethanol than if it was used directly for making gasoline. If U.S. politicians were serious about ethanol as an alternative fuel, they would allow free trade to function in this case and import cheaper ethanol from Brazil, where it is produced from the byproducts of sugarcane production. Instead, it is just a cynical, though highly successful strategy for driving up corn prices to the benefit of Iowa farmers! Finally, the electric car. 40 years ago, I did a project I presented in front of my grade 6 class on electric cars and how we would all be driving electric cars by the time we grew up....................still waiting! If there was a changeover to electrics, that would also demand the building of new power stations. But, as long as there's a highway lobby in Washington, it will never happen anyway. G.M. had a pilot project building electric cars, and when it became too popular, they killed it: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/who_killed_the_electric_car/ By Arabia, I mean the Arabian Peninsula, not the territories in North Africa and Mesopotamia that Arab tribesmen invaded and overran as they expanded the Muslim Caliphate. And this is what Bin Laden was referring to also. They apply different rules for what they consider "The Holy Land" that don't apply in conquered territories. One notable exception is that there is no accomodation for any other religions in Arabia. The expanding Muslim empire allowed Christians and Jews to practise their religions with varying degrees of tolerance. Dhimmitude status, which was supposed to only be for "people of the book" was somehow extended to cover Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs and other smaller religions in India by later Mogul emperors. But Saudi Arabia is another matter. No other religions, not even Abrahamic religions are allowed. So the Saudi rulers had a hard time rationalizing the presence of thousands of American troops on their soil, even though they were still scared of Saddam after the Gulf War! A good friend of mine has an older brother who was a civil engineer working for the Canadian subsidiary of the Bechtel group during the 70's. When he was sent to Saudi Arabia to work on a project, one of the first things he was warned about was do not bring alcohol, bibles, crosses or any other non-Islamic religious literature with him. So the fanatically-religious could never abide having American bases on their territory, since as you said, they would have no power to stop them from practising their religions, not to mention drinking alcohol and having sex. This is old news, but if it needs to be confirmed that the bases were closed, here's the story on Foxnews...........and if Fox News says it, it must be true! Right! PRINCE SULTAN AIR BASE, Saudi Arabia — In a major shift in American focus in the Persian Gulf, the United States is all but ending its military presence in Saudi Arabia (search), abandoning this remote desert air base that was built in the 1990s and made the site of a high-tech air operations center in 2001. Only about 400 U.S. troops will remain in the Muslim kingdom, most of them based near Riyadh to train Saudi forces, American officials said Tuesday. Most of the 5,000 U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia will leave by the end of the summer. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,85446,00.html

Fear not! Once the Democratic primaries are over, the spotlight will start shining on John McCain too. We'll see how many Americans are willing to give George Bush a third term this November.

Up till Harper came along, many of us who opposed the Liberals, did so partly because of their total neglect of the military. But, I assumed that a refurbished Canadian Armed Forces would be primarily for our national defence, not for the global aspirations of American foreign policy!

I am more nauseated by the stories of how he found God in Rev. Wright's church after an atheistic upbringing, then I am about a chance that he could be a secret Muslim. I'm hoping that his God-talk is just the usual blather that presidential candidates are expected to spout now, and not a foresign that he is a left of center George Bush. http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0716/p01s01-uspo.html

Naw, that's an empty, meaningless slogan concocted by either Ray Comfort or Josh McDowell. Atheism is a lack of belief in the supernatural, and beyond that it doesn't say alot about what beliefs the non-religious person adheres to. Generally they are formed on a basis of empirical knowledge, and you have to look to what those other beliefs are before you can declare that an atheist is motivated by faith or presuppositions. The only major faith-based atheistic philosophies I'm aware of are Marxism - with its theories of class consciousness and historical materialism etc. that had to be accepted as presuppositions, and the libertarian objectivist philosophy developed by Ayn Rand, and still propagated by a devoted core of followers, could be regarded as another naturalistic faith! But most atheists gravitate towards some broader form of secular humanism, which have different variations that can be developed, and upgraded when enough people feel a change is needed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism Well, I don't regard forum discussions as entertainment. I'm looking for other opinions and developing my own beliefs. I guess I live in a leftist wasteland, since Hamilton ridings rarely elect candidates that aren't Liberals or N.D.P., that's what got me interested in blogs and forums when I first got my computer. But I've also discovered that many arguments from the right are baseless smears, like your next comment. Personally, after a lifetime in various Christian denominations, I thought it over from the ground up and decided that I don't even consider the Christian ethical system based on Original Sin and the need for an intercessor to improve the human condition, to be a good basis for building ethics and morality, but that's not what draws my objections. It's the attempts by the religious to impose Christian values in deciding public policy issues that I object to. You don't get to hide your Christian faith behind your back when you're using it as the basis for advocating positions against gay rights, abortion, and funding Catholic schools and in the case of John Tory, trying to expand that to funding all religious schools. And how many times do rightwingers think they can get away with this strategy of blame-shifting? Who's really in control of our society? The majority are Christian of some form or other. In Ontario, Catholic Schools are still fully funded by our education taxes through high school. And the other religions who want their religious schools funded have a valid point that Catholics receive a special priviledge over other religions. But since Ontario is an increasingly multicultural province, my preference is that virtually all children attend the same public school that you hate, where children of different races and backgrounds are at least introduced to each other. In recent years in Hamilton, I've noticed that Muslim students, especially the girls, are disappearing from our local public schools and being bussed to a private Islamic academy on the Mountain. To me, this is a bad omen for the future! They'll come to this country and stay in their religious bubble, without any awareness of other peoples and other cultures. The biggest mistake we could make would be charter schooling. Over in England, the big push to charter schooling has helped to exacerbate the ethnic separation to a point where it's been said that Muslims in East London could grow up and live their lives without any awareness or interaction with English society.

Shallow argument since your home province is an obvious example of how government can impoverish people through over-taxation, over-spending, and cronyism. Can anyone actually start a business there now who isn't a member of the Irving family? For years, young Maritimers who've wanted a better life, have taken the responsibility for their own success by moving to Ontario and Alberta. I've done okay for myself, raised a family, and have provided my kids the opportunities for higher education (I still have one in high school). What makes me angry is people who form opinions and choose sides in debates on little more than faith that their side is a righteous cause. This is the biggest reason why politicians are invoking God and prayer into their speeches in greater numbers. An appeal to faith is an emotional appeal, and candidates want a campaign based on emotional appeal more than logic or reason, since adherents, I mean supporters, will cling to the candidate even if their policies are wreckless and dangerous.

Once the dust as settled, I'm betting you're going to see a rout of biblical proportions! Right now, John McCain appears close in election polls because very little attention is being focused on him. Once the general election starts, McCain has to run on a platform of continuing the Iraq War indefinitely, and has to lead the governing party in a bad recession year. The Bush Administration was hoping that foreign investors would still be putting the dollars they earn selling products to Americans to work in American stock and bond markets. It appears that the inevitable collapse of the real estate market arrived a year too early! Now, their slim chance of holding on to power - continued economic growth - has evaporated, and the economy is another albatross around the neck of Bush's heir. If it was possible for a candidate from the governing party to win under these conditions, there still is the problem that the candidate is a lacklustre performer. He doesn't show any degree of understanding of the economic situation and he's even confused about the situation in Iraq - twice, mixing up Sunnis and Shiites, and which group Al Qaeda belongs to. With all of these huge negatives, fiddling and strategizing in the Electoral College will make little difference! Incumbent Republicans are fleeing the ship in the face of huge losses in the House and the Senate. How can you seriously talk about red states at a time when the Republican Party couldn't even hold on to Dennis Hastert's seat in that special election last month? Lots of Republicans are going to get washed out to sea this November!

Were those interventions worthwhile either? The excuse for bombing Serbia into leaving Kosovo was a claim that there was a mass genocide going on. A claim that turned out to be as factual as the WMD's in Iraq. Did conditions in Haiti improve after the Clinton administration overthrew the military regime? Is supporting Hamid Karzai's government in Afghanistan worthwhile, when it is an Islamic theocracy not much different than the Taleban regime? ?????????????????????????

Drea did not make a personal attack on anyone! Her statement was mocking a protected belief that many people have in prayer and in supernatural beliefs that no one can provide a rational basis for. These beliefs are bound so tightly with emotion that the believers immediately interpret them as personal attacks. You can attack someone's political beliefs, moral and ethical beliefs as well, unless they are woven together with religious faith. Then they are off limits. Placed on the top shelf where they can't be examined or questioned. Fine with me if you and others want to believe in things that fall into the supernatural category, but if you want them in the public square and part of our political discourse, then they should be subject to criticism. ------------------------------------------------------------- The problem is there are too many people talking about their faith and religious beliefs......even Democratic candidates for president feel like they have to fall in line and talk about how much their faith means to them. When people are encouraged to reject evolution because it doesn't fit their church teaching, the theology behind this rejection of science should be on the table along with the evidence against creationism and intelligent design. And when a religious politician like George Bush, rejects embryonic stem cell research because of a simple-minded belief that newly fertilized eggs are "ensouled," then that belief should be questioned and the church authorities who propagate it should be asked to provide the evidence to support their belief. If an astronomer said: "I believe there is a planet on the other side of the Sun from Earth and out of our viewpoint, " his colleagues would demand some clear reasons to support this hypothesis, and when supernatural beliefs intrude into the real world, they should be made to provide their evidence as well!

I want to revisit the thread opener about what kind of prayer to have in the Provincial Parliament because it started before I came here and it's moved off to other issues lately. My first question is why does the legislature need a prayer to begin with? Judging from the scandals out of Queens Park during my lifetime, I can't see any evidence that invoking God and religion makes politicians more honest or better people than they would otherwise be! The simple fact is that regardless of whether or not Ontario started as a Christian colony that set up an uneasy alliance between Protestants and Catholics, the province is a much different place today! The founders also intended it to stay a Loyalist mirror of England, so they tried to make sure that Protestantism would always have the upper hand. Today, we have immigrants who come from non-Christian countries, and the Muslim immigrants in particular, will use all laws and rules that give religion special status as an opportunity to push their religion into the public square. Get rid of the prayers and you won't have to worry about hearing prayers to other gods that you don't like!

Excuse me, but I am working class! And I live in a city that's in decline and where the majority of young people cannot find decent jobs unless they either leave home or join the already overcrowded commute to Toronto and the surrounding area. The fatal flaw in the political attitudes here is the same as many American industrial cities: the steel mills and other heavy industries in Hamilton were viewed as cash cows that could always deliver extra money when needed. As a result, increasing commercial property taxes kept a lot of new businesses from coming into this area. Now that the factories are closing, there's nothing to fill the gap. It's a similar story that people from Buffalo and my relatives in Michigan tell me. And, at one time, young people had no choice except to leave areas that were going downhill. My father left Eastern Quebec when he was 15 during the Depression. Along with his brothers, they had to ride the boxcars across Canada looking for work, until they heard about the hydro-electric projects and other big construction jobs that were happening in Niagara Falls at the time. Back then, there was no welfare or unemployment insurance, so people left Quebec and the Maritimes in droves. Out of his seven brothers and sisters who survived to adulthood, I only had one uncle who was able to stay down east and make a living by opening his own store. On our trips back home in later years, he told us that most of his customers were either on welfare or some form of disability pensions. And that's why many people become complacent and stay in the poverty zones. Leaving home for a new life in a new town is scary and uncertain. People who lack confidence will take the government cheque and the substandard quality of life, rather than take the risk of leaving. Same reason the hillbillies and others are staying put, as noted above. I'll leave that up to you. I haven't been here that long, and either I wasn't paying attention to the thread or it was before I joined. Even though I consider McCain a step up from George Bush, the only way he could really separate himself from being viewed as Dubya's third term is if he changed his extreme war hawk position on Iraq and other foreign interventions. He believes the Neocon strategy too much to put any distance between himself and the Bush Admins disastrous war policy.

There's nothing wrong with being ordinary. My formal education ended after high school, but I make an effort to keep learning. What is inexcusable is being wilfully ignorant, like continuing to support the same people and the same policies that are ruining your life! Hardy har, har! The problem is the number of people who rely on trusted authority figures to do their thinking for them..........I think there's one of them on his way over to America right now! The point is that people should have reasons for their beliefs, and put them to the test when new information and new knowledge comes along. In my lifetime I have supported the N.D.P, then moved over to the Liberals, moved further right and joined the Reform Party and supported the Mike Harris campaign, and bailed when Ernie Eves took over. And, I think I've made it clear that I'm not happy with the Harper's attempt to make the Conservative Party the Northern branch of the Republican Party. Next federal election, I'll probably vote for the Green Party unless there is a good chance that Dion can knock off Harper when he feels confident enough to call an election and try for a majority in the House.

Could you enlighten me as to what issues you don't side with fanatical rightwing Christians on? The Republicans are chipping away at that "wall of separation" with their faith-based initiatives, not to mention - faith-based wars! And, the Religious Right continually declares that America is a Christian Nation. They do not accept the concept of separation of church and state, and will turn your country into a theocracy. I don't know whether it's a point worth arguing, but there are black minorities in Canada and Western Europe also. How do they rank on the quality of life scale compared to American blacks.......I'll wait for someone else to look it up. FYI, some did go back to Africa. Ever hear of Liberia, in West Africa? The nation was founded by freed American slaves in 1847. Aren't you the one claiming to be a leftist? I supported Mike Harris in 95 - who kept his conservatism to cutting taxes and government spending, not demagoguing religious and social issues. The present leader of the Ontario PC's, John Tory, tried to make a play for the God vote in the last election by offering funding to private religious schools. It must have been a tip from Harper's team of advisers!

Did Obama call them poor and IGNORANT? Or is that another interpretive embellishment from Limbaugh or his imitators? You provided a link to the audio and transcripts: "You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations." If that's the worst he's said, then Obama has more patience for stupid people than I do! Notice how quick Hillary was to pounce on this! She would not make the mistake of telling the truth unless she thought there were no microphones on. And to me, that's the saddest part of this story. This has nothing to do with left or right! The simple fact is that politicians treat the public like five year olds and mouth simplistic slogans because anything more complicated can be twisted and used against them in campaign attack ads. Personally, I was impressed that Barach Obama took the risk of trying to explain some of the attitudes of Rev. Wright, instead of throwing him under the campaign bus. This is a refreshing change from the typical "do anything to win" politicians. But I'm not enthusiastic about some of his economic policies, especially his hammering of free trade. He's likely to be a real trade protectionist, unlike Hillary Clinton, who's just trying to make the right noises at the campaign stops. The Cold War was a strategic policy, not a real war. Vietnam and Korea were more than mere battles, and the Vietnam War should have been the last time America rushed in to war without understanding who they were fighting for: they were oblivious to the fact that the President of South Vietnam - Diem, was considered a vestige of French colonial ruling class, but had already committed themselves to defending South Vietnam at all costs, and ended up replacing France as the colonial occupier. They jumped into a war, in a part of the world they didn't understand, and Iraq proves once again that lessons of history are soon forgotten. Wishing doesn't win wars! It takes clear objectives and the abilities to carry them out, in order to win. ---- Do you honestly believe John McCain has a hope in hades of winning the election? He wants to keep American troops in Iraq for 50 or a hundred years, if necessary. And he's already admitted that he knows little or nothing about economics. Once the Democrats pick their leader, a little light will start shining on John McCain, and most voters will see him as third term for George Bush. He'll be lucky to win more than two states whether Clinton or Obama is the Democratic candidate.