WIP

Just because we haven't had any Latin Americans respond to modern Neocolonialism by engaging in terrorist attacks in the U.S., and instead mostly jump on the tops of freight trains and riding into Mexico, with the eventual goal of crossing the U.S. border....does not mean that the anger, hostility and resentment of the U.S. (and Canada) is any less than it is in the Middle East! Most Arabs and non-Arab Muslims have responded to the imposition of banana republic dictators who hog most of the profits from oil and resource sales in exactly the same way: looking for opportunities to emigrate if possible, to somewhere that will offer a better life for themselves and their families. I suspect now that a huge part of the Vatican's obsession with Revolution Theology and removing leftist priests and nuns was the same reason why the state authorities in the M.E. decided they better get control of the clerics and what's being said in the mosques over there: they were telling their people the truth about how their leaders assumed power, who was keeping them in power, and how much of the nation's wealth was being extracted and shipped out, with most of the profits going to foreign banks and corporations....with a few bribes to the dictator and his minions in the colony. The first response to colonialism in the M.E. was also protests, uprisings and revolutions; but when it became clear that the U.S. was going to use the entire weight of its Navy and assorted military assets to maintain the flow of oil under terms that maximized extraction at lowest cost available....then, that's when we started seeing more desperate tactics used. Even in respects to terrorism, the first terrorist attacks and the vast majority, occur over there, against the proxy forces of Exxon/Mobil and BP, not directly against the Americans, who are usually too far removed to get at directly. Exception being in the early stages of the war in Iraq, and the Obama Escalation in Afghanistan, when these so called "Surge" strategies put U.S. troops right up close. Now that they are mostly locked away behind their green zones, the terrorist attacks are once again against the flunkies who act locally on their behalf.

You don't seem to get the point that the reason why there is a terrorism problem in the first place is because the U.S. and Europe have an empire problem!

That's true. But the problem is that the way we have been subverting the limits is by overshooting renewable resources like water and topsoil, and using up so many non-renewables that most are already past peak production. Eventually nature will reign us in, just like it does with rabbits or deer who live in isolated, protected areas with no predators, and eat up all the available food. We're supposed to be the animals who can plan for the future....but so far, there's no sign of it.

Democracy certainly encourages equality; and that may be one of the prime reasons why conservatives are so hostile to democracy. Their goal of creating an authoritarian society makes it essential to weaken or cripple democratic institutions, so that the ruling class doesn't have to take the great unwashed masses seriously.

And there comes a time when those in love with oil, and deniers of global warming, become too tedious to listen to.

There was a study that came out last year which found most people are unreasonably or even irrationally optimistic. Optimism starts becoming delusional when it gets in the way of taking serious actions to deal with problems. We could say that people living in flood plains, who keep rebuilding their houses after they are periodically flooded out are also optimists, but that kind of optimism is not very helpful. These issues of overpopulation, environmental degradation and over-exploitation of resources, have been mostly understood for more than 40 years now. There has been an assumption by optimistic forecasters that when things really get bad, people will be shaken out of their complacency en mass, and demand action to be taken to solve the problem But the reality is that, as the crisis gets closer, optimists go along with putting short term gain ahead of long term risk of damage, and go with the theory that someone will come along with an invention or some great idea that will solve all of our problems.

I know what you mean. I'm living in as big a city as I can put up with right now. Toronto has creeped me out right from the start. Even before cellphones and Ipods came along to allow people to live in a bubble and ignore everyone around them, people go about avoiding eye contact and even sit down right beside you in a crowded food court without acknowledging your presence......it seems this sort of behaviour is a common way for people to deal with overcrowding. The more people crowded together - the more impersonal and detached they become. The mechanic in the big city figures he'll get enough walkin business to make up for any lost customers; whereas in the village or small town, the mechanic would be very concerned about maintaining a good reputation. Otherwise, word would get out that the mechanic was ripping off customers. Same thing happens with other people in the community. It's more important for everyone to maintain good relations. You'll also find more people with higher education...which tracks more closely with lower degrees of religiosity than where people live. But, this applies when we're talking in general about trends. The only formal education I've had since high school is specifically work-related. It's just that I have unusual interests for someone of my background. But, being religious or non-religious is ultimately based on methods of decision-making that we don't really have conscious choice on. Someone who has a religious outlook is much more likely to be guided by what seems intuitively natural. And religious systems play off those intuitions. i.e. how can there be a universe without a creator....the mind is a force that controls the body....animals are all different, so they must have been separately created at some time in the past....we shouldn't touch anything that has belonged to someone who is evil, or we may be contaminated by his spirit of evil / likewise a relic belonging to an extraordinary person is imbued by their spirit. And the list could go on. These common religious beliefs all started from intuitive assumptions about the world, and about our own nature. But, on a logical, higher level of examining evidence, they are also wrong assumptions. So, everyone who has taken on a naturalistic understanding of the world and of human nature, is fighting an inner battle...overruling their intuitive assumptions. For a closer look, Tom Rees, who writes the blog - Epiphenomena had a post on this subject awhile back in a brief analysis of recent work by behavioural psychologist Marjaana Lindeman - Sceptics Subconsciously Suppress Supernatural Thoughts. That doesn't exactly fit together either, because religion can easily be used in the kind of in group/out group thinking that dulls any moral concern for outsiders, and we can see with the way Evangelical Christianity has morphed in the U.S. over the last 50 years or so, it has turned the Christian Social Gospel right on its head! So now, American right wing evangelicals are lauding the rich and powerful as being blessed by God; while the poor are scorned as those who have not received God's blessings. As for "raping the world," that line of thinking started as soon as Americans started viewing the new land's resources as a bounty provided by God for unbridled exploitation. But, that's what happens when religion goes bad! Where I stand on religion and secularism is seeing positives and negatives with both ways of living, while most people see it as an either/or question of which way is better: religion or no religion. Non-religious philosophies have a hard time trying to come up with objective values that can be considered universal. And, I've become uneasy in recent years with the widespread assumption that leading atheists have regarding future economic and scientific progress. The new doctrine that we have outgrown religion and religion will die out as a social force, is framed around this notion that progress will be ever forward and unending.....and I want to see the techno-optimists come to grips first with the converging environmental problems facing the world first. I said before that the problem I have with the thread question is that it assumes the Internet is a permanent fixture now. That's the wrong assumption to make, in an overcrowded world facing resource scarcities, climate change and the still possible danger of nuclear war. If our civilization collapses as similar empires have in the past, the internet is a goner, while religion will be back and stronger than ever.

Free in what sense? My cousin's employer was putting a lot of pressure on to take the job at their Atlanta office. His wife wasn't thrilled about the move, but felt that the advantages could be worth it.

That report isn't worth the paper it's written on....or server space....since reducing starvation and malnutrition depends on increasing the global food supply....since population is still increasing. These kind of reports are like driving along looking through your rearview mirror, rather than at what's coming up ahead. Globalization has been the source of increases in wealth and poverty around the world. And globalization has been the tool for agribusiness -- which has provided short term increases in agricultural production at a very high long term cost; because Big Ag depends on using up land and water at an unsustainable rate that will leave nothing but dry, empty fields even if there are still oil-based fertilizers at low cost. Local, traditional agriculture was already struggling to feed 3 billion people in the world, but rather than the route we followed over the last 40 years, the emphasis should have been put on maintaining the hard limits to population growth, rather than feeding 7 billion people with food that cannot be produced for long term. Local agriculture was more resilient to weather and climate changes, as we are finding out now with the disasters occurring in the areas of intense monoculture farming that are hit with floods, droughts and record temperature changes. These new hybrid plants were designed for very specific growing conditions, which are changing right before our eyes. Along with rising population, climate disruptions are causing higher crop losses from floods, fires and droughts around the world. It will be awhile yet before the impacts on agriculture from the latest record-breaking heat waves in Australia can be factored in, but in the last few years it's been one disaster after another, that has taken Australia out as a major grain exporter. Their contributions were factored in to grain harvest projection in the coming decades. As climate change increases in intensity, we can expect the same food growing disaster stories occurring more often in the more temperate growing regions like the U.S., Canada and Russia. And there is that other problem with agribusiness -- the overshooting of available water and topsoil depletion. Eventually these debts to nature have to be payed! On the current track, water use for human consumption, agriculture, industry and mining, has doubled every 20 years. How long can this be expected to go on for? The growth in global inequality indicates that the future will have less sharing of food and other resources, so I don't see any path to reducing hunger....it is actually not declining right now, and will soon begin to rise dramatically as grain prices rise.

But I wanted to underline the return of race theory because this is more dangerous than teaching people that the earth is flat and was created 6000 years ago. You may have noticed online that the conservatives jump on the Abolitionist anti-slavery bandwagon for rhetorical purposes; but in actual fact, the literalists were the ones who provided the ideological justification for slavery by declaring that black Africans were descendents of Noah's cursed son. Worth noting that the major Protestant denominations (Baptists, Methodists) in the U.S. split over the slavery issue in the leadup to the Civil War, with the other side pulling bible quotes that declared all were equal under God. The Abolitionists had no choice other than to follow a more liberal approach to using their Bibles, since most of the Bible verses....even in the NT, not only fail to challenge slavery, but even provide a Christian cover i.e. Christian slaves are admonished by Paul to be extra-devoted slaves etc. So, the new fundamentalists may not go the whole nine yards back to slavery, but they are starting the process of justifying segregation again, and putting racial purity in their Christian Nation mythology.

I have mentioned a couple of times previously that on the other side of that coin is the tacit implication that secularism is dependent on a complete break in the normal historical pattern of nations and empires rising and falling. The new interpretation is that progress in knowledge, technology and the quality of life, is linear and ever-increasing......or at least will be that way barring unexpected disaster - like nuclear war or an asteroid hitting the Earth. Some of the critics of technology I've read, such as Michael Hussemann and Sander Van Der Leeuw, point out that new knowledge is too often used for technological applications before any assessment can be made of whether the shorter term benefits outweigh the long term risks. The Internet depends on a lot of other systems working properly, as well as stable, functioning societies to continue on in operation. I'm not putting high odds on the Internet being operational anywhere in the next century, based on where world events are taking us right now. A few years ago, Gallup conducted an international survey that was titled with this headline grabber: What Alabamians and Iranians Have In Common. Social scientists have noted that one thing that makes Americans distinctive is our high level of religiosity relative to other rich-world populations. Among 27 countries commonly seen as part of the developed world, the median proportion of those who say religion is important in their daily lives is just 38%. From this perspective, the fact that two-thirds of Americans respond this way makes us look extremely devout. What's more, as Gallup's Frank Newport recently pointed out, there is wide regional variation in religiosity across the 50 American states. The proportion of those who say religion is important in their daily lives is highest in Mississippi, at 85% -- a figure that is slightly higher than the worldwide median (among all countries, rich and poor). Two others, Alabama (82%) and South Carolina (80%) are on par with the worldwide median. Lining up these percentages with those on our worldwide list allows us to match residents of the most religious states to the global populations with which they are similar in terms of religiosity. The results produce some interesting comparisons -- Alabamians, for example, are about as likely as Iranians to say religion is an important part or their lives. Georgians in the United States are about as religious as Georgians in the Caucasus region. The results seemed surprising in comparisons of mean average annual incomes, because the U.S. is the outlier -- the only wealthy Western nation with the same levels of religious belief and religious adherence as Third World nations. But that's because a superficial analysis of average income smoothes out income disparities and lack of available alternative institutions to churches and mosques to provide for social gathering and support. A closer look at inequality reveals that America is an outlier among Western nations and even exceeds a lot of Third World levels of income and wealth inequality. The poor in the U.S. have substandard public schools....which have already turned into charter religious-indoctrination centers in states like Texas and elsewhere; government services are minimal. I would offer as an anecdote that even upper middle class people like one of my American cousins, end up having to go to a church to belong to a community when their children are young and social support is most necessary. About 20 years ago, when my cousin and his wife moved to a suburb of Atlanta....which was so far out it would probably be labelled an Ex-urb....they found that their brand new home was in a brand new instant suburban community that was nothing more than a place for commuters to rest after a long day of work. There were no stores, no schools nearby...not even sidewalks! Nobody walked anywhere...you had to jump in your car and drive your kids to everything outside of school and pick them up from afterschool activities. The only service aside from water and power, was sending a school bus out to pick up kids for a more than one hour drive to and from school each day. My cousin and his wife were not very religious, but still were members of the 7th Day Adventist Church in Michigan. The move to the outskirts of Atlanta left them with no church close enough, so they took the plunge and joined one of those non-denominational mega-churches -- where they found daycare, clubs, programs for children....even a dividing up of the adult members into "cells" or small little communities of members who would actually have a chance to get to know others and become friends. This was an opportunity that was virtually impossible otherwise, as neighbours in this knew subdivision were also commuters who worked long hours and had places to go afterwork. When people were at home, they were inside unless they were out cutting the grass or in the backyard pool. The only ones who might get to know each other were the children - if they found others of similar age. But most parents were reluctant to let their kids walk further than a few houses down because of that fact that kids had to walk out in the street, around parked cars, just to go somewhere close by on their own. So, is it any surprise that so many people....even professionals with good incomes....would have to turn to the churches to cope with life in such a sterile, artificial, otherwise unliveable community? And, for all of the downsides of these new, tithe-demanding churches that sprung up in the suburbs across North America, you have to hand it to them that their growth was the result of being the first, and in most cases the only ones, who identified a clear need and moved in to find a way to fill that need. I've noticed that the most recent stories of declining religiosity in the U.S. also track with my cousin's personal experience, as since their children have grown, they left the megachurch...which doesn't seem to perform as vital role for older people who've become empty nesters. I'm not sure if they go anywhere now for their religion fix. My cousin is retiring soon and they are planning to move back to Michigan afterwards, so they are not likely to make church a priority right now.

Life is short and time is too precious to devote to such trivial matters....but, not too trivial for greedy, avaricious entertainment conglomerates and copyright holders! So, I would suspect that you would hear from NBC long before you hear from Robert Smigel himself....although his politics, based on Triumph's appearances on the Conan Obrien Show would indicate that he is on the radical left or liberal side of aisle, and not likely to be a friend to the belligerent use of military force for economic gain. I should add that the reason why conservatives, libertarians and assorted rightwingers have to go to the left side of the aisle for comedy and musical inspiration is because the few musicians and comedians who are on the right - totally suck at what they do! And they can only find work at crappy right wing events like the annual Conservative Political Action Conference. With all the money their billionaire backers have, the entertainment provided is only useful as bad highlight reel material to laugh at in youtube videos.

Any word yet on why Anwar Al Awlaki's 16 year old son was targeted with a drone assassination? Has this UN investigation been mentioned yet here? UN inquiry into US drone strikes prompts cautious optimism I hope there's a reason to be optimistic, but the UN is a toothless tiger. This Global War On Terror has been a scam right from the outset -- a smokescreen cover for resource wars, and drone warfare is a tactic that feeds its own fire for building more and more of these robot destructo toys, since the use of them creates more hostility and motivation for revenge attacks such as terrorist bombings. They have their own built-in excuse to be used! Drone strikes kill, maim and traumatize too many civilians, U.S. study says

Shouldn't you have Triumph The Insult Dog's permission to use him as your mascot for imperial ventures abroad?

From an Oxfam report on the costs of inequality, if growing income and wealth inequality wasn't bad enough on a national level, it's even worse if we examine what the global one percenters: "the incomes of the top 1% of the world’s population have increased 60% in the past twenty years." An analysis at CounterPunch of the report, adds related information on how the growing wealth gap degrades democratic government and increases energy consumption and environmental degradation: Last year alone, the world’s 100 richest people earned a combined additional income of $241 billion. According to new calculations, redistributing just a quarter of this vast quantity of money would enable governments to wipe out extreme poverty for an entire year. Unfortunately for the 40,000 people who die needlessly every day from poverty-related causes, these billionaires are as unlikely to share their earnings voluntarily as governments are to enact policies that redistribute their excessive incomes more fairly across society. Also highlighted in the Oxfam briefing is the way extreme wealth can damage democracy, especially through the enormous influence over the political process that money and power can buy. Many billions of dollars are spent each year by the financial industry and large corporations in lobbying politicians to pursue a market friendly agenda – the same neoliberal policies that have widened inequalities and eventually led to a global financial collapse in 2008. Policies that exaggerate inequality have also been a key driver of environmental degradation, as people in rich nations consume far more than their fair share of the earth’s finite resources. As Oxfam also previously highlighted in a discussion paper on planetary boundaries, it will be impossible to address ecological and social crises unless we share available resources more equitably and sustainably. The aim of development and environmental policy must be to ensure that people in all nations can secure their basic needs without transgressing environmental limits.

Well, you just knew that Texas would lead the way back to the stone age, with their ramped up emphasis on "Christian" education. Some of the highlights from the Texas Freedom Network reporton religious teaching coming in to public and charter schools in Texas: Instructional material in two school districts teach that racial diversity today can be traced back to Noah’s sons, a long-discredited claim that has been a foundational component of some forms of racism. Religious bias is common, with most courses taught from a Protestant — often a conservative Protestant — perspective. One course, for example, assumes Christians will at some point be “raptured.” Materials include a Venn diagram showing the pros and cons of theories that posit the rapture before the returning Jesus’ 1,000-year reign and those that place it afterward. In many courses, the perspectives of Roman Catholics, Orthodox Christians and Jews are often left out. Anti-Jewish bias — intentional or not — is not uncommon. Some courses even portray Judaism as a flawed and incomplete religion that has been replaced by Christianity. Many courses suggest or openly claim that the Bible is literally true. “The Bible is the written word of God,” students are told in one PowerPoint presentation. Some courses go so far as to suggest that the Bible can be used to verify events in history. One district, for example, teaches students that the Bible’s historical claims are largely beyond question by listing biblical events side by side with historical developments from around the globe. Course materials in numerous classes are designed to evangelize rather than provide an objective study of the Bible’s influence. A book in one district makes its purpose clear in the preface: “May this study be of value to you. May you fully come to believe that ‘Jesus is the Christ, the son of God.’ And may you have ‘life in His name.’” A number of courses teach students that the Bible proves Earth is just 6,000 years old. Students are taught that the United States is a Christian nation founded on the Christian biblical principles taught in their classrooms. Academic rigor is so poor that many courses rely mostly on memorization of Bible verses and factoids from Bible stories rather than teaching students how to analyze what they are studying. One district relies heavily on Bible cartoons from Hanna-Barbera for its high school class. Students in another district spend two days watching what lesson plans describe a “the historic documentary Ancient Aliens,” which presents “a new interpretation of angelic beings described as extraterrestrials.” If we take a closer look at that first point about using the Old Testament version of racial origins, this chart from one of the education guides is on page 22 of the abridged report: http://www.tfn.org/s....pdf?docID=3422 ================================================================ I'm old enough to recall when I was young that Southern political and religious advocates of racial segregation used to pull that one about blacks being descendents from Noah's cursed son - Ham, as the reason why race-mixing couldn't be allowed. Are today's Texans smart enough to leave that one in the past? Or is what's old, new again?

I didn't want to get into yet another religion debate thread before, but I couldn't help thinking when I read the Salon article linked in the OP that internet is less likely to survive long into the future than religion is! Reason being that the interwebs depend on a complex system of routers, servers and fiber optic networks, which all have high electrical demands...not to mention all the PC's accessing the system. I haven't seen many social commentators aside from James Howard Kunstler ask what happens to internet and high tech when electrical systems start breaking down and cutting power....like they're doing right now in so many third world nations that have spotty electrical service already. Whereas religion doesn't depend on technology, but instead finds its source in the need for meaning and structure in a volatile, changing world. So, will the internet kill religion? Or will the internet die out with so much of our present high tech toys that depend on scarce rare earth elements to produce, and a reliable source of power to operate them?

No, but if you could point me in the direction to making money writing so I could quit my day job, I'd be happy! My wife has often asked me over the years if any of the books I was reading, and then the stuff I was reading online after getting a computer, could help me make money. I was hoping you would elaborate on these sorts of points. The only thing I know of the Club of Rome is the Limits to Growth report and the updated Limits to Growth from a few years back which confirmed most of the dangerous trends in population growth and environment depletion identified back in 1972. If it has some connection to bilderbergers and UN conspiracy theories, all I know of them is that "Bilderberger" just rolls off the tongues of wingnuts like Alex Jones and similar conspiracy buffs. If this was the source of world domination, I'd like to know why they didn't do anything to stop the looming environmental crisis, and why they can't do anything to change world events if they are running the world right now? The global conspiracy theory I believe in is the one that makes its power plainly evident for all to see: the major international banks and corporations that have set up the only international bodies that have power over national governments -- IMF, World Bank and WTO. If the UN was trying, and was capable of taking over the world from the existing powers, I would probably be on their side! I can't see how they could do any worse than the corporate fascism that increases its wealth and power every year. I'll need an interpretation for this one too! But, I'll add that the real economic situation demonstrates that the banking system is a giant blood-sucking leech that extracts the wealth from the real economy by creating new debt and then using that debt to leverage control over real assets. ??????????????????????????? I'll take a stab at this and see if it has something to do with your concerns. In brief, everything I've read over the last few years about ecology, economics and resource depletion, tells me that we are using an economic system that will completely collapse at some time in the near future. We live in a finite world, with finite resources. During previous times in human history, it was possible to pick up and move to a new location to exploit the local resource base...which may have entailed killing or enslaving the locals....but today, there are no frontiers for exploration and growth....except in space....and reality is telling us that the Moon, Mars and beyond, are just too far away to be of any use to us. So, we are stuck with the resources available on this planet, and we are still adding more people and increasing our individual consumption of energy, renewable and non-renewable resources, because our banking system and our economic system demand increased growth. Tell me how this system makes any sense, and how it can sustain itself in a finite world? The only option is base economies on resources available for use and divide up resources equitably. I've mentioned a couple of times already that I see the underlying story behind the increase in wars, genocides, forced migrations, increased military spending and military actions, as being sourced in an increasingly aggressive competition for the resources that are left......and I don't see a good outcome coming from more wars for resources. So, you're in favour of the Guaranteed Minimum Income? How else do we decide who needs what? There are many people who fall through the cracks of the present system, because personal problems that may have their source in mental illness or difficult to diagnose ailments like Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, make them unemployable and unable to hold onto their jobs, and unable to qualify for disability pensions. Seems like there's a lot of right wing religious people here who are giving their charitable programs short shrift! What secular thinkers fear about faith-based programs supported by government, is that the providers will base their programs on some sort of religious litmus test. This may not be true in most cases, but public money shouldn't be given to charities who only want to help their own adherents and require partakers to sit through religious indoctrination before giving them a meal. Also seems like you are too overly focused on someone getting aid who may not be in dire need. From what I have seen, even those who are first in line at the food banks and at the Salvation Army truck, are already living a marginal existence. The Sally Ann truck is supposed to focus primarily on the homeless, and I have often seen a lot in line who are on welfare or psychiatric disability, but do have homes....if you can call them homes. They know who the regulars are and try to limit the ones who are in line too often, just like the food banks usually limit collections to once per month from each residence - depending on family size. Personally, I would rather focus my guns upward, at the billionaires who are robbing us blind! Yes, I've heard that socialist societies are less efficient than capitalist ones; but let's not forget that the few examples of socialism in practice have been primarily state socialism where control was centered among a small ruling class living miles away. When socialism is practiced at the local level, where people have a say in the work they do, and know who's contributing and who's collecting, a socialist system can work just fine. Let's not forget that Cuba survived after the collapse of the Soviet Union primarily by reforms to their communist system that reduced central control. That was more of a factor in ensuring that Cubans had food and other necessities after the money and oil were cut off by the Soviets than the U.S. and Canadian dollars provided to a few hotel resorts. In the end, what I do know is that your system isn't working anymore. It won't find a way to grow its way out of the present malaise, and the only thing our economy has over the U.S. and the rest of the developed world is that we have oil....or what can be loosely called oil after a long, dirty job of processing. So, Canada is making money by turning Northern Alberta into a giant cesspool, and ramping up the levels of atmospheric carbon. I'd rather take the alternative! Oh, I'm not moving just yet. That small parcel of land is part of long range plans....at least I hope it's something five to 10 years in the future. I'll keep working till my youngest son is finally supporting himself, and I can collect my company pension and Canada Pension...for however long that lasts! When it comes to the kind of collapse that I see collectively in our future, it's difficult to say exactly where a safe place to live would be! I recall a little while back - listening to an interview with Dmitri Orlov, who sees currency collapse as precipitating a breakdown or unwinding of the present social order, as events that entail a lof of uncertainty. From his own experience during his earlier years living in the collapsing Soviet Union, he says the place you don't want to be when society breaks down is in large cities. Most of the old people who starved or died of exposure, were living in the big cities, same with the younger people killed in random acts of violence. He says it was lucky that some semblance of order could be re-established after a few months, but in a worldwide collapse, there won't be anyone coming in to the rescue with bailout funds to create a new economy.

Newspaper editors used to have a formula for measuring potential reader concern over a tragedy that was based on a ratio of numbers of people killed divided by how far away the location of the disaster was. I think that the fact that these drone attacks on wrong targets happen half way around the world to people that Americans don't consider fully human, has a lot to do with their lack of concern. And, another factor is that MSM only covers the limited range of ideas between Democrat and Republican....which aside from social issues, march in virtual lockstep when it comes to corporatism and the use of military force to advance policy objectives, is another reason why there is no mass public outrage. Americans who want to be informed about what their leaders are doing to others on their behalf, have to at least be curious enough to find international news sources or the fringe radical media within their own country. When its Dem in the White House, MSNBC isn't going to spend time talking about innocent people killed in drone attacks....there's just not enough time to talk about how well President Obama and wife Michelle dance together at the Inaugural Ball. And FoxNews.....seriously? Are they going to complain about the wanton, indiscriminate use of military force on Muslims? Not likely! They will focus their attention looking for evidence that Obama didn't bomb enough Muslim targets! I came across your link to the Drone Watch site awhile back, and I would recommend it to others who want to learn a little more about this new form of warfare and the dangers it represents internationally and locally. You see....there are already small remote drone aircraft being used for surveillance in cities all across North America now...even my home town police force is trying them out and wants the City of Hamilton to foot the bill for buying these toys so they can spy on local residents. And, I'm a little foggy on the timeline regarding how all of this drone warfare got started. I recall reading Popular Science or Mechanics articles on drone aircraft tested back in the 80's, which we were told would be the future of warfare, and pilots would become a thing of the past. It wasn't until some time after 9/11 that drones were being armed with missiles to fire at ground targets in Afghanistan. And if I recall correctly, the military rules of engagement at the time had to be changed to make this accommodation....if I'm correct, prior to 9/11, even U.S. military rules didn't allow for drones to be armed. And the rest is history...so to speak! Now, under the Obama Administration, drone aircraft are shooting at targets all across the Middle East and Pakistan and Afghanistan. So, what's to stop the drones being used for domestic surveillance from being likewise armed with missiles....using the excuse that it's the only safe way to take out a major drug lord or domestic terrorist? What goes around, comes around; and I see a future where we'll be reading about drones blowing up or shooting at targets right in our own cities in the not-too-distant future! And, with the cost of this technology getting lower as production increases, how long will it be before we read about foreign terrorist-operated drones attacking targets over here? This looks like the way of the future in warfare....where the evils of warfare become increasingly common and easy to accomplish by increasing the distance between the attacker and the subject of the attack....not to mention the fact that the "pilot" doesn't even face any risks to his personal safety, which would at least provide a caution to the overzealous military planner who would be more reluctant to put his own pilots at risk.

Worth noting that, not very long ago, Republican politicians used to always add the caveat: EXCEPT!...in cases of rape or when the mother's life is in danger...when they were promoting their goal of banning abortion. Now, they are so anxious to out-crazy each other in the primaries, that they even want to ban birth control.

What did Brazman do to get placed in the Senate by the Tories? Senators get paid even if they only show up once a year to keep the cheques coming. It's the ultimate payoff for those who have sold their souls for personal gain.

I think I have mentioned a couple of times previously that there is part of the development of the major religions of the world which has tried to be universal, and expand their people's circle of concerns to include everyone....and not just themselves, their families, their tribes, their nations, their home teams etc.! The best presentation I've found of the historical development of religions toward universalism is a book Robert Wright wrote a couple of years ago: The Evolution of God. Critics went after Wright for trying to gloss over such a huge subject - the entire development of every major world religion, and his application of game theory to analyze how religious beliefs and doctrines changed during times of conflict vs. times of openness to trade and travel. But my takeaway is that regardless of whether or not each individual religion is heading in the right direction, they have the potential to do motivate people in the right direction....rather than use religious beliefs to entrench economic and national power. So, let the fundamentalist christians and the fundamentalist atheists argue among themselves about the correctness of their dogmas and how essential they are, the real truth is that religious beliefs can be applied for personal benefit and the general welfare of everyone, or they can be used as a tool to cause personal suffering and motivate evil on a mass scale; while secular humanism is still struggling to find any real core universal values, and will not find them by denigrating religion and religious beliefs, but instead from learning from what religions do well and trying to put humanism into something that is actually practiced...rather than talked about and endlessly lectured about at humanist gatherings and meetups.

That was a good article, and hopefully one that can balance out some of the damage done by the corporate spawn at SunMedia, National Post, Globe & Mail etc.. He's right that Canadians are almost ignorant about our nation's history....which in my day, didn't even mention the agreements our forefathers made to keep the peace while they flooded the new land with more and more immigrants from Europe. Once the loyalists felt they had the upper hand, then it was time to aggressively marginalize natives onto small, fragmented reserves that were mostly of no real economic value at the time, and forcibly remove their children to be indoctrinated in church-run boarding schools to learn the "white man's ways." And just like the blacks in the U.S. are told to just 'get over' slavery and the informal slavery of the Jim Crow Era, the Aboriginals of Canada are told that they are 'living off the Government!' This happens even though they have never received a fraction of what was promised when compared with what is spent annually by the AANDC (much of which is pilfered within the dept.). I forgot to set up the following story. This piece written for the online Calgary Beacon, gets to the heart of what I believe is at the core of the refusal to follow the advice of the previous Royal Commission report and increasingly hostile treatment of natives in the media, which I see as part of the setup for more aggressive Federal Government action on behalf of increased resource exploitation: First Nations Have Power To Stop Canadian Resource Development/Beacon News, Calgary “If we want to access our resources in these more remote areas of Canada, we have to work out an arrangement with [First Nations] leaders,” said Bill Gallagher, author of Resource Rulers: Fortune & Folly on Canada’s Road to Resources. “Their empowerment by the Constitution, backed up by 175 legal wins, is such that they are in a position to deny access to resources on an efficient and effective basis.” Many Canadians think of First Nations as wards of the state, like welfare recipients. They think of the $7.8 billion Canada will spend on Aboriginal Affairs during this fiscal year as a form of social assistance, not as payment due under treaty, like a contract. They think of First Nations as another interest group, like labour or a religious minority. That is not how Canada’s 614 First Nations see themselves. First Nations consider themselves sovereign peoples who entered into nation to nation treaties with the British Crown. Over the past 40 years or so they have been slowly asserting their sovereign right to control what they call “traditional territory,” which usually includes natural resources of some sort. Now, according to Gallagher, they are in a position of considerable power. First Nations really are Canada’s “resource rulers.” Victory after victory in Canadian courts have firmly established the principle that nothing happens on their land without their assent and their participation. Gallagher is an Ontario lawyer who has spent decades working with First Nations on treaty issues, resource development and government relations. He says First Nations want to work with Canadian governments and resource companies to foster investment and jobs. They want to be partners in the new prosperity. But if they feel they aren’t being taken seriously and their concerns aren’t being addressed, First Nations have the ability to seize the public agenda, for better or for worse, he says. Take the Northern Gateway pipeline. First Nations have been the real driving force behind B.C. opposition to the project, which would carry 525,000 barrels of oil sands crude from Alberta to Kitimat on the West Coast on its way to coveted Asian markets. If the National Energy Board grants approval in 2014, some First Nations have said they’ll challenge Enbridge in court. If you accept Gallagher’s argument, they’ll likely win. Gallagher says First Nations have already blocked three British Columbia mines in recent years. “I think Canadians will realize these people are players. We have to be sure we channel this positive empowerment in a way that we can mutually benefit,” he said during an interview. “Instead, what we’re seeing is the negative empowerment that we’re all familiar with and we can only take so much interest in because it hurts to follow it.” Gallagher thinks Canada may miss a golden opportunity if Prime Minister Harper doesn’t embark on a “positive empowerment” strategy that turns First Nations into partners and builds a solid working relationship. The consequences of continuing with the current negative empowerment could be severe. Do Albertans want First Nations blocking oil sands investment? Do British Columbians want First Nations saying No to liquified natural gas exports to Asia? Do Ontario residents want First Nations denying access to northern mining operations? Chief Nepinak was being modest when he said Idle No More has the power to stop resource development and shut down the Canadian economy. That power rests with he and his fellow chiefs. For the sake of all Canadians, aboriginal and non-aboriginal alike, let’s hope they use it for positive empowerment. And let’s hope Stephen Harper understands how vulnerable Canada is if they choose not to. On that last point - I have to disagree with the author; because Canada's 'vulnerability' is mostly in a legal sense....which haven't been respected so far, so why should we expect that treaties and agreements will be applied now...in a time of increasingly desperate and aggressive resource exploitation! So far, the Idle No More protests represent a non-violent reminder to Canadians that most of Canada's resource development and transportation, run through native lands and depend on native compliance for a smooth running economy. I suspect that the increasing quantity of anti-native propaganda being disseminated right from mainstream private media sources has been a signal from the business community that they want their Government to be more aggressive in its actions dealing with natives, and they want the racist, anti-native segment of Canada to increase and become even more aggressive and supporting of what will eventually lead to state-sponsored violence against natives and native communities. Harper and his minions (including the ones who proliferate on this forum) will get their gold, but it is going to come at a higher economic cost and the complete loss of any esteem Canada has internationally, as troops move in to one reserve after another.

And that money....even if your scheme was solid, would eventually end up being worthless paper because ultimately, the entire banking and currency system that dominates the world economy is a giant ponzi scheme that just keeps chugging along until it completely collapses. Again, we have to scrutinize the system of allowing banks to create money rather than governments -- called fractional reserve banking, which produces over 95% of the new money that enters the economy, and can only be paid back by continued economic expansion. Now, that the world is getting very close to the absolute limits of what the natural economy will allow us to use, mother nature is about to put an end to the real borrowing that hasn't been costed out by measuring GDP growth: overshooting available topsoil, freshwater, depletion of NNR's and declines in arable land due to climate change, are nature's way of telling us that we should have kicked the bankers to the curb centuries ago and found a path to steady state or no-growth economics. And doesn't the fact that oil-rich countries are the only ones increasing wealth, while the major oil importers (like U.S. and the E.U.) are increasing in debt, tell you something about what really causes economic upturns and downturns? If you want to look further, 10 of the 11 major U.S. recessions since the beginning of the Oil Age in the 1860's can be correlated to shortages and spikes in oil prices. http://dss.ucsd.edu/~jhamilto/oil_history.pdf And the recessions caused by high oil prices are especially damaging since 1973 - when the U.S. went from being a net exporter of oil to a net importer. America's empire building and increasingly belligerent use of military to leverage foreign policy objectives over the last 40 years (through Democrat and Republican administrations) cannot be understood without placing the cheap and abundant oil imports as the no.1 policy goal. If we had just let the oil run out and do the hard work of reorganizing our economies along a sustainable non-capitalist system of currency and government, maybe the damage wouldn't be irreparable. But, here we are today, here is Canada....shifting from being one of the advocates for taking action in addressing environmental crises - to becoming one of the deadenders: nations that choose to extract the last and the dirtiest sources of carbon from the earth to keep the oil-dependent ponzi scheme running a few years longer! I've mentioned previously in other threads, that even for Canada, oil is a curse, rather than a blessing - when net costs are compared to net benefits...but that doesn't stop the oil-based federal government and their minions who benefit and expect to benefit from breaking down more tar sands for something resembling oil, to export far and wide. In 20 or 30 years time, maybe after this latest desperate oil boom is starting to run dry, the damage done will be seen by all as the biggest mistake Canadians ever made as a nation.....but, by that time it will be too late to do anything about the damage to the entire world environment. That's something that future generations struggling for survival will have to live with!

Since we got another bullshit indian-bashing thread here, it's time to ask what the fuck are you whiners entitled to? As I mentioned in another indian-bashing thread, anyone who with a brief knowledge of Canadian history, is aware that we signed treaties of different kinds with natives who were living here, because we either didn't have the force or didn't want to take the land by force. So, if treaties don't apply, can I just move into your house and tell you to move out, or give me stuff that I find of value? That's what your asking with your stupid carping about wanting to get tar sands, pipelines and other resource developments built, just because you think you can profit in some way from ramped up exploitation of dirty energy sources. So, what is the value of the mining, logging and oil industries that have set up their operations on territories that previous Canadian and British governments signed with native tribes who were living on these lands? What are treaty rights? First Nations signed treaties with various British and Canadian governments before and after Confederation in 1867. No two treaties are identical, but they usually provide for certain rights, including reserve lands, annuities (a small sum of money paid each year), and hunting and fishing rights. Several treaties also have certain allowances for Chiefs and Councillors such as salary instead of annual payments, as well as a clothing allowance of a suit of clothing every three years. Treaty rights are collective rights that provide for payments to individual Treaty Indians. The payments depend on the precise terms and conditions of the treaty signed by her or his First Nation. What are claims? The federal government recognizes two broad classes of claims: comprehensive and specific claims. Comprehensive claims are based on the recognition that there are continuing Aboriginal rights to lands and natural resources. These kinds of claims arise in those parts of Canada where Aboriginal title has not been dealt with by treaty or other legal means. The claims are called “comprehensive” because of their wide scope. They include such things as land title, fishing and trapping rights, and financial compensation. Specific claims arise when there is an outstanding historical grievance between a First Nation and the Crown that relates to an unfulfilled obligation of a treaty or another agreement, or a breach of statutory responsibilities by the Crown. Canada is committed to honouring its lawful obligations to First Nations. Canada’s Specific Claims Policy was established to allow First Nations to have their claims appropriately addressed through negotiations by the government without having to go to court. Claims are accepted when it is determined that Canada has breached its lawful obligation to a First Nation. http://www.aadnc-aandc.gc.ca/eng/1100100016202/1100100016204 Well, that information on the website of the Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development is over 10 years old, so who knows what the Government recognizes today! Especially with Harper Government plotting a course to revive the Trudeau plan from 1969 to erase all these treaties and obligations and turn native reserve communities into nothing more than municipalities, with no more authority over resources and the use of resources than municipal governments. Up north, in Attawapiskat, the DeBeers diamond-mining operation extracted almost half a billion dollars worth of diamonds in 2010; and from their profits from sales, they gave 8 aboriginal communities (including Attawapiskat) a little more than five million dollars! http://www.miningwatch.ca/article/diamonds-and-development-attawapiskat-and-victor-diamond-mine And yet, thanks to corporate media and ignorance of Canadian history, this board is full of rednecks who think the Indians should just roll over and accept whatever is offered to them! I'm really getting sick of this place! Maybe this time I'll quit for good!