WIP

I mentioned some of these points previously, but it's worth adding an expert rebuttal of Andrew Coyne's propaganda that started this thread: Sorry, Andrew Coyne, but income inequality is a real problem But Miles Corak, an economist and international authority on the links between income inequality and social mobility, effectively rebutted both Mr. Coyne’s conclusion and the TD study. Mr. Corak’s blogs (at milescorak.com) show income inequality has not stopped increasing in Canada, and offer better ways to measure it. He also points out that Canada is not immune to the many ways in which inequality threatens opportunity. But this skips over a more important question: Why hasn’t Canada seen a reduction in income inequality? In the decade before the global crisis, our economy was firing on all cylinders and employment rates reached record highs. From the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s, 15 of 32 OECD countries reduced income inequality. Not us. Instead of harnessing our extraordinary track record of job creation and economic growth, Canada tumbled further down the inequality rankings than any other country, slumping from above-average equality to below-average. If such a buoyant market didn’t help close the gap, what will?.................. A year ago, economist Stephen Gordon offered some insights on how to assess income inequality in Canada, noting it has grown constantly over the last 30 years, but in different ways. From the 1970s to the ’90s, inequality grew because more people lost ground at the bottom of the income distribution in the wake of two big recessions. After the mid-’90s, on the other hand, the gap grew because the rich did so much better than everyone else, seeing the lion’s share of income gains from economic growth. So much for trickle-down economics. The IMF has warned that higher inequality is correlated to shorter spells of growth, and more market volatility. The Conference Board of Canada cautions that Canada’s levels of inequality mean squandered potential. Just this week, TD Bank CEO Ed Clarke acknowledged inequality in Canada has been growing for the last 30 years, raising a challenge for society that demands discussion. Whether you want less poverty or a more robust economy, greater innovation or improved productivity, better life chances or a healthier democracy, the way forward in Canada involves reducing income inequality. But markets alone don’t reduce income inequality, not even when the economy is chugging away at full speed. So what can we do? First, don’t dismiss the issue. Start a conversation about how we can reduce income inequality. The ideas will flow from across the political spectrum, because this isn’t a partisan issue. It’s a problem for everyone. Income inequality has its share of deniers. But the evidence that is accumulating around the world makes clear: Burying the issue under a false sense of progress won’t protect us from the massively disruptive consequences of a growing gap. Stay awake. Start talking. There you have it! Even the IMF recognizes that you can't address poverty issues or economic decline without dealing with the problem of inequality. Too bad that their actions don't follow their rhetoric! Since the bankers and corporate raiders they unleash to cannibalize struggling, indebted nations and their actions in forcing the indebted governments to sign on to austerity programs guarantee economic decline for all, especially the lower income groups.....thus increasing inequality even further.

I've mentioned some of the mitigating factors in previous posts. Are you calling for steps to be taken to address some of the issues like home foreclosures, poverty, and declining affordability of health care....especially when it's related to mental health issues?

It's been quite a few years since I actually fired a gun. In Canada for the most part, unless you live out in the country, you're better off without one, because guns are less common and harder to come by, so having a hunting rifle in the city, makes you more likely to have a break-in if word gets out to anyone that you've got guns. Burglars will make them a higher priority than jewelry or even drugs. I wouldn't advocate banning the private ownership of firearms entirely, but, unless you're a hunter, there is no useful purpose, and a lot more extra risk involved for a city-dweller to own them, and have them around the house. It's different for someone living out in the country - especially in remote areas. And that's where the greatest divide on gun ownership has always existed - between urban and rural dwellers. When urban dwellers feel that they need to start packing handguns, it's a statement about how too many guns are already out there. Let's keep in mind that the study which was posted a few days ago, did not use any statistical method to weigh the severity of the mass murders, whether it was 2 or 20 people killed in them, although it did mention that many of the non-firearm killings involved more than one assailant. Methods cited were fire, knives and blunt objects. Just from simple observation of the capabilities provided by the technology - it is much easier for a lone maniac to kill a lot of people with a firearm than with a knife or a baseball bat....or trying to set a room full of people on fire. Most of the fires are likely similar to cases I recall where a vengeful divorced ex-husband breaks in and kills his ex-wife and children. But the problem here with trying to focus on non-firearm-related murders is how do you ban knives and baseball bats, and gasoline...the usual accelerant found at the scene of arson? Those more recent numbers indicate that there is a rising trend in gun crimes....faster than population increase. That's why they project firearms overtaking accidents within three years if the trend continues. Considering the state of the economy...especially for lower classes, and the increasing availability of firearms, the odds are the trend will continue or increase. Australia is a good comparison with the U.S. in fact. It's history is similar, on a smaller scale, with a smaller population. A national mystique created around individualism and wide open spaces. And Australia also had a powerful gun lobby as well. And just like the U.S., as the nation became more urban and less rural, there was clash with trying to bring the 'wide open spaces' attitudes into crowded cities. That's why I believe the focus should be first on what instruments of destruction they would have at their disposal. A crazy person yelling at imaginary people at a bus stop may not be scary, but the same crazy person holding a loaded gun is! I read somewhere online yesterday or the day before, that there had been 100 gun-related homicides in the U.S. since the school massacre! Aside from wishes, hopes and prayers, the only concrete steps to reduce gun crimes in the new year are going to be to tighten up restrictions and make them less prevalent. Anyway, have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! I hope everything goes well for you and your family in the new year.

Exactly! And is there any more clear evidence that Obama's main priority is to serve the same aristocrats as the Republicans, all we have to look at is the phony drama drummed up in American news again of a "Fiscal Cliff." All in all, the best course of action would be to just ignore this so called "cliff" and let the tax rates rise to pre-Bush levels, and automatic spending cuts kick in. Any really necessary adjustments to tax increases could be targeted to income groups that need it the most....personally, I would say Bite The Bullet, and start paying for things that are essential - like badly degraded infrastructure, and providing some relief to impoverished cities like Cleveland, Camden New Jersey and I'm sure there are many others, where the poor have been have been falling further behind....now that's a phrase I've never heard Obama mention, come to think of it! The "poor!" I've heard him talk about the middle class endlessly since he arrived on the national scene, and lately he noticed that there was growing animosity towards the rich....but the poor....have they ever shown up as a topic in any of his speeches? Anyway; let the tax rates go up, and let the automatic cuts kick in. After all, is there any other method that will actually reduce America's bloated and ever increasing military budgets? Even a 20% cut...if they couldn't find a weasel way to get around it, would give the U.S. the opportunity to pack their bags and get out of wars they're never going to win anyway. It was a similar budget move that provided the opportunity to get out of Vietnam way back when. Cutting off the money, seems to be the only way to get troops out of places where they are not needed or wanted. Same goes for Germany and Japan -- what useful purpose do those bases serve any more? But, what gets me about the Obama Fiscal Cliff strategy, both before and after the Election, is that he frames it has a search for a compromise with Republicans. And what is the compromise he is looking for? Letting the tax rates on income over $400,000 per year now, rise to pre-Bush levels, and offering up cuts to Medicare and Social Security on his part. Think about that for a moment, because I don't see too many analysts on TV asking how pensioners getting their old age pension benefits cut, or sick people who will see a cut to their health insurance after they retire, somehow benefit by having the rich pay slightly more in taxes! So, if you look at what Obama does, both domestic and foreign, rather than what he says; there's no way to get around the fact that he is offering a conventional Republican agenda! What the Republicans used to offer......before they went insane!

Read the rest of the post please! I was trying to come to an understanding with you.

I'm not completely up to speed with what the teachers are doing with rotating strikes et al., since my youngest has finished high school, and I might have agreed at one time, but that was prior to what the U.S. has done to their public schooling systems. We can see the same things that are tried to bust unions in the U.S., find their away across the border within 10 years. A simple rule of contract is that you don't get to break or rewrite agreements that have been signed and are still in effect. And I don't care which government does it; back when fake NDP leader Bob Rae abrogated all of the public service union contracts with provincial and municipal workers in Ontario, the NDP payed a huge price for it, and lost all but the traditional NDP strongholds as a result. I am starting to call bullshit every time I see the word - competitive today! If employers want or expect any loyalty from their employees, the workers have to have some confidence that the company will not continually keep demanding cuts in pay....because someone in the South, or Mexico, or China, will do it cheaper! If the company shows no loyalty to the workers, why should the workers have any loyalty to the company? When I was young, I couldn't get into the auto plants or the steel mills, which were considered lifetime jobs back in the 70's, if you wanted to stay in the same place, while raising a family. At that time, there were hiring freezes because of recession; but after the recessions, the jobs never came back like they did before, so most of us had to look for the next job, wherever we happened to be at the time. Actually working in the same place for more than 20 years today is something of a miracle....or luck. Same thing happened to trades, as many companies found ways to bring in welders and machinists from Eastern Europe, who had the training and on-the-job experience, and were willing to do it for a lot less. But, eventually....certainly by the next generation, the people will expect the same money for the same job as everyone else. Unless someone starts pushing back against the forces of globalization, the race to the bottom will continue! The only thing slowing them down right now is rising energy costs affecting transportation costs.

After hiding for a week, the NRA comes out with their big solution: arm all the teachers! I think that's the mentality expressed behind any story lauding some woman who shoots a gunman dead at church or in a school. Great if it works! But why should a grade one teacher have to carry a gun to school and be able and willing to shoot a potential assailant dead? Is that the kind of society America has become? Maybe it's time to pack up and head into the woods, because you might as well live in Beirut, if you got to go around at all times ready to shoot! It should be pointed out now that the NRA has spoken, that this is the corporate lobby that has the greatest scam of all going: they receive most of their money from memberships of gun owners, but in Washington, their lobbyists carry out the interests of gun and munition manufacturers. Even the Chamber of Commerce or the Koch Brothers' propaganda organs can't get the people they bleed for money to pay to run the organization. The NRA are a bunch of freakin geniuses!

Look lady, I'm not trying to take your gun away from you! Maybe someone else is, but I'm not! I appreciate that you aren't just trolling (like a couple of others here), but feel a personal stake in issues you care about; but it's possible to be too emotionally attached to an issue, and not be able to accept or evaluate contrary evidence. Punked already asked whether a gun-related mass homicide every three weeks is acceptable any more than one every two weeks, and you haven't answered that question yet. And here's something else to add to the fire, that I heard on the radio last night - gun related homicide deaths in the U.S. are increasing, while accident-related deaths are on the decline. So, if present trends continue, gun deaths will be the no.1 cause of non-health related deaths by 2015: Gun deaths in U.S. on pace to overtake traffic fatalities I tried to make the case before that the pernicious forces that have combined to divide people today and take less of an interest in the wellbeing of others, combined with new technologies that promote isolation, the rising stresses many are feeling in dealing with job losses/ or having to work longer and longer hours to make ends meet, declines in wages, rising debt levels, threat of future job loss and eviction, worries about sickness in the face of cuts to health benefits etc., are all forces that are going to increase the likelihood of random acts of violence. But those issues and changes in culture are difficult to address, especially if many are the product of neglect and underfunding for a number of decades. What worked before in a more stable, orderly society, may not work anymore! Australia had a similar story to tell as the U.S., until a pivotal mass murder 10 years ago, caused a national shift in attitudes about how much freedom to 'bear arms' could be tolerated: Case studies for Sandy Hook? Australia, Scotland and Finland changed gun laws after mass shootings

It's going off on a tangent, but you just reminded me of a theory of human motivations called Terror Management Theory, that had been ignored by academics for a time apparently, but has started to be taken more seriously in recent years as other attempts to explain the behaviour of suicide bombers and random mass murderers have not been able to offer sensible explanations. Proposed by German anthropologist - Ernst Becker in the early 70's, and developed by a trio of psychologists in the 80's; the theory proposes an all-encompassing explanation for much of human behaviour and culture as unconscious attempts to cheat death. So, people have lots of children to leave heirs to achieve a certain immortality; adopt restrictive and unpleasant religions for the promise of immortality; build monuments at their grave sites to try to leave a lasting mark; and on these issues of suicidal violence and the taking of lives of others - deliberately cause their own deaths out of exacting some sort of revenge on others in society. It is particularly ironic that those who react with hostility and/or violence to any perceived threat, are not braver than those who refrain from acting out violently, or advocating that others act with violence on their behalf.....I only wish conservatives would look into that aspect of TMT a little more closely, and question their own "shoot first, ask questions later" mentality, instead of running around acting like their the brave ones in society.....but, that's likely asking too much! Anyway, I don't want to change the thread to a debate about TMT, just offer it up as something to look into to develop an understanding of these sorts of issue.

What is this: American Woman, on 19 December 2012 - 05:01 PM, said: This is false. There isn't one mass murder by guns every two weeks in America. It wasn't my statement to begin with, but when you claimed that the statement was false, and you were provided with clear evidence that even with separating out non-firearms mass murders, the rate would still be about one out of every three weeks, you have no point to make, other than hair-splitting! Okay, what is it then? Delusional thinking? I don't see a great deal of difference between one out of two and one out of three. We're not mixing chemicals here, just showing how often major gun crimes are occurring with today's lax gun laws and virtually unregulated gun shows. And that is truly a WTF moment!

I have to admit, I wasn't aware of the scale and scope of the banking/financial fraud until information started slowly trickling out after the 2008 meltdown. And I discovered that Fractional Reserve Banking - which means that banks only have a fraction of the reserves necessary to cover all of their loans, also means that the banks create most of the money in circulation in the first place! A mortgage or loan isn't taken from the bank's, nor anyone else's assets. It's literally created out of thin air as soon as the loan is approved through a debit entry to their own books. And as long as loans...or new money, doesn't exceed reserve requirements, the economy should grow fast enough to absorb the increase in the money supply without creating inflation.....as long as economic expansion is possible. Our present banking system cannot adapt to no-growth or steady state economy, which is going to be an essential very soon, as the environment may already be heading into a spiral of positive feedbacks, and we are hitting hard limits in a number of essential natural resources for manufacturing. It should have already been obvious that having an economy that depends on constantly making more and more crap and consuming exponential increases in energy is not sustainable on a finite planet. But, to deal with changing to a sustainable economy, we have to recognize that the global banking establishment is every bit as much a threat to the environment and wellbeing of most people as the energy companies are. Right now, I've just started in to a new book: Web Of Debt, by Ellen Hodgson Brown, which gives an historical perspective on how we ended up becoming serfs to banking and finance. It's a topic I have overlooked for too long, because many people of my father's generation (The Depression) recalled the time when there were strong populist movements that took on the power of the banks; now I have to play catch up for not paying attention to the subject decades ago.

And what do you do for a living Bonam? Obviously, your job is so important that even the greediest, most ruthless executive has to pay you top dollar! You think people working in the Walmarts or McDonalds's now wouldn't want a union if they could get one certified without running the risk of losing a job that they can't afford to lose? Who do you speak for? Besides yourself and a few puffed up prima donnas who think they are the masters of the universe. Like I said previously, a corporation is a dictatorship! And workers who don't have a union, have no means to balance the power of their employer to control their lives. With the collapse and dwindling of unions and the labour movement, the repercussions have been felt by unionized and non-unionized workers together. Union members have less space to bargain in an era where their jobs can easily be outsourced to anywhere that will do them cheaper (with the help of enabling governments that facilitate outsourcing), and the non-union workers have suffered as well, because prior to the erosion of unions, employers had to keep their wages more competitive to maintain quality employees. Now that there are so many desperate unemployed and underemployed in many areas, they can...and do pay whatever they feel like....which is often about 25c above minimum wage. Did you tell these 20 somethings, fresh out of university that the "careers" at the company you claim they are all dreamy-eyed about, are being outsourced? So they might have to learn Spanish and get used to the pay scale of Mexican workers: Boeing invites suppliers to conference on outsourcing to Mexico Boeing is actively encouraging its suppliers to outsource work to Mexico. Patrick McKenna, director of Supply Chain Strategy and Supplier Management at Boeing Commercial Airplanes, has urged suppliers to attend a Nov. 15 workshop in Chicago to learn how to do business in Mexico. "Several of our suppliers have successfully set up factories in Mexico because of the numerous advantages that Mexico offers to aerospace suppliers," McKenna wrote in a letter dated Oct. 17. "Boeing will be sending several people to this event, and we wanted to inform our supply base of this opportunity." The event's organizers will waive the $200 registration fees for Boeing suppliers, he said. Boeing's invitation comes near the end of a presidential-election campaign in which the outsourcing of U.S. jobs is a hot issue. Until I started hearing stories about labour unrest at Boeing, the only thing I knew about them was they made airplanes and were based in Seattle. Now we find that their greed to maximize profits has come at the cost of quality control -- you have more control over product quality, if you are making it in house, rather than expecting a supplier to adhere to your reliability standards, and doing random testing on parts received. That may work well enough for the car companies...they'll just cover the flaws until the warranty runs out, and drop the supplier if they cost them too much with recalls; but an airline manufacturer! This is supposed to top of the line! Any mistake is one too many! Now, along with underpaid, less qualified pilots crashing planes, we'll have to worry about wings falling off in the middle of flight! Learning from Boeing’s outsourcing disaster Boeing’s goal, it seems, was to convert its storied aircraft factory near Seattle to a mere assembly plant, bolting together modules designed and produced elsewhere as though from kits. The drawbacks of this approach emerged early. Some of the pieces manufactured by far-flung suppliers didn’t fit together. Some subcontractors couldn’t meet their output quotas… Rather than follow its old model of providing parts subcontractors with detailed blueprints created at home, Boeing gave suppliers less detailed specifications and required them to create their own blueprints. Some then farmed out their engineering to their own subcontractors. At least one major supplier didn’t even have an engineering department when it won its contract. Not only was all this forseeable, it was foreseen — not only by the unions, but also by executives. And, of course, the aforementioned Hart-Smith: Among the least profitable jobs in aircraft manufacturing, he pointed out, is final assembly — the job Boeing proposed to retain. But its subcontractors would benefit from free technical assistance from Boeing if they ran into problems, and would hang on to the highly profitable business of producing spare parts over the decades-long life of the aircraft. Their work would be almost risk-free, Hart-Smith observed, because if they ran into really insuperable problems they would simply be bought out by Boeing. What do you know? In 2009, Boeing spent about $1 billion in cash and credit to take over the underperforming fuselage manufacturing plant of Vought Aircraft Industries, which had contributed to the years of delays. The lesson here is that Boeing executives, just like most of the rest of corporate and political America, were incredibly bad at pricing moral hazard and tail risk. Outsourcing is a bit like taking collateral from your repo operation and investing it in subprime credit. Most of the time, you make a small amount of money — and then, occasionally and unpredictably, you lose an absolute fortune. Boeing was picking up pennies in front of a steamroller, and ended up getting crushed. I do wonder what proportion of corporate “efficiencies” are false ones along these lines. Did Mark Hurd improve HP’s margins by cutting back on R&D expenditure? Or did he sign the company’s long-term death warrant? And of course when Win Neuger’s reach for yield in the AIG securities-lending operation was truly disastrous. Hiltzik concludes: The company now recognizes that “we need to know how to do every major system on the airplane better than our suppliers do.” One would have thought that the management of the world’s leading aircraft manufacturer would know that going in, before handing over millions of dollars of work to companies that couldn’t turn out a Tab A that fit reliably into Slot A. On-the-job training for senior executives, it seems, can be very expensive. The sad thing is that this lesson has to be learned the hard way so many times. Can’t anybody else learn from Boeing’s mistakes? These two articles cover a lot of the issues that have poisoned the workplace at Boeing, but it needs to be added that Boeing's decision to start the move from an inhouse operation to one like the major car manufacturers, that contract out most of the parts to independent suppliers, has obviously destroyed whatever loyalty most of the workers had with the company! And that's something that will make all the airline passengers feel more safe and secure! Forgot to mention, lots of union members (like me and my local) lost a lot of money sitting out on a picket line - just like GM workers, to try to stop companies from busting up collective agreements, so they could put all the new hires at lower pay rates. We were fighting to try to protect their future earnings and the ability to earn a decent living at the same jobs, as previous generations of workers did. It wasn't for our benefit, and the company at first tried to sweeten the pot by offering us special bonuses and concessions to shaft the new people. A nine month strike was only partially successful, because we improved the terms for the new hires, but couldn't bring them in under the existing collective agreement. And we did it with the full realization that we wouldn't get back the money we lost while being out on strike! So much for your bullshit about the senior employees only being concerned with their pensions and benefits!

I'll admit that math was never my strong suit at school; so you tell me: does two thirds of mass murders by firearms every two weeks equal a firearms mass murder every three weeks or not? Otherwise what are you trying to argue your way out of?

From the Worth Repeating Dept. Here's Glenn Greewald's take on Too Big To Jail banks and two-tier justice at the Guardian: The US is the world's largest prison state, imprisoning more of its citizens than any nation on earth, both in absolute numbers and proportionally. It imprisons people for longer periods of time, more mercilessly, and for more trivial transgressions than any nation in the west. This sprawling penal state has been constructed over decades, by both political parties, and it punishes the poor and racial minorities at overwhelmingly disproportionate rates. But not everyone is subjected to that system of penal harshness. It all changes radically when the nation's most powerful actors are caught breaking the law. With few exceptions, they are gifted not merely with leniency, but full-scale immunity from criminal punishment. Thus have the most egregious crimes of the last decade been fully shielded from prosecution when committed by those with the greatest political and economic power: the construction of a worldwide torture regime, spying on Americans' communications without the warrants required by criminal law by government agencies and the telecom industry, an aggressive war launched on false pretenses, and massive, systemic financial fraud in the banking and credit industry that triggered the 2008 financial crisis. So much for equal justice for all! Now you get the justice you can buy and afford.

I never said we are Alabama....at least not yet! I was a member of the P.C.'s back when Harris ran for his two terms and I still know a couple of people that are still actively involved and complained that Hudak used a base of Evangelical supporters to win the nomination. Aside from that, there have always been questions about his creepy connection with Tristan Emmanuel. But just like Harper, he reads polling data, and he knows full well that this isn't the place where you wear God on your sleeves and wipe it everyone's faces.....like Texas!

Maybe it's just my imagination, but this thread seems to have devolved into a collective circle jerk by the gun lobby! If we're going to discuss mass shootings and school shootings in particular, there seems to be two diverging opinions from left and right as to the underlying contributing factors besides easy access to guns. First, from the right: Religious Right Reacts to Sandy Hook Shooting by Blaming Lack of Government-Dictated School Prayer Submitted by Brian Tashman on Monday, 12/17/2012 12:00 pm Bryan Fischer, Mike Huckabee and James Dobson’s claims that the school shooting in Connecticut represents God’s judgment on the U.S. are no anomalies. Indeed, many other Religious Right commentators have also claimed that the Sandy Hook shooting is part of divine punishment. David Brody of the Christian Broadcasting Network defended Fischer and Huckabee’s statements that the prohibition on state-mandated school prayer was responsible for the shootings:........ and that's as far as we need to go. Anyone who needs more can follow the link to Rightwing Watch. Personally, I favour the hypothesis advanced by sociologist/OpEd News blogger - Dennis Loo, which is also a call to the left to start pushing back against the radical right/ libertarian agenda. A few excerpts from a lengthy blog post: Extreme Individualism, Shredding the Social Fabric, and the Sandy Hook Massacre Nancy Lanza appears to have embodied at least some of the attributes so highly touted by those who have the greatest fear of crime and who seek the comfort of very white, very rich communities, away from the big cities with all of their frightening heterogeneity, in big houses, on big lots, with lots of guns. The very things that she thought would protect her were her and her son's undoing. Her stockpiling of weapons of protection and her enthusiastic training of her son Adam to use those weapons were not used against threatening strangers but instead turned on her and they made Adam's psychotic break so very deadly, not just to her but to twenty-six others, including twenty children, in a school just two miles away, filled with the very people that Nancy Lanza regarded as her own. This is what makes Columbine and the Aurora Massacre resonate so much with the Sandy Hook Massacre. Why is a parent who knows that her son is profoundly impaired socially, lacking in the most rudimentary skills of social interaction and empathy, who as a child had to be monitored constantly because he might do something harmful, teaching him how to use semi-automatic weapns?............................. As I wrote in the Preface to my book, Globalization and the Demolition of Society: "Using market forces and individualism as the organizers for economic and political affairs is a recipe for ever-expanding inequities and the shredding of the social fabric, leading inevitably to myriad disasters on the individual, regional, and global level. It will not do to attempt to mildly modify this [neoliberal/free market fundamentalist] invasion, gesturing and gesticulating at the margins. The response to this assault that is occurring on every conceivable level requires an equally comprehensive retort, an alternative vision for our society." ............................................ There are far too many people with life stories like Holmes (referring to the Aurora Massacre) to realistically envision even stricter gun laws pertaining to them. Such signs of social disconnectedness might trigger the need for counseling at the very best (which would have, even if implemented, questionable usefulness). Preventive measures could only work reasonably in a society that was startlingly different than the one that we now have. That is to say, it would have to be a society in which the collective interest and welfare were paramount over the current principle that individual freedom -- particularly to exploit others and to ignore others if it's not in one's own personal material (i.e., selfish) interest -- are touted as the be all and end all of existence. Second, the proximity of this mass killing spree to the Columbine massacre, within twenty miles, is not coincidental. Colorado (along with places like Arizona) are the destination and residence of choice for many who are part of white flight from urban areas. Columbine itself concentrates whites seeking "refuge" from minorities and urban areas, thinking that they were or are finding safe haven, when in fact the level of alienation, anti-intellectualism, and a Wild West vigilantism is palpable. One commenter "JQ" on The New York Times' online edition describes the situation in Colorado as "There is a subculture in America that seems closer to the surface, seems to involve more of the population, in some places than in others. No place is immune, of course, but having lived for a long time in New England and now in Colorado, I have a vague sense of unease here, especially when I venture forth outside my enclave of highly educated affluence. Third, and most importantly, these incidents of people "going postal" are intimately and directly related to the example being set by those in authority and by the forces of enmity, solitariness, and scapegoating that are at full volume over the last several decades in the U.S. and the world. This is in certain respects a distinctly U.S. problem in that these kinds of mass killing sprees are concentrated here, with ready access to and the celebration of the military and paramilitary gear that Holmes sported. But it is not exclusively American because it is larger than that. While the NRA is a major culprit in this they are not the exclusive perpetrator. In China, for example, there has been a spate of incidents involving middle-aged men who are so profoundly disaffected and abused that they have expressed their alienation by killing sprees of young Chinese children.[1] The most important parallel here is not between the depiction of violence and battles between good and evil present in contemporary mass entertainment such as the film "Dark Knight Rising." There is a connection in a broad and diffuse sense and of course, Mr. Holmes did not choose his get-up and target venue coincidentally. But one can readily imagine a mass murderer choosing Disneyland instead. Playgrounds and day-care centers are where the incidents in China have been. The connection between filmic and video game presentations of violence are connected to these murderous rampages only in the sense that entertainment and individual and group behaviors are both reactions to and reflective of larger social, economic, political, and ideological forces............................................ Aggressive war. Unjust and immoral occupation in which U.S. soldiers are routinely instructed by their superiors to "shoot first and ask questions later." Free fire zones. Torture of innocents. Indefinite detention. Drone attacks. Breaking down Afghan civilians' homes' doors in the dead of the night and then one by one, gunning down the families inside - men, women, and children - then covering their bodies with blankets and setting them afire. These are not the actions of lone, mad, pathological individuals; this is U.S. policy. This is how empires behave and think. Here is U.S. style liberation. Here is yet another fine example of the exceptional character of the U.S. military and U.S. government. Obama, after the Aurora Massacre, issued a statement saying, "Such violence, such evil is senseless; it's beyond reason." Mitt Romney called it "a few moments of evil." It's not senseless. It's not a "few moments" of evil.................................... When countries' leaders tell everyone in their nation that "our" nation's lives are more precious than the lives of non-citizens, justifying killing others in the name of protecting (e.g., American) lives, then what's the difference morally when an individual such as James Holmes decides that his life is more important than the lives of others in a theatre? How is our leaders' ultranationalism different in kind from Holmes' narcissism? When individuals lose their connection to others, those isolated individuals are liable to lash out at others to establish their own lost presence, to affirm their "importance," and to prove their existence by anti-social, belligerent, and even violent means. When nations are led by those who falsely claim that the nation is separate, apart, and superior, with no necessary inter-connection between nations, that this great nation may rape and plunder because that proves its Darwinian fitness, and when these authorities further ignorantly assert that those even within their nation-states are not all of a common fabric, where all rise and fall together, but instead winners and losers, with the winners entitled to treat the losers as objects to be exploited and discarded, and that this callousness even proves the virtue of this greatest of all nations, this freedom to be free of the inextricably intertwined, then the levees are breached and the floodwaters will follow.

So, as long as it's an average of mass murder by firearms every three weeks, you're still going to run around claiming to be right on the issue. The connection between easy access to assault weapons and mass murder should be obvious to anyone with eyes to see.

It seems simple enough! If this was South Africa, there would only be a small cadre of imperialists trying to justify Apartheid and ethnic cleansing. If the Serbs weren't allowed to ethnically cleanse one of their provinces of Albanians that had moved in mostly after WWII during the Soviet Era, why should Israel have the right to plant their flag anywhere they like? But, now I'm going to regret stepping back into another one of these threads where there's no shortage of Israel Lobby talking points and minions to distribute them freely!

Exactly! I'll be the first to admit that I've been hardly paying any attention to this Liberal leadership race, but from what little I've read or watched, Justin has nothing in common with his father besides a surname! PET was a lousy politician in many respects, having to delegate the bulk of the mundane duties of governing to high ranking cabinet ministers. Fortunately for Trudeau Sr., while the Liberals were the naturally governing party at the federal level, they had no shortage of qualified cabinet ministers who could run the government by themselves, while the PM dealt with more high-minded issues. Trudeau Jr. would have to do the work of running a government himself. And, as you have noted, while Sr. was a natural leftist who quit the NDP and joined the Liberal Party for the practical purpose of becoming Prime Minister, and freely adopted every NDP policy idea offered in public; Jr. is a child of privilege, steeped in all of the Neoliberal/Neocon B.S. of the Conservatives. He will track to the right (just like Obama down south) as will every other one of those leadership hopefuls....except for one...but I forget what his name is, and he likely doesn't have a great deal of chance winning the nomination anyway!

I think this and all of the anti-UN conspiracy theories that pop up are more likely diversions to take public attention away from the real international agencies that have actual power and increasing control over people's lives. I'm speaking specifically of the WTO, IMF and World Bank, which are not UN umbrella organizations. So while all the right wing conspiracy nuts get their guns ready to shoot at UN soldiers invading their towns, they freely support the giving away of their economic and political sovereignty to a cabal of international bankers, who are doing it right out in the open...not secretly, without even having to fire a shot!

He is likely extrapolating from a pre-existing conclusion that fits in nicely with his theories, since even with the increased understanding of brain function provided by neuroscience with modern neural imaging machines, the brain is still a virtual black box of complex chemical reactions of billions of neurons - each with 1000 to 10,000 dendritic connections with neighbouring neurons. Suffice it to say that every anti-psychotic and anti-depressive drug ever invented has been created first for unrelated physical treatments, with the psychological benefits being discovered as secondary effects. So, it still is a hit and miss process treating people with mental illnesses or mental disorders. It would have to be a much more exact science to substantiate claims of murder. Problem is that for every kid like this one who goes into a fit of rage(and just happens to have a survivalist mother with lots of deadly guns handy), there are thousands who cannot function normally without some sort of drug intervention. But, it also needs to be noted that Big Pharma is gaining more and more unrestrained power over medicine through their funding of universities and their medical research. If we haven't reached the point where we can't trust FDA or Health Canada reports on new pharmaceuticals yet, we will be there very soon! A number of years back....well after the wide release of Prozac as the depression cure-all became widely prescribed by doctors, the evidence started filtering in that many women were reacting with fits of rage while taking Prozac. It was serious enough to justify a Prozac defense in a few criminal cases. And who can forget all the people who died from the painreliever - Vioxx, which was put on the market after the manufacturer stuffed some negative test reports. And as far as I know, Viagra is still being sold to guys my age, who can't get it up anymore -- even though it is widely recognized that literally thousands of men have died because lack of ability to get or maintain an erection is usually a symptom of more serious issues like high blood pressure....but then again, most guys would rather take the risk anyway, so maybe that's why it's still on the market!

Yes, having beer and wine in every corner store is worth the cost of having a Premier who is a Harper clone, bent on busting unions in Ontario, as well as being a thinly veiled religious nutcase....who do you think did the groundwork for his surprise victory during the leadership campaign?

Which just proves that you never admit to being wrong!

Unions weren't offering "unlimited wealth" prior to globalization either! The difference has been that in the new regimen of the last 30 years, when workers walk out, the threat of closure and job loss is much greater than it was before. Nowadays our governments facilitate the outsourcing of the jobs by allowing the product to be shipped back here from China or South Asia without being hit with tariffs and import duties that would have made a company have second thoughts before closing down factories before. What are the benefits of globalization? I mean specifically, the benefits for everyone who is not a banker or the owner of a corporation? There were a lot of promises made when free trade agreements were proposed and signed at first; and from what I have seen - those promises have not been kept! We were told that, while there may be job losses in some low skilled, intensive labour industries, they would be more than compensated for by adapting to a more specialized economy that utilized people and resources more effectively. And, sending low skilled manufacturing to third world countries would raise their living standards. The reality is that we have lost the jobs, while the poor nations that have taken them on have not improved their living standards by going from subsistence farming to being forced off their land and providing cheap labour for the new sweatshops. And globalization's tendency to concentrate and specialize nations with certain industries has increased the quantity and distance of shipping, and made individual economies less self-sufficient and more dependent on trade. Besides the increased complexity and brittleness of interconnected economies in the era of globalization has also had a negative impact on the environment, because of the increase in carbon costs from transportation.