Moonbox
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This should be good. Cite?
Learn some history. The invasion of Afghanistan by the USSR was the birth of Osama Bin Laden as a 'freedom fighter'.
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Shady man...sometimes you don't really help the argument out at all. The US has a long history of arming militants and people they'd now consider terrorists.
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you're making a point of constant warfare and turmoil and lack of national identity which is bs...empire's provide long periods of enforced peace even though it comes with forced subjugation, Pax Romana, pax Britannica, or pax anything ottoman, mongol whatever...the ottoman supplied 400 years of calm far more the the europeans ever experienced in the last 500 years...
Long term imperialism completely rewrites the landscape. Ever heard of the Dark Ages? When the Western Roman Empire collapsed, it wasn't as if Britain all of the sudden united and said, "Sweet! Now we're all Britons and we'll run our own show." Instead, the area fell apart into bands of feuding warlords and so-called kings that didn't get resolved for hundreds of years.
and being part of an empire does not erase nationalistic identity, the armenians, kurds, arabs, Bedouins, Palestinians, Berbers, Egyptians never lost their identity and revolted at the first opportunity, 400 yrs of continuous turkish occupation never erased their nationalism...several hundred years of a similar occupation by Britain never erased the nationalism of their colonized states...
I'm not sure you understand what nationalism means, otherwise you wouldn't have brought up the Bedouins or the Berbers. Even so, you're still not getting it. Let's take India, for example. Prior to British rule, there wasn't an "India". There was a subcontinent of different kingdoms, principalities and empires, and no notion of "Indian" nationalism. The British took over the subcontinent they called India and ran the show for 150 years, after which they relinquished control. The transition was a mess, something like 12 million people died, Pakistan and "India' were separated, and India to this day remains a mess of different ethnic groups that don't get along and barely functions as a state. Minorities are brutally suppressed and armed gangs of thugs (semi-official militia) keep dissenters in line. The partition of India is no different than the partition of the Middle East. It was handled extremely poorly and the poorly drawn borders have only been maintained by force and, hate to say it, cultural genocide.
I have from a good medieval historian who lives with me that military numbers were vastly exaggerated by chroniclers of the day to justify their defeats or exaggerate the victories...the enemy was always a vast multitude and the home side victor had but a few...
and historians today adjust for that in today's literature and generally have accounts from both sides. If you read any of this stuff you'll find there's always a high and a low estimate. I'm not sure what this proves, however, because this would be true for both Europe and the Middle East, so this doesn't change the fact that European conflict was generally on a much smaller scale. By the way, where do you find these people? You live with a medieval historian, your brother in law is a military tech genius or whatever...next time we argue your wife is going to be a Fortune 500 economist or something!
na you claimed germans all spoke the same language and were the same nationality, they didn't...the german languages didn't homogenize they went extinct...
I really didn't, but nice try. You mentioned 19th century Germany and I brought up Prussia and Wallacia (Wallacia was totally wrong but w/e). If I wasn't responding about 19th century Germany I wouldn't have brought up Prussia. Doh!
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and being part of an empire does not erase nationalistic identity, the armenians, kurds, arabs, Bedouins, Palestinians, Berbers, Egyptians never lost their identity and revolted at the first opportunity, 400 yrs of continuous turkish occupation never erased their nationalism...several hundred years of a similar occupation by Britain never erased the nationalism of their colonized states...
I'm not sure you understand what nationalism means...
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the holy roman empire was the net result of a major conquest by one man, charlemange...he subjgated other germans, the french, hungarians, italians, czechs, catalans, basque, brittains, croats, poles he oblitered entire nations conquering most of western europe...but the empire fell apart on his death and the wars resumed...
Charlemagne was 1200 years ago. His cultural impact on most of Europe would have been akin to Napoleon's or Hitler's (ie flashes in the pan). You have to go back to the Romans to find the sort of century-spanning subjugations that happened over and over again in the Middle East.
the holy roman empire was not an empire but in name only...literally hundreds of warring kingdoms, princedom, city states, etc at constant war none of whom shared any nationalistic feelings toward each other...
The nobility bickered over territory and succession. Very little changed.
, the germans of the HRE didn't speak the one language, todays' german has only become the dominant language fairly recently in historical terms,
I was responding to your claims of Germany still being fractious in the mid-19th century. Language was a dog's breakfast all over Europe through the middle ages. You could go to the next town over (in France, Spain or wherever) and not understand what anyone was saying, such was the impact of the fall of the Roman Empire and the Dark Ages. It took hundreds of years for language to finally homogenize.
and most of the ME was under the influence of islam so what...
Because the nobility, for a long time, listened to what the Pope said and Europe was largely held peaceful for that time. The wars of the European Middle Ages were petty compared to the wars of Antiquity and what was going on around the rest of the world. Sure, there was lots of fighting, but it was the result of a bored and useless feudal class that didn't know how to do anything BUT fight. The elite in Europe mostly couldn't read and spent their childhoods training for war. One of the reasons the First Crusade happened was because Pope Urban wanted to find an outlet for the bickering nobility. They just wanted to fight. They didn't care who they fought against really and the idea of fighting in the name of their religion had great appeal. So they went, levelled cities in the name of Christianity and slaughtered everything they encountered along the way.
the hundred years was a petty?
Absolutely. In terms of scale and lasting repercussions it was as petty as it gets. You had a bunch of French and English nobility squabbling over who was in control of what, and large periods of inactivity and siege were broken up by tiny battles like Poitiers, Crecy, Agincourt and Formigny, which, although romanticized and made famous, were puny affairs in terms of numbers. The English army at Agincourt was less than 10000 strong and that was one of the bigger battles of that conflict. Compare that to battles in Antiquity, or battles that were happening in the Middle East and the rest of the world, where numbers would peak over 100,000 easily...
the Napoleonic wars were a petty? ww1 and 2 were petty
No. Interestingly, however, these were the first industrial-scale conflicts the world had ever seen and were stoked by the flames of nationalism. Is it a coincidence that the belligerents were all the same? Germany/Austria (or Prussia/Austria), Russia, Britain, France? Hmmm...
the mongol invasion was very short term and petty...
If you think that then you really don't know anything about it. The Mongol invasion devastating and its occupation, under different names and rulers, lasted for hundreds of years. Look up the Chagatai Khanate or the Timurids. In any case, those conflicts were absolutely catastrophic for the mid-east. Timur's campaigns in Persia etc wiped out 5% of the WORLD's population. The Mongol invasions were worse, and the Mid-East campaigns were some of the bloodiest. Genghis Khan brought 200,000 warriors to Khwarazmia in a campaign of vengeance. The Mongol invasions wouldn't be matched in death toll until World War II, which required 1940's urban populations and industrialized weapons of indiscriminate slaughter. You don't know what you're talking about.
wow hundreds of years, that's so much more impressive than the turks 900 yrs of nationalism, iranians/persian 2500 yrs of nationalism or the eygptians 5000yrs of nationalism...
You have a case with the Turks, but the Persians and the Egyptians? Nope. They've spent the vast majority of the last 1500 years under the yoke of one despot or the other and haven't been self-determining for about 1000 years.
I'm not sure what your problem is with what I'm saying. The Middle-East experienced large scale invasions and imperialism throughout its ENTIRE history. It was conquered, subjugated and held for hundreds of years, collapsed and was re-conquered over and over and over again. This didn't happen in Europe. The two regions have VERY different histories.
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Silly. Our system of law is not based on abitrary things you, or anyone else, finds irritating. Prove it causes harm and is worth going to court over or just suck it up and deal with it like the rest of us.
That wasn't meant to be rude btw.
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and you know this how? because you're a climatologist??? na I didn't think so
This is just an observation, and I'm not sure if it applies to you, but I find it funny how a lot of people who make this argument will say "Shut up and agree with the the climate scientists because they're experts." but then will vehemently support economic policy from a no-nothing like Thomas Mulcair and ignore everything the consensus from economists.
Neither 'science' is terribly exact and neither can account for the variables. Why isn't skepticism acceptable?
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Right, and our intervention causes most of the big shocks that have effected prices.
We dont make oil cheaper with our policy over there we make it a lot more expensive. Wait till we bomb Iran and youll see what I mean.
Well that's more a matter of a BS securities market and the tendency for commodities exchanges to go haywire at the merest sign of trouble. Libya accounted for like 2% of the world's oil supply. The rebellion last year caused more than a 2% hike in price.
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a student of history you're not,you're knowledge is superficial coloured by a strong ethno- centric bias... europe stabilized since the 11th-12th centuries
germany was still a patchwork of nations in the mid 19th centuryIt was all under the Holy Roman Empire (mostly Germanic) and was that way for 900 years. Prussia, Bohemia, Austira, Wallacia (sp?) etc were all germanic, spoke German, and shared the same sovereign. You'll note my post stated:
By the 11th-12th century most of Europe had stablized under ethnic and cultural boundaries we still see today
What's more is that most of Europe was all under heavy influence of the Pope for much of that time, although there were plenty of problems related to that as well.
europe has been at war nearly continuously for thousands of years, only since WW2 has there been a relative period of peace in europe(other than the relatively minor bosnian conflict)...your bias is one of euro-superiority that is not supported in historic fact...
As I already mentioned, Europe's wars were petty compared to what was seen in the Middle East. Care to offer any recent (ie last 1000 years) European comparisons to the Seljuk conquests, the Crusades, the Mongol invasion, the Timurids or the Ottomans? Entire civilizations were obliterated and cities razed to ashes. Populations were subjugated for hundreds of years. Ways of life were wiped out. This happened over and over and over again in the Mid-East.
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pls delete- double post
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First of all I think your point is very valid, and energy needs to be part of the discussion.
But I also thinks its wrong, and its actually a part of our broken mindset. We assume that all this intervention is necessary to keep the oil flowing, but the truth is the countries over there, even the ones we hate are more than happy to sell us oil because thats how THEY maintain THEIR standard of life.
It's not that simple though. A shock to the oil supply can have a HUGE impact on the entire world's economy. The world's economic powers aren't comfortable with uncertaintity in the oil supply. Desert Storm was a direct reaction to Saddam's invasion of Kuwait. The US's message (even to its former ally) was DON'T ROCK THE BOAT. Not only was the interruption of the oil supply not okay, but one of the major players swallowing up its neighbours was even scarier. The world doesn't want one player holding too much influence over prices and supply either.
correct, all of today's major international issues stem from western imperialism/colonialism, generally sticking our greedy noses in other people's business and f***ing things up for centuries...and now the we express disbelief and outrage at behaviour that we're ultimately responsible for...
Except imperialism is all the Middle East has known for the last 3000 years.
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well there's an ethnocentric bias...western europe has been unstable for an equal length of time...
your views are very biased towards your own culture look at it from another perspective and you'll see we're no different...
I'm not sure how much of a student of history you are but they're incredibly different.
Nationalism has, more or less, existed in Europe for hundreds of years. An Englishman has been an Englishman, a Frenchman a Frenchman, a Spaniard a Spaniard and a German a German for centuries. Borders have been re-written more based on marriage than anything, and wars fought more over which member of the family was entitled to what than anything else.
By the 11th-12th century most of Europe had stablized under ethnic and cultural boundaries we still see today.
The 'wars' fought over that period in Europe were relatively minor squabbles between members of a feudal class who were trained to do nothing but fight and were just plain bored. Famous battles like Agincourt were merely squabbles compared to the giant civilization destroying Seljuk, Cruader or Mongol invasions of the Mid-East. Those wars wiped the slate clean and often COMPLETELY changed everything. Nationalism in the Mid-East is maybe 100 years old now, and poorly defined at that.
long periods of peace? well that makes it a much more stable region than europe...
See above.
your views are very biased towards your own culture look at it from another perspective and you'll see we're no different...
Mine are based on a passing knowledge and intense interest in the last 2000 years of history. I'm not sure what yours is based on.
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There's too much oil in the Middle East to leave it alone. If they had no oil we would ignore them and they could fight each other for their sand. The sad reality is that our lifestyles depend on oil being as cheap as possible. The whole region is insanely unstable on its own without our interference and there's about 4000 years of history confirming that. That history is highlighted by long periods of peace under whatever brand of imperialism is in vogue (Persian, Greek, Roman, Kwharzm, Ummayid, Mamluks, Ottomans, British etc) with a mess of war and strife in between. The region doesn't have the same sort of identity that Western or East Asian countries do and the different tribes and religious sects are at each other's throats as much as anyone's. American flag burning and a dislike of poorly-acted movies are about the only thing these groups have in common.
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You fail to realize that most of us want nothing to do with the Canada you desire, and much prefer the other version. Sorry.
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Just like Canada has no nuclear weapons program, but if we wanted to, we could build a nuke in under a year.
If we REALLY wanted to, we could probably throw a primitive one together in a matter of weeks.
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That's right, our BT's definitely play above their game, they command enormous respect in much of the world, too much for anyone's good, they use high tech weapons and even the most moronic one's are re-elected.
Of course they'd probably have an official deferral before ever strapping themselves to a bomb.
*yawn*
Can't really say much in response to that. You're clearly either not interested in a discussion, or you're so out to lunch that you're not worth the effort. You don't have to like the current government, but comparing them to a jihadist? That's such a weak and unreasonable argument I just feel sorry for you. It's pathetic really.
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No it's not. We in the west elect people who believe some of the craziest religious shit imaginable and they also support and promote violence, especially in the region in question.
How many Islamic embassies have been stormed over the last few years? How many Canadian or American mosques have had suicide bombers? When was the last time one of these elected officials caught launching RPG's at Islamic dignitaries? Yeah. I thought so.
Our frothing Bible-Thumpers have nowhere near the conviction, nor the support, to be considered in anyway NEAR the same league as the type of person who straps a shrapnel bomb to himself and murders 50 people. If some red neck in Calgary did something like that, he'd be reviled as a villain of the worst kind. His family would be shamed and the media would flay him. In parts of the middle east, that same moron would be revered as a martyr.
If you can't see the difference then you need to get your head checked because that's scary.
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That is a benefit of a high dollar. You can purchase the equipment with Canadian dollars and ship it to Mexico, China, Or Central America etc. However even if the equipment is solid, more productive and remains in Canada, it productivity has to offset the decline in demand of a good caused by the high the dollar. It makes sense if a company plans long term, however, many companies plan for the short term. Just an observation. There are exceptions.
You're right, but there's a fairly large productivity gap between Canada and even just the USA, which has only been accelerating. Since the 80's at least, we've used our currency advantage as an artificial crutch, and now that this has disappeared, we need to improve productivity. I can't think of many reasons why the USA has such a large productivity advantage over us, especially considering how tightly integrated our economies are and our vast natural resources.
Before I comment, exactly what are you talking about? could you clarify.
Upon looking it up, I think the information may be dated. It goes back to when Flaherty and McGuinty were bickering about the Ontario economy during the recession. One of Flaherty's criticisms was how high Ontario's taxes were on new business investment. The government phased out the capital tax in 2010 it appears, however, so it doesn't look like I had that quite straight. Regardless, the main point still stands. I'm not sure what part of the NDP's platform, specifically corporate tax increases, would be considered investing in productivity. Equally puzzling is how making EI more available and more generous would help.
He could have..... It doesn't mean he is correct. I don't believe he debunked anything, but if he did, its would go against the governments own reports on the effects of the dollar on manufacturing and the % of effect attributed to the dollars rise and Dutch Disease.
As you know, I'm not arguing that oil money hasn't hurt Ontario manufacturing. I'm arguing that it's not the catastrophe that people like Mulcair are proposing it is. We shouldn't be competing artificially based only on the weakness of the dollar. We should be competing based on productivity and all this money pouring into the economy should allow us to make this transition. The federal and provincial governments need to make sure the extra tax revenue goes towards things that can actually make us more competitive. There also needs to be stronger incentives to keep corporations from hoarding their cash. Pay it back in dividends to people who will use it or invest in the business, particularly on the manufacturing side.
Carney was fairly explicit on the topic of Dutch Disease as well. He may be right, he may be wrong, but I'd be FAR more inclined to side with one of the world's most respected economists than with Thomas Mulcair, whose economic credentials are pretty dubious.
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No reason to ignore the recent Conservative Denial of basic trade economics.
The only thing that Mulcair was right about is that oil exports increase the value of the dollar which erodes the crutch Ontario's manufacturing industry has relied on for decades. I'm not sure who was arguing against that...
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Actually we elect a few of our's to office, where they actively support and promote violence.
I anticipated you'd say that. That's straight out of the "Irrational Sensationalist" handbook. You need to include neo-con, fascist and some mention of corporate croney-ism to score full points though. A Lex Luther reference earns bonus points.
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The article you posted has NOTHING to do with Dutch Disease. In the link quoted even shows:
The largest contributor to the drop in July exports was energy, where exports fell 8.5 per cent,
and
She pointed out that foreign capital has been flooding into the Canadian dollar in the face of uncertainty in much of the rest of the world.
and then finally
In spite of a 5.3 per cent drop in auto exports from June to July, the industry continues to do relatively well over the longer haul. Auto exports are up more than 21 per cent since July of last year.
So you're stating that an article discussing JULY'S large trade deficit, which was accompanied by a huge drop in oil exports is somehow proof that Mulcair isn't completely clueless about the economy? The part about the currency being affected by the flood of foreign money into Canada for its perceived safehaven status has nothing to do with it? The mention of the auto-industry's 21% increase y.o.y. is also being ignored?
Doesn't the article also explain that a high dollar should be taken advantage of to invest in productive assets (equipment etc)? Isn't Ontario's capital investment tax one of the highest in the world, which discourages these investments? Yep! Isn't the NDP completely against cutting these taxes? Sure is! Didn't Mark Carney, Canada's #1 economist, only just recently COMPLETELY debunk Thomas Mulcair's statements? Absolutely.
It doesn't look like you actually read the article. You just took the article title and maybe the first couple sentences and tried to use it to prove a hack opinion.
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While using terms like 'zionism' is something I generally can't respect, I do have to agree with wyly that this award earns a big "Who cares?" It's not particularly suprising that an organization founded by a Jewish rabbi takes the time to recognize Israel's most staunch supporter in the Middle East.
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What about our religious fanatics pushing Iran into pushing it's button to trigger Armageddon, and rapture our side into our sick little Heaven?
We marginalize our religious fanatics. Iran actively supports and promotes them to violence.
Canada closes embassy in Iran, expels diplomats.
in Federal Politics in Canada
Posted
Oh the hypocrisy. Please guys. Everyone is guilty of this to some extent or another. Some are obviously far worse and we know who they are, but please don't act like you're these shining bastions of pure logic and reason. I've seen enough examples in the past to know that's not true.