Moonbox
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Posts posted by Moonbox
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Well looks like we here, for once, could come to a negotiated agreement, and can only wish the same to the sides still involved in the conflict. As well as that the outsiders, if they (really) have to be involved, encourage the sides to move toward lasting, negotiated settlement not in the least observing even minimal impartiality and balance.
and if it was as hard as it was for you and I to reconcile our thoughts, imagine how hard it is for them
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It's pretty natural for the opposition to cry about everything the government does.
As for the government advertising, I haven't seen any touting the CPC that wasn't paid for by the CPC. If it was a CPC electionish message, it's generally funded by the CPC.
Maybe you can provide some examples of government funded partisan ads?
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Many, perhaps even most in the West, have no stomach for a fight.
The west has no stomach for a fight that means nothing to them. It's natural that the conviction of someone fighting in their homeland against foreign invaders is going to be stronger. The resolve of the Canadian public for fighting in a shithole in the middle of nowhere is hardly surprising.
That does not bode well for the future. The Muslim world is very young, and growing both in numbers and in fanaticism, while the West is older, its numbers shrinking.The cultural pre-eminence of the West is barely in its infancy and destroyed the Soviet Union and is steadily eroding the foundations of China, North Korea and others. The West isn't weakening, it's just the rest of the world is adopting our customs and catching up. The fundamentalist Muslim world is weakening steadily and the longer it holds out on democracy and civil rights the worse and further it will marginalize itself. The religion itself may be growing, but that's more a testament to how appealing fundamentalism is to people with low standards of living.
Islam isn't the problem. It's fundamentalism and fundamentalism is rejected by a good portion of the Islamic world and by the vast majority of Muslims in Canada and the West.
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It's probably only a misunderstanding. My statement only applied only to preconditions for the final settlement negotiations. Dialogues around achieving ceasefire (in the sense of stopping all forms of massive hostilities) can go ahead anytime - as long as both parties actually seek practical results, i.e. achieving reduction or cessation of hostilities, rather than minute political gains, as it mostly has been the case till now.
Okay well it seems we've cleared that up finally.
That bias does not exist. I already pointed out many times that militant attacks constitute obvious form of hostility and agression, and only argue that Israels' own policy of expansion should be qualified as such, clearly and without reservations.I'll agree that continuing settlement growth is sand flung in the other side's eyes yes.
Agree, raising the level of demands would certainly increase the risk of failure. Why couldn't it be limited to the sides, immediately involved in the conflict, at least as the first step toward all-encompassing settlement?If the immediate sides could agree to and enforce peace and clamp down on its own militants, then yes. If, on the other hand, groups like Hezbollah and Hamas continued to be funded from Iran and continued to operate extensively
in the area, I don't think it would be possible.
I agree that it should be a matter for negotiations, yet, any substantial deviation from commonly recognised "fair" grounds (of which the condition to share Jerusalem is obviously one, in the light of all the history) would greatly undermine the chance of achieving lasting peace.Perhaps. I don't know enough about how East/West Jerusalem were divied up, but I do believe Israel annexed the rest of the city decades ago and I simply believe that it would be a harder point to negotiate on. Sometimes a peace agreement doesn't bring you back to how things were 40 years ago. You have to focus on the best possible peace at present then, rather than how things were back then.
Now, there're only two alternatives, to seek ways to peace with whoever was chosen (by us ourselves, decades back) to be our adversary / partner, or continue with the status quo, of mutual hostility and agression.and that's something the two sides are really going to have to figure out themselves.
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US foreign policy for the last 30 years might be blamed for the mess in Afghanistan, but it was a mess well before Bush sent the troops there and he really didn't make it any worse than it already was (i'm not defending Bush I just don't think you understand what it's like there)
Culturally, Afghanistan is about 10,000 years behind the rest of the world. For longer than history has been written, it's been a stinkhole country full of warring tribles with a literacy rate lower than a Canadian kindergarten class'.
The place is an absolute mess. It's been that way longer than anyone can remember. Nothing we've done lately has made it worse, it's just it might be well beyond saving.
If Pakistan would clamp down on its militant north and police its own borders, things would be about 500x easier than it is now. Unfortunately, it doesn't. The international force there now is facing the same problems the Soviets did in the 80's. To pacify Afghanistan you'd have to move in to Northern Pakistan, and I don't think anyone's too excited about that prospect.
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And what about the advertising campaign for the stimulus? Free advertising for the Harper government paid for on your dime?
It's advertising for the government. They are advertising legislation passed by Harper and your buddies in the LPC. Things like the Home Renovation Tax Credit and the TFSA have to be advertised to let people know they even exist.
Don't get butt-hurt because the government advertises popular legislation.
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It appears to me that the ship of state just righted itself.
The tactical situation meant the opposition couldn't fulfill its true role. With this groundshift-- the two potential governing parties again facing off-- now it can. All four parties now find themselves accountable for their actions from here on out.
This is a good outcome for Canada.
It all goes down to polling. If the LPC takes a dive in the polls you'll see the NDP drop its support for the Cons and the Liberals will start supporting them instead.
This isn't about 'making parliament work'. It's about 4 political parties doing what's in their best interest to do.
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Let's see if Harper kneecaps him.
This is all contingent on him winning. For all we know, he might be a poor campaigner.
A lot of the time it doesn't matter how you campaign. The party leader has more impact on each individual riding than the actual candidate him/herself. I would say probably over 80% of people don't pay a second of attention to the local candidate's campaign.
I did, but only because I knew the Liberal candidate (he's a good guy and I would have voted for him if not for Dion) and the CPC candidate's campaign was a total botch job.
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Not good enough for Harper. He wants the Liberals destroyed so they cease to exist as a party. He is fairly pathological about it.
I see you've gone back to the mindless rhetoric again. There's nothing 'pathological' about a party leader undermining the opposing party. I also don't really see the problem with shaking up the status quo in Canadian politics. I don't think it's a good thing that one party should be able to dominate on a regular basis and I think it's better for the country if we don't have ANY 'natural governing party'.
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I think all it does is make the Tories look good. When you have a series of different parties propping them up, it almost starts to look like they're able to run a minority properly.
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I wouldn't want to go into great depths here. But being kicked out of one's own house / land not an example of violence and agression?
I think being kicked out of your house is different from killing, and I don't think you can lump them together.
No, it depends on what kind of talk it would be. The talk intended to hide and extend agressive policy would have nothing to do with peace. In other word, committment to peace should come before talking. And certainly, such committment includes ceasing acts of hostility and agression that are already in progress, and not starting any new ones.I think this is something you and I are going to have to agree to disagree on. Agreeing to talk needs to come first and then they can arrange to halt aggression. That's how it has always been done in the past, and simple logic would dictate that talking about mutual concessions should precede actually making concessions. Those concessions could include, but are not limited to, withdrawing from settlements, vowing to stop violence and enforce the end of violence, and mutually recognizing each other's right to exist.
I wouldn't be as optimistic about that side's committment to geniune peace, because its act is quite obviously different from what it says. But maybe it's just a matter of character, and perhaps we should simply be more trusting to people e.g. believe Iran that they'd use nukes exclusively for peaceful means, etc? Not to mention, in our private lives as well?In this I see a very genuine bias in your writing. You're attacking Israel's commitment to peace, which is admittedly in question given their expansionism, but at the same time you're ignoring that the other side has made an official and vocal commitment to violence. It wouldn't be hard for someone to argue that Israel continues its 'aggression' simply because they're going to be surrounded by enemies regardless.
You'd want to unroll it all the way to the origins of the conflict? Or admit that at this time it's not the matter of who started what, but that all agressive acts and policies should come to end, to allow a chance for meaningful peace negotiations?No, like I said before, and which you (or perhaps someone else) argued against, was that the past needs to be forgotten and the two sides need to focus on what would be an agreeable peace. To say that Israel needs to remove all settlements to even start talking about peace is absolutely false. I'd agree maybe that if they want to talk peace they could maybe stop expansionism and freeze settlement growth, but I'd also suggest it's equally necessary that the other side make some commitments to stop the violence and violent rhetoric.
Obviously, in the conflict with this history, it's hard to expect that things would go by orchestration and violence would cease at once. Yet
Again, I wouldn't attempt to speak for anybody, but I think you may not have current information. I believe your proposal is pretty much the same as the one introduced by a group of Arab countries recently (in essence, peace and recognition in exchange for Israel's complete withdrawal to its proper borders), and most Arab, including Palestinian leaders, acknowledged it.In order for this proposal to be worthwhile, we'd have to see who would ratify it. If a lot of the big players refused (ie Hamas, Fatah, Hezbollah, Iran, Syria etc) then it would be fairly pointless. Also I think it's worthwhile to mention that withdrawl to 1967 borders (which none of them realized at the time) is a slightly ironic request. I'm not sure that Israel would be receptive to giving up half of Jerusalem, for example, and to declare that this is a prerequisite for peace is also false. The peace negotiations, and any mediation, have to focus on something that, overall, benefits both groups.
Again I wouldn't appoint right and wrongs here, but incessant and continuing insistence by any one side on continuation of clearly hostile and agressive policies sends a very obvious message that it's committment to peace is less than certain. I'm not sure it'd be wise to pretend to ignore this message any longer.It works both ways.
True. Perhaps both sides (or much more precisely: hostile factions on both sides) still have hopes that they could achieve something more than lasting peace. This is exactly why outside world should focus its efforts on explaining (inlcuding practical means) that such views are wrong in each and every instance where agressive acts are committed, regardless of who's involved, and for what reason.but again, you have to communicate this to both sides. Part of the problem with negotiating with the Arab side is that it's an EXTREMELY different and some might say politically backwards culture. As they are not democratically elected they're a fair bit less interested in the best interest of their people than the West (and Israel) are. What you and I think might be a good idea might hold no interest to Khamenei and others of his kind.
I can't say I'm an expert on what makes people like him tick, but it's worth mentioning that there may be very conflicting goals and viewpoints in the area. That's part of the problem.
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It's entirely relevant. Gaudeloupe and Martinique are still French departments. Quebec is not.
More broadly, we make choices in life - and these choices have consequences.
and what did the British 'give up' in these 'treaties' really? The French got Guadeloupe and Martinique, which are tiny islands amongst a swathe of predominantly British posessions and the British got North America, India and a bunch of island territories.
It appears to me that old Louis got the crap end of this deal, and I'd wager that's because he'd already lost what he 'conceded'
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500 people tossed out of work this week in 3 different fields, Pharmacuetical, Media and Manufacturing.
Economic improvement is subjective.
Subjective to the people experiencing (or not) and the regions experiencing it (or not).
Jobs recovery pretty generally lags behind economic recovery as you well know. As for the numbers, I don't know where that's coming from. Jobs are still being lost as we know, but 500 jobs were lost where?
I live in one of the areas hardest hit by the recession (KW has 10% unemployment right now) but the pace of job losses has slowed to a crawl and it APPEARS the cycle is turning around.
We'll see.
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To maintain the 1763 Treaty of Paris was the deciding factor in New France's fate is as absurd as saying the 1783 Treaty of Paris decided the fate of the United States. Both of them merely confirmed what already was. Regarding North America, the British were the winners in 1763 and the Americans were the winners in 1783. End of story. Wars decide the future. Treaties confirm it. Not the other way around.
The French in Canada were isolated, outnumbered and eventually succumbed at the end of the Seven Years War. There is no shame in that. If anything, they can take pride in making it so difficult. We have enough issues to deal with other than 18th century wars between European colonial powers
I'm glad you wrote this because otherwise I would have had to. Thank you for saving my wrists and fingers.
The fate of colonial France, in North America AND elsewhere, was all but decided long before the battle of the Plains. It was cemented and sealed in November of the same year when the British beat the French navy at the battle of Quiberon Bay and pretty much permanently ended them as a contender for naval power.
A vastly outnumbered colony cut off from the motherland really had no chance. That France relinquished it formally in a treaty in 1763 is barely even relevant.
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For the time being we can only hope for a minority. As the economy continues to improve things may improve for Harper, but until then it will be more of the same.
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Each week in my area, the layoffs continue. While some Auto has picked up, its likely to be short term, and then we are facing another slide downward in the economy. The layoffs are happening in non conventional, non industrial sectors and they aren't small. In a few months will see the effects of this.
I'm not sure I share your prediction. Aren't jobs lagging indicators in a recovery?
Panick is starting to hit alot of municipalities that are watching their welfare rates soar, as EI isn't an option for many unemployed.For good reason.....
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I thought that Layton's posturing was actually helpful to the Liberals. Now they're definetly going have to back up their election bluster. They're not going to win the next election so what on Earth is the point in one? I guess they want to call one now before the economy fully recovers. If Harper leads the country out of recession and can work on the debt, he'll have a strong following. The Liberals don't want to give him that chance.
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Ignatieff has a much better chance fo surviving a loss here, as opposed to Layton or Harper, even if Harper wins another minority.
Having said that, WHEN Ignatieff leaves, Rae is the most obvious at this point in time to lead the LPC. I imagine we'll have to wait a number of years to find out who leads after Ignatieff.
Rae wouldn't fly in Ontario. We remember him as premier. I believe he was the most unpopular premier EVER.
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These are the people that we constantly somehow manage to elect....
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Oh god. The very idea of Bob Rae or Turdeau running the country revolts me. I'd rather Ignatieff stuck around.
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In any case, apologising one kind of violence and agression ahead of another is a road to nowhere, because peace needs two sides and you can't convince anybody to stop their violence while insisting that violence against them should be tolerated.
I didn't apologize for anyone. Don't mistake 'violence' with settlement incursion either. They are VERY different things. One act can be reversed. The other can't.
Sure, I only said that talking by itself won't solve anything till the act of abandoning hostilities and agression, in all forms.and I said that talking must come before that. It's easier to talk than it is to act. If you're not willing to even talk about peace, it's difficult to believe that you're going to be receptive to the next steps.
That can certainly be your belief, I just don't see in what way it relates to achieving peace, as in any event it would need two sides, i.e both sides to move anywhere.Well if neither side will SAY they want peace then there's really no hope for it at all is there? I'm more optimistic about the side that fights but SAYS it wants to stop fighting than I am about the side who fights and says they want to keep fighting. It's a pretty logical conclusion, regardless of what action backs up the claim.
Let's remember that buildup of settlements is not coincidental, and has happened over the course of all previous ceasefires (feel free to find numbers posted in this very thread), and at this point could only be perceived as a deliberate policy of agression. I find it very doubtful that any meaningful progress toward peace would be possible, while one side continues to perpetrate persistent, massive acts of agression.Hey this is something I can almost agree on. The only problem is that the whole time the other side has also continued massive acts and threats of aggression. If it was me there, and the other side promised to attack me regardless of what I did, I'd probably fight dirty myself.
As things stand now, freezing and evacuation of illegal settlements should be as much a part of deescalation of hostilities, as cessation of active fighting, or it'll achieve nothing as ongoing creeping agression would almost certainly cause a flare up of violence as it always did up till now.Okay now we're talking. How long would this last? Would a freeze on settlements cause violence to halt? For how long? Once the violence starts again, should Israel sit back and take it?
No, what kind of DESIRE are we talking about, when settlements are expanding daily? The talk of "peace" is very different from the act of hostility and agression, and you have yet to explain why it's the talk, and not the hostile act that we have to believe in this case.Because it's a lot easier to reconcile the idea that one side might want peace because they say they do but they constantly feel threatened. You might see their aggression as response generated by fear or a sense of futility (damned if you do damned if you don't so you might as well). It's impossible to reconcile the claim that the other side wants peace when they act out violently and promise that they'll never want peaceful co-existence with Israel. The very idea is anathema to them.
It does though. Once you start seeing all acts of hostility for what they are, and call it "illegal occupation" rather than "concession" all things would fall into their places. Militant attacks need to be stopped, as well as illegal occupation and expropriation of land.Fair enough. Let's make a deal.
We'll promise to recognize that Israel has a right to exist and stop attacking if Israel withdraws from all its settlements. We'll make sure to curb our militants and officially and actually commit to upholding peace as long as Israel leaves the settlements and doesn't come back.
How does that sound? Wait. The anti-Israeli side wants NOTHING to with this and have promised as such.
Well, we can clearly see the results of this current negotiations strategy so far. Shouting won't change it one bit.It's because they're a farce.
I said "eventual" and of "lasting" peace. I'm sure you can find examples redemption in most cases you mentioned, where a lasting peace have been achieved.No normally these conflicts were ended because both sides eventually decided they were better off giving up on the conflict than they were with continuing. They decided it was beneficial to both to forget the past and move forward amicably because long term fighting accomplished NOTHING. The War of 1812, The USSR vs Nazi Germany, Japan vs China, Japan vs Russia, the US vs Japan, the Napoleonic Wars, the USSR vs Afghanistan, Vietnam, Korea, the Falklands, India and Pakistan is something like 10 right there where the closest thing to 'redemption' might have been a rare and hollow apology. They all stopped fighting because they were better off not fighting.
Yeah, something like that. Plus of course, immediate and unconditional freeze on all settlements. And militant attacks.We agree on something???
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Just don't tell whowhere. He'll probably have a heart attack.
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But of course it does. In great majority of major conflicts, cessation of open hostilities precedeed negotiations of peace and settlement (just like in a pub fight).
First of all, that's not true and second of all in most of those 'major conflicts' the hostilities in question were actually people shooting each other rather than settlers deciding where and how they want to live outside of VERY questionable
legal borders.
It is simple common sense. What really needs to be discussed, is how the duplicit role of the West, as peace mediators aka allies of Israel actually prolongs and exacerbates the way to the settlement.Ignore the west. Israel and its neighbours need to talk about long term peace. They don't need an impartial West to mediate. There's nothing stopping these two sides from talking.
Why do we have to assume that (and not e.g. that it wants lot more lands, and then, maybe also, "peace")?Should we always assume something somebody says to be true, even when it's in a drastic contrast with what they actually do?
We have to assume that if there's any hope for peace. I will CERTAINLY put more belief in their proposed 'desire' for peace than in the Arab's side refusal for long term peace.
It helps to lump all things together in the same busket, to help affairs cleared (sorry, mudded). Ceasefires aren't the same as negotiations to achieve lasting, sustainable peace.I doesn't help lumping things together. All it does is dumb the argument down to unreasonable and unrealistic levels. Also ceasefires have to be NEGOTIATED in the first place. A simple, "I'll stop shooting at you if you stop shooting at me" is generally all that takes place. I'll agree ceasefires generally come before lasting peace, but I'll absolutely refuse the massive withdrawl of hundreds of thousands of people from their homes as a pre-requisite for a ceasefire.
And indeed, to be meanigful, cesassion of hostilities must apply to all forms of hostilities and agression. It appears that in our peaceful zeal, we're still struggling to realize this very simple axiom.The only person failing to realize anything is you. For any meaningful negotiations for peace, first the DESIRE for it has to be officially expressed. The DESIRE for peace comes first, then the negotiation, then agreements and concessions and THEN peace.
You've decided that (whether it's because you don't like Israel or whatever I don't know) that the logical process of peace needs to be flipped over and reversed. First withdrawls and concessions then they can talk and THEN maybe the Arab side will express its desire for peace. It doesn't make any sense.
What you're failing to understand is that any meaningful mediation for peace should rise above partisan level and understand that conflict will exist until any form of hostility and agression remains in place.I'm not failing to realize anything. I'd hate to see how you'd do as a negotiatior because you don't seem to have a clue how the process works.
"HEY GUYS! STOP FIGHTING SO THAT WE CAN GET DOWN TO NEGOTIATING ABOUT NOT FIGHTING ANYMORE"
I understand that maybe you need to put the fists down for a moment or two to get talking, but evacuating hundreds of thousands of settlers is another matter entirely. You've completely refused to acknowledge the logistical and practical consequences in your claim that 'both sides need to stop all hostilities'.
If you want to cheer for one chosen side, and count the wrongs committed by the other, it's in your right, but it won't do anything to stop the conflict, because, as we already established earlier, wrongs were committed by all sides, and the way to peace lies in cessation, and eventual redemption of all wrongs, regardless of who is involved.Here's an interesting statement. The redemption of all wrongs is a necessary step for peace? Really? Seriously? Take a history lesson. Off the top of my head I could probably name you about 20 wars and conflicts that were ended with no redemption of wrongs offered.
It appears that you're rather running out of rational arguments, to support your point, that despite the admission (of quite obvious fact) that both sides have committed wrongs, the obligation to make real, practical steps in cessation of active hostilities should apply only to one side (of your choice).No that's what I'm saying about you. You've indicated Israel needs to make IMMENSE and costly steps towards peace, and in return the Arab side doesn't have to offer anything, not even words. One sided indeed.
If one cannot be convinced to abandon agression as the first step, what (meaningful) further negotion of "lasting peace" could there be?Oh I don't know. Maybe they could negotiate things like, "We'll withdraw if you recognize our right to exist and will agree to stop attacking us." Nothing to difficult about that.
No, I rather agree with you 100% in that. As soon as you clarify the meaning of "commit to the PROCESS". What process, and who has defined it (unless it's the very obvious process of ceasing all acts of hostility and agression)?The anti-Israeli Arab movement has to commit to the process. They have to indicate they WANT peace and that they are willing to peacefully co-exist with Israel. If they won't indicate they WANT this then you can't meaningfull negotiate it.
OK, one faction, not even the whole side, is refusing to make certain declaration, and you call it "refusing the process". While the other side is involved in massive hostilities, persistently and over extended period of time, and it doesn't seemingly create any doubts in your interpretation of their "commitment".I do doubt their commitment. I don't think that they believe peace is going to be achieved anytime soon. Given the rhetoric from the other side, I think this a reasonable belief. Israel is a small Jewish island in an Arab sea. The Israelis are resigned to live with this reality and there's nothing they can do about it. They HAVE to co-exist. The Arabs, on the other hand, have convinced themselves that Israel can and will be removed and that this is a goal worthy of conflict. They don't WANT long term peace with Israel and they are SAYING they don't.
You can pretend this is only 'one faction', but it is in fact pretty much the entire Middle East (with a few exceptions) that don't and the violence in Israel is supported and encouraged within Palestine, Israel's neighbours and even nations far from Israel's borders. Palestine and neighbouring countries have to indicate they want peace and have to make steps to curb and discourage militants otherwise they are more or less condoning it.
Is it a problem with your definition of the process (certain act, of your choice does not qualify as act of hostility and agression), or your vision (you do not notice certain acts of hostility and agression)? Are you requiring one side to meet all the demands of the other, before that other side would even consider stopping its own acts of agression?None of the above. I'm saying that if one side wants something from the other, they have to offer something in return. Only an idiot would expect Israel to withdraw hundreds of thousands of people in exchange for nothing. It wouldn't improve their situation and the other side is saying it won't. You've decided for them that it would.
What makes you think that such approach should be called "negotiation", or "settlement", rather than "full submission to my (buddy's) will"?You're asking Israel to submit to Arab demands in exchange for nothing. Are you making fun of yourself?
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I hardly ever quote from it. I find it a very regional newspaper.
You quote it enough to have me regularly mocking you for quoting it all the time.
But feel free to prove me wrong by showing how many times I reference it. Bet you'd be surprised how little it is.Haha, typical Jdobbin defense. "It's not true unless you spend a ridiculous amount of time sorting through hundreds of my past threads"
Tories Spend 5x more on ads than on H1N1
in Federal Politics in Canada
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I haven't seen any of the ads. I've seen a few all in blue that talk about the HRTC. That's it.
It's rather galling isn't it? One side does something and the other complains about it, but when the tables are reversed the same is still true?