Layton is soft on capitalist pigs

[coldstream]

You remind me of vegetarians who get upset about people who wear leather. Cows are killed and eaten. There is nothing they can do to stop it. May as well put the hides to good use.

Fetuses get aborted whether you like it or not. There is nothing you can do to stop it. Science may as well put them to good use. I may not condone abortion but I am a realist. I do not want to impose on others how they should live their lives, I don't think anybody has that right. So, fetuses are aborted. It is a fact of life. People have illnesses that can be helped by stem cell research. Why impose your will upon others because you are revolted by it. It really has nothing to do with you.

Who is imposing their will on those helpless infants, what right do they have to do so.. do they think they are God?

Your Deteriorata theme is in full song here, cliffy.. Give Up!!

Go placidly amidst the noise and waste, and remember what comfort there may be in owning a piece thereof. Avoid quiet and passive persons, unless you are in need of sleep. Rotate your tires. Speak glowingly of those greater than yourself; and heed well their advice, even though they be turkeys. Know what to kiss - and when. Consider that two wrongs never make a right, but that three do. Wherever possible, put people on hold. Be comforted, that in the face of all irridity and disillusionment, and despite the changing fortunes of time, there is always a big future in computer maintenance.

(You are a fluke of the universe.
You have no right to be here.
Whether you can hear it or not,
The universe is laughing behind your back.)

Remember the Pueblo. Strive at all times to bend, fold, spindle, and mutilate. Know yourself. If you need help, call the FBI. Exercise caution in your daily affairs, especially with those persons closest to you... That lemon on your left, for instance. Be assured that a walk through the seas of most souls would scarcely get your feet wet. Fall not in love, therefore, it will stick to your face. Gracefully surrender the things of youth: the birds, clean air, tuna, Taiwan - and let not the sands of time get in your lunch. Hire people with hooks. For a good time, call 606-4311, ask for Ken. Take heart in the deepening gloom that your dog is finally getting enough cheese. And reflect that whatever misfortune may be your lot, it could only be worse in Milwaukee.

(You are a fluke of the universe.
You have no right to be here.
Whether you can hear it or not,
The universe is laughing behind your back.)

Therefore, make peace with your god, whatever you perceive him to be: hairy thunderer or cosmic muffin. With all its hopes, dreams, promises, and urban renewal, the world continues to deteriorate. GIVE UP!

(You are a fluke of the universe.
You have no right to be here.
Whether you can hear it or not,
The universe is laughing behind your back.)

:cheers:

 

[Machjo]

Back to the OP, what I don't understand is the double standards.

When the NDP and Liberals were planning on a co-alition with an agreement from the Bloc to withold from votes of confidence for a set period of time, I appreceated the willingness of Parliamentarians to be willing to work together, and was quite turned off by Harper's bully tactics.

Now, Layton and Harper want to work on co-operation. I'd be a hypocrite to agree to an NDP-Liberal co-alition with Bloc co-operation and then oppose an NDP-Conservative co-alition. How can the NDP legitimize its right to form co-alitions with some parties but not others? Isn't willingness to co-operate a sign of a democratic spirit?

 

[Machjo]

In fact, who knows, with the NDP at the left and the Conservatives at the right, we might come up with new and unique ideas. We should have given the last co-alition a chance, and we ought to give this one a chance.

 

[earth_as_one]

The Iraq war was a litmus test. Politicians who supported it identified themselves as capable of committing war crimes. Layton recognized the war was unjustified and worked to prevent it. Hardly the actions of someone soft in the head. Meanwhile Harper and Ignatieff supported it. Ultimately credit has to go to PM Chretien for keeping Canada out of that war.

I agree that capitalism has its good points. But unrestrained unregulated capitalism in the US led to the current recession. Socialist government intervention is what's keeping us from entering a full blown depression.

Too much socialism lead to stagnation. If everyone gets the same, regardless of effort, then where is the motivation to succeed?

For me the ideal situation would be the NDP as official opposition in a minority government.

 

[AnnaG]

IMO, the ideal would be having a SMALL government that EFFICIENTLY took care of stuff like healthcare, education, and generally serving people and leave people to do what they do without interfering.

 

[strange]

NDP policy would have driven more companies to bankruptcy. Where do you work?

 

[Cliffy]

All of our best governments have been NDP backed Liberal minorities. We owe our social safety net to them, but I fear that the NDP shifted to far to the center in the last couple of decades in order to garner more votes and has lost it's core beliefs in the process. But all that is mute. Until we take back control of our government from our corporate dictators, we will continue to live without democracy.

 

[Said1]

The Iraq war was a litmus test. Politicians who supported it identified themselves as capable of committing war crimes. Layton recognized the war was unjustified and worked to prevent it. Hardly the actions of someone soft in the head. Meanwhile Harper and Ignatieff supported it. Ultimately credit has to go to PM Chretien for keeping Canada out of that war.

LOL. Layton worked hard to retain his political base, who just happened to be anit-Operation Iraqi Freedom. Layton wouldn't support the Iraq war with all the cement pillars in the world, especially so close to an election.

Chretien got us wrapped up in Afganistan, which was originally a shoot'em up, smoke 'em out operation in the beginning, remember? Only the cause was much more nobler, middle of the road and better suited to our best interests and resources (and not to mention much more pleasing to Chretien's political base)........something about freeing people from oprresive terrorist regimes, crazy, wacked out Muslims, 9/11..... Or was that Iraq. Me confused now. :lol:

 

[earth_as_one]

Originally the mission was going to be called "Operation Iraqi Liberation" or "OIL".


Apparently some people still believe that the US led Iraq invasion had nothing to do with seizing control of Iraq's oil wealth, but was intended to rid Iraq of their WMD stockpiles, punish Iraq for 9/11 and end Iraq's humanitarian crisis.

You must be unaware of a few things Said1.

1) No WMD threat was discovered in Iraq, just like UN weapon inspectors reported about 2 weeks before the war:
Security Council 7 March 2003

2) No evidence ever linked Iraq to the events of 9/11. If you listen very closely to speeches made by Bush, he never made that claim. But he did purposely create that impression.
The impact of Bush linking 9/11 and Iraq | csmonitor.com

3) Between 2000 and March 2003, the US claims Hussein was responsible for 275 deaths. (People executed after being found guilty of capital crimes.) Since March 2003, over 100,000 verifiable deaths have been attributed to the war. Estimates exceeding 1,000,000 deaths were published in 2008. About 5,000,000 people have become refugees.

Pay attention to dates. January 2000-March 2003
275 deaths attributed to Hussein. Brutal and unjust? Sure, but hardly a humanitarian crisis.
White House Issues New Report on Saddam's Record of Repression

Since 2003, hundreds of thousands and possible more than a million deaths
Casualties of the Iraq War - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Now that's a humanitarian crisis.

As soon as the US gained control of Iraq they handed out longterm contracts to American and British oil companies and companies like Cheney's Halliburton got billions in untendered contracts. Meanwhile, billions in Iraq oil remains unaccounted for:

Anyone who still supports the Iraq war despite the overwhelming evidence that this war was about oil is either a fool or the fooler...

Neither Harper (fooler), nor Ignatieff (fool) wants to talk about their past support for this war. Unlike Ignatieff, Harper hasn't admitted his support for the war was a mistake. If Harper no longer supports this war, then why is the Canadian government trying to deport US Iraq war resisters to the US where they face criminal proceeedings for their refusal to participate in what is clearly a war crime???

Layton is the only one of the three main Canadian politicians who correctly identified the Iraq war as unjustified at the beginning when it was unpopular.

He wasn't the only one. Obama also spoke against the war back in 2002:

Senator Barak Obama 2002:

"I stand before you as someone who is not opposed to war in all circumstances. The Civil War was one of the bloodiest in history, and yet it was only through the crucible of the sword, the sacrifice of multitudes, that we could begin to perfect this union and drive the scourge of slavery from our soil.

I don't oppose all wars. My grandfather signed up for a war the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed, fought in Patton's army. He fought in the name of a larger freedom, part of that arsenal of democracy that triumphed over evil.

I don't oppose all wars. After September 11, after witnessing the carnage and destruction, the dust and the tears, I supported this administration's pledge to hunt down and root out those who would slaughter innocents in the name of intolerance, and I would willingly take up arms myself to prevent such tragedy from happening again.

I don't oppose all wars. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other armchair, weekend warriors in this administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne.

What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income, to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression.

That's what I'm opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics.

Now let me be clear: I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power.... The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him.

But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors...and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history.

I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences.

I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda.

I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars. So for those of us who seek a more just and secure world for our children, let us send a clear message to the president.

You want a fight, President Bush? Let's finish the fight with Bin Laden and al-Qaeda, through effective, coordinated intelligence, and a shutting down of the financial networks that support terrorism, and a homeland security program that involves more than color-coded warnings.

You want a fight, President Bush? Let's fight to make sure that...we vigorously enforce a nonproliferation treaty, and that former enemies and current allies like Russia safeguard and ultimately eliminate their stores of nuclear material, and that nations like Pakistan and India never use the terrible weapons already in their possession, and that the arms merchants in our own country stop feeding the countless wars that rage across the globe.

You want a fight, President Bush? Let's fight to make sure our so-called allies in the Middle East, the Saudis and the Egyptians, stop oppressing their own people, and suppressing dissent, and tolerating corruption and inequality, and mismanaging their economies so that their youth grow up without education, without prospects, without hope, the ready recruits of terrorist cells.

You want a fight, President Bush? Let's fight to wean ourselves off Middle East oil through an energy policy that doesn't simply serve the interests of Exxon and Mobil.

Those are the battles that we need to fight. Those are the battles that we willingly join. The battles against ignorance and intolerance. Corruption and greed. Poverty and despair...

Barack Obama's Stirring 2002 Speech Against the Iraq War

That's when I first became aware of Obama.

 

[Said1]

Like I said, they cater to their political bases, whatever it took/takes.

 

[DurkaDurka]

In fact, who knows, with the NDP at the left and the Conservatives at the right, we might come up with new and unique ideas. We should have given the last co-alition a chance, and we ought to give this one a chance.

They would blend into what is commonly called "Liberals". :smile:

 

[taxslave]

NDP policy would have driven more companies to bankruptcy. Where do you work?

Forest industry. Last time we had the sad missfortune of having a Dipper government in B.C. they almost destroyed the forest industry while markets were good. Mostly they picked on us small non union independents while giving some of our quota to the majors with their union crews. Much as the Dippers hate to admit it there is a symbiotic relationship between big industry and big labour. This is why Taliban Jack didn't complain about our tax dollars being squandered to prop up the car manufacturers -because they are heavily unionized.

 

[YukonJack]

darkbeaver, calling those who provide jobs, "PIGS" reflect better on you, than on them.

As far as Jack Layton is concerned, what has he (or his miserable ilk) EVER done in his life to elevate those whom he pretends to champion?

Nothing more than living where they live: in a tax-payer subsidized housing. While sponging off MP's salaries, both him and his wife.

 

[taxslave]

Neither Harper (fooler), nor Ignatieff (fool) wants to talk about their past support for this war. Unlike Ignatieff, Harper hasn't admitted his support for the war was a mistake. If Harper no longer supports this war, then why is the Canadian government trying to deport US Iraq war resisters to the US where they face criminal proceeedings for their refusal to participate in what is clearly a war crime???
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
These are not war resisters that are being deported. They are deserters. Not the same thing as the US is now a volunteer force. They joined the armed forces knowing they could be sent to a war zone. It has nothing to do with wether they consider the war just or not.

 

[DurkaDurka]

Nothing more than living where they live: in a tax-payer subsidized housing. While sponging off MP's salaries, both him and his wife.

Spouting that BS again, Yukon? If you actually looked it up you would find that he paid market rent for his residence, he wasn't subsidized. That's how the whole Toronto "subsidized housing" works, people who can pay market value do so, while a certain number of apartments are allocated for people who cannot do so.

 

[YukonJack]

OK, DurkaDurka, I acquiesce!

Layton and ChowChow do not live in subsidised housing.

But that still leaves the question: what has he and his wife ever done for the average Joe??

 

[DurkaDurka]

OK, DurkaDurka, I acquiesce!

Layton and ChowChow do not live in subsidised housing.

But that still leaves the question: what has he and his wife ever done for the average Joe??

Nothing for me, not that I have ever voted for the NDP though.

 

[Trex]

Spouting that BS again, Yukon? If you actually looked it up you would find that he paid market rent for his residence, he wasn't subsidized. That's how the whole Toronto "subsidized housing" works, people who can pay market value do so, while a certain number of apartments are allocated for people who cannot do so.

Spouting that BS again DD?
Doing the old lefty shuffle again DD?

It was a "supposedly" market priced apartment in a low income government subsidized apartment complex.
In other words a few apartments were rented in a government subsidized complex for what was assumed to be a roughly market rate by the local bureaucrats.
But of course rented to the "chosen few".

In reality it was a great inside, connected deal for a typically expedient and connected politician at the taxpayers expense.
When the Layton's were called on it they bolted out of the place like scalded cats.
Horrible optics for friends of the common man considering their high joint income and all.

Just more trough snuffling from politicians.

Trex

 

[DurkaDurka]

Spouting that BS again DD?
Doing the old lefty shuffle again DD?

It was a "supposedly" market priced apartment in a low income government subsidized apartment complex.
In other words a few apartments were rented in a government subsidized complex for what was assumed to be a roughly market rate by the local bureaucrats.
But of course rented to the "chosen few".

In reality it was a great inside, connected deal for a typically expedient and connected politician at the taxpayers expense.
When the Layton's were called on it they bolted out of the place like scalded cats.
Horrible optics for friends of the common man considering their high joint income and all.

Just more trough snuffling from politicians.

Trex

Trex, I actually have lived and paid market rent for an apartment from Toronto Community Housing in the past, seeing as they are the largest landlord in Toronto.

The breakdown seemed to be roughly 60% market rate ( in my previous building) -40% subsidized by the City of Toronto. You don't need to be one of the "chosen few" to live in one, you fill out an application, have a credit check and cut them a cheque. So please save your uninformed blabbering for something you have knowledge about, like Sara Palin's vagina etc.

 

[Trex]

Trex, I actually have lived and paid market rent for an apartment from Toronto Community Housing in the past, seeing as they are the largest landlord in Toronto.

The breakdown seemed to be roughly 60% market rate ( in my previous building) -40% subsidized by the City of Toronto. You don't need to be one of the "chosen few" to live in one, you fill out an application, have a credit check and cut them a cheque. So please save your uninformed blabbering for something you have knowledge about, like Sara Palin's vagina etc.

Blah, Blah, Blah.

You lived in Toronto.
I lived in Toronto.
I did this and you did that.

The Layton's scored a fantastic deal in a heavily subsidized complex.
Bottom line is, most unconnected folks have a better shot at winning the lottery than scoring a place like that for the price that they paid.

The proof is in the pudding DD.
Once it hit the press everyone in the GTA knew the deal stunk to high heaven.
Once exposed they shot out of that cosy little pad like roaches exposed to sunlight.
There was no fighting the good fight or taking the high road.
They bolted instantly and did the usual political damage control thing.
It was obvious to all who are familiar with rentals in TO ( perhaps exempting you) that they were paying far, far under market.
Big deal.
It's not like the Dippers hold the record for rooting around in the public purse.
Politicians of all stripes do it.
Must of us tend to expect it these days.

And as for your cheap genealogical shots.
Perhaps your just a tad envious that Sara has a bigger set of stones than you will ever possess?
But thats about you and your issues with Sara.

Me, I was discussing Jack.

Trex