For Rev. Blair

It's only been good for big business. If you compare investment/trade numbers between Canada the US and Mexico, then compare the growth in those same areas between non-NAFTA countries and Canada the US and Mexico, it seems that our trade has not increased as much with each other as it has with non-NAFTA countries. What the hell is that all about?

Well, I might be too optimistic, but it sounds like Martin will be a good PM.I personally don't care if a leader is rich, just so long as they do a good job.And they should be smarter than the average chimp - unlike Bush. Anyway, what do you think of Martin?

http://www.macleans.ca/topstories/canad ... 63622_3788

Time will tell.
But the first thing he did was to halt federal projects to give more money to the provinces for healthcare. This seems like a good thing.
Plus him and the new defence minister are taking a close and hard look at our military for more funding. we will see what happens. If he could beef our military and get rid of NAFTA then he will have done ahellof alot more than I expected.

That halt in federal spending didn't keep him from giving his business buddies a $4 billion tax break when our business taxes are already lower than most G-8 nations and corporate welfare is already a national embarrassment.

His policies as finance minister show a tendency to look after business and cut everything else, including the military and health-care. He deals with non-business programs on a crisis management basis only, if the past is any indication.

He's likely going to tighten up the decriminalisation of marijuana, could well scrap Kyoto and the environmentally friendly programs and economic diversification that go along with it, and even seems somewhat ambivalent about the gay marriage issue...he'll go along with it because the Supreme Court says he has to and 53% of Canadians want him to, but if he can find a hole, he'll dive for it. It's not about morality with him...it's just that the feds will owe benefits to gay couples now.

He has shown little or no inclination for scrapping NAFTA, has been virtually silent in speaking out against predatory trade practices by the US and EU, and has not been at all vocal on environmental issues related to trade.

I think we can deal with him if there's a strong voice from the left in Parliament...he's pretty far right, but he is a Liberal and will take the path of least resistance. If we make sure that there's a lot of resistance to his tendency to put money before all else, he won't be able to do much harm.

Well I dont know about you but I think that one of the things that is needed in a PM is to get rid of NAFTA and then start building the military and heath care and education. Cause we all know if we get rid of NAFTA with Bush in power we will probably need our military and health care.

Another one that gives tax breaks to his rich friends. What the hell is with that anyway?? We are the ones that need the tax break. Not like I can afford to have half my paycheck taken away.
People making a couple million a month can afford to pay taxes more than my $11.66 /hr. Oh well the way of the world.

We will see what he does with the country. Bush will say jump and I wonder how high he will. First Canadian in space without any kind of craft!!

He wants to make US/Canada relations better. Which I'm all for. I'm just afraid that will mean he will do what the states tell him to do instead of doing what is better for Canada like a good PM should.

NAFTA definitely has to go. We should also be opposing the FTAA with all of our resources. Chretien lied when he said he was going to scrap NAFTA and never really stood up against the predatory trade practices of the US and EU until Cancun.

We can likely keep Martin in line though...the Conservatives are extremely weak right now, and still will be during the next election. At the same time the left seems to be gaining some power. The Liberal party wins elections because they can steal issues and platform planks from either side, so a strong NDP can force Liberals to keep a tight rein on Martin.

The other thing is electoral reform. Martin has said he supports some form of it, but has refused to be specific. Now would be a good time to push really hard for proportional representation. The ruling party would seldom be a majority under such a system because of our multi-party system, and the past shows us that Liberal minority governments depend heavily on the left when they are in a minority position. That will likely be even more true now that the PCs have been completely destroyed by the radical right.

A strong NDP could cause a vote split on the left and allow the Conseratives to sneak up the middle. Or at the very least result in a Liberal minority.

A lot of red tories have headed to the Liberals though, Third Eye....enough to ensure the Liberals maintain their majority. Martin's right-wing agenda has pushed some left-leaning Liberals toward the NDP, but it has attracted at least as many former PCs who now find themselves without a party.

Interestingly enough, Maureen McTeer (Joe Clark's wife) mentioned the NDP as a possible place for her to continue her work, depending how Martin's policies affect women's and human rights.

"Clinton was called, 'The best Republican president the US ever had,' by Hunter Thompson so he was certainly no leftist."

Let's see...tried to commandeer 1/7 of the gross domestic product by nationalizing health care, jacked up the tax rates after promising a cut, cut defense spending so badly that the military ran out of Patriots and Tomahawks after he bombed an aspirin factory in the Sudan to divert attention from his impeachment proceedings...yeah, what a Right Winger that slick Willie was. He was certainly no leftist? No, he was certainly no WHACKED-OUT leftist. What a joke!

Bush will carry 45 or 46 states this November. Sooner or later, people are going to grab hold of the government up there too...just might take 'em a little longer because of the impediments caused by the system. The left will still piss and moan, probably send out a few letter bombs and hurl some turds...but the majority will of the people is going to rule before it's all said and done. About time too.

You certainly had to dig back a long way, Wing. Just trying to stir up shit again? I thought you said you weren't going to address me here? Guess that wasn't true...

If you insist on comparing Clinton to Shrub, look at the policies, the figures and the facts. Bill ran a surplus, George is running a huge deficit. Looks like your boy is the incompetent clown, doesn't it? Not only that, but he's likely incapable of getting a blow-job because of his religious hang-ups...wasting seed and all that.

Pig-fuckin' Georgie isn't running against Clinton though. You have to understand that on some level. Bill is gone, Wing. Not only that but it is looking more and more like Georgie will be running against Dean. Dean may be a lot of things, but he's not Bill Clinton.

Here's something that came in my e-mail this morning:

Dear Friends --

Happy New Year.

With my new book, "Fanatics and Fools: Why George Bush Must Lose So The
American Public Can Win," finally finished and off to the publisher, it's
great to be back in the column-writing saddle again.

All the Best -- Arianna

********

DEAN, BOBBY, AND THE GHOST OF LANDSLIDES PAST

Arianna Huffington

I swear, if I hear one more Democratic honcho say that Howard Dean is not
electable, I'm going to do something crazy (maybe that's what happened to
Britney in Vegas this weekend).

The contention is nothing short of idiotic.

Consider the source: the folks besmirching the Good Doctor's Election Day
viability are the very people who have driven the Democratic Party into
irrelevance. Who spearheaded the Party's resounding 2002 mid-term
defeats. Who kinda, sorta, but not really disagreed with President Bush
as he led us down the path of preemptive war with Iraq, irresponsible tax
cuts, and an unprecedented deficit.

Dean is electable precisely because he's making a decisive break with the
spinelessness and pussyfooting that have become the hallmark of the
Democratic Party.

So, please, no more hand-wringing about Dean being "another Dukakis". And
no more weepy flashbacks about having had your heart broken by George
McGovern, whose 1972 annihilation haunts the 2004 Democratic primaries
like a political Jacob Marley, shaking his chains and warning about the
Ghost of Landslides Past.

There is a historical parallel to Dean's candidacy. But it's not McGovern
in 1972, as the DLC-paranoiacs would like us to believe -- it's Bobby
Kennedy in 1968.

Like Kennedy, Dean's campaign was initially fueled by his anti-war
outrage. Like Kennedy, Dean has found himself fighting not just to
represent the Democratic Party but to remake it. Like Kennedy, Dean is
offering an alternative moral vision for America, not just an alternative
political platform.

And like Kennedy, Dean has come under withering attack from his critics
for the very attributes that his supporters find most attractive.

"He could be intemperate and impulsive. the image of wrath -- his
forefinger pointing, his fist pounding his palm, his eyes ablaze". Sean
Hannity on Howard Dean? No, Theodore White on Bobby Kennedy in "The
Making of the President 1968".

It's the same ludicrous charge of being "too angry" that's constantly
leveled at Dean. Have his Democratic opponents -- and the notoriously
decorous Washington press corps -- suddenly morphed into Miss Manners?
Personally, I could never trust a man who does not occasionally get hot
under the collar.

Of course Dean is angry. Take a look at what's happening in Iraq, with
another 236 American soldiers killed or wounded since Saddam was dragged
out of his spider hole. And take a look closer to home, where we have 12
million children living in poverty, 43 million people without health
insurance, 6 out of 7 working poor families unable to afford quality child
care, record levels of personal debt, and more and more U.S. jobs being
"outsourced" overseas. If you still have a pulse -- are you listening Joe
Lieberman? -- you should be royally pissed.

"I have traveled and I have listened to the young people of our nation,"
Kennedy said during his announcement speech, "and felt their anger about
the war that they are sent to fight and about the world they are about to
inherit."

And young people have been the spark that has lit the fuse of the Dean
campaign. As he pointed out this weekend in Iowa: "One-quarter of all
the people who gave us money between June and September were under 30
years old." So while the Democratic establishment is once again dusting
off its tried-and-untrue swing voter strategy, Dean is running, as he put
it, "a campaign based on addition, not subtraction. We want to add new
people to the Democratic Party so that we can beat George Bush. It's the
only way we can beat him."

Kennedy was drawn into the '68 race by his indignation over the direction
of America's foreign policy. "This nation," he said, "must adopt a
foreign policy which says, clearly and distinctly, 'no more Vietnams'."
Dean has been saying, clearly and distinctly, no more Iraqs, even when 70
percent of the public said they approved of Bush's policy. That's
leadership -- and the kind of boldness the Democratic Party has been
sorely lacking.

Far from Dean not being able to "compete" with Bush on foreign policy,
he's the one viable Democrat who isn't trying to compete on the playing
field that Bush and Karl Rove have laid out. No Democrat can win by
playing "Whose swagger is swaggier?" or "Whose flight suit is tighter?"
Instead Dean unambiguously asserts that "we are in danger of losing the
war on terror because we are fighting it with the strategies of the past.
The Iraq war diverted critical intelligence and military resources,
undermined diplomatic support for our fight against terror, and created a
new rallying cry for terrorist recruits."

In the same way that Kennedy was able to take his outrage over Vietnam and
expand it to include the outrages perpetrated at home, Dean has gone from
railing against the war to offering a New Social Contract for America's
Working Families that harkens back to the core message of FDR: "The test
of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who
have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little."

It's a message which Bobby Kennedy made central to his campaign but which
the Democratic Party has since abandoned.

Howard Dean has resurrected it and made it his own because, as he says,
2004 "is not just about electing a president -- it's about changing
America."

That is a big vision. But anything smaller guarantees the reelection of
George Bush.

Even if Bush does win in '04 though, Wing...Nixon won a landslide his last time around and it turned out that was, in fact, a crook. Given the illegal war, lies to the American public and the world, war crimes, crimes against humanity, exposing a CIA agent's identity, and a bevy of other things, I certainly wouldn't count on Georgie survivng a second term without sitting in front of a panel with a lawyer attached to each ear.

Blair, I didn't attack you personally, I responded to your post. Get the hell over your self-imposed importance...it really isn't there. The war was not illegal. Dean is not electable in this country. Those are two facts. Now wait until November and we'll see who was right and who was wrong. Unless Bush gets caught with a gay man in a closet in the White House, he's going to win. Even most Democratic strategists understand that. Gonna base your hopes and dreams on Arianna Huffington? What a sad state of affairs THAT is!

Did I say anything about personal attacks, Wing? No, I said

.... peace in this world Wing? If so, then Bush's war was illegal... and it still is anyway... The US wanted the UN to do something about Iraq's so called "threat" to the USA, and when they were near done Bush stepped right over them. Thats no way to garuntee world peace if stronger countries just ignore International rules...

Anyway, your damn lucky Bush is there for the Oil... It'd look pretty funny, most powerful country in the world is scared of a country that has a few rusted tanks and a leader that hides in holes...

... I keep reading this shit about Dean not being electable, and not once have I been given a reason...

Why Wingnut, is he not electable?