yeah. it's an unnecessarily long election, isn't it?
www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-alexander-refugee-crisis-1.3213869
Sing_a_song
@Jessica Murray Well the script that was supposed to have been followed is that the CPC, with its ample funds, would steam-roll the opposition parties in the second half of the campaign. So far, it seems that the longer campaign is just prolonging the pain.
Jessica Murray
i rejected that narrative from the start. it was clearly an act of desperation from the beginning.
the conservative advantage in funding is a figment of the media's imagination; the other parties have no borrowing restrictions, and can go in debt as much as they want. the conservatives have created this zero-debt fantasy reality and enforced it on the media in such a way that it can no longer analyze situations rationally. and, do you think they won't go into debt if they're in it to the end? they've got four years to pay it off.
rather, the conservatives had to shoot themselves in the foot to get there - calling an election early actually restricts their ability to spend. that's a big cost. so, what benefit would justify such a cost?
the desperation was in hoping that a long election would give the other two candidates enough time to alienate their respective bases. and, they might still. i think mulcair is digging himself into a pretty nasty hole.
but, the funding issue? it's not a real factor. it never has been. not in canada...
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the kneejerk xenophobes are back again. i'm catching up on the last thurston moore disc, so i'm going to rant a little.
"let the arabs deal with their own problems. syria for syrians. canada for...err...nevermind..."
in fact, there ought to be some truth in this statement. the saudis are awash in cash. surely, they can deal with this? but, what's actually going on in the region has been kept fairly obscure, and if you have a grasp of the situation on the ground it's actually obvious that the oil money cannot solve this problem because it is the cause of it.
as a leftist, i normally want to get to root causes. now, that doesn't mean bombing people. that's an argument against bombing people, actually. what it means is alleviating the social concerns that lead to extremism. normally, leftists point to poverty as the overriding root cause; that is, inequality. and, the poverty that comes from the desperation of war and alienation and subordination and humiliation is certainly a factor. but, in this case, it's a secondary issue.
the primary issue is what is actually increasing imperialist aggression from the saudi theocracy, who wants to purge the region of people it considers heretics. they pour billions into these groups. we call them terrorist groups. in truth, they're functionally state actors. they are preparing the region for an eventual saudi takeover. and, unless we want to declare a war on the saudis (and i actually think that the americans should be pushing for regime change in riyadh, and should be willing to use as much force as is necessary to do it), we have to take the situation at face value: if these people are not given an escape route, they will be killed.
root cause analysis is the right approach. but, in this case it exposes an insolvable problem.
it's all fine and great to look back at the thirties and suggest that funding an opposition in germany was the best way to attack the root causes leading to the holocaust.
it wasn't going to stop hitler from killing anybody. you had to get people out.
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H2O = hijklmno
The biggest contributor to the Syrian refugee crisis is Assad.
Defeating Assad means helping ISIS.
Defeating ISIS means helping Assad.
Bombing the country into the ground may be a solution, but is it humanitarian?
What will happen after the total destruction of Syria?
There is no one single solution as Alexander wants to imply!
Jessica Murray
this particular assad, the younger assad, was not groomed for power. it was his brother that was groomed for power. but, his brother was killed and the responsibility fell to him.
while his brother was being trained as a military planner and a statesman, the younger assad was training to become an eye doctor. he had has life planned out as a private citizen outside of government.
circumstances thrust him into power. but, he had not planned for this and did not want it. so, he set in motion a process that would transfer power from the military to the people.
this is when the saudis stepped in. they cannot allow for peaceful transfers of power to civilian governments. they are ruthlessly consistent on this point: all attempts to pursue democracy must be obliterated by all force possible.
the rebels in syria are not fighting for the people against assad. they are fighting for the saudi theocracy against the people. cynics will claim that of course assad will be popular when the other option is armed thugs that will publicly execute you for wearing the wrong clothing. but, the reality remains: assad represents the popular will, which is to defend the nation against foreign-backed extremists.
it's only half your fault for being misinformed. the media has indeed failed to understand and educate the western populace on the situation at hand. and harper himself may legitimately not understand what is actually happening.
but, there is a single solution: the government in riyadh needs to be removed. unfortunately, that solution is not being contemplated,
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Archie D. Bunker
I realize it didn't make the MSM yet, but I wonder how the CPC, LPC and US Democrats and GOP(Republicans) are reacting to the rumor that Putin is sending some of his air force pilots into Syria to help Assad get rid of ISSIS.
Putin (if it's true) actually helping us in fighting our terrorists?, an enemy that we can't ( or don't want to?) ever catch and eliminate?
And if he succeeds at eliminating ISSIS, we could repeal Bill C-51 as a useless bill, and the institutions that required it could be shut down to save the taxpayer some dollars, that can be spent on more useful things like food and shelter, infrastructure etc... All these fake jobs would be lost....so sad!
Obama seems to be awfully quiet about this!
I think they don't like the idea that Russia will be shooting at the U.S.' proxi army.
Putin would be calling Obama's bluff big time,... if it's true
Jessica Murray
syria was a russian cold war ally. syrian generals rely very heavily on russian generals for "advice"; that is the sneaky way to say that the syrians are essentially under russian military command, much as canada is under american military command. russian involvement has consequently been very strong - dominant, in fact - from the start.