there aren't a lot of circumstances where markets look like a better approach, but i have to accept this is one of them - with some strong caveats.

i think everybody understands that flooding corrupt governments with cash doesn't accomplish anything, except political bribery. it gets a military on the west's side. it doesn't alleviate poverty. this is true whether we're talking about dictatorships or democracies. and while not every government in africa is corrupt, a substantial number of them are rotten beyond any sort of possible redemption - and it takes a lot of corruption for somebody standing in north america to say that.

so, if you look at the three development possibilities - government, co-operatives, markets - it sort of immediately reduces the actual choice to one between co-operatives and markets. and, you know where a good reliable lefty comes down in a discussion between co-operatives and markets.

i think a good strategy would be co-operative oriented. and, my understanding of how the culture in most of africa is inherently suggests it would be difficult for a market strategy to ignore co-operative development. but, at the end of the day co-ops can't do things like build power plants. and, it's those sorts of inputs that are necessary for a seriously co-operative economy.

i think capitalism is fooling itself if it thinks it can swing africa entirely. it just fooled itself into thinking it could swing india entirely. and, we're generally very good at deluding ourselves. but, african capitalism could never be western capitalism. it would necessarily have deep social roots.

however, focusing on private investment seems like the right step forwards to get things moving. and, you don't need a marxist concept of history to realize that. or a nice check from the gates foundation.

aug 6 is the anniversary of....

her appointment in the department. so, it will be a day of celebration. let there be an explosion of happiness. i'm sure everybody will have a positive reaction. let's throw a party that makes it look like the place got hit by a bomb!

"...as we get ready for the onslaught..."

egads.

i'm going to rain angry fire down on mulcair if he even thinks about it.

ricohman
Markets are falling, oil will be $30 a barrel soon and this is what Tom considers important to Canadians.

Jessica Murray
marijuana is the future of the economy. oil is not.

www.cbc.ca/news/politics/ndp-mulcair-marijuana-decriminalization-1.3199532

further demonstrating harper's dishonesty is spitting on a fish. it's been clear he's a pathological liar since at least 2008.

72% say it doesn't matter because that's the swing vote on the left. you can take that down further by ignoring conservative base supporters.

the best-case estimates for the liberals are that there's about a 10% red tory swing vote, mostly in the suburbs, that will be irritated enough about it that they think harper's lost the "moral authority" to govern, or something.

but, for the vast majority of voters, it doesn't matter because they'd never vote for the conservatives, anyways.

that won't stop the media from confirming it's own irrelevancy when the conservatives are at least reduced in october. but, the harsh truth is that it's just another subplot in what has been a fantasy media narrative for many years, now.

www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-grenier-duffy-aug21-1.3199132

i mean, what do you want, exactly? for people to vote for some other party twice?

it's like suggesting that 70% of people don't consider hitler's perspective on cartels important in supporting the aims of the second world war. a difference of scale, sure. but the basic idea is what the polling is measuring - that this is minor, in comparison to philosophical differences in *policy*.

ad scam did not lead to liberal party collapse - that's the same imaginary media narrative. if that was true, the swing would have moved right. it actually swung left. the fall in liberal voters at the time was correlated with an increase in ndp support and stagnation in conservative numbers. and, the reason was that people didn't want to vote for paul martin because they opposed his budget cuts and general reputation as a fiscal conservative [which is only half fair].

that doesn't suggest voter ignorance, so much as it reflects an ability for voters to prioritize issues properly as they matter to them.

people arguing that this ought to be an issue are the same people that remain confused by canada's complete rejection of ignatieff. they think he was a brilliant philosopher; most canadians saw him as a war crimes collaborator, and not a particularly deep thinker, either. it's this class of people that think they're brilliant, but that in truth are really quite dense.

so, when 72% say that it's not going to affect their vote, that doesn't mean 72% don't care at all. that's a logical fallacy in reasoning. it just means that 72% prioritize actual issues, rather than media circuses and what are essentially protestant accusations of moral impiety. this evil-doer rhetoric doesn't fly here. we're a broadly secular country.

it's a right-wing strategy to sway a very significantly left-leaning electorate.

but, whatever, i've been banging my head against the wall since 2004, warning liberals that the ndp are going to steal all their votes if they don't change their strategy. nobody's listened. but, hey - take a look at the polls, eh?

--

Kit's Kat
After what we have seen this week about the Harper PMO in action, I am not sure why anyone would vote for Harper and the Conservative candidates.

Jessica Murray
this is another talking point that's of no use in convincing anybody.

there's a handful of issues that are unpopular in urban canada but command a majority in rural canada - opposition to abortion (which, if you think is not an issue, you should think again), a certain type of support for the military that makes liberals cringe, vengeance-based crime policy (including capital punishment), etc. a lot of this is off the radar, but it's still driving voters because there remains this perception that the conservatives will carry through with it - it's irrational projection, but it's real. and mark my words: if the conservatives end up having to deal with a long term scorched earth policy in the urban centres, you can expect them to hail mary on some of this stuff, as they fall back into their reform roots. the blunt reality is that you can't convince an anti-abortion voter with much of anything, if you continue to support abortion.

it's an ideological gulf. there's no way to break through it. and, it's been cemented in canadian politics for at least 80 years.

the conservative polling numbers right now ought to be seen as an absolute best case scenario for the liberals & ndp. remember: they haven't polled under 29% since world war two, and the only time they polled under 30% was when joe clark endorsed the liberals. it's astounding that they're consistently polling in the 20s. this is a historic shift unto itself that liberals should be jumping at glee over. don't get greedy....

i remain exceedingly skeptical that they'll finish under 30% in the general. it's just demographically infeasible. and if they land at 27% or lower, *it will be the worst showing for the conservative party since confederation*.

nothere4ueither
@Jessica Murray Good observations. There seems to be a belief in a lot of supposed Canadian laws and traditions that never really did exist.

Jessica Murray
borden swept bc in the 1911 election under the slogan "a white canada", getting 60% of the vote and all 7 seats. it's a little more complicated today than it was then. but, the rejection of pearsonian multiculturalism remains a vote driver on the rural right.

i think the long term trend suggests that the conservative party is moving into the space that the socreds used to occupy - a sort of fringe western right-wing party. whomever replaces harper is likely to be a lot more right-wing on social issues. it's kind of "phase 2", from what i can gather. and, they're kind of stuck. they only pretend to hug the middle for so long before the strategy seems pointless, and unable to bear fruitful results (from their perspective). and, it's consequently only so long before the party heads have to make a choice between carrying through on these projections and watching the party collapse again. i suspect they won't let it collapse a second time.

but, if we're optimistic, we can look at 25% as an absolute minimum floor, for this election. and, that extra cut is going to come mostly in ridings where they're not particularly competitive in the first place.

this is rock bottom for the conservative party. people need to deal with that.

nonsense. i immediately understood both statements as limited to federal workers. every time i've heard mulcair himself state the $15/hr raise, he's stated "for federal workers".

there's been absolutely no ambiguity, and it's been entirely clear from the start.

some voters like to project their fantasies on to candidates. that's something we've seen before.

for example, consider obama & the iraq war. barack obama was always crystal clear: he opposed the iraq war because he thought it was bad strategy. he thought they should have attacked pakistan, instead. he never suggested he was anti-war or any kind of dove on the anti-war spectrum. and, yet, masses of people pulled that out of the clouds somehow and interpreted "we should have bombed pakistan instead of iraq" as some kind of adherence to gandhian principles of non-violence.

that's not obama's fault. Drone Strike Tuesdays are obama's fault. but, he was perfectly clear that he was going to be an absolute war monger.

the truth is that voters just made stuff up. they heard what they wanted to hear, not what was actually said. and they'll do that. repeatedly. and predictably.

an example of that kind of thing this election may come out in the coalition question. it might not matter how unequivocally trudeau rejects this. it's what voters *want* to hear. and, they want to hear it so much that it might prove almost impossible to get through to them on the point.

ipolitics.ca/2015/08/20/details-details-promising-whats-up-to-the-provinces-to-deliver/

Mallius62
If you say children, do you mean multinational corporations?

Then yeah...Harper loves them.

Jessica Murray
it's specifically when they say *dependent* children that they mean multinational corporations.

www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-grenier-parents-aug21-1.3197844 

Cyrus Manz
NEWSFLASH
ONTARIO TEACHER UNIONS have just announced that they will be on strike across the province starting on the start of the school year in a couple of weeks from now.

So now whatever help Ontario parents get from the federal government will have to be spent on RAISED salaries for their teachers.

Think about it!

Jessica Murray
you gotta pay teachers. otherwise, you end up with conservative voters.

if you're dead set on not printing money, we could always cancel some military contracts.

more seriously, the ontario government takes a class war approach to this that's designed to keep the fight up so they're rewinning the same battles rather than breaking new ground. it's unavoidable. and, from their perspective, they have to be pro-active. so, they'll start all kinds of fights and then back off and then pick it back up.

the traditional conservative dream of class harmony through strict obedience to social hierarchy is a pipe dream in a modern economy. this is a perpetual struggle that can never be won, but can only be fought into perpetuity.

if your interests are on the side of the state, you just have to accept there's going to be conflict and you're going to lose the fight, sometimes. which is why you have to support being pro-active in throwing wrenches into things to consistently give the state a better bargaining position, or move the battle into an area that's already been decided. and, if your interests are with the teachers, then you've just got to grab a sign and get at it.