voteforenvironment

[Thorgnor]

I'm voting for Velvet.

[ollie]

You win on the attack ads. I hate them all. Especially those produced by the NDP with subliminal Hitler references. A new all-time low in campaigning politics... even agreed by staunch lefty politicos such as Warren Kinsella himself.

Which NDP commercials are those? I like the one where Harper has a little pot belly. Heh.

[AD]

Finally, given that I am contemplating a new career in journalism, I appreciate the encouragement.

To start, publish your travel journals!!! (you evil journalist)

[bokonon]

The conservative party supports representation by population. They also want to abolish or at least reform the senate. These are both good ideas. I think a lot of people dismiss this party simply because of the name.

This year I was determined to make an informed decision on my vote. Instead of just listening to the banter and mudslinging I decided to download and read the platforms of all parties. I almost hurled on my shoes when I read the Green platform and that made me sad. You're probably wondering what induced my retching. It was the idea of a guarunteed basic income that is unsupervised. The way I interpreted this is that people can be sure of receiving a subsistence level income which covers their rent and food but not actually have to report to any agency or try to get off the dole! Fully able bodied adults can choose to not participate in the workforce and instead leach off the taxpayers for life and not have to worry about a thing. I'm sorry' date=' but i don't get my ass out of bed every day and go to a job that makes me want to kick most people in the genitals so that my welfare neighbour can sit on her ass all day. oh wait, actually I do do that now....and she has the "big half" of the house I rented.

okay, /rant. Green platform made me want to cry, that is all.[/quote']

Spoken like a true neo-con without consideration of what placed those people in the position they're in in the first place. Without consideration of the fact that every Canadian has a right to live. Without consideratoin that slavery was abolished years ago. And without consideration of the fact that if the welfare state helps just one person out of a hundred pick themselves up off the ground they're likely to pay enough taxes for the other 99...

way to misinterpret what I wrote! Yes, people have the right to live, yes we should have a safety net for EMERGENCY USE ONLY. No, people should not be guarunteed the basics in life without trying. If you are able to work go work get off your ass and do it. I don't care if you're a poet or a painter or whatever. If you're good at being an artist then people will pay for your work, just like any other occupation. If people do not value your work then you need to find other work to support yourself.

[bokonon]

Oh, and as for the attack ads... I don't have a TV, (I can't afford one nor the service for it, but my neighbours on welfare have cable) I've never seen them.

[MoMack]

No, people should not be guarunteed the basics in life without trying. If you are able to work go work get off your ass and do it. I don't care if you're a poet or a painter or whatever. If you're good at being an artist then people will pay for your work, just like any other occupation. If people do not value your work then you need to find other work to support yourself.

Can someone with an Art History background please help me out here...

[ollie]

Oh, and as for the attack ads... I don't have a TV, (I can't afford one nor the service for it, but my neighbours on welfare have cable) I've never seen them.

Do your neighbours on welfare make more money than you? That seems to be the implication. i.e. I can't afford it, they can.

Do you know for sure that they are the ones paying for it?

[bokonon]

Yes, artist's work increases in value after they're dead. This is a known fact. If you want lots of money while you're alive then pick another career.

[MoMack]

Yes, artist's work increases in value after they're dead. This is a known fact. If you want lots of money while you're alive then pick another career.

That wasn't actually the point. In fact, the point with art would be that you're missing the point when trying to value it.

ie. the people that revolutionize and change the world are often not acknowledged until they're gone. If the neo-cons have them all making licence plates that we're off to "1984" very quickly.

ps. your rebuttal to my reply indeed shows that I interpreted you correctly "spoken like a true neo-con" I believe was my interpretation.

As an aside, and not meant to be a shot at you directly Bokonon, but it always amazes me to find out that right wingers are at shows. I mean, to me (and I would argue most, including the artists) the whole "jam-band" aka "phish" (admittedly less so) aka Dead scene/movement is born out of the left. Its about art and revolution and changing the old guard.

How one can simultaneously enjoy St. Stephen and vote for Stephen Harper is inexplainable - or at the very least, they're not getting nearly as much out of the music as the rest of us.

...Strangers stopping strangers, just to shake their hands...

[ollie]

How one can simultaneously enjoy St. Stephen and vote for Stephen Harper is inexplainable - or at the very least, they're not getting nearly as much out of the music as the rest of us.

...Strangers stopping strangers, just to shake their hands...

Whatever are you talking about MoMack?

[color:#CCCCCC]Kinda wish the picture was bigger

[Davey Boy 2.0]

wow, interesting standpoint MoMack, akin to associating the 60s revolution to a movement toward the left but one, I think, that has lost its momentum. Not sure the average Head necessarily sees the context of where/when/how that genre of music was borne

"they're not getting nearly as much out of the music as the rest of us"

I think ^that may be a stretch though

[Thorgnor]

I don't think it's a stretch at all to say that art loses much of the intention of the artist when it's taken out of it's context. I guarantee that Bokonon thinks she likes Bob Marley but has no idea she's shitting on his philosophy when she talks that way.

[Hal Johnson]

Yes, artist's work increases in value after they're dead. This is a known fact. If you want lots of money while you're alive then pick another career.

Cause we all know that the system is set up perfectly and only rewards those who truly make remarkable art.

etc...

[Thorgnor]

Likewise, I'm sure Vonnegut would be impressed.

[Birdy]

"It was meant to keep "majority" governments from calling elections to suit their popularity. The fact is, the Opposition wasn't acting as the Opposition in this last minority government, continuously voting in favour with the Conservatives."

I had no idea that his amendment referred specifically to majority governments. I suppose that must be due to the evil reporters. And I would argue that the Opposition wasn't acting as the New Conservatives wanted them to act. There is no law to my knowledge that dictates how the Opposition is supposed to vote.

As for the link to bourque.org, I am truly sorry I don't have time to read the whole page right now and thus would appreciate if you could cut and paste a bit. I found this, which I hope you're not referring to:

"Yet, this still-very-active politico tells Bourque he fears a secret deal has been cooked between Dion and Elizabeth May"

Utilising that journalistic integrity, I could easily and accurately post that I fear that Harper enjoys an incestous relationship with his children.

"Please link me to actual fact-based articles and not opinion pieces in the Toronto Star that claim Harper called artists "rich fat-cats". 45 million cut in a 300 million dollar program has more people outraged then if the same were to happen to the welfare system. Is that right?"

I didn't claim that he said artists were rich fat-cats. I claimed that he thinks that, and it's based on a very commonly reported story. What the fiasco does prove is that Harper was very wrong when he indicated that arts funding doesn't resonate with ordinary Canadians. The fallout from his comments proves he was wrong about that.

"Please link me to very mis-leading numbers concering the environment"

I won't search out the links because work calls, but I'll tell you what I was referring to. While Kyoto and others call for a reduction of emissions based on 1990 (is that the right year?) levels, Harper's reduction numbers are on today's levels, a fact he refuses to say out loud. He makes it sound like he's matching or beating Kyotos numbers, but in actual fact, he's not even touching them.

"What campaign rules did he ignore?"

The ones on how much you can spend on advertising. No need for us to argue about it while it's still before the courts.

"You win on the attack ads. I hate them all. Especially those produced by the NDP with subliminal Hitler references. A new all-time low in campaigning politics..."

You missed my point. He rolled out the political ads early so they wouldn't count as election spending. Given that only he knew when he was going to call the election, he was at a great advantage over the other parties on this point.

Finally, given that I am contemplating a new career in journalism, I appreciate the encouragement.

Hehehe... no problem!

Yes, his amendment was 'meant' to apply to majority governments, which is in response to the question you asked. The amendment's purpose was to ensure an election is held every four years.

The theory is that a majority government would adhere to that rule, and Canadians would know when the next election day is.

While I agree there's no law dictating how Opposition would act, you would think that when they speak publically against the Conservative government and then in parliament vote in favour of that same government, one would question. Or when they vote in favour in parliament and stalemate committees, one would question. I preferably would like to see a government that is able to make significant change, rather than sit idly for four years bickering back and forth. If the Opposition did not have confidence in this government to do that, they should have done something about it. Instead they used the system to suit their own party's goals of needing to rebuild support after the Sponsorship scandal, all the while knowing full well what they were doing to make Harper's minority government {defacto majority government) take teeny weeny steps towards nothing. Yes, Harper had the longest running minority government ever, but that had nothing to do with his own party's credibility and everything to do with what the Liberals did not do.

Are you referring to the 'niche issue' comment about the arts cuts? If so, it's bloody true. Not that I agree with those who consider these things a niche issue, but a lot of people do. And they're simply not rich fat cats, but a lot of ordinary, working-class, joe shmoes living across rural Canada outside of major cities. Never has the simple truth come back to bite a man in the ass more than this comment has. I admit it was ill-timed, but it shouldn't be used to create a theory about his whole stance on arts and culture. Gilles Ducceppe certainly is a veteran at what he does.

I don't think Harper implies he's beating Kyoto by any means, I think what he's trying to tell Canadians is that we are in a tough place to simply say fuck it and go green. I want us to go green, there's no doubt about it, but we live in a country that is huge and vast and heavily, heavily reliant on oil and manufacturing. Times are definitely a'changin', but we need to ensure that when we think about the environment, we do it in a way that isn't going to screw all those who work in manufacturing, drive tractor-trailers down the 401 and across the trans-Canada, work in the tarsands and pipelines aren't going to be up shits creek when we make the switch. I think he's trying to approach it in a conservative manner and ensure we're not going to be faced with even more job loss than the extreme job loss we're already facing. We've got a lot of things to change in this country and we need to make sure people are going to be able to bring home a wage at the end of the day. Like I said somewhere else, if a government wanted to use tax payer money to give to industry to adapt green technologies, they'd get my vote in a heartbeat. But when a government takes the opinion that polluters are evil and pollutants are their problem, I'm against it. Pollutants are OUR problem. We are the ones who rely on them. We are the ones who need to change.

What is reported in bourque.org is simply a reporting of what was said by Liberal officials. Sure it may be speculation, but it's an outright reporting of what was said in the least. And considering the continued amount of speculation that has been coming up repeatedly, I'd venture to say something's abrew. If say, you wrote you had heard that Harper is incestuous with his children from his uncle Bob, then yes, that would be journalistic integrity.

Ok, again, you win on the attack ads. I hate them all, fair and unfair advantages they give.

[Birdy]

How one can simultaneously enjoy St. Stephen and vote for Stephen Harper is inexplainable - or at the very least, they're not getting nearly as much out of the music as the rest of us.

This very comment tells me you're not getting much out of the music as the rest of us. How fucking hypocritical. God forbid different opinions in this world.

[MoMack]

Sure its lost its momentm. And I think its also important to point out that from the beginning and for the most part, it was subversive and not overtly political. But that doesn't make it less political or less of a left-wing movement.

Christ, who hasn't had a free meal from the rainbows on the lot. Or gotten a free ticket via greencrew.

[Davey Boy 2.0]

::two winks and a blush::

[Thorgnor]

::two winks and a blush::

politics forum please

[Birdy]

Momack, you're thinking Martin Luther King Jr. and saying it's all St. Stephen. St. Stephen sang about the times. As Bob said, the times they are a'changin. And they are.

[Big Wooly Mammoth]

Deadheads come in all shapes and sizes. I don't think that you can equate head to liberal/progressive.

I also think that to vote for Stephen Harper you either have to be ignorant of the issues or a rich selfish idiot. Or an fundamentalist evangelical. But that probably puts you in the former category.

Most of his voters fall in the former catagory, I believe. There is no way he could win without many getting votes from the people his policies most deeply screw. Unfortunately, they don't even know it. Thye just hear the lies and the rhetoric and fall for all the scare tactics.

[bokonon]

I think the people who feel they are entitled to part of what I earn are also shitting on Vonnegut's and Marley's philosophies. You have an obligation to contribute to the world, not leach off it. You have an obligation to be a good person and not rip other people off or take food out of their mouths. In short, everyone has a right to live and an obligation to contribute.

The first pillar of love (as in One Love) is respect. How can you respect yourself or anyone else if all you want to do is leach off of others.

I think I have a better understanding of individualism and responsibility than a lot of people.

[bokonon]

Out of curiosity, how many people here have read all of the platforms?

[Booche]

I think I have a better understanding of individualism and responsibility than a lot of people.

Quite the opposite from what I am reading.

[Big Wooly Mammoth]

I think I have a better understanding of individualism and responsibility than a lot of people.

Quite the opposite from what I am reading.