I got to see the slums of Lima firsthand in 84, quite depressing. One of the problems in many 3rd world countries is the lack of proper land tenure, the people can be kicked off without any compensation, causing them to migrate to the slums.

Private property rights have proven that it is possible for people to succeed.
It's what America is all about. Let's remember this.
In Canada we are very generous towards the poor. In fact I would argue that there only a few in Canada that are poor.
Only screwed up.
Now what can we do to cure ' screwed up' ( being relative}, try to introduce them into regular everyday life, where we all have to get up every morning and add to the sum.

IAMC ,the poor are manufactured by cretins like you who cheat people out of a decent life through your greed and utter stupidity .

the only time you will add to the sum is when the maggots finish off your vile existence

haraldkann Harsh, but justified!

Whoa harald!! Someone might mistake you for being angry! Chant with me now.....Beer, BBQ Salmon, Music and... well, you know.

IAMC What's the acronym for? I AM Crazy? I AM a Completeidiot?

I have seen the poor in many places of the world, Canada’s poor would be considered “well to do poor” by most of the rest of the world’s poor, except perhaps by coastal Ecuadorian poor who benefit from a year round growing season.

When you see people with distended bellies, worm tracks and half blind by infections, then you see what real poor is like.

That does not mean we do not help people here, but the poor here suffer far less than elsewhere.

I haven't read Davis' Planet of Slums, but I really enjoyed his other work, such as City of Quartz.

He is one of the few po-mo scholars who hasn't abandoned the need for clear thinking in the rush to sound "sophistimicated" =^)

Based on my reading of City of Quartz, I would hesitate to pigeon-hole him as an anti-capitalist: yes, he is very critical of capitalism gone wrong, but I wasn't left with the feeling that he was, for e.g., a socialist.

I read tales of the poor and disenfanchised and I wonder what we can do. It's easy, and not inappropriate, to blame NGOs, the IMF, the CEOs, and globalization trends, but what can we do? I make my living teacing children and I worry that they, growing up in a world of spin and marketing, where right and wrong are defined by what's good for me, are feeling swept up by the movement and powerless to change anything.

Here's a small idea. What about trying not to buy anything new? Wouldn't that hit the retailers and global marketers where they live? What would happen if everyone started patronizing thrift stores and charity outlets and garage sales? Wouldn't that affect the sales figures of the retail giants? Where the profit margins are so razor thin that the drop of even a few percentage points would be noticed? Maybe they'd do some research into why their sales were faltering. Maybe they'd discover that customers were unhappy with their exploitation of children and abuse of human rights. Maybe they'd change their business practices.

I know, it's a small, probably vain, starry-eyed hope. But it's something.

Even posting to a forum like this can be a start.

I think governments should look at the taxes
they lay. I think the rate of taxation should
be related to the amount of work done in a location. A place like Nike should be taxed heavily as its shoes are made in poor places but then sold here. If Nike made its runners
in North America, I would support a very small
taxation rate on it. I would apply that model
to any other company doing business in Canada.

chevy
interesting idea but only practical if there were international agreements among all the countries to create a meaningful tax treaty - right now multinational corporations just structure their business model, and relocate their head offices, to whatever jurisdiction works best for them. You'd need an agreement that would stop or balance that because virtually all of the big firms like Nike do their manufacturing in low labour cost countries. An effective international agreement would have to treat that in such a way that more of the profits created here from high cost sales ($200/pairs of shoes) were funneled back - through the international tax system - to the place where they were manufactured (using 10c labour).
How would you ever get a high-wage, big deficit country like the States to agree? They play the system, especially the foreign financing of their massive debt to the hilt now. Pushed much further by transferring more US dollars to low wage countries the whole system would collapse like a house of cards.

Not that that would be a bad thing, necessarily, and it may well be happening anyway as the price of oil goes through the roof and the US debt increases.

I just can't see it happening voluntarily - unless public opinion changes radically. Even individual low-cost labour countries themselves – when they try to improve conditions for workers in their own countries – seem to be risking the transfer of plant to another less costly source of cheap labour. In a way it’s the same stupid game our provinces/states, cities and municipalities play every time a big automobile manufacturer contemplates building a new plant in North America…big giveaways of tax revenue to entice them to build HERE, not there. Corporate welfare at its best.

chevy & Alcibiades

We already have what you suggest; it's called Import Duties.

Goods imported from various countries are taxed at varying rates. Recently Canada has gradually reduced these import taxes, which go towards general transfers to the provinces for health care, educationa and social programmes. The reductions are there to assist foreign manufacturers and workers so they might better themselves.

Of course, the horde of nutters will say that this just helps criminal big-business exploit slaves, but if you were a small manufacturer in timbuktu you would be happy that import tariffs into Canada were being lowered so that your family and workers products would be less expensive on the street in Canada and that they would now have a better chance of being retailed in to the generally rich Canadian population.

High Tarifs - foreign products & workers shut out. Ergo need for more foreign aid to ameliorate the poverty.

Low Tarifs - Less foreign aid needed since people abroad find work in manufacturing and companies can export competitively.

"realisticman" (why do the wingnuts on these forums always have usernames which express the opposite of what they are?) much of the corporate elite has always begrudged the fact that the the New Deal in the U.S. and its equivalent in Canada "took away our money and gave it to the working classes"... without admitting that the distribution of buying power let them go on to become richer than ever and probably saved them from a revolution - which they may or may not have won.

You just can't get good servants for a pittance anymore... and the number of people willing to work themselves into an early grave because of occupational hazards or low pay, at least in the west, is limited to employees of WallMart.

However, the last twentyfive years have seen an erosion of real wages and living conditions (show me someone who can raise a family of three children on one non-executive salary like my father did) for all but the rich, and both Nafta and globalization, while perfectly logical from an individual manufacturer's perspective, is cumulatively exactly the opposite. As Walter Reuther once remarked when shown a painting machine (for autos) that put 100 men out of work, "How many Chevys will it buy?". Eventually we are all going to pay for this with a collapse in the standard of living through inflation. Of course, the wealthy will always have their apologists and a@#e - lickers who just know that the sparrow and horse school of economics means that they too will live well. "More and Cheaper" now exists not because of gains in productivity, but because someone in a foreign sweatshop is now doing the work under conditions that would be illegal here in North America. What Henry Ford understood you seem to have forgotten.

So long as the fiat currencies being printed (generally about ten percent per annum increase in the money supply - something that we all feel at the pump and the checkout, but which the government statistics conceal for political reasons) is seen as 'real money' by the slowly cooked frogs and the corporations are willing to accept it (and why shouldn't they? It gives them a call on the real wealth of all of us), the charade continues.

Moreover, the "small manufacturer in Timbuktu" never benefits from corporate slave labour, because the corporation is always willing to dump enough on the local market to put him out of business. He too is impoverished. He cannot compete with the combination of modern machinery and slave labour, and his products never were and never will be available on the streets of Canada

Foreign aid was always just giveaways to local corporations. It doesn't ameliorate poverty anywhere except in the corporate boardrooms of the real beneficiary and among the bureaucrats in the third world who make a living as parasites on these same projects. If you had ever read a project completion report, you would have known this. Why do you think that much of the protest against globalization is in the third world?

Try going beyond Economics 101. You'll be surprised with what you turn up.

Wow! ripponfalls's father raised three children, had a house and probably a car too - all on one salary. I see images of a Norman Rockwell illustration. Was there a lovely little puppy too? Ah, the glorious splendor of the colonial era. No wonder the rest of the world wants to come to Canada, eh?

So, the next time I'm in abroad buying, carpets, utensils, electronics, clothing and fabrics, shoes, luggage, etc. I should just stop and remember that it's all made by global corporate slaves? When I come back to Canada I should do what? Buy the imported stuff here, that was also made by slaves overseas? Or buy stuff here that was made by slaves here? By the way, what is manufactured here that is ethically correct for me to purchase? Please advise.

Signed: Miss Bretton Woods, slave to realisticman while he has his nap.

realisticman

You should wake up to the fact that you're a dumb cog in a corrupt and criminal system that rests on a series of lies and half-truths. You don't stand on the shoulders of giants - you crush the backs of the poor.

The cheap food you buy at the supermarket is at least partly available because people in the third world are starving.

It won't be fixed, it'll only be broken - either by the actions of people or by collapse under its own dead weight.

Naw, two goats and some chickens.

R. Smiley

I almost never shop in supermarkets. I prefer the small businesses and street markets, even though I pay more.

Where was your computer made?

Ireland.....

All European Macs are... or were at the time ... made there

Oh yeah, the Irish government lowered corporate taxes in Ireland and this bought in loads of high-tech companies. The economy has gone way up, housing in Dublin now matches the prices in London, and unemployment is way down. In a nutshell, lower taxes have created a boom and, I guess, more money for education and healthcare.

Let us all hope that the Liberals in BC and the Conservatives have noticed!

Lower taxes means jobs and a strong economy!

My G5 was assembled in the USA but the monitor in China.

realisticman: have a look at this ->

From the NEW YORK TIMES - April 5 2006

...The first data to document the effect of President Bush's tax cuts for investment income show that they have significantly lowered the tax burden on the richest Americans, reducing taxes on incomes of more than $10 million by an average of about $500,000.

An analysis of Internal Revenue Service data by The New York Times found that the benefit of the lower taxes on investments was far more concentrated on the very wealthiest Americans than the benefits of Mr. Bush's two previous tax cuts: on wages and other noninvestment income.

When Congress cut investment taxes three years ago, it was clear that the highest-income Americans would gain the most, because they had the most money in investments. But the size of the cuts and what share goes to each income group have not been known.

As Congress debates whether to make the Bush tax cuts permanent, The Times analyzed I.R.S. figures for 2003, the latest year available and the first that reflected the tax cuts for income from dividends and from the sale of stock and other assets, known as capital gains.

The analysis found the following:

Among taxpayers with incomes greater than $10 million, the amount by which their investment tax bill was reduced averaged about $500,000 in 2003, and total tax savings, which included the two Bush tax cuts on compensation, nearly doubled, to slightly more than $1 million.

These taxpayers, whose average income was $26 million, paid about the same share of their income in income taxes as those making $200,000 to $500,000 because of the lowered rates on investment income.

Americans with annual incomes of $1 million or more, about one-tenth of 1 percent all taxpayers, reaped 43 percent of all the savings on investment taxes in 2003. The savings for these taxpayers averaged about $41,400 each...

The savings from the investment tax cuts are expected to be larger in subsequent years because of gains in the stock market.

and, later in the same story:

I don't disagree but that's a different tax system than we have in Canada, by far and in many ways.

Governments find many ways to get funds.

Here's hoping that we look around and emulate the best of the taxing systems from around the world, learn from them and formulate the best policy for all.

All income taxed the same - doesn't matter if it's dividend income, interest income, capital gains income, all inheritance taxed too...no dividend tax credits...no royalty credits or flow through tax credits or depletion allowances - a dollar earned by anyone anytime is subject to tax = end corporate and capital welfare - wean the rich off their privilege and make more room at the trough. period No more property tax breaks for relocating business; you guys say you like competition, let's see how you deal with some real competition. It's time to really level the playing field to see how good you capitalists really are in a fair contest.
Canadian system is not very different from the US system - you ought to know that.

I must say that I do sympathize with your suggestion that the tax system be simplified. So, if the playing field is to be level, what is the standard to follow? Alberta or Washington State? These are both immediately next door. Although Europe and Asia are only a few hours away. Would BC set the standard? Should the tax advantages to the film industry in BC eliminated? This would, of course, eliminate thousands of jobs and earnings at all levels of society here since the industry always just moves on to the next 'haven'. Under the NDP the mining industry just about left BC completely, because of taxes, etc. and Alberta gained more company head offices with half BC's population. Company head offices bring work for designers, lawyers, accountants, printers, builders, painters, cooks and food suppliers, transportation industries. Artists and other cultural workers benefit from commissions and social and cultural groups benefit from philanthropy.

Should our utopia be prepared to have zero manufacturing, head offices and cultural indstries?

Should we set the standard, let all business leave BC, and wait for others to be like us? Imagine the poverty we'd suffer waiting? When can we expect worldwide similarity in all taxes?

You say that Canadian(sic) system is not very different..., I know of a few large companies that have many happy workers just across both borders. They determined that it was better for all to set up the companies there, rather than here. Is that what you'd like to see more of? De-industrialize and then what, de-populate?

Where's the money going to come from to pay people to maintain anything? How will we pay our teachers and nurses? Is it 'back to the land'?

realisticman:
I guess you're not aware of the situation in the automobile manufacturing industry then; wherein the cost per unit manufactured in Canada is significantly lower than the cost in the US simply because of our medical system and the attendant savings it generates for corporations operating here.

Dig a little deeper, you'll find that all the touted tax savings of going south are largely illusory. Mostly a result of greedy owners wanting to sell out and take a quick profit to the bank and get the rewards of a biased system that only taxes half of capital gains. You should compare the US system with ours in that respect too. The problem is you don't read very widely or very carefully. Hang around here for a while, stay in the background, read and learn. Stop posting nonsense because it somehow reflects the prejudices of what you think is going on. We don't have to de-industrialize we just have to smarten up. The folks at the top of the food chain need to tighten their belts a little and give up a lot of their undeserved privilege.

Just like in France. The people knew that change was necessary there but they won't accept it as long as it's being shoved down their throats without both sides in the equation - workers and employers - having a say in the debate and fashioning a solution that works for both sides – not just for capital and employers. That's what De Villepin and Chirac tried to do - if you'd read the material that's been posted here you'd know that.

We have to start behaving the same way here in Canada. Especially since we're not going to get even minimal consultation from the political elites as long as the Prime Minister is convinced he's the smartest man in the country and only he can decide who asks the questions.

Time to get 'realistic' man.

G West. I am aware of the automobile situation. I did also see "Roger & Me". And, please don't try and understand how much I have read, you have no idea whatsoever! You also say I'm posting nonsense and tell me to stop. What arrogant balony! I ask a few questions and you jump in and shove your childish prejucies down my throat. What are you suggesting? We adopt the same tax structure as Ontario to attract manufacturing like autos?

Also, I do actually read French and have read Le Monde, etc on the situation in France. As I mentioned:
“France lives today, more than ever, in a utopian fantasy”

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/13/o...5819fd5&ei=5070

The demonstrators were not demonstrating against neocons, capitalists, pro-globalisationists, exploiters and all those other epithets that some like to pathologically cite. They were in a campaign that will restrict the immigrant underclass from entering the workforce. They adopted an extreme right wing posture that was opposed to the government moving working conditions more to the centre to help the dienfranchised. I describe them as anti-progressive right wing status quoists.

Just because they're students don't imagine they're your lefty bretheren. They're right wingers!

So, you're also going to march and demonstrate. In Ottawa? Anything specific or is this going to be just a kvetchfest in support of high taxes worldwide and generalized stripping of the assets of those that have worked hard and succeeded? I can see the badly scribbled banners and placards, "We Envy Lots!", "What's Yorse is Mine".

During this sacred time perhaps we should remember the Ten Commandments. One I'd like to draw your attention to is this:

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's (goods)
house or fields, nor his male or female slaves, nor his ox or ass, or anything that belongs to him.

Right on Mo'!

Realisticman
If you read French you've also read, not just Le Monde Diplomatique, but the recent statements by the head of the French Catholic Trade Union. You'd know that your assessment of the situation in France nowhere nearly reflects the complexity of the situation and the many different points of view involved.

No one's talking about stripping anyone - just ensuring that everyone pays their fair share and that we have some actual equity and genuine competition in this country and not a bunch of corporatist claptrap about how much investment stimulates the economy.
You also need a lesson in economics apparently.

And the article in the NYTimes, which you already posted and which I had read long before you did, is an “opinion” piece so pardon me if I don’t accord it any more credence than yours. There are numerous other points of view about that, and every other subject.
If you’ve been reading what I’ve been writing and posting you’d know I’ve never implied France was perfect. We have a very racist society here too, which you - with your childish response to something written in another location yesterday – seem more than willing to turn into a joke – you pompous ass!

As for the biblical stuff, spare me; debating the relative merits of religions points of view is never anything more than a zero sum game. It’s not too difficult to make the case that we’d be a lot better off with none of them.

realisticman

Just noticed you've been uncovered as the liar you truly are on the Feisty French Leftist site.

Initially I thought you might actually be a thoughtful person who hadn't drunk the koolade; apparently I was mistaken, you phony.

Yes, G West, it was an opinion piece in the New York Times and if you were there before me that's OK. You can be first if you like. It is an opinion piece by an immigrant to France who's contemporaries were hoping to enter the workforce subsequent to the flexible labour law being passed. That won't happen now due to the spoiled children of the 'old school' upper middle classes having learned the French way of aggressive demontrating to get their way. An opinion like much of your opinions. Please try and remember that and don't confuse your ideas as being fact when they are really opinions.

I concur with your sympathy regarding secularism. 'Though my personal philosophy does include a distaste for, and a sadness in, seeing others envy. In my estimation after living in many places at many levels, well being, happiness and contentment in this life cannot be measured accurately by the ability one might have to acquire goods.

realisticman
But it's perfectly okay for you to make the kind of dismissive remark about First Nations peoples here in Canada who have been marginalized in a more thorough way and for a hell of a lot longer than North Africans have in France. And it's perfectly alright for you, who reads French, to ignore the fact that there are enormous segments of the French population, both young and old, worker and academic, who are trying hard to balance the interests of labour and capital, immigrants and pur sang to solve problems in France in a far more egalitarian way than we do things in this country. I wonder if you actually did read the pieces on the subject in Le Monde.

Ignore the whole picture if you like, but don't expect to post that stuff around here and think you won't be challenged. And don’t, especially from the right side of the spectrum, expect me to take too kindly to the notion that the overweening importance of the measurement of worldly wealth is somehow the envious creation of the poor and the marginalized.

G West. Please show me where I wrote something dismissive regarding First Nations peoples. I have NEVER EVER mentioned them. Now I have to call you the liar!

Further, you now question whether I've actually read what I quote!
http://forums.lemonde.fr/perl/postlist.pl?Cat=&Board=polfran

Qu'est qu'il y Ã* avec les mensonges?

Is this one of your tactics? Disinformation and taunts claiming racism.

I increasing have the impression that people like you consider this forum to be a place to espouse your own biased rants and anyone mentioning or questioning any postulations are treated like unwelcome imposters and fools.

Now you're simply saying things that have absolutely no basis whatsoever, are you sure you're OK?

realisticman
Am I requiring too much sophistication on your part to understand how dealing with my words the way you did might reflect on the justice of the point I was trying to make relative to your ad hominem and pseudo sophisticated attitude toward France and the protesters there?

You claimed that France was nominally and factually racist. I made the same point about Canada and you, instead of dealing with it, threw back a stupid insult. If you don't think that kind of dismissive attitude belies some serious racism in your own philosophy and a lack of an awaremess of the consequences of the way European elitists treat First Nations people, you need to pick up that Bible again and read a few more verses. People who live in glass houses, after all.

I rest my case - you ought to apply those same critical standards to yourself and stop trying to play little games. As I said several times, I'm not interested in indulging in that kind of crap.

Do you often go cruisin' for enlightenment?

G West. Let's be quite clear. These are your words.

Not my words but your words G West.

Have you gone totally nuts? Now you say that I said;

Where do you find this garbage? I have never said any such thing and you should retract it!

In my opinion that's an accusation of racism. You implied that was the only thing the demonstrations were about.

There are certainly people in France who don't know the difference between the 8th Arrondissement and the banlieues - just as there are people in the British Properties who can't imagine what life is like in a small native community in rural Manitoba.

You did nothing but make light of the analogy - are you surprised I'd be annoyed? If so, you really are ignorant.

As for your reaction to my position that while there may well be racism in France there certainly is in Canada I rest on my contention that your words in response were flippant and amount to racism themselves toward First Nations people because of their dismissive nature.

I thought I was having a serious discussion with someone who understood what that entails.

I was wrong.

It's your garbage - you retract it!

Now I understand. You are a fool.

You mention something in a post and if there's any response you slash back at the person and accuse them of racism even if they are talking about something else. Interesting and despicable practice. I guess that's where the libel laws came from. To protect decent people from people like you.

More ad hominem nonsense.

It's fine to call the French racists but you're not so keen when you display the same tendencies in yourself and someone calls you on it.

Glad we got that straightend out.

Have a happy Easter.

I was really surprised to see that "realisticman" is still harping on, just like Murdock before him... don't you have a life?

For a nice critique of the failure of capitalism in the current American government: (and we should learn from it, because Gordo and Harpo have (the former) made the same mistakes and (the latter) intends to make them in the future... I know, I know, the one thing we learn from History is that we don't learn from history, but this is current events, not lhistory, may I suggest the following link and other writings by the same author... she touches on just about all the bases.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-smiley/marxism-through-the-looki_b_16393.html

R. Smiley (no relative that I know of, but it could be...

G. West: I know what you mean about reservations... I can see one across the valley from town... on a large and very rocky hill butting off the mountain... I can't look at it without thinking that there was a really obvious reason why that land was chosen.

I went to school with some of the kids from there... one shot himself a while back... crippled up with arthritis, in his '40s...

R. Smiley

ripponfalls
Thanks for that, much appreciated - I'm convinced it was intentional too. I remember going back through the 1891 census papers for one huge district of what was then called Assinaboia Territory. At the end of all the carefully listed Europeans as a section of 2 or three dozen Indians from each district or community - they didn't even merit names, no effort was made, they were just labelled squaws, braves and papooses. This debate today was really just a flip side of the same one that took place around the story of Rafe and his father - we like to think we're Canadian and we're somehow better and not subject to the same foibles as the rest of the world. It's not true, in my opinion, and we'd do well to wake up to reality.

There are so many interesting people I run into here that I’d like to meet; even the ones I don’t agree with – just to try and understand how they tick and why they believe what they do.
Happy Easter.

Ripponfalls
I thought your name sake's (relative or not) best lines came at the end:
...government is different from making and selling stuff. A citizen is different from a consumer. Not every human need and every human desire has to do with getting and spending. Government ought to act as a break on capitalism, and capitalism ought to, sometimes (as in China), act as a break on government, and everyone is better off when government, religion, money, and personal growth and happiness are in separate spheres.

G West

You say:

Wow.That's what you think is it? All of them? I'd say you're somewhat narrow minded.

You really are a sleaze realisticman - think you can get away with that kind of redacted post - not a chance - here's what you wrote:

And here' all of what G West wrote:

So if I said;

How does that square with G West saying:

Did I say say France is racist? I did not. It has been extensively stated that the French law was drawn up in part to attempt to reduce youth unemployment, and the largest group that is unemployed is the immigrants.

realisticman
Any campaign that would 'restrict the immigrant underclass from entering the workforce' would be and is, nominally and factually racist. Those were your words, not mine.
I, and G West, although he is more familiar apparently with the situation in France, think that such a statement amounts to calling French society racist. Which is fine, if you believe it. G West thinks differently. He made a comparison with our own behavior here in Canada toward First Nations people. Instead of debating whether or not that was a valid point you sank to what you later pretended was a humourous and offhand remark.
G West took that as an indication of your own racism and a defensive and flippant attitude about how Native peoples are marginalized in this country.

Obviously, you don't like being called a racist - no one does, but the way to defend against such a claim is not to behave the way you did yesterday, in my opinion. Furthermore, your posting here tonight, and on the other thread where you and I have had our little contretemps, indicates that you still aren't prepared for discussion but that you're very much interesting in childish one-upmanship.

As I wrote on the other thread, and I'm sure G West would agree, I don't have time for that kind of nonsense.

Look, in any court of public opinion to be racist is to willfully feel or cause racism. The French aren't racist and I never said they were. I suggested, as many others have said, that the actions against the then propsed law would incidentally cause an underclass to remain marginalized. That's an accident and an unintential result. Incidental - look it up. I've been to France probably fifty times and I can tell you that it is not a racist country.

As for the other. G West said he goes cruising. That's a word used in a number of ways and I joked about he saying he cruises as a means for enlightenment. Look up the word cruising. Do they say it has anything to do with any peoples or group? Therefore you call me a racist regarding Native peoples? You are both crazy! Give us a break.

Cruising was your term, you chose it and you used it for no good purpose other than to be insulting and crude. I said that when I needed to be reminded of our own Canadian racist tendencies I just drove by an Indian Reservation...and I said the word reservation (particularly when it's applied to human beings) is offensive in the extreme. You know exactly what you meant by what you said and so do I. You were putting down the idea that I had advanced and you did it in the most offensive way you could – talk about invective. Exactly the same way you used an opinion piece to promote the idea that French society was essentially racist. Had you advanced an opinion that a right wing government was being discriminatory to immigrants in France I'd have agreed with you...but you were more interested in linking the demonstrators to what I took to be your preconceived ideas about French society and culture.

I'm glad you now agree that France is not a racist culture. That's the only point I was trying to make. If you'd been a little less hasty to throw around remarks you took to be funny and I took to be slime we'd never have gotten into this.

I took you for a sloppy thinker and someone who wouldn't own up to saying something I thought was irresponsible in a discussion I took to be serious. Then when you tried to deny you'd said what was so demonstrably there in print, and well, you get the picture.

Anyway, on the fundamentals we agree so let's leave it at that. I admit I was a little tired of reading post after post of mindless criticism of France and the French - might as well have been in the United States. You should be a lot more careful about calling people names or saying they’re crazy – I’m, surprised it hasn’t got you into a lot of trouble. Enough, already. Cheers.

Eric Burdon,

Cheers.

are good/ oh lord /please don't let me be MISUNDERSTOOD.

CHEERS YOURSELF