Stephen Harper is to Democracy

What Robert Pickton is to prostitute rehabilitation

Seat at the UN

Harper needs a seat at the UN but in the dock charged as a War Criminal and for Crimes Against Humanity

Semantics I guess Skywalker

I find it ironic, thats all. I'm not advocating hitching our wagon to anyone, just my opinion that two polar opposites seem to come to the same conclusion.
Just my 2 centeros

Intelligent Protectionism is Good...

I, in fact, think that all nations need to exercise degrees of "protectionism" for their own home economies, ensuring it primarily serves themselves, protects their resources, industries and agriculture etc, and the livelihoods of their citizens. The assumptions of the global corporate capitalism marketplace have been allowed to assume near religious proportions, but really are just that, the largely self-serving assumptions of the already developed, advanced and even "over-developed" economies of the world, primarily to here at least, the US Empire.

And it is an ideoligical economic doctrine largely designed by these same Big Powers to serve their own interests, access to resources, markets and cheap labour... at the same time maintaining varying degrees of "dependence" on global capitalism amongst the frequently poor and under-develped parts of the world.

Intelligent "protectionism" among most economies can, in fact, be the instrument to the protection of national sovereignties and control over one's own land and resources, and development. It can also be used to prevent over-development, corruption and unsustainable waste and pollution that occurs as a consequence of control of one's economy being largely and effectively usurped by foreign capital interests, in league with one's traitorous own.

I favour "protection" of the Canadian economy and the sovereignty of the country. Both are there to serve our citizens, not foreign or domestic investors at their expense. That is the true role of our national government.

The "globalist" assumptions, and they are just assumptions of capitalism have been and are proving to be harmful to the country and its people, and their interests.

Screw the big "private-global capitalism investor pools of money". There's more than one way to skin any cat.

Not Semantics either.

The tea party nuts in the U.S. are all about making their country the big bully in the world. Any other country exists only to serve American interests. It is their God given right to rule the world. Canada has always had more influence on the world stage when she was an independent voice and not a lapdog of the U.S.. Harper is trying to be more influential in service the interests of the U.S. neocons. I see no similarity between the tea party and any Canadian Protectionism.

The U.S. Tea Party is not protectionist. A few Republican Senators might be because it suits them but the majority are quite comfortable exporting jobs to China or Mexico to help out their campaign contributors. It may be short-sighted but then whoever accused the Republicans or their Tea Party spawn of having sense.

Skywalker

The teepees claim MSM media bias too. Familiar?

Another Viewpoint

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/what-to-do-if-canada-wins-a-seat-at-the-security-council-table/article1724893/

Debasing Canada

Quote:

"No, Stephen Harper wants the seat so that he can assist the U.S. in whatever imperial adventures and world domination plans it rolls out"

Always read your work, Mr. Dobbin.

This article, for me, is your best and most important piece so far.

You deftly make a case for how Stephen Harper, under a minority government, has already fouled the face of Canada by perverting our identity into an almost unrecognizable and increasingly dishonorable nation.

This man is affront and an embarrassment to our country.

And a front for the US military-industrial complex.

The perverse nation that Harper has made of Canada deserves no place on The Security Council.

And Mr. Harper deserves no place in our country.

Wrong

The seat is for Canada, not Harper. Harper will have to rely on the bureaucrat appointed to the UN to stand up for Canada's rights. Other countries still listen to the Security Council so we should try for a seat.

Forget Africa, it is a waste of aid with most of our money going to pay NGOs or despots. Let Europe and China deal with Africa.

However, we should pay more attention to our hemisphere, with greater diplomatic attention to Chile, Peru, Argentina, Brazil, Hondorus, and even Columbia and Haiti. Good neighbours.

Our diplomats should also give more attention to the Pacific, especially Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and ASEAN countries. And lets not forget Australia and NZ, plus the elephants in the room, China and India.

Africa? Who cares. As for the non-governmental international organizations, the federal government should fund fewer of them, maybe none. Let's put more of our taxpayer money into CIDA and Foreign Affairs and allow NGOs to earn donations from people who care, like the Gates or Clinton Foundations.

Intelligent Protectionism is Not Good...

Reminds me of when farmers had to buy expensive and poor quality machinery from Ontario rather than cheaper and better built farm machinery from the US. Plus, Ontario had first rights to all grain from the prairies (but not from Ontario) for flour or to feed livestock. The loss of the protectionism has not been good for southern Ontario but has been very good for the 4 western provinces. In the 1960s, protectionism meant that western cattle was shipped to Ontario to be fed out and killed and the meat shipped back to the west. Now most of the cattle stay in the west from hoof to packaging.

Protectionism only allows protection of poor operators to the disadvantage of all consumers. Maybe we should build roads with hand shovels to provide jobs as well!

UN Security Council and M.Dobbins

canada does want that position on the Security Council. In my UN course with Cam Sylvester this was spoken about. I was in three mini UN's and one was at SFU and we also debated the Constitution and PM Brian Mulroney. The headlines in the newspapers had the UBC and Law Dept. up for HUMAN RIGHTS Abuse they were shutting out females and certain females. The Dobbin family were truck drivers in Lillooet, 1971-1980 and Iasked them then to go out with me and I spoke on the UN and whether it should be on the Security Council and about the fraternity that shuts out. P. Anna (Girard) Paddon

Unwisemonkey

You say the the UN can't be degrade any more? You just answered yourself since where is all the power centered now. Who takes actions on the world stage without even considering the UN? I haven't even started on your mention of "mental disorder."

"Team Africa - not?", says Murray.

I presume all those that think about aid to Africa is important have read Dead Aid, by Dambisa Moyo.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/feb/19/dambisa-moyo-dead-aid-africa

Perhaps Canada's new approach is the better one.

More On Intelligent Protectionism...

As for the Right/Tea Party types being the advocates of US protectionism... The Right in the US, though I the Left too, what there actually is of it, actually stands up for their country's interests, albeit too often "imperial interests". (The Democrats, as I say, are more like our NDP and Mugwump Centrists rather than really anything.)

In this country, the Right are actually US Empire Wannabes, Vichyists, hence "traitors" to their own country's national interest. It is left entirely to the relatively small "Serious Left" to defend the country's national economic and political interests.

As for Sask. Resident's ideological drivel, it is again a "contention", NOT fact, a barefaced assumption that the "international competition" of capitalism is a prerequisite to guaranteeing economic development for everyone. Saskatchewan farmers, being a former Sask resident myself, and a farmer, are in fact, in their great majority, great believers in "co-operation" and "agricultural protectionism", especially of the family farm, and such as marketing boards, over unrestricted predatory capitalist "free global markets" that drive everyone down to the lowest common denominator-, the same as in other "labour markets." Unrestricted global capitalist markets in fact create and lock in impoverished countries into chronic underdevelopment and "aid" dependence.

And they do the same thing in developed countries, favouring farmers with the best land, and land inherited virtually debt free OR the coming trend, corporate farming, which drives everyone else, the family farm, into debt and bankruptcy.

In any case, it is by now clear that capitalism applied to the economy generally is unsustainable in its resource and population/consumer/cheap labour appetites, means monopoly growth, marginalizing and indenturing "the mass" as virtual wage slaves, over enrichment of the top 1%. It also debases the economy and political institutions of society of any real democracy content, by placing effective power and wealth into fewer and fewer hands, at the same time disempowering and impoverishing again, a growing mass of the citizenry.

The reality of free global market capitalism is quite, quite different from the claims of its minority beneficiaries, apologists and elites... and their assumptions of how it all works out. Their view is slanted, skewed to their own minority class interest perceptions.

Isolationism is not valid...

Other than supporting Hugo Chavez (who just lost a bunch in their election) Murray Dobbin continues to speak negatives. In fact Dobbin likely despises the NDP!

Canada needs to maintain and enhance its inclusion in world bodies to ensure we have a voice in pursuit of Canadian international objectives. You cannot run a Country through isolationist policies, there is absolutely no doubt.

Dobbin reacts as a hard core Marxist whose day is done. Severe leftist policies just do not work (neither does hardcore Rightist policies work) ... but Dobbin continues to enunciate parables of failure, of utter disgust for normality of one form or another. Dobbin certainly preaches the false word.

No matter who is in power in Ottawa, the National interest demands that we participate and strongly so.

Dobbin can go to Hades!

Better we be restrained...

No one here is talking "isolationism". That is your skewed perspective on it.

Indeed, it IS desirable that this country "participate" in the UN and other global bodies... but as a sovereign country, not a compliant tool of the US Empire. Better for a time we be restrained from being just another voice and vote for these war criminals.

It is the US Empire that has cheapened and debased the United Nations, aided and abetted by such as our US Empire Wannabe fascists, dressed in drag as Conservatives.

Again, better we be restrained and prevented from aiding these war criminals awaiting trial in the Hague.

In time, if all goes well, we will eventually be represented in international bodies by our own sovereign voice... that of an Independent and non-aligned Canada. not a bootlick pussy of the US Empire.

US Empire Loyalists to Hades and beyond.

We will buy your silk

The Harper government has consistently pursued a policy of signing trading agreements with new countries specifically to expand the export of Canadian goods, services and products. This ongoing process is substantially because Canadian companies were over reliant on the US market. Many successful trade agreements have been signed too. The suggestion that Harper is tied to US foreign or trade policies just does not make any sense; in fact it's just the opposite.

Interesting to see The Guardian's headline - and recommendation to Chavez - on the Venezuelan election:

"Venezuela: the price of victory

Demonising critics as traitors will not turn around an economy which is in deep trouble. Hugo Chávez needs to listen to his critics as well"

sdgreen

Dobbin is a tipster. He picks and promotes his champions and if anyone wants to lose money they bet on them.

A couple of weeks ago he was writing here, "We will know if the NDP is capable of leading the country ..Over to you, Jack".

Where are they now? Ipsos had them down to 12% last week, tied with the Greens!

happy

The problem is the under taxed corporate and over capitalized corporate sector happy. You know, the guys with all kinds of cash on the books who aren't actually interested in building anything, employing anyone or creating something new,

The kinds of takeovers we've seen worldwide over the past 10 - 15 years (and many of them have been takeovers of Canadian resource industries) are financed with those bags of cash that complacent and compliant governments have allowed the international corporate and financial sector to accumulate instead of taxing their profits, regulating their operations and treating their owners as something other than ‘gods’.

The problem is that the consumer doesn't have any cash.

In Canada RIGHT NOW there is an AVERAGE of $140 of debt for every $100 of earnings.

That's the problem - the folks who need to do the spending to create a consumer driven recovery and which will actually 'create' some jobs and save a lot of others are broke while the folks who prime the pump and encourage our politicians in their stupid policies are swimming in cash.

Oh, and by the way, keep your eye on the real estate market in BC - it's about to burst....

Down the realisticman and sdgreen road.

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/Economics/Balance-of-Trade.aspx?Symbol=CAD

It all makes sense to me. Why one would want to continue the trend makes no sense at all.

"And the truth will upset you free" ;-)

sdgreen: Mr. Dobbin, negative? I don't think so.

No, his is a passionate plead for a better Canada.

There are also more and more of us that are tired and outraged by the BS that is increasingly trying to mask itself as governance.

Besides, an uncritical, and thus, unthinking, unquestioning and unmotivated citizenry does not serve the interests of their country but the interests of the ruling class instead....and in the long run they greatly weaken their country by creating irresponsible and arrogant governments that are allowed to rule unchallenged - and unaccountable for their questionable policies and actions. In the end, an uncritical citizenry do a great disservice to their country by helping to sustain a flabby, irresponsible and ultimately failing status quo.

For instance, to use a historical example, it's no coincidence that the most prosperous periods in China's history were those under Emperors that were open and receptive to criticism....

And that the most decadent years of each dynasty were ruled by Emperors surrounded by sycophants, villians and traitors?

Sound familiar?

Trojan Horse

Murray Dobbin is spot on here -- Harper's intent is transparent and dangerous, who could not see through the ruse?

Harper lobbying for a SC seat in the UN - puh_leeze - this is a classic case of the neo-con strategy of putting the fox in charge of the hen house.

I made some of the same points (US/Israel are stacking the deck to get a green light from the UN to attack Iran) in a comment I tried to post on CBC's news website... as is so often the case, their moderator would not post my comment.

Hear! Hear! coyoteman.....

"It is the US Empire that has cheapened and debased the United Nations, aided and abetted by such as our US Empire Wannabe fascists, dressed in drag as Conservatives.

Again, better we be restrained and prevented from aiding these war criminals awaiting trial in the Hague.

In time, if all goes well, we will eventually be represented in international bodies by our own sovereign voice... that of an Independent and non-aligned Canada. not a bootlick pussy of the US Empire.

US Empire Loyalists to Hades and beyond."

Harper should really be

Harper should really be tried for treason.

Sask resident

Care to explain the humongous agrcultural subsidies the US provides to agribusiness?

R/M old man....

Why didn't you just say "oil" and be done with it....?

Empire Loyalists and a humbled man.

Hey, talking about the Empire Loyalists. Wasn't that the time of the creation of New Brunswick? Well yes. How about New Brunswick today? Well, just today, they just went Conservative - big time too. How about the NDP? We're seeing a backlash against this corporate, neo-con, globalization, fascist, tea-party-extremist, right-wing, religious, evangelical, anti-union, elitist, Bilderbergish, dinosaur driven agenda, aren't we? Well, actually, no.

David Alward said, "I'm humbled to be their premier."

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/nbvotes2010/story/2010/09/27/nbvotes-election-main-718.html

"...only the Tories and Liberals elected members.

NDP Leader Roger Duguay lost his attempted to win the northeastern riding of Tracadie-Sheila."

Wonderful people those New Brunswickers. Yet another feather in the crowded cap of Canadian immigrants.

RickW, Rickie the younger (so allow a bit)

The Harper government has signed trade deals with; Jordan, Colombia, Peru, Iceland, Panama, Iceland, Norway and Switzerland.

Quick now; which ones want the oil?

Typical R/man logic.

A contest between the liberal and conservatives and the NDP gets 9 % up from 5% in 2005 in a battle between the two major parties. But this means it was a struggle between the forces of isolationism (left) and the forces of globalization or the harperites (the right). Yeah right. It all makes perfect sense when you are grasping at straws. Hey R/man, there's been a lot of rain in the Maritimes and Sask. this year. Now that must mean the conservatives are winning the hearts and minds of the people. Right?

Do you have any idea

Do you have any idea how badly off the economy is in New Brunswick? Compared, say, to British Columbia’s.

I think not.

Curiously, despite the shape of the economy there, New Brunswick actually pays a dollar more per hour minimum wage than here in BC - the CEO’s pretend 'best place on earth.'

And, their level of total public debt is miniscule when compared with the figure for British Columbia.. Don’t forget that , bad as things are in NB, they’re worse here in BC. In fact, BC consumer debt per capita in 2009 grew by 7.1%—the fastest one-year growth rate of all jurisdictions – not least because mortgage debt comprises over half the personal debt in BC. We also had the second highest increase (49.2%) in personal bankruptcies between 2004 and 2009 and BC and Alberta maintained their positions as the provinces with the fastest growing per capita debt burdens (with increases of 46.6% and 59.9% respectively).

So, keep your eye on New Brunswick and Gordon will love you for it – because you may not notice how rapidly things are going to hell here at home.

I have to comment when Dobbin writes

From my experience an "Harper" U.N. participation would be no worse than what I saw a few years ago:
worked in a bit of a civil war in Liberia. U.N. was "inaffectual" read useless or negative impact.Lots of the U.N. drivers were arrested rightly or wrongly for running guns.
Just the way it is in
"Humanitarian Aid work"

Gwest

You get so close to the answer but the programing won't let you take that final step.

R/M old man....

If this is any indicator, all of them:
http://oilsandstruth.org/norway-buys-tar-sands

Of the recent New Brusnwick election

It appears the good people of New Brunswick elected a Progressive Conservative government. That would be the party stabbed in the back by Peter McKay, would it not?

Now you wouldn't be thinking that this election reflects some kind of support for the present Conservative Party of Canada government in Ottawa, would you - just because (in typical fashion) Harper alludes to some sort of connection?

Sure Rickie

We're absolutely convinced that the Progressive Conservatives of New Brunswick are much closer to the NDP than to the federal Conservatives. Of course.

Oh Rickie, your 3 year old oil story is a bit old. Did you see yesterday's?

http://oilandglory.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/09/27/how_to_read_the_russia_china_pipeline_deal

Up North

Hey Rickie, did you see that one of your hero's is in Fort McMurray?

http://www.montrealgazette.com/business/Collective+shrug+greets+Hollywood+mogul/3587449/story.html

Bono and Angelina are on their way.

Yep it is R/man logic.

From a seat on the Security Council to the New Brunswick election to Fort McMurray. Who would have thought there was a connection?

Connections

All connected Rickie. Dobbin titled a paragraph 'Petro-state politics' and our resident of the horsey set brought up the Empire Loyalists. You don't need a weatherman to...

Who knew Canada...

had to earn a seat. I thought it was simply a matter of pure politics and Stephen Harper's government is the perfect lapdog. I suspect shoo-in!

perhaps Canada does deserve its place amongst its peers

What other club has permanent members the likes of the US, China, France, Russia and the UK?

This pack of five, the rat pack, also holds the distinction of being the top five arms suppliers in the world. The 'rat pack' sells 76% of all arms to the world. These five nations DOMINATE the world's arms trade. Ten developing nations purchased 64% of the total arms (weapons) from 2001 - 2008.

Perhaps one needs to change the title of this exclusive club Canada wishes desperately to participate in from the UN Security Council to the UN In-Security Council.

R/M old man....

The Progressive Conservative Party has an aspect you wouldn't be familiar with, called "honour". You can look up the definition in any dictionary. The Conservative Party of Canada dumped honour when Mackay knifed Orchard in the back, and it's senior members have practiced that ever since.

Being "old" means that Norway got rid of it's investment in the Tar Sands?

And I didn't see any reference in your link to Canada or Harper. So what was your point here?

My apologies, R/Man

Re: Your link
http://oilandglory.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/09/27/how_to_read_the_russia_china_pipeline_deal

What you meant to point out (and with relevance to this article about Harper's bid for a seat on the Security Council) was that, should Harper become successful in his bid, he will seek to breakup this new detente between old commie buddies.

Rick

Apology accepted.

The point is, we can, and will, sell our oil and use the money for social services and devlopment or leave it in the ground for future generations to use - if it's still being used then.

Climate Change

If for no other reason Harper must not have a seat on the Security Council. We are already an international pariah and contributing recklessly to the reckoning that is coming.