Will Canada send troops to Iraq? Will Canada become the 51st state? Will Canada ban homosexual acts? Will Canada become a religious state? Will Canadians subscribe to American-Style Health Care? Will Stephen Harper become Dubya's newest best friend?
Well, not quite.
The Conservatives (aka ultra right Republicans) have won the Canadian election, but only a minority victory. So, maybe few or none of these things will come to pass...
In other news, Toronto becomes the temporary gay marriage capital of the world......
Posted by Captain Boh (Member # 1282) on :
Thats it, I'm moving to space.
Posted by Saltah'na (Member # 33) on :
Be sure not to be hit by the now-Canadian-supported American missile-defense system.....
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Sweeet.
Soon Canadians will learn the vital survival skills of combat as their gun violence rate increases, major corporations ride roughshod over laws and the environment and their personal freedoms will be stripped away one at a time in the nmae of "National Security".
Then Canada and America will have the most effective soldiers ever known- because the general populace will be too poor not to join the military, and so pissed at everything they'll kill whatever they can.
Posted by Topher (Member # 71) on :
Don't look at me. I voted Green.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
Bwahahahahaah!
Posted by Shakaar (Member # 1782) on :
quote:Originally posted by Saltah'na: Will Canada send troops to Iraq? Will Canada become the 51st state? Will Canada ban homosexual acts? Will Canada become a religious state? Will Canadians subscribe to American-Style Health Care? Will Stephen Harper become Dubya's newest best friend?
1. No, I think most of our allies are pulling their troops out anyway. 2. No, perhaps the 51st-55th, yeah, not all of your Provinces will count as states.. and you can keep Quebec. *L* 3. *shrugs* 4. It better be Evangelical or there could be an American Jihad. 5. NOOOOOO! Where would we repurchase our drugs from at a lower cost??!?!? 6. Who? You should have kept the last leader fellow, at least 1% of the American public knew who he was at least.
Posted by tricky (Member # 1402) on :
Oh to be in England in the erm... early spring time?
Posted by B.J. (Member # 858) on :
Oh, how cute. America Jr. had an election!
B.J.
Posted by Saltah'na (Member # 33) on :
I actually didn't vote for this election. You've got Liberal Party scandals on the left side, and dislikeable Conservative Party agendas on the right side. And for some reason, I think Jack Layton should have stayed in Toronto as a municipal councillor.
I should keep my eyes peeled.... we've just became a much more tempting target for terrorism.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
quote:Originally posted by Saltah'na: I should keep my eyes peeled.... we've just became a much more tempting target for terrorism.
That sounds like a line from the old Adam west Batman show.
Posted by Da_bang80 (Member # 528) on :
quote:Originally posted by Captain Boh: Thats it, I'm moving to space.
I'm with you.
I didn't vote either. I don't really care who runs the country, there going to do a crappy job of it anyways, just like the government before them.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Good thinking.
Posted by Captain Boh (Member # 1282) on :
I need to form some kind of awesom nerd party.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Why? Apathy seems to be the only clear winner here.
Posted by Captain Boh (Member # 1282) on :
It would be so awesom, people would have to vote for it.
At they very least, I'd vote for it. And every vote is worth money. Posted by Da_bang80 (Member # 528) on :
I'd vote for the nerd party. We'd need a better name for it though. And we'd have to legalize marijuana. And build huge government funded plantations and give it away free to all those who voted for us, and abolish all religion except the Jedi Code! And build 50 meter tall walking machines of death and destruction to subjugate the weak minded fools who would dare oppose us!!!
On second thought, it's probably better if we didn't...
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
The Apathy Party sounds like a winner. You could have the Secretary of State for Whatever, the Ministry of I'll Do It Tomorrow, and the Department of I'm Going Back To Bed.
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
...But why bother?
We're getting a new President this Sunday. Except we are actually re-electing the old one, regardless of who wins. The challengers have had to go through enough hoops to lure in the (in)decisive voters that the only remaining differences will be in hair color and gender. And the remaining challenger might be forced to compromise on those as well by Sunday. I'm refraining from voting in advance mainly in expectation of some last-minute surgery.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Topher (Member # 71) on :
As the old axiom says, if you didn't vote, you can't bitch. So Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
Yes, but by voting Green you might as well not have at all!
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
(So what's with all this Conan O'Brien business, Timo?)
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
Nothing wrong with it. The selection of peoples that the Irish can have fun on is pretty narrow after all, dontcha think?
OTOH, if our Halonen got the Green (and Orange?) votes thanks to O'Brien, she'd take by landslide anybody who only had the couple of million Finnish voters on his side. That's how the elections in the 60s-70s used to go, too: one candidate usually had 200 million Soviet votes to back him up...
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Mucus (Member # 24) on :
quote:Originally posted by Saltah'na: I should keep my eyes peeled.... we've just became a much more tempting target for terrorism.
I'm not a big fan of the conservatives either but gee, alarmist much? I don't think international terrorism is heavily invested in the Canadian election.
Posted by Saltah'na (Member # 33) on :
No, but if Canada starts tap-dancing with the Americans step-by-step and following American policies abroad, we may as well be.
A few years before this, Stephen Harper was seething red when the Liberal Government (rightly) decided not to join the American invasion of Iraq. He may say that he will rethink that position, but if Canada decides to send troops to a war with the similar premise as Iraq, we may soon see suicide bombers on our very own streets. Spain saw it, and so did Britain.
I would rather the Canadian government follow the wishes of its people then be bullied by That Large Land Mass South Of The Fourty-Ninth Parallel.
[ January 25, 2006, 04:43 PM: Message edited by: Saltah'na ]
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
"As the old axiom says, if you didn't vote, you can't bitch."
That, of course, is the kind of bullshit that can only be truly believed by someone who is delusionally optimistic.
Posted by Captain Boh (Member # 1282) on :
Well, the way I see it is, even if they aren't viable, there are always alternatives. Don't like either of the two partys? Vote for a third party. In our system at least, every vote for a party gets that party some funds, so while they won't be in power, they can at least try and get their points across.
And if more people thought this way, third partys would be a whole lot more viable.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
But you've already got a third (and a fourth) party that are politically important. A few more seats and the NDP could force all sorts of deals from the Conservatives, for instance.
Posted by Captain Boh (Member # 1282) on :
Which is sort of my pont. Peole are all "I don't like the Conservatives or the Liberals, so I don't vote."
We had something like 65% voter turnout. If even half of the non-voters came out and voted, even if it was for go-nowhere parties, it may have made a difference in the kind of government they ended up with.
At the very least, 17% of the legal voters picking these parties would probably make for some interesting news.
I voted NDP
Posted by Topher (Member # 71) on :
Exactly. Before this election, the Green Party was limited to a few ridings in major cities and the like. But with more votes, they got enough funding to be able to have a candidate in every riding in the country.
Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :
The righ-wing winds are blowing all over the world this year. My country's social democrat majority will likely be swept away by the right wing coalition this year, and it will be the usual "kill-all-ongoing-projects-of-the-former-guys" and lowering of taxes, gutting of the treasury and a harder foreign policy. And of course the treasured increase in deportations.
How likely is it that the conservatives would win England? They're in in Germany, I don't know about France...
Oh, and who hasn't heard about the Hamas-victory? I wonder if anything good will come out of it?
Like perhaps the bombing will cease now that they A: have to recognize the state of Israel, and B: get so much power and attention that they can't pretend to be "hounded freedom fighters hiding in cellars". I mean, if they now take one step up on the state-version of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, they'll go one step down on the "reactionary fighting"-slope.
I hope they won't go all Taliban on their population now, shutting women in and banning them from working.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
We've only just had an election so we won't have to worry for another four years unless Blair (or his successor) screws the pooch so comprehensively a Vote of Confidence is called for and lost.
Blair IS going to try to stay as long as he can, while endeavouring to ensure that things are screwed up sufficiently to make life very difficult for his successor as Leader of the Labour Party, especially if that person is Gordon Brown. A lot of the good things have come of the past nine years were Brown's ideas, you see, and what Blair fears more than anything is that Brown as PM goes on to achieve far greater things, leaving Tone as a mere footnote in history.
Not, of course, that Brown has his hands clean. He did just as much as Blair to change their policy as stated at the time of their election in May 1997, to make the UK to the leading nation of Europe, to one which has led us to where we are now, a satrapy of the US. In fact, in some ways, Brown has done more to achieve this calamitous turnabout, by being so down on EMU (European Monetary Union) and by refusing to become the figurehead for Labour rebels on many issues, not least of which were the invasion of Iraq and various measures supposedly to counter the "War" on "Terror."
(I await posterity's verdict on which of his many lost opportunities was his one actual big chance which he blew)
The Conservative Party remain a shambles. After their 18 years in power they'd become so assured that they were the natural party of government and the people's choice that they never bothered to actually ask anyone if they agreed (no-one, is the answer). Much of their grudging stake in the centre ground has long been usurped by New Labour. Now they've chosen as their head an old Etonian twit who rides a bicycle to work but whose cabal of supporters (the "Notting Hill" set, and I'm sure there's a Hugh Grant/Julia Roberts joke in their somewhere) make US neocons seem like a bunch of old hippies. Ultimately they'll get elected just because they're not Labour, but hopefully not for about nine-odd years.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
quote:Originally posted by Nim: Oh, and who hasn't heard about the Hamas-victory? I wonder if anything good will come out of it?
Like perhaps the bombing will cease now that they A: have to recognize the state of Israel, and B: get so much power and attention that they can't pretend to be "hounded freedom fighters hiding in cellars". I mean, if they now take one step up on the state-version of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, they'll go one step down on the "reactionary fighting"-slope.
I hope they won't go all Taliban on their population now, shutting women in and banning them from working.
I was watching some BBC coorespondant talk about how this might "mellow" Hamas. What a laugh.
Now they're elected terrorists. Posted by Da_bang80 (Member # 528) on :
Maybe now they'll have to go though a committee [sp?] before sending out a suicide bomber.
*Browser hiccup made a double post. Please delete*
Posted by Da_bang80 (Member # 528) on :
Maybe now they'll have to go through a committee [sp?] before sending out a suicide bomber.
"I am NOT a committee!" - Princess Leia, Star Wars Ep: V The Empire Strikes Back.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Actually, lokks like the FATA party has it's very own extremists that are not adverse to taking up arms against their HAMAS countrymen and their own corrupt leadership.
Good for them.
Best thing Israel can do here is stay well out of the fighting, complete their 'lil barricade and get ready to kil lots and lots of suicide bombers. Said bombers will be state sanctioned and government approved in the near future.
Best thing the US can do is what Bush is threatening- cut off all aid to the palenistenans (sp?).
Sure, it's all intended for humanitarian aid, but well...fuck that shit. HAMAS recieves as much in donations for fun stuff like compensating widows of suicide bombers.
Now they can use that cash to buy food instead.
Or they can see how far their popularity stretches when they cant feed their people.
Posted by Da_bang80 (Member # 528) on :
Eventually even Hamas is going to run out of people willing (or stupid) enough to blow themselves up. What then I ask. Strap bombs to dogs and teach them to chase Isreali cars?
Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :
Then they get people from other countries (as they already do), it will never stop in that particular way.
Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
"Best thing the US can do is what Bush is threatening..."
Yeah, because that tactic worked so well against Iraq.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Er...what? Did you even read the post? The US was not providing Iraq with direct means to feed their citizens (they had the UN's Oil for Food plan for that clusterfuck), so Bush did not (and could not have) threaten to cut off funding there.
The US has provided 1.7 billion in relief aid to the Palestenians over the past ten years alone for food aid (handled through food relief organizations for the most part to prevent the money going into pockets or to buy bombs).
Why do you think Arafat was ever willing to sit down at a US mediated peace conference in the first place? It sure wasn't because he really wanted peace.
It was because a population that goes to bed with a full belly is a lot more content than one going hungry...while it's leaders (and their families) are multimillionares.
HAMAS got the vote by decrying the corruption of the Fata party, so lets see them use their own money and donations to feed the masses. Unless....could it be?.....the people donating cash to destroy Israel are not intrested in that money going to help their own people?
Naaaa!
Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
*yawn*
I'm not talking about Bush's threats in particular. I'm talking about your stock "dry up the well and all will be A-OK" reaction, when all that's going to accomplish is 1) hurt the people those leaders don't actually care about, ie. the general population (which is ALREADY starving, despite your vitriolic assertion about Arafat keeping the masses fat, content, and happy for his own benefit) and (as an added bonus!) 2) play right into Hamas' hands. So yes, I read it.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Fatah.
One of the reasons Hamas won was they've set up working health, welfare, and educational infrastructures where the Palestinian Authority hasn't.
Also: "Actually, lokks like the FATA party has it's very own extremists that are not adverse to taking up arms against their HAMAS countrymen and their own corrupt leadership."
Indeed, I'm sure everything will change now that the ruling party has an armed wing Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
"It was because a population that goes to bed with a full belly is a lot more content than one going hungry..."
And, therefore, we should withdraw humanitarian support. Because the thing we want more than anything is further discontent in Palestine.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
The only alternative is to continue to financially support a group who's main goal is the destruction of out closest ally in the region.
How can we really do that?
Severing our finaincial ties will not bring definite hardship to the poorest Palestinians -as I said, they have the monetary means, they just have to use them. Though it's unlikely they will (at least at first).
I dont think eliminating the unwanted US presence in Palestine's political affairs will further their "discontent". If anything, financial support of Israel's greatest ally was seen as part of Fatah corruption. Hamas has called for a stand-alone independant Palestine, this can be the first step to real (financial) independence.
quote:Originally posted by Cartman: *yawn*
I'm not talking about Bush's threats in particular. I'm talking about your stock "dry up the well and all will be A-OK" reaction, when all that's going to accomplish is 1) hurt the people those leaders don't actually care about, ie. the general population (which is ALREADY starving, despite your vitriolic assertion about Arafat keeping the masses fat, content, and happy for his own benefit) and (as an added bonus!) 2) play right into Hamas' hands. So yes, I read it.
As opposed to your "do nothing and hope things get better" stand?
Withdrawing out suppoprt is the only thing we can do to show our disapproval (though I'm sure there are those in the Right that would love to see us support a joint US/Israel military action).
Continuing to financially suport the Palestine government will also "play into Hamas' hands" by maintaining the status quo. Those millions of dollars were the only incentive anyone had to get them to the peace conference (not Arafat's altruistic claims of wanting a lasting peace or a Palestenian state). That "road ro peace" was always paved with cash.
Why keep paying for something that Hamas literally cant work toward? In many ways the voters have painted temselves into a corner: the majority of voters wants a lasting peace, more concessions from Israel and an end to the violence that they live with daily, but they also wanted to oust their corrupt leadership...leaving only militant radicals as an alternative.
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