Your talking about it historically though. Historical abuse and mistreatment of Aboriginal people in Canada has been acceptable to discuss for at least a generation or two now, up to formal apologies and enormous numbers of court cases and cash settlements around the myriad past injustices.

The trouble is, even while addressing all the historical problems, there still exist new ones right now.

Typical conditions on Aboriginal reserves in Canada are unacceptably awful. You can have a thriving municipality right neighbouring an aboriginal reserve that is a mess of dilapidated homes, boiled water and grossly increased rates of unemployment, substance abuse and suicide. Small wonder then that increased crime rates also come along with all that.

Even that you can talk about, though the increased crime rate will get you in trouble for flirting with being racist against aboriginals.

What you can't talk about is many of the causes of the disparity.

Aboriginal reserves operate under a different legal framework than the neighbouring municipality. They operate under a different framework of governance. They operate under a different system of taxation. Organisation of all related government services like education, healthcare, policing and civil works like roads, water and sanitation are ALL different if you're on a reserve.

Talking about all that you need to be very careful how you say it, because if your not careful my above observations are a statement that coloniser systems are superior to aboriginal ones.

Private property rights are IMO an even hotter topic. The dilapidated housing on a reserve 10 minutes away from the municipality with everything in order is a direct result of who is responsible for maintaining them. In the municipality if a roof is missing shingles, the owner replaces them. If a window is broken, the owner replaces it. On the reserve though, the community is the owner. Unsurprisingly, that abstraction means maintenance on the homes is worse. If the mayor was responsible for using tax dollars to maintain all the homes in the neighbouring municipality it'd be a mess too. This leads to the poor aboriginal family stuck in a destroyed and overcrowded home and a chief saying sorry, the Canadian colonisers didn't give us enough money to fix your place, go yell at them. This just stirs up the Winnipeg citizens I mentioned earlier to respond with wonderment at why you don't fix your own home up yourself instead of protesting hopelessly for the government to hand out the money to do it for you.

The differential treatment still in place now, today is a cancer and needs to be fixed but calling it out like that would get me in trouble.

FUCK!







my mascara is running!

...all the way down past my chin to the lump in my throat.




wonderful. beautiful.


(We need a smiling face, teary-eyed emoticon; I thought this would do it but that's the monocle smile.)

hmmh...meh, oversimplifies things. Some of these matters are not really "fixable" by fighting against them, but looking for the root of the fault which is buried deeply into the culture, and that's gonna be a bitch to change.

Rape is the first thing that should be addressed in my opinion, but I don't see that changing anytime soon no matter what they wear. I almost find it insulting how trivially this clip takes on the problem, of course most of the world knows women should have the right to walk without the fear of being raped, or at least I have that kind of image in my head, call me naive if you will. And people treat EVERYTHING as a joke, why should rape have exemption from this? Of course he could have meant that we don't take rape seriously enough, but if that is the case he should have worded it better.

Valid points and what should be just common sense on the pro choice and sexual health subjects, I'd say I don't understand why this is even a subject anymore, but knowing what kind of whackjobs get into power nowadays it is a small wonder that things are as "good" as they are. Yet another thing that's being oppressed by religious zealots and/or by values that are drawn from religious values. It also sickens me to use the word "value" for such things.

All in all, these problems and the reasons behind them are convoluted and these kinds of clips don't do much to fix them, and work just as mediocre awareness adverts if anything, which is a good thing, I guess.

//and what I mean by "not fixable by fighting against them" is that to me it seems most people are just fighting against the concept of the things and not against the root of the problem.

what was the US tv show from the early 90's with the cyborg child called?
Oh yeah, Small Wonder.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukSvjqwJixw


ahem... wait, whats going on here? ... I think I just had a stroke from this belching girl.

Well dude, remember, you're not just paying for services rendered. You're also paying for all the illegal invaders' "free" health care and the parasitic culture of trial lawyers.

There is no 'free market' medicine and no real competition, just a hidden exchange between Big Daddy Guvmint and his Magical Treasury printing press, insurance companies and hospitals. Small wonder no one is trying to cut costs and boost efficiency.

A pure free market health care system would not work; something closer to it, with transparent pricing, would be more optimal.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
You know - I'm going to go ahead and use one profanity for a change, though I usually eschew the practice. But all this neoliberal whining about the health care protesters is BULLSHIT.
I have a very good memory. I recall that in the Bush years, the Democrat party was pretty cool with the fine art of public protesting. Democrat protests were FAR more organized and planned by neolib far-left interests than the current protests are.
But now all of a sudden the protesters are 'nazis'... The White House sets up a snitch program to rat out fellow citizens... Unions thugs are roughing up protesters... Leaders of the house & senate are maligning US citizens and even Godwined the issue... Neolib apologists and propogandists like Madcow whining about how 'bad' protesting is... Hmmm - Democrats don't seem to think protests are so cool any more. Community activists are now a bunch of 'nazis'... My, how things change in just a few months...
I didn't mind the protests against Bush, even though they were Democrat hired rent-a-mobs. But there's nothing WRONG with that. If the protests didn't actually reflect the will of the people, then they would have gone nowhere. But the Iraq war protests had traction becuse the American people didn't support the war in general. The protests reflected the national mood and attitude - so they were legigimate despite being fostered and fomented by neolib special interest groups.
The same thing is true of the protests now. This is not just a bunch of bussed in rent-a-mobs. This is a wide spread protest by a HUGE number of citizens who do not like what is happening. They're motivated by the stimulus bill, or unemployment, cap & trade, takeovers of auto companies, the huge deficit spending, the health bill, or any number of about a million things Obama has said/done/planned since he took office.
I think they also reflect the rather alarming attitude that Democrats demonstrating since they took power. They are acting about 100X more totalitarian and nazi-esque than the Republicans ever did under Bush. They drip with contempt towards their own citizens. They insult and demean opposition. They ignore the polls that show there is not a lot of support for what they're doing. They're brusque, callous, and haughty - and they don't mind showing it. What's worse, there are some very scary things going on like Union thugs roughing up protestors and shoving private citizens out of public meetings. That's jackbooted, brownshirted, oppression being bought and paid for by Democrats - just the stuff they accused Bush of doing.
And then there's the Democrat party's blatant hypocrisy. They whine at citizens for not saving money while they spend like drunken sailors. They tell companies to drive to Washington while they buy brand new private jets and go on massively expensive junkets.
Combine the lack of support for unpopular legislation with the Democrat propensity for voter disdain and utter hypocrisy... Is it any small wonder that people are protesting en masse? It's a wonder this didn't hit them much sooner, to be frank. They've crossed a line and reached a tipping point. This isn't just some Republican orchestrated thing. This is a massive citizen uprising against a government that is becoming too intrusive.
The neoliberals flacks like Madcow can sneer at the citizens all they want. But these are CITIZENS of the United States that are trying to get invovled in the process - and the Democrats are treating them like they're scum. The Democrat party is playing with fire here. If they keep up this kind of condescention and deny the reality of the situation (that people DON'T want this) then they're going to end up repeating 1994 in 2010.


C'mon really dont be that stupid, first of all with the war on Irak most of the people at that time was Ok with it, when they saw that everything was a lie and a personal agenda of some is when the protest begin not before , but now they are protesting for something that has not even happen, for someone as ignorant as you it has to ring a bell or are these rednecks that naive not to ask some question or see diferent opinions before taking a side?. C'mon

You know - I'm going to go ahead and use one profanity for a change, though I usually eschew the practice. But all this neoliberal whining about the health care protesters is BULLSHIT.

I have a very good memory. I recall that in the Bush years, the Democrat party was pretty cool with the fine art of public protesting. Democrat protests were FAR more organized and planned by neolib far-left interests than the current protests are.

But now all of a sudden the protesters are 'nazis'... The White House sets up a snitch program to rat out fellow citizens... Unions thugs are roughing up protesters... Leaders of the house & senate are maligning US citizens and even Godwined the issue... Neolib apologists and propogandists like Madcow whining about how 'bad' protesting is... Hmmm - Democrats don't seem to think protests are so cool any more. Community activists are now a bunch of 'nazis'... My, how things change in just a few months...

I didn't mind the protests against Bush, even though they were Democrat hired rent-a-mobs. But there's nothing WRONG with that. If the protests didn't actually reflect the will of the people, then they would have gone nowhere. But the Iraq war protests had traction becuse the American people didn't support the war in general. The protests reflected the national mood and attitude - so they were legigimate despite being fostered and fomented by neolib special interest groups.

The same thing is true of the protests now. This is not just a bunch of bussed in rent-a-mobs. This is a wide spread protest by a HUGE number of citizens who do not like what is happening. They're motivated by the stimulus bill, or unemployment, cap & trade, takeovers of auto companies, the huge deficit spending, the health bill, or any number of about a million things Obama has said/done/planned since he took office.

I think they also reflect the rather alarming attitude that Democrats demonstrating since they took power. They are acting about 100X more totalitarian and nazi-esque than the Republicans ever did under Bush. They drip with contempt towards their own citizens. They insult and demean opposition. They ignore the polls that show there is not a lot of support for what they're doing. They're brusque, callous, and haughty - and they don't mind showing it. What's worse, there are some very scary things going on like Union thugs roughing up protestors and shoving private citizens out of public meetings. That's jackbooted, brownshirted, oppression being bought and paid for by Democrats - just the stuff they accused Bush of doing.

And then there's the Democrat party's blatant hypocrisy. They whine at citizens for not saving money while they spend like drunken sailors. They tell companies to drive to Washington while they buy brand new private jets and go on massively expensive junkets.

Combine the lack of support for unpopular legislation with the Democrat propensity for voter disdain and utter hypocrisy... Is it any small wonder that people are protesting en masse? It's a wonder this didn't hit them much sooner, to be frank. They've crossed a line and reached a tipping point. This isn't just some Republican orchestrated thing. This is a massive citizen uprising against a government that is becoming too intrusive.

The neoliberals flacks like Madcow can sneer at the citizens all they want. But these are CITIZENS of the United States that are trying to get invovled in the process - and the Democrats are treating them like they're scum. The Democrat party is playing with fire here. If they keep up this kind of condescention and deny the reality of the situation (that people DON'T want this) then they're going to end up repeating 1994 in 2010.

aaaa-hahah!

ricky's reactions are awesome. the close-up at 0:36 is priceless, as his silent stare become squinting disbelief at how creepy his 'Small Wonder'-esque cyborg mother can be.

and it looks like he's still spankin it a little at 0:28, ahaha! this is Chappelle show material here.