I think any of our top 3 political parties in Canada is capable of resorting to this tactic. The Conservatives certainly wanted a clear majority in the last election, the Liberals were frustrated as the opposition and the NDP was just hoping to do better than the Bloc. Who would have thought the NDP would do so well and the Libs and Bloc so poorly.

I don't believe any of the spokesperson's statements. It's all for show, they are probably kept in the dark intentionally so that when it finally does come out they can say they were making statements that were truthful based on the information they had at the time. It's a despicable mess in Canada. These guys are clearly being evasive when transparency and accountability is the only way to satisfy critically thinking voters. The Canadians in the Conservative Bubble have probably made up their minds that their party is innocent.

Harper is such an ass, I hope this comes back and bites him in it.

Just some history of the 2 parties......Setting aside the fact the the KKK was formed by the all inclusive tent of the Democrats...to scare the southern brother who remained Republican up until the 60s.



The Democratic Party was formed in 1792, when supporters of Thomas Jefferson began using the name Republicans, or Jeffersonian Republicans, to emphasize its anti-aristocratic policies. It adopted its present name during the Presidency of Andrew Jackson in the 1830s. In the 1840s and '50s, the party was in conflict over extending slavery to the Western territories. Southern Democrats insisted on protecting slavery in all the territories while many Northern Democrats resisted. The party split over the slavery issue in 1860 at its Presidential convention in Charleston, South Carolina.

Northern Democrats nominated Stephen Douglas as their candidate, and Southern Democrats adopted a pro-slavery platform and nominated John C. Breckinridge in an election campaign that would be won by Abraham Lincoln and the newly formed Republican Party. After the Civil War, most white Southerners opposed Radical Reconstruction and the Republican Party's support of black civil and political rights.
The Democratic Party identified itself as the "white man's party" and demonized the Republican Party as being "Negro dominated," even though whites were in control. Determined to re-capture the South, Southern Democrats "redeemed" state after state -- sometimes peacefully, other times by fraud and violence. By 1877, when Reconstruction was officially over, the Democratic Party controlled every Southern state.

The South remained a one-party region until the Civil Rights movement began in the 1960s. Northern Democrats, most of whom had prejudicial attitudes towards blacks, offered no challenge to the discriminatory policies of the Southern Democrats.
One of the consequences of the Democratic victories in the South was that many Southern Congressmen and Senators were almost automatically re-elected every election. Due to the importance of seniority in the U.S. Congress, Southerners were able to control most of the committees in both houses of Congress and kill any civil rights legislation. Even though Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a Democrat, and a relatively liberal president during the 1930s and '40s, he rarely challenged the powerfully entrenched Southern bloc. When the House passed a federal anti-lynching bill several times in the 1930s, Southern senators filibustered it to death.

Link

>> ^VoodooV:

proof that conservatives will put aside their supposed morality at the drop of a hat just to oppose a black man



So who is opposing the Black Man? Which party enslaves the Black Man today? Democrats use the welfare system which keeps many enslaved into poverty. Republicans want to help those get out and become free men and women to make free choices for themselves.

If you give a man a fish you feed him for a day. If you teach a man to fish you feed him for a lifetime. Democrats want to feed the poor fish-sticks. Republicans want to teach how to fish.

@dystopianfuturetoday:

I see what you're going for, so here's your Yes. Where our opinions diverge is a matter of perspective.

Slavery is not unique to the Black race, nor even Black Americans, it's a worldwide institution with ancient origins that is still practiced in parts of Africa TODAY. Every race on earth has at one time been enslaved, just as every race on earth has also enslaved other races. As horrible as it seems to us, for centuries slavery was accepted as necessary and a part of life. For Black Americans to feel singled out is, to me, just silly.

So enter the Civil War, a complex struggle involving myriad factors that became more about slavery about halfway through. Republicans ended slavery. Not that is was all sugar and poetry: Lincoln said it didn't matter if he had to keep slavery or end it, he would do whichever it took to save the Union. Lincoln did the paperwork but the Abolitionists did the real work.

We had a Civil Rights movement and it was just. (Now we have a Special Rights movement that is unjust, but that's another chapter).

I don't buy this crap about psychic injuries from slavery. And yes, here is the part where I provide the transcript of Bill Cosby's "Poundcake speech". I know you're going to have your reasons for not liking what he had to say (and I'm sure Jesse Jackson, who was right beside him was shocked and pissed) but all the same, please READ IT.


Yes, there was a time in America where lynchings were common, racism was institutional and opportunities for Blacks were severely limited. That time has passed. Yes, there are remnants of the klan out there, but they're not the ones forcing Blacks to drop out of school, disparage reading books and getting an education as "the White Man's Game" or impregnating young girls like it's nothing.

We've had generation after generation of immigrants now, from Vietnam, India, the failed soviet bloc. They came here with nothing and in a generation or two have risen. And if the excuse is, 'Well, they're not Black," here come Blacks from the Caribbean, working hard and doing just as well. All of these immigrant groups have one HUGE advantage: they haven't suffered decades of this American victim mentality.

I trust your sincerity and the sincerity of all the liberals who want to see Black Americans improve their lot (and they have, most are middle class). But there are forces that demand the dependency of Black Americans and use a victim mentality to get their votes. I don't see why anyone would heed voices that say, 'You Can't Do It'.


RE: the "science" article bashing conservatives. In Japan there are "scientists" whose entire output is exceptionalist-nationalist philosophy (nihonjinron) that is to be taken very seriously. This article is on the same level as, "liberals are better lovers".








>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

qm - Imagine if you and the rest of your ethnic heritage were brought to this country as prisoners, to be sold as property to other people. You are bought and sold and expected to do hard labor without protest. Any resistance could mean your life, or your foot, so you quickly learn to submit yourself to the authority of the ruling racial class. Your ethnic heritage, as a whole, is kept in poverty and ignorance for many generations. Old proud traditions are beaten out of you, and new ones are created in secret, out of the watchful eye of your master. You cannot sing your music, but you can sing in the church choir, so you create your own new culture under the restrictions imposed by your masters.
Then a century down the road, it is decided that slavery is wrong and you are set free. Unfortunately for you, you are in your middle age with no money or education in a culture where you are thought of as subhuman. In this hostile environment, you are expected to compete with people who have been free all their lives, and more sinisterly, people who loathe you and are actively against your progress. They even create organizations to make life worse for you and to form lynch mobs to murder you and your kind.
This new generation continues to pass along the legacy of poverty, lack of education, self doubt, fear and shame to further generations. For the next few generations, laws are set up to discriminate against your people, and it is publicly acceptable to insult, attack and even kill your underclass with minimal consequences. There are new freedoms and a desire to rise above, but there are so very many cultural barriers.
Eventually society decides this underclass should have the same rights as everyone else, but at this point, the legacy of slavery has been imprinted on an entire culture for many generations - Hundreds of years of negative cultural conditioning. Although free in law, there is still much animosity aimed at your group. Not only are ou different in color and culture, but you also carry the stigma of being poor and not having access to the same level of education of the ruling racial class.
Eventually steps are taken to reverse this legacy of hate, poverty and slavery through government assistance programs, and while costly, they do yield success as your underclass rises in wealth and social acceptance. The fact that we, the racial ruling class, see them as equal and expect them to do as well as we do speaks greatly to the change in culture over the last half century. But, just are the legacy of slavery lives on in black culture, so does the legacy of hate live on in white culture. Groups of neo-confederate whites are angry that there is an effort to help remedy a problem created by our forefathers. They don't care whether or not these programs have been successful, they just hate the idea of this long hated underclass getting some help.
Just as the legacy of poverty has made it's way from generation to generation, so has the legacy of hate.
Perhaps the neo-confederates should take the log out of their own eye, before cataloging the failings of others. Or at least, they could attempt some understanding of why these stats are the way they are, how much progress has been made, and what could be done to stop these destructive legacies in the future.

Do you see what I'm going for here, qm? I'd love a yes, even if it comes with heavy reservations.

It is very possible, as @ChaosEngine points out, that these cops are simply partaking in the protest on their time off. Cops are people too, something a dangerous amount of people prefer to ignore.

That being said, infiltration of opposition movements is one way to stifle them. Here in Switz Nestlé went to court in 2008 for hiring private security agents to infiltrate an anti-capitalist organisation that was writing a report on Nestlé's actions throughout the world (article). This, with the passive complicity of the state police, who knew what was going on and had access to the information being gathered. Needless to say, Nestlé won the court case on legal technicalities.



_{(on a side note, fuck the black bloc tactics, that shit completely ruins protests' credibility.)}

I have to admit I scanned over your description, then watched the video. Sorry about that. You've got a very good point about the black bloc getup. Both because they are the group that is more likely to instigate rioting, and because it doesn't seem right for a police officer to cover his face on duty for the purpose of hiding his identity. But now I'm curious, what's the political shirt? Is the El Jefe shirt a reference to Castro or something?

That is why I wrote that there is no evidence that I see. Regardless, cops walking around with people looking like Black Bloc is very suspicious. The other cop is wearing a very political shirt. If they were undercover... why are they not acting more like under cover cops ie everyday joes? Instead they suggest that they are politically motivated.>> ^entr0py:

Yep, that was definitely a video of some cops walking around and riding bikes without uniforms. Not really the solid evidence of wrongdoing I was hoping for.

>> ^9547bis:

A few remarks:
Socialists are extreme-right in Europe. What? Where's that guy from? Kansas? He sure knows a lot about Europe I can tell.
"Fascists blah blah Colonels blah" --> In real life, an elected government.
"Nothing happens" when you repudiate your debt. Yeah right. On that topic: what Netrunner said.
The big difference with Iceland: this is not the first bailout for Greece, and some of that EU money comes from Central European countries. Countries that started lower than Greece when the Soviet bloc fell, countries that are for some still poorer than Greece, and countries that did not cheat and cook the books like Greece did.
So if the shit goes down, who do you think should pay, Greece, or smaller, poorer countries who played by the rules?
On a side-note: notice how "The Real news" have quickly become the shadow of their former selves. These guys used to send people across the globe, now they're reduced to having the CEO himself introduce the "topic" using "quotes" for words he "doesn't like" while interviewing Joe No-one, like a poor man's leftist Fox News.


If you look at history you'll see that countries have gone bankrupt hundreds of times. Some countries themselves over 20 times. Are any of those countries a smoldering ruin? Nope, life marches on. As for the rest of the shit you said...I don't care.

A few remarks:
* Socialists are extreme-right in Europe. What? Where's that guy from? Kansas? He sure knows a lot about Europe I can tell.
* "Fascists blah blah Colonels blah" --> In real life, an elected government.
* "Nothing happens" when you repudiate your debt. Yeah right. On that topic: what Netrunner said.
* The big difference with Iceland: this is not the first bailout for Greece, and some of that EU money comes from Central European countries. Countries that started lower than Greece when the Soviet bloc fell, countries that are for some still poorer than Greece, and countries that did not cheat and cook the books like Greece did.

So if the shit goes down, who do you think should pay, Greece, or smaller, poorer countries who played by the rules?

On a side-note: notice how "The Real news" have quickly become the shadow of their former selves. These guys used to send people across the globe, now they're reduced to having the CEO himself introduce the "topic" using "quotes" for words he "doesn't like" while interviewing Joe No-one, like a poor man's leftist Fox News.

The Canadians here and anyone else paying attention to the G20 riot in Toronto last year shudder at this. Deja vu all over again. Saturday, the cops let the "black bloc" (white kids trashing storefronts) do their thing.

Sunday, the cops responded with the savage beatings/kettling actions.

Seeing it once looks like an awful mistake. Seeing it a second time... troubling.

>> ^marbles:

Police were ordered to stand down as London burned:
...
According to eyewitnesses to the initial riots in Tottenham, police were seen “standing back and allowing rioters to cause havoc,” a trend that continued during subsequent nights before Prime Minister David Cameron ordered 10,000 extra police officers to patrol London last night.
This has now been confirmed by sources within Scotland Yard who said police were ordered to “stand and observe” even as brazen acts of violent crime were committed against both people and private property, a directive which prevented them from arresting any of the troublemakers.
...
The police’s inadequate response quickly led to calls for martial law, curfews and the use of water cannons on streets in England for the first time, a power that Prime Minister David Cameron has now authorized.
Britain’s most widely-read newspaper The Sun ran a poll today which found that two thirds of Brits support the use of rubber bullets to deal with rioters, while 33 per cent supported the use of live bullets.
“Curfews are backed by 82 per cent, using tear gas got 78 per cent support and Tasers 72 per cent,” states the report.

>> ^RFlagg:

One would hope this deal would cause a backlash against the government, but it won't. The American people are too pacified to care and will continue to let the government and the rich that control it run them down. Too pacified by the fact that the upcoming episode of Hell's Kitchen (or whatever show) is going to be the most shocking ever! Too pacified by a new map pack for CoD that needs dominated. Too pacified by a religion that says the party that is most responsible for handing power over to the corporations and the rich are the moral choice because they are the ones who say they care for the unborn, and ignore the ass fuck you are receiving from the rich because who matters more? The unborn or your ass comfort? Too pacified by a right wing agenda media that lies and manipulates their public into ignoring logic and thinking this is a good deal. Too pacified by a so called "liberal media" that is in the end, corporate controlled and still presents the view that is best represents the immediate short term profit needs of the corporation. Too pacified by an education system that has failed them. Failed to teach even a basic understanding of science or just as if not more importantly, critical thinking...


I have to say I agree with almost all of what you're saying.

Where I disagree is that I think this will indeed cause a backlash against "the government", but will result in people stupidly voting for candidates who're making government suck but say "I think government sucks, elect me!" or result in people just getting disillusioned and not bothering to vote.

I also think a lot of American culture emphasizes individualism to a fault -- people who face hardship almost universally blame themselves for it. They've been told since they were a child that we're all equal, and that adult life is essentially meritocratic. If you're poor, it's because you aren't working hard enough, or made bad choices, and if you're well off it's because you're a hard working, entrepreneurial individual who did it all on your own.

We're encouraged to stay divided on lines of race, class, religion, ideology, sexual orientation, state, urbanization, school district, sports team, etc. to make sure we never build up large blocs of solidarity. The old sources of broad-based solidarity like churches, unions, and schools have been systematically corrupted or destroyed.

It's divide and conquer masquerading as "individualism".

It's not that people in America are content -- far from it! It's that we all feel isolated and powerless, and have no experience with using collective action to empower ourselves.

I don't know how we get the fire lit in people to join hands together and fight, but we're just gonna keep getting screwed as long as we refuse to work together against our oligarchs.

>> ^VoodooV:

>> ^NetRunner:
>> ^VoodooV:
The sooner we abolish parties, the better. Party politics is what got us here.

How exactly would you do that?
You'd pretty much have to take away people's right to freely assemble, or forbid politicians from saying what they think about the issues before they're elected...

Uhh...no, not quite taking it that far. Not interested in slashing the Bill of Rights. There will always be unofficial groups and coalitions and there will be nothing you can do to stop that, nor should you. But what we can do is just refuse to recognize people as Reps or Dems, we can abolish any sort of official backing. Disband the RNC and the DNC. Simply refuse to give it legitimacy. When the state of the union happens, refuse to give a "opposition party rebuttal" At the very least! abolish this whole "reps sit on one side of the aisle, dems sit on the other side" nonsense. There is nothing wrong with people getting together, but the gov't doesn't have to recognize it and give it legitimacy so that the party eclipses the person as it is now.
The founders were definitely wary of parties and rightfully so. I don't see any problem with a concerted effort to at the VERY LEAST, discourage parties. We're seeing first hand the damage that can be done when party comes before country.
That and make all elections publicly funded..period. You'd see some drastic changes for the better


I guess my point is you're not being realistic about the dynamic at work. What's that going to cure? Are blankfist and I going to accidentally start voting for the same candidates? Probably not. Will liberals and conservatives generally refuse to organize into voting blocs to maximize their influence? Definitely not.

More to the point, what mechanism would prevent unofficial voting blocs from forming in the House and Senate? Once they form, are we really making things better by forcing them to pretend they don't exist? By refusing to let people come up with some shorthand word for them like Democrat or Republican (or Green, Monster Raving Looney, etc.)? By refusing to give TV air time to someone who wants to rebut the President?

It'd be a bit like trying to ban "alliances" in the game of Survivor. You'd have to intervene in almost every conversation to successfully do it, and even then people will still constantly be trying to do it under the radar, because the advantages are just too great. And that's a situation with at most 20 people under the most Orwellian level of surveillance possible...

Publicly funded elections on the other hand are a great idea, but that's wholly different from trying to kill organized parties. Publicly funded elections are about trying to neutralize the effect of money on the electoral process, and that's the real issue, IMO.

Give me a break.

You said "None of those are particularly easy to get, and they also cost money".

If you don't have 40 bucks to get an ID, which every one needs, then you have bigger problems and voting is not one of them.

>> ^NetRunner:

>> ^bobknight33:
I did watch you need a driver license, passport or or mil ID. Any one can get these if they dont already have one.
If this is such a not problem then what the fuss about showing an ID? How does it prevent one from voting?
>> ^NetRunner:
>> ^bobknight33:
Why shouldn't you provide ID when you vote?
Who dose not have an ID today?

Did you not watch the video? These laws aren't saying "you need some ID", they're explicitly excluding types of ID that Democratic voting blocs are likely to have, while allowing ID types Republican voting blocs are likely to have.
Basically the idea here is to pretend to be cracking down on a problem...that doesn't actually exist, and "accidentally" have the ne
restrictions result in preventing lots of people (hopefully Democrats!) from voting.
It's voter suppression.


None of those are particularly easy to get, and they also cost money. Military ID kinda obviously only comes with being in the military.
I guess mostly the question is "why should you have to show ID?" we already make people register, and you get crossed off in the the roles when you come in to vote.
There's essentially no one who's ever successfully voted twice in the last decade, so why tighten restrictions on voting, except to make it harder for people who don't already have a form of ID to exercise their right to vote?
This is sort've like saying you shouldn't get a right to a fair trial unless you register and go through the requisite hoops to get a driver's license.

>> ^bobknight33:

I did watch you need a driver license, passport or or mil ID. Any one can get these if they dont already have one.
If this is such a not problem then what the fuss about showing an ID? How does it prevent one from voting?
>> ^NetRunner:
>> ^bobknight33:
Why shouldn't you provide ID when you vote?
Who dose not have an ID today?

Did you not watch the video? These laws aren't saying "you need some ID", they're explicitly excluding types of ID that Democratic voting blocs are likely to have, while allowing ID types Republican voting blocs are likely to have.
Basically the idea here is to pretend to be cracking down on a problem...that doesn't actually exist, and "accidentally" have the new restrictions result in preventing lots of people (hopefully Democrats!) from voting.
It's voter suppression.



None of those are particularly easy to get, and they also cost money. Military ID kinda obviously only comes with being in the military.

I guess mostly the question is "why should you have to show ID?" we already make people register, and you get crossed off in the the roles when you come in to vote.

There's essentially no one who's ever successfully voted twice in the last decade, so why tighten restrictions on voting, except to make it harder for people who don't already have a form of ID to exercise their right to vote?

This is sort've like saying you shouldn't get a right to a fair trial unless you register and go through the requisite hoops to get a driver's license.

I did watch you need a driver license, passport or or mil ID. Any one can get these if they dont already have one.

If this is such a not problem then what the fuss about showing an ID? How does it prevent one from voting?

>> ^NetRunner:

>> ^bobknight33:
Why shouldn't you provide ID when you vote?
Who dose not have an ID today?

Did you not watch the video? These laws aren't saying "you need some ID", they're explicitly excluding types of ID that Democratic voting blocs are likely to have, while allowing ID types Republican voting blocs are likely to have.
Basically the idea here is to pretend to be cracking down on a problem...that doesn't actually exist, and "accidentally" have the new restrictions result in preventing lots of people (hopefully Democrats!) from voting.
It's voter suppression.

>> ^bobknight33:

Why shouldn't you provide ID when you vote?
Who dose not have an ID today?


Did you not watch the video? These laws aren't saying "you need some ID", they're explicitly excluding types of ID that Democratic voting blocs are likely to have, while allowing ID types Republican voting blocs are likely to have.

Basically the idea here is to pretend to be cracking down on a problem...that doesn't actually exist, and "accidentally" have the new restrictions result in preventing lots of people (hopefully Democrats!) from voting.

It's voter suppression.