supercanuk

Is from B.C. where the Okanagan fine wine seduces me to go back to that beautiful area. Captain Canuk has nothing on me SON!

Loves fecal matter, lol jk

Is a man of great integrity, intelligence, and humor.

Hey i dont have much time today to respond to stuff but for suggestions on reading: Check out Noam Chomsky's Hegemony or Survival, it's fantastic In terms of the U.S. involvment in Europe i'd suggest checking out NATO's Secret Armies by Daniele Ganser (I had to order mine from Europe so you might want to check this linkto a BBC special about the book. Check out a Peoples History of the United States by Howard Zinn. And... The Sorrow's of Empire by Chalmer's Johnson. I picked all academics on politics so you can see any of their peer reviewed works and all of them are pretty much "the" authority on what they write on.

Bingo my friend. I don't buy any of this "media has a liberal bias" stuff because the media is a massive corporation which has an inherent conservative bias. Not in terms of political parties but in terms of ideologies. Remember these guys are a business, and who they are owned by dictate their content. If General Electric owns NBC, do you figure you will hear ANY bad content concerning GE? Hells no, and their one of the most evil multinationals. Again, the media simply ignore and omit information all the time, in fact the myth of the "liberal news reporter" (whether they are personal liberal or not doesn't really matter), really is used to create a mental image that the media is somehow fair and balanced. The media are owned by a handful of major corporations, its a horrifically monopolized industry that does not offer a real spectrum of information. You need the internets to get the real independent news from scholars and independent journalists. Please, i beg you, all of you, read Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky, and it will really brighten your understanding of one of the most dangerous and powerful industries in our lives. I have only had 3 hours of sleep so i don

Charles you should check out Guerrilla Warfare by Ernesto "Che" Guevara, it talks about Fidel's rise to power. On the note of who would i most party with, its a hard choice but ultimately i have some serious questions to ask Marx, so it would definetely be him.

lol It's also a great way to control a domestic population. A war with Iran could prove to have serious consequences down the road, as we have been able to see with Iraq, serious destabilization seems to be a breeding ground for extreamists. Something that ought to be included in any wager for war or against it. People who know me know i am dead set against all of these wars, but that said is there anyone in NF that want the U.S. to go to war with Iran? And if so, why?

haha hopefully i didn

as much as i dont want to get into this argument, or an argument with erik (online that is, where he pull so many facts out of nowhere to support is his argument, i am all for the ones at timmies) i will just point out this, the American's did the same this to Russia in Afghanistan as the Russians did to the American's in Korea and Vietnam. Quite true, Russia was supporting Vietnamese resistance movement and the proxy wars have a long and sordid history. Take Angola for example where Cuba was helping the independence movement shake off the U.S. supported powers. This stuff goes on and on, that wasn't so much my point, it was more that religions cause mass murder but so do, and i think more often, power situations which can lead to extreamists.

I concur.

Although you have a point about the suicide bombers, many Tibetan priests have taken their own life, in fact, set themselves on fire in protest to their oppression. That type of behavior occurs in extreme situations, and no their doctrine do not include any violence (that i have really seen)but their actions towards themselves are quite horrific and are a direct result of their doctrine. I am not saying that this power, religious mix causes terrorism in every state, but it has to be included in the factors of terrorism. Religion plays a large role, but i still don't see how subjugation and oppression do not play a role. Which one has more influence? Well i am not sure, there are not easy distinctions to be made, thousands of religions have been created on this planet, some violent, some non-violent, and some feigning non-violence like Christianity. But when the Christians were being oppressed in the Roman days they committed acts of terrorism and sabotage as well (yes i realize i continue to reference Rome but i think is a decent example to use). I'd suggest because they are not being occupied, but they are being oppressed. And you do see acts of horrific nature in areas of desperate poverty in the U.S. People off themselves in record numbers in poor areas and they are following no doctrine, but they all are being economically marginalized and so as a result flashes of violence do occur. The U.S. can be blamed in a number of ways, for example take Iran, when democratically elected Prime Minister Mossadegh wanted to nationalize his oil reserves so that his people WOULD reap the benefits of their own oil. The U.S. and the U.K. jointly overthrew the Iranian government under operation TP-AJAX, look it up, it was the first successful CIA operation which overthrew a foreign government. They then instituted the Shah and decades of repression ensued. OR let's to the example of Iraq where for sheer fun Hussein gassed his people that were rebelling against him, guess who supplied him those weapons, knew he was committing horrifying acts of terrorism and continued to support him until it was politically inconvenient? Or, let's take the example of the U.S. maintaining Saudi royalty

heyrabbit: Great reply, and I think we are generally in agreeance on these types of topics anyways but of course there are the minor disagreements. I agree with this statement to a point, yes people take the word of Islam literally, Muslims believe its the direct word of god, which if true, would mean god is a fucking asshole. But, I still have a hard time with the issue of what to do with this other then persuade people. I think that it takes a certain individual to blow himself or herself up, and I don

Although I agree that we ought to challenge illogical beliefs, I would only support such notions if we put all beliefs in that challenge. If it were Islam itself on trial, I would have a real problem with it, simply because it would appear and quite probably manifest into something tyrannical. I do not mind people believing in what they want; I think people should have the freedom to do so, whether they call for the destruction of this land or that. If we were to ban or put on trial every book that said:

I think it was probably both. Hillier, when looking at other comments he's made over the year is a right-wing ass-bag, but this time he also does make a point about the absolute lack of funding. I don

Thats the whole neo-conservative myth. Ride on a platform of reduction in taxes ( which often amounts to just shift taxes from GST to PST) and the real tax breaks go to the top 1% of the population. They sure do keep their promises ;) lol

Because you guys pay like half the tuition we do haha, but yah i dont know, the organizer's really focused on the university's because they want post-secondary education at the university to be more accessible. Jack Layton's inclusion was a necessary evil, you know i do not approve of the guy but the NDP have a really progressive bill (C-398) that will see more federal transfers go to the province to subsidize education and make it more accessible. no yu begin wher i end: I think if the students voted for an increase in tuition that'd be amazing. I think that democratising the post-secondary institution in as many ways as possible are a clear indication of a heathly and vibrant local democracy. Seriously, kudo's to you guys for taking the initiative and improving your conditions by a democratic vote. The whole issue in fact which you may wittingly or unwittingly touched on was the sheer disparity accross the nation. Their are areas of high tuition with great services and amazing universities which become increasingly inaccessible (like Ontario) and then campuses falling apart due to chronic underfunding. So in your situation im glad that your raising your own tuition as a willing choice and improving the conditions your learning under. We however, have no choice, dont know where any of the money is going that our tuition pays for, and increasingly are burdened with heavy debts that we dont think match what is reasonable for an education. So yeah, tuition does have to raise, in some instances i'd suggest, and depending on the money going to actually improving the conditions id be for it, but in our case we dont even know where its going and we want a bit of a break! lol

haha thanks, agreed! and btw, you have THE BEST avatar on Near Fantastica in my opinion.

So glad to see a professional atmosphere maintained in our nations capital.

thank you! awsome stuff Crusader, glad to see that this event got wide appeal accross the nation, were you out in the protest in Vancouver?(was there one?)

for sure bud lol, i see the video did not get any critics yet? i am awaiting comments from the peanut gallery! lol

So I went to the Reduce Tuition Fee's rally, or Feb7th as we call it, I know some of the organizer's and they worked f-ing hard in organizing this so I decided I

Yah this is all politics, a lot of politicians "seem nice" that's their job, actually look at their policies and none of them are all that green. I mean NDP is not too shabby, but all this is rediculous, you'd think they'd leave dogma at the door for you know, our collective EXISTENCE, but no, its all postuering for the upcomming political campaign. The tar sands cannot be exploited in an enviromentally sound way, its impossible, so dont listen to those fuckbacks who say new technology makes it as green as grass to exploit, their pumping tons of fresh water into the sands to pull out the oil, its not even all that economically sound let alone environmentally sound. Anyway, this shit gets my blood boiling so im ganna leave it at that, check the policies of the government in power and the official opposition and you'll find lies and polytikin! (ooh i just ryhmed!)

OKay there are a lot of things i ought to address but all i want to do is add this link, its a video all who participated in this debate/talk should watch. It's Penn & Teller on the Bible Link

From what i've heard he's already moving in more ships to be able to have a quick strike capability on Iran. Also, its worth noting that Ahmadinejad actually offered to HELP the U.S. get control of Iraq, in fact he's been offering his help for a while and the only thing that Iran has been asking in return is to stop using bully tactics like threats of attack, and only recently have they added that they want to pursue nuclear power for civilian use. The U.S. has totally ignored their, i would say, fairly even handed gesture and the U.S. could probably use the help in getting control of the situation (Not that i really want the U.S. there anyway, but the help of another Muslim country could really help). In fact, Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty which states in the agreement that producing nuclear power for civilian use is completely within the rights of the signatory state. So long as it is for civilian use theres no problems but several members of the U.N but most loudly, the U.S. has summarily decided that they wont ALLOW Iran to produce civilian nuclear power. It's quite contradictory, and really gets at the heart of the matter, American hegemony here is the realy problem, and I dont think a strike either by Bush or by another president on Iran is unlikely. Edit: I am not disregarding the fact that Iran and Iraq were at war and had quite a bad relationship for some time, but they could probably help with the Shi'a population, in Iraq since Iran is dominated by Shi'a muslims. Also worth noting, the U.S. does not necessarily have to attack Iran directly. They can use a proxie state or what amounts to a client state and have them attack Iran.

I never claimed that you said there could be no secular morality, i was actually referring to the last post on page 2 with someone who made mention of actually doing something and transcending your criticisms of various topics. Anyway, certainly the central goal of colonial expansionism was of course brutal trade relations (i.e. slavery), obtain raw materials and accomplish geo-strategic advantages. This does not then disregard the actions of the church. Just because what imperialists did was slightly worse then what the church did does not devoid it of responsibility. Having religious colonialism coming in as a secondary accomplishment makes it no less then what it was, which is the destruction of the culture of millions of people. I am well versed in the colonial histories of many of the superpowers of the day, i am reminded of Columbus