Canada - we have a problem . . .

[ConcernedCanuk]

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Result from a poll at http://www.ctv.ca/news - top right hand corner

Which U.S. presidential candidate would be best for Canada?


John McCain 4382 votes (45 %)

Barack Obama 5382 votes (55 %)


Total Votes: 9764

That's sorta scary,

being that we are headed for our own election.

If Harper ends up Prime Minister with a majority . . .

Like I said,

scary . . .

[madokie]

1. 56 votes later and the results are the same

Which U.S. presidential candidate would be best for Canada?


John McCain 4403 votes (45 %)

Barack Obama 5417 votes (55 %)


Total Votes: 9820

[Indenturedebtor]

2. Well alot of canucks might not be following along though right?

Or maybe they just really like having massive groups of American asylum seekers? :shrug: though I think that's pretty unlikely based on the hate that many canadians feel towards the US.

[ConcernedCanuk]

3. Well - Canadians ain't really known for HATING anyone, but disgusted with US leadership?

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you betcha.

and disappointment in the voters,

But HATE?

I don't think so.

Sympathy would be more accurate methinks . . .

As for "following along" . .

We got stupid voters too,

Harper is the proof . .

(sigh)

[Indenturedebtor]

4. Well this is certainly anecdotal but in my many encounters with canadians

if they say 10 words about Americans 9 of them will be negative. Some of it is deserved, some of it isn't :shrug:

[baldguy]

5. Familiarity breeds contempt.

Though, "contempt" might be too strong a word...

[Indenturedebtor]

7. No that actually sounds about right heh n/t

[ConcernedCanuk]

8. Negative yes, but that's not the same as "hate"

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And having lived in the States for 14 months,

I suspect most of it is deserved.

At least from our Canuk point of view.

I don't put people into categories,

If I meet 10 US-Americans, and they are all a$$holes,

I do not presume that the the 11th will also be one.

Ya gotta take into consideration, that LONG before the Boy-King took over the United States that world-wide travelers knew they'd get better treatment from their hosts and company if they pretended to be Canadian.

There's a message there.

No-one paid attention.

[Indenturedebtor]

9. I didn't say anything about Canadians being assholes

Just that most hate us. I suppose that hate might be a bit strong of a word heh. I live to travel. Usually Canadians don't treat the wife and I like crap out there. Alot of other nationalities though have treated us like utter garbage with few exceptions, and most of the crap they threw at us was unfounded.

US history is full of ugly, but so is Euro history in general and lemme tell you that the Euros I've encountered are the biggest American haters of all heh. And many of the stereotypes about American travellers could be just as honestly applied to Westerners in general in my experience. Other nations do in fact have loudmouthed, hoity toity, biggotted assholes. Shocking I know but it's true. The sheer fact that I "look American" sets off tirades, glares, etc. we've learned to keep to ourselves for the most part. Other travellers, not so much tourists, will get you into trouble anyways.

[ConcernedCanuk]

11. "The sheer fact that I "look American" sets off tirades, glares, etc." - there's the message

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I doubt that you personally deserve it,

but the World ain't really fond of the USA,

Hasn't been for decades -

Bush-Gang just made it a whole lot worse

AND, the voters selected him

TWICE.

[Indenturedebtor]

13. True that. And our last big trip a couple of years back COMPLETELY changed my opinion on foreign

aid. I wish the US would just go isolationist again. Except in natural disasters - let people sort it out for their damn selves. Based on the dozens of conversations we had with people from dozens of different countries pretty much no one remembered any of the great or kind things that the US has done, and all of the not so great things. This whole superpower bullshit only helps the rich here in the states anyways.

[ConcernedCanuk]

18. "This whole superpower bullshit only helps the rich" - as it was intended to do!

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I read an article years ago that the powers that be in the USA (not what you call your government, the money moguls BEHIND your government)had plans over a century ago to use the USA as a base to conquer the World.

The plan was sort of in idle/planning mode until WW2 when the USA got "the bomb".

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not strategic military targets, they were just large populated areas that if the bomb worked as well as predicted, it would scare the f*ck out of the World.

And it did -

And here we are.

[BlueManDude]

6. Your problem is the LDP.

[ConcernedCanuk]

10. YOUR problem is being obtuse - what the heck is the acronym LDP?

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I found 35 results for LDP here - http://www.acronymfinder.com/LDP.html

It goes from

"Linux Documentation Project"

to

"Let's Discuss, Please"

Also it includes 2 democratic parties, Japan and Turkey.

And due to your lack of input,

I have no idea if you are indicating that this "LDP" is a national problem for Canada,

or a personal one of my own.

Ya get an idea why some US-Americans do not impress us?

[BlueManDude]

19. Sorry I meand NDP. If you're splitting the left of center vote the Cons will win.

[ConcernedCanuk]

20. hmmm - NDP - that never occurred to me, but I disagree with the conclusion.

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The NDP, New Democrat Party, have helped to be a check on whatever government is in power. They have numerous seats, and combined with the Bloc and other parties can stop our government from running amok.

In my opinion, the United States voters have two choices only

Vote to the right,

or a tiny bit left of the right.

WE get to vote Oct 14th, and probably advance voting will be available.

That's another nice thing, IMO, about our electoral system.

We don't have to put up with all the expense, hoopla and muckraking that y'all do down there for YEARS before an election.

Couple of months,

dat's it, dat's all.

And if we don't like them,

We don't have to wait 4 years.

[iverglas]

21. Nuthin like an expert

http://www.politicalcompass.org/canada2005



The Liberal Party is not left of centre.

The Liberal Party is not left of centre.

Quite possibly a lot of people are deluded into believing it is, and thus the concept of "splitting the left of center vote" could make a little sense.

But please. Please do not yourself be deluded into believing, or propagating, the myth that the Liberal Party is left of centre.

[LiberadorHugo]

24. They've got it wrong too...

The BQ is not more socially liberal and more civil libertarian then the NDP, in spite of what a bunch of ignorant separatists and pundits may think. :-)

There are some very progressive and dynamic people in the BQ, but also some bigots, homophobes, and chauvinists who live as though the Quiet Revolution never occurred.

They're also not very green, in spite of their ecologist musings: Every time I buy a text-heavy videogame that's only playable in English, I get this big French manual that's twice the size of its English counterpart. While I am fluently bilingual and would love to see the wit and wisdom of Phoenix Wright available to me in French (The games are hilarious as all Hell in English, and I hear they're also pretty damn wacky in Japanese), I don't think that people who lack the necessary English skills to understand a simple set of instructions is going to be able to play a text-heavy role-playing game or graphic adventure. So instead, they just give more garbage to the wasters and more busywork for the recycling facilities. It's honestly sort of pathetic.

[iverglas]

25. I think ...

it's looking at party policy rather than membership sentiment. For same-sex marriage rights, against limits on access to abortion, yada yada.

Ah, I'll let the Political Compass speak:

Bloc Québécois presented us with a real challenge, since it is primarily a single-goal party promoting Québec independence. As such, it attracts members from all quadrants of The Political Compass who often have little else in common.

Heh.

[ConcernedCanuk]

27. Thank you iverglas

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I've been voting NDP for over a decade now,

I don't believe what many do is that a vote for the NDP "takes away" from the Libs,

rather,

the NDP keeps a check on ALL the other parties.

That's my stance anyhoo . .

[SidDithers]

34. I've voted NDP provincially and Liberal federally...

but I'm casting my vote with the LDP this year.

Sid

[GliderGuider]

33. Canada may or may not not have a problem, but I sure as hell do

Here's my position:

I recently wrote an essay ("Political Will, Political Won't") in which I conclude that politics (all politics, regardless of stripe) is part of the problem, and cannot be part of the solution. That opinion, coupled with the position shown above, means that I have no political home in Canada.

[iverglas]

35. "I have no political home in Canada."

Of course you do!

It's right here with the rest of us in the NDP who are down in the lower left of that quadrant (I'm -8 point something and -8 point something generally myself), bitching about how we're too far to the left of the NDP ...

It's a grand old Cdn tradition, doncha know!

'Cause basically, we're playing electoral politics here. And how many people are really gonna vote for a -9/-9 party?

[GliderGuider]

36. I've been a New Democrat since before I was born

My grandparents were founding members of the Manitoba CCF, friends with J.S. Woodsworth himself. My mother has been involved in every federal and Ontario provincial campaign since 1962 either as campaign staff or as a candidate. My parents have counted Tommy Douglas, David and Stephen Lewis, Ed Broadbent and Alexa McDonough among their personal friends. I have knocked on doors, scrutineered and done campaign photography for the NDP since the late '60s. My vote can have no other possible destination than the NDP. My blood is orange.

I've recently come to understand, however, that at their core the NDP is just as culpable for supporting an unsustainable industrial civilization as the bluest of Tories. They each accept the same fundamental economic paradigms, and are equally committed to placid order and the sterilizing mediation of experience. In fact, to me the hypocrisy of the NDP is even more egregious than the banal but transparent evil of the Harperites. The Tories make very little pretense of where they stand, while the NDP obscures their equivalently bourgeois support of the existing social order with a deceptive (and self-deceptive) veneer of altruism, solidarity and professed sympathy for the underdog.

Under all the fine rhetoric however, the NDP believe just as zealously in economic and industrial growth, and will never campaign for the things that might save our civilization -- drastic population reduction, zero-growth economies and voluntary material impoverishment. Their place at the table of the guardian institution of politics is guaranteed by their cultivated inability to recognize, let alone proclaim, the obvious -- that civilization is headed down a dead end path, if not over a cliff, and any force like politics that keeps us meekly shuffling along is part of the problem.

I cannot vote for the Harperites or the Dionysians, and I've come to the conclusion that it's not the parties that are the problem, but rather the building the parties are being thrown in -- the edifice of politics itself.

○ Conservative
○ Liberal
○ NDP
○ Green
○ Bloc Quebecois
● None of the above

[iverglas]

37. like I wuz saying

You won't find me especially disagreeing with any of that.

(Me, I wasn't NDP until I was 16. I even briefly toyed with the Liberals before that. It being Trudeaumania, and me being 15, and all.)

If one is going to participate in the political processes of one's state/society as it exists, "none of the above" isn't actually an option. That's not participating. And that's an option, and one that anyone can exercise, and advocate that others exercise. But that's the edifice we live in at the moment, whether we all use the facilities, or like them, or not.

Or of course one can organize a group to participate in the process and advocate what one wants to see happen, and make every effort to garner support for the group and its proposals. My own opinion is that if one can't get that support within the electoral process, one isn't likely to get it ex-electorally -- i.e., by revolution. Which is the only other option. People tend not to revolt against the governments they elected. Even if the process by which they elected them is obviously, to thee and me and other sensible people, designed to produce disastrous results.

Ya just can't make people do things. Sometimes, what they do instead of what they ought to do amounts to driving their obscenely excessive numbers of resource-consuming, waste-producing children to hell in their obscenely huge gas-guzzling, emissions-spewing handbaskets. Nothing short of the apocalypse is going to stop them. Not all the lecturing and educating and pleading in the world as we know it. (And myself, I find watching people who do all those things and hang out at "progressive" websites bleating about freedom of choice to be particularly tiresome and depressing -- you understanding I am not talking about you at all.)

I'd still like to see what an NDP with some power might do. Of course, we've seen what the reaction was when Bob Rae did just a minute fraction of what we're talking about. Blame the would-be leader for the failure of the other 99% to get the message and get with the program? I dunno about that.

[GliderGuider]

38. You might try reading some John Zerzan.

Some of his stuff would be right up your alley.

:toast:

[LiberadorHugo]

22. Shut up, moran!

The real enemy is the Westminster system. Before you bash the NDP, how about learning a little something about the class makeup and history of our parties as well as the ways in which our electoral system distorts election results.

[ConcernedCanuk]

12. Still the same - too many dumm Canuks

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John McCain 4626 votes (45 %)

Barack Obama 5700 votes (55 %)


Total Votes: 10326

http://www.ctv.ca/news

Sun is shining

going to cut some firewood

need a touch with nature to dull the political bull$hit.

[CreekDog]

14. That's an online poll. I can't believe you even posted this.

online polls are crap --they don't even attempt to be random.

it means nothing, not a damned thing.

(ps-to further prove that this poll it total crap, i just voted in it, me an American living in California).

[ConcernedCanuk]

16. Well believe it - I DID post this - and I'm well aware that it is an on-line poll

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So that the responders could be 50% Chinese for all we know . .

BUT

point is

the majority responding to this poll only favor Obama by a small margin as being the best result for Canada.

Canada has a problem, or will have if those that support the Bush/McCain kind of thinking succeed in the next elections -

The most direct effect will be if Harper wins the upcoming election, and we know where Stevie-Baby's nose is parked . . .

Right up the PNAC gangs a$$

[CreekDog]

26. this is pretty mean but please be quiet

there is NO PROBLEM you can discover using an online poll as evidence.

you want to talk about Canada having a problem if they vote Conservative, I've got no quarrel with you, but online polls are shit.

there's probably an online poll where a majority of the people say the sky is green even though they think it is blue.

the other really annoying thing is that you knew it was an online poll and said nothing about it.

[ConcernedCanuk]

29. "you knew it was an online poll and said nothing about it." - what's your problem??

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didn't the link to the poll work for you?

and if you really believe that on-line polls are totally useless

then I suggest you NOT respond to posts of this nature in the future.

I do not think they are "shit",

I do realize they are not demographically accurate,

BUT

they do give an insight as to how the READERS of said article feel.

So it ain't "shit" in my opinion.

[CreekDog]

30. they are not "statistically" accurate

what you said about them not being "demographically" inaccurate misses the point wildly.

they are shit because they ARE NOT RANDOM.

got it? a sample that is totally self selected is totally non random.

you could have the exact proper demographic breakdown in an online poll, but it's crap because it's not random.

:banghead:

[ConcernedCanuk]

31. Well, y'all got Arnold for a Governor, and Bush for Pretzeldent.

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I'm green with envy

Fact is,

regardless of this on-line poll or any others,

TOO MANY up here wanna follow the Bush Doctrine,

and that includes keeping our Harper in power.

I find that unacceptable.

I don't understand, or care to debate anymore with you about the values of on-line polls.

Everything has a value,

and a continuing diatribe about polls, or anything else as just being "shit" is a waste of my time.

And by the way,

all the negative stuff posted about Sarah Palin here and elsewhere

is giving the GOP a boost in ratings.

The Republicans might just WIN as a result of all the rude remarks about Sarah Palin.

Thousands suffered, and or died in the hurricane IKE that devastated Galveston, Houston and the Bolivar Peninsula.

Yet I see more concern about lipstick and a bridge to nowhere than the USA citizens that are suffering from IKE.

So I ain't really impressed with your concerted efforts to criticize my posting an "on-line" (OMG) poll!!

I'll repeat it so you (maybe) understand.

"I don't understand, or care to debate anymore with you about the values of on-line polls."

That means - please do not reply.

[CreekDog]

32. You get no quarrel with me about your country's political dialogue versus ours

ours rewards the shallow, rude and crude.

i was in Canada a couple weeks ago, and frankly, we in the US could learn a lot from you, but for the most part we won't. we figure everybody should be learning from us because we're so great at everything. why would we copy anybody else? :banghead:

my rant should have been more about online polls than you. for what it's worth.

:hi:

[Spazito]

15. Geez, you give credence to an ONLINE poll on CTV.....WOW!

CTV is owned by the rightwing media consortium Global and their site is inundated with harper devotees. Given that, the on-line poll is surprising in that Obama is ahead, imo.

REAL polls have Canadians supporting Obama by a 5 - 1 margin:

Majority Of Canadians Want Obama To Be U.S. President: Poll
Thursday September 4, 2008
The Canadian Press
A new poll says Canadians are five times more likely to pick Barack Obama than John McCain when asked who they would support if they could vote in the U.S. presidential election.

The Canadian Press Harris/Decima survey released Wednesday indicates that 66 per cent of those polled would select Obama, the Democratic candidate.

On the other hand, the poll suggests that only 13 per cent would vote for McCain, the Republican.

http://www.citynews.ca/news/news_26449.aspx

[ConcernedCanuk]

17. Consider this - I ain't the ONLY leftist that reads CTV

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So I ain't the only leftist voting either.

And remember,

We all have different perceptions of what is REAL.

yeah,

WOW

[mudesi]

23. It's not a scientific poll

:eyes:

[ConcernedCanuk]

28. define a "scientific" poll - and I never said it was anyways.

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I posted the link to the poll,

so I wasn't hiding anything.

nice eyes . . .