A scary mix of nationalism and… market research?!

Just finished an online survey on what makes me angry (don’t ask, I got paid a dollar for my time/labour – the online proletariat?) and I thought one of the questions was interesting. It asked me which of a list of types of people who made me angry, some of which were kind of stupid (“people who wear flip-flops in the winter”) and some kind of hit home (“people who take their children to restaurants frequented by adults”.. uh, whoops).

However, there were some (about a quarter of the list) that was kind of… worrisome. Examples:

“people who request change on the street (panhandlers)”

“people who don’t know the words to ‘Oh Canada’”

“people who complain too much (about their job, their family, etc.)”

“people who can’t speak English well”

Seemed kind of, well, knee-jerk conservative nationalist to me. I’d hate to see how many Canadians actually agreed with those answers.

Linkity-link: March 25th, 2008

I realized I haven’t done a link round-up in a while! In today’s episode, we have an article by Tariq Ali on the legacy of 1968, a blog post on 10 reasons why Engels doesn’t deserve the Rodney Dangerfield treatment, an article that might just make one particular Seattle grunger roll over in his grave, and a unapologetic argument for collective punishment and human rights abuses. Enjoy!

4,000 American deaths in Iraq; 1,000 French troops soon to come to Afghanistan; the Occupations Continue

On the fifth anniversary of the Iraq War, CBC is reporting that the latest milestone in Iraq has been reached: 4,000 dead American soldiers. This is, of course, in addition to the 29,451 injuries reported by the U.S. Military (antiwar.com suggests, based on disability claims by returning veterans, that 100,000 injuries is closer to the truth).

NAFTA-gate, the NDP, presidential dynasties, and neoliberalism

Canadian (and possibly American) readers may be familiar with ‘NAFTA-gate’, whereby the news networks reported on supposedly leaked information from a Canadian governmental meeting with one of Barack Obama’s advisors. Apparently, Obama’s advisor was largely sent to reassure the Canadian government that recent criticisms of NAFTA made by Obama (also made by Clinton) were more political maneuvering than a genuine belief. Harper claimed, at the time, that he did not believe that either Clinton nor Obama would be genuinely interested in ‘re-opening’ NAFTA.

The reaction of the Canadian opposition, both the Liberal and NDP, was to attack Harper on the leak from his office presumably intended to influence the elections of a foreign country. It’s quite irritating to see Layton fawning over Obama and trying to accuse the Harpercons of trying to sabotage his campaign; it goes to show how it’s not easy to make easy comparisons of political ideology across borders.