Survival of Israel is Dependent on Palestine

Firstly, I would like to thank my co-blogger, Vanillaman for having reposted the Avaaz video. This will help us bring our message of hope to the world. I will now proceed to criticize a few parts of vanillaman's post.

In his post, he mentions that Israeli settlements in the West Bank are actually legal. Maybe they are. Yet, it's irrelevant whether they're legal or not. That can be argued à la Monty Python and that would be extremely pointless. The real question is: what is the point of the settlements? Vanillaman's answer: defense of Israel. But, these settlements have existed ever since Israel took over the West Bank in 1967. These settlements have done nothing but enrage Palestinians and rightly so until they turned hostile. If the settlement's weren't there, maybe there would be more chance for peace.

These settlements are counterproductive and could make Israel lose an ally.

One more argument for an independent Palestine

My last argument for an independent Palestine is the survival of Israel itself. In a short amount of time, the number of Palestinians living under Israeli control (Gaza, West Bank and Israel) will be greater than the number of Jews living in Israel. There will be a choice to make. Maclean's magazine explains it better than me, so I will quote my favourite parts here as it is a long article.

Their country will either be Jewish, but not democratic — in other words, a Jewish minority will control a land mostly inhabited by Palestinians — or Israel will be democratic, but not Jewish, because Arabs will form the majority in what will become a bi-national state.

[...] Still, the consequences of Israel's victory — namely the settlement of occupied territories — have frustrated prospects for peace in the decades since. And now, with Israel perhaps irreversibly entangled in the West Bank, these same fruits of victory threaten Israel's future as well.

[...] Matar is opposed to the creation of a Palestinian state and believes Israel must annex the West Bank and Gaza. When she is asked how Israel could continue to exist as a Jewish state if Muslim Arabs were the majority, she looks genuinely surprised by the question. "I'm not going to give them voting rights," she says.

[...] Our road home skirts the Israeli security barrier. It has been credited with dramatically decreasing the number of terrorist attacks inside Israel, though Palestinians decry it as a land grab because much of it runs inside the West Bank, essentially attaching territory captured in 1967 to the rest of Israel. Mohamed doesn't think the wall has much to do with security because, he says, he's able to cross it at will.

[...] Most Israelis favour a two-state solution.Israel's diverse political landscape, which results in perpetually fragile governing coalitions, makes it difficult for politicians to move this agenda ahead, even when there is a genuine will.

Read more at Maclean's. 

Scary is Governing with Ignorance

It's been blogged about again and again, but that is because it's so stupid and at the same time, scary. With their majority government, the Tories are looking to spearhead an omnibus "tough on crime" bill to increase jail time among other things. Crime prevention will be cut in favour of these measures. You'd think that the Conservatives would pretend to be working with the latest statistics, to agree with the facts. Nope!

“We’re not governing on the basis of the latest statistics,” said our Justice Minister Rob Nicholson. So, we have a government that is admitting to governing with ignorance. That is: ignoring the latest facts and statistics, ignoring evidence and putting in measures that have been proven to be counter-productive. And not only does this not work, but wastes our money at the same time. The facts are clear; let's not ignore them.

“We’re not governing on the basis of the latest statistics,” federal Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said this week. “We’re governing on the basis of what’s right to better protect victims and law-abiding Canadians.”

Read more at the Globe and Mail. 

Palestine is the Best Bet for Peace

An independent state for Palestine is the best way to create peace in the Middle East. Since the creation of Israel in 1948, violence has never stopped, fueled by hatred on both sides. Then in 1967, Israel took over the remaining Palestinian land and subsequently started building settlements to take up the land and resources, squeezing the inhabitants into small pockets. Obviously, when foreigners take over one's land, one isn't too happy about it.

And neither are the Palestinians. That's why they fight against Israel. Because they are living in bad conditions and have no sovereignty. Having their own state will solve that problem. By removing the settlements, there will be no more reason to fight. Hamas will lose its importance as they would receive a victory far greater than any other achieved by violence. And the rebuilding would begin.

Using a UN General Assembly resolution to make an end run around potential negotiations and create a Palestinian state is not a new idea, of course. It’s exactly what was done in 1947, under strikingly similar circumstances, and the resulting Palestinian state became known as Israel. That experience taught us a lot about the hazards of statehood by declaration from above – and about its occasional necessity.

Read more at the Globe and Mail.

Vote Compass Ontario

The CBC is at it again. And being someone who follows politics I find it very enjoying to try these voting compasses. Even though I can't vote in the up coming election me being not in the province in question and all. It is still slightly interesting (not really) that my results were pared up pretty good with the Liberal party of Ontario. Try it for yourself. According to the vote compass I am slightly more to the economic left than the Liberals in the province and am slightly less socially liberal than the premier. And go figure the PC i was no where near close too. Try it for yourself 

Quebec Desreves Everything?

The NDP Brian Topp a man who is running to lead the NDP is proposing that the province of Quebec be given 25% of the seats of the house of commons no matter what happens. Not even considering of course that Quebec today doesn't even deserve 25% of the seats. I don't know if he knows about this, but there is something called "rep by pop" the Liberal party pretty much created it in this country. Even though some prairie provinces and Atlantic provinces including Quebec got some extra seats they got it, because of the laws that were created to make sure they get representation and not be overflowed by the bigger provinces.these sort of laws over represent some parts of the country over the other I think we should move to make our house of commons truly rep by pop by giving more seats to the provinces that are growing much quicker versus the rest of the country. It's to hard to take away seats, but giving Quebec 25% of the seats when it currently represents less than that, and is growing much slower than the rest of the country is just insane. My province doesn't even deserve the seats in currently has. Our commons should be trying to move into the direction of making it truly "rep by pop." This policy is a desperate attempt by Brain Topp. There is no justification for giving Quebec more seats.

The Jewish Vote!

Jews have at least traditionally voted liberal or left leaning when it comes to politics at least in N.A. In Canada they tend to vote Liberal or NDP more than Conservative. But now the Jewish vote has been moving to the right. Although Liberals and Conservatives strongly support Israel which has been seen as the biggest issue for many Jewish communities. Harper has made the case he is the only one who support's Israel. Even though this has no basis the Liberals have also supported Israel, by making sure that terrorist organization like Hezbollah didn't get any money from Canada, but Harper has been good at getting the Jewish votes for the past few years. 

and now in Montreal the ridings with a lot of Jewish votes gave Harper a chance to get a seat on the island. In Mont Royal where the biggest religion is Jewish and considered one of the most Liberal riding's for years gave the Liberals 41% And the Conservatives got 36% in of the vote (in 2011) compared to winning this riding by at lest 9% to as high as 80% for the past 70 years over the next contender . This was the closest the Conservatives have ever gotten into winning this riding since 1958 when Diefenbaker got 54% of the vote nationally and still lost this riding by 1%. In other more Jewish populated ridings Thorn-hill they helped Harper crack Toronto by voting for him in 2008 and especially in 2011. In the U.S Obama got major support from the Jews in 2008, but with Obama being considered to hard on Israel will the Jews go to the Republicans? Well ever since exit polls were taken Jews have voted with the Democrat (even in 1980 they voted for Carter over Reagan), but Antony Wiener's old district that has a lot of Jews helped him won in 2010 with 60% just went to the Republicans by 53%-47% last week. Now we won't know for sure in the U.S whether this shift is real until the exit polls of 2012 come out.

Ooh the Republicans!

Our Republicans to the south are at it again.

It's a very simple equation. Tax increases destroy jobs. And the Joint Committee is a jobs committee. Its mission is to reduce the deficit that is threatening job creation in our country."

This old rant "TAXES KILL JOBS", and while I don't disagree that taxes do kill jobs the Republicans are using this and saying therefore we should cut spending and only cut. This whole Republican idea that taxes hurts the economy and spending also hurts is very absurd. Guess what when you give pink slips to government employee's these are jobs that are being destroyed. The Republicans can't put this simple math equation in there heads. telling a government worker he doesn't have a job anymore is the same as telling a private worker that he doesn't have a job. So when the Republicans are saying that we should balance the budget just by cutting spending. That means cut spending by 1 trillion a year (10 trillion over ten years). This would mean practically killing medicare which if the Republicans didn't know employs many people. Those are jobs right, but they don't count because it cuts spending right boehner. The Republicans don't see that taxes are better than the spending cuts there proposing. Taxes on corporations would reduce revenue for companies making millions if not billion for some in profits. Meaning they would have to kill some jobs. While cutting spending on programs directly kill jobs. What the super committee should start with as a basis is work on the taxes or spending cuts that eliminate the least amount of jobs. Starting first with increasing the tax on the rich to 50% where it was for 6 years of the 8 years Reagan was in office. Then eliminate loopholes for major corporations who are by the way in many cases paying negative cooperate tax rates. Look at cutting defense spending to pre-Bush levels and even more. If they start with things like this the deficit would be much better and not many jobs will be destroyed. So speaker stop with this attitude that taxes kill jobs therefore we must cut and only cut spending, because sacking government employee's is guess what KILLING JOBS!

Read more here

Why Libby Davies Would Be Bad for the NDP part 2

The Last reason why Libby Davies would be bad for the NDP is the biggest one of them all

3: She Can't speak French!
It pretty much says it for itself. The NDP can't get votes from my 80% Francophone province IF SHE CAN'T COMMUNICATE WITH THEM! Making the NDP the leader of the party would be a death sentence in Quebec almost the next second. Having the Libby Davies the leader of the NDP would be a wish come true to the Bloc. The Bloc will grab all the rural votes again. I would suspect Quebec City would go blue for the Conservatives and Bloc. While the Island of Montreal is tricky. The East side would go back to there 2008 results while the west side would be a fight. Considering Quebec makes up the majority of the seats for the NDP she will not be able to get elected right. Wrong only 3% of NDP members come from the province. So it's more than plausible for the 97% non Quebec members to elect her as leader.

Why Libby Davies Would be Bad For the NDP Part (1)

Libby Davies would be the worst new leader for the NDP for many reasons.

Reason #1:

Libby Davies is much more father to the left than Jack Layton. In fact it's hard to find someone who isn't more left then any one else in the NDP. With this we in the Liberal party can say that they are the tax and spend lefties, we are the fiscally responsible party. We can make the point that the NDP isn't in the middle, and even far to the left, and I would be sure the Conservative party would help us make that point. 

Reason #2:

She is from the city. The NDP have been  trying for years to grab votes from prairie provinces. With Libby Davies coming from urban Vancouver someone who voted against the gun registry and supports a lot for cities. Not that she doesn't care for farmers, but it may be hard to sell to prairie provinces a leader who seeems to care more about cities. Even Jack Layton hasn't been able to get a seat in Saskatchewan for years, and the seat in Alberta was an Urban seat. The Only Rural prairie seat was in Manitoba and that was only NDP since 2008. So any Urban NDP candidate will have a tough time bringing the prairie's back to the NDP

Ontario Could Stay Red.

threehundredeight.com has a new projection in the province of Ontario. It predicts that Ontario will be an even split. 44 Liberals, 44 Tories and 19 NDP. Which means a split government that would probably give Mcguinty another term in office. It seems Hudack is moving down the polls, and Liberals are back and fighting for a government. This trend has been going on for quite a while, and if continued can give the Liberals another majority government. some polls even have the Liberals way ahead of the Conservatives. It seems the Liberals right now are on the up swing, and I hope to see Ontario stay in the red column in Ontario. 

The poll also found that only 45 per cent of respondents believed McGuinty had much of a plan for the province's future.

"While I'm not prepared to say I'm absolutely certain that it's a 10-point Liberal advantage, I feel pretty confident that what we're picking up is some narrowing of the race," Anderson said.

Hudak found himself defending Randy Hillier, a high-profile Tory candidate who has been embroiled in a long-running tax dispute with Canada Revenue Agency.

9/11 anniversary

Today we stop and think of the people who dies 10 years ago in the terrorist attack done by 19 people that killed more than 3000 people, and also the people who stooped a plane from killing thousands more by trying to take control away from the hijackers, and unfortunately died saving other people. I think that today is also a day to remember to be generous. 10 years ago after 9/11 when the U.S closed it's air space Canada opened it's doors to thousands of people and helped feed and shelter misplaced Americans.

Repealing HST Bad Move

BC moves to eliminate the tax that would now increase the deficit. In fact the B.C deficit is now tripled. The big loss is of course the 1.6 billion BC now has to give back to Ottawa. BC is still moving to eliminate the deficit by 2014. BC could have a much easier time going into surplus if they would have kept the tax that would create jobs (over 100,000 in the next ten years), and would increase revenue. It seems that the HST was good policy, but the Liberals in BC are crazy over popularity. Even though 45% of people were in favor of keeping the tax. I mean take a vote of the G.S.T and the federal government would be lucky to get close to these numbers. I mean there is only a slight win in this politically, because many people who want the H.S.T gone are guess what with the NDP! There isn't much political gain especially for something that would have done a lot of good for the province of BC. It seems like BC are moving a few steps behind so far this year. I hope these Liberals get there act together very soon.

In his latest quarterly report, Minister Kevin Falcon says scrapping the HST will cost the province $2.3 billion over three years

"This includes $1.6 billion in 2011-12 associated with reimbursing the federal HST transition funding and a more than $700 million loss from lower tax revenue and increased spending over the three years ending 2013-14."

 Read more here

PC over Promising.

In PEI the PC's in the province who are losing terribly in the polls are trying to gain support promising something that PEI can't afford. The Pc leader Olive Crane said if elected she would reduce the P.S.T in the province from 10% to 9%.

"For a one percentage change, it means there is $20 million available to invest in Islanders. And, as you know … Islanders can make good choices with their dollars," said Crane.

And although reducing the P.S.T in the province would help the economy no doubt I think she neglects to mention that P.E.I has a deficit of 42 million. The Liberals in the province are trying to reduce the deficit and eliminate it under there projection by 2013. It seems yet again that the Liberals are the fiscally responsible one's and the Tories wants to continue to use money they don't have.

read more here

Can We take Toronto-Danforth Part 3

So far in my last two post I have said that after the three elections; 2004, 2006 and 2008. The Liberals would likely win a by-election where Jack Layton would no longer be running, but a by-election today wouldn't be that Liberal leaning. The Reason: May 2nd


in the 2011 election Jack Layton grabbed 62% and the Liberals all the way down at 18% only a few points ahead of the Conservative candidate. Now that Jack Layton has sadly died his name wouldn't get him major support like 2011. Even though there support in the province is high the fact that the leader of the political party isn't running any more would take some of that support back. So if a by-election was held today and a random NDP person ran then i predict the NDP would win with about 50%. Liberals a strong second at the high twenties. But this all depends of course when the by-election will be held and it could take a lot of time, so as soon as a date is set I will write more on this, but for now the NDP can expect very strong support in that riding for now at least.

Can We take Toronto-Danforth Part 2

Now That I am done explaining how Liberals would have been very much able to win a by election in Ontario let's look at now the 2006 election. In 2006 Liberals went  in the country and  in Ontario. In Toronto Danforth the Liberal candidate also dropped by 7% while the NDP had a pretty good lead this time around with Jack Layton won 48% more than a double digit lead. If there was a by election after this election would Liberals win it?

Well after 2006 is somewhat similar to today since at that time the Liberals did have an interim leader. So would the Liberals win. I still think yes, because considering that the Liberals would campaign against someone who wouldn't be the leader and the riding has had a Liberal history.

In 2008 The NDP kept about the same support in the Province of Ontario. The Liberals went down. In Mr. Layton's riding the Liberals and NDP both dropped and the lead was 15% now. If there was a by election after that election. I would think the Liberals would still win for the same reason.

Can We Take Toronto-Danforth! part (1)

Toronto-Danforth is going to have an election very soon in order to fill the vacancy. This riding has only voted NDP since 2004 when Jack Layton just after Jack Layton became leader of the NDP. Now that Jack Layton has sadly died is it possible for us Liberals to take back that seat from the NDP. Well let's look at the numbers

In 2000 the last time the riding voted for the Liberals (although at that time the boundaries were slightly different  ) Liberals got 52% of the vote the NDP were only at 27%. In 2000 the Province of Ontario voted about the same at 52% Liberal with only 8% voting NDP. This of course no surprise that NDP votes tend to be higher in Toronto compared with the rest of the province. In 2004 When the NDP had a strong revival they took 18% of the vote in the province, and as there leader was running in the riding he of course won it with 46% of the vote while the Liberals in the riding dropped 10% to just five points lower than Jack Layton compared with the only 6% in the province. What do these numbers mean? It means that if a by-election was done in this riding around 2005 and Jack Layton wasn't running this riding would be a leaning Liberal riding again. As Liberals would be playing in a riding they only lost slightly and be running against a candidate that wouldn't be the leader of the party.

Provincial Elctions

Three provincial election will be held in October, and all of them after each other. The first election is on October 3rd in PEI, and right now unless something drastic happens it seems like the Liberals will win one more majority government in the province, and may even completely sweep out opposition in the province. After October 3rd the next day Liberals will be watching an election that we right now aren't major contenders.  Manitoba! While we are the underdogs in Manitoba right now we are poised to make some gains in the province. Then will come the big test for Liberals in Ontario October 6th. this election is looking like it's going to be exciting a projection shows Hudack is right now holds a small lead that would only give him a slim majority. In fact the Liberals highest seat rage is one seat below majority! In October the Liberals can push out a win that shows that we are still here! As for me I will be trying my best to make some predictions later on in the campaign. One things for sure September is going to be a good month for political junkies.

No to NDP/Liberal Merger!

CAW head ken Lewenza is advocating for the Liberal party to have a coalition with the NDP. The fact of the matter is that the Liberals don't need a merger with the NDP. The NDP come from a completely left-ward mind set. While we Liberals are very much more centrist. A merger with the NDP would mean or centerist idea's would be heavily diluted by the NDP. It be like a radical takeover of our party. like the merger that happened between the Conservatives and PC's. The only merger the Liberal party should look at is the Green party, because even though it is to the left of politics so to speak it's members are very much to the center of the political spectrum looking for a party that supports the environment. Remember ever since 2004 many Greens were former loyal Liberals. The Greens is the only one where a merger should even be considered. The NDP are completely different ideologically and never originated from the Liberals.

Read more here

Liberal-Green Merger

"I think if there's a merger we should be possibly looking at the Green Party. On the environment we have a lot of similarities."

 This statements was done by former MP Marlene Jennings. The Green Party is a party more to the left of the political spectrum. While the Liberals are very much closer to the middle, but the Liberals and the Green both share many important issue's in common or have been in common in the past. The most important of which is are past support of a Carbon tax. The Green party although having out reaching beliefs on all issue's have always kept the same one important issue always at the front. The environment. If we Liberals go back and move to our green shift we can show that a coalition will help the green parties goal, and if we finally create democratic reform not only to the senate, but the house as well we can reach out to the green party. I am not saying we should become the Green party, but the Green party and us both agree on many issue's. Even though sometimes we may have different policies on those issue's our parties are very much similar. While a merger with a more left leaning NDP is widely different from a merger with the Greens. The NDP first of all aren't at all interested, are very ideologically different than us and second of all are way too big and would require a major change to our polices especially now considering there caucus is bigger than ours on Parliament hill, and would force the more center/ center right part of our party to move to the Conservative party. While merging with the Greens wouldn't require too much of a change we already have had great relationships with them, because of our support of the carbon tax in the past, and we could still brand ourselves in the center with Dion we were still in the center, but the NDP is understood as much more to the left .If we can make the case to the Greens that we can help their main issue's get to the front and still be in the middle of the political spectrum then we would both accomplish are goals in a merger. The only problem I would have is if the Green Party wants us to become way to much towards the left then we would no longer be in the center. A coalition with the Greens would benefit both side's and would help stop the splitting of the vote. For these reasons we should defiently consider a merger with the Greens.