Monday, November 9, 2015
Today’s ‘new tolerance’ is intolerance in disguise
–Louise McEwan
"I am intolerant of intolerance" has become something of a mantra for suppressing unpopular opinions.
Today's "new tolerance," as it is called in academic circles, is redefining our understanding of tolerance and shaping our behaviour in public spaces, but it is no friend to the exercise of conscience and freedom of speech.
In the past, we used to "agree to disagree." It was a respectful way to end debates before they degenerated into personal and hateful attacks.
We used to define tolerance in the phrase, "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." We allowed others their opinions and the right to express them.
New tolerance requires something different. It demands that we accept either the most popular view or the view of the most vocal group.
If we believe differently, those who hold the dominant view, or shout the loudest, accuse us of bigotry. They cannot countenance our intolerance; we must be muzzled. This is especially evident when it comes to issues surrounding sexuality and gender.
The no-platform movement that is taking hold of western universities is the poster child of new tolerance. The movement, which denies speakers a platform, fosters intolerant behaviour in its misguided attempt to protect democracy and equality.
Notable feminist Germaine Greer is the latest fatality of the no-platform movement. Greer was to lecture on "Women and Power: Lessons of the 20th Century" at Cardiff University in Wales. Twenty-seven hundred students signed a petition that accused her of misogyny and inciting hate and violence against transgender people.
Greer's unspeakable crime was to say that she does not think "a postoperative transgendered man is a woman." But others required Greer (and anyone who might hold the same opinion) to think differently.
Payton Quinn, a Huffington Post contributor writing in support of the petition, asserted, "If you believe that trans women are women, as you should because they are, then what Germaine Greer is espousing in her campaign against them is misogyny."
Greer, incidentally, was not campaigning against anyone. She has not written about transgender issues for years, nor was her lecture about transgender issues. In her words, "It's not my issue. I don't even talk about them."
New tolerance is not limited to the no-platform movement on university campuses. In Canada, some political parties require all candidates to be pro-choice. A person who questions abortion must want to limit a woman's right to choose; that person has no place in government.
Trinity Western University requires students and staff to sign a covenant agreement with a clause that defines marriage as between one man and one woman. The institution must be discriminating against LGBTQ people; it must not be allowed in a law school.
It is no longer enough for a tolerant individual to treat people with the respect and dignity that all individuals — gay, trans or straight — deserve. We must now accept the most popular views and believe what the most vocal group tells us to believe. To do otherwise is anathema.
Tolerance does not come easily or naturally to us. It requires practice. From time to time, we need to check our attitudes. We need to make sure that our concern for one group does not express itself as intolerance for someone else, that we do not become violent, hateful or self-righteous in the name of tolerance.
Social media has done little to promote tolerance. Social media sites that invite us "to join the conversation" frequently become platforms for intolerance. Outrage, insult and hatred characterize many social media exchanges. These exchanges do little to foster understanding of "difference," or to improve society.
It is easier to spew contempt than to allow different voices the latitude to speak. If we are serious about the freedoms of conscience and speech, we cannot bully or exclude others when their opinion goes against the grain. Rejecting an opinion is not the same thing as rejecting a person, or discriminating against a group.
Louise McEwan, of Trail, B.C., holds degrees in English and theology.
Monday, January 26, 2015
PRIVILEDGE TO ISLAM DESTROYS FREE SPEECH
“Extending special privilege to Islam corrodes free speech”
–Mark Steyn
Media Are Culpable Cowards
Steyn gloriously opines that the political and standard response to Islanmic extremist atrocity initially reflected the “moral vanity” of showing solidarity by “waving pencils” and publishing cartoons about the pen being mightier than the sword". The cowardice then looms large as the majority media refused to publish the cartoons for fear of being fingered racist.
“Free speech has to include the right to insult Islam,” Steyn said. “Not because necessarily anyone approves of insulting Islam, but simply because free speech by definition is for the stuff you don’t approve of."
Free speech may not suffer from any political or cultural restriction or it ceases to exist. "So when the CBC say they’re not going to show these critical elements of a news story because it will offend people, they are on the wrong side" of truth and ironically as they will discover, history.
M.Bream's Story at:
Saturday, January 14, 2012
Blatchford Does It Again
Also LibRocks Decl q Rehab doesnae work
Christie Blatchford: Bad logic behind light Caledonia sentence
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Christie Blatchford, National Post
Monday, Jan. 2, 2012
When in court in Cayuga, Ont., two days before Christmas, a young native man was sentenced to less than two years in prison for the near-fatal beating of builder Sam Gualtieri, something called the Gladue decision was cited by the judge.
It mitigated the sentence given the young man, a 22-year-old named Richard Smoke, who was convicted of an aggravated assault the judge described as “just a notch below culpable homicide.”
It had something of the flavour of the person who kills his parents and then throws himself upon the mercy of the court as an orphan: Mr. Smoke, went this logic, nearly beat Mr. Gualtieri to death because of the pain he had suffered as a native person in a racist culture and therefore should qualify for a lighter sentence.
For the record, Mr. Gualtieri, now 56, was in the fall of 2007 a nimble man who was building a house for his daughter Michelle in a subdivision called Stirling Woods in the nearby town of Caledonia, site of a native occupation that then had been on the boil for more than a year.
Stirling Woods wasn’t the occupied site; Douglas Creek Estates, less than a kilometre away, was. But though the worst of the violence was over, tensions were still high in the small town, and one September morning, native protesters had moved onto the Stirling Woods subdivision.
On Sept. 13, 2007, Mr. Gualtieri and three men from his work crew saw shadows moving inside the house he was building. He rushed in. By the time his workers arrived, Mr. Smoke was standing over Mr. Gualtieri, lying battered and bloody on the floor, with a two-by-four.
He was left with broken bones and a permanent brain injury, unable since the attack to work in construction.
R. v. Gladue was a 1999 decision by the Supreme Court of Canada which formalized the principles judges must use in sentencing aboriginal offenders in line with changes made just three years before to the Criminal Code of Canada.
Those changes, brought in under then Liberal justice minister Allan Rock, were fairly sweeping. Among other things, they codified for the first time the purpose of sentencing, acknowledged the failure of prison to rehabilitate offenders and ushered in conditional sentencing (where sentences are served in the community, not jail) and enshrined in law the notion that judges must pay “particular attention to the circumstances of aboriginal offenders” in order to correct the over-representation of natives in the justice system.
Ontario Superior Court Judge Alan Whitten had no choice but to take into account the Gladue decision, which has been cited hundreds of times since the high court ruling. Judges who don’t are rapped on the knuckles.
In fact, that’s how the Gladue case itself came before the Supreme Court.
Jamie Tanis Gladue was an aboriginal teenager when on her 19th birthday, Sept. 17, 1995, she stabbed her boyfriend Reuben Beaver — first with a paring knife, and then, chasing him some 60 feet down a hallway, with a large knife. The fatal stab wound, to Mr. Beaver’s left chest, penetrated his heart.
As Ms. Gladue made her way back to her apartment, a neighbour heard her say, “I got you, you f—ing bastard.”
She was drinking at the time, though five months’ pregnant with her second child; she had a blood alcohol reading of between 155 and 165 milligrams (well above the 80 usually considered the too-drunk-to-drive limit). She wasn’t afraid of Mr. Beaver; rather the opposite, the judge found, though he granted she was provoked by Mr. Beaver’s infidelity and by him telling her she was fat and ugly.
The trial judge noted that both victim and perpetrator were aboriginals, but they weren’t living on a reserve, rather in a townhouse complex in Nanaimo. He found there weren’t “special circumstances because of their aboriginal status and so I am not giving any special consideration to their background.”
Neither did Ms. Gladue’s lawyer raise her aboriginal status at sentencing; no other submissions were made on this issue.
Still, the trial judge took into account the young woman’s age, lack of a major criminal record (she had an impaired driving conviction), her supportive family and the fact that while on bail, she’d upgraded her education and gone for alcohol abuse counselling.
He hardly hammered her, but rather gave her a three-year sentence — on the light side, surely, given Ms. Gladue had killed a 20-year-old.
British Columbia’s Court of Appeal dismissed Ms. Gladue’s appeal of her sentence, and so, ultimately did the high court, which pronounced the sentence “not unreasonable” — after it spent 40-odd pages spelling out how the trial judge and the appeal court had failed to take into account “many of the relevant factors” Parliament had wanted judges to consider when sentencing aboriginal offenders.
These factors, the high court said, must be considered “even where counsel do not adduce this evidence,” or where the offender is unrepresented, and regardless of whether he lives on a reserve or in a city.
In Mr. Smoke’s case, the court was told his grandparents had residential school experience, that native students at his high school had been affected by racism during the Caledonia dispute and that the atmosphere in the community may have forced him into uncharacteristic behaviour: In other words, they made him do it and now they, not he, should pay.
During his sentencing, most of Mr. Smoke’s supporters refused to stand when Judge Whitten came into or left the courtroom. No one appeared to say a word to them about it.
Perhaps some day, they or their fellows will pay the Supreme Court the same courtesy.
Christie Blatchford: Bad logic behind light Caledonia sentence
Facebook | Twitter | Email | Instapaper
Christie Blatchford, National Post
Monday, Jan. 2, 2012
When in court in Cayuga, Ont., two days before Christmas, a young native man was sentenced to less than two years in prison for the near-fatal beating of builder Sam Gualtieri, something called the Gladue decision was cited by the judge.
It mitigated the sentence given the young man, a 22-year-old named Richard Smoke, who was convicted of an aggravated assault the judge described as “just a notch below culpable homicide.”
It had something of the flavour of the person who kills his parents and then throws himself upon the mercy of the court as an orphan: Mr. Smoke, went this logic, nearly beat Mr. Gualtieri to death because of the pain he had suffered as a native person in a racist culture and therefore should qualify for a lighter sentence.
For the record, Mr. Gualtieri, now 56, was in the fall of 2007 a nimble man who was building a house for his daughter Michelle in a subdivision called Stirling Woods in the nearby town of Caledonia, site of a native occupation that then had been on the boil for more than a year.
Stirling Woods wasn’t the occupied site; Douglas Creek Estates, less than a kilometre away, was. But though the worst of the violence was over, tensions were still high in the small town, and one September morning, native protesters had moved onto the Stirling Woods subdivision.
On Sept. 13, 2007, Mr. Gualtieri and three men from his work crew saw shadows moving inside the house he was building. He rushed in. By the time his workers arrived, Mr. Smoke was standing over Mr. Gualtieri, lying battered and bloody on the floor, with a two-by-four.
He was left with broken bones and a permanent brain injury, unable since the attack to work in construction.
R. v. Gladue was a 1999 decision by the Supreme Court of Canada which formalized the principles judges must use in sentencing aboriginal offenders in line with changes made just three years before to the Criminal Code of Canada.
Those changes, brought in under then Liberal justice minister Allan Rock, were fairly sweeping. Among other things, they codified for the first time the purpose of sentencing, acknowledged the failure of prison to rehabilitate offenders and ushered in conditional sentencing (where sentences are served in the community, not jail) and enshrined in law the notion that judges must pay “particular attention to the circumstances of aboriginal offenders” in order to correct the over-representation of natives in the justice system.
Ontario Superior Court Judge Alan Whitten had no choice but to take into account the Gladue decision, which has been cited hundreds of times since the high court ruling. Judges who don’t are rapped on the knuckles.
In fact, that’s how the Gladue case itself came before the Supreme Court.
Jamie Tanis Gladue was an aboriginal teenager when on her 19th birthday, Sept. 17, 1995, she stabbed her boyfriend Reuben Beaver — first with a paring knife, and then, chasing him some 60 feet down a hallway, with a large knife. The fatal stab wound, to Mr. Beaver’s left chest, penetrated his heart.
As Ms. Gladue made her way back to her apartment, a neighbour heard her say, “I got you, you f—ing bastard.”
She was drinking at the time, though five months’ pregnant with her second child; she had a blood alcohol reading of between 155 and 165 milligrams (well above the 80 usually considered the too-drunk-to-drive limit). She wasn’t afraid of Mr. Beaver; rather the opposite, the judge found, though he granted she was provoked by Mr. Beaver’s infidelity and by him telling her she was fat and ugly.
The trial judge noted that both victim and perpetrator were aboriginals, but they weren’t living on a reserve, rather in a townhouse complex in Nanaimo. He found there weren’t “special circumstances because of their aboriginal status and so I am not giving any special consideration to their background.”
Neither did Ms. Gladue’s lawyer raise her aboriginal status at sentencing; no other submissions were made on this issue.
Still, the trial judge took into account the young woman’s age, lack of a major criminal record (she had an impaired driving conviction), her supportive family and the fact that while on bail, she’d upgraded her education and gone for alcohol abuse counselling.
He hardly hammered her, but rather gave her a three-year sentence — on the light side, surely, given Ms. Gladue had killed a 20-year-old.
British Columbia’s Court of Appeal dismissed Ms. Gladue’s appeal of her sentence, and so, ultimately did the high court, which pronounced the sentence “not unreasonable” — after it spent 40-odd pages spelling out how the trial judge and the appeal court had failed to take into account “many of the relevant factors” Parliament had wanted judges to consider when sentencing aboriginal offenders.
These factors, the high court said, must be considered “even where counsel do not adduce this evidence,” or where the offender is unrepresented, and regardless of whether he lives on a reserve or in a city.
In Mr. Smoke’s case, the court was told his grandparents had residential school experience, that native students at his high school had been affected by racism during the Caledonia dispute and that the atmosphere in the community may have forced him into uncharacteristic behaviour: In other words, they made him do it and now they, not he, should pay.
During his sentencing, most of Mr. Smoke’s supporters refused to stand when Judge Whitten came into or left the courtroom. No one appeared to say a word to them about it.
Perhaps some day, they or their fellows will pay the Supreme Court the same courtesy.
Monday, January 9, 2012
Never Too Late To Correct A Mistake
Message bodyTime to undo multiculturalism mistake
Salim Mansur
Yesterday at 8:00 PM
Forty years ago, in October 1971, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau introduced multiculturalism as an official policy for Canada.
Seventeen years later, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and the Progressive Conservatives turned Trudeau’s policy into the Multiculturalism Act of 1988.
In other words, it was not merely Trudeau but Canada’s political elite, supported by the intellectual and media elites of the country, who adopted without much questioning a policy that was, at best, dubious and deeply flawed as the law of the land.
Canada was the first of the advanced liberal democracies in the West to turn multiculturalism — an idea without philosophical substance — into official policy.
Four decades later, some of those democracies — Germany, Britain, France, the Netherlands — have openly expressed regrets as their elected leaders publicly admitted the failure of official multiculturalism in securing social harmony, or advancing national interest.
In my recently published book — Delectable Lie: A liberal repudiation of multiculturalism — I discuss at some length why this policy reflected an act of bad faith on the part of Trudeau and company, and how it continues to be detrimental to the vitality of a liberal democracy.
The bad faith resided in the ridiculous proposition that all cultures are equal. This is the keystone of multiculturalism as an idea, and it is untenable.
Individuals are born equal or, as the American Declaration of Independence states as self-evident truth, “all men are created equal.”
Inequalities then among individuals born equal result from circumstances (natural or man-made) and history, and how such inequalities might then be dealt with emerge as part of an ongoing political discussion.
But cultures — by definition, culture represents the shared values, beliefs and customs of a collective — are not and never have been equal.
The inherent bad faith of multiculturalism’s proponents is in obscuring the historical reality of cultures being unequal and frequently engaged in conflict.
It is absurd to argue the culture of the Huns was equal to that of the mighty Roman Empire, even in its decline.
It is equally absurd to state in our time that the culture of the Saudi Arabs — or the Taliban, or Muslims from Pakistan, Iran, Somalia etc. — is in any way equal to and deserving of equal respect as the culture of an advanced liberal democracy, such as Canada, before it was smitten by the dogma of multiculturalism.
Common sense recoils from such an absurd proposition. It takes someone with a college degree to accept silliness of this nature as higher knowledge.
In fairness to Trudeau, it should be noted, that late in life when invited by the speaker to visit Parliament in Ottawa and meet with some parliamentarians, the former prime minister expressed his misgivings about multiculturalism.
Trudeau was asked to comment on how, as a result of his policy, most new immigrants ranked their ethnic-based cultural identity ahead of Canadian identity. He indicated his sadness, admitting this is not what he had wanted.
Four decades later, most Canadians will be relieved if their political leaders have courage to do the right thing when it comes to multiculturalism, which sits as a suffocating weight over their liberal democratic culture, and have it repealed from Canada’s statutes.
Salim Mansur
Yesterday at 8:00 PM
Forty years ago, in October 1971, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau introduced multiculturalism as an official policy for Canada.
Seventeen years later, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and the Progressive Conservatives turned Trudeau’s policy into the Multiculturalism Act of 1988.
In other words, it was not merely Trudeau but Canada’s political elite, supported by the intellectual and media elites of the country, who adopted without much questioning a policy that was, at best, dubious and deeply flawed as the law of the land.
Canada was the first of the advanced liberal democracies in the West to turn multiculturalism — an idea without philosophical substance — into official policy.
Four decades later, some of those democracies — Germany, Britain, France, the Netherlands — have openly expressed regrets as their elected leaders publicly admitted the failure of official multiculturalism in securing social harmony, or advancing national interest.
In my recently published book — Delectable Lie: A liberal repudiation of multiculturalism — I discuss at some length why this policy reflected an act of bad faith on the part of Trudeau and company, and how it continues to be detrimental to the vitality of a liberal democracy.
The bad faith resided in the ridiculous proposition that all cultures are equal. This is the keystone of multiculturalism as an idea, and it is untenable.
Individuals are born equal or, as the American Declaration of Independence states as self-evident truth, “all men are created equal.”
Inequalities then among individuals born equal result from circumstances (natural or man-made) and history, and how such inequalities might then be dealt with emerge as part of an ongoing political discussion.
But cultures — by definition, culture represents the shared values, beliefs and customs of a collective — are not and never have been equal.
The inherent bad faith of multiculturalism’s proponents is in obscuring the historical reality of cultures being unequal and frequently engaged in conflict.
It is absurd to argue the culture of the Huns was equal to that of the mighty Roman Empire, even in its decline.
It is equally absurd to state in our time that the culture of the Saudi Arabs — or the Taliban, or Muslims from Pakistan, Iran, Somalia etc. — is in any way equal to and deserving of equal respect as the culture of an advanced liberal democracy, such as Canada, before it was smitten by the dogma of multiculturalism.
Common sense recoils from such an absurd proposition. It takes someone with a college degree to accept silliness of this nature as higher knowledge.
In fairness to Trudeau, it should be noted, that late in life when invited by the speaker to visit Parliament in Ottawa and meet with some parliamentarians, the former prime minister expressed his misgivings about multiculturalism.
Trudeau was asked to comment on how, as a result of his policy, most new immigrants ranked their ethnic-based cultural identity ahead of Canadian identity. He indicated his sadness, admitting this is not what he had wanted.
Four decades later, most Canadians will be relieved if their political leaders have courage to do the right thing when it comes to multiculturalism, which sits as a suffocating weight over their liberal democratic culture, and have it repealed from Canada’s statutes.
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Oracle Of Omaha Defrocked
It would all be well and good for Warren Buffett to be the model for increased taxes on the wealthy. But it would be a sanctimonius model, at best if Buffett, the principal advocate of Obamanomics, were so accepted by the too often shorn American taxpayer. The noted investment authority is a “prize catch” cast as He who brings the economic expertise and (if you will) the moral authority of the right on that question to Obama’s administration.
Warren Buffett increased his bank holdings in September, while he was At the very time Buffett argued publicly that Congress approve the bailout to prevent the collapse of the financial system he was busy increasing his holdings in the very companies he petitioned Obama to buoy up.
The thesis is supported by reporting of the Securities and Exchange Commission (Dec. 31, 2009) releasing on Treasury Department disclosures of federal stock purchases.
For overall shareholder figures, the 28 firms that received at least $600 million from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) were considered, totalling about 92 percent of TARP disbursements.
TARP-assisted California banks were separately reviewed if their market capitalization was at least $25 million. The figures cited exclude federal investments in American International Group and federal loans and investments for auto companies.
References to Berkshire Hathaway's total stock portfolio include a $5 billion investment in Goldman Sachs Group. That investment pays a 10 percent annual dividend and includes the right to purchase an additional $5 billion in Goldman stock.
Buffett's company, Berkshire Hathaway, hasn't received any of that federal aid, but Berkshire, based in Omaha, Neb., owns stock valued at more than $13 billion in the top recipients of TARP funds, including Goldman Sachs Group, US Bancorp, American Express and Bank of America, which analysts thought were in deep trouble before TARP was approved in October.
That total, the investigation found, ranks Berkshire fifth among all investors in TARP-assisted companies. Berkshire's TARP holdings constitute 30 percent of its publicly disclosed stock portfolio, and that proportion reflects at least twice as much dependence on bailed-out banks as any other large investor.
Berkshire, for instance, is the largest shareholder in San Francisco-based Wells Fargo, which got $25 billion, 91 percent of the TARP funds invested in institutions headquartered in California.
Buffett increased his bank holdings in September, while he was arguing in the media that Congress should approve the bailout to prevent the collapse of the global financial system.
"If I didn't think the government was going to act, I would not be doing anything this week," Buffett told CNBC after investing $5 billion in Goldman Sachs. "I am, to some extent, betting on the fact that the government will do the rational thing here and act promptly."
Buffett, whose company Berkshire Hathaway, is the largest investor in Goldman Sachs and American Express, declined to be interviewed. Far from helping the little guy Obama has ensured that his Administration is in the same boat as Wall Street and he share the same boat with little room for the average American, as large shareholders such as Buffett have been the primary, and perhaps only, significant beneficiaries of TARP. Bank stocks have recovered in recent weeks — Goldman's share price has more than doubled since November — and no TARP bank has failed.
Certainly Obama’s TARP propped up Wall Street against bankruptcy at the expense of taxpayers. The Treasury Department anticipated that TARP wouldopen the lending tap for small business and homeowneres, but the market has barely thawed, and unemployment has soared.
Designed out of public view, TARP was always intended to bestow favoritism and special treatment on its allies. The Obama administration said it would offer transparency and openness. But the single most important thing they are doing is being done largely behind closed doors, and the design is by, for and in the interest of large banks, hedge funds and private equity companies.
Ironically, Buffett’s holdings that probably contributed to the economic crisis in the first place.
Berkshire owns more than 20 percent of Moody's, a top credit-rating agency, making it by far the largest stakeholder. Moody's of course contributed to the global crisis by overvaluing mortgage assets in the first place. While Buffett has been outspoken about the need for government intervention, he's said nothing publicly about the role of a company in which his firm is a minority holder becoming a chief beneficiary.
Just another corporate welfare bum it would seem.
Warren Buffett increased his bank holdings in September, while he was At the very time Buffett argued publicly that Congress approve the bailout to prevent the collapse of the financial system he was busy increasing his holdings in the very companies he petitioned Obama to buoy up.
The thesis is supported by reporting of the Securities and Exchange Commission (Dec. 31, 2009) releasing on Treasury Department disclosures of federal stock purchases.
For overall shareholder figures, the 28 firms that received at least $600 million from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) were considered, totalling about 92 percent of TARP disbursements.
TARP-assisted California banks were separately reviewed if their market capitalization was at least $25 million. The figures cited exclude federal investments in American International Group and federal loans and investments for auto companies.
References to Berkshire Hathaway's total stock portfolio include a $5 billion investment in Goldman Sachs Group. That investment pays a 10 percent annual dividend and includes the right to purchase an additional $5 billion in Goldman stock.
Buffett's company, Berkshire Hathaway, hasn't received any of that federal aid, but Berkshire, based in Omaha, Neb., owns stock valued at more than $13 billion in the top recipients of TARP funds, including Goldman Sachs Group, US Bancorp, American Express and Bank of America, which analysts thought were in deep trouble before TARP was approved in October.
That total, the investigation found, ranks Berkshire fifth among all investors in TARP-assisted companies. Berkshire's TARP holdings constitute 30 percent of its publicly disclosed stock portfolio, and that proportion reflects at least twice as much dependence on bailed-out banks as any other large investor.
Berkshire, for instance, is the largest shareholder in San Francisco-based Wells Fargo, which got $25 billion, 91 percent of the TARP funds invested in institutions headquartered in California.
Buffett increased his bank holdings in September, while he was arguing in the media that Congress should approve the bailout to prevent the collapse of the global financial system.
"If I didn't think the government was going to act, I would not be doing anything this week," Buffett told CNBC after investing $5 billion in Goldman Sachs. "I am, to some extent, betting on the fact that the government will do the rational thing here and act promptly."
Buffett, whose company Berkshire Hathaway, is the largest investor in Goldman Sachs and American Express, declined to be interviewed. Far from helping the little guy Obama has ensured that his Administration is in the same boat as Wall Street and he share the same boat with little room for the average American, as large shareholders such as Buffett have been the primary, and perhaps only, significant beneficiaries of TARP. Bank stocks have recovered in recent weeks — Goldman's share price has more than doubled since November — and no TARP bank has failed.
Certainly Obama’s TARP propped up Wall Street against bankruptcy at the expense of taxpayers. The Treasury Department anticipated that TARP wouldopen the lending tap for small business and homeowneres, but the market has barely thawed, and unemployment has soared.
Designed out of public view, TARP was always intended to bestow favoritism and special treatment on its allies. The Obama administration said it would offer transparency and openness. But the single most important thing they are doing is being done largely behind closed doors, and the design is by, for and in the interest of large banks, hedge funds and private equity companies.
Ironically, Buffett’s holdings that probably contributed to the economic crisis in the first place.
Berkshire owns more than 20 percent of Moody's, a top credit-rating agency, making it by far the largest stakeholder. Moody's of course contributed to the global crisis by overvaluing mortgage assets in the first place. While Buffett has been outspoken about the need for government intervention, he's said nothing publicly about the role of a company in which his firm is a minority holder becoming a chief beneficiary.
Just another corporate welfare bum it would seem.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Native chiefs earn more than PM
The lofty moral ground taken by Canadian minorities is looking more shabby than usual as revelations about Indian misspending of honest taxpayer dollars by "first nations" chiefs hits grotesquely fraudulent proportions. Fortunately, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation recently revealed that dozens upon dozens of "first nations" chiefs and council members take more in compensation than the Prime Minister of Canada itself.
The data was obtained through access to information requests and reveal that in 2008-09, eighty-two (82) reserve officials earned more than the post tax income of $184,000 made by Prime Minister Stephen Harper himself. The gravy train doesn't stop there either. Some 222 "first nations" officials Canadian provincial premiers.
One charlatan from a small reserve in the Maritimes took a ransom of $978,468.
As Colin Craig a director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation “This shocking information confirms what we’ve been saying all along: there are a lot of reserve politicians that are blatantly abusing their powers to set their own pay levels and hide it from the public. It’s absolutely disgusting and band members (not to mention all Canadians) should be outraged about this.”
The high moral ground grows even unsteadier when we consider that while hundreds of thousands Indian and Innuit people live in third world, abject poverty, over 700 reserve officials tap the public purse for more than $100,000 --money diverted from meeting the basic needs of their suffering bretherin.
Unfortunately the names of the chiefs and councillors of these over 570 reservations were been blacked out in the release.
Although Canadians were on the hook for over $8,000,000,000.00 (eight billion) in federal transfers alone to "native" groups, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, condones the cover-up and refuses to publicly connect names with the numbers.
Government does not set the salaries of "first nations" officials; just bankrolls it. The root of the mismanagement of course are soveriegnty claims and the actions of Canadian governments in playing along with "native leaders" in return for their cooperation and support.
The self serving Assembly of First Nations, on behalf of Canada’s band chiefs, refused comment on the fiasco. That didn't prevent AFN National Chief, Shawn Atleo, from earlier attacking the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, calling its service “an insult that paints First Nations leadership as overpaid, unaccountable local bosses, uninterested in the challenges faced by First Nations citizens. Further stating, “I know the men and women they slander.", further defending their malpractise, “I see their daily struggles as committed leaders, and I meet them on the job, on reserve, every week across Canada.”
Even Patrick Brazeau, Canadian Senator and chief of the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples --how is that for duplicitous position?-- concedeed the data a “shocking indictment” of the lack of accountability of "first nations" communities.
Protected by the impentreble shieldof political correctness Indian and Innuit groups have evaded scrutiny thus far. In fairness to Brazeau, he supports the passage of Bill C-575, a private member’s bill put forward by Conservative Kelly Block last month that seeks to make public all First Nations chiefs’ and councillors’ salaries and expenses. Of course, this is just a private members bill with little high level political support as Canadian politicians try to evade being tarnished by the high morality of the brush of political correctness. Debate on the bill begins Thursday.
The data was obtained through access to information requests and reveal that in 2008-09, eighty-two (82) reserve officials earned more than the post tax income of $184,000 made by Prime Minister Stephen Harper himself. The gravy train doesn't stop there either. Some 222 "first nations" officials Canadian provincial premiers.
One charlatan from a small reserve in the Maritimes took a ransom of $978,468.
As Colin Craig a director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation “This shocking information confirms what we’ve been saying all along: there are a lot of reserve politicians that are blatantly abusing their powers to set their own pay levels and hide it from the public. It’s absolutely disgusting and band members (not to mention all Canadians) should be outraged about this.”
The high moral ground grows even unsteadier when we consider that while hundreds of thousands Indian and Innuit people live in third world, abject poverty, over 700 reserve officials tap the public purse for more than $100,000 --money diverted from meeting the basic needs of their suffering bretherin.
Unfortunately the names of the chiefs and councillors of these over 570 reservations were been blacked out in the release.
Although Canadians were on the hook for over $8,000,000,000.00 (eight billion) in federal transfers alone to "native" groups, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, condones the cover-up and refuses to publicly connect names with the numbers.
Government does not set the salaries of "first nations" officials; just bankrolls it. The root of the mismanagement of course are soveriegnty claims and the actions of Canadian governments in playing along with "native leaders" in return for their cooperation and support.
The self serving Assembly of First Nations, on behalf of Canada’s band chiefs, refused comment on the fiasco. That didn't prevent AFN National Chief, Shawn Atleo, from earlier attacking the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, calling its service “an insult that paints First Nations leadership as overpaid, unaccountable local bosses, uninterested in the challenges faced by First Nations citizens. Further stating, “I know the men and women they slander.", further defending their malpractise, “I see their daily struggles as committed leaders, and I meet them on the job, on reserve, every week across Canada.”
Even Patrick Brazeau, Canadian Senator and chief of the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples --how is that for duplicitous position?-- concedeed the data a “shocking indictment” of the lack of accountability of "first nations" communities.
Protected by the impentreble shieldof political correctness Indian and Innuit groups have evaded scrutiny thus far. In fairness to Brazeau, he supports the passage of Bill C-575, a private member’s bill put forward by Conservative Kelly Block last month that seeks to make public all First Nations chiefs’ and councillors’ salaries and expenses. Of course, this is just a private members bill with little high level political support as Canadian politicians try to evade being tarnished by the high morality of the brush of political correctness. Debate on the bill begins Thursday.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
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