Sister Sage's Musings

Posts Tagged ‘poverty’

Yes,  for not only those on the fence centrists and those who think Steve has left his Reform and NCC thinking behind and  willing to entertain a Sweater vest Steve majority, but also those progressives who are still willing to believe that a few years of a Stevie majority wouldn’t be so terrible or weren’t so willing to believe that Stevie Spiteful would remove all social safety nets if given the kingdom, in spite of  all recorded statements (available here, here and here, to refresh your memory)  he made over the years in his hay day of Reform Party and NCC,  Blogging SupposiTory founder, Stephen Taylor puts all that to rest in the Natty Po last night.

I particularly found the accompanying photo rather sinister with Master Steve and two other cowboy outfit clad fools by a plunger of some kind.   The first thing that came to my mind was when Steve said that we would no longer recognize Canada once he got through with it. Between his stripping of the social safety net and his new war toys as well as the abolition of the mandatory long form census, I can’t help wonder if the pic of Steve and his two stooges hovering over the plunger was of them annihilating Canada and starting their sick Evangelical/libertarian utopic society (remember, much the way the tea bagger hit parade is in the US, it would seem that the new Libertarianism very much includes Christian reconstructionism. I’m sure there is a method to this madness. Perhaps Steve is consulting wingnuts like Sharron Angle). See photo here.

Watch Taylor go all ga ga giddy here:

Indeed in this country, there are two groups of people. In fact, some would call these groups the haves and the have-nots. This is an not inaccurate way of describing it, but those that would might have the two switched. Canadians form two groups: those that receive from the government and those that pay to the government. Those who form — or are constituent to — organizations dependent on government policy (and spending) are firmly against the changes to the census.

Nice.  Cold. Icey.

Let’s go over  Canada without a welfare state, shall we?  It’s pretty obvious to me that many toy with this idea as it is a novelty.

So Taylor is ga ga giddy along with his disciples at the Blogging SupposiTories about having absolutely no welfare state. They must be all having a collective orgasm over this.

I would like to know if Stephen Taylor still uses his OHIP card to see the doctor? There are private clinics he can use and pay with his credit card in his area if he bothered to look.  If he has kids, did his wife benefit from maternity leave? If she doesn’t work; did he benefit from any kind of parental leave?  Do his parents (or grandparents if they’re still alive) receive CPP or the old age pension? If they were war vets; do they receive veterans services? Has he ever filed a claim with workman’s compensation for getting hurt or sick on the job? Do his kids go to public school?

I know I probably sounded like census long form in this battery of questions, but these questions are, naturally, rhetorical and naturally, I’m not expecting Taylor or any of his Disciples to come answer these questions in my comments section or my email. I had already asked many of them these questions on various occasions at their blogs and they have mastered the fine art of evasion and if they don’t, they ban me, which is their right; their sites. I simply want to point out their own hypocrisy; that they would more than likely be the first ones to shriek and pass out whenever they would need to access a program, and let’s face it, all of us sooner or later have, do or would need to access a government service at least a few times in their lifetimes, when they realize there are no social safety nets left. The proof is in their non responsiveness to questions like ‘why don’ t you cut up your gov’t health insurance card and use the private facilities’? And they would soon realize that watching the evul lefties suffer wouldn’t be worth their own sufferings.

The point is, Taylor’s above argument is flawed simply because between those two groups Taylor mentions; those that pay to the government and those that receive from the government is that most if not all Canadians have switched from one group to the other all their lives or they’re in both camps.

Many seniors who do tend to vote  Harpercon for law and order stuff are already turned off at the banning of the long form census. I would venture to guess that they would be even more turned off at the very idea of their CPP and their old age pension as well as their other programs being stripped from them.

I know that veterans are not going to like having their programs taken away after fighting for their countries. Oh yeah! Remember that ol’ Harpercon mantra of “Support the Troops!”?  Here is how Steve wishes to repay them.

Yes, Taylor has finally confirmed to/reminded us  in black and white  what we already knew about Stevie Spiteful’s not so hidden agenda. The real reason why Sweater vest Steve is so adament about scrapping the long form census:

If Stephen Harper succeeds in moving in this direction, he will be in the initial stages of dealing a huge blow to the welfare state.

Opposition parties, I hope you’re taking notes; all of you! Because Taylor’s column convinces me more than ever that Stevie  Spiteful will use the census as a confidence motion come the fall to have his election.  If we go to an election on this one, given how many more groups and individuals; including Stevie’s constituents like Jewish & Evangelical groups as well as all the seniors’ groups (remember, most seniors tend to vote con; but they also like to keep their pensions, medicare; they can’t afford memberships at places like MedCan or Copeman;  and of course their other programs and won’t vote for a gov’t that will take them away) as well as so many others; I would say that the best Stevie spiteful could hope for is a reduced minority where he would need the support of two or more parties to get anything done instead of just one.  That, already, would be significantly clipping Steve’s wings.

And opposition, remember, if  Steve lays out that old jail trap again, don’t get spooked by it;  either face it with some humour and throw their insipid tough on crime bills in their faces or simply remind Canadians that the short form would still be mandatory and there would still be hefty fines and/or jail time associated with that.  As for those shrieking tea-baggers, the opposition should remind them that the removal of our social safety net would be a far more dire consequence than jail time or a fine for non-compliance.  It also bares reminding those same tea-baggers that they voluntarily surrender more intimate detailed personal info on their facebook, twitter, blogs and other social networking sites than they ever did on a census long form.

The Jurist and Greg are  right: Stephen Taylor just handed you, opposition, the beginnings of a gift; I suggest you take it and run with it.

Yes, Tom Flanagan has decided to find a captive audience in the Grope & Fail today, out serving that tough on crime kool-aid.    Flanagan shows his talent for taking a positive statistic of lowering crime rates by making them still almost as high as the U.S.  Fine, think about that one for a moment;  Flanagan admits (however reluctantly) that our crime rate is still lower than the U.S., so why on Gawd’s green earth would advocate for the way the U.S. handles crime?  Or, is he like his former protege and simply likes all things Americana?

The fact is,  Flanagan is, as WFDS pointed out in his post, ”fear mongering”   It appears that he is attempting to keep Canadians afraid, much the way GW Bush did; that old ‘he’s the only one who can keep America safe from Commie Muslims’ tactic that pretty much won him a second term in office. What’s scary is I think Flanagan sees the way haphazzard way Steve is managing his caucus and thus is desperately grasping at ways to keep his protege in power; by keeping Canadians afraid of criminals; they’re all over the place!

What Flanagan is also suggesting is an additional justification for his old protege, Brother Steve to further gut our universal social programs. These Harpercons and their cheerleaders whine about taxes for government services for all, but it’s ok for government spending  for new prisons and other by-products of a new tough on crime regime?

Yes, it costs a lot of money. But so what if it costs more to keep a criminal in prison for a year than it does to maintain a soldier in the Canadian Forces or a student at university?

Well, anyone see how this kind of thinking begins a vicious circle? We cut social programs in order to build these super sized prisons. Cutting social programs invariably means much more poverty, hardship and desperation with nowhere or no one to turn to; a recipe for more crimes to be committed.  With this vicious circle that Flanagan and Harpercon cheerleaders are proposing, one can’t help but wonder if they actually enjoy watching folks suffer and actually enjoy kicking those who are down even further.

This whole putting kids in adult jails is going to serve to do nothing but create more hardened criminals. Repeat offenders. The whole idea of treating juvenile offenders differently is so that kids could have a chance at beginning adulthood on a postitive note.  Throwing them arbitrarily in adult jails will take that hope away; thus actually increasing the crime rates. Bet ol’ Flanagan didn’t think about that one, did he? It really doesn’t take a genious to figure that one out.

R.G. Harvie,  a blogging tory, comments about the hypocrisy of it all over at WFDS:

This Conservative Party member and donor says,”You, my friend, are exactly right.”

The Conservative shuck and jive over their “get tough” crime bill is shameful vote-buying.

They criticize the gun registry, and then, they basically embark on the same course, seeking to profit from societies insecurities.

It’s embarassing and as of now, this donor is saying “no” to their request for new donations.

Well,  we’ll see if he really holds off on future Harpercon donations,  but he is correct in the above statement.  It does smack of vote buying by fear mongering; much in the same way Georgie won his second term in office.  It seems that with all of Steve’s mismanaging his disfunctional puppets in his caucus, it seems like keeping folks afraid may be all he has to campaign on to get his coveted majority. What’s even scarier than the idea  criminals here, there, everywhere on the loose,  as Flanagan suggests in his column, is if the Canadian voters will indeed swallow that Harpercon kool-aid as they are prone to do these days; that same kind of kool-aid that American voters swallowed in order for Georgie to get that second term.

Here is another example of how we’re regressing instead of progressing.

Fern Hill’s post regarding taxation on sterilization particularly grabbed my attention this morning. She found this idiotic idea from yet another one of those unstable blogging neo-tards where she expresses idiotic ideas like hitting childless couples with heavy tax penalties and taxing contraception (500%) to the point of turning it into illegal contraband like cocaine and machine guns. Like most of those Romper roomies, those ideas didn’t just hit her. She was reading more convoluted causes of of the recession being caused by anything but the real cause which is, of course,  unregulated corporate greed, Bush’s deregulation of the banking system and everyday folks going bankrupt because they bought into those western ideals that measure a person’s value by how big their houses and cars are and how many material posessions they don’t use they can get their hands on simply for the sake of bragging rights to ooo-ing and aw-ing neighbours.

This time, this blogging neo-tard can get all relieved and even cum in their pants  now because the Vatican Economist is stating that the recession is not the fault of the banks, but rather, the fault of lower birth rates.

This of course, brings me back to a time when Lucien Bouchard enraged many folks when he stated in October of 1995:

“We’re one of the white races that has the fewest children.”

All Bouchard did was make a whole lot folks pissed.  Socon or bust honestly thinks that beating childless couples over the head with excessive “sterilization” taxes will turn these women into instant baby factories.  What about couples who are infertile who do want children but can’t afford fertility treatments? You want to tax them to death due to being baron, but you also stress that you don’t want our health care system to cover fertility treatments? How does that work?

A future workforce, after all, is essential to the growth and continued existence of the State.

Again, a problem with that;  even though many are retiring these days, most of their jobs are not being refilled either in the public or private sectors.  My current job is an example of that. Due to the retirement of the receptionist at the point of service where I work, my position and her’s merged. In addtion to doing my duties, I’ve also had this retired receptionist’s work load added. I don’t mind, I’m always up for to a challenge and it keeps me employed at a place I really enjoy working at.  I am merely providing an example of the current work trends.

 It’s been a long time since either Canada or the U.S.  has produced more than we consume. We keep outsourcing manufacturing and call-center jobs to China, India, Thailand and other Asian countries.

In a few years, due to either this recession or a raise in the retirement age, the flow of workers retiring will come to an eventual halt, thus not much new job growth, nor much opportunity to grow in any industry.

Also, as technology evolves, there is less of a need for manpower. In other words, even if we all get barefoot and pregnant, we would probably have a bunch more unemployed adults who would need to use government resources, much like the aging baby boomers.

Do I really have to touch on the utter stupidity on taxing contraception 500%??  That will really curb the spread of AIDS and other STDs.

Yes, yes,  While Bouchard, Socan or Bust, other neo-cons and theocrats and the Vatican Economist all twist themselves over no one in the western world is having babies to condemn them to indentured servitude, they seem to forget that there are many,  many babies born in the developping world.  Their own economies don’t help these families to help themselves or any economy of the future for that matter. This whole we’re not having enough babies thing kind of flies flat doesn’t it?

 I’m surprised they haven’t gone for the most offensive and insist that childless westerners adopt third world babies a la Madonna and Brangelina, thus having more future tax-payers, but then, that would bring us to our current “problem” here in Canada, according to many Canadians bigots: too many immigrants. This, of course, is no surprise, check out that CBC comments page today. Many of their comments go in so far as to really come off as white supremacists. 

Yes, they’re all scared they may have to make certain concessions and learn to be tolerant of these new tax payers. This too would make them blame us for not having white babies to endenture them to a life of servitude and to protect the lilly-white neo-con greedy bigots.

My question is to these neo-cons like Socon or Bust: Are you all barefoot and pregnant expecting minimum your 5th child. Hell neo-con evangelicals like St-Stevie and GW Bush only have two children each, for the most part.

Once again, this is a case of neo-cons shifting the blame in order to justify their own selfishness in order to hide from the real cause of the recession which was greed; pure unabashed capitalist greed and now they bitch and moan over the lack of births and can’t stand it when they have to learn to live in the same world as our new immigrant tax-payers. After all, unless you’re Native Indian,  you too are derived from immigrants.

No, it’s about time to swear off greed and materialism and start thinking about the communities in which we live.   Job creation is vital and we have to stop sending our jobs overseas at the expense of our workers. And yes, more regulation is definitely needed in the banking industry.

The blame game just doesn’t accomplish anything anymore, neither does greed nor bigotry.

I agree with Fern Hill on this one: I personally don’t care who is paying for our social programs.and such

The Grope and Fail certainly didn’t waste any time taking a pic of Stevie and Haitian President Rene Preval, wearing matching blue shirts. All together now: YUCK! Iggy, here’s a hint: the next time you want to do campaign ads; no more blue shirts!

Stevie’s big announcement was a 12 000 000$ pledge to build a new temporary (not even permanent) headquarters for Haiti’s government. Wouldn’t that 12 000 000$ be better served, say, I don’ t know….a much needed hospital with staff and equipment to help many of the victims of the quake? How’s a bout schools and orphanage?

No, Stevie felt a new government headquarters is the priority of the day. Presently, they are housed at the police station: no wonder Prime minister Jean-Max Bellerive wants out of there. The last place a (probable) corrupt government would want to be is with the more than likely corrupt police force. Never mind that there are demonstrators outside that police station demanding to see President Preval.

Over and over they shout: “We have no water, we have no food and nowhere to stay.”

But, no St-Stevie to the rescue figures they need to move away from the demonstrators away from the police station rather than  actually helping those people the demonstrators are protesting.

Why should supporting a  potentially corrupt government be a surprise? Our tax dollars have been keeping the Corrupt Karzai regime in Afghanistan, after all.

Stevie rushing for an impromptu trip to Haiti to no doubt beat French President Nicolas Sarkozy to the punch. Sarkozy has been planning to go visit Haiti this Wednesday.

Fortunately, most see through St-Stevie’s act. Sure we have been the second largest contributor  to Haiti, but if those contributions are not getting to the people themselves: hospitals, orphanages, housing, schools, food, water, etc., then what’s the use of bragging about being the second largest contributor and the first leader of a major benefactor going to Haiti?Actually, a benefactor should help because it’s the right thing to do; not for bragging rights or photo ops.

Even a Haitian co-worker laughs everytime he hears about St-Stevie.  He still has family there. They are ok, but he also gets the real stories of what’s happening in Haiti.  I don’t ask, but I would bet that those anecdotes are far different than what corporate media is trying to paint.

Let’s also remember, he does owe that G.G. a huge favor.

Yes, Stevie has suddenly developped some form of patriotism. He is all ga ga giddy now that the Olympics have started. To him, patriotism means watching over-paid athletes perform death defying stunts and play silly games.

Heaven forbid these ‘athletes’ should go out and get a real job and step out of the bubble from training for whatever stunt or sport puts them on the road to Easy Street and actually live on Main Street, in the real world. Yes, I have the same opinion of the NHL, NFL and all other so-called pro sports. I never understood why these people should earn enough to feed a third world country just for being crazy or throwing a ball or having no qualms about beating the crap out of another in some form or another. But, I digress…

I for one, would like to thank the Bionic Liberal for reminding us what real patriotism is:

True patriotism will never be found in Stephen Harper’s aggressive flag waving or shouted superiority. Canadians honour their country best through the way they live their lives. Through neighbourly kindness, everyday decency and the respect we extend to our fellow citizens when no one is watching. Without these human qualities, the rest is just empty rhetoric and hot air.

Too bad it is everything but in Stevie’s and in so many others’ world. I have two problems with that.

My first problem is obvious: the government of British Columbia and of course, the Harpercons when they made that bid for the Vancouver Olympics at the expense of not only the average working folks, the homeless, and the rest of British Columbia’s disenfranchised.

Below is a press conference of one such event from earlier this week:

Protests and special events are under way to compete with the olympics for air time. And given that skiing events have been postponed due to slushy conditions today, I would say that the protesters would do well to get out there now.

Then there are the average tax payers. It seems that these Vancouver Olympics As someone who lives in the city that hosted the 76 summer Olympics, let me tell you we have only recently finished paying those off.

I know, the Harpercon cheerleaders who insist that their St-Stevie can do them no wrong and praise prorogation and the Olympics are more than likely happy about the cuts at the expense of Vancouver’s most vulnerable. I wonder how they’ll feel about not seeing a tax cut  as a result of cutting the poor?

The Other Problem I have with the Olympics

Another thing that bothered me about the olympics was the over sensationalized death of Nodar Kumaritashvili, the Georgian Luger killed during a training run yesterday.  Nothing new there; if most of us didn’t have that sense of morbid curiosity which keeps us standing around watching train wrecks and of course, watching hockey solely for the bloody fights on the rink, those gory stories would never sell.

While his death was indeed a tragedy; apparently,  the officials should have seen this coming. The New York Times has offered a new nick-name for the Olympics February 10; before the young Georgian luger’s crash: Perilympics.

Thursday night, a Romanian woman sustained a concussion in a luge crash. Australian luger Hannah Campbell-Pegg almost lost control, but completed her training run. Nevertheless, the speed of the track alarmed her.

“I think they are pushing it a little too much,” Campbell-Pegg said. “To what extent are we just little lemmings that they just throw down a track and we’re crash-test dummies? I mean, this is our lives.”

Perhaps if officials had listened, the young luger might still be alive today.  I say ‘might’ because it is the same story of many of these so-called sports like snowboarding.

The other day, Canadian snowboard slalom racer Jasey-Jay Anderson lamented the relative lack of buzz around his sport.

“I guess we’re just not there,” he said. “We want people to kill themselves and break themselves apart in order to entertain us.”

Read here about snowboarder Kevin Pearce and his permanent brain damage now confined to a wheelchair just so he can beat his rival, Shaun White. A week later, White himself would have sustain a crash into a half-pipe, even losing his helmet, but by some miracle, managed to avoid serious injuries.

It is terrible that Nodar Kumaritashvili was killed in the way that he did, but even worse that he had to lose his life in this way in order to gain 15 minutes of fame.  He was not even a household name in his native Georgia.

I realize life goes on but due to the cancellation of some downhill skiing event, guess what was on the big tv screen? Ski-jumping! Another stunt where people can and do sustain the most serious of injuries and can potentially kill themselves.  Real nice.

The video below reviews the protests, budget cuts to Vancouver’s most vulnerable as well as the ignored complaints about the luge track. Don’t worry (or sorry to disappoint as the case may be for some); there are no graphic images of Nodar Kumaritashvili

Funny how Stevie tries to get Canadians to be proud of Canada now while we’re a laughing stock on the world stage and that he has turned parliament into the Adams’ Family mansion. Where was his patriotism when he referred to Canada as ‘a Northern European welfare state of the worst kind’ , east coast of Canada as ‘a culture of defeat’, and many other jabs he took at Canada?

The Bionic Liberal best defined patriotism, mentioned above. Something the St-Stevie’s fans will never ever get, sadly enough.

I have to say,  I am discouraged. It is indeed a dark day for me and I have been seeing more and more of those lately.

First, I get pissed off reading wall postings from an American neo-con redneck who decided to set up camp and troll at the Facebook group, No Shona Holmes, We Do Not Want an American Style Health Care System. A real Nasty piece of werk indeed. He goes by the name Mitch Graves from Michigan (no, he’s sooo hateful, I don’t wish to protect his anonymity.). The male version of Kathy Shiddle if you will.

Now, I don’t ordinarily blog about trolls on Facebook groups, but I am so pissed off and more importantly, terrified, wondering, is that where society is headed? 

Here is something he said (paraphrased): Poor people aren’t that poor because they’re fat.  He never considered the fact that poorer people tend to be fatter because they eat so poorly? Hotdogs and kraft dinner are much cheaper than fruits and vegetables.  Mostly overweight people are more subject to many health issues such as diabetes, heart disease and stroke.  Another reason for being overweight has nothing to do with eating: could be a thyroid condition or something else hormonal.

These very same people who can’t get themselves looked after in the U.S. due to their elitist health care system. No, ol’ Mitch doesn’t care about them. In fact to add insult to injury, he doesn’t quit while he’s behind; he goes on to say that the reason there are poor people in the U.S. and more than likely, by extension, Canada, are poor because they’re stupid and/or lazy.

He also goes on to say Progressives = Marxism. Another redneck ignoramous who probably has less education than Jethro Clampett using big words without any notion as to their meaning.  He went using that evil ‘s’ word again; incorrectly, of course.

I know it’s bad karma to wish ill on others, but sometimes, it seems that one has to hit rock bottom before they have any empathy for others.  So, yes, I do wish he lose everything, so not only can he see how it feels to be kicked by other neo-cons when down and out. To try to get back up again. I also wish the same for folks like Kathy Shaidle and Kate MacMillan.

Another thing pissing me off this morning is having read something absolutely frightening as to put disenfranchised children in further distress at their schools.  Over at Slap Upside the Head, he talks about two Iowa lawmakers who wish to kick a certain group of teen-agers out of an anti-bullying program, simply because they are Gay and Lesbian.  I thought law makers of any kind, no matter where they legislate were supposed to have beyond an 11th grade education. With dumb reasoning like: they need to remove their protections because it will lead to same-sex marriage. Talk about paranoia and intolerance! I get really discouraged when supposedly educated adults in positions of responsibility to care for children take on this attitude and I hope the parents of these children will take action. They will if they love their children unconditionally  as parents should, but then again, the more I read and hear about, I’m not even sure about that anymore.

I hate to break it: oops! I mean, It brings me great pleasure to announce to these bungling buffoons that with or without their support, if these gay teens wish to get married when the time comes, they will do so anyhow; and  more power to these kids.

No wonder the terrorists like Al-Qaeda have won and continue to win. they know American weaknesses and use it to their advantage, but I digress.

Also,  another thing about apparent increasing materialistic priorities. We’ve all seen how neo-cons talk of ‘climategate’ and how climate change isn’t really happening.  All these excuses; nothing more.  I even saw a facebook page saying basically to wait and see if climate change is happening before acting on it. Well, the problem with that is that is that by the time it happens, it will be too late.

Logically, even if someone were not sure whether or not the science regarding climate change is real or not and to what extent; shouldn’t we just do our part to prevent this from happening? Not for nothing Al Gore’s movie is entitled An Inconvenient Truth: doing our part to help the planet isn’t always convenient for average folks. It requires extra work such as sorting garbage for recycling and/or composting: it would require travelling choices like leaving the car at home more often and use bicycle, walk more (good excercise; especially needed when people [rich or poor alike] need it the most),  not buying these gas guzzling vehicles because it’s shiny and big. We made do without mini-vans before they came out; why is it such a necessity today?

Come to think of it, why can’t we be mindful of our excessive consumption? Why must we waste so much?

Why do these governments fail to examine green infrastructures and creating green jobs to replace a lot of lost American and Canadian jobs?

Companies whine about being taxed for emissions; instead of spending all that energy whining about it, why don’t they make changes? Governments can award for positive changes toward eliminating greenhouse gasses as well as penalize those who don’t even make the effort to comply with environmental goals.

Society has become materialistic and the fact is, we consume or than we produce and there are those like the Mitch Graves, Kathy Shaidles and Dr Roys of this world who are determined to keep it that way for only the benefit of the minority rich.

Even those, like young Tabitha Hale who claim to care about the poor offer no solutions. They rant against things like health care reform; health care for all, but they offer absolutely no  solutions to help these people. In fact, like the neo-con rednecks above,  Cons who claim to care for the average working class are a big part of the problem: not the solution.

Another question, what would it take to realize that Georgie’s economic policies and deregulation are the main reasons for the global recession? Albert Einstein once said that insanity is when one does the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. Well, that is exactly what is happening.  Why do many Canadians and Americans still insist that Bush’s capitalist policies are what’s best?

These neo-cons have been programmed to fear socialism: that like we must be regressive or we are Marxist.  They haven’t a clue as to the meaning of any of those terms. They have no idea of the difference between communism and socialism. I seriously doubt many even know who Karl Marx was.

Those who have slight knowledge probably refer to figures like Stalin and Mao.  However, they fail to mention facists like General Augusto Pinochet who was more than willing to kill for the free markets.

Ignorance, stupidity, intolerance and greed are a lethal combination. This consuming more than producing culture is something no one wants to change.   A lot of them tend to be those very same people who believe end times are coming. If they are, they will be the cause.

I was goofing off on Twitter after dinner to check news updates and other tweets from followers, those I follow, and yes, sometimes the ultra neo-con tweets for entertainment. This evening’s session on Twitter led me once again to Suzy ALLCAPSLOCK’s  ( Big Blue Wave if you must know).  In all honesty, even if Iggy were not talking about including abortion in aid to mothers and children, she, like so many other neo-cons suffer from Liberal Derangement Syndrome, but I digress.

Suzy is referring to Jane Taber’s article in the Grope & Fail, regarding Iggy calling on Stevie and the Harpercons to include abortion in their plan to help mothers and children to be proposed at the upcoming G8 summit in Muskoka.

Ignatieff wants to save lives by killing unborn babies. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense! Money you use to fund abortion is money that is taken away from life-affirming choices.

Ok, Suzy, once more, let me explain how funding abortions in poor countries ( or anywhere else in the world for that matter) will save lives.  These third world countries have higher instances of children dying before age 5 than in Western Europe (my guess: probably in other industrialized Countries as well) according to Unicef.

About 29,000 children under the age of five –  21 each minute – die every day, mainly from preventable causes.

These children suffer and die due to lack of health care, food, medicine, clean water; the basic necessities of life. No doubt these children suffer and they surely end up dying before they’re fully grown.  If they live that long, their fate doesn’t improve. The cycle continues onto the next generation. Read more details from Unicef

What is one of the main reasons a woman would seek to have an abortion? Usually, financial.  They have no means of supporting a child: they don’t want a child to suffer poverty. In most industrialized countries, women are fortunate enough to have this option.

Let’s look at the life of the woman. How can abortion save their lives? Well, if one recalls history, long before abortions were legalized,  desperate women went to these back alley flop houses to have an unsterilized hatchet job by non-medical people; scammers out to make a buck. Another common, equally dangerous method was the old wire hanger. If desperate women had to resort to such things before legalized abortion in industrialized countries then what dangerous methods are desperate women in that part of the world using? What are they doing to themselves? I shutter to think of the horrible possibilities.

However, some just don’t seem to get it: including Stevie’s mouthpiece, Dimitri Soudas:

This has nothing to do with abortion, gay marriage or capital punishment. This is about saving lives of vulnerable children and mothers in the developing world. Saving lives of mothers and children should not be a political football. Mr. Ignatieff’s comments are sad and pathetic. Far too many lives have already been lost for want of relatively simple health care necessities such as clean water, inoculations and better nutrition, as well as trained health workers to care for women and deliver babies. In June, under the Presidency of Canada, G-8 Leaders will be discussing the importance to combat maternal and infant mortality around the world.

Decisions will be made based on one clear objective, saving lives of vulnerable children and mothers in the developing world.

Unlike what Soudas, some blogging tories and neo-cons commenting over at Taber’s article in the Grope & Fail, I don’t think Iggy is just playing politics here, at least no more than Stevie trying to deflect attention away from his transgressions as of late.   He basically supports the Harpercons’ plan to make maternal health a key plank at the G8, except that he would like to see abortion play a part in all that.

Yes, there are some who argue most in the third world are religious or attached to their customs that they would never consider abortion. What about those who aren’t? Or even those who are, but are desperate? What if there was an option for them to have safe abortions done in clean facilities by health care professionals?

We can promote birth control and there are organizations who do promote birth control in developping nations.  That definitely should and must be continued, but if birth control doesn’t always work  the way it’s supposed to in western countries;  same problem would exist anywhere in the world.

Again, those who have followed me for sometime know that I’m not a fan of Iggy’s but he is asking the Harpercons to do the right thing all around.

Sadly, given Stevie and some of his MP’s draconian views on abortion, I don’t think he will do anything about that, not when criminalizing abortion is surely to be one of his goals if given his precious majority.

So, Suzy, abortion is covered by medicare here in Canada, why not include abortion funding in the third world countries where folks can benefit the most from it?  Cheer up Suzy, Blogging Tories and other neo-cons: I don’t like paying taxes for this senseless war in Afghanistan, installing government porn viewers in airports just to keep us all scared,  their extended vacation in shutting down parliament, Mike Porky Puffy Duffy’s expense account, corporate welfare and shouldering the tax burdon of many rich folks paying lawyers and bean counters to protect them from paying their share in taxes, but I’m dealing with that; you should deal with  publicly funded abortions.

For the record Suzy, Iggy is not advocating the killing of babies, poverty and its’ byproducts are doing a masterful job at killing babies and women extremely horrendous deaths with much suffering before hand.