Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Ya-ta Boy]

That was reported to be on some of the signs held up to welcome Obama on his trip to Ottawa. It's kind of cute, if you ask me.

The following is a rather harsh, but interesting, assessment of the day trip:

Obama in Ottawa: When Hope Met Apathy

That's right, the earnestly progressive and PC True North Strong and Free, land of gay marriages, permissive approaches to 'illicit substances' and universal health care, somehow elected Stephen Harper, a man who combines a Palin-esque provincialism with Dick Cheney's reverence for secrecy and control. And, today we foisted him on the new American president to represent the Canadian case...

Canada has not escaped the ravages of the global financial crisis, which has hit Alberta's ethically debased oil sands economy and central Canada's manufacturing sector particularly hard. Instead, it is to say that most Canadians expect President Obama to fix the problem for them, even if most would never publicly admit this due to a national pride that has been constructed around a particularly virulent strain of anti-Americanism.

Although Canadians tend to be polite and to love American money, they generally don't like Americans. Canadians love Obama and have celebrated his trip to Canada, but there is a trace of bitterness about the whole thing. Canadians are proud today because they believe that Obama's trip has once again validated the special relationship between the two countries and, in so doing, justified Canada's sense of global worth. At the same time, they resent having to rely on the United States to reaffirm their own sense of self."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christopher-j-finlay/obama-in-ottawa-when-hope_b_168378.html

[megandadam]

[hepcat]

The majority of Canadians have liberal social views. The reason Harper is PM is because the voting block of people with liberal views is split 4 ways (Liberal, NDP, Bloc Q., Green). People with conservative social views have only one party to vote for. It was with the help of clever US strategists that the Conservative Party started using minor yet emotive social issues like gay marriage to define the liberal-conservative gap along social lines, and slip into power with a minority of seats in parliament.

On Obama: Yet another example of people, frightened and chock full of wishful thought after Idiot-Bush, being fooled by a glossy exterior and overlooking the unsavory contents. B.O., freshly inaugurated, has already demonstrated that on critical issues, it's business as usual in the White House. His important cabinet appointments, for example, are completely old-school/insider. New results, "change", will not flow from the same old wooden heads serving the same elite constituencies--the military-industrial complex, international finance, the global government agenda.

[sharkey]

i cant see the conservatives winning another election