EC2Fleuves

Hello everyone!

Today as we know the state of the global economy is pretty depressing. No good news from the banking sector, neither from the major players in the stock market. The so-called Blue Chip companies in global transportation, heavy industries, automobiles and the like are not performing. Even Google, the major player in high tech technologies, is reporting a not so good financial quarter - a sad achievement from a young and once flamboyant start-up . Sad in dollars figures, sad in future prospects for advertising revenues, their main income, and sad because nobody is interested about anybody anymore, which is the same as saying the whole world is sick! The whole world is depressed!

So the mood is somber and contagious. If somebody in a cafe is whining and complaining, the guests at the nearest table will take to their office , after their coffee break, with a long and depressed face to finish their work day . That’s not good news for their managers or bosses because that lousy mood will affect their performance for sure. The sales will be down and consecutively lay-offs not far away.

Talking about pink slips : today Bell Canada, the once beauty and greatest jewel of our economy is removing over 2500 managers from their payroll and straight they go to join other not so lucky workers that lost their once secured jobs!

So here is the main subject of this blog.

The biggest anti poverty organization of the U.S. announced yesterday that it is inconceivable and inhuman to keep the price of gasoline at such heights! Every 50 cents of every dollar from poor Americans is being spent at the gas station compare to every 5 cents of every dollar belonging to the rich! In other words, the situation for our poor people is intolerable and is reaching  a critical point where we are close to seeing millions of American citizens , and probably many Canadians as well, suffering from an acute loss of income and down to the abyss of no-return where entire families risk to disappear in the incoming famine!

So that organization is begging the Federal government of the United States to reconsider banning any company producing “dirty” energies as opposed to “clean” energies and let the Canadian Tar Sands industry produce more oil for these starved economies and peoples! The human thing to do is not to go the way of Al Gore and Barak Obama , those elitists politicians making a huge amount of income for their political parties and ambitions by riding the green wagon of censorship!

Well , if we put on the right side of any scale the needs of millions of human beings , principally the poor fellows , those below the poverty line and on the verge of total financial collapse, weighing against ,on the left side of the scale,  a group of self appointed and so-called enlightened men who are, with ferocity, lecturing the rest of us to  go back to the caves and start learning how to make fire by knocking 2 stones and to forget forever using coal, nuclear energy, bad oil, even if millions will suffer in that process. I’ll say with all my heart of a compassionate fellow citizen,  that surely the need of the many shall win over the need of the few !

So I called the greens’ brainwashing of the masses an egocentric and super selfish drive to dominate an artificial debate!

Let’s open the northern parts of Alaska , those same Federal lands that Bill Clinton closed to the oil industry. Let’s ask the nice Canadians to produce more oil for starving Pennsylvania and other American industrial states. Let’s give more coal to the poor to protect themselves from the next very long, very snowy and cold winter that is the norm now in our areas! Let’s ask General Electric and other nuclear plant manufacturers to build more turbines to produce electricity and let’s invest in our vast and extremely abundant Canadian rivers to tame the flow of those waters to produce renewable hydro energy.

For the sake of our poor people let’s help them.! No political ambition should put aside those men, women , elderly and young that have nothing to eat , to clothe themselves with and let’s give them a chance to a decent and fulfilling life !

Let’s ask John McCain , Prime Minister of Canada Stephen Harper to focus mainly on those issues and help the poor, the economy and the future for our children.

Yours sincerely,

EC

Bonjour , hello everyone

Here we are this 25th of July 2008, the day after!

The day after what?

The day after THE speech of U.S. Senator Obama in Berlin. The capital of Germany.

What an irony!

Sixty-three years after the US armies liberated Germany from the worst fascism that devastated a big chunk of the planet and certainly the Deutshland, a candidate to the presidency of the USA decided to get some political boost in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, not far from the Bundestag.

So is it appropriate for a Canadian citizen like me to get involved in American politics?

Obviously if an American citizen, a senator,  sees fit to go the ancient Deutschland to promote his views about global politics than it should be all right for every citizen on this planet to comment on his politics and their repercussions!

So what does Senator Obama represent in term of change in world politics?

Not much! Maybe the fact that his win in the U.S.  Democratic Party is a first in terms of breaking the invisible but nevertheless existing racial and political barriers confronting the U.S. - probably yes to that fact. Otherwise, it is the same old game of opportunist political games which is first and foremost to definitely win -at any cost for his political  party – the Presidency of the USA in a democratic and universal suffrage !And once that win is secured in the White House of Washington  to lead according to his true character, being at that particular  time the boss of all places ..reigning in Washington D.C., the center of the world!

So does Obama need the Jewish vote ? At this time of campaigning, any vote is important! At the ballot though, no one is quite sure of the final outcome. After all, Separatists in Quebec lost two independence referendums when they were assured by all pollsters of a certain win! Same for the recent poll in Ireland to commit itself to the European Community’s so-called new Constitution draft! They voted a very strong NO to it! And again the British  Conservative party candidate won the title of Mayor of London when he presented himself as a poor  challenger and sometimes quite a light and funny one. So nothing is sure in politics! That’s certain!

But one thing is extremely important in any  democratic country and  it is that a Cult of Personnality should never take place in that country at any time!

So how is it that major American tv networks are accused of being extremely infatuated by the ambition of the new Democratic candidate to replace Georges Bush? Is there a cult of Obama or as they say: Obamamania?

Why all the fuss this time and in this particular election?

Does Obama state something that nobody heard before?

Does Obama mention Jerusalem to be the only capital and united for ever capital of the State of Israel , only to change his mind about it few hours later? Coming from a professionnal politician this is odd! After all Joe Clark ( Jo who?) of Canada did the same gaffe around 1978 . He then said , after wining the Premiership in Canada, that  his first order of the day in office would be to move the Canadian embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. It took few moments from somebody in External Affairs to lecture him about the complexities of the Middle East, and so the Canadian embassy is still in Tel Aviv to-day like the American one and all others that recognize the State of Israel. But Jo Clark did get some Jewish votes during that election. So as we French say:” plus ca change plus c’est la meme chose!” In other words, the promise of a politician should never be taken seriously -only the fools should believe that there is anything valid in it.  Ainsi va la vie ..so that’s the way of life or the way  politicians get elected..

And so what does this speech given in Germany not far from the Bundestag by Senator Obama running for the President of the USA mean?

Maybe that he does get a boost from fellow politicians in other countries. Or may be the Chancellor of Deuschtland found him attractive , very charming and extremely adroit in political maneuvres ( her quotes )…or maybe she really believes that it is time in USA to get a Democrat in the White House after 8 years! Is there such a thing that the two major parties should alternate the Presidency after two terms? Or it is a more accurate statement that any true democratic exercise shall take into account only the interest of the majority of the citizens living within its borders , no place here for big personal ambitions ?

Only  importants factors such the long term Security of the USA and by extension of the free world should be at stake in the search for that position! I will also add , in the same spirit, a strong show of genuine goodness from any candidate and his abiliy to work hard using his strong and good experience to promote a better economy, a better environment,  a better and secure place to live.

So how do we know who will be  the best candidate for that job?

Just words or speeches don’t cut it!!

Any good speech writer or good lawyer can make a loving plaidoirie of any kind …in front of any public if needs be.

For my part at 60 , I came to  the conclusion that experience of life , yes my dear friends, experience in all sort of crises that life can put forward is the most important criteria to choose a friend, an associate or a President!

The ability to survive those challenges , sometimes terrible ones like being in jail, in the case of John McCain,  and being tortured during 5 years by the Vietcong and surrogates after bailing out of  a fighter airplane , while serving his country , is an asset for Senator McCain or any one like him!

By putting his greatest treasure,  his life on the front lines! By surviving such an ordeal , and later by overcoming the different scars of that long and terrible war against a despotic ideology , Senator McCain shows us that he is made of steel!  When later in his life he decided again to serve his country as a Senator, to promote very good laws for all his fellow citizens , he showed us how much he loves the American people. Again Senator McCain is not afraid of the challenges ahead. I am not afraid either to choose him as the best candidate. I am certainly not afraid of his being 71 years old as I am totally secure  knowing he has great wisdom based on his past record!

Does his experience of so many years fighting terrible handicaps, achieving victory and justice at the end of his tribulations with his enemies and opponents not enough to give him the leadership of the USA? Can anyone in his own mind, think that Senator John McCain cannot be a good leader, a very good President of the Unites States of America? He is the best politician that lives nowadays in the USA and perhaps in the world! The fact that he is humble and modest of character - those virtues should not be liabilties, neither his age! Was my late father a very wise man until his last moments of his life at 80? Wasn’t Moses given the task of taking the Jewish Slaves out of Egypt at the age of 80 (certainly not at forty when he commited mistakes in Egypt)? Didn’t John F Kennedy not blunder in the Bay of Pigs and did he not send the first GI’S in Vietnam few years after the French debacle in Dien Ben Phu? Of course they did!

Experience is an asset that comes with age! Youth brings the arrogance of  the young man!

One cannot be sure of the route to take, any?…a jungle path? A road to victory or defeat? A wrong turn that looks so benign and secure? …unless he knows for certain! And he  knows only because he did take the wrong turns or made the wrong decisions before and learned from it! Maybe John McCain as a young and brave fighter pilot could have avoided being shot down? May be he did not see it coming or saw the missile too late and could not evade it anymore..that experience to-day is an asset because he survived it and learned how to confront such unpredictable and sudden terrible dangers – he learned how to evade death and peril.  That knowledge cannot be valued in price only in tangible assets for future judgment and decision making.

McCain’s age is his biggest asset!

He knows the routes, all of them, for having experienced them! Between him and a formidable rookie, I will take the sure bet! Any smart, honest, and reliable person will choose experience against a novice, an older top brain or heart surgeon versus a resident doctor just starting out to be a surgeon.

Let us remember that the Americans only have one chance. My friends, the White House is much too important for the sake of the USA and the world at large to experience it with a too young and inexperienced an occupant. It is simply too risky for every one’s sake on earth!

A bientot, so long for more opinions later..ec