Softwood lumber is easy to understand - US trade rules are made in a snakepit of corruption called 'Washington', where various high rollers, in this case a cabal of yellow pine plantation owners from the slaver states, get the best government money can buy .... no doubt you've heard US nationals mention their famous 'cheques and balances', well the cheques are big fat ones, and the balances serve mainly to obscure what's really happening, make sure nobody involved is held accountable for anything specific, everybody passes the buck on to somebody else and pockets the cheques .... if you think the parliamentary system is flawed, you'll be right, but notice how when there's major corruption in this country it makes the news, people start talking about it, it's a big deal - well it will be a cold day in hell before you ever see the lumber machinations of the 'Commerce' department make page 163 of the New York Times
'Why can we not let the US win' - that is precisely what our lumber producers, free traders to a man, propose - to somehow, some way, beat the corruptos and win free trade to all our willing US national buyers down there, who outnumber by far the sleazebags who gain from tariffs, btw ... problem is, each homeowner there is only robbed of a few thousands by this pine lobby, they don't feel it, in comparison to other crap happening around them
We need to ask ourselves, are we free traders, or what ... then if we decide we are, what are we going to do about it ... the regime in charge of the entity with whom we signed NAFTA with are not free traders, by a long shot ... they wanted the oil, and they got it, now they can pick us off one industry at a time, at their leisure
So if you're going to embargo anything, embargo the oil ... build that pipeline to Rupert, no more pipelines south, take as much as possible to tidewater where we are not captive sellers, let's see if other people would like our oil, and our other stuff too
At the same time, we need to start up some kind of defence for this country ... it is shameful what the Liberals have done to our military, that is a good part of how we get screwed so easily on other things ... Sarge says the mob would send their enforcers if we free-traded on oil, well i think even now they'd bear a considerable body bag cost in doing so, but if we went to some degree of a swiss national defence system we could have discreet yet sharp little fangs all over the place, and discourage that sort of thing, bring up in them memories of the last time we beat off their cracker rabble |
