Mar. 27, 2007: Bud Talkinghorn

Multiculturalism and the death of democracy

The liberal elite have succeeded in fostering the idea that the diversity that multiculturalism brings is a positive addition to Canadian culture. Look at all the colourful costumes and foreign delicacies that visible minorities have introduced into "white bread" Canada, they proclaim. Furthermore, they say, the widely divergent cultural attitudes towards equality and liberty that do not go along with our past beliefs will only make us more inclusive and expand democracy. Obnoxious cultural beliefs such as honour killings, forced marriages, female exclusion and genital mutilation, the dowry system and religious hatreds will wither away over time. That our greatest terrorist plots have been linked to Sikhs and Muslims (second generation at that) is put down to aberrations. Considering that the champion of multiculturalism, the CBC, was a target for car bombing is simply not discussed at all, nor was the CBC poll that showed only 73% of Canadian-Muslims could completely condemn the Toronto terrorist plot. So deluded was CBC that they even tried to paint this horrifying statistic as a plus.

The idea that our new Third World immigrants should welcome our Western concepts of female equality, rule of law, and scientific rationalism is quickly becoming passe. Any attempt to make these concepts stick is dismissed as racism or ethno-centric neo-colonialism. Shakespeare and all those dead old white historians and philosphers must not be elevated above aboriginal oral song poems nor any non-white traditional narratives. Somehow the contradictions between the abolition of Western values in favour of promoting a hodge-podge of immigrant customs are never logically explained as a good thing.

A case in point is the complete distruction of the National Organization of Women. This was a government funded organization that was supposed to advance the equality of all Canadian women, but turned into a claque of "women of colour", who excoriated what white women stood for. It went from being headed by Judy Rebbick, a New York Jewess, to Sunara Thobani, a transplanted East-Indian, to Barbara Grant-Cummings, a Barbadian-Canadian, to (name lost to me), an Aboriginal woman. Not only is this organization not reflective of all Canadian women, its voice is so stridently connected to leftist, racial identity politics that it doesn't even champion the concerns of visible minority women. Yet the left still demands that taxpayers keep on amply funding it. [Does it still exist?]

In his blog, entitled "How Multiculturalism Took Over America", Lawrence Auster (FrontPageMagazine.com, July 9, 2004) gives us the straight talk on what multiculturalism has wrought. His opening salvo is in the form of a supposition. He asks you to imagine a large population of Italian-Americans moving en masse into a Muslim country and demanding that the host country drop all public observations of its religion. When the majority religion gets upset, the Italians reply that they are merely enriching the country with diversity, and if they change some of their laws and traditional customs to accommodate we newcomers that will only doubly "enrich" them. Reverse this scenario and you have the Charter-driven Canadian model. We can't even rid ourselves of the gangsters and terrorists who gain entry into our country.

While Austen gives examples from America, most have applicablity to Canada. The liberal media and the universities have had the same pernicious effects on our Western culture. Lost to reason is that these visible minorities have fled their repressive and corrupt countries for life here. If they have to give up some of their more negative religious and tribal customs, that is the price they should pay. There is no reverse migration to their countries because most are failed, or semi-failed states, with no freedom or chance of economic growth. You only go to Saudi Arabia or any other totalitarian state if the company gives you a huge salary boost, plus a "hardship allowance". Yet we allow the negative aspects of these foreign cultures to entrench themselves in Canada. And as the massive influx of these cultures continues, they will eventually demand entrenchment of these beliefs into law.

I highly recommend the lengthy article by Lawrence Auster [see below], as he rigorously lays out the dangerous path we are on. Already, we have seen massive demonstrations in the United States calling for "No one is illegal". The immigrant lobbies and the loonie-left have picked up that refrain here. Our wonderful culture is under ferocious attack and we retreating on many fronts. We must stop this before it is too late. And it is already late in the day.

© Bud Talkinghorn


A must read

Lawrence Auster: How Multiculturalism Took Over America ... , FrontPage magazine.com , July 9, 2004

www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=14164

Some years ago the Harvard sociologist Nathan Glazer declared that "we are all multiculturalists now." One's initial response to such an unwanted announcement is to say: "What do you mean, 'we'?" Yet, even if "we" do not subscribe to that sentiment, it cannot be denied that over the last twenty years multiculturalism has become the ruling idea of America, incarnated in every area of society ranging from educational curricula to the quasi-official establishment of foreign languages, to mandated racial proportionality schemes in private employment and university admissions, to the constant invocations by our political, business, and intellectual elites of "diversity" as the highest American value. How, so quickly and effortlessly, did this alien belief system take over our country? In this article, I look at multiculturalism as an ideology that has advanced itself by means of a set of propositions. My intent is to examine the false arguments of the multiculturalists themselves, and to see how they have used these arguments to fool an all-too-willing American majority to go along with them.

The Fraud of Inclusion [....]

There is much more. For example from Lawrence Auster: continued , FrontPage magazine.com , July 9, 2004

Example 5.
The more outspoken multiculturalists—i.e., the articulate ideologues of the left—will admit that the cultures they want to "include" in the American culture are radically at odds with it. Diversity consultant Edwin J. Nichols teaches the following model explaining the divergent intellectual styles of ethnic groups:

The Philosophical Aspects of Cultural Difference:

European and Euro-American: Member-Object; the highest value lies in the object or in the acquisition of the object.

African, Afro-American, Native American, Hispanics, Arabs: Member-Member. The highest value lies in the inter-personal relationship between persons.

Asian, Asian-American, Polynesian: Member-Group. The highest value lies in the cohesiveness of the group.

Native American: Member-Great Spirit. The highest values lies in oneness with the Great Spirit.(5)

Observe how Nichols portrays the Western orientation in negative terms ("Member-Object," "acquisition") that suggest cold selfishness and materialism, while he describes the non-Western cultures in positive terms ("inter-personal relationship," "group cohesiveness," "oneness with the Great Spirit") that suggest warmth and humanity. Yet Nichols' very attempt to debunk the West and praise the non-West has the opposite effect from what he intends, since the unpleasant-sounding phrase "Member-Object" is really a way of describing the Western belief in objective truth—the very basis of Western religion, science, philosophy, law, and government. [....]

Auster explores the myths, ending with "Moderate Myth Number Six: The 'Equality' That Becomes 'Diversity'"



Nipigong, Myanmar -- Burma

Did you see the BBC news item showing the new Burmese capital, Nipigong? It is set in the middle of a nowhere dusty plain, with six lane avenues, sweeping gates (painted in garish colours) and wedding cake palaces--all stunningly grotesque. Something that even Ceaucescu couldn't have dreamed up. Right up there with Mobuto's new capital, whose international airport is now almost totally reclaimed by the jungle. The Burmese military junta will probably demand that you take a trip there before being allowed to visit Pagan. After all, they poured billions into it. The march of folly never ends.

© Bud Talkinghorn


"Go, tigers, go!"--Motto of the World Wildlife Fund

Well, don't go so far that big game hunters can't blow them pesky critters to smithereens. It seems that this champion of the salt water croc, the koala bear, and the tiger has limits to its largesse. It turns out that one of India's premier tiger sanctuaries was actually used as a shooting gallery. The top administrator admitted that he had fudged the tiger tally for years. There weren't 4,560 tigers in the reserve, but probably no more than a thousand and a half were left [1500]. The administrator said he sold licences to hunters. So much for the "Save the Tiger" fund.

Being a cat lover, I had actually contributed to this cause. Therefore, I took particular umbrage at this obscene fraud. Somehow the Aga Khan, who is one of the WWF's great sponsors, remained untarnished by this scandal. But Khan is a man who knows how to cultivate the leftist club of the U.N. Just to stay with the animal theme, he has many tentacles in high places.

You want to support the feline world? Put out a tin of cat food for the woods cats.

© Bud Talkinghorn



WWFKF

WorldWideFeedKittiesFund -- a new charity idea -- If you would like to improve upon this idea, leave a comment. It's for the good of the kitties.

All donations to the WWFKF charity gratefully accepted. We accept loonies, if you don't have millions ... or even hundreds to give away for the good of the kitties.

Memo to the GG: If it's good enough for millionaires and billionaires, it's good enough for Canucks, you know, the rest of us who live in Canuckistan. One of us who contributes to the WWFKF expects to be honoured with an Order of Canada, Humanities award. We're going to run a lottery -- a buck a ticket -- ticket to be drawn by someone with a spotless ticket drawing reputation, the owner of the local corner store, probably.

Note: This is a New Charity, developing, as we speak; official charity status, soon come, sure to come. If it's good enough for the Khadrs to set up a charitable foundation, to say nothing of coming to the notice of a former PM, it's good enough for those of us here for generations. We affirm that no money will be sent to jihadis abroad; all monies collected will be only for kitties ... well, maybe the odd liquid bash to admire and pet kitties. We save Heinz 57 kitties with liquid eyes.

Founded by Frosty, kitty lover, member of the hoi polloi and from the lower end of the charity spectrum.

Mar. 14, 2007: Updated: Mining, Copper-Gold, DRC, Gobi

I moved a post from yesterday to go with this update.


Update - More re: Mining, Copper, Congo, Gobi, Myanmar, Africa, Gold, Banro, AMEC, Peter Lighthall -- who was mentioned below in "Mining Africa Congo DRC" as being with "global engineering consultants AMEC" -- The complete article is worth reading before the update article.

What intrigued me were phrases such as "the social and community aspects of mining" and the mention of the environment, environmental monitoring, communications in Africa, concern for natives or Africans, that kind of thing ... how shall I put it? As I read, a certain tone, "doing good", "responsible development", while mining and making money. It just draws some of us like a flies to honey.

If you search Banro or Banro, AMEC, there are some articles of interest. For example:

Nothing Like it on Planet Earth - Robert Friedland's Tour d' Tolgoi , By Resource Investor, 07 Mar 2005 at 09:03 AM GMT-05:00 -- or here

www.resourceinves
tor.com/pebble.asp?relid=9010

www.google.com/search?q=cache:6qRD5wxW_28J:www.resource
investor.com/pebble.asp%3Frelid%3D9010+Banro,+
AMEC&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=6&gl=ca

Note: this address was delivered at the BMO Nesbitt Burns 2005 Global Resources Conference, Tampa, Fla. Stream the audio recording of this presentation -- The audio may be no longer available.

files.presentation-direct.com/presentations/
200502/BMO_resources_02282005/ivan
hoe/player/launch_audio.asx

I believe that, previously, I have mentioned Warren Buffet buying up coal or coal bearing areas.

Note: Myanmar, Gobi, China, copper, gold, diamonds, steel, coal ... and more.

[....] Ivanhoe Mines recently listed on the New York Stock Exchange and trades in Toronto. We want to remind you that we really are an international mining company. We produce copper in Myanmar, we're the lowest cost primary copper mine in the world according to Brook-Hunt.

We are also developing our Oyu Tolgoi copper-gold project which I am going to be telling you about in Mongolia, and we are still own a very large gold asset in Kazakhstan which we are going to be daylighting.

Our project in Myanmar [....]

We recently discovered what we believe is the richest copper discovery in the world.

[....] Now I'm going to tell you a little about Oyu Tolgoi in the south Gobi region. This is in fact at this conference, the only world class development project. As have been saying year in and year out, the real wealth in this industry is generated by developing a new resource; the real money for shareholders.

Mongolia is three times the size of France, twice the size of Texas, 2.6 million people, and our lands there in yellow are about the same size as Japan, or Italy, about 135,000 square kilometres, the largest land position in the mining industry. When we staked it for copper and we had copper on the brain, we never dreamed that we wound find metallurgical and steam coal. But we are now an energy company as well as a mining company. We own the coal rights, the nickel rights, the zinc rights, the copper and the gold rights throughout this highly mineralised region rich.

.... But we're not in China, we're in the independent country of Mongolia. So we're of China, but not in China. Mongolia is big, [....]

We still believe that we haven't found the guts of the Oyu Tolgoi ore body. There is a danger that subsequent drilling is vectoring in on extremely high grade gold zones. They are supported by this form of mineralization, and we've had geologists from the likes of Phelps Dodge and Rio Tinto hold our core in their hands and said, “never on Plant Earth has anything like this been found!”

[....Ladies] and gentlemen, what we are looking at here is a copper factory. But the interesting thing about it is, in order to build our copper factory, we need steel from China, and in order to build the steel, we need iron ore and in order to make the iron ore, we need metallurgical coal. And we just had a 71.5% increase in iron ore prices. Now this is a very boring commodity, iron, but in the last two years it’s up 100%. Iron has out-performed gold.

Virtually everything has out-performed gold. [....]

Thinking people want exposure to stuff the world needs like cooper, and of course, it's often said, real men mine copper, not gold. Gold is you know, it’s okay, it’s okay, it's okay as a byproduct, but what you really want is this commodity, copper, which has far out-performed gold.

And the great gold mines - like Wheaton River has exposure to buy at Alumbrera or Newmont was rescued by its Btu Hijau holding; they’re really just copper mines in disguise. So I still would want to tell you that I would much rather own a copper mine than a gold mine. [....]

End of Update

---

Mining Africa Congo DRC

Africa's DRC back on map for miners -- 'Companies who are there are going to reap rewards' , Drew Hasselback, Financial Post, March 05, 2007

www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/story.ht
ml?id=f5c44cc4-72af-4add-a718-034410ca0b7b&k=86256

The Democratic Republic of Congo was once one of the world's largest copper producers. .... mining was responsible for one-quarter of the African nation's gross domestic product.

A brutal civil war in the 1990s ... Canadian miners are helping lead the way.

[....] "I think the conditions are difficult," says Jamie Kneen, a spokesman for Ottawa-based industry critic Mining Watch. "I think there needs to be much better evidence of the way things are being done. When you look at the Gecamines arrangements, they don't look terribly advantageous to the Congolese government or the Congolese people."

[....] A Parliamentary committee last summer held a series of round tables that among other things tried to shed some light on the practices of Canadian-based mining companies operating in developing countries. Such attention is gold for industry critics who are keen to use a surge of public attention to advance their agendas.

[....] "Probably the thing we're growing fastest right now is working with clients on talking about the social and community aspects of mining," says Peter Lighthall, a Vancouver-based vice-president with global engineering consultants AMEC. "That means helping develop relations with First Nations or indigenous communities, either in Canada or overseas. I think that's something that has been very good business for us, but also a great necessity for our clients."

[....] Banro's Mr. Cowley believes the return of a mining industry will spark development of other aspects of the DRC's economy. The country needs private investment to make that happen, he says.

"It's on the back of the private sector that the country will develop. It's gone through torrid times and it's really just come out of it no w," Mr. Cowley said. "Besides the minerals, I know some of the South African communications and mobile phone companies think there's extraordinary and huge potential."

Search: Kinross Gold Corp. , former Kinross executive, Art Ditto , Katanga Mining Ltd., which acquired that copper- cobalt project , free elections , Vancouver-based Tenke Mining Corp., Paul Conibear, president of Tenke. , Arizona-based Phelps Dodge Corp. , Lundins' Congolese project , Toronto-based Banro , 3.7 million ounces of gold at its four properties in the DRC.

Why did I expect the next words to be "sustainable development", along with the "private investment"?