Trarman brought some interesting facts to my attention yesterday, Steven Harper in his new accountability act has prevented MPs from working for lobby groups for five years after their stint in the parliment accept for Cabinet members, who may work for corporations.  In addition to this change, Harper has prevented private donation of more than $1000/yr to any politcal party, but corporations are still allowed to contribute more $$$.  To attend and vote at the last Liberal convention was approx. 995$ and was considered a party contribution.  Witnessing these negative changes to the Canadian landscape, it makes me wonder if corporations were the downfall of other civilizations?

I'm not sure sure these are negative changes.  First I agree that private donations should be limited and this prevents the incredibly wealthy to dictate their desires to the vast majority who are middle income or poor.  However, I think corporate donations should be abolished altogether.  I believe Manitoba has outlawed corporate policitcal donatations on the provincial level.  
As far as other civilizations are concerned the corporation is a relatively new species, which didn't come about until 1800's.  In empires like the roman empire industries (if they can be termed such) were privately owned with no laws dictating how they should run, whether or not they could have slave labour etc.  Those empires crumbled under the weight of their own responsibilities.  You name it the British Empire, Roman Empire, Spanish Empire, French Empire.  And we are seeing the beginnings of this with the American Empire.

Hawkeye...I was watching a special on CBC(i think Nature of Things) about some France researchers who have discover that in the Near East permanent settlements (Second period of the Stone Age) occurred before the invention of agriculture and animal husbandry due to abundance of wild edible vegetation and game. It took thousands of years for humans to develop these skills and they think it is was primarily by accident. The French researcher felt that the interpretation of the female figuring wordship was mis-interpreted and that females were not associated with a divine figure that brings life but rather the keepers of the dead as women kept the dead buried undeneath their beds and women would be buried holding the heads of their ancestors.
Do you know what percentage of the world was matri vs patri society in the stoneage and at what time period did patri societies take over?

Sorry to stray from your last question to Hawk, Chiq, but I wanted to go back to the Cdn political discussion you two initially began.. I think it Is good to limit how much individuals can contribute to parties and I especially think corporations should be left out of politics.. there is far too much room for misappropriation.. besides it leads to problems like the liberals and the ad agenies had where you scratch my back and I scratch yours down the road.

I think we're all in agreement that corporations should not be able to sponsor political bodies (people or parties).  However, the laws have only been changed to effect civilian donations.  As Hawkeye argues, you don't really want independently wealthy people influencing the government, but I ask how often is that the case compared to the frequency of corporate influence?  Without going all out and capping both people and companies, this in my opinion is merely tokenism and amounts to squat.

maybe we should discuss politcis in the Canadian politics thread

Tsk tsk tsk.. Chiquitta.. a common mistake trying to apply logic and reason to a political conversation :p

I think it makes sense to limit personal contributions too, but lets face it, anyone running (and winning) is likely to be able to raise a few pennies themselves anyhow.. its just one of the costs of living (and surviving) in the political pond O guess.. so chances are the individual can survive financially more than a couple setbacks.  More so in American poitics but even here in Canada.. Harper ain't from no lower income neighbourhood, yanno?

Complete disclosure would be good... but it would only be good if we had independant journalists to inspect the records.

True.. anything that comes from the media has massive bias.
I mean half the media outlets are owned by the same person or corporation, right?

Chiquita,

I really don't know what percentages of cultures in the stone age were patriachies and matriarchies.  I would tend to think though, that the majority would be patriachies.

I would be interested in learning how this french researcher came to the conclusion of "females were not associated with a divine figure that brings life but rather the keepers of the dead as women kept the dead buried undeneath their beds and women would be buried holding the heads of their ancestors."

How would he know these remains were buried beneath people's beds, let alone only women's beds?  We're talking about places where people lived thousands of years ago.  Context in archeology is incredibly important and just because heads were found with female remains does not necessarily mean that they were buried at the same time.  It may be that this researcher is trying to come up with an alternate theory to make a name for himself, which isn't bad.  Interesting though.