[redhatmamma]

Avaaz is nothing but a propaganda mill in the disguise of grassroots activism

http://bcblue.wordpress.com/2013/02/28/ ... ship-race/
Imagine if it were US conservative groups trying to interfere in Canadian leadership races – the Media Party would go ape

and

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/canada ... 5091.html#

[Unsound]

Or Canadians trying to interfere in American presidential electians!!!!

[raydan]

These special interest groups are here to stay... guess it's something else we're just going to have to live with. The only thing that can be done is to create "counter special interest groups".

[andyt]

This organization has 500,000 Canadian members. That's not peanuts.

Quote:

Avaaz is a global civic organization launched in January 2007[1] that promotes activism on issues such as climate change, human rights, animal rights, corruption, poverty, and conflict.[1] Its stated mission is to "close the gap between the world we have and the world most people everywhere want". The organization operates in 15 languages, and states that it has more than nineteen million members in 194 countries.[1] According to The Guardian: “Avaaz is only five years old, but has exploded to become the globe's largest and most powerful online activist network.”

[2]

This is not a US organization. Not sure what's wrong with it telling their Canadian members which candidate matches their aims. Didn't the NRA tell it's Canadian members how to vote?

Maybe I'm just not perturbed because it sounds like I share their goals. Now if a conservative organization that is for climate denial, anti-human rights, pro-corruption, pro-poverty and pro-conflict were to tell Canandian conservatives how to vote, I might have a problem. But then it wouldn't need to.

[BeaverFever]

By this same twisted logic, Canadian corporations and industrial lobby groups that have overseas operations are "foreign funded" groups as well.

Another hogwash thread.

[andyt]

No, they're the job givers, not just a bunch of hippies. We should do as they say. What's good for them is good for us. Feel their benificent rain as it trickles down on us. It's even a nice yellow color. Can't beat that.

[raydan]

500,000 members is just the number of people that are on their email list. It doesn't mean all those people will "vote" whatever Avaaz says... probably a lot of these members get email alerts that are mostly ignored. A lot of them also joined for reasons other than political... climate change, animal rights and conflict being the important ones... supporting a particular Liberal leader being very low on their list.

[Jonny_C]

Most special interest groups have a wildly inflated sense of what they can accomplish.

The only ones to be concerned about are the ones that are virtually invisible - the ones that use money and power to work behind the scenes. The ones that squawk a lot and garner the occasional headline are not the ones to worry about.

[N_Fiddledog]

Agreed Jonny.

The Soros socialists have been here looking to push their watermelon (green on the outside, red on the inside), far left, American based, utopian hoax ideology for some time now.

I was standing behind a guy in the library one time who shocked me by asking the librarian where the meeting was for ACORN Canada.

Oh well...they're here. I like the idea of lifting the veil to reveal them. The only place I disagree is both groups you describe are the same thing. They come at you from many directions, but it's the same base.

[Thanos]

ACORN Canada? But Canada doesn't even have a schwoogie problem!

[sandorski]

I actually received that e-mail, but didn't read it . I usually just delete them as the contents of their e-mails are too basic to interest me in reading further.IIRC, the reason I'm on their list is that they had a link to a Documentary I was interested in seeing. I don't recall what that was either.

At any rate, I have mixed feelings about such appeals. If it's just information, that's one thing. If it's direct financing of Political Campaigns, that's a whole other issue.

[redhatmamma]

Avaaz is a foreign entity, it is not Canadian and is and has been attempting to manipulate Canadian elections, yet when the NRA comes to town it's a bad thing! The same people don't want the NCC placing ads which indirectly might support Harper, but Avaaz is okay - really.

Avaaz is a forign group attempting to manipulate Canadian politics. Some time ago NDP MP David Christopherson agreed that the the involvement of the U.S groupp Avaaz in the complaints about Robo calls raises questions.

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/201 ... ry-defeat/

and, the third party no one wants to talk about
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/201 ... lks-about/