Flanders: Affirmative action in transportation

The Flemish gov't transportation company De Lijn will implement quotas for female and immigrant workers. These would be concrete quotas, to be reached within an agreed period of time. "It will be ambitious, but reachable. Everybody in the company would work towards reaching it," said general manager Ingrid Lieten. The number and timing are yet to be announced.

With that standpoint De Lijn goes against all over businesses which have refused to institute such a quote

The manager of the Center for Equality, Jozef De Witte, said he is against the quota. "For me it's an ultimate means for equal participation and not a goal. You should introduce the quota as late as possible, and remove it as quickly as possible."

Filip Dewinter, head of the right wing part Vlaams Belang, has filed a complaint against the quota policy, saying it is racist.

Source: HLN 1, 2 (Dutch)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

What's next? A quota for gays? Left-handed people? Red-haired people? Myopics? Blacks? Scientologists? Seniors? Right-wing voters? Asthmatics?

Anonymous said...

The ambiguous victory of the democrats


by Olavo de Carvalho



The main result of the legislative elections is the consensus, between the republicans, that the party should abandon bushism and come back to good old conservative line of Goldwater and Reagan, that Bush, for moments, pretended to represent.





In 1975, the American soldiers withdrew of the Vietnam, leaving the free field for the communists, that then promoted the slaughter of 3 millions of civil Vietnamese and Cambodian, the fetidest episode of genocide of the second half of the century XX, exceeding in more from three times the total of dead persons of the war. The result was more than foreseeable, but the loving pacifists that made an effort turn it reality were never charged in the big media by the immeasurable crime that helped to practice. Some, as Noam Chomsky, still did the possible to hide it, and by that are worthy until today like examples of "intellectual uprightness".


Another similar moment is announced for soon in Iraq, by hands of the radical leftists of the Democrat Party, drunken by the easy victory in the Chamber and in the Senate, if are going to lead for the pacifist enthusiasm of John Murtha, Nancy Pelosi and others that such.


It's difficult that that arrive it happen, therefore, when had the chance of cause to the practical one the proposal of immediate retreat that advocated of the mouth for outside, the democrats recoiled more than fast. They know perfect that the Iran, at present already the most greatest supplier of recruits for the Iraqi terrorism, is promptly for occupy the territory of the neighboring country or at least for carry out there a slaughter without precedents so soon see the American soldiers gone away. And a thing is speak bad of the government, another one is going sharing of the responsibilities of government. In the time in that the democrats were barely opposition, information as that helped them to squeeze Bush in the wall, obliging him it choose between the risk of ignore the threat and the of take alone an unpopular decision. Now, who is in the wall are they.


That's just one of the motives by that, in the most conservative circles, almost nobody is whining a lot the republican defeat.


By their turn, anti-Americans worldwide are commemorating the double democrat victory in the U.S.A. as went the beginning of the end of the "religious right-wing", if not of the "abominable American Empire" entire.


But, if it is truth that American people is even tired of the war in the Iraq, never the international affairs, alone, decided an election in the U.S.A. Nobody doubts of that the Republican Party paid for the sins of George W. Bush, but the national rejection to the president has very less to do with the war than with the attitudes of him regarding public expense, immigration and electoral legislation – and, in those three areas, he did it not against the democrats, and yes with their enthusiastic support. Of them and of that ones called "RINOS" (Republicans In Name Only), as John McCain and Lincoln Chafee.


The most notorious example was the immigration law. While the entire country claimed for drastic measures against the illegal immigration, the president plotted with the rinos and the democrats a ridiculous plan that not alone amnestied the invaders but gave them more rights than the legal immigrants never had. The proposal awoke so much revolt that the conservative republicans in the Chamber of the Representatives frustrated the plan, working against their own president and suppressing of the law against the illegal immigration the device of amnesty.


That was in December. Then already there was conservatives openly calling Bush "TREACHEROUS".


Bush complicated very his own situation when gave support to a new electoral legislation that limited severely the action of the NGOs not-partisan. Now, those NGOs as by example to National Rifle Association, to American Family Foundation and especially the think tanks like to Heritage Foundation or to Claremont Foundation, the main force of the American conservative movement. It is clear that the democrats, that never obtained to mount a think tank that functioned, worshipped to new rule and the conservatives saw in him an explicit treason of Bush to the cause that professed defend.


More motive for revolt the president gave when violated at the same time two sacred laws of the conservatism, spending a mint of the government for increase the state-owned interference in the childlike education, with the help, obviously, of the democrats. The repugnance of the conservatives to the excess in the public expense is traditional, but his resistance to the state-owned education, that barely be moderated, if transformed in ostensible hatefulness when became clear that the American schools were becoming centers of doutrination, left-wing oriented... by the UN.


The worst thing of everything was to sudden revelation of flat secret one of the Council on Foreign Relations in order to dissolve the borders between the U.S.A., Canada and Mexico, practically eliminating the American nation as independent political unit. The idea already was old, but when a citizen appealed to the FIA (Freedom of Information Act), obliging the government to divulge the documents about the matter, that's was uncovered Bush already was formally committed with the governments of Canada and of the Mexico it carry out the plan. The Republican Party, where do there is so many members of the CFR when in the Democrat, did not be able to neither approve an about those neither break openly with the president. Confused and undecided, the Party opted for do itself of dead person, what was the even though ask to the voters that buried it.


But it's clear that neither all to fair irritation of the conservatives against Bush would be able to transform-them in left-wingers. What they did was the more intelligent thing to do: chosing the more conservative between the candidates democrats, and voted in them.


(ER: To even to leader of the tropa-de-choque Nancy Pelosi alone obtained itself reelect when silenced the mouth about 'impeachment' and sold to new image of 'moderated' and 'pragmatic'. All the Party Democrat gone to the center, abandoning the left-wing talk. Neither red republican, neither blue democrat. It understood now because the media recognizes that that was the history voting of the voters 'purple'?)


In this way, the success of the Party Democrat was not neither a victory of the left one neither a defeat of the conservatism. Was a defeat of a ambiguous president and of his "rinos" allied.

Haddock said...

memri is very clear about it..