I end each day quietly lamenting how I haven’t yet succeeded in completely reforming the global economy. Certainly, it’s a tall order. I search for economic and environmental sustainability. I explore no-growth, steady-state economics to see how we can transform our society’s deranged obsession with unlimited capitalist growth into a more eco-socialist model. I don’t […]
Continue readingAuthor: Stephen Elliott-Buckley
Politics, Re-Spun: Rogers Cup Tennis Champions Sexism
“Come for ladies, stay for the legends”? Leave it to Rogers Sportsnet/cellphone/baseball/stadia to set feminism back another decade with their recent Rogers Cup. Are bikinis next? The Rogers Cup tennis tournament ended yesterday. I am quite sickened, but not at all shocked, at how they portray male and female tennis players. Listen closely for the […]
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Releasing Government Bad News Under Cover of a Hockey Game
Based on the bad news coming from the BC and Canadian governments under cover of game one of the Stanley Cup finals, we should be wary of the Canucks going to seven games. It used to be Friday afternoons were a great time for governments to release bad news. The week’s media cycle was drifting […]
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Corporate Personhood Alert!
We have to spend some time this week carefully watching BC business playing good cop and bad cop. The good cop is opposing the idea of a corporate tax rate of zero, while the bad cop says that corporations should be able to vote, like real human beings. British Columbia Chamber of Commerce president John […]
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Harper, Hypocrisy, Syria, and Degrees of Freedom
Yesterday I lifted my head from some work to watch the Ottawa journalists in Twitter filling us all in on John Baird’s first press conference as the majority Conservative government’s Foreign Affairs minister. They noted he read from the speech: very odd. It was a signal of a new degree of hypocritical oddity now besetting […]
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Tonight, Live-Blogging COPE’s Re:Imagine Schools
I’ve already written about how much I’m looking forward to COPE’s Re:Imagine Schools event tonight. I’ll be live-blogging the event as well. You can scroll down to watch or participate in the live-blog! The COPE Education Committee Presents: Re:Imagine Schools – Defending the Potential of Public Education Imagine a chance to take a step back […]
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Tory, PC, Harper, Conservative, Alliance, or Reform Majority?
I know what’s in a name. Soon, everyone will. We’ll have a long time with this new Harper Government. Bets are now on in terms of what he’ll name the Government of Canada this time. He’s tried “Canada’s New Government” and “The Harper Government” already. But when I read analysis of the election results, it […]
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: A Snapshot of the Vulnerable Underclass of Foreign Workers in Canada
There are lots of ways to look at Canada’s checkered history with immigration. Europeans welcome, French to a lesser degree after they lost a war or something, Chinese railroad workers, the Komagata Maru, internment of Japanese-Canadians, residential schools and a variety of abuses of the First Nations who “we” tend to treat as lesser people, […]
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: The Positive Women’s Network Enriches Community Fabric
I’m constantly impressed with the caliber of community cooperation in Vancouver. The Positive Women’s Network is holding a film screening fundraiser on May 26th at 7pm at Vancity Theatre. VIFF and Reel Causes are cooperating to produce the event. Every element of this event is a testament to what makes communities strong. What does the […]
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: How Can We Get Better Public Schools?
Well, the first thing we can do is carve out some time to ponder, imagine, dream, inhale, exhale, chat, brainstorm, breathe some more, and forget for a minute that we’ve had a decade of hard-core privatizing, de-funding of the public education system. It’s hard to imagine a better future when we’re constantly fighting the latest […]
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: A Compendium of My Prime Minister Layton Posts
I’ve enjoyed writing four pieces about the Prime Minster Layton concept in the last 2.5 years. Originally, it was a wishful thinking hyper long-shot in a prorogation crisis at a time when the Liberals had no firm leader. Then in June 2010 it was a curiosity when polling indicated a Jack Layton-led coalition with the […]
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: How I Expect Journalists to Behave During #Elxn41
The short answer is: just as they are. I think they’re doing a great job, especially with the kind of contempt Harper has shown them for years. By the way, #Elxn41 is the Twitter hashtag for Canada’s 41st general election. It is an exciting time as Twitter is redefining the relationships between estates. Candidates, citizens […]
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