New Spring, The Novel: The Wheel Of Time: In The Beginning – Robert Jordan (so the cover says) (Lord of the Rings films and Terry Brookes Shannara novels got me hooked on epic, high fantasy – and no, I have no slight embarrassment about that. I think too much. Sometimes,
Continue readingTag: authoritarianism
Akaash Maharaj - Practical Idealism: Build a Wall? Canada’s Response to Trump
Donald Trump’s main export to Canada has been a sense of national smugness, that his outrages and absurdities could never find purchase here. But it would be an act of monumental self-deception for Canadians to believe that we are an island set above the rage bubbling across the world.
Continue readingAkaash Maharaj - Practical Idealism: Toronto Star: Build a Wall? Canada’s Response to Trump
It would be an act of monumental self-deception for Canadians to believe that our country is an island set above the rage bubbling across the world.
Continue readingScripturient: Stalin’s ghostly influence today
I recently finished reading the second volume of Stephen Kotkin’s magisterial biography of Josef Stalin: About 1,700 pages so far, with another 400 or so in small-type notes. Brilliant stuff, but a lot to absorb and consider. A bit of a slog if you’re not at least somewhat familiar with
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Help, Barbarians at the Gate!!
I just realized that, from British Columbia’s eastern border, the barbarians are in control all the way to Quebec. Scheer and Kenney, Moe, Pallister and Ford. Two thousand miles of knuckle-draggin’ mouth breathers. We don’t need pipelines. We need a wall. Quebec, come in Quebec. — Public intellectual and McMaster
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, on Scott Moe’s choice to pursue strongman politics indistinguishable from the Donald Trumps and Doug Fords of the world. For further reading…– D.C. Fraser reported on Moe’s willingness to stand with and behind Ford no matter how preposterous his claims. And Fatima Syed noted that both Moe and Ford
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: What Then Must We Do? Canada’s Place Alongside the United States in Turbulent Times.
Do you ever wonder how close the United States may be to abandoning democracy? Do you ever wonder what that might mean for Canada? Are you familiar with the word, “anschluss”? Even The Economist recently rated the US as a “flawed democracy.” That might have been overly generous. A paper released
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Imagine a World Where Every Leader Was a Variation of Donald Trump
Donald Trump likes to pretend he’s shaking everything up. In fact he’s tearing everything down and what he can’t tear down his instinct is to bog it down. You could say that he’s the first poster boy for the Age of Entropy. Yesterday I reviewed an article by political scientist
Continue readingdaveberta.ca – Alberta Politics: Republican Senator’s speech against McCathyism could have been about Trump
In the eleven years since I started publishing this blog, I have almost entirely focused on Alberta politics. But while my writing focuses on provincial politics here at home, like many Canadians I pay close attention to what is happening… Continue R…
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Pope Warns We May Already Be In "Piecemeal WWIII"
Has the world already stumbled into a third world war? Pope Francis thinks that could well be the case. Denouncing war as “madness”, the Pope made his remarks while visiting Italy’s largest military cemetery. In Saturday’s homily, standing at the altar beneath Italy’s fascist-era Redipuglia memorial – where 100,000 Italian
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Of Zombie Politics and Culture War
In a system that reduces life to a chain of disconnected reactions to shock, personal communication tends to lose all meaning… The individual under terrorist conditions is never alone and always alone. He becomes numb and rigid not only in relation to his neighbor but also in relation to himself’;
Continue readingThe Cracked Crystal Ball II: What The Senate Ruling Says About Harper
The Supreme Court of Canada’s ruling on the Senate Reform questions that Harper put to them last year came out today. The ruling itself is not terribly surprising, but what is more interesting is Harper’s reaction. Harper said he had no option left after the high court concluded that no
Continue readingThe Cracked Crystal Ball II: The Future Of The CPC
Andrew Coyne made an excellent point in his column about the Manning Networking Conference that the Manning Centre is hosting in Ottawa: So this is what a Conservative convention looks like. After that bizarre lockdown in Calgary last fall – reporters harassed and penned in at every turn, the prime minister’s
Continue readingThe Cracked Crystal Ball II: Alberta Bills 45 and 46
Others have spoke very eloquently about the problems with Bills 45 and 46. What I want to bring to readers’ attention is how the Redford Government is abusing not just legislative procedure, but democracy itself. It is not unusual for this government to limit debate on bills. What is unusual
Continue readingThe Cracked Crystal Ball II: More on Baird and Iran
People, even the media who watch such things, seem mystified by the Harper Government(tm) stance on Iran. It’s no big surprise, really. When I took this blog out from under wraps in May, I wrote a lengthy essay describing the “Modern Fascism” that Harper has been cultivating. On foreign affairs,
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: The Face of Corporate Feudalism
Democracy is reeling. Corporatist authoritarianism is quietly ascendant. Rights and freedoms are now being issued with price tags and, if you can’t afford them, you don’t get them. Zoe Williams, writing in The Guardian asks, “When did being lowly become a criminal offence?“ It’s a new world order that you
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: CCCP, Meet CPC3
For years I’ve been pointing out that Stephen Joseph Harper has certain instincts reminiscent of Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin. The way Comrade Steve “reformed” the Prime Minister’s Office was a dead giveaway. His appointment of political commissars to disrupt public access to the civil and armed services was a masterful coup,
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Are Conservatives Inherently More Biased than Liberals? The Scientific Debate Rages On
Republican Brain.jpg In the first round of critical reactions to my book The Republican Brain, there wasn’t much to impress. As I related at AlterNet, the general conservative response to the book was to misrepresent its arguments, rather than to engage them seriously. (The book predicted this, incidentally.) But now that
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Let’s Just Say It: When It Comes to Science, The Right is the Problem
polar_House_Means.jpg This weekend in The Washington Post, two deans of the Washington establishment, the Brookings Institution’s Thomas Mann and the American Enterprise Institute’s Norman Ornstein, finally stated what has been increasingly obvious: The problem with U.S. politics is coming from the right, not from “both sides.” In their piece, provocatively
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: The Peril of the Authoritarian Mind
“They would march America into a dictatorship and probably feel that things had improved as a result…. And they are so submissive to their leaders that they will believe and do virtually anything they are told. They are not going to let up and they are not going away.” –
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