This and that for your Thursday reading. – David Wallace-Wells discusses the alarming warning indicators from our still-developing understanding of the Omicron COVID variant. Nazeem Muhajarine writes about the importance of booster vaccines in limiting the damage, while Wallis Snowdon reports on the justified frustration of Alberta doctors faced with
Continue readingTag: capitalism
Northern Currents –: Omicron is here, and Canada needs to revamp its rapid testing strategy now
Thus far, it is fair to say that Canada’s strategy around rapid testing has been focused on preserving capitalist interests, while workers’ interests have been cast aside. While Canada is confronted with a looming Omicron wave, rapid tests could play a crucial role in public health, if Canadian governments would
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Deborah Gleeson discusses how inequality in vaccine availability is making new variants an inevitability, while Joseph Stiglitz and Lori Wallach write that an intellectual property waiver is a must to ensure vaccines are available around the globe. And Rachel Cohen warns that
Continue readingNorthern Currents : Reconciliation is a sham to our political leaders
Our political leaders have a deficient understanding of reconciliation. What they want to reconcile are the contradictory interests between Capital and Indigenous self-determination. Ultimately, our political leaders, embodied by the Canadian state, side with Capital. There is a much more radical, transformative understanding of reconciliation available.
Continue readingNorthern Currents : Should Leftists and Progressives trust Pfizer and Big Pharma?
The Left has always had a strong tradition of emphasizing the importance of science and empirical understanding of the world. Remember that foundational socialists such as Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Karl Marx, and Friedrich Engels considered their approach to economics as “scientific socialism.” Marx himself admired the scientific advances made possible by
Continue readingNorthern Currents : Wake up Sheeple! How covid conspiracists miss the biggest ‘conspiracy’ of all.
What strikes me the most about the claims made by this coalition of covid-conspiracists, including anti-vaccine adherents, is just how close some of them are to understanding what is really going on. Some of them are actually on the brink of grasping broader left-wing ideas of class dynamics in society. Capitalism
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content for your Friday reading. – Emma Buchanan writes about the restrictions on media access that have resulted in people being poorly informed about the damage done by COVID-19. Meredith Wadman reports on new research showing that the increased infectiousness of the Delta variant is the result of its
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Sarath Peiris discusses how Saskatchewan shouldn’t be anything but embarrassed by Scott Moe’s utter failure to look out for public health in the midst of a pandemic. And Theresa Kliem interviews Steven Lewis about the dire projections – even before the province made
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Monique Beals reports on Anthony Fauci’s recognition that attacks directed against him are based solely on denialists’ hostility toward the truth, while Mike Baker and Danielle Ivory discuss the U.S.’ public health crisis. And Zak Vescera examines why Saskatchewan’s vaccination rate is so
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Carrie Tait reports on the spate of readmissions of COVID-19 patients to Alberta hospitals, while Zak Vescera points out the large number of Saskatchewan diagnoses happening only in hospital as infected people fail to get tested until their symptoms are severe. And Arthur
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Doug Cuthand discusses how everybody is worse off as a result of the combination of government negligence and individual vaccine hesitancy. And Liam Harrap tells the story of a cancer patient struggling to get access to needed care due to the pandemic which
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Graham Thomson discusses how the UCP has put politics over public well-being in choosing to let COVID run rampant (while now seeking to fund-raise off of opposition to even the most basic measures to let people reduce their own risk). And Carrie
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Lynn Giesbrecht talks to Alexander Wong about the Moe government’s refusal to prepare for a fourth wave of COVID-19 that’s been readily obvious to anybody willing to pay attention. Ed Yong writes about the efforts of long-haul COVID patients to have policymakers acknowledge
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Crawford Kilian takes note of new research showing that the Delta variant of COVID-19 produces more severe outcomes (including increased hospitalization rates) even taking into account its increased transmissibility. And the New York Times looks into one example of the variant infecting students
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: On Puritan-Capitalism: Money As The Measure Of All Things
The mechanistic materialist world view, which the West, beginning with Europe, adopted a mere 400 years ago, and then exported through economic, financial, military and cultural colonialism and neocolonialism to the rest of the world, has been nothing short of a cultural, sociological, political, economic, ecological, spiritual, public health and
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Wolff on Generating Allies
Whenever I read or listen to Noam Chomsky or Chris Hedges talk about citizens changing the world like they did in the 30s, I get equally riled to action and then paralyzed by ignorance of how ever to begin. A recent discussion by Richard Wolff offers a bigger hint about
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Jennifer Lee reports on the debilitating lasting effects of long COVID. John Pavlovitz tells the story of his family’s experience suffering from COVID-19 after three of its four members were fully vaccinated. And Paul Taylor notes that people on immune-suppressing drugs may see
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Lauren Pelley surveys the latest on COVID-19 – including the reality that viral variants and different affected populations are resulting in it presenting with different symptoms than previously. Natalie Grover discusses how the Delta variant seems to be winning the race against vaccines
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Patricia Treble discusses how the rise of the Delta COVID-19 variant is making it vital to hit higher vaccine targets than previously set. And the Star’s editorial board argues that any responsible government should be laying out a plan to get children
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: The U.S. jerks capitalism’s leash
The United States is the world’s leading free market nation and it has always seemed to me that they take its basic principles very seriously. While greatly encouraging capitalism, they have understood that it isn’t the free market. Indeed, the two can be incompatible. Capitalism by its very nature ultimately
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