So I’ve just turned 45. What a sweet age! Instead of asking people to only bring a quirky 45rpm record to my party next month, I’d rather give people an opportunity to donate money to the Canadian Red Cross for Haitian earthquake relief. As many of you know, the case
Continue readingTag: Class War
Dead Wild Roses: The Making of the American 99% – Barbara Ehrenreich and John Ehrenreich Barbara Ehrenreich and John Ehrenreich
Valuable insight from Barbara and John Ehrenreich about the OWS movement, class and popular misconceptions propagated by the Right. The “other men” (and of course women) in the current American class alignment are those in the top 1 per cent of the wealth distribution – the bankers, hedge-fund managers and
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Occupy #Attawapiskat, Phase Two
Clearly, the people living in Attawapiskat are existing in a crisis that represents Canada’s dysfunctional relationship with the first peoples. How can we truly “fix” Attawapiskat? By fixing the underlying broken relationship. Occupying #Attawapiskat in Twitter two weeks ago was a great start to engaging in serious improvements. Phase two
Continue readingthe woodshed: Another casualty in the war on the poor
I’m sure the message many of the one percent will draw from this is that handguns are too inexpensive. Tweet The Rev. Paperboy Feed
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Let’s Occupy #Attawapiskat in Twitter on December 7
I wrote a piece the other day on Attawapiskat, and how it enrages me. Not just the case in those communities, but how it’s representative of Canada’s largely racist relationship with first nations and, frankly, all “disposable” people. This, by the way, is an amazing piece with essential information about
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Oh, Canada? Our Home and Racist Land
Canadians’ racist neglect of our first people’s seems unshakable. We had Davis Inlet, and we didn’t wake up to any systemic problems. That was just a one off? And now Attawapiskat? Perhaps it was just a tragedy of homelessness that happened in the last few weeks, so we couldn’t expect
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Fixing Vision Vancouver’s Democratic Deficit
Now that Vision Vancouver has self-actualized as a political party, it’s time to see if they’ll now address some longstanding democratic deficits. The complexion of the city changed markedly last night as Vision elected all its candidates, the Greens got a seat on council, the NPA increased its representation and
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Liveblog – BC Civic Election Returms
BC Civic Election Returns Share the Love: Twitter del.icio.us email RSS Facebook Google Bookmarks Digg LinkedIn StumbleUpon Technorati Yahoo! Buzz No Related Posts
Continue readingNGDP targeting: wither monetarism?
Monetarism is like a Zombie: it can be found theoretically wanting, empirically false and technically infeasible but in one form or another it just soldiers on. In some ways the hype surrounding the conversation about the possibility of moving from … Continue reading →
Continue readingStimulative austerity bearing fruit in Britain? Not. Nor globally
George Osborne was quick out of the gates with the austerity as stimulus gambit. Which as everybody from myself to Paul Krugman predicted was going to be a flop. Osborne has been trying to save face by arguing that his … Continue reading →
Continue readingGangster Capitalism: Same as it ever was?
If you are going to read one thing and just one thing on the financial crisis and how it is working itself out you need to read this blog post at naked capitalism: the one stop shop for understanding contemporary … Continue reading →
Continue readingReturns to education: from a sure thing to a trip to vegas
Paul Krugman has pointed out, here and here that the meme that most of the inequality we have been experiencing of late has much to do with differences in educational attainment is bogus. Mankiw responds in typical fashion by changing … Continu…
Continue readingRepublican attack on collective bargaining halted
There is a certain paradox in what just happened in Ohio. Thanks to the provision in some states for direct democracy as opposed to a singular reliance on representative democracy a Republican law that would have in all but name … Continue read…
Continue readingthe woodshed: Things go better with Koch!
The Koch brothers (not exactly as pictured above) would like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony, or at least the world’s billionaires anyway. Unfortunately, the song they want to teach them appears to be the Horst Wessel Song. Class wa…
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Occupy the Church, Occupy Together
Christians. Church. God. Jesus. Occupy. What do these words mean to you? For many, the connotations are negative. Personal experiences with judgemental, rigid, frozen people who identify themselves as Christians have left a bitter taste in their mouths. Memories of being harangued, condescended to and lectured linger long after their encounter. Media and political examples […]
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Why I Am Going to Attend Occupy Vancouver
I am white, middle class, educated and, by all accounts, an extremely fortunate woman. I live in Canada where my parents’ (sometimes life-threatening) health issues are covered by a provincial medical plan. My water and air are clean, and food is plentiful. My husband and I are employed. I am not desperate, but I am […]
Continue readingHow to read economic language for bias: “wage inflation” in Newfoundland and Labrador
Sometimes we read things and we get that gut feeling that we are being subtly manipulated. Economics is of course full of this subtle manipulation. Words like “choice”, and “efficiency” and even phrases like “free trad…
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: CTV Spins the Daily Show for Tarsands and Farmed Fish
I finally got around to watching the Labour Day episode of the Daily Show, a repeat from August 18, 2011. Its first segment was about Warren Buffett’s New York Times editorial about why the rich should be paying more in taxes. But CTV chose to air two commercials directly before the Daily Show: pure spin […]
Continue readingThe irony of greed: The end game for Neoliberalism?
The global economy is in the toilet and the Boomers’ representatives are chanting: “flush, flush, flush.” Me? I am eating cigarettes and wine while admiring the remarkable consistency in the myopia of all of it. In the name of fisca…
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Politics, Re-Spun on Coop Radio, September 5, 2011
Spending Labour Day with Imtiaz Popat on “The Rational” on Vancouver’s COOP Radio, talking about Christy Clark’s revocation of a pre-2013 election date [coup, not really a premier, perhaps a “notional premier”], the end of the HST, the BCTF negotiations and how the courts noted how the government yanked almost $3 billion from BC’s K-12 […]
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