During this time of crisis, it is easy to forget other, equally vital issues and the fact that the problems we currently confront do not exist in isolation. Climate change and the myriad emergencies it has spawned are not going away. Two letters in the print edition of the Toronto
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Accidental Deliberations: Tuesday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Anton Jager and Steven Klein discuss how the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a particularly strong clash in rhetoric between people advocating for human lives and capital interests, while Siva Vaidhyanathan notes that the choice is a false one in any event
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Chomsky On The Coronavirus: Perspective Is Urgently Needed
Chomsky clarifies the situation with the coronavirus, saying: it’s serious enough, but it represents not even a fraction of the biggest dangers we are facing, which are nuclear war, global warming, and the rising plague of neoliberal fascism. (Exactly what I have been saying since January, and before.) He began
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Noam Scheiber, Nelson Schwartz and Tiffany Hsu point out how the social isolation required in response to COVID-19 is only confirming and exacerbating the U.S.’ class divide. And Shawn Micallef highlights the vast difference between social isolation in a large home as opposed
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – David Bush reminds us that the hoarders worth being concerned about are the ones accumulating obscene amounts of wealth at the expense of our society’s ability to provide everybody with the necessities of life. – Matthew Green makes the case that Canada’s
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Eric Doherty, and Eric Galbraith and Ross Otto, respectively write that the response to the coronavirus shows how it’s possible to imagine and implement needed changes along the lines of a Green New Deal. And Heather Mallick theorizes that it can also
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Frances Woolley points out how the coronavirus pandemic is exposing the effects of decades of austerity on Canada’s health care system. Martin Regg Cohn discusses how the spread of the coronavirus is requiring us to seriously rethink how much of our society
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: The Most Dangerous Epidemic Of All
Just over 100 deaths in the US from the coronavirus, and what is the government response? Fascist lockdown. The pattern is the same across the Western world, mirroring the police state which is China. Fascist lockdown. People are hysterical over a virus that kills fewer than bathtub drownings, motor
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: About That Other Crisis
As we remain fixated on the immediate, acute crisis that has engulfed the world, it is easy to lose sight of the other crisis that continues to engulf the world: Last year’s summer was so warm that it helped trigger the loss of 600bn tons of ice from Greenland –
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – David Roberts points out that the coronavirus has rendered it imperative to provide supports for people faced with circumstances beyond their control. And Tess Kalinowski and Laurie Monsebraaten report on the community service providers trying to ensure people’s basic needs are met in
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: A Larger Perspective
In these uncertain times, we are all seized by concerns about Corvid-19. The prospect of death invariably focuses the mind, especially in the short-term. Facilitated by fossil-fuel propaganda and an often uncritical media, it is unfortunately easy to lose sight of the bigger picture, one that we have been warned
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: The Central Challenge Of Our Time
What is the central challenge of our time? It is not what most people think it is. It is not race or gender, or climate change, or the environment broadly, or issues of war and peace, or poverty, or justice, or equality, or fighting terrorism, crime or violence, WMDs and
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: The Collapse of Modern Civilization
More than 150 years ago Thoreau commented, “Our sills are all rotten.” He was right. It is for that reason that Western, and Westernized, “modern” “civilization” is collapsing. This could be cataclysmic, of course, (as in, an ecological holocaust), or relatively peaceful, (akin to the Maya abandoning their great cities
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan write about the U.S.’ choice between health care for all, or the spread of disease as people can’t afford to seek medical treatment. – David Dayen highlights how the coronavirus is likely to expose the weaknesses of
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Nick Falvo points out the massive cost savings that come from investing in Housing First programming. And Keith Gerein writes that if it wanted to help people rather than merely looking to vilify those in need, the UCP would be investing in
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Robert Reich highlights how the long-term costs of failing to invest in a just transition and a healthy society far outweigh the short-term price of providing for basic needs, while Duncan Cameron calls out the deception behind claims that we can’t afford
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: A Missing Sense Of Urgency
After taking it out of the library twice, I have finally mustered the psychic strength to begin reading Bill McKibben’s Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out? A grim read, its central thesis is that things are very bad, but it is still not too late to
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Owen Jones asks why we’re not treating the existential threat of a climate breakdown with anything close to the urgency applied to the coronavirus response. And Niklas Höhne, Michel den Elzen, Joeri Rogelj, Bert Metz, Taryn Fransen, Takeshi Kuramochi, Anne Olhoff, Joseph Alcamo,
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: It Makes Perfect Sense
While many bemoan the fate of the Teck Resources Frontier tarsands project as yet another example of restrictive regulatory measures, others, as the following letter from the print edition of the Toronto Star suggests, say its death makes perfect corporate sense. Free market now realizes carbon reserves best left alone
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: Is Kenney Coming After Our Pensions?
Premier Jason Kenney, ardent free market conservative, has started sounding a little like Peter Lougheed, a former premier with more progressive conservative leanings. Indeed Lougheed was once labelled “Peter the Red” by B.C. Premier Dave Barrett after he bought Alberta an airline. Lougheed never hesitated to dive into socialism when
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