H/t Occupy Canada “You can’t control people by force anymore, but you can get them to focus on nothing but maxing out five credit cards, okay you got them.” H/t Noam Chomsky Recommend this Post
Continue readingTag: corporate agenda
Politics and its Discontents: A Christmas Thought
While I was not going to post anything today, I offer the following brief thought: During this season and throughout 2014, may our hearts be attuned to those who can inspire us rather than to those who seek to manipulate and subjugate. May we begin to rediscover, as our greatest
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: The covert, corporate attacks against Canada’s healthcare system
Opponents of equitable, universal healthcare are using a corporate “communications” strategy known as Fear Uncertainty Doubt (FUD) to smear Canada’s “signature” social program, Medicare. The post The covert, corporate attacks against Canada’s healthcare system appeared first on The Canadian Progressive.
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: A Rare Moment of Praise For The U.S.
Despite being deeply cynical about Amercian poltics in general, and Barack Obama in particular, a rare opportunity to praise both has just arisen. Although relatively modest in scope, in response to the terriblly unsafe working conditions in Bangladesh that have cost so many workers their lives and maimed countless others,
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: I’m Sure It Is Just A Coincidence …
…but if I were paranoid, I might see a connection between this and this. Recommend this Post
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Why Mandela Is So Important
Although I have only made reference to him three other times in this blog, Nelson Mandela is a person who I revere like no other. And of course, I am hardly alone in that sentiment, attested to by the fact that millions of people, not only in South Africa but
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: A Message from Noam Chomsky
As usual, Noam Chomsky addresses issues whose existence others refuse to acknowledge. Recommend this Post
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Reflections from Cuba – Ebooks and Libraries
I wrote the following on January 14, while vacationing in Cuba: While I consider myself to be a cynical man, one deeply suspicious of the corporate agenda, my wife, a woman of sunnier disposition, recently suggested something that shocked even me. We were reading poolside in Cuba, me with an
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: What Fools These Mortals Be
The title of this post, taken from Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, hardly qualifies as a startling insight. Nonetheless, after reading two columns in this morning’s Star, I couldn’t help but reflect on the mass of contradictions that we are. It has likely always been thus, but stands in especially sharp
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Another Insight From A Star Reader
Whenever I fall into the trap of thinking that the Canadian public is indifferent to the things that are going on both within our own country and abroad, I turn to the letters section of The Toronto Star. Admittedly, the majority of the sentiments expr…
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: A Labour Day Reminder
On this Labour Day, as we reflect on the current dire situation facing many in the workforce, it might be useful to spend a little time with this video in which Allan Greg Gregg talks to journalist Chris Hedges about his book, The Death of the Liberal Class, which exams
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Chris Hedges On The Perversion Of Scholarship
One of my favorite writers, Chris hedges, continues to do via alternative news what is so rare today in the mainstream media: challenge the status quo. His latest salvo is against the tyranny of conformity endemic in post-secondary institutions which, he posits, are no longer places where one goes to
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Foolish Humans, Kneel Before Me!
Perhaps my sense of human is on the wane, but if you really think about it, the implications of this story are deeply disturbing. Recommend this Post
Continue readingElectro-Motive: Foreign corporation takes Canadian tax dollars, fucks over Canadian workers | #cdnpoli
… while Harper’s thumb stays firmly planted up his ass. Montreal Simon and Owen Gray have already flagged this, so I can’t really add much. But hey, I could be wrong, so please — let me know if I’ve left anything out. Related posts: Liberals, NDP, whoever. I don’t care
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: The Power of the Documentary
Although traditionally avoided as a rather staid and boring genre, the documentary has enjoyed a real resurgence in popularity over the past couple of decades, no doubt in part do to the important and provocative work by people such as Errol Morris, Michael Moore, and Velcro Ripper. A good documentary,
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: This Is What Revolution Looks Like
That is the title of Chris Hedges’ latest column on truthdig.org. Despite the attempts to dismantle the Occupy encampments, attempts that seem eerily coordinated, Hedges suggests that this is only the end of the first stage of a revolution by people who have seen the truth and refuse to go
Continue reading350 or bust: The Occupy Movement: A Puny Little “Ant” That’s Messing With The Corporations’ Way Of Life
“You let one ant stand up to us, then they ALL might stand up to us. Those puny little ants outnumber us a hundred to one. And if they ever figure that out, there goes our way of life.” ****** Rabble.ca: Occupy Canada Weekly News
Continue reading350 or bust: David Suzuki On Occupy Movement: The Future Of Young People Is Being Sacrificed To Corporate Agenda
David Suzuki was interviewed at the Occupy Montreal event last Saturday: “We’ve got to take back our country, and take back our democracy..Stop serving the corporate agenda. It seems that money is everything that determines what our priorit…
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Tim Harper on the One-Year Anniversary of U.S. Steel’s Hamilton Lock-out
We are approaching the one-year anniversary of U.S. Steel’s lockout of the workers from its Hamilton plant; the lockout would seem to be in contravention of the guarantees that the company undertook when seeking approval from the Harper government for …
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: The Guardian Writes About The Occupy Wall Street Movement
For those interested, there is a thoughtful article on the implications of the Occupy Wall Street Protest found, not in an American newspaper, but in The Guardian. Entitled Occupy Wall Street rediscovers the radical imagination, it provides both the c…
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