This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Kevin Carson discusses David Graeber’s insight into how privatization and deregulation in their present form represent the ultimate use of state power to serve special interests at the expense of the public: What mainstream American political discourse calls “deregulation” is nothing of
Continue readingTag: corporatism
Accidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Simon Wren-Lewis connects the UK’s counterproductive austerity program to the lack of any wage growth. And Gary Lamphier observes that Alberta is serving as a case in point that jobs generated through public policy rigged in favour of the wealthy are no
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: About that "Of the People, By the People, For the People" Business? Forget About It.
Proof positive that America is a corporatist state saddled with a “bought and paid for” Congress. The big US banks have given the Democrats an ultimatum – silence progressives like Elizabeth Warren or we’ll cut off our funding. Salon.com calls it “Wall Street’s political shakedown.“ If ever you doubted that our
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: A seat at the table
Richard Trumka’s address and the subsequent response panel at the Progress Summit have aptly addressed issues in trying to strengthen the grassroots of the labour movement. But Trumka’s focus on trade agreements also raises a related question which may not easily be dealt with at the grassroots level. As I
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Dennis Howlett reminds us that we can raise enough money to strengthen our social safety net merely by ensuring that a relatively small group of privileged people pays its fair share. And Seth Stephens-Davidowitz examines the glaring nepotism which festers in the absence
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Michael Babad writes that we should be glad to see jobs being created in the public sector since the private sector is doing nothing to offer opportunities for Canadians. And Andrew Jackson discusses how Quebec’s progressive economic model has served it well, while
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: The Three Eras of Canada’s Democracy or How We Got to Where We Are Today.
I first voted in the 60s and I’ve watched Canadian democracy evolve, not always in a good way, ever since. I’ve witnessed three political eras in my lifetime. There was an era of rights and freedoms, the years of Diefenbaker, Pearson and Trudeau. Some might not realize it but Diefenbaker
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, on the need and opportunity to show some vision in our provincial budgeting and planning – even if the Wall government has no interest in bothering. For further reading…– I posted previously on the Sask Party’s habit of locking Saskatchewan into ill-advised long-term contracts which serve nobody’s interests but
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Harvey Kaye discusses how the rich’s class warfare against everybody else has warped the U.S. politically and economically. And PressProgress observes that the Cons’ reactionary politics have produced miserable results for Canadian workers. – Which isn’t to say the Cons plan to
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Jon Talton discusses how the increased automation of our economy stands to disempower workers and exacerbate inequality if it’s not combined with some serious countervailing public policy moves. Peter Gosselin and Jennifer Oldham comment on the broken link between productivity and wages. And
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – For those looking for information about today’s day of action against C-51, Leadnow and Rabble both have details. – Meanwhile, CBC reports that a professor merely taking pictures on public land near a proposed Kinder Morgan pipeline site is already being harassed by
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Following up on last week’s column, Frances Ryan laments the UK Conservatives’ choice to inflict needless suffering on anybody receiving public benefits: During seven weeks of undercover work at a universal credit contact centre in Bolton, Channel 4 journalists witnessed a farcical
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On unwanted obligations
Mike McKinnon reports that austerity elsewhere isn’t being applied to continued seven-figure spending on a Lean tour. But it’s particularly worth noting how that particular money pit is still drawing Saskatchewan citizens’ money even as the provincial government cries poor at every other opportunity: The Saskatchewan government’s freeze on non-essential
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Emily Badger discusses Robert Putnam’s work on the many facets of increasing inequality in the U.S.: For the past three years, Putnam has been nursing an outlandish ambition. He wants inequality of opportunity for kids to be the central issue in the 2016
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Robert Reich discusses how outsized corporate influence in the U.S. has kept the general public from sharing in any nominal economic improvements: The U.S. economy is picking up steam but most Americans aren’t feeling it. By contrast, most European economies are still in
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Carol Graham discusses the high financial and personal costs of poverty: Reported stress levels are higher on average in the U.S. than in Latin America. Importantly, the gap between the levels of the rich and poor is also much greater, with the
Continue readingCowichan Conversations: Pilger: Why the Rise of Fascism is Again the Issue
Richard Hughes- Political Blogger John Pilger’s thorough examination of fascism from the German Nazis Holocaust through to the US led attacks on Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Kosovo,Vietnam, and the sorry list goes on. Read about President Obama’s Tuesday ‘CIA’ kill list, the tie in with the evolution of US backed radical
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Bryce Covert weighs in on the IMF’s latest study showing a connection between stronger trade unions and greater income equality: While it can be hard to say for sure whether the decline in unionization is a direct cause of growing income inequality, they
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson link inequality and climate change as massive problems which are generated by political choices (and thus amenable to correction through the political system): Rising inequality is no more natural than global warming. And just as with global
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Nora Loreto rightly challenges the instinct to respond to tragedy with blame in the name of “responsibility”, rather than compassion in the interest of making matters better: Blame is the projection of grief, sadness or fear. It is the projection of our
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