MexAmeriCanada doesn’t have to be our future. I think I’m guilty of being a bit slow and uncreative. The bogeyman of deep integration, North American Union, the United States-ification of Canada, the United States OF Canada, and Canada becoming states #51-60 plus three more protectorates is just too simplistic. We
Continue readingTag: Executive Overdrive
Politics, Re-Spun: MexAmeriCanada, Version 2013
Welcome to the United States of MexAmeriCanada. Represent! I was just thinking a few days ago how I haven’t used the MexAmeriCanada tag for a while. Did I cause this to happen, in some cosmic kind of way? In the old days it was Canadian Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Why Do They Want Us To Shut Up?
If we were harmless, the riot cops would stay home. It’s Friday. It’s been a long week. Like most weeks. We are taught to fit in and obey. We are told that individuality and the search for social justice will get us in trouble, either by government surveillance or social
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Class War: US$11.5 Trillion Hidden in Tax Havens
Which tax haven is right for you? Class war is alive and well. I have this rose-coloured, nostalgic dream of history. Once upon a time we emerged from feudalism with a democratic revolution. All were equal. Well, most. But the hope of democracy was to rid the world of the
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Why We Must #HonourTheApology to Residential School Survivors [#INM]
I don’t know why we still have to do this kind of thing, but here goes. The federal government “apologized” to survivors of residential schools 5 years ago. It is clearly quite empty, considering how much neglect, abuse, victimization and racism has spewed forth from Stephen Harper’s government since then.
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Canada’s Evolving Soft Fascism
Things are bad under Prime Minister Harper. They’re getting worse, even since the last time I wrote about Harper’s soft fascism. But how do we measure it? It’s so…subjective, unless you have some kind of benchmark for totalitarian political behaviour. Luckily we do, at least these three: This powerful graphic
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Fixing the BC NDP, 2013 Version
Can the BC NDP actually Think Forward? About 4 years ago, there was a movement within the BC NDP to make it more relevant. It was called Think Forward BC NDP. The party had just lost the election and there was some soul-searching about what went wrong and what was
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: We Failed Rwanda; Let’s Stand for the #Rohingya
Indonesia Muslim Rally It’s been almost 20 years since the Rwandan genocide. We were too stupid, callous, or indifferent to stop it, and Senator Dallaire has more than a few words on the topic. Granted, the WWW was just getting going in the early 1990s, so we didn’t have the
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Why Don’t People Respect Canada Anymore? Reason #766, Egypt
A huge crowd of protesters stretched along an avenue near the presidential palace in Cairo on Sunday evening If you ever wondered why Canada is losing international respect, here’s a shining example, #766 in fact. The “Harper Government” [sic] is fully addicted to neoliberal economic 1%-ism. Egypt, as we’ve seen
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: What Do We Do About Those Pesky, Apathetic Non-Voters?
I have heard lots of people blaming the following people for why we didn’t get a positive change in government in BC three weeks ago: apathetic, nihilistic young people apathetic people who don’t follow politics apathetic people who simply don’t vote bad people who generally don’t care about a better
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Free Speech and the Privatization of Public Space
Donald Smith was protesting a sign at Glenmore Landing in Calgary’s southwest Sunday that bans political demonstrations. [CBC] The privately owned parking lot near the prime minister’s constituency office asserts that protesting is prohibited. On the surface, this looks like the prime minister is impeding the constitutional rights of expression
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Is Christy Clark Lying to Us About the LNG Tax Windfall?
I don’t know. Do you? No. And, it seems, we won’t be permitted to determine if the BC Liberal government is lying to us about their future vision of rolling in billions in fresh new LNG tax money because the supporting reports won’t be released. So much for accountability and open
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Join Elizabeth May on Politics, Re-Spun Radio Tonight
If you care about Stephen Harper giving China a veto over our democracy for 31 years in the FIPA sellout, tune into Politics, Re-Spun radio on Coop Radio tonight at 6pm Vancouver time to listen to federal Green Party leader Elizabeth May tell us what kind of despotism Harper has in store for us all. […]
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: What Has Changed Since September 11, 2001?
What Has Changed Since September 11, 2001? W2 Media Cafe and Siraat invite you to a public forum on Monday, September 10, 2012, looking at Canada’s racist legacy, as we mark 11 years after the events of September 11, 2001. 7pm at 111 West Hastings Street, Vancouver. Invited Panellists: Kat
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Government and Human Wretchedness
What is government if not a living reminder of our human wretchedness, of the fall made secular, of the post-lapsarian world and the prison house of procedure and law that outlines and structures our existence? Our political institutions are decorated with the heritage of Christianity and Western civilization, and no
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Fixing Canada’s Democracy, Part 74 of 877
I spent 3 hours in the House of Commons from midnight to 3am this morning watching the contemptuous debauchery of the Conservative government squash democracy in ramming through Bill C-38. Several weeks ago I also spent some time in the BC legislature watching that version of embarrassing contempt. Beyond a
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: GroupThink ReSpun: On US Police Forces Operating in Canada
We have decided that “GroupThink ReSpun” will be the name of the process whereby various of the Politics, Re-Spun crew collaborate on editorializing about a current event. Enjoy the poetry of the term! So apparently, the RCMP wants to ease into allowing US agents to operate freely in Canada: http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/canada-politics/rcmp-ease-canadians-idea-u-agents-canada-201905380.html
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: How Dare You Drones Resist?!
It is truly stunning to see how the elites react when people dare speak out against “austerity” – that is, to squeeze even more profits out of workers, students, and citizens in general. Almost as appalling is the way that the corporate media (and often the CBC) follow the party
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Deconstructing the Wildrose Effect
So what happened in Alberta’s election yesterday, other than people telling pollsters that they want change, then chickening out when it came time to mark an X. The Politics, Re-spun crew deconstructs the Wildrose effect here: Are you surprised that the Wildrose Party did not win? No. Discontent polls well,
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Why I’m Voting for Nathan Cullen
Nathan Cullen has my vote. Let me begin by saying that we are at an historical moment in Canadian history. We are being besieged by an increasingly draconian corporatist, neo-conservative and neoliberal Conservative Party government which is far worse than Mulroney’s free trade corporatist “Progressive” Conservatives from a generation ago. This government is an
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