So, India is expanding its temper tantrum over Canada expressing concerns over the suspected role of the Modi government in the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar. To a certain extent, this is a “meh, so what?” kind of move, but on other fronts its more significant and an indicator of
Continue readingTag: foreign affairs
Alberta Politics: China’s spending money to undermine Canadian democracy? If they’ll just leave us alone, we’ll take care of it ourselves!
If the People’s Republic of China is trying as hard as the Conservative Party of Canada insists it is to undermine Canadian democracy, it’s hard to understand why they’re bothering. Retired Canadian national security advisor Wesley Wark (Photo: Centre for International Governance Innovation). After all, if they’ll just leave us
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Paul Taylor comments on the rifts in our social fabric which are being highlighted by COVID-19. And Graham Riches argues that the food banks which are being pushed to the limit by the pandemic would never have been necessary if our economy wasn’t
Continue readingAkaash Maharaj - Practical Idealism: The Arc of History – Podcast
All of us can wield a power that those who would divide us will never know: an ability to make common cause out of our common humanity and our common dignity, and a determination to join hands across the divisions that beset the human condition, to create a better world
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Do we need a Canadian version of the Logan Act to put a stop to dangerous freelance diplomacy?
Most observers of Canada-U.S. politics and the two countries’ unexpectedly fraught trade relationship would agree former prime minister Stephen Harper’s no-longer-secret visit to the White House on Tuesday is unlikely to do much good and has the potential to do harm. What Mr. Harper, now just another private citizen in
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading.
– Saqib Bhatti and Stephen Lerner point out that the struggle for power between labour and capital is far from over, and that the next step may be to engage on wider questions of economic control:
For too long most unions defined their mission narrowly as winning higher wages and benefits for unionized workers without challenging how companies were managed or how capital was invested and controlled. Unions accepted that it was management’s job to run companies and the broader economy, and that the unions’ primary job was to get as much as possible for their members.
This still dominates labor’s thinking: we focus on income inequality but not wealth inequality; we focus on how to raise the bottom, but not how to stop wealth from concentrating at the top; we deal with our direct employers, but not those who really control the broader socioeconomic conditions in which our members work and their families live.
We have bought into the notion that the boss is entitled to endless profits and should be allowed to have control of the business and the economy as long as our members win incremental improvements in every contract. But that bargain no longer works.
…
(U)nions don’t typically enter into negotiations with the investors. They deal with their direct employer, even though in many major companies investors, even the CEOs, are ultimately constrained by the pressures put on them by investors.Unions need to start looking to these actors higher up the food chain, to the people who control the money in the public sector as well as the private sector.
In the public sector, state and local officials accurately decry the fact that there is not enough money in public coffers to properly fund public services. However, the reason why there isn’t enough money is that corporations and the wealthy have waged a sustained war on taxes over the past forty years to avoid paying more.
Increasingly, these corporations are owned by Wall Street investors seeking to cut taxes in order to increase their return on investment. These wealthy few have a large part of their wealth tied up in the financial sector.
By trying to squeeze pennies out of public officials while letting the billionaires and bankers off the hook, public-sector unions are fighting with one hand tied behind their back.
– Gabriel Winant also offers a noteworthy look at the state of the U.S.’ labour movement. And Tom Parkin points out how a larger self-identified working class may be an increasingly important force in Canadian politics, while Sid Ryan comments on the state of the relationship between Canadian labour and the NDP.
– Mersiha Gadzo identifies plenty of the ways in which Justin Trudeau has combined a sunny disposition with the same dark actions we’d expect from the Harper Cons. But Nora Loreto argues that progressive activists will need to develop new strategies to address Trudeau rather than Harper.
– Finally, Sir Michael Marmot discusses the social causes of economic inequality, while pointing out the need to ensure a greater focus on all social determinants of health.
Continue readingAkaash Maharaj - Practical Idealism: Huffington Post: An Open Letter from the World’s MPs to David Cameron
The Panama Papers starkly revealed that Britain’s Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies have become the venues of choice for the anonymous corporations that facilitate tax evasion, organised crime, and terrorist financing. Indeed, more than half …
Continue readingAkaash Maharaj - Practical Idealism: An Open Letter from the World’s MPs to David Cameron
The Panama Papers starkly revealed that Britain’s Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies have become the venues of choice for the anonymous corporations that facilitate tax evasion, organised crime, and terrorist financing. Indeed, more than ha…
Continue readingThe Cracked Crystal Ball II: On Syria and Western Involvement
I will politely disagree with a couple of points at the end:
the U.S. is also undermining its own role and influence, not to mention the reputation of all those associated with its ramshackle coalition against IS.
US (and Western) credibility in the Middle East has been dubious to non-existent since Bush II decided to invade both Afghanistan and then Iraq. Our own country’s decade of “loudspeaker support for Israel” wasn’t exactly helpful either. Fundamentally Western interventions in the region have repeatedly created the adversaries we find ourselves facing a decade later. In Afghanistan during the 1980s, western powers funded the Mujahideen, which ultimately gave rise to the Taliban and then al Qaeda. The shadows of war in Iraq (in particular), the unwillingness to call out Israel’s use of white phosphorous against the Palestinians, and the heavy-handed way the Americans conducted themselves in both Iraq and Afghanistan gave rise to ISIS.
The second point that the article alludes to, but quietly sidesteps is the reality that Russia in general has long standing social, cultural and economic ties with the Persian Gulf region in particular, and the Middle East in general. Russia has always been a more natural ally for the Arab states than the western european powers. There are long (as in centuries old) standing ties and connections at all levels. I might personally think Putin is a rather nasty piece of work, but in terms of credibility and understanding of the region, Russia has long had a far more subtle, nuanced understanding than Western powers.
Putin will be a pain to deal with, but in some ways, Russian leadership represents the bridge between western interests and Arab interests from a diplomatic perspective. Russia has strong cross-cultural connections with both regions. It is perhaps time to work with Russia, and use that to develop a trade-centred approach to the region instead of trying to intervene militarily in the geopolitical mess.
The Cracked Crystal Ball II: On Syria and Western Involvement
In response to the following editorial on the mess that is Syria: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/by-giving-up-on-syria-us-hands-kingmaker-role-to-putin/article28747502/ I wrote the following: I will politely disagree with a couple of points at the end: the U.S. is also undermining its own role and influence, not to mention the reputation of all those associated with its
Continue readingThe Cracked Crystal Ball II: On Syria and Western Involvement
In response to the following editorial on the mess that is Syria: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/by-giving-up-on-syria-us-hands-kingmaker-role-to-putin/article28747502/I wrote the following:I will politely disagree with a couple of points at th…
Continue readingAkaash Maharaj - Practical Idealism: National Post: NATO and the Judgement of Paris
The lessons of Afghanistan were purchased at a bitter cost: the war claimed more lives, more years, and more money than any other campaign in NATO’s history. Unless the alliance takes those lessons to heart, a war in Syria and Iraq to extinguish D…
Continue readingAkaash Maharaj - Practical Idealism: Fellowship of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society
My high school geography teachers would be baffled, but I am deeply honoured to have been elected a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. The Fellowship includes many of Canada’s most intrepid explorers, who have sledded across arctic t…
Continue readingAkaash Maharaj - Practical Idealism: Addressing the NATO Parliamentary Assembly
Being at the table during deliberations on war, peace, and the fate of nations was an extraordinary experience. I remember seeing the Berlin Wall fall, and hoping that the age of global warfare might be over. That moment now feels far away. We are clearly facing terrible risks, and it
Continue readingAkaash Maharaj - Practical Idealism: Akaash Maharaj – Huffington Post: Addressing the United Nations
Political corruption kills more people than war and famine combined. I addressed the United Nations on how the international community can and must act to bring kleptocrats to justice.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Rosemary Barton discusses why it’s in Canada’s best interest on the global stage to work on building strong multilateral institutions (including the UN) rather than counting on bluster to make a difference. But Gus van Harten notes that we’re instead signing onto
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Assorted content to start your week. – Robert Reich writes that the most important source of growing inequality in the U.S. is a political system torqued to further enrich those who already had the most: The underlying problem, then, is not just globalization and technological changes that have made most
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Jennifer Wells writes about the drastic difference in pay between CEOs and everybody else. And Henry Farrell interviews Lauren Rivera about the advantage privileged children have in being able to rely on parents’ social networks and funding rather than needing to learn
Continue readingAkaash Maharaj - Practical Idealism: Addressing the United Nations – Akaash Maharaj Podcast
Addressing the United Nations was one of the more intimidating experiences of my life. I spoke on behalf of GOPAC’s global alliance of parliamentarians, on our work to bring kleptocrats to justice.
Continue readingAkaash Maharaj - Practical Idealism: Addressing the United Nations – Akaash Maharaj Podcast
Addressing the United Nations was one of the more intimidating experiences of my life. I spoke on behalf of GOPAC’s global alliance of parliamentarians, on our work to bring kleptocrats to justice.
Continue reading