This and that for your Sunday reading. – Jim Stanford responds to the claim that we should be eager to import whatever capital we can for lack of other means of developing our own resources: Measured by foreign direct investment, Canada has been exporting capital, not importing it. During the
Continue readingTag: heather mallick
Politics and its Discontents: Heather Mallick On Alberta and Tory Hysteria
Given its abundance of tar, I’m betting that some Harperites, along with a generous helping of Albertans (often one and the same) would like to apply a liberal dose of bitumen and feathers to columnist Heather Mallick in light of her column today. Enti…
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Heather Mallick On The Insidious Nature Of Poverty
The older I get, the less patience I have with government that preaches an austerity that has a disproportionate impact on the poor. Of the right-wing rhetoric and mythology that all one has to do is to work hard to succeed, so evident in last week’s Republican convention, I have
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: More Ridicule for a Gun-Loving Cop
In many ways, as the cliche goes, laughter is the best medicine. I often think that within the media and the blogosphere, far too much serious attention is paid to the most outrageous people, whose utterances are so preposterous that they probably should be ignored or justifiably ridiculed. After all,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – The presidents of Canada’s provincial Federations of Labour highlight how the provinces need to respond to the Harper Cons’ efforts to push down wages and trample on workers’ rightst: Canadians need our country’s premiers to denounce this low-wage agenda and stand up for
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Sid Ryan rightly criticizes Tim Hudak’s anti-labour plans as a push toward poverty rather than prosperity. – Via Climate Progress, Steven Mufson reports on the causes of Enbridge’s Michigan oil spill – with Enbridge’s complete failure to repair known defects over a period
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – Janet Bagnall neatly dissects the Cons’ plan for dismantling public services: The Harper government is nothing if not predictable in how it goes about dismantling a program or service. It starts by denigrating the program and the program’s beneficiaries, and telling Canadians that
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Is This Really Negotiating?
While I have sometimes been critical of my former union, The Ontario Secondary Teachers Federation, both in this blog and my other one, I have always been a supporter and advocate of unions. I was particularly surprised and pleased that yesterday, in contrast to the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Dr. Dawg highlights Peter Russell’s take on the Cons’ 2008 efforts to prevent a Parliamentary majority from actually exercising its right to vote down a government which had lost the confidence of the House of Commons. And Steven Chase follows up by
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Robert Cross and Glen McGregor point out how “Pierre Poutine” covered his tracks in the course of sending out fraudulent robocalls to direct voters away from the correct polls. And it’s particularly worth noting how blatantly the entire scheme was planned to conceal
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Are Police Too Sensitive Or Simply Arrogant?
For some time now I have been closely following abuses of power, with special interest in instances involving our politicians and our police. Because both groups wield so much power, I believe that they need to be held to a very high stand which, unfortunately, they often fail to achieve.
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: What Did You Expect?
Our capacity as a species for delusional thinking and rationalization seems to have few limits, our sad record on climate change and our cheering on of oppressive and anti-democratic government measures when our convenience is at stake but two examples. In today’s Star, Heather Mallick, with whom I frequently lose
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Heather Mallick on Vic Toews
Heather Mallick offers an entertaining yet perceptive analysis of the Twitter woes afflicting the man who would be our Lord and Master in today’s Star that is well-worth reading. Her opening reads thus: As Public Safety Minister Vic Toews demands an investigation into how the story of his alleged infidelities,
Continue readingDavid Climenhaga's Alberta Diary: Conservative MP Brent Rathgeber on the long-gun registry: welfare state social engineering, or what?
Edmonton-St. Albert MP Brent Rathgeber, in naval costume, gets off some potshots with a Glock, or something. Below: Another shot Brent in a military getup. Note the flag, I swear I dragged this photo straight off his website without even passing it through Photoshop! Remember guys, when you’re looking down
Continue readingLaw is Cool: Islamophobia in Canada: A Primer
by Fathima Cader and Sumayya Kassamali Ten years after September 11, 2001, the term “Islamophobia,” once largely obscure, has become all but inevitable when discussing contemporary politics. As Al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden became household names, Western fear of the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims has also grown. Canada has been
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: A Man Is Not A Piece of Fruit
“I put 34 years into this firm, Howard, and now I can’t pay my insurance. You can’t eat an orange and then throw the peel away – a man is not a piece of fruit” – Willie Loman in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. In the play, Willy Loman
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Reasons To Occupy Toronto
There are many Canadians, most prominently Prime Minister Harper, who dismiss the Occupy Movement as having little or no relevance for Canadians. In a column specifically directed toward the young, but of significance to all progressives, The Star’s H…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading.
– Heather Mallick highlights the dangers of the permanent unemployment which regressive politicians around the globe are so vociferously demanding in the guise of austerity:
As we fend off a double-dip recessio…