This and that for your Sunday reading. – Andrew Jackson writes that the Libs’ fall economic statement represents a massive (and unjustified) shift away from promised infrastructure funding even while planning to privatize both existing operations and future developments. And Joie Warnock highlights why it would represent nothing short of
Continue readingTag: human rights
The Canadian Progressive: Halloween costume ideas for Canadian digital rights activists
You’re a digital rights activists and are struggling to pick the right Halloween costume? Dave Maass, an investigative researcher with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, suggests facial recognition paint, stingrays, privacy badger, patent troll, and certbot. A Guy Fawkes mask would do too. The post Halloween costume ideas for Canadian digital
Continue readingwmtc: what i’m reading: the underground railroad by colson whitehead
Colson Whitehead is a literary genius. In The Underground Railroad, he has found a way to tell the story of 400-plus years of African-American oppression without delivering an awkward march through history, and without using characters as billboards for ideas. Instead of linear time, Whitehead employs a geography of time:
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Scott Sinclair and Stuart Trew applaud Wallonia’s principled stance against the CETA. And Joseph Stiglitz discusses the need to set up social and economic systems which actually serve the public good, rather than favouring corporate interests: Where the trade agreements failed, it was
Continue readingDented Blue Mercedes: Free speech, and the cruel shackles of empathy and mutual respect
In Canada, we tend to value freedom of speech very highly, and it’s often said that the best way to counter objectionable speech is with more speech. That’s the first thought that crosses my mind in the case of U of T professor Jordan Peterson, who declares in a series
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Owen Jones highlights the toxic stress and other health problems borne disproportionately by members of the LGBT community who face systematic discrimination. And Tayla Smith and Jaitra Sathyandran discuss how temporary foreign workers (and others facing precarious work situations) tend to suffer
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: Canada, a welcoming country? The unaddressed issue of labour trafficking
The unaddressed issue of labour trafficking tarnishes Canada’s image as a compassionate and welcoming country. Temporary foreign worker programmes allow employers to violate migrant workers’ rights. The post Canada, a welcoming country? The unaddressed issue of labour trafficking appeared first on The Canadian Progressive.
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: David Suzuki: Confronting the crisis of violence against Indigenous women and girls in Canada
David Suzuki on the crisis of violence against Indigenous women and girls in Canada, and the “hard work and leadership of Indigenous women and communities who have spent decades calling for an inquiry.” The post David Suzuki: Confronting the crisis of violence against Indigenous women and girls in Canada appeared
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Water isn’t a human right in Canada, but it should be
Photo by Daniel Zimmermann In recent months, there has been a brewing controversy over the use, ownership, and commodification of important natural resources like fresh and clean drinking water. And rightfully so, because while Canada has high amounts of fresh water in global terms, the reality of water insecurity is
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Sunday reading.
– Christopher Ingraham points out that while many luxuries are getting cheaper with time, the necessities of life are becoming much more difficult to afford:
Many manufactured goods — like TVs and appliances — come from overseas, where labor costs are cheaper. “International, global competition lowers prices directly from lower-cost imported goods, and indirectly by forcing U.S. manufacturers to behave more competitively, with lower prices, higher quality, better service, et cetera,” Perry said.
On the flip side, things like education and medical care can’t be produced in a factory, so those pressures do not apply. Compounding it, many Americans are insulated from the full costs of these services. Private and public insurance companies pay most medical costs, so there tends to be little incentive for individuals to shop around for cheaper medical care.In the case of higher education, the nation’s massive student loan industry bears much of the upfront burden of rising prices. To the typical 18-year-old, a $120,000 tuition bill may seem like an abstraction when you don’t have to start paying it off until your mid-20s or later. As a result, the nation’s college students and graduates now collectively owe upward of $1.3 trillion in student loan debt.
“Prices rise when [health care and college] markets are not competitive and not exposed to global competition,” Perry said, “and prices rise when easy credit is available.”
Hence, our current predicament. We can afford the things we don’t need, but we need the things we can’t afford.
– Alex Usher notes how one of the same cost pressures applies in Canada, as universities losing public funding are squeezing students for massive tuition increases. And Lindsay Kines reports that the Clark government’s decision to make life less affordable for people with disabilities in British Columbia has led to 3,500 people giving up their transit passes.
– Natalia Khosla and Sean McElwee discuss the difficulty in addressing racism when many people live in denial of their continued privilege.
– Paul Wells comments on SNC Lavalin’s long track record of illegal corporate donations to the Libs and the Cons.
– Finally, Gerry Caplan points out how Justin Trudeau is dodging key human rights questions. And Mike Blanchfield reports that the Libs’ willingness to undermine a treaty prohibiting the use of cluster bombs represents just another area where they’re leaving the Cons’ most harmful policies untouched.
Continue readingcentre of the universe: Freedom’s Just Another Word
Over the past couple of weeks, you’ve been either lauding or vilifying this guy who plays sportsball in the US because he opted to sit out the national anthem in protest of racism, race-based violence, and inequity. You got *really mad* at him, and said he shouldn’t be allowed to
Continue readingcentre of the universe: Bikini, Burkini – Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off
– initially entered as a series of ranty comments on an effbook post – I don’t care WHAT your religion is, or isn’t – no government has the right to tell anybody how to dress. So the government of France doesn’t have any more right to tell people what they
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading.- James Stewart examines how Donald Trump could be paying zero taxes using shelters designed specifically to enrich real estate developers while serving no social purpose. And Alexandra Thornton and Brendan Duke po…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week.- Thomas Walkom writes that with both major U.S. presidential candidates taking an understandably skeptical view of free-trade agreements in their current form, Canada shouldn’t be planning on the past trade mo…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading.- Stephen Hawking discusses the crucial distinction between seeing money as a means of pursuing worthy ends versus treating it a goal in and of itself – and notes that we should be wary of political choices bas…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week.- Bjarke Skærlund Risager interviews David Harvey about the history and effect of neoliberalism: I’ve always treated neoliberalism as a political project carried out by the corporate capitalist class as they felt i…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading.- David Dayen highlights the treatment of workers as the most fundamental difference between Scandinavian countries which have achieved both prosperity and social justice, and the U.S. and others which have sacrif…
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: PEN Canada Surveillance Survey is Now Live
Photo by steve p2008
Contribute to PEN Canada’s study on the impact of surveillance on writers here.
How does surveillance impact your work?
PEN Canada has joined Canadian Association of Journalists (CAJ…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week.- Jim Tankersley interviews Joshua Bivens about the relative effects of economic growth and income inequality – and particularly his evidence showing that more people are far better off with more modest growth fairly d…
Continue readingwmtc: the greatest, forever. rest in power muhammad ali.
Revolutionary thought of the day, from a revolutionary American.Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go ten thousand miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated …
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