This and that for your Thursday reading. – Tom Kibasi examines how the UK Cons’ mismanagement – both before and during the COVID-19 pandemic – has resulted in disastrous public health consequences. And Denna Berg and Karin Taylor find that right-wing governments in general have seen far worse outcomes than
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somecanuckchick dot com: “Take Canada Back” ?!?!?
“Take Canada Back” to when/what/where, etc., exactly?!? ICYMI Erin O’Toole is the newly-minted leader of the Conservative Party of Canada. Erin O’Toole ran on a leadership campaign platform that courted nationalists and populists, AKA hate/fear-mongering, racist, xenophobic, anti-Semitic, etc. pieces of garbage. Erin O’Toole’s leadership campaign slogan? “Take Canada Back”.
Continue readingIn-Sights: Self-interest or public interest?
People promoting continuation of “energy self-sufficiency” are really saying that British Columbia should continue giving a unique and costly advantage to one particular industry, a sector that has grown used to taking in close to a billion dollars a year in above-market payments…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Scott Gilmore wonders whether we’ll use the lessons of COVID-19 to set up our own “tsunami stones” to prevent future crises. But Tom McCarthy notes that the U.S. – thanks largely to an administration that has gone out of its way to avoid
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On Learning History
I made a little history quiz, just for fun, for people to see how much they know about Canada’s history of horrific treatment of Indigenous Peoples as well as our history of slavery and internment camps. I mixed in facts about America at many points just to give people context. Because
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Ari Rabin-Havt argues that any available means of treating COVID-19 need to be viewed as public goods to be made available to all, rather than windfalls for big pharma based on its ability to control supplies and prices. – The Guardian’s editorial board
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Eriel Tchekwie Deranger and El Jones on #CancelCanadaDay
Migrants Rights Network hosted an online teach-in for “so called Canada Day” with two revolutionaries: Eriel Tchekwie Deranger, a Dënesųłiné (ts’ékui) member of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, and Executive Director of Indigenous Climate Action, from Treaty 8 land, and El Jones, a spoken word poet, educator, journalist, co-founder of the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Evening Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Sarah Hansen reports on new research showing that the U.S. could save 5% of its GDP merely by imposing a mask mandate during the coronavirus pandemic. (And it’s particularly worth noting how that economic impact from a single, simple step to improve public
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Mark Smolinski writes that wearing a mask to limit the spread of COVID-19 is best characterized as a sign of mutual respect. (But sadly, that goes a long way toward explaining the anti-mask movement among adherents to political movements built on exclusion and
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On Policing: Time for Change
In 1982, Milton Friedman advised, “Keep options open until circumstances make change necessary. There is enormous inertia–a tyranny of the status quo–in private and especially governmental arrangements. Only a crisis–actual or perceived–produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Afternoon Links
Assorted content to start your week. – Jonathan Watts reports on new research showing that even existing worst-case scenarios may underestimate the severity of the climate crisis. Anna Kanduth and Justin Leroux write about the need to start developing policy based on carbon stocks or budgets, rather than single-year flows
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Aaron Wherry discusses the dramatically different effects of the COVID-19 pandemic based on inequalities in income and privilege. And Katherine Scott draws on Canada’s most recent monthly jobs report to highlight the need for a recovery centered on women. – Meanwhile, Heather Scoffield
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Brink Lindsey discusses what the coronavirus pandemic has revealed about the failings of both libertarian philosophy, and the public sector apparatus left after decades of neoliberal neglect. – Paul Krugman writes that the U.S. is failing the marshmallow test when it comes to
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – George Monbiot opines that the UK has ceased to be a functioning democracy as unelected people exercise unchecked power. And Bruce Livesey wonders whether the U.S. is tearing itself apart as the racial divisions used to undermine class cohesion become untenable, while Rebecca
Continue readingIn-Sights: We tolerate our own racism too easily
Vancouver witnessed a large but peaceful protest against the Floyd killing. It is easier though to be critical of racist behaviour elsewhere than in our homeland…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Ian Hilton talks to several progressive economists about the opportunities for change as we manage and emerge from the coronavirus crisis. And Andre Roncaglia de Carvalho writes about the importance of state planning in charting our future course. – Nav Persaud and
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Ethan Cox writes that a large majority of Canadians favours massive public investments funded by more fair taxes on the wealthy as our road to recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. And Aaron Wherry points out the folly of fixating on deficits and public-sector
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Bethany Lindsay reports on the start of B.C.’s inquiry into money laundering through casinos. And PressProgress offers a reminder as to how the Saskatchewan Party has chosen to operate under the “Wild West” of election financing rules to ensure it can rely on
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Polly Toynbee and David Walker write about the brutal social consequences of a decade of austerity in the UK. – Andrew Jackson reviews James Crotty’s Keynes Against Capitalism with a strong emphasis on Keynes’ recognition of the need for a democratically-planned economy. –
Continue readingIn-Sights: Canada’s shame
Lost in the fuss as governments of British Columbia and Canada act to expropriate rights and lands of the Wet’suwet’en people is a sad situation that already gave proof to what should be Canada’s greatest shame…
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