In today’s age of populism, with ideology apparently dead, how do you now if you are on the left or right or in the centre. There are indeed some basic philosophical positions that determine if you are on the right, left or in the centre. If you are on the
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THE FIFTH COLUMN: Intuitive Lessons from The Pandemic – A Fantasy
This post is not based on comprehensive research or particular expertise on my part. Rather it is more what we would have called “common sense” before Mike Harris completely destroyed the meaning of the phrase. We start off with the most obvious. We need a public health care system that
Continue readingTHE FIFTH COLUMN: Happy New Years
Community My New Years Resolution for our society is to no longer worship at the twin altars of individualism and technology but rather to embrace the saviour of community. From the industrial revolution to the high tech revolution we have deluded ourselves that technology would solve all our problems. While
Continue readingTHE FIFTH COLUMN: Can America Be Saved
I am writing this as a citizen of a world that no matter where we live are strongly impacted by whatever America does and whatever happens in America America is celebrating but it will take a lot more than the end of the Trump presidency to save America. Trump promoted
Continue readingTHE FIFTH COLUMN: Lessons We Must Learn From COVID-19 to Build a Better Society
Community is the key to the future. Those societies that are fairing best in responding to COVID 19 are those with a strong sense of community. America’s dismal response is not just because of Trump, but also due to the country’s overemphasis on individualism over community. Our public health care
Continue readingTHE FIFTH COLUMN: Happy New Year – We Are All Going to Die
Yes, we are all going to die and that’s it, the end. Except for the Christians, of course, they get to go to an afterlife of either heaven or hell. There seem to be two schools of thought on who goes where. One seems to believe good people go to
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: What Would You Be Willing To Sacrifice?
Ed Finn has a blog entry at rabble.ca that I highly recommend. His thesis can roughly be summarized in this excerpt: The glue that holds any society together is faith in its governments, courts, churches, unions and non-profits — faith that these organizations, no matter how flawed, will always be
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Quote from The Irony of American History – Reinhold Niebuhr
Reading dry academic books so you don’t have to… 🙂 Niebuhr tackles what he sees as contradictions in the base make up of American culture. He uses a plethora of words to say what he means, but importantly, he zeros in how important collective action is – even in a society that claims to […]
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Why We Need to Stay Connected to Reality – Nick Turse
Our society is being influenced negatively by the consumerist culture that we, collectively, have taken our hands off the tiller and have let the market decide what is best for us and our cultures. The idea that we can consume our way to happiness, well-being, or even a more just society would not compute […]
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Concern For The Collective
For whatever reason, I am one of those people with a deeply ingrained sense of fair play that recognizes we are more than simply individuals ‘doing our own thing’ in isolation and with no regard to others; I happily acknowledge that we are part of a larger agglomeration that we
Continue readingThe Scott Ross: We All Lose In BC Teacher Labour Dispute
Who will win in the latest labour dispute between BC teachers and the provincial government? It doesn’t matter, we are already losing. Now a politician isn’t going to tell a province this, a union representative isn’t going to hold a press conference to point it out, and people aren’t going
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