Before my libertarian friends get entirely up in arms I’d like to preface this article with a disclaimer. This is not a’ beat up on libertarian inanity’ post, I have plenty of those already, but rather an examination of the role of the state when it comes to managing
Continue readingTag: International Affairs
TaylorOwen.com: Conferencing in Halifax while Rome Burns?
Cross-posted on CIC Dispatch Blog Billed as the Davos for Security, the Halifax International Security Forum – funded by the Department of National Defence (DND) – sought and accomplished to court the security elite. Last weekend’s lavish affair was attended by nearly 20 defence ministers, top global security analysts, beltway security consultants, international affairs journalists, and a handful
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Lest We Forget
Lest We Forget. Poignant words. Powerful words. Oft recited words by people of all political stripes, but what do they mean? Do we honour them on Remembrance Day, every other day? The words are often added to the end of the Ode of Remembrance, although they were never a part of it. As the actual […]
Dead Wild Roses: Bangkok: Wet and decidedly unwild.
They are getting washed away in Bangkok. The rains have not abated, and the flood waters grow higher and more dangerous every day. “Residents of Bangkok are escaping the flooded Thai capital in their tens of thousands due to worsening weather forecasts and the government’s evacuation orders. Flood waters were already seeping into central parts of Bangkok […]
TaylorOwen.com: The Risks of Building the Afghan Army
Below is an oped that appeared in the Globe and Mail. The regional military training centre in Herat is a desolate and harsh place. On the outskirts of an Afghan city bustling with commerce and construction, the vast training grounds extend out into the desert and high into the mountains. We were at
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Happiness, Equality and Security – The True Measures of a Society; not GDP.
The ongoing media campaign to make the economy the monofocus of our societies continues on unabated. Do almost any news search and you will see economic principles overlaid and tied to the idea that somehow they are related to how healthy and how “good” a society actually is. Economic health is but one part […]
Dead Wild Roses: Unconscionable Juxtapostion – Doughnut Cheese Burgers and Starvation
Strap on the feedbags y’all. Because if you have not maxed out your gluttony meters yet have we got a deal for you. All the goodness of a cheese burger cradled in the sugary luxury of a glazed maple doughnut. 1500 calories and wating in quantity at a Fair near you… Oh! It is that […]
Dead Wild Roses: We side with Evil – Free Market Doctrine and Iraq
The following is an excerpt from John McMurtry’s book Value Wars – The Global Market Versus the Life Economy p. 40 – 41. The value-set that selects for the destruction of a human society is based on an absolutist first premise that whatever serves its unilateral globalization is good, and whatever obstructs or resists its […]
Dead Wild Roses: Afghanistan: Graveyard of Empire
Afghanistan destroys Empires. Ask Great Britain, ask the Russians. The US is well along the same course, but rather than being blinded by nationalism, or ideology the American poison of choice is the continued mismanagement of priorities by the corporate elite. The corporate elite are running the foreign policy bus off a cliff […]
TaylorOwen.com: A World Turned Upside Down
I have a review essay in the LRC, which uses Paul Heinbecker’s new book and Ed Greenspon’s Open Canada report, to speak to the current state of the Canadian Foreign policy discussion. Lots more to say on the topic, including some ways that I think we could start a new conversation and spur innovation, but […]
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