Now, stop tolerating ignorance! And smile, TGIF. Hello. It’s Friday. For many people it’s TGIF. But for many people who aren’t even teenagers, the work week isn’t ending today. We often THINK minimum wage is for the new entries to the job market. Maybe it was one day. Maybe just
Continue readingTag: Justice
The Canadian Progressive: Human rights justice blocked for Aboriginal women in Canada
by: Canadian Human Rights Commission | Press Release OTTAWA, March 4, 2014 – Fear of retaliation is among the top reasons why Aboriginal women in Canada won’t come forward when they experience discrimination, the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) says in its Annual Report, tabled in Parliament today. The report presents key findings
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: If the 1% Has Russell Brand Killed…
If the 1% has Russell Brand killed, we will see it in the corporate media as a drug OD relapse, or a freak accident. Why? He is dangerous because he fearlessly tells the truth and challenges pretence. Let’s examine this in some detail here [with video]: His brain works twice
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: You Have NOT Grown Numb to Crisis
“The goal was to touch upon the fear of becoming numb to crises that don’t affect you directly.” With a myriad of crises in the world, we fear becoming numb to their severity and how they can make us so depressed. I think on a large scale, political, environmental and
Continue readingYappa Ding Ding: Child abuse
Imagine if you will a 7 year old girl who said that the male adult in her home had molested her; the police were called and said that while they found substance to the allegation, they thought the girl was too fragile to be a witness in a prosecution, and
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Capitalism: Swing Your Sledgehammer
It’s all about vision and hope, in an effort to envision how economics and markets can exist after the toxicity of capitalism is gone, gone gone. Are you up for it? Last night, John Holloway, author of Crack Capitalism, was the SFU Institute for the Humanities‘ guest lecturer, skyped in
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Equality without Justice is Bunk.
We’ve legislated equality. We’re done now right? Wrong Answer Binky; legislating equality is just the first tiny step, because equality has many parts to it, including justice and fairness. Illustrated below: We’ll be heading in the right direction when women do not have to deal with garbage like this: In
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Cheap T-Shirts Keep Harper in Power
Whenever I read stories about corporations wanting to do the right thing, I never hold my breath. Clothing corporations, the sector where “sweatshops” originates, want us to believe they care. They don’t. Read what nonsense they are trying to peddle to get us off their back for exploiting people so
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Come On, Let’s Really Increase Taxes on the Rich
Well, here’s something you don’t see [ever] in corporate media: a review of tax measures in the USA since the crash in 2008 that have succeeded in increasing taxes on the rich. And it turns out, tax increases that are regressive [sales taxes, etc.] or include the non-rich, seemed to
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: A Key Union Priority for 2014
Naomi Klein urges unions to join climate change fight Many groups are calling for significant and sufficient action to address climate change, which is fantastic. But unions have not been loud enough. This is significant because they often have more money than many other progressive groups to fight for the
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Fried Squirrels
It’s a crisp, foggy November Saturday morning in the south side of the city. Seventeen people sit in the large open area at the back end of an organic fair trade coffee shop run by a workers’ co-op inspired by the Mondragon movement in Spain. Meet-ups like this are quite
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Day One, Post-Mandela
Today is the first day of our world after the Nelson Mandela era. We don’t need to canonize him or consider any messiah characteristics, but we should stop today and reflect on what kind of Mandela legacy we want to carry forward. Here are a few ideas to consider. Chances
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Nelson Mandela: ‘An international emblem of dignity and forbearance’
Nelson Mandela, in about 1964. Nelson Mandela is the father of modern South Africa, but he belongs to all humanity now, and all of humanity seems ready to embrace him at last. The New York Times accurately observed that Mr. Mandela, who died today at the great age of 95,
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Why the Rich Want You to Hate Your Union
Greed is a powerful thing. It motivates the greedy to convince workers that they should hate any efforts to make their work better and reduce the level of abuse and oppression they suffer. If you’d like a list of why they want us to hate our unions, click through to
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Are We Good Allies to First Nations?
This is what solidarity looks like; make sure it’s authentic! Lots of us care about deepening relationships with and social/economic/political justice for first peoples. It’s hard to come in, though, sometimes as a person from an oppressor or settler class. But there is a good checklist to make sure we’re
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Does Racism Motivate Harper’s Aboriginal Education Funding Stance?
The Prime Minister’s slow clap. It could be racism. It could be concern that over time too many first nations citizens may get too educated and start demanding more in terms of inter-national justice. Or… It could be just that he thinks keeping government spending down is good for his
Continue readingBlevkog: The Ultimate Responsibility
I am not a parent. It’s not that I didn’t want to be, I love children, and they seem to tolerate me well enough; events in my life have thus far prevented me from being a father. Which, of course, does not preclude it from happening in the future, and
Continue readingBlevkog: The Ford Follies
As most people in the free world are by now aware, the Mayor of our beloved T’ranna, Rob (Are You Gonna Finish That?) Ford has been bullying his way through scandal after potential scandal on pure bluster and the careful construction of a facade of fiscal responsibility. While I will
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