This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Tim Harper writes about Tom Mulcair’s success in building the NDP up as the leading alternative to the Cons for Canadian voters: Two-thirds of his questions since becoming leader have dealt with the economy as he attempts to build the case that
Continue readingTag: Linda McQuaig
Politics and its Discontents: A Progressive Voice In The Mainstream Media
Although her views are not radically different from those found at alternative news sites such as The Raw Story, Truthdig or Alternet, jounalist Linda McQuaig is always a treat to read, if for no other reason than the fact that her views make it into…
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Linda McQuaig on Neo-Conservative Contempt
There are some columnists whose work I am loathe to miss. For example, over at the Globe, unlike some people I could name, Lawrence Martin writes with precision and integrity, never failing to take to task the endless abuses heaped upon the electorate by the Harper regime. At the Star,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Chris Hayes notes that Mitt Romney’s $50,000-a-plate dinner caught on video represents a rare glimpse inside the U.S.’ plutocracy – as well as a strong argument as to why we shouldn’t allow that group to decide policy affecting the public at large:
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Linda McQuaig highlights how attacks on workers are used to distract attention from the systematic transfer of wealth to those who need it least: As long as the right can keep workers envious and suspicious of each other, the focus won’t be on
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: How The Right Deforms Our Attitudes
I have long believed it is not so much the ‘genius’ of the extreme right as it is their financial backing that makes them powerful propagandists. Their domination of the media and their captivation of politicians’ ears give them advantages very difficult to surmount. Read letters to the editor throughout
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Evening Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – George Monbiot discusses the effect of inegalitarian and austerian policies imposed by the UK Conservatives: (T)he neoliberal programme has closed down political choice. If the market, as the doctrine insists, is the only valid determinant of how societies evolve, and the market
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Media Quietude Over Climate Change
A few months ago, when we were seeing mid-summer temperatures during early spring, I remember Tom Brown, the CTV weatherman, looking grim and saying words to the effect that “This is something we all need to be concerned about.” It was, I assume, a brave but oblique allusion to climate
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: The Trouble with Billionaires – Linda McQuaig
I wish I had gotten around to reading this book sooner. It is a great read and takes a great deal of piss out of the arguments (made by our beloved conservative/libertarian friends) for lower taxes and more love for the wealthy. I highly recommend reading it. Check out other
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Jim Stanford discusses how Canadian right-wing parties are picking up on the most extreme anti-labour stances of the U.S. Republicans. But I do have to wonder whether the comparison between union dues and taxes is one that they’d particularly shy away from:
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: On Austerity and Hippos
I often think that governments, especially our current federal one, hold the people they ‘serve’ in absolute contempt, regarding us as little more than Pavlovian creatures who will respond in a predictable and desired way if we are given just the right stimulus. Tell us the economic apocalypse is fast
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Among the other possible tests in an impending Etobicoke Centre by-election, here’s one I’ll be curious to watch: will attention to the Robocon scandal turn the Cons’ usual misleading robocall blast strategy into a liability rather than a low-cost means of injecting messages
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Linda McQuaig is hopeful that Quebec’s student protests against tuition hikes might remind many Canadians that we can do more than just meekly accept austerity and inequality: What seems to particularly gall some English Canadian commentators is the fact that the Quebec
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material for your Saturday reading. – As much sympathy as I normally have for Linda McQuaig, I’ll argue that her premise in discussing Andrea Horwath’s call for the wealthy to pay a fair share of taxes is entirely off base. Even if it is easier to discuss such ideas
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Linda McQuaig on Harper Austerity
In case you missed it, today’s Star has Linda McQuaig’s latest column in which she opines on the Harper austerity program, juxtaposing the P.M.’s insistence that we live in challenging fiscal times and thus must cut spending with his government’s apparently cavalier attitude about the extra $10 billion that they
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your afternoon reading. – Linda McQuaig writes that Robocon is placing Canada at the forefront of dubious electoral results in the developed world. Which of course means it’s time to evaluate the Cons’ fraud merely as a matter of political damage control, rather than focusing on who’s
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Tuesday Recommended Robocall Reading
Both Lawrence Martin and Linda McQuaig have columns well-worth reading today on government misdeeds both present and past. McQuaig suggests that it is only our national modesty that prevents us from likening the voter suppression crimes to Watergate, while Martin chronicles misdoings of the past and concludes that what the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – There’s been plenty of followup on Robocon, with columns from Andrew Coyne and Thomas Walkom on the Cons’ increasingly unethical culture, along with followup reporting from Stephen Maher and Glen McGregor on live voter fraud and Steve Rennie and Bruce Cheadle on Elections
Continue readingA Different Point of View....: Is Stephen Harper displaying fascist-like tendencies?
The stepped-up authoritarian, anti-democratic manner in which Stephen Harper has conducted himself since obtaining his Parliamentary majority nine months ago raises serious concerns about how far right he is planning to push the country in his effort to forever change the face of Canada. Harper hates many things about Canada –
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Linda McQuaig on Harper’s Anti-Labour Policies
Drawing comparisons between Republican animus toward labour and Harper government policies that permit the kind of outrageous corporate behaviour unfolding at Electro-Motive Canada, Linda McQuaig’s column in today’s Star warns us of what is ahead for workers in Canada. Two key excerpts provide the tone of her piece: Harper played
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