Assorted content to end your week. – Alex Himelfarb writes about the need to expand our idea of what’s possible through collective action: Is Trump the product of over forty years of attacks on the very idea of government, of decades in which government seemed to back away from our
Continue readingTag: Linda McQuaig
Accidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Linda McQuaig makes the case as to why any NAFTA renegotiation needs to focus on workers’ rights: NAFTA has been key to the transformation of Canada over the last two decades, enabling corporations to become ever more dominant economically and politically, while rendering
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Mike Konczal responds to a pathetic attempt to drain the word “neoliberal” of all meaning (which seems to have won favour with Canadian Libs desperately trying to disassociate themselves from their own governing ideology) by discussing its application in both the political and
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Naomi Klein highlights how capital and power combine to turn disasters into profit-making opportunities – while noting that the Trump presidency is just such a disaster. And Linda McQuaig discusses why we should see the income tax and other collective funding mechanisms as
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Neil Irwin writes that many progressive policies – including child care and income tax credits – serve the goal of facilitating economic participation far better than their right-wing “supply side” counterparts. – Ann Pettifor examines the future of globalization, and warns that
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Evening Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Linda McQuaig discusses the need to fight fake news about Canada’s health care system (and the corporate raiders trying to amplify it): (I)t was with some pleasure last week that I watched as a Republican congressman tried to insist that Canadians routinely flock
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Evening Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Linda McQuaig discusses the hollow promise of “populist” billionaires who ultimately serve only to enrich themselves and their class. And Lana Payne writes about the growing protest movement which culminated in massive rallies around the world this weekend – as well as the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Linda McQuaig writes about the dangerous spread of privatized health care which threatens to undermine our universal system: Privatization advocates want us to believe public health care is no longer affordable. But in fact, it’s private, for-profit medicine that’s unaffordable. The publicly
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading.- Chris Hamby’s brilliant series on the effects of investor-state dispute settlement continues with articles on the shift in power from governments to corporations, as well as the developing market in settlement …
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading.- Chris Hamby’s brilliant series on the effects of investor-state dispute settlement continues with articles on the shift in power from governments to corporations, as well as the developing market in settlement …
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: BDS, May And Israel’s Occupation
The title for this post I took from the online flurry of letters that brought out the usual voices in The Star. I will reproduce a number below that both support and demonize the movement to sanction Israel for its depraved mistreatment of Palestinians…
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: BDS, May And Israel’s Occupation
The title for this post I took from the online flurry of letters that brought out the usual voices in The Star. I will reproduce a number below that both support and demonize the movement to sanction Israel for its depraved mistreatment of Palestinians in the occupied territories. I remain convinced that words will accomplish nothing in this long and ongoing heartache. Only strong and principled action has a chance of success. For that reason alone, no concerted effort to label people like me and others who support the cause as anti-Semitic will have any effect whatsoever.
Continue readingRe: May shouldn’t run away from boycott, Opinion Aug. 22
Thank you very much for your publishing Linda McQuaig’s powerful piece. As a Jewish-Canadian, I am deeply concerned about our collective failure to hold Israel accountable for its war crimes, human rights violations and ongoing military occupation of Palestine. Support for Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) is not only growing among campuses, church and union groups, it is also increasing in our Jewish communities.
Why have we been silent? Why have we not understood that it is not anti-Semitic to criticize Israel. It is, in fact, pro-human rights and taking the collective wisdom of our peoples’ histories of being persecuted. Tragically, we know the impact of global silence in the face of state terror.
Those of use who care deeply about Palestinian human rights were thrilled to see the Green Party take a courageous stand in support of BDS. I am very hopeful that Elizabeth May will support this position. This is not a radical position. It is simply taking a very obvious, peaceful stance against violence.
Unfortunately, people who publicly criticize Israel (including journalists and Jewish people) are subject to violent threats and accusations of anti-Semitism.
Much gratitude to Linda McQuaig for her excellent commentary and her courage to speak out about such an important issue. And thanks to the Star for printing this. Although you will likely receive pushback from pro-Israel folks, please know you that you are giving voice to a position supported by many of us.
Alisa Gayle, Toronto
Canada needs a principled position that respects Canadian values of human rights and the rule of international law. If BDS is one efficient way to lead to that end, then there is a well-justified reason to support this movement.
Dr. Nabil Tabbara, professor, Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Western Ontario
The problem with Ms McQuaig and her fellow travelers’ support of BDS is that it singles out Israel, not just in the region but amongst the nations of the world, and does nothing to move along the peace process. To say that the solution to the 100-year conflict lies solely on one side can only be rationalized by someone wearing blinders.
Ms May’s thoughtful rejection of supporting this movement should be praised. Ms McQuaig is the one to be admonished for her stance.
Morris Sosnovitch, Toronto
I agree with writer Linda McQuaig. The leader of the Green Party should not only stay but work as hard as ever that her party does not become the hijacked home base of the anti-Israel bashing club that singularly focuses on Israel and excludes all others.
The solidarity with Palestine is all well and fine except that there is only silence for the people of Sudan and Syria who we see slaughtered daily on a scale that is horrific and cruel.
The military occupation over Palestinian lands will end when there is trust and a true commitment in place to build peace based on a two-state solution by both sides. Peace will never flow by punishing and demonizing one side in a complicated two-sided conflict.
Elizabeth May needs to stay to fight for the soul of her party. She needs to ensure that the Green Party remains committed to real principles and not false narratives.
Martin Gladstone, Toronto
Linda McQuaig’s article presents several incorrect statements and a false narrative. BDS is not a “peaceful way to protest” Israel’s perceived misteps – it is an odious attempt to delegitimize the State of Israel. Palestinians live under Israeli occupation because Jordan refused to stay out of the Six Day War, forcing Israel’s hand to take the West Bank from Jordanian occupation. And the author fails to state that West Bank Palestinian Arabs enjoy far more rights than anywhere else in the Middle East.
David E. Bronfman, Toronto
I see the Star has stooped to a new low. This article exposes your proclivity to show your anti-Israel bias. To defend the BDS movement is exactly the same as calling for the destruction of the State of Israel, the only country of almost 200 in the world that is censured for destruction.
Marek Machtinger, Thornhill
The suggestion that the BDS movement is anti-Semitic is rooted in a narrative created by those who support the 49-year-long illegal occupation of Palestine. The ongoing violations by Israel of international human rights and humanitarian laws, the Fourth Geneva Convention and UN Security Council and General Assembly resolutions are why the majority of Green Party members and others support BDS.
The desperate situation in Palestine has been thoroughly documented by reputable human rights agencies such as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and Defence for Children International.
This year the Israeli government has significantly reduced the water supply to Palestinians. In addition, in comparison to 2015, the Israelis have increased the rates of arrests of Palestinian children and youth and increased their destruction of Palestinian homes leaving Palestinian children homeless.
Those in the media have the responsibility to read the evidence regarding the situation in Palestine compiled by internationally credible non-governmental agencies before they accuse the BDS movement of anti-Semitism.
Rev. Steve Berube, co-chair, United Network for a Just Peace in Palestine and Israel
Accidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week.- Melisa Foster points out why millennials should be strongly interested in a national pharmacare program:Today, young Canadians are searching for jobs in an economy with high levels of precarious employment, unemploym…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading.- Stephen Hawking discusses the crucial distinction between seeing money as a means of pursuing worthy ends versus treating it a goal in and of itself – and notes that we should be wary of political choices bas…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here (via PressReader), on the impending premiers’ summit – and the need for any new deal on internal trade to recognize that provinces have to maintain the ability to foster their own economic development.For further reading…- Bill Curry and Robert …
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week.- Jim Tankersley interviews Joshua Bivens about the relative effects of economic growth and income inequality – and particularly his evidence showing that more people are far better off with more modest growth fairly d…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week.- Ben Casselman writes that rather than looking to manufacturing jobs alone as a precondition to gains for workers, we should instead focus on the unions which helped to make the manufacturing sector the source of stab…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your weekend reading.- Lana Payne writes about the need for a Bernie Sanders in Canada to highlight and oppose the privilege of the wealthy few:It is in this context of blatant unfairness — rules for the rich and rules for…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning LInks
Assorted content for your Sunday reading.- Peter Moskowitz highlights why we shouldn’t be counting on crowdfunding or other private sources to address social needs. And Lana Payne calls out the attitude of entitlement on the part of the wealthy which h…
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: The Tyranny Of Conformity
Yesterday, KirbyCairo wrote another of his thought-provoking posts, this one on the current plight of the federal NDP and its search for renewal. That prospect is dim, Kirby says, unless the party can break free from what he calls the top-down party st…
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