Murray Dobbin continues his quest to push for more big ideas from the federal NDP here. But it’s worth dividing his take into one theory well worth applying, and one which would be entirely counterproductive. At the outset, I’ll agree with Dobbin’s take that a number of the NDP’s current
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Accidental Deliberations: On inspiring action
The NDP’s first National Day of Action last weekend looks to have received virtually no media attention despite involving numbers of participants comfortably within the range of similarly-timed conventions and conferences which routinely dominate national headlines for weeks at a time. And there’s reason for optimism that the NDP’s plan
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Murray Dobbin points to the oil sector’s utter domination of Canada’s federal political scene. And Dr. Dawg sums up the problem: Briefly, the Harperium has now taken to grossly misusing the state apparatus to spy upon and intimidate citizens who dare to disagree
Continue readingCowichan Conversations: The Government of Canada Must Respect the First Nations Rights and Treaties
Richard Hughes-Political Blogger Hardly a day goes by without hearing of another environmental disaster. In most cases they are easily traceable back to the doorsteps of greedy ‘Oil and Gas Corporations’ combined with reduced or eliminated federal and provincial regulations. Do we hear outrage and a call to action from
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Diane Coyle offers a preview of Thomas Piketty’s upcoming book on inequality – featuring a prediction that absent some significant public policy intervention, we may see a return to 19th-century levels of concentration of wealth. – Meanwhile, Murray Dobbin calls for 2014 to
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – Paul Wells and Dan Lett offer roundups of today’s federal by-elections, while Chantal Hebert offers some advice to the candidates (whether or not they’re elected to Parliament today). And Murray Dobbin explains why there’s only one true progressive choice in Toronto Centre in
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Murray Dobbin recognizes that there’s more at stake on the federal political scene than merely replacing the Harper Cons – and that the most important debate may be found within the NDP. Meanwhile, Tim Harper is concern trolling on that front, demanding that
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Jordon Cooper writes about the need to understand poverty in order to discuss and address it as a matter of public policy. – John Greenwood reports on Cameco’s tax evasion which is being rightly challenged by the CRA – though it’s worth
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Jordon Cooper writes about the dangers of growing income inequality in Saskatchewan and around the world: Income inequality is driven largely by market forces. Technology has changed the job market, and globalization has moved markets overseas or driven down wages. It’s also driven
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Murray Dobbin writes about the crisis of extreme capitalism: (T)he “free economy” romanticized by Friedman and his ilk is anything but. Completely dominated by giant corporations whose wealth outstrips all but the richest nations, economic freedom does not exist for anyone else, including
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – George Monbiot writes about the dangers of allowing wealthy and privileged individuals to speak as the voice of the poor and downtrodden: As the UK chairs the G8 summit again, a campaign that Bono founded, with which Geldof works closely, appears to
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Murray Dobbin contrasts the B.C. NDP’s recent election loss against the type of popular focus which helped Saskatchewan’s CCF to earn a twenty-year stay in office in the face of far more hysterical opposition: You can design a campaign that projects a
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives has unveiled its alternative federal budget – which highlights the choice between the Cons’ needless austerity, and the 200,000-300,000 extra jobs which could be created alongside important social improvements which could be brought about through well-placed
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Assorted content to start your week. – Maude Barlow offers some background to the Common Causes protests happening across Canada this week: Over the last two years, we have witnessed amazing organizing and mobilizing in Canada — from student movements in Québec, to the “Defend Our Coast” struggle against tar sands pipelines
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Murray Dobbin writes about the significance of Idle No More as a shift away from the presumption that First Nations’ interests are represented solely by elected officials: There are some fascinating similarities between the Idle No More phenomenon and the Occupy movement.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Murray Dobbin connects a pattern of economic trends which has seen more and more wealth concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer people to the elimination of public discussion about work life: The neo-liberal revolution of the 1980s proposed unfettered capitalism
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Assorted content to start your week.- Susan Delacourt comments on what’s often lacking from Canadian political coverage – and the challenge facing journalists looking to stop relying excessively on horse-race numbers which may miss what ultimately moti…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Afternoon Links
Assorted content to end your day.- Frances Russell nicely sums up the effect of the Cons’ bevy of anti-democratic trade deals:Don’t be fooled. The innocuous language used to describe the avalanche of so-called “trade” agreements raining down on …
Continue readingCowichan Conversations: Murray Dobbin calls for NDP to get back to where they once belonged. Get Back Joe-Joe!
Richard Hughes- Political Blogger
Murray Dobbin’s latest opinion piece in the Tyee has rankled some and cheered up others. Dobbin has the audacity to question to challenge the Federal NDP’s drift to the centre, more like centre right actual…
Accidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – Jim Stanford reviews the effect of NAFTA (and associated corporatist policy choices) on Canada’s economy: Quantity of exports: In the mid-1980s, before Brian Mulroney and Ronald Reagan inked their deal, Canada’s exports to the United States accounted for 19 per cent of Canadian
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