Since we’re in the midst of an election, I think it’s a good time to ask some ex istential questions about Toronto and its relationship with the province. [View the story “A few questions about Toronto’s relationship with the province” on Storify]
Continue readingTag: Political Philosophy
Writings of J. Todd Ring: What can be done?
What can be done? How can we help others? How can one person make a difference? Well, there are many ways, of course. Most people in modern Western society, and in many parts of the world, feel powerless today. They feel that they can’t do anything to help – they
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: New studies show babies have basically decent impulses and are strongly driven by moral imperatives
More research shows once again that compassion, empathy and mutual aid, and an instinct toward cooperation, are innate in human beings, confirming what the great Russian biologist and anarchist philosopher Peter Kropotkin had already amply demonstrated over a hundred years ago, in his monumental work, Mutual Aid. My but our
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: No more excuses
There is no question: this generation will be held responsible for our actions, and even more, for our inaction. Apathy, complacency and denial are morally unacceptable. In fact, at this time in human history, they are nothing less than complicity in the worst of collective atrocities. We must act now.
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Simple pleasures and the greatest of treasures
Ok, it’s that time. Time to put down the pen, or in this case, the keyboard; start cooking dinner – very slowly, for maximum flavour – and cut the grass in the golden sun of the late afternoon… And, crank up the rock and roll on the wireless headphones! Whoo-hoo!
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Love, sympathy and mutual aid are natural – we have to be taught to be greedy little narcissists
During a California wildfire rescue workers ran out of crates to place rescued animals, forcing them to put a fawn and a bobcat kitten in an office together. When they got back they found that fawn and the bobcat cuddling and the pair became inseparable. Yes, compassion,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Paul Kershaw highlights what’s most needed to support Canada’s younger generations: Even with all this personal adaptation, most in Gen X and Y can’t work their way out of the time and income squeeze when they start families. Since two earners bring
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Top Priorities of the 21st Century
If I were asked what I felt were the top priorities facing human beings today, in the 21st century, I would have to say there are four that top the list, in my mind. 1. Halt the global corporate coup. Defeat the corporate war on democracy, which is now escalating
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Reflections on democracy
There is a global war on democracy underway, and if it is not addressed, our future will be bleak. But let us start with the ground work of democracy, and follow from there. Simple majority rule is accurately described as the tyranny of the majority; hence the need for constitutional
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: The Mayans, the ecological crisis and the end of the world: a little sanity please
It seems like a lot of people are going to extremes with regards to the Mayan predictions – and I mean the skeptics as well as the fanatics. Some are dismissive of the Mayans altogether, while others are taking a very literal and grossly overly simplistic view, and thinking the
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: The global financial coup and the coming revolution
The Real Story of the 2012 US Presidential Election – the story the mass media missed altogether – And the critical lessons from history that we must learn now “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” – anonymous “Evil can flourish only when good people
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Concern For The Collective
For whatever reason, I am one of those people with a deeply ingrained sense of fair play that recognizes we are more than simply individuals ‘doing our own thing’ in isolation and with no regard to others; I happily acknowledge that we are part of a larger agglomeration that we
Continue readingbastard.logic: Has Centralization of Power to the PMO Put Canadian Democracy on Life Support?
Don Lenihan has a must-read column up today, on how centralization of power to the Prime Minister’s office over the past several decades has atrophied the connection Canadians — especially youth — had with our government, and what he believes this could mean for Canada’s system of democracy: In the early 1970s,
Continue readingImpolitical: "People just don’t care about (political) labels"
From Stephen Carter, Alison Redford’s now former chief of staff who was instrumental in her campaign win: He was, however, willing to talk about the three campaigns that established his reputation — Naheed Nenshi’s successful out-of-nowhere bid for Calgary’s mayoralty, Redford’s bid for the Tory leadership, which she started with
Continue readingImpolitical: Lakoff on OWS
This column is about OWS but like most of his writings, it’s highly translatable: I think it is a good thing that the occupation movement is not making specific policy demands. If it did, the movement would become about those demands. If the demands we…
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Occupy Wall Street: The emerging global pro-democracy movement, where it stands, what it means, and where we go from here
The Occupy Wall Street movement, which has already become a global grassroots populist pro-democracy movement, if we have eyes to see, has clearly already won a broad and growing base of support. What is needed now, I believe, is to further clarify and…
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Earth Overshoot Day – cause for a pause to reflect
Yesterday, September 27, the Global Footprint Network declared as Earth Overshoot Day: the day that humans have used up all renewable resources available for the year. Not good. This obviously cannot continue. Limitless growth in material consumption a…
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Taxpayers Versus Citizens
It probably doesn’t take a genius to understand the basic philosophical and fiscal difference between the moderate and the right-wing is that the moderate recognizes the needs of the collective, i.e., the entire society, while the right-wing gives prec…
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: The schizoid nature of the Western world: Overcoming the root paradox of Western civilization – and our own minds
The Western world is still trapped in a paradox and a self-contradiction of our own making: we are schizoid with regards to the body, the material world and to our physicality. On the one hand, we have, as people of the modern world, embraced our physi…
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Word to the bland, blasé and banal – apathy is living death
A song came on the radio today that I have loved all my life – except this time, it was a cover, and it spoke something to me that I would like to share. It was a jazz cover of “Ode to Billy Joe.” That might be fine, and might work well, but the …
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