Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Martin Lukacs writes that the world should able to draw plenty of positive examples from Canada’s politics – though not from the corporate-focused federal Libs: As Donald Trump rips up the Paris climate accords, it may seem easy to despair. But these provincial
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Accidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Don Pittis discusses the growing price everybody pays for more extreme weather events caused by climate change. And Adrienne Lafrance offers a grim look at what’s in store if we can’t curb greenhouse gas emissions in a hurry. – Seth Klein and Shannon
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Leadership 2017 Links
The latest from the federal NDP’s leadership campaign. – Several of the candidates have been doing plenty of touring over the past week. And while not all the stops have included media coverage, you’ll find features about Charlie Angus from Timmins, Sudbury (X2), North Bay, and Red Deer, along with
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Bill McKibben highlights Justin Trudeau’s disingenuousness in pretending to care about climate change while insisting on exploiting enough fossil fuels to irreparably damage our planet. – Juliet Eilperin examines how Donald Trump is letting industry lobbyists trash any protections for U.S. workers.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Erica Johnson reports that the problem of bank employees being pushed to fleece customers (legality be damned) is common to all of Canada’s major banks. And Lisa Wright reports that the result will be a national investigation. But it’s appalling that it
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Dietrich Vollrath discusses both what’s included in our societal capital, and how best to think of redistributive policies as means of fairly dealing with it: (T)axes are a way of collecting the royalties on trust and scale that we inherited and/or create
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Dietrich Vollrath discusses both what’s included in our societal capital, and how best to think of redistributive policies as means of fairly dealing with it: (T)axes are a way of collecting the royalties on trust and scale that we inherited and/or create
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – Martin Lukacs argues that the way to avoid a Canadian Donald Trump is to ensure people have a progressive challenger to the corporate establishment: Trudeau’s social liberalism has been partnered with the very economic policies that have cemented inequality and savaged people’s quality
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that to start your 2017. – Ideas examines how the assumptions underlying far too much economic theory have produced disastrous real-world results. And Harold Meyerson writes that research is proving that skeptics of corporate-driven free trade have been right all along. – Gary Younge writes that the rise
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, on the need for progressive leaders and activists alike to build connections beyond borders and party lines to combat a reactionary movement which spans the globe. For further reading…– Sam Kriss discusses how the systematic stifling of the left has given rise to the toxic politics of the right.–
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Jacob Levy highlights the importance of “identity politics” – or more specifically, the willingness to fight against systematic inequality of all kinds – as part of an effective progressive movement. And George Monbiot writes that we should be returning to first principles when
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Owen Jones argues that UK Labour needs to make far more effort to connect with working-class citizens in order to hold off the populist right, while Jamelle Bouie examines Jesse Jackson’s presidential campaigns as a worthwhile model for uniting groups of disaffected
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Thomas Frank writes that a progressive party can only expect to succeed if it places principles of equality and workers’ interests at the core of everything it does – rather than serving mostly as the voice of a wealthy professional class: Somewhere in
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, a rare Saturday column on the lessons we should draw from the election of Donald Trump in how we organize and work within our political system. For further reading (beyond the writing already linked here)…– Others offering similar thoughts include Murray Dobbin, Rick Salutin, Kai Nagata and Robert Reich.–
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Robert Reich Calls For a What? A "New Democratic Party" Whatever That Is.
During the campaign, Robert Reich urged American progressives to hold their noses and vote for Hillary. He also said that, the day after the election, they should mobilize, perhaps around Bernie Sanders, to create a new progressive movement, one that could challenge both the Republicans and the Democrats in 2020.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Wolfgang Munchau writes that the rise of right-wing insurrectionism can be traced largely to “centre-left” parties who have focused most of their attention on imposing austerity and catering to the corporate sector while offering little to citizens, while Naomi Klein comments on
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – John McDonnell outlines a progressive alternative to neoliberal economic policy: The increasing automation of jobs, reduced dependence on carbon fuels, artificial intelligence and the so-called gig economy have provoked understandable anger among many workers whose jobs are under threat. More generally, concerns about the effect
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Dani Rodrik discusses the growing public opposition to new corporate-dominated trade deals based on the lessons we’ve learned from previous ones: Instead of decrying people’s stupidity and ignorance in rejecting trade deals, we should try to understand why such deals lost legitimacy
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading.
– Arthur Neslen points out how new trade agreements figure to make it impossible for governments to meet their environmental commitments. And Corporate Europe Observatory highlights how the CETA will give investors the ability to dictate public policy.
– The Economist discusses the effect of high executive compensation in the U.S., and finds that corporations that shovel exceptionally large amounts of pay to their CEO get sub-par returns for their money.
– Penney Kome writes that the sugar industry’s work to mislead the public about its own health represents just one more example of the dangers of presuming that an undiluted profit motive is anything but antithetical to the public interest.
– On the bright side, Giles Parkinson notes that on a level playing field, solar power has become more affordable than any alternative no matter how dirty.
– Finally, Owen Jones discusses how a strong progressive movement needs to respond to being unfairly dismissed and derided by the corporate media:
Continue readingA defeatist attitude – and a condescending one, too – says that the media programme people with what to think, reducing the electorate to Murdoch-brainwashed zombies. But a clever approach can neutralise media hostility. Take Sadiq Khan: he was subjected to one of the most vicious political campaigns in postwar Britain, portrayed by the press – including London’s dominant newspaper, the Evening Standard – as the pawn of Islamist fundamentalist extremists. He could have bellowed his frustration every single day, and would have been more than entitled to do so. But he didn’t. He focused on a positive, optimistic message, and not only won the election – he had glowing personal ratings, too.
Momentum, too, presented a masterclass last weekend in dealing with hostile media. Rather than taking aggressive swipes at the media, it framed a response to Dispatches before it was even aired. It projected disappointment rather than fury; it gave a platform to Momentum activists who contrasted sharply with the media portrayal; it was witty; and it showcased what it actually did, using the attack as an opportunity to get its own message across. And there is a lesson there. The left is bitterly accustomed to living with almost farcically hostile media in a country where the press is as much a sophisticated political lobbyist as a means of information. A natural response is to become grouchy, to shake fists angrily, or simply boycott the media altogether. It’s an approach that fires up some of the most dedicated leftwing activists, but it’s a strategic mistake. And both Khan and Momentum show the left can rebut media hostility – and even thrive.
Accidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading.- Yanis Varoufakis makes the case for an international progressive political system to ensure that social progress doesn’t stop at national borders:(T)raditional political parties are fading into irrelevance, supp…
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