I am dismayed over the general collective amnesia that has once more taken hold of political leaders and the public over the latest so-called world threat. In the solution being embraced, few seem to remember the abject failure of past incursions in the Middle East, incursions that only gravely exacerbated
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Accidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Following up on yesterday’s column, Michael Harris offers his take on how Stephen Harper refuses to accept anything short of war as an option: Stephen Harper talks as if this is yet another of those good-versus-evil fables he is always passing off to
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
This and that for your weekend reading. – James Meek observes that decades of privatization in the UK have eliminated public control over housing and other essential services – and that privatization takes far more forms than we’re accustomed to taking into consideration. And Rick Salutin offers his take on
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
This and that for your weekend reading. – Andrew Jackson writes that public investment is needed as part of a healthy economy, particularly when it’s clear that the private sector isn’t going to put massive accumulated savings to use. Bob McDonald notes that we’d be far better off using public
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Explaining Justin Trudeau
No matter what the Liberal leader says or does, his popularity ranks at a consistently high level. While part of the explanation for his standings in the polls surely lies in the Canadian people’s weariness with the Harper regime, a regime that has shown itself, through its practices of division,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Jenna Smialiek reports on Gabriel Zucman’s conclusion that the .1% has managed to prevent the rest of us from even approaching reasonable estimates as to how much wealth is being hoarded at the top. And Bryce Covert discusses how that carefully-cultivated lack of
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Robert Reich discusses the rise of the non-working rich as an indicator that extreme wealth has less and less to do with merit – as well as the simple policy steps which can reverse the trend: In reality, most of America’s poor work
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Jessica McDiarmid reports on the hazardous materials being shipped by rail across North America – and it’s particularly sad that Canadians can only learn about the risks being imposed on us through a U.S. guide. But lest we be under any illusions
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Rick Salutin discusses how corruption has become endemic in the global economy as an inevitable consequence of me-first values: You wouldn’t have those CEO pig-outs absent neo-liberalism’s moral model: get rich not just quick but hugely. As Kevin O’Leary loves saying, and CBC
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Polly Toynbee looks at how the UK is now treating children in need as investment opportunities to be exploited by investors, rather than people to be assisted. And Mark Taliano writes that privatization is a problem rather than a solution when it comes
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: The Ontario NDP: The Party of No Damn Principles?
That is the conclusion Rick Salutin recently came to in a column entitled Andrea Horwath’s right-wing populism. Describing her as a right-wing populist, full out, Salutin explored the framework within which this unpleasant and inconvenient truth emerges: She’s Rob Ford, thinking always about saving taxpayers money simplistically by cutting waste
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
Assorted content for your Sunday reading. – D.L. Tice writes that it’s becoming more and more difficult for the right to ignore the spread of income inequality – and the reality that only public policy, not faith in the market, can produce a more fair distribution of income. Which is
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Shoulder Shrug
Like many of the commentators and bloggers whom I read, I regularly feel a deep frustration over the passivity of people. No matter what the problem, be it political, social, environmental or a host of others, too many have a ‘can’t-do’ reaction that debases so many in a myriad of
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: The War Continues
The Harper cabal’s contempt for the environment, science, transparency, and knowledge in general has become the stuff of dark legend, provoking outrage both at home and beyond our borders. That a putative democracy can be behaving in such a totalitarian manner strains credulity. And the latest salvo against science, the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
Assorted content for your Sunday reading. – Emily Badger discusses how poverty affects people who are forced to use their physical and mental resources on bare survival: Human mental bandwidth is finite. You’ve probably experienced this before (though maybe not in those terms): When you’re lost in concentration trying to
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your Saturday reading. – Rick Salutin writes about the need for the labour movement to better promote its contribution to the general public – and my only quibble is that I’d prefer to see a focus on what still can be (and needs to be) done rather
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: For Those Who Don’t Mind Gov’t Surveillance Because They Have Nothing To Hide
You might want to take a moment to read Rick Salutin’s thoughts on the implications of living in a country where environmentalists and others who oppose the government’s corporate agenda are regarded as terrorists. As well, this Canadian Dimension piece might also give you pause. Recommend this Post
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Rick Salutin highlights the dangers of relying on bulk data collection and algorithmic analysis as a basis to restrict individual rights: The National Post’s Jen Gerson interviewed a U.S. privacy expert. She asked about the PRISM program, by which U.S. agencies spy on
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Heroes and Villains
There is little doubt in my mind that the economic chaos defining the lives of millions of people is intentional, not just so their labour can be exploited as cheaply as possible, but also because desperate citizens make for compliant and disciplined drones. Historically, it has usually been thus, with
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Rick Salutin on Civic Embarassment
We are in Edmonton right now, and when people ask us where we are from, I mention our community as being about 70 kilometers from Toronto; I then hasten to add that we have nothing to do with Rob Ford, one whose escapades every westerner we meet seems to be
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