A Modest Proposal for Cooperation Among Progressives in Alberta
“I shall now therefore humbly propose my own thoughts, which I hope will not be liable to the least objection” — Jonathan Swift, A Modest Proposal (1729) Relax. Ms Soapbox’s…
2015
How Marx Presaged Today’s Canada
“The bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the world market given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country,” wrote Karl Marx and Fredrich Engels, in 1848, in…
The rise of Europe’s new Left
The rise of Europe’s new Left. By Bryan Evans Filed under: Europe, Socialism Tagged: Austerity, Europe, Eurozone Crisis, Greece, Podemos, Spain, Syriza
Why the Rise of Fascism is again the Issue
Screengrab of Charlie Chaplin from the film The Great Dictator (1940) The recent 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz was a reminder of the great crime of fascism, whose…
They’ll Nip This in the Bud
It’s enough to give an oligarch chest pain. Barely a month in power, popular support for the left-wing, anti-austerity government in Greece is soaring. Syrzia won the January polls with…
There’s a Hole in the Bottom of the Sea
In a decade or so the government of Canada will be in the market for new submarines for the Royal Canadian Navy. In the 17-years since the Chretien government snapped…
Presumption of innocence be damned—Putin killed Boris Nemtsov
In this country, the “golden thread” of criminal law, embodied in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, is the presumption of innocence. To quote the Charter, “Any person charged with…
Sunday candidate nomination update in Alberta
Some Progressive Conservative Party supporters are privately expressing frustration with the decision by Premier Jim Prentice and his cabinet ministers to openly campaign and endorse incumbent PC MLAs facing nomination…
Netanyahu Has Screwed the Pooch for Israel
Even if the next US president is a Republican, what Netanyahu is doing this week will cost Israel far into the future. What the Israeli prime minister has somehow failed…
Leonard Nimoy
I don’t know where this is, but isn’t it great?It was posted on the #LeonardNimoy thread at Twitter, where William Shatner is doing a tribute. Saw this a few minutes…
I’ll See Your Cult and I’ll Raise You One
They’re dying to get at each other or at least they would be if only we gave them a chance. Radical, fundamentalist Islam versus radical, fundamentalist Christianity – the End…
March 1: What is an oligarchy? Words, words, words….
(It’s Sunday. So I took a break from the daily news._ In political discussion, all of us frequently use words we don’t really understand. The result is that the words…
Stephen Hume: A Tale of Two Coasts
Richard Hughes- Political Blogger We are often referred to as the ‘Left Coast’ due the liberal left tendencies of many west coasters. The way the Ottawa’s largesse is doled out,…
subway tokens, greek coffee cups, and me: missing nyc
This week I received email from my friend Alan, formerly known in this blog as Alan with one L, or AW1L. Subject line: Re: 34th Street/Penn Station Just Now Out-of-Towner…
Who is a “traitor to the Liberal Party” now?
A few weeks ago, when some nice folks were encouraging me to run for the Liberal nomination in Toronto Danforth, I finally met with one of Justin Trudeau’s most senior…
Stuff happens, week 8: Alberta election assured; Harper spins terrorism
It’s gloom and doom in Alberta these days, what with falling oil prices and all. Time to tighten the belts, Premier Jim Prentice says, because we’re going to be billions…
From ‘Covert’ to ‘Overt’ to ‘Over’
After a long spell of writing about issues in the Canadian political sphere, I’ve made the very difficult decision to get on with my life and put that behind me.…
On The Politics Of Fear
Regular readers of this blog will have noticed the relative frequency with which I provide links to and samples of Star readers’ letters. One of the obvious reasons is that…
Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Armine Yalnizyan counters the Cons’ spin on tax-free savings accounts. And Rob Carrick points out that raising the limit on TFSAs would…