Nobody Has Your Back Any Longer
If you have any faith in government you’re suffering from an affliction, a potentially dangerous malaise. Writing in this month’s Vanity Fair, Todd Purdom addresses the enormous changes underway, some…
corporatism
Democracy Has Been Hacked
In some circles the preferred term is “captured” but Al Gore chooses to argue that American democracy has been hacked by corporatism. Regardless of terminology, he’s right. And it’s a…
Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your Monday morning reading. – Sixth Estate is the latest to weigh in on Statistics Canada’s findings about inequality: Progressive taxes are based on the idea that…
Saturday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Saturday reading. – Hamida Ghafour writes about the effect of tax avoidance by the world’s wealthy on the lives of the rest of the population…
Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Ray Grigg explains how Idle No More and other decentralized social movements may make for a crucial counterweight to the Harper Cons and…
Friday Evening Links
Miscellaneous material to end your week. – Lawrence Martin questions the media’s obsession with fabricating stories out of imagined motivations and insignificant shifts in poll numbers: In the year before…
Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – The CCPA looks at Statistics Canada’s latest income data and finds that inequality has been growing steadily across the country over the…
Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Susan Delacourt comments on the role of robocalls in turning citizens away from politics – though it’s worth pointing out that the Cons…
Friday Morning Links
Assorted content for your Friday reading. – In addition to providing my latest tagline, Alex Himelfarb takes aim at the austerians who seem happy to attack social well-being and economic…
Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Erika Shaker rightly tears into the special brand of FAIPOF demanding that First Nations protesters focus solely on their own community leaders rather…
Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Jacob Chamberlain discusses the all-too-familiar pattern of corporate insiders using their wealth and influence to try to attack basic social supports for…
Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Raz Godelnik challenges the all-too-conventional wisdom that corporations (and indeed individuals) should see tax avoidance and evasion as virtues: One of the most…
New column day
Here, on the general irrationality of the right-wing obsession with chaining public services and tax rates to population growth – and the particularly egregious application of that theory by the…
Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – George Monbiot reminds us that the mere fact that neoliberal economic theory has failed by any rational measure doesn’t mean there won’t…
Sunday Morning Links
Assorted content for your Sunday reading. – Frank Graves’ review of the current state of Canadian politics focuses in on the growing gap between the Cons’ waning interest in listening…
Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Crawford Kilian comments on Chrystia Freeland’s Plutocrats as a useful expression of trends many of us have seen in action for some time:…
Wednesday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Frank Graves writes about the decline of Canada’s middle class – and notes a parallel between the type of economy which tends to…
On forced growth
Saskatchewan’s NDP leadership campaign has featured plenty of discussion as to how to define success as a party and a province. But it’s well worth contrasting the varying forms of…
Sunday Morning Links
Assorted content for your Sunday reading. – Pam Palmater explains the historical background to Idle No More: (M)ost Canadians are not used to the kind of sustained, co-ordinated, national effort…