Harper Ignores Positive Trade Opportunity: ALBA
Trade has occurred for thousands of years, not just in the capitalist context of the last few hundred years, and not just in the current neoliberal, free trade context of the last 30 years. For over five years I have been tracking Latin America’s ALBA, the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas, as an alternative model [...]
Eco-Leaders Kerala, Sikkim and Montgomery County
In an era when effective global agreements on addressing climate breakdown are still elusive, it’s encouraging to see sub-national groups taking a lead. Kerala and Sikkim in India and Montgomery County in Maryland are working on organic farming and carbon taxes. The southern Indian state of Kerala has officially announced a new farming policy which [...]
Handcuffing a Community’s Resilience: Bata in the 21st Century
I first knew Bata shoes as a kid taken shopping to try on new shoes. As a teen I learned about the nexus of globalization and apartheid with Bata as a model, since they were operating in South Africa. Thomas Bata said, “We expanded into Africa in order to sell shoes, not to spread sweetness [...]
Peak Oil Will Kill Neoliberal Globalization: More Support
A year ago today, I wrote about how a few years earlier at lunch with friends I was thinking that peak oil will kill neoliberal globalization. Last year, there was a piece in Report on Business about just that, making me feel mighty vindicated. It’s nice to see corporate media affirming your views. A few [...]
"Progress", Redux
Before I post my larger review of it, George Monbiot’s new book, Heat: How to Stop the Planet from Burning has a poignant line about our sense of progress: “We have come to believe we can do anything. We can do anything….Progress now depends upon the exercise of fewer opportunities.” [p. 188] If progress is [...]
Gordon Campbell’s Greedy, Sticky Fingers in Riverview and Tsawwassen
On Friday, July 27, 2007, Rich Coleman set his status on his Facebook page as “thinking big about Riverview.” Once a mental health facility, it closed down in the 1990s as the model for mental health administration changed. But now, Coleman, Minister of Forests and Range and a-ha! Minister Responsible for Housing, sees great things [...]
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