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 [...]
The New Normal and the End of the World?
“This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper.” – T.S. Eliot An Apocalyptical Cliché Large swaths of Pakistan are in ruins. The same is still true of Haiti, to say nothing of the long-standing devastation [...]
Capitalists: The Flat-Earthers of the 21st Century
I’m not just talking about the old white guy with the mustache and top hat in Monopoly. I’m talking about all the folks who think the market will save us and that the economy must grow and that to be critical of all that is to be unpatriotic or a threat to social order. And [...]
Yuan Good Turn Deserves Another
Sheesh. It’s about time. China has finally walked the plank (or was prodded with sticks until they lept) and is now dog-paddling in the sea of flexible exchange rates. The word on the street? China has decided it’s time to cease pegging the Yuan at artificially low rates against the US Dollar, thereby allowing it [...]
Capitalism: The Giant Stone Head Destroying Us All
It has sometimes been asked what the residents of Easter Island might have been thinking as they cut down the last tree on their island to erect yet another one of their monolithic and useless ceremonial stone heads. It seems safe to say that we are now finally in a position to seemingly answer this [...]
Minority Governments in Ottawa and Victoria
Politicians who only seek power are easier to spot in an era of minority parliaments. Working from the reasonably solid premise that majority governments are inherently tyrannical, I prefer as merely a marginal improvement: minority governments. They’re no ProRep, but at the very least, they force more cooperation, though I use the term loosely. We’re [...]
BC Premier’s Office Spends as Much as Watchdogs
I want a government that is transparent and accountable to citizens: taxation WITH representation. I want a culture of openness and commitment to public service, that the citizens are the politicians’ employers. It’s hard to see that happening when the public bodies that hold political mechanisms to account have just barely as much money to work with than, say, the premier’s office.
BC Conservative Party MLA Contenders?
From here we learn Blair Lekstrom shows up as a rat, but that Vicki Huntington appears desirable to the party. So now the task is to pick out a list of ideological contenders for the BC Conservative Party. Their policies are here including their tax policy, elevated in stature during these exciting anti-HST days. We all [...]
US Military Gearing Up for Peak Oil for 2012-2015
When the US military is talking peak oil in an imminent context, we should start paying attention. The US military has warned that surplus oil production capacity could disappear within two years and there could be serious shortages by 2015 with a significant economic and political impact. The energy crisis [is] outlined in a Joint [...]
Nova Scotia NDP Increases the HST by 2%
Today, as BC’s formal initiative campaign against the regressive HST begins, the Nova Scotia NDP government’s budget includes a plan to increase their HST by 2% back to the original 15% to pull in $214 million more revenue this year. This will look bad for the BC NDP unless they become more direct in their [...]
Oh Canada, the Climate Criminal
George Monbiot is one of my heroes. The breadth of clarity he brings to issues is quite refreshing. He has finally given in to pressure, thankfully, to start taking shots at our wonderful, glorious, selfless, polite and all-around loving country. Canada is a climate criminal. Stephen Harper and the Conservative-Liberal coalition government are the don [...]
BC NDP Convention Minus 5 Days: Why We’re the Natural Governing Party of BC
I had this amazing daydream a few weeks after we failed to win the election last May. The NDP is the naturally governing party of BC, so when the legislature was to open earlier this fall/summer, the NDP MLAs should stroll in there and behave as if we actually represent the poorest 95% of British [...]
Fixing the BC NDP
I have been away from updating my editorials for several weeks now as I’ve been working hard on Think Forward BC NDP. What is Think Forward BC NDP? Well, the party is in a transition moment. It lost the election on May 12, 2009. A few thousand votes in key ridings would have meant a [...]
Chinese Protectionism Offends Our Protectionism, Oh My!
We’re now entering a new era of profound hypocrisy from global neoliberal capitalists. Today’s Globe and Mail had a cover story about China hoarding raw materials for infrastructure development while getting all protectionist with export controls to keep those materials from getting to the industrialized world, where presumably we deserve to have them more than [...]
Igg’s Empty Deal with Harper
In 2005, New Democrats turned corporate tax breaks of $4.6 billion into $1.6 billion for affordable housing, $1.5 billion for post-secondary education, $900 million for transit, $500 million for foreign aid and $100 million for pension protection. In 2009, Michael Ignatieff could only manage a “blue ribbon panel” on Employment Insurance with limited scope that [...]
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