Category Archives: Democracy

Poor Kids, Poor Families and Shame

“When Centennial’s students found out Seymour couldn’t hold a pyjama day because many students didn’t have pyjamas, they fundraised to buy every Seymour student a pair last Christmas.”

When the Field Trip’s Too Pricey, Students ‘Self-Exclude’

BC’s disgusting and preventable child poverty crisis. Let’s stop coddling the rich!

When parents receive letters from their kids’ school asking for donations for playground upgrades or library books or technological devices, a certain segment of the population sighs, grows a few more grey hairs and dies a little bit inside.

Parents who are struggling financially cannot afford the luxury of even a tax-deductible donation to the school their children attend.

Sometimes, parents are confused. Don’t we pay taxes? Aren’t taxes structured in such a way that those who are more well-off shoulder a bit more of a burden for social services than the poor and struggling? That’s called a progressive tax system, but it is hated in our neoliberal era of tax cuts, austerity, privatization and social service cuts. The BC Liberal Party hates the poor and has been bashing them for most of this century.

But these are often just abstract policy debates. The reality is that there are real families, tens of thousands of them in BC, and real children who suffer and are often ashamed, too ashamed to trot out their poverty at school.

Who teaches them to be ashamed?

Continue reading Poor Kids, Poor Families and Shame

Occupy Canada For May Day, With Bananas

A few days ago, I wrote about picking May Day as a good time for Occupy Vancouver to reboot itself and catch up with the Occupy Movement’s worldwide #WaveOfAction.

But I think that idea can be bigger, it can be a day for all of Occupy Canada to reboot.

Here’s how:

Continue reading Occupy Canada For May Day, With Bananas

Welcome to Stephen Harper’s Banana Republic

Just how stupid does Stephen Harper think we are?

He thinks that we’re fine with the idea that incumbent parties should be able to pick the poll supervisors in the next election.

I kid you not.

This kind of contempt for democracy and embrace of corruption is the worst part of this brand new [un]Fair Elections Act.

This is the kind of thing for which Occupy Vancouver and Occupy Canada should be occupying every single Conservative Party MP office in the country.

This is how much Stephen Harper hates democracy, fair elections, Elections Canada and, frankly, us.

This is the kind of thing that moves Canada from our quaint, polite Soft Fascism to a pretty hardcore banana republic.

This is the how stupid Stephen Harper thinks we all are. And if we tolerate this, we deserve the royal leadership of Emperor Stephen.

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Pure, utter contempt for democracy and facilitation of corruption!

Canada Seeks the OECD Record for Income Inequality

America: Where the rich get richer faster than in so many other places!
America: Where the rich get richer faster than in so many other places!

Yesterday I wrote about the rebooting of the Occupy Movement in 10 days. I’m very excited.

And to help you understand why this is such a big deal, especially in Canada, it’s important to see how Canada is increasingly becoming the poster child for income inequality. We are not nice and neighbourly and friendly. We are increasingly unequal society. Unless we step up and say that we’re mad as hell and we aren’t going to take it any more, the rich in Canada will continue to pad their pockets with income at the expense of all of us in the working classes.

Here’s how this works:

Continue reading Canada Seeks the OECD Record for Income Inequality

Build Worker Solidarity Now or Suffer the Wrath of the 1%

Working people need to seek out solidarity opportunities.

Unions and unionized workers need to reach out to non-unionized workers and seek legislative improvements for all, like improvements to the EI and doubling the CPP and renegotiating the Canada Health Accord and expanding Medicare and getting a national pharmacare program and starting a national childcare program and building a poverty reduction plan and a national housing strategy and no longer funding First Peoples at third world conditions. And the list, actually, does go on.

And public sector workers need to build solidarity with private sector workers, whose union density is declining.

If we don’t fight the 1%’s decades-long plan to divide us, we are toast. Here are two key thought experiments to try on this hump day:

Continue reading Build Worker Solidarity Now or Suffer the Wrath of the 1%

Mr. Harper: Pathetic Media Flop

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The contempt that our employee, Mr. Harper, holds for his 36 million employers is palpable. Sometimes it’s just goofy. He’s taken to skirting the “real” media, whom he despises, to becoming his own media, like bloggers or vloggers. Watch, and let’s examine how pathetic an employee he is:

Continue reading Mr. Harper: Pathetic Media Flop

If You Value Democracy, Call Your Nearest Conservative MP, NOW!

Fair Elections Act

UPDATE: Contempt is winning.

Call your nearest Conservative MP right now, until 330pm today, west coast time. Let them know that their Orwellian-named “Fair” Elections Act is clearly designed to further erode democracy and we see through it. See below for where you can contact such MPs.

We can’t let them ram this through, or else we’ll become even more of a banana republic.

Continue reading If You Value Democracy, Call Your Nearest Conservative MP, NOW!

Canada’s Growing Income Gap Between the 99% and the 1%

http://ecologistii.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/pyramid_big.jpg?resize=259%2C408The rich are getting richer and poor are getting poorer, and the gap between them is growing.

This is the test of whether we can be content in our complacency. Here’s why.

Continue reading Canada’s Growing Income Gap Between the 99% and the 1%

Capitalism: Swing Your Sledgehammer

It’s all about vision and hope, in an effort to envision how economics and markets can exist after the toxicity of capitalism is gone, gone gone. Are you up for it?

Last night, John Holloway, author of Crack Capitalism, was the SFU Institute for the Humanities‘ guest lecturer, skyped in from Mexico. He was full of inspiration and clarity. Enjoy my twitter reflections below.

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How to Spot a Good Journalist

It’s getting harder and harder, what with constant corporate media concentration, and corporatist convergence of messaging from right wing governments and their informal corporate media PR departments.

But everyone once in a while we see evidence that there is a growing number of journalists who exist with integrity and can demonstrate meaningful contribution to society:

 

Continue reading How to Spot a Good Journalist