Category Archives: Corporations

We Need to Prepare for Those Worse Than Trump

 

It’s one thing to lower the bar, but with Trump, someone pulled out the jackhammer and has dug through the floor.

Donald Trump Went On A Baffling 3AM Twitter Rant About Sex Tapes ...But let’s not assume that Trump is the low ebb or an aberration. He signifies another level altogether of political contempt.

Politicians have a sense of entitlement and natural objection to transparency and accountability, having spent generations rigging the system to let them slide easily into power. Add in rich, white and male entitlements and we see the majority of politicians more than doubling down on arrogance.

But we can’t just presume things will get better after Trump.

  1. He has established a new realm of political behaviour that will allow equally or more repulsive and anti-social miscreants to seek their populist masses to champion.
  2. Current contemptuous politicians will see new capacity to dig even further into the slime in the political culture of their region.
  3. Politicians with integrity will find even more competitors dealing in abject lies which will increasingly go unchecked by corporate media that has been whipped into submission/irrelevance by the brashness of lying politicians and the self-immolating corporate media and their brand new level of apathy towards to truth and fact-checking all to serve the profitability of the corporate media owners’ agenda to serve the interests of their political compradors.

Solutions!

  1. We need to support media with integrity. Don’t expect this to come from corporate media. Look for independent media and amplify their voices. Remember, it was CANADALAND that broke the Jian Ghomeshi debacle.
  2. Use your own personal social networks to share information critical for participating in our civic duty. Not Facebook posts which must meet the elements of their fancy algorithms to even reach your people, try email or text messages or cocktail parties [we should have more of these] or brunches or phone calls to talk about life. And include political truths your people need to know. You don’t have to BECOME the media, you just need to amplify the positive messages.
  3. Next, go directly to political parties’/candidates’ websites to see where they really stand and what they’re saying in particular and in context. Amplify that, criticize that, augment that, demand better policy than that. The same goes for the contemptuous politicians: read their policy, compare it with what they say, and note the contradictions.
  4. Remember, you and me and all of us are the employers of these politicians. They constantly try to encourage us to obey them. This is nonsense. We need to resist that abusive stance and recognize our own power.
  5. Bernie Sanders almost became the Democratic nominee for president. He did that despite the successful work of corporate media and the Clinton/Party coalition to shut down and censor his message. Once he lost the California primary, the Democracy for America movement mobilized to nominate progressive Senate and House candidates. Controlling/influencing Congress could be a powerful element in fixing America. You will encounter people of integrity and vision who could lead us, not necessarily as elected leaders, but mobilizers who can help liberate us all from our pasty, weak democracy and the rise of soft fascism.

Get busy, and don’t be afraid.

And plan a cocktail party!

Update, and a new solution:

Read this #FacePalm piece, and look at this:

trumpeducation

 

The DNC Superdelegates Can Fix Party Corruption This Week

superdelegatesIn case you missed it, Clinton and the DNC are corrupt, and have been for a long time. They and their media partners have worked hard to keep Bernie Sanders from becoming the Democratic nominee for president.

And still, he almost won in the primaries and caucuses. What could he have accomplished if the DNC wasn’t corrupt. How much earlier would he have become the presumptive nominee if the media gave him more than a tiny fraction of coverage compared to what Clinton received.

And what about those anti-democratic superdelegates, many of whom had sided with Clinton before anyone else had even started a campaign?

It turns out that the superdelegates are in a unique positions to fix the corruption of the Democratic Party by switching their choice to Sanders.

How? It’s easy. Look at the math in the graphic above, sourced just today.

Sanders already has 47 superdelegates. He needs 504 of Clinton’s 604 superdelegates to flip to him to win the nomination.

So the “how” isn’t the problem. The problem is the “why.”

These superdelegates are in that position because they’re loyal to the DNC and its cabal of operators and insiders. THEY are embedded in the corruption of the party itself, and their inherent anti-democratic status just reinforces that.

So why would they throw their political masters under the bus?

  1. Trump’s convention bump is massive. And disturbing. But it does reinforce the view that Americans are sick of corrupt, rigged, insider politics. Unfortunately, they see Trump as the one to burn down that house, as opposed to Sanders who could help rebuild America and democracy differently from how Trump would. Check out Turkey this month to see how Trump would wield power.
  2. Clinton dodged an indictment on her email server scandal, but her trustworthiness continues to suffer, especially among key demographics. The leaked emails only reinforce how she likes to cheat. And the party does too: serious credibility and legitimacy problem.
  3. Trump now polls ahead of Clinton. Sanders polled further ahead of Trump than Clinton did.
  4. If the DNC crisis inflames further this week, perhaps with more Wikileaks emails, the “party establishment” may have to call in more fire trucks to put out the fire, right up to throwing Clinton under the bus. They would do that by making the superdelegates flip to Sanders.
  5. If the Democrats are betting that people vote for Clinton to keep Trump from winning, they’re seeing that as every hour goes by, that hope is transforming into delusion. It’s no empty threat that people will vote Trump because Clinton and the DNC are so corrupt.

The party may figure this all out. If they feel the pressure enough this week, and they can see a strongly credible route to defeat by Trump, even Clinton is expendable.

Remember, political parties want power more than anything else. Even a Sanders Democratic presidency would allow the people really in charge of the DNC to control the country.

And in the end, they want it not because they can’t stand Trump. They want it because they want power, with whatever horse can get them across the finish line.

And here’s your Easter Egg: the DNC’s non-apology apology. So galling.

On Tuesday, Corporate Media Played You. Did You Catch It?

Is this from the movie" UP " awesome :3 I miss those days (\o|o/) Lawl ...Which was the most important news story on Tuesday this week? And which news story was overshadowed by corporate media coverage of the other 3?

  1. Donald Trump was officially nominated and elected as the Republican candidate for president, despite attempts to derail that surreal event.
  2. Donald Trump’s wife plagiarized Michelle Obama in her speech.
  3. There was something going on between Taylor Swift, Kanye West and Kim Kardashian. I still don’t know what. And no, I won’t seek a link for this. Please.
  4. And the soon to be big[ger] story that Mrs. Trump Rickrolled the Republican convention and the country.

The answer to both questions, obviously[?], is #1.

But the media pointed out some squirrels with which to distract us from the torturous reality that a major American political party is in such a state of delusion that Mr. Trump is their gift to the White House.

This is something we should all be debating and planning to avert! But we can’t if the Kanye/Kim/Taylor/Melania show is on.

So. Did you catch it? Or did corporate media get you again on Tuesday? If you caught it, you are allowed to like us in the Facebook.

Spoiler: yesterday we learned that Trump thinks the president’s job is to Make America Great Again while letting his vice-president take care of domestic and international policy. It’s now the Texas Bush-Cheney Chainsaw Massacre, Part Deux!

Oh. And here’s your Easter Egg.

Shaming Chauvinists 101

Hey, Canada. Don’t you just hate it when other countries make us look so 20th century?

In the UK, they’re going to publicly shame employers who maintain gender wage disparities. Sure, it’s not legislated pay equity, but it’s a start. And they’re ahead of us.

Seriously, how hard is this? Come on, read on. I dare you!

Businesses that perpetuate the wage gap will be exposed.Source: U.K. to Name and Shame Companies That Pay Men More Than Women

U.K. officials announced legislation Friday that will require businesses with more than 250 employees to publish the differences in average salaries and bonuses between male and female employees. A government-sponsored website will rank businesses by their gender pay gap, spotlighting companies that have failed to address wage disparities.

“In recent years we’ve seen the best employers make groundbreaking strides in tackling gender inequality,” Minister for Women and Equalities Nicky Morgan said in a statement. “But the job won’t be complete until we see the talents of women and men recognized equally and fairly in every workplace.” She added that such measures would leave “nowhere for gender inequality to hide.”

It’s Time for a National Housing Strategy

One of the big bads from the 1980s is starting to emerge again in Alberta. Jingle mail — the act of walking away from an underwater mortgage by mailing your keys back to the bank — is a peculiarity of the Alberta residential market and an act of desperation. However, a combination of high debt and lost jobs make it an option in a province going through a significant economic reckoning.

Source: Jingle mail rears its ugly head in Alberta again – Calgary – CBC News

In Vancouver, people are secretly salivating when our real estate market is in the stratosphere with London and Manhattan.

Secretly, because it makes people feel like they’re big on bashing the homeless and the affordability crisis if they’re too gleeful about how much [notional] equity they’re building.

But watch the ripples:

  1. Pockets of Alberta are at risk of upside-down mortgage default.
  2. Over-reliance on commodities create huge housing precarity.
  3. In Vancouver there is a net outflow of kids from k-12 because trying to raise a family is a death sentence for the dream of owning real estate in Vancouver
  4. Huge assessment increases in parts of BC make people want to cash out, but young families are increasingly not in a position to buy into homes in expensive areas.
  5. Watch for more school closure.
  6. Have you heard of the sub-prime crash of 2008 and the rampant moral hazards? Have you seen Margin Call or The Big Short?

These are just a few snippets of the kinds of housing crises facing Canada. And that’s without even going into the state of housing on reserves.

A national housing strategy would be like creating Medicare, or the CPP or student loans. A national plan for people to be secure in their housing.

There are capitalist pariahs who have long opposed all three of those national plans because it cuts into their potential profits in inelastic markets.

So too, housing.

As a society, we need to say enough!

Homes matter. Utah has cured homelessness by [get this!] building homes for homeless people. Medicine Hat is walking down that road and soon Kamloops will too.

Do YOU have anything against a national housing strategy?

Sanders’ Iowa “Win” and Clinton’s Entitlement

Clinton breathed a sigh of relief and spun the result: thanks for the “win.”

Source: From Iowa to New Hampshire: Latest Updates on 2016

This was no win. Despite the massive corporate media campaign to ignore Sanders, he did exceptionally well because he resonates with actual people.

Democratic Results in Iowa »

  Pct. Delegates
 Hillary Clinton
49.9% 22
Bernie Sanders
49.6 21
Martin O’Malley 0.6

If Clinton were to switch back to the Republican Party right now, I’m sure she’d win the White House easily. But being the corporate candidate in a leftward drifting Democratic Party, she has everything to lose.

With Sanders’ lead in NH polling, a win there may cripple the Clinton campaign.

By the way, have you read Michael Moore’s endorsement of Sanders yet? There’s a great image that explains how Clinton loses, if she does.

And a special note for Canadians…A Sanders presidency is the best hope we have of scuttling the TPP for Canada!

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Elect Harper = Kill Medicare for Good

#HeaveSteve

THIS is how much the Harper Conservatives resent, hate and want to kill Medicare with a slow, painful death [starting with a $36 billion cut]…leading to for-profit healthcare where the rich are OK, the companies are brutally profitable and the middle class and poor go bankrupt or die from untreated diseases.

Just like before Medicare in Canada, except now with American corporations earning billions in profits.

Want any more time with Harper’s gong show in charge?

No. Heave the Steve!

And here’s a bonus for you:

Let’s Give Green Energy $5.3 Trillion This Year

What fraction of a decade would it take to completely get off fossil fuels [oil, gas, coal] and create a post-carbon energy/transportation infrastructure if the clean, green energy sector were publicly subsidized at $10,000,000 per MINUTE, or $5,300,000,000,000 [yes, that’s $5.3 trillion] for 2015?

Please, I dare you to attack me for the numbers. They don’t come from some tree-hugging enviro-hippie think tank. They come from the spinal fluid of neoliberalism: the IMF.

So, when people say it’s not feasible to get off carbon energy, let them know that worldwide, taxpayers are subsidizing them more than everyone in the world pays for public healthcare.

Fossil fuels subsidised by $10m a minute, says IMF‘Shocking’ revelation finds $5.3tn subsidy estimate for 2015 is greater than the total health spending of all the world’s governments

Source: Fossil fuels subsidised by $10m a minute, says IMF | Environment | The Guardian

How Do YOU Fight for Workplace Justice?

How do YOU define determination?

One of them gave birth the day before the vote. As soon as her baby was nursing properly and her bloodwork came back okay, she made the trip to the hotel to vote.

via Inside a union drive at The Trump Hotel | Toronto Star.

Budweiser Stops Pandering to Rapists?

Budweiser, the perfect beer for rapists:

New Bud Light Tagline: 'Remove 'No' From Your Vocabulary for the Night'

Being up for whatever happens [even with its own hashtag: #UpForWhatever]

+

an evening environment that doesn’t include no in its vocabulary

+

all within our still vibrant rape culture

=

a recipe for Budweiser to demonstrate how pathetic they are at understanding how communication works.

And they end up being complicit in continuing to promote rape culture and a world where explicit consent for sex is either ignore, downplayed or rejected.

They still haven’t apologized, but they have said that they regret missing the mark. Continue to not expect integrity from corporations:

The Bud Light Up for Whatever campaign, now in its second year, has inspired millions of consumers to engage with our brand in a positive and light-hearted way. In this spirit, we created more than 140 different scroll messages intended to encourage spontaneous fun. It’s clear that this message missed the mark, and we regret it. We would never condone disrespectful or irresponsible behavior.