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The world after 9/11: Naomi Klein prevails again
Friday, September 9th, 2011
Sep. 09, 2011
The objective of the economic class war has always been simplicity itself: inequality, the greater the better. And it’s working like a charm. In the United States, and to a growing extent in Canada, it is now politically impossible ever to discuss the need to raise taxes, even on the filthy rich, in order to sustain any kind of positive government… While the middle class shrinks, the working class slips backwards and social mobility erodes, the rich buy themselves politicians, lobbyists, legal beagles, slick accountants, “trained economists,” television networks, “think” tanks and whatever other apparatus is needed to make them even richer.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, standard of living, tax
Posted in Equality Policy Context | No Comments »
Lefties, a little progressive merger wouldn’t hurt
Thursday, September 8th, 2011
Sep. 08, 2011
… there’s no reason the first talks need be about merger. Instead, they could be about picking the seats in which one party could win if the other stepped aside… Abolishing public financing of political parties – which gave incentives to run in every seat – makes this feasible. It would also help the decades of enmity erode gradually… Unlike the divided right, the NDP and Liberals have already co-operated – think four minority Parliaments in Ottawa, plus two more in Ontario and Saskatchewan…
Tags: ideology, participation
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Selinger’s social activism in Manitoba shaped by family background
Thursday, September 8th, 2011
Sep. 07, 2011
Most Manitobans are familiar with Greg Selinger the policy wonk – the NDP finance-minister-turned-premier who has three university degrees and can talk at length, sometimes tremendous length, about macroeconomic theory. But Mr. Selinger has another side – one of social activism shaped by a childhood in which his family battled poverty, separation and mental illness… “When you come out of a family background where there is a lone parent, you see issues of how you look after children, right? Or if you see issues where relatives are struggling with mental health issues, right, that develops a certain sensitivity to those issues”
Tags: ideology, participation, poverty
Posted in Governance Debates | 1 Comment »
Taxing the super-rich
Saturday, September 3rd, 2011
Sep. 03, 2011
… while there’s no limit to using the rich as a political punching bag, there’s a limit to taxing them. So, perhaps the debate on both sides of the Atlantic should focus on political influence. There, the rich really are different from you and me… isn’t what passes as philanthropy often just a way for the rich to advance their pet political causes? Who says the “causes” of the wealthy are always the best ones for society? The rich may be smart. But the rest of us should not be that dumb.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, tax
Posted in Equality Debates | No Comments »
Live long and prosper, without fiscal doom [health costs]
Saturday, September 3rd, 2011
Sep. 02, 2011
Living longer does not mean being sicker longer…. Instead, the seemingly irresistible, inexorable rise of health-care spending has more to do with greater use of pharmaceuticals and with more and more services from more and more specialists – not just by the old, but by all patients… Public policy should be able to restrain health-care spending from eventually taking over an unsustainable, grossly unreasonable share of public budgets.
Tags: disabilities, Health, pharmaceutical, standard of living
Posted in Health Debates | No Comments »
Grits: Be bold, or get lost
Thursday, September 1st, 2011
Sep. 01, 2011
… the middle of the road can be a dangerous place – especially if you don’t know where you’re going. The Liberal Party’s challenge is to reimagine the political spectrum as a multidimensional space, not just a flat line where they struggle to hold an imaginary middle position…. Take ownership of policy issues… Rebuild the Quebec relationship… Get over the white knight syndrome… [and] Tune out the merger talk…
Tags: ideology, participation
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Should recent arrivals qualify for Old Age Security?
Thursday, September 1st, 2011
September 1, 2011
I find it hard to distinguish why we should impose residency requirements on Old Age Security but not other public benefits or public spending. Why restrict Old Age Security to long-term residents but not public health insurance? … as the short twenty-year span of contributory Old Age Security taxes fades from fiscal memory, the argument for excluding short-term residents from the benefits received by other Canadian seniors will become harder to make.
Posted in Social Security History | 2 Comments »
Jack Layton’s legacy and our yearning for political civility
Tuesday, August 30th, 2011
Aug. 30, 2011
Canadians of every political stripe yearn deeply for a political culture that’s more civil and constructive, and that can engage ordinary citizens in building a better country. Young Canadians yearn most of all. Over at City Hall, one of the chalk scrawls said: “Thank you Jack, for taking out the cynicism.” …Outside in the public square, it wasn’t the NDP manifesto that moved the crowds. Above all, it was the word “civility.”
Tags: ideology, participation, rights, standard of living
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Teaching the Khan way
Monday, August 29th, 2011
Aug. 27, 2011
Salman Khan is a nerdy 34-year-old American with a genius for explaining things… he started to make a series of short instructional videos that explained the basic concepts. Then he put some of them on YouTube, and they took off… To date, he has turned out 2,400 low-tech mini-lectures on everything from basic addition to vector calculus and organic chemistry… The Khan approach shows how technology can be used to truly customize education and allow students to proceed at their own pace.
Tags: ideology, standard of living
Posted in Education Delivery System | No Comments »
Jack Layton ennobled politics
Tuesday, August 23rd, 2011
Aug. 23, 2011
“Please don’t be discouraged that my own journey hasn’t gone as well as I had hoped. You must not lose your own hope.” Even when his own hope was gone, he pleaded for the necessity of hope in others. “My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair.” Few politicians anywhere have left public life on such a note of grace…. There is a message for the NDP in his success: there are votes to be had for a moderate social-democratic party.
Tags: featured, ideology, participation, rights, standard of living
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
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