This and that for your Sunday reading. – Grace Blakeley comments on the connection between neoliberal ideology, and the replacement of even the possibility of collective action with an assumption that we’re only in it for ourselves. – Aditya Chakrabortty writes about the need to eliminate poverty in all of
Continue readingTag: foreign aid
Accidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – The Globe and Mail’s editorial board asks whether Doug Ford will again fall painfully short in responding to the public health threat posed by COVID-19 – though at this point the questions appears to be entirely rhetorical. Murray Mandryk discusses the lives
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Assorted content to start your week. – John Nichols writes about Pramila Jayapal’s recognition that mass unemployment is a policy choice – and her plan for wage supports to make sure workers aren’t left without needed income. Nicole Aschoff discusses how profiteers have been taking advantage of programs set up
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: Why Would the UN General Assembly Elect Canada to the Security Council?
Prime Minister Trudeau has been hustling around the world, attempting to round up votes for Canada when the UN General Assembly elects members of the Security Council in June. Two seats are available for the Western European and Others Group, and three countries are in the running: Norway, Ireland and
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Arwa Mahdawi writes that the outsized influence wielded by billionaires makes them something beyond merely wealthy people. Tom Whyman challenges the worship of the excessively wealthy as a particularly destructive religion. Robert Reich points out that the means of accumulating a billion
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: Scheer would make us even worse cheapskates on foreign aid
When Andrew Scheer released his party’s foreign policy earlier this year it turned out to be in large part a copy of Donald Trump’s. Pandering to the Israelis, hypocritical approach to Iran, etc. Now it appears he is also following the Donald’ s lead on foreign aid. Earlier this year,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Paul Krugman writes that complaints by the U.S.’ wealthiest few about Elizabeth Warren reflect their insistence that extreme wealth be coupled with absolute and unquestioned power: The point is that many of the superrich aren’t satisfied with living like kings, which they will
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Michael Mikulewicz and Tahseen Jafry discuss the responsibility wealthy countries bear for increasingly severe weather events – as well as the best way to start bearing an appropriate share of the resulting human and economic costs: In all this inequality, the world’s
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Evening Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Richard Waters and Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson report that five large tech companies alone turned the Trump corporate tax cuts into tens of billions of dollars in share buybacks benefiting nobody other than those who already had the most. And Caroline Haskins writes about
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Scott Gilmore discusses how Canada is actually backsliding in some crucial development goals. And Colin Gordon writes about the inequality growing on multiple fronts around the globe. – Kathy Tomlinson uncovers a Vancouver real estate market rigged to benefit developers and speculators.
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: The Neoliberal Creep – Part 2
While Part 1 dealt with the neoliberal agenda influencing Bill Morneau’s retraction of his pharmacare promise, today’s post deals with that same influence, this time on Canada’s ‘evolving’ position on foreign aid. International Development Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau says she wants to use the new $2 billion in extra aid dollars
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: It’s time to take our charities to the cleaners
The Oxfam sexual exploitation scandal signals the arrival of the moment for an honest public conversation about charities’ role in society, the white saviour mentality, gender relations, charity accountability, and the impact of western aid and power in developing countries. The post It’s time to take our charities to the
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: The inconvenient truth about foreign aid
Like political campaign contributions, today’s self-interested foreign aid often supports badly-designed development projects, imposes foreign investor-friendly policies on recipient countries, facilitates access to intended beneficiaries’ resources, helps aid-giving countries to look good on the world stage, all the while making unquestioning taxpayers in aid giving countries feel good about their
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Ellie Mae O’Hagan writes about Jeremy Corbyn’s much-needed work in addressing the loss of hope by young people in the UK: For the first time in a good few years, I’ve stopped worrying about money. I can imagine living somewhere nice without having
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Scott Clark and Peter DeVries point out that with interest rates still at historically low levels, Canada would be far better off funding infrastructure for itself rather than locking itself into privatized structures: But that is not true at all at the federal
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading.- Murray Dobbin argues that the Trudeau Libs’ response (or lack thereof) to wealthy tax cheats will tell us what we most need to know about their plans for Canada.- Meanwhile, Tonda MacCharles reports on Justin Tru…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Lonnie Golden studies the harm done to workers by irregular schedules. And Matt Bruening comments on how Missouri, Kansas and other states are passing draconian restrictions on benefits by trying to get the middle class to envy the poor. – Meanwhile, Scott Santens
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Dennis Raphael and Toba Bryant write about the devastating health effects of income inequality in Canada: Imagine the response, from industry, government and the public, if a plane was crashing every day. If there were something that killed as many people in a
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – The Star criticizes the Harper Cons’ selective interest in international cooperation – with war and oil interests apparently ranking as the only areas where the Cons can be bothered to work with other countries. And Catherine Porter reports that the Cons have demonstrated
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, questioning whether Canadians share Stephen Harper’s newly-professed aspiration to spend tens of billions of dollars more every year to prop up U.S. and U.K. military contractors. For further reading…– David Pugliese reported on this week’s NATO summit. – NATO’s most recent spending calculations are here (see PDF link), showing
Continue reading