We're All Neoliberals Now. Let's Change That.

One thing that struck home during our extended election campaign was how our mainstream political parties have become deeply invested in neoliberalism. While it has several descriptions, reflective of its insidious vagueness, neoliberalism is the merger of political and economic ideology most often called "free market fundamentalism." It is a sort of merger of political and commercial/corporate powers usually born out of the surrender of incidents of political sovereignty through multi-national financial and trade agreements.

It's a process akin to the tactics of a boa constrictor whose victims often fail to realize the severity of their predicament until its too late. That's an apt analogy for how we have, for decades, been conditioned to our role as prey.

Neoliberals have been very successful in conditioning a large segment of the electorate to see themselves as 'taxpayers' rather than 'citizens,' a feat that isolates them from public debate beyond how government impacts their wallets and readies them to accept 'transactional democracy,' where money dictates policy for the powerful often at the expense of everyone else.

Nobel laureate economist, Joe Stiglitz, explores legislated inequality in his book, "The Price of Inequality." Modern inequality, he explains, is neither market nor merit-based to any significant degree. It is legislated and comes in a plethora of forms from tax treatment (exemptions, reductions, deferrals), to grants and subsidies, to the transfer of public resources at far less than market value. The 'taxpayer' public is particularly blind to these government giveaway programmes having been groomed to venerate the rich as the "job creators" whose success "trickles down" to the masses. In reality cooperative lawmakers ensure that the nation's wealth actually "trickles up" to those who least deserve it. It is a malignancy known as "rent-seeking."

Another triumph of neoliberalism has been in conditioning working class Canadians, white and blue collar, to support capital over labour and acquiesce to the decline of unionism. For all the legitimate criticisms of the union movement, it has been freely demonized by the neoliberals and their political minions as regressive and an economic scourge. We've lost sight of the role unions play as the cornerstone of a healthy, robust middle class, the ladder of social mobility, and a vehicle to maintain the balance between labour and capital without which inequality flourishes.

We have been conditioned, groomed, to be submissive to neoliberalism, powerless, incapable even of rallying to our own defence. Harnessed to the myths and scourges of neoliberal ideology, we are clearing the path for increasing inequality and the corrosion of social cohesion and it's a road that leads to illiberal democracy and a gradual rise of economic feudalism.

The legacy of Stephen Harper will be how well he moved us down this path during his decade in power. It's a legacy he shared with his collaborators, Layton, Mulcair and Ignatieff.

It's time we charted a new path while that option is still open to us.



I strongly urge you to watch this Days of Revolt interview.

New Democrats, Take the Hint, We Need You to Go Home.

Hard as it's been to watch the Liberals morph into Conservative-Lite, it was vastly harder to witness the NDP slip its moorings on the left and migrate to the centre to become Latter Day Liberals.

Under Layton and Mulcair, the NDP abandoned the flank in a shameless bid for power  and Canada is much the worse for it.   Just when we needed the balancing force of the Left more than at any time in the past half century it stands deserted.

If Canadians are to weather the challenges of the 21st century, the overwhelming majority of Canadians and not merely the top 5 per cent, we absolutely must have a strong Left presence in our politics.  Without that presence we will have a devilish time dealing with forces that will sap our social cohesion - inequality, climate change, globalization, the assault on organized labour and collective bargaining, corporatism, our dysfunctional electoral system and other grave threats to our democracy.

Canada doesn't need another liberal party.  The voters said as much just days ago in four by-elections.

Canada needs a party of the Left.   Marginally a tad left of the other guys doesn't cut it when they've all headed off to the Right.   Canada needs a party willing to unapologetically stand for lofty principles to both inspire and guide the public and to keep the other parties at least a little more honest.

If the New Democrats are really done with the Left, then they should pack up and clear out and make way for a new party of principle, a new "conscience of Parliament."  That's what Canada is lacking and what the country needs now more than ever.

Earth to Jack

Jack Layton may say he's looking forward to working with Stephen Harper but he obviously doesn't understand reality.   The little prick is already making stupid pronouncements about how he prefers to "propose rather than oppose."  Jack, it's your job to oppose Harper.  You're now the leader of the Official Opposition.  You're not the leader of the Stupid Proposition.

And, as for "working with" Furious Leader, he doesn't give a shit, he's got a hefty majority.  He wasn't interested in working with the opposition when he was in a minority and pretending to be moderate.   Jack, to Steve, you're something he scrapes off his boot.  Oddly enough, that's what you are to me too.

Why are Canadians Being Sold Down the River on Climate Change?

Look at it this way. Civilization is almost certainly doomed, finished if the leaders of the world show the same desultory attitude to climate change as Messrs. Harper, Ignatieff and Layton.

The latest number crunching by the United Nations Environment Programme shows that, even if all countries were to fully meet their carbon reduction targets, we're still going to blow right through the magic 2 degrees Celsius mark accepted as the absolute, "never exceed" limit to salvage our civilization. In fact, if our global leaders are miraculously totally successful in achieving their targets, mankind's emissions will still result in about 3.6 degrees Celsius heating by the end of this century.

There is an enormous amount of hope built into these projections. For example, we hope the earth can handle 2 degrees Celsius of heating without reaching 'tipping points' at which the planet begins releasing its own greenhouse gases - CO2 and methane - at life-snuffing volumes. Remember, these tipping points are just that. They're the point at which we capsize, the point where we lose control and are just along for a truly nasty dunking.

Why are Canadians not discussing this? Why are we not getting the information we need from Ottawa? There are so many things we ought to be considering, things we need to begin evaluating. So why is that not happening? Because we have a prime minister who wants to suppress that information and opposition leaders, Liberal and NDP, who are just fine with that.

Steve and Mike are Tar Sands shills, real bitumen boosters. You can't speak of the Tar Sands and the UNEP projections and not come off sounding like a reprobate. When you bring the two into the light of day together, your grand vision of the nation is revealed to be a sham. So what's Jack's excuse? The diminutive, bald-headed plebian knows that discussing this existential threat quickly and inevitably leads to substantial carbon tax initiatives and this court jester doesn't want to be associated with measures that might hit you in the wallet when you take the gas guzzling pick up to the pump.

When it comes to climate change, these three are afraid - not for what's facing our kids and grandkids, but for how this could derail their political fortunes. This is all about them. They're delighted to drone on endlessly about employment insurance and stimulus spending and Afghanistan and anything else they can transform into political fodder - but they won't discuss climate change, what it's going to mean for today's Canadians and tomorrow's and what we can and should be doing about it.

What kind of men are these three? I have one word that fits but I won't use it here.

Climate Change Numbers Heat Up

There's a new phenomenon sweeping through the halls of climate science - realism. After nearly two decades of constantly understating the problem, of seeing successive projections unexpectedly overtaken by events - and with the ever-important Copenhagen summit just a couple of months away - they're really sharpening their pencils and you're not going to like their results.

Memo to Steve and Mike - these numbers are going to make Tar Sands shills about as welcome as having Nosferatu in to babysit your kids.

Here's the bottom line. Even if every nation fully met its ultimate carbon emissions reduction targets the earth will warm at least 6.3 degrees Fahrenheit or about 3.5 degrees Celsius. Another way of looking at it is that this forecast is almost double the estimated maximum permissible heating if civilization as we know it is to survive. From the Washington Post:


The United Nations Environment Programme report, "Climate Change Science Compendium 2009", breaks from the past. It's not a consensus-based report like the previous IPCC reports that have consistently understated the problem. The denialists and lobbyists aren't going to be allowed to sabotage this report, it's simply too important.

Achim Steiner, UNEP's executive director, told reporters at the National Press Club on Thursday that the report aims to update the IPCC's 2007 findings to reflect both new physical evidence and a more sophisticated understanding of how Earth systems work.

"With every day that passes, the underlying trends that science has provided is . . . of such a dramatic nature that shying away from a major agreement in Copenhagen will probably be unforgivable if you look back in history at this moment," Steiner said. He noted that since 2000 alone, the average rate of melting at 30 glaciers in nine mountain ranges has doubled compared with the rate during the previous two decades.

"These are not things that are in dispute in terms of data," he said. "They are actually physically measurable."

...activists such as 350.org director Bill McKibben said politicians worldwide are not taking aggressive enough steps to address climate change.

"Here's where we are: The political system is not producing at the moment a result which has anything to do with what the science is telling us," said McKibben, whose group aims to reduce the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to 350 parts per million, well below the 450 ppm target that leaders of the Group of 20 major nations have embraced.

What makes me so damn mad about this is that Harper, Ignatieff and Layton; the people who ought to be getting Canadians specific, reliable information about this issue, what each of our regions can expect by way of change and what we can do to prepare for it, stand mute and wilfully keep us in the dark. I'm sorry to say this but each of these guys is betraying the people of Canada.

Poor Jack, On His Knees and Steve Won't Even Give Him the Sweat Off His...

I may be no fan of the IgLibs but Layton & Company's endless sanctimonious castigation of the Libs for propping up SHarper was a bit grating. That's why it was pretty rich to see Moustache Jack bend over and beg Steve to have his way with him if only he will forestall an election the NDP so obviously fears so very much.

I'm sure you Dippers must be cringing at the sight and after all the 'holier than thou' ridicule you've thrown out for so long it looks so awesome on you. The image of a supplicant Jack volunteering to take one for the team pretty much says it all. He didn't pass up an opportunity to berate the Libs for not standing up to Harper until they did and then he immediately offered up himself and his party to be Harper's parliamentary bitch.

It all sounds so scripted. That's the way it sounded to McLean's magazine too which described the plotline thusly:

...this is the part where Jack Layton notices his poll numbers tanking so he climbs into bed with Stephen Harper, a man that for years he has routinely pilloried, condemned and otherwise not liked very much. Striving to create an aura of principled crisis, Jack hogs the political limelight under the pretense of advancing public policy and societal justice, though pretty much everyone attributes his abrupt aboutface to saving his own political bacon. Jack also talks about kitchen tables. Ultimately, Jack votes with a government to which, barely 24 hours earlier, he was philosophically, intellectually, ideologically, morally and possibly even sartorially opposed. He continues to support the government until he is able to crudely manufacture a moment of betrayal that allows him to theatrically withdraw his backing, preferably while surrounded by autoworkers/the unemployed/kitchen tables.

Bye, bye Dippers. You had a good run while it lasted.

If We Don't Get It Right This Time...

This is the worst possible moment for the Three Scourges to dummy up on climate change and just what we have to be prepared to do about it.

We're a scant four months away from what may be our planet's very last opportunity to put in place an effective global warming agreement that might, just might, forestall cataclysmic, runaway climate change.

UN Secretary General Ban put the challenge in clear, even blunt terms. From Associated Press:

Speaking in Seoul, South Korea, Ban said Monday the world has "less than 10 years to halt [the] global rise in greenhouse gas emissions if we are to avoid catastrophic consequences for people and the planet.

"It is, simply, the greatest collective challenge we face as a human family," Ban said in a keynote speech at a gathering of the World Federation of UN Associations.

He said, however, there is cause for hope. Referring to a December meeting in Copenhagen, he said, "we have a chance to put in place a climate change agreement that all nations can embrace, which will be equitable, balanced, comprehensible."

What's the big rush? It's simple. Climate change is already setting in throughout less fortunate parts of the world and it will be arriving at countries like India, Pakistan and China within a decade.

If we're going to get a workable agreement it has to be in place while it's still possible to find consensus which means before global warming transforms into a global security problem. Once resource wars (they're already happening) reach a certain threshhold, wars over water and food, the window for consensus is closed and it'll be closed for good. Then it'll be time to start beating all those ploughshares back into swords.

Achieving consensus is going to require concessions from the West, there is no other way. But what public is going to support concessions if it doesn't grasp the problem, if it doesn't fully comprehend what is at stake? That, in turn, takes an informed population. It takes responsible political leadership getting reliable information to the public and facilitating the essential discussions and debates.

That should be happening right now and it's not. Stephen Harper has EnviroCan gagged thinking he can somehow benefit by keeping the genie in the bottle. He's doing it because he can. He's doing it because Michael Ignatieff and Jack Layton are letting him get away with it. They're doing it because you're allowing Michael Ignatieff and Jack Layton to get away with it too. It's time that changed.

If Britain Can Do It, and California Can Do It, Why Iggy Won't You Force Harper To Do It?

I wrote Michael Ignatieff some time ago asking that he try to force Stephen Harper into doing for the Canadian people what Britain had done for Britons and what California is now doing for Californians - giving them honest information on what conditions we can expect from the global warming that is bound to come from greenhouse gases we've already released into the atmosphere.

Ignatieff's people had his environmental policy advisor respond by saying Harper is useless but completely ignoring my point.

What the British government and now the California government have done is to give their people a "best case" climate change scenario so that they can plan and prepare for adaptation and remediation. Our climate is changing and it is going to keep changing for the rest of this century even if we get an effective climate change deal in place tomorrow.

From The Guardian:

"We still have to adapt, no matter what we do, because of the nature of the greenhouse gases," said Tony Brunello, deputy secretary for climate change and energy at the California Natural Resources Agency, who helped prepare the report. "Those gases are still going to be in the atmosphere for the next 100 years."

The draft report to be released today by the agency provides the state's first comprehensive plan to work with local governments, universities and residents to deal with a changing climate. A final plan is expected to be released in the autumn.

...Most countries have focused on cutting greenhouse gases in the future, but researchers say those efforts will take decades to have an effect while the planet continues to warm. States have only recently begun to consider what steps they must take to minimise the damage expected from sea level rise, storm surges, droughts and water shortages because of the climate changes.

...The report warns that rising temperatures over the next few decades will lead to more heatwaves, wildfires, droughts and floods.

"We have to deal with those unavoidable impacts," said Suzanne Moser, a research associate at the Institute of Marine Sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz. "We can't pretend they are not going to happen and we have to prepare for that."

To minimise the potential damage from climate change, the report recommends that cities and counties offer incentives to encourage property owners in high-risk areas to relocate and limit future development in places that might be affected by flooding, coastal erosion and sea level rise. State agencies also should not plan, permit, develop or build any structure that might require protection in the future.

If Stephen Harper had the decency to take the gags off our climate scientists at EnviroCan and have them follow Britain's and California's initiatives or if Michael Ignatieff was half the leader he pretends to be and did something to force Harper's hand, we too might discover that we're going to have to deal with changes in precipitation and temperature patterns and with sea level rise. After all, doesn't Canada have more shoreline than any other country on the planet?

But so long as Stephen Harper, Michael Ignatieff and Jack Layton stick with their "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" charade we're not going to get the information we need and deserve, we're not going to understand the "best case" scenarios, we're not going to do the planning we needed to start years ago and we're certainly not going to take any concrete action to prepare for what's coming no matter how hard these supposed leaders pretend it's not.

Can Layton Be Trusted?

I've been troubled by nagging doubt ever since the "coalition" of opposition parties idea surfaced. Layton hatched the venture with Duceppe and then laid it at Dion's feet? Here, Stephane, sign this and we'll make you prime minister.

If I was able to believe that Layton was truly acting for the good of Canada, that is to stop Harper, rather than to advance the political ambitions of Jack Layton, the idea of a Liberal-NDP coalition seems reasonable. But, when you try to ascertain a person's intentions what choice is there except to revisit that person's record?

A coalition is premised on an essential level of trust and I've never found Layton particularly trustworthy. Dippers will disagree with this but, as far as I'm concerned, Stephen Harper was shoehorned into power by Layton and, since then, Jack's been driven by an obsession to become the first NDP leader of the opposition.

To me, Jack Layton is as relentless and unprincipled in his quest to advance his personal political ambitions as Stephen Harper. He's cut from a different cloth than predecessors like David Lewis and Ed Broadbent and it leaves me awfully leery of the guy.

Of course the decision about the future of the coalition isn't mine, it's Michael Ignatieff's and his caucus members'. I don't believe Ignatieff should be bound by any deal inked by his predecessor while Mr. Dion was only an interim party leader on his way out.

If Layton still wants a coalition, it's up to him to sell the deal to Michael Ignatieff and I think it's not only Ignatieff's prerogative but his duty to his Party, his caucus and the Canadian people to make his own assessment of the current conditions and weigh them in deciding the merits of the coalition. If Ignatieff is amenable to a coalition, let him negotiate the terms that would be acceptable to him.

Layton, like Harper, is quick to spot and exploit an opportunity, a weakness. Just what was the weakness Layton spotted in coming up with the coalition idea? Was it a Tory vulnerability, or a Liberal weakness - or was it both?

I wish I could trust Jack Layton, but I can't.

Or Else ...What?

Jack Layton has taken control of the plum, Afghanistan airstrike issue, calling on Harper to demand an end to this tactic by US and NATO forces.

It's a good issue to grab. Surprising, in a way, that other opposition parties, including our own Liberals, haven't run with it before now.

The deplorable over-reliance on airpower by the Afghan Western forces is much easier to criticize than government corruption or even opium production. People just plain don't like the idea of our side bombing village kids into oblivion.

What Layton hasn't said is what he wants Harper to do should our side decline the suggestion. Leave Afghanistan perhaps?

I am disappointed with the lacklustre way Stephane Dion has handled the Afghanistan issue. He's certainly reinforcing the message that I get from people that this was a Liberal venture from the outset.

Just where is Dion anyway? He needs to take advantage of these summer months to really raise his profile but turn on the news and he's nowhere to be seen. Layton and Harper aren't wasting a single opportunity to speak out on just about anything. Dion wanted the job, he needs to act like he still wants it. I'm sure there are plenty of Liberal insiders who can tell me that Stephane has been busy doing this or that but the public sure as hell doesn't know that. To them, he's all but invisible.