Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Crawford Kilian writes that Donald Trump's presidency is merely a symptom of the wider disease of undue deference to wealth. And Matt Karp comments on the need for progressives to identify the problem rather than soft-peddling class divisions:

What distinguished the Bernie Sanders campaign more than any other issue — including his support for free college or Medicare for All — was that he named his enemy. Among his other objectives, Sanders’s attacks on “the 1 percent” were an attempt to reorder American politics around class lines: not with a stale disquisition on stratification, but by tapping into Americans’ anti-billionaire sentiment, religiously excluded from mainstream politics by both parties but thrumming powerfully just below the surface.

This bold gambit was not enough to defeat Hillary Clinton in a closed Democratic primary, but it did make Sanders the most popular active politician in the United States. If Americans truly hate class politics, and all prefer to see themselves as future CEOs, why is our favorite political leader a disheveled old man who spends most of his time yelling about rich people?

America’s anti-billionaire majority is still out there, waiting to be awakened again. But before that happens, the deal is going to have to get a whole lot better.

- Jarrett Walker discusses how elite projection results in the development of plans suited only for the benefit of a privileged few.

- Donna Swift is duly skeptical of the bluster emitted by Loblaws and other businesses who want to keep employees below a living wage in order to slightly boost their profit margins. And Paul Sonn points out how the apocalyptic predictions of minimum-wage alarmists have proven utterly wrong in practice.

- CBC identifies a few of the significant effects climate change is already having on British Columbia. And James Wilt suggests a few options for Alberta to rein in methane emissions quickly and efficiently.

- Finally, Anna Mehler Paperny highlights the disproportionate number of Canadian prisoners who die while legally innocent.

Saturday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your weekend reading.

- George Monbiot examines how politics in the UK and the U.S. are dominated by unaccountable corporate money. And Stephen Maher and B.J. Siekierski report that both the Libs and Cons are fully on board - as Rona Ambrose managed to take (however justified) umbrage at Justin Trudeau's vacation on a private island while she herself was being entertained on a billionaire's yacht.

- Alex Hemingway points out the similarities between the corporate infrastructure giveaways being planned by Trudeau and Donald Trump alike. And Paul Krugman discusses the particular menace raised by Trump in dealing with the world:

(T)his administration doesn’t seem prepared on any front. Mr. Trump’s confrontational phone calls, in particular, don’t sound like the working out of an economic or even political strategy — cunning schemers don’t waste time boasting about their election victories and whining about media reports on crowd sizes.

No, what we’re hearing sounds like a man who is out of his depth and out of control, who can’t even pretend to master his feelings of personal insecurity. His first two weeks in office have been utter chaos, and things just keep getting worse — perhaps because he responds to each debacle with a desperate attempt to change the subject that only leads to a fresh debacle.

America and the world can’t take much more of this. Think about it: If you had an employee behaving this way, you’d immediately remove him from any position of responsibility and strongly suggest that he seek counseling.

- Graham Readfeam exposes how the coal industry has turned its inaccurate talking points into the basis for far too many policy choices.

- The CP reports on yet another Tundra Energy oil spill in Saskatchewan - which should remind us how little claims about corporate responsibility have to do with reality.

- Finally, Deborah Aarts highlights the approach millenials take to the workplace - and notes that a reasonable expectation that they not be subjected to abuse is being read as being "coddled" by the higher-ups wanting to be able to exploit them.

On privileged communications

If Canada's current governing party wants to tell us that "(serving) as a Minister in...government" or "(exercising) real, political power" makes a person into an elitist, to the point where neither he nor his descendants could possibly understand the plight of typical (or dare we say "real") Canadians...

Well, who are we to doubt such a significant admission against interest?

So you heard the Cons. Stop listening to anything the privileged few now holding power have to say.

Update: Though in fairness, the Cons' attack does focus more on wealth than power. So I'm sure we'll see them run far, far away from the likes of, say, Larry Smith any second now on the basis that he's utterly clueless about the reality facing most Canadians.

On elite efficiency

Sure, it's easy enough to criticize Margaret Wente's latest column if one takes it the least bit seriously.

But let's at least give Wente some grudging credit for her unique business model. After all, who among us can produce our required work output merely by looking at what well-informed people are criticizing, then slapping together a caricature of it to go under our byline?