Wednesday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Emmett Macfarlane discusses how the stakes in Alberta's election are no less than democracy and the rule of law - as Danielle Smith has made her contempt for both abundantly clear. But Andrew Nikiforuk points out that nothing in the current campaign holds any prospect of loosening the hold of petropolitics on the province.  

- Jennifer Lee reports on an open letter from 200 emergency room physicians pleading for recognition that hospitals are collapsing for lack of resources, while Taylor Lambert discusses Red Deer's overloaded facilities and exhausted providers as being emblematic of the province's health care system as a whole. And Annie Waldman's report on privatized vascular services in the U.S. offers a reminder of what happens when politicians choose treat the medical system primarily as a source of profit rather than a means of caring for people. 

- Nina Lakhani reports on new research from Corporate Accountability showing that most of the carbon offset credits claimed by Chevron as its excuse to keep pollution are worthless (if not actively destructive). And Patrick Greenfield reports on the resignation of the CEO of the world's largest provider of carbon credits Verra as its business model was shown to be a sham. 

- Finally, Emily Peck writes about the belated recognition by the economic powers that be that inflation rooted in price gouging is the main reason people are struggling with affordability - no matter how antithetical the very concept is to free-market idolatry. 

On progressive evaluations

I'll give Emmett Macfarlane the benefit of the doubt in having missed one of the NDP's key promises while assessing the Libs' attempt to mimic Kathleen Wynne's campaigning on the title of "progressive" in the absence of any intention to follow up while on power. But leaving aside the utter lack of credibility of Justin Trudeau's role model, let's remember what the NDP has proposed as a means of both reining in corporate benefits and reducing child poverty - which receives absolutely no mention in Macfarlane's assessment of either:

(A)n NDP government will close the tax loophole currently enjoyed by CEOs on stock options. Those funds would be re-directed to low-income families through an enhanced Working Income Tax Benefit and an enhanced National Child Benefit Supplement.

“This will be a dollar-for-dollar transfer in benefits from those who need it the least – to those who need it the most,” added NDP Leader Tom Mulcair. “Helping families out of poverty and into the middle class is good for our social fabric, as well as supporting a vibrant economy – and that’s good for Canada.”

This move will be a meaningful step towards reducing income inequality in Canada and will contribute towards getting families and children out of poverty and into the middle class.

So to anybody else purporting to compare the NDP and Lib plans when it comes to progressive taxes on the wealthy and fighting child poverty: if you're failing to take into account a billion-dollar idea aimed squarely at both, you're missing the boat.

[Edit: fixed typo.]

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Katrina vanden Heuvel criticizes the U.S. Democrats' move away from discussing inequality by in favour of platitudes about opportunity for the middle class. And while Matthew Yglesias may be correct in responding that the messaging change hasn't resulted in much difference in Democratic policy proposals, it's certainly significant when a political party makes the choice to take poverty and inequality off the table as a vital part of the argument for its policy consensus.

- Meanwhile, Stephen Elliott-Buckley reminds us that the 1% tends to get its way in policy debates in no small part because it exhibits solidarity often missing among other groups:

For centuries, the 1% were the nobility, the aristocrats, the old money, the patriarchy. Then Adam Smith pitched capitalism in his 1776 book Wealth of Nations, and liberated the entrepreneurs to join the blue bloods. Today, every January, corporate and government leaders from around the world – the people who literally rule the world – meet in the winter-wonderland of Davos, Switzerland, to launch the annual World Economic Forum. There, they plan the global agenda. This year’s sexy new idea was advancing “social entrepreneurialism.” That sounds so kumbaya, just like public-private partnerships, but it’s just spin for privatizing social services.

The World Economic Forum is just one of the most recent venues where the global elite show their solidarity with each other, and plan how to maximize shareholder wealth and minimize global social, economic and political equality. Beyond Davos, our rulers have also created a roadmap for undermining the democracy of nations through secret trade agreements like NAFTA, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and CETA (the Comprehensive and Economic Trade Agreement). These agreements are designed to give right-wing governments the excuse to deregulate industries, privatize public services, and elevate shareholders’ and investors’ “right” to profit above the needs of society.
...
The member groups of progressive coalitions need to find ways of connecting their individual members to better support each other. And the coalitions themselves need to support each other. I believe such an effort at deepening and broadening solidarity has, so far, been lacking. Meanwhile, the 1% are deeply well-connected, from community chambers of commerce right up to the World Trade Organization. They’re all spouting the same spin and rhetoric on their members’ behalf, while we, the 99%, can often not get past “letterhead coalitions,” a term introduced to me by Amanda Tattersall, one of the founders of the Sydney Alliance in Australia. What good is it to have a coalition when the extent of union, or faith, or community organization activity is merely a letter of support?

- David Ball reports on this summer's Peoples' Social Forum - which looks like one promising effort to build connections and lay the foundation for ongoing activism.

- And in case there was much doubt there's still plenty to organize against, the CCCE lays bare its trade agenda - featuring its demand that the TPP be negotiated and implemented without public input in order to ensure closed-door "enforcement" of corporate priorities and at most "dialogue" for labour, the environment and anything else not profit-related.

- Finally, Jonathan Kay rightly criticizes the Cons' "punitive moral absolutism" when it comes to withholding needed health care from refugees. But as Emmett MacFarlane notes, the Cons always seem to find some way to sink even lower than their past precedents for callous inhumanity - and Robert Goguen did just that in lecturing a sex worker about her own gang rape.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Emmett Macfarlane and Justin Ling both weigh in on the Cons' newly-unveiled prostitution legislation - which seems downright calculated to exacerbate the risks to sex workers' lives and safety that resulted in the previous version being struck down as unconstitutional.

- And on the subject of policy designed entirely out of prejudiced desire to punish and exclude marginalized groups, Christopher Ingraham writes about a study showing that restrictive voter ID laws arise out of discriminatory intent.

- Newsweek takes note of the Harper Cons' gag order against meteorologists informing the public about climate change. And Mike De Souza rounds up the top ten quotes from scientists who have been muzzled.

- The CP reports on a study showing increased mercury levels around the tar sands - which of course wasn't made public after being completed last December. Paul Krugman rightly dismisses the claim that continued (or increased) carbon emissions are necessary for economic growth. And Linda McQuaig identifies the dinosaur in the room when it comes to the oil industry:

Harper now stands poised to ignore massive opposition and stomp on the historic rights of First Nations people by approving the Northern Gateway pipeline, thereby putting in place a key piece of his energy superpower scheme.

What makes all of this so perplexing — almost other-worldly — is that it’s so unnecessary.
Due to the marvels of modern technology, the world now has the technical capacity to move to a post-carbon age. The International Energy Agency is clear about this. In a report last month, the agency — which is the energy equivalent of the OECD or the IMF — pointed out that it is possible for the world to “decarbonise almost all power generation by 2050.”

Sure, but we’d all be back in the Stone Age, right? Employment would be confined to shovel-ready pyramids.

Actually, no. The IEA estimated the global cost of moving to a post-carbon world at $44 trillion — which sounds like a deal-breaker until you read on and discover that this massive cost would be more than offset by $115 trillion in fuel savings, resulting in a net saving of $71 trillion.

- Finally, David Pugliese breaks the news that the Cons' increasingly unaccountable and intrusive surveillance apparatus now has literally every public demonstration in Canada in its sights.