Saturday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Adam Hunter talks to epidemiologists about Saskatchewan's pitiful COVID-19 response and the avoidable disease and death that have resulted. Gary Mason warns that we shouldn't expect to be into a post-COVID period by this summer. And Crawford Kilian writes that not only can we not rush in pretending we're back to normal, but we also shouldn't accept what we put up with as normality before.

- Linda McQuaig reminds us that the Libs' infrastructure bank is designed to turn needed public services into a windfall for wealthy investors. And Shoo Lee, Brian Rowe and Sukhy Mahl study how privatized health care produces worse results for everybody other than the people extracting profits from the system. 

- Emily Dwyer writes about the futility of a mining "watchdog" which has been denied any authority to actually investigate complaints.

- Finally, Dan Darrah highlights how there's no reason for Niki Ashton (or anybody else) to be shy about engaging with Jeremy Corbyn in the development of the Progressive International. And Joe Roberts warns against allowing hostile and politicized actors to determine who's entitled to be involved in movement-building.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Through the newly-developed Progressive International, Grace Blakely writes that we don't have any choice as to whether our future will be planned - only as to whose interest are taken into account in the process:

Our choice is not ‘to plan or not to plan?’ but ‘in whose interests should we plan?’

The case for democratic public planning is clear. The inefficiencies, inequities and corruption generated by state-monopoly capitalism do not result from centralisation in itself, but from centralisation absent the centrifugal force of democratic accountability. There is a strong case to be made that, in the wake of this crisis, the resources by then under the command of the state should be allocated by the public, for the public. Absent this plan to democratize the economy, this crisis — and the suffering of so many millions of people it has caused — will have been for nothing but capital itself.

- The Economist highlights the opportunity to flatten the climate curve along the way. And Marc Lee points out some of the options for a low-carbon reboot of Canada's economy, while Adam Radwanski discusses the push to demand that the Libs make use of them.

- Abacus Data offers a detailed look at the progressive plan Canadians support - including both increased taxes on the rich, and investments in social priorities - as we rebuild from the coronavirus pause. Matthew Yglesias notes that even in the U.S., there's plenty of public support for public spending to finance a recovery - particularly if it's paid for by fair taxes on the wealthy. And Brian Jones also notes the importance of finally ensuring the lucky few contribute to the common good.

- But then, Norman Solomon discusses the class war being waged by the privileged in order to exploit the pandemic to further consolidate their control while denying any meaning to what everybody else is losing. Paul Krugman writes about Donald Trump's plan to sacrifice tens of thousands of Americans in the hope of securing temporary gains in the stock market. Owen Jones points out how the well-connected are able to extract preferential treatment from the business sector with reference to Boris Johnson's circle of close associates. And Eduardo Porter and David Yaffe-Bellany highlight how another generation is facing diminished long-term prospects as it emerges into an economy which is both crumbling generally, and top-heavy in its allocation of any gains.

- Finally, the Globe and Mail's editorial board rightly asks why testing and tracing which has long been promised - and which is known to be the only feasible option to increase activity without enabling the spread of COVID-19 - is still lacking in far too much of Canada. And Bruce Arthur writes about the need to make sure our lockdown actually results in the development of an effective public health strategy, rather than merely hitting the snooze button on an even more catastrophic wave of infection.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Nick Saul calls out Doug Ford for undermining the dignity of lower-income Ontarians through barriers and cuts to needed benefits. And the Star's editorial board notes that both labour policy and social programs need to account for the needs of a workforce facing precarity as the norm, rather than being based on the expectation that any worker can find high-paying, long-term employment just by showing up.

- Martin Regg Cohn, Steven Zhou and the Globe and Mail's editorial board each discuss Ford's sad excuse for a climate change plan whose primary effect is to have the public fund polluters. Mike Moffatt focuses on its counterproductivity in achieving its stated purpose of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. And the Economist highlights how a combination of a wide-ranging problem, a lack of institutional capacity and the presence of firmly entrenched interests makes climate change a particularly intractable problem to address.

- Meanwhile, Common Dreams takes note of the newly-launched Progressive International as a forum for organizing for democracy, prosperity, sustainability and solidarity - and perhaps with time and effort, exactly the type of forum capable of bringing about global-scale change. And Chris Hatch reports on the Canadian youth occupying MPs' offices demanding that their federal government start taking some steps commensurate with the reality of a climate breakdown.

- Douglas Todd comments on the goodie-laden immigration system which applies to the ultra-rich as opposed to the rest of us.

- Finally, Doug Cowan examines how several countries shifted away from first-past-the-post electoral systems - and why they've been far better off since switching to more proportional systems.