Wednesday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your midweek reading.

- Thomas Walkom ponders the possible outcome of an election whose core message is whether or not to give the Cons a majority:

(G)iven the mood of the country, an NDP-Liberal coalition properly arranged ahead of time (with, for instance, common candidates) might win the next election — which, for politicians, is what matters.

With their anti-coalition propaganda, the Conservatives have already defined this coming contest in dualistic terms — good versus evil, us versus them.

If voters truly believe that they face a stark choice between Harper and the forces of Anti-Harper, the Conservatives could be unpleasantly surprised.

Now, I still don't see common candidates in advance of an election being a viable option (as distinct from a willingness to work together afterward). But if the Libs would allow the "Harper vs. Anti-Harper" them to develop rather than insisting that the latter will be ignored if they don't agree to do Michael Ignatieff's bidding, I'd agree with Walkom that we'd be likely to see a result that would disappoint the Cons.

- Meanwhile, anybody looking to speculate on when the next election might take place will want to take a look at Alice's handy guide.

- David McKie notes a disturbing drop in the use of access to information requests by journalists:

perhaps it's time for journalism schools and newsrooms to wake up and use a law that provides access, albeit difficult access, to important information. To be sure, journalists are using the act to tell stories, such as an excellent behind-the-scenes account last fall in The Ottawa Citizen that provided a window in the chaos that resulted after an earthquake shook the foundations of buildings in Ottawa and surrounding towns and cities on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border. The story was one of mind-numbing confusion that left some federal officials red-faced and embarrassed. But more importantly, the story also provided a useful example of why it's important for governments to be prepared for catastrophes and what can result if they aren't.

Stories like this need to be told. We must know the true cost of prison reform. We have to know the real impact of the government's stimulus spending. We need to have a meaningful discussion about the future of health care. Many of the records that help shed light on these and many other issues can only be pried loose with the help of access to information. Going through the process is not for the faint of heart. But neither is being a journalist facing a federal government bent on spin and obfuscation and a bureaucracy that is justifiably scared, and many times forbidden from talking to journalists. So let's all get cracking. There's too much at stake for journalists to be on the wrong side of a downward trend.

- And finally, The Real News features Tom Ferguson on the dangers of big-money, low-turnout politics:

Monday Afternoon Links

Some light reading for all those CEOs who can afford to take the rest of the year off...

- I'd like to think I haven't missed too many Con outrages over the past few years. But Emily Dee's list includes a few which had largely flown under my radar, as well as plenty of greatest hits which deserve another look.

- The CCPA makes its predictions for 2011 - though it's well worth noting how many of them are understandably based on what's all too obvious from what we've seen on the political scene in the past few years.

- Am Johal presents a prescription for the NDP in the course of deconstructing how the Harper Cons took power:

The right has rather effectively used the mantra of simplified messages like 'we'll put more money in your pocket, they'll support the bureaucracy.' When the center-left should have been pushing for democratization and local control, they were left defending bureaucracy. It was the very unionized working class members that voted NDP that were now voting for Preston Manning. The NDP became the conservatives and the Reform Party became the radicals in the early 90's. The Reform Party's biggest gains in the 1993 election were not just from Progressive Conservatives, but also from the NDP. They stole populism from the CCF'ers and gave it a distorted, anti-government storyline.

If the center-left wants to recapture the political imagination, it needs to have a critique of government as its beginning point and a defense of the Commons as its follow up. It also needs to synthesize its policy narrative down to three or four big ideas. The government isn't Santa Claus -- it can't do everything.

The NDP needs a simplified message. Re-energizing the populist base of the NDP while genuinely joining with emerging political and social movements should be the new blueprint for the NDP. At the federal level, social democrats don't need to be the majority government or even the official opposition to set the progressive agenda in the country. They do need to be winning between 50-75 seats at election time to have sufficient leverage to influence the policymaking sphere of the country. The NDP doesn't just need to move either to the left or the right in order to grow as a party or be more relevant -- they actually need to do both simultaneously to reach that level of support so it's a rather silly, cyclical debate to be having. The need to reignite their base to show up to the polls and they need to reassure a broader public universe that they can be effective, but principled managers of the economy.

- And finally, the Real News features an interview with Michael Hudson on the history of the U.S.' income tax:



But I do wonder whether there's another lesson beyond those drawn by Hudson: might the fact that the U.S. made a conscious choice to favour taxing private owners (who obviously kept a strong interest in reducing those taxes in order to bolster their own wealth) have made for a more unstable system than one which actually put more of its economy in public hands directly?