Tuesday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Ian Welsh highlights the false choice between lives and the economy which is being used an excuse to concentrate the power of the wealthy at the expense of both. And Paul Krugman makes the obvious point - yet one seemingly controversial among Republicans and Cons alike - that it's a success to help workers rather than condemning them to death.

- Alessandro Marazzi Sassoon reports on the latest move by the right to suppress facts about the coronavirus to that end, as the architect of Florida' lauded dashboard has been pushed out for insisting that it be used to provide accurate data. Caitlyn McGlade reports on Arizona's refusal to name nursing homes with known COVID-19 outbreaks because it might be bad for business. And Peter Geoghegan and Mary Fitzgerald discuss the UK culture war aimed at attacking the concepts of science and expertise.

- Shannon Osaka discusses the sleight of hand used by fossil fuel giants to claim to be pushing toward carbon neutrality while omitting the carbon pollution generated by their products.

- Shawn McCarthy notes that the pandemic only highlights the desperate need to act to rein in climate change. Michael Enright interviews Charles Taylor about his hope that we'll win the battle against a climate breakdown. And Akshat Rathi discusses the growing consensus as to the value of recovering from the COVID recession through a Green New Deal.

- But Mia Rabson reports that the Libs have decided to put even their already-meager environmental plans on hold while catering to the corporate class. And Beatrice Britneff reports that a modest increase to Old Age Security is likewise being delayed in favour of one-time relief, turning what would have been a predictable source of income into a single payment.

- Finally, Noah Berlatsky comments on "vice-signaling" as a prominent and growing facet of conservatism.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Justin Fox explores why it took the economic field in general (with some noteworthy exceptions) decades to start dealing with burgeoning inequality. And Bryce Covert discusses the latest study showing that in looking beyond tax data alone, the level of inequality is even worse than it's appeared in past research.

- Meanwhile, Rebecca Rosen traces the links between increased inequality and extended hours of work. And Jamie Klinger notes that Uber and other businesses designed to avoid normal employment relationships may only make matters worse.

- Wendy Glauser, Joshua Tepper and Jill Konkin offer some suggestions to address the alarming health inequities between indigenous and non-indigenous Canadians.

- Derrick O'Keefe duly criticizes the Libs' insistence on pushing ahead with an eleven-figure arms deal with Saudi Arabia with no regard for its ongoing human rights abuses. 

- Finally, Charles Taylor talks to Sonali Campion about the dangers of exclusionary themes which are all too easily used for political advantage:

Democracies need a very strong sense of common goals, more than autocracies, because they have to call on citizens to show solidarity, to discuss together, so there has to be some sense they are talking about the same thing or trust begins to fall apart. In that sense they need what I call a “political identity”. This is a mixture of key principles, such as democracy and human rights, and something particular to the individual state.

These elements of the political identity can easily be turned into measures of exclusion: “these other people don’t really fit”, “they aren’t part of the ethnic background of this particular national project”, or “they don’t really seem to accept the basic principles of our democracy”. In many cases these are not really founded judgements, but they are still very powerful because as long as people perceive things in that way it seems right to exclude certain groups, or make special demands of them – for example that they assimilate totally.

So this of course is something that democracies can’t very easily cope with because it produces great rifts, even a sense of second-class citizenship, which clashes with the ethic that we include everyone. So people have to be willing to consider redefining their political identity in order to really bring together the degree of diversity that actually exists on the territory.

Identifying the adversary

Not surprisingly, Charles Taylor's keynote address and discussion on political inclusion has neatly highlighted both the importance of finding commonalities at the personal level, and the dangers of government fomenting prejudice toward minority groups. But I'd think it's worth drawing a distinction between the problems being addressed at the personal and the political levels.

At the personal level, it's true prejudice which is best addressed through relationships and shared experience. And we should expect a concerted effort to connect to minority communities to put an end to the underlying fear of the other which politicians may seek to use to their own ends in trying to build a voting coalition through the demonization of others.

But the choice to pursue that path - with the Cons' attempt to conflate Islam in general with an inchoate threat to Canadians serving as a particularly jarring example - arises out of something more cynical and dangerous than individual prejudice based in ignorance or unfamiliarity, and which deserves to be called out as such when carried out as a deliberate strategy.

The best label for it may be something along the lines of exclusionism: the inclination and/or deliberate choice to exacerbate prejudice for the purpose of diminishing the public participation of minority groups. And it should be a relatively easy matter to build consensus around the need to fight along those principled lines, even if each particular case also involves the challenge of countering some level of personal prejudice.

Leadership 2012 Roundup

A quick look back at the last few days in the NDP's leadership race...

- In addition to his support from Leadnow and Avaaz, Nathan Cullen won cross-partisan support from the B.C. Green Liberal Caucus. But it's an open question whether the result will be a net plus for Cullen, as a positive response from a group which apparently fits comfortably within the Conservative-friendly B.C. Liberals may not send quite the message he's hoping for in trying to unite anti-Con forces. Meanwhile, Cullen also took questions on Rabble, featuring this noteworthy response on the relative role of government and business:

Traditionally private industry has existed under the power of the state and that it was a privilege (not a right) to operate a business. Now it seems that the tail wags the dog and that Canada now has a lobbyist for the oil sector in the prime minister and his cabinet. I'm not aware of any legislative barriers that prevent our governments from re-establishing the role and responsibility of the state.

- Paul Dewar filled in the last major gap in his base of endorsers, picking up the nod of two highly-respected Quebec MPs in Helene Laverdiere and Hoang Mai. Dewar also took questions and criticism about his French - but that makes his ability to convince at least a couple of the NDP's new wave of Quebec MPs of his merit all the more important.

- Thomas Mulcair earned a public endorsement from Charles Taylor - leaving roughly zero room for anybody to counter with a more distinguished party figure in Quebec.

- Brian Topp confirmed that if elected leader, he'd ask a Quebec MP to step aside to allow him to run in a by-election - which as Aaron Wherry notes makes for a well-worn path to Stornoway. But I wonder whether it would be worth making the case that Topp might be able to do more good outside the House in any event: after all, it's not as if asking daily questions to a perpetually-unresponsive Stephen Harper did wonders for the public's impression of the last two Lib leaders. Topp then made an appearance on the House with Evan Solomon, responding with his answer to each of the other candidates' cases for the leadership.

- And on the media and commentary side, Lawrence Martin updated the number of NDP members and voters anticipated in advance of yesterday's deadline. And it's worth keeping in mind the difference between the two: if turnout is in the two-thirds-of-members range normally seen in leadership votes, then a total membership of 115,000 would likely set the number of votes required to win in the range of 40,000. PSAC-Quebec released a report card on candidate responses to a survey on values about the public service - but perhaps more striking than the union's own evaluation is the fact that only three candidates responded in the first place. And Trefor analyzed the candidates' positions on Israel/Palestine policy, while DL classified the candidates into two tiers.