rabble.ca - Columnists

Caterpillar and the Investment Canada Act

M.Gregus — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 15:26:59 -0500

There's been some good public debate about the need for changes to the Investment Canada process in light of Caterpillar's incredible actions in London. They showed up uninvited in 2010, took over a long-standing productive profitable plant, demanded money (from workers and government alike), then left -- leaving behind a shuttered plant and a shattered community.

Clearly something needs to change in terms of how the federal government regulates this process: sorting out foreign investments that can add genuine value to our economy, from those which are beneficial to corporate interests and investors but ultimately undermine our capabilities to produce and innovate.

Nathan Cullen and Peggy Nash in NDP family drama

M.Gregus — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 08:40:39 -0500

There's a great family drama going on just beneath the surface of those nearly unwatchable NDP leadership debates. Watchable TV isn't everything.

We owe it to Nathan Cullen. He's the brat who insists on bringing up what everyone else at the table is determined, with gritted teeth, not to mention. It involves the fate of the nation. Good for naughty Nathan.

Obama administration battles Catholic Church over contraception access

M.Gregus — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 08:06:20 -0500

The leadership of the Catholic Church has launched what amounts to a holy war against President Barack Obama. Archbishop Timothy Dolan appealed to church members, "Let your elected leaders know that you want religious liberty and rights of conscience restored and that you want the administration's contraceptive mandate rescinded," he said. Obama is now under pressure to reverse a health-care regulation that requires Catholic hospitals and universities, like all employers, to provide contraception to insured women covered by their health plans. Bill Donohue of the Catholic League said, "This is going to be fought out with lawsuits, with court decisions, and, dare I say it, maybe even in the streets." In the wake of the successful pushback against the Susan G.

NDP leadership candidate Nathan Cullen brings co-operation and charisma

M.Gregus — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 10:57:50 -0500

It isn't all more prisons and less freedoms. Yes, it has been tough watching the sludge come pouring out of Parliament since Harper got his majority last May. But there's an exciting window of opportunity open right now. It is a limited-time offer, though, so try not to sleep through it.

I'm talking about the NDP leadership race. And frankly, if you're not a supremely dedicated NDP loyalist or a seriously addicted political junkie, it's almost impossible not to be nodding off at the mere mention. Really, how could it be otherwise?

Facts, interpretations and Chávez

M.Gregus — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 18:03:07 -0500

Modern social science's essence lies in its purpose, articulated in the 19th century, to expound a meticulous, secular knowledge of reality that is somehow corroborated by empirical research. The challenge for researchers of course rests in how they define "empirical research." The driving methodological debate in the social sciences -- however abstruse or historically distant -- orients itself according to the divide between the advocates of the interpretive method and the proponents of positivism.

Pauline Marois relaunches PQ, Harper helps

M.Gregus — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 06:59:52 -0500

Pauline Marois has emerged as the winner of the internal wars that have beset the Parti Québécois. Her leadership went uncontested at the recent PQ National Council meeting. Her principal rival, former Bloc leader, Gilles Duceppe has removed himself from active politics following a leak to La Presse, citing misappropriation by the Bloc of parliamentary funds for partisan purposes.

For Pierre Dubuc, a militant left-wing sovereignist, writing in L'Aut'Journal, the most important news is that Marois has corrected the mistakes that contributed to her troubles.

Violence against women and the Shafia case

M.Gregus — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 09:05:40 -0500

The Shafia case is so unsettling that it seems to unleash the search for a single key to explain it. Then you could toss away other keys that don't work, and even lock the door to a recurrence. But I don't think that's the way to go.

For instance, people ask: Was it about honour killing or domestic violence? Yet honour killings are domestic violence. You lose something in understanding if you discard either category. And domestic violence is a case of violence in general. The same holds when you try to decide if the murders are social, cultural or religious. Religion and culture are social. Why choose?

The mistaken logic of 'asymmetrical criminalization' -- a.k.a. the Nordic model of prostitution

M.Gregus — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 06:47:44 -0500

An often-acrimonious divide exists between feminists who call for the abolition of sex work and feminists who favour its decriminalization. As a former exotic dancer who is strongly "pro-decrim" based on the evidence, feminist principles, and listening to sex workers, I'm disturbed by what I see as wrongheaded ideology from abolitionist feminists.

Mitt Romney's 'one nation under God' does not include poverty

M.Gregus — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 08:15:13 -0500

Although Mitt Romney has yet to win a majority in a Republican primary, he won big in Florida. After he and the pro-Romney super PACs flooded the airwaves with millions of dollars' worth of ads in a state where nearly half the homeowners are underwater, he talked about whom he wants to represent. "We will hear from the Democrat Party the plight of the poor, and there's no question, it's not good being poor," he told CNN's Soledad O'Brien. "You could choose where to focus, you could focus on the rich, that's not my focus. You could focus on the very poor, that's not my focus. My focus is on middle-income Americans." Of the very rich, Romney assures us, "They're doing just fine." With an estimated personal wealth of $250 million, Romney should know.

A number is never just a number: Grey power

M.Gregus — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 07:11:10 -0500

• 0

Number of times Prime Minister Stephen Harper campaigned on proposed changes to Canada's Old Age Security (OAS) during the 2011 federal election.

• 1985

The last time a prime minister (Brian Mulroney) tried to change the public pension system without campaigning to do it during the federal election. A seniors' movement dubbed Grey Power forced him to back off. (Source and source)

• 1952

Selling austerity from Davos

M.Gregus — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 07:16:49 -0500

Stephen Harper does not seem to care how Canadian government policies compare to those of other countries (other than the U.S.), or want to know how other countries build (or not) their industries, and care for (or not) their citizens.

When Harper was in Davos, Switzerland, last week to address the World Economic Forum, he did not talk about the subject of the conference, The Great Transformation: Shaping New Models, or address concerns about regulation of international banking, or global trade and payments imbalances. Instead he presented his austerity plan for Canada.

Neo-liberalism and the ongoing economic assault on ordinary Canadians

M.Gregus — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 06:32:31 -0500

Two recent stories out of Ottawa underline the ongoing political and economic assault on ordinary Canadians. More Canadians are now working for low wages than at any time in decades, continuing a trend that began in the early 1990s, and Stephen Harper has announced major changes to retirement benefits -- including delaying Old Age Security(OAS) eligibility to age 67. What kind of society beggars those of its citizens who worked all their lives and now want to retire in dignity while privileging the rich and super-rich by slashing their income taxes and allowing them to transfer their wealth to their children untouched?

Canadian cultural nationalism lives

M.Gregus — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 08:56:11 -0500

Consider this a delayed obituary for McClelland & Stewart, "The Canadian Publishers," which effectively expired this month after a lengthy decline in the care of several owners and convoluted arrangements. They waited till the firm's 100th anniversary had passed -- a full week. Our question is: does this also mark the demise of Canadian cultural nationalism?

Canadian triumphalism increasingly bizarre

M.Gregus — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 14:16:04 -0500

Prime Minister Harper went to Davos yesterday to sing Canada's praises. No sooner had he finished reciting a long list of our national achievements, however, he launched into a list of the sober, realistic, inevitable things that must be done in Canada to ensure "sustainability" in the long term. Top of the list is rolling back our universal public pension system (especially targeting the OAS and the GIS), which is one of our genuine national achievements. Harper plans to use his majority power and adept use of "shock doctrine" ideology to try to do what others (including Mulroney and Martin) failed: roll back this most important component of our sadly-inadequate pension system.

Obama takes on mortgage crisis in State of the Union address

M.Gregus — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 08:36:31 -0500

In his State of the Union address, many heard echoes of the Barack Obama of old, the presidential aspirant of 2007 and 2008. Among the populist pledges rolled out in the speech was tough talk against the too-big-to-fail banks that have funded his campaigns and for whom many of his key advisers have worked: "The rest of us are not bailing you out ever again," he promised.

Has Apple just invented a new kind of long-form journalism?

M.Gregus — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 18:56:32 -0500

Last week Apple announced a new tool for content creation -- iBooks Author. The free software was part of a broader mid-January event heralding Apple's new thrust into education. The Cupertino-based company also unpacked deals with major K-12 textbook publishers including Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, McGraw Hill Education and Pearson. As well, it introduced a revamped iTunes U, which will allow university and K-12 instructors to provide full, rich-media courseware for free through iTunes U.

Conservatism in North America

M.Gregus — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 06:50:26 -0500

Two recent articles on conservatism are worth considering. First, from the left, there is Cory Robin's insightful articulation, "The Conservative Reaction," in the Chronicle of Higher Education of the classic progressive critique of the right: conservatives -- since the French Revolution -- essentially want to preserve elite interests against movements, like feminism, that advance agendas for greater democratization. Second, from the right, there is Stephen Hayward's thoughtful self-critique in the autumn edition of Breakthrough Journal.

U.S. politicians and archaic politics in a modern world

M.Gregus — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:56:02 -0500

One has to wonder about the people who run the world, and those who hope to run it. Not many of them seem too interested in running it for the benefit of most of the people on it or for future generations. If they were, things would not be in such a mess today. The more I watch the performance of world leaders and those striving to be a leader, like the current crop of Republican presidential hopefuls south of the border, the more it is obvious that we are in a 21st-century society being governed by 18th and 19th-century thinking. That, of course, is assuming that there is much thinking going on at all.

Harper takes Republican allies

M.Gregus — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 06:44:43 -0500

Close observers of U.S. politics were surprised to see Newt Gingrich win the South Carolina primary. The prospective Republican nominee for President, a disgraced former congressman from Georgia, had to recover from successive primary defeats in Iowa and New Hampshire, and a second ex-wife bent on retribution, to do it. Of equal surprise to Canadians was seeing Gingrich single out Stephen Harper in his victory speech.

Taking liberties: 22 years behind bars for a 'crime of compassion'

M.Gregus — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 21:30:17 -0500

When former U.S. president George W. Bush descended on the Regional Economic Summit in suburban Vancouver last October, there was, understandably, no shortage of protesters, pleas for indictments and cries of "war criminal." Left out of most news coverage as well as activist communiqués, however, was any focus on another former U.S. president who was tagging along, someone equally deserving of such protest but who seems, remarkably, to get off fairly lightly these days: Bill Clinton.

Why the storytelling model doesn't work

M.Gregus — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 08:07:44 -0500

Driving along on Tuesday, I heard CBC-Radio's Jian Ghomeshi interview U.S. performance artist Laurie Anderson. She's opened a new show in Calgary at the annual High Performance Rodeo. "Politics is all storytelling," she said. "They're doing what I'm doing. If you like their story, you'll probably vote for them."

Caterpillar and Rio Tinto lockouts highlight latest management strategy

M.Gregus — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 12:49:00 -0500

Business lobbyists used to express grave concern about the economic impact of strikes. Those concerns were always overstated; time lost in work stoppages has declined by 90 per cent from the 1970s. Nevertheless, companies traditionally complain that work stoppages damage sales, productivity and, of course, profits.

Recently, however, business leaders have warmed to work stoppages. In the current bargaining environment, companies (especially multinational firms) hold the best cards. And executives are increasingly willing to precipitate their own work stoppages -- through management lockouts -- to enforce demands for lower wages and benefits.

Internet blackout protest sends message to U.S. legislators

M.Gregus — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 08:33:56 -0500

Wednesday, Jan. 18, marked the largest online protest in the history of the Internet. Websites from large to small "went dark" in protest of proposed legislation before the U.S. House and Senate that could profoundly change the Internet. The two bills, SOPA in the House and PIPA in the Senate, ostensibly aim to stop the piracy of copyrighted material over the Internet on websites based outside the U.S. Critics, among them the founders of Google, Wikipedia, the Internet Archive, Tumblr and Twitter, counter that the laws will stifle innovation and investment, hallmarks of the free, open Internet.

Technology, 'satisficing' and inefficiency

M.Gregus — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 16:58:02 -0500

Human being settle. Not settle, as in "contents may settle during shipping," although that does happen with age. I mean settle in the sense of "make do." When given a chance, we almost always pick the adequate option over the optimal solution. The cognitive psychology word for this quirk of human nature is "satisficing" -- a mashup of satisfy and suffice.

Two steps backwards for the Liberals

M.Gregus — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 17:00:49 -0500

Once upon a time there was a Liberal party. The new party president, Mike Crawley, elected this past weekend at the party convention in Ottawa, thinks it needs to change. It is not enough to say "national" and "plan" every time we are confronted with an issue, he opined.

The Liberal party must move beyond its membership, the convention delegates decided on the weekend. From now on, anyone prepared to say they "support" the party will be able to vote in the next party leadership contest. Outsiders will be invited to discuss policy with Liberal caucus members, along with party members.