Your Top 3 Political Issues

Okay. Parliamentary and political reform generally will be required as as Earth's poisoned biosphere and its mushrooming population instill a sense of urgency into even the wielders of capital.  Regaining our sovereignty in a Globalized world - including control over the capital we generate - will be right up there on the to do list.

I've just picked up from the library a copy of Doug Saunders' Arrival City: The final migration and our next world.  Doug is a columnist for that terrible capitalist rag the Globe and Mail, and has been reporting from every continent - primarily Europe, where he's bureau chief - for a few years now. Reading the dust jacket, I see that there are now "more people living in cities than in rural areas. The world is currently gaining five million new city-dwellers each month, expanding its urban population by 3.1 billion in the next four decades...In Arrival City, Doug Saunders argues that this migration is one of the most important trends of the twenty-first century...and it has profound implications for the success of local, national and international economies."

In this book, Doug is talking to the people who are making the rural-urban move, and explaining why we can't - musn't - ignore the implications of this massive movement of billions of people.  So far, its causing the world poverty rate to fall...since "three-quarters of the world's poor, those with less than a dollar a day, live in rural areas."

Doug's is a cautiously optimistic capitalistic perspective, but in correspondence with him, you find he's also a humanist.

I'll separate the issues from a party, because if I were founding a party I would probably choose more global and national issues. But here are my personal ones (there are more. These are just three which most concern me).

1) Reducing poverty - Equal access to housing, food, education, medical care, daycare, legal services, and equal treatment under the law.

2) Food, water and resources - reducing waste, inefficiencies, overuse, and corporate control of  the things we need to survive.

3) Freedom of access to information and expression, including maintaining open-source as opposed to proprietary technology, and an equitable copyright system, and maintaining strong alternatives to the main stream media.

The things i most want to see in politics each carries a bonus consequence, so you're really getting six.

1.) massive taxation of financial marketeers, banks, investment brokers, currency speculators - you know, all the people who rake it in without producing anything (This policy will automatically divorce the party from corporate funding and control.)

2.) invest that fresh capital in sustainable, non-polluting energy technology, public transport, retrofitting of houses and greening the rooftops (New housing will be liberated by the exodus of financial institutions from our cities.)  

3.) withdraw Canadian troops from all morally questionable foreign entanglements and put them to work on evacuation, flood, rescue and fire-fighting operations (So we won't need those fighter planes and can use the money to fund clinics in rural areas.)

Ditto.

And stop pushing "jobs". Work that is useful, like I do looking after old, sick, needy people. Instead of growth meaning mining and raping.

I'm drunk. Sorry.

absentia wrote:

The things i most want to see in politics each carries a bonus consequence, so you're really getting six.

1.) massive taxation of financial marketeers, banks, investment brokers, currency speculators - you know, all the people who rake it in without producing anything (This policy will automatically divorce the party from corporate funding and control.)

2.) invest that fresh capital in sustainable, non-polluting energy technology, public transport, retrofitting of houses and greening the rooftops (New housing will be liberated by the exodus of financial institutions from our cities.)  

3.) withdraw Canadian troops from all morally questionable foreign entanglements and put them to work on evacuation, flood, rescue and fire-fighting operations (So we won't need those fighter planes and can use the money to fund clinics in rural areas.)

Kathleen could very well be drunk. And I'm probably going to make her angrier for a moment with saying that economists think of those jobs, looking after the old and sick and the dying,  as unproductive jobs and not "wealth creating" jobs. Apparently school teachers,  and even doctors who heal the sick and raise the nearly dead,  are not considered wealth creators either as sick as that sounds. But that's where our economists heads are at with respect to categorizing who works to pay the country's bills and who does the dirty but socially necessary work in this country and every other one.

Cuba OTOH has strayed from the pack and counts health care workers and health care expenditures in its gross national production numbers.  And I think it's a good idea. I really don't care how much oil and fossil fuels and hydro-electric power our neighbors siphon out of Canada on the cheap and padding our GDP figures. I think health care is much more important than bragging about how much we're contributing to dangerous climate change in straight dollar terms on the plus side and nothing on the down side. I think there is such a thing as false economy, and robbing from the environment for the sake of fueling the world's most energy intensive and most wasteful economy in world history is bizarre to say the least.

kathleen wrote:

Ditto.

And stop pushing "jobs". Work that is useful, like I do looking after old, sick, needy people. Instead of growth meaning mining and raping.

I'm drunk. Sorry.

Bravo, kathleen. The world needs more people like you.

What are your top three political issues, Siam?

I have addressed this at length in other threads such as the economic update thread so will not get in to too much here.

The political issue of the moment I believe is that the right wing have moved the battle from the control of current government policy to future governments. People are caught up with end to end distractions over individual policies without fulling understanding that this is not a battle over government power as it has been in the past. The people in control of this government do not believe in governance and are not trying to harness the power of government to their own ends as the Liberals and Progressive Conservative Parties did previously.

This is the Reform party having staged a coup over the Progressive Conservative Party, they intend to destroy the capacity of this government to govern in several key areas. The important political issue of the day, is to achieve an understanding before it is too late that this is not a battle on where the ship is going. The captain of this ship wants to sink it.

Once people realize this they may stop playing in to the hands of the Cons lulling themselves to sleep with the lullaby that the Cons are economically incompetent. They actually are not incompetent. The effects and destruction of the fiscal capacity of the government are intentional. The Cons are not the old PCs who at least half-believed they wanted to leave the government in better economic shape. These people want to leave government damaged so badly that it will not recover before they get a chance to do it again -- they want to damage the government so it can remain incapable of making decisions even through an economic recovery, even after two terms of being headed by parties not intend on burying it. Then with the usual political alternation they can keep the process going. The major political issue is convincing Canadians that this is the fight over the economic sovereignty of the next government not this one. Then we can see and try to fight what is happening.

The only way this destruction can be stopped is if people realize this is not a series of mistakes and miscalculations, it is not stupidity. It is all intentional. Credit for the willful destruction of the fiscal position of the federal government needs to be placed on the Cons and that ideology. As long as people think it is mismanagement or stupidity, we are primed to re-buy the same old garbage a few years later as the Cons under new management do the same things.

They lost the battle in Ontario for example. The Liberals, I think actually are incompetent. But the position they inherited, that made the finances of the province impossible to balance without politically impossible tax increases was no accident. The Cons will get the province back likely next year. Then they will be able to destroy the fiscal capacity of the province for the next cycle. It is no longer relevant what party goes in to power in Ontario-- the place is broken and only a realization about what was done and why could allow the beginning of a restoration of governance there. The McGuinty government was far too dishonest to admit that it never had the economic power to actually take control over the economic agenda of the province and pretended that it could govern with the economic capacity of the government removed without tax cuts. McGuinty was the useful idiot played by the Cons who knew well he would come to power and had no trouble with letting him keep the scheme going.

I am arguing that it is not conservatism that embraces either the military spending that this country can't use nor especially the massive stimulus spending even more than the opposition required to shut p and play. IT is the plan to effectively bankrupt the country as a means of enforcing that ideology on future governments. Recognize that the military contracts go for many years and cannot be canceled without severe penalty. This current government is not just making its current money go away, but also future government monies.

The massive prison-spending spree that will have to be maintained by the provinces does to the provincial governments in the present what they are doing to future governments. The huge stimulus spending that largely avoids the projects cities most need is also no accident. This government is not just working within its own mandate in jurisdiction and power but seeking to damage any possibility for any activist government federal, provincial or municipal in the future.

People need to recognize how this government is going accomplishing this and meet it head on. Otherwise they will fight ongoing, losing tax battles over the next few years with no progress at all.

I am not arguing that this is their philosophy-- I am saying that what they are doing is a step beyond that into the enacting of policy not just to reduce the government role in the economy in the present but to break the government's ability to do so in the future-- that is more than the ideology in practice that is deliberate sabotage of the nation's finances.

For example let's look at the stimulus spending. Fiscal conservatives-- the ideology would react to fight this. Then it would act to limit it. But the sabotage sees an opportunity and embraces it-- getting rid of as much money as possible to make further spending they consider repugnant impossible.

Of course the argument they make is that they do not want government to spend beyond its means is false. The real concern is the ideology that governemnt should not compete with what the private sector can make a profit on. So in this case they spend more money in any way possible in order to break future chances of the government spending in the ways they are concerned with. The ideology does not lead directly here-- the conspiracy to sabotage the government for the future does.

This is why it is important to distinguish between the political philosophy which would naturally be opposed to any spending but more so that which conflicts with private interests with the designed damage which is to actually spend more in some areas in order to make the kind of spending they oppose impossible because the bank is broken. The ideology is much discussed including how negative and destructive it alone can be, but the willful sabotage to inflict this ideology on unwilling future governments through the destruction of public finances is not being discussed and that is important.

So in the case of your statement that this is just what right-wingers do -- that does not explain how the government went in to the spending without much of a fight after initial resistance. You might remember they were totally against it and then suddenly and uncharacteristically, they folded. I am submitting that they saw the opportunity to blow a wad of cash and the role that would play in hampering future spending for perhaps an entire generation. As I am aware, and I read a lot of things-- I have not seen anyone pick up this point. That is why I am doing that here.

I am not refusing anything George.

Clearly if you are trying to say anything that is beyond a description of the general ideology I am not seeing it. I see nothing here about the issue of a design that goes beyond that ideology that everyone has accepted-- do you not see the same distinction I am making?

I am trying to understand you but it seems we are not meeting here. No need to be nasty about this -- I am not refusing and if you recognized the importance of this I don't get why you would call this meaningless- why not try rephrasing rather than repeating-- clearly the repeating is not helping as I read you the first time and the second time as well.

Indeed, I don't even see a "how" they will bring this about except in general terms and have seen this to be a rejection of the idea of a specific plan to bring down national finances in place of the idea which I reject that they are just right wingers being right wing.

Somehow i am now lost?

1. Women's rights (a huge area that encompasses a lot, so I will leave it at that for brevity). 

2. Justice/rights for FN people 

3. Restructuring of economy to a more environmentally-friendly, local model. 

DaemonNice wrote:

It seems this thread digressed somewhat...

As for my political platform I have given this a lot of thought,

1) electoral reform-primarily proportional representation

2) legislation that would make it illegal for government to borrow from private banks, it is what the Bank of Canada is for

3) tax reform-fading out of income taxes(why tax productivity?) and increasing gst (tho I would also remove gst from healthcare, most foods, and prescription drugs) and increase it for recreational, and entertainment,etc

4) a soil health tax on industry and farming to encourage industry to better manage its wastes and farms to use more natural methods of farming

5) consecutive term limits-no more than two consecutive terms in office

6) investing in human capital-interest free tuition loans for students scoring over 80% via Bank of Canada, and those in workforce for 20 yrs

7) introduce accrual accounting in government books

 

I know it is more than three. Sorry, I just could not stop at three. It like eating chocolate, one is never enough.

- you seem to be on the right path. Look more, look deeper, get outside the box.

I agree we should be using the Bank of Canada, but why through legislation? If "we" control our government democratically, why would we need legislation to control them? And what good would it do? - even if somebody did pass such legislation - why couldn't the next government pass 'new' legislation to cancel the old stuff? It's interesting that the neocons regularly pass legislation cancelling old democratic legislation they disagree with - but nobody ever cancels what they have done (i.e. re tax cuts for the wealthy, etc). Maybe - if we actually have "democracy" - we don't need to 'control' the government  - because 'we' *are* the government, together!

- an idea few if any here in babble seem to be able to engage - but it is where I think we need to go -

- if *we* *are* the government - why would we need to tax ourselves? Taxes are simply a new version of 'titheing' - the feudal system of peasants giving a certain amount of their crops etc to 'the lord' every year - again, if "we" are the gov - why would we tax ourselves?!? - much thinking needs to be done about how we produce the things we need - whether we produce them for ourselves, together, collectively somehow - or whether we are just laborers working in factories for masters who control everything

- you can find more out of the box ideas here - What Happened? http://www.rudemacedon.ca/what-happened.html or here - They're Building a Box - and You're In It  http://www.rudemacedon.ca/dlp/box/box-intro.htm - keep thinking -

1)Getting rid of capitalism

2)Getting rid of capitalism

3)Getting rid of capitalism-media has to go first.

Ideal

1. Getting rid of the nation-state/sovereign problem and coming up with better forms of local to global organization.

2. Capitalism

3. Addressing individual fear of the "Other"

Practical

1. Bringing finance markets under severe regulation

2. Disciplining TNCs for poor practices.

3. Funding social programs without concessions nor with private money (stronger taxation of capitalists)