The election is now an historic opportunity for progressive Canadians and for the social movements to take a place in the mainstream of our politics.
progressive
Environmental sustainability is the core issue of our times
Sustain: to keep in existence, maintain. Sustainable: capable of being sustained. Sustainability: the property of being sustainable.
There is at least one clear fact about human society -- it is an integral part of the environment and the environment dictates how it functions. For human society to remain in a form similar to what we developed historically, it must have a stable environment that contains most of its historical features. How society treats the environment affects its stability.
![Murray Dobbin](http://rabble.ca/sites/rabble/files/imagecache/thumbnail/category_pictures/murray dobbin.jpg "Murray Dobbin is a guest senior contributing editor for rabble.ca. Murray has been a journalist, broadcaster, author and social activist for 40 years. A board member and researcher with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, he has written five studies for the centre including examinations of charter schools, and "Ten Tax Myths." Murray has been a columnist for the Financial Post and Winnipeg Free Press and contributes guest editorials to the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star and other Canadian dailies. He writes a regular "State of the Nation" column for the on-line journal theTyee.ca which is published simultaneously on rabble.ca.
Murray has written five books, including critical profiles of Preston Manning, Kim Campbell and Paul Martin. His "The Myth of the Good Corporate Citizen" has been described as a citizens' guide to globalization. He has also prepared radio documentaries for the CBC Radio's Ideas series on subjects including taxes, human rights and the right-wing regime in New
Zealand.
A long time social activist Murray has been involved in many movements from the anti-nuclear movement, to the fights against so-called free trade and public private partnerships. He is the founder of Word Warriors, a project which co-ordinates letter-writing to the editorial pages of newspapers across Canada. He is a Senior Advisor to the Rideau Institute on International Affairs.")
Europe looks ahead
British Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown has come out in favour of a global financial transactions tax. Speaking Saturday in Edinburgh (his home base) to a G20 Finance Ministers meeting on the subject of bank bailouts Brown said "it cannot be acceptable that the benefits of success in this sector are reaped by the few but the costs of its failure are borne by all of us."
Facts, interpretations and Chávez
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.
Progressive renaissance and the newest left
When a great general was once asked to detail his military strategy, he replied, "I have no strategy." In other words, he knew all the strategies, but also knew that his choice of tactics depended on the situation. Progressives have much to learn from this insight. It is more important to have multiple options for each context than to have a fixed commandment for every state of affairs. The goal in any struggle is to maintain a position of maximum flexibility. The general understood that freedom means being in a position where one can advance along any line of the compass -- north, south, east or west -- to achieve one's objectives.
'Tis the season for lefty reading
Tropic of Chaos: Climate Change and the New Geography of Violence
(Nation Books,
2011;
$30.00)
If there's one thing I enjoy about the frenzy of hyper-commercialism that accompanies the Christmas holiday season, it's the excuse it provides to shop for books. For those lucky enough to have some time off, it is also the ideal season to read -- or at least to make an ambitious reading list for 2012 as a New Year's resolution.
Climate change, capitalism and the transformation of cultural values
There is a question from a gentleman in the fourth row.
He introduces himself as Richard Rothschild. He tells the crowd that he ran for county commissioner in Maryland's Carroll County because he had come to the conclusion that policies to combat global warming were actually "an attack on middle-class American capitalism." His question for the panelists, gathered in a Washington, D.C., Marriott Hotel in late June, is this: "To what extent is this entire movement simply a green Trojan horse, whose belly is full with red Marxist socioeconomic doctrine?"
Occupy Wall Street: The game of colonialism and the left
The "Occupy Wall Street" slogan has gone viral and international now. From the protests on the streets of Wall Street in the name of "ending capitalism" -- organizers, protesters, and activists have been encouraged to "occupy" different places that symbolize greed and power. There's just one problem: The United States is already being occupied. This is Indigenous land. And it's been occupied for quite some time now. I also need to mention that New York City is Haudenosaunee territory and home to many other First Nations. Waiting to see if that's been mentioned anywhere.
