tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7884128379999766348.post2804345000937313729..comments2024-03-28T15:34:01.401-04:00Comments on Politics and its Discontents: "The Cancer Of Inequality"Lornehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15741324981120408977noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7884128379999766348.post-24046016801208516912016-12-21T21:07:47.330-05:002016-12-21T21:07:47.330-05:00My pleasure, and thank you, Pamela. I will be putt...My pleasure, and thank you, Pamela. I will be putting it up in the morning.Lornehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15741324981120408977noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7884128379999766348.post-30198075710813045722016-12-21T19:59:15.172-05:002016-12-21T19:59:15.172-05:00Thank you Lorne.Thank you Lorne.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07842215982128591742noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7884128379999766348.post-56518437911443040942016-12-21T19:08:28.612-05:002016-12-21T19:08:28.612-05:00An excellent analysis, Pamela. As I have done befo...An excellent analysis, Pamela. As I have done before, I am taking the liberty of highlighting your comments via a guest post.Lornehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15741324981120408977noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7884128379999766348.post-61405671920840532752016-12-21T18:48:35.698-05:002016-12-21T18:48:35.698-05:00Governments who value Democracy Lorne will govern ...Governments who value Democracy Lorne will govern in the interests of people according to democratic principles. They will also add legally or otherwise to their countries democracy. They will do this to make their democracy stronger and more accessible to its citizens. This is what Nation Building is all about. Creating The Charter of Rights and Freedoms is a good example of strengthening democracy while further entrenching Nation building.<br /><br />The stronger the legislative roots of which Democracy rests on the freer the country.<br /><br />The more a government seeks to create policy without a democratic process, the greater the chance of that government becoming authoritarian.<br /><br />Our present government and our previous governments have embraced neoliberal policy domestically and globally".Neoliberals require a strong state that uses its power to create and enforce markets and prop them up when they fail." Their vision is a state governed by market transactions and not democractic practices. This is what Canadians are now witnessing.<br /><br />Neoliberalism came later to Canada than to the US and Britain, because of the re-election of Pierre Trudeau in 1980. How ironic it should be his son who is continually promoting neoliberalism and has made it the fundamental driver of his domestic and global policies.<br /><br />Neoliberalism breeds inequality.Most progressives would defend democracy as a basic right. In neoliberalism "financial markets survive existenial crises only through state bailouts."<br /><br />The economic inequality can best be seen in the decline of union memberships, the decline in the share of middle class income and the rise in the share of income taken by the top 10%. The goal of neoliberalism is to chip away at union power until it no longer threatens, the realization of the market state.<br /><br />How unequal and insignificant does your government consider you to be, when they, without public consultation, take billions of your dollars to bail out the corporate and financial elite who were the cause of one of the most major financial crisis in history.<br /><br />There is nothing more important then freedom, freedom ingrained in law. Without democracy there is no freedom. Our government who has already severed ties with Canadians is busy trying to find ways to circumvent our constitution or dismantle our democracy in order to implement their neoliberal policies.<br /><br />Neoliberalism and Democracy cannot survive together. It will be one or the other and right now neoliberalism, at least in Canada appears to be winning.<br /><br />How relevant is our democracy to Canadians. The battle ahead is a battle of ideas. Freedom and democracy or Neoliberalism and Tyranny. Will Canadians fight to take their country back or will they do nothing. The choice is ours and our time is running out.<br />Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07842215982128591742noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7884128379999766348.post-83838905838252742642016-12-20T21:16:06.586-05:002016-12-20T21:16:06.586-05:00I appreciate your analysis, Mound. I think any pro...I appreciate your analysis, Mound. I think any prospect of change/renewal within the party will come only when they find that their current configuration is no longer paying the electoral yields they deem adequate. The disconnect will continue until then.Lornehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15741324981120408977noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7884128379999766348.post-28476868234572735242016-12-20T21:06:03.585-05:002016-12-20T21:06:03.585-05:00Mr. Parkinson is on the money. Those wishing to pl...Mr. Parkinson is on the money. Those wishing to plumb the depths of inequality should begin with Wilkinson and Pickett's "The Spirit Level." The authors, both epidemiologists, used their skills to research the impacts of inequality on a host of social ills. They compared nations of the OECD on a scale of their inequality and ran a similar study of the American States, again according to their relative inequality. In both studies they found that, across the gamut of social maladies from poverty, imprisonment rates, health outcomes, teenage pregnancy, the lot, inequality played a major role. Those nations and those States with the lowest inequality consistently came out on top.Then again, Dickens could have told them as much.<br /><br />The distrust of government that Parkinson references is as real as it is understandable. Neoliberal government seems to always break faith with the populace. Look at Morneau's dismissive warning that young people just have to get used to "job churn" which is a craven manner of saying they're consigned to the dust bin of the precariat. If you were a young person facing a difficult future and some rich bastard told you that, would you trust that government? I sure wouldn't.<br /><br />I hope that the Liberal rank and file come to realize how little actual liberalism remains in their party and how it has been expunged by the likes of Ignatieff and Trudeau. It will take a leader much better than those two to restore any meaningful progressivism to the Liberal Party of Canada.The Mound of Soundhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09023839743772372922noreply@blogger.com