Friday, August 16, 2013
More On The Struggle Of Minimum Wage Workers
We hear it all the time from those who slavishly and unconscionably parrot the corporate line: raising the minimum wage is a job-killer. While that rhetoric may serve the insatiable business appetite for greater and greater profits at the expense of vulnerable workers, it simply isn't true. While I have written several posts recently on American fast-food workers' attempts to double their wages, we would be indeed foolish and willfully ignorant to believe that the American struggle is not also the struggle of their Canadian counterparts.
Even if you only have a few minutes to spare, I would urge you to watch at least part of the following video, and read the accompanying story on Alternet.
Even if you only have a few minutes to spare, I would urge you to watch at least part of the following video, and read the accompanying story on Alternet.
My, My, My
The web blurb for Hello Canada! magazine states the following: HELLO! Canada brings you the latest celebrity & royal news from around the world.
This is what graces its current cover:
Impoverished indeed are we as a nation* if a minister as consistently and profoundly incompetent as Peter MacKay and his family are deemed worthy of celebrity status.
* Special thanks to Yoda for permission to use his always arresting syntax.
This is what graces its current cover:
Impoverished indeed are we as a nation* if a minister as consistently and profoundly incompetent as Peter MacKay and his family are deemed worthy of celebrity status.
* Special thanks to Yoda for permission to use his always arresting syntax.
Thursday, August 15, 2013
A Reading Recommendation
For those appalled by Russia's rampant homophobia (and I hope that's everyone, Real Women notwithstanding), The Star's Judith Timson has a column in today's paper well-worth reading.
By the way, speaking of Real Women, The Star's David Macfarlane has two choice words for them.
On Tim Hudak's Evangelical Political Fervour
Crazed clerics are not the only ones possessed of an evangelical fervour. Young Tim Hudak, leader (at least for now) of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party, is well-known for wanting to bring back some of that old-time religion in the form of union-bashing and dismantlement, something he likes to describe eupehmistically as workplace democracy.
Happily, the agenda clumsily yet avidly embraced by Mr. Hudak and his federal brethren is transparent to many, as the following Star letter makes clear:
Re: A Conservative banner you won’t see, Aug. 10
Susan Delacourt misses the point. While home ownership is the dream of all middle-class and would-be middle-class Canadians, the changes to tougher mortgage restrictions by the Conservative government is not the problem. The problem is that fiscal Conservatives like Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mayor Rob Ford, not to mention the wanabee premier Tim Hudak, bash unions and are thereby responsible for the loss of middle class and fair wage jobs.
In the name of fiscal responsibility we have seen in the last decade the radical decline of good paying employment. Unions protect not only their members but, by raising the bar on wages and benefits, also protect non-members. But, these fiscal elites bash unions and give jobs to the minimum-wage-paying private for profit sector.
The real culprit in the decline of the middle class and the smashing of their dreams is not changes to mortgage lending, but rather the overall decline of wages and salaries. The growth in wealth of the 1 per cent does not make for a sound economy. Unions are the major defence against the one-sided economy we now have.
If the middle class hopes to regain some of its vitality (and surely the entire country depends on this) then it’s time for union bashing to end. Conservatives like the prime minister and the mayor and Mr. Hudak believe that divide and conquer, by creating jealousy on the part of non-union workers of those lucky enough to be protected by group action, is the way to keep wealth in the hands of the few. That’s the secret agenda.
It’s really time the electorate woke up to this Machiavellian plan and took back their power.
Stephen L. Bloom, Toronto
Happily, the agenda clumsily yet avidly embraced by Mr. Hudak and his federal brethren is transparent to many, as the following Star letter makes clear:
Re: A Conservative banner you won’t see, Aug. 10
Susan Delacourt misses the point. While home ownership is the dream of all middle-class and would-be middle-class Canadians, the changes to tougher mortgage restrictions by the Conservative government is not the problem. The problem is that fiscal Conservatives like Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mayor Rob Ford, not to mention the wanabee premier Tim Hudak, bash unions and are thereby responsible for the loss of middle class and fair wage jobs.
In the name of fiscal responsibility we have seen in the last decade the radical decline of good paying employment. Unions protect not only their members but, by raising the bar on wages and benefits, also protect non-members. But, these fiscal elites bash unions and give jobs to the minimum-wage-paying private for profit sector.
The real culprit in the decline of the middle class and the smashing of their dreams is not changes to mortgage lending, but rather the overall decline of wages and salaries. The growth in wealth of the 1 per cent does not make for a sound economy. Unions are the major defence against the one-sided economy we now have.
If the middle class hopes to regain some of its vitality (and surely the entire country depends on this) then it’s time for union bashing to end. Conservatives like the prime minister and the mayor and Mr. Hudak believe that divide and conquer, by creating jealousy on the part of non-union workers of those lucky enough to be protected by group action, is the way to keep wealth in the hands of the few. That’s the secret agenda.
It’s really time the electorate woke up to this Machiavellian plan and took back their power.
Stephen L. Bloom, Toronto
The Dark Side Of Evangelicalism
While I periodically enjoy making sport of what I sometimes refer to as crazy old evangelicals (a distinction I make out of respect to the sincere and well-intentioned ones) and fundamentalists who espouse views that are an egregious insult to people's intelligence, I am by and large a person who is of the opinion that everyone has a right to their own beliefs, as long as they don't try to inflict them on others. I have my own spiritual convictions, but I don't see it as my role to proselytize.
But people cross the line when they insist that their views should form the blueprint for the way people conduct themselves. Evangelical pastor Scott Lively of Massachusetts is one such person who has crossed that line.
As reported in The Raw Story, Lively is facing charges of crimes against humanity, accused of violating international law by inciting the persecution of LGBT individuals in Uganda.
Lively attended an anti-gay conference entitled “Seminar on Exposing the Homosexual Agenda” in 2009 in which he accused gays and lesbians of having genocidal tendencies. His lecture lead [sic] to the introduction of the bill, the lawsuit claimed.
Lively denies having any role in the hateful legislation, and says the lawsuit “boils down to nothing more than an attempt to define my Biblical views against homosexuality as a crime.”
If you have the stomach for it, you can read more about Lively's self-pitying justifications for his religious ardour on his blog.
Unless you are of unusually robust constitution, I suggest you read it sparingly.
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
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