folytopo posted:

I would think that having a party leader that espoused socialism and socialist policies would be a great recruiting tool for political movements. I think a lot of people who are not deeply into politics and can see those ideas on a national platform with momentum and join social movements that value social change. The Bernie into DS pipeline. I think a future where the NDP gets completely routed and where the greens do not pick up a green new deal as a major plank ends up with people with a predilection to activism ending up in ngos. If people perceive that the system cannot be changed then moving to harm reduction seems like a reasonable move but I think ngos do not really lead to mass movements focused on challenging the status quo.

cowofwar posted:

This was my impression. Federal NDP policy is being set on the back of his Burnaby riding election. It’s gross.

jfood posted:

libby getting purged by the coward mulcair was me being done with voting

still take the four hours off work, but to get high and play video games.

Blood Boils posted:

Apparently Singh knows how to turn on the magic in smaller, cozier settings. Which might work if he's hitting enough doors and street corners, but he's really gotta work on his stage presence if he makes it to parliament

https://thetyee.ca/News/2019/02/20/Jagmeet-Singh-Lays-Line/

quote:

Singh believes it’s fundamentally unjust that less than 90 Canadian families have as much wealth as everyone in Newfoundland, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island combined. He wants to tax the rich more heavily, specifically by ending the capital gains exemptions and getting rid of the CEO stock option, in order to help close the gap.

quote:

“My question is pretty straightforward,” said Mazdak Gharibnavaz, referencing a recent poll suggesting half of Canadians favour a 70 per cent tax bracket on people earning over $1 million. “Do you support raising taxes on the rich in terms of income taxes and wealth taxes to fund things like affordable housing and delivering [renewable] community power?”

Singh replied that we have to “redistribute in a way that’s more just.” He talked briefly about capital gains tax exemptions and tax havens. “There’s some massive problems with our taxation system that allow this inequality to grow and we’ve got to be serious about tackling that and I’m committed to doing that,” he said.

I caught up with Gharibnavaz and asked what he thought of Singh’s response to his question. “Obviously it’s hard to commit to specific numbers,” he said. “I would like to see more teeth on that kind of answer.” People like Ocasio-Cortez in the U.S. are talking in precise and simple-to-understand language about raising taxes on the rich. “I hope to hear more of that,” he said.

quote:

A comparable exchange took place when Gene McGuckin, a retired union member and paperworker who belongs to the Vancouver Ecosocialist Group, asked Singh if he would put forward a climate transition plan comparable to the scale and ambition of the Green New Deal.

“That is very important, there’s no question about it, we need to have a bold plan and that plan has to talk about how we take our country into the future,” Singh replied.

Later, as the room cleared out, I asked McGuckin for his opinion on how Singh handled the question. “Well, he said basically ‘we’re working on it.’ He didn’t say that they’re going to present a plan. He didn’t talk about any of the comprehensive elements that are going to have to be included in that plan,” McGuckin said.

Others also appear to have noticed. “One of the most frequent criticisms of Singh is that he’s evasive — that he avoids staking-out clear positions on controversial subjects,” Jamie Maxwell wrote recently on Vice.

“Fossil fuel extraction is a case in point. Singh might be staunchly opposed to the Trans Mountain development in southern B.C. — and, in particular, to the Liberals’ $4.5-billion bail-out of it — but he supports the equally fraught and environmentally problematic liquefied-natural-gas project in the north of the province,” he wrote.

quote:

Midway through, when the debate turned to immigration, Thompson began raising alarms about refugees. “The issue is we do need to know who they are, we do need to understand that there are some people who would enter our country who might not share our values,” she said.

Thompson told the story of Marrisa Shen, a Burnaby teenager who police suspect was murdered by a Syrian refugee, failing to mention that 16 Syrian-Canadians have released a statement condemning the crime and pleading for it not to be the basis for a wider refugee backlash.

“Not all refugees would do such a heinous act, but surely we need to know who is coming into our country,” Thompson said.

Singh was up next. “I don’t take any pleasure in saying this... but I’m disgusted by some of the values being espoused,” he said. “We’re talking about refugees, we’re talking about people who are fleeing danger. These are people fleeing death, these are people fleeing serious situations. We need to have a caring heart.”

Someone in the crowd shouted “terrorists,” while the man next to me muttered “murdering our daughters.”

Unfazed, Singh went on, “we can’t allow divisive rhetoric to purposely pit one against the other... our country is built on immigration, we should celebrate that.” Many people in the room applauded. Thompson’s supporters booed.

When the debate was over, I remarked to someone on Singh’s staff that this seemed to be his strongest moment during the debate, the point when he took an unambiguous stand against hate and racism. Later, as I reflected on it, I remembered that Singh has been forced to take these stands his whole life. In Burnaby that night, rather than talk about the policies he stands for, he once again had been obliged to defend his background and identity.

vyelkin posted:

vyelkin posted:

I don't think this is what this article shows.

First of all, there's this:


This is exactly the kind of thing we criticize the NDP for: it's all indirect, indirect, indirect. Singh believes inequality is wrong, sure. He says that repeatedly and I have no doubt he believes it. But when pressed for how he's going to combat inequality, his answer is fiddling with tax rates on capital gains and stock options.

Later, at a town hall, he gets pressed on this.


He gets asked a straightforward question, inspired by AOC's proposal for doubling tax rates on the wealthy, and again has the big rhetoric about combating inequality, and then again his answer is about capital gains taxes and trying to combat tax avoidance. Even in a situation where he's facing a friendly audience (it's a town hall featuring him and a few other progressives, hosted by labour and progressive activist groups, and the other candidates didn't show up), he doesn't adjust his rhetoric to suit the greater ambition of his audience, because he genuinely believes that the solution to inequality is tweaking capital gains taxes and tax avoidance. If we could just tweak the edges of the system it would all be fine. Ignoring the fact that it's the very mechanisms driving the system itself that are destroying our society and our planet.

I know I poo poo on the NDP all the time for just riding the coattails of American movements but this really is a situation where he should just say yes. AOC and Bernie Sanders are causing politics-watchers and pollsters to actually ask people how they feel about the rich, and in both Canada and the US at least half of respondents are saying they want direct action to tax them more. But Singh doesn't say yes because he doesn't believe in that as a solution. When the journalist asks the questioner about this, that's exactly what he hears, too. This guy is getting inspired by the direct and serious action proposed by people like AOC, and Singh is dancing around the question instead.


Exact same thing on the Green New Deal. Facing a friendly audience that would probably give him a standing ovation if he just said yes, instead he dances around the question saying um er yeah we need bold action but who knows what that action could be??? He's too scared of pushing away anyone to take a bold stance on anything, which is exactly the problem with the current centrist NDP and exactly what is refreshing about people like Bernie and AOC in the US. They don't give a poo poo if Republicans like them, they aren't going to vote for the socialist anyway. So they take the bold stance that their country and the world actually needs on issues like inequality and climate change, instead of doing the Hillary/mainstream NDP thing of triangulating, triangulating, triangulating, trying to peel off a few hesitant Republicans or Liberals or Conservatives and in the process depressing the people who actually want to turn out and vote for them.

So instead the NDP preemptively compromises because they want to appear like the serious people in the room. Um yeah pipelines are bad so we don't approve of this pipeline. But serious people with MPAs know that extremism, like saying "no pipelines ever", is unserious, so they have to find a different pipeline to support so that they can say "see? We don't oppose all pipelines, instead we look seriously at each one and weigh the pros and cons and think long and hard and decide that this pipelines is bad but that pipelines is good". But what their base wants to hear is "no pipelines because pipelines are killing the planet you loving morons" and the people who are staunchly pro-pipeline will never vote for the NDP anyway because they think the NDP are communists.


This is the moment where Singh probably appears the strongest in this whole article, and it's very telling that it's a moment that has nothing to do with policy. He uses his identity and his inspiring personal background to shame people who are anti-immigration, and say Canada should be more welcoming to refugees. And as the journalist points out at the end, his strongest moment comes not when he's discussing policies, but when he's forced to defend his background and identity against old-stock Canadian racism. I respect him for that and I'm glad he can stand up for himself and for a multicultural Canada like that, though I wish he didn't have to. I bet we could turn it into a viral video like the one that won him the leadership after he got heckled by that racist lady. But in the end it's just more of what Singh's already doing: saying nice things about how we're all in this together and being telegenic while having no substance behind the progressive words and image.

He seems like a nice guy who genuinely cares, and who can be charming in person, but he has repeatedly demonstrated that either he has no meaningful substance behind his friendly personal characteristics, or that when he does have meaningful substance it's not what the country needs. We don't need an NDP version of Trudeau who if he got elected would fiddle with tax rates while giving inspiring speeches. We need bold action and ambitious plans that excite people about maybe not living in a hellworld anymore, and Singh absolutely does not offer that. When people ask him directly "do you or do you not support this bold plan and vision for a world that isn't horrible?" he hems and haws and says well maybe we need to think about not living in a hellworld but we need to be Very Serious People about it and that means accepting that we live in a hellworld and trying to make the best of it.

quote:

Chagas disease (American trypanosomiasis) is an insidious tropical infection that begins with flu-like symptoms and can end with heart failure.

The only proven treatments are a pair of costly pharmaceutical drugs.

But a group of Canadian homeopaths say they can detect, prevent and treat the disease, and the federal government is paying to take their remedies to sick Hondurans.

Quebec-based Terre Sans Frontières (TSF) is spending $350,000 in aid money from Global Affairs Canada to dispatch more than a dozen volunteer homeopaths to Honduras over five years.

Homeopathy is an unusual choice for foreign aid because it rejects the basic premises of science and it's practised by people who are usually not medical doctors.

Among its principles; water has memory — "like cures like" — and the more a substance is diluted, the more powerful it becomes. Its practitioners often can't explain exactly how something seemingly so implausible works, while most in the research and medical community label it pseudoscience.

That hasn't prevented TSF from securing a federal grant to treat and train Hondurans in homeopathy to "prevent epidemics" as well as opening seven homeopathic "dispensaries" to provide remedies.

TSF spokesman Philippe Legault said homeopathy fills the needs of Hondurans not being met by their under-resourced health-care system.

"We're helping people to have some tools to work with their population and their health. We surely don't think that we can cure everything with homeopathy."

(RELATED: Health Canada investigating remedy made from rabid dog saliva)

Legault points to the fact that the World Health Organization includes homeopathy as part of its Traditional Medicine Strategy. In response to an open letter from scientists and researchers, though, the WHO clarified that it doesn't support homeopathy to treat infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, malaria, influenza or infant diarrhea.

infernal machines posted:

Personally, I think we should charge them with performing witchcraft

Leofish posted:

Hey, let's all kill some Hondurans!

https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/federal-aid-homeopaths-honduras-1.5030384


How the hell did they get this grant?

infernal machines posted:

Personally, I think we should charge them with performing witchcraft

FUNCTIONAL FINANCE AND THE FEDERAL DEBT, ABBA P. LERNER posted:

Apart from the necessity of winning the war, there is no task facing society today so important as the elimination of economic insecurity. If we fail in this after the war the present threat to democratic civilization will arise again.

Helsing posted:

Bad economic circumstances don't force people to hold monstrous beliefs but they do create the political cracks in the liberal establishment through which these hateful ideas ooze into the mainstream. We've seen this happen before and it's happening again now and it's depressing to think that the centre left is actively refusing to play its crucial historical role of preventing the return of fascism.

Laminar posted:

It's because if you have never been truly poor you don't know how desperate people can be for the hope of any kind of change. People will hold on to anything, even if it is hateful.

Helsing posted:

I think that this is true but I also want to emphasize that it's not as simple a link as saying that poverty leads to prejudice. Often times the people who turn toward extremist ideologies are not the truly poor but the status anxious and downwardly mobile working and middle classes.

zapplez posted:

Its makes my blood boil everytime I walk through Shoppers Drug Mart and they have homeopathic medicine on the end of the aisles on display, often for children's illnesses. loving sick and disgusting business, profiting off the suffering and false hope of sick kids.

Furnaceface posted:

The vast majority of the companies that make the homeopathy crap are owned by those same big pharma companies those people are trying to protest.

Let me tell you how fun it is to work in retail pharmacy these days...

Arivia posted:

Do tell, please. What’s it like selling this poo poo next to actual useful OTC meds?

Helsing posted:

Apropos of nothing in particular, I am reading an economics paper published in 1943 and discussing government finances. This is how the paper opens:


One of the more disturbing trends of recent years has been watching mainstream liberals joke sarcastically about the link between "economic anxiety" and political instability. It's become more or less mainstream to mock the idea that someone's politics can be influenced by their economic conditions. At it's most crude you get people openly saying that to even suggest a relationship between economic circumstances and political extremism is to be an apologist for racism.

Bad economic circumstances don't force people to hold monstrous beliefs but they do create the political cracks in the liberal establishment through which these hateful ideas ooze into the mainstream. We've seen this happen before and it's happening again now and it's depressing to think that the centre left is actively refusing to play its crucial historical role of preventing the return of fascism.

jfood posted:

dunno the exact numbers, but I'd wager that the majority of working poor/working class in urban centers are immigrants or a generation removed at most. there are always outliers, but poor and white at this point either means you're an old fart, a junkie or boonie/rural trash with no future regardless, maybe even some combination of the three.

jfood posted:

dunno the exact numbers, but I'd wager that the majority of working poor/working class in urban centers are immigrants or a generation removed at most. there are always outliers, but poor and white at this point either means you're an old fart, a junkie or boonie/rural trash with no future regardless, maybe even some combination of the three.

jfood posted:

dunno the exact numbers, but I'd wager that the majority of working poor/working class in urban centers are immigrants or a generation removed at most. there are always outliers, but poor and white at this point either means you're an old fart, a junkie or boonie/rural trash with no future regardless, maybe even some combination of the three.

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

Pinterest Mom posted:

apparently some folks in burnaby are getting these

Pinterest Mom posted:

apparently some folks in burnaby are getting these

Danaru posted:

holy gently caress people are going to actually going to believe this poo poo

MechaLayton please come back from the grave and save this chud-filled nation

Danaru posted:

holy gently caress people are going to actually going to believe this poo poo

Pinterest Mom posted:

apparently some folks in burnaby are getting these

Furnaceface posted:

God I hate how broken our voting system is.