God Bless Radiohead

And Harry Patch and all his brothers (especially you Grandpa Lou) from the trenches, RIP.



Update: Forgot to mention (duh), that you can download this (and should do so), here. The proceeds go to the Royal British Legion.

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When You Are A Hammer (Or Even A Sack Of Them)

The whole world looks like a nail. That's why tools offer us only limited solutions. Speaking of tools, for Liberals, the solution to any problem, is to become a member of the Liberal Party of Canada.

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"Temporary Workers"

Carol Goar in today's Star:

When Canada decided to allow employers facing acute labour shortages to hire temporary foreign workers, seven years ago, no one foresaw where it would lead.

That is complete bullshit. Anyone who says they didn't know, is either lying or didn't bother to do even a cursory investigation into temporary worker programs in other countries. If they had spent about five minutes looking into the history of "guest workers (gastarbeiter)" in Germany, they would have realized that "temporary workers" are almost never temporary. There is an economic imperative to their staying in the country that receives them, both on the part of the workers, who need the money to send home to their impoverished families and the employers, who love the pool of cheap labor. As the system matures, the "temporary workers" who stay illegally, after their visas run out, are under even more economic pressure and are ripe for exploitation. As I say, this has all been seen before in other places and is very well documented.

How do I know? I know because it was the subject of my Master's thesis, written almost thirty years ago. Carol Goar's "we didn't know", is designed to cover Liberal asses in a Liberal newspaper, rather than as a reflection of the reality of what people knew when the program was started.

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Quote Of The Day

From Nobel Award Winning economist, Paul Krugman, talking about Wall Street's relationship with America:

Neither the administration, nor our political system in general, is ready to face up to the fact that we’ve become a society in which the big bucks go to bad actors, a society that lavishly rewards those who make us poorer.

I would say the same about Canada, but add that we are however, a society that is willing to attack working people with sick benefits. Aren't we brave?

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Obamacare Dissent From The Left

All I can say is, poor America. Like us, they deserve better.



H/t to Galloping Beaver.

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The Oligarchy Speaks

In the form of Angelo Persichilli:

Having said that, let me elaborate on some of the myths that some still believe are the essence of the union movement.

First, unions do not represent the entire working world. They are only interested in defending the wages and benefits of their members, most of the time at the expense of other, non-unionized, workers.

Second, even though they may claim to support the interests of children, students or patients, in reality there always is a demand for better wages or benefits behind almost every dispute.

Third, they live in isolation. Most of the time, their demands are made with no consideration for the conditions of other workers in the same country, not to mention the reality in other parts of the world.

Unfortunately for them, globalization has exposed their idyllic oasis and they refuse to realize that the emperor is naked. That's why they keep asking for benefits like the sick days Miller has just confirmed for them: pay them because they are not sick!

This suggests that Mr. Persichilli believes that unions are bad because they fight for the interests of their members and are not willing to accept the wages and conditions of their Chinese counterparts. This is no surprise to me. The Oligarchs and their mouthpieces have argued for years that we treat the working class too well and them too harshly. Thank God the unions are around so public anger can be redirected away from things like executive compensation reform (which isn't even on the radar in Canada). Otherwise, people might start asking uncomfortable questions, like, why is it that the gap between rich and poor is getting larger, in spite of those evil unions?

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State Of The Union

David Sirota looks at the health of American democracy and pronounces it terminal. We don't need to worry in Canada though. Our democracy has been dead for about two decades.

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