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Currently viewing articles tagged with Election.
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NDPers dreamin’ of victory, ‘trash’ power sharing with Libs
The year 2015 is a long-time away but, considering the many difficulties the NDP has to overcome to win, it is hard to understand why candidates who obviously care about the country would totally rule out the possibility of a coalition government.
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In the Words of Our Forefathers
The argument for ignoring Aboriginal rights to land and self-determination in 2011 is the same as the arguments Canadian forefathers used when colonizing this land in the 1800s.
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Election 2011: “Don’t Mourn, Organize!”
Counting ballots, Gramsci once observed, is only the “final ceremony of a long process.” What matters is what we do in between.
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Philippines: Arrests, Torture and the Presidential Election
The notoriously violent and corrupt elections in the Philippines stand in sharp contrast with those in South Korea, Taiwan, Japan and Malaysia. In these countries, the elite can abide by the results of a relatively ‘open’ election, whereas in the Philippines, any challenge to the closed, family-based ruling class is met with relentless terror.
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CSI: Honduras
It’s now been just over six months since the new US Administration took office, enough time for the underlying ruse to have become crystal clear. In place of the old Bush-era bellicose vocabulary has been substituted the soothing rhetoric of conciliation, this whilst the actual substance of America’s foreign and domestic policies have been altered not one iota. Not one atom
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Term limits apply when governments benefit people
“Why haven’t there been attempted coups in Washington DC? Because there’s no U.S. Embassy there.” (Joke told by Chilean journalist to President Obama during President Michelle Bachelet’s White House visit.)
In 1954, conservative Dwight Eisenhower authorized the CIA to overthrow Guatemala’s government, a coup modeled on a 1953 “regime change” in Iran. In 1964-65, liberal Lyndon Johnson authorized coup d’états in Brazil and the Dominican Republic. When Dominicans revolted, Johnson sent in troops.
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British Columbia’s Meaningless Climate Debate
Judging by the response of mainstream environmentalists, British Columbia’s recent provincial election was a referendum on how to fight climate change. The Liberal incumbents proposed no change to the carbon tax they introduced last year. The opposition New Democratic Party wanted to replace the tax with “a ‘cap and trade’ plan — just like U.S. President Obama.”
Prominent green NGOs, including the David Suzuki Foundation, the Pembina Institute, and ForestEthics, blasted the NDP for taking a “backward step.” A Pembina representative wrote: “The carbon tax is already showing results. It is important for British Columbia to keep moving forward on climate change rather than starting over again.” The Liberals won the election, so BC’s green future is assured. Right? Wrong.
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War By Other Means
Concerning non-Western elections, it is clear there is but one rule: if the results support pro-US candidates they are deemed ‘democratic’, otherwise they are automatically demonized as ‘fradulent’. The Iranian elections are no different, and the West’s support of Iranian protest and calls of election fraud do not have anything at all to do with the spirit of democracy.
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Talkin’ Harper Cabinet Blues
Council of Canadians Chair Maude Barlow has described Stephen Harper as “the staunchest right-wing ideologue ever to occupy the Office of Prime Minister.” Not surprisingly, Harper’s dark-blue Tory cabinet looks rather like George W. Bush’s Canadian dream team, with its stamp of social conservatism and punitive predilections, as well as its enthusiasm for deep integration with the U.S., for plumping the military and for all the mantras of neoliberal policy: free trade, privatization, castrating the public sector. Here’s an unrepentantly selective profile of several key players.
From Harris to Harper
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Figuring Out and Fighting Harper
The January federal election results unexpectedly yielded a minority Conservative government. The Great Moving-To-The-Right Show is having yet another run. In Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Canada now has the most ideologically committed neoliberal in power since Margaret Thatcher. The five priorities Harper has announced — an accountability package, a cut in the GST, a market-based childcare system, a law-and-order agenda centred on sentencing and a reduction in health-care wait times through increased delivery flexibility — all reflect these commitments. These proposals are embedded in the overall strategic priority of aligning Canada even more tightly with the U.S. through increased overseas military commitments and further economic integration. Canada’s takeover of the NATO command in Afghanistan and increased troop deployment is already sketching in the new terrain. It could hardly be more pressing for the Left to take stock of what the Harper government is and might become.
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