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A friendly disagreement
The Left has long been divided on the issue of Basic Income. The argument recurs every generation or so. In the last few years it has resumed throughout much of the global North, especially in the wake of campaigns and initiatives in Switzerland and Finland, for example. And the debate is now ablaze in Canada.
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The dead end of wage labour
An adequate basic income for all is a good starting point for the Left to renew its assault on compulsory wage labour. The organization of work could be freed up to take on more cooperative, decentralized and democratic forms in which workers could decide for themselves what work is desired and useful. Such reforms should be welcomed insofar as they would significantly weaken the power corporate job blackmailers currently wield over society.
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Decolonizing cottage country: Anishinaabe art intervenes in Canada’s ‘wild rice war’
It is a heavy responsibility that must be more equally shouldered by Canadians and Quebecers. Labour and activist groups from coast to coast should rally to support Indigenous land defenders. Because we share the Earth, we must also share in the struggles to defend it against the depredations of colonialism and capitalism.
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How Israel aims to redefine “ethnic cleansing”
The implication is that, should the Palestinian leadership insist on the settlers being “ethnically cleansed” from their illegal colonies, Israel would be justified in demanding tit-for-tat. If the settlers have to return to Israel, why not a population swap, with Israel’s Palestinian minority forced into the occupied territories?
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Winnipeg conference looks at real-life experiences
The North American Basic Income Group held its 15th annual congress in Winnipeg on May 13 to 16. The event brought together activists and researchers with experience of poverty from across North America to discuss an idea that is gaining momentum as a tool for poverty reduction: Basic Income, a program which would pay a guaranteed amount monthly or annually to every adult member of society.
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Can the NDP be relevant?
Now, with a Quebec leader who could hardly be accused of being a radical, the party was everything the national media had said it should be: cautious, pragmatic, and eminently reasonable, particularly on the economy. Throughout the 2015 campaign Mulcair sent all the right signals to Bay Street about balanced budgets and restrained spending. How could they lose?
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The View from Madinah
What makes a war our war? The Iraq Wars. Are wars named only after the home team? The War on Afghanistan. Is its name the measure of who is doing the killing and who the dying? The War on Terror. If the dead die far from where we can see, are we still at war? The War of Terror. Our pilgrimage was hemmed on both sides by carnage.
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Indigenous nations lead opposition to pipeline development
We stands in solidarity with Indigenous peoples opposing Energy East and fighting for environmental justice. From the fight against fracking waged by the Elsipogtog First Nation in New Brunswick to the struggles of activists in Honduras, Indigenous peoples are championing the defence of their land and the protection of the entire planet from environmental destruction.
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The Neocon in the Oval Office
The neoconservative movement dates from the 1970s. The term originally referred to “newcomers” to conservative politics from leftist and liberal origins. They gravitated to the politics of Sen. Henry “Scoop” Jackson and UN Ambassador Jeanne Kirkpatrick. Among their adherents were Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, and later Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld.
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The US Election: an Exercise in Mendacity
The Trump supporter thinks, what difference does it make if he makes up stories about Muslims? The Clinton supporter asks (with increasing indignation towards the questioner), what difference does it make if she lied about her emails, and about Benghazi, and got her party’s nomination through the machinations of mendacious people like Debbie Wasserman Schultz?