The demographic implications of living longer present real dilemmas and challenges to our pension system. But the real choices to be made do not revolve around whether we’re rich enough to afford retirement, but the extent to which we value freedom from work over consumption, the form that freedom from work might take, and – above all – how society’s wealth is distributed

Across the advanced capitalist world, neoliberal policies have concerted to consign the welfare state to history’s dustbin. As a pillar of the social state, economic security in retirement was an inevitable target.

With the G20 political leaders preparing to gather in Toronto this June, the outcome of the palaver can already be predicted with certainty: failure to resolve either the global economic or environmental crisis.

On April 17, 2010, Attorney General Eric Holder told the 1,500 people assembled to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Student Non-Violent Corrdinating Committee (SNCC) at Shaw University in Raleigh North Carolina, “If not for SNCC, I would not be Attorney General. If not for SNCC, Barak Obama would not be President.”

Do high church moguls have a duty to report the priestly criminals to the police? Their answer, by deduction: it is more important to maintain the Godly reputation of this ancient institution than to reveal the depths of perversity within its ranks and take serious steps to combat this rampant behavior.

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.

Bill C-3 was introduced by the Conservatives on March 11, 2010, ostensibly to “fix” the sex discrimination in the status registration provisions of the Indian Act pursuant to the BC Court of Appeal decision in the November 2009 McIvor case, which held that the status provisions of the Indian Act violate the equality guarantees of the Charter. If it is passed, Canada will continue to discriminate against Aboriginal women in legislation.

When Israel announced a major new Jews-only building project of 1600 homes in occupied East Jerusalem, Netanyahu was sending a message to world: Israel backed by its billionaire-financed Presidents of the 51 Major American Jewish Organizations, leads the US by the nose.

In each of the three decisive moments of recent history, Greece has been pulled backwards from a chance for social transformation, political independence and freedom from external tutelage by one and another of the Papandreou family.

A five-year long attempt to reform the Parti Québécois as an independentist and “social-democratic” party ended abruptly on March 13 when the PQ’s national executive decided not to renew recognition of its left-wing “political club” as an authorized grouping with the party.