September 20, 2010
The Conservatives and Liberals both seem determined to widen the gap between Canada's rich and poor.
WRISEUP.COM
Canada’s federal government is struggling with a record deficit and what do the Stephen Harper Conservatives – backed by the Michael Ignatieff Liberals – do? They lavish another sordid $6-billion tax cut on corporations and the billionaires and mega-millionaires who control them.
And it’s not only the federal government that is cash-strapped. So are all the provinces.
But still they insist on giving still more tax cuts on corporations and the wealthy.
Canada’s federal and provincial governments have cut taxes for corporations and the wealthy over and over and over again over the past 30 years and what has it all wrought?
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September 19, 2010
The weapons of war take priority over bread and butter.
WRISEUP.COM
United States President Barack Obama has announced his intention to double America’s manufacturing exports within the next five years.
And it’s quickly becoming evident how he plans to do so. The strategy: Arm America’s client states to the teeth – at their own expense.
I call them client states rather than allies for an obvious reason: The word “allies” implies both partnership and equality, and America’s relations with the countries it’s willing to talk to are based on neither. Hence, a ountry is either an American “client state” or an “enemy.”
The simple fact of the matter is that there are very few manufacturing industries in which America is still able to compete with anyone: weapons, planes, construction equipment and, to a very limited extent, automobiles.
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September 14, 2010
Could London, Ontario, be a public transit pioneer?
WRISEUP.COM
If Canada is ever to meet its commitments under the Kyoto protocol on climate change – and Canada has perhaps the most onerous challenge in the world due to its climate – then it is going to have to rapidly develop public transit systems across the country that offer a viablke and attractive alternative to the private automobile.
In essence, public transit systems in every urban area of the country are going to have to become fast, frequent and free. They are also going to have to become comprehensive and around-the-clock.
This is what Canada’s 21st Century intra-urban public transit systems must quickly come to look like:
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September 8, 2010
By Henry McRandall
WRISEUP.COM
A wide range of opinion polls suggest that the Democratic regime of United States President Barack Obama is headed for a bloodbath in November’s mid-term elections.
And as fearsome as the “alternative” is, the Democrats most assuredly deserve to get their asses kicked.
Barack Obama led the Democrats to a smashing victory in America’s national elections of November, 2008 on a promise of providing “Change We Need” and “Change We Can Count On.” They won the White House. They won a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. And they won an overwhelming majority in the House of Representatives. read more »
September 8, 2010
Ontario's premier starting to look like Pinnochio.
WRISEUP.COM
Liberal Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty has been caught in yet another whopper of a lie and – as in the past – the victims of his duplicity are those who can least afford it.
Immediately after the last provincial election, McGuinty imposed the worker health care premium, ranging from $300 to $900 a year per worker.
The Premier claimed at the time the premium was to finance improvements in health care.
But that was a bare-faced lie. It turns out the workers’ health-care premium was actually used to finance yet another tax cut for corporations and their wealthy owners.
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August 21, 2010
Generous to a fault in military and prison spending, Stephen Harper is dying to impose an austerity budget on Canadians.
WRISEUP.COM
The governments of Greece and South Africa are having to contend with mass uprisings these days in the wake of the harsh “austerity” budgets they have attempted to foist upon their countries’ poor and working classes. And so it should be.
In the case of South Africa, it is one million public-sector workers who have risen up and demanded a living wage. The South African government’s current austerity was caused by the $5 billion this poor country was forced to spend in order to host the World Cup of soccer.
In the case of Greece, it is a broad swath of poor and working-class citizens who have risen up in the face of a harsh austerity program foist upon their government by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the European Union.
It is bad enough that these two national governments are attempting to redress their fiscal imbalances on the backs of the poor and the working classes.
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August 7, 2010
New York Yankee Alex Rodriguez epitomizes capitalist greed.
WRISEUP.COM
For decades sports fans have bemoaned the greed of “fat-cat athletes” who are “only in it for the money” and have lost touch with the “love of the game.” Many pine for those halcyon days of yore when pure-hearted ball players, gridiron gladiators and hockey heroes played for pride, for glory and for championships.
Clearly, the ability of talented sportsmen (and, to be sure, there is a glass ceiling in the sports world that few women break through) to earn hundreds or even thousands of times what their fans must survive on rankles with their followers. Everyone can plainly see that bouncing a ball, swinging a bat or stopping a puck is not as important as, say, performing life-saving operations and should not pay better by orders of magnitude. But it does.
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August 3, 2010
All the culprits are trying to shift the blame for the oil spill.
WRISEUP.COM
The massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, which began with an explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling unit, owned by Transocean Ltd. and operated by BP under a flag of convenience of the Marshall islands, has everyone running around trying to lay blame for the disaster at the feet of their favourite target of abuse.
The most obvious case of this blame-laying is the concerted effort by right-wing American political commentators to place blame on the Obama administration, as though the president had personally conducted operations on the oil rig or had been responsible for permitting the drilling to go forward in the first place, all of which is pure bollix.
But the question remains, where does the blame lie?
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July 25, 2010
Tony Hayward's life won't be impoverished by his resignation.
WRISEUP.COM
The corporate mass media was all atwitter today with speculation that BP CEO Tony Hayward will step down as boss of the troubled oil giant.
But that same corporate mass media did not twitter about the size of the golden parachute
Hayward will no doubt get.
After all, the oil behemoth’s CEO controls BP’s board of directors and it is they who will decide how much Tony will saunter away with.
Will it be $10 million? Will it be $50 million? Will it be $100 million or even more?
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June 27, 2010
G20 leaders are oblivious to the growing agony, anguish and anger of the common people.
WRISEUP.COM
The heavy-handed police presence at this weekend’s G20 summit in Toronto shows that the powers-that-be in this country will spare no expense to squelch democratic dissent.
After a week of blatant police intimidation of potential summit protesters, the arrests began in earnest once the international bigwigs touched down. By noon ET Sunday, more than 500 people had been arrested.
True, three decoy cop cruisers had been torched and a slew of plate-glass windows at wealthy banks, wealthy retail chains, wealthy fast-food outlets and wealthy independent downtown businesses were smashed.
But the only injuries were the injuries inflicted on peaceful protesters by Toronto police chief Bill Blair’s massively-armed stormtroopers. Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler would have been proud.
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