The Saskatchewan NDP wants to consult with business before committing to banning replacement workers because of course it does

Unifor leader Jerry Dias arrested on the Co-op picket line

Against the backdrop of one of the most significant labour disputes in Saskatchewan  -- and even arguably Canada as a whole -- in many years the provincial NDP has let it be known that to the great rallying cry "which side are you on" their answer to workers is, for now, no one's.

The ongoing Co-op refinery lockout has seen heightened union militancy due to efforts by the company to break the union by using replacement workers. This has led to union roadblocks, arrests of senior union leaders, threats by the police and courts and a refreshing stance of unity by many national union leaders.

While it is both perfectly obvious that this entire confrontation would have been avoided if the province had anti-scab legislation -- and while such legislation is a basic and fundamental demand of the union movement that you would think would be reflected by Canada's alleged party of labour, the NDP -- the provincial NDP is refusing to commit to such legislation in the unlikely event it were to ever win power.

David Forbes, labour critic for the Saskatchewan NDP "said the NDP will discuss any proposals with “both sides,” presumably meaning employers and labour. He expects the current lockout at the refinery will provide “a lot of lessons learned.”"

With all due respect, Mr. Forbes, those lessons were learned a very long time ago and that comment is bullshit. It is yet another in the endless examples of the NDP seeking to claim it will be a fair and unbiased manager of the capitalist state. Forbes even used the disgraceful and reactionary term "stakeholders" when talking about workers and the bosses as if there is somehow two sides to labour disputes like the Co-op one or something akin to equality in power and influence between unions and corporations.

Ontario anti-poverty activist John Clarke called out the Saskatchewan NDP on Twitter for this and actually got a response from its leader.

If it has been seen to "level the playing field" and "avoid lengthy disruptive labour disputes" then why does it need to be "explored". Why not simply advocate for it as, obviously, it "levels the playing field" in favour of workers and unions.

But that is exactly what the NDP is worried about. Simply advocating for this might make the party appear to be too pro-worker or as on the side of workers and they can't have that.

Corporate and fossil fuel industry quisling Rachel Notley showed this old and tired rule from the NDP playbook when on her very first day in "power" in Alberta she said ""I'm going to be making phone calls today to leaders within the energy industry to begin those conversations. They can count on us to work collaboratively with them."

Of course, industry is totally uninterested in working collaboratively with unions, workers or the NDP, but why not just sell the farm in advance? It is a time-honoured NDP tradition.

As I have noted before "At times it is like the so many New Democrats and their supporters who love to share the 'Mouseland' parable that Tommy Douglas made famous have entirely missed its point. It is not going to be a government by and for the mice if it wants to find "common cause" with the cats.'

When it comes to the struggle between corporations that have not had as much power as they do now for decades and workers who have not had so little, if you say you want to talk to "all stakeholders" and "both sides" you are on the side of the bosses.

Period.

Ontario Student Walkouts and Rallies, "Dinner With a View of the Rich", Israeli Elections & more -- The Week in News, Opinion and Videos March 31 - April 7

This week's list of articles, news items, opinion pieces and videos that I see as a must if you are looking for a roundup that should be of interest to The Left Chapter readers.

This list covers the week of March 31 - April 7.

The installment begins with a section and photos about to the student walkouts and rallies in Ontario, a look at the "Dinner With a View of the Rich" protest organized by the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty against the grotesque popup restaurant for wealthy diners in Toronto where homeless camps had been bulldozed by police and the city, and a section related to the disturbing Israeli election. It also ends with articles related to developments in Venezuela. 

1) FORD’S CLASS CHANGES TROJAN HORSE FOR SCHOOL CUTS

Dave McKee, People's Voice

If you read, and trust, the mainstream corporate media, the Ontario government’s March 15 announcement that it will loosen restrictions on class sized is a straightforward change that will align Ontario schools with those in the rest of Canada. There will, the story goes, be no loss of jobs for currently employed teachers and little if any impact on students’ classroom experience. Current class sizes are based on an average student-to-teacher ratio of 22:1, and the government intends to change that to 28:1 in the provincial budget due in April.

“Sure,” say the Tories, “we’d all like our kids to have classes of 22 or fewer, but it’s a perk that Ontario’s deficit just can’t afford any longer. Besides, we’re only adding 6 students and that’s only in high school.” Sounds like good old common sense.

Except, that’s not the whole story.


2) Provincial memo lays out plan to cut 3,475 Ontario teaching positions in 4 years

CBC News

A provincial memo obtained by CBC Toronto lays out the Ford government's plans to cut thousands of full-time teaching positions in Ontario beginning this fall.

3) Students walk out from hundreds of Ontario schools to protest education cuts

Lauren O'Neil, Blog TO

An estimated 100,000 elementary and high school students in Ontario are walking out of their classrooms this afternoon in protest against the provincial government's recent cuts to education.

4) High school students carry the torch of resistance against devastating cuts!

Young Communist League

We know that education is an investment and not a cost. Together, we won’t let the Ford Government get away with screwing with our futures and the opportunities of future generations. The Post-Secondary Education walkout on March 20th and the high school walkout today are only the beginning of what will be an intense struggle for quality, public education, for everyone. Say no to cuts! Say yes to Public Education! Ford wants us to shut up, but instead we’ll shut him up!

5) Thousands of educators hold rally outside Queen's Park

CP24

Thousands of educators from across the province gathered at Queen’s Park on Saturday to protest the planned elimination of more than 3,000 teaching jobs over the next four years and call on the province to boost funding for education.



6) Doug Ford's tax break for minimum wage workers falls short, study reveals

Mike Crawley · CBC News

The Ford government left Ontario's lowest-paid workers with less money in their pockets by giving them a tax break instead of boosting the minimum wage, says Ontario's non-partisan fiscal watchdog.

Related: "We won't allow our future to become a budget cut" - Photos from the student walkout strike in Toronto

Related: Ford and all his MPPs took away your rights at work. Tell them how you feel about it!

7) Posh dome restaurant opens under Toronto expressway weeks after nearby homeless camp eviction

CBC Radio

"The city cleared out homeless people who are living under the Gardiner with no heat. They were evicted. Meanwhile, pop-up restaurants serving ritzy dinners in heated domes under that same highway are granted permits," Acharya, an organizer with the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP), told As It Happens host Carol Off.

8) Dinner With A View's burst bubble

Natalia Manzocco, NOW Magazine 

Activist group Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) has since launched a counter-event, the snappily titled Dinner With A View Of The Rich, scheduled for Friday (April 5). As part of the event, organizers plan to serve a free, volunteer-cooked dinner to all attendees. "Together we'll eat, be lively and take in the view of the brazenness of the wealthy and the brutality of the city," they wrote on the event's Facebook page.

9) "Appalling": Toronto's Gardiner Expressway dining experience sparks backlash

Megan DeLaire, Yahoo News Canada 

A new pop-up restaurant under Toronto’s Gardiner Expressway bills itself as a “completely luxurious dining experience,” but one anti-poverty group calls it “appalling.”

10) Hundreds of people showed up to protest dome dining under the Gardiner

Tanya Mok, Blog TO

A posh dinner set beneath the Gardiner was disrupted last night after hundreds of people gathered around The Bentway to protest what they called "an obscene spectacle of opulence."

Footage from the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty protest, where hundreds of people registered their disgust over $550 dinners being served below a highway near where homeless people had recently been evicted.



11) San Francisco: residents of wealthy area shout down mayor over homeless shelter

Gabrielle Canon, The Guardian 

“The optics on this are stunning. You have very affluent land owners who are fighting against impoverished San Franciscans whose very lives are at risk because of the housing crisis,” she says. “And who are we talking about? Who is homeless? Primarily people of color, primarily folks who have disabilities or who are elderly people. To equate an entire class of people with crime is the foundation of prejudice.”

12) The Israeli Election Choices: Apartheid or Ethnic-Cleansing

The Palestine Project, Medium 

“Whether Netanyahu and his coalition with the fascist Jewish Power party — that openly advocates the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians — or Gantz, who prides himself on bombing Gaza back to the ‘Stone Ages,’ none of the major parties support a two-state solution or equality for Palestinians in a single state.”

13) Israel Is Voting Apartheid

Gideon Levy, Haaretz

There will be one certain result from Tuesday’s election: Around 100 members of the next Knesset will be supporters of apartheid.

14) Netanyahu Says Will Begin Annexing West Bank if He Wins Israel Election

Haaretz

Netanyahu tells Channel 12 three days before election that he will not 'evacuate any community' nor divide Jerusalem: 'A Palestinian state will endanger our existence'

15) How the Israeli Army Shot Dead a Palestinian Paramedic in a Refugee Camp

Amira Hass, Haaretz 

Sajed Mizher, a volunteer paramedic, planned to arrive at school in time for a test. But as he walked over to a man wounded by a gunshot, he was shot himself.

16) The weaponising of antisemitism

Alex Snowdon, Counterfire 

The smears against Corbyn and the left are part of a concerted effort to undermine a potential left government and must be opposed.

17) More Than 750,000 Could Lose Food Stamps Under Trump Administration Proposal

Pam Fessler, NPR

Three-quarters of a million people would likely lose their food stamps later this year under a new proposal by the Trump administration. The goal is to encourage able-bodied adults to go to work and get off government aid. But opponents predict people would go hungry instead, if the rule goes into effect.

18) Thousands of workers at US factories in Mexico are striking for higher wages

 Alexia Fernández Campbell, VOX

Dozens of Coca-Cola workers are camping out at a major bottling plant until they get a raise. More than 8,000 Walmart employees were prepared to walk off the job, until management met some of their demands. And 30,000 striking factory workers have finally returned to work after a month-long strike.

19) GM Squeezed $118 Million From Its Ohio Workers, Then Shut The Plant

David Welch, Bloomberg 

The union hall in Lordstown, Ohio, is a hive of confusion, anxiety and anger. Mostly anger.

20) Protesters call for an immediate ban on police street checks

Robert Devet, Nova Scotia Advocate 

Some 80 people attended a powerful community meeting, and several hundreds marched through downtown Halifax this afternoon, calling for an immediate and unconditional ban on the racist practice of police street checks.

21) Canada warming up twice as fast as rest of the world, and it’s ‘irreversible’: report

The Canadian Press

Canada is warming up twice as fast as the rest of the world and that warming is “effectively irreversible,” a new scientific report from Environment and Climate Change Canada says.

22) Two-Thirds of All Assets in Canada’s Economy Are Now Owned By Under 1% of All Companies

Press Progress 

Less than 1% of companies operating in Canada control over two-thirds of its assets,  new figures from Statistics Canada show.

23) With new position on secularism, Quebec Solidaire redefines left-wing politics in the province

Jonathan Montpetit · CBC News

By a wide margin, party members voted instead to adopt a new, and what is these days, more radical position: it's now opposed to any restriction on what religious symbols a public-sector worker can wear.

24) Homes on remote First Nations are mouldy before they're even built, experts say

Marina von Stackelberg · CBC News 

Drywall is transported to remote communities on ice roads and then left outdoors for months, making the material mouldy before the construction of a new house begins.

25) Michael Brown’s Mother Loses City Council Race in Ferguson, Where Her Son Was Killed by Police

John Eligon, The New York Times

Nearly five years ago, Lesley McSpadden appeared distraught before the world after finding out that a grand jury had declined to indict a white police officer in Ferguson, Mo., in the fatal shooting of her teenage son, Michael Brown, who was black.

26) Eight years of “spring”

Ana Laura Palomino García, Granma 

What happened? A well-aimed formula of manipulation, lies and “humanitarian intervention,” designed by the United States government and supported by the European Union (EU), was applied against Libya, which sounds suspiciously familiar given the situation facing the Venezuelan people today.

27) “We Are Your Citizens”: Trump Keeps Repeating Lies About Puerto Rico

Nidhi Prakash, BuzzFeed News 

The president has inflated how much disaster money Puerto Rico has received and falsely claimed that the island has gotten “more money than has ever been gotten for a hurricane before.”

28) Democratic socialists now control one-tenth of the Chicago City Council

Ryan Smith, Chicago Sun-Times

By the time the 35th Ward Alderman took the stage at Rosanna Rodríguez-Sánchez’s election-night party at Chief O’Neill’s in Avondale, Chicago had experienced the biggest electoral victory for socialists in modern American history. Members of the group now control one-tenth of the City Council’s 50 seats.

29) Historic Win: Communist Candidate Wins Municipality in Turkey

Telesur 

Communist Party of Turkey’s (TKP) candidate Fatih Mehmet Maçoğlu won the Dersim municipality, which makes the city the first to be governed by communists in the history of Turkey.

30) Erdoğan’s grip on Turkey slips as opposition makes election gains

Bethan McKernan, The Guardian 

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s grip on the country has been challenged by a resurgent opposition in local elections, with his ruling Justice and Development party (AKP) losing control of Ankara and on track to lose Istanbul, according to unofficial local election results.

31) Canada's probable next PM is courting the far right to win

Andrew Mitrovica, Al Jazeera 

It is said that you can take the measure of a man by the company he keeps.


By that objective calculus, the toxic company that Canada's Conservative leader, Andrew Scheer, stubbornly keeps ought to disabuse anyone of the silly notion that Canada is an antidote to the pestilence of white nationalism infecting other, Western "liberal" democracies.

32) Warning from 'Antarctica's last forests'

BBC News 

Scramble across exposed rocks in the middle of Antarctica and it's possible to find the mummified twigs of shrubs that grew on the continent some five million years ago.

33) SOCIALIST REVOLUTIONARY WORKERS PARTY TO LOBBY FOR SARB TO BE NATIONALISED

Theto Mahlakoana, EWN

The Socialist Revolutionary Workers Party (SRWP) says that nationalising the South African Reserve Bank is one of the key policy objectives that it will lobby for.

34) 'People are fleeing the city': How 'renovictions' are forcing renters to the edge of bankruptcy

Michael Smee · CBC News

A Toronto credit counselling firm is warning of a surge in so-called renovictions — landlords ousting tenants so they can upgrade and re-rent their apartments at jacked-up prices.

35) Cash-strapped Yorkshire school forced to teach without electricity once a week

Peter Lazenby, The Morning Star 

The unnamed school took the extreme measure to introduce ‘dark days’ due to the funding crisis affecting educators nationwide.

36) Neo-fascist violence keeps Roma out of Rome neighbourhood

Lorenzo Tondo, The Guardian 

Hundreds of neo-fascists, far-right activists and local residents took to the streets of a Rome suburb on Tuesday in a violent protest against 70 Roma people, including 33 children and 22 women, who were to be temporarily transferred to a reception centre in the area.

37) Footage of Italian boy who stood up to fascists goes viral

Lorenzo Tondo, The Guardian 

A 15-year-old boy who stood up to far-right activists during violent protests in Rome has won plaudits across Italy.

38) Let’s build the kind of Left that demands Canada withdraw from NATO

Yves Engler

Though it would elicit howls of outrage from the militarists, withdrawing from NATO would not be particularly radical. European countries such as Sweden and Finland aren’t part of the alliance, nor are former British dominions Australia and New Zealand, not to mention Canada’s NAFTA and G7 partners Mexico and Japan. Still, withdrawing from NATO would dampen pressure to spend on the military and to commit acts of aggression in service of the US-led world order. It’s long past time to do so.

39) The Anti-Democratic Roots of NATO

The Real News Network 

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) must be understood from its roots, which is anti-democratic says Yves Engler, while discussing his four part print series on The Real News.

40) Worst deal ever? The 407 is worth $30B today – Ontario sold it for $3.1B in 1999

Alicja Siekierska, Yahoo Finance Canada 

At the time, it was the largest privatization of a public asset in Canadian history. But in hindsight, it may be considered one of Ontario’s biggest financial missteps, considering the SNC-Lavalin sale pegs the value of the highway at at least $30 billion.

41) SA sex worker activist speaks out at international conference

Duncan Guy, IOL

“Prostitution is neither sex, nor work, nor is it a free choice”

 42) Communist Party of India (Marxist) exhorts people to defeat BJP

The Sentinel 

Hamen Das, former MLA and State Secretariat Member, Communist Party of India (Marxist) who addressed a number of election meetings at Chabua, Sadiya and Doomdooma LAC said that people of Assam were never communal, nor they are communal now or will be so in future. So he exhorted people to defeat ‘communal’ BJP in view of their current activities to demolish the very fabric of the society by trying to divide people on communal line.

43) The Picture of Dorian Trudeau

John Clarke, Counterfire 

The neoliberal centre's cover boy cannot protect Canadians from hard edged austerity or the racist right.

44) Berlin activists march to demand city seize housing from landlords

Caroline Copley, Reuters 

Thousands of Berlin residents took to the streets on Saturday to vent anger over surging rents and demand the expropriation of more than 200,000 apartments sold off to big private landlords, which they blame for changing the character of the city.

(Related: Problems of the Construction of Social Housing, International Symposium on Social Housing Construction, World Federation of Trade Unions, Prague, 1975)

45) From Middle Power to Regime Change Specialist: Canada and the Venezuela Crisis

Donald Kingsbury, NACLA 

Canada’s image as a moderate force seeking multilateral dialogue on the situation in Venezuela is little more than rhetoric veiling Ottawa’s increasingly interventionist role in Latin America.

46) Hundreds march in Washington, DC to protest against NATO, US interference in Venezuela

RT News 

Hundreds of people have taken to the streets of Washington, DC to oppose the upcoming NATO ministerial meeting in the US capital. The demonstrators also decried the continued US involvement in the Venezuelan political crisis.

47) Venezuela: Why is Maduro Still in Power?

Federico Fuentes - Green Left Weekly

For many, it is impossible to understand how, despite presiding over the country’s worst economic crisis and facing such intense international and domestic opposition, Maduro remains in the presidential palace.

48) Washington Concerned Over Maduro's Stay in Power

Telesur 

Maduro's stay in power has Washington as well as various regional neighbor countries worried about the situation. It seems that Venezuela's neighbors followed a false promise to get rid off the Venezuelan President rather quickly. According to the report, allies of the U.S. are disappointed with the result and are now questioning their decision to recognize Juan Guaido as interim president.

49) Venezuelan Gov’t Authorizes Expansion of Red Cross Aid

Lucas Koerner, Venezuela Analysis 

Venezuela’s Maduro government has reached an agreement with the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC) to scale up the humanitarian organization’s activities in the Caribbean country.

50) Venezuela: The US empire is on the march again

Rob Winkel, Counterfire 

It doesn’t matter how many ultimatums the US or European leaders put to Venezuela. Venezuelans don’t need their former imperial masters and others to tell them to hold elections. Who leads the country is determined only by the population. It doesn’t matter how many countries support the opposition - it doesn’t give them a mandate to rule.

51) Venezuela’s Constituent Assembly Removes Guaido's Immunity

Telesur 

The National Constituent Assembly (ANC) of Venezuela approved on Tuesday a decree to lift parliamentary immunity and the continuation of the prosecution of self-proclaimed opposition deputy, Juan Guaido.

(Related: Yet again the NDP shows its true colours as lapdogs of American Imperialism. Time for the Canadian Left to notice) 

52) Venezuelan Chavistas Stage Anti-Imperialist March in Cacaras

Telesur 

Venezuela's Bolivarian people took the streets Saturday to carry out the sixth consecutive anti-imperialist march, an event aimed at backing President Nicolas Maduro administration and rejecting the interventionist policies by the United States and its regional allies.

See also: Israeli Attacks, Venezuela Resists, Climate Change & more -- The Week in News, Opinion and Videos March 24 - 31

Arctic Melting, John McCain, the TPS and Faith Goldy & more -- The Week in News, Opinion and Videos August 26 - September 2

This week's list of articles, news items, opinion pieces and videos that I see as a must if you are looking for a roundup that should be of interest to The Left Chapter readers.



This list covers the week of August 26 - September 2.

There are two articles from prior to the period that have been integrated into the post.

1) Hold the Plaudits, John McCain’s 2008 Campaign Paved the Way for Donald Trump

Mehdi Hasan, The Intercept 

So the reality is this: if you were drawing up a list of Americans who share blame for the rise of Donald Trump, John McCain’s name would have to be somewhere near the top of it. With the noxious Palin at his side, the Arizona senator ran a nasty, bigoted, and desperate presidential campaign in 2008 that paved the way for Trump and Trumpism in 2016.

2) Obit Omit: What the Media Leaves Out of John McCain’s Record of Militarism and Misogyny

Democracy Now

We host a roundtable discussion on the life and legacy of John McCain, the Vietnam veteran and former prisoner of war, six-term senator and two-time presidential candidate, who died Saturday at the age of 81 of brain cancer. We speak with Mehdi Hasan, columnist for The Intercept and host of their “Deconstructed” podcast. He’s also host of “UpFront” at Al Jazeera English. He’s been tweeting in response to McCain’s death and wrote a piece last year headlined “Despite What the Press Says, 'Maverick' McCain Has a Long and Distinguished Record of Horribleness.” We are also joined by Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CodePink, which McCain once referred to as “low-life scum,” and by Norman Solomon, national coordinator of RootsAction, executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy and author of “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.”

3) Why on this despoiled earth would NDP leaders praise John McCain?

Yves Engler

The NDP hierarchy’s response to noted war hawk John McCain’s death is shameful. Even worse, it reflects a general hostility towards the victims of Western imperialism.

4) Federal Tory Delegates Vote That Being Born In Canada Shouldn’t Guarantee Citizenship

Althia Raj & Ryan Maloney, HuffPost

Birthright citizenship should be barred to anyone who doesn't have a parent who is a Canadian citizen or is a permanent resident, Tory delegates said in a vote Saturday at their party's policy convention.

5) Conservative Delegate Who Led Push to End Birthright Citizenship Linked to Campus ‘Alt-Right’ Scandals

Press Progress

Controversial campus conservative led push to make Conservative Party adopt Trump-style anti-immigration policy,

6) Class-action lawsuit launched against Ontario government over cancellation of basic income pilot

Mark Riley, The Toronto Star

Four Lindsay residents have launched a proposed class-action lawsuit for breach of contract against the province in the wake of the Progressive Conservative government’s cancellation of the basic income pilot project.

Via Jerome Adamo / Facebook

7) Israel's Racist Lynch Mobs Are Hunting Arabs. And They're Fueled by Government Incitement

Noam Shuster Eliassi, Haaretz

I was assaulted in Tel Aviv for 'looking Arab.' My privilege - being a Jew of Mizrahi origin - spared me, but won’t protect millions of Israel’s Arab citizens, serially delegitimized by legislation, three of whom were viciously attacked last weekend.

8) Donald Trump’s “white genocide” rhetoric: A dangerous escalation of racism

Amanda Marcotte, Salon

Last Wednesday, Donald Trump briefly interrupted his ongoing Twitter tirades denouncing various investigations into his shady behavior with a bizarre tweet about "the large scale killing of farmers" and "land and farm seizures and expropriations" in South Africa. It didn't take long for journalists to figure out what Trump was talking about. He was referencing a racist (and false) conspiracy theory that floats around white supremacist and neo-Nazi websites and had been elevated by Tucker Carlson, the Fox News host who has grown increasingly bold about mainstreaming ideas picked up from the white supremacist fringe.

9) Ignore Donald Trump’s actual words. What matters is who they are aimed at

Nesrine Malik, The Guardian

The president cares little about South Africa. He is issuing a clarion call to US white supremacist voters.

10) Corbyn says Labour would consider state-owned Facebook rival

Tom Batchelor, The Independent

Party leader attacks Fleet Street's 'herd instinct' and says journalists should be allowed to elect their editors.

11) PHOTO OF TORONTO POLICE OFFICERS WITH FAR-RIGHT MAYORAL CANDIDATE FAITH GOLDY RAISES SERIOUS QUESTIONS

Critical Justice Project 

A photo of two Toronto police officers posing with far-right mayoral candidate Faith Goldy raises serious questions about potential violations of the Police Services Act‘s prohibition against police supporting a candidate for election.

12) “Just a job”: Toronto Police defend officers posing with white nationalist candidate

Kevin Metcalf, Medium

The Toronto Police Service is defending two TPS members who posed with their uniforms and vehicles for a group photo with a far-right mayoral candidate known for espousing pro-police, white nationalist and neo-Nazi talking points. “We get asked countless times a day to pose for photos with members of the public and that’s what they were doing.” said Mark Pugash, Director of Corporate Communications for TPS. “This was just a job.”

(Related: Why are Toronto police officers striking a pose with far-right mayoral candidate Faith Goldy?) 


Achiya Schatz, an activist with Breaking The Silence, shared this video to Twitter yesterday. Mairav Zonszein added this commentary:

"This is how a Palestinian girl in Hebron has to get home because Israel built a fence around her house and today the gate was left locked.":



13) Hurricane Maria Caused 2,975 Deaths In Puerto Rico, Independent Study Estimates

Adrian Florido, NPR

Puerto Rico's governor updated the island's official death toll for victims of Hurricane Maria on Tuesday, hours after independent researchers from George Washington University released a study estimating the hurricane caused 2,975 deaths in the six months following the storm.

14) Argentines Protest as Report Reveals Police Kill One Every 23 Hours

Telesur

Social organizations, relatives of victims of police brutality, and human rights groups marched in Argentina Monday against what they call security forces’ “trigger happy” approach to crime fighting, which has seen a person killed every 23 hours according to the Coordinating Committee Against Police and Institutional Repression (Correpi for its Spanish acronym).

15) An Open Letter to ‘Socialists’ Who Might be Fronting for the Democratic Party

Quetzal Cáceres, Black Agenda Report

Any socialist who thought, as I did, that Ocasio-Cortez would be our socialist champion should watch the entire 27-minute PBS Firing Line interview to get a sense of just how bad this train wreck might be.

A $15 minimum wage is coming on January 1, 2019. But Big Business lobbyists are trying to cancel it. It is our job to let every elected official know that Ontarians expect and demand #15andFairness. Share this video to spread the word, then come out to your local #labourday event to show your support:




16) Siding with the Palestinian struggle is not antisemitic

Ahmad Samih Khalidi, The Guardian

Jeremy Corbyn has no need to apologise for being the first Labour leader to oppose Zionism on moral grounds.

17) High-income earners paid $4.6-billion less in taxes in 2016 despite higher rate for top 1 per cent

Bill Curry, The Globe and Mail

The Liberal government’s tax on Canada’s top 1 per cent failed to produce the promised billions in new revenue in its first year, as high-income earners actually paid $4.6-billion less in federal taxes.


Channel 4's Michael Crick caught up with Theresa May as she was about to visit Robben Island where Nelson Mandela was incarcerated for nearly 20 years. Crick asked her what she had done personally to help bring about Mandela's release and end South African Apartheid.

She struggled ...



18) A Week Into the US Prison Strike 2018

Telesur

Prisoners are demanding an end to modern slavery and they're getting support from outside.

19) When Illness Is ‘Death Sentence’: Victimization of Gaza Women

Ramzy Baroud, Telesur

In truth, these women embody the remarkable spirit and courage of every Palestinian woman living under Israeli Occupation and siege in the West Bank and Gaza.

20) Union leaders in Colombia face threats and violence

 IndustriALL

Colombia is one of the ten most dangerous countries in the world for workers and trade union leaders, where 19 trade union members have been murdered so far this year. IndustriALL Global Union and other federations have expressed their concerns to Colombia's president, Iván Duque.

21) There is a Burning Need to Rekindle Anti-militarist Political Movements in Canada

Yves Engler, Dissident Voices

Are soldiers more valuable to society than teachers? Are they more essential than the people who drive buses or clean up our waste? Are their jobs that much more dangerous than firefighters, or psychiatric nurses or loggers? Is what they do more honourable than parenting, caring for elders, providing essential social services or reporting the news?

22) War is big business. We need a strengthened movement to challenge the arms industry

Brent Patterson, Rabble

War is highly profitable for a few transnational corporations.

23) No Remorse: Reflections on Radical “Purism”

Paul Street, Counterpunch 

I have this recurrent experience as an “iconoclastic” Left critic of what gets sold as progressive and Left. It starts with me getting a radical truth-telling rush discovering and showing how some political figure, organization or “movement” is nowhere near as progressive, portside, revolutionary, and transformative as widely advertised and perceived.  That’s stage one.

24) Warm water under Arctic ice a 'ticking time bomb,' researcher says

Katie Toth, CBC News

A pocket of warm ocean water underneath the surface of the Canada Basin could melt a significant portion of the region's sea ice pack if it were to ascend, a new study suggests.

25) The Melting Arctic Is a Real-Time Horror Story — Why Doesn’t Anyone Care?

Jeff Goodell, Rolling Stone

“Save the Arctic!”, however, is not a rallying cry that’s going to motivate many Americans. The Arctic is too distant, too far away, too alien. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter. Think of the Arctic as our early warning system, a big screaming alarm that is alerting us to the fact that the planet we will live on tomorrow is nothing like the planet we lived on yesterday, and we better get ready. As the Arctic heats up, it raises sea levels in Miami and Bangladesh and every other coastal city in the world, and it increases the odds of wildfires in California and the west. In a sense, the massive changes that are taking place in the Arctic are remaking the weather in America and northern Europe, with profound implications for everyone who lives there, whether they know it or not. And they are a reminder of one of the great truths about climate change, and one that is hardest to grasp: In our rapidly changing world, no place is too distant or too far away to matter. Like it or not, we are all in this together. When ice melts in the Arctic, the west burns.

26) Louis C.K. and Men Who Think Justice Takes as Long as They Want It To

Roxane Gay, New York Times

We spend so little energy thinking about justice for victims and so much energy thinking about the men who perpetrate sexual harassment and violence. We worry about what will become of them in the wake of their mistakes. We don’t worry as much about those who have suffered at their hands. It is easier, for far too many people, to empathize with predators than it is to empathize with prey.

27) Why the American empire has lost control—and its failure is imminent

Brian Bethune, Maclean's 

Chris Hedges—Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, ordained Presbyterian minister, ferocious anti-corporate activist and prolific author—has long occupied an isolated spot among American public intellectuals, as much a moral crusader as a political critic. But as American, and Western, politics continue to decay and xenophobic nativism continues to rise, Hedges, 61, seems less and less an outlier, his critique of contemporary America more acceptable to his countrymen. And that’s without walking back any of his analysis. If Hedges was worried nine years ago in Empire of Illusion that his nation—like all republics before it—would fail to survive the acquisition of an empire, he’s now convinced it won’t. The title of his newest book, America: The Farewell Tour, says it all. In powerfully reported chapters—including “Decay” (deindustrialization), “Heroin” (the opioid epidemic), “Sadism” (the pornography-industrial complex), and “Hate” (racism)—Hedges talks to the most oppressed and dispossessed citizens of an empire he thinks has not much more than a decade of life left.

28) ‘They wanted to kill us’: masked neo-fascists strike fear into Ukraine's Roma

Alex Sturrock (reporting and images); additional reporting by Hannah Summers, The Guardian

After a spate of brutal attacks on Roma settlements by far-right groups, authorities have been accused of failing to act. As the violence escalates, human rights groups are suing the police for failing to protect families from raids by masked men.

(Related: Canada green lights arms sales to Ukraine as fascist militias attack Roma) 

29) U.S. is denying passports to Americans along the border, throwing their citizenship into question

Kevin Sieff, The Washington Post

Juan is one of a growing number of people whose official birth records show they were born in the United States but who are now being denied passports — their citizenship suddenly thrown into question. The Trump administration is accusing hundreds, and possibly thousands, of Hispanics along the border of using fraudulent birth certificates since they were babies, and it is undertaking a widespread crackdown.

30) After Federal Court quashes Trans Mountain, Rachel Notley pulls out of national climate plan

John Paul Tasker, Kathleen Harris · CBC News

In the wake of the Federal Court's bombshell decision to quash cabinet approval of the Trans Mountain expansion project, Alberta Premier Rachel Notley is pulling her province out of the national climate change plan.

(Related: Oil industry hack Rachel Notley's hypocritical concern for the "rule of law" now fully exposed) 

31) Labor History on Labor Day: Trump tries to kill OT

Mark Gruenberg, People's World

It says something about the anti-worker bias of the GOP Trump administration that its Labor Department has spent the 80th anniversary of the Fair Labor Standards Act – the nation’s basic overtime pay and minimum wage law – trying to weaken it.

32) Lana Del Rey Cancels Israel Concert After BDS Pressure

Telesur

Del Rey was one of the headliners at the Meteor Festival, which was scheduled to take place at Kibbutz Lehavot Habashan.

33) Kaepernick collusion grievance will go to trial

Al Neal, People's World

In the first of many knockout blows to the NFL, et al. (Donald J. Trump), an arbitrator late Thursday ruled in favor of Colin Kaepernick and will advance his collusion grievance against the league to trial. The hearing is expected to begin later this year.

34) Doug Ford’s Orwellian ‘Free Speech on Campus’ Policy Calls For Crack Down on Student Protests

Press Progress

Ford’s new policy policing speech aims to create a safe space on campus for anti-abortion activists and alt-right speakers.

35) Business group calls for ‘full repeal’ of Ontario’s new workplace protections


Sara Mojtehedzadeh, The Toronto Star

The umbrella body representing 60,000 Ontario small business owners is calling on the provincial government to fully repeal the most sweeping changes to workplace protections in decades — including a higher minimum wage, equal pay protections for temporary workers, and paid emergency leave days.

36) US confirms end to funding for UN Palestinian refugees

Peter Beaumont and Oliver Holmes, The Guardian

The Trump administration has announced it will cut all US funding for the main UN programme for Palestinian refugees, a move with potentially devastating impacts for five million people who rely on its schools, healthcare, and social services.

37) Absolutely Repulsive': After $1.5 Trillion Tax Giveaway to the Rich, Trump Cancels Modest Pay Raise for Federal Workers

Jake Johnson, Common Dreams

"President Trump pushed through a tax scam that gave unprecedented handouts to billionaires and corporations—but believes it's too expensive to pay hardworking federal workers a reasonable wage."

38) Toronto rally confronts Zionist slanders

John Clarke, Counterfire

As the Toronto community stands firm against Zionist attacks, John Clarke reminds us that our solidarity with the Palestinian cause mustn't be apologised for.

39) US journalist to revive Labour left magazine Tribune

Jim Waterson, The Guardian

Tribune, the historic publication of the Labour left, will be revived next month by a US journalist who hopes to benefit from the rise of Jeremy Corbyn and run a financially sustainable leftwing print magazine.

40) Activist Arrests in India Are Part of a Dangerous Global Trend to Stifle Dissent

Vijay Prashad / Independent Media Institute

On Tuesday morning, the police from the Indian city of Pune (in the state of Maharashtra) raided the homes of lawyers and social activists across India and arrested five of them. Many of them are not household names around the world, since they are people who work silently on behalf of the poor and oppressed in a country where half the population does not eat sufficiently. Their names are Gautam Navlakha, Sudha Bharadwaj, Vernon Gonsalves, Arun Ferreira and Varavara Rao. What unites these people is their commitment to the working class and peasantry, to those who are treated as marginal to India’s state. They are also united by their opposition, which they share with millions of Indians, to the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

41) Thousands protest in Russia against plans to hike pension age

The Guardian

Vladimir Putin has called the reform a financial necessity as Communist party leader brands move ‘cannibalistic’.

See also: John McCain, Michael Cohen, Climate Change, CNE Lockout & more -- The Left Chapter Sunday Reading List August 19 - 25

Canada 150, Basic Income, the Western Wall & more -- The Left Chapter Sunday Reading List June 25 - July 2

This week's list of articles, news items and opinion pieces that I see as must reads if you are looking for a roundup that should be of interest to The Left Chapter readers.


This list covers the week of  June 25 - July 2. It is generally in order of the date of the article's release.

1) The Neoliberal Writing on the Wall: Ontario’s Basic Income Experiment

John Clarke, Socialist Project Bullet 

Since 2010, the UK has endured a political regime that can be considered a cutting edge of the austerity agenda. Through the film, I, Daniel Blake, people around the world have become familiar with the institutionalized cruelty of the Country’s warped system of providing social benefits to those in need.

Read the full article.

2) Anita Sarkeesian's astounding 'garbage human' moment

Colin Campbell, Polygon

A phone camera is trained on Anita Sarkeesian as she prepares to speak on a panel. In footage later posted online, the camera wobbles slightly. Its setting is on high zoom. It follows her every move.

Read the full article.

3) Indigenous women nearly 10 times more likely to be street checked by Edmonton police, new data shows

Andrea Huncar, CBC News

Critics are calling for an Alberta-wide ban on street checks as a CBC News investigation reveals Edmonton police have been disproportionately stopping, questioning and documenting Aboriginal and black people in non-criminal encounters.

Read the full article.

4) Waiting for death in Thunder Bay

Nancy Macdonald, MacLean's

Barb Kentner wants a Big Mac. For the past two days, she has been lying in Thunder Bay Regional Hospital, periodically thinking of eating one last burger. In late January, the Anishinaabe woman was hit in the stomach by a rusting trailer hitch in Thunder Bay’s east end, in an unprovoked assault. It was hurled at her from a moving vehicle. “I got one,” someone is alleged to have yelled from the car as it peeled off into the night. She has been in and out of the hospital ever since.

Read the full article.

5) Who Are the Groups Behind Canada’s Anti-Islam Rallies?

Mark Lamoureux, Vice

Here’s a breakdown of the major players.

Read the full article.

6) 'Feminist' Canada has workplace gender gap worth $150bn, says report

Claire Provost, The Guardian

Despite Justin Trudeau’s efforts to stress his country’s female-friendly credentials, a new report has identified a ‘substantial gender gap’ in its workplaces. Is Canada’s feminist image too good to be true?

Read the full article.

7) Facebook’s secret censorship rules protect white men from hate speech but not black children

Julia Angwin and Hannes Grassegger

In the wake of a terrorist attack in London earlier this month, a U.S. congressman wrote a Facebook post in which he called for the slaughter of “radicalized” Muslims. “Hunt them, identify them, and kill them,” declared U.S. Rep. Clay Higgins, a Louisiana Republican. “Kill them all. For the sake of all that is good and righteous. Kill them all.”
Higgins’ plea for violent revenge went untouched by Facebook workers who scour the social network deleting offensive speech.

But a May posting on Facebook by Boston poet and Black Lives Matter activist Didi Delgado drew a different response.

Read the full article.

8) National Farmers Union backs Idle No More's call for national day of action on July 1

 Brandi Morin, CBC News

As Canada readies to celebrate 150 years since Confederation, the National Farmers Union is putting its support behind Idle No More's "UNsettling Canada 150" call to action.

Read the full article.

9) The Centrist Suicide Note

Steven Parfitt, Jacobin

Jeremy Corbyn's recent success has finally deflated New Labour's favorite boogeyman: Michael Foot's 1983 general election defeat.

Read the full article.

10) Teepee erected in ceremony on Parliament Hill after opposition from police

CBC News

A group of Indigenous people and supporters headed to Parliament Hill Wednesday night to try to perform a ceremony and erect a teepee, but faced opposition from police.

Read the full article.

11) Cultural Appropriation Is, In Fact, Indefensible

K. Tempest Bradford, NPR

Last week, the New York Times published an op-ed titled "In Defense of Cultural Appropriation" in which writer Kenan Malik attempted to extol the virtues of artistic appropriation and chastise those who would stand in the way of necessary "cultural engagement." (No link, because you have Google and I'd rather not give that piece more traffic than it deserves.) What would have happened, he argues, had Elvis Presley not been able to swipe the sounds of black musicians?

Malik is not the first person to defend cultural appropriation. He joins a long list that, most recently, has included prominent members of the Canadian literary community and author Lionel Shriver.

But the truth is that cultural appropriation is indefensible. Those who defend it either don't understand what it is, misrepresent it to muddy the conversation, or ignore its complexity — discarding any nuances and making it easy to dismiss both appropriation and those who object to it.

Read the full article.

12) Indigenous leaders call out Trudeau over funds for social services

Gloria Galloway, The Globe and Mail

First Nations leaders say Justin Trudeau is wrong when he says native communities do not yet know how they would spend additional funds for child welfare and health services.

Read the full article.

13) Far-right Soldiers of Odin members ‘not afraid to use violence,’ intelligence report warns

Stewart Bell, Global News

The emergence of the far-right Soldiers of Odin group in Canada has raised concerns about the potential for “anti-immigrant vigilantism,” according to a de-classified intelligence report obtained by Global News.

Read the full article.

14) 2,900 Sears Canada employees won’t receive severance after layoff

Katie Dangerfield, Global News

The 2,900 Sears Canada employees recently laid off will not be receiving severance packages and retirees who worked with the company for years may be losing all their benefits, according to court filings.

Read the full article.

15) Company in charge of Grenfell Tower locks community out of therapy centre

Emma Graham-Harrison, The Guardian

The company responsible for managing Grenfell Tower has changed the locks on a community centre used to provide art therapy for children affected by the tragedy, stranding parents and children outside in the street when they came to seek help.

Read the full article.

16) New Players, Same Game: How the NDP-Greens Won’t Address the Housing Crisis

Nathan Crompton, The Mainlander

Evictions, rent increases, and developer tax breaks — when it comes to the housing crisis it is hard to see where the parties truly differ.

Read the full article.

17) It's Only About Them: U.S. Jews' Outrage on the Wall, Silence on the Occupation Is Obscene

Simone Zimmerman, Haaretz

When Gaza was left to choke, when the occupation hit 50, when Bibi and Trump were having a lovefest, the only issue American Jewish leaders made a scene about was egalitarian prayer at the Western Wall.

Read the full article.

18) Now American Jews Are Angry

Gideon Levy, Haaretz

When it comes to the Western Wall, suddenly U.S. Jews are liberals, criticizing Israel. Did they ever fight for the right of Palestinians to worship freely?

Read the full article.

19) TTC gets mock award for ‘least funded’ transit system

Ben Spurr, The Toronto Star

Members of an advocacy group descended on city hall Thursday to present the TTC with a mock award for being the “least funded” public transit system on the continent.

Read the full article.

20) Phil Collins: why I took a Soviet statue of Engels across Europe to Manchester

Charlotte Higgins, The Guardian

Friedrich Engels spent two decades in Manchester. The horrific conditions he saw in the cradle of industrialism forged his great works. But the city has never commemorated him – until now.

Read the full article.

21) Indigenous People and Resource Extraction

Nicole Hill, Angele Alook, Ian Hussey - The Socialist Project Bullet

In February, the government of Alberta signed a ten-year framework agreement with the Métis Nation of Alberta, emphasizing a relationship based on recognition, respect, and cooperation. In March, Alberta and the Blackfoot Confederacy signed a protocol agreement on how they will work together on economic development and other areas of concern to both parties. These agreements, of course, are only two of many instances of Indigenous people in the mainstream media recently.

Read the full article.

22) The Labour Right's Single Market Rebellion

Vince Mills, Morning Star

The House of Commons vote on the Queen’s Speech offered an obvious opportunity for the right of the Labour Party to make their peace with Jeremy Corbyn and play a constructive role in the left’s transformative project. But it was snubbed.

Read the full article.

23) 150 years of cultural genocide: Today, like all days, is an insult

Romeo Saganash, The Globe and Mail

I lose sleep most nights.

It started when I was young. Now I have a whole regimen of supports to help me sleep: exercise, healthy eating, music, darkness, relaxing tea, books of poetry. When it gets really bad: mandatory time off, writing, sleeping under the stars beside white pine trees, near a lake, on the land of the Eeyou, my people.

How colonization affects an individual is difficult to explain. How deep the tentacles reach. How vast the expanse of jarring totalitarian domination extends. Someone said to me recently that they like to have friends with different political and social points of view because it broadens their experiences and teaches them to refine arguments. For the past seven generations, in order to adapt to and accommodate the colonizer’s values, goals, institutions and society, I have learned to see so broadly that my eyes tear up.

Read the full article.

There are also two articles from prior to the period covered that are well worth sharing and that we missed before.

24) Stop those naturopaths who spread anti-vaxxer myths

Timothy Caulfield, The Globe and Mail

There is growing concern about vaccination rates in Canada. While most Canadians support vaccination, recent research has found that nearly 30 per cent of the population has concerns about the link between vaccines and autism. In some parts of the country, the vaccination rates have fallen below the level needed to achieve herd immunity.

Read the full article.

25) Science Has Consistently Underestimated Women Because Scientists Are Sexist

Sirin Kale, Broadly Vice

In her new book, "Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong," Angela Saini argues that the "sexist baggage" within science has made us—mistakenly—believe women are weaker than men.

Read the full article.

See also: Grenfell, the LCBO, Québec Solidaire and more -- The Left Chapter Sunday Reading List June 18 - 25

See also: Grenfell Tower, Theresa May, Philando Castile & more -- The Left Chapter Sunday Reading List June 11 - 18