In Manitoba consider a vote for the Communist Party -- A clear anti-capitalist alternative

The election in Manitoba is less than a week away. On September 10 the people of the province might be forgiven for thinking they didn't really have any palatable options. 

The vicious austerity government of Conservative Premier Brian Pallister has done tremendous damage with its relentless attacks on working people and its slash-and-burn cutbacks. 

As the People's Voice newspaper noted:

The Pallister government has spent the last 3 years slashing social programs and public services under cover of reducing deficits. But the cuts to hospitals and healthcare – including the decision to nix the regional hospital in Portage La Prairie – show that the Tories’ real goal was privatization – not deficit reduction. And now the people of Manitoba are suffering the consequences of reduced access to hospitals and healthcare that will cost lives.
Working people will die from these cuts, while the rich will buy front-of-the-line access to healthcare in the US.

Beyond healthcare is the harm to fighting climate change, to the rights of organized labour, housing, education and more. This is all laid out in an extensive article by James Wilt in Canadian Dimension "The devastation of Manitoba: An autopsy of Pallister’s austerity regime". It makes for pretty disturbing reading.

But it is hard to forget the 17 squandered years of the pseudo-progressive NDP in "power" in the province prior to 2016. They left office with a higher child poverty rate than when they came in and a minimum wage that was lower than that of neighbouring Liberal Ontario!

As Communist activist Jay Watts and the Communist Party noted on twitter, why would anyone think that handing the NDP another 4 year mandate will lead to meaningful change?

So what is to be done?

Happily, if you live in one of five ridings there is an unabashedly anti-capitalist alternative committed to fighting for a program of truly transformative change.

Under new provincial leader Frank Komarniski, the Communist Party of Canada Manitoba is calling for a $20 an hour minimum wage, a 32 hour work week with 40 hours pay, the building of 25,000 units of affordable social housing for rent and for sale, bringing in strict rent control, sharply reducing fossil fuel use and carbon emissions with the goal of eliminating them by 2050, building a province wide public transit network, putting police under public control, ending public-private partnerships, eliminating tuition fees, real action on Indigenous land claims and treaty rights and much, much more.

Their demands for "Immediate action to implement the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls" and to "Stop the seizure of Indigenous children into ‘care’ and enable Indigenous Nations to independently administer Indigenous child and family services" are essential and a key component of their platform to "Recognize the Right to National Self-Determination".

You can read their full platform here.

Their candidates are:

Voting Communist sends a clear message to the status quo, mainstream bourgeois politicians and parties -- reactionary or "progressive" -- outright rejecting neo-liberalism, austerity and capitalism. There are few ways to that these days.

Anthem Protests, Vietnam Revisionism, Korea and more -- The Left Chapter Sunday Reading List September 17 - 24

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  September 17 - 24. It is generally in order of the date of the article's release.

1) Food bank usage in Toronto back to recession-era levels, report says

Fatima Syed, The Toronto Star

Suzanne Davison, a 72-year-old who lives in federal co-op housing in Toronto with her 63-year-old brother, goes to her local food bank every week.

Read the full article

2) Voters overwhelmingly support Jeremy Corbyn's policy agenda, poll finds

Joe Watts, The Independent

The British public has given overwhelming backing to major parts of Jeremy Corbyn’s policy agenda, new polling has revealed.

Read the full article.

3) Kinew needs to come clean, NDP needs to speak up

Melissa Martin, Winnipeg Free Press

Seven years ago, on a breezy day in late August, my live-in partner put his hands around my throat and slammed me into our couch. We’d been arguing, again, and this time his anger lashed out like lightning, a sudden electric shock.

Read the full article.

4) Indigenous MLA's attempt at damage control too little, too late

Gordon Sinclair Jr., Winnipeg Free Press

I hadn’t expected the message Tara Hart’s older sister and mother had waiting for me when I called Sunday afternoon to see how they were doing after they had finally shared their feelings about Wab Kinew in that morning’s Free Press.

Read the full article.

5) Documents show B.C. ‘Climate Leadership Plan’ was cooked up in Calgary boardroom of powerful petroleum industry lobby

David Climenhaga, Alberta Politics

Using documents obtained through a Freedom of Information filing, the British Columbia office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives has discovered B.C.’s former Liberal Government’s “Climate Leadership Plan” was almost entirely cooked up at secret meetings with oil and gas industry representatives in the Calgary boardroom of the country’s most powerful fossil fuel industry lobby group.

Read the full article.

6) “Ossies,” former East Germans, compare socialist youth with life under capitalism

John Wojcik, People's World

A crowd gathered at the Babylon Theater here Saturday for an annual memorial for Dean Reed, the American “rebel,” rock star, and filmmaker who famously defected to “East Germany” (the German Democratic Republic, or GDR) in 1972. Those in attendance were among Reed’s most ardent fans, of whom he had many thousands in the GDR when he died in 1986.

Read the full article.

7) Jews in Texas are already in hiding from neo-Nazis, high holiday service to be held at a secret location

Steve Russell, Newsweek

There's an apocryphal story from WWII that when the Nazis started requiring the Jews under their control to wear gold stars, the Danish King donned one himself and suggested his subjects do the same. It’s an inspiring story, and it ought to be true, but it is mere folklore in the service of the more mundane historical truth: the Danes saved most of their Jewish population from the Holocaust, but by more conventional methods.

Read the full article.

8) Burns and Novick, Masters of False Balancing 

Jerry Lembcke, Public Books

When Karl Marlantes takes the screen during the new PBS film series The Vietnam War, he says coming home was nearly as traumatic as the war itself. Later, he describes being assaulted by protesters at the airport, invoking the image of spat-on Vietnam veterans, an image that Los Angeles Times editorial writer Michael McGough said in 2012 was based on a myth. An edifying myth, McGough called it, but still a myth.

Read the full article.

9) Ken Burns’s Vietnam Documentary Promotes Misleading History

Jeremy Kuzmarov, Vietnam Full Disclosure

Ken Burns and Lynn Novick’s documentary on the Vietnam War began airing on PBS last night after much anticipation.

The film follows previous Burns works in providing poignant footage mixed with compelling interviews and a backdrop of good music, starting in this case with Bob Dylan’s A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall.

Despite the counter-cultural veneer, however, and admirable efforts to provide a Vietnamese perspective, Burns and Novick’s film in its first episode provides conventional analysis about the war’s outbreak and can be understood as a sophisticated exercise in empire denial.

Read the full article.

10) Getting the Gulf of Tonkin Wrong: Are Ken Burns and Lynn Novick “Telling Stories” About the Central Events Used to Legitimize the US Attack Against Vietnam?

James Williamson, Counterpunch

This past spring I attended an advance screening of excerpts of Ken Burns and Lynn Novick’s documentary about the US War against Vietnam at Harvard, with these two in attendance, along with some Kennedy School “national security” types, who had evidently been recruited as “consultants.” (I was happy to see Peter Davis, the director of the truly commendable “Hearts and Minds” in the audience, to whom I had a chance to say “hello” before I left. Peter is himself a Harvard grad, is now writing novels and, happily, was acknowledged by Ken Burns as he began the post-screening discussion.)

Read the full article.

11) How AIDS campaigners joined the fight to pimp prostitution 

Julie Bindel, Newsweek

The HIV/AIDS movement is widely understood as one that focuses on civil rights and health care for vulnerable groups. The popular perception is that the AIDS movement is made up of human rights campaigners, medical experts and scientists, searching for the best prevention methods and, eventually, a cure. What is far less widely known is that the AIDS movement, and the vast amounts of money attached to it, has done more to shape policy, practice and legislation on the global sex trade than any other movement in history.

Read the full article.

12) Why are housing association flats lying empty when Grenfell survivors need them?

David Batty, The Guardian

In the heart of Chelsea, not far from Kings Road, more than 150 social housing flats stand empty on an estate set up over a century ago by the philanthropist William Sutton to house “the poor of London and other towns”. The four red-brick blocks, part of the Sutton estate, are at the centre of a long-running battle between local residents and England’s largest housing association, Clarion Group. This dispute has intensified in the aftermath of the Grenfell fire in the same borough.

Read the full article.

13) ‘Radical reverend’ NDP MPP Cheri DiNovo is leaving politics for the church

Kristin Rushowy, The Toronto Star

Parkdale—High Park representative, well-known advocate of LGBTQ rights, will be minister at Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre for Faith, Arts and Justice in downtown Toronto.

Read the full article.

14) There is a way to prevent so many teenage girls being depressed – but no one wants to admit it

Glosswitch, The Indepndent

Pity the girl who’s wearing a bra before she leaves primary school; already she’s ventured over the top, into a no man’s land of groping, cat calls and adult disapproval.

Read the full article.

15) Cuba calls Trump's U.N. address 'unacceptable and meddling'

Reuters

Cuba on Tuesday slammed U.S. President Donald Trump’s latest comments about the island as “disrespectful, unacceptable and meddling,” while reiterating it was not involved in the alleged incidents that had harmed U.S. diplomats in Havana.

Read the full article.

16) Spain crisis: 'stop this radicalism and disobedience,' PM tells Catalan leaders

Sam Jones and Stephen Burgen, The Guardian

Spain’s prime minister has called on Catalan separatist leaders to end their “escalation” as several thousand people took to the streets of Barcelona to protest at Madrid’s attempts to stop a banned referendum on independence.

Read the full article.

17) Unknown to most Americans, the US ‘totally destroyed’ North Korea once before

David McNeill, The Irish Times

Foreign tourists in North Korea are invariably steered to the Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum in Pyongyang, which documents the isolated nation’s crucible years: the 1950-53 war that split the Korean Peninsula in two.

Read the full article.

 18) LeBron James calls Trump a 'bum,' others react to President uninviting Curry to WH

Stephen Pimpo Jr. , WJLA

The sports world was quick to react following President Donald Trump's tweet that Steph Curry was no longer invited to the White House.

Read the full article.

19) Trump in angry row with sports stars after withdrawing Warriors invitation

Bryan Armen Graham, The Guardian

Donald Trump was the subject of startlingly strong abuse from major sports stars on Saturday, after he criticised NFL players protesting against racial injustice and withdrew an invitation for the NBA-champion Golden State Warriors to visit the White House, breaking a tradition dating back to the Reagan years.

Read the full article.

20) Athletics' Bruce Maxwell first MLB player to kneel during national anthem

ESPN

Oakland Athletics rookie catcher Bruce Maxwell became the first Major League Baseball player to kneel during the national anthem when he did so before Saturday night's 1-0 home victory against the Texas Rangers.

Read the full article.

21) Stevie Wonder joins #takeaknee protest against Trump's attack on NFL players

The Guardian


Stevie Wonder has shown his solidarity with sports stars who were criticised by US president Donald Trump for kneeling on the field during the national anthem.

Read the full article.

22) Jaguars, Ravens players kneel during anthem in response to Trump's criticism

Brandon Carter, The Hill

Multiple players on the Baltimore Ravens and Jacksonville Jaguars knelt during the playing of the national anthem Sunday at the first NFL game since President Trump’s criticism of players taking a knee.

Read the full article.

See also: Climate Change, Tara Hart, Inequality and more -- The Left Chapter Sunday Reading List September 10-17

See also: Macdonald, Conrad Black, Kate Millett, Bill 62 and more -- The Left Chapter Sunday Reading List September 3 - 10

Climate Change, Tara Hart, Inequality and more -- The Left Chapter Sunday Reading List September 10-17

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  September 10 - 17. It is generally in order of the date of the article's release.

1) Irma and Harvey lay the costs of climate change denial at Trump’s door

Bob Ward, The Guardian

As the US comes to terms with its second major weather disaster within a month, an important question is whether the devastation caused by hurricanes Harvey and Irma will convince Donald Trump and his administration of the reality of climate change.

Read the full article.

2) 150 years ago the first volume of Das Kapital was published

Volker Kulow, Morning Star

FROM 1843 right up to the end of his life, Karl Marx (1818-1883) dedicated himself to the project of a comprehensive critique of political economy.

Read the full article.

3) Belgrade’s Modernist Masterpieces

Anika Burgess, Atlas Obscura

The Western City Gate in Belgrade, Serbia, is a structure that demands attention. Consisting of two high-rises linked by a two-story walkway, it reaches 377 feet into the air and is topped by a small round tower. Enclosed concrete stairwells barrel up the sides like massive exhaust pipes. Also known as the Genex Tower, it was designed by Mihajlo Mitrović in 1977 and is currently the second-tallest building in the city. Unsurprisingly, it’s also on a new map that plots Belgrade’s Modernist architectural marvels.

Read the full article.

4) Canadian teacher Nadia Shoufani defeats silencing campaign against her advocacy for Palestinian freedom

Samidoun

“A victory for myself, for the Palestine solidarity movement, for freedom of expression! A victory for the Palestinian cause and the struggle of Palestinians!” said Shoufani in a Facebook post on 8 September offering thanks to friends, colleagues and supporters for their consistent support throughout a year of struggle. Shoufani kept her job and defeated the allegations that targeted her as well as ongoing racist campaigns of harassment carried out by far-right groups and individuals. Organizations including B’nai Brith Canada, the Center for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) and the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center Canada were actively involvedi in the campaign to silence Shoufani.

Read the full article.

5) Lvov University to be named after Ukrainian Nazi leader

Avis Krane, Essence of Time Europe

A group of professors of the Lvov University suggested on September 11 that the university should be named after Stepan Bandera, RIA Novosti Ukraina reports citing the university web site.

Read the full article.

6) A lesson from Hurricane Irma: capitalism can’t save the planet – it can only destroy it

George Monbiot, The Guardian

There was “a flaw” in the theory: this is the famous admission by Alan Greenspan, the former chair of the Federal Reserve, to a congressional inquiry into the 2008 financial crisis. His belief that the self-interest of the lending institutions would lead automatically to the correction of financial markets had proved wrong. Now, in the midst of the environmental crisis, we await a similar admission. We may be waiting some time.

Read the full article.

7) TUC leaders reject call to decriminalise prostitution

Lizzy Buchan, The Independent

Calls to decriminalise sex work have been rejected by trade unions amid concern over exploitation of vulnerable women and girls.

Read the full article.

8) A Last Interview with Kate Millett

 Rachel Shteir, The New Yorker

The writer, artist, and activist Kate Millett died on Wednesday, September 6th, in Paris. She would have turned eighty-three this week. Millett is best known for the 1970 book “Sexual Politics,” a classic of second-wave feminism, which examined the “political aspect” of sex. In it, Millett uncovers the violent misogyny in novels by some of the most acclaimed champions of sexual freedom—Henry Miller, Norman Mailer—and celebrates, by way of contrast, the work of the queer writer Jean Genet.

Read the full article.

9) Pauline Hanson’s burqa stunt demonstrates why we need to move beyond cultural relativism vs. universalism

Catherine Weiss & Ferial Yahiaoui, Feminist Current

We must be able to recognize the oppressive nature of the burqa without increasing the burden of racist misogyny upon the women who wear it.

Read the full article.

10) Working women bearing more of the breadwinning burden, 2016 census shows

 Cassandra Szklarski, The Canadian Press

Men and women are each making comparable contributions to the family finances in nearly one-third of all couples, Statistics Canada said Wednesday as the latest data from the 2016 census revealed new details about how — and which — Canadians are paying the bills.

Read the full article.

11) Politics and money: a sordid history

Charles Smith, Saskatoon Star Pheonix

The relationship between political parties, political power, and big money has a long, sordid history in Canada.

Read the full article.

12) Rising Economic Inequality Confirmed by 2016 Census Income Data

Andrew Jackson, The Broadbent Blog

The 2016 Census income data released today shows that family and individual incomes rose significantly for most of the population in the decade from 2005 to 2015, mainly due to the resource boom that extended through most of the period. The median total income of families adjusted for inflation rose by a healthy 10.8 per cent. But the gains were unequally shared, and some families and individuals fell behind.

Read the full article.

13) On questions of Kinew's character, silence is deafening

Shannon Sampert, Winnipeg Free Press

It is hard to reconcile the number of women who have said they stand in solidarity with victims of violence who are now standing behind an individual who has been caught numerous times acting in a misogynistic manner.

Read the full article.

14) Woman who made allegations of domestic assault against Wab Kinew speaks out

 Kathleen Martens, APTN

The woman at the centre of a political storm says she doesn’t want to be there.

“I’m not into politics; I’d rather keep out of it,” said Tara Hart of Winnipeg.

She’s in the middle of questions swirling around provincial NDP leadership candidate Wab Kinew, as the alleged victim of a domestic assault in 2003.

Hart spoke to APTN Thursday.

She said the two were in a common-law relationship when he threw or pushed her across the room and she suffered rug burn on her legs and hands.

Read the full article.

15) Family of Kinew's accuser wants their story heard

 Gordon Sinclair Jr., Winnipeg Free Press

The call from Tara Hart’s mother came at the 11th hour Saturday.

At 10 a.m., to be exact.

Coincidentally, I was having a latte a block away from the RBC Convention Centre, where in a few hours delegates would elect Wab Kinew as the new leader of the provincial New Democratic Party.

Wendy Bird was calling about Kinew, of course, because her daughter had asked her to call me on her behalf.

It was Tara — who alleged and still maintains that more than a decade ago, when Kinew was her boyfriend, he physically assaulted her while they were living together in Winnipeg — who had asked her to call me.

Read the full article.

16) Indigenous elders at national gathering warn of dire need to react to environmental disasters

Brandi Morin, CBC News

Some Indigenous elders who live traditional lifestyles that include hunting, fishing and trapping on lands and waters long utilized by their ancestors say they have noticed a rapid shift in the environment over the last several decades — a shift some attribute to climate change.

Read the full article.

17) Montreal adds Iroquois symbol to flag, strips British general of street name

 Benjamin Shingler, CBC News

Montreal has taken steps to recognize the contribution of Indigenous people to the city, adding an Iroquois symbol to its city flag and committing to rename Amherst Street.

Read the full article.

18) NFL players' union names Colin Kaepernick its Week 1 MVP for his charity work

Marissa Payne, The Washington Post

Colin Kaepernick is not currently in the NFL, but that didn't stop the NFL Players' Association from naming the 29-year-old its Week 1 MVP.

Read the full article.

19) Conrad Black’s rubbish column on racism a fine example of white privilege

Shree Paradkar, The Toronto Star

Until fairly recently, I had stereotyped inane online commenters as ignoramuses living in their parents’ basements, and had assumed they existed on the fringes of society, only given charge after Donald Trump became U.S. president.

Read the full article.

20) Irma pushes Florida's poor closer to the edge of ruin

Jay Reeves, Canadian Press

Larry and Elida Dimas didn't have much to begin with, and Hurricane Irma left them with even less.

Read the full article.

21) OPP overhauls sexual assault investigation process

Robyn Doolittle, The Globe and Mail

Ontario Provincial Police officers who investigate sexual assault will soon receive new training, more supervision, additional resources and external scrutiny from local victim-support groups.

Read the full article.

22) Trump changes to foreign aid restricting access to family planning services in poorest countries

 Annie Burns-Pieper, CBC News 

Women in some of the poorest countries in the world are already feeling the effects of the Trump administration's sweeping changes to foreign aid, and the impact will only widen, advocates say.

Read the full article.

23) Victoria and Abdul is another dangerous example of British filmmakers whitewashing colonialism

Amrou Al-Kadhi, The Independent

It is rare that I leave the cinema deeply offended with what I’ve just seen. Yesterday, after watching the just released Victoria & Abdul, was one such day.

Read the full article.

24) Trump supporters organised a rally for 1 million people. Only 1,000 turned up

Emily Shugerman, The Independent

While Donald Trump jetted away from Washington DC for a weekend retreat in New Jersey, hundreds of his supporters descended on the city to demand protection for "traditional American culture”.

Read the full article.

Although from before the period we are including this article as well which should be widely read:

25) A cruise ship's emissions are the same as 1 million cars: report

As It Happens, CBC News

A luxury cruise vacation may sound like a perfect dream holiday, but a German environmental organization says that in terms of environmental impact, the industry is an absolute nightmare.

Listen to the Segment.

See also: Macdonald, Conrad Black, Kate Millett, Bill 62 and more -- The Left Chapter Sunday Reading List September 3 - 10

See also: Hurricane Harvey, Bill 148, Pearson Airport Strike & more -- The Left Chapter Sunday Reading List August 27 - September 3