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Matt Wuerker
Politico.com Apr 15, 2009 |
I love it.
40%?!
Adam Smith, via Amartya Sen.
Amartya Sen’s fantastic historical grounding in the New York Review of Books is a great lens through which to see the search for “new capitalism” that has recently infected international dialogue.
While I disagree with his characterization of the single-tier Canadian health care system as somehow inappropriate (would Sen also support parallel private militias to the official public military of the nation state, simply because of a market opportunity?), he makes an excellent case for the farsightedness and candor present in the reasoning and writings of capitalism’s forefather.
The limit of open market economics.
Open market economics cannot be applied to rights: regardless of what we price supply at, demand remains constant (that is, universal). Be it health, education, or security, a minimum and adequate level of the things we consider fundamental rights must thus be provided using non-market means.
The myth of modern capitalism.
So the economy is officially fracked; that much we agree on. But as discussions everywhere from coffee shops to global summits turn to how we should “fix the system”, there is a gross error that occurs in much of this public discourse – about what our society is or isn’t.
We are not a capitalist society.
Today they suspended democracy in Canada.
Suspended for 7 weeks. It’s hard to overstate how absurd this is, or how dangerous a precedent it sets.
There are 3 things the Prime Minister (and perhaps the Governor General) seem to have forgotten:
Undoing Harper’s misinformation.
I’m not sure what’s worse: that the Prime Minister of Canada is spreading misinformation about how our parliament works and what constitutes a “legitimate” government, or that Canadians have so poor a grasp of their own system that they can be this easily misled.
Here’s some of the utter crap less-than-factual notions I’ve encountered in the last few days that need some dispelling – from news articles, editorials, user comments, and friends alike.
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Prop 8 nonsense.
Still coming down from the high of Barack Obama’s historic win this week, I talked to friends in LA who told me of the fate of Proposition 8, the controversial ban on gay marriage.
It passed.
This is what happens when the rights of a minority are subjected to a majority vote. Who allowed such a proposition in the first place?
What the Obama victory means for us.
Like the moon landing, the fall of the Berlin Wall, or the attacks of September 11th, people will forever remember where they were on the night of November 4th, 2008.
I had the privilege of being in Grant Park, Chicago.
▲ The Chicago skyline from Grant Park.
An exercise in frustration (Or, ‘We got what we deserve’.)
We had less than 60% voter participation.
Forget for a moment how atrociously the Liberals performed, and how Canada shied away from an opportunity to reassert its leadership on the world stage by finally taking a stand on issues of importance to us. Forget the profuse bleeding of seats to both the Conservatives and the New Democrats that Dion was ultimately powerless to stanch.
We had less than 60% voter participation.
This is the worst voter turnout in any federal election in Canadian history, and in the midst of the greatest global financial crisis since the Great Depression, the electorate shirked its most critical responsibility.
We have nothing to show for what has just happened. $300,000,000 later, the Tories upped their seat count a bit, and the Grits will remain the official opposition – albeit in weakened form.
But it is not a stronger mandate if 10 milion eligible voters did not participate. We have only ourselves to blame.
A Plan for Canada.
The two Canadian Leaders’ Debates, held this past Wednesday and Thursday (in French and English, respectively), were a riot. Commentary on the specifics are being extensively covered elsewhere, but it was refreshing how much substantive discussion there was in comparison to the U.S. Presidential (and Vice Presidential) debates. The seated conversational format was brilliant. Though I wish Stéphane Dion was stronger in the English debate, I thought he ultimately came out on top in both of them (perhaps as a result of low initial expectations). And Elizabeth May justified the spot at the “roundish” table that she had fought so hard for. Well done.
The actual plans discussed during the debate prompted me to examine and record my own priorities for a Canada Plan. This is the beginning of an evolving list, and I hope to return to this list to discuss the line items in more detail.