'Respect for Taxpayers' is a load of crap

True, I may be undermining weeks of arguing for engaging the people we disagree with in a spirit of openness and respect. And name-calling isn't going to help us show them how they're actually voting against their own interests, or reveal the corporatist / continentalist / ruling-class Divide-and-Conquer strategy. Class warfare's tricky that way.

@marcusbgee is right about Bloor Street, but for the wrong reasons

Ah, Marcus. The Globe's ideologically reliable municipal-affairs curmudgeon is kind of like a stopped clock that way.

Of course, the analogy only goes so far, because you don't have to ask a stopped clock why it's right twice a day, and that's a degree of frequency and predictability that ... well, let's just say it's not in the same postal code as Marcus.

Friday night

Following the example of my friends impolitical and pogge.

A few years old, but like a fine wine, it ages well ...

Raising Your Voice...Trying to Stop an Echo by hammockmusic


Raising Your Voice...Trying to Stop an Echo by hammockmusic

On the Canucks Riot, Protest, and Division : Politics, Re-Spun

On the Canucks Riot, Protest, and Division : Politics, Re-Spun

And more.

Good lord, someone's actually pointing out the class dimension inherent in the Vancouver riot, and drawing the connection between that and the corporatist power structure's nasty little game of Divide-and-Conquer.

Not to mention the malignant influence of Don Cherry. You know, that guy who has a national platform on the "left-wing" CBC.

[drops teacup]

How unseemly.

The Sixth Estate » When You Don’t Know Your History, You’re Bound to Make Up S@@t

The Sixth Estate » When You Don’t Know Your History, You’re Bound to Make Up S@@t

And again.

Either the Vancouver Police and the corporate media are taking stupid pills, or they're serving some agenda.

Now let's think about this: who benefits from mischaracterizing the riots as the work of anarchists and political activists?

Whose interests are served by the blanket demonization of activism per se?

Conversely, whose interests would be harmed by acknowledging the connections among NHL product, overwrought ersatz nationalism, unfettered testosterone, economic privation and too much cheap alcohol?

Hmmm ...

Porcupine blog: Explaining Conservative Support Among “Ordinary People”.

Porcupine blog: Explaining Conservative Support Among “Ordinary People”.

I can't believe I haven't seen this until now.

@thekeenanwire, #TOpoli and that whole 'deserve' thing, redux

Go and read this piece from Ed Keenan in The Grid.

He's right of course, and you don't need a master's degree in public administration to know that public services cost money. And you don't need cheap childish gimmicks, either.

The troublesome part is that something so blindingly self-evident seemed to elude a majority of Toronto voters last fall. They were all too willing to buy into Rob Ford's bullshit about mountains of wasted cash and municipal inefficiencies and gravy trains, and worst of all, the idea that under David Miller, things were just so irredeemably awful that the only thing to do was to blow everything up.