Consumer Advocacy

Hagia Sophia, Istanbul (Photo: Mustafa Erkek)

Suburban sprawl is an enemy of the Left and progressives should support efforts to discourage it, including tolls.
In opposing tolls on Toronto’s Gardiner Expressway and Don Valley Parkway, a number of leftists cite political strategy. They argue the tolls will elicit a rightist populist backlash and alienate potential supporters.

Commercialisation has poisoned all areas of contemporary life, and together with its partner in crime, consumerism, is the principle cause of man-made climate change.

All Hallow’s Eve has come and gone, and so has the day when the dead come back for a visit, but we’re not out of the dark woods of our self-inflicted nightmare yet. The days are still getting shorter, the nights longer, as we edge toward the spooky haunted house of a national election marked, more than any in my memory, by an overwhelming sense of dread.

The US presidential debacle is rolling out like hyped up reality TV. Scandals of Trump’s graphic sex talks and Hillary’s leaked Goldman Sachs speeches add to the sensation. The captains of this managed democracy are pulling high ratings on their show, successfully distracting people from real issues.

Realize that the system can’t exist without belief
Appreciate your true potential, un-twist your mouth and speak
We’re working on building a world our children can live in
Understand I can’t be free while you’re still in this prison
And I can spend my days preaching and so on and so forth
But it won’t change ’til we don’t wanna go on no more
— Sweatshop Union, “The Thing About It”

Why is violating a sports ritual such a big deal?

With the rigged Democratic presidential nomination behind us, the US election reality show continues. The mass media is creating sensations around what has become a national embarrassment with this contest of the lesser of the two crazies.

Donald Trump, in a speech given in Charlotte on Thursday, August 18, cast himself as the truth teller for forgotten Americans and a champion of those who feel that the best is behind them. He was clearly presenting himself as a guy who fundamentally calls it as he sees it…in contrast to Clinton’s politically correct doublespeak. “I am running to be the vote for every forgotten part of this country that has been waiting and hoping for a better future” he said.  “The insiders fighting for the insiders…I am fighting for you” was his pitch.

The current state of American politics must make us question whether any of our leaders in the Beltway can be described as “grown-ups”; i.e., fully mature and sane individuals.