Mr. Corbyn, chosen leader of the Official Opposition on a huge wave of public enthusiasm in an open party election, really is a socialist, not just a watered-down social democrat. “Let’s be proud of the principle of a welfare state that protects everyone,” he says softly and clearly in a recent speech recorded on Youtube.
The evocatively initialed JC believes in social justice, free education for all, free public health care and fair taxes. He wants to end the waste of more than 100 billion pounds on Britain’s “strategic” nuclear submarine fleet and its weapons of mass destruction. He has said that everyone who has committed a war crime should stand trial – a not-very-exclusive club that quite possibly includes former “New Labour” prime minister Tony Blair.
The top dogs in Britain’s class-obsessed society – and that includes New Labour as much as Conservatives, Tweedledee to the other’s Tweedledum – were in full howl within seconds of Mr. Corbyn’s electoral success yesterday. He will destroy the party, moaned the former. He will destroy the country, screeched the latter. He will never be prime minister they all agreed.
Their fear, however, is the opposite: That the great popular wave that swept Mr. Corbyn to the very front of the Opposition bench will carry him onward to 10 Downing Street, and that there he will succeed.
It’s not really the fate of the realm that worries them – England could survive Henry VIII, Richard Cromwell and Margaret Thatcher, after all, and black ravens still patrol the grounds of the Tower of London. It’s the potential fate of the corrupt and rickety neoliberal oligarchy on which their power rests that strikes fear in their hearts.
For Mr. Corbyn may speak softly, but he seems both to mean what he says and say what he means, and it has unexpectedly turned out he carries a big electoral stick. He was allowed into the race as a sop to the traditional Labour left. Bookies gave odds of 200-1 against his success. It only became apparent too late for the power brokers that he had uncorked the dreams and hopes of a population sick at heart of the corruption and electoral manipulation that keeps the West’s neoliberal mafias afloat.
Bernie Sanders is saying the same in America and has been all of his life and it's finally resonating with people. He is the modern FDR
The people who usually are simplified into voting against their best interests at the benefit of the 1%.
And the 1% are doing everything they can to marginalize Sanders but because of the social medias his message is getting out despite this neglect from the MSM.
In Canada there is no such danger of drastic improvements to the working class where our federal social democrats appear to be not very different from our so-called conservatives. Thomas Mulcair, bearded leader of the Opposition New Democrats in Canada’s Parliament, is on record singing the praises of Thatcherism. Mr. Mulcair, then a Liberal member of the Quebec National Assembly, declared in 2001 during a heated moment of Quebec political history that it was the “winds of liberty and liberalism” that blew Mrs. Thatcher and her odious wrecking crew into power!
Mr Mulcair is no Jack Layton or Tommy Douglas
And that’s the way our rulers prefer their progressive politicians, if they must abide them at all: As Margaret Thatcher in social democratic drag.
But onto the story.........
The war to drive down wages continues apace.
Stephen Harper is prosecuting it. But he did not start it.
The Conservative prime minister is merely playing his part in a war that started long ago — a war stemming from the needs of business to drive down labour costs in a fiercely competitive world.
To date, neither Tom Mulcair’s New Democrats nor Justin Trudeau’s Liberals have come up with much to reverse the damage caused by this war.
Damage there has been. In the ’80s and ’90s, the Bank of Canada, with the approval of successive Liberal and Progressive Conservative governments, engineered two punishing recessions in order to boost unemployment and squeeze wages.
This was called fighting inflation.
In the mid-’90s, another Liberal government gutted Canada’s social safety net — including employment insurance and welfare — which ensured that the jobless would have little option except to work for whatever wage was on offer.
This was called fighting the deficit.
Meanwhile, successive Progressive Conservative and Liberal governments opened up well-paid manufacturing sectors of the Canadian economy to low-wage, foreign competition.
This was called free trade.
The results were predictable. Wages stagnated, particularly in the ’80s and ’90s.
Unions have not been Harper’s only target in the battle to drive down wages. He has continued the work, begun by the Liberals, of hacking away at employment insurance.
The reason? A properly functioning EI scheme removes the element of desperation needed to keep wages down.
Simply put, jobless workers eligible for EI have more choice. They don’t have to take the first low-wage job that comes along.
Such choice is good for the worker. But it creates what economists call rigidities in the labour market. To eliminate these rigidities, the Conservative government has made it harder for EI recipients to turn down lower-wage jobs.
Finally, the government has greatly expanded programs that allow business to import cheap, temporary foreign workers.
But what can government do? More to the point, what is it willing to do?
In this election campaign, most of the factors that serve to suppress wages are not being discussed.
No one — including the NDP — is talking about making it easier to unionize poorly paid workers.
No one is talking about the danger to good-paying jobs posed by globalization and free trade deals.
In this campaign, no one is talking of scrapping the various temporary foreign worker programs.
more
Stephen Harper continues the Liberal war to drive down wages: Walkom | Toronto Star
The evocatively initialed JC believes in social justice, free education for all, free public health care and fair taxes. He wants to end the waste of more than 100 billion pounds on Britain’s “strategic” nuclear submarine fleet and its weapons of mass destruction. He has said that everyone who has committed a war crime should stand trial – a not-very-exclusive club that quite possibly includes former “New Labour” prime minister Tony Blair.
The top dogs in Britain’s class-obsessed society – and that includes New Labour as much as Conservatives, Tweedledee to the other’s Tweedledum – were in full howl within seconds of Mr. Corbyn’s electoral success yesterday. He will destroy the party, moaned the former. He will destroy the country, screeched the latter. He will never be prime minister they all agreed.
Their fear, however, is the opposite: That the great popular wave that swept Mr. Corbyn to the very front of the Opposition bench will carry him onward to 10 Downing Street, and that there he will succeed.
It’s not really the fate of the realm that worries them – England could survive Henry VIII, Richard Cromwell and Margaret Thatcher, after all, and black ravens still patrol the grounds of the Tower of London. It’s the potential fate of the corrupt and rickety neoliberal oligarchy on which their power rests that strikes fear in their hearts.
For Mr. Corbyn may speak softly, but he seems both to mean what he says and say what he means, and it has unexpectedly turned out he carries a big electoral stick. He was allowed into the race as a sop to the traditional Labour left. Bookies gave odds of 200-1 against his success. It only became apparent too late for the power brokers that he had uncorked the dreams and hopes of a population sick at heart of the corruption and electoral manipulation that keeps the West’s neoliberal mafias afloat.
Bernie Sanders is saying the same in America and has been all of his life and it's finally resonating with people. He is the modern FDR
The people who usually are simplified into voting against their best interests at the benefit of the 1%.
And the 1% are doing everything they can to marginalize Sanders but because of the social medias his message is getting out despite this neglect from the MSM.
In Canada there is no such danger of drastic improvements to the working class where our federal social democrats appear to be not very different from our so-called conservatives. Thomas Mulcair, bearded leader of the Opposition New Democrats in Canada’s Parliament, is on record singing the praises of Thatcherism. Mr. Mulcair, then a Liberal member of the Quebec National Assembly, declared in 2001 during a heated moment of Quebec political history that it was the “winds of liberty and liberalism” that blew Mrs. Thatcher and her odious wrecking crew into power!
Mr Mulcair is no Jack Layton or Tommy Douglas
And that’s the way our rulers prefer their progressive politicians, if they must abide them at all: As Margaret Thatcher in social democratic drag.
But onto the story.........
The war to drive down wages continues apace.
Stephen Harper is prosecuting it. But he did not start it.
The Conservative prime minister is merely playing his part in a war that started long ago — a war stemming from the needs of business to drive down labour costs in a fiercely competitive world.
To date, neither Tom Mulcair’s New Democrats nor Justin Trudeau’s Liberals have come up with much to reverse the damage caused by this war.
Damage there has been. In the ’80s and ’90s, the Bank of Canada, with the approval of successive Liberal and Progressive Conservative governments, engineered two punishing recessions in order to boost unemployment and squeeze wages.
This was called fighting inflation.
In the mid-’90s, another Liberal government gutted Canada’s social safety net — including employment insurance and welfare — which ensured that the jobless would have little option except to work for whatever wage was on offer.
This was called fighting the deficit.
Meanwhile, successive Progressive Conservative and Liberal governments opened up well-paid manufacturing sectors of the Canadian economy to low-wage, foreign competition.
This was called free trade.
The results were predictable. Wages stagnated, particularly in the ’80s and ’90s.
Unions have not been Harper’s only target in the battle to drive down wages. He has continued the work, begun by the Liberals, of hacking away at employment insurance.
The reason? A properly functioning EI scheme removes the element of desperation needed to keep wages down.
Simply put, jobless workers eligible for EI have more choice. They don’t have to take the first low-wage job that comes along.
Such choice is good for the worker. But it creates what economists call rigidities in the labour market. To eliminate these rigidities, the Conservative government has made it harder for EI recipients to turn down lower-wage jobs.
Finally, the government has greatly expanded programs that allow business to import cheap, temporary foreign workers.
But what can government do? More to the point, what is it willing to do?
In this election campaign, most of the factors that serve to suppress wages are not being discussed.
No one — including the NDP — is talking about making it easier to unionize poorly paid workers.
No one is talking about the danger to good-paying jobs posed by globalization and free trade deals.
In this campaign, no one is talking of scrapping the various temporary foreign worker programs.
more
Stephen Harper continues the Liberal war to drive down wages: Walkom | Toronto Star
