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Articles from non-mainstream as opposed to corporate for profit sources.

Alberta Government Turns Hard to the Right

Details: Published on Sunday, 12 April 2020 23:24; Written by editor

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A Socialist Project e-bulletin ... No. 2053 ... April 13, 2020
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Alberta Government Turns Hard to the Right

David DePoe

The Alberta United Conservative Party (UCP) Premier and his Minister of Education Adriana LaGrange have announced they are redirecting $128-million of K-12 education funding to the province’s COVID-19 response, following their decision to close schools on March 15th. Ms. LaGrange said "COVID-19 has changed both how we provide student learning, and the operational needs of the education system."

The result will be the layoff of 25,000 education workers across the province, 16,000 of them educational assistants. The Minister’s press secretary said "[a]ny staff who are affected by this temporary funding adjustment are encouraged to apply for the federal government’s enhanced employment insurance program, as well as other support programs for Canadian workers." Most of these workers, including office employees, were engaged in preparing online education resources for students. Principals and office workers were reaching out to families to assess the level of technology that families have available. In particular, the educational assistants were working hard preparing learning packages for students with special needs, many of...

The Left Reflects on the Global Pandemic

Details: Published on Sunday, 12 April 2020 01:44; Written by editor

LeftStreamed:

The Left Reflects on the Global Pandemic

As humanity faces the catastrophic COVID-19 pandemic, unprecedented in recent times, the Left internationally must address this crisis with both short and long term action, analysis and planning. We are active day by day, driven by the needs of our communities – this is already reshaping the way we do politics. We are building solidarity networks and launching campaigns to protect and work alongside the people that are hardest hit by the crisis. At the same time, we must think strategically and present alternatives for the future. There can be no going back to the vicious circle of austerity and poverty: we cannot allow the global reimposition of a failed system on the people. The radical left will pose alternatives to reinvent socialist politics for the 21st century: to build a new society that empowers and liberates us all.

Kate Hudson interviews Leo Panitch, moderated by Angelina Giannopoulou. In the second half of the webinar questions from the audience were taken up. Due to technical difficulties in the beginning of the interview, the first 7...

Frontline heroes deserve justice

Details: Published on Saturday, 11 April 2020 07:04; Written by editor

Friends,

Normally, a long weekend like this would mean visiting friends and family, coming together for meals, or maybe going on a short trip. This weekend, in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, we’re all doing things a bit differently. I know that my plan is to stay at home and connect with loved ones over video chat and an online card game with my family. I also plan to take some time to thank essential service providers who will be hard at work for the whole weekend.

Healthcare workers, grocery store clerks, cleaners, delivery drivers, postal workers, and so many others put their health on the line for all of us every single day and this long weekend is no different. That’s why over the next few days, we want to show them that we appreciate it, and, that we’re calling on our governments to step up and support them in every way possible.

Will you give Frontline Heroes a hand this long weekend? Check out our "Cheers for Frontline Heroes" toolkit for some tips.

Frontline workers deserve more than just gratitude. They deserve dignity, respect, and justice. They...

Stay Abuzz with Solidarity from Home

Details: Published on Saturday, 11 April 2020 07:02; Written by editor

Stay Abuzz with Solidarity from Home r1 ...

Throwing Sand into the Money Machine

Details: Published on Saturday, 11 April 2020 01:24; Written by editor

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A Socialist Project e-bulletin ... No. 2052 ... April 11, 2020
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Throwing Sand into the Money Machine:
German Pensions and the Financial Transaction Tax

Ingo Schmidt

Throwing sand into the machinery of financial markets was the goal Attac Germany set itself when it was founded 20 years ago. A financial transaction tax (FTT) was one of its core demands. Indeed, this provided the name for the original French organization that was founded two years prior: Association pour une taxation des transactions financières pour l’aide aux citoyens.

Few are aware of the cumbersome name behind the acronym. Today, only a small core of activists remember that it was the economist James Tobin, in 1978, who presented the idea for such a tax to the exclusive circles of fellow policy advisors. It was only twenty years later that Ignacio Ramonet, the former editor of Le Monde Diplomatique, introduced it to a critical public as a means of "disarming financial markets." And to great success, not the least because the idea of an FTT was so contentious that it became one of the crystallization points for the anti-...

Petition asks Trudeau to endorse global ceasefire

Details: Published on Wednesday, 18 November 2020 13:22; Written by editor

Dollarama

Details: Published on Friday, 10 April 2020 11:06; Written by editor

Workers at DOLLARAMA are being forced to restock shelves without masks and gloves and cashiers don’t have protective glass partitions.

Tell DOLLARAMA to support its workers during this deadly pandemic by providing protective gear and paying an increased danger wage.

Sign the petition

DOLLARAMA has been deemed an essential service during this COVID-19 pandemic. But the multi-billion dollar company is refusing to provide workers with gloves and masks and many of the cashiers don’t even have a glass partition separating them from customers.

Workers are endangering their lives for minimum wage.

Walmart, Loblaws and most major retailers equipped their workers with appropriate protective equipment weeks ago and provided them with an increased danger pay, to try to make up for the risks involved in showing up day-in and day-out for work.

No worker should have to put their life on the line to put a roof over their head...

Make the world a better place. You can start at

Details: Published on Friday, 10 April 2020 09:28; Written by editor

Get active and inspired We are one - let's act together!

Dear friend,

We usually write to you about diversity among peoples, but the coronavirus crisis shows what we all have in common.

Many of you have contacted us asking what you can do, despite the lockdown many are under, to carry on supporting tribal peoples. We’ve put together some suggestions here to help you:
• Online activism - campaign without leaving the house
• Get inspired – find out more about tribal peoples worldwide

Help change the world for the better

For 50 years, your participation is what’s made our campaigns effective. Your letters, emails, petitions, tweets, posts and shares amplify the voices of tribal people and change the world in their favor.

Here are some ways you can take action now to support them:
President of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro has appointed an evangelical missionary to head the government unit for uncontacted tribes.

Read more: Make the world a better place. You can start at

The Coronavirus and the Crisis This Time

Details: Published on Friday, 10 April 2020 06:40; Written by editor

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A Socialist Project e-bulletin ... No. 2051 ... April 10, 2020
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The Coronavirus and the Crisis This Time

Sam Gindin

"...so many of the out-of-the way things had happened lately, that Alice has begun to think that very few things indeed were really impossible" --- Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland.

Crises -- not regular downturns but major crises -- are characterized by the uncertainty they bring. They interrupt the normal and require yet-to-be discovered abnormal responses in order for us to move on. In the midst of these periodic calamities, we don’t know how or even whether we will stumble out of them nor what to expect if they do end. Crises are, consequently, moments of turmoil with openings for new political developments, good and bad.

Because each such crisis modifies the trajectory of history, the subsequent crisis occurs in a changed context and so has its own distinct features. The crisis of the 70s, for example, involved a militant working class, a challenge to the American dollar, and a qualitative acceleration in the role of finance and of globalization. The crisis of 2008-09,...

We're with you

Details: Published on Wednesday, 18 November 2020 13:22; Written by editor

Call for Immediate Homelessness Action

Details: Published on Wednesday, 18 November 2020 13:22; Written by editor

Good things come in threes

Details: Published on Thursday, 09 April 2020 08:02; Written by editor

Good things come in threes r1 ...

Show #FrontLineHeroes we have their backs

Details: Published on Thursday, 09 April 2020 07:04; Written by editor

Friends,

Frontline workers across the country are risking their lives to provide critical services in the midst of the COVID-19 health pandemic. This includes grocery store staff, doctors, nurses, personal support workers, sanitary workers, drivers, food service staff, farmers, and so many others.

To show appreciation for this heroic work, people all across Canada are cheering from their doorsteps and mounting signs of support in their windows. It’s a beautiful expression of gratitude.

I wish that thanks alone were enough, but it isn’t. So many frontline workers don’t make decent pay, aren’t offered paid sick leave, and lack other basic worker rights that they always should have had — but need now more than ever.

During the long weekend, workers will still be hard at work providing the essential services we all need.

That's why we're hoping to organize the biggest days of collective appreciation yet. Will you join us this weekend, from April 10th-12th, to show your gratitude for frontline workers, and call for the protections all workers deserve? We've put together a toolkit that...

Lets Keep the Virtual Community Power Going: Join the Next Webinar

Details: Published on Thursday, 09 April 2020 06:02; Written by editor

Let’s Keep the Virtual Community Power Going: Join the Next Webinar r1 ...

The Cost of This Pandemic Must Not Bankrupt the People

Details: Published on Thursday, 09 April 2020 04:06; Written by editor

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A Socialist Project e-bulletin ... No. 2050 ... April 9, 2020
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The Cost of This Pandemic Must Not Bankrupt the People

Vijay Prashad and Manuel Bertoldi

The global pandemic of COVID-19 has spread to almost every country on the planet earth. The virus will take many lives, disrupt communities and institutions, and leave behind trauma and a devastated world economy. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) estimates that by the end of 2020, global income will collapse by between $1-trillion and $2-trillion; the latter figure is a worst-case scenario, with falling oil prices making the problem even more acute for oil-exporting countries.

Already over-inflated stock markets are now seeing deep drops. Central banks are using all their monetary resources to shore up the financial markets and to try to bail out as many sectors of the economy as possible. Even the generally stable central bank in Norway, advantaged by its massive energy sector, has cut its interest rate and has promised to intervene to prevent a wholesale collapse of its economy.

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Enraging

Details: Published on Thursday, 09 April 2020 02:12; Written by editor

Friends,

As the global response to COVID-19 strengthens, we’re seeing countless acts of compassion, community solidarity, and resilience, even as the death toll grows.

Doctors, nurses, and ordinary workers all over have been pushing ahead on the frontlines to slow the rate of transmission. Yet there’ve been some stark reminders that the climate crisis doesn’t stop amid a global pandemic.

The strongest storm of the year has just slammed into the Pacific islands of Fiji and Vanuatu. On top of that, fossil fuel companies are exploiting this moment to drive forward more climate-wrecking projects.

It’s enraging – and that’s why it’s so important that we all unite right now around the principles for a Just Recovery from COVID-19. Thousands of organisations and people across the world have already signed on.

Our coronavirus response must put people and planet – not corporations and polluting industries – first. It’s the only way...

BCPRC COVID-19 Progress Alert

Details: Published on Wednesday, 18 November 2020 13:22; Written by editor

Tell your MP to speak out against Big Oil bailouts

Details: Published on Wednesday, 08 April 2020 05:04; Written by editor

Friends,

Big Oil is already moving at breathtaking speed to take advantage of the coronavirus pandemic. On Monday, fossil fuel executives published an open letter from some of Canada’s richest fossil fuel CEO’s demanding a bailout from the federal government.1 Even in the midst of a global health pandemic, with unprecedented numbers of people filing for emergency financial assistance, these 14 men, worth millions of dollars, had the nerve to ask for a public money bailout.

We can’t let this happen. We need our government to support people, not fill the pockets of big polluters. That means bailouts and public money need to go where they’re needed most: our underfunded hospitals and schools. We should never handout public moneg to wealthy oil executives fuelling the climate crisis -- but especially not now.

To do that, we need your help. Can you take a minute to send a message to your MP asking them to oppose a multi-billion dollar bailout for Big Oil?

After this letter was published, I was outraged to see that Jason Kenney tweeted that it was a “must read” from “oil and...

Dispatches From Palestine on COVID-19

Details: Published on Wednesday, 08 April 2020 01:48; Written by editor

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A Socialist Project e-bulletin ... No. 2049 ... April 8, 2020
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Dispatches From Palestine on COVID-19

Independent Jewish Voices (IJV) is releasing a series of dispatches from Palestinians and Palestine solidarity activists reflecting on life in Gaza and the West Bank under the COVID-19 pandemic. As the world grapples with the outbreak, and as we organize mutual aid and solidarity in many cities, we must keep Palestine in both our minds and hearts.

We can inspire ourselves and draw important lessons from experiences of Palestinian life under military curfew, siege and travel restrictions. Far from drawing an equation between self-isolation and occupation, we hope to learn from the strategies Palestinians have employed for decades, and hear their advice for the world in these difficult times.

Now more than ever, Palestine must be free. The brutal siege of Gaza, and the ongoing occupation of the West Bank, are tinderboxes for the Coronavirus. The Gaza Strip just confirmed its first cases of the virus. Medical aid must get in, people must have access to testing, and Israel must end its daily restrictions on Palestinian life.

The...

Call of the Indigenous Peoples, Afro-Descendants and Peoples Organizations of Latin America

Details: Published on Tuesday, 07 April 2020 10:44; Written by editor

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A Socialist Project e-bulletin ... No. 2048 ... April 7, 2020
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Call of the Indigenous Peoples, Afro-Descendants and Peoples’ Organizations of Latin America

The crisis that COVID-19 has provoked globally presents a crossroads to the peoples of Abya Yala – Latin America. The popular organizations are the first line of resistance against the worst expressions of the decomposing system.

We are going through a complete crisis that threatens life in all its forms. The COVID-19 has become a pandemic at a time when the capitalist crisis is intensifying and economic forces repeatedly try to make the working class bear the onus of restoring the corporate profit rate. This coincides with the weakening of health systems, the deterioration of living conditions and the destruction of the public sector as a result of the neoliberal shift. Asphyxiated by foreign debt, international organizations and the permanent oppression of imperialism against our sovereignty, we are heading for a scenario with very serious consequences.

In an America where we refuse to accept structural adjustment and the imposition of new imperialist policies, and where our peoples have had first hand experience...

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