ANALYSIS | Pierre Poilievre is a 21st century populist who thinks his moment has arrived | CBC News:

In a different time and place, Conservatives might have been expected
to turn to Jean Charest. But after being out of politics for nearly a
decade, the former Quebec premier was rusty and slow.

Charest’s
campaign was also aimed at the wrong part of the Conservative Party’s
brain. His candidacy represented the most rational and conventional
argument — that the party needed to make a broader appeal to those
outside its partisan tent in order to win power again.

But
Poilievre captured the Conservative id. After three consecutive losses
to Justin Trudeau, after Erin O’Toole’s clumsy attempts to moderate some
of the party’s positions and expand the party’s tent, Poilievre offered
Conservatives an emotionally satisfying cri du coeur (“freedom!”) and
an unabashed, combative leader to get behind.

ANALYSIS | Pierre Poilievre is a 21st century populist who thinks his moment has arrived | CBC News: In a different time and place, Conservatives might have been expected
to turn to Jean Charest. But after being out of politics for nearly a
decade, the former Quebec premier was rusty and slow.Charest’s
campaign was also aimed at the wrong part of the Conservative Party’s
brain. His candidacy represented the most rational and conventional
argument — that the party needed to make a broader appeal to those
outside its partisan tent in order to win power again.But
Poilievre captured the Conservative id. After three consecutive losses
to Justin Trudeau, after Erin O’Toole’s clumsy attempts to moderate some
of the party’s positions and expand the party’s tent, Poilievre offered
Conservatives an emotionally satisfying cri du coeur (“freedom!”) and
an unabashed, combative leader to get behind.Read More

Vigilantes and violence against unhoused people:

Thanks to the UCP, the number of houseless people on the street are increasing in Alberta too. Two friends of mine have been delivering clothes to the homeless downtown. They’ve witnessed the increase. There are some, so new to being in this condition, that they “look” like they don’t belong there. Eventually, they will, though…. This article discusses the homeless situation in British Columbia. If you don’t see the same thing here, it’s because you chose NOT to see it.

Capitalism is founded on, and rooted in, violence. Whether the violence of enclosure and privatization of commons, or the violence of an imposed labor market that commands, “Produce value for capital or die.” These aspects of capitalist violence often become concentrated in violence against unhoused people, because they occupy commons (public or community space), and they represent life not in the service of producing value for capital.

The violence inflicted on unhoused people is most visibly shown in policing and criminalization. It has also taken the form of civilian vigilantes either protecting their own property (or property as a concept) or acting out capital’s internalized ideology of productivity.

Vigilantes and violence against unhoused people: Thanks to the UCP, the number of houseless people on the street are increasing in Alberta too. Two friends of mine have been delivering clothes to the homeless downtown. They’ve witnessed the increase. There are some, so new to being in this condition, that they “look” like they don’t belong there. Eventually, they will, though…. This article discusses the homeless situation in British Columbia. If you don’t see the same thing here, it’s because you chose NOT to see it.Capitalism is founded on, and rooted in, violence. Whether the violence of enclosure and privatization of commons, or the violence of an imposed labor market that commands, “Produce value for capital or die.” These aspects of capitalist violence often become concentrated in violence against unhoused people, because they occupy commons (public or community space), and they represent life not in the service of producing value for capital.The violence inflicted on unhoused people is most visibly shown in policing and criminalization. It has also taken the form of civilian vigilantes either protecting their own property (or property as a concept) or acting out capital’s internalized ideology of productivity.Read More

Youth climate activists to challenge Ontario government in court over greenhouse gas targets | CBC News:

Their constitutional challenge, backed by Ecojustice environmental lawyers, is set to be heard Monday in Ontario Superior Court.

“Although
climate change is global in scale, how decisions are made provincially
and at every level is fundamentally important for addressing this issue
that affects all of us,” one of the youth, Shaelyn Wabegijig, said at a
press conference Sunday.

“We are here today to address the dire
situation we find ourselves in and are able to tell our children that we
did all we could, while we could, to change our trajectory.”

The
crux of the lawsuit dates back to 2018 when the newly elected
Progressive Conservative government repealed a law from the former
Liberal government that had established a cap-and-trade system for
reducing emissions. That law had set a target of reducing emissions 37
per cent below 1990 levels by 2030.

Youth climate activists to challenge Ontario government in court over greenhouse gas targets | CBC News: Their constitutional challenge, backed by Ecojustice environmental lawyers, is set to be heard Monday in Ontario Superior Court.“Although
climate change is global in scale, how decisions are made provincially
and at every level is fundamentally important for addressing this issue
that affects all of us,” one of the youth, Shaelyn Wabegijig, said at a
press conference Sunday.“We are here today to address the dire
situation we find ourselves in and are able to tell our children that we
did all we could, while we could, to change our trajectory.”The
crux of the lawsuit dates back to 2018 when the newly elected
Progressive Conservative government repealed a law from the former
Liberal government that had established a cap-and-trade system for
reducing emissions. That law had set a target of reducing emissions 37
per cent below 1990 levels by 2030.Read More

Watching the world burn:

As the planet reels from unprecedented
heatwaves, floods, wildfires and droughts, you may be feeling a rising
sense of unease or even panic.

My own “Oh Shit!” moment
came in early 2009, two years after I began writing on the science and
geopolitics of climate change for Agence France-Presse.  I had reported
on scores of peer-reviewed studies, talked to scientists, attended UN
climate summits, and interviewed Pacific islanders whose tiny nations
were sinking beneath the waves.  But the knee-buckling realisation that
unchecked global warming would upend civilisation had not yet hit me in
the gut and left me gasping for air.

That sucker-punch came at a conference in
Oxford where a wide range of experts were asked to imagine a planet that
had warmed four degrees Celsius. The tableau that emerged was a waking
nightmare. It left me feeling as if I were in possession of terrifying
knowledge that others somehow failed to see.

Watching the world burn: As the planet reels from unprecedented
heatwaves, floods, wildfires and droughts, you may be feeling a rising
sense of unease or even panic. My own “Oh Shit!” moment
came in early 2009, two years after I began writing on the science and
geopolitics of climate change for Agence France-Presse.  I had reported
on scores of peer-reviewed studies, talked to scientists, attended UN
climate summits, and interviewed Pacific islanders whose tiny nations
were sinking beneath the waves.  But the knee-buckling realisation that
unchecked global warming would upend civilisation had not yet hit me in
the gut and left me gasping for air. That sucker-punch came at a conference in
Oxford where a wide range of experts were asked to imagine a planet that
had warmed four degrees Celsius. The tableau that emerged was a waking
nightmare. It left me feeling as if I were in possession of terrifying
knowledge that others somehow failed to see.Read More

It Feels Like the End of an Era Because the Age of Extinction Is Beginning:

stevemaclellan:

I recently read an article by Douglas Rushkoff, one of the age’s great thinkers. He
was invited to speak to an “ultra wealthy” group in the American West,
so he did what us nerds do, prepared a little talk. And when he got
there, he realized — LOL — it was five billionaires who wanted to pick
his brain about whether their Luxury Doomsday Bunkers were going to make it.

You
see, these idiots thought — think — that there’s going to some kind
of…event. A sudden cataclysm, during which they’ll be able to rush to
their luxury bunkers, and eat hydroponic food and be protected by their
Imperial Guard of Navy Seal mercenaries for…what…the rest of their
lives? While the rest of us out here are taken up to heaven in some
version of the Rapture.

They don’t get it. There’s not going to be an event. Because we’re already living inside The Event. See the planet dying? That’s The Event.
It’s not going to happen overnight — at least in the mayfly timescale
of a human life. And yet it’s happening, increasingly horrifically,
every single season.

We’re living inside The Event. This age is so difficult to explain and comprehend because that’s really different.
This age is itself The Event — yet an “event” is something we humans
think of as happening in the blink of an eye. This is, in geological
time — but not in human time. To reconcile these two perspectives is
very, very difficult for the human mind. It’s like seeing with two
different sets of eyes at once.

Let me try to distill that, so you understand how different this age really is going to be.

Just apply the formula at the End of History — and don’t worry about it. We weren’t going to run out of planet. Because in all this, nature’s job was just to keep on giving us stuff for free. The trees breathed out air for free, the rain poured, the ocean currents surged — and to the way of thinking of the neoliberal mind, left over from Ages of Empire and Industry, that free stuff was an afterthought. It’d just be there forever.

And yet here we are. A civilization, running out of clean air, water, food, energy. Prices skyrocketing. Economies in turmoil. Fascisms erupting. Pandemics igniting.

It Feels Like the End of an Era Because the Age of Extinction Is Beginning: stevemaclellan:

I recently read an article by Douglas Rushkoff, one of the age’s great thinkers. He
was invited to speak to an “ultra wealthy” group in the American West,
so he did what us nerds do, prepared a little talk. And when he got
there, he realized — LOL — it was five billionaires who wanted to pick
his brain about whether their Luxury Doomsday Bunkers were going to make it.You
see, these idiots thought — think — that there’s going to some kind
of…event. A sudden cataclysm, during which they’ll be able to rush to
their luxury bunkers, and eat hydroponic food and be protected by their
Imperial Guard of Navy Seal mercenaries for…what…the rest of their
lives? While the rest of us out here are taken up to heaven in some
version of the Rapture.They don’t get it. There’s not going to be an event. Because we’re already living inside The Event. See the planet dying? That’s The Event.
It’s not going to happen overnight — at least in the mayfly timescale
of a human life. And yet it’s happening, increasingly horrifically,
every single season.We’re living inside The Event. This age is so difficult to explain and comprehend because that’s really different.
This age is itself The Event — yet an “event” is something we humans
think of as happening in the blink of an eye. This is, in geological
time — but not in human time. To reconcile these two perspectives is
very, very difficult for the human mind. It’s like seeing with two
different sets of eyes at once.Let me try to distill that, so you understand how different this age really is going to be.

Just apply the formula at the End of History — and don’t worry about it. We weren’t going to run out of planet. Because in all this, nature’s job was just to keep on giving us stuff for free. The trees breathed out air for free, the rain poured, the ocean currents surged — and to the way of thinking of the neoliberal mind, left over from Ages of Empire and Industry, that free stuff was an afterthought. It’d just be there forever.And yet here we are. A civilization, running out of clean air, water, food, energy. Prices skyrocketing. Economies in turmoil. Fascisms erupting. Pandemics igniting.Read More