Murray Dobbin

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Murray Dobbin has been a journalist, broadcaster, author and social activist for 40 years. A past board member with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, he has written five studies for the centre including examinations of charter schools, and "Ten Tax Myths." Murray has been a columnist for the Financial Post and Winnipeg Free Press and contributes guest editorials to other Canadian dailies. He writes a regular "State of the Nation" column for the online journal The Tyee which is published simultaneously on rabble.ca. Murray has written five books, including critical profiles of Preston Manning, Kim Campbell and Paul Martin. His "The Myth of the Good Corporate Citizen" has been described as a citizens' guide to globalization. He has also prepared radio documentaries for the CBC Radio's Ideas series on subjects including taxes, human rights and the right-wing transformation of New Zealand. A long-time social activist Murray has been involved in many movements from the anti-nuclear movement, to the fight against so-called free trade and public-private partnerships. He is a Senior Advisor to the Rideau Institute on International Affairs and is on the board of Canadians for Tax fairness.
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Canadians at odds with their government on Israel

PMO Photo by Adam Scotti

As the future of Israeli Jews and Palestinians spirals down into an inevitable and inexorable apartheid struggle, Canadians are being denied their fundamental right in a democracy. That is the right to an honest and frank debate about one of the most important issues faced by the international community -- the ongoing illegal occupation of Palestinian land and the brutal suppression of Palestinian human rights. 

It's not that Canadians don't care or don't try to inform themselves. It's that both the media and federal governments are loath to even talk about it. With these two institutions maintaining a steadfast silence there can be no genuine debate. And so we betray both Israelis and Palestinians by condemning them to a future of violence.

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Transformative change in 2017 starts with community

Photo: Yohann REVERDY/flickr

As has been pointed out by too many people, 2016 was a devastating year for progressives (a homely term for all those who are want equality, democracy and ecological sanity). There is no need to repeat the list of atrocities, failures and disappointments, as we all have them indelibly marked on our psyches. One result of the annus horribilis is that activists everywhere have pledged to try harder -- at what is clearly not working. There is even a sense of optimism rooted in the old left-wing shibboleth that "the worse things get, the better" -- meaning, of course that if things get really, really bad, people will rise up (and overthrow the 1%). 

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'All for ourselves and nothing for other people': The takeover of economics by neoliberalism

Image: Adbusters/flickr

All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.

-- Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations

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Welcome to CETA and the Liberals' faith-based reality

PMO Photo by Adam Scotti

"Sweep away the community of honest brokers in America [and] we'll be left with a culture and public dialogue based on assertion rather than authenticity, on claim rather than fact."

-- U.S. journalist Ron Suskind, 2004

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There are lessons for Canada's elites in the U.S. election

Photo: Marco Verch/flickr

Hubris: extreme pride, especially pride and ambition so great that they offend the gods and lead to one's downfall.

In the aftermath of the stunning results of the U.S. election, the mix of emotions and hard-nosed analysis spans the spectrum from feeling sorry for the irrational and politically illiterate American voter to visceral fear about the consequences of their electing a thuggish buffoon as president. But common to all reactions, I suspect, is a smugness rooted in our sense of superiority -- as if our elites are somehow more attentive to the public interest and the lives of ordinary Canadians.

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Dear CRA: Don't let Cameco get away with its $2.2-billion tax evasion

Photo: SriMesh/Wikimedia Commons

Cameco, the Saskatchewan-based uranium mining colossus, is currently in Federal Court facing charges by the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) that it illegally avoided a stunning $2.2 billion in Canadian income taxes. It is not only the largest such case in Canadian history but one of the most shameless tax dodges ever hatched by a Canadian corporation. The court case has been delayed for years and just the fact that it has finally made it before a judge is good news. But the news could quickly turn bad if, facing defeat, Cameco makes a pitch to settle for less than the full amount. That would be a miscarriage of justice.

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Putting patient food in the hands of corporations reveals the trouble with normal

Photo: bec/flickr

It's amazing what we gradually accept as normal -- even admirable -- in how we treat each other in Canada. Practices that were once seen as a repugnant surrender to government indifference, like food banks, are now virtually celebrated as a high point of citizen engagement and promoted as such by our public broadcaster once a year. And other practices, like hospitals and seniors' care homes that once had their own kitchens and cooking staff, are seemingly a thing of the past, a "luxury" that we have no hope of ever getting back.

As Bruce Cockburn's song suggests, the trouble with normal, is it always gets worse.

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'The world must jettison neoliberal ideology': A globalization wake-up call

Photo: Moodycamera Photography/flickr

If recent mainstream economic reports are to be taken seriously, some of the big brains managing global capitalism these days are starting to lose faith in their neoliberal ideology. Some come close to sounding like virtual heretics -- like Jonathan Ostry, the IMF's deputy director of research and lead author of an article ("Neoliberalism: Oversold?") in the IMF's official publication. He stated, with a childlike innocence: "[s]ome aspects of the neoliberal agenda probably need a rethink.

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Trade deals' investor-state provisions: A sub-criminal conspiracy?

Photo: flickr/Tim Stoll

There is a glaring disconnect in the world between economic growth, and trade and investment agreements.

At the same time that Canada and other countries are pushing hard for huge multi-national deals -- the TPP, CETA and the U.S.-EU deal, the TTIP -- all the evidence suggests that global trade is on a long-term downward trend. Nothing in the near or middle term future suggests that it will recover to anything like its China-driven peak.

Financial Times analyst Martin Wolf recently argued bluntly that globalization no longer drives the world economy.

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Canadian media is failing citizens with its reporting on corporate rights deals

Photo: Martin Schulz/European Union 2016 - European Parliament/flickr

The Trudeau government is hell-bent on ratifying two massive investment agreements -- the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) and Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) -- that will radically undermine Canadian democracy. Yet very few Canadians are informed about these deals because our mainstream media has been so irresponsible in reporting on their impacts. The first-order irresponsibility is the media's absolute determination to cast these deals as "trade deals" when even a casual reading reveals that they are corporate rights agreements which, because they are treaties, trump our courts and constitution.

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