There 2 enormous questions that are facing politicians in every part of Canada right now; I've written extensively about both. Liberal journalists have focused on the convoy without thinking too hard about the broader questions, and they're getting lost in the noise.
They are:
1. What is to be done about the unvaccinated?
I wrote this in November asking this question, though Omicron upended a lot of what we knew about pandemic management readpassage.com/its-time-for-o…
We need to stop solely talking about vaccines and move onto far more pressing issues: direct supports for disabled people, especially those living alone, food support for anyone in isolation, rapid test centres on every corner etc.
We're stuck in a logic that hasn't budged, even as our experiences have all advanced and changed with this virus -- and so of course people are going to express discontent.
Refusing to seriously criticize Trudeau is part of why we are here. And then the other big question:
What will it take for politicians do do something about the health system? This is the obvious elephant in the room and no government has the political desire to actually do anything significant.
For all the handwringing and obsessing over the convoy, there are way too many folks who are paid to think and write who are getting this just over and over wrong. And all to what ... not upset the country's leader? Not upset their bosses? I genuinely don't get it.
Anyway, for a blow-by-blow on how governments right across Canada have nonstop fucked up this pandemic, read my book: fernwoodpublishing.ca/book/spin-doct…
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"We have been watching and tracking public opinion around this pandemic..."
One of the things that I write about in my book is how polls were used to scare, confuse and distract everyone from the real issues: infection control at work, more testing etc.
"We felt a sense of inevitability related to Omicron"
Or, we could hear about air in shared residential spaces, the complete lack of supports for peoples' mental health etc rather than what people said to surveys.
Good Morning! We're going to listen to Osama Bin Laden death raid cake lady on @TheCurrentCBC because she is an expert in ... I'm not sure what.
I thought her racist cakes cancelled her but here she is telling us about how these organizers are white supremacists.
Sorry the trucker convoy and the border protests aren't connected?
Just because there's spontaneity doesn't mean that there isn't some level of planning. I haven't seen any other groups manage to pull something like this off before...
Marco Mendicino's first comment is that the vaccines are the only way out of this pandemic. This line has been canon for all Canadian politicians for more than a year now, even though we all know like 20 vaccinated people who have had Omicron.
Politicians refusing to make workplaces safer through health and safety measures, refusing to insist on better data collection, refusing to male emergency hospital capacity fast ... we see what you're doing and it is making people cynical, angry, frustrated and hopeless.
Matt Galloway has twice cut off Mendocino cut him off to insist on asking about offering more cops.
Just dancing all around the real issues, hoping we don't notice? @TheCurrentCBC
We have a pretty big problem on the left with the institutional players: labour, the NDP and other progressive politicians (municipal and leftwing liberals). The question demands: are they actually left?
The first and most obvious answer is no. They aren't: they aren't functionally leftwing, they barely express leftwing positions other than a few exceptions, and in the most important cases, like where they are in power, they're progressive conservatives.
This is clear. However, the answer is also yes, they are "on the left" -- they take up space, manipulate progressive individuals, build up leaders (who may or may not be leftwing), hold power, have access to resources, set agendas, calls shots ...
Here's a 🧵 before I log off for the rest of the afternoon and eventually head down to check out the installations set up for the truck convoy that's promised to arrive today.
What we are seeing in Ottawa is a fascist tactic, aided by police. And so I ask --- where is labour?
In the Steward's Handbook made by the Canadian Labour Congress, it states that labour is the only real line of defense against fascism. That when democracy fails to protect people, labour is their only hope. A very lofty goal that has been true in the past.
In 2017, I wrote this for The Walrus. I argued that labour needs to step up and lead if it hopes to have any relevance for average people and, importantly, to fulful the goal of fighting fascism: thewalrus.ca/its-time-for-u…