The heinous nature of christianity continues to stain our history with its bigotry and hate.  We should do ourselves a favour and opt out as soon as possible.

The noise generated by his comments are out of proportion to what his observation was:

“Mulcair claims that “Dutch disease” has hit the country, blaming energy exports from the Alberta oilsands for artificially raising the Canadian dollar and hollowing out the manufacturing industry.

Coined in an article in The Economist in 1977, the concept refers to the adverse economic effects that the discovery of large natural gas fields off of the coast of the Netherlands in the 1960s had on the country’s manufacturing sector.

The theory goes that a boom in a natural resource sector can lead to an appreciation of a country’s real exchange rate. That increase in the dollar value makes exports more expensive, and has an adverse effect on the manufacturing sector by making it less competitive.“

Okay, so it sounds reasonable so far.  Our dollar goes up and makes our manufacturing industry less competitive.  But what has got the defenders of corporatism all up in arms?   Mulcair takes his statement one step further…

“Mulcair said the problem is the government is not enforcing legislation that would include the environmental costs of exploiting natural resources.

“Those statistics with regard to the overall losses of jobs in Canada are irrefutable,” he said this week. “And they are directly related to the fact that we’re not enforcing federal [environmental] legislation.“

Oh snap.  How dare you mention that pillaging the land in the hog-wild foo-fur-ah that is Fort McMurray might be anything less than a calm nuanced approach to resource management is beyond the pale.  Fainting couches were needed *stat* across much of the Canadian media and parliament.

“I am wondering when the leader of the Opposition will apologize to western Canadians for suggesting the strength of the western Canadian economy is a disease on Canada,” Heritage Minister James Moore said in the House of Commons.

“He attacks western Canada, he attacks our energy industry, he attacks all of the West and the great work that is being done by western Canadians to contribute to Canada’s national unity. He should be ashamed of himself,” he said.

Yes, he should be ashamed for trying to keep the government accountable to for environmental legislation that is currently on the books, oh the villainy.  The tar sands have gained a love-halo that is growing in magnitude.  Speaking out against them is sacrosanct,with reasonable debate being drummed out by “it’s good for the economy!!!1!” and other nonsense.

Good On Mulcair for pointing out some of the problems with the oil-sands vis-a-vis the rest of Canada, the man is doing  his job as leader of the Opposition.

“Plutonomy refers to the rich, those who buy luxury goods and so on, and that’s where the action is. They claimed that their plutonomy index was way outperforming the stock market. As for the rest, we set them adrift. We don’t really care about them. We don’t really need them. They have to be around to provide a powerful state, which will protect us and bail us out when we get into trouble, but other than that they essentially have no function. These days they’re sometimes called the “precariat” – people who live a precarious existence at the periphery of society. Only it’s not the periphery anymore. It’s becoming a very substantial part of society in the United States and indeed elsewhere. And this is considered a good thing.

So, for example, Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, at the time when he was still “Saint Alan” – hailed by the economics profession as one of the greatest economists of all time (this was before the crash for which he was substantially responsible) – was testifying to Congress in the Clinton years, and he explained the wonders of the great economy that he was supervising. He said a lot of its success was based substantially on what he called “growing worker insecurity”. If working people are insecure, if they’re part of the precariat, living precarious existences, they’re not going to make demands, they’re not going to try to get better wages, they won’t get improved benefits. We can kick ‘em out, if we don’t need ‘em. And that’s what’s called a “healthy” economy, technically speaking. And he was highly praised for this, greatly admired.

So the world is now indeed splitting into a plutonomy and a precariat – in the imagery of the Occupy movement, the 1 per cent and the 99 per cent. Not literal numbers, but the right picture. Now, the plutonomy is where the action is and it could continue like this.

If it does, the historic reversal that began in the 1970s could become irreversible. That’s where we’re heading. And the Occupy movement is the first real, major, popular reaction that could avert this. But it’s going to be necessary to face the fact that it’s a long, hard struggle. You don’t win victories tomorrow. You have to form the structures that will be sustained, that will go on through hard times and can win major victories. And there are a lot of things that can be done.”

   Can we stem the tide?  We must, otherwise our struggle will become the struggle of our children.