By Gerry Hassan, Anthony Barnett - 2009-01-05

In an extract from: 'Breaking Out of Britain's Neo-Liberal State [1]' published as a Compass Thinkpiece [2] today, and based on their original openDemocracy essay in OurKingdom, Gerry Hassan and Anthony Barnett identify seven key steps towards the renewal of British democracy.

By RICHARD RHAMES - December 26-28, 2008

As the holiday season slides past again, feel-good media stories of charitable giving subside. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, the merciless lashing of consumers to buy-buy-buy is decorated with syrupy tales of donated time, money, presents, and food. For a few weeks each year, it’s fashionable to acknowledge a key issue in our atomized and structurally brutish society: Towering inequality. Jesse Jackson called it, more directly, “economic violence.”

By Dean Baker - December 18, 2008

The Bush administration is packing its bags and about to head out the door. As they leave, we should insist they take the garbage with them. Among the items in the garbage pile should be the "ownership society."

Thursday, October 16, 2008 - CBC

Wal-Mart is closing a tire-and-lube garage in Gatineau where workers won a major victory last August when a Quebec arbitrator imposed a collective agreement on the company...The precedent-setting contract was the first ever forced on the Arkansas-based retailer by an outside agency.

By Emily Wax - Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Few places in India absorb and imitate American culture as much as call centers, where ambitious young Indians with fake American accents and American noms de phone spend hours calling people in Indiana or Maine to help navigate software glitches, plan vacations or sell products. The subculture of call centers tends to foster a cult of America...But collection agents...are starting to see the flip side of that vision: a country hobbled by debt and filled with people scared of losing their jobs, their houses and their cars.

Dear Friends:

By Ellen Gould - The Tyee

The...Harper government is responsible for pushing the envelope on deregulation both domestically and internationally despite cautionary events in the U.S. clearly indicating what could go wrong...On the international stage, Canada is a major proponent of financial liberalization...At the WTO, Canada heads a group of delegations pressing developing countries to open their economies to the supposedly superior services of foreign financial institutions.

****Please Distribute Widely****

CONCORD PACIFIC GET OUT!

Saturday,October 11th
2:00 pm
Victory Square Park (Cambie & Hastings)

Sept. 25, 2008 - Mohawk Nation News

There is another world, a world of resistance...Indigenous people have survived. We kept our philosophy, our notions of governance, our duties to mother earth and our way of life which was terribly damaged. We have been able to resuscitate it and bring it back to a healthy life. We all have our strengths. We have an enormous[ly] evolved consciousness. People are beginning to see through this fraud...We are still here because we always resisted.

Announcing the 3rd annual fallgathering of….
Vancouver Island Ecovillage Youth Convergence:
Cooperating for Capacity Building.
September26th, 27th, 28th, 2008 at O.U.R ECOVILLAGE (www.ourecovillage.org )
Shawnigan Lake.
Comeexplore the possibility of building your own personal capacity and/or
yourorganizational/community capacity.

Sunday September 14 - Tour de Fun

Communique by Olympics Resistance Network

The Olympics Resistance Network is primarily based in Vancouver, Coast Salish Territories and exists as a space to coordinate anti-2010 Olympics efforts. In doing so, we act in solidarity with other communities across "[British Columbia]" - particularly indigenous communities who have been defending their land against the onslaught of the Olympics since the bid itself. Our organizing is largely being done under the slogan of "No Olympics on Stolen Native Land", while creating an opportunity for all anti-capitalist, indigenous, anti poverty, labour, migrant justice, environmental justice, anti war, and anti colonial activists to come together to confront this two-week circus and the oppression it represents.

By ROBERT MATAS - Friday, August 22, 2008

Vancouver opening ceremony must help Harper government
"achieve its domestic and international branding goals," memo says.

August 04, 2008 - Znet

The current financial crisis highlights fundamental failings in a global economy run for private profit rather than broader social opportunity. Jim Stanford explains how risky financial speculation created a bubble that has now burst, and argues that we need to refocus attention on a real economy founded on the production of actual goods and services.