CONTENTS
CALLS TO ACTION
The Shadow Pandemic
Every six days, a woman is murdered by her intimate partner in Canada.Tragically, this is simply the most extreme instance of the ongoing crisis of violence against women. Every single night, roughly 3,000 women — alongside their 2,900 dependent children — seek out emergency shelter to escape intimate partner violence.
COVID-19 has only made this violence worse.
action.ywcatoronto.org
COVID Crisis: Protect workers NOW!
As COVID infections spike across Canada, there has never been more urgency to demand action on paid sick days and decent wages.We know that frontline workers are at much greater risk of exposure on the job.
Yet, while workers face the worst safety crisis of our lifetime, bad bosses like Loblaws, Amazon, and Walmart are cashing in at our expense.
15andfairness.org
EVENTS
Fifth anniversary of the Paris Agreement and why it matters for Canada
When: December 10th, 10amA conversation with Catherine Abreu, featuring: Minister Wilkinson, Canadian Minister of Environment and Climate Change; Chief Perry Bellegarde, AFN National Chief; and Susan Jane le Jeune d’Allegeershecque, the British High Commissioner to Canada.
zoom.us
Canada’s role in Latin America
When: Friday December 11th, 4pmWith Yves Engler, political analyst and writer. His work is well-researched, insightful and vital to an understanding of Canada’s political policies and our place in the global power struggles.
victoriacasc.org
#FightFor1Point5 Toronto Rally
When: Friday December 11th, 5pmWhere: Ontario Legislative Building, south side of Queen’s Park
Join countries across the world in the #FightFor1Point5 campaign, demanding that world leaders step up to fight for a liveable future for all!
This will be a relatively small, COVID-safe action. Masks are mandatory, social distancing will be strongly enforced, and no one should attend if they have any COVID-19 risk factors.
Organized by Fridays For Future Toronto and allies | Facebook event
People Get Ready
When: Saturday December 12th, 1pm – 7pm ESTIn the face of violent authoritarianism, deepening economic crisis, and a deadly pandemic, Left and progressive movements have doubled down in defense of our people. Over the past two years, the global left has built powerful coalitions, engaged in electoral experiments, and steadily reshaped the political terrain. What kind of power has been built through these efforts, however, and how do we pivot from defense to offense in the years ahead?
Join Center for Political Education and Haymarket Books for a half-day symposium on Saturday, December 12th from 1 PM to 7 PM EST for a conversation on beating the right, strengthening the Left, and charting a path to power.
eventbrite.com
Lower Fares, More Service! Public Transit Struggles In and After the Pandemic
When: Sunday December 13th, 2pmA second wave of the pandemic is raging across the country, and Toronto and other cities are again in lockdown. Austerity for social provisioning including public transit is high on the agenda for city governments across North America. In Toronto, both the city government and the Toronto Transit Commission are juggling much needed public transit expansion with budgetary restraints. We are at a crucial turning point for the public transit and ecology movements. What is the current state of the public transit movement? How is it engaging with the challenges of massive funding shortfalls, fares, overcrowding, bus lanes and regional integration? How can we get involved in the movement?
– Shelagh Pizey-Allen, TTCriders Executive Director
– Vincent Puhakka, TTCriders Campaigns Committee Member
– Stefan Kipfer, Free Transit Toronto
– Moderator: Herman Rosenfeld, Socialist Project
zoom.us
Perspectives on the Rights of Nature
When: Sunday Dec. 13th, 6pmThe Indigenous Environmental Network will host a viewing of the documentary film The Condor and The Eagle followed by a conversation about the importance of the Rights of Nature. Rights of Nature or Rights of Mother Earth seek to define equal legal rights for ecosystems to exist, flourish, and regenerate their natural capacities. Recognizing these rights places obligations on humans to live within, not above, the natural world, of which we are only one part, and to protect and replenish the ecosystems upon which our mutual well-being depends.
event.webinarjam.com
ARTICLES
The Not So Negative Dialectics of Post-Secondary Education
By Ingo SchmidtPost-secondary education is marketed, and widely seen, as human capital investment. Obtaining a college or university degree today will yield a skill-premium tomorrow. And a possible gain in social status or, if coming from the educated classes, at least retention of the status of one’s parents. Marketing and expectations of pecuniary and status gains are sometimes complemented by hints at post-secondary education as a pathway to becoming a good citizen. At its most emphatic, such as invoked by Kant’s definition of enlightenment, suggesting that post-secondary education is the indispensable guide to emerge from (..) self-incurred immaturity.
Source: The Bullet No. 2255
Vaccine Nationalism? An Incurable Disease Called Hope
By Vijay PrashadThe total level of global indebtedness now sits at an astronomical $277-trillion, an increase of $15-trillion since 2019. This amount is equivalent to 365% of the global gross domestic product. The debt burden is highest in the poorest countries, where coronavirus defaults have begun; Zambia’s default is the most recent. The various programmes to suspend debt servicing payments – such as the G20 Debt Service Suspension Initiative – and the various programmes of aid – such as through the International Monetary Fund’s COVID-19 Financial Assistance and Debt Relief initiative – are certain to fall short.
Source: The Bullet No. 2256
Capitalism and Climate Change in Honduras
By Yanis IqbalHonduras lies in tatters. Ecological catastrophes in the form of twin hurricanes have rapidly destroyed its pandemic-ravaged economy. At a press conference in Tegucigalpa, Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez said that his country already had 7% of its GDP wiped out by the pandemic, and that the combined impact of COVID-19 and two deadly storms will create a “bomb that will leave the country and the region in a very difficult situation.”
Source: The Bullet No. 2257
RCEP: An Unjust Deal and Added Burden in the Time of a Pandemic
By Trade Justice PilipinasIn the midst of a global pandemic and despite strong peoples’ opposition, governments are set to sign today (23 November) the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP) at the sidelines of the 37th ASEAN Summit in Hanoi, Vietnam. Trade Justice Pilipinas joins the chorus of condemnation of this ambitious trade and investment agreement. Over years of following these negotiations – engaging actively in stakeholder processes, debating with trade negotiators from the Philippines and the region, facilitating public discussions and mobilizing protest actions against the agreement – we have consistently raised our concerns over the negative implications of RCEP on the Philippine economy.
Source: The Bullet No. 2258
UK Launch of The Socialist Register 2021: Beyond Digital Capitalism
As digital technology became integral to the capitalist market dystopia of the first decades of the 21st century, it not only refashioned our ways of communicating but of working and consuming, indeed ways of living. Even as the COVID-19 pandemic revealed not only the lack of investment, planning and preparation that underlay the scandalous slowness of the responses by states around the world, but also grotesque class and racial inequalities as it coursed its way through the population, the owners of high-tech corporations were enriched by tens of billions of dollars.Source: LeftStreamed
EMPLOYMENT
LEC is Now Hiring!
The Labour Education Centre is hiring the following positions.– Information and Referral Counsellor
– Vocational Instructor
The deadline to apply is December 10th, 2020 at 12:00pm noon.
www.laboureducation.org