streetfestival @ streetfestival @lemmy.ca

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2 yr. ago

Reminds me of MAGAt politics

In one article, Canada Post told the Star they are currently “unable to get mail to and from Santa in the North Pole” due to the labour disruption, but are committed to delivering every letter as well as his responses once postal operations restart.”

In another example, both Canada Post and the Retail Council of Canada were cited in an article about the concern of business owners, stating costs will be passed on to consumers. CUPW is only cited as responding to small business owners’ complaints.

Yeah, I don’t think we actually disagree with much

You may be right. I see the things I highlighted as directly and predictably improving the lives of the working class (and hopefully their civic engagement by extension), whereas defence spending directly and predictably improves the earnings of arms manufacturers and the fossil fuel industry and may improve the lives of the working classes. With an objectively false headline like CBC ran, I feel a need to counter some palpable bias

That's oligarch-owned media for ya!

Tons of gems in this lengthy piece

Suffice it to say that the journalism we need to save in order to preserve democracy is not fluff or advertorials but, instead, what Alex S. Jones (not the infamous talk show host) called in his 2009 book Losing the News the “iron core” of reporting on politics, government, business, the economy, the environment, and other things that citizens need to know about.

Then there’s the more than $15 billion a year that our telecom companies are raking in from internet service provision at profit margins approaching 50 percent.

As Bill Birnbauer noted in his 2019 book The Rise of Nonprofit Investigative Journalism in the United States, “investigative stories costing thousands of dollars can deliver millions of dollars of benefits to society through policy changes and social returns.”

The 2021 book News Hole crunched mountains of data to find a causal relationship between reduced coverage of local politics and lowered levels of civic engagement in the US. While two-thirds of registered voters in Los Angeles regularly turned out to vote in local elections during the 1980s, only 18 to 23 percent have voted more recently, in a trend seen across the country and highlighted by the dismal 6 percent turnout in Dallas in 2015. Civic knowledge has also plunged: while 70 percent of American voters could name their city’s mayor in 1966, that was down to less than 40 percent in 2016.

News media are different from other industries, however, as they are considered so vital to political discourse and community life in Canada that they enjoy a Charter guarantee of freedom from government interference. Media owners, who increasingly included private equity firms and US hedge funds, soon learned that they could monetize this guarantee by framing it as their right to a continuous stream of government handouts.

I wasn't aware of how long this watering down of the news to increase ad profitability has been in progress:

The evolution of journalism in the twentieth century was away from hard news aimed at citizens and toward what media critic Ben Bagdikian called “fluff” aimed at consumers and designed to attract ads. Bagdikian found that hard news made up about four pages of the average daily newspaper in 1940, and that while editions had more than doubled in size forty years later, most of the increase consisted of fluff since the amount of hard news had grown to only about five pages. “Most fluff is wanted by advertisers to create a buying mood,” noted Bagdikian, who added that surveys showed readers wanted more hard news. “An article on genuine social suffering might interrupt the ‘buying mood’ on which most ads for luxuries depend.” Fluff matched perfectly Marshall McLuhan’s description of media content as “the juicy piece of meat carried by the burglar to distract the watchdog of the mind.”

Hard news came to be avoided by newspapers because not only did it not attract ads—it repelled them. Newspapers arguably crossed the Rubicon in the 1930s, when they suppressed news of studies that linked cigarette smoking to cancer because tobacco companies were among their biggest advertisers. That opened the door for other advertisers to demand the removal of news that might hurt their business. Air Canada, noted Bagdikian, warned newspapers in 1978 that “its ads would be canceled as long as any news story of an Air Canada crash or hijacking ran in the paper and if its ads were carried within two pages of a news story of any crash or hijacking on any airline.” This new advertiser sensitivity to news perhaps triggered a move toward even more ad-friendly content, and newspapers weren’t shy about promoting it to ad buyers.

I'd rather increase funds for the things I suggested, whereas it sounds like you see increased defence spending as a greater priority. We can agree to disagree

I think headlines should also be true, especially taxpayer-funded headlines

I think the same could be said about the affordability and housing crisis, or the climate crisis, or preparedness for a potential bird flu pandemic...

This is the best article I've read in a while

What was happening to workers across the country could be called “Operation Break the Working Class.” It was a broad policy to undermine worker confidence by destroying the capacity of organized labour to offer resistance. This took place in tandem with a large transfer of wealth to the financial elite. Reagan’s first budget represented a giveaway of more than $750 billion to the super rich in a mere five years. This drove federal debt to $2.8 trillion and turned the United States into the world’s largest debtor nation. At the same time, Reagan cut basic services to the underclass, such as the food stamps program.

Such clarity is often obscured amid the toxic political rhetoric and disinformation of a nation increasingly defined by red state/blue state culture wars. And the statistical data is indisputable. Across all economic indices, American workers have faced a shocking level of lost opportunities over the past four decades. A 2020 study by the Rand Corporation, undertaken to identify the links between economic disparity and the political instability of American life in the twenty-first century, found massive losses to workers since 1980. For example, in 2018, a working-class Black man was making $26,000 (US) a year less than what he would have been paid if the income patterns prior to 1980 had held constant. A college-educated worker earned between $48,000 and $63,000 (US) a year less.

The authors of the Rand report tracked these lost wages, as a direct conduit, to the bank accounts of the 1 percent. They valued the loss of income for every worker at $1,144 (US) a month for every year over the past four decades. The final price tag for this looting of the American worker comes to $50 trillion (US) in accumulated lost wages and benefits.

Everyone agrees Canada should spend more on defence.

False

Given the background of reactionary politics and climate inaction, this is a neat story. These 3 MPs worked together, and their amendment was passed unanimously, I think, in parliament. More of this please

Great article. The site selection process seems pretty ethical. For me, burying nuclear waste has a sci-fi feel to it.

For the repository to be built, the Nuclear Waste Management Organization will have to embark on what Wabigoon Lake describes as “the largest and most strenuous impact assessment in Canadian history” to ensure the project poses minimal human and environmental harm.

Nice to see some positive news.

"We didn't pursue this because of the money. We pursued this because we were treated in a discriminatory fashion by a municipal government, and municipalities have obligations under the Ontario Human Rights Code not to discriminate in the provision of a service," said Judson.

"The tribunal's decision affirms that. That is the important thing we were seeking here was validation that as 2SLGBTQA plus people, we're entitled to treatment without discrimination when we try to seek services from our local government."

Better late than never!

Doug Ford, close your mouth - there's shit getting everywhere.

Here's Mexico's current President (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claudia_Sheinbaum), while US has Trump and we will have PP

Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo[a] (born 24 June 1962) is a Mexican politician, scientist, and academic who has been the 66th and current president of Mexico since 2024, becoming the first woman to hold the office.[2][3][4] She previously served as Head of Government of Mexico City from 2018 to 2023.

A scientist by profession, Sheinbaum received her Doctor of Philosophy in energy engineering from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). She has authored over 100 articles and two books on energy, the environment, and sustainable development. She contributed to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and, in 2018, was named one of BBC's 100 Women.[5]

I'm highlighting the things that aren't trans-specific, just because I'm less aware of these other policies. No wonder there are reports of self-identified pedophiles, or "minor-attracted people" (MAP) as they prefer to be called, excited about what's happening in Alberta:

The harms posed to trans youth are more than enough reason to abandon these bills. However, trans youth are not the only victims of these reckless policies. The province’s Education Amendment Act will effectively eradicate sex education in the province, and the proposed Fairness and Safety in Sport Act will make all female athletes vulnerable to abuse.

The government’s attack on sex education goes against decades of research demonstrating that age-appropriate, comprehensive sex education — unlike abstinence-only sex education — reduces teen pregnancy rates and STIs and supports the reduction of child sexual abuse.

Smith’s attack on sex education will deprive children of knowledge on anatomy and consent, which they need to better communicate experiences of sexual harassment and violence. By denying youth this much-needed information, the law will turn the clock back decades in the fight against sexual violence — and make Alberta children far more vulnerable to it.

As for the proposed Fairness and Safety in Sport Act, it will make all female athletes vulnerable to abuse, especially if they are perceived as “too masculine.”

Under the law, schools and sports associations will have to adopt eligibility requirements based on gender. To facilitate enforcement of eligibility rules, the bill grants legal immunity to athletes, referees and employees of the government, schools or sports association — as long as they are intending in good faith to enforce the law.

In other words, the law protects those who use the rules as an excuse to harass and abuse athletes.

Good story for Arbuckle. Surprise win by the Argos. No doubt assisted by the bloody cut on the throwing hand of Blue Bombers' starting QB, Zach Callaros, in the 3rd quarter. Zach came back out next quarter but he wasn't throwing like himself with that glove on his hand.

There was more parity in the league this year than the last few, and I think they'll be even more next year; ie, more teams with a chance to make the playoffs

There is so much plausible and/or perceived foul play here that the police saying "no evidence of foul play" by one of the world's largest companies and releasing no other details of this young woman's death is not good enough.

I hope civil charges are pressed, because as far as I'm concerned more eyes and publicity are needed on this case.

That's an easy one. For example, by allowing the marketing or product to be unduly attractive to children

I think you mean commerce and marketing 'give' those things. Capitalism is about preserving financial wealth and dividing access to health and agency in regulating one's dopamine (to use your pet metaphor) according to wealth