It's what Paul does not say when he has the attention of national media that tells me how much he is in the grips corporatism. He does not say the tar sands threaten the young and future generations more than any other singular thing in Canada. The international climate community knows it. Canada sits as one of the worst carbon offenders there.
There are many people saying that about oil development and extraction - as you rightly point out. Being strategic is in part about knowing your value add. We don't need to replicate the excellent advocacy others are doing on oil sands, especially when the climate space is one in which a focus on the wellbeing of future generations is fairly strong. Concluding from this that Paul or Gen Squeeze lacks an appreciation for the power of the corporate sector seems like a bit of a leap of logic to me. I do agree that it's difficult to expose and speak to every complex layer to the challenges we face - that's precisely why we're grateful to share advocacy spaces with so many other excellent leaders. Reasonable people can disagree about which priorities to select when there are so many important ones, but for Gen Squeeze, targeting something vague like 'corporatism' is not going to be our direct focus (though as Kareem rightly points out, there are elements of this in our policy solutions frameworks).
You are defensive and self-promoting. Paul went off track when he wrote Forget Occupy back over a decade ago. Talking about rooms for cats or asking pickle ballers to pay more in taxes is small potatoes compared to what Occupy Wall Street was going after.
Sorry you feel that way Glen. Personally I think there's room for many approaches to advocacy, and we don't have to tear one down in order to elevate others. I do want to defend and promote Gen Squeeze's approach - otherwise I wouldn't be working with the organization. But I don't think that needs to be characterized in a negative way. We're open to other perspectives and debate about our approach and priorities - and sometimes we are convinced to explore new directions. Other times, we have to agree to disagree - and happily, we can do that without being disagreeable.
Andrea, in retrospect, I think that you are far more right than wrong, and I was being far too hard on Paul. I do say in my book that of all the interest groups-think tanks, Generation Squeeze is the best of them. So, I will be donating $365 dollars again this year. I have my points, but I support 100 percent what you are going after, and you need more wind in your sails not cross winds. Keep going full steam ahead.
Nobody is more supportive of Generation Squeeze than I am.
Today, like many days, I argued for a wealth tax and other wealth sharing measures with my accountant and as usual I got nowhere. AXE the tax is selling wel. We are an unconscious civilization as Saul says. SAUL sees the biggest of the big pictures but Saul is not a particularly good writer. He captures the importance of disinterest of not looking at our problems from special interests or special lenses.
I go after Generation SQUEEZE the same way I go after Stephanie Kelton in the Deficit Myth- she has great ideas but her framing, her
modern monetary theory scews her solid insights. Anyway all I can say is try to suffer through Saul's The Unconscious Civilization until I get my book published
I support Paul's efforts. However, meetings with ministers and government officials and taking vague government statements about recognizing generational fairness as evidence of Generational Squeezes effectiveness makes me think of how oil executives placated and carried on in their ways for decades. As they do today. Our men and women of government are so removed from the fundamental ideas that the finest minds are saying Suzuki, Astra Taylor, Chomsky, George Monbiot , John Ralston Saul and hundreds of others including a litany of modern economists saying we must drop the GDP as our measure of success and turn to a circular regenerative economy or as Tomson Highway said in his 2022 Massey lectures our straight line of blind growth is killing us. It would be bad politics to address the Tar Sands as the thing in Canada that squeezing the most life out of us so we work with the powers that be, we go with the grains because going against them would be too much to bear. The seeds of a paradigm shift have long been here and left un-watered and mostly ignored. First, we must experience collapse. The climate catastrophes and financial collapse of 2008/09 that we have faced weren’t enough-greater collapse is needed for us to face that in our arrogant materialistic joy ride believing we can grow our way out of a growth problem that science will solve it when we have had solutions for centuries and technology has in fact enabled it. Seen in the brilliant technologies that allow for the Tar Sands. For centuries we have had knowledge of ways of living as a part of nature and not above it or separate from it, but we went right on exploiting it at all costs.
Canada’s economy is very much a subsidiary of American corporations. Decades ago, Sheldon Wolin said the degree to which corporations controlled the levers of power including government and media Western Democracies were really best described as states of corporate totalitarianism. Its concentration of wealth would lead to nations with its people filled with resentments and vulnerable to strong men-fascists like Trump and men with simple slogans like axe the tax. The resentful people would be mostly unconscious of the corporate forces and look for politicians to blame and seek out those politicians that could harness their resentments rather than go after the corporatism that held us in its grips. That boys and girls was what John Ralston Saul was getting at when he called us an Unconscious Civilization. Corporatism is killing us. Pierre Poilievre is just idiot of that.
Saul in The Unconscious Civilization captures the importance of disinterest of not looking at our problems from special interests or special lenses. You may think that you are conscious but your ties to Generation Squeeze leaves you just another special interest group in an unconscious civilization suffocating in special interest groups. But that's all we have as this civilization finishes. But not quite. There are rare folks like me who have no ties no interest in any special interest group, truly independent thinkers.
Trudeau’s Government is embedded in and crippled by corporatism. Those that hate Trudeau have mostly misplaced their resentments. Corporatism is everywhere in our political parties, our bureaucracies, our universities in all our big structures. It’s so taken for granted we can’t see it. All of our specialized lenses are part of it. It’s not a ring-wing, left-wing or lack of center thing. It’s a thing that dominates around the world and central to communism in China and in Russia. Alas, seeing how pervasive corporatism is would take careful examination and our fast reactionary ways do not allow for that. We lack the time, inclination or attending skills and habits necessary for that.
correction: It’s so taken for granted we can’t see it. All of our specialized lenses are part of it. It’s not a right -wing, left-wing or lack of center thing. It’s a thing that dominates around the world and central to communism in China and in Russia. Alas, seeing how pervasive corporatism is would take careful examination and our fast reactionary ways do not allow for that. We stick to our specialized lenses. We lack the time, inclination or attending skills and habits necessary for that.
It's what Paul does not say when he has the attention of national media that tells me how much he is in the grips corporatism. He does not say the tar sands threaten the young and future generations more than any other singular thing in Canada. The international climate community knows it. Canada sits as one of the worst carbon offenders there.
There are many people saying that about oil development and extraction - as you rightly point out. Being strategic is in part about knowing your value add. We don't need to replicate the excellent advocacy others are doing on oil sands, especially when the climate space is one in which a focus on the wellbeing of future generations is fairly strong. Concluding from this that Paul or Gen Squeeze lacks an appreciation for the power of the corporate sector seems like a bit of a leap of logic to me. I do agree that it's difficult to expose and speak to every complex layer to the challenges we face - that's precisely why we're grateful to share advocacy spaces with so many other excellent leaders. Reasonable people can disagree about which priorities to select when there are so many important ones, but for Gen Squeeze, targeting something vague like 'corporatism' is not going to be our direct focus (though as Kareem rightly points out, there are elements of this in our policy solutions frameworks).
You are defensive and self-promoting. Paul went off track when he wrote Forget Occupy back over a decade ago. Talking about rooms for cats or asking pickle ballers to pay more in taxes is small potatoes compared to what Occupy Wall Street was going after.
Sorry you feel that way Glen. Personally I think there's room for many approaches to advocacy, and we don't have to tear one down in order to elevate others. I do want to defend and promote Gen Squeeze's approach - otherwise I wouldn't be working with the organization. But I don't think that needs to be characterized in a negative way. We're open to other perspectives and debate about our approach and priorities - and sometimes we are convinced to explore new directions. Other times, we have to agree to disagree - and happily, we can do that without being disagreeable.
Andrea, in retrospect, I think that you are far more right than wrong, and I was being far too hard on Paul. I do say in my book that of all the interest groups-think tanks, Generation Squeeze is the best of them. So, I will be donating $365 dollars again this year. I have my points, but I support 100 percent what you are going after, and you need more wind in your sails not cross winds. Keep going full steam ahead.
Nobody is more supportive of Generation Squeeze than I am.
Today, like many days, I argued for a wealth tax and other wealth sharing measures with my accountant and as usual I got nowhere. AXE the tax is selling wel. We are an unconscious civilization as Saul says. SAUL sees the biggest of the big pictures but Saul is not a particularly good writer. He captures the importance of disinterest of not looking at our problems from special interests or special lenses.
I go after Generation SQUEEZE the same way I go after Stephanie Kelton in the Deficit Myth- she has great ideas but her framing, her
modern monetary theory scews her solid insights. Anyway all I can say is try to suffer through Saul's The Unconscious Civilization until I get my book published
He doesn't have an opportunity to say everything. Of course we are aware that the tar sands threaten the future.
We do lots of work related to climate change: https://www.gensqueeze.ca/climate
And talk about these issues quite often in the media: https://youtu.be/F5mI14F3jls
I support Paul's efforts. However, meetings with ministers and government officials and taking vague government statements about recognizing generational fairness as evidence of Generational Squeezes effectiveness makes me think of how oil executives placated and carried on in their ways for decades. As they do today. Our men and women of government are so removed from the fundamental ideas that the finest minds are saying Suzuki, Astra Taylor, Chomsky, George Monbiot , John Ralston Saul and hundreds of others including a litany of modern economists saying we must drop the GDP as our measure of success and turn to a circular regenerative economy or as Tomson Highway said in his 2022 Massey lectures our straight line of blind growth is killing us. It would be bad politics to address the Tar Sands as the thing in Canada that squeezing the most life out of us so we work with the powers that be, we go with the grains because going against them would be too much to bear. The seeds of a paradigm shift have long been here and left un-watered and mostly ignored. First, we must experience collapse. The climate catastrophes and financial collapse of 2008/09 that we have faced weren’t enough-greater collapse is needed for us to face that in our arrogant materialistic joy ride believing we can grow our way out of a growth problem that science will solve it when we have had solutions for centuries and technology has in fact enabled it. Seen in the brilliant technologies that allow for the Tar Sands. For centuries we have had knowledge of ways of living as a part of nature and not above it or separate from it, but we went right on exploiting it at all costs.
Canada’s economy is very much a subsidiary of American corporations. Decades ago, Sheldon Wolin said the degree to which corporations controlled the levers of power including government and media Western Democracies were really best described as states of corporate totalitarianism. Its concentration of wealth would lead to nations with its people filled with resentments and vulnerable to strong men-fascists like Trump and men with simple slogans like axe the tax. The resentful people would be mostly unconscious of the corporate forces and look for politicians to blame and seek out those politicians that could harness their resentments rather than go after the corporatism that held us in its grips. That boys and girls was what John Ralston Saul was getting at when he called us an Unconscious Civilization. Corporatism is killing us. Pierre Poilievre is just idiot of that.
"we must drop the GDP as our measure of success"
Paul has written about these exact same topics: https://www.gensqueeze.ca/globe_mail_lend_more_to_business_less_to_homeowners
Saul in The Unconscious Civilization captures the importance of disinterest of not looking at our problems from special interests or special lenses. You may think that you are conscious but your ties to Generation Squeeze leaves you just another special interest group in an unconscious civilization suffocating in special interest groups. But that's all we have as this civilization finishes. But not quite. There are rare folks like me who have no ties no interest in any special interest group, truly independent thinkers.
Trudeau’s Government is embedded in and crippled by corporatism. Those that hate Trudeau have mostly misplaced their resentments. Corporatism is everywhere in our political parties, our bureaucracies, our universities in all our big structures. It’s so taken for granted we can’t see it. All of our specialized lenses are part of it. It’s not a ring-wing, left-wing or lack of center thing. It’s a thing that dominates around the world and central to communism in China and in Russia. Alas, seeing how pervasive corporatism is would take careful examination and our fast reactionary ways do not allow for that. We lack the time, inclination or attending skills and habits necessary for that.
correction: It’s so taken for granted we can’t see it. All of our specialized lenses are part of it. It’s not a right -wing, left-wing or lack of center thing. It’s a thing that dominates around the world and central to communism in China and in Russia. Alas, seeing how pervasive corporatism is would take careful examination and our fast reactionary ways do not allow for that. We stick to our specialized lenses. We lack the time, inclination or attending skills and habits necessary for that.