Left-wing podcasting is here

Paulitics: Paul’s Socialist Podcast

You can now click on the sidebar to be taken to the new official podcast companion to the Paulitics: Paul’s Socialist Investigations blog.

The podcast is devoted to presenting unique discussions, debates, news commentary and academic lectures to the public from a broadly left-wing or socialist perspective.  Occasionally podcasts will be hosted by myself and my lovely co-host (AKA girlfriend) Kimberlee.  At other times, the podcasts will feature academic or activist speeches or talks on a variety of subjects ranging from resisting the U.S. Empire to capitalism to media propaganda to philosophy to socialism and to many, many, other topics.  Notable featured figures that I’ve already lined up include Noam Chomsky, Alex Callinicos, Tariq Ali, Naomi Klein and Cornel West.

Episode #1 featuring Noam Chomsky is already uploaded and ready to go for your listening pleasure.  I did have one minor glitch with the podcasting host’s promotional material — the 10 second spot didn’t go where I wanted it to go, so it interrupts Chomsky for about 10 seconds before coming back to him (you don’t miss anything, though).  I’ll definitely iron out this glitch for Episode #2 which will feature a talk on empire and Imperialism by Alex Callinicos. 

You can subscribe to the Paulitics podcast in any of the following ways:

(chose your platform)

 ← (the generic podcast RSS feed URL)

For more information (such as subscribing to the podcast even if you don’t have an iPod) go to the podcasting FAQ at the bottom of the page here.

Kettle calls the teapot black: Bush calls Cuba “criminal”

Yesterday, U.S. President George W. Bush took Orwellian audacity to a new level by calling the Cuban government “criminal.”

In a speech, Bush stated that “America will have no part in giving oxygen to a criminal regime victimizing its own people…. The operative word in our future dealings with Cuba is not ‘stability’. The operative word is ‘freedom’.” (source)

To the surprise of no one, the fact that this statement was akin to the kettle calling the teapot black was lost on the members of both the United States and the Canadian press.

So, just to re-cap:

U.S.: One of the few countries left in the world which still executes children. Moreover, “The country which has carried out more documented executions of child offenders than any other since 1990 is the USA.” (source)
Cuba: Has executed zero children. Official government policy believes executing children to be not only illegal but also offensive. (ibid)

U.S.: Engaged in two wars of aggression in the past 6 years (Afghanistan offered to give up Osama bin Laden, but the U.S. refused, saying that war was preferable – source). Moreover, the U.S. has historically either directly or indirectly overthrown democratically-elected governments or given material support to brutal dictators in: Guatemala, Cuba, Chile, Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, Indonesia, Pakistan, Columbia, Panama, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Morocco, Libya, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, The Philippines, South Africa and Democratic Republic of Congo just to name a few.
Cuba: Engaged in zero wars of aggression. Ever. (But did try unsuccessfully to overthrow the U.S.-backed Congolese dictatorship over 40 years ago).

U.S.: Has imposed crushing economic sanctions on the people of Cuba since the 1960s which Amnesty international notes has greatly contributed to the suffering of the Cuban people and economy (source).
Cuba: Was the first country to offer medical aid to the United States following the Katrina disaster in New Orleans. Cuba offered more than 1000 doctors and over 26 tons of medical supplies (source). Incidentally, the U.S. government refused the assistance because FEMA was doing a “heck of a job”.

U.S.: Prison system widely considered to be in violation of singed international treaties on basic human rights of dignity. Also imprisons prisoners of conscience. (source)
Cuba: No “supermax” facilities. Extremely ill and infirm criminals permitted to leave prison for house arrest on humanitarian grounds. Cuba also imprisons prisoners of conscience similar to the United States’s practice. (source)

Just about the only thing Cuba can be accused of is overthrowing the U.S.-backed dictator Batista in 1959.

But then again, if violent revolution is grounds for being labelled a “criminal” then the British would have a fair case for imposing a “freedom fund” on the United States until it overthrows the “criminal” U.S. government which, after all, arose out of the “criminal” government set up by the 13 Colonies.

Now THAT I’d pay to see (that is, of course, assuming U.K. Prime Minister Brown could first extricate himself from his predecessor’s position firmly inside George W. Bush’s colon. A big assumption, I know).

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12 reasons same-sex marriage will ruin society [funny]

Hat tip to the brilliant writers at the Gator Gay-Straight Alliance based out of the University of Florida for this fantastic work!

12 reasons same-sex marriage will ruin society

1. Homosexuality is not natural, much like eyeglasses, polyester, and birth control are not natural.

2. Heterosexual marriages are valid because they produce children. Infertile couples and old people cannot get legally married because the world needs more children.

3. Obviously gay parents will raise gay children because straight parents only raise straight children.

4. Straight marriage will be less meaningful, since Britney Spears’s 55-hour just-for-fun marriage was meaningful.

5. Heterosexual marriage has been around for a long time, and it hasn’t changed at all: women are property, Blacks can’t marry Whites, and divorce is illegal.

6. Gay marriage should be decided by the people, not the courts, because the majority-elected legislatures, not courts, have historically protected the rights of minorities.

7. Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are always imposed on the entire country. That’s why we only have one religion in America.

8. Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people makes you tall.

9. Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage license.

10. Children can never succeed without both male and female role models at home. That’s why single parents are forbidden to raise children.

11. Gay marriage will change the foundation of society. Heterosexual marriage has been around for a long time, and we could never adapt to new social norms because we haven’t adapted to cars or longer lifespans.

12. Civil unions, providing most of the same benefits as marriage with a different name are better, because a “separate but equal” institution is always constitutional. Separate schools for African-Americans worked just as well as separate marriages will for gays & lesbians.

Propaganda in Action: Government-Fed News in the Turkey/Iraq Crisis

Is it state-sponsored propaganda yet?

I was reading up on the recent offensive Turkish incursion into Iraq in the New York Times (here) and at first I didn’t notice too much out of the ordinary (other than, of course, that the Turkish government is portrayed as angels having done nothing themselves). But, as an interesting exercise, then I decided to look at the sourcing that the putatively ‘liberal’ New York Time newspaper — the publication ‘of record’ — used to file this story. Needless to say, if you are interested in looking, you’ll find that, if this is the situation in the supposedly ‘best’ publication in the U.S., the situation is much the same, if not worse, in most other ‘lesser’ publications.

What’s the difference between this and the darkest days of the state-sponsored propaganda in Germany or the USSR? The difference is that in Germany and the USSR they actually knew they were being fed a purely government-endorsed viewpoint.

Here is a copy of the article as it appears today with the sources highlighted. Notice that the only time the socialist PKK party is supposedly cited is when the Times emphasizes that there is no proof of the “rebel’s” claim to have captured Turkish soldiers.

12 Turkish Soldiers Killed in Rebel Attack

By SABRINA TAVERNISE
Published: October 21, 2007

ISTANBUL, Oct. 21 — At least 12 Turkish soldiers were killed in an ambush by Kurdish militants shortly after midnight on Sunday, in an audacious attack that sharply increased the pressure on Turkey’s government to send troops into northern Iraq.

A group of Kurdish fighters moved into Turkey from northern Iraq, the Turkish military said, and attacked Turkish soldiers based near the town of Hakkari, about 25 miles from the border, in three different locations, killing 12 and injuring another 16. Turkish soldiers then struck back, firing from helicopters and from the ground, killing at least 23 militants, according to the military, which provided its account in a statement.

In a statement on a Kurdish website, the militants said they captured eight Turkish soldiers, but the claim could not be substantiated.

The attack came just four days after Turkey’s parliament voted to give the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan full authority to send troops into northern Iraq to strike at Kurdish militants who hide there.

At the time, Turkish officials emphasized that they would not immediately apply the authority, and security experts said the resolution would be used mainly as political leverage to press the United States and its Iraqi Kurdish allies to act against the Kurdish militants, the Kurdistan Workers Party, known by its initials, the P.K.K.

But Sunday’s attack was one of the worst in recent memory, and the government, which has been skeptical of an offensive in the past, will be under intense pressure to act.

“With this incident, the arrow left the bow, and no room is left for the government to hesitate, postpone or fail to launch a cross border operation,” said Armagan Kuloglu, a retired Turkish major general, in a telephone interview. “If the government resists ordering a military operation, such a step would endanger its existence and credibility.”

In Ankara, Turkey’s capital, Mr. Erdogan called an emergency security meeting among Turkey’s top political and military officials for 8 p.m.

“Our anger is great,” Mr. Erdogan [the Pro-U.S. Turkish Prime Minister] said on national television in Istanbul, where he was casting his vote in a national referendum.

In a veiled reference to the United States, he [the Pro-U.S. Turkish Prime Minister] said: “I especially want you to know that we do not have any thoughts as to what one side or another would have to say about this.”

President Jalal Talabani of Iraq, speaking at a news conference on Sunday with another of Iraq’s senior Kurdish leaders, Massoud Barzani, urged the militants to end their attacks on Turkey, The Associated Press reported.

“But if they insist on the continuation of fighting, they should leave Kurdistan, Iraq, and not create problems here,” Mr. Talabani [U.S.-supported President of Iraq] said, according to the A.P.

“We are not going to be caught up in the P.K.K. and Turkish war,” said Mr. Barzani, the president of the Kurdish regional government in Iraq, Reuters reported, “but if the Kurdistan region is targeted, then we are going to defend our citizens.”

Interestingly, the L.A. Times has a completely different tactic than the N.Y. Times in sourcing this story. Namely, the L.A. Times decides that it’s just easier if they don’t cite anybody as a source for anything they are writing about until over halfway through the article. (Although, in the second half of their article, the L.A. Times does follow the N.Y. Times lead of citing only pro-U.S. Iraqi sources such as Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari and Iraqi MP and government ally Abdul Kareem Enizi. Although they do give a one-sentence line to Suleiman Barwari, a 51-year-old civilian resident of Zakho who’s quotation merely says “The regional government should not let the two sides finish their internal fights on our lands”). [source]

See also:

Propaganda in Action: Ontario’s election “priorities”?

Propaganda in Action: Canada as a force for peace in the world

Propaganda in Action: The release of the British sailors

Propaganda in Action: The Iranian Hostage Crisis

Propaganda in Action: The closure of the Hershey plant

Propaganda in Action: The Death of Pinochet

Crazy, stupid and just plain weird things people google search for

Regular readers of Paulitics may remember that a while back I held the first annual ‘Paulies” awards for outstanding humorousness, weirdness or stupidty in a blog comment.

Well, I’ve collected all of the outrageous google search terms that people have used to find my blog and all I can say is that there are some weird people out there.

So, another round of Paulies are in order, this time, for the categories of overwhelming weirdness and outstanding stupidity in a google search term.

Just as before, it should be noted that much like the Oscars, yes, the Paulies are also political (and rigged). And, also like he Oscars, the Academy for the Paulies (i.e., me) considers it an honour just to be nominated.

For the first category: overwhelming weirdness in a google search term, the nominees are:

Paul’s thoughts on religion

For a while, I was actually the #1 search result when people searched for this. Seriously. Me. Not St. Paul. Not Pope John Paul II. Paul from Paulitics. Just more proof blogs are fantastic institutions.

list of top canadian people

Sorry to disappoint, but if you searched for “top canadian people” and google brought you to me, then google really has to work on their algorithm.

what can paul do me us

I don’t know whether this person was searching for me or Ron Paul, but either way, I highly doubt that either of us will be “doing” either “you” or “us”

famously undesirable quality

Ouch. Google this and and you get me?

commie

Okay, now this one I’m kinda proud of.

paulitics.wordpress.com

Somebody not understand how search engines on the internets work?

something to do for Paul

I don’t know, I could use a chauffeur to drive me places.

asian reporter

Seriously, I get at least 3 people finding my blog by searching for this every freakin’ day.

asian reporter trisha Takanawa

…Or this.

paul’s empire

DANCE minions, DANCE!

great Atheists

Again, I’m terribly sorry, you’ve searched for great atheists and found me.

what does communism say about children

It says we like children… FRIED!

What does astroglide smell like?

WTF?

funny jesus one lines

Umm…. no!

reality sucks

Why would somebody google search this??

testicular

I’m certain that this person didn’t find what they’re looking for. Please, please, please oh god let this person not have found what they were looking for!

all about hitler

That sounds like a variety show.

Ron Paul or Death!

Death!

And the winner of the Paulie is…

BEST JESUS QUOTES

“For my next miracle, I’m going to turn water into… FUNK!”

[cue music]

Now for the category you’ve all been waiting for…

In the second category: outstanding stupidity in a google search term, the nominees are:

how many legs do monkey have?

Are you kidding me?

ron paul personality

Sorry, he doesn’t have a personality to speak of.

When does sex start?

It starts shortly after you stop googling “when does sex start?”, and start meeting people!

is canada a capitalist or socialist country?

And they say the U.S. education system is deteriorating?

ron paul seems like a socialist

Well then.

But the hands down, uncontested winner of the Paulie is…

Why God doesn’t agree with socialism?

I’m truly speechless with this one. This person has clearly been told that “socialism makes baby Jesus cry” and so they decided that the place to go for the AUTHORITATIVE WORD OF GOD was a google search!

[cue music]

~~~

My girlfriend wants me to dedicate this post to her since she’s been telling me to do this for some time now.  So, I hope this was everything you had hoped it to be sweetie, happy anniversary!

Poll: Do you support the conservatives or oppose helping children? WTF!

In their latest poll released yesterday, the Angus Reid polling firm published samples of some of the questions they asked respondents about the Harper Conservative government.

Here’s a sample of some of the “questions” they asked.

Anything seem, how shall I say, ‘not right’ about these questions to anyone else?  This is borderline push polling.

Script: “How satisfied or dissatisfied are you with the way the government has dealt with the following issues?” […]

“Cleaning up government by passing the Federal Accountability Act?

“Helping parents with the cost of raising their children?”

“Making our streets and communities safe by cracking down on crime?”

“Working with the provinces to establish a Patient Wait Times Guarantee?”

(source)

In a related matter, Stephen Harper has recently come out in opposition to urinating on the elderly, do you support him in this matter?

~ ~ ~ 

This poll reminded me of one of my favourite thinkers in the field of opinion manipulation and the mass media.  If anybody gets the chance, or is interested, there is a fantastic academic writer named Benjamin Ginsberg (he unfortunately shares the same name with George W. Bush’s lawyer in the 2000 Presidential race) who writes on matters of polling and opinion manipulation in democratic societies.  One of his  famous works is The Captive Public: How Mass Opinion Promotes State Power.  In this work Ginsberg holds that the problem with polling and polls is that it domesticates and placates opinions whereas prior to polling, the realm of politics was animated by political action and behaviour which tended to me more dangerous to élites and the state.

Here is a brief selection from Ginsberg’s The Captive Public:

“Prior to the advent of polling, public opinion could often only be inferred from political behavior… The advent of polling transformed public opinion from a behavioral to an attitudinal phenomenon.  Polls elicit, organize, and publicize opinion without requiring any action on the part of the opinion holder…. From the perspective of political elite, the obvious virtue of polls is that they make it possible to recognize and deal with popular attitudes… before they materialize in some unpleasant, disruptive, or threatening form of political action…. By converting opinion from a behavioral to an attitudinal phenomenon, polling is, in effect, also transforming public opinion into a less immediately threatening and dangerous phenomenon.”

A progressive counter-ribbon to “support our troops” [pics]

We’ve all seen the annoying “support our troops” ribbons like these ones below. Usually they can be found on the backs of cars of people who supposedly “support out troops” while the rest of us leftist heathens presumably have to be physically restrained from spitting and throwing stones at passing soldiers.

Or, conversely, there are also variants of these ribbons taken to their tacky and exploitative natural conclusion such as this wonderfully cheesy ribbon which, I kid you not, is actually a real product that some capitalist somewhere came up with:

Seriously, how many clichés can you fit into one image?

Scott Neigh had some interesting points talking about how we on the left can fight back against the right’s jingoistic, vacuous phrase “support our troops”.

While Scott Neigh’s points are definitely worth reading (as are all of his writings, for that matter), he concludes that there aren’t really any good, coherent counter-attacks against the “support our troops” trope. Specifically, Scott points out the problems with the current counter-attack “Support our troops: Bring them home”.

So, with that in mind, I took it upon myself to come up with a unique, concise and coherent counter-attack to the “support our troops” ribbon.

At first, I thought about simply translating the French anti-war ribbons like this one:

(translation: “No to war”)

But then I came up with this idea which is even simpler and hits even closer to the heart of what we on the left, I think, are actually wanting to say.

Most importantly, there’s no way that this ribbon could be more clear. It is, quite simply:

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If you’re interested in posting the “stop killing people” ribbon on your blog or website, just copy the following html code and paste it wherever you’d like the image to appear (it won’t link back to this blog or this post).

<img src=”https://paulitics.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/stop-killing-people-black-ribbon.PNG” alt=”stop-killing-people-black-ribbon.PNG” />

War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength

My god, Orwell was prophetic.

Here’s the latest capitalist Orwellian doublethink, this time via Saskboy.

“Get your vote out Ontario. Mixed Member Proportional is on the ballot today, so even if you don’t like any of the parties (which would bewilder me, since Green is an option ;-) you can still vote in the referendum for MMP. Who doesn’t want a more representative democracy? (Amusing answer: Fascists, Authoritarians, Dictators, Communists, Jason Cherniak, James WDIKGrit, Saskatchewan NDP, most Americans, and political hacks.) “

I understand that not everybody is going to be a communist or a Marxist.  Heck, I even appreciate that probably a significant portion of this blog’s readership don’t actively identify as either communist or Marxist.  But c’mon, let’s at least have an ounce of honesty here!

This is my response to Saskboy via his blog.

“Communists don’t want more democracy? Wow, that’s news to me! I was under the impression that we advocated radically expanding democracy both within the current spheres of politics, but also into economic spheres (i.e. to ensure democratic control of the economy as opposed to elite control).

Silly me, all this time I’ve actually been opposing democracy when I’ve been meaning to expand it.

I also thought that I voted FOR MMP less than 1 hour ago in the Ontario election, but I guess since you say that we’re opposed to it, then I must be wrong.

Oops, wrong again. The Communist Party’s candidates say they support MMP and encouraged others to vote for it.  see here“

Also, if you’re interested, you can also see here, here and here (votecommunist.ca) for more proof that the Communist Party not only supports MMP, but actually supports a MORE vigorously proportional version of proportional representation.

But kudos to Saskboy for not letting those pesky and inconvenient “facts” get in the way of his red-baiting.

I guess that supporting MMP actually means opposing MMP.

I guess that supporting a radical expansion of democratic rights means opposing democracy.

And, I guess that War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength.

The difference between the NDP and the Communist Party…

This is a great interview with Stuart Ryan, a candidate for the Ontario Provincial election in Ottawa-Centre.

To me, this interview just drives home the point that Ryan and his comrades can truly inspire with bold policies (ex. 50% reduction in tuition immediately, $20 billion for public secular schools and giving municipalities the power to tax corporations) whereas the NDP has lost its ability to dream, let alone inspire.

If you haven’t voted yet today, read this interview before you vote. It may not necessarily change your vote, but it will at the very least inspire you — and that’s not nothing.

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Why have you chosen to involve yourself in the political process? Why did you choose to run in this constituency?

I have been involved in the political process for over 40 years, in terms of organizing over political issues such as opposing the Wars in Vietnam and now the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I see the elections, if that is what you mean as the political process, as a way to express our political views to the electorate so that they can pass judgement and see that the various issues we raise are related in that the capitalist system and the neo-liberal agenda take away the rights of workers, woman, aboriginals and people in general.

I run in Ottawa Centre because I have lived in the riding since 1979 and I know the issues that concern the people who live in the riding. It has a progressive history and is open to socialist ideas.

What prior political experience do you have? What skills and insight can you bring to office, from other non-political positions you may have held?

I have run for office in my Steelworker union in Windsor in the 1970s and in my Autoworker union now. I work for a CUPE union at Carleton University in Ottawa. I think I can bring my organizing skills in the labour movement, the anti-war movement and in the Central American solidarity movement to Queen’s Park and in building a base within Ottawa Centre to fight for a people’s agenda.

Which of your competitors do you expect to pose the biggest challenge to your candidacy? Why? What makes you the most desirable of all candidates running in the riding?

I think the biggest challenge to my candidacy is the feeling that people feel they have to vote NDP in order to win the riding, or to prevent a victory by the Liberal or Conservative party. This is a product of the first-past-the-post-voting system. I have had many people say that our ideas are good, and that I have been a good campaigner, but because they feel voting for the Communist Party might jeopardise the NDP. I think I would be the most desirable candidate because we have the best policies and that I would work very hard to make sure they are pushed for in the legislature.

What do you feel are the three most important issues to voters in your riding? Are these the same top three issues that are most important to you? What would you do to address these issues?

The three biggest issues in this riding are the crisis in public education; the increasing debtload of students because of tuition hikes; and the inability of municipal government to fund the social services downloaded by the Harris government form the province to the cities in 1997. They are my most important issues.

Re public education: Our Party will commit to spending $20 billion for a quality public secular school system in French and English for primary and secondary education.

We would commit to a comparable investment in public post-secondary education while reducing tuition by 50% now, and then eliminate it when the funding is adequate to provide the education for all who qualify for post-secondary education.

We would give municipalities secure funding through provincial grants and the ability to tax corporations. This would wean them off the property tax, which we would reduce by 75%, along with the scrapping of the market value assessment taxation scheme. We would give 50% of the gas tax for mass transit such as the O-train in Ottawa that would travel both east and west and north and south. We would upload to the province the funding of health, education, transit and welfare.

What should be the first order of business in the 39th Legislative Assembly?

The first order of business schould be the drafting of the legislation to implement Mixed Member Proportional Representation, following its victory in the October 10 referendum.

Are the property taxes in your riding at a fair level for the amount of services received in the municipality?

The property tax situation in the province is in chaos. Home owners are seeing property taxes increase as the value in their neighbourhoods go up while the property tax of businesses are diminished by a comparable amount. The net increase in revenue to the municipality coming from the residential tax increases is zero. Outraged taxpayers are blaming the municipal officials and are taking it out by voting for right-wing candidates who promise not to raise taxes (In Ottawa the slogan was “zero means zero”. The same candidate is now the mayor, and is backing a two per cent increase and campaigning to have the municipal financing system revamped.

The property tax system discriminates against tenants as they pay for the extra taxes landlords pay through higher rents.

How can the province lead the way in stimulating job creation?

The province should take action to save the manufacturing jobs leaving the province by insisting that raw materials be processed in Ontario rather being shipped raw out of the country. It should pass legislation to establish public tribunals so that corporations who are closing profitable factories, such as Hershey’s in Smith Falls and GM in Oshawa would have to justify their closing. Failure to do so would lead to the province taking over the closed business. Our Party would invest in mass transit and produce 100,000 units of social housing.

What are your views on the mixed member proportional representation (MMP) referendum?

I support MMP and will be voting for it. No longer will we have to choose between the lesser of two evils, and end up with the same mess. The last two governments in Ontario are proof positive of the problem. You will be able to vote for what you believe in and see it relected in the legislature.

Of the decisions made by Ontario’s 38th Legislative Assembly, which was the most beneficial to your this electoral district? To the province as a whole? Which was least beneficial, or even harmful, to your this riding? To the province as a whole?

The only thing that was good for Ottawa Centre was the tuition freeze for two years. That was negated by the new tuition scheme that will raise tuition 25-35% over four years.

You are running as a candidate for the Communist Party. A lot of people say that Communism is a dead idea or fear that a Communist government would implement some sort of repressive dictatorship. What do you say to this?

Communism is not a dead idea; we see revolutionary parties win in Venezuela and trying to bring socialism in by democratic means. This was tried in Chile in the 1970s but was overthrown by the CIA and the Chilean military. What will succeed is that the working class and its allies will demand socialism; it was the insistence of the Venezuelan people that stopped the coup against Hugo Chavez in 2002. The system that they will bring will be democratic, as it will be the will of the people that it be so.

The Communist Party is unlikely to win any seats in the election. Why did you decide to run for a small party rather than be involved with one of the major parties?

This is a good question, but if you want to bring about real change, you must be part of a party that calls for it. Our Party calls for socialism, public ownership of the means of production under democratic control. Working for a party like the NDP and the Greens would make you feel that you might get things done, but those parties will disappoint you – look at the record of the Bob Rae NDP government in Ontario that opened public sector collective agreements to attack benefits in order to save $2 billion from its deficit.

(original text from wikinews. Available here.)

~~~

If there’s a Communist Party of Canada (Ontario) in your riding, consider voting for a party that actually stands for substantive changes the capitalist system rather than merely slightly tinkering with it. Consider voting Communist!

Fight Exploitation.
Fight Inequality.
Fight Capitalism.