Beyond calling out the bad, like the Amazon firings featured earlier in our blog, it is TorontotheBetter's mission to promote the goods in enterprises, if/where they exist. Unfortunately, "profit at all costs" motivation means we have more of the former than the latter. It's beyond time for an economic environment where core values like worker participation, environmental protection and societal benefit are part of standard business operating principles. It can happen; and it should. There was a time not so long ago when there were no workplace health and safety standards but through union activism they became required for all businesses, though, to quote Shakespeare, often honoured more in the breach than the observation.
Now is the time to move business standards from do less harm to do good. If health and safety are now required in return for society's opportunity to do business then so too should be societal benefit. Join TorontotheBetter in our quest for mandatory societal benefit standards for all enterprise. Environmental preservation and worker health are not discretionary values to be left to the profit constrained will and whims of individual enterprises and businesses. Support TorontotheBetter's promotion of enterprise societal benefits. Contact postmaster@torontothebetter.net with socialbenefitsnow in the subject line.
On COVID-19 and inequalityIt's been 2 years since the COVID19 pandemic started and resistance
is growing. The well-off, and some governments have the financial resources in
reserve to survive the crisis while their media focus on occasional “hard luck”
stories. But for the poor, especially those in poor countries without economic
shelter room the reality is much grimmer. Social unrest and resistance are the
necessary results. Over the last two years strikes, demos and protests have
doubled, with 5000+ turning violent as pre-existing inequalities are
intensified in the eye of the pandemic’s economic storm. Citizens are taking in
countries large, like Portugal and France and small, like the Solomon Islands.
Activists and civil organizations such as farm based Agrounia, are
stepping up their actions in response and their resistance is being penalized.
A Polish Amazon worker who postered her workplace about working conditions was recently
fired. Pandemics are bad for the majority but they are worst for the worst off.
The story must be retold loudly as
mainstream media skim surfaces and ignore the deep story. Pandemics only intensify pre-existing conditions of inequality. Thanks to TorontotheBetter's European correspondent for news about developments in Poland and beyond. For news about more Amazon firings see:Amazon workers stage 'sick out' rally to push for warehouse changes (nbcnews.com)
Been looking for a progressive alternative to the short term accommodation options offered by Airbnb and other commercial operations? Fairbnb (fairbnb.coop) home sharing coop, originally founded in Europe some years ago, has chosen Toronto as its first location in North America. Alongside our established cooperative and non-profit housing sectors Fairbnb promises to fill an important gap in Toronto’s long ignored stock of affordable shelter.
A visit to a local eyewear store on Toronto’s popular Queen Street West turned out disappointing today when their website claims about in-house COVID precautions turned out to be false. For a local store such lack of attention to basic preventive measures in a pandemic call into question their several claims to social and environmental responsibility. TorontotheBetter supports efforts to improve better vision for all through the donation of glasses and the recycling of plastics into frames, as the enterprise reports, but finds it hard to fully endorse enterprises that, in the interest of financial gain, clearly disregard the health of the community in which they operate.
TorontotheBetter, www.torontothebetter.net, the non-profit programme
of libra Knowledge and Information Services Co-operative, was created to enable
progressive change in Toronto and beyond, through commercial transformation, promoting social goals among
Toronto-based enterprises. And given the number of enterprises now espousing
such enterprise values, our initiative, with those of similarly focused organizations and
individuals has been successful. See our website for partners who have contributed to TorontotheBetter's better world actions.
But – and two
“buts” are necessary here, unavoidable opportunities were thus created for values
appropriation. With major corporations, like McDonalds and A&W publicly declaring
themselves to be in the ranks of the “ethical” a sizeable chunk of cynicism is
natural and necessary when our growing climate of social unrest and strike
activity by the many ignored workers and communities is acknowledged. But
corporate me-too-ism opens up an opportunity for vigilance and critique that
must not be ignored. TorontotheBetter has always combined its promotion of good
local actors with a calling out of the bad. Further, and here is our second “but”,
our activity to socialize enterprise was never conceived or intended as a rejection
of political routes to change. A political strategy for socio-economic transformation
is a must have for socially and economically targeted change agents like TorontotheBetter.
As we head into an end-of-year period of
reflection required by ongoing pandemic disruptions all must remind ourselves
that economic and political, state and non-state, initiatives must support each
other. Progressive movements in history have often foundered because they excluded key agents and factors. Some political movements have ignored the basic
needs of the people in whose name their movements were launched, while economic
change agents have found their actions ignored and marginalized by the engineers
of political power. At another moment of
massive change like the present TorontotheBetter reminds all, including ourselves,
that our work must be holistic and inclusive to achieve lasting change. A
movement is always a collaboration and the successful ones are those that
accommodate all brothers and sisters, indigenous and non-indigenous, genuinely committed to a common aspiration for a better
world. "Reconciliation" is not enough. In 2021 and beyond TorontotheBetter continues to seek transformation.
2 thousand deaths from COVID-19 were reported in Poland this week (22-Nov.2021) another example for any inattentive to date that, as TorontotheBetter has previously documented, pro-market ideologues, all male, like Jaroslaw Kaczynsky of Poland, Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, Narendra Modi of India Boris Johnson of England and other neo-liberal nationalists are bad for the health of the populations they claim to value. The politics of COVID, have been lamentably ignored in the emphasis of mainstream media on the medical technicalities and the sentimentality of the pandemic. COVID-19 kills, but mainly the excluded, aka the poor, and their deaths are most often attributable to leaders who value market wealth over social health. For a Better Toronto in a better world we need leaders genuinely committed to the public good. Politics matters always, but its life and death impacts are clearer than ever at times like the present.
On Friday and and Saturday, Nov.19-20, Torontonians disrupted downtown traffic to show their solidarity with Wet'suwet'en first nation protesting the Coastal GasLink pipeline project near Prince Ceorge BC. Not only is the project disrupting local first nation communities it will facilitate more fossil fuel energy use and make Canada's sustainability and net zero carbon goals even harder to achieve. A better Toronto and a better world means less fossil fuel dependency and less carbon. TorontotheBetter sends solidarity greetings to Wet'suwet'en and calls on all to support their struggle. However many miles distant our struggle for a better world is the same. We are all Wet'suwet'en.
Three trends that most profoundly determine our tomorrows are Inequality, as
fore-fronted by the Occupy movement, which, as Michael Levitin, in his book “Generation
Occupy”, has described, continues its societal impacts long after its emergence, Artificial Intelligence,
as described in Kai-Fu Lee and Chen Qiufan’s “AI 2041”, which is reaching into all human affairs, from
personal to occupational life, and Migration, particularly
for our TorontotheBetter focus here, human migrants. Together, however, these disturbing trends can and must, actually contribute to the possibility
of a better world.
The necessary counterpoint to inequality's social plagues is a renewed
determination to remove it, so generating informal "communism", particularly, as ever in modern history among the young, though it may be without a single political formation as its agency.
As for AI, its potential is for the removal of work as drudgery, so realizing the aspiration for free life that
has motivated utopian science fiction as long as humans have dreamed beyond
their historical boundaries.
Thirdly, the consequence of Migration, the negatives of
its involuntary version now horrifically before us once again, is to reveal, albeit often destructively, that we are together with others in this space we call
human society. Global warming and the environmental movement have made the cliche of "we're all in this together" an unavoidable reality.
To synopsize the three trends, our limitations and separateness
in community, must and can, be surpassed in a societal communism that frees us
all, the original ideal of communism.
Like its voracious
Internet twin, Amazon, the house of Facebook, recently renamed Meta by founder
Mark Zuckerberg, to the chagrin of Yanis Varoufakis of Greece, the home of meta
the word and Meta the Centre for Postcapitalist Civilization
Varoufakis
Claims Zuckerberg Stole "Meta" Name for Facebook (greekreporter.com)
has come to define an age of previously unimaginably reachable population scale.
If Facebook “friends” are not real friends and their likes as transient as a
screenshot these phenomena have come to define this cultural moment. There is
huge power here but, as recent revelations by Facebook insiders have shown
about the predatory, unaccountable and hitherto largely untaxed corporate wealth
has highlighted little or no public accountability is taken for the
manipulation of cyber bullies and others that the metaverse enables, its
victims often the most isolated and weak. More than one young person teenager
has been driven to near, and actual, suicide, automated trollers are
infiltrating democratic processes as high profile as U.S. elections and the
publication of false news is available to anyone with an Internet connection
and a keyboard. What to do about the
adolescent dorm room fancy that became a monster fueled, it seems by a passion
for nothing more than growth?
Splitting a corporate beast like Facebook, aka Meta, into
separate entities like news and networking technology might reduce the threat
of collusion but ultimately such powers will integrate. Regulation, like that of alcohol or gambling,
is possible but who could or should do it is far from easy to determine. Self-regulation
runs counter to the self-interest of the corporate interests that prosper from
its absence while external regulation by objective third parties is as yet wildly
unequal to scale of the virtual wild west it must confront globally. As for
public ownership of virtual media the culture of civil withdrawal created by
neoliberalism, added to the sheer scale of the target phenomena, has made this
option unrealistic.
If then, private or public
regulation are unlikely to rein in the beast – the ills of alcohol still occur
after its regulation, and public ownership is not going to happen, we are left
with a third alterative, a non-profit metaverse which operates according to
principles of public responsibility, its practical role to shame and blame
rather than to outmuscle. But the power of ideas and ideals can never be
discounted. Hands off our “meta” says Yanis … of Greece, to which we must add a
meta of our own dedicated to more than power for power’s sake. Facebook is just
here to bring people together, Mark Zuckerberg is reported to have believed
about the adolescent impulse that inspired the application, but few of us would
be content to ignore what people do together once met. For TorontotheBetter a
truly social benefit motivated platform will produce better outcomes than
accidental/incidental human collision. It must be as open and inclusive as
possible if a genuine “meta” is to have an impact of the netherworld meta-verse
with which it shares a name rather than a nature. The TorontotheBetter
directory is a diverse, inclusive model for the wider/better meta-world we
envision as possible, a non-profit, multi-sector, and inclusive universe. Such a
sphere has been modelled by Trebor Scholtz of New York University in the form
of “platform co-operatives” but as TorontotheBetter, itself a co-op based
initiative, realized from its inception even eco-ops are, to some extent
exclusive. Consequently, the alternative meta-verse we envision here must be broad and inclusive of various operational
forms. The tool we propose for achieving this is a charter, from which more
robust instruments can emerge with social media themselves occupying a key
enabling role. That social media has become virtually synonymous with the
for-profit Facebook need not be the endpoint of the journey that began with
Web2.0. A movement begins with an idea and the time for a better metaverse
movement is now.
As a worker co-op with unionized workers, Libra, the parent of non-profit TorontotheBetter welcomes recent news of unionization by workers at Yorkdale and Scarborough based branches of the Indigo bookstore chain. As always unionization occurs when workers are dissatisfied with the treatment they receive from the firms that effectively own their labour power. And the question arises again for us whether it is better for workers to bargain for dignity with an owning entity, the union route or to take control of the whole enterprise and run it themselves. In most cases for most workers these are not practicale alternatives but as supporters of workers everywhere Libra, a worker co-op with unionized workers, is on record in words and actions to the efect that more power for workers is good for them, whether they take on responsibility for a whole company, as in a coop, or use their bargaining power as a union to influence mangement. Depending on their specific circumstances one or the other, or both, may be optimal for the workers in question. Either way, or both, more worker power means more dignity and value for workers and we send solidarity greetings to the Indigo workers in Toronto who recently voted to join the united Food and Commercial Workers Union.
https://www.thestar.com/business/2021/08/26/workers-at-two-more-indigo-stores-vote-to-unionize-is-a-wave-of-unionization-in-retail-upon-us.html?rf&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=SocialMedia&utm_campaign=&utm_content=&source=the%20toronto%20star&utm_campaign_id=&fbclid=IwAR33CrW-W9WoThkINw5LP8K4It-M1sRuPDfKOvtW94ldQnnZjb2tuucffq0&__s=e4uqam5gbh4omyzm0hyi&utm_source=drip&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Class+Struggle+-+Sep+3%2C+2021&utm_content=Class+Struggle%3A+Unions+are+scoring+wins+at+Indigo
The kid gets it and the sign says it all: homes for people not profit. A 20th century housing programme built most of what remains in Toronto and elsewhere in Canada. As thousands frustrate and suffer in 2021 it is beyond time for action. For a better Toronto let's do housing. Waiting lists grow while, shamefully, Toronto's affordable housing stock like the co-op pictured below, doesn't. This election TorontotheBetter asks all to think who is most likely to build the decent affordable housing we all need to live a decent life.
Join ACORN Canada at Weston Rd. and Lawrence Ave. West to demand
action now: https://acorncanada.org/civicrm/event/info%3Fid%3D3039%26reset%3D1
A better Toronto means quality housing for all.
Those of us who have been using the little bit of plastic the brand name VISA is written on it have
been underestimating the workaholic VISA. According to the card's latest advertising campaign nothing
as crude as a tool to exploit the barely solvent crosses its plastic nind. No, in case you haven't
realized it yet VISA is a "network." If blog are at this point getting a whiff of Mark Zuckerberg's
understanding of Facebook as an altruistic friend enabler they may in fact be on the track of the
real VISA: usury. It is no worse than other credit cards, which all explot the indebted with their
unconscionable interest rates but for all the antisepsis of the network word, as a punitive credit
tool VISA thrives on facilitating consumption and unless you are missing in cognitive action conumerism,
is the fuel that keeps populations speeding towards environmenmtal catastrophe. If recognition and
acceptance of reality is a necessary precondition for financial prudence then the wise should put their
hands to their ears when VISA's siren network comes serenading. Just as "friends" by other names, such
like escorts do not smell as sweet VISA'S network will be less beguiling if replaced by a less sugar
coated variant.
On July 27th at Main and Danforth intersection TorontotheBetter was pleased to meet and support Acorn Canada volunteers Kelly, Ernie, and Beulah and Acorn organizer Shehrin. As husing costs continue to soar, made worse by the COVID pandemic, more Torontonians find it harder to meet their basic needs, shelter being the most basic of all. TorontotheBetter recognises the work of Acorn Canada and calls on all to join them in their campaign to ban evictions and construct long overdue affordable housing.
It's time to cancel Dundas from the multiple streets that bear the name of Scottish aristocrat Henry Dundas in several locations in Toronto and the GTA. His "contribution" to Canadian history was an attempt to delay legislative progress toward the end of slavery in the British parliament that governed Canada in the early 1800's and beyond. TorontotheBetter's suggestion for a replacement name: Meegwetch or Miigwetch (thankyou in the Algonquin language), that is a big thankyou for ridding us of the name of an opponent of human progress towards freedom from slavery. To learn more about the Algonquin language of the people whose land we stand on in Toronto see https://omniglot.com/writing/algonquin.htm
It’s a hard life, hyping and hustling , but especially hard when you’re charged for doing what hypers and hustlers like Allen Wesselberg and father of Donald, Fred Trump, have to do - https://www.politicalopinion.com/in-case-against-trumps-company-echoes-of-his-fathers-tactics-on-taxes/- it’s what makes them Great, and rich. It must feel like a bit of an "injustice" to such folk to be arraigned for what you’re hired and stroked for doing as a job. Of course it’s the details that get you into legal trouble, not the basic principle. Cheating and stealing are matters of degree for the law as it stands in countries where certain forms of cheating and stealing are ok. So, spare a thought for the pilloried Trump family and cronies... On the other hand, maybe not.
Hundreds in Toronto assembled at the Council Fire Centre at Parliament and Dundas St. East today to protest the killing of indigenous children in Canada.
A better Toronto is better for all.
Monday 28 June 2021
Green economics: solution or illusion?
Most of us want to get there, a future beyond fossil-fuel and a carbon intense atmosphere but new voices suggest that contrary to much simplistic messaging the journey will not be easy.
Ravaged natural environments are the, for most, invisible results of the energy sources the "developed" world now depends on for its digital devices. There ARE alternatives to our largely fossil-fuel/gasoline based economy including sun, wind, wave and “rare metal” based energy sources but in the last instance, they are, unfortunately, as pointed out by Guillaume Pitron in his 2020 book "The Rare Metals War", themselves often highly fossil-fuel based and damaging to the environment that "green" economics strives to save. Simply put, it takes lots of conventional energy to produce green energy. The only real solution, as stated by globally celebrated Canadian environmental economist Vaclav Smil, author of “Energy at the Crossroads” and other alarm sounding texts, is to reduce consumption and for the largely consumption-based economies of "developed" countries like Canada that challenge is huge. “Green” economics is convenient shorthand for a way out of our carbon drenched world but no one should be ignorant of the massive challenges to growth-based economies, from unemployment to education and culture. A major, ironic, not to say self-defeating, complication of the challenge is that the fossil fuel replacing and "rare metal" based digital devices and batteries by which “green energy” is to be enabled are themselves dependent on massive excavation and tailings residues. We must “question more” as one alternative media source has it, but more than that we must consume less if we are to survive. There is no alternative to that alternative.
Friday 25 June 2021
21st century Toronto - where no birds sing?
After a memorable tryst with the seductive belle dame sans merci (beautiful woman without mercy) in the poem named after her, Romantic poet John Keats’ abandoned lover hears a silence in which "no birds sing". In 21st century Toronto and other motor energized cities around the world of course the birds still sing, but we no longer hear them. For many perhaps it is no longer the absence of birdsong that is now most remarkable but the sudden jarring revving of automobile engines completely in excess of the needs of day to day downtown travel and speed limits. Gentlemen, and ladies, Torontothebetter says "Quieten your engines!". And to city officials, please enforce noise regulations that exist but seem rarely, if ever, to be enforced. A better Toronto requires a quieter Toronto. Battery engined automobiles may help but we must beware the dangers of the "rare metals" they and digital devices depend on. Stay tuned here for a TorontotheBetter post on the perils of the "green economy". There is no easy way out of our energy fix. In the meantime read "The Rare Metals War: the dark side of clean energy and digital technologies" by Guillaume Pitron. It is available for loan from the Toronto Public Library. Thanks to the TorontotheBetter supporter who supplied this reference but prefers to remain anonymous.
Wednesday 2 June 2021
Greyhound Canada: disaster as opportunity
After more than two pre-COVID years of cutting services across the country, a subject consistently noted by TorontotheBetter Greyhound Canada finally called it quits in Toornto and southern Ontario on May 17, as reported here [https://www.driving.ca/car-culture/travel/the-end-of-the-road-for-greyhound-canada]. Greyhound's regrets for the workers and users left without jobs and service were duly recorded, along with a perfunctory note that customers were adjusting to the situation. Most important take-away from Greyhound's local collapse is the lesson for citizens and their governments: key social needs like local transportation must not be left to profit based decision-making. Greyhound Canada's disappearance from Toronto and beyond opens the door for accountable governments and social enterprise to fill the gap. TorontotheBetter invites them both to heed the call.
Canada as racist corporation - a history lesson from Jason Kenney, premier of Alberta
"If the new standard is to cancel any figure in our history associated with what we now rightly regard as historical injustices then essentially that is the vast majority of our history” -Jason Kenney, as quoted in the Toronto Star on 2nd of June,2021.
Got that right Kenney! And what are you doing about the historical injustices that so
clearly trouble you?
Saturday 29 May 2021
Reduce consumption to safeguard our energy future says Vaclav Smil, the most famous unknown Canadian
Who Is Vaclav Smil and why should Canadians know what much of the world, including Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, already knows of him?
Arguably, with 39 books to his credit , he is the most prominent “unknown” Canadian thinker. And in a period when the world hangs over a precipice of energy shortage, given his specialty in the linkage of energy, food and the environment Smil is a key voice for the future of the world. Simply put his proposal is to consume less and consume better. In "Numbers Don't Lie: 71 stories to help understand the modern world" The University of Manitoba's Smil offers unsentimental commentary on many green energy "solutions". You can purchase the book from Libra, our socially superior alternative to Amazon and TorontotheBetter's parent worker co-op (email libra@web.ca with Smil in the subject line) - or borrrow it from the Toronto Public Library at www.torontopubliclibrary.ca.
For more on Smil the person see: www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/03/meet-vaclav-smil-man-who-has-quietly-shaped-how-world-thinks-about-energy
Tuesday 25 May 2021
Sports and politics DO mix
In fact, they must if we are to overcome mountains of political inertia.
Millions worldwide follow professional #sports, a huge body of latent political
activism. So, TorontotheBetter offers congrats to the soccer supporters with #Glasgow Celtic and #Bayern Munich colours, as featured here mingling with those of Palestine, and hijabs, who together attended Toronto's recent free Palestine support rally. Just like the enterprises featured in the TorontotheBetter social economy directory, professional sports corporations are fundamentally political in the choices they make about what they do. This
is a time for all sectors to step up to their political responsibilities.
Saturday 22 May 2021
Congratulations to unionizing Westjet workers
Welcome recently organized Westjet workers to the union family, from TorontotheBetter IWW workers at Libra Knowledge and Information Co-op.
To learn about Westjet's Unifor local see: https://westjet.unifor.org
Friday 21 May 2021
On the legal limits ... of everything)
Though Charles Dickens' Mr. Bumble, the beadle, is a figure of fun and hardly a role model, as a legal functionary he knew whereof he spoke when he declared the law to be "a ass". And no, this post is not about driving while under the influence; it's about the intrinsic limits of legal mechanisms for achieving political ends. As Leon Trotsky put it, our opponents have their morals and we have ours. We do not inhabit a circumstance of legality on one side and its absence on the other. For a variety of reasons, not least the demographics of class-based societies, lawyers are commonly chosen as power technicians, most particularly, of course, in states constructed on a legal basis. Because of the "binarity" of law things are, or they are not, allowed. This, though "binality", with its echo of the single letter variant term "banality" might have been the verbal coining of choice for Mr. Bumble. The results of law, however precise, inevitably violate the continuously fine-grained texture of life as it is lived, even if specific legal agents may be sensitive to the limitations of their trade. You can't blame a carpenter for thinking in the language of wood, but of course to a hammer everything looks like a nail or, otherwise put, an opportunity for hammering. Better than law, we argue, is the more aspirational flexibility of a charter,a mechanism particularly resonant in a Canada bound (loosely of course, but bound nonetheless) by a charter of rights and freedoms. Stay tuned to this space for more detail on a social economy charter for enterprise and a recognition that beyond all cultural mechanisms the directness of action is ultimately prime. A random directory of items such as Torontothebetter has the advantage, TorontotheBetter believes, of flexibility but within clear bounds.
Monday 17 May 2021
All in this, but not together
Probably we hope most people have by now seen through the implied COVID-19 solidarity
of "We're all in this together" talk. As George Orwell famously wrote of equality
some are more all-in this COVID-19 equality than others. Added "immunity" to the virus comes from socio-economic status, that is primarily from higher incomes, and, in the particular circumstances of COVID-19, self-distancing capabilities, these effects heightened by the reckless policies of private sector favouring political leaders. Until health is understood as fundamentally socially determined and not a genetic lottery we will continue to see medical emergencies reinforce the inequalities endemic in class-based and -divided societies. Pandemics make the important point that we share some vulnerabilities. When will political wills echo our vulnerability with support for
the solidarity mechnism of basic equality? Until then the all in it together rhetoric
will resound as empty, if not cynical.In these times the social economy supported by
TorontotheBetter will continue to play its role as a support to basic rights and conditions, but requires the statutory embedding for which an enterprise social charter is needed if it is to be a reality for all, not just for the fortunate few. Stay tuned to this blog for more on social business chartering.
Saturday 15 May 2021
Lessons from Greyhound Canada's abandonment of Canada
This greyhound is moving in one direction: out of Canada.
Of course the news - https://news.greyhound.ca/ - of Greyhound Canada closing all its services in Toronto and elsewhere in Canada is bad for the many, often low-income bus travellers and the small Canadian communities for which Greyhound bus service had become a transportation lifeline over many
years. And it is not news for many communities previously divested, but as with many recent challenges like, of course, the COVID-19 pandemic, there is, and must, be a linked opportunity for radical transfomation if similar societal breakdowns are not to re-occur. Simply put, the public sector in Canada, particularly in recent years, under the control of neoliberal privatization and divestment policies has increasingly relied on porivate organizations to conduct public services for which they are unfitted. Simply to state the problem thus is to reveal the basic contradiction. The challenge is not Greyhound's to resolve; as forewarened by their previous desertion of communities in western Canada they have taken a simple profit-loss buiness position on their Canadian services and concluded Canada is not worth the cost of operating here.
TorontotheBetter calls on all in Canada concerned with maintaining basic public services to make their voices heard for re-investment in social transportation, either public or non-profit. We are in transformative times. We must take action now to avoid further shredding of our societal service fabric. For-profit market suppliers can never be reliable providers of public service, though the socially purposed rnterprise can make a valuable contrinution. This is a principle that is basic to TorontotheBetter. Stay tuned to this blog for more ideas and opportunities for progressive post-pandemic socio-economic change.
Monday 3 May 2021
Change copyright law to save COVID lives
Ideas don't belong to anyone. They exist in the commons of language that is
the heritage of all.In pandemics like COVID-19 intellectual property rights
mean corporations like Pfizer are profiting from the suffering caused by
knowledge exclusion. TorontotheBetter calls on all local enterprises to share
their urgent knowledge using licenses such as the Creative Commons and
on governments to break dowm the copyright barriers that restrict access.
In pandemic times death by intellectual property law is just as fatal as disease.
Time to prevent it in a social economy that values human life over profit
Monday 26 April 2021
The politics of COVID-19
What TorontotheBetter declared a month ago is becoming clearer and clearer. Though it
seems no-one is naturally immune to the COVID-19 virus the worst hit are the poor in
countries failing to invest sufficient money and resources in public health. The jurisdictions
suffering most, from #Modi's India to #Bolsosnaro's Brazil to #Ford's Ontario have one thing
in common:their reckless elvation of corporate business above the health of their publics.
It's time to throw them out. COVID-19 must be a wake-up call that "free" enterprise business
as usual politics is bad for our healths.
Friday 26 March 2021
Health versus Amazon-type profits: the choice is clear and the victims are in Brampton
As Amazon workers in Brampton Canada
and other cities worldwide stuggle to get breaks and appropriate social distance the COVID-19 pandemic rages with the poor and the racialized the most victimized of all. Greening the economy is a good thing but green consumption is still consumption and consumption depeletes nature. As animals that are part of the natural world we humans ultimately pay the price for this in waste and pandemics. Until the relentless drive for consumption based profit is abandoned in favour of a social economy the consequences in sickness and environmental degradation will continue. As more and more is bought and processed online buyers have less and less contact with, or even awareness of, those who work "facelessly" to send them the consumables they select, "green" or not. Green the economy yes, but for real change socialize it too. TorontotheBetter asks, "when will the government of Ontario get the message?" Our Toronto includes the GTA.
Wednesday 24 March 2021
Talk heats climate: Canadian bank among top 5 fossil fuel investors
For all the talk by Canada's leading political party about the absence of contradiction between the environment and the economy the facts show otherwise and Canada's leading bank RBC. aka the Royal Bank of Canada has recently been reported - https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/24/big-banks-trillion-dollar-finance-for-fossil-fuels-shocking-says-report - in the top 5 of banks globally for fossil fuel investment. It may also come as a surprise to many Canadians that Canada has the world's largest top mining industry. This will not change until canadian governments get serious about intervention in private sector environmental explotation.
Sunday 21 March 2021
Right-wingers still lead in failing their peoples: the politics of COVID stats
There can be no satisfaction in early spotting of the political implications of the world's
grisly COVID-19 pandemic.But the official facts reported by this Wikipedia post of March 21,2021 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID - do not lie. The three countries leading cumulative monthly
death tolls - the USA, Brazil and India - were all led by the neoliberal nationalist right wing governments of Donald #Trump, Narendra #Modi and Jair #Bolsonaro since the start
of the COVID-19 pandemic, a fact noted in TorontotheBetter's Aug.11,2020 blogpost reported the
same correlation and the same conclusion:Inequality Kills.
Friday 19 March 2021
The Enemy of My enemy is Sometimes MY Enemy Too
Thanks are due to to Ahamad Naeni for pointing out in his March 12 TorontotheBetter blog post that the rhetorical "anti-Imperialism" of some voices may actually undermine genuine anti-imperialist
movements. Though superficially appealing, supporting agents simply because of they share our own
enmities can land such a proponent in some very problematic ideological places. We should probably not invite any vegetarian to dinner just because they reject meat. There have been vegetarian fascists, including Adolf Hitler at the end of his life.
Saturday 13 March 2021
Science is plural , not singular
We invite you to check out Toronto hospital whistle-blower Nancy Olivieri's recent Twitter post on some sciences racist and misigynist histories.Nothing in public exists without built-in value assumptions, explicit or buried. We invite readers to suggest other examples and to sign-up to colleague Tirna Nog's "Social Media for Information Professionals" group on Facebook.There are multiple sciences within Science, some scientific but still reprehensible.
Friday 12 March 2021
There is nothing worse than an anti-communist, communist!
By Ahmad Naeni
March 12, 2021
We must not be deceived by US imperialism and the corrupt regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran's apparent and superficial differences and superficial contradictions.
The Iranian government is not anti-imperialist! They have diverted anti-imperialist struggles and they've soured public opinion towards anti-Imperialist movements in the world as well.
The brutal sanctions that kill the Iranian working class come not only from US imperialism but also from the corrupt regime of the Islamic Republic. Before the brutal sanctions of US imperialism, the Iranian working class was killed by the corrupt and tyrannical regime of the Islamic Republic. In the tens of thousands, socialists, communists, intellectuals, Freedom-loving people etc. have been executed by this fascist regime after they stole the revolution in 1979. Together with western countries they called their new regime the “Islamic Republic”.
What truly anti-imperialist countries can you find in the world where their union leaders, progressive workers, human rights activists, and women’s rights activist are in prison? Iran has one of the highest rates of corruption and money laundering in the world at the moment. Unfortunately, there are corrupt officials, politically connected businessmen, and human rights violators from Iran who are able to use Canada as a money-laundering base and safe haven. As soon as they arrive in Canada, they begin buying many properties. It's been a smorgasbord!
Furthermore, Iran’s reactionary Anti-Zionism has diverted attention from the struggles of Palestinians and has mostly benefitted the Zionist regime itself. The Zionists have been using the existence of the Islamic Republic in the region as an excuse to sell billions of dollars of weapons to nearby countries.
Unfortunately, some old fashion pro-Soviet parties worldwide strongly believe that the Iranian government is anti-imperialist. According to one theory of old antagonists to imperialism - the enemy of my enemy, is my friend - in fact the Islamic regime is populist and reactionary.
Old-fashioned pro-Soviet parties should not have cowardly illusions about the populist Islamic regime and its so-called anti-imperialism. Instead, they should support the struggle of the Iranian working class against the Islamic Republic’s fascist regime as a struggle against imperialist exploitation.
There are no contradictions or conflicts of interest between US imperialists and the authoritarian regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran; they are both negative forces that remind us of the need for a dialectical transformation of capitalist economies, whether they be owned privately or by the state.
While both have superficial and apparent contradictions with each other the best way we can describe them is as unified negative forces in advancing the goals of neoliberalism. This is a trigger reminder for us of the dialectic, “unity and difference".
TorontotheBetter solidarity greetings to campaign for first ever union in Amazon
For details see https://www.workers.org/2021/03/54895
Sunday 28 February 2021
Real estate: a cultural revolution?
From the Saint condos at Church and Lombard to the Social condos at Church and Dundas, the Fleur at Shuter and Dalhousie and the Portland Commons at Portland and Front a casual observer might think Toronto real estate developers have suddenly got religion. But no it’s the same industry with nothing affordable available for the rest of us and condos as the main game in town. The titles of these developments actually tell not a change of heart but a craving for new clothing for the old motivation: profit. Gone from the language is much of the competitive luxury loving individualism of past years as developers like Menkes, Pemberton and Wolfecorp seek a more folksy, or, as they would say “urban” feel for their projects. Urban in 2021Toronto means unaffordable for most and squeezing of the Toronto footprint for fewer and fewer of the local population. What is going on as the world passes on from the reality TV period of louder is better right-wing populism is credit appropriation. The change of language hints at a change of culture, yes, but revolutionary it aint. Time to build affordable housing for the people. Now there’s a cultural revolution we need.
Oh yes, one of these photos photo above is of Vancouver (no prize for guessing which) because the urban housing unaffordability disease resulting from neoliberalism extends from east to west and back across Canada. And beyond...
Wednesday 10 February 2021
TorontotheBetter welcomes Black Owned Toronto
As Toronto's longest standing multi-sector online social enterprise directory with a focus on opposing the forces of inequality in our city and beyond
TorontotheBetter is pleased to extend solidarity greetings to Black Owned Toronto http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/black-owned-canada-business-black-owned-businesses-1.5899973. Although our social enterprise criteria are broad, incorporating sustainability and community as well as demographic inclusion Black Owned Toronto mirrors our own emphasis on supporting Toronto's excluded. Welcome and best wishes to founder Kerin John and all at Black Owned Toronto. Particularly timely when for this year's Black History Month we are remembering Rosie Douglas and Canada's "George Williams Afair" https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/sir-george-williams-affair
Thursday 21 January 2021
Keystone XL cancellation and our social eonomic future
Whatever the final outcomw of the removal of sleazy Donald Trump from the Presidency of the U.S.A. and his replacement
by "sleepy" Joe Biden, the cancellation of fossil fuel projects like the Keystone XL piprline (champiomed by neoliberals
like Jason Kenny, premier of of Alberta) is a massive opportunity for Canada to reset its energy future in more sustainable i
directions.TorontotheBetter calls on Canadian social economy supporters everywhere to ensure Canada avoids more fossil fuel
projects. Now is a special moment for advancing a truly sustainable, Social, economy in Canada.
Tuesday 5 January 2021
Pfizer wins the vaccine race, but do we?
With the COVID-19 virus directing public agendas everywhere, the poor
and sick dying in large numbers and all nations depennt on big pharma
for solutions", that is for-profit private corporations called Pfizer, and Moderna,the world has reached a logical terminus to the neolibrtal evonomics
of profit maximization and government minimization that has dominated
most "developed" countries since the last quarter of the 20th century. To fight
the inevitable next pandemic, prevention must be the goal and non-profit/public investmeht the means, if we are
not to cntribute billions more of public
funds to already rich shareholders for purposes other than the public Better.
Hundreds in Toronto assembled at the Council Fire Centre at Parliament and Dundas St. East today to protest the killing of indigenous children in Canada.
A better Toronto is better for all.
