Team Advantage delves deep into The People’s Republic of Walmart, joined by special guests and authors Leigh Phillips and Michal Rozworski. You’ll be shocked to learn that economic planning goes on all around you, on a massive scale: Amazon and Walmart are great examples. We go deep into how markets work, the economic calculation debate, the demise of Sears due to cutthroat internal competition, the need to democratize (and not just nationalize!) the corporate planning apparatus, and more.
Team Advantage travels to Winnipeg for the 1919 General Strike Centenary Conference to consider the meaning of Canada’s biggest single labour action! Featuring interviews with David Camfield and Christo Aivalis, Team Advantage gives you a brief overview of the content of the conference, Jane McAlevey‘s talk, the Ukranian Labour Temple, as well as some thoughts and reflections on the event.
Big thanks to the conference organizers and volunteers, and thanks to everyone we met in Winnipeg for the warm welcome!
Rick Bell.
He’s Calgary’s Best Journalist.
His paragraphs? They’re tiny.
His opinions? They’re terrible.
Listen, dear reader, and learn.
Predictably, the Alberta NDP’s focus-grouped and poll-driven strategy to get re-elected failed, despite Jason Kenney’s campaign having multiple run-ins with xenophobia and white nationalism. Who could’ve foreseen after the 2016 Clinton-Trump contest that people would vote for magic nostalgic “make the economy better” beans, even if the leader in question is an asshole? Surely in Alberta, where Ralph Klein was Premier for 14 years, people at the ballot box ask themselves “hrmm I wonder who is more fit to be Premier?”
BONUS CONTENT! Repost of Ricochet Media’s “Unpacking the News” with Andre Goulet, featuring Team Advantage member Stephen Magusiak. Subscribe to Unpacking the News here.
In the lead up to Alberta’s April 16th election, Stephen Magusiak of pressprogress.ca and The Alberta Advantage podcast joins host Andre Goulet to explore (likely future Premier) Jason Kenney’s twisted past as a far-right campus activist in the United States.
Plus: cataloguing the extremist political views of many of Kenney’s United Conservative Party candidates and assessing the successes and failures of the last 4 years of Alberta NDP government under Premier Rachel Notley. This conversation was recorded on April 5th, 2019.
Alberta’s New Democrats have some legitimate victories: minimum wage increases, modernization of labour rights, and their protections of Gay-Straight Alliances are commendable. But fiscally they’ve accepted too many conservative frames, which left them without the capacity to pursue truly transformative policies like a green jobs guarantee or more aggressive decarbonization programs.
Is this new platform that will stem the tide of alt-right fascism and usher in the fair and equitable future we all yearn for? Join Team Advantage as they consider Notley’s 2019 platform and all of its thrills and delights.
Jason Kenney’s United Conservative Party released a 114-page platform detailing how they would like to go to war with Albertans. “Job creation” programs that just hand giant tax breaks to corporations! “Cutting red tape” by rolling back labour regulations! Repealing overtime pay entirely! Suing higher orders of government for fun! Conspiracy theories about foreign interests land-locking our oil! Outing gay kids in schools to their parents!
TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS
Danielle Smith interviewed disgraced former UCP candidate Caylan Ford on March 29, 2019. Caylan Ford withdrew her candidacy on March 20, 2019 after messages she authored were released which revealed that Ford thought “white supremacist terrorists” are treated unfairly, and that she is “saddened by the demographic replacement of white peoples in their homelands” and “it’s clear that it will not be a peaceful transition.” The messages were authored two days after the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” white supremacist rally.
Bashir Mohamed and Avnish Nanda join Team Advantage to discuss Danielle Smith’s interview and more generally the mainstreaming of white supremacist talking points in popular discourse.
View Danielle Smith’s interview with Caylan Ford.
Backup in case they pull it:
Danielle Smith: UN Migration Pact part of the plan to extinguish Canadian identity
Urge Corus and Global News to stop platforming and mainstreaming white supremacy.
Follow Bashir and Avnish on twitter @BashirMohamed and @avnishnanda.
Fun fact: Grant Notley, Rachel Notley’s father, led Alberta’s New Democrats from 1968 until 1984. Surely he was inspired by the radical politics of his time and serves as a useful contrast to today’s social democrats who claim that “Pharmacare doesn’t grow on trees… ?”
Team Advantage compares and contrasts the members of Alberta’s only social-democratic dynasty, and gives careful consideration to their theory of social and political change.
Jason Kenney’s star UCP candidate, Caylan Ford, recently resigned over white supremacist comments. But did you know that the Calgary Herald’s star columnist, Licia Corbella, wrote a glowing puff piece on Caylan Ford? Join Team Advantage as they read through Corbella’s insightful profile. For legal reasons, please consider this entire episode parody.
Corbella: From human rights, to film, to politics, Caylan Ford is a force of nature