Writings by Calum MacKenzie

• A View From The Shore

  • An Orwellian Reversal

    There are defects in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) but American critics of the deal which strongly favors Canadian business and governance interests are mad as heck and shouldn’t have to take it any more. Along with their friends in Mexico, the Americans have just cause to revisit the NAFTA negotiations, review the terms, and propose corrections to make the deal more palatable to their own interests. Canada’s unilateral changes to NAFTA when things are not in their favor, is just too much by far. The fiasco of Canadian tariffs imposed on US softwood lumber exports to Canada is a prime example.
    >>Download An Orwellian Reversal

  • Beware the Ides of October, Mr. Obama

    It would be first order conspiracy theory to suggest that the republicans have deliberately engineered the sub-prime financial chaos as a ploy to take a dive in the tenth round, and throw the election to Mr. Obama. The inane ravings of the McCain-Palin ticket holders are so bereft of substance that one can but assume that a smoke screen is being launched to hide the more evil machinations in the financial sector. By mounting a campaign of character assassination both directly and through surrogates, and by avoiding pertinent issues, the McCain-Palin folks are going out of their way to alienate the electorate in obtuse and puzzling ways.
    >>Download Beware the Ides of October, Mr. Obama

  • Corporate Persons in the Dock

    Those of us who stand in awe of the brass neck tactics employed by some corporations wonder just how we can reclaim democracy for our government and our people. Corporations have managed to get themselves defined in law as persons and crave to be treated accordingly, so let's follow that surmise -- that “corporate persons” be treated as they would have ordinary citizens be treated -- and see where it leads. What’s good for the goose after all, is just hunky dory for the gander.
    >>Download Corporate Persons in the Dock

  • Democracy On The Ropes?

    Some would say that there is an over abundance of regulation in our modern lifestyles and that expressions of freedom should be given free rein and allowed to flourish. The abundance of regulations, they say, gives rise to conditions which stifle initiative and an innovative entrepreneurial spirit. Some would even go so far as to liken our modern democracies to totalitarian regimes of bygone eras and make pleas for less regulation, less monitoring, less over-sight, less police presence, and less big brotherism as per George O and "1984."
    >>Download Democracy On The Ropes?

  • DeRegulate Voting?

    The voting process was set up as a social service. In these days of ascendancy for neo-liberal thought which looks down on socialism as four letter word, isn’t it time to de-regulate the process and let laissez faire voting rule? Some would even say that the resulting chaos would be no different in outcome than what we have recently come to expect.
    >>Download DeRegulate Voting?

  • Fear

    When the Roman Empire was in its heyday, its armed forces would fabricate imaginary enemies and assign negative propaganda to them in order to spread the word that it really was a cruel and dangerous world out there. Not only that but the great unwashed masses envied the freedoms and institutions Romans enjoyed, and were plotting to attack. The Godless pagan hordes were different and had to be pre-emptively dealt with before they could muster their evil alien attacks. By keeping their citizenry in a constant state of fear the empire sold its military build up as an essential factor in protecting the homeland’s values and vital Roman interests.
    >>Download Fear

  • Food Security

    Under World Trade Organization (WTO) rules businesses must be accorded the least restrictive environment in which to conduct their affairs. Canada has signed on to the WTO agreements and therefore is bound by those rules. Exceptions to the rules are rare even when the rules are in direct conflict with previous Canadian law. If a company operates in Canada and Haiti, and Haiti has the less restrictive business rules, then that’s what Canadians have to live with.
    >>Download Food Security

  • Mr. Obama, The Republican

    Pre-emptive notions for dealing with The Taliban in Pakistan and open admiration for Reagan’s contributions to the political scene were the first clues that Mr. Obama was not the liberal that mass media pundits made him out to be. As we look closer at policy positions that have been enunciated, a real sense of deja vu looms.
    >>Download Mr. Obama, The Republican

  • NAFTA on Steroids

    As a harbinger of the demise of democracy on this continent, if the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was not bad enough, its new and improved cousin, The Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP), rubs salt into that wound. The blight of out-sourcing, off-shoring, de-regulation, laissez-faire over-sight of business and the diminishing adherence to labour law, lax environmental restrictions, under funding of social programs can only find increased support in the SPP. The rights, freedoms and healthy initiatives surrendered under NAFTA will not be re-instated but will be accelerated downward to banana republic status, if not out of existence.
    >>Download NAFTA on Steroids

  • Peace

    Who amongst ordinary everyday Canadians is not supportive of promoting peace? Some would go so far as to support the inclusion of courses on peace-keeping and peace-making in school curricula. School bullying is getting increased attention in our increasingly violent society. So why not apply that attention to international bullying, inter-racial bullying, civil war, etc. laying out in stark details the appropriate approaches and remedies?
    >>Download Peace

  • The Big Buy-In

    Whether we call it a bail-out, a buy-in, or simply a rescue package for the Wall Street banks and financial institutions, is neither here nor there. In the end, the US taxpayer is left with at least 850 Billion smackers to add to a smothering ocean of debt. Complicating this troubling situation are the intricacies of an election campaign rife with falsehoods, half truths, shaved factual information, all delivered with the straight face of noble sincerity. Accusations of mendacity have been leveled against each of the four principals still left in the election race. What are we to think?
    >>Download The Big Buy-In

  • The United Socialist States of America (USSA)

    Socialism was defined by a CNN political pundit on the Lou Dobbs Show as a midway area between Capitalism and Communism. Webster describes it as a political and economic theory advocating collective ownership of the means of production and control of distribution.
    >>Download The United Socialist States of America (USSA)

  • We Should Know Better

    Let me start with a few assumptions and an opinion. First the assumptions: ...
    >>Download We Should Know Better

  • What about a New Green Deal?

    Neo-liberals denigrate the outcomes of the New Deal as socialism, conveniently forgetting that their adherence to the unregulated, laissez-faire, unfettered, free trade economics, brought the economy crashing about their ears in 1873, 1929, and 2008. The original proponents of fairness in global capitalism, Adam Smith and John Maynard Keynes, offered a different path to equality of opportunity and outcomes. Socialist or not, their wisdom and altruism has been largely ignored by the latter day corporate saints who run business schools and mega corporations and tout the culture of greed.
    >>Download What about a New Green Deal?

  • Why Bother?

    If you’re heavy into reading op-ed pieces and political blogs, in no time at all you will be overwhelmed by the vast number of items dealing with problems. There is so much negativity and no hint of a solution in sight. It might even be enough to make you reach for the ‘unsubscribe’ button.
    >>Download Why Bother?

Calum MacKenzie was born in pre-war Glasgow of Hebridean parents who raised him speaking Gaidhlig. Calumn was evacuated to the Hebrides during the war as shipbuilding and heavy engineering in and around Glasgow was a target.
Schooled mainly in Glasgow's public (non-fee paying) schools, Calum attended Glasgow University, Jordanhill College of Education and taught 4 years in Scotland before emigrating to Canada. He's been married twice with six kids, all up and away, and six grandchilders. Calum's work history includes teaching Physical Education and Science in Middleton, NS schools before going into Administration. Along the way Calum picked up three university degrees.
Although Canadian standards were lax relative to UK expectations, Canada has been good to Calum and family members. Ten years ago Calum retired to enjoy piping, golf, keep fit programs, learning to read/write in Gaidhlig, and has been forced by the GWBush doctrines to get involved in politics. Currently Calum is involved with a left wing socialist party called the New Democrats who are responsible for much of the social justice policies and social safety net that makes living in Canada so worthwhile. President, until Wednesday 29th. Mar. 06, of the local Annapolis NDP Constituency Association at which time "I hopefully will relinquish that mantle to someone more energetic and charismatic than I."
Calum's future holds a pilot's license, a contract to develop Gaidhlig crossword puzzles, publishing a "for dummies" series in Gaidhlig, Gymnastics, Trampolining and perhaps some other things I know a little about, and a winter getaway in Barbados or Mexico.