Last Past the Post

Right wing media routinely features conservatives who claim to have been censured and cancelled by the left wing twitter mobs. Does their claim have any validity, or are they simply a victim of the same social pressures that have stopped people from being bigoted for decades? How does this intersect with free speech and freedom of expression? This week, Christine and Alex discuss this more recent wave of cancel culture, and why it might actually be a shield for more nefarious intents.

The number of billionaires has skyrocketed in the past few decades, and they've only gotten richer during the pandemic. Are these people truly Ayn Rand's titans of the industry who are leading us to a better future? Are they instead leeches, holding society back from it's true potential? In this episode, Christine and Alex look at where exactly modern billionaires fit in that spectrum, and discuss the ethics of them existing in the first place.

Around election time, each party makes their case, promising all sorts of great things to win over the hearts of electors. Do they follow through with these promises? This week, Christine and Alex look at the track record of a few politicians, and discuss how certain promises are little more than lies meant to manipulate the public.

When the word conservative is said aloud, this is what most people think of. Social conservatives are the pushback to societal change, and they represent the third and final leg of the Neoconservative ideology. This week, Christine, Alex, and our guest Rachel finish exploring this ideology, and how it's morphed into the conservative movements we see in North America today. 

Libertarianism has never been very popular in North American elections, but many of it's core ideas and philosophies have been embraced by the most popular conservative politicians of the modern era. This week, Christine and Alex explore what the tenets of libertarianism were, which ones were grabbed, and which ones were left behind. This is the second episode of our trilogy on neoconservatism, and it explores the role of fiscal conservatives in the pulling apart of the three-legged foot stool that is conservative ideology.

Within the past five years, conservative politics have experienced a shift towards the alt-right, but what was it moving away from? The Bush and Harper governments were defined by Neoconservatism, and the three different branches that compose it: the National Security Conservatives, the Fiscal Conservatives and the Social Conservatives. This episode explores the first of these as part of a 3 episode series as Christine and Alex attempt to explain what made Neoconservatism work, and why it's now pulling itself apart.

In the wake of the Atlanta shooting, a spotlight has been cast on asian discrimination in the western world. They've often been praised as a model minority, but even positive connotations can have negative consequences. In this episode, Christine and Alex talk about how that can be the case, how we got here, and the role of racism in the tragic event that prompted this discussion all over America. As a side note, the last episode did mention that this one was going to be about the housing crisis, but the topic was later changed. Don't fret, you haven't missed an episode somewhere! Inspiration & Further Reading/Watching: https://theconversation.com/the-long-history-of-us-racism-against-asian-americans-from-yellow-peril-to-model-minority-to-the-chinese-virus-135793 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/11/29/the-real-reason-americans-stopped-spitting-on-asian-americans-and-started-praising-them/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/03/20/atlanta-spa-shooting-victims-highlight-struggles-asian-asian-american-immigrant-women-low-wage-jobs/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/11/29/the-real-reason-americans-stopped-spitting-on-asian-americans-and-started-praising-them/ https://time.com/5859206/anti-asian-racism-america/ https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/asian-american-community-battles-surge-in-hate-crimes-stirred-from-covid-19 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56218684 https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/reports-of-anti-asian-hate-crimes-are-surging-in-canada-during-the-covid-19-pandemic-1.5351481 https://www.insidehighered.com/admissions/article/2017/08/07/look-data-and-arguments-about-asian-americans-and-admissions-elite

The influx of vaccines could mean the end of the pandemic, but only if they're distributed and taken responsibly. In this episode, Alex and Christine discuss how corporations and nations are limiting access to the vaccines, how and why people might be afraid to take them, and the social responsibilities of getting vaccinated.  Thank you again to Rachel E-F. for the Intro, outro and audio editing, as well as to the_sahebali for our logo. Inspirations and further reading/watching: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/22/south-africa-paying-more-than-double-eu-price-for-oxford-astrazeneca-vaccine https://khn.org/news/rather-than-give-away-its-covid-vaccine-oxford-makes-a-deal-with-drugmaker/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-as-vaccine-supply-grows-scientists-debate-priority-ranking-for/ https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/covid-vaccine-profits-pharmaceutical-companies-pfizer-1.5812619

The idea of UBI has been in the news a lot lately, and there's even a bill in Canadian Parliament that could get the ball rolling. In this episode, Christine and Alex discuss what UBI even is and how it can take different forms, it's long history in Canadian politics, the pros and cons of such a system, and finally why it might one day become necessary for us to survive and thrive. Thank you to Rachel E-F. for the Intro, outro and audio editing, and to  the_sahebali for our logo.   Inspirations and further reading/watching: Butaru, Lucian T. "BEYOND OR BESIDES NEOLIBERALISM? THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF UNIVERSAL BASIC INCOME." Studia Europaea 60, no. 1 (2015) Cox, D. (2020, june 24). Canada’s forgotten universal basic income experiment. Retrieved from bbc.com/worklife:https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200624-canadas-forgotten-universal-basic-income-experiment Elliott, D. R. (2017, June 17). William Aberhart. Retrieved from The Canadian Encyclopedia: https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/william-aberhart Forget, e. l. (2011, September). The Town with No Poverty: The Health Effects of a Canadian Guaranteed Annual Income Field Experiment. Retrieved from Community Health Sciences University of Manitoba, Winnipeg: https://www.utpjournals.press/doi/pdf/10.3138/cpp.37.3.283 Gent, E. (2020, May 18). Here Are the Results of the Biggest Universal Basic Income Trial Yet. Retrieved from SingularityHub: https://singularityhub.com/2020/05/18/here-are-the-results-of-the-biggest-universal-basic-income-trial-yet/ Haridy, R. (2020, March 12). Canada's cancelled basic income trial produces positive results. Retrieved from Newatlas.com: https://newatlas.com/good-thinking/canada-basic-income-experiment-ontario-report-results/ Reinhart, R. (2019, september 30th). Universal Basic Income Favored in Canada, U.K. but Not in U.S. Retrieved from News.gallup.com: https://news.gallup.com/poll/267143/universal-basic-income-favored-canada-not.aspx

The people in power always try to distort or hide the truth, but in North-America both sides of the aisle use different techniques to spin their narratives. In this episode, Christine and Alex discuss how this propaganda has been spun in the past, how different political bases respond to different techniques, and how we can be cautious to avoid losing touch with reality.  Thank you to Rachel E-F. for the Intro, outro and audio editing, and to the_sahebali for our logo.  Inspirations and further reading/watching: Hellinger, Daniel. Conspiracies and Conspiracy Theories in the Age of Trump Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019. Daniele Lorenzini: "What is a 'Regime of Truth'?", in: Le foucaldien, 1/1 (2015) Keefe, Joshua R. "The American Military and the Press: From Vietnam to Iraq." Inquiries Journal/Student Pulse 1.10 (2009). Campion-Smith, B. (2008, May 26). How Harper controls the spin. Retrieved from Toronto Star: https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2008/05/26/how_harper_controls_the_spin.html Randy Stein, A. B. (2020, October 27th). Hearing From Both Sides: Differences Between Liberal and Conservative Attitudes Toward Scientific and Experiential Evidence. Political Psychology, p. https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12706.

A lot of Canadians who feel disenfranchised talk about how politicians are all the same. It doesn't matter if you vote Conservative or Liberal, because the end result is no different. In this first episode, Christine and Alex discuss how the parties differ on certain topics, but also how they can be surprisingly similar, and how that can lead to this idea of "both-sides-ism". Thank you to Rachel E-F. for the Intro and outro, and to the_sahebali for our logo. Inspirations and further reading/watching: Jarkko Pyysiäinen, Darren Halpin & Andrew Guilfoyle (2017) Neoliberal governance and ‘responsibilization’ of agents: reassessing the mechanisms of responsibility-shift in neoliberal discursive environments, Distinktion: Journal of Social Theory, 18:2, 215-235, DOI: 10.1080/1600910X.2017.1331858 Curtis, A. (Director). (2016). HyperNormalisation [Motion Picture]. True Crituque. (2021, January 21). Neoliberalism is ruining Canada. Retrieved from Youtube.com:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZ4l5Kp4rsI&feature=youtu.be Fisher, M. (2009). Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? Zero Books.