By Rick Salutin | Rabble.ca | The old Progressive Conservatives shared the zeitgeist of an earlier time. It involved a sense of the usefulness of government and the importance of some kind of social solidarity.

http://lbo-news.com/2011/09/29/the-occupy-wall-street-non-agenda/

–An interesting perspective on the occupation.

Regime Tries to Silence Corruption Whistleblowers | By Patrick Cockburn | CounterPunch

By Liam Flenady | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal | Resolving the ecological crisis is incompatible with capitalism. We must build a movement that works against capitalist logic with the aim to overcoming it in favour of a properly sustainable and egalitarian form of society. This is the contention persuasively presented by Fred Magdoff and John Bellamy Foster in their recently published book What every environmentalist needs to know about capitalism.

Jim Stanford: Unions need to be independent from all the parties and do what’s best for workers | The Real News

by Jonathan Cook | CounterPunch | An article on the world-renowned British newspaper. The Guardian is believed to be a gatekeeper of the left-most boundary of acceptable thinking. Anything further is beyond the pale.

“The database now has about 420,000 names, including about 8,000 Americans … About 16,000 people, including about 500 Americans, are barred from flying … the F.B.I. maintains a special file for people whose names it is keeping in the database because it has decided they pose a national security risk even though they are not the subject of any active investigation … The[re] [is] no way for people who are on the watch list to be notified of that fact or given an opportunity to see and challenge the specific allegations against them.”

–The “return on investment” argument misses the point. It is not whether there is a good return on investment for funding post-secondary education, it is a question of whether we want an educated and skilled population. It is about what kind of society we want. Personally, I think that a society of educated and skilled workers is better than the alternative. Those that choose to enrich our society by becoming skilled labourers should not be punished for making that choice by slapping them with a massive loan. Education is a right, we should make sure that it is accessible to everyone.

The hatred of black-Libyans by elements of the rebel forces must be exposed.

“A group of 140 men, women and children trapped for over a week close to the Sirte front line [are being] guarded by half a dozen [rebel] fighters … The [group are] among thousands of residents of Tawergha, a small town 25 miles south of Misrata, who were chased out of their homes when pro-NTC fighters captured the town last month. … [Rebels] accuse their neighbors in Tawergha, which is inhabited mostly by black Libyans, of aiding Col. Gadhafi’s troops during their brutalsiege of Misrata this year and committing crimes such as rape. [Rebel] fighters have ransacked Tawergha and set many homes on fire, and have pursued their vendetta with Tawergha’s displaced families in every area captured by the pro-NTC force so far. [Rebels] said they had orders not to allow families from Tawergha to return home. The NTC’s head, Mustafa Abdul Jalil, proposed reconciliation between Misrata and Tawergha, but [rebels] have so far refused.”

“Humanitarian organisations have raised the alarm over conditions for civilians in Sirte and in Bani Walid, which lies southeast of Tripoli.”

Leo Panitch: US consumes five times China and India combined – Asian markets are not the way out of the crisis | The Real News

By Pepe Escobar | Escobar’s analyses are always pertinent.

Bobby Peek tells how the struggle for environmental rights is intertwined with the one over access to energy | Red Pepper

By Steve Ellner | venezuelanalysis.com | “The brand of socialism that has emerged in Venezuela under the presidency of Hugo Chávez differs in fundamental ways from orthodox Marxism and past socialist experiences in large part because of its emphasis on social as opposed to economic objectives.”

A commentary by Walden Bello in FPIF

Paul Craig Roberts | CounterPunch | “Economic policy in the United States and Europe has failed, and people are suffering.”

By Nick Falvo | Rabble.ca | On Wednesday, William Watson wrote a comment piece in the Financial Post in which he was critical of Armine Yalnizyan’s recent essay on inequality.

By Murray Dobbin | Rabble.ca | Khrushchev famously predicted that communism would bury capitalism. But instead that job is now in the hands of capitalists themselves — in the hands of neo-liberal madmen.

The Guardian | Victoria Bekiempis: Is it that female intellectuals are less rational and contrarian than male secularists? Or just that society prefers lionising men?

Mark MacKinnon | The Globe and Mail

Women in Saudi Arabia are to be given the right to vote and run in future municipal elections, King Abdullah has announced. | BBC