Clean Slate: New Ideas for Justice & Democracy / place nette : De nouvelles idées pour la justice et la démocratie

Understanding & explaining the world & developing just, humane and practical solutions. Comprendre et expliquer le monde et élaborer des solutions justes, humaines et pratiques.

Less Screaming, Please. Thank You!

1. Desperate times call for level-headed people with a plan

I’ve been been compared to “Nostradamus” for my ability to see the obvious. For 30 years I’ve been a researcher, and I’ve just finished five years as a legislator.

There’s a lot of crises going on and we’d like to talk about ideas to address them, while also exploring the untold history of economic ideas and politics.

In a world full of screaming, terrible ideas, we’ll focus on understanding and explaining what is really going on, and talk about ways we could address it.

But most of the time it will just be about better understanding the world in a way we can all agree on so we can actually do something about the issues that are driving us all crazy without everyone freaking out all the time. Just understand the issue, why it’s happening and what we can do about it.

Sometimes that means taking issues less seriously, and sometimes much more so.

There is a lot of economic and political history that is pretty rough to deal with, especially in Canada and in Manitoba.

If we love our communities, let’s not pretend they’re fine when they’re not, and let’s make sure we’re holding people accountable and responsible. You can never make things right when folks won’t admit a wrong.

That also means trying to separate history from propaganda, and understanding propaganda itself. It is very important at least to point out many common “political myths” which are sometimes, incredible distortions of history for the purpose of present-day branding.

When we’re making the arguments, it’s backed with evidence. We may disagree on values, but we should at least be able to agree on evidence. I’m not trying to manipulate you - I’m providing you with my evidence and argument for why we should agree. It’s in good faith.

2. This is about ideas that will make us a fairer, more democratic and just society.

In a world of extremes and ideological tribalism, we need to stake out a claim for a return to the principles of liberal democracy and the rule of law. This is what is at stake, and that is what is under threat. So we need to look for ways to re-engage and invest in restoring liberal democracy and the rule of law, and pushing back against the forces on the left and right who are seeking to undermine it.

The antidote to the dehumanizing politics of today is to return to a focus on each living, breathing person as a human being first. And that we always have to place the freedom of the individual first, ahead of the rights of the collective, in order for justice to be done. So we will pursue progressive reforms to bring some order to this chaos.

And we’ll try to have fun doing it.

3. What you’ll get…

I’ll be posting a range of work.

• Free posts will include at least one new weekly story + analyses and critiques, and reprints of still-relevant work, and summaries of investigative journalism

• Paid posts will include macroeconomic analysis, historical work, chapters of books and long-form investigative journalism pieces

If you’d like to see other types of content - podcasts, videos - let me know. Or if there are questions you’d like answered.