I found this one interesting, specially since she tore a strip off Jack Layton for forcing the Federal Election on the eve of the Climate Change Conference.
"My inspiration comes from the social justice vision of Tommy Douglas, the community empowerment economic ethic of Monsignor Moses Coady, and the environmental principles of David Suzuki."
So who was Monsignor Moses Coady, says I ignoramous of the first water about the Maritimes. Well not an insignifcant force in Cape Breton last century, he follows the school of distributist economics of Hilaire Belloc at the turn of last century. Distributist social reformers promoted an economics of Social Credit as well as the ideals of the Cooperative Commonwealth.
His influence on Elizabeth Mays thinking will be seen by comparing her statements to the ideology expressed by this early Catholic Liberation Theologist and environmentalist.
So here are some quotes about Moses Coady and founder of the Coady Institute at St. Francis Xavier University.
Give us a people who have a sense of belonging, of
taking part in the business of the country and they
will learn to do difficult things. Only in this way
can we build a great civilization worthy of a country
of such great natural resources. Only in this way
can we build a strong, self-reliant population freed
from the need of continuously calling on the
government for material assistance.’
‘Freedom should mean that people have the right to
set up institutions that will act as a counter-force to
the anti-social elements of society who build up
economic institutions to suppress the people and
exploit them.’
Moses Coady
Coady Newsletter for Web
Cape Breton Island has been home to many famous individuals, whose contributions to society are well known outside of the area. Cape Breton's favorite immigrant Alexander Graham Bell, as well as Guglielmo Marconi, made Cape Breton Island the site of many wonderful experiments and scientific progress. Monsignor Moses Coady and Father Jimmy Tompkins, native sons of the Margarees, pioneered social and economic justice.Their legacy remains in every Co-op and Credit Union.
And like their distributist forebearers the Green Party being 'niether right nor left', can easily lead to that corporatist model of statism we know as fascism.
One of the biographies in the book which held a special appeal for the writer involves Monsignor Moses Coady of Nova Scotia. He and his cousin, Father Jimmy Tompkins, wereinstrumental in starting the Antigonish Movement. A little more than a year ago, the writer had the pleasure of a visit and private tour of the Coady Institute located at St. Francis XavierUniversity in the small town of Antigonish. The Institute has actively run training programssetting up cooperative ventures for adult students from third world countries. Father Jimmy was a friend of the Overstreets and they wrote about the Antigonish movement; in some of Bonaro’swritings Jimmy Tompkins emerges as a kind of folk hero.
The article in Twentieth Century Thinkers focuses on Coady as a man ahead of his time. Coady was ecumenical in his outlook and was an environmentalist with views on the waste and destruction of natural resources long before it became a movement of its own. “We cannot sin against nature and hope to win.”His greatest achievement (and Tompkins’) was that they putideas, theories and principles into practice. “The cooperative approach stressed self-reliance, the development of local leadership, broadly based education, and a peaceful redistribution of economic benefits.”
THE WHOLE WORLD WAS THEIR CLASSROOM: THE CONTRIBUTIONS OF HARRY AND BONARO OVERSTREET TO THE FIELD OF ADULT EDUCATION
Chapter 1
Controversy in the Distributist community has occurred because of associations of distributism with some ultranationalist groups. This would include groups such as the British National Party which claims to hold some distributist views. The advocacy of distributism by certain ultranationalist groups is more pronounced in Europe where distributism is seen as reflecting the values of an "old order" and a return to the "nationalistic roots" of a country. Supporters of national anarchism also advocate distributist economic models.
Many ultranationalists trace their ancestry back to Fascist movements, and may see Distributism as a version of Corporativism. There are some similarities between the two systems, notable parallels between the Corporativists' Corporations and the Distributists' Guilds. But there are fundamental differences between the two philosophies, notably the Corporativists' permissiveness towards big buisiness and big government.
Distributism and Corporativism could concievably be placed on a linear spectrum of Third Way economic models, where Distributism would be more compatible with Libertarianism and Corporativism would tend to be more compatible with radical centrist ideologies of Collectivism and Statism, including but not limited to Fascism.
Also See:
Green Party
Climate Change
Paul Watson Green Conservative
Capitalist Environmentalism
Right Wing Environmentalists
Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
May, Coady, Green, Party, Canada, politics, Cape, Breton, Nova, Scotia, distributist, Bellocenvironement, catholic, leadership, race
2 comments:
And I sir am NOT the NDP. I think I showed that her ideas are part of what is called distributism. That those ideas got used and abused by Fascism, and Social Credit, are not to say they are not interesting and that they are not progressive. Thats like equating Marx with Stalin. Oh wait people do that don't they.
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