Might Makes Right: The Reality of International Politics & Why States Cause Wars
“If you kill one person, you’re prosecuted. If you kill ten people, you’re a celebrity; if you kill a quarter-of-a-million people, you’re invited to a peace conference.” – Haris Silajdžić Patient readers will bear with me as I sink into the quagmire of Balkan and, specifically, post-Yugoslav politics to make a broader point about states [...]
The Beautiful Game: Football, Politics and Social Struggle
Is it any accident in the countries where sports teams are considered community institutions, publically owned and politically active, that their general social welfare situation is in much better shape? Is it not entirely fitting that in a country like Canada where even basic services like education and healthcare are increasingly becoming unaffordable and inaccessible to the majority of people, that things like pro sporting events have likewise become obscene luxuries?
Canadian Authoritarianism: Then and Now
Something has been rotting in the State of Canada for a long, long time.
Democracy and education: they go together, except when the government doesn’t like it?
The recent controversy over the Vancouver School Board’s budget situation has been a bit of an interesting story to follow. Much like every other school board in the province, the VSB has been wrangling with a considerable problem: the costs of providing a high-quality public education continuously increase, while the funding that comes from the [...]
Protecting the people elected to do the peoples’ work from the people who want them to do their work
Three days, a fake lake, and $1 billion dollars in security costs later, the G8/G20 meetings will have wrapped up by the afternoon of June 27. Over five hundred protesters will have been arrested, and as of the time of writing, at least three police cars have been burned. Hundreds of police officers will have [...]
More Despinning the Spin and Chill Around Israel
Ten points to Mark Hasiuk for not just agreeing with my perspective on the chill and spin involved with Libby Davies and Israel. The ten points go for calling out corporate media as dropping its diligence in reporting on that and two other stories. Nothing new with that trend, but one thing refreshing about this [...]
Capitalism: The Giant Stone Head Destroying Us All
It has sometimes been asked what the residents of Easter Island might have been thinking as they cut down the last tree on their island to erect yet another one of their monolithic and useless ceremonial stone heads. It seems safe to say that we are now finally in a position to seemingly answer this [...]
Sipping Purple Kool-Aid with the Fraser Institute
Those whacky folks down at the Fraser Institute are at it again. The Fraser Institute’s latest report is a shining beacon of vagueness and generalities, touting their usual stance that the holi polloi have been misguided, and led down the path to ruin and destruction by the evil anti-HST movement. Amongst the vast piles of heifer-dust [...]
Vancouver’s Livability Delusion/Denial
Vancouver’s website has a link to the civic themes we’re promoting at our pavilion at Expo 2010 in Shanghai. The spin [see below] is almost totally unbearable. I take issue with the the city’s PR claims of sustainability, livability, an urban sanctuary and our awareness of our impact on nature. I don’t care what kind [...]
Our Past is Our Future: The Place of Union Mobilization
For generations unions have been profound agents of social change, pursuing some of the noblest of goals, including equity and justice for workers. But changing our world is a different task in this new century. Today we face climate change; increasingly strong anti-union employers and governments; and several generations of young people who have little [...]
Minority Governments in Ottawa and Victoria
Politicians who only seek power are easier to spot in an era of minority parliaments. Working from the reasonably solid premise that majority governments are inherently tyrannical, I prefer as merely a marginal improvement: minority governments. They’re no ProRep, but at the very least, they force more cooperation, though I use the term loosely. We’re [...]
The “Kids” in the Black: Reflections on Modern Anarchist Activism
I’m an anarchist. I’ll wait while you replace your monocle as it has surely dropped into your Beluga caviar at this point. Now then, seriously: I am an anarchist. As Toronto prepares to host the G20 Summit in a few days time, the media has been abuzz once more with the salacious prospect of street [...]
Libby Davies, Israel, Spin and Chill
Hot on the heals of “The Thing About Israel” from the other day, I see a campaign against Libby Davies because of a video of her comments at a rally and the spin around it. Today I despin and respin aspects of the event. I found out about the Libby Davies YouTube video the other [...]
BC Premier’s Office Spends as Much as Watchdogs
I want a government that is transparent and accountable to citizens: taxation WITH representation. I want a culture of openness and commitment to public service, that the citizens are the politicians’ employers. It’s hard to see that happening when the public bodies that hold political mechanisms to account have just barely as much money to work with than, say, the premier’s office.
The Thing About Israel
OK, here’s the thing about Israel, OK, one thing: there is no greater concentration of political spin in all of human history than around the issues relating to Israel. And the spin has the [likely intended] consequence of creating a chill factor to keep people from trying to reasonably discuss issues on any side of [...]
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