Big Tech has been the benefactor of profound corporate concentration unprecedented since the Gilded Age, when railroad tycoons hoarded wealth and inequality skyrocketed. Photo by Markus Spiske/Unsplash. For the first time in history, the majority of the world’s ten most valuable companies are from the same sector of the economy.
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Canadian Dimension: Why is a monument commemorating a Nazi SS division still standing outside Toronto?
Heinrich Himmler, centre, reviews troops of the Ukrainian 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS, June 3, 1944. Photo courtesy the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. From a distance, the cenotaph at the St. Volodmyr Ukrainian Cemetery in Oakville, Ontario, just outside of Toronto, looks innocuous. Flanked by flagstaffs and set
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: ‘Policing Black Lives’ author on confronting Canada’s historical amnesia, Black expendability, and the path forward
Justice For Regis – Not Another Black Life rally and march in Toronto, May 30, 2020. Photo by Jason Hargrove/Flickr. The murder of 46 year-old George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis Police Department has become a watershed moment in American history. At the time of writing, protests against
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Is Manitoba gearing up for a major overhaul of its public education system?
Manitoba Education Minister Kelvin Goertzen recently appeared alongside US Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and Texas Senator Ted Cruz, two of America’s leading advocates for dismantling and defunding public schools, to discuss “promoting choice within education”. Photo by Brett Levin/Flickr. Throughout the COVID-19 crisis, Manitoba’s Progressive Conservative government has faced repeated
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Dimitri Lascaris wants the Green Party to be the champion of Canada’s left
Dimitri Lascaris, a long-time activist, author and former class-action lawyer is running to be the next leader of the Green Party of Canada. Photo by Vadim Daniel. During last year’s federal election, the Green Party of Canada had its best performance ever. The party more than doubled its national vote
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Putin, Skripal and the powerful ideological force of Russophobia
Illustration by Abode of Chaos The attempted murder of Russian ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury, England – a story befitting the top shelf of espionage literature – has provoked both furious condemnation, and very carefully worded propaganda, from every corner of the international community. The British government,
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: North Korea is more rational than you think: An interview with Bruce Cumings
With the Olympic Winter Games right around the corner, tension on the Korean Peninsula is again the focal point of international affairs. After months of increasing provocation between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and U.S. President Donald Trump — highlighted by missile tests and sabre-rattling on both sides — signs
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Skip the Dishes: Poster child for precarious work
Photo by Alex Tétreault In March of this year, Winnipeg-based food delivery company SkipTheDishes came under fire for cancelling the second interview of a prospective employee after she asked about wages and benefits. “If I do end up filling this position,” wrote Taylor Byrnes in an email to the startup’s
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Healthcare cuts display contempt for working Manitobans
Photo by Justin Tang This summer, Manitoba’s healthcare system was dealt a blow Brian Pallister’s Progressive Conservative announced sweeping public service cuts including the shuttering of emergency rooms and liquidation of hundreds of frontline staff positions. The changes stem from recommendations outlined in an external ‘value-for- money’ report drafted by
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Shortchanged in the restaurant kitchen
Photo by Life & Thyme in Los Angeles In November 2016, the Guardian newspaper reported that Le Gavroche, the three-star Michelin restaurant of famed English chef Michael Roux Jr., was paying some of its cooks as little as £5.50 per hour (C$9.16), well below Britain’s £7.20 (C$11.98) legal minimum for
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Interview: Andrew Bacevich on American militarism
Photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Robert J. Fluegel The November election of Donald Trump raised serious questions about the direction of US foreign policy. Would the president seek better diplomatic relations with Russia? Would he step up, or deescalate, conflict in the Middle East? How would he handle
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Ava DuVernay’s ‘13th’ a must-see exposé of mass incarceration in the US
13th Ava DuVernay 2016 Avu DuVernay’s latest documentary 13th comes at an important junction in American history. The 2016 presidential elections confirmed that divisions of race and class continue to be central and defining features of contemporary US society. After all, Donald Trump ran on a platform of open bigotry,
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Theorizing a new radicalism: Henry Giroux on how to change the world
Image by odder In the overlapping realms of cultural studies and critical theory, few scholars have made a more significant impact upon contemporary educational theory than Henry Giroux. In 2002, the American-Canadian academic was named by the British publisher Routledge as one of the top fifty educational thinkers of the
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: The class struggle behind Brexit
Photo by Descrier
Depending on whom you speak to, the referendum on the United Kingdom’s membership of the European Union was either a victory for democracy or a frightening reminder of stark divides in one of…
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: On Palestine: A brief but essential update
On Palestine Noam Chomsky & Ilan Pappé Haymarket, 2015 In 2010, Haymarket Books published a collection of interviews and essays from Noam Chomsky and Ilan Pappé that attempted to make sense of the Gaza War of 2008-2009, otherwise known as Operation Cast Lead. The conflict, which lasted three weeks, ended
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Resist the silent war on Canadian medicare
When universal health care was adopted in 1966 with the passage of the Medical Care Act, it signified a profound moment in Canadian political history. Rarely before had an alliance of ideologically opposed figures – the socialist Tommy Douglas, Progressive Conservative John Diefenbaker and Liberal prime minister Lester Pearson –
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Shaping a new democracy of consensus
The Extreme Centre: A Warning Tariq Ali Verso Books, 2015 In 1977, two years before Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, political theorist Tom Nairn’s The Break-Up of Britain presciently forecasted the rise of civic nationalism in Scotland. Written before the apex of the neoliberal turn, a
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Can democracy be salvaged?
The Extreme Centre: A Warning Tariq Ali Verso Books, 2015 In the late 1970s, several years before Margaret Thatcher would become Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, the remaking of civic nationalism in Scotland was underway. The country’s northernmost region – still a stateless nation seeking desperately to achieve sovereignty
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: KC Adams: Perception, imagery and the fragility of prejudice
Perception • Photo by KC Adams “The world in which you were born is just one model of reality. Other cultures are not failed attempts at being you; they are unique manifestations of the human spirit.” -Wade Davis *** The publication of a controversial MacLean’s article in January, 2015 sent
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Idleness, the enemy of progress
Fighting Against Western Imperialism Andre Vltchek Badak Merah, 2014 For the better part of three decades, Andre Vltchek has dedicated his career to exposing injustice. As a filmmaker, journalist, documentarian and poet, the 52 year-old has covered dozens of war zones, lived on nearly every continent and steeped himself in
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