Author: Kirby Evans

Ok, here’s a short rant – Now that Benjamin Netanyahu was inadvertently recorded admitting that Israel is only in peace negations as a way of stringing the Palestinians along while they steal all of their land, and now that Netanyahu has admitted that they will never allow a Palestinian state,

This is my question of the week – why are so many people incapable of separating their personal feelings about head-coverings from the legal question of equal rights??? I mean, I know why Harper and his minions are saying all this stuff – they are trying to use racism to

The past few months have been for me some of the most depressing, politically speaking, that I have ever experienced. I can’t say that I was surprised by any means that Harper and his Cabal decided that, in the face of abject failure in almost every realm of their political

We live in difficult times for anyone who is wants to promote justice and equality. We are living through an era in which large, globalizing corporations have overwhelmingly dominated the political discourse for more than 30 years. And as the Neo-Liberal consensus has begun to show cracks and is basically

Defining complex social phenomena is always a convoluted problem. Of course in the ‘post-modern’ era, where language games and linguistic subtitles are the life-blood of philosophy, definitions themselves become problematical. The very best work of modern philosophers like Derrida, Foucault, and Richard Rorty is really all about the problems of

Nowadays, it takes a lot to drag me to the keyboard to bother to write about politics. For one thing, there are other bloggers out there who, given the terrible shadow that has been cast over this country, do a better job than I, with more rhetorical and emotional force

My esteemed peers Montreal Simon and Owen Gray at Northern Reflections have highlighted today Bob Hepburn’s op-ed piece in the Toronto Star asking the thorny, but essential, question of how Harper has gotten away with the slow but sure destruction of our country and our democracy. Strangely enough, though he asks

If the NDP was looking to create reasons for us not for vote for them then their past year has been a resounding success both provincially here in Ontario and Federally. If you want to know what is wrong with the contemporary NDP you need look no further than this

One only need reject a few of the prevailing beliefs of one’s society to be almost entirely alienated from vast majority of people. In Canada all you really have to do is dislike Hockey and you suddenly find yourself marginalized. But all marginalization should be not be regretted, because sometimes

Four years ago today I wrote a blogpost expressing my concerns with the modern manifestation of Remembrance Day. Even as recently as this week I received a positive comment on that post. I genuinely believe that more people would express concerns about Remembrance Day but they fear the reaction. This

Stephen Harper’s motivations to have Canada get involved in the new war in Iraq are essentially two fold. On the one hand Harper is a religious fanatic who has, for many years, hungered to demonstrate his Christian righteousness in war with the ‘barbarian heathens.’ Harper’s other motivation is a last

Few things make my palms more sweaty than a political leader telling me that the war into which he wan’t to lead us is “noble.” They say that every war has its own excuse, but behind of every call to arms is some guy (usually a man in a suit

The rumour mill has been working overtime predicting that Harper might call an early election. These rumours went into overdrive this week when an April date was set for the Duffy trial. The speculation of many of my esteemed peers in the blogosphere, goes like this – Harper seems to

I tend to agree with Heather Mallick in her recent interesting (and surprisingly forthright) article on why people like Trudeau over Harper. And I agree with what many commentators (and most of the polls) suggest, that we have finally reached the tipping point of Harper’s political currency. Outside of conditions

Herr Harper’s recent claim that the disappearance and murder of hundreds of Aboriginal women should not be viewed as a “sociological phenomenon” is an important reminder of what rightwing ideology is really all about. It has been central to rightwing ideology in the modern period to continually reduce society and

Understanding anyone’s motivations is a notoriously complex matter. One must always deal with the question that sociologists would refer to as “dramaturgical sincerity.” In other words, when someone talks about their actions, one can never be entirely sure to what degree the person is being honest about their motivations and

The concept of the so-called “manifest destiny” is a complex one. On the one hand it is steeped in fairly explicit racism and a brutal advocacy of the notion that might makes right. It is, one might argue, a complicated perversion of Christian moralism which perverts the very notion of

I have said for quite a while now that, unless something drastic happens between now and next October, I believe that the Liberal Party will form the next government. Events in recent by-elections further convinced me, and many others, that the political winds have changed in this country and that

I have never had much time for the so-called “neo-conservative” agenda. I am old enough to remember when Milton Friedman entered into mainstream culture and I always found the arguments ridiculous. I don’t think it takes much brain-power to understand that eliminating taxes on the rich and on corporations is