This weekend, I am thankful for folks in Seattle who know how to transform the imperialist Columbus Day into Indigenous Peoples’ Day. May we all learn this for next year! “We are all citizens in a democracy, we are all here to work with each other, and by making this
Continue readingTag: A Better World is Needed
Politics, Re-Spun: Against Collective Forgetting
Workers must do our part to Stop Harper! Happy Labour Day! 🙂 In Stephen Harper’s Canada, we keep enumerating the things we’re losing: meaningful legislative debate, evidence-based policy, public science, a free and open society, among other things. But what happens if we go too long with a slow erosion
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Welcome to the 1,000th Politics, Re-Spun Editorial!
Steve Harper, the greatest threat to Canadian security in the modern era. Happy August! Happy Day! I have a few comments about this, the 1,000th editorial at Politics, Re-Spun. But you can read them below, about my sabbatical plan, new visions for this almost 12-year-old website, and other things. But
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Lego Pimps Your Kids’ Brains For Shell Oil
This is just too much. Lego has teamed up with Shell Oil to pimp your kids’ brains for Shell. We need to be helping our children understand that our future lies in the post-carbon energy infrastructure and things like solar roadways. Here’s one way to do that, at Lego Block
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: BC’s Deep Deep Racism, Shhhh!
Shhh, this is uncomfortable. It might make you ashamed. Hopefully it will anger you to action? First Nations burial grounds in BC have less protection than settler cemeteries. Along with desecration at a Musqueam burial site, someone is building their home on top of another burial ground on Grace Islet
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: The Occupy Movement Has Changed the Narrative, But We’re Not Done
Recently, with the WEF spending the last few years acknowledging global income inequality is a problem, I’ve declared a kind of victory for the Occupy Movement: getting the lexicon on the 1% and inequality on the tongues of the sly gazillionaires who rule the world, and into mass consumption. Now
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: How the Tsilhqot’in Land Title Ruling Can Help Kill Enbridge
Watch Pam Palmater’s response to the SCC ruling. Click above. Stephen Harper had about a week to enjoy the glory of his remarkably understated whispery notification that the Enbridge climate killing pipeline will proceed. Yesterday the Supreme Court shut down the prime minister, which they have a tendency to do
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Elevate the World from Mediocrity to Greatness? Lululemon? GMAFB
GMAFB Capitalism dissociates us from each other. It makes us embrace consumerism and individualism and erodes community and cohesion. Yet, oddly, Lululemon’s mantra of elevating the world from mediocrity to greatness is about liberating us from those shackles. Oddly, based on Ayn Rand’s whacko philosophy [see below], we need to
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: How to Help Raise Hope, On A Monday Morning!
Beverly Bell just posted an amazing, inspiring interview with Gerardo Cerdas at Raising Hope Across the Borders: Transnational Social Movements and Power Gerardo Cerdas is coordinator of the Latin American- and Caribbean-wide social movement Grito de los Excluidos, Cry of the Excluded. He is also a sociologist and researcher. A native
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Occupy Vancouver Reboots Tonight!
Occupy Vancouver reboots tonight to join the worldwide #WaveOfAction that began on April 4 and runs [at least] to July 4, 2014. We will meet in Grandview Park on Commercial Drive in East Vancouver, unceded Coast Salish territories. 615pm is the start time, though honestly, I’ll be there a bit
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Occupy Vancouver Reboots Tomorrow: A Primer
Some thoughts as we countdown to the reboot of Occupy Vancouver at 615pm tomorrow night at Grandview Park. Come join us with your ideas: Mine are all about seeking equality and justice: economically, socially, politically and environmentally. Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals is an inspiring classic. Some agree with it,
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Will Today Be the Day You Die at Work?
Do you feel lucky, punk? Well… do you? Every day, four Canadians will die as a result of a workplace accident, injury or industrial disease. Â If you make it home from work today, you are one of the lucky ones. Statistically speaking, 1000 Canadian workers die annually as
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Help Conservative Senators Stop Harper’s Banana Republic
Emperor Stephen Harper and his double double. Interesting times indeed. 8 Conservative senators have decided that Emperor Stephen Harper has no clothes. The Emperor has whipped and intimidated his backbench, cabinet and senators for a long time. Senator Hugh Segal stood up to him on bad legislation. Though he left
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Occupy Vancouver Will Meet Again at 6:15pm on May 1
Whatever that looks like! It’s Earth Day. Let’s honour our ecology by rebooting Occupy Vancouver on May Day! At first, I put out a call to see who wants to have a meeting to discuss connecting a rebooted Occupy Vancouver with the worldwide #WaveOfAction that started on April 4 and
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: What Yoko Ono Knows About Fracking
Today we are fresh off the tar soaked heels of Enbridge’s lie and spin machine in Kitimat, leading to a vote AGAINST their toxic future. In Kitimat, in a non-binding plebiscite, the people of Kitimat, but not the first peoples who live outside the town boundary, voted about 60-40 to
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Occupy Canada For May Day, With Bananas
A few days ago, I wrote about picking May Day as a good time for Occupy Vancouver to reboot itself and catch up with the Occupy Movement’s worldwide #WaveOfAction. But I think that idea can be bigger, it can be a day for all of Occupy Canada to reboot. Here’s
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Welcome to Stephen Harper’s Banana Republic
#PMSH goes #BananaRepublic: the (un) #FairElectionsAct lets incumbents SUPERVISE their own election! pic.twitter.com/SG3IT8GMAz #cdnpoli — Politics, Re-Spun (@PoliticsReSpun) April 6, 2014 Just how stupid does Stephen Harper think we are? He thinks that we’re fine with the idea that incumbent parties should be able to pick the poll supervisors in
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: What Occupy Vancouver Could Look Like
May Day, on May 1st: do you think we could get Occupy Vancouver up by then? I know how we can get this to work. I really do. And I’m not talking about tents or physical 24 hour occupations, in particular, right now. I am however talking about 2 things:
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Calling For An Occupy Vancouver General Assembly
It’s now Friday, April 4, 2014. Greetings, world, the reboot of the Occupy Movement, the Worldwide #WaveOfAction [follow it live in Twitter here], has begun in a variety of places around the world! And it will last for 3 months while it evolves its next phase. But as it turns
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Occupy IKEA’s #HouseRules
IKEA’s #HouseRules = union busting! Oh, IKEA, you’d think you’d learn from all the past corporate attempts to create a Twitter hashtag to promote your brand, attempts that have been subverted by culture jammers. Maybe IKEA will get away with this one, #HouseRules, but in the spirit of the Occupy
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