Twitter / suzhawkins: As settlers… #idlenomore …. York University’s Suzanne Hawkins is my hero today for showing us all this amazing poster that succinctly describes how us non-indigenous settler folk can stand alongside with the world’s indigenous people seeking redress for generations of racism and discrimination. Solidarity matters! Dialogue matters!
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Sketchy Thoughts: New Interview by David Gilbert
This interview originally appeared in Sixties: A Journal of History, Politics and Culture, 5:2, 259-270. For a PDF of the interview, go here. It is also mirrored on the Kersplebedeb site here. In the 1960s and 1970s, many activists looked to the prisons for political leadership, while viewing prisons themselves
Continue readingRedBedHead: Israel Blind To Its Own Isolation
I wrote less than two weeks ago that Israel was in an accelerating decline as a result of changed geopolitical realities in the Middle East, most recently and acutely the Arab Spring. That Arab Spring is now in the throes of a 2.0 reawakening and reconstitution of last year’s settlements,
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Go Back To Sleep America, At Your Own Peril
I never reprint other people’s writings, no matter how good – but I will make an exception for this. This article is a true must-read. Please, take the time to read it. Then act. Good morning America. It’s time for a new day. Kudos and warm thanks to Jill Dalton
Continue readingRedBedHead: Arab Revolutions Put Iran Attack On Back Foot
There can be little doubt that the Arab revolutions have already transformed the Middle East and look set to continue and deepen that transformation. Dictators in Tunisia, Yemen and, most spectacularly thus far, Egypt have gotten the boot. In Tunisia and Egypt the working class played a sizeable role in
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Why are we killing kids that don’t need to die? – Bill Moyers Essay
I’m struck by the casual nature of the media when it comes to reporting on imperial wars. Casualties are tallied, the right words are said, but then off we go to the next soundbite. Time for reflection and contemplation is becoming (has become) a lost art. Louder, Bigger, and Faster
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Musqueam Burial Ground Win Makes the Developer Look Brutally Ignorant
The provincial government has finally relented in its dignity-crushing stance of continuing to allow a developer to pursue building condos on top of a Musqueam burial ground. And while this change of provincial policy does not extend to a solution of land ownership, this is a critical first step to
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Just How Stupid is Niall Ferguson? Very Stupid.
“But the real point of me isn’t that I’m good looking. It’s that I’m clever. I’ve got a brain! I would rather be called a highly intelligent historian than a gorgeous pouting one” – Harvard historian Niall Ferguson, Sept. 2011. One of the predictable habits of the mainstream media is
Continue readingSketchy Thoughts: MLM Mayhem Reviews Zak Cope’s Divided World Divided Class
My comrade Josh recently wrote a review of Zak Cope’s Divided World Divided Class on his excellent MLM Mayhem blog. You can read it here, but i am also reposting it on Sketchy Thoughts here: These days, at the centres of capitalism, it is en vogue for leftists to attack
Continue readingSketchy Thoughts: The Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist Movement Interviews Dr Zak Cope
The following interview appeared recently on anti-imperialism.com, the blog of the Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist Movement (RAIM), with Zak Cope, about his book recently published by Kersplebedeb, Divided World Divided Class: Global Political Economy and the Stratification of Labour Under Capitalism. Zak Cope is the author of Divided World Divided Class: Global
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Fair Weather Friends: Western Reaction(s) to the Middle East Protests
The ongoing protests in the parts of the Middle East and North Africa, ostensibly in the wake of a Z-list anti-Islam film produced in the US, have elicited the same tired, hackneyed response on the part significant portions of Western audiences and commentators. “Savages,” the refrain has been, “uncivilized barbarians!”
Continue readingSketchy Thoughts: New From Kersplebedeb – Divided World Divided Class: Global Political Economy and the Stratification of Labour Under Capitalism
Divided World Divided Class, just published by Kersplebedeb (the books finally arrived on friday!), charts the history of the ‘labour aristocracy’ in the capitalist world system, from its roots in colonialism to its birth and eventual maturation into a full-fledged middle class in the age of imperialism. It argues that pervasive
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: What Has Changed Since September 11, 2001?
What Has Changed Since September 11, 2001? W2 Media Cafe and Siraat invite you to a public forum on Monday, September 10, 2012, looking at Canada’s racist legacy, as we mark 11 years after the events of September 11, 2001. 7pm at 111 West Hastings Street, Vancouver. Invited Panellists: Kat
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Historical Revisionism: A Balkan Cottage Industry?*
*My apologies to the good hard-working people of the global cottage and cottage cheese industries and the good people of the Balkans for once again being sullied by Western analyst-cum-charlatans. Followers of the Politics, Re-Spun Facebook page may have been keeping up with my recent debate(s) with one Charles Crawford, who “served
Continue readingLeft Over: Dis-honouring Our Homemade Monsters
Here’s a headline from CBC online today, talking about a sticker campaign to point out the hypocrisy of naming things after history’s deviates. In this case, the target is former Lieutenant Governor of BC Joseph Trutch..someone who purposefully practiced his evil on our First Nations people, for a start…. Sticker
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Act of Valor, Redux
“Before my father died, he said the worst thing about growing old was that other men stop seeing you as dangerous….Dangerousness was sacred.” Last night I watched Act of Valor. I liveblogged it so you don’t have to watch it. You’re welcome. First there was The Lottery, a dystopic tale
Continue readingRedBedHead: The Syrian Endgame: Bye Bye Bashar?
Who won’t celebrate the (probably nasty) end of Bashar al-Assad’s rule in Syria? This is a regime that has suppressed pretty much all forms of internal dissent and democratic participation and ruled with an iron fist for the better part of the last 40 years. There are no independent trade
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: GroupThink ReSpun: On US Police Forces Operating in Canada
We have decided that “GroupThink ReSpun” will be the name of the process whereby various of the Politics, Re-Spun crew collaborate on editorializing about a current event. Enjoy the poetry of the term! So apparently, the RCMP wants to ease into allowing US agents to operate freely in Canada: http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/canada-politics/rcmp-ease-canadians-idea-u-agents-canada-201905380.html
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: On this F35 v. Buying A Car Analogy Spin
The F-35 is in the news again, or at least the Harper regime’s complete bungling of the acquisition and the subsequent complete misleading of Parliament on the costs of the jets and guns. The Conservatives have a line of spin that’s been sticking – and that really frustrates me. Laurie
Continue readingbastard.logic: Deja Vu All Over Again (And Again, And Again, And…)
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, Canuckistan: Stephen Harper is leaving the door open once again to extending Canada’s military participation in the costly Afghanistan war. When the Official Opposition NDP pressed the Prime Minister on Wednesday about reports the United States has asked Canada to stay in
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