Seven Fallen Feathers: Racism, Death, and Hard Truths in a Northern City Tanya Talaga House of Anansi Press, 2017 Thunder Bay Ryan McMahon Canadaland, 2018 Investigative journalist and Toronto Star columnist Tanya Talaga couldn’t ignore the similarities in the recent suspicious deaths of seven Indigenous teenagers in Thunder Bay. Talaga
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Canadian Dimension: Midsommar Madness: the problematic portrayal of Bipolar Disorder in Film
Midsommar Ari Aster B-Reel Films, 2019 Midsommar has been turning heads since it debuted in theatres earlier this month, and the jury is still out on whether it is incredibly scary or incredibly offensive. However, if you or someone you love suffers from bipolar disorder – you probably consider it
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Seizing the means of (data) production
The People’s Republic of Walmart: How the World’s Biggest Corporations are Laying the Foundation for Socialism Leigh Phillips and Michal Rozworski Verso, 2019 Unpredictability, economic unpredictability in particular, means that it’s never a good idea to leave things without a good plan. A truly free market is chaotic and leaves
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Lessons from Strikes Past
Direct Action Gets the Goods: A Graphic History of the Strike in Canada Graphic History Collective Between the Lines, 2019 Direct Action Gets the Goods is the latest graphic novel from the Graphic History Collective along with artists Althea Balmes, Gord Hill, Orion Keresztesi, and David Lester. It is slim
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: 1919: A Powerful Interpretation of Canada’s Most Famous Strike
1919: A Graphic History of the Winnipeg General Strike Graphic History Collective and David Lester Between The Lines, 2019 “History is an important resource for people who want to change the world.” (vii) This opening line captures the philosophy of the Graphic History Collective (GHC), whose books and posters have
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: He also writes thrillers … and good ones, too
The Man Who Fell From the Sky Bill Fletcher, Jr. Hardball Press, 2018 Caveat lector. I must confess from the outset that Bill Fletcher is a personal hero of mine. He is a noble warrior — a trade-union activist at the forefront of worker’s struggles in the Unites States, and
Continue readingScripturient: Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules
I really wanted to read this book objectively, separating it from the media hype and social media torrents of opinion and abuse that often accompany its author, Jordan Peterson. I wanted to consider it in the company of the vast number of already-published self-help or philosophical books, and the historical
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Pushing back on Canada’s war on drug users
Fighting for Space: How a Group of Drug Users Transformed One City’s Struggle with Addiction Travis Lupick Arsenal Pulp Press, 2017 Every night that Overdose Prevention Ottawa ran its illegal supervised injection site, we opened with a ritual: a moment of silence for everyone we’d lost to the war on
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Capitalism: A Crime Story
Capitalism: A Crime Story Harry Glasbeek Between The Lines, 2018 Harry Glasbeek is a real oddity — a lawyer and professor of corporate law who specializes in exposing the way in which law is manipulated to provide aid and comfort to the dubious manoeuvrings of corporate power. In this short
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: David Camfield’s We Can Do Better
We Can Do Better: Ideas for Changing Society David Camfield Fernwood, 2017 Around the world, people are increasingly looking beyond mainstream politics to combat right-wing populism, growing wealth inequality, and potentially catastrophic climate change. Young people especially have flocked in droves to support self-proclaimed democratic socialists like Bernie Sanders in
Continue readingKersplebedeb: ‘The “Dangerous Class” and Revolutionary Theory: Thoughts on the Making of the Lumpen/Proletariat’ by J. Sakai reviewed by Joshua Moufawad-Paul
available from leftwingbooks.net (mirrored from Marx & Philosophy Review of Books) Sakai has always been provocative. His work, when it is not relegated to obscurity, is treated as either sacrosanct or heretical, and so it is very difficult to review his most recent book without capitulating to this binary. Moreover, his
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: A Marxist History of Capitalism
A Marxist History of Capitalism Henry Heller Routledge, 2018 Since the 1970s, Marxist discussion of how and when capitalism was born has been dominated by two competing academic currents. World-System Theory, first enunciated by Immanuel Wallerstein, locates the origin of capitalism in the expansion of world trade and the plunder
Continue readingcmkl: Something to wear on the wrist: Garmin Instinct first impression
I have been looking for a more versatile thing to wear on my wrist that doesn’t cost a month’s wages. I need it to track long cross country ski efforts, the occasional run, hiking, and to be a backup on canoe trips. I am aware that all of these activities
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: The cautionary tale of Superman
The Joe Shuster Story: The Artist Behind Superman Julian Voloj Super Genius, 2018 Superman has always been identified as representing truth, justice and the American Way. He was an unambiguous superhero, no hints at darkness, not a trace of the anti-hero. Certainly, Superman has never been identified with any type
Continue readingKersplebedeb: A Threat of the First Magnitude, reviewed by Don Hamerquist
available from leftwingbooks.net The recent book by Aaron Leonard and Conor Gallagher, “A Threat of the First Magnitude”, focuses on the FBI counterinsurgency operation against the Maoist sector of the left during the decade after 1968. The book provides important, impressively substantiated, insights into the development and application of state
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Parasites in paradise: behind the capitalist curtain
Secrecy World: Inside the Panama Papers Investigation of Illicit Money Networks and the Global Elite Jake Dernstein Henry Holt & Co., 2017 Every year, sometimes several times a year, the media are abuzz with stories about how the truly wealthy and large corporations do not pay any, or very little,
Continue readingKersplebedeb | Kersplebedeb: Torkil Lauesen Answers Bromma, on The Global Perspective
available from leftwingbooks.net Dear Bromma Thanks for the review and comments. It is rewarding to receive reflective feedback on your work. I was hoping for this kind of discussion. The idea of my book is to present a holistic “stew” of history, political economy, politics, and strategy – “all from
Continue readingKersplebedeb | Kersplebedeb: Reading Torkil Lauesen’s The Global Perspective (Bromma, 8/18)
Rocinha Favela in Brazil. The transformation to a neo-colonial world has only begun, but it promises to be as drastic, as disorienting a change as was the original european colonial conquest of the human race. Capitalism is again ripping apart and restructuring the world, and nothing will be the same.
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: The North End Revisited: Photographs by John Paskievich
The North End Revisited: Photographs by John Paskievich John Paskievich University of Manitoba Press, 2017 With her body still missing on a warm Winnipeg April, the Indigenous community held a vigil for 21 year-old Christine Wood. Prayers were conducted in the Polish National Catholic Church before the ceremonial drum was
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: We All Live in a Mediocracy
Mediocracy: The Politics of the Extreme Centre Alain Deneault Between the Lines, 2018 Alain Deneault has become one of the most important Canadian public intellectuals Anglosphere audiences have never heard of. Having completed a doctorate on the economic thought of German social theorist Georg Simmel under the supervision of Jacques
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