A book review of Torkil Lauesen 380 pages Nemo Publishing, Copenhagen 2016 by Stein Lillevolden (social worker) First posted at: https://radikalportal.no/2016/05/27/det-ulike-bytte/ Also published in the Danish newsletter Demos In the late 1970s, I studied political science at Oslo University, by all evidence pretty half-heartedly. With half a heart — mostly
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Canadian Dimension: Rebel Youth offers depth but lacks dimension
Rebel Youth: 1960s Labour Unrest, Young Workers, and New Leftists in English Canada Ian Milligan University of British Columbia Press, 2014 Many readers of this magazine will remember April 1971. Some attended the New Democratic Party convention where, after four ballots, David Lewis defeated his Waffle opponent, James Laxer. The
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: The “People’s Poet” in three dimensions
Milton Acorn: The People’s Poet Kent Martin & Errol Sharpe Roseway Publishing, 2015 Though I had heard of Milton Acorn for many years before his death in 1986, I never knew his poetry very well. Acorn was the political enfant terrible of the Canadian poetry scene, infamously passed over for
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Conflict, Coercion, and Settler Colonialism in Western Canada
Still from The Pass System
The Pass System
Alex Williams
2015
Starting in the 1880s, the federal government implemented an illegal pass system to restrict Indigenous peoples in Western Canada to …
Continue readingKersplebedeb | Kersplebedeb: Torkil Lauesen’s “The Global Perspective” (reviewed by Gabriel Kuhn)
Released by PM Press in collaboration with Kersplebedeb in 2014, Turning Money into Rebellion: The Unlikely Story of Denmark’s Revolutionary Bank Robbers recalls the exploits of the so-called Blekingegade Gang, a group of Marxist revolutionaries who, during the 1970s and ‘80s, robbed cash-in-transit trucks, warehouses, and post offices around Copenhagen in order to provide national liberation movements in the Third World with much-needed material support. Now one of the group’s former members, Torkil Lauesen, has written a book titled Det globale perspektiv, “The Global Perspective”, released by the Danish press Nemo in May 2016.
When the Blekingegade Group members ………..READ MORE
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Pacifying Palestinians and Pacifying the World
War Against the People: Israel, the Palestinians and Global Pacification
Jeff Halper
Pluto Press, 2015
Jeff Halper is an unusual hybrid presence on both the scholarly and political scene. He describes himself as an …
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: A blueprint for Canada’s energy policy
After the Sands: Energy and Ecological Security for Canadians
Gordon Laxer
Douglas & McIntyre, 2015
When Ralph Nader called Gordon Laxer’s book After the Sands “a myth-destroying blockbuster” it couldn’t…
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Is representational democracy possible?
Social Structures of Direct Democracy: On The Political Economy of Equality
John Asimakopoulos
Haymarket, 2016
The role of superdelegates in some Democratic Party caucuses is current news that has people talking abo…
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: The Bloody History of Accumulation by Dispossession
The Revenant
Alejandro González Iñárritu
2015
“You all have stolen everything from us. Everything!”
– Elk Dog
Alejandro González Iñárritu’s The Revenant offers an aesthetically exquisite and beautifu…
Continue readingArt Threat: Venice Biennale: Artists Fiddled While Venice Drowned
It’s massive: 130 artists, over 50 national pavilions and more than 40 collateral events across the city. It’s also largely irrelevant to the fate of Venice in a world of irresistible climate change. Venice is in peril, its future grim; sea levels are rising, flood barriers are inadequate, giant cruise ships and billionaire super yachts […]
Continue readingArt Threat: Our RIDM suggestions: urban development, rural Jesus, protest music, and more
RIDM always has way more films that look fantastic than any one person with other commitments can reasonably see in the space of ten days, which is a great problem to have. These are a few suggestions of things we’ve seen and loved. The Chinese Mayor The Chinese Mayor (2015,
Continue readingKersplebedeb | Kersplebedeb: Police Wife: A Review by André Moncourt
The wave of police killings of young blacks in the U.S. over the past several years and the recent resistance in Ferguson and Baltimore have made police violence a front-page issue. A broad debate about police violence is crucial, and one recently published book adds a dimension to that debate
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Debriefing Elsipogtog: the Anatomy of a Struggle
Debriefing Elsipogtog: The Anatomy of a Struggle Miles Howe Fernwood Books, 2015 When is a journalist not a journalist? According to CBC New Brunswick’s Information Morning host Terry Seguin, and media guests Dan Leger and Philip Lee, it is when the journalist becomes an activist. Calling freelance journalist Miles Howe
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Justice Delayed is Justice Denied
Highway of Tears Matthew Smiley 2014 Sean Carleton is a member of the CD collective and writes The Popular Front column on pop culture. Highway of Tears is an excellent new documentary by filmmaker Matt Smiley that sheds light on the problem of missing and murdered Indigenous women in Canada
Continue readingcmkl: Castelli Secondapelle bike gloves – barely there
Slick, and tight-fitting, they do indeed feel like a second skin. But that ‘minimalist’ thing gives them a tight timeline for staying comfortable.
Continue readingcmkl: Jerseys – for when you need to keep your shirt on
A lot gets said about jerseys. They’re part totem, part equipment. So there’s more lore, superstition and custom around them than most other bits of bike kit. I will explain a bit about what I think about jerseys which should explain what I’m reviewing and what I’m not, then I’ll
Continue readingcmkl: Bike gloves – hide the liver spots
Wherein I review all the warm weather, fingerless gloves I’ve ever used and wrecked. Including some I hope I don’t wreck for a long, long time.
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Media discourse and the Cuban question
Cuba, the Media, and the Challenge of Impartiality Salim Lamrani Monthly Review Press, 2015 Salim Lamrani is a French journalist and academic. His 2013 volume on Cuba and the West, The Economic War on Cuba (reviewed in CD 49:2, March/April 2015), performed a concise and careful demolition of pro-embargo myths,
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: The dehumanizing power of institutions
Human on the Inside: Unlocking the Truth About Canada’s Prisons Gary Garrison University of Regina Press, 2014 Writing prescriptively about incarceration is to wrestle with abstractions. Contained in each statistic – suicides, recidivism, inmates per cell – is a thousand voices, separate cockpits of despair or detachment or energy or
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