Some breaking news occurred yesterday, the Joint Review Panel of the National Energy Board approved the Enbridge pipeline, but with 209 conditions. To quote a teenager from 1994: “Big whoop.” Also, big whoop goes out to the awesome pictures of soon to be decimated pristine wilderness on the report cover.
Continue readingTag: Soft Fascism
Politics, Re-Spun: ACTION: Illegal Israeli Settlement Goods Sold at London Drugs
SodaStream boycott informational picket Saturday, Dec. 21, 2:00 – 3:00 p.m. London Drugs, Broadway @ Cambie, Vancouver Below is a notice of an important event happening on Saturday in Vancouver. If something is labelled as “Made in Israel” but is really made in an illegal Israeli settlement in the West
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Fixing Cyncial Corporate Media
How to inoculate yourself against cynical corporate media. Corporate news media is not on our side. It is on the side of stoking fear, cynically eroding possibilities of a better, more robust democracy, and scaring us into obedience to corporations and government through sensational stories that undermine our happiness. But
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Facebook Is the New AOL/Compuserve Big Brother
The evolution of the decay of Facebook privacy. The late, great Neil Postman once wrote that we’d more likely voluntarily embrace the fascism of Huxley’s Brave New World than Orwell’s 1984. The corporate version of this is the crack-like addiction a billion people have to the Facebook. But it’s worse
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Fried Squirrels
It’s a crisp, foggy November Saturday morning in the south side of the city. Seventeen people sit in the large open area at the back end of an organic fair trade coffee shop run by a workers’ co-op inspired by the Mondragon movement in Spain. Meet-ups like this are quite
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Practice CrimeStop: You Are the New Terrorist
Balloons are a threat to civil order. The police must protect themselves from you with riot gear. You are a bad person. You. You enemy of the state. You radical environmentalist. Or worker rights advocate. Or whatever cause you are promoting. You. You are a threat to order. When you
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Chemical Weapons in Syria? Merely a Pretext [Iran, Shhh.]
” It’s the Economy, Stupid.” [Or oil, or gas, or energy…] If you think you know why Syria is happening [and happening NOW], you’re probably missing a number of the elements at play. Don’t expect western governments or the corporate media to enumerate these. Sure, chemical weapons are horrible, but
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: New Prime Minister Tells Canadians- No War With Syria
What should military service actually be for? Wouldn’t it be amazing if Canada were Canada again? Wouldn’t it be even better if Canada would step up and be a better Canada than we had ever been in the past? Wouldn’t it be just spectacular if we could step up and
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: MexAmeriCanada? We Are Not Thinking Creatively Enough
MexAmeriCanada doesn’t have to be our future. I think I’m guilty of being a bit slow and uncreative. The bogeyman of deep integration, North American Union, the United States-ification of Canada, the United States OF Canada, and Canada becoming states #51-60 plus three more protectorates is just too simplistic. We
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Who Are the Leaders with an Authentic Way Forward?
What are they saying to the growing inequalities of the 21st century? “I want Dr. King to know that I didn’t come to Selma to make his job difficult. I really did come thinking I could make it easier. If the white people realize what the alternative is, perhaps they
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Why Do They Want Us To Shut Up?
If we were harmless, the riot cops would stay home. It’s Friday. It’s been a long week. Like most weeks. We are taught to fit in and obey. We are told that individuality and the search for social justice will get us in trouble, either by government surveillance or social
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Class War: US$11.5 Trillion Hidden in Tax Havens
Which tax haven is right for you? Class war is alive and well. I have this rose-coloured, nostalgic dream of history. Once upon a time we emerged from feudalism with a democratic revolution. All were equal. Well, most. But the hope of democracy was to rid the world of the
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Why We Must #HonourTheApology to Residential School Survivors [#INM]
I don’t know why we still have to do this kind of thing, but here goes. The federal government “apologized” to survivors of residential schools 5 years ago. It is clearly quite empty, considering how much neglect, abuse, victimization and racism has spewed forth from Stephen Harper’s government since then.
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Canada’s Evolving Soft Fascism
Things are bad under Prime Minister Harper. They’re getting worse, even since the last time I wrote about Harper’s soft fascism. But how do we measure it? It’s so…subjective, unless you have some kind of benchmark for totalitarian political behaviour. Luckily we do, at least these three: This powerful graphic
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: How Millennials Can Improve Everyone’s Job Satisfaction
Quack. It’s 9am, do you know where your millennial employees are? No? No worries. It’s all good. They’re not factory chickens. People who study characteristics of different generations have some incredibly important things to say about how different groups work. Organizations, however, are typically run by older people with their
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 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: Let’s Watch Where Quebec Leads Us All
Less than 12 after being elected to a minority government in Quebec, the PQ has announced it will cancel the socially and economically regressive tuition fee hikes and repeal the flagrantly unconstitutional Bill 78, which trampled on expression and assembly rights. Quebec, long one of the most progressive socially and
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 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
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