2020
Online Activism During COVID-19: A Case Study in Rent Strikes
Tenants from Mississauga, Scarborough, and Parkdale visited the mansions of their landlords George Grossman (CEO, Pinedale Properties) and Daniel Drimmer (CEO, Starlight) to demand no evictions and rent forgiveness for…
Revitalizing Left Internationalism
Protesters demonstrate against selling arms to Saudi Arabia, September 2017. Photo by AlisdareHickson/Twitter. The COVID-19 pandemic is revealing a lot about the current capacities of social movements and communities in…
Ford Government: Ontario’s 13-Week Layoff Limit Eliminated During COVID Period
The Ford Government has made a crucial, temporary change to Ontario’s Employment Standards Act (ESA) that will impact countless employers and employees in the Province. By operation of Ontario Regulation…
I Don’t Even Know How to Process This
How, over the span of 48 or 72 hours, does it seem that America has entered free fall? The brutal death of another unarmed black man at the hands of…
May31: more
I can’t keep up with this. That’s why this is my second extension of the May 30 blog on the U.S. riots. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/31/george-floyd-protests-reporters-targeted-by-police-and-crowds Besides France, there are protests in Britain.…
Sparky the Talking Rat: in yesterday walks today
Sparky: in yesterday walks today! pic.twitter.com/RBCpDaPTZH — SparkyTheTalkingRat (@RatSparky) May 31, 2020
May 31: a special addition to Saturday’s blog
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlU8OOUMq94 even as I was writing yesterday’s blog, things got terribly, terribly worse. Now, at least 30 American cities have been caught up in riots against racism – and, perhaps,…
Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Andrew Nikiforuk writes about the need to emerge from the COVID-19 crisis into a new normal, rather than trying to return to…
The Collapse Of The American Empire
There is a future day coming where historians will look upon the Trump years as the definitive end of the American Empire, and in particular 2020 as the end of…
Musical interlude
Metric – Youth Without Youth
We are the Russian Maoist Party, the Party of Rednecks, Dirty Migrants, Chicks and Faggots (repost)
We are the Russian Maoist Party, the party of rednecks, dirty migrants, chicks and faggots. That is what the bourgeoisie named us. If only it were not half-blind and could…
The China Crisis
Justin Trudeau is facing a COVID Crisis. But just around the corner is a China Crisis. Robin Sears writes: It’s essential when dealing with authoritarian governments to analyze carefully what…
Trump will not go gentle into that good night.
Welsh poet Dylan Thomas was talking about older people and death in that often-quoted poem. It is much to far ahead of the election to make a confident prediction but…
George Floyd, the hero that broke the camel’s back
The U.S. has reached the breaking point and where they go next is dependent on it’s citizens. They’re going to need to either go all the way, or give up…
Americans Riot For Equality
ICE T sums it up for people who don’t understand the looting: People are saying.. They should protest like this or demonstrate like that… We tried Taking a Knee… A…
When ‘Normal" Is Pathalogical
A recurrent theme on this blog is the subject of how something as benign sounding as “normal” can be a one-way road to the cliff-edge. Anthropologist, Jared Diamond, addresses normalcy…
"The System Can’t Reform Itself"
So says the always fearless and indefatigable Cornell West. As I watched the following, I couldn’t help but think that if one feels threatened, distressed, dismissive of or outraged by…
Covid Journal, May 30, 2020 (American Civil War, 2.0)
How can we help as the US descends into a very frightening state of disarray, with civil war on the doorstep?
May 30: Yes, things can get worse.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2020/may/30/george-floyd-protests-minnesota-governor-riots-looting-police?page=with:block-5ed257bf8f08f5e37301165a#block-5ed257bf8f08f5e37301165a https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2020/may/29/george-floyd-killing-protests-minneapolis-minnesota-us-twitter-donald-trump-latest-news-live This is not just a couple of days rioting. It’s one aspect, just one of many, of a U.S. that is collapsing. And it’s not just a matter…