Charlie Hebdo, Free Speech & Islamophobia: a response to Leigh Phillips
Well, it's certainly been a while since I've posted anything but since I still have this blog thing in my name it seemed a better place to post something longer…
redbedhead
Norm Kelly v Rob Ford: The Right Wing Mayor Is Dead. Long Live The Right Wing Mayor!
Happier days for the populist right Well, it was indeed a circus at city hall yesterday. I wasn’t able to attend the performance live but did have the pleasure of…
Ford Saga: Left Gives Cover To Right Wing Palace Coup
Cuts, what cuts? It's all about bad behaviour photo credit: @HeartsOnTheLeft Not one word about cuts. Not one word about privatizing garbage collection. Nothing about his refusal to ever attend a…
Three Reasons Why Ford Should Stay
Everyone’s clamouring for Ford to resign: he lied, he smoked crack, he was wasted on the job, the city needs a competent administration. Balls, I say. I’ve seen competent administrations…
Bye Bye Rob Ford, Hello Karen Stintz
There is the sound of champagne corks being popped and cheers in the streets. Everyone smiles at each other and winks, knowing that soon it will all be over. The…
On Pythons & Media Generated Paranoia
My partner and I have been talking much about the horribly tragic death of two boys in New Brunswick a couple of days ago. KP is snake-o-phobic and this just…
Blogging, Democracy and Revolution
I came across this well-written piece on the role of social media in social change, written by Jesse McLaren. I've often thought that the role of new media, social media…
Genes, Robots & The Internet: How Capitalism Revolutionizes The Planet
I was hoping to get to this sooner but life intervened (and technology in the form of a sick computer), along with the second Egyptian revolution, which has been riveting,…
Frankenfoods, Toothpaste, & Justin Bieber: Capitalism & Technology II
In a previous post I argued that too often Marxists fail to recognize the ways in which capitalism remains dynamic and continues to advance technologically and socially. This one-sidedness distorts…
The Fall Of The House Of Ford
Taking a moment to pray for peace You gotta admit that it couldn't happen to a nicer guy. Rob Ford is a bully and a hypocrite - quick to condemn…
Deflected Marxism: The Poison Of The Intelligentsia
I was thinking recently of an apocryphal story that was told to me many years ago as I sat in a dank basement drinking from a keg of beer. Apparently…
Marxism, Capitalism & Technology
Thoughts on Marxism & Technology Part I There is a joke about Marxist economists that goes something along the lines of “Marxists have predicted five of the last four recessions”.…
I Heart Rob Ford
Well, well, well, it’s been quite a week or two. Rob Ford supposedly smoking crack on video. Doug Ford’s past as a supposed hash dealer exposed – along with the…
Marxism & Religion: Part 3
Religion is the origin of all social thought – philosophy, science, law, ethics, etc. Like the social thought that we now consider secular, it is also imbued with a referent…
Marxism & Religion: Part 2 – From Hatred to Brotherhood
Marxism is a child of the Enlightenment. It was born of the revolutions in politics, philosophy and economy that shook Europe and America from the 17th Century through to the…
Marxism and Religion: Part 1
This is really a thumbnail sketch of trying to wrap my head around a Marxist approach to religion. This really comes out of the experience, evolving from the approach pioneered…
Is The SWP A Dead Duck: Part 2
It isn’t only in the nations, like the former USSR, that bureaucracy can use its control of wealth and power to defeat grassroots challengers. What happened with the rise of…