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…
Neoliberal Economics
IKEA’s (Sad) Spin Reply to My Boycott Letter
Solidarity means an attack on one is an offense to all! So if you have sent your letter to IKEA explaining why you are boycotting them for locking out their…
It’s 12 O’Clock, Have You Boycotted IKEA Yet Today?
$3.85 billion in profit is just not enough. Union busting and global greed now! Gratitude, then and now. It used to include a t-shirt and more, for all employees around…
Stephen Harper Visits Lac Megantic
Mourning the senseless tragedy. Today I was very impressed when Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada, broke with his almost long-held position of not visiting Lac Megantic. While he and…
Terrace: Regulating Housing Dignity Is Far Easier Than You’d Think
How to Research a Slumlord! In this era of hyper neoliberalism, we are so used to tax-cutting governments chopping regulations off the books to allow the Blessed Free Market to…
We Failed Rwanda; Let’s Stand for the #Rohingya
Indonesia Muslim Rally It’s been almost 20 years since the Rwandan genocide. We were too stupid, callous, or indifferent to stop it, and Senator Dallaire has more than a few…
Why Don’t People Respect Canada Anymore? Reason #766, Egypt
A huge crowd of protesters stretched along an avenue near the presidential palace in Cairo on Sunday evening If you ever wondered why Canada is losing international respect, here’s a…
The Pidgin Picket, the Housing Crisis and the State
The Role of The State in Gentrification, the Housing Crisis, and its Ability to Relieve or Maintain the Current Situation by Rachel Goodine Pidgin, a new fine-dining restaurant located on…
Rising rhetoric of a new “yellow peril”
The 1921 “Ethnic Outreach” Campaign(Courtesy Past Tense Vancouver) The complaints are familiar – “Asian immigrants are taking our jobs,” “Asian immigrants are buying our property and keeping us out.” Instead…
Inconvenient Truths for White Men
Men, especially white men, sleep too easily at night while women earn 70 per cent of what we do. Secretly, I think we’d prefer to not have to talk about…
GroupThink ReSpun: The Death of Hugo Chavez
Hugo Chavez died of cancer on March 5, 2013. He represented an ideological pushback against neoliberal globalization. He pursued a progressive hemispheric trade agenda. He raised oil royalties dramatically to…
We don’t want your dirty gold: corporate donations and the university
The following is a piece written by contributor Kevin Harding and guest contributor Natalie Gan. The piece was written in 2010, but is being published on Politics Respun for the…
Aaron Swartz, Intellectual Property and the Public Good
Should academic work be locked up like Disney artifacts? I’ve been quite inspired by this very good analysis of the context surrounding Aaron Swartz’s suicide. As news spread last week…
Foundation Skills Assessment: Another Dirty Trick
By Rachel Goodine The FSAs, or Foundation Skills Assessment tests, administered annually in British Columbia since 2000 to students in grades 4 and 7, are once again under way. They…
What If We Treated Harper Like We Treated Haiti’s Aristide?
Supporters of former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide chant and display signs outside the courthouse in Port au Prince on Wednesday, Jan. 9. When they learned that the prosecutor, Lucmane Delille,…
What Does Adbusters Ask of You in 2013?
From the people who suggested the modest idea of occupying Wall Street, Adbusters has sent out a new half dozen suggestions to fix the economic cancers of capitalism. Here’s my…
How Us Settlers Can Be In Solidarity With #IdleNoMore
Twitter / suzhawkins: As settlers… #idlenomore …. York University’s Suzanne Hawkins is my hero today for showing us all this amazing poster that succinctly describes how us non-indigenous settler folk…
Privatization Via Blackmail
If you want to see why there isn’t much of a real left wing in the USA, this graph of those seeking the White House in 2008 pretty much covers…
Why does ArcelorMittal hate Bosnia?
Pollution, people and tombstones in Zenica. Owned by the Indian billionaire Lakshmi Mittal, ArcelorMittal is the world’s largest steel producer—creating some 93 billion USD of revenue as of 2011. Granted,…
Join Elizabeth May on Politics, Re-Spun Radio Tonight
If you care about Stephen Harper giving China a veto over our democracy for 31 years in the FIPA sellout, tune into Politics, Re-Spun radio on Coop Radio tonight at…