rtod
Revolutionary thought of the day: Hunger isn’t about the amount of food around. It’s about being able to afford and control that food. After all, the U.S. has more food…
poverty and class
rotd: this changes everything
Revolutionary thought of the day: …if there is a reason for social movements to exist, it is not to accept dominant values as fixed and unchangeable but to offer other…
150 cities + 500 arrests = whatever it takes for $15
Last Thursday, fast-food workers in more than 150 US cities went on strike. Some 500 workers were arrested for civil disobedience, including this man, José Carillo, an 81-year-old McDonald’s worker.…
fast-food workers are on strike today. you can support their cause.
Fast-food workers all over the US are on strike today, demanding a living wage and the right to form a union without retaliation. Did you know that the majority of…
revolutionary thoughts of the day: kareem abdul-jabbar, the new yorker, howard zinn
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has an excellent essay in Time, something only a big-name writer can get away with in the mainstream media. Abdul-Jabbar names the stark truths behind the uprising in…
dark times in canada, part 3: adding my voice to oppose andrea horwath’s rightward shift
I’m quite sure that Canadians who read this blog already know about this, and for others, it’s not relevant. But I want to add my small voice to the chorus…
mcdonald’s? mcbullshit!
Sign!
the ndp: so sad, so frustrating, so maddeningly predictable
Where oh where has the NDP gone? One of the most wonderful things about Canada, for me, has always been the presence of a viable third party on the left.…
open letter to james moore
To the Honourable James Moore, Minister of Industry: In answer to your recent question, yes, it is your job to feed your neighbour’s child. And it’s my job, and it’s…
former walmart executive leads covert smear campaign against activist workers: watch their hilariously awful video
From The Nation: Last night, Worker Center Watch – a new website dedicated to attacking labor-affiliated activist groups like OUR Walmart, Restaurant Opportunities Center, and Fast Food Forward – began…
what i’m reading: nw by zadie smith
If you haven’t read anything by Zadie Smith, I highly recommend finding White Teeth, her debut novel, and diving in. Smith wrote White Teeth while still attending university, and it…
more moyers: democracy and plutocracy don’t mix
I found the preceding rtod post buried in Blogger drafts, something Allan saved there years ago. I never got around to posting it, but I never had the heart to…
rtod
Revolutionary thought of the day: The Gilded Age returned with a vengeance in our time. It slipped in quietly at first, back in the early 1980s, when Ronald Reagan began…
faludi: corporatist pseudo-feminism vs radical change for women and all working people
I would like to draw your attention to an excellent article by Susan Faludi in The Baffler: Facebook Feminism: Like It or Not. Faludi contrasts the corporatist, individualistic, me-first, privileged,…
hedges: "when harper passes right-to-work, you must go on a massive general strike, or you’re finished"
Last night, I heard author, journalist, and activist Chris Hedges speak at the Bloor Street United Church in Toronto, sponsored by the excellent Canadian Dimension. Hedges is a radical intellectual,…
rtod
This Revolutionary Thought of the Day brought to you by my abiding hero, Clarence Darrow. Darrow dismissed many of the remedial bandages that he and the labor movement had battled…
hey mcdonald’s: the working poor don’t need financial advice or higher banking costs. they need higher wages.
Part 1: McDonald’s version of company scrip (Part 2 below) Any minute now we’ll see the return of company scrip. In the bad old days before labour unions forced reforms,…
what i’m reading: the casual vacancy by j. k. rowling
The Casual Vacancy, J. K. Rowling’s first non- Harry Potter book, received almost universally poor reviews, ranging from tepid to savage. Reviewers found the book too long for the subject…
what i’m reading: youth fiction: the hunger games
This is the first in a series of reviews of youth (formerly called YA, or young-adult) novels, which I will be reading in no particular order and with no particular…
can money buy happiness? yes. no. sometimes. maybe.
My friend Impudent Strumpet writes a series of posts that dispute the oft-repeated notion “money can’t buy happiness”. (Here’s an example.) I find this idea very thought-provoking. I’ve definitely subscribed…