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Theorizing a new radicalism: Henry Giroux on how to change the world
CultureIn the overlapping realms of cultural studies and critical theory, few scholars have made a more significant impact upon contemporary educational theory than Henry Giroux. In 2002, the American-Canadian academic was named by the British publisher Routledge as one of the top fifty educational thinkers of the modern period.
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Anti-Palestine Media Bias Remains Untouchable Even to Canada’s Media Critics
Middle EastWhen a “couple dozen” articles fail to quote a single proponent of a Green resolution pressing Israel to relinquish illegally occupied land it suggests systemic media bias. Canadaland’s inability to contextualize this anti-Palestinianism reveals a media watchdog subservient to the dominant foreign-policy framework about Israel. And a sign of how bad coverage is of all foreign affairs.
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The “People’s Poet” in three dimensions
The entire artifact — book and CD together —becomes a multimedia portrait of a fascinating man whose family and class allegiances, fierce intelligence and demanding friendship were obviously a challenge and a joy for those around him. Acorn’s reputation as a Marxist curmudgeon was the one I was most familiar with when I picked up this book.
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Open Letter to NDP re: their support for White Helmets Nobel Peace Prize
Canadian PoliticsI am writing to alert you that the NDP has made a very serious mistake in recommending to the federal government that Canada should nominate the White Helmets for the Nobel Peace Prize. To some extent this error may be understandable in light of the fact that a commentator has recently said, “Coverage of the Syrian war will be remembered as one of the most shameful episodes in the history of the American press.”
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Standing Rock Stakes Claim for Sovereignty
EnvironmentMainstream media would have most of us believe that the current struggle at Standing Rock, North Dakota is all about clean water – that its only focus is stopping the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) from running through Indigenous reservation land. And, yes, it is about these things. But while such a narrative may create “hot headlines,” it fails to capture the full truth and essence of what‘s really going on there.
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Jim Naylor: The Fate of Labour Socialism
LabourProfessor James Naylor talks about his exciting new book: The Fate of Labour Socialism: The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and the Dream of a Working-Class Future. The book is a fundamental reexamination of the CCF and Canadian working-class politics in the 1930s, one that will help historians better understand Canada’s political, intellectual, and labour history.
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The sharing economy blues
LabourToday, it seems like this interpretation of the Sharing Economy is everywhere, as journalists, pundits and politicians have lined up to praise its “innovative” promise. Yet is there something more sinister lurking behind the communitarian facade that so often accompanies descriptions of the peer-to-peer online sector?
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The blind alleys of “Generation Screwed”
LabourMuch has been made about the experience of millennials in the contemporary economy. And this isn’t without reason: wages are low, education is expensive, housing is inaccessible and finding secure employment is increasingly difficult. There does need to be a discussion in our society about intergenerational inequality, including within labour unions and left movements.
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More smoke than substance in Canadian plans
LabourWhile media attention in the global North has focused on the Swiss referendum, some of the most interesting BI projects and plans are in the global South, from Brazil to South Africa. And not all are government initiatives. The GiveDirectly.org charity is planning on distributing a BI to 6,000 Kenyan villagers over 10 years in a historic program expected to cost $30 million.
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Arundhati Roy Confronts the Tyranny of the Free Market
GlobalizationPerhaps the most revealing words on the topic of globalization in recent years came not from the pen of Thomas Piketty, nor were they written by Robert Reich or Joseph Stiglitz or Paul Krugman — rather, they can be found in the pages of The Lexus and the Olive Tree, written by the notorious New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman.
