-
Broad front or false front?
On February 19, no fewer than 1,000 protestors converged in Washington, DC for the Rage Against the War Machine rally, in opposition to the escalation of US support for the war in Ukraine. Slickly packaged and backed by a motley of reactionary groups and individuals, the event was better marketed than attended, as an attempt at “left-right unity” against a heavily propagandized war.
-
What was the Freedom Convoy?
It’s been a dizzying few weeks in Canadian politics. As the Emergencies Act is revoked, the trucks roll out of Ottawa, and provincial governments across Canada capitulate to the demands of the Freedom Convoy, dropping mask and vaccine mandates like dominoes, one could be forgiven for asking once more: what just happened, and what do we continue to do about it?
-
The perils of left populism
In a recent piece for The Breach, writer and organizer Emma Jackson calls for an “expansive left populism” to defeat the far-right. While she identifies many of the fronts on which the left must fight, it remains unclear how populism as such should serve as a working program for broad left demands, given its susceptibility to the politics of reaction.
-
Why vote Communist?
Where every other party is obliged to broker the interests of working class and colonized people to the grand abstraction of ‘The Economy,’ balancing corporate interests with the best of their respective platforms, the Communist Party of Canada can confidently name the profit system that dispossesses all, however differently—of land, of lifetime, of the wealth that we incessantly create.
-
Trump’s 1776 Commission: Cultural renewal by political repression
The evangelical vision of the 1776 Commission—one of cultural renewal by political repression—hasn’t been put quite so plainly since the Reagan years, nor has it gone to such lengths to enumerate its enemies this century. But what is the meaning of this moribund commission and its program for social cohesion, now that Trump is on his way out? Will this remedial document have any political life whatsoever?
-
Canada’s housing strategy needs a reset—human rights and public ownership, not markets
For as long as Winnipeg and other Canadian cities passively choose not to house people, they actively affirm and secure the right of developers and landlords to profit from inequality. Housing is a human right, not a commodity, and the consumer model of tenancy isn’t working. The only way to truly guarantee that people have high-quality, affordable housing is through public ownership.
-
American Dharma does the devil’s work too well
What good is American Dharma for politics? Superficially, the film draws back the curtain on a cynical campaign that far exceeds the influence of the presidency in its implication, having commenced when Donald Trump was a cavorting Democrat. But this is only Bannon’s résumé, damnable as fact, and Morris does little to push back against his leading man’s perception of himself as a clandestine kingmaker.
-
CMHR: the unbearable lightness of inclusion
Few buildings in Winnipeg, or Canada, have been as contested prior to their construction, let alone their opening, as the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. Plagued with controversy, its edifice has been lurking on the horizon for years, while critique after compelling critique assailed its neoliberal ideology: some more damning than others, but none what one would call “good press.”