Economics For Everyone is an invaluable book and a necessary addition to the library of popular educators, trade unionists, activists, or any person trying to make sense of the conundrum that is modern capitalism. And as Stanford makes clear, the first step to transforming the system is knowing how it works and for whom. To this end, Stanford’s book has made a vital contribution.

Canada in the 1960s was deeply affected by the civil rights and anti-war struggles in the United States. It was likewise caught up in the anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist movements that swept the world. But in this new and commanding work, Bryan Palmer demonstrates that Canada had its own 1960s which left a deep mark on our history.

In this installment, Chris Webb debates the political capacity of Twitter, Facebook and open-source software but warns “this technology has a dark side…tech-empires are still in the hands of the privileged few”. And in Soderbergh’s film, Che, the director ultimately reinforces the commodity of “Che”, disregarding political context and cinematic creativity.

In an environment where working people in Ontario have suffered major setbacks, organized labour’s response has so far been disappointing. The May 7 coming together of over 1,600 stewards, staff, and other union reps in Toronto around the necessity of fighting against attacks by employers and governments was an unprecedented and impressive exception that brought some hope for forward motion.

The mark of the 4000 Mexican farm labourers that come to Leamington, Canada’s “Tomato Capital”, each year to harvest up to half a billion tomatoes a year is necessarily transient. Despite working and living in Leamington up to eight months of the year, some workers returning ten seasons in a row, their presence is often treated with suspicion. They are wanted as labourers only, not citizens.

An important legacy of the Nazi Holocaust is the perpetrator’s defense “I didn’t know” at the Nuremberg tribunal hearings. More recently law challenges this “ostrich defense” by both perpetrators and bystanders, implying that there is an obligation to know. With regard to Israel/Palestine, there is little reason not to know about the horrific realities, for despite massive pro-Israeli advocacy there is ample documentation from within and without pointing to the clear culpability of the State of Israel in a number of international crimes against the Palestinian people.

I am disappointed with the view of some knowledgeable commentators over Scotland’s release of the dying man who was convicted of the Lockerbie-airline bombing.

From a purely power-politics point of view, of course, they are right: judging by the ugly noises echoing across the oceans from America, Scotland has done itself no favor.

The jury is still out on participatory democracy in Canada. Even before questions of participatory government can be breached, however, there is a long way to go. The common refrain is that a functioning democracy requires an informed population. Instead, we have a population with parcels of information, often distorted and just as often outright falsified for political gain.

What were to happen if we were to challenge our existing social structure by demanding a shorter working day? With more time to pursue personal creative efforts and desires, society could move away from a state of near-constant fatigue and towards a more just society; a society that could focus on more grave concerns that the planet’s neglected majority face on a daily basis.

The most striking aspect of the prolonged and deepening world recession/depression is the relative and absolute passivity of the working and middle class in the face of massive job losses, big cuts in wages, health care and pension payments and mounting housing foreclosures. To explore some tentative hypotheses of why there is little organized protest, we need to examine the historical-structural antecedents to the world economic depression.