The endemic trauma in American society, which is getting worse under the onslaught of the gig economy, pronounced social inequality, the climate crisis and the seizure of the political process and most institutions by corporations and the ruling oligarchs, is our most serious public health crisis. It has grave individual, social and political consequences.

Singer Sinéad O’Connor was not of this world. She was an ethereal talent and fearless activist who existed beyond the margins of respectability and societal expectation. When she died last week at 56, she left behind an artistic and political legacy of struggle and courage against oppression and for the voices of the impoverished, abused, and forgotten people of the world.

Katsuhiro Otomo’s legendary anime film Akira (1988) celebrated its 35th anniversary on July 15, 2023. As CD film critic Kalden Dhatsenpa writes, we should remember the movie as a towering achievement of cinema, a cultural landmark depicting the turbulent economic and social history of Japan at the peak of “the biggest asset bubble in history.”

The Asianadian was the first publication of its kind in Canada to host national and progressive conversations about the state of anti-Asian racism. Undertaken by a collective of cultural workers who found their way to Canada, the magazine offered dynamic approaches to discussing Canadian history while celebrating pan-Asian Canadian writing, music, and perspectives.

Konstantin Bogomolov recently published an article denouncing his one-time ideological allies in Russia’s liberal intelligentsia for their attitude towards the Russian people and the war in Ukraine. Bogomolov was out to provoke, yet beneath its insulting rhetoric, his article contained a germ of truth about the prospects for Russia ever turning into a liberal democratic state.

Canadians spend an average of 16 days per year driving. That’s a lot of inactive transportation, not to mention stress, traffic violence, and money. Despite this huge amount of driving, their cars sit parked, collectively taking up an immense amount of space, for the other 349 days—96 percent of the time. There is nothing inevitable about any of this.

Corporate Pride is not about liberation but about keeping the potentially unruly in line. If Pride must maintain its corporate sponsorships, then I can only work to abolish it in the same vein as I work for police and prison abolition. This June I will be attending Abolition and Anti-Fascist Pride events for the second year in a row, where politics and a good party are intimate partners.

Fortunately for Russian society, the crusade against classical culture and history initiated by the authorities is being thwarted by everyday practice, which is dominated by completely different trends. In the Internet age, censorship is extremely inefficient. A kind of cultural war has unfolded, in which one’s state acts as an occupying force, and citizens resort to guerrilla tactics.

There are amongst us genuine freedom fighters of all ethnicities and backgrounds whose integrity does not permit them to serve the system of inverted totalitarianism that has destroyed our democracy, impoverished the nation and perpetuated endless wars. Diversity when it serves the oppressed is an asset, but a con when it serves the oppressors.

To speak of the healing qualities of art, nature, colour and beauty, is to miss the mark profoundly when displaying an artist whose experience of life was so unremittingly bleak. While art and colour may have brought meaning to van Gogh’s life, it offered little by way of solace. It takes a very adept capitalist sleight of hand to turn his story into a lesson on “healing.”