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‘Triangle of Sadness’ is a flawed rebuke of the billionaire class
With Triangle of Sadness, the hierarchies of beauty and their relation to asset-backed power take centre stage. Swedish filmmaker Ruben Östlund’s Palme d’Or-winning film is a sharp mix of social satire and black comedy set onboard a luxury cruise. The director goes about about blowing up the superyacht his characters inhabit, and seeing what (and who) falls overboard.
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Planning our way out of poverty: Racism and Toronto’s housing crisis
The ways in which the Toronto power elite has exploited the cautionary tale of European urban crime and disease as a means of managing the threat of resistance are laid bare in Parastou Saberi’s book, Fearing the Immigrant: Racialization and Urban Policy in Toronto. Saberi is a visiting research fellow in the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick.
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Building a labour movement to take on the billionaire class
Joe Burns’ new book, Class Struggle Unionism, reads like pamphlet, with a clear call to transform the union movement. The model for change is one that has deep roots in the radical socialist and anarchist traditions of working class movements from early in the 20th century that has continuously raised it head over the past 120 years.
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The power of peasant farmers
When we imagine sustainable and socially equitable futures, agriculture must be front and centre of the program. It is in the agricultural realm that questions of land and resource distribution are fought, and it is where historical and ongoing battles between advocates of capitalist labour relations and those of independent self-provisioning clash.
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Paul Palango’s ‘22 Murders’ paints a bleak picture of RCMP inaction
Investigative journalist and author Paul Palango has written an excellent book, 22 Murders: Investigating the Massacres, Cover-up and Obstacles to Justice in Nova Scotia, documenting the Portapique massacre, the deadliest killing spree in Canadian history. As Judy Haiven writes, the book presents what might be the strongest argument for defunding and disbanding the RCMP.
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Still hopeful after all these years
Maude Barlow’s latest book, Still Hopeful, is an eloquent and personal account of her experience of more than four decades as an organizer, activist, and writer in her fight against greed, patriarchy, pollution, and inequality, among other evils. Barlow’s writing is clear and concise, and her narrative is enhanced by personal stories gained over her decades of fighting for social and environmental justice.
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The impasse of the Latin American left
The Impasse of the Latin American Left presents a valuable analysis that contributes to the understanding of the Pink Tide phenomenon, but, in my opinion, doesn’t tell the whole story. Errors and shortcomings have to be contextualized not by simply recognizing the existence of adverse conditions but by addressing the issue of the feasibility of options.
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Atlantis, Ukraine
It is the year 2025. The war in Donbas is over and the National Guard of Ukraine has emerged victorious against the Russians. What’s left of the Donetsk Basin is a scarred landscape of flooded mines, unexploded ordnance, and bodies yet to be buried. This is the story at the heart of director Valentyn Vasyanovych’s festival darling Atlantis, Ukraine’s official entry for the 93rd Academy Awards.
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Nora Loreto’s ‘Spin Doctors’ is a book everyone in Canada should read
Rather than treading over ground that other journalists and writers have covered, Nora Loreto has done something very different with her new book, Spin Doctors: How Media and Politicians Misdiagnosed the COVID-19 Pandemic. Loreto writes about work and workers and what has happened to them during the pandemic. She writes well, with her eyes open and fueled by a wry sense of humour.
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Caroline Elkins explores the ruthless violence and ideology of the British Empire
Legacy of Violence constructs a longue durée view of the British Empire, beginning in the late 1700s and moving through the Victorian era, the World Wars, the “imperial resurgence” of post-Second World War Britain, the “new liberal imperialism” of the Blair government, and the comparatively recent rise of right wing imperial nostalgists such as Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson.