Capitalism and Insanity

One person in every hundred is a psychopath. With a global population approaching 7 billion, this puts the global total of psychos at roughly seventy million. Seventy million psychopaths! Think of it: roughly twice the population of Canada. That’s a lot of psychos to deal with. And, as we all know from American Psycho, the [...]

Kickstarting Not an Alternative

Our friends at Not an Alternative were recently rentrified out of their 7-year home in Williamsburg. But the obscene 240% rent increase they were hit with hasn’t kept them down for long — they’ve simply moved house and are returning even stronger, taller and faster than before. Their kickstarter campaign is more than halfway toward [...]

The “Anarcho-Liberal” Considered, Pt. II

Post-territorial politics, OWS, and the Bugbear of Demands Following a post from several weeks ago, wherein I touched on Tactical Media’s relationship to what Bhaskar Sunkara has dubbed the “anarcho-liberal,” I would like to further explore some of the forebears to the phenomenon referred to by this neologism. The anarcho-liberal character is best summarized, in [...]

The “Anarcho-Liberal” Considered

Part I: Tactical Media — “Anarcho-Liberalism’s” Half-Wit Step-Parent Bhaskar’s recent Dissent article, “The Anarcho-Liberal,” posits the post-New Left existence of an “anti-intellectualism that manifested itself in a rejection of “grand narratives” and structural critiques of capitalism, abhorrence for the traditional forms of left-wing organization, a localist impulse, and an individualistic tendency to conflate lifestyle choices [...]

Let them eat “Wow!”

The riots in London will likely soon be effectively framed by the media as the result of racial tensions, antipathy towards police, and “recreational violence.” There may well be a smattering here and there of economic considerations—that perhaps this discord might be partially a symptom of austerity measures—but even this allowance will, in all probability, [...]

Dept. of Canadian Comstockery

Free speech in Canada is different than in the U.S. While the exceptions most frequently mobilized against the First Amendment are claims of defamation and obscenity, Canadian free speech is limited to what can “reasonably be justified” in a “free and democratic society.” Restriction to free speech can occur when speech is deemed hateful, presumably [...]

Stephen Harper: All-Canadian Neocon

So the die is cast and there will be 4 years of Conservative rule now that Harper has been “deeply honoured” by a “majority mandate” (his 55% of seats in parliament, thanks to a winner-take-all electoral system, is due to only 39% of the vote). In light of this, it is perhaps worth taking the [...]