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When I read a review of The Sword and The Shield: the Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. , I knew it was a book I'd been waiting for someone to write.  I despise the way Martin Luther King, Jr. has been sanitized and diluted for public consumption. The version of King that is widely celebrated is a pile of sentimental goo that the real King would not have recognized, let alone endorsed. King's radical legacy is reduced to a kind of bland "why can't we all just get along". His memory is used as a pacifier. King is officially lauded because of the fear of Black violence, and the ruling class' desire to promote docility among Blacks. So the public doesn't see King. Doesn't see the King who railed against the U.S. war in Southeast Asia, the King who marched with labour unions, the King who knew that without economic justice, desegregation was a hollow promise. The anti-capitalist King. The anti-imperialist King. The anti-war King...

United States Vice Presidents After the positive result in the US election, so many of my fellow leftists refuse to find joy in the occasion. They seem determined to not admit that something good happened. The worst president in the history of the United States has been handed his walking papers. This is a good thing!  Does that mean I expect anything but business as usual from a Joe Biden administration? Of course not! But will Trump's ouster improve people's lives? Absolutely it will. People's lives are more important than Marxist theory. Reform is not The Answer but it is a net positive, and that counts. Some other good things happened in this election, too. * The first female Vice President was elected! She is also the first person of colour to hold that position, both Black and South Asian. Does this mean I love Kamala Harris? Of course not! But visibility is important. Diversity is important. This moves the needle. Full stop. * All four of the Congressmembers referred...

Revolutionary thought of the day: Wherever capitalism appears, in pursuit of its mission of exploitation, there will be socialism, fertilized by misery, watered by tears, and vitalized by agitation. It will also be found unfurling its class-struggle banner, and proclaiming its mission of emancipation. Love and labor in alliance, working together, have transforming, redeeming, and emancipating power. Under their benign power, the world can be made better and brighter. Eugene V. Debs

Continuing the series, started here . I've decided not to review these books, but instead to post a cover image and a quote. It was difficult to choose quotes for these books, since they are books about ideas and events, with hundreds of different people quoted and referenced. After flipping through the books and seeing quote after beautiful, stirring, inspiring, infuriating quote, I decided to pull the lens back to more general thoughts from introductions and prefaces. Wobblies!: A Graphic History of the Industrial Workers of the World , edited by Paul Buhle and Nicole Schulman (many contributors) The world of the Wobs was made up of immigrant workers without steady employment, health plans, social security or drug benefits (like the future that Republicans and many a Democrat envision), without any responsibility on the part of the filthy rich for the growing class of poor -- so much like the society around us today. The world of the Wobblies was one realized in its best moments ...

I have been collecting graphic nonfiction with leftist political themes. I just love these books and am indulging myself in buying them. I was planning to review them, but I've decided to simply post images of the covers, the names of the books and the creators, and a quote from the person, group, or idea the book is about. Dangerous Woman: A Graphic Biography of Emma Goldman , written and illustrated by Sharon Rudahl, edited by Paul Buhle The greatest bulwark of capitalism is militarism. The very moment the latter is undermined, capitalism will totter. True, we have no conscription; that is, men are not usually forced to enlist in the army, but we have developed a far more exacting and rigid force--necessity. Is it not a fact that during industrial depressions there is a tremendous increase in the number of enlistments? The trade of militarism may not be either lucrative or honorable, but it is better than tramping the country in search of work, standing in the bread line, or slee...

As waves of shelter-in-place orders sweep over the continent, Canada and the US must figure out how to support an entire population thrown into unemployment and in need of food, fuel, shelter, and in the US, health care. A brief dip into recent history provides two very simple answers. Demand corporations pay their share. The corporate tax rate is at an all-time low (for modern times), offshore tax havens are rampant, and as if that's not enough, in the US the largest corporations are now receiving tax rebates to the tune of $79 billion. Nearly 100 Fortune 500 companies effectively paid no federal taxes in 2018 , according to a new report. The study by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a left-leaning think tank, covers the first year following passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act championed by President Donald Trump, which was signed into law in December 2017. The report covers 379 companies from the Fortune list that were profitable in 2018 and finds that 91 paid an ...

A reader pointed out that my previous post is very negative, and doesn't mention any of the very positive responses to the pandemic that are being rolled out. So: A prohibition on evictions. Water and electricity not being cut off for nonpayment. Student loan forgiveness. A relaxation of rules for employment insurance, and emergency funds for those who don't qualify. In some cities, free public transit. Paid sick leave. A suspension of rules about needing doctors' notes for sick days. And Every single one of these decent, humane responses to this health crisis injects a piece of socialism into our world. When the crisis has passed, governments will have to work overtime to erase our memories and return to ruthless business as usual.

We're all struggling to take in the magnitude of coping with a global pandemic. Personally I've had to cancel a long-awaited vacation to vist family, and with libraries closed, I may soon be applying for EI. The shelves at our local supermarket are empty; we're hoping folks who did the right thing, remained calm and didn't hoard, won't be repaid with severe shortages. And of course I'm hoping that the relatively fast and decisive actions taken by Canada and my own province of BC will protect us from the worst. But I'm also acutely aware that my personal inconvenience is nothing compared to the misfortunes of so many others. I don't mean those who are necessarily sick with COVID-19. I'm thinking of those who simply cannot prepare, and those who are suddenly faced with a total loss of income. All the families who live paycheque to paycheque, cobbling together an income from various part-time and casual jobs, who suddenly find themselves unemployed. All...

There's a movement to put the face of Tommy Douglas on the next Canadian $5 bill. Wouldn't that be wonderful? And wouldn't it be a kick in the pants to those who seek to privatize our health care system? Go here to nominate Tommy Douglas.

I started writing this post in September, after the global Climate Strike . It was exciting to see that so many people -- millions around the globe -- understand the urgency and are willing to take to the streets. I thought,  This is beautiful! This is amazing!  ... and This won't change anything . Both at the same time. I hate writing that. I hate feeling this way. Along with Climate Strike, there are other positive developments -- extinction rebellion , for example, and an increasing number of civil disobedience arrests, both celebrity and ordinary . This will grow. More people will get involved and actions will become even bolder. Yet I feel utterly pessimistic about humanity's future. I have lost hope. Of course I know I'm not alone in that. Anyone who looks at the reality of climate change either cloaks themselves in denial, clings to shreds of hope, or vows to fight on without hope. For me, this hopelessness is a kind of identity issue. I reflect on my own fee...

I have so many cool stories about libraries and librarians, scattered through multiple email and social media accounts. Lucky for you, I wanted to gather them all in one place. Thanks to everyone who ever sent me one of these. * * * * * Librarians in laundromats! Community librarians are all about taking literacy to the people. In library jargon, we're trying to reach the non-users. If that sounds a bit drug-dealer-ish, it's not a bad analogy: come get a taste, then come back for more. The puns just write themselves: front-loading literacy , unhampered access... but the issue is deadly serious. You already know about food deserts. Well, there are book deserts , too. Neighbourhoods where libraries have been de-funded, bookstores are nonexistent, and families can't afford to buy books. In the US, great swaths of whole cities are book deserts. After all, there's no profit in bringing books to people who can't buy them. * * * * * Librarians as detectives! Meet the squa...

Also: Why is Greta Thunberg so triggering for certain men , Jennifer O'Connell, Irish Times Canada's #climatestrike day is Friday, September 27.

This week's day trip with my Mom was the town of Sointula. One of my libraries is located in Sointula, so I've been there a couple of times, but had never had an opportunity to explore the town or surrounding Malcolm Island. Sointula has a fascinating history: it was founded as a socialist, Utopian community by dissident Finnish coal miners! Their vision was equality, community, and self-sufficiency. You can read more about this at a wonderful site that documents Utopian societies in Canada: Canadian Utopias Project . Allan and I always find it interesting that Vancouver Island tourism info about Sointula omits the words strike and socialism . The radical history of this proud little village is diluted to "people who were searching for a better life" -- which is true, but not quite accurate. And boring! It's as if the very mention of the word strike is enough to incite anger -- or longing, perhaps? -- in potential tourists. In this way and a million others, rad...

Today I attended a working meeting that included almost all the service providers in the region. These service providers were brought together by the Mount Waddington Health Network to build a coalition that will deal with the housing crisis. I was there mainly to stay informed and to network, and to keep the library visible -- and because so many groups that I will work with were also there. Three thoughts. * * * * These organizations are doing amazing work by working together rather than in silos -- more efficient (no duplication of effort), more strategic (not competing for the same funds), and stronger (speaking in one voice). This process -- a multi-year plan -- has seen real results in several places, and I expect it will in the North Island, too. The people are great -- sharp, committed, experienced, inclusive, taking a holistic view. I was so impressed. But. But I can't help thinking, all this would be unnecessary if housing were a human right in our society, and if this...

Occupy Nation: The Roots, the Spirit, and the Promise of Occupy Wall Street is a history and ethnography of Occupy Wall Street, and the Occupy movement. Author, sociologist, and longtime leftist activist Todd Gitlin has written an account of how a social movement was born, grew, and died. After reading it, I felt utter despair at our ability to create a more democratic political system, and a more just economic system. I'm pretty sure that's not what Gitlin was going for! It's easy to forget how present the Occupy movement became -- how quickly it spread, the attention it drew, how it forced a change in the terms of the debate. Hundreds of thousands of people in nearly 1,000 cities around the globe took part in Occupy demonstrations. The expression "the 99%" entered a common vocabulary. Occupy focused public and media attention on income inequality in a way I had not seen in my lifetime. Together with the Fight for 15, Occupy made labour and economic issues truly...

Harry Leslie Smith, who sometimes called himself "the world's oldest rebel," died in late November 2018. I was unable to acknowledge his passing on wmtc at the time. Smith, a writer and an activist, was a steadfast critic of neoliberal policies, especially the austerity agenda. He spoke out constantly and consistently for a more generous, more just, and more inclusive society -- in short, for the preservation of social democracy. His obituary in The Guardian quotes him: I am one of the last few remaining voices left from a generation of men and women who built a better society for our children and grandchildren out of the horrors of the second world war, as well as the hunger of the Great Depression. Sadly, that world my generation helped build on a foundation of decency and fair play is being swept away by neoliberalism and the greed of the 1%, which has brought discord around the globe. Today, the western world stands at its most dangerous juncture since the 1930s. Sm...

I recently read these somewhat old, but still relevant, letters to the New York Times Book Review. Cost of the Crash To the Editor: In his review of “Crashed,” by Adam Tooze (Aug. 12) , Fareed Zakaria asserts that “the rescue worked better than almost anyone imagined.” He notes there was no “double-dip recession” and growth returned “slowly but surely.” But this misses what was the major criticism of the “rescue.” It merely hit the re-set button — keeping the big banks solvent. Meanwhile, the stimulus did little to put people back to work. It was not the double-dip recession that critics feared but a long sluggish recovery that failed to affect the majority of the people. For example, it took six years (2009-15) for the unemployment rate to return to the pre-recession number. The share of income received by the top 1 percent had been 23 percent before the recession. After falling to 18 percent in 2010 it jumped back to 22 percent by 2015. Meanwhile, as late as 2015, the bottom 99 perc...