AndrewL's blog

Confronting Fascism in London

Responding to a call to action originating in Portland, Oregon, where neo-Nazi activity has reportedly taken the life of an anti-racist activist, Common Cause Hamilton is supporting our friends and comrades in London, Ontario as they confront similar forces.

In most years since 1998, London has seen its Pride parade marred by hate from the neo-Nazi Northern Alliance and some Christian Right allies. While these acts have been pathetic and insignificant enough to be ridiculed, we should not take them lightly. These groups go so far as to openly call for a sort of ethnic and sexual cleansing, and have stood shoulder to shoulder with the likes of the Klu Klux Klan and biker gang members who have gone on to commit murder.

Submitted by AndrewL on Mon, 07/26/2010 - 00:02.

Who owns the city? Not everyone is part of 'the public' - we criminalize the 'antisocial'

Sarah Mann
The Hamilton Spectator

(Jan 14, 2010)

Few Hamiltonians are unfamiliar with phrases such as "urban decay" or "cleaning up the streets."

Many of us are rightfully concerned about the rights of people living in poverty, sex workers and people experiencing homelessness in the wake of "cleanup" efforts.

On one side of the debate, city councillors are demanding cleaner streets and a more attractive, marketable and lucrative Hamilton. On the other side are humanitarians, activists and social service providers, arguing for universal access, human rights and basic survival for the city's most vulnerable residents.

The problem with the debate isn't the illegitimacy of the cause, but the framing of the "solution" to urban dissonance as a balance between public interest and the needs of those who are threatened with displacement.

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Submitted by AndrewL on Sat, 01/16/2010 - 16:28.

Against a postcapitalist wage system

Excerpt from Michael Schmidt and Lucien van der Walkt, Black Flame: The Revolutionary Class Politics of Anarchism and Syndicalism, Volume 1, Counterpower. pp 89-90. An example of what reads as a very cogent and thorough analysis of "mass anarchism."

Quote:
Kropotkin's notion that an anarchist society must also be a communist one - communist in the sense of distribution by need, not output - should be understood. The anarchists of the First International tended to share with classical Marxism the view that a just wage system could be applied in a postcapitalist society, based on remuneration by output. This "anarchist collectivism" (as it was later known) was partly a holdover of mutualist ideas of the workers receiving the full product of their labour and was reinforced by Marxist thinking about a postcapitalist society.

Submitted by AndrewL on Sat, 10/24/2009 - 11:54.

Mohawk part-time support staff await OPSEU vote result

http://www.hamiltonmountainnews.com/news/article/192350

By Mark Newman, News Staff
News
Oct 23, 2009

While they won’t say how many people cast ballots, officials with the Ontario Public Service Employees Union say their bid to organize part-time support staff at Mohawk College has been well received.

“I think there’s a strong majority of support here,” said Tracey-Ann Prokipzuk, president of OPSEU Local 241, which represents about 360 full-time support staff at the Mohawk’s Fennell, Stoney Creek, Applied Health and Brantford campuses. The union says the part-timers, many of then students, often receive less in terms of wages, benefits and job security than their full-time colleagues.

Part-time support staff at Mohawk voted last week and the province-wide balloting continues to next Tuesday.

Up to 10,000 part-time support staff at Ontario’s 24 community colleges are eligible to vote, including some 350 at Mohawk.

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Submitted by AndrewL on Fri, 10/23/2009 - 22:37.

Hamilton's "Jobs First" Rally: I'm moved, but where are we going?

march_above.jpg

I thought Hamilton's "Jobs First" rally might be a sighing, eye-rolling, disappointing experience. I thought the highlight might be betting how far David Christopherson's spit would fly when he took the mic, or whether or not he'd give himself a hernia. (I mean that in the fondest way possible :-) But there was a heck of a lot more to it than that. Hamiltonians are reeling after US Steel announced its virtual shutdown of Hamilton and Lake Erie operations.

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Submitted by AndrewL on Mon, 03/23/2009 - 00:30.

Police repression in Hamilton

Police repression in Hamilton, Ontario

Wednesday, January 28 2009 @ 07:40 PM CST

Contributed by: Anonymous

Views: 157
Police StateOn Thursday, January 22nd, the hamilton police stormed a peaceful folk show taking place at the Mex-I-Can restaurant on James street. The show had started around 8:30, with a crowd of around thirty people come to see the traveling musicians who'd stopped here for the night. Around 11:00, halfway though the show's lineup, word rushed through the room that there were cops outside. The show stopped, the crowd went to the street, and three people were arrested.

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Submitted by AndrewL on Sat, 01/31/2009 - 03:59.

Canada & Israel's Occupation

Quote:

One might assume that the Canadian Left has long opposed Israel's Jewish/White supremacy, its role in advancing US geopolitical interests in the Middle East or its status as the final frontier of European settler colonialism. Unfortunately this has not been the case. Recent opposition to Israeli policy by the Canadian Left is particularly important because it's a reversal of the Left's historic support for Zionism. While it might seem like ancient history to unions that recently passed motions to boycott Israel, in September 1977 the Canadian Labour Congress passed a resolution demanding Ottawa enact anti-boycott legislation against Arab countries that were boycotting companies doing business with Israel to pressure that country to return land captured in the 1967 war.


http://www.zmag.org/zspace/commentaries/3743

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Submitted by AndrewL on Thu, 01/15/2009 - 23:59.
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