Canada – T. J. Petrowski

Roll back Prices! Raise Wages!

Review: “Sweatshops on Wheels: Winners and Losers in Trucking Deregulation” – Michael H. Belzer

Before obtaining his Ph.D. in economics from Cornel University, Michael H. Belzer logged over 750,000 over-the-road miles as a Teamster tank-truck driver. Thus, along with his academic background, Belzer has firsthand experience working in the trucking industry. Like Belzer, I, too, am an academic with experience working in the trucking industry, increasing the appeal ofContinue reading “Review: “Sweatshops on Wheels: Winners and Losers in Trucking Deregulation” – Michael H. Belzer”

Review: “Ethnocultural Processes and National Problems in the Modern World” – ed. I. R. Grigulevich

“Ethnocultural Processes and National Problems in the Modern World” is a collection of essays by Soviet ethnologists edited by I. R. Grigulevich about ethnic, racial, and national issues in both the USSR and other countries. This is an impressively comprehensive book. Part 1 of the book examines ethnocultural processes in the USSR and is dividedContinue reading “Review: “Ethnocultural Processes and National Problems in the Modern World” – ed. I. R. Grigulevich”

Review: “The History of Democracy: A Marxist Interpretation” – Brian S. Roper

What are the origins of ‘democracy’? Are countries like the US, Canada, Britain, etc., democratic? In “The History of Democracy: A Marxist Interpretation,” Brian S. Roper examines liberal assumptions about the origins and essence of democracy using Marxist historical materialism. Roper begins by examining the system of participatory democracy in Athens and Rome and itsContinue reading “Review: “The History of Democracy: A Marxist Interpretation” – Brian S. Roper”

Toronto Police Brutally Attack Homeless Encampment

In Toronto this week, Canada once again stretched its “democratic” muscles, in true banana republic fashion. On July 21st, 2021, Toronto police violently attacked an encampment of 14 to 17 homeless individuals, with batons, pepper spray, and other weapons, and destroyed all their meager belongings in a scorched earth campaign. Take a look at theContinue reading “Toronto Police Brutally Attack Homeless Encampment”

An Open Letter to David Anderson, MP for Cypress Hills-Grasslands

Dear David Anderson, I am writing to express my disgust with your false and outright disgraceful polemic in the House of Commons recently about the death of Fidel Castro and the revolutionary government of Cuba. I’d like to respond to some of your criticisms of Castro and of the Cuban “communist regime.” Quoting an unnamedContinue reading “An Open Letter to David Anderson, MP for Cypress Hills-Grasslands”

Peacekeeping: Fiction vs. Reality

(Image: Protest in Haiti against UN sexual crimes against women. Source) The word peacekeeping is like the word terrorism: it is meaningless on its own and able to be molded to serve the interests of a political clique. Like Alex P. Schmidt’s description of terrorism in The Routledge Handbook of Terrorism Research, peacekeeping “is usuallyContinue reading “Peacekeeping: Fiction vs. Reality”

Refugee Crisis is a Crisis of Imperialism

The widely circulated photo of Aylan Kurdi, a three-year-old Syrian boy whose body was found on a beach in Turkey and whose family was “making a final, desperate attempt to flee to relatives in Canada even though their asylum application had been rejected” by the Harper Government, has caused widespread outrage and forced Western leaders toContinue reading “Refugee Crisis is a Crisis of Imperialism”

The War on ISIS is a Farce

Nowhere in recent years have the contradictions of imperialism been so clear than in the West’s war against ISIS. Working people are bombarded with messages in the media of the worldwide threat of ISIS, with the aim of the messages to convince working people of the need to sacrifice their civil liberties and democratic freedomsContinue reading “The War on ISIS is a Farce”

Partners in Apartheid: Boycott Indigo Books and Music

Branches of Indigo Books and Music and its subsidiaries Chapters, Coles, SmithBooks, and IndigoSpirit are a familiar site to Canadians from coast to coast, thanks to the company’s monopoly control of retail-bookstore sales in Canada. But behind the inviting facade of each store there lies a terrible reality – the murder of Palestinians. Heather Reisman,Continue reading “Partners in Apartheid: Boycott Indigo Books and Music”