Ulli Diemer — Radical Digressions
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Ulli Diemer: Articles A-Z
- Abandonando el Interés Público
- Abandonando o interesse público
- Abandoning the public interest
- The neo-liberal drive to cut red tape is costing lives. Exposing the hidden costs of deregulation and privatization.
- Abandonner l’intérêt publique
- L’abbandono dell’interesse pubblico
- A co teraz? Kasa Oszczędnościowa następstwem Wolnego Handlu
- Adding up to Zero
- A sceptical look at “carbon-neutral” and “carbon-zero.”
- Afghanistan and the ‘experts’
- The ‘experts’ are never wrong. When each intervention turns into yet another predictable disaster – predicted by others, of course, not by the ‘experts’ – the ‘experts’ never acknowledge their mistakes, and the media never holds them to account.
- After Typhoon Haiyan: The true face of the capitalist state
- In times of disaster, the capitalist state shows its true face.
- Against All Odds
- The shadow which haunts the power structure is the danger that those who are controlled will come to realize that they are powerless only so long as they think they are. Once people stop believing they are powerless, then the whole edifice is in danger of collapse.
- A közérdek mellözésre kerül
- Algonquin Park photos, February 2012
- Winter photos from Algonquin Park.
- Algonquin Winter
- The joys of winter in the wild.
- Alternative media
- It’s no wonder that the mainstream media are widely distrusted, and even held in contempt, by many people. They are seen, rightly, as part of the neoliberal system people are increasingly rejecting. On the other hand, the Internet has made it possible to launch a vast number of alternative media projects.
- An alternative media list
- An annotated guide to alternative English-language sources of news and analysis.
- Ambiente, Uso de Tierra, Rural – El Anuario de Conexiones
- Anarchism vs. Marxism
- Anarchist critiques of Marxism typically reveal a lack of knowledge of what Karl Marx actually wrote, resulting in sterile denunciations of a straw-man opponent.
- L’anarchisme par rapport au marxisme
- Quelques notes sur un vieux thème.
- Anarquismo vs. Marxismo: Algunas notas sobre un tema antiguo
- Annals of the Firebreather - book review
- Review of Marcel Horne’s memoir.
- Anti-Vaxxer Protest
- Dropping in on an anti-vaxxer protest.
- Are the police doing their jobs?
- It makes no sense to demand that the police “do their job”. The job of the police is to protect the wealth and power of the ruling elite against any challenge.
- Around Georgian Bay, Summer 2009
- Photos by Ulli Diemer and Miriam Garfinkle.
- Arrêtons de se faire des illusions
- Artes, Medios, Cultura – El Anuario de Conexiones
- Arts, Media, Culture Overview for the Connexions Annual
- Arts, Médias et Culture – L’Annuel Connexions
- Atlantic Provinces, Summer 2015
- Photos by Miriam Garfinkle and Ulli Diemer.
- Att överge allmänintresset
- L’autodétermination pour qui?
- Auto worker says automation creates worker alienation
- It is only struggle, says Martin Glaberman, that creates an awareness of collective strength.
- Bailando con la culpa: Los hombres hablando de la violencia
- Bain Co-op hit by rent strike
- Minority of residents launch rent strike while majority pursues co-op ownership.
- Bain Co-op OKs evictions
- Residents refusing to pay their full rent are to be served eviction notices.
- Bain Co-op meets Wages for Housework
- The story of the struggle that gave birth to a housing co-operative and destroyed the credibility of the ‘Wages for Housework’ sect.
- Bakounine contre Marx
- Bakunin vs. Marx
- The anarchist-Marxist split started with Bakunin, who systematically misrepresented Marx’s positions.
- Bakunin vs. Marx (Sp.)
- Bathurst Heights Yearbooks 1966, 1967, 1968.
- I digitized my high school yearbooks from the years 1965-1966, 1966-1967, and 1967-1968. The school was Bathurst Heights Secondary School, and the yearbook was called the Phoenix.
- Begegnung mit dem Schuldbewusstsein: Eine Beobachtung von Männern, die sich mit Gewalt auseinandersetzen
- Beit Zatoun Open House 2013
- Photos by Miriam Garfinkle of the Beit Zatoun open house, March 2, 2013.
- Beyond the Walls
- Living life in a world of lockdowns and walls.
- The biggest threat to a free society is freedom of speech, says Canada’s Public Safety Minister
- Canada’s “Public Safety” Minister Steven Blaney says that the Holocaust could have been prevented if only Germany hadn’t suffered from an excess of freedom of speech.
- Birth of Karl Marx, May 5, 1818
- Marx breathes dialectics and revolution. For Marx, radicalism means going to the root, and Marx–s radicalism seeks to go to the root of capitalism, to comprehend its essence dialectically, to understand its inherent contradictions – and the seeds of revolution it contains...
- The Bomb won’t go away on its own
- Our task is to break out of this closed self-justifying system by depriving governments of the passive populations they need, by refusing to accept the choices we are offered and instead becoming active participants pressuring them to accept our proposals.
- Bonobos
- February 14 is World Bonobo Day.
- A bookstore moment
- When you need some books...
- Breaking News! Saddam Alive!
- Confidential intelligence sources whose identity can’t be revealed have confirmed that former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein is still alive, and is in possession of weapons of mass destruction which could be launched within minutes.
- Brexit, Jeremy Corbyn, and Contempt for Democracy
- A constant theme in elite reaction to the Brexit referendum, expressed especially through the mainstream media, has been a visceral contempt for democracy. Ordinary working people are portrayed as stupid and reactionary, incapable of understanding how wonderful the European Union project is. Again and again, one hears the comment that the great unwashed should not be allowed to vote on issues which they are incapable of understanding. This reaction is not new: ruling classes for centuries have loathed democracy, which is seen as an existential threat to the wealth and privileges of the elite.
- The bright side
- The glory of our free media, where every journalist thinks for him- or herself.
- Bruce Peninsula photos, Summer 2010
- Photos by Ulli Diemer and Miriam Garfinkle, Bruce Peninsula, August 2010.
- Bruce Peninsula photos, May 2011
- Photos by Ulli Diemer and Miriam Garfinkle, Bruce Peninsula, May 2011.
- Bruce Peninsula photos, September 2014
- Photos by Miriam Garfinkle and Ulli Diemer, Bruce Peninsula, September 2014.
- Butterfly
- Life and death, memory and grief, walk hand in hand.
- By the people, for the people?
- A tiny group of appointed politicians is ignoring the what the people have said they want.
- The Canada Metals Story: A chronology
- The ongoing struggle against lead pollution in South Riverdale.
- The Canada-Soviet hockey summit 1972
- Written shortly after the end of the 1972 hockey series between a Soviet team and a Canadian team comprised of players from the National Hockey League.
- Canada’s Distorted Electoral System
- Canada’s first-past-the-post electoral system is notorious for producing results at odds with the wishes of the electorate. There are alternatives.
- The Capital Punishment Debate
- The cold-blooded killing of a human being is horrifying. The existence of capital punishment make us all complicit in killing, and degrades us as a society.
- The Case for Grassroots Archives
- Preserving the documentary history of grassroots movements has largely fallen to individuals and small organizations who have seen the importance of preventing this history from disappearing “down the memory hole.”
Also available in French and Farsi. - Catch the Wind: On Nature, Birds, and Miriam
- Memories of experiencing nature.
- Chemicals in your water: A little is too much
- The irresponsible dumping of chemicals in and near water endangers us all.
- Chomsky turns 70
- Chomsky’s immense contributions have helped me feel more optimistic and helped me keep my energies focused on activism.
- Circle in the Darkness: Memoir of a World Watcher - Book Review
- Diana Johnstone provides a compelling and insightful account of her decades as a journalist, academic, activist, and truth seeker.
- Chomsky’s Determination to change society before it slides into irreversible barbarism
- Review of For Reasons of State
- La clase trabajadora y el cambio social
- La Classe Ouvriére et le Changement Social
- Close Encounter with a Red-tailed Hawk
- A life-and-death drama in downtown Toronto.
- Collective Memory, Archives, and the Connexions project
- Michael Riordon interviews Ulli Diemer.
- Collective Memory and Cultural Amnesia
- Our society is obsessed with the short-term present. It devalues memories and the past. That’s the nature of capitalism, especially the speeded-up hypercapitalism of today. The past is useless: profits are made by getting rid of the old and replacing it with something new.
- Columnist traumatized by having to wait his turn
- Jonathan Kay thinks people with money should get quicker treatment in emergency rooms than people who are poor.
- A comment on John Holloway’s ‘Read Capital: The First Sentence’
- Capital, and Marxist theory generally, can’t be interpreted on the basis of what Marx put in the first sentence of the book.
- Comments on ‘religious rights’ and on the Notwithstanding Clause
- Raising some questions about the Canadian Civil Liberties Association’s approach to religious practices and to the Notwithstanding Clause.
- La Communauté, l’Urbanisme et le Logis – L’Annuel Connexions
- Community, Urban, Housing Overview for the Connexions Annual
- Como Comunicarse De Manera Efectiva A Través De Un Boletín Informativo
- Comunidad, Urbano, Vivienda – El Anuario de Conexiones
- The Connexions Annual
- The Connexions Annual was a social change sourcebook published by Connexions. It consisted of a directory of organizations, reading lists, illustrations, and a number of short essays on different issues. Only two issues of the Connexions Annual appeared, plus an earlier (1986) publication called The Connexions Directory. I edited the 1989 and 1994 editions of the Connexions Annual.
- The Connexions Annual: Introductions to the directory and its sections
- Introductions to major subject areas covered by the Connexions Annual. “We hope that this book will help to get out the message that there are viable alternatives to destructive and exploitative institutions and structures, and that there are people organizing to build those alternatives.”
- The Connexions Digest
- The Connexions Digest was a print publication published from 1976 to 1994. I became part of Connexions in 1982. The newsletter was first called “Canadian Information Sharing Service;” in 1978, the name was changed to “Connexions.” In 1983, it was given the subtitle “A Digest of Resources and Groups for Social Change.” In 1988, the name became “The Connexions Digest.”
- Constructive criticism can be a good thing
- It’s counterproductive to say that for the sake of ‘unity‘ we shouldn’t criticize others in the environmental movement. Principled debate and critcism when it is called for helps us clarify issues and move forward.
- Contaminación: El envenenante legado de los recortes ambientales de Ontario
- Contamination: The Poisonous Legacy of Ontario’s Environmental Cutbacks
- A story about fanaticism and death: The story of Ontario’s right-wing Harris government, which gutted health and environmental protection polices, leading to the Walkerton water disaster.
- Contamination: L'Héritage Vénéneux des coupures écologiques de l'Ontario
- Contra Todos los Pronósticos
- La contribution de Rosa Luxembourg envers le Marxisme
- Il contributo al marxismo di Rosa Luxemburg
- O Contributo de Rosa Luxemburg ao Marxismo
- A Conversation with Don Weitz
- Activist Don Weitz interviewed by Ulli Diemer, December 8, 2016.
- A Conversation with Howard Huggett
- Socialist Howard Huggett was interviewed by Ulli Diemer on May 24, 1989.
- A Conversation with Joy Kogawa
- Ulli Diemer spoke with Joy Kogawa in Toronto on March 14, 2017.
- La Cooperativa Bain se enfrenta al Grupo de Remuneración por el Trabajo Doméstico
- La coopèrative de Bain rencontre ‘Salaires pour les travaux domestiques’.
- Corporate crime
- Corporations have increasingly become legally unaccountable for their behaviour. All too often corporations break the law and engage in criminal acts which would be severely punished if they were committed by ordinary individuals. These illegal acts range from deliberate health and safety violations that cost lives, to land seizures, to environmental negligence that contaminates lands and waters. Most of these illegal acts are never prosecuted, and those that are, are usually dealt with by a fine that corporations can treat as a cost of doing business.
- Covered Bridge Potato Chips
- The search for Sea Salt and Pepper potato chips.
- La crise Iraquienne en context
- La crisis de Irak en contexto
- Czym jest wolnościowy socjalizm?
- Danças com Culpa: Um olhar sobre os homens que olham para a violência
- Dances with Guilt: Looking at Men Looking at Violence
- When we throw around indiscriminate terms like ‘male violence’ and give credence to theories that men are inherently violent, we are slandering men who are not violent and, unthinkingly, we are actually perpetuating the stereotype that to be a man is to be violent.
- Deadlines
- Why I miss deadlines.
- Dear Al Gorithm
- The algorithms have it all figured out.
- Death on Yonge Street
- This city, which usually seems far too cynical and hurried to care very much about anything any more, has been deeply shocked and violently angered by the murder of the little shoe-shine boy, Emmanuel Jaques, on Yonge Street.
- El Debate de la Pena Capital
- Debating the NDP
- The Left has been trying to ‘move the NDP to the left’ since 1933, achieving pretty much the same result as a dog chasing its tail.
- Deep thinking about what the census shows
- The experts analyze population trends, and come up with some surprising conclusions.
- Dejemos de engañarnos a nosotros mismos sobre el NDP
- Democracy loses out
- The people can say what they want, they can vote how they want, but the bureaucrats make the decisions.
- Depression and Joy
- It’s a difficult thing to measure, but there are strong reasons for believing that the number of people struggling with depression has increased significantly in recent decades. Despite the evidence that this is a social problem, and not merely an individual misfortune, the solutions and escapes on offer are almost all individual: pharmaceuticals and therapy, on the one hand; self-medication with alcohol, streets drugs, television, etc., on the other.
- Los Derechos Humanos y Libertades Civiles – El Anuario de Conexiones
- Derechos y Libertades
- Desarrollo, Internacional – El Anuario de Conexiones
- Desintresse am Öffentlichen Intresse
- In den Industrienationen haben die Menschen über Jahrzehnte hinweg gelernt, dass man privaten Unternehmen nicht trauen kann, wenn es um Sachen der öffentlichen Sicherheit geht.
- Destabilization and regime change
- People looking at the United States from the outside tend to assume that life is easy when you're an imperialist superpower in command of the world’s largest military forces, backed by the world’s most powerful economy. With so much power concentrated in your hands, what could possibly go wrong?
- Development, International Overview for the Connexions Annual
- Développement International – L’Annuel Connexions
- Diemer, Karl: 1920 - 2006
- Obituary of Karl Heinz Diemer.
- Diez Mitos del Cuidado de la Salud: Entendiendo el Debate del Servicio Medico en Canadá
- Diminishing residential schools abuse?
- Disobedience
- Ultimately all power structures depend on the obedience of those over whom they rule. It helps if people believe in the legitimacy of those who wield power, but the crucial thing is obedience. Once people start to disobey in significant numbers, the dynamic of power changes fundamentally. Disobedience, especially on a large scale, shakes the power of the rulers, and increases the power of those who disobey.
- 10 mythes des soins de santé
- Don Weitz interview
- Activist Don Weitz interviewed by Ulli Diemer, December 8, 2016.
- Droits et Libertés
- Droits Humains et Libertés Civiles – L’Annuel Connexions
- Drowning in a Sea of Lies
- Lies are the lifeblood of the world we live in. The American-dominated international order is rooted in violence and exploitation, but lies are its language, its public face, and its spiritual essence.
- Drug strike long and nasty
- A strike by 400 workers against a Ward 7 company is entering its ninth week with no end in sight.
- Economía, Pobreza, Trabajo – El Anuario de Conexiones
- L’Économie, la Pauvreté et le Travail – L’Annuel Connexions
- Economy, Poverty, Work Overview for the Connexions Annual
- Educación, Niños – El Anuario de Conexiones
- Education, Children Overview for the Connexions Annual
- L’Éducation et les Enfants – L’Annuel Connexions
- Eine Stimme für die Demokratie
- Wenn das Konsensprinzip in einer bestimmten Gruppe funktioniert, ist das gut. Aber ich denke, dass seine Befürworter anderen einen schlechten Dienst erweisen, wenn sie ihnen ein Modell aufzwingen wollen, dass nur unter bestimmten Umständen funktioniert und so viele Leute dazu gebracht hat, sich aus dem sozialen Aktivismus zurückzuziehen.
- The end of carding?
- Enseñando a adultos a leer
- Entrevista con Ulli Diemer
- Entrevue avec Ulli Diemer
- Environment, Land Use, Rural Overview for the Connexions Annual
- L’Environnement, l’utilisation agraire et la campagne – L’Annuel Connexions
- Eratosthenes: Measuring the Earth on the Solstice
- The Solstice is a special day, and for nerds like me, it’s also historic because it was on the Solstice in 240 BCE that Eratosthenes, a Greek geographer, mathematician, astronomer, poet, and librarian, first calculated the circumference of the earth.
- Eulogy for Miriam
- Eulogy for Miriam Garfinkle.
- An evening paddle
- On a canoe you can go places you can’t approach in a car or even on foot, moving quietly or staying still in one spot. Life slows down, and you can breathe.
- Everything is under Control. Until it isn’t
- In 1962, at a critical moment in the Cuban Missile Crisis, humanity survived only because one man, Vasily Aleksandrovich Arkhipov, said no. The world now finds itself in probably the most dangerous situation since the Cuban Missile Crisis.
- Fading to Silence?
- Major social media and search platforms have become extremely adept at disappearing alternative points of view simply by adjusting their algorithms.
- Faith, Hope and Persistence
- When we look at what is happening in our world, it can be difficult to believe that there are grounds for hope, let alone faith. And yet we – we humans – continue to live and act in ways that testify to our hopes, and to our faith in the possibility of a better future.
Also available in Vietnamese. - “Fake News”
- “Fake news” is the latest mania to convulse the mainstream media. All at once, we’re being subjected to an outbreak of hand-wringing articles and commentaries about obscure websites which are supposedly poisoning public opinion and undermining democracy by spreading “fake news.”
- Fallacies about free public transit
- Opponents of free public transit resort to two fallacious arguments.
- Farewell to Facebook?
- Facebook is telling me that I will be locked out of my account unless I start using ‘Facebook Protect.’
- Farewell to the Guardian
- When a newspaper has arrived at the point of praising war criminals while deluding itself that it is holding the powerful to account, I know that it’s not a newspaper that I want to keep receiving.
- Les Femmes – L’Annuel Connexions
- A few decide where we live
- We have to abolish a system whereby a tiny handful with a lot of money can decide how thousands of other people are going to live, how thin their walls are going to be, how much sunshine they’ll be able to get, where their children will play.
- Foggy fireworks don’t flop
- A special evening watching fireworks in the fog.
- La foi, l’espoir et la persistance
- Lorsque nous observons notre monde, il peut être très difficile de croire qu’il y a des raisons à avoir de l’espoir pour le futur, sans parler de la foi
- Following the Science?
- “Following the science” has been the mantra of public officials from the very beginning of the pandemic. But what does “following the science” actually mean?
- Free speech and acceptable truths
- Some suggestions for making universities safe by purging them of dangerous words, ideas, and thoughts.
- ‘Free speech’ – as long as it doesn’t offend anyone
- Many people claim to be in favour of free speech: but only so long as it isn’t used to express views they find unacceptable or offensive.
- Free speech for me – you shut up
- The right to express offensive views is at the very heart of the princple of free speech.
- Free Trade Debate: Look at the Contents, Not Just the Label
- A response to criticisms of ‘What Do We Do Now? Building a social movement in the aftermath of Free Trade’.
- Free Trade Emotions, Pro and Con
- Ordinary people shouldn’t react emotionally to “free trade,” we are told, because corporate leaders might get upset.
- “Free trade” fantasies
- Economist wants us to pretend that giving control of a substantial proportion of the Canadian economy to the United States is of now more significance than choosing which corner store to patronize.
- Freedom Convoy
- A report from the “Freedom Convoy” protesting vaccine mandates.
- From Cold War I to Cold War II: A brief history
- A brief history of the closing years of the Cold War and the development of a new cold war.
- From Lenin to Stalin (book review)
- Victor Serge’s first-hand account of the Stalinist takeover in Russia.
- Gaza 2023: Dehumanization and humanity
- Introduction to the November 4, 2023 issue of Other Voices, devoted to the ongoing horror of Israel’s genocidal attack on Gaza.
- Gedanken über Selbstbestimmung
- Die tatsächliche Bedeutung dieses Slogans ist der Glaube, dass es weder möglich noch Wünschenswert ist für zwei ethnische und Sprachgruppen in einem Land zusammenzuleben. Es gibt wohl keine Sichtweise die pessimistischer und weniger sozialistisch ist.
- Gentle Patriot - book review
- Review of Gentle Patriot: A Political Biography of Walter Gordon.
- Giant Squid
- Researcher hopes to find the rare Giant Squid – so he can kill it.
- The Globe and Mail reports on protests
- No surprises when the corporate media report on protests.
- Gordie Howe is still #1
- The National Hockey League continues to pretend that the World Hockey Association didn't exist.
- Grand narratives?
- Those who reject ‘grand narratives’ have simply bought into the hoariest grand narrative of all, the one which says that capitalism is all-powerful and eternal.
- Grassroots Cells, Devil’s Architects Defend Community: Review of The Householders Guide to Community Defence Against Bureaucratic Aggression
- Organizational principles and campaign tactics communities can use to fight projects or developments being foisted on them.
- Grassroots Media Relations
- A guide for activists on getting media coverage.
- Greece, Debt, and Crises
- The ordinary citizens of Greece (and other countries) never saw the money loaned to ‘Greece’ and derived no benefit from it. Yet they are expected to suffer the elimination of their jobs, wages, pensions, health and social services, etc., in order to repay the money looted by the oligarchs.
- Green Municipalism
- A green municipalist analysis offers valuable perspectives but can become a straightjacket if it is seen as ‘the’ answer.
- Gros Morne and Northern Peninsula, Newfoundland, 2005
- Photos from Newfoundland, 2005.
- Gros Morne and Northern Peninsula, Newfoundland, 2007
- Photos from Newfoundland, 2007.
- Gros Morne, March 2011
- Photos from Gros Morne, March 2011.
- Guidelines for police in dealing with mentally ill people
- An investigative report report by the CBC shows that more than 460 people in Canada have died in encounters with police since the year 2000.
- Have you heard the one about the negligent official and the obtuse columnist?
- When people die as a consequence of your failures, joking about it just isn’t on.
- He who pays the piper
- Community groups have become dependent on government money resulting in an erosion of their community base and their independence.
- Health Overview for the Connexions Annual
- Hearts and Minds: How Do People Change?
- How can we reach the millions we need to reach and engage if fundamental change is to happen? How can we accomplish the essential task of persuading a majority of the population that a fundamental social and economic transformation is necessary?
- Heat Wave
- It’s hot. It’s really hot. It has been hot for days, and the heat isn’t going away.
- Het publieke belang negeren
- We worden misschien gedwongen om de harde lessen die onze voorvaderen geleerd hebben, opnieuw te leren, ten koste van onszelf.
- Hippos
- February 15 is World Hippopotamus Day.
- How are the Germans keeping warm?
- War rages – and Russia keeps exporting natural gas to Germany. Russian and Ukrainian technicians work together to keep it moving.
- How I got vaccinated
- Quick and easy.
- How they shot those campus bums
- The Truth About Kent State (review).
- How Things Don’t Work (book review)
- Review of a book by Victor Papanek & James Hennessey
- Howard Huggett interview
- Socialist Howard Huggett was interviewed by Ulli Diemer on May 24, 1989.
- Human Rights & Civil Liberties Overview for the Connexions Annual
- Hungary 1956: A workers’ revolt crushed by the “workers’ state”
- The Hungarian revolution, brief though it was, did as much as a century of socialist theorizing to show what a united and determined people could do to transform their society.
- Il danse avec la Culpabilité: Un regard sur les hommes qui regardent la violence
- Inclusão ou Exclusão?
- Com exceção ao poder de oposição do movimento das massas, que são mobilizados para os desafiar de forma direta e firme.
- Inclusión o exclusion?
- El cambio real, el verdadero proceso de adquirir poder, solo puede suceder cuando las personas trabajan juntas con base en metas comunes sin importar sus antecedentes étnicos o religiosos.
- Inclusion or exclusion
- People who advocate a vision of distinct communities that speak different languages, keep apart from each other, and communicate with the structures of the larger society only through interpreters, are doing more harm than good. What they are advocating is not diversity but entrenched division.
- Inclusione o Esclusione?
- Inflated claims about Software Piracy
- Money that isn’t spent on software isn’t ‘lost’ to the economy — it is spent on something else.
- Integracja czy wykluczenie?
- Integration oder Ausgrenzung?
- Ich denke, dass wir eine Vision brauchen, die Menschen zusammen bringt um für wirkliche Veränderungen zu kämpfen anstatt einer Vision in der die Menschen getrennt voneinander in isolierten Gemeinschaften leben.
- Intégration ou Marginalisation?
- The intelligence of ravens and the foolishness of (some) humans
- On the fallacy of thinking that intelligence is a thing that can be measured and quantified.
- An Intelligent Guide to Intelligent Research
- Review of the Oxford Guide to Library Research, a first-rate guide to how to think about research and how to formulate strategies for answering research questions.
- International communism well documented in new publications
- A review of three books about the Third International.
- Interview mit Ulli Diemer
- In diesem Interview spricht Ulli Diemer zahlreiche Themen zum sozialen Wandel.
- Interview with Ulli Diemer
- Jeff Orchard interviews Ulli Diemer about socialism, capitalism, life, and social change.
- Introduction to the Connexions Annual
- We have to answer two simple questions: How are we going to live? and What do we do now? The Connexions Annual is dedicated to the idea that change is both possible and necessary.
- Die Irak-Krise im Kontext
- The Iraq crisis in context
- A rogue state, heavily armed with weapons of mass destruction, openly contempuous of international law and the United Nations, plunges the world into crisis.
- Is that an archive in your basement... or are you just hoarding?
- Are you an ‘accidental archivist’?
- Is this how it all ends?
- The risk of nuclear war is increasing day by day.
- Israel: A Colonial Settler State (Book review)
- The tragedy of two peoples brought into conflict by forces largely outside of their control. November 23, 1973
- Jeden Głos na Demokrację
- A critique of consensus decision-making
- Un journaliste du National Post traumatisé d’avoir à attendre son tour
- Joy Kogawa in conversation with Ulli Diemer
- Ulli Diemer spoke with Joy Kogawa in Toronto on March 14, 2017.
- Joyce Nelson
- Remembering Joyce Nelson.
- Justification pour des archives locales
- La préservation de l’histoire documentaire des mouvements populaires a été largement confiée à des individus et à de petites organisations qui voient l’importance d’empêcher cette histoire de disparaître complètement de nos mémoires.
- Kara Śmierci
- Karl Diemer: 1920 - 2006
- Obituary of Karl Heinz Diemer.
- Karl Marx, May 5, 1818
- Marx breathes dialectics and revolution. For Marx, radicalism means going to the root, and Marx’s radicalism seeks to go to the root of capitalism, to comprehend its essence dialectically, to understand its inherent contradictions – and the seeds of revolution it contains.
- Keep stressing the issue of democracy
- The issue of democracy, or the lack of it, connects, or has the potential to connect, many struggles and movements.
- Kogawa, Joy – In conversation with Ulli Diemer
- Ulli Diemer spoke with Joy Kogawa in Toronto on March 14, 2017.
- Kontaminiert: Die giftige Erbe der Kürzungen in Ontario’s Umweltpolitik
- Ein Artikel über Katastrophe für die Umwelt in Kanada.
- Kryzys w Iraku – podsumowanie
- Lady Martha’s story
- Normally, I delete the spam that gets past the filter into my mailbox as quickly as anyone. But I do have a sneaking fondness for those occasional carefully crafted letters that tell a complete and compelling story. Some of these are almost works of literature, little Chekovian gems in their own way. If Alice Munro fell on hard times and had to support herself writing spam, these are the stories she would tell to get her hands on our banking information.
- Lake Erie (Rondeau and Point Pelee), May 2011
- Photos from a trip to Long Point, Rondeau, and Point Pelee, May 2011.
- Lake Superior and Manitoulin photos, August 2011
- Photos from Lake Superior and Manitoulin Island, August 2011.
- Left Parties
- “There is no alternative.” That is capitalism’s message in the neo-liberal era. The rich keep getting richer and richer, millions of people are unemployed, millions more are trying to survive on precarious, marginal, and part-time work, hundreds of millions are without health care, housing, education, or clean water. Environmental collapse is increasingly likely, masses of people are fleeing wars and economic disasters, nuclear war is a real danger. And all that the corporate elite, the corporate media, and the mainstream political parties have to offer is their insistence that there is nothing we can do about it: there is no alternative.
- Legal decisions threaten press freedom
- Press freedom is under attack, computer systems and police files are undermining our privacy, books are being banned, trials are being held is secret, police powers are being greatly expanded, governments are competing with each other in passing repressive legislation.
- Lesbianas, Gays, Bisexuales – El Anuario de Conexiones
- Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals Chapter Overview for the Connexions Annual
- Lesbiennes, Gais et Bisexuels – L’Annuel Connexions
- Let’s Stop Kidding Ourselves About the NDP
- Canadian socialists are terribly reluctant to give up their illusions about the NDP. No matter how often we are beaten over the head with the hard facts, no matter how often the party lets us down, no matter how far to the right it drifts, we don’t want to face the bitter truth.
- Letter to Metro Morning
- Metro Morning, which is so welcoming and inclusive towards all manner of cultures and creative endeavours, is known for not giving coverage to events or groups which bring Palestinians and Jews together in dialogue and in working for peace.
- Lewis attacks Waffle, begins to purge faction from NDP
- In March 1972, Ontario NDP leader Stephen Lewis delivered a major attack against the party’s left-wing Waffle group, laying the ground for forcing the Waffle to either disband or to leave the party.
- Liberal Condescension
- In the wake of Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S. election, a debate has erupted on the liberal left about the best way to deal with working class people who voted for Trump. The disagreement, for many of the participants, appears to revolve around whether liberals ought to spend their time giving patronizing lectures about white privilege, or patronizing lectures about other aspects of reality. What people on both sides of the debate seem to share is the assumption that the job of middle-class liberals is to lecture the working class.
- La “Libertad de expresión”, siempre y cuando no ofenda a nadie
- Libertè de parole – aussi longtemps que cela n’offense personne
- Lissa Donner 1955-2017
- Remembering Lissa Donner 1955 - 2017.
- Local NDP Fights to Keep Waffle Movement in Party
- The NDP’s St. David provincial riding association is working to find a way of keeping the Waffle movement in the party, challenging Stephen Lewis’s move to expel the Waffle.
- Longing for freedom, and grieving loss: Reflections on watching swifts on a summer evening
- The natural world is very important to me, and a source of happiness, and for that reason it is also, in these times, a source of pain and grief.
- Looking for Democracy
- The revolutionary upheavals in Eastern Europe are an inspiration for everyone working for social change and show us that even the most seemingly entrenched system of control can be overthrown by popular movements.
- Lurching to War
- Capitalism hates competition, and the U.S., the world’s dominant capitalist power, has never tolerated competitors, rivals, or leaders who dare to put their own country ahead of U.S. interests.
- M is for Miriam (book announcement)
- A children“s book about the life of Miriam Garfinkle.
- MacGregor Provincial Park, April 2017 photos
- Photos from a visit to MacGregor Provincial Park.
- The main enemy is at home
- The main enemy is at home. That enemy – U.S. imperialism, NATO, Canada’s complicity, and the military-industrial complex – is the enemy we must fight.
- Maintenant qu’est ce qu’on fait? Établir un mouvement social suite aux conséquences du libre échange
- Make the Don a Museum of Horrors
- A museum depicting what prison is really like might motivate us to demand radical changes to the way we deal with offenders.
- Manifestos
- A page feturing political manifestos, political statements, programs, and visions, that I compiled for Connexions.
- Margaret Somerville’s yucky logic
- Dr. Margaret Somerville claims that the ‘yuck reaction’ some people feel when contemplating abortion is evidence that abortion violates our innate “moral instinct.”
- Marguerite has come a long way
- Literacy student writes the story of her life.
- Marx: May 5, 1818
- Marx breathes dialectics and revolution. For Marx, radicalism means going to the root, and Marx–s radicalism seeks to go to the root of capitalism, to comprehend its essence dialectically, to understand its inherent contradictions – and the seeds of revolution it contains...
- Marxism resource page
- A gateway to resources about Marxism that I compiled for Connexions.
- Massacres and Morality
- What can one say about the morality of Israeli soldiers who shoot unarmed protestors, and then are caught on camera cheering their kills? And how do we judge the civilian population of Israel, many of whom openly support and cheer their soldiers as they go about their work of killing Palestinians? And what can we say about the political leaders of other countries, Canada say, who sit down and smile and make deals with officials of the Israeli government at the very moment that the killing is going on?.
- The meaning of “democracy”
- Democracy as defined by the corporate media is a safe election every four years or so in which voters choose between corporate-dominated parties whose policies are virtually indistinguishable on all fundamental issues.
- Medicare Myths and Realities
- Since medicare is an extremely popular social program, the media and right-wing politicians have learned that it is unwise to attack it directly. Instead, they propagate myths designed to undermine public support for, and confidence in, the health care system, with the goal of gradually undermining and dismantling it.
- Meeting the Challenge of the Right
- When we talk about the Right, it is well to keep in mind that “the Right” is by no means a unified political force or organization, but rather a label used to describe a disparate collection of ideologies, parties, groups, and individuals.
- La mémoire collective et l’amnésie culturelle
- Notre société actuelle, obsédée par le présent à court terme, dévalorise les souvenirs et le passé.
- Mighty Moe: The True Story of a Thirteen-Year-Old Women’s Running Revolutionary
- Book review
- Miriam Garfinkle: Activism, Articles, Interviews, Letters
- I created this page in memory of my partner Miriam Garfinkle. It provides links to Miriam’s articles and interviews, letters; accounts of her activism and organizing; stories from some of the occasions when Miriam’s activities landed her in the news; photo albums; and tributes to Miriam.
- Miriam: Eulogy for Miriam
- Eulogy for my partner Miriam Garfinkle.
- Miriam Garfinkle 1954 - 2018 Obituary
- Obituary for my partner Miriam Garfinkle.
- Miriam Garfinkle Lane
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- Toronto’s newest street sign.
- (Mis-)Remembering D-Day
- The campaign to defeat the armies of Nazi Germany began in the East, and was primarily waged by the Soviet Union. The Soviets did the lion’s share of the fighting, suffered most of the casualties, and inflicted the bulk of the losses sustained by the German army.
- A moment at the pizza place
- A moment in the polling station
- A moment on Queen Street
- Moments
- Moments. (PDF version
- Moments with Miriam
- Miriam Garfinkle died on September 15, 2018. On this page, people who knew Miriam describe their feelings, their memories, and their moments with Miriam. There is also a PDF version of the Moments with Miriam contributions here.
- Morality in an Amoral World
- A crisis is a mirror. A crisis like the novel coronavirus COVID-19 shows us – if we have the courage to see – who we are as individuals and as a society. Also available in Bulgarian, Portuguese, Spanish, Vietnamese.
- Morality in an Amoral World - Bulgarian translation
- Morality in an Amoral World - Vietnamese translation
- More biased reporting from the CBC
- CBC reporting reflects the perspectives of South Africa’s apartheid government.
- More than one way to strike
- Rather than simply walk away from their vehicles, drivers could keep driving, but refuse to collect fares. This puts pressure on the employer without inconveniencing riders.
- Mr. Hardass
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- A moment in the surgical waiting room.
- Las Mujeres – El Anuario de Conexiones
- My politics in brief
- The myth of a free market in publishing and high-tech
- The high-tech industries owe their existence not to ‘free enterprise’, but to massive levels of government subsidies and intervention.
- Mythes et réalités de l’assurance-maladie
- Cet article traite du système de santé public canadien.
- Na przekór wszystkim przeciwnością
- National Post columnist traumatized by having to wait his turn
- Jonathan Kay thinks people with money should get quicker treatment in emergency rooms than people who are poor.
- Native Peoples Chapter Overview for the Connexions Annual
- Nature Calendar 2019
- 2019 Calendar featuring photographs by Miriam Garfinkle.
- Nature Calendar 2020
- 2020 Calendar featuring photographs by Miriam Garfinkle.
- Nature Calendar 2021
- 2021 Calendar featuring photographs by Miriam Garfinkle.
- Nature Calendar 2022
- 2022 Calendar featuring photographs by Miriam Garfinkle.
- Nature Calendar 2023
- 2023 Calendar featuring photographs by Miriam Garfinkle.
- Nelson, Joyce
- Remembering Joyce Nelson.
- Neo-con game
- First starve the public sector of resources so it can’t act, then blame it for not acting.
- Neoliberalism and state capitalism: A quick note
- Neo-liberalism is actually a form of state capitalism, marked by ever-increasing government intervention and state spending. The fairy tales about “free markets,” “liberalization,” “down-sizing government,” and so on, are just that, fairy tales.
- New Hogtown Press
- Profile of a left-wing Canadian book and magazine publisher.
- A new laneway mural by Nick Sweetman
- Chickadees in Miriam Garfinkle Lane.
- Noam Chomsky turns 70
- Chomsky’s immense contributions have helped me feel more optimistic and helped me keep my energies focused on activism.
- Not guilty means not guilty
- The gay news magazine, The Body Politic, is organizing a public campaign to make Attorney General Roy McMurtry withdraw an appeal against the magazine's acquittal on obscenity charges.
- Notwithstanding Clause">Notwithstanding Clause
- The notwithstanding clause makes it possible for legislatures to overrule the courts. There are times when this is necessary, and a good thing. There are also times when it can be abused.
- N’oubliez pas d’écrire
- No olvides escribir
- November 11
- Official remembrances are often about forgetting as much as they are about remembering. Remembrance Day is no exception.
- Obscenity Exposed
- The police definition of ‘obscenity’ gets right to the crux of the question.
- Official Enemies
- We are never left in any doubt about who our enemies are. The word goes out from the United States that a certain country is a dictatorship which abuses human rights, supports terrorism, and poses a terrible threat to the U.S. and to the world. The mainstream media then swing into action with military precision and flood us with stories, images, and commentary about how dreadful country ‘X’ is.
- Offsetting pedestrian deaths
- Perhaps it’s time to borrow the concept of “offsetting” from the climate change front and apply it to problem of pedestrian fatalities.
- 150 Years of Dirty Water
- Toronto’s water has been polluted pretty much since the beginning. That doesn’t mean we should put up with it.
- One-sided discussion of free trade avoids key issues
- ‘Business’ is also about the people who actually work in the offices, factories, and farms, who are so profoundly affected by what happens in the world of capital.
- One Vote for Democracy
- The ‘consensus’ model of group decision-making rarely works well. The democratic model is better both in principle and in practice.
- Only Christians Need Apply
- Despite a clear provision in the Ontario Human Rights Code forbidding religious discrimination in hiring, a local group is urging people to give jobs to Christians.
- Open Tuning Musical Festival, 2014 & 2015
- Photos from a local community music festival.
- Opposing Censorship
- It is dangerous to think that liberation can be promoted by repressive legislation and censorship.
- Organizing for social change: resources
- Change requires organizing. Power gives way only when it is challenged by a movement for change, and movements grow out of organizing. Organizing is qualitatively different from simple “activism”. Organizing means sustained long-term conscious effort to bring people together to work for common goals. This is a selection of articles, books, and other resources related to organizing.
- Other Voices: The Connexions newsletter
- A bi-weekly digest of new and archival content from the Connexions website and other progressive websites, edited by Ulli Diemer. Regular features include a digest of new articles, news about grassroots archives and people’s history internationally, website of the week, book of the week, film of the week, and other news and resources.
- Other Voices Introductions 2014 - 2021
- Ulli Diemer’s introductions to the Other Voices newsletter.
- OUCH!
- Ads targetting propaganda spread by right-wing business lobby.
- Our job is to oppose the U.S.-NATO Empire
- The U.S.-NATO empire is the main enemy for those of us who live in that empire. That empire is far and away the main enemy of peace, and of working people, in the world today.
- Oui à la vie - malgré tout
- Les enfants et la guerre d’Israël contre Gaza 2006-2024
- La Paix – L’Annuel Connexions
- La Paz – El Anuario de Conexiones
- Peace Chapter Overview for the Connexions Annual
- La peine capitale
- Pensando en la Auto-determinación
- Pensando sobre Autodeterminação
- People vs expressways battle is on again
- After being beaten back five years ago, the expressway proponents are crawling out of the woodwork with their old plans, with only the tactics and the terminology changed.
- The people who are preparing for war, and the lies they tell
- The security state and the media collaborate in spreading misinformation designed to increase the risk of confrontation and war.
- Perché tante storie per l’omicidio di una ragazza musulmana dalla pelle scura?
- Periódicos Radicales
- Personas Nativas – El Anuario de Conexiones
- Photography and the Landscape of Memory
- A good nature photo takes you beyond the photo. It makes you wonder ‘What is this place?’ ‘What happens next?’.
- Pigeons and People
- Every self-respecting downtown has pigeons, and pigeons have mastered the sidewalk ballet quite as expertly as we humans have.
- The police vs. the law
- In a democracy the police have to obey the law. In a police state, they don’t.
- Political doubletalk
- Perhaps the most striking thing about most politicians is that they seem completely incapable of giving a straight answer to anything, of talking in ordinary language, of communicating. Language for them isn’t a way of getting ideas across, but of confusing people so they won’t understand what’s really going on.
- Politics of Illusion
- Elections have become a contest to determine who is the best actor.
- Polluted Logic
- The idea of letting companies buy their way out of complying with the law is an idea with vast untapped potential.
- ¿Por qué protestar por el asesinato de una chica musulmana de piel oscura?
- Preface to Martin Glaberman’s Four Essays on the Working Class
- Glaberman insists that the working class is not merely a victim of capitalism — working people are active participants in creating their own consciousness, their methods of struggle and their own history.
- Private ownership of long-term care homes means overcrowding and more deaths
- private ownership is associated with overcrowding, failure to invest in modernization, and more deaths.
- Profits: now you see them, now you don’t
- A private developer seems to be moving quickly into the non-profit housing field.
- Progressives shouldn’t be begging the police to take more power
- The last thing we need is to hand the police even more power to decide what we are allowed to see or read.
- Przemyślenia o samostanowieniu i niepodległości
- Psychotherapist Out of Touch
- In this psychotherapist’s emotionally constipated vision of family life, there is no room for spontaneous physical expressions of affection.
- Public Housing Redesign
- Our obsessive and utterly futile ‘war’ against drugs is turning tens of thousands of people into ‘criminals’ and corrupting our entire society.
- Public Safety
- It is becoming increasingly clear that we have been witnessing a drastic rolling back of the systems and structures which Western societies developed over the past century or more to safeguard public health and safety. Politicians and business leaders, permeated with free-market ideology, have been jettisoning, with little thought or understanding of the consequences, the apparatus previous generations built, piece by piece, to mitigate the most dangerous aspects of industrial civilization.
- Public transit
- Public transit – good affordable public transit – is key to a liveable city.
- Pumpkins are food!
- Pumpkin is a highly nutritious vegetable. There are wonderful pumpkin recipes around and pumpkin actually is very tasty.
- A puzzling moment in the park
- A woman, a German Shepherd, a conversation, and a game of fetch.
- Quick Digressions
- Quick bits and pieces from Radical Digressions. (Snippets: HTML version)
- ¿Que es el Socialismo Libertario?
- Qu’est ce que le socialisme libertaire?
- ¿Que hacemos ahora? Construir un Movimiento Social en el Resultado del Libre Tratado
- Questions about Israel’s Attack on Gaza
- A quick note on neoliberalism and state capitalism
- The key to understanding neo-liberalism is power, not ideology. Capitalists have always sought to get everything they possibly can, while resisting any controls on capital and its activities.
- Quotations
- A selection of quotations which I compiled for Connexions.
- Race and Class
- Class conflict – first and foremost, the relationship between the capitalist class and the working class – is the fundamental contradiction that defines capitalist society. Class is a reality which simultaneously encompasses and collides with other dimensions of oppression and domination, such as gender and race.
- Radical Newspapers
- A radical newspaper succeeds to the extent that in engages in dialogue with its readers and community, rather than it preaching to them.
- Random Impressions
- Brief items from Radical Digressions.
- Rättigheter och Friheter
- Rechte und Freiheiten
- Keiner ist Frei, wenn wir nicht alle Frei sind. Jegliche Einschränkung der Rechte und Freiheiten ist gleichzeitig eine Stärkung der Macht des Staates darzu entscheiden, welche Rechte in Zukunft ausgeübt werden dürfen und welche nicht.
- The Red Menace
- The Red Menace was a libertarian socialist publication published from 1976 to 1980. I was a member of the collective which published The Red Menace, and wrote a number of articles for it.
- Red tape bad, more red tape better
- The Ontario government is “cutting red tape” in its own special way.
- Réflections sur l’autodétermination
- Remembering Lissa Donner
- Lissa Donner 1955 - 2017.
- Resisting neoliberalism
- Neoliberalism is a fraud. The so-called free markets and free trade which it pretends to promote are in fact controlled by giant corporations, and massively subsidized by workers and ordinary citizens.
- Response to criticisms of Dances with Guilt
- A critique of Dances with Guilt said comments and attitudes are forms of ‘violence’ comparable to, or worse than, physical violence. This response argues that while verbal and emotional abuse can be very hurtful, beating someone up is qualitatively different from verbal aggression, and we should not say they are the same.
- Returning to Chess
- Rediscovering chess.
- Review falsifies history
- The voters rejected free trade – and got it anyway. That’s how our democracy works.
- Review of the Press: Portugal 1974
- The subtext of mainstream media coverage of social upheavals in post-fascist Portugal is that a return to dictatorship is necessary and inevitable to preserve the social order.
- Rights and Liberties
- Civil liberties and human rights appear as a key dimension in almost every other field of social justice and social change, but those who seek a freer and more just society cannot rely on the state to achieve their goals.
- Rosa Luxemburg
- Rosa Luxemburg’s revolutionary perspective includes supporting pressure for reforms within capitalism, but she is utterly clear that reforms cannot bring about fundamental change, that socialism can only come about through revolution.
- Rosa Luxemburg’s contribución al Marxismo
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- Saddam Alive!
- Confidential intelligence sources whose identity can’t be revealed have confirmed that former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein is still alive, and is in possession of weapons of mass destruction which could be launched within minutes.
- La Salud – El Anuario de Conexiones
- La Santé – L’Annuel Connexions
- Science and its enemies
- Our society and its institutions, public and private, regularly tell us that science, and education in the sciences, are crucial to our future. These public declarations are strangely reminiscent of the equally sincere lip service they pay to the ideals of democracy. And, in the same way that governments and private corporations devote considerable efforts to undermining the reality of democracy, so too they are frequently found trying to block and subvert science when the evidence it produces runs counter to their interests. Real live scientists doing real live science, it seems, are not nearly as loveable as Science in the abstract.
Also available in Chinese, Farsi and Portuguese. - Secrecy and Power
- It is one of the essential attributes of power that it insists on secrecy. Or, more precisely, those who wield power over others routinely claim that the details of what they do, and why they do it, are far too sensitive to be revealed to the public.
- Seeds of Fire: A People’s Chronology
- Recalling events that happened on this day in history. Memories of struggle, resistance and persistence.
- Seeds of Fire: Birth of Karl Marx, May 5, 1818
- Marx breathes dialectics and revolution. For Marx, radicalism means going to the root, and Marx–s radicalism seeks to go to the root of capitalism, to comprehend its essence dialectically, to understand its inherent contradictions – and the seeds of revolution it contains...
- Self-determination for whom?
- Do the Cree of Northern Quebec have the right to self-determination? If some regions of Quebec want to stay part of Canada, do they have the right to self-determination?
- Seven News
- Seven News was a community newspaper published in the east-of-downtown area of Toronto from 1970 to the mid-1980s. I was with Seven News for about nine years, including six years as editor. Some of my Seven News articles are here.
- Frank Showler
- Remembering Frank Showler, 1919-2022
- “Silencing” the unsilent
- Politicians are constantly attacking and putting down opposing politicians. But if a female politician is criticized by a male politician, then, according to a Toronto Star columnist, the male politician is “silencing” the woman politician.
- Situation Normal – April 1, 2021
- News from the real world and beyond.
- Situation Normal – May 1, 2021
- News from the real world and beyond.
- Situation Normal – June 1, 2021
- News from the real world and beyond.
- Situation Normal – February 24, 2022
- News from the real world and beyond.
- Situation Normal – May 25, 2022
- News from the real world and beyond.
- Situation Normal – November 28, 2022
- News from the real world and beyond.
- Skeptic no more
- I used to be a hard-boiled cynic when it came to those alleged miraculous apparations of religious or pop culture figures whose images are always being spotted in various and sundry mundane objects. Jesus in a tortilla, the Virgin Mary in a watermelon, Elvis in a peanut butter sandwich – I scoffed. Until this week, when something quite extraordinary happened.
- Small countries, big crimes
- One of the stock phrases Israel’s apologists repeat, parrot-like, is that Israel is “a small country”. The idea is to make us feel sympathy for Israel, the plucky little country standing up to dangerous foes. But what does it actually mean to say that Israel is “a small country?”
- Smuggling Garbage
- To reduce garbage we need to start at the point of production, and we need more incentives such as refundable deposits on everything from tires to household appliances.
- Social Distancing
- the rules around social distancing need careful thinking about these days, and it’s sometimes difficult for grown-ups to figure them out, so it’s helpful to have a three-year-old skilled in the use of Socratic questioning to guide you in the right direction.
- Socialism resource page
- A gateway to resources about Socialism that I compiled for Connexions.
- Soil removal a possibility
- The soil around houses in South Riverdale is so contaminated with lead that it may have to be removed.
- Some musings about risk
- The first time my partner and I arrived in Pukaskwa, a wonderful national park on Lake Superior, planning to spend a week or so camping, we were presented with some disconcerting news. “I just want to inform you,” the person in the registration booth said, “that a woman was attacked by a bear in the park yesterday.”
- Some of my best comrades are friends
- The left’s sloppy use of language indicates sloppy thinking.
- Something has to give
- Emotional issues are potent. Left-leaning and reform candidates can be very vulnerable if right-wing groups are able to seize on emotional questions and make them issues during the an election campaign.
- Special Diet Clinic
- The Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) organized a Special Diet benefit signup clinic on the front lawn at Queen's Park on October 3rd, 2005. Over 1,000 people signed up for the clinic.
- Special Places: Photography and the Landscape of Memory
- Special places are not necessarily spectacular places. What makes them special can be subtle.
- Sports and Politics
- Sports in general, and the Olympics in particular, have never been free of politics. Allegations of bribery and cheating had already been part of the Olympics for centuries before that noteworthy day in 67 AD when the judges proclaimed the Emperor Nero winner of the Olympic chariot race even though he had been thrown from his chariot and failed to complete the race.
- Spring sprung, grass riz, wonder where birdies is
- Whether we’re ready to believe it or not, spring is upon us, and if we go out and look for it, we’ll come across signs that establish that fact much more firmly and decisively than the passing moods of the weather.
- STOL lands again
- The proposal for a major commercial airport on the Toronto Islands appears to be back on the agenda.
- Stop TTC fare increase
- Governments apply a double standard. They demand that public transit pay for itself and that health care and education be judged by ‘cost-benefit’ analyses. But they apply no such standard to industrial policy where billions of dollars are shelled out.
- Strange Sounds Up in the Trees
- Up in the tree: a weird combination of whistles, clacking sounds, chuckling, rattling, in no particular sequence that I can make out, and certainly not musical. What on earth?
- Strike at the Post Office
- Fed up with the endless hysteria in all the media about the post office and postal workers.
- Super Salad
- A moment in a coffee shop.
- Supremacy, oppression, and power
- It is the structures of domination and power, that create racism, sexism, etc., in order to justify the existence of unequal wealth, power and the oppression that goes with them.
- Le systéme èlectoral faux du Canada
- Tácticas desesperadas: Acusaciones falsas de «antisemitismo» para silenciar reproches a la conducta de Israel
- Tactics of desperation: Using false accusations of ‘anti-Semitism’ as a weapon to silence criticism of Israel’s behaviour.
- The attempt to outlaw criticism as Israel by labelling it as ‘anti-Semitism’ is a serious threat which needs to be exposed and challenged, but it also a sign of desperation.
- La tactique du désespoir : Utilisant de fausses accusations de l’antisémitisme comme arme pour faire taire toute critique sur le comportement d’Israël.
- Taking a Stand
- People across the country, and around the world, are taking a stand and disrupting business as usual.
- Taktyki Desperacji: Uźywanie fałszywych oskarźeń antysemityzmu jako broni uciszającej krytykę zachowania Izraela.
- Taniec z Winą: Jak mężczyźni patrzą na przemoc
- Tax Evasion
- The essence of the capitalist economic system is the drive to accumulate as much as possible, by any means possible. It is almost inevitable, therefore, that those – individuals or corporations – whose existence revolves around accumulating capital will seek to avoid paying taxes.
- Teaching adults how to read
- Learning to read means gaining more control over one’s life.
- Ten Health Care Myths: Understanding Canada’s Medicare Debate
- Medicare’s opponents have launched a sustained ideological attack on medicare. Their propaganda relies on myths and misrepresentations.
- Ten Lost Years (book review)
- Review of Barry Broadfoot’s oral history of the Great Depression.
- Their Internet or Ours?
- The Internet, at one time a free & open space for sharing information & ideas, has been privatized & twisted to serve the profit-making agenda of huge corporations, working hand-in-glove with governments which want to suppress opposition & criticism. What happened? Is it their Internet or Ours?
- A theological moment
- Purgatory and beyond.
- Things are getting better and better and bettxrxr and bxzyxxx
- Please hold: we are experiencing a higher volume of calls than usual.
- Thinking About Self-Determination
- Does that familiar canon of the left, ‘the right to self-determination’, actually mean anything, or is it an empty slogan whose main utility is that it relieves us of the trouble of thinking critically?
- Thinkig about Terry Fox and the Marathon of Hope
- Reflections on Terry Fox, cancer, and the nature of hope.
- Thinking Clearly in a Time of Crisis
- A crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic is not a time to stop thinking. It is a time when critical thinking and public discussion are more important than ever. This applies both the the pandemic itself, and to what comes after.
- Thoughts about the “college-educated left”
- Today, in the neo-liberal phase of capitalism, neo-liberal ideology is dominant in the universities. Neo-liberalism denies the idea of class, denies that there are any alternatives to capitalism, and rejects so-called ‘grand theories’ which view capitalism as a historical period with a beginning and an eventual end.
- TIFF’s corporate mentality
- The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) tries to prevent anyone from handing out flyers to people standing on the sidewalk waiting for a film.
- Time for Creative Disruption?
- Ideas for ‘creatively disrupting’ capitalism.
- Today’s newspaper
- You can buy today’s Globe and Mail even in rural Newfoundland, as long as you are a bit patient.
- Toronto Necropolis Cemetery Photos
- Photos of the Toronto Necropolis Cemetery.
- Toronto’s finest
- Too many cops seem to enjoy intimidating people and smashing things.
- Toronto’s historic cemeteries
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- Cemeteries of old Toronto.
- Toronto’s newest street sign
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- Announcing Miriam Garfinkle Lane.
- Toronto’s ravines — our to preserve
- Toronto’s ravines are a treasure; it’s up to us to preserve them.
- Trade agreements and the corporate war on democracy
- The Trans-Pacific Partnership, negotiated in secret, and designed to be rubber-stamped by national governments on a take-it-or-leave-it basis, is best understood as a major milestone in the long-term war waged by the corporate elite against any form of democracy. It gives corporations the power to block any environmental protections or health and safety legislation that could be interpreted as interfering with a corporation’s ‘right’ to make a profit by doing whatever it wants.
- Toward the light
- Introduction to the December 2, 2023 issue of Other Voices, the Connexions newsletter.
- El Trotskismo y el Partido de Vanguardia
- Trotskyism and the Vanguard Party
- Trotskyists maintain that the vanguard party model holds the key to bringing about revolutionary change. The record of Trotksyism shows that vanguard parties are actually a political dead end.
- True Facts
- Gleanings from the media.
- Twenty years of I.F. Stone
- Perceptive, analytical, well-written, witty, and drawing on a vast, eclectic store of knowledge.
- Ulli’s Newfoundland Tips
- Some personal advice for someone making a road trip from Central Canada to the island of Newfoundland.
- The Unfashionable Human Body (book review)
- Review of book by Bernard Rudolfsky
- Upholding journalistic principles
- One mark of how seriously the Toronto Star takes its journalistic mission is that it has a Public Editor.
- Utopias
- Utopian visions, be they practical or not, free our imaginations, if only for a little while, from the daily grind of struggle and worry, and allow us to dream about the kind of world we would hope to live in. Such dreams can inspire us and guide us, even if they are not always quite practical.
- The Varsity
- The Varsity is the student newspaper at the University of Toronto. I wrote for The Varsity in the early 1970s; a few of my articles are here.
- Viet peace will come with victory
- Editorial on the Vietnam War.
- Um Voto Para a Democracia
- Un vote pour la démocratie
- Un Voto a favore della Democrazia
- Un Voto por la Democracia
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- War in the Gulf
- Written upon the outbreak of the 1991 Iraq War.
- Watching the News
- Watching “The National” on CBC, as well as some local news programs, is proving to be an interesting experience. I haven’t lived in a house with TV for more than 15 years, and hadn’t watched TV news for many more years before that, so I come to this experience as a more-or-less naive outsider.
- What are we eating?
- What are we eating? A simple question which opens up a labyrinth of devilishly complex issues about production and distribution, access to land, control of water, prices, health and safety, migrant labour, and much else?
- Were Marx’s principles only skin deep?
- A British dermatologist has managed to get himself worldwide publicity with an article suggesting that Karl Marx’s painful skin condition may have caused him to say all those mean things about capitalism.
- What Do We Do Now? Building a social movement in the aftermath of Free Trade
- We have the potential to create a social movement in this country that goes beyond single-issue organizing to work toward an integrated vision of a more just and caring society.
- What is Libertarian Socialism?
- Revolution is a collective process of self-liberation: people and societies are transformed through their struggles for freedom and for a better world.
- What is Stephen Harper doing to Canada?
- The Harper regime has had a toxic effect on Canada. The wealthy are better off, but most Canadians are worse off, and rights and freedoms, democracy, access to information, and science have suffered.
- What Next?
- In the midst of our activism and organizing, we need to keep asking ourselves some important questions: What are our goals? And what should we do to reach our goals?
- What’s Wrong with Front Yard Parking?
- The negative effects of front yard parking are significant, and affect us all. The benefits are small, and go only to a few.
- White-throated Sparrow
- Wkład Róży Luksemburg do marksizmu
- Why aren’t we expelling Israel’s diplomats?
- Canada expelled Russian diplomats on the strength of unsubstantiated allegations that Russia was involved in the poisoning of a former spy in Britain. Will Canada now expel Israeli diplomats in condemnation of Israel’s latest massacre in Gaza?
- Why make a fuss about the the murder of a brown-skined Muslim girl
- Why things don’t work (book review)
- There are lots of guides explaining how things work. This one explains how they don’t — and why they don’t.
- Why vote?
- What difference will voting make?.d>
- Women chapter Overview for the Connexions Annual
- Words, Words, Words
- One of the most striking things about the left is its habitual abuse of language.
- Workers and Climate Change
- Many elements of the environmental movement have been guilty of ignoring working people, while others actually blame ordinary working people for climate change and the injustices associated with it. Yet it is working people who are dying, in many places, even now, from excessive heat in factories, fields, construction sites, and homes. And million of working people stand to lose their jobs, homes, and communities in the transition to a low-carbon or no-carbon economy.
- World Bonobo Day
- February 14 is World Bonobo Day.
- World Curlew Day
- April 21 is World Curlew Day.
- World Frog Day
- March 20 14 is World Frog Day.
- World Hippopotamus Day
- February 15 is World Hippopotamus Day.
- Yes Means No?
- Puritans may not like it, but some people actually enjoy sex under circumstances that puritans don’t approve of.
- Yes to life – In spite of everything
- Children and Israel’s war on Gaza 2006 - 2024.
- Yetiskinlere okumayi ogretmek
- Zehn Mythen über das Gesundheitssystem: Krankenversicherung in Kanada
- Eine Übersicht über das kanadische Gesundheitssystem im Vergleich mit dem der USA.
All articles on this site are available in English. Some articles are also available in the following languages: Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, Farsi, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, and Vietnamese. The list below includes articles in multiple languages. For a list of English-only articles, see the English index.
Publications & websites I’ve edited or written for + miscellaneous lists of articles
Working with an editorial collective, I produced the Medical Reform newsletter from 1984 to 1995. Many of the issues of the newsletter have been digitized and are available online.
Photos and image compilations
