Archive for conflict
Minneapolis
From a trusted friend:
ETA: if you want to share this, I’d appreciate it if you could do it w/o my name attached, via either a screenshot or a copy/paste with identifying details removed. I’m probably being overly paranoid, but oh well. Thank you, friends.
Things I have seen with my own eyes as of 11:23 AM Pacific today, January 12, 2026:
—ICE ramming a civilian car through a red light on Snelling in St Paul, dragging an injured, screaming white American woman out of it, kidnapping her, and leaving her wrecked vehicle partially blocking one of the busiest streets in the city.
—An unmarked ICE vehicle blocking a residential street. When a (white, American) man pulls up behind it, an agent demands to know why he’s “following them.” When the man explains that that he’s just trying to get home from the grocery store, stopped because there’s no room to pass, and had no way of knowing he was even behind an ICE car, the agent says “haven’t you learned anything from the past few days?” (What is the lesson? “Don’t drive?”)
—ICE kidnapping a white American teenager from a Target parking lot (the boy is a curbside-pickup employee) and dumping him in a Walmart parking lot eight minutes later, bleeding and bruised.
—ICE agents dragging a white American man from his car at a gas pump, kneeling on his neck until he apparently loses consciousness, and then kidnapping his limp body.
Word is that the woman and the gas-station man were targeted as “known activists.”
Hard to know what to write and publish these days …
This clip is still getting through: “The Siege of AR-558” – written by Ira Behr and Hans Beimler. The late actor Aron Eisenberg plays the young cadet. Armin Shimerman is Quark.
.Quark tells his nephew something about humans.
Sunday Morning
I was finishing up the preparation for my two classes today – first ones ever on a Sunday! – when I heard a woman, in tears and sounding drunk, walking by on the sidewalk below me: “I used to LIVE here – *fuck* YOU!” We know the feeling.
American scholars move north
Brynn Tannehill writes on Twitter this morning:
I’m going to break my personal rule about not posting on Twitter anymore because I need to get out this warning: Timothy Snyder (On Tyranny) and Jason Stanley (How Fascism Works) have left the US. I’m on my way out too. The experts know what this is.
She links to Leiter Reports:
Jason Stanley (philosophy of language, epistemology, political philosophy), Professor of Philosophy at Yale University, has accepted a senior offer from the University of Toronto, where he will be three-quarters in the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy and one-quarter in the Department of Philosophy. Professor Stanley tells me the primary reason was the deteriorating political situation in the United States, with the capitulation of Columbia University sealing his decision. (The well-known Yale historian Timothy Snyder has already moved to the Munk School as well.)
The arguments in Jason Stanley’s “How Fascism Works,” from 2018, were persuasive, and his exposition of history was plain as day.
Promise
I am 66 years old. I have spent 33 years living in the United States and 33 years living in Canada. I love both nations equally. Donald Trump’s threats to annex Canada alarm and nauseate me. I will defend Canadian sovereignty with everything in me.
Neighbour
Yuval Noah Harari said on a fairly recent episode of Bill Maher that it takes much longer to build institutions than it does to tear them down. Hearing that, I had that uncanny experience of reaching an accurate comprehension of something really, really obvious but also hidden within plain language. Perhaps it was the timing of his message.
One of my sisters used the film’s last line as her .sig file for a time back in the nineties.
[Related.]
Certain Days
I admire and have supported this publishing project for many years, as many dear friends who have found the calendar in their Christmas stockings know. To start the year, I go through each page day by day.
The Trotskyist position
I have been immensely delighted to see the resurgence of activity over at The Spartacist and The Workers Vanguard, communist publications I’ve read with passionate interest for more than thirty years. In recent years their pages were filled more and more by obituaries of their original editors, writers, and other comrades. But after a bitter fight within the governing organization regarding responses to the Covid epidemic – the eventually victorious position was to oppose lockdowns as they curtailed and undermined union, organizing, and protest activities – a newly fertile and urgent editorial spirit and ambition have emerged, in North America and across the seas.
Its American-election debriefing ends this way:
In the immediate period, defensive struggles will no doubt be on the order of the day. As the liberals abandon the oppressed groups they claimed to champion—black people, Muslims, trans people, immigrants, women—communists must be in the vanguard of their struggles. But they must seek to build these movements on stronger foundations, away from the moralism and sentimentalism of the liberals and intricately linked to the material interests of all workers. Ultimately, the working class will be the deciding factor. To win its allegiance, communists must show, through the course of class struggle, that unlike the traitors leading them today, they have a program that can materially advance its interests and lead to its liberation.
The real thing
A true nephew of Uncle Ho.
While Mr. Trong was happy to open up Vietnam to the West, he remained suspicious of Western democracy.
“Behind the multiparty system in reality is still the tyranny of capitalist corporations,” he wrote in a 2022 book.
He added: “The reality is that the democratic institutions according to the ‘liberal democracy’ formula that the West tries to promote and impose on the world do not ensure that power truly belongs to the people, by the people and for the people.”
Nguyen Phu Trong, Powerful Vietnamese Leader, Is Dead at 80 (NYTimes)
Heading back to my other hometown
Little weekend train trip to Olympia.
Something said on Capitol Way, summer 2017.
My favourite Trotskyist website …
… has changed its homepage design.
I always learn a lot from these people.
Toby Cleary and the insurance company
“B.C. man battling Stage 4 cancer denied insurance coverage for last-hope clinical trials: Maple Ridge’s Toby Cleary was denied insurance for ‘last hope’ clinical trial because he forgot to disclose an ER visit nearly two years before his diagnosis.”
This is from a front page story in today’s Vancouver Sun (by Sarah Grochowski, photo by Ashliey Wells). The Vancouver Province also ran the story.
Toby and his wife Danielle Raymond are friends of mine. I admire them both very much.
“The B+ Squad”
Lux Alptraum‘s Substack blog by that name is my *other* favourite place in the Substack universe right now. Since September 2022 Lux has written approximately one stand-alone post *a day* – without ever really repeating herself. This is of course not possible, but there you go – she does it. Her topic is “the modern bisexual.” Her themes reach into an ever-unfurling array of cultural topics without once stretching. She’s brilliant and hilarious. She’s taken my breath away, many times.
Her Twitter feed is also always edifying, these days taking a less buoyant but nonetheless to-me wise tone while discussing ways of regarding the Israel-Hamas war.
The right tone and focus, I think
From my university’s president just now:
Colleagues,
The events this past weekend in Israel and Palestinian-territories have been profoundly disturbing. While we respect the right of Palestinian people to address legitimate grievances as well as Israel’s right to defend itself, indiscriminate violence against innocent civilians is unconscionable.
Undoubtedly, some of you will have been deeply affected by these events. The following supports are available to the KPU community.
For students:
- TELUS Health Student Support app provides KPU students with unlimited, free, 24-hour access to trained counsellors available in several different languages in addition to other wellness resources and information.
- KPU Counselling Services are available online or by phone for students. Please visit us online to book an appointment or for more information.
- KPU Student Resources ‘Quick Guide’ – a quick guide to online information and resources for all KPU students.
For employees:
- Homewood Health, KPU’s Employee and Family Assistance Program (EFAP) provider, is available to help with counselling and other services.
During these periods of global upheaval, please take time to think about those around you: your colleagues, your students, your friends and your family. Please support those in need and encourage them to seek assistance.
Comments off
“Orange Shirt Day” in Canada
My colleague Seema Ahluwalia of Kwantlen‘s Sociology department has given me permission to share this:
The Kwantlen Faculty Association (KFA) acknowledges the underlying title and inherent rights of self-determination of Indigenous peoples, and our presence as uninvited guests in the traditional and unceded territories of the xwmƏθkwəyə̓ m (Musqueam), qi̓ cə̓ y̓ (Katzie), SEYMONE (Semiahmoo), scə̓ waθən (Tsawwassen), qiqéyt (Qayqayt), and kwikwəƛə̓ m (Kwikwetlem); and qw̓ ɑ:nƛ̓ ə̓ n̓ (Kwantlen) Peoples.
The truth is we must learn from and alongside Indigenous Peoples in order to make things right.
September 30 was chosen as “Orange Shirt Day” by Indigenous people in 2013 to commemorate and honor the survivors of The Indian Residential School System (IRSS) and those who never returned home. At this time of year, over the course of more than 100 years, Indigenous children were forced to return to IRSS institutions where they were targeted for indoctrination and torture organized by the Canadian state to weaken and destroy Indigenous nations. In 2015, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) recommended that the Canadian government establish a statutory holiday so that Canadians may never forget the history and ongoing legacy of the IRSS. September 30 is now also Canada’s National Day of Truth and Reconciliation.
In solidarity with Indigenous Peoples, we mourn the loss of the children who did not make it home and honor the courageous survivors and their allies who worked for decades to break the walls of silence and denial surrounding the IRSS. On this day of solemn reflection, we acknowledge that racism and religious persecution were used to dispossess Indigenous peoples of their territories, and that we must educate ourselves about the ongoing and current impacts of colonization and genocide on Indigenous peoples. We must do the urgent work of ending systemic racism by engaging in a meaningful process of reconciliation with Indigenous peoples that leads to decolonization.
Many Indigenous leaders have warned that “reconciliation” has stalled and advised that Indigenous perspectives must be employed to understand the critical issues impacting Indigenous peoples. Canadians must ask ourselves how we are holding our governments, associations, and ourselves accountable for the work that must be done and transform our talk into action.
On September 30, we encourage Canadians to learn, reflect, and act.
Here are some resources that you may find useful:
Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: 94 Calls to Action
Calls to Action Accountability: A 2022 Status Update on Reconciliation
Semiahmoo First Nation 3rd Annual Walk for Truth & Reconciliation: Sept 30, 2023
National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation: Lunch and Learn Webinars, Sept 25 – 29
Sign CLC’s petition “Justice for First Nations’, Inuit, and Metis is Long Overdue”
BCFED Reconciliation Plan Framework
TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION: CUPE TAKING ACTION THROUGH COLLECTIVE BARGAINING
UFCW: Indigenous Rights and the Workplace Bargaining Guide
Support Services and Resources:
Indian Residential School Survivors’ Society: Toll-Free Line 1 800 721 0066
Indian Residential School Crisis Line: (604) 985-4464
Hope For Wellness: Toll-Free Line 1 (855) 242-3310
Metis Crisis Line: 1 (833) 638-4722
KUU-US Crisis Line: 1 800 588 8717
Tsow-Tun-Le Lum: 1 866 925 4419
Anniversary
My sister-in-law kept calling until I finally answered. She said, “Turn on CNN.” I did, just as the second tower came crashing down. I thought there must have been sleep in my eyes, so I went and washed my face.
My favourite Trotskyists are back strong
The folk at The International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist) have been publishing two of my favourite radical periodicals, The Worker’s Vanguard and The Spartacist, for decades. I have probably learned more per sentence from these publications than from any other.
The organization’s output slowed to a drip during the pandemic, and I feared that the generations that had kept it going for so long were leaving or dying off; indeed, obituaries were filling the Vanguard. What in fact was happening was not a demise, though, but a debate. These Trotskyists were arguing among themselves about covid lockdowns and governmental restrictions on large gatherings, both of which they originally supported. A growing faction, however, began to see these lockdowns and restrictions as impediments to protest and communist organizing, impediments that undermined class consciousness and supported capitalist exploitation. The growing faction was victorious.
And the group started publishing its erudite propaganda again, at its former, prolific rate. Pick up their publications at your favourite radical bookstore! The Workers Vanguard is still just fifty cents.
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