As the global economy continues its downward spiral, rioting due to this Wall Street led meltdown is spreading through the globe like wildfire. How much longer until the streets of the US turn into a war zone?

Police Brutality At The University Of Western Ontario ! The video seems to speak for itself.

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Classical liberalism means early liberalism, which stressed laissez-faire economics, particularly the liberalism of Jacksonian democracy in the nineteenth century. Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, and Milton Friedman are credited with influencing a revival of classical liberalism in the twentieth century after it fell out of favour beginning in the late nineteenth and much of the twentieth century. In relation to economic issues, this revival is sometimes referred to, mainly by its opponents, as “neoliberalism”. The emerged liberalism supports free markets and free trade. Since the 1970s, most of the world’s countries have become more liberal.

Much of the radical crowd buys into Marx’s credo of “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” Liberals, by contrast, generally believe in moderated meritocracy, and conservatives in relatively unrestricted meritocracy. In some political literature it is normal to make clear separation between liberalism and radicalism. In several places liberalism and radicalism have had almost nothing in common. Another distinction is that unlike the socialist position, which advocates common ownership as a means to eliminate unequal economic power, the liberal position is supportive of means of production being held privately, and they are not opposed to unequal wealth distribution, accepting this as a consequence of free competition.

A political compass is a multi-axis model used to label or organize political thought on several dimensions. The underlying principle of the Political Compass is that political views may be better measured along two separate and independent axes. The Economic (Left-Right) axis measures one’s opinion of how the economy should be run: “left” is defined as the view that the economy should be run by a cooperative collective agency (which can mean the state, but can also mean a network of communes), while “right” is defined as the view that the economy should be left to the devices of competing individuals and organizations. The other axis (Authoritarian-Libertarian) measures one’s political opinions in a social sense, regarding a view of the appropriate amount of personal freedom.

By The Voice of Treason

Many people who follow the political currents around the world are convinced that there is a coming storm of enormous proportions. The cycle of tension stemming from class conflict is slowly reaching a boil. Compounded by the economic crisis, the environmental crisis and the limited nature of much of our resources, these tensions are growing in size and scope. There is an excitement in the air for a number of commentators who have predicted this and talked about it extensively. The extreme right wing knows about this wind of change too. The radicals on both sides generally seem to agree that there is a showdown on the way, or more likely, a series of clashes which will shake the foundations of the world system. As the situation becomes more dire for the multitude of poor and working people across the west, as factories and businesses close down, as worker benefits are lost, as homes are foreclosed on, as families are evicted, as the numbers of homeless and unemployed grow, as Obama fails, and as desperation becomes commonplace the veil of corporate and government lies and propaganda won’t be believed any more. Independent and alternative media will expose their lies. Class consciousness will emerge through confronting authority as the state struggles to keep up its obligations like education, health care, welfare, security and prisons, etc…

As this starts to occur, the large, soft, gushy political middle ground will begin to disintegrate. Both of the polar extremes, to the right and left, will make great gains from the disillusioned liberals and social democrats. It will boil down to either you are for the working class or you are against the working class. So while the socialists, including the anarchists and communists, will likely see many new members and spreading interest, at the same time the Libertarians, fascists and anarcho-capitalists will see similar growth in numbers and interest in their message as people lose faith in the current system. This has already begun to happen. The American Christian right is poised to morph into a new type of fascism now in the post-Bush era. This would leave us all vulnerable to an emerging fascism, at least as likely as a new socialist reality. We have to set visible precedents for liberation struggles if we hope future conflicts will pit the oppressed against their oppressors rather than against each other. Greece may be one such precedent. We can create similar precedents on smaller scales here, by taking the initiative to determine the character of confrontations with authority.

The Coming Insurrection is a work on the “imminent collapse of capitalist culture”. The book claims that late 2000s financial crisis, 2005 civil unrest in France and environmental degradation stem from capitalism. According to the authors, “Thirty years of ‘crisis,’ mass unemployment, and flagging growth, and they still want us to believe in the economy… We have to see that the economy is itself the crisis. It’s not that there’s not enough work, it’s that there is too much of it.” The book aims to motivate the reader to direct action, promoting a form of insurrectionary anarchism.

By Heatscore

These are dark days for Canadian electoral poli­tics.

While the threat of an imminent federal election was recently thwarted by Jack Layton’s professional cowardice, the weeks-long national conversation that preceded his decision to prop up the minority Conservative government provided an opportunity for sober reflection on the current state of our coun­try’s political landscape. Things are looking bleak.

Despite never winning more than 37% of the popu­lar vote, former oil lobbyist (and possible corporate android) Stephen Harper has now been in office for almost four years. During this impressive stretch of time (the longest tenure of any minority government in Canadian history) the Conservatives have oper­ated with startling impunity and shocking audacity. Not content with handing out corporate tax cuts, cutting social programs at home and sending Cana­dian citizens to be tortured and stranded abroad, Harper has shown an unprecedented disregard for parliamentary democracy itself – evidenced most glaringly by his successful attempt to block the for­mation of an opposition-led coalition government following his 2008 re-election. Fiercely ideological, Harper has consistently framed our national inter­ests in jingoist lexicon and has succeeded in turning Canada’s foreign posture even more rabidly pro-Israel than that of the United States. Last, but not least… under his leadership Canada has earned the dubious honour of being named by the annual World Wildlife Federation Climate Index as the worst climate change contributor of the G8 Industri­alized Nations.

An election that could potentially dethrone Stephen Harper should be an exciting prospect to any Ca­nadian with a conscience… but it’s not.

The current political deadlock in Ottawa ensures that the next government will be either another minority Conservative government or a minority Liberal government led by Michael Ignatieff.

Under Ignatieff, things would not improve much - if at all. He represents the mainstream wing of the Liberal Party – the same folks who brought us the SPP, sent Canadian troops to Afghanistan and as­sisted in the 2004 invasion of Haiti. Ignatieff is an ardent supporter of the Alberta Tar Sands, being on record as saying he is “proud” of the project’s status as a “world leader.” And a world leader it certainly is; it has been dubbed “the most destruc­tive project on earth” in a widely-cited report by Environmental Defense and is also the largest single supplier of oil to the United States’ military-industrial complex.

For those who seek to change the downward spiral of Canadian politics, it is time to face up to one unavoidable fact: Politicians are not the solution to our problems – they are the impediments to our solutions. This was certainly evidenced by the recent victories against environmentally destructive projects in Guelph and Simcoe County this summer, where Liberal and municipal politicians (particu­larly Guelph’s “green” mayor and city council) used every legal tool at their disposal to thwart the efforts of their concerned constituents.

In a representative democracy such as ours, politi­cians are simply professional panderers; they ap­peal to power in pursuit of power. In order to get their attention, we will require a viable alterna­tive power structure, one that can contend with the “power” wielded by corporate capital. It is only by building such a dual power structure – through education, outreach, direct actions and a network­ing of resources – that we can hope to change anything. Elections are merely a democratic fa­çade, intended to obscure the deeply entrenched interests that dominate our national policies. Real democracy means effectively controlling how your society is governed – not voting to abdicate those choices to a politician in Ottawa.

By Adam Szymanski

At this very moment, there are multiple wars being fought across the globe in the name of first-world imperialism. The wars being waged on Iraq and Afghanistan are prime examples of the New World Order’s insistence on death and destruction. Likewise, first world nations blindly led by the American Oligopoly are waging wars much closer to home - inside of our very minds and bodies – where death and destruction also ensue.

The government has a vested economic interest in certain food industries which are at odds with human health and environmental sustainability. A quick scan of the Canadian food guide, which most doctors cynically recommend as a healthy lifestyle to the general population, suggests economic links between the government and the powerful meat and dairy industries. Could you imagine an Alberta politician condemning the beef industry, or an Ontario politician condemning the dairy industry? Absolutely not. It would be political suicide owing to the pressure that these massive industries are able to exert over the politicians, and the masses through the power of the media.

The assumption that animal products are necessary for human health is plain false, despite the messages found in the mainstream corporate media. Never before in human history has such a mass amount of people relied so heavily on animals for their main food source. The quintessential North American diet is derived mainly from animal products; meat, eggs, and dairy, and is consumed to an excessive degree unparalleled by any other diet in the world. No wonder North American obesity rates are out of control.

So how is it that the government and the animal product industries are able to get away with naturalizing such abhorrent dietary decisions? Through highly developed advertising strategies that create and reinforce cultural norms dependent on dominant representations of gender. In order for this type of food advertising to be successful, it must make people believe that they are fulfilling a gender role through what they choose to eat.

Prime examples include the name of popular beef product the “Manwich,” and the infamous “Manthem” introduced by Burger King in 2006. The jingle’s lyrics “I’m a man, I will eat this meat until my innie turns into an outie” sum up how eating dead cows in a bout of gluttony is equated with fulfilling the food industry’s expectations for men

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While these examples are more overt, the same advertising strategies are used more subtly in marketing to women as well, since women are the prototypical household grocery shoppers. Descriptors such as “low fat,” “lean,” “grain fed,” “rich in calcium,” and “contains Omega 3” attempt to sell animal products as health food. While it may be true that a yogurt is low fat, the label fails to explain that it comes from a cow which was force fed antibiotics. The creators of these misleading labels are well aware of our consumer culture’s fixation on rapid weight loss and the skinny ideal perpetuated by seemingly every fashion, health, and lifestyle magazine directed at women. These food corporations capitalize on this female fixation, all while fueling unhealthy lifestyles with their unhealthy foods. Obesity rates continue to soar in North America.

Evidently, opting for the chicken salad and “light” egg and milk-based dressing is not the answer to the obesity epidemic, despite what numerous “health experts” will suggest in return for your money.

Not only does our society’s meat consumption pose health risks, it profits capitalists who exploit the environment and low-wage workers who must toil in the abhorrent conditions of a slaughterhouse.

Veganism provides opportunities for community gardening, sustainable living and DIY food production. Given government lies, secrecy, and corruption, we must take action to provide for ourselves and become self-reliant in our food production. Only veganism makes this independence possible.

The government backed meat and dairy industries are waging a war against progressive vegan voices. The battle is over your mind so that they can profit off of what you put into your body - at the expense of your health, the environment and the alienated labour of factory workers. The decision is yours and your health is what’s at stake.

Reject the murder and enslavement of animals for the financial

benefit of big business. Choose veganism.

By Andrew Stewart

I stepped outside for a smoke. I watched the fog escape my mouth and reached into my pocket for my lighter. A quick inhale to light the cigarette and a smooth drag right after left me satisfied. I leaned back against the brick wall of my home and took notice of the falling snow. There was no breeze and the flakes seemed to just fall at their own relaxed pace. No rush, no worry, simply being what it is.

Expelling a second breath, I looked past the cascading snow to see the half moon mounted just over top of the home across the street. I began to ponder just how many people were doing the same at that moment. Simply observing that little slice of Americana that they call their own. Just living life the way they choose to do so, and being happy about it.

Then I began to think of the people who are not happy doing so. The people who protest each and every matter. Issues that have no impact on their day to day life. Topics which seem trivial to the rest of us. What makes these people act in such a way?

I have seen people who march the streets of Toronto protesting AIDS in Africa. I was unaware that kind of demonstration would have any impact on a molecular level. I have bared witness to rallies in support of gay rights. What about my right to travel a city without an impeded path? Can the bleeding hearts not sleep at night for all of the injustices in the world? Why expend such effort towards issues you may not even fully understand?

I began to think of admirable issues of protest. Sweatshops are something that I do not agree with. But how many are mislabeled in the same fashion as Puppy Mills? How many of the protestors and would-be customers shy from garments based on their points of origin? These days a sweater made in China is automatically assumed to be a product of child labor.

I then began to think of the stories my grandparents used to tell me about how they used to be pulled from school to help with chores such as tending to the livestock and basic upkeep of the home. Back then school came second to the needs of the family. Chances are your grandparents may have similar tales.

I remember class in grade five. We were learning about Canadian politics and the other cultures of the world. This led me to consider that perhaps these nations which contain child labor may be doing it for the same reasons our own nation did so. The youth are sent to work to help the overall income of their family. The family is then able to purchase the essentials of daily life. This in turn benefits the economy of the nation that the family is a part of.

I am aware that many take these issues seriously. So for you, here are some additional items to avoid. That little laptop you click away on till the small hours - don’t use it. The plastic case was manufactured in Asia, cleaned, processed and packaged by children. That hemp toque you wear - burn it because the fibers were processed in an African textile facility.

No matter where you turn, your hands will find the proverbial blood of the sweatshop worker. My advice is to research matters and not simply follow the flock of misplaced parental aggression. Sit back, watch Family Guy, have a laugh and enjoy your slice of that Americana pie.

It has a much sweeter taste than that hypocritical pastry.

By The Fool on the Hill

As I sigh at the tragic philosophy in “Americana Pie”, I began to ponder how many people were doing the same at that moment. I was feeling the crushing weight of the dull and uninspired logic espoused by defenders of doing nothing. I wish I was so easily convinced that we should just avert our eyes from the ills of the world. I wish I was so easily amused by Family Guy, so as to forget of the exploitation and injustice that are carried out every minute of every day in our names and with our tax dollars. If only I could say that these things have no impact on our lives. The AIDS epidemic in Africa can be ignored by some. Others choose to take what action they can to educate and put pressure on the governments and drug companies who see no profit in saving African lives. Maybe it is true that rallies aren’t the most effective vehicle for change. I would agree with that. Rallies alone will change little or nothing. They are largely a public relations exercise, often done seeking mainstream me­dia coverage in order to spread information, and show support for a cause. Without more direct action this often leads nowhere.

I’m confused by the writer not agreeing with sweatshops, but then seeming convinced that child labour is an essential method of lifting people from poverty. If it is wrong then we should not support it. I would think that we should actually be opposed to it. The jobs that cor­porations are sending to Third World sweatshops often used to be union jobs here. Why not support fair labour standards for everyone everywhere? Our enemy is not the working man, but the capitalists who own everything.

I am also in strong disagreement with the notion that to fight for social justice is “misplaced parental aggres­sion”. That sadly misinformed opinion is just ignorant of the tremendous history of fighting oppression. One must be aware of the history of struggles for workers’ rights, against colonialism, militarism, fascism, and recently here at home- consumerism. Maybe reading “A People’s His­tory of the United States” would help give a new per­spective.

We can respond to the multiple issues that we face today one of two ways - the choice is ours; we can turn away and enjoy our privileged position, writing off the future as inevitable… or we can confront these issues head on. We can work with what we have at our disposal in order to alter the power structure enough to change the course of events. If we hope to have a future for our children, at least one that is worthwhile, then there really is only one choice: Unleash the creative forces of humanity from the yoke of capitalism. Revolution is sweeter than the soma we are being sold now.

By Cortney K Dakin

Hypothetically, democracy is self-government in which people have the power over themselves. However, in its active state the people exercising power actually infringe autonomy, impair one’s sense of human worth and deplete the health of ecosystems and humans for profit and control through consumerism, commercialization, privatization and corruption of the media. Anarchism, the belief in the illegitimacy of all states and rulers of such, can thus improve the human condition in its entirety through prioritizing moral obligation over political obligation and the monetary incentive of corporations, encouraging community solidarity through voluntary association and truly adhering to human rights and freedoms. It is with the egalitarianism of anarchy that the people truly have power over themselves and can progress the global condition without the hindrance of oppression.

The human state in nature is that of perfect freedom of will and complete equality while being governed only by reason, the law of nature, which morally obligates everyone to the harm principle - enabling interference with the liberty of another only if it is for self-protection or the greater good of others. It is this natural reciprocal tendency that inclines humans to act in mutual aid because, even if one is an egoist, it is more beneficial to one’s self and the environment to develop and maintain human relations in a community. This created the modern civil society in which citizen’s surrender natural laws to the authority of the state, which then has the power to make violation of the harm principle tolerable and decide what is a punishable transgression to help maintain this tolerance. This is not a truly democratic state in which all people have equal authority. Thomas Hobbes would deny this, arguing that the state’s dominance over humanity is necessary to preserve one’s self and others because humans are essentially innately evil and the only way to produce a government is to confer all wills unto a person or small group who is able to determine what is just and dictate societal law. However, political obligations to social contract are not necessarily moral or consistent with the law of nature and actually inhibit moral development of people with the potential of both good and evil. All states are illegitimate because they are dogmatic utopian ideals intolerant of other opinions, ultimately perpetuating violence as opposed to working in unity to eliminate concrete evils rather than pursuing an abstract good.

Prior to the obedience of a law, anarchists determine if it is consistent with the nature of reason to justify obeying or opposing it. Anarchy does not imply a moral imperative to oppose the state; the illegitimacy of a state and illegality of an action is distinct and irrelevant to the moral status of that action. Acting in true reason, an anarchist is non-dogmatic and as accepting of the opinions of others as they are willing to express and defend their own in attempt to use reason to reveal imperatives. Debate and inquisition improve condition with progression toward truth that clarifies which laws are morally justifiable and which are unjust. One is then as obligated to refuse to cooperate with the unjust as to promote good with action to which they are obligated. An anarchist can do this using suffering, a potent social force with which, in non-violent resistance to the unjust, the suffering is accepted onto one’s self in accordance with the ethic of love. They seek to defeat the state they hate, not the beloved individuals in its system while consistently practicing a principle of non-injury. This is progression toward true peace and justice that seeks to promote the presence of positive peace in others, which is only enabled by anarchy because the political inertia of the state inhibits moral growth for both the individual and humanity with which they interact. Although it may be noted that if violence is being used to oppress those non-violently expressing their desire to produce positive peace and change the system for the good of everyone, it may seem like violent resistance is necessary to overcome the condition. However, if peaceful action is disrupted by violence, observers will recognize authority for the tyranny it is and be even more motivated to spread positive peace themselves since doubting legitimacy diminishes obedience. This is also why the strengthening of communities until people no longer feel the need to be protected by a governing power other than themselves, will make the transition to a better, stateless life more natural.

In “democratic” states suffering is used violently against both its citizens and in interstate conflict, further contrib­uting to their illegitimacy because through this they are only able at best to achieve negative peace, the ab­sence of tension (with the remaining potential of conflict) while not being motivated to act to morally rectify the situation. This occurs because utopians perceive an ac­tion as rational if it makes efficient use of the available means to achieve a desired political ideal. However, the state is hypocritical in the ideal it projects and what it practices; there must be moral consistency in the means and the end because problems cannot be solved indi­rectly but require direct action. Furthermore, with dog­matism true unity of wills cannot be made by consent unless all will the same thing, which is not natural and nearly impossible. What everyone conceives as the ideal end cannot be combined and reconciled methodologi­cally because it is subjective unless imperative. Unfortu­nately, the state shapes the majority into a normal dis­tribution of people, which marginalizes the minority and as people are made to be concerned with the approval of others, generalizes opinions until they accommodate dictated servility to power and the inclusion of a tyranni­cal moral code through biased exposure, desensitization and socialization, all unknowingly. It is within this mass of blissful ignorance that diffusion of responsibility and the inaction of negative peace become an implicit normative social influence.

Interstate conflict is for the power to extend control over people by creating a government that does not act in the interest of the people because of its dependence on funding from corporations that enslave the working pop­ulation and endorse biasing the media in favor of the state to conceal its tyrannical intentions and prevent the consumer from becoming dissatisfied. The ruling group then has nothing objective to appeal to when they are offended and will thus create a state that infringes the freedom of opinion by allowing the mainstream media to create a demand for products and toxins alike that consume the focus of individuals so that those with alternative opinions have a difficult time expressing it to the public and gaining support - despite the truth that the suppressed opinion may contain. Since received opinions that are false must be contested for acceptance only on truly rational grounds and we are only able to disprove, not prove anything, all opinions will only assist in creating a clearer conception of truth, also preserving its meaning. Social contract disregards the law of nature, withholding rights and freedoms from the tyrannized - who are forced to fight for them then persecuted for enforcing or protecting them. One’s utility in a state is not determined by what one creates or feels while furthering their understanding of their self, others and the world around them but the worth of their consumption as a consumer, which makes people seemingly dispensable when societal relations are reduced to monetary ones. The negative effect of this is also reflected in the desire of the state to priva­tize health care and the exploitation of the ecosystem, on which human health is dependent. The state is treat­ing the illness while what needs to be cured is the cause, which is a state system that puts profit over people and the greater good of sustainability. Given that all action of life on earth makes use of numerous natural resources to some extent, if an individual can only use a resource with collective consent through the majority they are left then with essentially no freedom of action. In anarchism, the harm principle can also be applied to the environ­ment, which should be shared in an egalitarian manner. Among many measures to be taken to decrease the hu­man carbon footprint, land should be encouraged to be used to sustain communities not privatized to perpetuate class conflict by taking away the rights of some individu­als to make use of natural resources, even if they are not harming the earth like those who seem to be able to afford to do so.