SLOCOM members/fans, it has been a busy few months but look forward to more from non-Party non-headquarters!

New book by SFU PhD Aaron Goings out now!https://uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295754000/red-harbor/

#OtD 5 Jul 1777 the word 'scab', meaning 'strikebreaker', was used in print for the first time. One of the most important words in the working class vocabulary! stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1052...

We’d be stupid to turn down the generous gift of three $150-million catamaran ferrys from the Egyptian government.

nothing spells faculty productivity like spending hours manually inputting pull-down-menu versions of information readily available on a CV into a proprietary Faculty Productivity™ software on which the university spent jillions

Puppets…

Warm weather is here! Anyone know of a Canadian maker of Clamsicles?

🖤 May Day means solidarity with ALL workers, including sex workers, incarcerated workers, undocumented workers, criminalized workers, and disabled workers. When we say “an injury to one is an injury to all,” we’d better fucking mean it. 🖤

cannot say enough how much i despise the leaders and the senior leadership of canada's three major political parties. whatever the result tonight we all lose.

I know you all think you've saved the country but in 4 years the status quo will be untenable and the next Poilievre will be far worse. Enjoy the reprieve

Canadian politics 101: 158 years of Liberal/Conservative horse races. And both parties running on "change."

The really messed up thing is, my heart is in my throat about this election but it's going to stay there because even if we keep PP out, we're going to have to fight Carney tooth and nail for 4 years.

This election forces us to choose between the evil of two lessers.

This Canadian election is important, for whoever wins it shifts the "Overton Window" further to the right, exposes the moral and political bankruptcy of all the parties, and reveals the illegitimacy of the colonial "nation-state" and capitalism in particularly sharp relief. So, a teachable moment.

An election where the climate was barely mentioned. As the water levels in the Rockies reach record lows, as the forest fire threats accelerate, as glaciers melt at record pace, as extreme weather accelerates...and yet, nothing.

Boat early, boat often

I fear that "the long march through the institutions" means we have become institutionalized.

Starting Dan McQuillan's "Resisting AI: An Anti-Fascist Approach to Artificial Intelligence," Bristol University Press, 2020, and there is much good stuff here, including a call for mutual aid and the commons.

As I wake to the 81st day of the Fall of the American Empire, the question I contemplate: Which version of "Hurt" is more appropriate as a soundtrack to the decline? The Johnny Cash cover, or the Nine Inch Nails original? 🤔 www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AHC...

dear journalists: if you don't know how to do research, how to read critically & for context, or how to make claims that can be substantiated by your sources, HELP IS AVAILABLE AT A HISTORY DEPARTMENT NEAR YOU

One advantage to SLOCOM typed mail is security services no longer have the capacity or equipment to steam open letters! "Kettle? No, but there's a coffee pod machine in the kitchen. Why?"

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There is much wisdom in the piece by Canadian Quakers on trade wars with the US and how to respond without the sabre rattling and call for increased defence spending quakerservice.ca/wp-content/u...

WE ARE NOT OVERTAXED WE ARE UNDERPAID

I thought this was helpful open.substack.com/pub/howthing...

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Of course her book So Little for the Mind was pretty conservative and critiqued Dewey’s emphasis on democracy

As Marx wrote, "The history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class size struggles."

If class size doesn't matter, why do CEOs take private golf lessons

Kropotkin on Marx' Capital: "We passed over all the defects in his theory in view of the fact that he turned his principal attention to the economic forms of life, which are always forgotten by revolutionaries who come from the bourgeoisie and generally have a bourgeois education."

He died as he lived, clicking “Forgot password,” then checking his inbox for a code, then putting in that code, then setting up two-step verification, and then waiting for the text message that doesn’t come, and then calling the 800 number, and then downloading an authenticator app, and dying.

In 1858, Déjacque in his journal had critiqued Proudhon, "No, it is not the product of their labors to which the workers have a right. It is the satisfaction of their needs, whatever the nature of those needs."

#OtD 25 Dec 336 was the first recorded celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. His early followers practised an 'informal communism', following Acts 4:32: "No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had" stories.workingclasshistory.c...

Not exactly news, but Canada Post and the federal government consider strikes a way to punish workers and save money. "Provoke workers, let them suffer, don't pay them, then order them back to work--that'll learn 'em!" The official bs from gov't, CP, and academic toadies has been disgusting.

Working on the seasonal Durruti tree

Wolff is on to something here www.counterpunch.org/2024/08/14/c...

Coming soon: onboard suggestion boxes. www.timescolonist.com/local-news/f...

Wishing you and yours a truly wonderful Thanksgiving.

SFU announces new “Transparency in Sustainability” program

Canada's first Prime Minister had to resign because of a corruption scandal over the railway, but he was re-elected and never imprisoned. He resided over the military invasions and westward expansions of what would become western Canada and the initiation of the genocidal residential school system.

For extra credit, consider this question. If capitalism allows capitalists to treat people as thing, what sort of trauma does this inflict on people? How might this trauma be reflected in elections?

Popular quiz with my students: Which of these things is not like the others? A. Land B. Raw materials C. Machinery, tools, tech D. Labour I am happy to report all students always get the right answer and shout "labour is people!" They understand capital lets the boss treat people as things.

How much of the failure of the Democrats may be attributed to its allegiance to some segments of the rich/capitalist class and to the support of the PMC, whose own class position usually means it sucks up and kicks down while denying the reality of class? www.rosalux.de/fileadmin/rl...