When a society decays, it is language that is first to become gangrenous. As a result, social criticism begins with grammar and the re-establishing of meanings. ― Octavio Paz, The Labyrinth of Solitude and Other Writings It’s become clear to me that almost anyone penning anything that gets stuffed into any number of hundreds of […]
The post They Might Be Giants first appeared on Dissident Voice.
Michael Kovrig-Meng Wanzhou-Michael Spavor. Photograph: (Agencies) For neither man nor angel can discern hypocrisy, the only evil that walks invisible, except to God alone. — John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book III Simply put, hypocrisy is when words and actions don’t agree. It is revealing when one applies this straightforward definition to the cases involving two […]
The Montreal Canadiens hockey team drafted a player fined for a sex-related offence. The 17-year-old player, Logan Mailloux, surreptitiously took photos of a consensual sex act and showed them to his teammates — this without the consent of the other person. The draft selection was a major PR gaffe on the part of the team, […]
The post Trudeau Speaks to a Lack of Judgment first appeared on Dissident Voice.
On 24 July 1534, French navigator Jacques Cartier voyaged to the Gulf of Kaniatarowanenneh (River of the Mohawks, St Lawrence) and planted a cross on the shore of Gaspé. It signified claiming possession of the territory on behalf of the king of France, Francis I. Donnacona, chief of Stadacona (Québec city), was unhappy at this […]
The post What is the Difference between Swastikas and Crosses? first appeared on Dissident Voice.
Empires rise and fall. And usually burn themselves out rather quickly. What else is new? ‘American decline’ is a Wikipedia page. You can feel it in the air. One greets it with dread or hope, or better dread-hope. America’s sins are adding up, yet the US is a behemoth for well over two centuries and […]
The post Needed Urgently! New US National Myth first appeared on Dissident Voice.
In February I wrote, As a rule, basic decency would require that one clean up one’s own yard (except in Canada’s case, the yard was stolen from its Indigenous peoples) before criticizing someone else’s yard. This was in response to a plurality of members of parliament in Canada condemning China for committing genocide in the […]
The post The Canadian Greenhouse and Genocide first appeared on Dissident Voice.
The third video in the “Land governance” series explores potential paths toward just systems of land management that honor Indigenous rights and responsibilities, including implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, inclusion of Indigenous systems of governance and stewardship, potential mechanisms to recognize Indigenous land ownership and the need for […]
The post Land Governance: Future first appeared on Dissident Voice.
The second video in the “Land Governance” series highlights the current crisis in land management in Canada, which has sparked, among other initiatives, the Indigenous-led Land Back movement. It explores what happens when two systems of law and governance come head-to-head, on land, and about land, highlighting the move toward activism and the need for […]
The post Land Governance: Present first appeared on Dissident Voice.
The first video in the “Land Governance” series examines the historical context of Indigenous Peoples’ dispossession from the lands that sustain them within Canada, and identifies the legal and policy landscape that created the conditions for today’s environmental and social crises. It explores the need to build on the rights and responsibilities of Indigenous Peoples, […]
The post Land Governance: Past first appeared on Dissident Voice.
Protection and restoration are two sides of the conservation coin — protection for spaces that haven’t yet been damaged or destroyed by large-scale human impacts and restoration for ecologically critical places that have. Although both might seem like relatively straightforward scientific tasks, they have been and continue to be significantly shaped by colonialism — globally […]
