TorontoMarxists

Marxist views and perspectives in the Canadian context - goto http://www.marxist.ca for more. Forward!

[torontomarxists]

The past seven months have seen the release of the Fifth Assessment Report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the international scientific body set up by the United Nations to provide the most comprehensive body of information and analysis about the process, risks, and impacts of climate change. The conclusions of the latest IPCC report are unequivocal: climate change is real; its effects will be disastrous; and nothing short of a revolution will do if we are to combat it.

[torontomarxists]

"The unique feature of May Day is that it is perhaps the only anniversary that is commemorated all over the world. It cuts across the prejudices of race, colour, creed, religion, nationality, ethnicity and caste, which are used by the ruling classes to drive a wedge in the unity of the proletariat. Hence the real message of May Day is that of proletarian internationalism. It is also the reaffirmation of the pledge for unity in struggle on a class basis against this system of exploitation and plunder. The ultimate victory of this struggle can only be achieved by the overthrow of capitalism through a socialist revolution." http://www.marxist.com/may-day-proletarian-internationalism.htm

Rosa Luxemburg on May Day: http://www.marxist.com/what-are-the-origins-of-may-day.htm

Leon Trotsky on May Day: http://www.marxist.com/may-day-in-the-west-and-the-east.htm

[torontomarxists]

The Paris Commune of 1871 was one of the greatest and most inspiring episodes in the history of the working class. In a tremendous revolutionary movement, the working people of Paris replaced the capitalist state with their own organs of government and held political power until their downfall in the last week of May. The Parisian workers strove, in extremely difficult circumstances, to put an end to exploitation and oppression, and to reorganise society on an entirely new foundation. 130 years later the lessons of these events are of fundamental importance for socialists today.

[torontomarxists]

Lenin grappled with the problem of electrification as a possible area where a breach could be made in the solid wall of Russian backwardness. Trotsky, on the other hand, was preoccupied with the overall state planning of industry, which had been practically lost sight of under NEP. All along he stressed the need to strengthen "Gosplan", the state Planning Agency, as a means of encouraging a general planned revival of industry. Lenin, at first, was distrustful of the idea - not because he rejected planning but because of the prevailing scourge of bureaucracy in Soviet institutions, which, he feared, would turn an enlarged and strengthened Gosplan into a paper game.

[torontomarxists]

Ayn Rand is a hypocritical hack - her popularity today in the US and Canada is symptomatic of the senility that pervades popular consciousness. That a doofus like Paul Ryan can claim to be Catholic and also an Ayn Rand follower is completely in line with this - it’s a total contradiction, but still, it gets accepted all the same. So much for “the principle of non-contradiction”!

Toss Ayn Rand’s books into the ocean! Instead, read Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, and the other social critics who base their analysis on materialist, scientific principles!

[bigotryandcupsoftea-deactivated]

She claimed social security back after contributing toward it. In her view, the money had been stolen from her and it was well within her rights to claim back her stolen money. It’s also pretty hard to call her a hypocrite because she benefited from Soviet education given that children are in no position to leave and go to a market country.

[torontomarxists]

lol Ayn Rand apologists! Read Jeff Walker's well researched book "The Ayn Rand Cult" to learn more why this is a misguided position to take, and watch this movie by Adam Curtis about Ayn Rand's crazy beliefs! http://vimeo.com/38724174

[torontomarxists]

The (un)Fair Elections Act is merely the most recent in a series of moves to disenfranchise workers and youth. We need to build a mass movement against this Act but it shouldn’t stop there. The status-quo is already set up to guarantee the domination of the capitalists and workers rights are continuously under attack. We need to fight for a society with both political and economic democracy, a socialist democracy where the working class, from the bottom-up, has the final say on the issues that matter to the majority of the population. Only then will society be able to solve its problems and everybody be able to develop themselves by full and free participation in a genuinely democratic system.

Read more here: http://www.marxist.ca/canada/federal/945-stop-the-unfair-elections-act.html

[torontomarxists]

Ayn Rand is a hypocritical hack - her popularity today in the US and Canada is symptomatic of the senility that pervades popular consciousness. That a doofus like Paul Ryan can claim to be Catholic and also an Ayn Rand follower is completely in line with this - it's a total contradiction, but still, it gets accepted all the same. So much for "the principle of non-contradiction"!

Toss Ayn Rand's books into the ocean! Instead, read Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, and the other social critics who base their analysis on materialist, scientific principles!

[torontomarxists]

Until the means of mass communication and media infrastructure is wrested from private control and put firmly in the hands of the exploited and oppressed of all nations, they will continue to systematically misrepresent, mislead, and mismanage the media industry. Down with corporate media! Up with the people's media!

For example consider Venezuela:

These are not simply mistakes or examples of incompetence by the international media (including journalists in Canada); the lies and manipulation of the events in Venezuela are part of a general campaign to discredit the Venezuelan government and the gains of the revolution in the eyes of people around the world.  As every government on the planet continues to place the burden of the capitalist crisis on the backs of working-class people, the Venezuelan revolution stands against capitalist austerity.  The fact that the Venezuelan government has placed the interests of the masses ahead of the profit margins of foreign multinationals is something that cannot be tolerated by imperialism.

Canada has taken a lead role in assisting the opposition to the revolution in Venezuela.  The Canadian embassy in Caracas has funnelled tens of thousands of dollars to Venezuelan opposition groups.  In February 2010, the former Secretary of State for the Americas, Peter Kent, travelled to Venezuela to accuse the government of the “narrowing” of democratic space in the country; Kent forgot to mention that at the same time, his Conservative government had shut down Parliament during the prorogation scandal.  As this article goes to print, Air Canada has decided to indefinitely suspend all flights to Venezuela, claiming, “Due to ongoing civil unrest in Venezuela, Air Canada can no longer ensure the safety of its operation… Air Canada will continue to monitor the situation and will evaluate the reintroduction of flights with the objective of resuming operations on the route once Air Canada is satisfied that the situation in Venezuela has stabilized.”  This is despite the fact that Air Canada sees no jeopardy to its operations by flying into well-known safe havens such as Iraq or Sierra Leone.

[torontomarxists]

A MANIFESTO IN ILLUSTRATIONS

What is the nature of 21C capitalism? Read more here!

Join the fight against capitalism!

[torontomarxists]

The bourgeois media in Canada is horrible - look how blatantly Maclean's displays its disgust for the youth! The deluded washouts who produce and read crap like this don't know what's going on in their own country. Like Maclean's, TorStar, G&M, NP, and Quebecor are all enemies of the working class and oppressed peoples of Canada!

It is time to build revolutionary news media in Canada! Help support Fightback magazine and buy a subscription for only $20. Help support hard working soldiers in the revolutionary struggle for the emancipation of the working class.

[torontomarxists]

Remember Ludlow! April 20th, 100 years ago...

Read more here: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2012/05/ludl-m29.html

[torontomarxists]

"Jesus was an illiterate Jewish peasant who had profound experiences of the presence of God and consequently did radical things. He broke social boundaries: he would eat with anybody, regardless of caste and class. He could evidently heal people, and did so on the Sabbath, when Jews weren't supposed to exert any effort. He refused to settle down (which would have given him a geographical base from which to gather a following). Instead he walked around from town to town with no possessions proclaiming that Kingdom of God was at hand, and told his followers to do the same. In the context of the day, which was that Judea was an occupied territory of the Roman Empire, to speak of a Kingdom of God other than the Kingdom of Caesar was revolutionary. Caesar was spoken of in words that Paul used to desribe the Christ: Saviour, Son of God, etc. Caesar was seen as divine; in the Roman ideology, the dominion of Caesar and the dominion of God were identical. So when Jesus proclaimed a Kingdom of God that was different from the Empire, it was seditious... The Romans killed him because he was a political troublemaker. Crossan and Borg do not believe that the laws of physics were suspended and a corpse woke up and walked around, but Jesus' followers certainly felt his presence very strongly in the days and weeks after his death. And in the early years after his death, Jesus' followers were radically egalitarian, living communally and sharing meals. After a few centuries, of course, it all changed, when Christianity became the new official religion of the Empire."

Have a happy Easter! Read more here: http://theragblog.blogspot.ca/2006/07/jesus-as-anti-imperialist.html

[torontomarxists]

Don’t believe the hype! Obama is just a clone of Reagan, another in a long line of neoliberal hatchet-men. Look at how the Affordable Care Act has become just another way to attack the public at large!

Ditch the Dems! Towards a mass revolutionary party of labor!

Read more here: http://www.socialistappeal.org/analysis/us-politics/1246-obamacare-fact-and-fiction