Revolution Right Now: The Ends are the Means

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There’s been a lot of talk about revolution here at SQUABBLER – lots of wild ideas about total systemic overhaul – and you might be wondering: what the hell can I do? Maybe Thatcher was right, you might be thinking, maybe there really is no alternative.

But there is. The revolution isn’t a distant idea. It is already happening.

War All the Time

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The important thing to understand is that revolution is not utopianism. It is not about imagining some perfect society and then striving towards that. Revolution is a constant process of change, of adaptation. The old anarchist motto says it all: “live as though you were already free.” The means are the ends. Revolution is a daily activity.

It begins by knowing your enemy. Who is it that is preventing you from living the life you want to live? Is it a cruel landlord? A petty manager? Or is it the government which has failed to provide its citizens affordable housing and the economic system that drives us into jobs we’d rather not have simply to make money? Is it mediated images of white supremacist hetero-normative patriarchy through Hollywood films and television or is it the performative resistance to this and a false alliance to progressive ideals by companies who profit off of systems of inequality? Is it the cops? Is it the supermarkets? Is it the entire state which exists only through the assertion of force, the theft of land and the sustaining rewards of racism?

It is all of these.

Revolution is not simply fought in the streets. It is not necessarily destructive, though destruction may help. As Mikhail Bakunin says, “the destructive act is also a creative passion.” This may have worked in an industrial society, against a state apparatus of discipline and punish. But today, in our interconnected surveillance society, beneath the eyes of money-powered Control, revolution is best fought with your wallet.

I’m not talking about “shopping locally,” or “buying organic.” These are middle-class responses. Most people can’t afford to do this. I’m talking about food-security education: learning how to grow your own food, access community gardens, how to take over otherwise disused green spaces in your neighborhood and begin to understand how to manage your own food supply.

More importantly, I’m talking of how not to buy. If we have learned the many names of our enemy and seen how they all answer to the supreme name of Capitalism, then we must agree that the replication of capital through buying and selling is an action in service to the adversary.

Simply put, the most revolutionary act you can do is to stop spending money on absolutely anything you don’t need to. Steal music, go to a library, shoplift if you feel like it and accept the risk. These are truly revolutionary acts that present a direct challenge to the concepts of exchange and property that underpin capitalism.

Challenge yourself.

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Mainstream media reinforces the status quo which legitimizes capitalist hegemony. Mainstream narratives either are encoded with bigoted thought or perform our resistance for us by paying lip service to anti-capitalist ideas whilst tightening the grip of very regime they decry. Films, television, and popular music are all equally guilty of this. Better to seek out the bizarre, the formally experimental, the challenging. Especially difficult works produced by people marginalized by the current system. Read from small presses, discover music on Bandcamp or Soundcloud. Better yet, make something yourself.

Creation is Resistance.

Stasis is the enemy. Comfort is complacency. Capitalism would have us stalled in every motion that is not directly related to production and consumption. That’s a nice hobby, says Aunt Thea, but what do you do? Creation is not necessarily production. L’art pour l’art is a direct challenge to the capitalist notions of entertainment and economic service that artists have long been shackled to. Make something and give it away. Write a book to pull the pillars down. Make a beat, write a song. Never sit still and always be exactly who you want to be. This is revolution.

The political is personal. We are holding ourselves back and others less fortunate than us every time we participate in the economy. The market is responsible for global warming, the market is responsible for wide-spread inequality. The market means you are not free. Revolution exists wherever capitalism is resisted. Capitalism exists wherever capital is self-replicated.

Ask yourself: do I want a better world or a better phone?

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Matthew Smith

Matt is a writer, musician and actor based in the unceded Algonquin territory commonly known as Ottawa. He loves dogs, hates cops, drinks too much tea and overthinks everything.

Twitter: @Squabbleronline

Take-out: Food Insecurity and Resistance

photo by john cameron from unsplash

“Yes, as through this world I’ve wandered

I’ve seen lots of funny men

Some will rob you with a six-gun

And some with a fountain pen.”

These lines, from Woody Guthrie’s classic paean to the outlaw life, Pretty Boy Floyd, demonstrate the two kinds of thieves in this world: the capitalists who have stolen from the common stock for profit and those who have been driven by the cruelty of economic inequality to steal it back.

We’re taught to fear the masked criminals (though now that we are all masked, it is much harder to tell them apart), the hooded prowler out for your jewels, the mugger in the alleyway. Yet we pay rent and tax to those who’ve claimed a monopoly on the natural world: the landlords and CEOs who’ve ransomed our rights for an ever-increasing price.

photo by franki chamaki from unsplash

Everything in this world is already owned. The concept of property has created a free-market which stakes its claim on every natural resource, placing a price tag on that which should be held in common. As the mutualist philosopher Pierre-Joseph Proudhon famously reminds us, “la propriété, c'est le vol”

Long ago, when the earth was first carved up by early merchant capitalists, resources such as arable land and game rich forests were monopolized by force. Agrarian people were displaced and absorbed into the economy of cities, where they became increasingly alienated from one another, the products of their labor and their ability to rely upon themselves and their community to survive.

When people become disconnected from the knowledge and tools to produce their own food, they become dependent on the apparatus of supermarkets and restaurants. These institutions take food which, framed in Marxist terms, has an intrinsic ‘use value’(because we need it to live), and attaches the capitalist ‘exchange value’ wherein food becomes worth more because of the methods of production/cost of labor. To this a third value is attached, what Baudrillard has called the ‘sign value’ wherein certain food is perceived as more desirable because of its attachment to brand names, celebrities, and the social capital of eating what/where is “on trend.”

photo by maksym ivaschenko from unsplash

When a person cannot afford this now overvalued food, they may turn to the food bank industry and receive nutritionally negligible, preservative filled “non-perishable” items. Instead of access to quality ingredients and knowledge about cooking and growing techniques, the food bank provides what wealthier people didn’t want. This foments the culture of dependence, ensuring the population is beholden to the state and its allies. Where, now, is one left to turn?

“My stomach hurts so I’m looking for a purse to snatch;” Tupac Shakur explains how a society like this will never go through any meaningful Changes. According to a Food Insecurity Policy paper, 1.8 million Canadian houses are food-insecure, with nearly half unable to afford balanced meals. Many neighborhoods in Canada are considered “food deserts,” areas where residents have little or no access to healthy food. These neighborhoods are overwhelmingly poor, and the population are driven into the waiting arms of the food bank profiteers.

Every capitalist who has claimed a monopoly on a food supply and withheld it from others at a price is a thief. This presents the starving person with a moral question: is it theft if you are stealing back that which is yours? Is it fair to demand that everyone have equal access to food? For the mother who cannot afford to feed her family, who has had everything kept from her by pen-pushing thieves, where else is there to turn than the six-gun?

And as Bertolt Brecht says in the Threepenny Opera: “food is the first thing, morals follow on.”

For information about food bank alternatives visit parkdalefoocentre.ca.

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Matthew Smith

Matt is a writer, musician and actor based in the unceded Algonquin territory commonly known as Ottawa. He loves dogs, hates cops, drinks far too much tea and overthinks everything.

Twitter: @Squabbleronline

“Sed purus sem, scelerisque ac rhoncus eget, porttitor nec odio. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.”

— Pablo

Revisiting Charlie Hebdo: Bloodshed over Words

Images Courtesy of Huffington Post

Five years ago, on January 7th, 2015, a series of terrorist attacks took place in Paris, France, claiming the lives of 17 people. These 17 people were all staff members of the Paris offices for the French satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo. This violent and tragic event shook the nation, as well as the rest of the world. This would not be the last time that Paris would be on the receiving end of terrorist attacks, but for now, let’s revisit what gave these two gunmen their “justification” to take 17 innocent lives.

Background: What Happened?

As stated earlier, Charlie Hebdo is a French satirical magazine. Their content is specifically designed to offend, and they criticize every single group imaginable. Race, religion, sexuality, ethnicity, etc. They don’t pull any punches. The magazine has earned the ire of many, and public backlash is their identity. They especially didn’t hold back when satirizing the Islamic faith.

In Islam, it’s forbidden to produce drawings or images of the Prophet Muhammad, which is something that Charlie Hebdo did, on numerous occasions leading up to the attack. Algeiran French brothers Chérif and Said Kouachi stormed the magazine’s offices the morning of the attack and opened fire in response to these publications. 

The Inclusivity of Freedom

When I watched this all unfold on the news, I was only 13 years old. At that time, I was confused as to why people ended up dying over a bunch of cartoons. Well, five years later, I still haven’t changed my stance on the subject. As a Muslim, I will admit that I was mildly offended at the satirical publications that Chalie Hebdo put out on Islam. But was it worth the cost of over a dozen innocent lives: absolutely not.

What essentially happened is that a bunch of people ended up losing their lives purely due to a difference in opinion. It’s clear that these two gunmen failed to see the duality of the term “freedom of speech”. Freedom is not selective. When it's put in place, it belongs to everybody, regardless of whether or not you agree with them. We are all entitled to our own opinion, and sure we may clash at times, but it’s important that for the most part we should all feel safe expressing our words, our ideas, and our views. 

I don’t really have anything more to say on this topic now that I think about it. What happened was horrific, and should have never taken place to begin with. The inclusivity of freedom is an important thing that we should always take heed of. As for myself, whenever I disagree with someone else’s views, I make sure to remember the wise words of historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”.

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Amal Sheikhmusse

Amal Sheikhmusse is a second-year student of Algonquin College’s Professional Writing Program. Whenever she isn’t practicing her future editor skills by giving unwarranted critique to all her friends and family, you can find her re-visiting childhood nostalgia, notebook in hand, ready to verbally tear her childhood hopes and dreams at a moment’s notice. 

2020’s Most Annoying Controversy (That Has Nothing to do With Trump. I Promise).

IMAGE FROM UPSPLASH

No Doubt About It: 2020 Sucks!

This year has been a wild ride from start to finish. Nobody can deny that. We’ve had: celebrities dying from fatal accidents, established celebrities with careers spanning decades dying of old age or illness, worldwide attention being brought to black people being hunted for sport by police in the United States, protests across the globe, natural disasters, the impeachment of outgoing President Donald Trump, the American election, countless celebrities being exposed for past misconduct and subsequently cancelled, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and of course, COVID-19. Even with all of that, there’s certainly dozens of other things that I’m not remembering or not even aware of.

There is, however, one controversy that sticks out to me: Mulan.

While many of the events in 2020 were tragic, heartbreaking and world changing; Mulan was just dumb. No, I have not seen the new Mulan. I probably wont ever watch it and I’m going to comment on it anyways. So here we go.

Flawed From the Ground Up

Let’s start with the changes to the narrative. When I heard that they were removing Mushu from the live action version, I was skeptical. Mushu is a huge part of the plot in the original, as well as serving as a very effective comic relief, in large thanks to Eddie Murphy’s energetic performance and good comedic timing. Removing Mushu from the movie felt like taking away what made 1998 version of Mulan so refreshing, but maybe it could work. It could be easy to write around a character that is largely unseen by the majority of the characters in the movie. But then I hear that they split Li Shang in to two separate captains because of the #MeToo movement!? NOPE. NOPE NOPE NOPE. NOOOOOOOPE!

Next, let’s talk about a lack of diversity in the production team. Mulan is supposed to be a movie set in China during the Han Dynasty. There are many Asian actors in this movie, but not many Asian people behind the camera. For example, the director of this movie, Niki Caro, is a white woman. I’m not opposed to a white person telling an Asian story, so long as they tell that story with the same respect and cultural knowledge that an actual Asian person would - although it’s not likely. What I am opposed to is a race of people who could use their knowledge of Chinese culture to bring a sense of legitimacy and historical accuracy to the narrative and the characters being overlooked by Disney. Note that I don’t say entirely overlooked because the powers that be at Disney at least had enough sense in their skulls to cast Asian actors to portray Asian characters in a movie set in an Asian country. Congratulations, you’ve learned something since the bygone era of Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

Let’s Not Forget…

This movie caused quite a bit of political drama, as well. Yifei Lui, who plays the film’s titular character, made comments in support of Hong Kong police during the Hong Kong riots. This led many to believe that Yifei Lui was in support of police brutality. I can’t say for sure if she does support police brutality just because she supports the police. However, in 2020, it’s a very bad look.

IMAGE FROM UPSPLASH

Next up: filming locations. Mulan was criticized for filming in Xinjiang province in China, where internment camps containing roughly one million Turkic citizens are located. Something doesn’t really feel right about a movie that has a heroine fighting for her country’s freedom in her father’s stead being filmed on land where hundreds of thousands of people have no freedom at all. This led to a majority of the movie being filmed in New Zealand, which I feel is also not the right answer. I’d love to know if filming in another location within China was ever considered.

I think the most ridiculous part of this entire controversy lies in how this movie was released. Due to COVID-19, Disney didn’t get to release Mulan in theatres and make it’s money back. So Disney thought that charging $30 on a streaming service that you already pay for, that has the original, animated version of Mulan, during a time where people are losing their jobs left, right and centre would be an excellent idea. I’m not going to cry for Disney’s lost money, and neither should you.

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Garrett Forsyth

Garrett considers himself to be an average Joe who writes, plays video games, is an avid lover of The Golden Girls, and sleeps way too much. He also watches anime, and aspires to become a cat lady before the next apocalypse. He hates people who are misogynistic, racist, homophobic, and trans-phobic, people who wake him up too early, and things that smell bad.

Defund, Dismantle, Abolish: Why Policing Must End

On July 24, 2016, right here in Ottawa, a thirty-seven-year-old Somali-Canadian man named Abdirahman Abdi was sent into fatal cardiac arrest after being severely beaten by two police officers. Abdi suffered from severe mental health issues and had been causing a disturbance at a nearby coffee shop, allegedly groping a female patron. Instead of the incident being de-escalated by a crisis management team of trained mental health professionals, the staff at the coffee shop did what we have all been conditioned to do when confronted with a social emergency: they dialed 911. In death, Abdi has, like countless Black, Indigenous, and other people of color (BIPOC), unfortunately become a symbol of a struggle against not only racist police practices, but also against the institution of the police itself.

In the year of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, as well as so many others killed by the armed wing of state control, many have begun to question the need for police at all.

To understand police abolition, we must first understand the reasons the police exist.

Sir John A MacDonald founded the RCMP when the Prime Minister was inspired to create a Canadian equivalent to the Royal Irish Constabulary, a British paramilitary force used to quash dissent in Ireland. Instead of suppressing the Irish people’s freedom, MacDonald wanted his own armed guard to control Canada’s Indigenous population. The RCMP was founded to solely separate people from their ancestral land and to violently enforce colonial rule, something they continue to do to this day as witnessed by the recent aggressive engagements in Wet’suwe’ten and Land Back Lane 1492 in Caledonia, ON.

In the United States, one of the first police forces was the paramilitary Watch and Guard of Charleston city. An armed outfit of white mercenaries, the Watch and Guard was charged with the duty of catching runaway slaves and violently stamping out any hints of Black rebellion. The current police force of the city of Charleston is the direct descendant of the Watch and Guard.

Policing protects property, whether that property be stolen land or human bodies. Two-thirds of all crimes are property related. The police, and the violence they represent, are the state’s way of reminding us that, in a capitalist system, your lives are worth less than a few store windows. Anyone who suffers from the unequal distribution of property in our society is likely to have repeated encounters with the police.

The police represent the state’s capacity of violence, and nothing else. They are the threat of physical harm that awaits anyone who dares to break the laws. Try to continually refuse even the most routine demand from a police officer long enough and you will surely feel this violence in some form.

Why, then, do we continually call the police? Does the situation require violent intervention? And especially where BIPOC are concerned, is it worth the risk of sentencing someone to a brutal death?

Ejaz Choudry, Chantal Moore, Regis Korchinsky-Paquet. All murdered in Canada in 2020 by police on “wellness checks,” mental health crises which, for some unfathomable reason, necessitate intervention by the purveyors of state violence. Where was the specialized team of crisis intervention workers, trained in conflict de-escalation and community support? Why did Abdirahman Abdi face brass-knuckled thugs instead of empathetic outreach responders?

The police reinforce the inequality and inherent racism of our colonial, carceral-capitalist environment. It is not something that can be reformed. Not something that body cams, or even a reduction in budget spending can fix. When Wet’suwe’ten activists blocked the rails in solidarity earlier this year, the hashtag #shutdowncanada was trending (meaning something very different in those pre-COVID times). To achieve true, meaningful reconciliation with this country’s horrific past, we must dismantle the current system entirely. Canada isn’t a matter of fact. It is a country operating under the shared assumption of validity, enshrined by laws and treaties which are enforced by violent policing of its citizens. If we want to see a society of compassion, of empathy, sharing and equality we must envision a world without the need for a single cop.

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Matthew Smith

Matt is a writer, musician and actor based in the unceded Algonquin territory commonly known as Ottawa. He loves dogs, hates cops, drinks too much tea and overthinks everything.

Twitter: @Squabbleronline

The Never-Ending Cycle of Toxicity

Image from Spiritualcleansing.org

I’ll be honest; tackling this subject is going to be a bit difficult for me. Mainly because any time I try to even think about it, my mood is ruined for the rest of the day. Nevertheless, It’s a topic that needs to be spoken about, especially given the age of social media we live in, so I will try my very hardest not to throw my laptop out the window in frustration

I’m sure you’re all aware of the terms “toxic feminism” and “toxic masculinity”, and have experienced or witnessed instances of it taking place. And while they’re both opposing forces dead set on reigning victorious over the opposite side’s toxic views with their own toxicity, neither one can exist without the other. Yes, you read that right. These two polarized, yet equally vile, schools of thought are codependent on each other. “How’s that even possible?” you’re probably asking. Well, that’s what we’re here to discuss. But before that, let’s make sure that we have a little better understanding of just how each side works. Rest assured, however, their hateful idiotic views aren’t all that hard to follow.

Toxic Feminism, and How it’s Discredited Actual Feminism

Remember feminism? Remember the first, second, and third waves of women’s rights movements over the last century that have fought for women to have the same basic rights as men? Because I do. Had it not been for them, I probably wouldn’t even be writing this post right now.

To put it simply, “toxic feminism” takes everything that feminism stood for, and just dumps all over it. They twist and doctor traditional feminism, which is based on gender equality, and morphs it into a form of gender supremacy. These self-proclaimed “feminists” are essentially using the feminist cause to harass the opposite sex, and then claim that its all for women’s rights and that anyone who opposes their actions is a misogynist.

Their actions have caused just the mention of the word “feminism” to leave a bad taste in the mouths of others, effectively discrediting the intergenerational sacrifices of hundreds of women. It’s kind of ironic when you think about it. They claim to be all for the feminist cause, but the result of their actions do more harm for it than good.

I think I’ve made it pretty obvious that I really don’t like toxic feminism. I hate toxic people and behavior as a whole, but toxic feminism hits a little too close to home. As a woman myself, I value all of the sacrifices that those before me have made in order to give me the rights and freedoms that I have today. I wouldn’t be the person that I am today had it not been for them. Toxic feminism has made a mockery of their hard work, and it boils my blood that they have a platform to spread their vile, man-hating agenda, giving “toxic masculinity” more material to justify their own toxicity.

Toxic Masculinity, and The Never-ending Cycle of Toxicity

Now I’m not a fan of it either, but “toxic masculinity” makes me more sad than angry. It’s essentially a collection of negative ideologies of what it means to be “masculine”. This includes homophobia, misogyny, and the glorification of violence, just to name a few. 

This mindset stems primarily from the societal expectations of men and women. Women were traditionally expected to be graceful, submissive, elegant, and were required to try their very hardest to conform to society’s expectations of beauty. Men on the other hand, were traditionally expected to be tough, socially dominant, competitive, and have a serious lack of emotion. Anything they did that was considered “feminine” would result in ridicule, and also somehow make them less of a man. Honestly, I could go on for hours about how this is one of the most self-damaging mindsets to have, but I’ll spare you the rant.

An important thing to not is that men who practice toxic masculinity are not the biggest fans of feminism. The idea of women being just as competent as men is not one that they’re too fond of. Remember how this mindset stems from societal gender expectations? They are firm believers of those ideals, which earns them the ire of the toxic feminism team. This turns into a never-ending cycle of toxicity, with the toxic feminism side spewing man-hatred, and the toxic masculinity side taking that and using it as evidence against feminism as a whole.

Their actions anger these toxic feminists, prompting them to spew even more man-hatred, which is then used against them from the opposing side. This cycle gets repeated over and over again, leaving nothing of value behind. It’s nothing but a massive headache for everyone unfortunate enough to bear witness to this pointless, dumpster fire of a battle. 

Equality ≠ Supremacy

It pains me that I actually have to say this, especially given the era that we live in, but here it is; equality is not the same as supremacy. Supremacy suggests that one group is better than the rest, and are deserving of unfair advantages over everyone else. 

Words cannot begin to describe just how wrong that is; we are all equal to one another, regardless of gender, or race, or sexuality, etc. This is automatic from the moment we’re born, and should have never been up for debate. Look at how much we’ve advanced as a society by working together; none of what we have today would’ve been possible had we not cooperated with each other as equals.

This back-and-forth between toxic masculinity and toxic feminism is the most frustratingly useless and destructive waste of humanity’s time. Honestly, what the hell has it even accomplished? It’s a vicious, perpetual cycle of hatred that hasn’t done anybody any favors and it just needs to stop. For the sake of ourselves and our future development as a species, we need to do away with it immediately. I mean, 2020 has been a complete mess, and the road to recovery is going to be long and tough. The very last thing that we need in our lives is this meaningless cycle of toxicity. 

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Amal Sheikhmusse

Amal Sheikhmusse is a second-year student of Algonquin College’s Professional Writing Program. Whenever she isn’t practicing her future editor skills by giving unwarranted critique to all her friends and family, you can find her re-visiting childhood nostalgia, notebook in hand, ready to verbally tear her childhood hopes and dreams at a moment’s notice. 

Universal Basic Income: A Weight Lifted

When the shadow of COVID-19 fell across Canada, as with much of the world, it immediately revealed the many fault lines running through our current mode of social organization. With some qualifying for the now-rescinded Canadian Emergency Relief Benefit (CERB) and others not, some being declared essential and thrust to the front-lines while others were able to shelter at home, the chasm between privilege and disadvantage was thrown into terrible relief.

Economic stimulus cheques sent a muddy message to the public: if $2000 a month is considered the minimum amount a person needs to remain alive during a pandemic, why, for so long, have so many been forced to live on so much less?

Governments are like parents – the majority of the people they rule over didn’t ask for their custody, they were merely born into it. Like parents, a government has a responsibility to provide care for the people they are in charge. Ostensibly, this is the whole point of government.

If we are born into living in a world where everything has a price, then it should be the government’s duty to ensure that every citizen has money to spend. If our human rights – our access to water, shelter, and food – are slapped with a price tag, it is a human rights violation to make these things inaccessible.

Utopia Now

“No penalty on earth will stop people from stealing, if it is their only way of getting food. It would be far more to the point to provide everyone with some means of livelihood so that nobody is under the frightful necessity of becoming first a thief, then a corpse.”

— Thomas More

These lines are from More’s classic work of theory fiction published in 1516, Utopia. More’s close friend, the humanist scholar Johannes Ludovicus Vives went further in envisioning a means of delivering subsistence to every citizen, regardless of their economic background. The American revolutionary Thomas Paine saw the need for a basic income given to the people by the state as repayment for the theft of landed property, the brilliant socialist Charles Fourier thought so too. The history of a universal basic income is the history of the struggle for egalitarianism within a stratified capitalist system.

If the government already owns every piece of land, every natural resource and has barred us from the ability to eke out a free living ourselves, a guaranteed wage is only the start of what we are owed.

Dignity for All

If everyone had a guaranteed minimum income, we would be free to realize our potential in whatever way we see fit. People would be less likely to remain in dangerous living situations for economic reasons, would be less likely to take jobs that pose risk to their mental and physical health. As the late, great David Graeber theorizes in his indispensable book Bullshit Jobs, a guaranteed income may expose just how many jobs are being performed in our society for no good reason at all. Automation can help. We are well passed the point where robotics and AI are advanced enough to make redundant every thankless job.

Either blessed or cursed with the gift of reason, we humans are meant for more than drudgery. For too long have we held ourselves back.

The Times They are a-Changing

There have been many UBI pilot projects all over the world, all with startlingly positive results. One of these is in the fight against climate change.

UBI can reduce the emissions caused by the current 50 hour work week, as well as slow the unsustainable cycle of consumption and production in which we have trapped ourselves and the natural world. A guaranteed cash payment to every citizen could ease the transition away from a fossil fuel economy into green energy that would otherwise leave millions jobless. In Indonesia, a guaranteed income project reduced deforestation in the region it was implemented by 30%.

UBI is a weight lifted; not only off our own burdened backs, but from off the planet, too.

Universal basic income can make extreme poverty extinct. It smashes the need for a welfare state and empowers every individual to realize their full potential. It is a way of making capitalism work for everyone, not just the wealthy. It is a way of taking back from the resource monopolists a small share of what is ours.

To learn more and become involved visit ubiworks.ca.

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Matthew Smith

Matt is a writer, musician and actor based in the unceded Algonquin territory commonly known as Ottawa. He loves dogs, hates cops, drinks too much tea and overthinks everything.

Twitter: @Squabbleronline

Losing with Dignity

IMAGE FROM UPSPLASH

Facing the Music

Can any non-Trump supporter really say that they are surprised that Trump would not concede the 2020 election to Joe Biden? This is a man who cries “fake news” every time a story that paints him in an unfavourable light is published. This is a man who calls members of the media “a disgrace” when they ask him a question that he’s not prepared to answer or doesn’t want to answer. It’s no surprise that this is a man who refuses to lose with dignity, or concede to losing an election that was a little too close for comfort.

So of course the election must be rigged because Trump didn’t win. That’s the only possible explanation for everything that’s going on in America right now. Trump lost and he’ll have to face the music for the catastrophic damage he’s done over the past four years, and he doesn’t want to. I wouldn’t want to deal with the consequences either. The thing that gets me is this: he knows that there will be consequences. That’s why he’s fighting so aggressively and creating so many lawsuits out of thin air to keep the Presidency. He knows he’s screwed without it. But if he knew that there would be consequences for his actions, then he must have known that his actions were wrong.

Transition of Power

IMAGE FROM UPSPLASH

With Trump’s refusal to concede, he is also barring a smooth transition of power. Note that a smooth transition was established by Barack Obama so Donald Trump could transition into the White House smoothly, and Joe Biden himself made sure there was a smooth transition process so Mike Pence could take his place. All of my sources say that this has been the norm for decades. That is, until Trump took office. Once again, Donald Trump has shown the world that he is fine with going against tradition to get his way. If he does get his way - he won’t - then there would be no end to his gloating and celebrating just to remind us all that he’s not going anywhere.

This is probably not going to be the outcome. The votes have been counted, and the fact that Trump actually wanted votes to continue in some states while he wanted the voting to be stopped in others with no evidence tells me that he’s grasping at straws at this point. Even Trump himself must know on some level that you cannot pick and choose which states get to have their votes counted and which ones don’t. Elections have never worked like this in America before. Proper Democracy has never worked like that before.

A New Beginning

Whether or not Trump wants to keep any shred of dignity he has left and concede that he lost the vote with grace, he is no longer the President after January 20th. This is when America can truly begin to heal. Even if Democrats don’t win the Senate in the runoff election in January, they still have the House and the Presidency.

But even if the dark clouds are clearing, scars from this time of America’s history will always remain. The Senate has a 6-3 majority, with the overwhelmingly unfair nomination that was Amy Coney Barrett, who is now sitting on the Supreme Court; America’s relationships with other countries are forever altered at best and completely destroyed at worst and America will be the butt of the joke for years thanks to Trump’s total disregard for everything except himself. By not conceding, Trump is only further establishing his legacy of having no integrity, no dignity, and will always be known for his cheap, underhanded way of getting things “done”.

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Garrett Forsyth

Garrett considers himself to be an average Joe who writes, plays video games, is an avid lover of The Golden Girls, and sleeps way too much. He also watches anime, and aspires to become a cat lady before the next apocalypse. He hates people who are misogynistic, racist, homophobic, and trans-phobic, people who wake him up too early, and things that smell bad.

The F-word: The Soft Face of Fascism

image from pixabay

The F-word is once again haunting the public discourse. For a while it seemed like the word was doomed to be thoughtlessly hurled at stingy parents and customer service representatives, its true relevance long banished from the western world.

But we aren’t seeing a resurgence in fascism – it never really left.

Fascism is less a political ideology than a way of life. It need not be strictly authoritarian – but it is always sadistic. It may not be outwardly racist, but it is often preoccupied with race. It may not be an iron fist it rules with but a green dollar. Fascism is all around us, ever has been - in some form or other it ever will be. We must learn to recognize its many faces.

For the Love of Country

Merriam Webster defines fascism as a philosophy, regime or movement which exalts the nation above the individual. There is the implication of autocratic control though this need not be necessarily a dictatorial rule. It may be rule by a wealthy elite (plutocracy), a corporation (corporatocracy) or, even the market itself (what some ludicrously call “anarcho-capitalism,” but what we’ll call market-fascism). It often romanticizes a mythic past. It rarely looks forward.

Fascism ultimately positions human rights (universal access to food, shelter, and freedom from harm) as subordinate to the glory of the nation in all its racial, geopolitical and economic forms.

In a fascist state, it is a crime to burn the flag but not to doom someone to homelessness through eviction. Racist police do not face legal repercussions for murder in a fascist state, but those who speak out against injustice do. In a fascist state the nation eats before your family does. There is much for sale in a fascist state, but little of it you need. There is much rhetoric and little truth.

Pay-per-rule

image from pixabay

The United States, now firmly in the world’s eye, with the f-word on many lips, has long been a consumer fascist state (and increasingly, so are we). Trump is merely the lump which belies the tumor. His failure to gain a second presidential term does not banish fascism from America, it merely drives its ugliest form back into the shadows.

Consumer fascism, or soft fascism, positions corporations’ ability to make money and monopolize resources in the name of a national economy as paramount to all else. You may not have access to the abilities of producing your own means of survival, but Amazon does. Loblaws does. Corporations lobby the state and private policy initiatives, they trade data with governments. Increasingly, the line between state interest and that of the market becomes irrelevant.

image from pixabay

People struggling to make ends meet continue to pay corporations for access to food, clothing, or diversion (from the fact that we are not free). We willingly relinquish our lives to be ruled, for the glory of the economy. For the good of the nation.

It wasn’t racism that elected Trump, though it helped. It wasn’t misogyny, though it was readily employed. It was by appealing to the concept of nation and attaching to it the corporate brand he carried. His supporters are quick to praise his positive affect on the stock market as, perhaps the only, sign that he has been an effective leader.

Fascism exists in the subservience of the human animal to the nation and it’s here in Canada too.

The Canadian military was recently found to be engaging in propaganda tactics to influence public opinion. These tactics, which included forged letters warning of wolves in Nova Scotia, are publicity stunts clearly inspired by corporate advertising strategies. This is the military trying to go viral.

What can we do?

The most direct way is to stop empowering corporations. Stop buying their products. Stop enabling their destruction of communities, their monopolies on natural resources. We all know Amazon is evil, but so is Loblaws, and Apple. There is nothing these corporations provide that a combination of lifestyle reconfiguration and local shopping can’t provide.

We can empower the individual by supporting universal basic income initiatives. With a guaranteed income, we are less vulnerable to corporate exploitation.

Trump may be on his way out of office, but he is not taking fascism with him. It surrounds us, everywhere. Beckons to us behind every waving flag, every corporate overreach, every piece of data mined. So long as there is patriotism without criticism, corporate welfare over social welfare, there is fascism.

Consumerism leads to fascism by elevating the national market above the human being. So as long as we continue to buy, we are all complicit in its rise.

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Matthew Smith

Matt is a writer, musician and actor based in the unceded Algonquin territory commonly known as Ottawa. He loves dogs, hates cops, drinks too much tea and overthinks everything.

Twitter: @Squabbleronline

Have We Forgotten How to Dream of the Future?

With the extraordinary availability of television programming, running hours and hours of content, with millions of songs at your fingertips, streamed and forgotten on a whim, you’d be forgiven for thinking that our cultural climate was teeming with originality. It isn’t.

One World. One Mind.

Photo by michael steinberg from pexels

Perhaps it began with the neo-liberalism of the early nineties, the political force that sought to unify the entire earth beneath a single umbrella of trade and corporate control. A homogenization of culture was necessary if we were all to sing with one voice in Coca Cola’s utopia (Fruitopia?). Technology became affordable, global communication became easier than ever. Perhaps some of us felt free.

This was the solidification of the Deleuzian “society of control” that we now find ourselves in. Where freedom takes on the appearance of a free flow of information and a seemingly border-less world. But the price of this freedom is the data harvested by every tech company and every airline which in turn is readily shared with governments for purposes of social control. We stopped dreaming of the future because, so we were told by our leaders, the future was already here.

The End of History

Photo by lucas pezeta by pexels

Another remake. Another Carpenter-esque synth-laden retro futurist soundtrack. 32-bit graphics, butterfly clips, yet another remake. Same story, different spandex. It was once thought that the 2000s would see flying cars and automation replacing drudgery creating a society of leisure. Instead we got seven different Spider Man films.

The new millennium began with revival: garage revival, post-punk revival. Artists like Amy Winehouse, the Arctic Monkeys and Lana Del Rey have built careers on being living musical remakes, monuments to the past. Corporate entertainment continues to feed the pap of childhood to us well into our adult life so that we remain forever infantilized, forever dependent. All potential forever neutralized.

If you are looking backwards, you will never move forward. What are “Ready Player One”, “Stranger Things”, “Blade Runner 2049” and the undying popularity of “Star Wars” but a kind of MAGA sublimated into aesthetic. A desire to return to an inaccessible past, using the language of genres that have historically pointed forward.

No Future for You

Mark Fisher, the great theorist of all lost futures, firmly demonstrated the link between late capitalism and corporate nostalgia (what Simon Reynolds calls “retromania”) when he wrote that:

 “neo-liberal capitalism has…systematically deprived artists of the resources necessary to produce the new…as public service broadcasting became “marketized,” there was an increased tendency to turn out cultural productions that resembled what was already successful.” (Ghosts of My Life, p. 15)

As corporations gradually colonize every aspect of our lives, as control becomes de-spatialized and we carry the office, the school, the prison around with us, there becomes less and less room for the new. We are sold the past and so the past is what we come to expect. We are taught to fear the strange, the unsettling and take comfort in the bosom of familiarity.

Utopian Dreams

It is up to us to demand the unfamiliar, the strange, the uncomfortable. We deserve a future, not the eternal prison of the past. If we’re ever to emerge from the suffocation of control, if we’re ever to breathe a breath that hasn’t come at a price, we need to remember how strange the future can seem and forget its false familiarity.

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Matthew Smith

Matt is a writer, musician and actor based in the unceded Algonquin territory commonly known as Ottawa. He loves dogs, hates cops, drinks too much tea and overthinks everything.

Twitter: @Squabbleronline

COVID-19 vaccine: is it really a good thing?

all photos used courtesy of Pexels.com

I feel the need to preface this by saying that I am strongly pro-vaccine. I believe that if anyone is physically capable of getting vaccinated, they should do so for their own safety and the safety of others. I myself have received all my vaccinations, and my immunization record is up-to-date.

With all that being said, it’s probably a bit surprising to hear that I’m not all that excited about the COVID-19 vaccine coming out so soon. And don’t get me wrong; with everything that the virus has done, I’m all for the cure. I just have a few concerns with how it’s all being handled.

Vaccine Development Timeline

Upon research, vaccine development usually takes years, sometimes decades. And apparently there has been talk of a COVID-19 vaccine coming out sometime in 2021, which is honestly both impressive and concerning at the same time.

I’m aware that the world’s top scientists and medical researchers have been fighting tooth and nail to get a vaccine available to combat the virus, and their hard work is very much appreciated. However, when a process that takes years upon years is condensed into one single year, there’s potential for mistakes to be made. And when it’s something as vital as vaccines, mistakes are completely unforgivable. Vaccines are meant to be put into our bodies to keep us safe; one mistake could jeopardize an entire population.

To put it simply, when a time sensitive and delicate process is unbelievably rushed, it should raise some concern. I mean come on; a COVID-19 vaccine that took only one year to make? I can’t be the only one that’s skeptical about how trustworthy it really is.

Vaccine Testing and Certification

In addition to the lengthy development process, there’s also an even lengthier testing and certification process. According to the U.S. Food and Drug Association (FDA), which is the world’s leading force in vaccine development, there are a multitude of steps and procedures to follow to ensure that a vaccine is safe for the public. Each of these steps typically take up to two years each to complete. 

With that in mind, there are multiple medical facilities around the world, including some in the U.S., that are reportedly already performing “Phase III clinical trials”, which is one of the very last stages of vaccine testing before approval. My question is: how the hell did that happen? How did they all manage to breeze through so many years worth of steps within a few months?

There’s a reason why each of these steps are so time consuming; they include both animal and human testing to ensure the proposed vaccine’s absolute safety. The fact that these proposed vaccines are at the very final stage of human testing is beyond unthinkable. Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if there have been steps that were skimmed over or even completely skipped, which to me is horrifying given the severity of vaccine safety.

Is the COVID-19 Vaccine Good News?

As of now, there have been over one million deaths caused by COVID-19 worldwide. Millions of people around the world have already lost so much due to the pandemic. To say that there isn’t an urgent need for a solution would be blatantly incorrect. However, it seems to me that in the desperate search for the cure, vaccine research and development has gotten a whole lot sloppier. I want this virus to disappear just as much as anyone, but it isn’t worth potentially putting even more lives at risk with a rushed, faulty vaccine. The world already has so much to deal with; the last thing it needs is a game of vaccine Russian roulette.

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Amal Sheikhmusse

Amal Sheikhmusse is a second-year student of Algonquin College’s Professional Writing Program. Whenever she isn’t practicing her future editor skills by giving unwarranted critique to all her friends and family, you can find her re-visiting childhood nostalgia, notebook in hand, ready to verbally tear her childhood hopes and dreams at a moment’s notice. 

Amy Coney Barrett

IMAGE FROM UPSPLASH

I am not a conservative person. I’m the farthest thing from one, in fact. I would consider myself maybe even more far left than a liberal would consider themselves by today’s standards. So I guess that would make me a socialist. I believe in equality and fairness for all, I believe in a universal basic income and I believe that Trudeau has more bark than bite. He’s not willing to actually solve racism, as evidenced by his almost non-existent response to the Mi’kmaq lobster war, in which the Mi’kmaq people have treaty rights to hunt and provide for their families.

So I suppose this would put me in direct opposition of the recently confirmed Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett. There is much speculation that this woman will single-handedly set American progress back 50 or so years - along with a 6-3 conservative majority - with her stance on abortion, her referencing sexual identities as sexual preferences, and her position on the second amendment to name a few of her political alignments. She proclaims herself as an originalist, meaning that the American constitution should be upheld the way it was written in the 18th century. American liberals are right in being concerned, as societal values and perceptions have changed in the 233 years since the constitution was written and signed. I won’t be the first in saying that if the constitution had received no amendments since it was originally written, Justice Coney Barrett would not be sitting on the high court today.

IMAGE BY UPSPLASH

Even the founding fathers knew that societal views would change over time, and used language in the constitution to reflect that. Founding Father Thomas Jefferson quite brilliantly said, “we might as well ask a man to wear a coat that fitted him when he was a boy.” The Founding Fathers themselves never expected future generations to live under the same rules and regulations as they did.

So why am I talking about a country that I don’t live in? Well, like I said, I believe in equality and fairness for all. When you really get down to it, it really only is an invisible line that separates us from the same laws and practices of our American counterparts. I shudder to think about how my life could have turned out if I wasn’t given certain protections and freedoms as I have here in Canada. I count my blessings every day that I was not born in America. Might I also say that while Canada is not perfect, and we have a long way to go before each and every one of us is truly seen as equal in the eyes of government and the eyes of the law, we are living proof that what America is trying to do right now simply doesn’t work.

It’s no surprise to me that Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed. The Republican Party has proven time and time again that they will play dirty to get their way. From my understanding, the process to swear in a Supreme Court Justice takes around 70 days on average. It has been roughly a month and a half since RBG passed away. This is an injustice to the American people, who are rightly calling out the hypocrisy in filling a vacant seat in an election year. In 2016, when Antonin Scalia passed away, Moscow Mitch McConnell sat on his thumbs for 11 months to replace him. Now, from the time that Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed to the election date, he had a little over two months.

This form of “leadership” from any conservative party is why I could never vote for them, no matter how much financial responsibility they promise. The lies, the cheating, the corruption, the hypocrisy, the hatred, the propaganda and the scare mongering to get people to keep voting for them. I’m simply amazed that these people have any followers left. They no longer represent what the majority of the American people want. They will go down on the wrong side of history. All they have left is to cling to the few threads of power that are remaining. They’re going down fast, but unfortunately, there are going to be setbacks. Amy Coney Barrett is one of them.

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Garrett Forsyth

Garrett considers himself to be an average Joe who writes, plays video games, is an avid lover of The Golden Girls, and sleeps way too much. He also watches anime, and aspires to become a cat lady before the next apocalypse. He hates people who are misogynistic, racist, homophobic, and trans-phobic, people who wake him up too early, and things that smell bad.

The Other Side Breaks on Through to Here: Poltergeist Phenomena as Capitalist Resistance

Zhupel of the revolution (1905) by boris kustodiev

“The destructive character has the consciousness of historical man, whose deepest emotion is an insuperable mistrust of the course of things and a readiness at all times to recognize that everything can go wrong. Therefore, the destructive character is reliability itself.”

— Walter Benjamin

Get Out of My House

Floorboards creaking while everyone is asleep. Cupboards swing open before your eyes. The iPad levitated for thirteen seconds before slamming to the ground. The poltergeist behaves like a neglected child, upsetting order to grab attention. It moves unseen through the corridors of the newly renovated town house, starting the Vitamix well before you’re ready to make your maca smoothie. When the front door opens and the family pours in, arms filled with shopping bags, the poltergeist is there, petulant, hurtling a Fitbit against the wall.

image from pixabay

And even in moments of silence, when you do not know you have a ghost in your house – it is there. It’s in the simmering uncertainty held down by another Netflix binge. It’s the cold sweat of what have I done? I don’t want to be a policy analyst. It’s in the silence as you drive the family to the water park. It’s the noise beneath the placid surface of the capitalist dream. The incorporeal shade haunting the hallowed homes of a material world.

“The destructive character sees nothing permanent. But for this very reason he sees ways everywhere. Where others encounter walls or mountains, there, too, he sees a way.”

— Walter Benjamin

Bring the Noise

Poltergeist, from the German “poltern” (a sonic disturbance) and “geist” (spirit), might be translated as “knocking ghost”, or “noisy spirit”. However one renders it in English, the meaning is plain: it is loud and restless. Indeed, poltergeist phenomena are always associated with sounds. From the spectral Drummer of Tedworth beating out an unseen cacophony in 1682 , through to the disembodied voices and wall pounding of the notorious Enfield poltergeist which tormented a single mother in England in 1977; the hauntings are uniformly a sonic barrage described as a “disturbance.”

image from pixabay

And what, exactly, is being disturbed? What is the purpose of all this noise? Writing of harsh noise in music, Csaba Toth defines noise as that which “disrupts both the performer and listener’s normal relations to the symbolic order by refusing to route musical pleasure through the symbolic order.” Pleasure is easily commodified and the vectors for pleasure (art, alcohol, drugs, sex) are monopolized by both government and corporation as a means of social control.

But noise resists commodification: it does not appeal to the pleasure principle, experience of it is not mediated by any centralized authority. The poltergeist is then not so different from transgressive sound artists like Whitehouse and Throbbing Gristle. Noise as a form of social disruption. Discomfort to short circuit the forces of control.

The Ghost in the Gadget

“But because he sees a way everywhere, he has to clear things from it everywhere… Because he sees ways everywhere, he always stands at a crossroads.”

— Walter Benjamin

The poltergeist unleashes a sonic assault on everything we have been taught to believe is sacred about a domesticated, capitalist life. It is important to note how, aside from a few spectacular tales, accounts of poltergeist activity involve only damage to property. In fact, much of the violence inherent in these manifestations is directed against physical objects best representing the private domicile: doors, beds, cupboards, and tables.

Like a protest that turns to smashing the windows of a Starbucks, the poltergeist expresses the rage of an anarchic soul confined by capitalism. It may even possess the symbols of capitalism itself: I am become the floating smartphone, destroyer of stability. In the 1960 case of the Baltimore poltergeist, the spirit exploded Coca-Cola bottles from within.

The poltergeist operates spontaneously, it is unpredictable, capricious, and angry – it is ungovernability itself and, by insinuating itself directly into the home and freely using objects therein, it attacks the very concept of private ownership that lies at the heart of capitalism.

A Spectre is Haunting

“No moment can know what the next will bring. What exists he reduces to rubble – not for the sake of rubble, but for that of the way leading through it.”

— Walter Benjamin

Skeptics will say that poltergeist phenomena, often emanating from a human “focal point,” usually in the form of a teenage or pre-teen child, is simply either conscious or unconscious mischief. The child, lacking attention, projects a fantasy spirit to achieve power over the household and assault the hierarchy of the family unit, within which they’ve been rendered powerless. To this I say, where does the projection end and the haunting begin?

image from pixabay

The only thing more ungovernable than the poltergeist is the willful child, to whom property is confusing and rules made only to be broken. Like the youth led innovations of punk, hip-hop and industrial noise, which obliterated capitalist notions of class, race, gender with explosions of sound, both child and poltergeist raise the volume to make themselves heard over the willful silence of the status quo.

Silence is violence but noise destroys.

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Matthew Smith

Matt is a writer, musician and actor based in the unceded Algonquin territory commonly known as Ottawa. He loves dogs, hates cops, drinks too much tea and overthinks everything.

Twitter: @Squabbleronline

Scottie Pippen Does Not View NBA Bubble as NBA Basketball

Amidst everything happening in the world, the return of the NBA was the last thing on everyone’s mind. With that being said, Adam Silver found a way to bring some degree of entertainment into what seemed like a chaotic world.

The NBA came back at full speed on July 30 and many were asking how it would even work with COVID spreading faster than a TV sellout on boxing day morning.

The bubble took place in Disney World with 22 teams playing for seeding. The NBA was essentially quarantining itself from the rest of society with players being tested every day and monitored for symptoms.

With the restart of the NBA players were given somewhat of a choice if they wanted to play in the bubble or not, and teams that had players who wanted an “out” of their roster could choose a player signed to an NBA or G league contract this season, which changes the perspective of who the teams were going to be able to bring to Orlando instead of just a two-way player. Guys like J. Crawford, Joe Johnson and J.R. Smith, who were all season without being signed to a team suddenly had all eyes on them. This, however, raises some questions.

Many are wondering if the playoffs this year are even meaningful, and the answer is: it’s complicated.

With the Lakers winning their 17th title with J.R.Smith who never even played a minute on the court through the return of the bubble, you start to ask yourself and wonder if this championship even meant anything. On top of this, rookies and veterans do not have to deal with crowd booing or rookies being nervous from playing on another teams house. As Scottie Pippen stated, the NBA now is looking like a “pickup” game. It does not have the same playoff feel it once had.

"Well, I’m going to be honest. It’s not NBA basketball," he said. "It’s not the hard grind. It’s not the travel. It’s not the fans. It’s not the distractions. Really, to me, it’s pickup basketball. It’s going to the gym. Yeah, you already got your team. Y’all practicing together. But it’s a more of a pickup type of basketball game, because there’s no fans in the stands. So there is no distraction. There’s no real noise. There’s no pressure on the players, you know. Prime example: I looked at (the Los Angeles Lakers' Rajon) Rondo. Rondo ain’t made 3-pointers in his whole NBA career. Now, all of a sudden, he’s in a bubble, he’s probably a 50% 3-point shooter. I haven’t even checked the stats, but that’s just something that I consider making the game so easy, because Rondo can’t score inside of an arena, when you got depth perception. Like, there’s a whole lot of things that make the NBA hard. The bubble makes the NBA easy to me.”

On the other hand, to say a Lakers win is meaningless also makes no sense since every player is in the same environment right now, so the factors that could be aiding Rondo are also aiding every other player. This just gives the Lakers more props in winning the title since every team they played against had players in top shape who were ready to play.

Should we Have to Pay Back CERB? No. No we Shouldn’t.

Image by Pexels

When the coronavirus first made its deadly sweep across Canada back in March, millions of Canadians were left jobless, myself included. Panic quickly settled in as many were left with no way to make ends meet, with some even ending up homeless after not being able to pay rent. 

But just as the country was about to devolve into absolute anarchy and chaos, the Canadian government quickly came out with the Canadian Emergency Response Benefit (CERB), giving those who have lost their main sources of income sweet financial relief.

What is CERB?

It generously offered $2,000 for every four-week eligibility period, which was more than anyone could’ve asked for. It was an absolute dream; I was among the millions of Canadians that immediately pounced on the opportunity to claim CERB, and it was because of it that I’m now able to pay for my tuition this year among other things. Frankly, it was almost too good to be true. And then after it ended in September, I learned that it really was.

Turns out that CERB is taxable, meaning that there’s a very strong chance many of us are going to have to pay some of it back. How much you’d have to pay back, that would depend on how many cheques you’ve collected. But the fact remains: most of us are going to have to pay a portion of our CERB earnings back.

Image courtesy of The Daily Californian

But should we be getting taxed?

Now, I honestly have a serious problem with this, and it’s not just for personal reasons. Most of those that registered for CERB are from low-income families that were put in an immensely difficult situation thanks to the coronavirus. They likely don’t have the means to pay any of it back, so making CERB a taxable source of income is just plain cruel. On top of this, it's not like anyone ever asked to be put into this situation that no one has control over, so why hold us accountable for a source of income that was our only option outside of complete poverty? 

I’m aware that COVID-19 has already put a serious dent on the Canadian economy, but is taxing what was supposed to be a universal source of income really the way to fix this? I mean, what are we paying taxes for anyways? Isn’t it so that the government can help us when stuff like this happens? But hey, I’m not an economist, so what do I know.

Long story short, do I think we should have to pay back CERB? No, no we shouldn’t, because what good would it do anyways? This country has been ravaged enough as it is, and giving Canadians even more grief isn’t going to solve not even one third of its problems. So for god’s sake Canada: give us a break just this once. Trust me, you’re not doing anyone any favours.

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Amal Sheikhmusse

Amal Sheikhmusse is a second-year student of Algonquin College’s Professional Writing Program. Whenever she isn’t practicing her future editor skills by giving unwarranted critique to all her friends and family, you can find her re-visiting childhood nostalgia, notebook in hand, ready to verbally tear her childhood hopes and dreams at a moment’s notice.

To Mask or Not to Mask

Image BY Jeremy Hogan / SOPA Images/Sipa USA from theconversation.com

Wearing a mask during the Covid-19 pandemic has surprisingly become a very controversial issue as of late. Everybody seems to have an opinion about why they wear one, and why they don’t. People who wear them argue that it’s a social responsibility, that the science says that wearing them reduces the spread of Covid drastically, and, honestly, some people just like not having their faces visible.

People on the other side of the aisle seem to have much weaker arguments, like they can’t breathe (they can), that they have a special little card that gives them a medical reason why they don’t need to wear one (most of them have no such medical condition), and some people even spout nonsense about it being against the law to be forced to wear a mask at all (our country, at least, can take drastic measures such as forcing citizens to wear masks inside in the interest of public safety). These issues seem mostly in the United States, as Canada seems to be much more socially responsible, but watching our neighbours to the south has influenced not just us, but people all over the world to act outright dangerously and disregard the safety of others.

As COVID cases are on the rise again in Canada, and this pandemic shows no signs of slowing down, it’s a good time to discuss why the masks are life saving. While the masks are important to everyday life for the foreseeable future, I personally believe that there is a downside to overusing the masks as well.

Image from UpSplash

While people who are conscious about other people’s safety by wearing the masks is commendable, I also fear that we are weakening our own immune systems in the long run by wearing the masks too often or for extended periods of time. Doctors and nurses wear masks all the time, to protect themselves against thousands of possibly deadly bacteria in a well ventilated hospital. We are wearing masks just as often, in many different types of temperatures and climates, to protect ourselves (and others) from one deadly virus. In some ways, the two don’t really stack up against each other all that well.

Overall, I’m in favour of masks. I’ve mentioned they are life saving, and while they are inexpensive (if you get reusable cloth masks) they also seem to be harmful to the environment due to people losing them or simply throwing them away wherever there seems to be a free piece of terrain. The least you can do is pick up after yourselves. Wasn’t there a huge environmental issue pretty recently before COVID was even a thing? Did we all just forget?

I don’t want to get too carried away here, so I’ll leave you with this: masks are life saving during this pandemic (something that apparently can not be said enough times), but what will the negative effects of wearing them too often and then throwing them away be in the long run?

For more information on masks and how to wear them, visit https://www.ontario.ca/page/face-coverings-and-face-masks

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Garrett considers himself to be an average Joe who writes, plays video games, is an avid lover of The Golden Girls, and sleeps way too much. He also watches anime, and aspires to become a cat lady before the next apocalypse. He hates people who are misogynistic, racist, homophobic, and trans-phobic, people who wake him up too early, and things that smell bad.

Biden v. Trump 2020: The Circus of Infamy

1651 Frontispiece for Hobbes’ Leviathan by Abraham Bosse

There came a mount during the 2020 presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden where, as the camera cut rapidly between the two septuagenarians, for a moment they appeared to blur together into one entity. I saw the similarities staring back at me: four empty eyes searching for approval in the camera’s lens, two sets of teeth bared, flaring into one nova of grin and grit. One moved rigid, puppet-like; face a taut mask pulled over nothing but rote snippets of policy while the other, gripped the podium and shambled above it in a familiar careless slouch, a narcotic posture of venality; lusting for the camera, recognizing it at his own mother. One represented a terrifying future in love with an unreal past, the other represented a very real past with terrifying consequences for the future. One actively slithered its heels across America’s already barely-functional democracy in order to turn the country into one big golf club: white, rich, and entirely synthetic. The other simply resembled that weakened democracy: skeletal, making empty gestures, representing no one other than people who look like him.

IMAGE FROM SHUTTERSTOCK

Following the debate, the major news sources were typically funereal. “The real loser is the American voter,” they said while the president’s slobbering goon squad of diet-Nazi thugs cheered in victory. And they were right to mourn; we all are. We have painted ourselves into a corner; economically, ecologically, and politically. America is simply the logical endpoint of representative democracy: where so few speak for so many that the politicians are drained of all traces of humanity to become the living embodiment of an ideal. They cease to be human and become ciphers; flashing signs which represent nothing but an appeal to the electorate.

Trump boasts and blusters, sneers and slurs, race-baits, and grabs for power because this is exactly what his supporters expect. He is merely a fulfillment of a wish that began with Reagan: the nativist, anarcho-capitalist’s dream of a tyrant entrepreneur who will replace democracy with a free-market Thunderdome; a wish filtered through the post-9/11 Islamophobia, wounded by failed neo-liberalism and dragged through the cesspools of 4Chan; a wish buffeted by the racist fears of a Black president which drifted in through the windows of Trump tower during a filming of “the Apprentice” and attached itself to the bloating frame of an ultra-famous faux-billionaire. Anyone can be president: the American dream.

And who has the left-wing produced to oppose this threat? To defend the pillars of the world’s oldest democracy? A lab assembled Kind but Firm Old White Man. The type of guy you can see wearing a checkered shirt, holding a beer at a backyard barbecue. Just as easily as you can see him cruising down the California coast, top down, shades on. Just as easily as you can see him mounting a horse or casting a line. Cut him open and he bleeds apple pie. He’s not racist, he’s got a Black friend, remember? He’ll give your hand a firm shake while waging war with the other. He is the reminder that you need government. You can’t do it on your own. Yes, you’re a pacifist but without a military how else can we defend your freedom to be a pacifist? Biden is saying the same thing with his smile, with his suit, as Trump is on his banners: vote for me and make America great again.

There was indeed no winner in the debate. There were only two sides to the same almighty coin for which America long ago sold all hope of true democracy.

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Matthew Smith

Matt is a writer, musician and actor based in the unceded Algonquin territory commonly known as Ottawa. He loves dogs, hates cops, drinks too much tea and overthinks everything.

Twitter: @Squabbleronline

A Bone to Pick

We’re the fly in the ointment. The vinegar in the well. We’re in the corner of the party, arms crossed, unimpressed. Spoilsports, killjoys, pot-stirrers, poets, and dreamers. That sacred cow you keep milking? We’ve come creeping through the fields to tip it. Those embers smouldering in the streets? We’re down on our knees, fanning the glow into a full-fledged conflagration.

SQUABBLER is a place where we vent our bile, spew our spleen, howl from the rooftops to shake the pillars where they stand. Here you’ll find essays, rants, polemics, diatribes, and creative works designed to spark discussion, discordance, and dissent. Don’t dream about a better world, scream about one.