School daze

It looks as though we'll be holding a wildcat strike on Wednesday. Ex-premier (ex? I dunno; dude is still talking for some reason) Dalton McGuinty is threatening to slap us all with $2000 fines, which was not even done during the dreaded Harris years. All together now: "Christ, what an asshole."

Is a strike still illegal if the contract itself is illegal? I guess we'll see. Also, is a guy who prorogued Parliament, essentially deciding that politicians should be getting paid to not work, really in a position to criticize anyone else for walking off the job?

Anyway, dear friends, your presence on the picket lines (don't know where they will be yet), letters, and other gestures of support are vastly appreciated.

I am enjoying some schadenfreude at the moment, as TDSB director Chris Spence (responsible for—oh, all kinds of stupid shit; want a list) resigned today after it turned out he'd plagiarized several opinion pieces. I am also enjoying watching my kids react to the scandal—as you might imagine, they're finding it completely hilarious.

Interesting times, to be sure.

On Alex Jones and the left/right paradigm

Interesting discussion on FB that started from me posting that link to Alex Jones losing his shit (watch it if you haven't already; it's hilarious) and suddenly became about something else. It's old meme in anarchism to declare oneself off the left/right spectrum (no; anarchists are at the extreme of one end or the other), and of course that gets picked up by other Folks With Opinions, most notably many of the Occupy-related groups.

And it is this idea, that one is somehow above the old divisions, that allows whackjobs like Jones and the Truthers to slip into the discourse, muddying the waters with a toxic mixture of paranoia, anti-Semitism, and general asshaberdashery. They proclaim themselves part of the 99%, the champions of the proverbial little guy, even anti-corporate, while the vision they present is some sort of Mad Max libertarian dystopia with every man for himself (women are out of sight; probably making babies because you need a certain amount of civilization to make birth control happen).

Now, I happen to find said whackjobs highly entertaining, but I take umbrage at the suggestion that because they, perhaps, have some opinions regarding Palestine, war in the Middle East, or corporate hegemony that coincide with my own, I should therefore consider them allies and make common cause. They aren't allies; not where Jews, racialized people, women, disabled people, and queer people are concerned. I have to point this out every so often when someone on one of my mailing lists or FB feed posts InfoWars articles—even if the article itself is good, we do our own causes a great deal of harm when we promote the opinions of nasty-ass douchebags. And I find the suggestion that I should overlook the poisonous beliefs of someone like Jones because he's Speaking Truth to Power Against Our Elite Corporate Overlords.

No, sorry. The beliefs he represent are just as harmful to me personally (if not more harmful) and to people more marginalized than I am than those of the dominant right-wing. It's always straight white men who insist that he's worth hearing out, too; people more likely to survive said Mad Max scenario than I would be.

The answer, I'm afraid, is a certain level of ideological rigour and purity. Not, of course, to the point of sectarianism—I am friends with, and do political work with, a number of people with incorrect political lines—but to the point where we at least exclude the voices of people who are fucking idiots and make us look bad. And it means declaring for yourself a position on the left-right spectrum. You are not above it, you are not beyond it, you can certainly explore its nuances and flaws, but you must engage with it.

At any rate, I hope that Jones' latest outburst will help the less discriminating among us on the left to be, well, a bit more discriminating in our choice of information sources.