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Aug. 23rd, 2008 05:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
felis_ultharusI finished Naomi Klein's No Logo yesterday. Like so many other books, it's one I've read a couple sections during my undergrad and post-grad years. Now, post-school, I finally had a chance to read it.
I'd been expecting either a radical, head-in-the-clouds manifesto, or a sincere-but-agonizing-slog through the myriad horrors of neo-liberal economic fanaticism. What I got was clear-headed, clear-eyed, careful analysis written in plain English and backed up with heavy research and personal interviews.
It's less a manifesto, and more like a history book, documenting the successes and failures of recent anti-corporate movements, trying to figure out what works and what doesn't, and where to go from here.
She uses much of the same ideas and explores the same concepts about commons, democracy, and the public good -- the same non-secular-but-humanist perspective -- as a group of other Canadian thinkers that risen to the fore in progressive circles: John Ralston Saul, David Suzuki, and Linda McQuaig. I think at this point we can pretty call them a movement -- the Canadian Humanist Movement sounds nice to me.
Of course, we aren't going to call them a movement, because that might imply we have a culture, or that it might matter - peu importe they're all internationally-recognized names in lefty political circles. Meanwhile, in other circles, the Conservatives have just finished gleefully eviscerating the arts -- this time explicitly killing arts projects that don't fit their neo-con worldview. And I'm sorely disappointed by the lack of outrage I'm seeing.
Last year, Margaret Atwood said of the Harperites' view on artists and writers, "They basically just hate us. You know it’s people who have never seen any arts in their own lives — they would rather not have gardens, they would rather have parking lots. They just think it’s a frill probably."
The problem is, the People-Who-Would-Rather-Not-Have-Gardens have power. Let's hope we can topple them before they turn this rich and wonderful country into a parking lot for their SUVs.
On that note, anyone who's in the three by-election areas -- Guelph, Westmount-Ville-Marie, or Saint-Lambert, please get out and vote. It's September 8th, unless Harper calls a general election. Remember, any vote not cast counts as an de facto endorsement of the winner.
I'd been expecting either a radical, head-in-the-clouds manifesto, or a sincere-but-agonizing-slog through the myriad horrors of neo-liberal economic fanaticism. What I got was clear-headed, clear-eyed, careful analysis written in plain English and backed up with heavy research and personal interviews.
It's less a manifesto, and more like a history book, documenting the successes and failures of recent anti-corporate movements, trying to figure out what works and what doesn't, and where to go from here.
She uses much of the same ideas and explores the same concepts about commons, democracy, and the public good -- the same non-secular-but-humanist perspective -- as a group of other Canadian thinkers that risen to the fore in progressive circles: John Ralston Saul, David Suzuki, and Linda McQuaig. I think at this point we can pretty call them a movement -- the Canadian Humanist Movement sounds nice to me.
Of course, we aren't going to call them a movement, because that might imply we have a culture, or that it might matter - peu importe they're all internationally-recognized names in lefty political circles. Meanwhile, in other circles, the Conservatives have just finished gleefully eviscerating the arts -- this time explicitly killing arts projects that don't fit their neo-con worldview. And I'm sorely disappointed by the lack of outrage I'm seeing.
Last year, Margaret Atwood said of the Harperites' view on artists and writers, "They basically just hate us. You know it’s people who have never seen any arts in their own lives — they would rather not have gardens, they would rather have parking lots. They just think it’s a frill probably."
The problem is, the People-Who-Would-Rather-Not-Have-Gardens have power. Let's hope we can topple them before they turn this rich and wonderful country into a parking lot for their SUVs.
On that note, anyone who's in the three by-election areas -- Guelph, Westmount-Ville-Marie, or Saint-Lambert, please get out and vote. It's September 8th, unless Harper calls a general election. Remember, any vote not cast counts as an de facto endorsement of the winner.