Big to Business – A Catch Up of Sorts

June 24, 2016 at 7:08 pm (Uncategorized)

Argh.

Over three weeks without a post. the few readers I have must have wondered if I had died or something. Fear not gentle reader, nothing so drastic. Just a crazy work schedule and general inertia led to an extended break. that and every time I sat down to write something, something else came along, so instead of new posts, I have a folder full of half finished drafts. Well, back at it then.

Plenty to write about this last month though.

1. Brexit – OK, I was wrong about that one. I had assumed that people would come right up to the edge and loose their nerve as they did in the Scots referendum or in Quebec, but no, they decided to plunge in. Of course, I’m not pro-EU (which nationalism do you prefer), but the prospect of having to listen to arseholes like Nigel Farage about how his is a marvelous victory for British people (thank you- we know what you have in mind there) is not very thrilling. It also makes me wonder if people know exactly how the world economy works.
2. The Trump and Clinton Dog and Pony Show – I just google “trump” every day to if there’s any new idiocy. He rarely disappoints. Today’s quote: “Just arrived in Scotland. Place is going wild over the vote. They took their country back, just like we will take America back. No games!” Erm, actually Scotland voted to stay, but moreover, did Trump miss the whole Scots independence thing? And Hilary.. I keep meaning to pick up Doug Henwood’s new book on Clinton. While it seems that the election is hers to lose, her campaign reminds me a lot of the one former Canadian Prime minister Paul Martin ran to replace Jean Chretien – the only reason he was running for leader was that he wanted to be leader.
3. The Montreal Anarchist Bookfair – OK, a shift in gears now.  I went to this year’s bookfair on a Sunday instead of my usual Saturday (personal commitment). Interesting as always and my sales were about the same as usual. Still, it did seem as if there were a lot fewer people there. It may have been that almost nothing was announced until late April (I did speak to a bookfair collective member about this, but the answer I received was not entirely convincing – who knows what happened?) Still, it’s a great event which has been around since 2000, and i hope to be there next year too. The Toronto bookfair in in July. More on that later.
4. The Orlando Tragedy – I’ve only been to Orlando once. About six or seven years ago, we went to Disney. In spite of my misgiving, I had  fun with the kids. But what a fucking terrible week it was the weekend of June 12. The murder of American Idol contestant Christina Grimmie, the snatching of a child by an alligator and most horrific of all the Pulse massacre.  Nah, that’s not true. Most horrific is that nothing will change. Until everything does.
5. Riot-Strike -Riot – Interesting book by Joshua Clover on the re-emergence of the riot in public. The book chronicles the disappearance of the riot with the emergence of capitalism in favour of the strike, but its more recent return. Interesting. People might also find useful IP’s critique of the now defunct group Blaumachen which held similar views of the future of social struggles.

More soon.