More demonstrations in Quebec

Mega profits, mega unemployment

Unemployment isn't working!

People's Voice

     Official unemployment figures for January and February showed tiny improvements, but 1.4 million Canadians are still out of work nearly four years after the economic shock of 2008. Statistics Canada says that 7.2% of the Canadian workforce are jobless and actively seeking employment, down slightly from the rates from 2011; however, this does not account for hundreds of thousands who have dropped out of the workforce, unable to find employment, or many more stuck working a few hours a week in part-time, casual, low-paid, dead-end jobs.

     On the other hand, operating profits at Canadian corporations increased to $71.4 billion for the fourth quarter of 2011, up 9% from the previous quarter, says Statistics Canada. In total, profits for the year 2011 hit $264.8 billion, recovering to almost the historic peak reached during the pre-recession period.

Arguments with deniers over climate change

By Bob Treasure, from The Guardian, weekly of the Communist Party of Australia

     It is sometimes tempting to tag our opponents as "climate deniers" or "climate change skeptics", simply because they often deny the evidence of their own senses, and what is happening all around them. Their views, ignorant and dogmatic as they usually are, tend to operate in a cynical and toxic way to undermine action around stopping carbon pollution, or pursuing renewable alternatives. Often, they are merely vehicles of a vested capitalist interest, defending the comfortable exploitation and profit‑taking of the past.

     Of course, it is frustrating to see certain media outlets overlook the common science and lionize the often irrational, "climate change sceptics". They get coverage way beyond their worth. If a "scientist", like the Cold War defectors of old, wanted instant fame and a market for their views, they need only question "climate change misrepresentation".

     It is our task to patiently, positively and rationally, explain the facts and expose the fallacies. Often the answers are simply a Google away, because the information, the data and the answers, are readily available on the Internet.

     This is a guide for activists, people engaged in the arguments on a daily basis, or who are confronting the cynical affronts of workmates who simply won't accept reality and therefore, refuse to act.

Quebec student strike - English-language newsletter

Quebec 2012 student strike - flyer

Photo essay: Police brutality in the Quebec student strike

A student journalist is arrested for filming police brutality 

Helmeted and shield-wielding police charge a line of students. Police fire a sound-bomb directly into the faces of protesters, blinding one student in the eye.  Without warning, tear gas explodes over a peaceful demonstration. A march of students in a downtown area is followed by twenty police wagons for arrests, a cavalcade of horse and mounted cops, riot squads, and a helicopter.

Is this the developing world? No it is Montreal and Quebec today, with police violence reaching a new nadir of aggression against democratic dissent. Rebel Youth presents this photo essay.

Free education: Quebec solidaire`s response to the crisis created by the Charest Liberals and the brave struggle of the students

Massive demos have characterized the student struggles

Statement by Québec solidare, a left-wing political party in Québec. Translation by Rebel Youth

QS today unveiled its proposal to resolve the crisis caused by the Liberal government's refusal to establish a dialogue with the student movement.

"The proposal we are presenting today has shown that the rapid and dramatic increase in tuition fees is a political and ideological decision. It is possible to improve university funding without increasing the contribution of young families and middle class -- and do that while freezing tuition. We want to demonstrate that universal access to college is achievable if the government decides to pick up disposable income by requiring the financial institutions to pay their fair share. Currently, the Charest government is essentially offering a carrot to the students [to accept their plan] by increasing their student debt, "says Francoise David, spokesman for QS.

Rapid elimination of school fees

QS makes firm commitments. Government support [must] immediately cancel the $500 increases implimented since 2007 as well as the increase of $ 1,625 over the next five years. Our response to the crisis will see university tuition fees be reduced to zero by 2017-2018. "Against an increase of $ 325 per year, we propose a decrease of $ 325 accompanied by measures to improve the quality of training," says Amir Khadir, MNA for Mercier.

More united, more defiant

After close to eight weeks, leaders of the protest against university tuition fee hikes appear more united, more defiant, and more combative than ever despite court injunctions ordering picket lines to be dismantled and a concession offer by the government on student loans. There are more rallies planned this week. [...] The coming events provide a build-up to what is expected to be another major demonstration marking Earth Day on April 22 that may rival the estimated record 200,000 protesters that marched in the streets of Montreal last month.


-- The Globe and Mail

Dawson students give a history of Québec student strikes

Norman Bethune - historic speech

In Spain, Bethune helped invent the modern MASH unit

In 1937, on the behest of the Spanish Republican cause and the Communist Party of Canada, Dr. Norman Bethune traveled across Canada telling Canadians the first-hand story about the war against fascism and for democracy. Rebel Youth reprint's an historic speech by Bethune here.

I went to Spain as a matter of honour. I have come back because there are some things that need to be said in reply to those outside of Spain who speak in the name of dishonour.

I am a doctor, a surgeon. My job is to sustain human life, in all its beauty and vigour. I am not a politician, but I went to Spain because the politicians betrayed Spain and tried to drag the rest of us into their betrayal. With varying accents, and with varying degrees of hypocrisy, the politicians ruled that democratic Spain must die. It was my belief, as it is now my conviction, that democratic Spain must live.

To the Spanish people, and to anyone who has seen Spain for himself, the position is clear. So clear, in fact, that Franco and his fascist backers urgently need a diversion to conceal their aggression, just as the Tory bleaters of non-intervention need a fig leaf to dress up the naked shanks of their miserable policy. They have found one, to their mutual relief. It is nothing more than the bastard child of the Austrian paperhanger and the Italian turncoat. It is "the menace of communism."

Consession ends war of wack hairstyles

The final throw-down of anarchist wild hair dudes which beat Rebel Hairstyle: 

Bakunin, Kropotkin, Galleani, Hoffman, Thoreau, Foucault.

Anarchism or Barbar-ism?

April 1st 2012

Candice Canbearge,

Special to Rebel Youth

In a surprise move that has shocked thousands of internet revolutionaries, the on-line personality known as Rebel Maoist Hairstyle has apparently resolved a long-standing conflict between himself and another ultra-left group. 

The conflict, perhaps one of the most serious ideological debates within the left in recent years, was known under the twitter hash tag "War of Hair."

"This conflict, the War of Hair, started as a "comradely competition" to identify which group -- the Maoists or the Anarchists -- had wilder hair," an inside source from the website Basement Revolutionary Discussion Board.com told Rebel Youth Magazine. 

The contest however quickly developed into an intense battle between the faction represented by a poster by Rebel Maoist Hairstyle and an assortment of anarchists identifying with the "Convergence of the Loose Anti-Croppers of hair" (CLAC-h), lasting most of the past weekend until Rebel Maoist Hairstyle suddenly and unexpectedly surrendered, admitting defeat and logging off his various accounts for the night.

Rebel Maoist Hairstyle is one of the most widely self-acknowledged experts about revolutionary styling, having devoted several years to this cause. His defeat may be a set-back to his cause on the internet.

Not long after admitting defeat, CLAC-h responded. "We have proven again that Anarchism is a hair style of true freedom, which has the solution to the oppression and repression of mankind by the coercive structures of the stylist," their statement said.

Battle contra comb

The fight mainly took place via long, detailed essays with titles like "Smash the old blow dry, its right to rub down," "Residual Stalinist Sleek: the discourse of stateism in modern scissors," "People's war precludes preening," and "Regurgitating socialist shampoo does not constitute analysis."

It is estimated that as many as 700,000 words were used in these exchanges which included sources, video, and photographic evidence. Posts stood out as getting a flurry of comments and observations.

Short insults of a few characters were also fired over blogs, online videos, twitter, facebook and the panorama of social media now used by many on the left -- especially with the Basement Revolutionary community.

Haircuts are bourgeois

The debate has shown that many self-identified revolutionaries actively engaged in the online struggle on facebook, blogs and other social media sites truly believe that scissors are weapons of the ruling class and their neo-liberal capitalist austerity agenda and combating these instruments is an important challenge for today.

"The assumption of both camps of debaters was that their side had the least "conformist," or "counter-revolutionary" hair," our source told us.  "Now it seems this title is firmly held by the anarchists."

"When it comes to their theories of spontaneity and presentation of hair," it seems the Maoists more or less copy the fundamental principals of anarchism the source said, noting that superficial appearances would seem to contradict this conclusion but that was why it was all the more profound.

No hope in uniting left?

The end of the debate has quickly dashed optimism about bringing together long-desperate forces as various commentators noted these groups had much in common in terms of flowing locks.

"In my micro-group we say we are 'not your grandmother's communist party' and we are all pure revolutionaries -- students who have rejected grooming as a bourgeois legality of our parents and therefore never untangle our hair after rolling out of bed in the afternoon," a commenter with the name of "People Radically Against Coupe de cheveux" (PRACc) said in a discussion thread. 

"CLAC-h, it is with great pride we count you within our ranks of fashion," they added.

"Maybe we can unite the left on the basis not of our actions, or what is in our heads, but what grows on it!" another poster entitled Leon Partsky commented early in the discussion.

 REPORT UPDATE

Posted at 04/02/12 14:38 by Rebel Youth

Disregarding the strong appeals Rebel Hairstyle has now gone on to make a full disclosure video admitting defeat, Rebel Youth just confirmed.  In a nine minute and twenty-three second YouTube called "Four year hairiversary" (referring to his hair war hobby taking up four years of his life), the blogger speaks out and strikes an pose, smoking a cigar, looking very well dressed, but wearing a classic slick-back hairstyle. 

The new combed appearance was noticeable.

In the video Rebel Hairstyle tells the world that "A lot of the subscribers who have been watching for a long time do remember this location. This is the place, as I said, where I originally started it. This is also the place were I recorded the video announcing that I had become -- a Vidal Sassoon partner in Rebel Hair TM !"

"We knew immediately it was an important Youtube because Rebel Hairstyle had chosen to leave his basement," our source told Rebel Youth after watching the film. "He came outside, upstairs to his garage or somewhere. Amazing. It is surprising he was not wearing sun glasses or protective facial gear from the sun."

Devastated

Later in the Youtube Rebel Hairstyle admitted that he could not have come close to matching the final throw-down challenge he received -- Bakunin, Kropotkin, Galleani, Hoffman, Thoreau, Foucault.

"Marx was equal to Bakunin on the beard if not superior, but Bakunin beat him out with his crazy hair," he says in the video. "I then threw down Engles, Lenin, Stalin, Kalinin, and Molitov all against Kropotkin but it was like I was Paper but the other side was Scissors! Omg!" he added.

In a passionate, detailed, lengthy and involved part of the video monologue, Rebel Hairstyle also described how he desperately tried Fidel and Che against Galleani but the man's powerful 'bomb-thrower' moustache could not be beaten.

"I have spent years reading webpages, hurting my eyes, studying obscure leftist hair-story," Rebel Hairstyle said. "To have it come down to this, on such an important topic, is just devastating."

Criticism of plays

Some commentators have been critical of Rebel Hairstyle's plays and moves, however. The contest took the style of a card game at points, with the two sides "playing" competing images of revolutionaries.  "I tried to come back against Hoffman with Victor Jara and then I realized from reading Wikipedia that he was a revisionist and supporter of Allende," he told a commentator via Facebook when asked why he had not used the famous Chilean communist musician against the American author of Steal this book.

"You have to keep Pure, not unlike in World of Warcraft!" he insisted, adding "I'm not that revisionist Young Commie Hockey Card League of Canada!" while noting that "all my usual trump players -- Chairman Mao, Kim Il Sung, Enver Hoxha -- seem to have favoured barber-ism over bed head," he said. 

Asked about Foucault, Rebel Hairstyle said it was a trick. When he realized the big problem -- Foucault had no hair -- he tried to launch an appeal, but the anarchists bogged-down the process with a discourse about the technology of power and demands of consensus agreement, and so he was forced to abandon the case as the board moderators were taking too long to reach a resolution.

Comments deleted

A few commentators, clearly envious of this posters' fame, sarcastically accused Rebel Hairstyle of engaging in pointless debates and urged him to try politics in the 'real world,' an inside source has also told Rebel Youth Magazine.

A secret transcript obtained by Rebel Youth from the site owners of Basement Revolutionary Discussion Board.com shows now-deleted posts reported by users as disruptive trolling.  

"We are strong believers in free speech at any cost," a source from Basement Revolutionary told Rebel Youth Magazine with the guarantee of anonymity. "But while our site tolerates misogyny, trans-phobia, etc. as you can clearly see these comments were really hateful and not funny," the source said.

The posts attacking Rebel Hairstyle (which are too long to reprint here) suggested that you can not be a self-proclaimed basement blogger and that talk is cheap but action is what really counts.

Haterz drowned out!

"Positively, the 'haterz' were happily drowned-out by a slew of supportive, powerful and profound (if short) remarks urging Rebel Hairstyle not to proclaim defeat," our inside source said.

"Theory and practice remain apart," the source wrote Rebel Youth, as they should.

At this point it is unclear if there will be a second attempt to unite the revolutionary left through another War of Hairstyles debate.

Photo essay: Quebec Student Strike

Massive student mobilizations against rising tuition fees in Québec are not being reported in English-speaking Canada, and even under-reported by progressive media. RY helps break the silence with these pictures that say a thousand words -- or rather show 250,000 people in the street!  This is a taste of what social transformation and mass democratic struggle looks like.

Photo: CLASSE