The Best and the Best of 2024
This past year, I basically wrote two books. Or maybe it was just one. The Social Safety Net was into its final moments of production while I wrote Corporate Control from March to May. I mix the two books up all the time. My brain has been plagued by corporate profits and political lies, income inequality and charity and colonization. And so I kept my best writing on Substack.
For everyone who is newly following my Substack, and for everyone who may have missed it, here are the best (least read) and the best (most read) of 2024.
And a very, very big thank-you to everyone who responded to my appeal for money. I’m blown away by your support and generosity.
To read this whole email, you’ll need to open it in your web browser.
The least read:
5.
A police murder twice on the same street
Last week, Kitchener police shot and killed a 31 year old man. His family had called for police for help and were waiting together when they heard the gunshots. The man was Andre Nembhard’s brother. Their father was on vacation in Jamaica and he had asked the family to watch over their brother. The brother had schizophrenia and wasn’t taking his medicat…
4.
3.
If police shoot and kill a baby and no one is there to testify, does it make a sound?
The road is full of parents driving children to school and daycare but for Jameson, he’s not sure where he’s going. His father maybe told him they were going to see grandma, or to Tim Horton’s or maybe he said nothing or simply told the child to be quiet. We don’t know what was being sa…
2.
The American "Large Policy" more than a century later
It’s always there: the racism that underpins US foreign intervention and policy. Canada too, though I’m going to focus on the US. Trying to make sense of how the US can fund Israel’s dirty war against the Palestinians is impossible, unless you start from this basic fact; it’s always there.
1.
On July 1, we move.
It’s 10:51 pm. A moving truck has pulled up beside my window, about eight feet from where I sit. It’s idling and the vibrations are causing an oven to rattle against a bed frome. This isn’t a terrible time to move: it’s quiet. It’s cool. And it’s June 30 — the night before Quebecers throw their appartments into the air and accept to live in whatever the…
The most read stories of 2025
1.
The life and death of the Canadian small town
Does every rural community in Canada need an emergency room?
2.
The racist cloak of invisibility
Not many people like being called racist. Call someone a racist and they usually first and foremost, act offended. This is a basic fact. Try it if you’re curious.
3.
There's no place for violence in politics
There’s no place for violence in politics. Upon seeing Donald Trump nearly having his brains blown out on live television, the rallying call crystallized: there’s no place for violence in politics.
4.
The formulation of a 2024 fascism
When a conversation about politics goes long enough, odds are that fascism will come up. Joe Biden is fascist. Donald Trump is even more fascist. Justin Trudeau is a sleepy fascist while Pierre Poilievre is an intentional and committed fascist. Jagmeet Singh flirts with fascism. It always ends with fasci…
5.
Car theft is mostly a victimless crime
There was a night in November years ago where I was eating supper with my kids. They were young, maybe four, and my partner was staying late at work; something that he rarely did.