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Happy belated Valentine’s Day?

I don’t care much for the day — if anything it is a great opportunity to buy discount bulk cinnamon hearts. However, as a belated gift, I bring you this week’s rabble.ca blog roundup, which is always filled with the greater gifts of thoughtful and critical content from our bloggers!

This week we recount Romeo Saganash’s historic bid for NDP leadership, the continued fight for murdered and missing Indigenous women, the expectations and preconceptions of “terrorists” and the passivity toward Indigenous issues, among more. A reminder to tune into (read) our weekly NDP leadership roundup and also to heed the exciting news that author Lynn Coady will be joining the Babble Book Club’s final discussion of her novel The Antagonist on March 4!

Happy Friday and happy reading!

Romeo Saganash continues to be one of the most inspiring and thoughtful political leaders on the Canadian landscape and with passionate posts like Romeo Saganash: Thoughts on Canadian leadership. It is a detriment to Canadians and politics that he has dropped out of the NDP leadership; however, hope continues to shine in that one day we will see his powerful being on that hill.

The Babble Book Club has exciting news: author Lynn Coady will be joining our final discussion on March 4 for an intimate discussion of her latest novel The Antagonist — come join us with your thoughts and questions for Lynn!

Don’t forget to check out the NDP leadership race roundup about all that is happening NDP-wise: rumours, predictions and information! A roundup on the roundup? rabble.ca is so meta.

Derrick O’Keefe gives a breakdown of Canadian’s military involvement in Afghanistan and the undemocratic ways in which Harper plans to keep us there way beyond our expectancy in How can we stop Harper’s foreign policy? Debating ‘Canada on the World Stage’.

“We’ve heard it all before. Nothing new here.” Karl Nerenberg remarks on the general passivity towards problems of aboriginal Canada and the newly detailed roadmap for positive change and First Nations education in Hill Dispatches: A practical and creative blueprint for First Nations schooling.

Romeo Saganash’s bid for the NDP leadership was historic on many accounts, but more importantly, as Tria Donaldson and Max Fineday propose, it gave hope and support to a generation and peoples who are so often kept in the dark and silence, in Saganash’s campaign inspired a generation of young Indigenous people.

Proportional representation or equal votes is another step towards bringing Canada to a more democratic and cohesive vision as Gary Shaul gives the details on the new versus old and who supports this system in The Cullen proposal: The logistics of co-operation.

The annual march for murdered and missing Indigenous women took place in various Canadian cities on or around Valentine’s Day to mark and remember those family and community members who are missing or gone and to assert that those remembering will continue to fight as reported by John Bonnar in Mother of four young children remembered at annual rally for murdered and missing indigenous women, Kystalline Kraus in Activist Communique: Toronto’s 7th annual march for murdered and missing Indigenous women — February 14 and David P. Ball in Women’s memorial march: ‘Watch out world! We’re coming…and we’re still full of love!’.

Do you want to contribute to rabble.ca? We are seeking volunteer, part-time Contributing Editors to add thematic multimedia content to our “issue pages” — check it out!

Syed Hussan wonders why the idea that “Muslims are terrorists requires no justification,” yet other accusations are vehemently debated in Canada’s counter-terrorism strategy: Still terrorizing Muslims.

Photo courtesy of David P. Ball.