At rabble.ca, as we prepare to take a week-long break, we want to say thanks once more to so many of you who have joined the rabble:remix, our fund-raising project which is helping us move toward self-sustainability. We’ll ask you again — in case you haven’t yet had a chance — to please tell your friends about us. We’ve made it very easy for you to tell a friend.

And here’s everything you need to know about the rabble:remix.

We’ll be back in a week. In the meantime, have a look at the year-end review and check out some of the great articles and columns you might have missed during 2004.

We wish all of you the very best of the season.

News, features and columns:

The money in misery: trafficking women
January 5, 2004

Here is a telling image of globalization, capitalist-style, at the start of the 21st century: a young Russian woman dressed in a skimpy halter, tight jeans and stiletto heels stands by a Czech highway close to the German border, yelling at passing motorists: “Ich mach alles!” — I do everything. >by Stan Hister

Working mother takes on political establishment
January 21, 2004

Belinda Stronach and her spokespeople play up her business experience, deride âeoeprofessional politiciansâe and try to present her as a common person. That’s why her announcement was held at a Legion Hall instead of a country club. And, that’s why campaign sources worked overtime to portray her as “a busy working mother” who can relate to ordinary Canadians because “she faces similar challenges juggling career and family” (which is especially hard to do on $12 million a year). >by Scott Piatkowski

Paul Martin from the throne: still crying poor
February 3, 2004

As with most throne speeches, especially those preceding elections, yesterday’s was meant to make us feel good — and also to reinforce the popular myth that Paul Martin is still his father’s son. He talked in several places about the need for a strong social foundation for Canada. Yet there was literally no new money reinvested in the social foundation that Paul Martin did more to dismantle than any other federal politician ever. >Murray Dobbin

Idealism of youth affecting people’s lives
February 10, 2004

Children in southern parts of Africa go to funerals at lunchtime, after school and on the weekends, says Stephen Lewis. “You drive down the roads of many of the urban centres in Africa today and see a clutch of students in their bright uniforms and you think they’re in a schoolyard. And then you suddenly see they’re in a cemetery.” >by Claudia De Simone

Jack Layton: bringing energy and new hope
February 17, 2004

The hall, a broken-down theatre in Toronto’s east end called the Opera House, was packed with more than 500 people. There were lots and lots of young people, many of them activists from a variety of social movements around town. The energy was electric and it wasn’t the kind of phony cheering that political parties can call up on cue. There was something genuine about it. The event was NDP leader Jack Layton’s nomination meeting and it was a hopeful sign of change in any number of ways. >by Judy Rebick

Paul Martin: out-of-step with Canadian values
March 2, 2004

Does Paul Martin recognize that social inequality grew in Canada during his term as Finance Minister, when he was consumed by deficit cutting? Does he stay awake nights thinking about child poverty, and how it has increased, despite all pledges to the contrary? Is he pleased by a higher number of low-paying jobs? Does he hear Canadians declare they do not want our foreign policy made in Washington and are utterly opposed to Star Wars II? How much did he know about the sponsorship scandal, and when? >by Ted Schmidt

Muriel: still working for peace and human rights
March 8, 2004

Muriel Duckworth was one year old when the first International Women’s Day was observed in 1909. Now in her 96th year, she has participated in a full range of IWD activities, culminating in a performance with the Raging Grannies as the festivities wound down. Later in the week, she will travel to Mount Allison University where she will be a guest speaker. As always, her focus as a feminist will be on peace and on women’s rights. >by Sharon Fraser

Svend: in the toughest fight of his life
April 16, 2004

I have always been amazed by Svend’s ability to maintain his politics and his principles in the middle of that goopy swamp on Parliament Hill. In a world where principle is a rare commodity and ambition too often trumps honesty and integrity, Svend is a shining light. He has consistently stood up for what he believes, and risked everything for the cause. >by Judy Rebick

The Paul Martin/Liberal fumble
April 21, 2004

The Paul Martin team pushed to get Jean Chrétien out the door before his announced departure date of February 2004. He skipped out smiling, leaving his successor to handle auditor-general, Sheila Fraser. Her treatment of the sponsorship program was a major departure in tone and style from anything an auditor-general (and public servant) had ever displayed. >by Duncan Cameron

I flew over the cuckoo’s nest…
May 3, 2004

…and all I got was this lousy discourse. A stolen antique ring, a remorseful veteran MP and an often-malicious media have, in recent weeks, thrust the issue of mental illness — bogged down, as always, by a chilling degree of ignorance, obscurantism and conjecture — back into the limelight in Canada. >by Charles Demers

U.S.: a classic mistake of historic proportions
May 18, 2004

What’s on the cusp of being said openly in the U.S. is that when you calculate everything, the U.S. is losing the war; that a classic mistake of historic proportions has been made in invading Iraq; and that the first step towards redressing the situation is not merely the resignation of the secretary of defence but the removal of the entire Bush government. >by Ralph Surette

The campaign trail: all about who you don’t know
June 1, 2004

Stephen Harper’s favourite line has been that Paul Martin “claims to have never met Jean Chrétien.” Harper, though, could easily be accused of claiming to have never met Stockwell Day or Preston Manning — or Ralph Klein or Mike Harris. Jack Layton could only be indicted for feigning to have never met Karl Marx or John Maynard Keynes. >by Derrick O’Keefe

Quebec view: Duceppe carried the day
June 15, 2004

“There are more children living in poverty now than there were when you took office,” Gilles Duceppe said to Paul Martin. He criticized Martin for paying off the federal debt on the backs of Canada’s unemployed workers. He took Martin to task for tax breaks to the oil industry. As a socialist and a New Democrat, I would have preferred to have seen Jack Layton scoring points like these. As a Quebecer, I’m glad Gilles Duceppe was there to fill the void. >by David Bernans

A Quebec view: a game of alliances
June 29, 2004

The results of the June 28 election are not really surprising. The Liberals paid for their mistakes (but not too much). Atlantic and Central Canada (Quebec and Ontario) said no to the rise of the right. Quebec showed without question its “distinctness.” And the NDP, despite some disappointment began its comeback. Finally, the West reminded us yet again that it is hopelessly conservative. >by Monique Simard

What it’s like to feel as if a bomb could go off
July 9, 2004

In our hotel room in Rome one late morning, CNN showed us two completely different pictures. It was Republic Day in Italy: a huge cause for celebration. All stores were closed and it was a national holiday. The opposite picture was one of protest. Hundreds of people holding “No War” signs paraded the streets, and were getting into heated confrontation with polizia. It was two days before George W. Bush was expected in Rome. >by Leanne Allen

The left in Canada is silent on Haiti
July 22, 2004

At the end of February, Haiti was front-page news. The Globe and Mail’s Paul Knox was there and CanWest’s 11 daily papers ran stories from the Montreal Gazette‘s once-progressive Sue Montgomery. Both reported on President Jean-Bernard Aristide’s authoritarianism, drug connections and “thuggish” supporters, known as the chimères. Neither gave much credence to other side of the story and now that Aristide is in exile in South Africa, the Canadian media have lost all interest. So, what’s going on? >by Yves Engler

George W. Bush: with God on his side
August 20, 2004

Never mind that the government of God’s chosen one is making an absolute mess of things at home and abroad — that the war goes badly, with no end in sight; that his democratically-appointed dictator for Iraq is now a fugitive from Iraqi law; that the projected American budget deficit is astronomical and the economy of the country in shreds; that the gap between rich and poor in the world’s richest country is widening every day, while the rich pay less and less in taxes for the privilege of being rich. >by Jack MacAndrew

Exploiting September 11 in New York
August 30, 2004

When I arrived in New York City, preparations for the demonstrations against the Republican National Convention were in full swing. Within hours of posting a notice on a housing board, I was offered a place to stay by a Broadway director. Unconcerned that I would be arriving at his pad on Central Park West while he was out of town, he told me over the phone: “I’ll just leave the keys to the apartment with the doorman.” He explained that he wanted to do whatever he could to help the anti-Bush cause. >by Isabel Macdonald

Canada’s left can find common cause in Quebec
September 13, 2004

An extraordinary thing happened at a recent Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) conference in Montreal. More than 800 CAW-elected local leaders from workplaces across the country heard from Gilles Duceppe, leader of the Bloc Quebecois (and, incidentally, a long-time trade unionist). How would our union’s rank-and-file leadership respond, I wondered, to a speech from an avowed sovereigntist? The delegates gave Duceppe a standing ovation — three times. >by Basil ‘Buzz’ Hargrove

The cost of answering terror with terror
September 14, 2004

Russian President Vladimir Putin wasn’t listening to even the most polite suggestion he and his government’s repressive policies in Chechnya might have had something to do with fomenting the hatred that was at the heart of the horrific slaughter of innocents at Middle School Number 1 in Beslan. Or that one way to deal with the root causes of that hatred and end the terrorism might be to change some of those policies. >by Stephen Kimber

Flip-flopping is underrated
September 24, 2004

The odd thing about the George Bush ideologues is they do not share their dogmas. There are Christian fundamentalists, such as the President and Karl Rove. There are pro-Israel neocons, such as Doug Feith and Paul Wolfowitz. There are economically driven power zealots, such as Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. It’s not the Kremlin or the Third Reich; it’s more like a rummage sale. >by Rick Salutin

You can’t bomb beliefs
October 1, 2004

There is no question that Iraqis face a mounting threat from religious fanaticism, but U.S. forces won’t protect Iraqi women and minorities from it any more than they have protected Iraqis from being tortured in Abu Ghraib or bombed in Falluja and Sadr City. Liberation will never be a trickle-down effect of this invasion because domination, not liberation, was always its goal. >by Naomi Klein

Opening our eyes to alternative culture
October 8, 2004

There are some powerful images in today’s digitally connected world but do you ever wonder why we don’t see more that reflect an alternative point-of-view? As web mistress of rabble.ca, I look for them, but without an in-house photographer, they’re hard to come by. A Vancouver-based arts collective has recently put together an exhibit by Canadian photographers that remains open in Vancouver and which opened in Halifax this week. >by Jane Will

Canada, you medicare-loving bunch of losers!
October 11, 2004

There’s been so much hand-wringing lately about the anti-Americanism that’s said to be afoot in the land that we’ve barely noticed a more worrisome virus in our midst — anti-Canadianism. These attacks are coming from a small but influential group of right-wing Canadian academics and media commentators. Their theme song is that Canada is in decline. >by Linda McQuaig

Where have all the women gone?
November 7, 2004

The day after Americans revealed their true nature to the world, I did the things feminism has offered me: I weight-trained and did some heavy lifting and raking in the garden. I wrote some large cheques on income I had earned myself and paid tuition fees for my stepdaughters as part of the armour we’re giving them for the decades ahead. I did this the day after Americans voted for what will be the inevitable banning of women’s control over their own bodies. >by Heather Mallick

The last best hope for western civilization
November 17,2004

Paris — As we watch, stunned, the accession of George W. Bush to the American presidency for a second time, the comparison with France becomes more significant. Can the French hold off against the American economic model being pushed here by the political right? Will French democracy deteriorate the way American democracy is detonating? >by Duncan Cameron

Why I didn’t vote for Tommy
November 26, 2004

I didn’t vote for anyone at all in the Greatest Canadian contest. Despite the endless e-mail entreaties and the online discussion group exhortations I’ve been pummelled with for the last six weeks by well-intentioned fellow lefties to vote early and vote often for Tommy Douglas, I didn’t vote, not even once. >by Michelle Langlois

Why I voted for Tommy — again and again
December 1, 2004

As one of those who vigorously promoted the great CBC contest, The Greatest Canadian, I was subjected to more hostile emails and criticisms than any of my writings have ever attracted. And I have to say the snobbish reaction to the contest is not only odd, it is self-defeating and reveals a profound misunderstanding of popular culture and how the left should engage it. >by Murray Dobbin

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