The necessity of decolonization

I28

...I think Canada is a colonial state and the question is to what extent will First Nations ever have self-determination as long as Canada is a settler state? I guess never maybe….So does that mean I overthrow Canada?...I think we need to decolonize, I think we need to think through how we're colonizing by being here and...actively confronting that...in the same way when you’re part of a system of oppression. For example, gentrification, if you live in a low income neighbourhood because that's the only place you can afford but you recognize the fact that you’re also forcing people out who are on a...lower income, a different bracket of class...or of color, how do you oppose it? I don't know, burn down the condo?

Imagination and living otherwise

I5

I think that the imagination is what animates really robust, resilient, dynamic social struggles. So in that way the radical imagination has to speak to how we [are] going to organize ourselves. How are we going to make sure, for instance, while we're busy imagining how our radical action is going to change the world that people with kids or with different abilities are going to be able to be a part of this? How are we going to meet the needs of people on the ground? How are we going to make sure that we have the resources to sustain people? How are we going to make sure that we protect each other from oppression whether internally or externally? And I think imagination has something to say to all those things and for me imagination is that. It's the social imagination of a people’s spirit to resist and live otherwise than they do right now.

Hope and moving beyond

I1

I have tremendous amounts of hope. I don't know what folks who don't have that do….I think in the course of human existence the current system, capitalism…[has had an] incredibly short lifespan. Longer than my life, so there's a sense of perspective, but really in terms of the way that humans have organized, it’s one form amongst many that we've gone through and I think that we can move beyond that.

Reconsidering the end goals

I31

We need to change the end goal. Is the end goal about economic growth and increasing wealth or is the end goal...human well-being and quality of life? There is a really rich discourse around those things - gross national happiness and genuine progress indicators and those sorts of things. It's not enough just to do the academic research and come up with these ideas, there has to be direct correlations within the politics.

The future, darkly

I18

I'm cynical and pessimistic so I'm just going to tell you my science fiction dystopia. Everything will be privatized, more than fifty per cent of the people will live in total poverty, those who don't will be eking by except for a much smaller top of the pile, [the] twenty-first century aristocracy, who have access to the latest technology to spy on us and control our behaviours. They can censor whatever, they can use this media...to message us in any way they want repetitively to the point where we believe whatever [they] want [us] to believe….[A]ny opponents will be disappeared, concentration camps, the whole nine yards.

Reproducing violence

I20

One of the things...I saw a little bit while working in other countries that had had big revolutions, like Cambodia for example or some Latin American countries, is sometimes the revolution is as frightening as what was there before. It may change the power...but it doesn't seem to change what happens to people in terms of violence in their day to day life [or allow better] access to the things that they fought for. So I guess some element of me is as leery of what we will do in the name of change...

Building autonomous networks

I28

The state is using...these new innovations and technology to encroach upon us and I believe the potential of technology to undermine that and to pose real threats to state and capital are quite acute and I'm interested in building anti-surveillance and anonymity structures online. Housing the technology so that it's not dependent on the structures [that seek to]...capitalize...on those communications technologies....How can we build networks and systems that are completely autonomous that don't rely on those things? But...I'm also constantly questioning these sorts of pursuits...in relation to...climate chaos and the end of energy and so [also] thinking about how technology has a horizon.

Being a radical

I18

When I say that I'm a radical it means that I'm an extreme leftist, it means that I'm ideological, it means that I have an ideology of what I consider to be the way the world works, how it works for the worst and how it could work for the better and I have principles...that are rooted in me….I am a radical in that I would prefer there to be a destruction of capitalism....I don't...see reform as being an option….I really mean the destruction of current systems [to be replaced with] better systems...

Imperfect victories

I19

I was recently watching a video of people trying to block a deportation at an airport and I think that's a win…..We’re actually physically going to try and block you from deporting this person so that you actually cannot. I think that's a win and more of a win than a policy concession....The problem is that those kinds of wins are always so finite in time and they're not perfect, right? They're by no means perfect in that maybe not every form of domination is rejected in that moment but some form of it is and I think that's fairly rare.

Managing disagreement effectively

I18

Thoughtless action is obviously going to lead to unintended consequences and it's going to be less effective than if you are measured and considered and reasonable and have a plan and account for contingencies....I think it's really important but at the same time I think that the left does suffer from too much...crippling talk. There should be more mechanisms in left wing groups if there is a major point of disagreement to compartmentalize that disagreement, and not to ignore it, but to defer it...until we're effective with all the stuff we agree with.