Last weekend was Wrestlemania. There have been 37 Wrestelmanias. That’s a lot of wrestling. And a lot of entertainment for the millions of people who enjoy watching wrestling, including our host, Gordon Katic. Maybe you’re a fan, maybe not. Fans and non-fans alike have often dismissed wrestling as frivolous. But there’s more to wrestling than meets the tombstone piledriver.
In recent years, the left seems to have ceded the issue of free speech — or, rather, flipped on it. For years, it defended against censorship, stood up to global imperialism, decried efforts to silence resisters and renegades, and mocked the right for culture war stodginess and pearl-clutching that whined ‘won’t somebody please think of the children?!’ But much of the left has retreated on speech. That turn may have implications for those who work to hold power to account in a world full of fallible human beings who often get stuff wrong, and powerful actors and institutions who use censorship as a cudgel.
Journalism is in crisis. Of course, there’s no shortage of rescue ideas. Sometimes it’s billionaires buying newspapers as vanity projects. Other times it’s techno-utopianism. Or plucky startups pulling themselves up by their bootstraps. Maybe blockchain will save us? Victor Pickard says the problems are deeper than we think, and they require a more radical solution. He offers a structural critique of the commercial news industry and offers us a utopian vision for a publicly-funded, democratically-controlled news media.
For a moment, all the eyes of the world were on GameStop. It’s unexpected, meteoric rise. It’s inevitable fall. The saga became a rorschach test for our politics. Was it a revolutionary moment, the many pushing back against the few? Was it an old school pump and dump, just folks out to make some money?
Canada likes to trade on the “middle power” trope. Tucked away among the many, snuggled up with peer states just outside the focus given to global hegemons, the country goes about its business, friendly and mild. Nothing to see here. But behind the facade is a past and present of neocolonial plundering.
