Invading Wolves, The Coming Revolution and Remembering Mel Watkins: Dinner Table Digest № 6
The Dinner Table Digest is an intermittent collection of interesting material from around the internet, curated by Peter Thurley.
Mel Watkins - A Life Well Lived - Andrew Jackson - Canadian Dimension Magazine
One of the great Canadian leftwing intellectuals of the mid-20th century, Mel Watkins, has passed on. While I never had the chance to meet him, I’ve heard from many how influential he’s been in their lives.
Briefly put, Watkins set out a theoretical framework to explain Canadian economic development and underdevelopment as profoundly shaped by the demand of the dominant metropolitan power for raw resources or staples, around which the dominant parts of the domestic economy, such as the banks and transportation networks were organized. In counterpoint, the state often worked to counter the dependency upon staples by deepening the linkages from the staple sector to national economic development, for example by promoting the the processing of raw resources, and substituting domestic manufactured goods for imports
My faith community, Nexus KW, has moved to online YouTube services, just like the rest of churches across Canada. Our treasured and gifted spoken word artist, Glenn Pascoe, performed a poem for the community called “Shut Down”, with an original score by our music director, Dave Thompson.
The Wolves of Stanislav: An improbably true parable for the pandemic age - Paul Auster - Lithub
This was quite the read - a Russian legend supposes that one of the Ukrainian towns they entered after World War II was deserted of people, populated instead by thousands of wolves.
"I looked out at the square in front of me and tried to imagine it in the summer of 1944, all the people walking around on their errands from here to there suddenly gone, erased from the scene, and then I began to see the wolves, dozens of wolves loping through the square, moving along in small packs as they searched for food in the abandoned city. The wolves are the endpoint of the nightmare, the farthest outcome of the stupidity that leads to the devastations of war, in this case the three million Jews murdered in those eastern bloodlands along with countless other civilians and soldiers from other religions and no religion, and once the slaughter has ended, wild wolves come crashing through the gates of the city. The wolves are not just symbols of war. They are the spawn of war and what war brings to the earth."
The Revolution is only getting started - Rebecca L. Spang - The Atlantic
Today, as in the 1790s, an old order is ending in convulsions. Even before the coronavirus prompted flight cancellations and entry bans, climate activists were rightly telling us to change our modes and patterns of travel. Even before nonessential businesses were shut by government orders, online shopping and same-day deliveries were rapidly remaking retail commerce, while environmental concerns and anti-consumerism were revolutionizing the fashion industry. The pandemic and resulting public-health crisis have caused an abrupt and salutary revaluation in which cleaners, care workers, grocery-store stockers, and delivery drivers are gaining recognition for the essential work they have been doing all along. Taken together, these changes may not look like a revolution—but real revolutions are the ones that nobody sees coming.
Finally, I have promised a stand-alone piece on the reality that, so far, anyway, those with disabilities or on social assistance have received no federal aid in the time of COVID-19. That is coming, I promise! Until then, follow the image through to the discussion on my Facebook wall.
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