Educators from Canada

591 quotes found

"“You know what supernovas are?” “Yeah,” said JC. “Like, super-duper huge mega-stars. That explode.” “That’s right, young brother. Where’d you learn that?” “Star Trek,” he said. “Good,” chuckled Mr. Ani. “Me too, probably. In the olden days. So let’s transform all this. “People are born lead, and most people stay that way their whole lives. They’re the Leadites. “And they’re easily led astray by those who’re turned into—or who turn themselves into—the Pyrites. The Pyrites are like pirates because they hijack people, keep em hostage, steal their treasure, and prevent them from ever getting where they’re supposed to go, even dumping them on islands in the middle of nowhere or drowning them at sea. “And any gold they find, they steal it and hoard it, and even bury it in chests under the sand.” The boys nodded, grasping fragments, knowing that others were just beyond their fingertips. “So who’s left? Gold. From supernovas, light-sources so powerful they can outshine entire galaxies. Gold is knowledge: the most precious thing in the universe. “If you have everything and don’t have knowledge, you can’t use what you do have or appreciate how much it’s worth, so to you, it’s actually worthless. If you don’t have true gold, you spend your whole life chasing after and stockpiling pyrite thinking it’s worth something, when actually, it’s worth nothing.”"

- Malcolm Azania

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"Against all these fateful outcomes there will be those among us who refuse to return to normal, or to embrace the “new normal,” those of us who know that “the trouble with normal is it only gets worse.” Already, in the that the crisis has unleashed, we are seeing extraordinary measures emerge that reveal that much of the neoliberal regime’s claims to necessity and austerity were transparent lies. The God-like market has fallen, again. In different places a variety of measures are being introduced that would have been unimaginable even weeks ago. These have included the suspension of rents and mortgages, the free provision of public transit, the deployment of basic incomes, a hiatus in debt payments, the commandeering of privatized hospitals and other once-public infrastructure for the public good, the liberation of incarcerated people, and governments compelling private industries to reorient production to common needs. We hear news of significant numbers of people refusing to work, taking wildcat labor action, and demanding their right to live in radical ways. In some places, the underhoused are seizing vacant homes. We are discovering, against the upside-down capitalist value paradigm which has enriched the few at the expense of the many, whose labor is truly valuable: care, service, and frontline public sector workers. There has been a proliferation of grassroots radical demands for policies of care and solidarity not only as emergency measures, but in perpetuity."

- Max Haiven

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