Vote Harder! Justice Warriors 2 w/ Matt Bors and Ben Clarkson
Release Date: 12/07/2024
Champagne Neoliberalism OR Effervescent Austerity
Alberta Advantage Podcast
In the lead up to the federal budget, the government signalled that it would include sharp cuts, referencing the steep austerity of the 1995 federal budget. Team Advantage takes a look at what the budget actually contains, situates it in the current political moment and examines how it actually compares to 1995. We ask how the nation building rhetoric Carney campaigned on could actually have been implemented, and what can be done about a government at war with workers. Further Reading - Heather Whiteside, Stephen McBride, and Bryan Evans Related Episodes
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Alberta Teachers and the End of Collective Bargaining: Text Resist to 55255
Alberta Advantage Podcast
Alberta's teachers have been ordered back to work, and their right to strike, collectively bargain, or even present a legal challenge have been stripped away by Danielle Smith's UCP. How is organized labour in Alberta responding to this existential threat? Previous episodes on public education: Previous episodes on trade unions and collective bargaining: . Read Gil McGowan's feedback on Roberta Lexier's presentation about the need to organize towards a general strike: Further reading:
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Escape from the Planet of the Mines - Canada’s Resource Imperialism
Alberta Advantage Podcast
Canada exists to put holes in the ground and extract surplus value for shareholders. In this episode, originally recorded in 2021, Team Advantage opens the Canadian trench-coat to find total corporate impunity. We discus how the Canadian state facilitates resource extraction within its borders and around the world at the expense of the common good, then imagine what mining might look like in a better society. Works Cited: – Tyler Shipley – Alain Deneault & William Sacher – Martín Arboleda - Brandi Morin
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The Death and Life of Canadian Socialism - Live at the Progressive Publics Symposium
Alberta Advantage Podcast
Every century or so the Canadian left gathers at the Royal Canadian Legion #1 in downtown Calgary to inagurate a new era of progress. In 1932 it was J.S. Woodworth and the gang in 1932 at the founding of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (which would become the NDP). On July 13, 2025 it was Team Advantage, Shama Rangwala, André Goulet, Roberta Lexier and Rob Rousseau. This live recording begins with a discussion of what the Progressive Publics symposium is all about before saying goodbye to the NDP with a brief history. Then the team discusses the possibilities of a socialist project to...
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Elbows to the Left – Is Canada Worth Fighting For?
Alberta Advantage Podcast
Rhetorical and real threats to Canadian sovereignty pose a tough question to critics of the Canadian state: Do we align with liberal nationalists in defense of the Canadian project or do we remain skeptical? In this episode Team Advantage traces a brief history of Canadian nationalisms, including earlier attempts at imagining a socialist national project, in order to better understand the current moment of rising nationalist sentiment. We ask if it's even possible to extricate a good Canadian nationalism from the history of colonial land theft and genocide that undergirds this state,...
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Pension Paradox: How deferred wages go to work for capital, with Tom Fraser
Alberta Advantage Podcast
Join our live show Friday June 13 6PM - Royal Canadian Legion #1, 116 7 Ave SE, Calgary - Free Entry - Public sector pensions are one of the hard-won victories of the 20th century labour movement, but they did not come through the neoliberal era unchanged. They are now managed like any other investment fund and are implicated in all the faults of global capital. Union researcher Tom Fraser joins Team Advantage to discuss the political economy of pension funds and the forgotten horizons of revolutionary possibility they once represented.Check out Tom's new book - Other...
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Colonialism and Capitalism: Bryan Palmer on Canadian History
Alberta Advantage Podcast
Team Advantage sits down with Bryan D. Palmer on his stop through Calgary to discuss his new book, and discuss how labour and anti-colonial movements have historically challenged the Canadian state. We ask what it might take to forge a united front and what the present moment of Canadian Nationalism might mean for left politics. Buy Palmer's book from or your local independent bookseller. Further reading recommendations from Bryan Palmer: by Glen Coulthard by Audra Simpson by Nick Estes by Shiri Pasternak
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Imagined Alberta: Western Canadian National Fantasies
Alberta Advantage Podcast
WARNING: This episode begins with slam poetry. Team Advantage subjects themselves to some favourite books of UCP ministers and Western Standard columnists in search of the intellectual basis for justifying an independent Albertan nation. We find bad poetry, absurd race science, and convenient economic motivations. We contend that there is a long-standing nationalist rhetorical tradition in this province, place this tradition within a broader history of nationalism, seek out it's through-lines and examine how such rhetoric spreads out from the writings of right-wing cranks and enters more...
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James Wilt on the Winnipeg Police
Alberta Advantage Podcast
! The Winnipeg Police Service is 100 years old - a century they've used to repress dissent, censor media, bungle investigations and devour city budgets. Author James Wilt joins Team Advantage to discuss his new book, which explores this history of policing, resistance, and what a vision for a Winnipeg beyond police might look like. by Leon Laidlaw by Sara A. Seo by Barry Friedman by Fadi Ennab
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Vote Harder! Justice Warriors 2 w/ Matt Bors and Ben Clarkson
Alberta Advantage Podcast
It’s election season in Bubble City, the ultra-protected enclave that keeps the rich safe from the mutants of the so-called Uninhabited Zone. When veteran officer Swamp Cop embarks on a dangerous undercover mission, politics just might wind up coming between him and his beloved partner, Officer Schitt. Team Advantage chats with Matt Bors and Ben Clarkson, authors of Justice Warriors Vol. 2: Vote Harder, and discusses the quaint features of placid Canadian life. Follow Matt Bors on Twitter and BlueSky Follow Ben Clarkson on Twitter and Bluesky Purchase Justice Warriors: Vote Harder...
info_outlineIt’s election season in Bubble City, the ultra-protected enclave that keeps the rich safe from the mutants of the so-called Uninhabited Zone. When veteran officer Swamp Cop embarks on a dangerous undercover mission, politics just might wind up coming between him and his beloved partner, Officer Schitt. Team Advantage chats with Matt Bors and Ben Clarkson, authors of Justice Warriors Vol. 2: Vote Harder, and discusses the quaint features of placid Canadian life.
Follow Matt Bors on Twitter @mattbors and BlueSky @mattbors.bsky.social
Follow Ben Clarkson on Twitter @benclarkson and Bluesky @benclarkson.bsky.social
Purchase Justice Warriors: Vote Harder direct from Matt's webstore or wherever fine books are sold.