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On September 18, students at a suburban Paris high school went on strike against deplorable conditions and in solidarity with their underpaid teachers. Within weeks, high school students across France were blockading their schools over faculty shortages, crumbling buildings, overloaded classes and Parcoursup, the algorithmic placement system that chooses professional pathways for them at 15. By October 17, the children-led revolt had drawn up to 800,000 people into the streets alongside university students, unions and veterans of the gilets jaunes. They were met with brutal militarized police force. I spoke with Danielle Duncan, an American professor of Internet culture and English in Paris, on October 15. She walks me through the stratified French school system, conditions in the banlieues, the memes mocking police infiltration, why the street rhetoric is antifascist, and who in French politics is speaking to the moment. I open with a timeline through October 20 and close on how reactionary centrists are reframing the uprising as a story about property damage and "ultra-left violence". My interview with Michael Löwy on the same topic but from a revolutionary history perspective, is up on Patreon now. Socials Bluesky: matthewremski.bsky.social Instagram: @matthew_remski YouTube: @antifascistdad TikTok: @antifascistdad Patreon: antifascistdadpodcast Order Antifascist Dad Subscribe to Antifascist Dad Podcast (all platforms) Sources Maire-Info: movement origins at Lycée Saint-Exupéry, Créteil Brut: demands on Parcoursup and university places France 24: October 13 turnout and university closures 24 heures: student loses hand at Lens franceinfo: arrests and injuries as of October 15 Sud Radio: stun grenades re-authorized October 16 Orange / L’Express: October 17 turnout and toll CNN: orchestra and tear gas at Place de la République CNews: second night of looting in Paris

Another TO election episode, gearing up for October 26! Diana Yoon is running for Toronto City Council in University-Rosedale. Yoon came to tenant organizing through climate work, helping ACORN secure a climate grant to survey tenants before and after energy retrofits, and later joined the board of the Federation of Metro Tenants’ Associations. Her professional work is in co-op housing policy, including the federal Co-op Housing Development Program. We also talk about what she hears about homelessness at the door, and why she rejects jails and involuntary treatment as responses. I bring her a puzzle from Etobicoke: city land at 5207 Dundas West, leased to Tricon and Kilmer on confidential terms, where the “affordable” units are priced at up to full average market rent. What's going on with Toronto housing, and what can socialists do about it? Bluesky: matthewremski.bsky.social Instagram: @matthew_remski YouTube: @antifascistdad TikTok: @antifascistdad Patreon: antifascistdadpodcast Order Antifascist Dad Sources Diana Yoon for City Council, University-Rosedale The Local: Ward 11 University-Rosedale candidate tracker Toronto ACORN 2026 municipal election platform Federation of Metro Tenants' Associations Jacobin: Toronto's Tenant Union Is Just Getting Started The Grind: Building Citywide Tenant Power City of Toronto: TCHC single-family homes transferred to community land trusts CMHC: Co-op Housing Development Program Government of Canada: Launch of the $1.5 billion Co-operative Housing Development Program Quill and Quire: Maggie Helwig wins 2025 Toronto Book Award for Encampment CP24: Maggie Helwig wins the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Encampment CreateTO: 5207 Dundas Street West (Bloor-Kipling Block 1) Link2Build: Affordable rents at 5207 Dundas West set at 40 to 100 percent of average market rent APTN: Grassy Narrows repeats call for Carney apology over "outlast" remark CP24: Ontario plans massive jail...

Many cities on Turtle Island are hoping Mamdani fever comes to town. But Toronto is seriously considering rolling out the red carpet for a right wing populist climbing in the polls. I'm joined by Inori Roy, Features Editor at The Local, to discuss her in-depth profile of Toronto mayoral candidate Brad Bradford, published just 2 weeks before the October 26 election. We discuss her data-first method, the weaknesses of Canadian investigative journalism, the gap between feelings and facts about crime in Toronto, and Bradford's shift from bike-lane councillor to right-wing fear-monger. We cover allegations from former staffers, the campaign's response, his Al-Quds Day stance and pro-Israel base, and whether his campaign represents a backlash to the Mamdani model of municipal politics. Inori Roy is a Toronto-based journalist and Features Editor at The Local. She holds a Master's in investigative journalism from City University of London. She has led data-driven investigations into long-term care and road safety, and her work has appeared in The Walrus, the Toronto Star, The Narwhal, Unearthed, and CBC. Sources Brad Bradford Seems Angry—He’s Betting Torontonians Are Too (The Local) Inori Roy’s work at The Local Who’s Actually Running Ontario’s Long-Term Care Homes? (The Local) Who Is Watching Over Ontario’s Most Vulnerable Seniors? (The Local) The Deadly Inequality of Toronto’s Vision Zero Rollout (The Local) Toronto Police Service shootings dashboards Toronto’s Al-Quds rally goes ahead after judge dismisses Ontario’s injunction bid (CP24) Toronto council passes bubble zone bylaw restricting protests (The CJN) Max Haiven, The Player and the Played: From Gamed Capitalism to 21st-Century Fascism (MIT Press, open access) Socials Podcast: Antifascist Dad podcast available here Bluesky: matthewremski.bsky.social Instagram: @matthew_remski YouTube: @antifascistdad TikTok: @antifascistdad Patreon: antifascistdadpodcast Order Antifascist Dad

On September 20th, Yom Kippur, Canadian Army veteran Sean Ward opened fire outside the Sons of Jacob Synagogue in Belleville, Ontario. An hour later, and before the first news report, NDP leader Avi Lewis posted a personal prayer of atonement, reflecting on how antizionist Jews had failed to stop a genocide committed in the name of Jewish safety. I trace how pro-Israel commentators, Liberal MPs and the Globe and Mail linked Lewis's prayer to the shooting, even as reporting showed Ward was likely a second-wave QAnon antivax conspiracist who appeared to blame Jews for COVID. I also look at CBC anchor Neil Herland's twisted account of a protest against Mark Regev, Public Safety Canada's new conflation of antizionism with antisemitism, and Yoni Goldstein's National Post column, which broadcast a thinly-veiled call for vigilante violence against Lewis. If you're a progressive or leftist and you haven't yet lent a hand (in whatever way you can) to your fellow Palestinians and antizionist Jews, now's the time. Because right now, attacking critics of Israel as antisemitic is becoming indistinguishable from attacking the political alternative to capitalism and imperialism, at this precarious moment for the climate and ourselves. Bluesky: matthewremski.bsky.social Instagram: @matthew_remski YouTube: @antifascistdad TikTok: @antifascistdad Patreon: antifascistdadpodcast Order Antifascist Dad Sources Avi Lewis, Yom Kippur post on X Quinte News, first report of the Belleville shooting, Sept 20, 8:33 pm Global News, Man wielding shotgun opened fire at officer outside Belleville synagogue: SIU Global News, Belleville gunman spouted COVID-19 conspiracies while in army National Post via Yahoo, Belleville suspect "spouted" theory that blamed Jews for COVID CBC News, Synagogue shooter's online username alluded to killing Jews Globe and Mail, Belleville synagogue shooting was a "hate-motivated" crime, police say Ezra Levant post on X Mia Bloom post on X Artur Wilczynski post on X Vivian Bercovici post on X CIJA post on X CP24, NDP leader Lewis criticized for saying Jews "failed to do our part" Robyn Urback, "Avi L...

My guest today is Jennie Worden, running a fantastic socialist campaign for Toronto City Council in my very own Ward 19, Beaches–East York. On the agenda: what choral music teaches about community. What tenant organizing teaches about shared struggle. Why Brad Bradford, our former councillor now running for mayor, is such a heel (my word not Jennie's), and what we have to do to repair the damage of 15 years of austerity at City Hall. On Patreon this week is my summary of the attacks on Avi Lewis that followed his Yom Kippur post. I think it’s a crucial issue because right now, attacking critics of Israel, genocide and neocolonial brutality as antisemitic is the same thing as attacking the political alternative to capitalism and imperialism at the last moment in which we can bring the planet back from the brink. Sources Jennie Worden for Beaches–East York: campaign site Beach Metro: Jennie Worden answers our question (Sept 2026) Beach Metro: Erskine-Smith on his decision to run for Beaches–East York councillor Toronto Life: The Good Liar: Meet Toronto's worst landlord CP24: Owner and director of 500 Dawes Rd. fined for fire safety violations Mayor Olivia Chow: Update on actions to protect tenants at 500 Dawes CP24: Ford instructs Attorney General to seek injunction against Al-Quds rally CBC: Al-Quds Day rally proceeds after judge rules against Ford government's injunction CP24: NDP leader Lewis criticized over Yom Kippur post CBC: Lewis says he was "absolutely not" holding all Jews responsible CBC: Synagogue shooter's online username alluded to killing Jews, friend says Ricochet: National Post crosses dangerous line with column on NDP leader The Breach: I'm familiar with death threats. They show Avi Lewis is having an impact Socials Bluesky: matthewremski.bsky.social Instagram: @matthew_remski YouTube: @antifascistdad TikTok: @antifascistdad Patreon: antifascistdadpodcast Order Antifascist Dad Subscr...

With Toronto's municipal election set for October 26, I'm spending the next few weeks with local socialist candidates! First is Chiara Padovani: social worker, food bank worker, co-founder of the York South-Weston Tenant Union, and candidate in Ward 5, where she came within 94 votes of unseating Frances Nunziata in 2022. Chiara describes growing up in Mount Dennis, a social assistance system that hasn't kept pace with inflation in decades, and political insiders who told her not to knock on apartment doors because tenants don't vote. She walks me through the 16-month rent strike against Dream Unlimited, the sit-in that got a senior tenant back into her home, and Ontario's Bill 60. And Chiara explains why she thinks the tenant movement is where the labour movement was a century ago.  Bluesky: matthewremski.bsky.social Instagram: @matthew_remski YouTube: @antifascistdad TikTok: @antifascistdad Patreon: antifascistdadpodcast Order Antifascist Dad Sources  Chiara Padovani 2026 campaign platform Toronto and York Region Labour Council endorsement of Chiara Padovani Toronto Integrity Commissioner report on Councillor Nunziata, July 2024 Canadian Dimension: Inside Toronto's growing tenant revolt The Green Line: What is the Toronto Tenant Union NOW Toronto: Over 300 Toronto tenants still on rent strike Progressive International: Canada, How Tenants Fought Back Toronto Tenant Union: Tenants take Barney River to the LTB CBC News: Ontario tenants accused of arrears must pay half to raise complaints under Bill 60 NYC Mayor's Office: Rental Ripoff Report release City Limits: 3 Takeaways from the First Rental Ripoff Report NYC Mayor's Office: Housing Court Fast T...

I sit down with Kevin Skerrett, a pension researcher who spent thirty years as a Senior Research Officer for CUPE and co-edited The Contradictions of Pension Fund Capitalism. We trace how Canadian pension funds went from holding government bonds to becoming some of the world's most aggressive private-market investors. We start with the nineteenth-century labour movement's demand for a universal, state-provided pension, and follow the mid-century turn toward employer-specific, financialized plans in the US, before tracing the same shift through the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan and the Canada Pension Plan. Kevin walks me through his own disillusionment negotiating joint union trusteeship in the 1990s, OMERS' role in privatizing Nova Scotia schools, and CPP Investment Board's involvement in privatizing Rio de Janeiro's water system under Bolsonaro. We close on what a $30 billion OTPP surplus could fund if fiduciary law required something other than maximum return. Up now on Patreon: my interview with Chiara Padovani, running for Toronto City Councillor in Ward 5. Bluesky: matthewremski.bsky.social Instagram: @matthew_remski YouTube: @antifascistdad TikTok: [@antifascistdad] Patreon: antifascistdadpodcast Order Antifascist Dad Sources Kevin Skerrett, OMERS AC board bio The Contradictions of Pension Fund Capitalism (Cornell University Press / LERA, 2018) Kevin Skerrett interview on pension fund capitalism, rabble.ca Chiara Padovani, 2026 campaign, Toronto & York Region Labour Council

Part two of my conversation with Dr. Lara Sheehi about her outstanding book From the Clinic to the Streets, focusing on how the "psychic intrusions" of confusion, fear, despair, and exhaustion function as tools of imperial and state power that  disconnect people from movements. We review a 1970  interview with Ghassan Kanafani, whose refusal to accept "dialogue" as a neutral premise models what Sheehi calls psychic militancy. She also reframes grieving as reality-testing and divestment from power's narrative, contrasting it with Mark Fisher's diagnosis-without-tools "capitalist realism." Sources From the Clinic to the Streets: Psychoanalysis for Revolutionary Futures — Pluto Press Psychic Militancy Podcast Lara Sheehi — Palestine Book Awards Hyperpolitics: Extreme Politicization without Political Consequences — Anton Jäger, Verso Books Occult Features of Anarchism — Erica Lagalisse, PM Press "Rejecting the Conversation Between the Sword and the Neck" — Verso Books, on the 1970 Kanafani/Carleton interview PFLP Ghassan Kanafani, Richard Carleton interview COMPLETE Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? — Mark Fisher Socials: Bluesky matthewremski.bsky.social Instagram @matthew_remski YouTube @antifascistdad TikTok [@antifascistdad] Patreon antifascistdadpodcast Order Antifascist Dad

Since October 7th, young people who have joined antifascist and anti-genocide organizing on campus have faced one of the most disorienting accusations available: that their solidarity with Palestinians is antisemitic. This week I talk with Daniel Sailofsky, a University of Toronto prof and member of the non-Zionist Jewish Faculty Network, about what it was actually like inside the U of T encampment — Shabbat services, multifaith prayer, Zionist agitators trying to provoke a reaction — versus how it was covered in the press. We dig into the federal government's CASE report (Campus Antisemitism and Student Experiences), published in August. Its respondent were recruited through avowedly Zionist organizations, it had no safeguards for verifying identity, and its definitions of anti-Zionism and antisemitism were absolutely melted. Is this conflation of terms the last rhetorical weapon defenders of a genocide have left? Bluesky: matthewremski.bsky.social Instagram: @matthew_remski YouTube: @antifascistdad TikTok: [@antifascistdad] Patreon: antifascistdadpodcast Order Antifascist Dad Sources/resources https://www.danielsailofsky.com/  Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund https://www.pcrf.net/ https://decolonizepalestine.com/myths/ Decolonize Palestine, a simple and clear site that demystifies a lot of Israeli propaganda CASE (Campus Antisemitism and Student Experiences) report – Canada.ca Flawed by Design: JFN's response to the CASE report Episode 44: Psychic Militancy w/ Dr. Lara Sheehi – Matthew Remski's Substack Episode 2: Gaza Encampment w/ Sara Rasikh – Antifascist Dad Podcast Episode 42: Keep the Little Flame Alive w/ Carsie Blanton – Matthew Remski's Substack Episode 27: The Proto-Fascism of "Trust Me" Carney w/ Leftie Jane – Apple Podcasts Bill C-9, the Combatting Hate Act – Department of Justice Canada Street Rebellion: Resistance Beyond Violence and Nonviolence, by Benjamin S. Case – Firestorm Books Joyful Militancy: Building Thriving Resistance in Toxic Times, by Carla Bergman and Nick Montgomery The Wretched of the Earth, by Frantz Fanon – Grove Atlantic

Part two of my conversation with Ayman Makarem picks up where we left off: with Lebanon and Israel as co-developed colonial entities. We trace how the 1943 National Pact locked in a sectarian power-sharing system that functions as elite class rule dressed up as pluralism. The contradictions led to both the 1975 civil war and the 2019 uprising. We discuss Moshe Dayan, whose own words lay out, decades in advance, the occupation strategy Israel would go on to execute in South Lebanon. We discuss Hezbollah's 2023 anti-gay moral panic and its contradictory entanglement in Syria, but how disarming Hezbollah won't end Zionist aggression. Ayman concludes with some concrete advice for listeners in the Global North: solidarity means building socialist power at home. SOURCES Israel's Long War on Lebanon: A Joint History of the Zionist and Lebanese Entities Israel's Long War on Lebanon (video essay) Free timeline link Ayman Makarem on Patreon Ayman Makarem on Bluesky SOCIALS Bluesky matthewremski.bsky.social Instagram @matthew_remski YouTube @antifascistdad TikTok [@antifascistdad] Patreon antifascistdadpodcast Order Antifascist Dad/

My guest today is militant Lebanese Arab clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst, Dr. Lara Sheehi, here to unpack her book From the Clinic to the Streets: Psychoanalysis for Revolutionary Futures. Following Frantz Fanon's decolonial legacy, Sheehi argues mainstream psychology's fixation on the nuclear family as the origin of the psyche obscures how white supremacy, settler colonialism, and capitalism actually shape our inner lives — turning the family into the site where structural power gets animated and made to feel like love.  We discuss her critique of "specialization," the hoarding of clinical knowledge to pathologize suffering and enforce adaptation, and its counter, "despecialization" — the process of handing tools like disavowal, identification with the aggressor, and the reality principle back to ordinary people. Part two continues on Patreon: antifascistdadpodcast. Source From the Clinic to the Streets: Psychoanalysis for Revolutionary Futures — Pluto Press Psychic Militancy Podcast Psychoanalysis Under Occupation: Practicing Resistance in Palestine — Routledge/Amazon listing Lara Sheehi — Palestine Book Awards Depressive position (Melanie Klein) — Melanie Klein Trust As We Have Always Done — Leanne Betasamosake Simpson U.S. psychoanalysts apologize for labelling homosexuality an illness — CBC News Socials: Bluesky matthewremski.bsky.social Instagram @matthew_remski YouTube @antifascistdad TikTok [@antifascistdad] Patreon antifascistdadpodcast Order Antifascist Dad

Lebanon is once again on the front line of Israel's regional war, and a lot of leftist coverage, where there is any, flattens a hundred years of colonial history into campist slogans. In this episode I sit down with Ayman Makarem of Politically Depressed on YouTube— Lebanese, Druze, queer, and anti-authoritarian leftist — to slow down and build a picture of a nation where easy explanations go to die. In Part One we talk about how growing up Druze shaped Ayman's comfort with ambiguity, the class dimensions of queerness in Beirut, and about a virulently homophobic Christian militia few Western listeners have heard of. We talk about Noam Chomsky, Edward Said, and the difference between geopolitical abstraction and lived, local knowledge. Part two, where we get into the Lebanese entity, the Zionist entity, and Hezbollah, is available now for Patreon subscribers, and will post here in a few weeks. SOURCES Israel's Long War on Lebanon: A Joint History of the Zionist and Lebanese Entities Israel's Long War on Lebanon (video essay) Lebanon timeline link Ayman Makarem on Patreon Ayman Makarem on Bluesky SOCIALS Bluesky matthewremski.bsky.social Instagram @matthew_remski YouTube @antifascistdad TikTok [@antifascistdad] Patreon antifascistdadpodcast Order Antifascist Dad

An excerpt from the audiobook of Antifascist Dad: Urgent Conversations with Young People in Chaotic Times — Chapter Eight, Friendship Is Not Easy. I'm putting this out as a companion to my interview with Carsie Blanton because she models in her touring life exactly what I'm trying to articulate in this chapter: solidarity as the antidote to the individualism capitalism enforces on artists, activists, and everyone else. The chapter draws on D.W. Winnicott's incommunicado core, Aristotle's three types of friendship, and David Graeber's everyday communism to build the case that real, horizontal friendship is already a form of non-capitalist life.  Sources: Antifascist Dad: Urgent Conversations with Young People in Chaotic Times — Penguin Random House D.W. Winnicott — The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment — Karnac Books Aristotle — Nicomachean Ethics, Books VIII–IX (on friendship) — MIT Classics David Graeber — Debt: The First 5,000 Years — Melville House David Graeber on everyday communism — Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology — Prickly Paradigm Press Prefigurative politics — concept overview — SAGE Encyclopedia of Political Theory Carsie Blanton — official site Bluesky matthewremski.bsky.social Instagram @matthew_remski YouTube @antifascistdad TikTok [@antifascistdad] Patreon antifascistdadpodcast Order Antifascist Dad

Part 2 of my convo with Nathan Evans Fox, going deeper into the psychological and theological architecture of what JD Vance is actually doing in his new memoir, and what it costs him and everyone else to do it. Nathan reads Communion as a work of apologetics built on the logic of accumulation: prestige, then money, then virtue, with each step more abstract and less obviously empty than the last. Nothing is enough for this guy. He traces Vance's Catholicism to a pragmatic need to authorize whiteness and hierarchy. We discuss the SSPX schism, the conformist-older-brother archetype in abusive family systems, why buying into whiteness at the expense of solidarity destroys your capacity to grieve, and what imperial theology does when it cannot satisfy itself. SOURCES Nathan Evans Fox, "Do Not Read JD Vance's New Book. Read This Review Instead." Nathan Evans Fox — Heirloom, Free Dirt Records Anti-Confederate Southern History Reading Club JD Vance, Communion — HarperCollins Walter Brueggemann — The Prophetic Imagination Dietrich Bonhoeffer — The Cost of Discipleship Ta-Nehisi Coates — Between the World and Me Marion Massacre — North Carolina labor history Order Antifascist Dad SOCIALS matthewremski.bsky.social @matthew_remski @antifascistdad @antifascistdad antifascistdadpodcast Order Antifascist Dad

I sit down with socialist singer-songwriter Carsie Blanton to explore how unstructured freedom — from schooling, the music industry, and institutional religion — became the soil for her political and artistic radicalization. A stack of jazz records from her grandfather led to countless gigs, poltical organizing, and eventually to the Global Sumud Flotilla, where she and her comrades used dialectical materialism to assess risk—when they weren't singing "Little Flame". NOTE: This is the finale of season 1! I'll be catching up on rest and taking more family time for August but will be back on September 9th.  Sources: carsieblanton.com YouTube — Carsie Blanton Instagram @carsieblanton TikTok @carsieblantonmusic Spotify Patreon The Nation — Rich People and the Music Business Nina Simone — "To Be Young, Gifted and Black" (official audio) Ken Burns Jazz (PBS) Mark Fisher — Capitalist Realism (Zer0 Books) Elizabeth Gilbert on creative work "choosing" the artist — Big Magic People's Forum, New York The Burning Hell (band) Global Sumud Flotilla — Freedom Flotilla Coalition Artists Against Apartheid Adam Phillips on boredom — On Kissing, Tickling and Being Bored (Harvard University Press) Bluesky matthewremski.bsky.social Instagram @matthew_remski YouTube @antifascistdad TikTok [@antifascistdad] Patreon antifascistdadpodcast Order Antifascist Dad