rabble radio

We've heard a lot about the crisis in local news as small community papers have closed down and local tv newscasts removed and replaced with big city casts. Most radio stations haven't had local news content for a long time, and there is some doubt that online news will fill the gap. As a result, small communities in particular are being abandoned and are becoming news deserts. A new $50 million local news fund has been announced by the Federal Government but it's taking a long time to roll out. It's far less than the $350 million that newspaper publishers were pushing for, and the $50 million only amounts to $10 per year over five years. The Canadian Association of Community Television Users and Stations (CACTUS) is an organization that has been lobbying the federal government to establish non-profit community media centres. CACTUS' position is that community media should be given some of the money to develop capacity for communities to tell their own stories. Cathy Edwards is the Executive Director of CACTUS. Victoria Fenner spoke to her a couple of weeks ago at her home in Gatineau. Disclosure: Victoria Fenner is a member of CACTUS. Image: Broadcast Tower in Cambridge Bay Nunavut. Victoria Fenner, 2003. Like this podcast? rabble is reader/listener supported journalism.

Anti-sexual abuse and women's empowerment campaigns like #MeToo and #TimesUp have upended the conversation surrounding sexual violence and women's issues worldwide. But in parts of West Africa, strong cultural and religious taboos have prevented some women from speaking out in support of these movements. In Ghana, research that dates back to 2009 shows sexual abuse in schools accounts for more than half of all cases in the country. It also shows that teachers are among the highest perpetrators of sexual violence, particularly among young girls. The country's education ministry is currently investigating a number of sexual abuse scandals in schools where head teachers are being investigated for serial abuse, harassment and sexual extortion. A group called the Coalition Against Sexual Abuse (CASA) is calling for immediate action on the part of Ghanaian authorities to end this crisis of sexual abuse. In March 2018, CASA launched a year-long campaign called Stop Sex Abuse in Schools. The focus of the campaign is on raising awareness and advocating for policy on sexual abuse and harassment in schools. The campaign has three stages. The first is raising awareness of the issue on all media platforms with the #TimesUpGH trend. The second stage is bringing together stakeholders including the teachers' union, civil society and NGOs to discuss the coalition's target lens of teachers perpetrating sexual violence. Finally, the last stage is enforcing and building upon existing policy in collaboration with the Ghana Education Service to end rampant sexual abuse in the country. Esther Armah is a member of the coalition. Armah is also the director of EAA Media Productions, a columnist with the Business and Financial Times, a media and communications lecturer with Webster University and the host of a global radio show and podcast called The Spin. She spoke to Maxine Betteridge-Moes, a volunteer with Farm Radio International, a Canadian NGO that partners with radio broadcasters across sub-Saharan Africa to fight poverty and food insecurity through radio programs. This interview is a part of a podcast episode on sexual violence in Ghana, produced by Maxine Betteridge-Moes for the Young Journalists' Global Podcast Challenge, organized by Farm Radio International for the WUSC and CECI International Forum. The full episode will be available soon, and we hope to have it available for rabble podcast listeners. Image: Ray Styles Studios. Used with permission. Like this podcast? rabble is reader/listener supported journalism.

Do I stay or do I go? After the election of Trump in 2016, there were a lot of memes and stories going around social media about why Americans should become Canadians. Some of that was real, and some of it was the Canadian tendency to pat ourselves on the back when we compare ourselves to the US. Regardless, many of us have friends who asked the same thing, so we know there were some Americans who live in Canada who breathed a sigh of relief that they were up here. But, attachment and sentiment for one's country is not a straightforward thing. Whether to stay or go is a question that some progressive Americans have asked themselves since November 8, 2016, and they continue to ask it. "Are you going to stay or go back home?" is a question rabble podcast exec producer Victoria Fenner asked Sophia Reuss even before the election happened. Victoria met Sophia at the World Social Forum when it was held Montreal in August of that year, just a few months before the election. An American who grew up in Washington, DC, Sophia had just finished up as a rabble intern after graduating from McGill. She was volunteering to help produce 'Ears on the Earth', a daily rabble podcast from the Forum. You can hear one of Sophia's stories here. At the time of the World Social Forum, not many people were seriously considering the possibility that Trump could win. And then, the unthinkable happened. Sophia could have stayed in Canada, but ultimately, she decided that she needed to be back home. She moved back to the US last year. She currently lives in Brooklyn, and works at the Prisoner Reentry Institute, an organization at the City University of New York. She also is continuing her work with rabble as an assistant editor. Today on rabble radio, Sophia shares her thoughts about why she decided to go back home. Like this podcast? rabble is reader/listener supported journalism.

Long before any of us were podcasting, Frieda Werden was doing audio programs for an about women from a feminist perspective. She is cofounder of WINGS: Women's International News Gathering Service, which started production back in 1986. Coordinating an international network on a low budget was a huge job back then. Low budget organizations couldn't afford satellite transmission time, which was the only way to get files from reporter to the production studios quickly. WINGS contributors came from different parts of the world, so tapes traveled by a lot of planes to get to WINGS studios to be packaged into a radio program. Distributed primarily through community radio, the program has been produced weekly for 27 years. That's a lot of words. And it isn't just the technology that's changed. "A show only about women .. that's just too radical". That's what Frieda was told many times in the early days. But that did not deter Frieda. She has been involved in the women's movement even before her forays into broadcasting, and has seen a lot of ideas that were radical in 1986 become commonly accepted in the years that followed. She's seen a lot of change in the women's movement over more than five decades. She's even credited as being one of the Feminists Who Changed America 1963-1975 in a book by that title written by Barbara J. Love. Frieda is formerly from Texas, and worked in various places in the U.S. until 2002 when she moved up to Canada. Victoria Fenner, rabble.ca's executive producer of podcasts took a trip out to the west coast in May and was able to record a conversation with Frieda in her home on Denman Island, British Columbia. Image: Frieda Werden on Denman Island BC, 2018. Photo by Victoria Fenner Like this podcast? rabble is reader/listener supported journalism.

We're hearing a lot in the news that there is still no resolution of the trade impasse between Canada and the United States. But as is often the case, we're not often hearing the voices of labour on the issue. Today's rabble radio interview is with a representative from a trade union which is being directly affected by tariffs on steel and aluminum by the United States which were announced on May 31st. To recap, Canada is set to impose tariffs on American steel and aluminum, plus a wide variety of products. Symbolically, our own tariffs against American imports will come into effect on Canada Day. In a show of solidarity which is unusual in Canadian politics, there is widespread agreement among all political parties, the general public and labour that a show of strength is the way to go. Marc Belanger is the host and producer of RadioLabour, a podcast and radio show. He talks to Ken Neumann, National Director for Canada for the United Steelworkers union – the USW. Thanks to RadioLabour for sending this interview to us. You can hear more RadioLabour programs at radiolabour.net Image: Wikimedia – Steel Factory Like this podcast? rabble is reader/listener supported journalism.

Fighting climate change is a numbers game, in units of degrees Celsius and millions and billions of tonnes. As the atmospheric concentration of earth-warming CO2 rises above 400 parts per million — almost twice what it was 200 years ago – the nations of the world struggle to roll back their emissions by the gigatonne. Canada has vowed to cut emissions by 30 percent, relative to its emissions in 2005. Most climate change scientists say that target falls far far short of what is needed. Still, Canada's emissions rise relentlessly, notably in oil-rich Alberta, where bitumen-rich tar sands generate billions and billions of dollars for huge corporations, and for the province. To placate Alberta, the Canadian government has declared that expanding fossil fuel production is perfectly consistent with Canada's larger goal of reducing emissions from burning that fuel. Keith Stewart, senior energy strategist with Greenpeace Canada, says the government approach won't work. In a repeat of an interview from The Green Blues Show, originally broadcast on CKUW Radio in Winnipeg and online on The Green Planet Monitor, David Kattenburg talks to Keith Stewart about what's wrong with the picture the government has painted. Thanks to The Green Blues show for permission to podcast his interview. You can subscribe to the whole show through your favourite mobile podcast app. Just put Green Blues Show in the search box. Or, you can listen from the show website. Image: Tar Sands exploratory mission/Flickr Like this podcast? rabble is reader/listener supported journalism.

Today, May 17, a Canadian delegation of people from labour, community and media will be going to Venezuela to observe the May 20 national federal elections and to meet with local community and labour leaders. The mainstream media coverage of events in Venezuela has been historically misleading. Many believe that's because Venezuela has a socialist government that the big global power players object to, especially the United States. If past history is any indication, the elections will be misrepresented to the rest of the world this time too if we only rely on coverage from the big mainstream media. rabble.ca is proud to have been invited to be part of the delegation to Venezuela so we can provide an alternative perspective to the coverage that a lot of the media will be distributing. Humberto DaSilva is a member of CUPE and is also a frequent video contributor to rabble (known to rabble readers, listeners and viewers as "Not Rex"). He's bringing his camera and will be doing video features for us, recording what people are doing and saying about the elections and life in Venezuela. Victoria Fenner, rabble's executive producer of podcasts, had a conversation with Humberto a couple of days ago. He told her that he wanted to go because it's an important global issue about democracy and freedom, and also because he has a personal connection to Venezuela that he wants to explore. The delegation will be gone until May 25, though Humberto will only be there until May 22. We'll be posting a daily stream of articles on rabble from people in the delegation including video reports. WATCH: Raul Burbano of Common Frontiers on Venezuela presidential elections on rabbletv Like this podcast? rabble is reader/listener supported journalism.

Regular rabble readers and listeners know that the Canadian Boat to Gaza and the international Freedom Flotilla is something we think it's important to cover each year. We've done some outstanding coverage over the past 8 years that the Flotilla has sailed. In 2011, the Canadian boat the Tahrir was seized by the Israeli military and we are proud that we were able to do interviews with participants who were part of the delegation as the story was unfolding. There hasn't been a Canadian boat every year, and there won't be one in the fleet this year. But there will still be Canadians participating. The Freedom Flotilla boat, the Al Awda (The Return) left the Norwegian port of Bergen on Monday April 30, with hundreds of well-wishers on the dock to bid her farewell. This marks the beginning of her 75 day voyage to Gaza, to challenge and break the illegal Israeli blockade. More ships will be joining it along the way. Fundraising to support the mission is important. The members of the organization The supporters of Canadian Boat to Gaza, are committed to paying part of those costs, as well as part of the costs of acquiring of this hard-working former fishing boat. The Canadian Boat to Gaza share of the international Freedom Flotilla budget this year is $30,000. rabble will be hosting a kick off online event tomorrow night to launch this year's Canadian campaign. Join rabble on Tuesday, May 15 at 7 Eastern Daylight Savings Time for a special livestream, with special guests former NDP member of Parliament (and now Member of the Order of Canada) Libby Davies and retired U.S. Colonel Ann Wright. Victoria Fenner talked to David Heap, one of the long time Canadian Boat to Gaza organizers about the event and what's happening with this year's Freedom Flotilla. Like this podcast? rabble is reader/listener supported journalism. Image: rabble.ca – The Tahrir – from 2011 Canadian Boat to Gaza

This week, politicians, reporters and pundits say it's a make or break week for the North American Free Trade talks in Washington. They say if there isn't a deal really soon, upcoming elections in the United States and Mexico could complicate things dramatically. Despite all the boosterism for a successfully renegotiated NAFTA that we are usually hearing in the media, there are still people who think it would be a good thing if the NAFTA talks fail. Today's guest on rabble radio is a well known opponent of NAFTA. David Orchard is an author and farmer from Saskatchewan. He's a former member of the Progressive Conservatives, the party which first brought us into free trade with the U.S. in 1988. He actually ran for the PCs twice, but left the party after it merged with the Canadian Alliance to form the Conservative Party of Canada. He jumped over to the Liberals and ran in the 2008 federal election. He's well known for his opposition to NAFTA, and the free trade deals that have come before it. Orchard is the author of the bestselling book The Fight for Canada: Four Centuries of Resistance to American Expansionism. He was also a co-founder of CCAFT (Citizens Concerned About Free Trade) in 1985, three years before the passage of the historic Canada US Free Trade Deal that started us on this free trade path that we're walking now. Today's interview was done by Michael Welch of Winnipeg's Global Research News Hour. It's excerpted from the program called Free Trade Fantasies originally broadcast on Feb 2 of this year. Thanks to Michael Welch for permission to post this as a rabble radio podcast. You can hear more of his programs here. Image: Flickr – Jim Winstead Like this podcast? rabble is reader/listener supported journalism.

Anyone who has lived in B.C. or follows political trends in Canada knows that our most westerly province is reputed to be one of the most politically polarized provinces in the nation. A lot of that has to do with the province's unions, which are known for being formidable opponents at the bargaining table, and if it comes to that, on the picket lines. But it's not all black and white. There is a lot of nuance that only people who see the dynamics behind the scenes really understand. Rod Mickleburgh has been covering the labour movement in B.C. since the 1970s. He's the author of a new book, On the Line: A History of the British Columbia Labour Movement. On today's rabble radio, he shares some thoughts with Victoria Fenner about some of the significant events in worker struggles that have helped create the province of B.C. as we know it today. Image: Vancouver Province front page by Rod Mickleburgh Like this podcast? rabble is reader/listener supported journalism.