rabble radio

It used to be the case that media and democracy were synonymous. Democracies weren't worthy of the name unless they had free and independent media that spoke truth to power. That was in the good old days. The changes in the political winds these days means that there are more pressures than ever on the kind of media outlets to do their job preserving and strengthening democracy. Today's program comes to us from Media Democracy Days, held in Vancouver every year. This year was no exception. And one could say that Media Democracy is more important than ever in the dark days of 2016. The new millennium got off to a really rocky start. The year 2001 was just two years after the historic Battle for Seattle, which saw tens of thousands take to the streets to protest globalization. In 2001, we watched in shock and horror as protestors were assaulted and tear gassed by police at the Quebec Summit of the Americas. In the media, we hadn't yet started to see the collapse of traditional media, yet alternative media was starting to pop up on the internet sharing a whole new perspective. It was the year that rabble started too. An important year indeed. It was also the first year for Media Democracy Days, which, 15 years later, is still happening in Vancouver. Today's program features excerpts from Media Democracy Days for those of you who weren't able to attend. There is always a focus on Indigenous media, but this year it seemed that there was even more than usual. Features on today's show: 1.) Tania Ehret – B.C. Outreach Coordinator explaining rabble's role and the closing plenary "Decolonizing the Mind." 2.) Ryan McMahon – Indigenous Writer, Storyteller, Comedian and podcast host. The keynote deals with indigenous identity, storytelling, and finding a connection to the land and its people. This selection details his interactions with youth and elders in Northern Ontario as well as rediscovering Indigenous stories and the people that tell those stories. 3.) Tami Starlight – Indigenous Anti Oppression Activist. This excerpt from Tami's workshop addressed anti-oppression, decolonization within the media and shares their story about Indigenous identity and the role of identity in society. The workshop also analyzed terminology and ways to improve media and content creation. Our sincere thanks to campus community radio station CJSF for sending us their audio recordings so we can use them on this show. This kind of media co-operation is so good for all of us, and is one of the reasons that alternative media in Canada is vibrant and strong. Thanks to Tania Ehret, our B.C. outreach coordinator, and Braden Alexander, the rabble podcast network intern, for their help putting together this show. Like this podcast? rabble is reader-supported journalism.

What does it take to build stronger communities? A lot of it is about participation — when we work together for the common good, the places where we live become stronger. We know our neighbours, we help each other. In healthy communities, people are engaged with each other. But what does that mean? Today's program is about engagement, connecting and making a difference in the places we live. How do we strengthen those ties that bind? A few ideas here on this month's rabble radio .. 1) Lee Rose – Director of Community Knowledge for the Community Foundations of Canada – Vital Signs is an annual study to assess the health of our communities. This current study is a multi-year and multifaceted exploration on the topic of belonging. It's an area of strategic focus for Community Foundations of Canada, a national organization in Ottawa whose membership is the individual community foundations across the country. Find out what they've learned about Canada in 2016. 2) Catherine Edwards – Executive Director of The Canadian Association of Cable Television Stations and Users (CACTUS) – For over 40 years, community cable channels and production studios have been provided by the commercial cable companies as part of the deal they made with the CRTC for the privilege of making lots of money from cable subscriptions. But that's eroding. CACTUS has a new plan for community media that serves people, not profits. They need your input and help. 3) Christian Gagnier – CJAM Radio, University of Windsor – Excerpt from Rendez-vous de la Francophonie, annual celebration of Canada's membership in the Francophonie and promotes the French language and its numerous cultural expressions. Community radio stations across the country have been producing programs exploring Canadian Francophone life over the past couple of years, with new ones on the way. Chris's program focuses on Francophone heritage of Windsor/Essex County.

Since it's harvest season, what better time to take a look at farming. And sadly, it's not the family farm we're going to be talking about. There are still some family farms left, and still some independent farmers who are making a living for themselves adopting new forms of sustainable agriculture. But despite the growth of organics, artisan food products and people who are adopting farming practices that are kind to the land, the corporations continue to march across the countryside. We'll hear from a few people today who can tell us what's wrong with that. 1.) Pat Mooney is one of Canada's "go to" people for his perspective on technology, biodiversity, intellectual property as it relates to our food supply, and corporate control of agriculture. His organization, The ETC group, works to address social inequalities affecting the poorest people in the world especially relating to food and agriculture. He spoke at the World Social Forum in August. Dave Kattenburg edited and produced this for his online magazine The Green Planet Monitor and shared it with rabble radio. 2.) Gabriel Allahdua, a migrant farmworker and one of the organizers of Justicia, a group which demands justice for migrant farm workers. There are a lot fewer jobs in agriculture than there used to be because of technology. But there is still the need for people. And as in all industries, big farming needs a workforce. Agricultural work means long hours and working conditions. It's hard work, low paid and often dangerous. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the seasonal farm workers program, set up by the Pearson Government in 1966. It's not a program we want to be especially proud of. This interview is an excerpt of a longer program by Scott Neigh of Talking Radical Radio. 3.) Lois Ross is one of our newer columnists at rabble.ca. She's a communications specialist, writer, and editor, living in Ottawa. She writes for rabble about issues that are key to food production here in Canada as well as internationally. She has a background in many different areas and could have done her column on labour, or international development or a whole bunch of other topics. She talks about why agriculture is important for rural and urban people. You can read her columns here.

There were hundreds of panel discussions at the World Social Forum. The hard thing was to make a choice which one to go to. There weren't a lot of descriptions in the handbook sometimes, so often we just had to pick one and see how it all turned out. You never knew what you were going to get. And there were so many interviews and recordings that we weren't able to fit in to Ears on the Earth, our daily podcast during the Forum. In weeks to come, we'll bring you more of the sounds, conversations and panels that we gathered. Today, two more. 1) Joseph Wawatie is an Algonquin Elder from Barriere Lake in western Quebec. In 2012, he was arrested for protesting logging on his traditional territory — land which remains unceded territory. He was part of a panel discussion at the World Social Forum called Indigenous Peoples' Struggles and Resistance. He speaks of his traditional life in the bush, and the challenges his nation faces. 2) Norman Stockwell, publisher of The Progressive: rabble radio host and rabble podcast network exec producer Victoria Fenner talked to Norman about the role of alternative media in this fractitious, extraordinary presidential election campaign that's happening right now. Bernie Sanders was a great choice for president. Hillary Clinton — well, opinion is mixed on that. Yet, if they don't want Donald Trump for president, Hillary's it. So what's a progressive to do when there are no good alternatives? 3) Looking ahead — we have a new podcast on the rpn. Who is Thaddeus Barnes and why do you need to hunt for his Strange Copper Cylinders. With rabble podcast network and co-founder Wayne MacPhail, who is also now a dramatist, director and audio playwright. Find out more on Harrowsmith Now!

Just because you can't touch, see or smell sound doesn't mean that the sounds around us don't affect us just as much as the quality of our water, air and physical environment. Today's program is all about listening. July 18 was World Listening Day, named because it is the birthday of Canadian composer, educator and sound environmentalist R. Murray Schafer. The founder of the World Soundscape Project at Simon Fraser University in the mid '70s influenced several generations of listeners world wide who listen, document and contextualize the sounds we hear around us. 1. An interview with Darren Copeland, artistic director of New Adventures in Sound Art. NAISA's celebration of World Listening Day was held on July 16, 2016 at the Canadian Music Centre in Toronto. It was called Sounds Lost and Found. 2. An excerpt from Station Breaks, a composition by sound artist, journalist and rabble podcast network executive producer Victoria Fenner, performed at Sounds Lost and Found. 3. An interview about a new online exhibition called Audio Postcards, a project of the Canadian Association for Sound Ecology. With Andrea Dancer, president of the Canadian Association for Sound Ecology, and soundscape composer and acoustic ecologist Hildegard Westerkamp.

The media landscape isn't at all the same today as it was 15 years ago when rabble.ca first started publishing on the Internet. In 2001, we looked at web pages. They were mostly text and image which didn't move. And there wasn't much to hear either except your hands clicking on the keyboard. YouTube wasn't invented until 2005 (the same year rabble established the podcast network). And the terms "apps" and "social media" wouldn't come into common usage for at least five years after … Snapchat, Twitter … what's that? Now, in 2016, everyone who works in media is working in an extremely challenging, ever-shifting environment. On the June 17 weekend, rabble staff gathered in Toronto for a weekend planning retreat to start to chart our NEXT 15 years. The weekend began with a provocative discussion by our director of emerging media, Wayne MacPhail on "Soapboxes, Sellouts and Upstarts: The Canadian Media Landscape — and where rabble fits in," with an introduction by rabble co-founder Judy Rebick. This month's rabble radio is an excerpted version of that discussion.

Here in Canada we don't have as many Black Lives Matter chapters as there are in the United States but the ideas are just as relevant. Despite our beliefs in this country that we are not racist and not violent, Black Lives Matter is helping us see that those perspectives aren't accurate. Today, we'll hear about the two Black Lives Matter chapters in Canada, in two different cities. Toronto and Vancouver has very different ways of exploring and challenging racism. 1. Desmond Cole has emerged as one of the strongest voices for the rights of black people in Toronto in recent years. A noted journalist, his articles have appeared in various publications including The Walrus, Toronto Star, Vice, and NOW. He's a radio host on Newstalk 1010 in Toronto, and until recently, was cohost of Canadaland Commons. He's one of the go-to people when the media explores issues of racism in Toronto. rabble podcast network reporter and associate producer Kvesche Be got the opportunity to talk to Desmond Cole at Ruckus, an Annual Conference in Toronto to empower youth to act on issues of racism and oppression, held on April 28 at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. Desmond reflects on the progress of Black Lives Matter in Toronto over the past 18 months. 2. Cicely-Belle Blain is a queer, black, femme poet, artist, full time child-care provider and community organizer who has been a settler on Coast Salish lands for four years. Originally from London, England, she has been working on bringing accessibility and inclusivity to spaces, mainly at UBC, where she studied European Studies and Russian. Cicely-Belle's current projects include co-founding a chapter of the Black Lives Matter movement in Vancouver, writing a novel on Black queer love and archiving the history of racialized student activism across North America. An excerpt from the MsRepresent podcast on the rabble podcast network. Thanks to Charlene Sayo, podcast host and interviewer in this feature. You can hear the whole program here. Read rabble's two-part interview with BLM organizer Janaya Khan here and here.

August may seem like a ways away, but for the organizers of the World Social Forum in Montreal in August, time is ticking away. Two years ago in August, the city of Ottawa was the site for a warmup to the World Social Forum. The Peoples' Social Forum was a huge event. The thing about these kinds of Social Forums is that they are very ambitious. Anybody can propose a workshop, or a discussion group. The result of this is an incredible amount of energy in one place, and lots to talk about and think about. In a lot of ways, Ottawa was a dress rehearsal for the World Social Forum, which will be held in Montreal from August 9-14, 2016. A look back at the Peoples' Social Forum and a look ahead to what's being planned when the world comes to Montreal .. 1) Earlier this month, Talking Radical Radio did a whole program about the World Social Forum. Here is an excerpt from that program, where host Scott Neigh talks to Sarah Sultani And Katia Stuart-Gagnon. 2) rabble.ca was there at the People's Social Forum in 2014, doing a podcast every day for rabble radio. Here's are some of the voices, sounds and ideas from Ottawa.

Honduras is a country that doesn't show up in the news very often, especially here in Canada. A quick google search brought up links for travel destinations, World Cup soccer and the free trade agreement which Canada signed with Honduras on October 1, 2014. The Canada-Honduras Free Trade website lists the population of Honduras as 8.2 million. What it doesn't say is that there was a U.S. backed coup in 2009 which resulted in the overthrow of the democratically elected president of Honduras. It's a country where it's dangerous to challenge power. 1. Berta Cáceres was a leading organizer for Indigenous land rights and the environment in Honduras, a country where that's a very dangerous thing to be. She was murdered on March 3, 2016. Beverley Bell was a long-time friend and colleague of Cáceres and is co-ordinator of Other Worlds, a women-driven education and movement-building collaborative organization. Other Worlds inspires hope and knowledge that another world is possible, and helps build it. She speaks with Redeye host Jane Williams. Yet, in the midst of the danger, grassroots community organization continues to flourish. 2. David Barth is the executive director of World Accord, a Waterloo-based aid agency that has done work in Honduran rural communities for 30 years. He shares his perspective on why Honduras is a violent place, and how the violence affects their work. 3. Seed Liberation — In the previous interview, David Barth talked about World Accord's work with farmer groups who are deeply connected to their mountain communities, maintaining their traditional ways of life while adapting to a changing world. Victoria Fenner went to Honduras in 2010 with World Accord. She did this documentary about Honduran farmer groups for The Green Planet Monitor.

What a couple of months it's been in media land. Newspapers folding, television stations getting out of local news… all because of the Internet, they say. We don't hear much about radio, though. 1. Today we go to Podcamp Toronto and hear about something that hasn't changed in radio. There still are way too few women on the air. rabble radio contributor Kveshe Be tells us about a study on diversity in radio done by Ryerson University Professor Lori Beckstead. 2. Yes, you can do a podcast — Podcast DIY. Some great advice from rabble podcast network cofounder Wayne MacPhail from way back on October 17, 2005. Surprisingly, very little has changed. Except that we're not using mini-disc recorders anymore and the tools are cheaper and easier than ever. 3. There's a little corner of rabble that we're especially proud of. It's called The Lynn Williams Activist Toolkit. And we're happy happy happy to announce the return of Constructing Change, the podcast of the Lynn Williams Activist Toolkit. Here's a replay of the episode that went up just a week ago.