rabble radio

This month on rabble radio, we have a couple of interviews which provide some of the background behind the headlines about the attack on Gaza. Tyler Levitan – Campaigns Coordinator with Independent Jewish Voices, a national human rights organization whose mandate is to promote a just resolution to the dispute in Israel and Palestine through the application of international law and respect for the human rights of all parties. He speaks with Redeye host Esther Hsieh. For more perspectives on the attack on Gaza, go to the blog of Independent Jewish Voices on rabble.ca. Palestinian socialist and activist Reem Unis. She lives in Melbourne Australia and had a conversation with Asia Pacific Current's Jiselle Hanna. In addition to sharing thoughts about what is happening in her homeland, Reem Unis also shares her perspective on the role of Egypt in the peace process, and what other countries around the world can do to further the cause of peace in Gaza. Introducing — a new podcast on the rabble podcast network. rpn executive producer Victoria Fenner talks to Rachel Swatek, producer of Groundwire, a news magazine by volunteers with campus and community radio stations across the country.

Please support our coverage of democratic movements and become a monthly supporter of rabble.ca. It's summer time and it's time to have some fun. But that doesn't mean we have to put aside our work to change the world. We can dance, we can sing and we can change the world too. A summer celebration of creativity featuring The Femme City Choir of Vancouver, the Howl Arts Collective of Montreal and rabble.ca. Arianna Barer of the podcast The F Word talks to Femme City Choir members Lau Sequins and Kate Monstrr. It's a choir that sings in sweet harmony to celebrate difference. In their own words, THIS choir is an all-genders, queer and trans* centred femme-fabulous singing extravaganza! Celebrating and elevating self-identified femme-ness through song. Scott Neigh of Talking Radical Radio talks to Stefan Christoff of Montreal's Howl Arts Collective. They are firm believers that culture and arts and creativity and creation are always integral to movements. To demonstrate that, not only do they point to pretty much every movement of the past that has had any lasting impact, but they also point out that — particularly given the scorn and dismissal that movements so often face from mainstream meaning-makers — that such work is really the only way that movements can know and be known by the world; can remember and help build histories of struggle; can allow us to truly feel, deep in our bones, what it means to dream of and to deserve something better. The Year of Living Consciously – The Best of rabble.ca 2014 — It's the 13th anniversary of rabble, we've just released a new book — The Best of rabble.ca 2014 Edition – The Art of Living Consciously. We've been having launch parties all over the country. And it's also our donation drive right now — we do a lot with a pretty small budget. But even so, good, independent journalism costs good money. So please, go to rabble.ca/donate … and help keep rabble going. On June 17, we had the Ottawa launch of The Best of rabble.ca. It was a great opportunity to connect with some of our Ottawa supporters. Together with fabulous music by our own reporter on Parliament Hill, Karl Nerenberg and friends, it was a great time. rabble radio is produced by Victoria Fenner and co-hosted by Victoria and rabble Editor in Chief Meagan Perry.

Intersectionality. It's a big word, and it has to be, because it is the idea that we can unite our social justice struggles, that it is impossible and unwise to separating them into single-issue campaigns. For activists, intersectionality is both a gift and a challenge. Sharon Smith is a feminist socialist activist and the writer of Subterranean Fire: A History of Working-Class radicalism in the United States. She spoke about intersectionality at the Socialism 2013 Conference in Chicago, Illinois. rabble.ca's F-Word podcast was there to record it. Here's part of her address. Dalhousie University made the news this year for creating gender-neutral washrooms. That's just one example of success in activismthat seeks to create safe spaces for trans people on campus. It's part of an upswing in community activism around Halifax for gender justice, which uses a model that understands that work for social justice occurs on many intersecting levels such as race, class, sexuality, gender, ability, and more. Scott Neigh talked with Jude Ashburn, a queer and non-binary transperson who has worked for a number of inclusivity initiatives in Halifax. Ashburn has also been an organizer with Rad Pride Halifax, an alternative to the city's more mainstream Pride celebration. Scott started the interview by asking Jude about Gender justice. Well, no matter where you choose to focus your personal radical action, and who you are, you will probably end up paying taxes. And while politicians love to promise us lower tax rates, and comedians love to joke about the taxman, there are economists across Canada who want to tell you why taxes are great. They gathered together for a panel hosted by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and sponsored by rabble.ca. The panel was excellent — I know because I was there. It featured economists Armine Yalnizyan, Trish Hennessey, Yves-Lynne Couturier, and Toby Sanger. You can hear the entire presentation over at the Needs No Introduction podcast at rabble.ca/podcasts, but we thought we'd bring you a little bit of it here. The special guest speaker that evening was former privy council clerk and the author of "Tax is not a four letter word" Alex Himelfarb. Here is part of his address.

In October of 2013 over 2.5 million workers staged a national strike in Indonesia. Recently the Asia Pacific Currents podcast produced a special program exploring the current state of labour in Indonesia. Here we feature Diana Beaumont in conversation with Kirstie Hoban, an Australian union organizer living in Indonesia. Tara Hardy is a working-class queer femme poet who writes and teaches in Seattle, Washington. She was the recipient of the 2011 Washington Poet's Association Burning Word Award, and in this episode of rabble radio, we get to hear her perform her piece "red states". A lot of people work hard to grow food, but without land, growing food gets pretty tough pretty quickly. Up until the 1970s thousands of hectares of farmland were being lost each year all over the world, and the Vancouver area was no exception. In the 1970s the government decided to do something about the loss of farmland. To protect prime farming land from development, it created the Agricultural Land Reserve or ALR. The pressures to build on urban farmland are huge and Tom Baumann, a professor at the University of the Fraser has been involved in ALR issues for many years. Lorraine Chisholm from the Redeye podcast caught up with him for an interview. All farm work and gardening involves bugs. But in in Ottawa Ontario BUGs is an acronym. It stands for the Bytowne Urban Gardens project. rabble.ca's own Megan Stacey interviewed two folks with BUGs, Myka Riopel and Pamela Scaiff about the excitement and challenges of urban gardening.

Rape culture is a term we hear more and more. But what is it? How pervasive is it? And who is affected? Where do we see rape culture? So many questions. Well to help you understand, we've got a radio documentary! It's produced by rabble.ca's own Meghan Stacey. It comes to us from the Rad Voices, the podcast that is produced for the Lynn Williams Activist Toolkit as a resource for activists. Loretta Ross has decades of work in the women's movement under her belt. She's worked to end violence against women and promote reproductive justice in the United States and around the world. Ross was active in the black nationalist and civil rights movements. In the 1970s, she directed one of the first rape crisis centres in the United States, and she was one of the first African American women to hold that position. From 1996-2004, she was the Founder and Executive Director of the National Center for Human Rights Education in Atlanta, Georgia.Here are some of her thoughts from a presentation in Guelph, Ontario. The band Blondie is famously named for what men used to shout out to Debbie Harry as she walked down the street. That was back in the 70s, but not much has changed. Angela Matthews is a researcher and activist and volunteer at the Women Against Violence Against Women Rape Crisis Centre. She recently conducted research on stranger harassment and its impact on the holistic health of women and the health of our communities. Ariana Barer) from the F-Word caught up with Angela Matthews to learn more about her research.

Joey "Shithead" Keithley is one of the founders of the legendary Vancouver punk band DOA. For him punk music was a natural progression from the music of the hippies and the sounds of protests from the sixties. Here he speaks with David Swanson about the evolution of punk, and the music of political activism. Doug Karr has been creating original independent films since 1997. Karr's credits include narrative shorts Tiny Dancer, The Straitjacket Lottery and the award-winning documentaries LSD25, The June Bug Symphony, Lifecycles: a story of AIDS in Malawi, and The Face of AIDS. Doug has new film opening, The Art Machine, and he spoke with David Peck about the film, filmmaking, and how seeing a remake of the film Lawrence of Arabia, at 9 years old, changed his life. Film lover, watcher and reviewer Cathi Bond has a city that fascinates her. Now she has found a great documentary to help her explore it Visit rabble.ca/podcasts for great shows!

Nova Scotia's potential fracking game changer. We get the scoop on the Northern Gateway pipeline ruling, supporting trans and queer prisoners, and a movie review. Pressure is building in many communities to stop hydraulic fracturing or "fracking" as a method to extract natural gas. We will hear about a proposed law in Nova Scotia that could be a fracking game changer. Hear the whole episode of "Habitat" here. Then we get energized about the government's recent ruling about the northern gateway pipeline. We hear from an environmental lawyer who lays down the law. Tune in to the "Redeye" episode we feature here. And when there is law, it seems there are prisons. From rabble.ca's own show, "rad voices", we have an interview with a prison abolitionist activist working to support prisoners and change the system. It is the tax system that needs to be changed to develop Africa, says one tax justice activist. What is tax justice and how can it be achieved? Tune in to find out. Hear the whole interview on Africa files here. Finally rabble contributor Cathi Bond turns her cinematic eye to an offbeat film that might just reflect a new brand of chick flick. Catch all of Cathi's reviews on "Watch Me." And if you can, please chip in to support the rabble podcast network and rabble.ca. It takes just a moment at www.rabble.ca/donate

Ariel Sharon died on Saturday, January 11, 2014. When Ariel Sharon fell into a coma in 2006, rabble.ca's Redeye podcast spoke about Sharon's legacy with Palestinian-American journalist and co-founder of electronicintifada.net Ali Abunimah.

As 2013 was coming to an end the world saw the passing of South African revolutionary and president Nelson Mandela. During this, our last show of the year, we dedicate the show to reflections on the life and work of Mandela. We are airing excerpts from a special episode of Amandla – a weekly African current affairs program produced in English and French on CKUT 90.3 in Montreal. You can hear their full show right here. This is our last show of the year, if you have enjoyed rabble radio this year, please chip in a few dollars to support this kind of programing. You can help out at rabble.ca/donate.

Halloween is a time where we can, with good friends around, face some of our fears. In this episode we will hear some scary stuff. Don't worry though, we haven't forgotten the treat. We start with the terrifying world of water. Maude Barlow is the national chairperson of the Council of Canadians, and activist and an author. Recently she launched the final installment of her trilogy on water, the book Blue Future. She spoke to a packed house in Ottawa earlier this month and this is some of what she had to say. Get the whole thing here. On July 1, 1958 the St Lawrence Seaway flooded out 6,500 people and inundated 10 communities, some over 200 years old. Hear the stories of people that were there and reflections from Louis Helbig who interviewed them. You can hear the whole show at the rpn here. Cancer is frightening. Yet when women get breast cancer there is, it seems, a cultural pressure to emphasize optimism and delegitimize anger. Emilia Nielsen is a sessional faculty member and ph.d candidate at UBC candidate whose research focuses on breast cancer narratives and feminism. Listen to Caity Goerke from the F-Word in conversation with Emilia Nielsen. Hear the whole interview here. And now for our treat. El Jones is an activist and a poet. In fact she is the poet poet laureate of the Halifax Regional Municipality. Recently Jones spoke to Scott Neigh about poetry, activism and the politics of poetry. She also shared a beautiful spoken word poem. Lend us your ear. Hear the whole thing here. This weekend ends our rabble fundraising drive in support of Karl Nerenberg. Karl has been busy reporting on the almost always frightening politics that come out of Parliament. With support from the community we can have him reporting for the rest of the year. Please donate at rabble.ca/donate if you can. The good news is you can win great prizes that, unlike that Halloween candy, your dentist won't hate.