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June Swadron is a successful writing coach, author, and therapist. In this interview with Lyn Thompson from rabble.ca's Living on Purpose podcast, she talks about learning to write about one of her most secret truths, living with bi-polar disorder. The Reel Women have a spy movie for you that you might not have heard of. It is a good one for long winter nights. Loud Fast Rules. It's a rerelease of The Stimulators' 1982 album. And if watching a movie on the couch doesn't get your blood pumping, this song just might: Loud Fast Rules OS Chrome is an operating system for cheap, fast netbooks. And it is coming out later this year, but there is a cheap fast alternative. Wayne MacPhail tells us what it is. Getting more eco-conscious is a new year's goal for many. rabble.ca's Alternatives podcast has an interview to inspire you. Andrew Heintzman is a venture capitalist who's book The New Entrepreneurs: Building a Green Economy For the Future, talks about why the environment and the economy don't need to be at loggerheads.

Velcrow Ripper reports from the Cancun climate summit. A woman living with mental illness and addiction talks about how supportive housing has kept her from dying. Julian Assange's words after being released on bail. The open Internet provides a safe space for feminist ideas. Blogger Amanda Marcotte speaks to the interviewers at The F Word.

Report from the daily podcast from the UN Climate Summit, post-election checkin in Haiti and George Galloway answers tough questions.

Should we be able to criticize war on Remembrance Day, Aung San Suu Kyi — what does her freedom mean, and demanding better food for the poor.

In this podcast, a feature interview with activist and academic Phyllis Bennis. Phyllis Bennis has spent a lifetime working toward peace in the middle east. She is a fellow of both the Transnational Institute and the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C., where she is the director of the New Internationalism Project. She specializes in U.S. Foreign Policy Issues, particularly involving the Middle East and the United Nations. But she is watching Canada's role in Afghanistan as well. rabble.ca blogger and podcaster John Bonnar wasted no time calling her up when she arrived to speak in Toronto just before Halloween. They had a long chat, and we thought we could feature it here. Bennis started by talking about Canada's role in Afghanistan.

Remember those anti-tar sands posters and ads that hit the news way back in the summer? Those posters and ads were produced by environmentalist groups in the United States, including the Sierra Club. and while those kinds of images haven't hit the news recently, activist work has not stopped since then. The Energy Justice Network is a group that works with local communities to track and record all the dirty energy and waste facilities in the United States. The group also advocates against the use of nuclear and fossil fuels. Mike Ewall is the director of the group, and he spoke to the rabble podcast network's Redeye podcast. Here's part of that interview. Where is the female MC? In hiphop, women are seen and not very often heard. The rabble podcast network's F-Word podcast decided to make some noise about that this month. Here's part of their interview with Canadian-born, critically acclaimed MC, Eternia. Music: Eternia with To The Future. What happens when an entire community has the power to talk to each other in real time, commit acts of journalism and rally around six characters. Find out, in our new tech column.

He says. She says. Jesse Rosenfeld was writing for The Guardian newspaper when G20 security beat him up and arrested him. Amy Goodman on what it means to have a real independent media. Jesse Rosenfeld was writing for The Guardian when G20 security beat him up and arrested him. rabble radio spoke to him a few hours after he was released from detention. Amy Goodman is the host of the radio/tv/podcast Democracy Now! Friday night, at the Council of Canadians event Shout Out For Global Justice, she spoke about what it means to have an independent media, and why it is important. Interview with Jesse Rosenfeld, transcribed: Meagan Perry: You were reporting for the Guardian newspaper when you were detained, what was your assignment with them? Jesse Rosenfeld: Well I'd been working for Comment Is Free on a three part series on the G8 and G20 focused on the flashpoints of empire and contesting democracy. And looking at comparing the self created legitimacy that the G8 and G20 have based on their own political and economic power. Compared with the alternative to their economic vision and the global economic plan of the 20 wealthiest nations with the alternatives that were coming from the streets and the kind of coalitions coming from the streets. I'd already gotten out a piece about indigenous sovereignty that went online on Friday about the demonstration and the context of contesting sovereignty. I was working on the piece about contesting the global economy when I was arrested, penned in at the demonstration in front of the Novotel Hotel on the Esplanade just south of Front Street. MP: Before all of that happened what was your impression of that crowd? JR: It was really interesting, it was possibly one of the most interesting political moments I've seen here in Toronto and I grew up in Toronto and left when I was 18. What was so interesting about that demonstration is that it wasn't the long developed, theoretically thought out radicals that had organized the whole thing. It was actually people that had almost been instantly radicalized when the police threw them out of Queens Park – the one free speech zone. When police beat, arrested and pushed people all the way up to Bloor Street, they reorganized and almost 1,000 people decided: "Well if the state won't give us any place to express ourselves than we'll take it directly to the fence." And they marched down to the fence. What was interesting was that you could tell the sort of organic nature of how people were thinking these things out in the street. The kind of discussions they were having about the G8/G20 and this highly unorganized march that was basically guided by the political determination to make sure these issues stay central. MP: How were the police reacting at that point? JR: Well, I mean the thing was the police had thrown everyone out of Queens Park and I guess they were completely surprised at what happened. We had gotten down to the fence in two different places where the police penned people in who were able to negotiate with the police and they let them out. Eventually they went on to the Novotel Hotel area where they were blocked in by riot police on both sides. When the riot police found out that they were not Novotel Hotel workers who were currently on strike, well many people were highly sympathetic to the Novotel workers strike, when they found out they weren't actually workers from the hotel they immediately moved in and started making mass arrests. I was with the block of media and some of the alternative press said: "Okay how are we going to deal with the situation?" We were obviously covering what was going on, so we asked the police: "Are you going to be arresting the media too?" Their immediate response was yes, you are not supposed to be here, everyone will be arrested. Then they came back and said those who have the official summit media accreditation will be allowed. What is interesting is that I had applied for official summit media accreditation on June 11, I had given them my letter from the Guardian and it had been approved. Subsequently they said I wasn't going to be given my lanyard until I cleared an RCMP background check, which just kept going on and on and on. It was because of that, because I only had a media pass from the alternative media centre that the police decided to arrest me. When I originally told them about my assignment with the Guardian, but I was also in the editorial collective in covering the story with the Alternative Media Centre they said: "Alright we will check your credentials and your accreditation so come over to the side." Then and officer looked at my press pass and said that it wasn't legitimate and you're under arrest, after which I was immediately jumped and beaten to the ground. I was punched in the stomach, my arms were pulled back, and I was hit in the back when I went down. After I went down, cops piled on me — they were hitting me in the back of the ribs with their knees. They lifted up my leg and twisted my ankle as if they were trying to sprain it…my leg smacked against the curb on the way down, my face was pushed into the concrete. All of this interestingly happened after two police officers had identified that I was a 'loudmouth' that had been bothering them the day before. What had happened was, I was covering the front lines of different clash points at different demonstrations. Both at the queer demonstration against the G20 earlier in the week and at the demonstration on the Friday and I was on the front lines when some other reporters I worked with were hit in the face and had their microphones snatched. I was covering (the demonstrations) when they were directly targeting arrests at activists or anyone they could grab through what looked like racial profiling. They were first taking any kids of colour and people with indigenous backgrounds. I had been on the frontline documenting all of this, I had been out forcefully with a piece in the Guardian discussing RCMP and Toronto Police racism, so it was clear to me that this attack was political. MP: When you were at Novotel and you were negotiating with the police, before they said that this isn't legitimate and threw you to the ground. Did you have any sense that that was going to happen to you? JR: I mean I could tell that they were a little put off and I suspected that they may try to arrest me. I wasn't expecting to get beaten. To be honest I'm not surprised, this is what the Toronto Police do. This is what Canadian police forces do. They beat people when they think that they can get away with it. It is not a new story, it may be new that it is happening to someone who is an accredited international journalist and someone who is white, in their upper twenties and male, but it is a daily reality for indigenous people, people of colour, people living in ghettoized communities, queer communities. This is the daily reality for them when it comes to police violence without justification apart from the fact police want to subdue that element of society and what it might say. MP: What did you experience in detention? JR: It was kind of interesting. I've been working in the Middle East as a journalist for the last three years and I've never seen a jail like that in Canada. It did remind me a lot of, in many similar ways, of the way that Israelis' detain Palestinians, or the way. Palestinian Authority jails work. What happened was, we were in handcuffs from 10:30 in the evening when I was arrested, until 5:00 in the morning. In an overcrowded cell with people, a porta-potty washroom, sparse access to water and never enough water when it was needed. Finally I was moved through into processing, I was moved into a 5 x 8 cell with five other people and I mean, you couldn't even all lay down at the same time. There were no benches, no bathroom, it was just a cold concrete floor. The centre was just absolutely freezing and we weren't given any blankets or anything. I was in there from about 11:30 until 5:30 a.m. I only got my phone call to my lawyer at about 3 p.m., although I had been demanding it the entire time. MP: There were a number of Twitter reports of people not being able to call lawyers at all. Is that something you can verify? JR: Yeah. I told them I was a journalist, they wouldn't allow me to call my lawyer. I heard that my editor had tried to get through and made a call to the police, but obviously hadn't been able to get through. I saw other independent media journalists that had been beaten badly, other people that I had worked with at the AMC throughout the week who had been arrested. I saw all sorts of different kinds of people that had all been taken down. I was witnessing these arrests, unprovoked, brutally violent arrests. People with blood gushing from their face all over their shirts even while being brought into jail, black eyes on both sides, scrapes all over their bodies, walking with limps. In my cell even, three people were denied access to medication for incredible periods of time. One guy had an asthma attack and I don't think he got his ventilator for over 40 minutes. Another guy had anti-anxiety medication and it took him hours to get his pills. This other guy had both of his shoulders dislocated, he had a muscular issue, which had been exacerbated by his handcuffing, and the police took hours upon hours to give him his anti-inflammatory medication. He was just sitting there with dislocated shoulders. MP: What are you hearing from people abroad? What kind of reaction are you hearing? I'm assuming you are talking with your editors in the U.K.? JR: I haven't had a direct line to my editors yet, I've just been out of jail for several hours now and I haven't been able to get through. I intend to talk with them soon. But, from the community around me I have felt incredible support and there has been incredible organization outside. I really appreciate it. Especially the fact that people realize that it is not just me. This has been happening to people across the board, the only reason I'm getting attention is because I happen to be an accredited journalist. I am expressing the same opinion, or similar ideas to other media that is getting arrested and we are discussing the same ideas as the people in the streets are. These are all the ideas that the government and the police force are trying to sweep from the streets and not have this discussion in Canada. MP: What are you hoping to see in Canada after this? JR: It is very much what I am looking at in these pieces, the alternatives that come from the streets. I'm very much hoping that as global empires decide to restructure themselves from the G8/G20 in terms of negotiating an international enforced consensus both politically and economically and the alternatives from the streets really start to jettison not just an idea of specific grievances, but actually alternative systems that are coming out in both the organization and … of things starting to happen and I've been quite impressed by it. MP: Well thanks for talking to us today. JR: From what I hear we still have all the other people in jail that need to be defended. We need to get our people out. MP: Absolutely. How long do you think that is going to take? JR: Who knows? They've gone after the organizers all weekend. We have people being detained on warrants, we have all sorts of trumped up charges that we're looking at. We're looking at a government completely intent on breaking social movements in this country. It needs to be fought. It needs to be fought bitterly. It needs to be fought on all fronts.

Queer honourees give their awards back to Pride Toronto over the banning of the term Israeli-apartheid, pre-G20 African activists speak out on celebrity activism, and coming out in Uganda where Pride is no party. Queer activists should be able to stand up for human rights. James Loney talks about why he is giving back his Fearless Award to Pride Toronto. Pride is political and Pride Toronto should not dictate what politics are not allowed. Jane Farrow talks about why she is refusing the title of Honoured Dyke in the 2010 Toronto Pride March. Last year we spoke to gay and lesbian activist Frank Mugisha, who was speaking against Uganda's anti-homosexuality bill. In this podcast, we'll hear how one Ugandan gay activist accepted his own sexuality. Bob Geldof and Bono are celebrity editors who helped the Globe write about Africa. But African activists have some critiques of the work they do. In this interview, produced by No One Is Illegal, Makoma Lekalakala of Johannesburg's Earthlife Africa speaks about what African activists think would help the G20. June 23 update: Pride Toronto announced they will not ban the term Israeli-apartheid from use during Pride. More to follow in the next episode of rabble radio.

In his first interview since being released from Israeli detention, a Canadian activist from the Free Gaza Flotilla activist describes seeing solidarity in the face of death, and what happened when the Israeli military took control of the humanitarian aid ship and arrested those on board. Kevin Neish tells his story to the media for the first time in this episode of rabble radio. Part of the interview is excerpted here: Meagan Perry: Hello Kevin Neish, we're so glad you're okay. Kevin Neish: Hello there…I'm, well I didn't realize I was dead but …I'm glad I'm not dead. I mean I was kind of surprised…needless to say, everybody thought I was dead. MP: There are varying reports about what had happened… KN: It seems ask anybody who wasn't in jail or you could get ahold of saw me was at the front of the ship along the handrailing talking to a colleague in the moonlight… beautiful evening. And that was the spot that I guess several people were murdered earlier on in the fighting and they thought I was one of them and that I'd been pitched over the side by the Israelis or something. So yeah the Israelis knew I was alive but weren't telling anybody and I asked for my rights to the embassy I bet you 20 times. So the embassy actually found me because the prisoners were all in Be'er Sheva and they literally just went from cell to cell calling out my name asking anybody if anybody had seen me and nobody had seen me. I think they came to almost the last place I think… and they called me out and I stepped out and their jaws dropped. The rest is history. MP: So nobody knew what had happened to you…what did happen to you? KN: What happened from that spot on the front deck. I think that was about midnight. I think the attack happened around 4:00 a.m. in the morning, I didn't check my watch. What happened was I took a little wander around after chatting with the friend there…I saw the Israeli ships in the distance. I've got colour blindness partially and I've got really good night vision because of that so I actually pointed out to the Turkish aid workers: "See those identical lights way off in the horizon" and they squint and say: "Probably the Israelis" and everbody got their life jackets on except me and they were quite concerned that I didn't have my life jacket on yet because I didn't take it seriously. You know,the Israelis they wouldn't attack us, a ship full of civilians. It just wasn't going to happen…I told them so and they thought I was nuts and they were right, I was nuts. They had wooden stakes and wooden handles of things, and they had pipes and they had links of chain — small chain, you could lock up a bike with. Across along the front railing, the teak railing on the front of the ship, was lined with old rusty pipe fittings and nuts and bolts, the size of a walnut… things like that. This is madness, I said what are you going to do with nuts and bolts you're throwing at the most sophisticated army in the world. After that, I thought nothing was going to happen, I thought well I'm going to go down and put my feet up and have a few hours sleep and start off fresh when daylight comes. But I woke up because of all the noise, and what not, not the attack but people doing things. I heard grinders going which was bothering me and it turned out they were grinding the chains that they hang up around the lifeboat stations. They were grinding these chains off the middle posts as weapons within sight of the Israelis coming…and that's all they had. MP: As a peace activist, what were your feelings about everyone preparing to fight back? KN: They had every right to do it. Well peace activist, I'm not a pacifist, I'll defend myself if someone attacks me. What woke me up was flash grenades about 15 feet from the back of the ship. There were a huge explosions and flashes and then it was just a big cloud of tear gas and I could see people running through the tear gas with gas masks on because they had brought a large collection of gas masks, brand new ones. And again, I thought it was silly, at one point, I saw them putting these things on. So that happened and I mistakenly thought I was safer on the big ship a) because I thought the big ship would get through to Gaza because it was such a big ship. I thought what could they do to such a big ship like that and I thought for sure the small ships would get picked off and they were picked off. They were shut down immediately, no resistance. Even the freighters were shut down, they had very small crews. At the end they made a combined effort on the main ship and that's when all hell broke loose. MP: What did you see then? KN: I saw dead bodies. I saw captured Israeli soldiers, I saw men fighting machine guns with three foot length of chain. It was phenomenal. When the flash grenades went off at the back I took note of what was happening there but I didn't approach it I backed off and just took note of what they were doing. They were hauling fire hoses out and what not. After the fact I found out that the firehoses actually worked. The Israelis backed off. They had zodiacs and speed boats with grapples trying to climb up the side of the ship. The firehoses and I guess the nuts and bolts actually drove the Israelis off. At the same time they had commandos coming down from helicopters over top. So I moved and took photographs went up and down the stairs following people and being of whatever assistance, witnessing and helping with things if I could. I was actually when they hauled the captured Israeli soldiers in. I can't imagine how these young fellas with all the weapons you could possibly want, how these commandos got captured by humanitarian aid workers. As far as what I saw, when it started I took photographs of this landing and they had a tarp for one person, an IV pole and a nurse and a doctor and basic instruments for medical emergency care. And in the end that whole area was full of bodies. There was people pounding on people's chests trying to bring people back. I saw for sure two people dead — there were two bullet holes, very neat; and I think one other guy died in front of me, he was sucking wind and his eyes were going, going, going. And there was blood, blood all down the stairs, blood everywhere. I got blood on my pants and boots. It was something else. I haven't seen any reports, I've seen nothing but I've heard the Israelis are saying that they attacked because they were shot at from the ship and that's a bald faced lie. Unless I missed something pretty dramatic somewhere, I heard no weapons fired, nobody else heard weapons fired. What I heard was the flash grenades and the tear gas of the start of the Israelis attacking. And then the helicopters started shooting onto the deck and that's when I started to hear gun fire from up above. MP: What was it like in detention when you got there? KN: Eventually, an announcement came over the air from the captain because the Israelis got to the bridge because they'd shot the people that were defending the bridge, and the captain surrendered the ship and he got onto the PA system immediately I guess because there was still fighting at the doorways and then the announcement came over the air in Arabic but I knew what it was because there was no other announcement, I knew what it meant…it was a very calm voice. Then a female voice came on announcing in English that everybody stop fighting, stop resisting, the bridge is seized, the Israelis have command of the ship, there's no sense risking your lives anymore, go to the lounges and drop your weapons — you know, weapons drop your pipes and chains and wooden staffs. I just retreated with all the other arab and turkish folks. I sat where I was before, near the back of the ship and there were Israelis peeking in the windows but they wouldn't come in and the woman's voice kept on coming over saying "Israeli soldiers please please stop shooting, we're not resisting anymore, we've released your captured soldiers. They're unharmed and they're released. Please stop attacking us." Eventually the Israelis, the soldiers, [Haneen Zoubi] she's an Arab Israeli Knesset member, she's in big shit, she's in jail right now, it's simple they took away her immunity so they can do whatever they want to her now. She acted as a liason, brave woman, she walked right out with her hands up because anyone who was standing, was a target, basically. She had her hands up and she came forward and explained that there were numerous injured. When that all happened they took us and hogtied us with plastic tie wraps behind our backs and marshalled us all up onto the open deck. There were 280 of us all tied up. MP: Where did they take you? What did they do with you? KN: They left us there for quite a while and you couldn't move. Talk about stress positions…you hogtie someone behind their back and force them to sit on their knees or on their ass, however they're first put down and not move, you didn't move. Eventually you'd start to hurt and try to wriggle around and then you'd get yelled and screamed at. There were two young, big strapping guys and I guess they had had enough of being humiliated, and being abused. They rose up and immediately you could see, the sun was coming up, the soldiers charging through the people on the grounds with their guns up. And these guys were toast so I got up… it made the Israelis stop because they knew who I was. They had my passport and they gave it back to me and they took 4,000 bucks of my friggin' money but yeah, we won't get into that….so yeah I stood up with these two guys hoping that the Israelis would pause and consider, not shoot and they didn't… the guns went down but yelling carried on…then next they used batons to beat them down. Then these two guys, I guess they'd made their point, and they kind of gracefully eased down and when they eased down I dropped pretty quickly…

Kevin Neish was detained in Israel for two days after the Free Gaza Flotilla was attacked and activists arrested. In this podcast he talks about his release and what activism means.