Tag: Chris Cook

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May is a time for commemorations that begins with: the May Day(s), the ancient pagan ritual for Spring, and marking of Labour solidarity in Europe and America; and of course, tomorrow’s Cinco de Mayo remembrance of one of Mexico’s successful revolutions. But for the residents of Odessa, Ukraine’s third city and most important seaport, May the 2nd is no celebration. It’s a date that will live forever in infamy.

Two years ago, during the Western-inspired Maidan uprising, scores of citizen resistors to the Kiev coup were killed, burned alive by the fascist mob as they took shelter in the House of Trade Unions building in Kulikovo Square. Hundreds more were injured.

Listen. Hear.

The regime is yet to bring the investigation into the atrocity forward; in fact, after two years, the only ones in prison for what happened on May second are survivors of the attacks.

That failure is emblematic of the hopelessly corrupt and unjust rule of Washington’s puppet, Petro Poroshenko; two years into Kiev’s war-torn rule of Ukraine the country teeters tenuously on the brink of total disaster.

Roger Annis is a longtime socialist, trade union activist, and prolific essayist in the cause of social justice and peace both in Canada and abroad. He’s a contributing editor at the website New Cold War, where he’s written extensively on Ukraine, and his articles can also be found at his website, A Socialist in Canada, and at Rabble.ca, and Counterpunch.org.

Roger Annis in the first segment.

And; not to be left behind, Canada too has been busy enabling corrupt and violent regimes murder and maim innocents. As the body count of the House of Saud’s relentless onslaught in neigbouring Yemen continues to increase, Ottawa is beavering away to sign as many “defense” contracts as it can muster; possibly before the dammed outrage in the region, and indeed the World, breaks, washing finally away the Saudi’s forever.

Anthony Fenton is an independent researcher, former journalist, author, and PhD candidate studying the political economy of Canada-Gulf Cooperation Council, or GCC relations. Anthony co-authored, with Yves Engler, ‘Canada in Haiti: Waging War on the Poor Majority,’ and his many articles have been featured by the Asia Times Online, The Dominion, Foreign Policy in Focus, Inter Press Service News, Mother Jones, and Upside Down World.

Anthony Fenton and Ottawa arming its friends in the Saudi war zone in the second half.

And; Victoria Street Newz publisher emeritus and CFUV Radio broadcaster, Janine Bandcroft will NOT join us as is usual today; prior commitments demanding her more immediate attention. So, first up, Roger Annis and Kiev’s victory two years later.

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With the rolling back of labour rights, deterioration of working conditions, government maintenance of an artificially high unemployment rate, proliferation of guest worker programs, and prolonged wage stagnation we’ve witnessed over the last few decades, the workers around here, if not the World, have good reason to cry “May Day” But who would answer the call now? As with much of labour history, even that term has been appropriated, its original meaning and intent being all but erased from public consciousness.

Art Farquharson is a fully paid, life-long member of the Working Class. He’s laboured in the fields and factories of this nation, and on its highways and high seas too. A proud unionist, Art’s held CAW, Unifor, Machinists, Public Service Alliance, IATSE, and Ferry Workers Union union cards.

He’s also a card-carrying member of the Industrial Workers of the World, or Wobblies, who never misses a chance to sing, march, or provide guitar accompaniment for pickets, protests, demonstrations, or celebrations of the working people like the Corporate Golden Piggy Awards, and New Year’s Day Poor People’s Levee Tour. In short, Art says he “comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable,” adding, “There is no retirement from being a citizen, [and] can be no rest until all workers the world over have peace and justice.”

Art Farquharson in the first segment.

And; earlier this month, Citizen’s Forum, a public access public affairs program produced by volunteers at Victoria’s Shaw Cable affiliate, in accordance with the CRTC’s mandate to cable operators in return for the market monopolies they enjoy, was axed. Jack Etkin is the long-time, Victoria-based democracy and media activist who hosted and produced the show. He’s also behind a number of other media and democracy projects around here, and has been for more than a decade.

Jack Etkin on the demise of Citizen’s Forum, corporate media, and Canada’s frail democracy.

And; Victoria Street Newz publisher emeritus and CFUV Radio broadcaster, Janine Bandcroft will join us at the bottom of the hour to bring us up to speed with some of what’s good going on on the streets of our city, and beyond there too, in the coming week. But first, Art Farquharson and bringing the meaning back to May Day.

I went down to Victoria’s Canadian Forces recruiting centre to talk to some of the people observing VOWS’ annual day of demonstration.

VOWS is calling on the Canadian Government too: “Substantially reduce military expenditures and re-allocate them to urgent social and environmental needs.”

They say:

“The federal government should invest in programs that will reduce poverty and help our country transition to a low-carbon, green economy and NOT on combat missions overseas and buying new warships and fighter jets.”

National and international events are organized on this day by the Canadian Voice of Women for Peace and the International Peace Bureau.

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Welcome to Canada 2016: Less a nation “strong and free” than a transnational oligarchy.

Though the infamous ‘Panama Papers’ are yet to wash up on Canadian shores, the message they bear is as apt in the True North as in any Banana Republic: Money trumps democracy, and notions of freedom and justice are illusions in the face of a Realpolitik predicated by what my first guest terms, a “full spectrum apparatus of domination and control.”

Mark Taliano is an Ontario-based writer, researcher, and activist who, in his retirement from instructing the youth of the nation, has turned his attention to the rest of us.

Mark’s essays appear at the American Herald Tribune, Global Research, and the Common Sense Canadian, among other places.

Mark Taliano in the first half.

And; time is running short for the public to weigh in on a xylene processing plant planned for the shores of the Salish Sea. April 15th is the deadline for those wanting to make their feelings on the Texas-based Tesoro Corporation’s scheme to site the massive petrochemical facility on Anacortes Island known.

Eric de Place is policy director, researcher, writer, and policy analyst for Sightline Institute, a Washington State-based independent, nonprofit think tank. Eric leads Sightline’s energy policy work, and is a leading expert on regional coal and oil export schemes.

Eric de Place and the Tesoro Corporation’s proposed horror next door in the second half.

And; Victoria Street Newz publisher emeritus and CFUV Radio broadcaster, Janine Bandcroft will join us at the bottom of the hour to bring us news of good things coming this week to our city’s streets, and beyond there too. But first, Mark Taliano and Canadian politicians: Controlled by the transnational oligarchy.

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Looking around the City of Victoria, it doesn’t take a lot of insight to conclude: This place is humming! Old houses in the suburbs, and once venerable buildings in the city proper, are turning into holes in the ground; nesting pots for steel and glass condos sprouting uptown and down.

The increasing human population, both resident and transient, requires more room too; room to move into and room to get around.

Making room for those people’s in-migration is, naturally, just what made this place desirable in the first place; the remnant “natural elements” within the city – that would be developer-speak for trees.

According to a Habitat Acquisition Trust report of 2013, Victoria lost the equivalent of 12 Beacon Hill Parks between 2005 and 2011; and that was before things got seriously crazy around here.

Now, another stand of trees is slated for the axe to accommodate the ever more, more, more of a Garden City in full boom…

Stuart Herzog is the long-time, Victoria-based environmental and social justice advocate currently coordinating the Victoria Citizens Action Network, a coalition of groups and individuals coming together to work on issues effecting our city and region. Right now they’re focused on BC Transit’s proposal to clearcut the west side of Douglas Street between Hillside and Tolmie.

Stuart Herzog in the first segment.

And; Ken Boon is a farmer in the Peace Valley, and President of the Peace Valley Landowner Association. He’s in court today in Vancouver, trying to get in the path of Christy Clark’s Site-C dam.

Ken Boon taking Site-C to court in the second segment.

And; host to untold hundreds of thousands of refugees from Middle East wars waged by the West, tiny Lebanon is straining at the brink of national viability; and yet somehow it’s managing to cope. But, that may not last, as it increasingly appears Lebanon will be next on the ISIS hit-list.

Patrick Henningsen is a freelance journalist and co-founder of the online news site, 21st Century wire, launched during the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Change Summit. Patrick’s geopolitical analyses and commentaries are featured online at RT and Al Jazeera, and of course at 21Wire. I spoke to Patrick last in the wake of the Paris attacks; he’s in Beirut now, and we’ll try reach him to get a sense of life today in what was once called “The Paris of the Middle East.”

Patrick Henningsen in the second half.

And; Victoria Street Newz publisher emeritus and CFUV Radio broadcaster, Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour to bring us news of some of what’s good to do in and around our town in the coming week, and beyond. But first, Stuart Herzog and a bus lane too far for one Victoria neighbourhood.

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The plans have been in place for a long time, but looking across any of southern Vancouver Island’s straits now, it’s clear to see the industrialization of the Salish Sea has arrived.

The sharp increase in tanker and freighter traffic though is not only effecting Victoria and Sidney, gateway to the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the open Pacific beyond; up the island, between Gabriola and the Sunshine Coast, there’s a scheme in play to make of the foreshore there an overflow parking lot of sorts to relieve Vancouver’s lengthening line of backed-up freighters.

Franz Gigl is with Gabriolans Against Freighter Anchorage, or (GAFA), an Island-based group behind the AnchorRage campaign opposing Pacific Pilotage Authority plans to create five anchorages for coal and other commodities freighters off the picturesque Gulf Island.

Franz Gigl in the first half.

And; it’s not only the straits of the southern end of the island experiencing the negative effects of industry’s hyperactivity; just off Campbell River, in the Johnstone Strait, the Ocean Eagle, a barge-hauling tug ran aground last week. It seems so far, yet another fortunate near-miss for the northern reaches of the island, with the Ocean Eagle reportedly not spilling its load of fuel and/or “general cargo” into the environment. Last August a fuel barge was run aground in Surge Narrows, its 60,000 litre load of fuel narrowly avoiding being spilled into the straits.

Ingmar Lee created and maintains the Facebook site, 10,000 Ton Tanker, the only sustained media effort to bring attention to regular foreign oil tanker traffic within BC’s supposed tanker moratorium area. A long-time BC-based environmental activist, Lee is campaigning to address the maritime risks going unaddressed along the province’s Inside Passage.

Ingmar Lee and what the Ocean Eagle’s hard landing at Chatham Point tells us about the way BC manages its waterways in the second half.

And; Victoria Street Newz publisher emeritus and CFUV Radio broadcaster, Janine Bandcroft will join us at the bottom of the hour to bring us news of some of the good things coming to the streets of our town, and beyond, in the coming week. But first, Franz Gigl and Gabriola’s rage against the maritime machine.

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Last month, the first of some the expected 250 Syrian families seeking refuge from the war in their homeland began arriving in Victoria; a veritable drop in the ocean of the estimated six million Syrians displaced both internally, and scattered to the World’s four corners.

This great diaspora tsunami is called a crisis as it arrives in Europe, while across the Atlantic, the ongoing US election has politicized the exodus, making of the people a hot potato no-one seeking office wants to catch hold of.

But seldom discussed either here or over there is the root cause of this human disaster, and why it was engineered in the first place.

Gearóid Ó Colmáin is Paris correspondent for the American Herald Tribune and is a political analyst whose work focuses on globalization, geopolitics and class struggle. He’s a regular contributor to Global Research, Russia Today International, Press TV, Sputnik Radio France, Sputnik English, and Dissident Voice, where he’s published an eleven-part examination of what he calls “coercive migration.”

Gearóid Ó Colmáin in the first half.

And; America’s presidential election has evolved into an unparalleled epic pageant costing billions of dollars and running non-stop across media for years before the event. But for all it’s sound and fury, the millions upon millions of dollars spent on advertising, the hundreds of thousands of miles traveled by candidates, and rivers of ink and forests of paper press coverage, the actual poll is only as true as the machinery used to count the votes, and honest as the people using them. And according to reporting investigator, Greg Palast, those vote counters ain’t straight.

Greg Palast and America’s democracy Stripped and Flipped in the second half.

And; Victoria Street Newz publisher emeritus and CFUV Radio broadcaster, Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour to bring us news of things happening on our city’s streets, and beyond there too, in the week coming. But first, Gearóid Ó Colmáin and examining the ramifications of a “policy of artificial mass migrations” on Europe.

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Far from the media spotlight, nestled on the western reaches of Africa, a bitter drama is daily enacted. For more than forty years, the Saharawi people have lived in desperation, caught in an enforced limbo, imprisoned by circumstance.

Worse perhaps than the stunted existence imposed upon them is the relative obscurity of their plight; while other causes gain celebrity spokespeople and benefit concerts, the Saharawi struggle for liberation is largely forgotten.

Documentary film director, Lara Lee hopes her newly released film, ‘Life is Waiting: Referendum and Resistance in Western Sahara’ will prove some remedy to that; as do the folks hosting this week’s Café Simpatico at 1923 Fernwood Road.

Long-time Victoria-based activist and organizer, Terry Wolfwood will present the Western Canadian premier of ‘Life is Waiting’ this Friday evening. As well as being a writer, photographer, and intrepid world traveler, covering ground from the highlands of Mexico to the apartheid walls of the West Bank, Western Sahara, and beyond in pursuit of peace, social justice, and women’s rights, Terry is also the Director and co-founder of the Barnard-Boecker Centre Foundation. Her articles have featured in Briarpatch, Peace News, and Third World Resurgence amongst other places, and she serves as the local coordinator for Victoria’s Women in Black.

Terry Wolfwood in the first half.

And; people are not the only creatures wrongly imprisoned for the benefit of others. Though we like to think of ourselves out here on the shores of the majestic Pacific as being capable of appreciating both the immeasurable beauty of the place we live in, and the sanctity of the creatures who share this great privilege with us, there is still here in 2016 a place here where it’s possible to go and see whales kept in swimming pools. What history will make of this we can only guess, but for now there is an effort to bring this practice to an end.

Gary Charbonneau is a Vancouver-based independent filmmaker and entrepreneur. He made news recently for being sued by the Vancouver Aquarium. The people running the Aquarium are seeking an injunction in BC court to have Charbonneau’s film, ‘Vancouver Aquarium Uncovered’ pulled from YouTube, Vimeo and at Charbonneau’s website, claiming he violated their copyright by using materials found on their website.

Gary Charbonneau and the Vancouver Aquarium’s attempts to put the covers on Vancouver Aquarium Uncovered in the second half.

And; Victoria Street Newz publisher emeritus and CFUV Radio broadcaster, Janine Bandcroft will join us at the bottom of the hour to bring us news of the coming week from our city’s streets, and beyond there too. But first, Terry Wolfwood and ‘Life is Waiting: Referendum and Resistance in Western Sahara.’

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Last summer, First Nations activists turned around the installation of a new salmon farm in Clayoquot Sound, and while that battle won is a victory worth celebrating, it’s not nearly the end, nor even the beginning of the end of the war to reclaim the Sound’s environmental integrity for Wild Salmon.

Clayoquot Action has been taking local action to save Clayoquot Sound’s magnificent natural environment for years. It recently broadened its scope, taking a trip to Norway, Ground Zero of the international salmon farming industry, to speak directly to both representatives of that industry, and the Norwegian people.

Dan Lewis joined Clayoquot Action’s Bonny Glambeck and John Rampanen from the Ahousaht and Kelsemaht First Nations as members of the Wild Salmon Delegation to Norway, and she’s back in Canada now with exciting news from her travels to the other side.

Dan Lewis in the first half.

And; despite its pernicious impact on local environments, the fracking industry, or LNG as its known in these parts, has proven as resilient as pacific salmon, returning again and again despite the odds against it. In BC, neither international market disinterest, nor environmental logic can kill it; and it seems the will of the people too is incapable of deterring an industry no-one wants around. Recent events within the Cowichan Valley attest to “LNG’s” deleterious effects on democracy, while the provincial government’s embarrassing budget inclusion yesterday of its so-called ‘Prosperity Fund,’ (promised to be predicated upon “LNG” royalties) lends an “Emperor’s New Clothes” element to an industry that hasn’t yet, and may never, materialize here. Talk about “natural gas”!

Walter M. Brasch is an award-winning newspaper reporter and editor, syndicated columnist, broadcaster, educator, activist, and prolific author whose book titles include: ‘Before the First Snow,’ ‘America’s Unpatriotic Acts,’ ‘Sex and the Single Beer Can,’ ‘The Press and the State,’ ‘Social Foundations of Mass Media.’ His latest book, ‘Fracking Pennsylvania: Flirting with Disaster’ is a detailed investigation of that industry, and what its activity means for the people and landscapes where it takes place.

Walter M. Brasch and fracking America in the second half.

And; Victoria Street Newz publisher emeritus and CFUV Radio broadcaster, Janine Bandcroft will join us at the bottom of the hour to bring us news of the coming week from our city’s street, and beyond there too. But first, Bonny Glambeck and a salmon farming sea change beginning.