Joomla! site syndication http://www.makingthelinksradio.ca Mon, 06 Sep 2010 18:13:06 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.2 http://www.makingthelinksradio.ca/images/M_images/joomla_rss.png http://www.makingthelinksradio.ca Joomla! site syndication http://www.makingthelinksradio.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=201&Itemid=2 In this program, Making the Links Radio interviews Dave Vasey about the recent G8/G20 Protests in Toronto. Vasey discusses the issues protesters sought to raise, what happened at the protests, and his own story of police repression. Vasey was arrested twice in the span of four days. His story highlights concerns about both the reigning government agenda and the expanding suppression of democratic rights in Canada and across the globe. Audio - Politics and Democracy Wed, 04 Aug 2010 23:44:09 +0100 http://www.makingthelinksradio.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=200&Itemid=26 From rabble.caWriting from the relative tranquility of northern British Columbia, I feel entirely dislocated from the world I occupied only two weeks ago, making my exit from Toronto only days after the city was locked down by the largest Canadian peacetime security operation in history. Literally, I am now at a great distance from Canada's biggest city, as evidenced by the 4,800 km on my odometer and the grueling nine day drive dragging a weighty trailer behind my car. Yet, I believe my new home to be deeply implicated within the events in Toronto at the end of June. Despite the media fixation on acts of vandalism on the Toronto streets, the most grievous forms of violence at the G20 meetings were far more institutional, extending their scope well beyond Toronto's downtown core. News - Politics and Democracy Tue, 13 Jul 2010 15:14:51 +0100 http://www.makingthelinksradio.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=199&Itemid=26 Former South Africa president Thabo Mbeki's statement that at the recent G 8 and G 20 summits the rich of the world had once again conveyed the point that Africa had drifted to the periphery of the global development agenda has underscored the fault lines of the G 8 and G 20. It is not only the people of Africa being relegated to the sidelines but also millions throughout the world. For example, the G 8 countries together pledged less than one-fifth of what the United Nations says is necessary to stop the preventable deaths of women and children under the age of five throughout the world. The agreement to cut deficits by 50 per cent of 2013, if implemented, will fall squarely on the poorest of the world. Public investments in education, health, municipal infrastructure and community development will be sharply reduced. Unemployment will increase even further. In promoting this agenda of privatization and social spending cutbacks, Harper is following the wishes of the so-called B 20 -- those select handful of powerful business leaders who were in factinvited into the G 20. Harper himself admitted we have no more sovereignty and Canadians should face that fact. This is an abdication of governance and of responsibility for building national andinternational policy to create a fair and inclusive economy for all. These were some of the real reasons for the thousands upon thousands of citizens peacefully demonstrating at the G 20 in Toronto. Don Kossick News - Politics and Democracy Tue, 13 Jul 2010 15:13:10 +0100 http://www.makingthelinksradio.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=198&Itemid=2 In this episode, we bring you a special Making the Links program on the G-20 in Toronto. You will be hearing the voices of Saskatchewan activists who were in Toronto, including Teacher Adminstrator, Rick Sawa, Law Professor, Tim Quigley, and President of the Saskatchewan Federation of Labour, Larry Hubich. They will be speaking from the frontline of where citizens were demonstrating for a fairer and more just world. As the dust has settled it has become clear that downtown Toronto was turned into a militarized fortress. The police force of thousands attacked and arrested over 900 people who were peacefully protesting. There is every reason to believe the confrontation with the Black Bloc was a designed provocation to justify the repression of peaceful protestors, and focus media attention on acts of vandalism instead of the real issues raised by the 25,000 people that marched peacefully in the streets of Toronto.The G-20 meeting itself worked against the best interests of citizens throughout the world. World leaders made an agreement to cutback public services and infra structures that are so important to needs of people. Under advisement of the B-20 – the corporate leadership of the world – who attended the closed sessions of the G-20, politicians adopted a austerity plan that will bring no help to the women and children who will die preventable deaths because the leadership of the most developed nations only promised a fraction of what is needed for healthy communities. The structural adjustment pledged to by the G-20 leaders – and led by Stephen Harper – will mean more fire-sale sell offs of public services and cutbacks to social services.Canadians should hold Prime Minister personally accountable for the unjustified force used against Canadians peacefully demonstrating – as well as the enormous 1.2 billion expenditure of the G-8 and G-20 – and the adoption of economic policy that only serves the global corporate agenda. Audio - Politics and Democracy Mon, 12 Jul 2010 14:05:00 +0100 http://www.makingthelinksradio.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=197&Itemid=2 In this episode we continue our retrospective series on the impact of the G8, G20 and other summits of world leaders.In this episode of Making the Links Radio, we bring you excerpts from the GASCD. The GASCD was out together by activists, singers and other performers to show the other side of world leaders' gatherings. The project highlights the intense repression faced by civil society protesters who are challenging a corporate agenda and trying to centre the importance of poverty, world hunger, climate change, fair trade, and the elimination of the debt burden on the agenda rather than simply increased corporate power and profit.Canada will be investing one billion dollars in the G8 and G20 summits for security against citizens. It already has a track record of shutting down the voice of people. In a Quebec City summit of Western Hemispheric leaders around free trade in the Americas in 2001 over 5,148 rounds of tear gas and 903 rubber bullets were fired by more than 6,000 police. 463 activists were arrested. The government constructed 4 kilometers of fence, and spent 100 million dollars - the largest peace time security operation in Canadian history. Now at one billion dollars 2010, the G8 and G20 meetings will dwarf the cost of earlier peace time security operations. What have they got to fear – citizens are telling world leaders that there is an alternative global agenda for a much fairer and just world that protects all people and the environment. That civil society world voice will be heard again in Toronto and Muskoka despite all attempts to squelch it. And we should celebrate that beyond the intense repression of people gathering to protest injustice civil society is strong and resilent and is building a better world for all as you will hear in the following music, song and prose.In this program, you will hear Bruce Cockburn, Jello Biafra, the Rheostatics, Propaghandi, Olu Dara, Madue Barlow, and Michael Franti. Audio - Politics and Democracy Tue, 22 Jun 2010 21:12:51 +0100