Radical Democrats Radio

What's in The Canada Files this week? First, today is Nakba Day, so Editor Aidan Jonah and host Adam Riggio (that's me!) will talk about how The Canada Files is demonstrating Palestinian solidarity on this most awkward independence day. in more detail, we discuss the recent coup attempt in Venezuela that makes the Bay of Pigs look like the Battle of Guadalcanal, where an American mercenary group tried to organize a ragtag crew of incompetents to ride across the Caribbean and kidnap or kill President Nicolas Maduro. We contrast the vilification of Maduro with the fascistic presidency of Ivan Duque in neighbouring Colombia. Finally, I discuss some research I'm doing on how popular reaction to COVID may drive more people to wasteful suburban development, and the ecological destruction such a movement could cause.

Our latest collaboration with the Canada Files, their managing editor Aidan Jonah and I discuss the recent defeats for progressive candidates at the ballot box, what were the seeds of those defeats, and what real progressives can do to escape losing hope.

Canada Files Managing Editor Aidan Jonah joins Adam for a talk about the upcoming rent strike for all regions of North America under lockdown to slow the spread of COVID.

Radical Democrats Radio is launching a new series in collaboration with The Canada Files, a journalism startup building progressive media for foreign and domestic news and analysis. Today, we're talking about the constantly escalating conflict between the United States and Iran, as well as some reflections on the future of Canada's progressive political party, the New Democrats.

The third episode of People Vs Power! Our featured interview is with Leah Kalsi, a candidate for the New Democratic Party in the district of Willowdale in north Toronto. She's an autism analyst whose frustration with the Ontario government's ignorant cuts to social services drove her to community activism and her candidacy for Canada's federal parliament. I'm also talking with my friend Dapinder Singh Randhawa about the housing crisis among international students and Indian immigrants in western Brampton. Plus, this is the first podcast since starting Radical Democrats Radio that includes a vocal musical outro. God help you for staying long enough to hear that.

The People Vs Power series of Radical Democrats Radio returns with two new interviews with progressive political leaders. - We talk in Adam's backyard with Branko Gasperlin, the NDP candidate for the Etobicoke-Lakeshore district, the southern end of the old Toronto borough of Etobicoke. We talk about what made Branko the man he is today, a life of public service that he sees taking him to represent his communities in Parliament in Ottawa. - A sometimes-difficult phone conversation with Bev Buckway, former mayor of Whitehorse and recent chair of Yukon's federation of municipalities. We chat as best we can through signal interference about the nature of the housing crisis facing northern cities like Whitehorse, and chat about the unique circumstances of Canada's Arctic lands.

People Vs Power Episode 1: Where We Stand Now Hello (0:00); What is People Vs Power? (0:45); We are a progressive show (3:19); How our elections work (4:45); Fixed election dates (5:00); Full partisan disclosure (7:50); What you can do to help win an election (8:01); About our hosts’ progressive candidate: Branko Gasperlin (9:22); How our hosts joined electoral politics (10:42); Regular segment: Tory Crimes! (17:00); But also Liberal Crimes (18:11); What Liberal MP will stand up for people in poverty? (21:55); Trudeau’s indifference to Trump’s concentration camps (22:54); Canada’s immigration detention camps (23:50); Liberal indifference to rural, northern, Indigenous poverty (24:27); Doug Ford’s Ontario (26:08); Bri on Ford’s cuts to create a docile populace of paupers (26:50); Adam on Ford’s stinking corruption (28:58); François Légault’s Québec (31:56); Redefining secularism in racist terms (32:36); The nationalist and fascist history of the concept of “La vivre ensemble” (34:41); And that’s our show! (37:42); An appeal to the coming refugees from England (39:57).

How the harms people suffer under a cruel government spread beyond policies and institutions, all the way into people's hearts and everyday lives. How we create a society without friends. Radical Democrats Radio returns with Stories About Autism and Doug Ford's Ontario. Music by the man of Mumbai, Toronto, and bloody St. John's Newfoundland, FamLi.

Contrary to popular belief, taking Indigenous knowledge and culture seriously doesn't harm Western culture. In fact, it makes us stronger. My reflections this episode turn on the work of Anishinaabeg Canadian philosopher Leanne Betasamosake Simpson. I try to understand and explore her epochal ideas. My interview today is with Ian Borsuk, an environmental activist and community organizer from Hamilton, Ontario.

I interview Professor Bernie Wills about the future of Canadian governance, which will end up a lot like Medieval European governance if justice is done. We talk about the freedom to form your own communities, your own laws and moralities, to see what communities are truly viable or too deranged to live. I talk about the latest and greatest scandal of Justin Trudeau's government, and its extra spitball in the eye of an insult to one of Canada's greatest Indigenous jurists. I reflect on the epochal philosophy of Anishinaabeg thinker Leanne Betasamosake Simpson. Busy show in 35 minutes.

Today's episode features an interview with Ian Borsuk, one of the chief campaign staff at Environment Hamilton. This is a group that uses media advocacy to call out corporations for causing harmful pollution events, and community organizing to teach communities how to advocate for their own rights to clean, vibrant ecologies.

Discussing Canadian New Democratic Party leader Jagmeet Singh's struggles to maintain his bonafides with progressive activists, while also appealing to a multicultural, suburban electorate to get himself into parliament and maybe even prime minister by 2019's end. My conversation with Bernard Wills of Memorial University continues, as we discuss the history and philosophy of how the state and the concept of sovereignty developed. Plus, I discuss the Yellow Vests and the unreachability of extremists.

An interview with professor Bernard Wills about his latest book, Believing Weird Things. Bernard confronts and breaks down the ideology of Islamophobia, radical nationalist politics in the West, and the crisis of conservatism's intellectual emptiness in our era, among many, many, many other things. We also examine some of Antonio Negri's concepts of resistance, and how resistance to oppression fuels political creativity. What is political creativity anyway? You'll get one good idea when you listen to the show.

Talking with author, journalist, and educator Marcie Bianco some simple questions – Does America have a future? What makes social media such a powerful tool to manipulate and enslave us? Are our universities and colleges even capable of this new literacy challenge at all? All these meditations and more in Bianco's in-progress book, Freedom.

Talking with Matt Nicolaïdis, a progressive activist with the New Democratic Party in Canada, about the issues that matter most to rural Ontarians, and rural people throughout North America. We talk about the ongoing water crisis in the town of Tottenham, Ontario, and how the politics of ecology – clean water, stopping pollution, sustainability – can revitalized progressive politics in the small towns and farming communities of Canada and the United States. We're also talking about a recently published book of essays, Believing Weird Things by Bernard Wills, particularly how those essays engage with the contemporary politics of extremism. * Support Radical Democrats Radio on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/radicaldemocrats/

My final interview for now with Montréal student activist Marina Cupido, about her own political coming of age from growing up in small-town New Brunswick to the campus and student union offices of McGill University. I'm also talking about the social movement as assembly, a concept of Antonio Negri, and seeing how such a concept can help us confront the problems among the progressive left, of our so-called leadership.

My conversation with American journalist / professor Marcie Bianco continues, as we talk about the different blends of conservatism and the different personalities that dominate conservative politics north and south of our border. Why is Doug Ford so short-sighted? How can the American people overcome voter suppression? I also begin exploring the ideas of Italian philosopher, writer, and political organizer Antonio Negri. This week, I consider what he has to say about horizontal political organizing, the power and limitations of protest, and the nature of pure democracy.

The second part of my interview with Matt Nicolaïdis, progressive activist based in the town of Bradford and the wider Simcoe region of Ontario. Matt and I talk about the differences in culture between the fast-paced life of a big city like Toronto, and the straightforward priorities of people in small towns and rural areas. We also talk about the heritage of Canada's biggest social democratic political party, the New Democrats, in rural activism of farmers' co-operatives, and how we've turned the NDP's founder, Greatest Canadian™ Tommy Douglas, into an icon to admire instead of what he really was – an activist and organizer from whom we can learn.

The first part of our extended interview with writer, teacher, journalist, and activist Marcie Bianco. We talk about the popular reception and controversy around the perennial bogeywoman of the American right wing, Hillary Clinton, as well as her early days in politics working on Al Gore's Presidential campaign in Massachusetts, and the parallels and differences between the American and Canadian progressive movement.

America has experienced its single worst act of Anti-Semitic murder in its history. Brazil, still a young and fragile democracy, elected a racist, sexist, homophobic President whose open policy is a return to the violence, repression, and ecological destruction of the dictatorship years. After this weekend, it's easy to think that violence and hatred are inevitable in human society. But what does this inevitability mean? We use some philosophy to find a glimmer of hope, what little we can manage. Also, today's show features an extended interview segment with Montréal-based student activist Marina Cupido, talking about the history and activity of the student movement in Quebec.

We talk with the new President of the district association for Simcoe-Grey in the New Democratic Party of Ontario. He's Matt Nicholaïdis, and he's starting a new program of political outreach that can connect the people of rural Ontario with the progressive causes that are genuinely in their interests. Matt also supplied our cover photo this episode. We also examine the ethics of reaction, resentment, freedom, and authenticity.

Breaking down the recent history-making election in Quebec, from a curious perspective. Our host Adam's second family home was a Calabrian-Italian clan from the northeast corner of Montréal. Our guest Marina Cupido is a student activist at McGill University, a speaker of French and English who's thrown herself into the tough politics of Quebec in the 2010s.

We talk with Peter D'Gama, Socialist Action candidate for Toronto City Council's Ward 1. He brings us news of his campaign, and the struggles of Etobicoke homeowners who've been long neglected by their property management and maintenance companies. This among many other discoveries of people who've had enough of a city governed for the rich and powerful.

Talking with Toronto-based philosopher, professor, and researcher Alcibiades Malapi-Nelson about what popular culture should REALLY call intelligent design, transhumanism, and the future of humanity. Interview originally recorded on 6 September.

The first of our two-part interview with Peter D'Gama, candidate to become city councillor for the new, expanded, Ward One. We talk with Peter about his policies to build a better life for the people of Toronto's farthest northwest neighbourhoods: Housing security, free transit, and fighting Doug Ford's politics of rage with hope.

Conversation with philosopher Alcibiades Malapi-Nelson about the history and driving concepts of cybernetics. Also, how taking ecological thinking seriously means junking some of the humanistic concepts essential to our ideas of humanity itself, and to the tradition of enlightenment liberalism.

It started with Louis C.K. Now it's Jian Ghomeshi. Matt Lauer's agent is making phone calls. Some of the most notorious sexual predators of the entertainment industry are looking for redemption, trying to return to power and fame. I look at Ghomeshi's attempted comeback, via his essay in the New York Review of Books, "Reflections on a Hashtag." Image via Wikimedia Commons: By Canadian Film Centre from Toronto, Canada - ideaBOOST Launch Pad May 8, 2014, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=47438984

How Ontario Premier Doug Ford plunged Canada into a constitutional crisis barely three months since taking office. Interview: Alcibiades Malapi-Nelson, a professor of philosophy in Toronto, originally of Peru, and having lived some beautiful years in Montréal. We talk about life as an immigrant to Canada, the atheism of a proper Catholic education, the twisted economy of the university system, the value of bodybuilding for intellectual life, and some of his own thoughts on the philosophy of science. As always, you can support Radical Democrats Radio at Patreon!

The first episode of Radical Democrats Radio! We explain what Radical Democrats Radio is, what it's for, and what we'll actually be doing as the podcast develops. Subscribe for interviews with activists, community leaders, philosophers, researchers, politicians, writers, and folks who have interesting things to say about all the different aspects of political life. Support Radical Democrats Radio by joining our community of Patreon sponsors: https://www.patreon.com/radicaldemocrats