AW@L Radio - Smash the State Report: Feb15, 2013

From the February 15th 2013 edition of AW@L Radio - The show starts by noting the upcoming 11th annualHomelessness marathon on campus/community stations across canada.  Then some audio on the same topic, we hear from Shirley of the downtown east side group Power of Women speaking at the Vancouver public library at a community mobilisation for social housing - Homes Now!

Next up is a report back posted on the toronto.mediacoop.ca on a mid-day demo at the Grand Valley Institute in Kitchener to cry foul at the recent case of Kinew James who was found dead in her cell in Saskatchewan shortly after being moved to that prison from GVI following her complaint about a sex-for drugs operation regarding a guard.  After her death, the Waterloo region police dropped the investigation into the allegations.

Embedded co-host Alex Hundert has released another post in the No Books for Prisoners series with Racism and the War on Books.  We read the whole piece (as the segregation phones are not conducive to high quality recordings), which looks at the presence of proselytizing christian books, but the general inability for prisoners to receive books that do not support the dominant narrative of euro-canadianism.  Alex also discusses his inability to file a human rights complaint as all the forms that have been sent to him have not reached him.  Acknowledging the human rights tribunal is a big compromise in terms of taking action, it is one of the only courses of action supposedly available to prisoners.

We quickly review news that North Korea has tested a few more nukes (oh no! more demons with nukes used as deterrent to invasion from other demons)...  then go to a killer tune and video from Macklemore and Co. called Same Love.

Coming back to the Smash the State report we look at the recent discovery of the bodies of two executives of an american mining company who was developing a mine in Mexico.  The discovery comes on the heels of a report from a canadian mining firm, who wants to exploit the land that Southridge Minerals had claimed, which reported that Southridge was not exploiting the land as they claimed they were.

Staying with extraction news, big oil wants the right to kill polar bears in alaska so they can search for oil - in the face of endangered species protection legislation, as the ontario government wants to kill polar bears everywhere by building new gas fired power plants to deal with peak energy use - in the face of the human scale efficiency and energy options that cities such as Guelph have put forward.

Rabble.ca editors have decided to jump in and call for Louis Riel Day to be recognized as a national holiday.  February 18th is now recognised in manitoba in honour of the revolutionary metis who fought white supremacy and was hanged by a vindictive John A MacDonald.

For the second week in a row, Juice Rap News gets onto the show with The Great Gun Debate, and Harsha Walia's work makes the show again with an excellent article called Indigenous Voices Speak which includes the words of Indigenous land defenders who are on the front lines of the struggle against extractive industries and colonial governments.

Finally, we close the show with the reading of the first piece (of four) from Elyse Bruce on the mismanagement and misappropriation of money promised to Indigenous nations in return for settlers setting up shop (with respect as a caveat...).

The Smash the State the Report is a segment on the weekly 2 hour AW@L radio (16:00-18:00est) on CKMS 100.3FM CKMS * Community * Co-op * Campus * Radio - Waterloo - http://soundfm.ca