AW@L Radio - Smash the State Report: June 7, 2013

From the June 7th 2013 edition of AW@L Radio – A campaign kick off announcement starts off the show, with a note from extend-a-family waterloo region who kicked off their I Choose Dignity campaign with a meal, march, and community party in kitchener on June 11th.  Staying in KW, we report on the pending (but somehow already decided) decision on the sale of part of the main non-car bike route in waterloo region (@IronHorseKW) to a developer so condos that have already been approved, can be built.

Jumping to toronto but staying with the battle against developers ruining neighbourhoods, we report on the change.org petition that decries the proposal to build a 3 storey shopping mall which would include the anti-union wal-mart, just a block from the historically non-mega-corporate Kensington market.  The petition already has more than 60K signors, who want their capitalism, a little less cold-hearted.

And in another piece from “if ya can’t beat them, reform them”, the BCCLA has created a form to send to the CBSA which is a refusal to participate in anything to do with the flagrantly obtrusive filming happening in association with the heinous reality TV show “border security: canada’s front line.  The form gives you several options to opt out of filming and sharing information with the #towesTV show which is being made in conjunction with force four entertainment, shaw media, the national geographic channel and other  media groups.  One useful part of the form is where you demand a response to from the listed parties on how they will take action in relation to the form.  A great way to tie up capacity and drain resources at the racist CBSA or their capitalist tv partners.

And from clicktivism to direct action, we have a report on an anti-condo occupation that went down in montreal.  AW@L Radio friend Aaron Lakoff, filed a report for the FSRN and we play it up, and follow it up with news that the CLAC has called for the disruption once again of the circus of consumerism known as the F! Grand prix race.  We read a call out for action including a critical mass bike ride which took place as the show was airing.

Spoken word and hip hop artist Jared Paul has released another piece – and thanks to the link from submedia.tv, i found it and we play Six is Nine off of Paul’s upcoming EP.

In the #tarSandsAbsurdity of the week, we report on the harper governments further attacks on environmental legislation, with the announcement that no future in situ tar sands project will be subject to the environmental assessment process.  In reality this will exclude the majority of future tar sands projects as much of the remaining heavy crude is too deep for anything but in situ mining.  And staying with the tar sands, we follow-up on the Mayflower Arkansas pipeline failure, which saw tar sands crude pour through a suburb and into all through the watershed.  New findings show exxon tried to cover up the extent of the spill and has seemingly conspired with local officials to keep the true extent of the leak, and the negative health impacts under wraps.  Dan notes how this is similar to the Enbridge line 6b blow out in kalamazoo in 2010 and is a likely scenario if the Enbridge line 9 project is approved in southern ontario and quebec.

Staying with toxification, we play a piece from red eye radio which looks into efforts of the sierra club of canada to ban bee killing pesticides in the country, similar to a ban recently enacted in the EU.  And the sierra club is in on the next piece as well, as they helped fund the release of a new video by spoken word artist CR Avery called Thief Behind the Mask.

And to again help shed light on the fact that we live in a rape culture, and that we need to #endRapeCulture, news from Stubenville, Kansas which has the hacker who helped expose members of the high school football team who raped a 16 year old women, up on charges which would land him in jail for 5-10times longer than the perpetrators of the rape.

In the final update of the show, and before CKMS jumps to the EI podcast, Dan reads an article from the electronic intifada which looks at the new documentary from Gaza called Where Should The Birds Fly.  AW@L Radio recommends everyone watch this powerful movie which among other things looks at the impacts of the israeli siege of Gaza “operation cast lead” where 1400 Palestinians and 8 Israelis died.

Janice Lee once again closes out the show, this time with Flying V’s mate Beth Murch in their spoken word original We Come In Peace

Remember to check out the Daily GRRR! for critical #cdnPoli every weekday morning from 9-10am on http://grandrivermc.ca 

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