The Spring Review — "Just saying that you're standing up for workers is not enough"

All the people who work on The Red Review live and work on stolen Indigenous lands across Turtle Island. There can be no reconciliation without restitution, which includes Land Back, RCMP off Indigenous land, and seizing the assets of the major resource corporations and returning them to the commons.

In this episode of The Red Review, brought to you by Socialist Action, where hosts Emily and Daniel cover important struggles from April into June, including the revitalization of militant May Day actions in Canada, the Ontario election, the launch of Vote Socialist in Vancouver, the 74th Nakba day and murder of journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, and the extradition of Julian Assange.

You can reach us at redreview[at]protonmail.com and click here to join our new Discord server!

If you enjoy our work and would like to support us financially, check out our Ko-Fi page, where you can tip us or set up a monthly donation!

You can find Socialist Action on Youtube, Facebook, and Twitter, or visit our website for more information.  Socialist Action also plays a leading role in the Worker's Action Movement and the NDP Socialist Caucus.

Organizers:
Labour May Day Committee
Laurier PSAC 902
Vote Socialist 2022
New Demo Chat
Palestine Youth Movement
Canadian BDS Coalition
Jewish Voice for Peace
Independent Jewish Voices Canada

Articles:
Ontario Election Post-Mortem: Strategy Shift Needed for the Progressive Left?

Webcasts:
The Sport and Prey of Capitalists: How the Rich Are Stealing Canada's Public Wealth

Transcript

Emily Steers:  [0:25]  
Hello everybody and welcome to the red review a socialist action Canada podcast. My name is Emily Steers: I use she/her pronouns and I am coming to you from the unceded territory of the Attawandaron, Anishinaabe, and Haudenosaunee peoples known as Guelph, Ontario.

Daniel Tarade:  [0:47]  

Hey, comrades, it's Daniel. I use he/him pronouns and I'm coming to you from Tkronto. The traditional territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Haudenosaunee, the Huron Wendat, and the Chippewa people. All members of socialist action all people that contribute to the red review podcast live and work on stolen Indigenous land from across Turtle Island. So we echo the call for land back, we demand that there can be no reconciliation without restitution, and that includes seizing the assets of the major resource corporations and returning them to the commons.

Emily Steers:  [1:22]

We've had a busy couple of months here at socialist action and including the red review. It's been really exciting. We've gotten to do some fantastic interviews, which has slightly delayed the spring review. We know it does not really spring anymore, but we've still got lots of things to debrief. Our latest broadcast was a rebroadcasting of our discussion with Chris Wanamaker about leftist literature and unionization efforts. It was a really great conversation. We also had an interview with Isabel Morton from Brisbane, Australia about the recent labor victory in the Australian Federal election and what that means for the left, and what that means for labor. And what that means for us here in their colonial counterpart of Canada.

Daniel Tarade:  [2:09]

That was a really fun interview. Isabel is not only a brilliant commentator but very funny. So that was a really great segment to record and people seem to be enjoying it. The other episode that we recorded between our seasonal reviews was with Hamza of the Yemeni community, Canada, and we were talking about the complicity of the Canadian state in the genocidal slaughter occurring in Yemen, which is led by Saudi Arabia, an important ally of the Canadian state. So we again shed some light on the destructive role. That Canada plays abroad. So between those three episodes, you start to get a picture of all the things we care about, which is just about everything.

Emily Steers:  [2:50]

It really is. And we're really, really proud of all of those episodes. They were wonderful to record. There are some really brilliant folks that we get to talk to as part of this podcast and I hope you'll give us the time to go listen to some episodes if you haven't already.

Daniel Tarade:  [3:02] 

And if you're interested in getting involved with the community we're trying to build. Look in the show notes. We're building up a discord hub, where people that have been on the podcast and people that are listeners of the podcast organizers are coming together. And as of now, we're mostly just sharing news and whatnot. But we want to grow this as a place where we can really discuss these ideas and connect people with the actual organizing that's taking place on the ground. We don't want this podcast to be an academic space where we speak about topics as if they're just...

Emily Steers:  [3:35]  

theoretical concepts, theoretical abstracts.

Daniel Tarade:  [3:39]

no, this is real life. We're in it to organize for the abolition of these exploitative and oppressive systems and we need to know our enemy before we confront it, but do not be mistaken and think this podcast is simply about just understanding what we're up against. We're here to try and build opposition to the various systems we critique here. Please get involved. We want to shout out our first two supporters on Koh Phi ‘Dinner and Franklin’ and Tamar are monthly supporters. If you're supporters of this podcast, you want to see us be more active. If you want to see more interviews and more content, please consider contributing for as little as $3 a month you can help us build that stable financial base where we can turn this into something more regular something with more dynamic interviews with more research. So take a look.

Emily Steers:  [4:29]  

Thank you so much to all of our supporters. Right. So there has been a lot of political action this past spring, not only the election but lots of movement happening in the labor movement and lots of interesting things going on around the world that you might not have heard about. So we're gonna get right into it right here. Right now.

Daniel Tarade:  [4:48]  

Absolutely.

Emily Steers:  [4:49]  

Let's kick it off with the worker's New Year, if you will, the time of refreshing and renewal and excitement and energy for all people of the labor movement. Mayday.

Daniel Tarade:  [5:00]  

Absolutely. And I love as well that the rose is a symbol of the worker's movement. When we're talking about a spring review. May Day 2022 really was a positive step forward. It was so good. We're not going to lead off this podcast with moaning we're going to highlight some of the steps we've been taking forward together as a united front. May Day is a great place to start that.

Emily Steers:  [5:24]  

Mayday, also known as International Workers Day represents a key date in our revolutionary calendar. So the history of Mayday extends well back over a century to May 1, 1886, in which the Federation of organized trades and labor unions chose that day when they launched their attack. For an eight-hour workday. The nonviolent mass Labor Action came under attack from spies and police which unfortunately resulted in the Haymarket massacre and the execution of four anarchists involved in planning the strikes.

Daniel Tarade:  [5:57]  

And so that took place in Chicago a lot of people sometimes my guests that may they originated in Russia, or in other places in Europe, where socialism has a very proud history, but this actually emerges from our side of the ocean, and it's something that is still celebrated today every year around the world as International Workers Day we recognize the militant struggle for workers rights and a worker agenda. And sometimes when I look back on labor history from those armed battles with police and the army, I mean that the Haymarket massacre involve voms involved the execution of anarchists. When I compare the contemporary labor movement to that it almost reminds me of a French Bulldog in comparison with a wolf that over many, many years of artificial selection resulted in I don't want to use the word grotesque here.

Emily Steers:  [6:48]  

It has evolved from a fierce and proud movement into something that has been very much tamed and pacified. Yeah, domesticated, domesticated. Yes.

Daniel Tarade:  7:02  

And so despite 40 years now, of neoliberalism as the hegemonic ideology, just basically governing the whole world with real wages falling continuously with pensions and public services being eroded with the elimination of the cost of living allowances and collective bargaining agreements with the existential threats of pandemics and climate change. We don't have wolves in the labor movement, really leading the charge anymore. 

In fact, most labor leaders in Canada today are actually content to just write editorial after editorial to denounce what Doug Ford has been doing to denounce what Jason Kenney has been doing without actually identifying the real culprit, colonialism, imperialism, capitalism or even bothering to mobilize workers with the urgency that the current situation requires. And So case in point May Day has been a relatively quiet affair for decades in Canada, various Marxist groups might hold an event socialist faction used to have a cultural event at a cafe in Toronto, for example, which is fun, but which is fun, but the unions and the broader working class generally did not recognize this as a day for struggle as a day for celebration. And instead in North America generally, Labor Day was held up as a working-class holiday but in reality, the labor day parade featured last working-class politics and more as a day off to go to the expo in Toronto, for example, not a lot of militancy.

Emily Steers:  [8:32]  

Not honoring the history. So this is something we at socialist action are deeply proud of is that this has begun to change with the founding of the labor made committee which includes over a dozen unions and working-class organizations, including socialist action. We've been active for over three days now. And the first two rallies, of course, were forced online by the pandemic, but this year 1000s of workers took to the streets in Toronto for the best May Day celebration. In decades. And I will say, not only in Toronto but there were Mayday mobilizations with Union involvement and union leaders all over the country and particularly in Ontario,

Daniel Tarade:  [9:11]  

All of this. I don't think it's an exaggeration to link this back to the foundation of the labor made a committee in 2020. Before that, for decades, was silent. And then a small number of Marxist groups, communist groups, and affiliated unions came together to organize a few online rallies. And with 2022 we start organizing for Mayday every year in September, it's like nine, four months of organizing, where we democratically decide on who speaks the demands, we're putting forward, where we're going to be where we're going to march to, we really build this from the ground up with as much participation as we can. And because we were doing this independently and with very radical demands. This year, we force the Ontario Federation of Labor, which represents a million workers in Ontario to actually organize their own May Day Rally. Now, they were really forced to do this. They didn't want to be shown up by a ragtag group of really radical militant unionists and Marxists. They didn't want to give up their ability to control the demands that the labor movement puts forward. So they basically competed with us they organized a rally that at the beginning, was parked right on top of ours. It was at the same time as our rally, which had been organized for months, and in fact, we had reached out to them to endorse this rally to participate in this rally, which they declined. But ultimately, we're still very happy that they took on the task of organizing their own May Day Rally, even if our demands competed. Ultimately, the labor made committee adopted three main slogans and they are as follows 20 hours worked for 40 hours pays double the minimum wage self-determination for Indigenous peoples. And lastly, and this has been a demand that we've adopted every single year workers of the world and oppressed peoples unite for socialism. So our demands were very explicitly revolutionary, very explicitly working-class Class conscious. On the other hand, the Oh AFL, as a much larger labor organization had fairly tame demands. They demanded a $20 an hour minimum wage, you sent to work affordable housing paid sick days, well-funded public services, livable income support for all climate justice status for all, and then an end to racism and oppression.

Emily Steers:  [11:30]  

All of those are fantastic things. We want all of this but why not go further? The LFL rallies I felt were largely and I think this was part of the impetus for having a May Day Rally this year because it was a month prior to the Ontario election and a lot of the Mayday rallies served as campaign rallies for the Ontario NDP ahead of the election in June. So the labor movement you know, went from a general strike on Mayday in 1886 to the largest labor body in Ontario saying Go vote for Andrea Horvath. Again, it's the wolf to the French Bulldog continuity.

Daniel Tarade:  [12:07]  

But what this ended up resulting in even though there were competing rallies even in Toronto, while we successfully requested that they all fell pushed their rally back so it does not compete with ours because, at that point, our rally had already been endorsed by many of the unions that are part of the AFL. We had been endorsed by CUPE Ontario, we had been endorsed by the Ontario Public Service Employees Union we had been endorsed by the Canadian union of postal workers. We had been endorsed by dozens of other locals including my own local Cupe 3902, which sent the speaker and so ultimately because we had this broad support for the demands, we were putting forward radical they may be the AFL had to capitulate and recognize that trying to compete directly with us would lead to more antagonism rather than unity ahead of this election where they really want to mobilize their members. So ultimately, they push their rally back, but they still then instituted a number of theater rallies that were at the exact same time as ours in different locations. And all of our rallies would ultimately join at Queen's Park for a large rally, 

Emily Steers:
Which was a powerful thing to see I will admit. 

Daniel Tarade:

Absolutely because ultimately it was 1000s of people in the streets, red flags, flying radical demands, and even if there was some disagreement on which demands the working class ought to mobilize around, we know that as these demands are brought into the streets, that is when we can resolve differences, a lot of people that they were exposed to multiple different groups and different demands, and they got to decide which demands they wanted to follow. And that's how the movement is gonna grow. We need people to fight very clearly for the demands that they advocate for so that we can all collectively see what the lay of the land is, and that we can resolve the differences and build up the strongest mass movement possible. So ultimately, it was a huge success.

Emily Steers:  [13:51]  

Absolutely. Yeah. And I attended the Mayday rallies that were in Guelph and in Waterloo and there was a really, really strong presence from Indigenous groups from environmental groups, justice for workers, and of course, the NDP and many, many unions were there shout out to the Laurier teaching assistants union pssc 902, which is currently trying to organize the research assistants as well. So shout out to them and the unionize University of Waterloo campaign which is starting to pick up steam if you or anyone you know, our University of Waterloo Students, please please go send some love to the amazing efforts being done at organizing UW. They are working against the tide on this but their efforts are getting stronger and stronger and they need your support

Daniel Tarade:  [14:41]  

And we also saw a rally in Vancouver as a saddle a rally of what was going on in Toronto with very similar demands very radical demands, and that also served to launch the campaign of a new municipal Alliance in Vancouver called vote socialist, socialist action is a part of that as well. So we had two really radical media rallies one in Vancouver, one in Toronto, and we had labor mobilization in other parts of the country. So we're starting to see the labor movement wake up. We mentioned this through the O FL rather than trying to lead the labor movement they've been following the Ontario NDP very uncritically and they then set up this rally mostly to mobilize workers in support of the Ontario NDP to try and get the vote out. Well, how did that turn out?

Emily Steers:  [15:29]  

Much good that that did them if you had asked me last year if there was any chance I thought Doug Ford could get reelected as Premier of Ontario, I would have said I don't think so. His first two years in government prior to the pandemic seemed to be a government strategy of pissing off as many different groups as he could possibly manage and attacking any and all of his rivals with whatever tools he had. at his disposal. He antagonizes the teachers. He antagonized support for disabled children. He antagonized Toronto City Council by deliberately interfering with their election, I don't know as petty revenge for not electing him as mayor. Yeah, it's just absurd. And then, of course, there was the pandemic when COVID struck. We all witnessed and many of us suffered under the Tory's incredible mismanagement. Tens of thousands of Ontarians have died and the government has sided with businesses rather than protecting people with access to free PPE, rapid testing paid sick days mortgage, and rental supports for businesses and residents who need the protection and that support. And yet somehow, over the last year, Ford has managed to turn himself from a liability to the Tories into one of their biggest assets and this is quite the rebranding, he has been touting himself as an ally to workers and allied to unions and an ally to the common people, but it's in words only. So throughout the course of the election, Doug Ford managed to win the endorsement from a few unions, including LiUNA, the laborers International Union of North America and are up at the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades. The majority of his union endorsements that should be noted came from construction and development affiliated union leadership who are being swayed by his push for more construction and infrastructure development. So I will not and I will never deny the serious need for more infrastructure development in Ontario. But the infrastructure being proposed and one of the big flashpoints that people were talking about is the catastrophic highway 431. And I'm going to segue into a little rant, a little infrastructure rant, go off Emily, I hate highways so much. I'm actually going to shout out a webcast that we did a couple of years ago with Linda McQuaig who wrote the brilliant book The Sport and Prey of Capitalist and if you live in Ontario, if you live in Southern Ontario, you know about the 407 you know that it is the most expensive toll road in the entire world. And you know that it was designed to be a relief line in the exact same way that highway 413 is being proposed, but 407 is barely used. Why? Because it's so bloody expensive. Do you know who profits from that ridiculously expensive road, a private company? In Brazil who bought the highway when Mike Harris's government sold it off in a bid to privatize all of the things in the 1990s, It's absurd. They basically managed to cover the cost of building the highway but nothing more. We didn't make any money on the deal. It was sold for pitons and proprietary technology, like the transponder technology that is used all over the world now that was developed with public money from Ontario and it is now completely owned by this random Brazilian company. So this highway is being proposed as a solution to a problem that the Tories themselves created and the contract is so airtight. It is impossible to get out of the contract without paying ridiculous amounts to pay out the contract and it's airtight for 99 years. Damn, it's absurd. So if you ever want to just rage, I really recommend Linda McQuaig's book about privatization in Canada and just read up on the history of the 407. And anytime you hear anyone complain about the 407 ever again, you can be like Well did you know and you'll be that person for the rest of your life because I know I am that's my rant about highways and highway 413 is catastrophic in so many ways. It cuts across farmland land that is under environmental protection. The Greenbelt land where many many endangered species have habitats and would be so so environmentally disruptive and for what because here's the thing, adding more highways does not solve traffic. It might seem a little counterintuitive but think about it. If you add more roads, what you're saying is it's better to drive it's easier to drive so it's an encouragement to drive and then you get more people buying cars because driving is the best way to get around because there's no infrastructure for anything else. And so then guess what, the highways still get clogged. It's why adding lanes to highways does not reduce traffic. What reduces traffic counterintuitively is actually cutting back on highways and shutting down lanes. Making them narrower because then people will seek out other methods in terms of development. We don't need a highway 413. We need more hospitals, not more condos. We need more public transit, not more congested and polluting roadways, and furthermore, these union endorsements were a big slap in the face to many ranks and file members, including in LiUNA. There are many nurses who are unionized with LiUNA, and they have been suffering under the effect of Bill 124, which caps wages for public sector workers at no more than a 1% increase per year that was brought in during the pandemic. It is a slap in the face to every single public sector worker, especially in the medical profession who has kept us going for the last two years. It's an insult. Well, Doug Ford has managed to rebrand the PCs away from the Mike Harris days of being explicitly anti-union. He's bringing the Tories out as a purportedly pro-Union Party, however, he is decidedly picky with which workers he stands with, and make no mistake he is just slapping a cheap old deco label over a government rife with corporate interest.

Daniel Tarade:  [21:33]  

Absolutely. Before we get into exactly what the election result was. This has been now a point of tension within the labor movement. It's always been an issue to try and develop a partisan mass labor movement, one where we recognize which class we belong to, and we fight explicitly for class, rather than falling for these cheap tricks where we end up aligning with developers and capitalists because we're misled into thinking that a temporary increase in construction jobs is going to be a good thing for workers in the long run rather than fighting for direct ownership of the means of production where the products that we do the infrastructure we develop not only helps our communities but also is providing good decent work for everybody in this province.

Emily Steers:  [22:20]  

So the NDP as the party of labor is the traditional home for unions and they didn't get endorsements from major unions like CUPE and OPSEU, which we discussed earlier, but this didn't translate the same way as it did for the PCs at the ballot box. In fact, as many of you have heard, this was headline news. There was record low voter turnout despite immense support for progressive policies being forwarded and this is from the Broadbent Institute's article on the election post-mortem, which we'll link in the show notes. It was according to a ledger poll, there was 72% of people polled said a new government program providing free to low-cost dental care, depending on family income had 72% overwhelming support for this would be good for Ontario Provincial regulation of gasoline prices 62% support removing tolls on publicly owned highways 56% support reducing public transit fares including the GO train to $1 a ride 54% and only 27% actively opposed free university tuition for studies related to green economy jobs 40% support to only 26 opposed and here's the thing, building a new four-lane expressway highway for 13 across the GTA only 32% support with 36 against but that was one of the Tories biggest platform points. Yeah. While there was this overwhelming support for a lot of really progressive policy and worker-oriented policy and infrastructure-related policy. There was also massive voter disillusionment. So as I said, was the lowest voter turnout ever in the history of Ontario 1919 was the highest voter turnout at 82%. Which is pretty darn good. This year. We had 43% Yeah, that's disgusting. It's awful and what it speaks to is not a population who just doesn't care. They probably do care very deeply. As we've said most people care a lot about politics. They might say, Oh, I'm not into politics, but you start talking to them about their rent, gas prices, food prices, their electrical bills, you start talking to them about all those things where their kids go to school, the support they have for their children, suddenly they care a whole heck of a lot about politics. But what people mean a lot of the time when they say Oh, I don't really care about politics is that I do not see how any of this political machinery can meaningfully improve my life. Yeah. And that is both a failure of communication because there are a lot of policies that could meaningfully improve a lot of people's lives, but it's also a failure of action.

Daniel Tarade:  [25:02]  

Yeah, the Ontario NDP were able to back up any of the things they put forward and we were critical in some ways of their platform. It doesn't go far enough in a lot of ways.

Emily Steers:  [25:11]  

But it was a good platform. It was a progressive platform that I would have been excited to see action,

Daniel Tarade:  [25:16]  

but they weren't willing to fight behind any of their policy points beyond the election.

Emily Steers:  [25:21]  

Exactly. And we kept joking it's like Andrea Horvath keeps saying oh, we stood up for workers and we stood up for working people during the pandemic we tabled 27 bills, Private Member's bills in support of paid sick days. And I was like, and what did that accomplish? Yeah, it's just posturing. Like by the 23rd time you're putting this bill forward, did you really think it was going to do anything? Why are you not talking to workers organizing demonstrations, galvanizing the union's organizing mass strikes and demonstrations to call for paid sick days because that was so desperately needed? It was massively popular. People were literally dying and the NDP still couldn't organize any meaningful demonstration aside from a here's private member's bill number 26. Here's private member's bill number 27. How is this effective leadership? How is this effective allyship with the people who are most effective? It just looks like meaningless posturing. Yeah.

Daniel Tarade:  [26:21]  

They took a page from the Democrat playbook, taking a real concern that people want to organize around and then turning it into a fundraising platform point. And that's why we started getting these emails all the time from them. Here are all the horrible things happening, indicating that they recognize the scope of the situation. They absolutely do. And then it would be followed with Can you donate $254 right now so we can defeat them at the polls and it was starting to feel like they're holding us, hostage, you know, like if you don't vote for us, then you deserve what you get.

Emily Steers:  [26:54]  

Well, if you don't give us money, you deserve a Doug Ford win. And interestingly, in the aftermath of the election, I have not heard from them. Aren't we having a leadership race? There's a new interim leader coming in. There are people going forward for candidacy as new NDP leader after Andrew Horvath has rightfully stepped down. I haven't heard about anything. I have not been in communication with anyone. The only thing I've heard is from activists within the Oh, NDP shout-out to New Demo chat. The only thing I've heard is from those activists who are mobilizing and saying hey, the O NDP needs to go into a new direction we need to empower local ridings we need to empower EDA and there was a lot of political machinery and interference from Central in the election. Oh, yeah, like I can say even in my writing in Guelph in 2018. The NDP had 26% support this election. We had eight Yeah. Wow. It was abysmal. It was embarrassing. How much support was lost and how much momentum was lost? How much organizing was just not supported from the local level? Because they kind of went like Oh, whatever. Mike Schreiner is going to win there anyway.

Daniel Tarade:  [28:07]  

Now there was a lot of hand picking of candidates parachuting of candidates taking a candidate that doesn't live in the writing but is very connected with the bureaucracy within the ONDP, someone they know is going to be a safe candidate and is not going to push back for the maybe more progressive policy or pushing for real grassroots organization, someone that's just willing to walk the NDP line got a lot of that you had candidates that want to run who headquarters to not want to vet they refuse to let PDAs or electoral district associations pick their own candidates and elect their own candidates.

Emily Steers:  [28:39]  

There were many people who were put forward by EDA, who would have been absolutely brilliant candidates who failed to vet for reasons that were not shared with them.

Daniel Tarade:  [28:49]  

And that's been an ongoing issue that's coming more and more to the fore as more and more young grassroots-oriented people want to enter the Oh NDP

Emily Steers:  [28:58]  

they want to run they want to be spokespeople for the causes that we purport to care about in the NDP.

Daniel Tarade:  [29:04]  

Exactly. And yet, we see generally the NDP at all levels really follow opinion polls and really trying to market and brand their way into leadership, which is just going to reproduce a lot of the same top-down bureaucracy that is failing everybody. Currently, we need a system from the bottom up and they don't want to give up that control. And this is often a lot of unelected people who are actually just employees who work for the party who is paid by the party to run the party and they get to make a lot of decisions with very little accountability. And that's how we ended up with Andrea Horvath being the official opposition leader for four years and actually losing ground to Doug Ford. We all thought it was ridiculous that we lost Doug Ford in the first place. And yet we took a step back.

Emily Steers:  [29:50]  

It's an embarrassment. And, you know, I don't know if I've told this story on the podcast before but I'll share it again back in February. At convention, we were being given a presentation about, you know, what opinion polls were saying and what the forecast of the election was, and they were all very optimistic. There were a lot of polls back in February that were really promising, saying that the NDP might win a minority or even a majority government though few polls were saying that even in February, however, they were really cherry-picking which polls they were saying because there were many other polls back in February that was saying likely PC second majority win and having the NDP coming even third, so one of our socialist caucus members stood up and got up to the microphone and said we need to be realistic. These are not the only opinion polls out there. There are a lot of opinion polls that say we're coming in third, we need to be like really mobilizing, we really need to be on the ground right now. We need to start campaigning we need to start actively getting involved in communities hearing what people need and responding to it because otherwise, we're just going to lose again like the numbers are not all sunshine and roses. And you know what happened with that member? They were booed. They were punted off and people said, you know, Oh, stop being such a downer. We're never going to win with that attitude. Well, how'd that work out for us? How'd that go?

Daniel Tarade:  [31:12]  

And to be honest, I had the same experience within the labor movement. I think now is a reasonable time to also debrief the Ontario Federation of labor strategy for this election, which was fully uncritical support for the NDP, basically, labor is going to live and die with how the Ontario NDP does in this election if they lose, and we got another four years of Doug Ford, well, then that's the risk we're willing to take. And it was at 2021, Ontario Federation of Labor convention, where I was running as part of a slate of the worker's Action Movement. I was running for secretary-treasurer, and I highlighted the action plan they were for. This is after three years of Doug Ford in power. A labor body with a million members. Their whole strategy was to let's make him a one-term Premier. Let's vote him out. And I went to the mic multiple times once to say you know, the polls are looking like Doug Ford is going to win and unless the labor movement organizes itself independently of the NDP, but while also critically supporting them, but actually pushing back against Doug Ford in our workplaces in the streets showing.

Emily Steers:  [32:11]  

That resistance is possible outside of the ballot box.

Daniel Tarade:  [32:15]  

Exactly. We're going to sleepwalk into a loss and it was the same thing. You had all these big labor bureaucrats get on the mic and say like, oh, well, there are some polls that show that we're doing okay, and you know, we need to be positive and it wasn't that I wasn't being positive. I was actually incredibly positive about the possibility of job action to actually mobilize the ranks because of how many people ultimately voted for the NDP. They got about a million votes total in the province, right? That's how many people are affiliated with the Ontario Federation of Labor. So Doug Ford got about 2 million votes. The NDP got about a million votes, which is the exact membership number of the Ontario Federation of Labor and I know that all those members didn't go out and vote. I know the ones that voted not all of them voted for the Ontario NDP because even though the Ontario Federation of Labor has adopted at convention support for the NDP, they were not willing to mobilize on an actual working class platform when union leaders like Jerry Diaz of Unifor and smokey Thomas of OPSEU, both of them are gone. Now. Both of them are no longer leaders. Shout JP shout out to JP Hornick, who is now the new President of OPSEU. Federation of Labor convention, they skipped a day to do a press conference with Doug Ford. He's the only person that's been at least doing some things for workers. So we had traders within our own ranks and yeah, we just ignored that. And we uncritically support the NDP, we try to mobilize members to support them without ever actually demanding that they fight more struggles for workers and it was a recipe for disillusionment and dissatisfaction and alienation. That's what we saw at the polls as what we've been trying to fight against in the worker's action was a few weeks before the election, we had the Cupe Ontario convention and I'm a member of two CUPE Ontario locals.

Emily Steers:  [34:00]  

Yes, I wasn't able to go to this. So I'm excited to hear all of the juicy details. Yeah,

Daniel Tarade:  [34:05]  

as opposed to the Ontario Federation of Labor convention. There were more militant ruminations in the space we'd love to see it. People were expressing dissatisfaction with just uncritical support for the NDP, that we need not only our own plus dependent organizing, we also need contingency plans in case the Conservatives once again won a number of amendments to their action plan. Rather than fighting for the dollar minimum wage. We amended that to fight for a $25 an hour minimum wage. We fought to expand Oh hip to include international students who are currently under a private health care plan that's provided by universities. So those are two big ones but the biggest Amendment One to the action plan was quote, develop a working-class strategy to defeat Bill 124. That may include mass direct action and training for our members to safely organize and mobilize and even with that amendment, though, as much of an advance it was we had people go to the mic and say we want you to remove the term may we don't want a working-class strategy that may include mass direct action, if Bill 124 is now repealed, we already know that for years of mobilizing phone banks and email campaigns and letter campaigns and some rallies, that wasn't enough, we need mass job action. We got the CUPE Ontario President Fred Hahn, who was a claim for a third term to promise that bill 124 is now repealed following that Ontario election and that there would be a call for locals to go on strike. We have not seen that yet. But we have been mobilizing at the grassroots levels within our unions to actually fight in the same vein as those people at the Haymarket rally over 100 years ago. We know that serious wins is going to require serious militant action.

Emily Steers:  [35:48]  

We know from the sacrifices made by our forebears in labor action that the capitalists never give up anything willingly. They never give an inch and swiftly move an inch we need to take a mile

Daniel Tarade:  [36:02]  

And we can't embarrass them either some people the Ontario NDP conventions or labor conventions talk about we need to you know put them on blast. Doug Ford does not care about being put on blast. His job is to be put on blast and to take it as cover for the capitalist dictators that are running our society. Doug Ford is there to be a buffoon in the same vein that Boris Johnson and Jason Kenney and Donald Trump are all meant to essentially win gains for the capitalist class and then to take any backlash so that we do not actually riot side of the mention of Galen Weston Jr. or, you know, Mark Zuckerberg or Jeff Bezos, they're there to be a lightning rod to take all of our dissatisfaction for us to make memes about them and pretend that the problems begin and end with them. We need a class and a strategy that recognizes that Doug Ford is merely a representative of a capitalist class that we need to directly mobilize against. They're the people that are saying, Oh, you don't really deserve a place to live. We can charge rent, whatever we want, so we can extract as much money from your paycheck as possible. And if some of you can't afford it, that's fine. You can live in the streets where we'll then stick our police on you so that you don't actually offend any of the people that are on our side. We won that language. And now the task is to actually hold our own union leadership accountable to the demands of the rank and file who are dying, who are every day that passes falling further and further behind with an inflationary crisis, mounting with wages that aren't keeping up and with Bill one, four that has kept Public Service employees to a 1% Raise maximum each year, which is in violation of our Charter rights to free and collective bargaining. And the unions have been waging a legal battle arguing that this bill violates our Charter rights. But that's not enough. We know that they're just going to stall this in the courts. And in the meanwhile, workers are suffering materially in variable.

Emily Steers:  [37:59]  

And it's not just healthcare workers that are suffering. It's everyone because medical professionals are leaving in droves and not just medical professionals, but any public employee is affected by Bill 124. They're all leaving the profession in droves. And this is why you're seeing massive wait times we've talked.

Daniel Tarade:  [38:17]  

about it before on the podcast. We've talked about the code reds and the code blacks throughout the country. Where ambulances can be called but they're not available. You have times where entire towns for days and weeks are just not being serviced at all we see this in Alberta we see in Ontario, we see it from coast to coast where healthcare is slowly being underfunded, which is building to just privatize it fully, which is not going to fix the problem. But it's going to make it a win for the capitalists who now have a whole new market that they can use to exploit people explicitly for profit. We know that there's not any way out of this except for the mass mobilization of workers and oppressed people to challenge this. There's no system in our parliamentary democracy for workers and oppressed people to have their needs met. There's no system, it's a facade. It's a smokescreen, and only if we represent a genuine threat to them, will they pitch late to some of our demands. Yeah, it's their turn to make concessions. It's their turn to make concessions. We don't have enough time in this podcast to talk about inflation. But I'm very excited to say we have an 18-page script coming from one of our seasoned members that are going to break down the precarious global international financial system, and the impending crisis. We saw what happened in 2008. Now in July when the Bank of Canada's announcing the biggest interest rate hikes in decades, and we know that the recession that's coming is going to kill workers is going to kill oppressed people. And there's no way out of this except together on mass voicing the demand that we need because one of the main drivers of this inflation is soaring corporate profits. It's not the only driver. It's a Polly crisis. That's a term that Bob McDermott the scripter of this research makes clear but the corporations are profiting at record levels. They're not suffering at all. So it's time for them to you know, tighten their belt time.

Emily Steers:  [40:07]  

For them to make concessions. It's time for them to sacrifice for the public good,

Daniel Tarade:  [40:12]  

which is why as a worker it's been very frustrating at times to go into labor meetings and to have to just so desperately argue for our right to basic needs being met and knowing that these things will not be met until we mobilize immediately after the Ontario election. The Ontario Federation of Labor announced a panel discussion with some Ontario NDP candidates, some who didn't get elected some that were reelected, and some labor leaders and it was titled The future of the labor movement in Ontario and I went there I'm like, okay, my hope is that they're going to announce a strategy that they're going to build up the organization. within our ranks so that we can take job action. So you can do single-day strikes, build that up and formulate demands that we're actually going to take to the streets and into our workplaces to win. But it wasn't that at all. It was very one-sided. The questions were mostly put forward by the President, the Ontario Federation of Labor, so it was really guided a lot of it was actually focusing on remaining positive about the Ontario NDP and their results in the election, you know, this person was reelected even though no one thought they would be reelected. Isn't that great? How did they do it? They did it by talking about their personal abilities as a leader and that they're super reliable. There was a lot of personal politics, it was a lot of talking about showing up but without actually talking about actually showing up. It was quite remarkable. And ultimately, there was a lot of dissatisfaction. Sometimes when you have these panel discussions, they make the Zoom chat that you can only send messages to the moderator. To their credit, they actually allow it to be public where people can send messages, everybody that's in the Zoom chat their mistake, and it was mostly negative was mostly talking about realistic that this was a huge defeat for us that this strategy, work. We need to mobilize labor.

Emily Steers:  [41:55]  

This is the takeaway I'm getting from labor and the UNDP. You cannot manifest labor justice. You cannot manifest an election when that's not how that works, you know, to actually do the work and just positive thinking and having a good mindset and manifesting a win for the work of Ontario as not how this shit works.

Daniel Tarade:  [42:20]  

We know it's been a literal battle throughout history, a literal battle. It's very seldom workers that initiate these battles. They don't initiate them by starting off fighting. Initiate by exercising their collective right to refuse work, and they literally get killed by the capitalists, they get shot, they get bombed, they get undermined with all this legislation against them. The cops attack them, they bring in scabs, we know it's a battle yet we today benefit from the battles that they waged decades and centuries ago. The five-day work week, which fewer and fewer people are enjoying today because of the increase in precarious work and gig workers comes from those literal battles the victory of the right to unionize paid maternity leave eight-hour workdays basic health, Every gain that the worker has enjoyed that has elevated us from a serf to someone that has some rights as one in bloody battle.

Emily Steers:  [43:18]  

Every single labor law that is written in blood.

Daniel Tarade:  [43:22]  

And yet we have a whole generation of labor that have been mostly kind of begging the bosses for just a little bit you know Oh, please don't send all of the jobs to Mexico. Please don't send all of the jobs to China. Just a few here. We won't go on strike. If you just give us a few jobs here. Then they say okay, and then 10 years later they go to the bar again as saying please just save the jobs. We will take a pension if you keep a few of the jobs here. That's what we mean by concessions bargaining for decades now, the status quo or the labor movement has been to give up rights has been to give up things because under neoliberalism and the globalized economy and with outsourcing the capitalists have had a very effective getting piece they've been basically able to say if you fight for anything, we can exploit someone even more elsewhere. And the response to the labor movement oughtn't to be begging on hands and knees. Please don't exploit all the jobs. We need them it was to mobilize because they can't just outsource overnight. Move everything we can seize those factories, we can literally see them. We can take them and make them our own. They don't actually run the factories. If they abandon the factory in Oshawa, which they did. Then we can just seize it and then use it to make things that the community needs as public work but that requires bold leadership. It requires union leaders that are willing to sacrifice and yet what we see generally are union leaders that are careerists. They're in this for a career. They're going to jump into politics later they're going to be in a union their whole life in six figures off the union dues that they're collecting without actually putting their neck out on the line for the rank and file. That empowered them to leave a job that is meant to be cushy. It's a class war. We're in a class war. So if you're going to be elected union leader, you are a general you are going to be someone that ought to lead people into that was we elected some really good people up Ontario convention to the executive board?

Emily Steers:  [45:18]  

Some actual fighting fit generals. Absolutely.

Daniel Tarade:  [45:21]  

Craig Conway, who we work with in the worker's Action Movement, has been reelected yay. Open anarchists as an open anti-capitalist as someone who has been arrested, road blockades in support of what solution is a really great comrade. To have there. Also, a new person elected that I got to meet at the Ontario Federation of Labor convention. Nasaan. Yeah, to allow him to be 79 members was newly elected, and I know these people, they're going to fight for workers and the need to mobilize we need to mobilize the rank and file within our locals. But put that pressure its amazing number first, we have to fight our own labor bureaucrats before we even fight the capitalists. But we need people that are willing to mobilize the resources we do have to actually fight and win getting in so.

Emily Steers:  [46:06]  

It's amazing what happens when you have good labor leadership because they waffle on about like oh, well, we can't do this. We can't do this. You see someone like JP Hornick, who was elected as OPSEU president and she took charge in mobilizing OPSEU in supporting a rally outside of the US consulate to protest the criminalization of abortion. We can just do that.

Daniel Tarade:  [46:28]  

And JP is initiating a rally in Ontario as soon as the legislature reopens to immediately present a mass labor opposition to Doug Ford with the idea that no we're not gonna give you any second chances. It doesn't matter that you were reelected. We are your enemy because you are our enemy. And so that was again coming out of OPSEU it was actually a resolution that was written by one of our comrades Julius R. Scott, who was recently reelected auto deck, and by the board JP board has been reaching out to other unions and they're going to build immediately a mass labour opposition, but we do need to take that crucial step from simply rallying at Queen's Park to actually taking job action in the 90s against my cares, they called them the days of action where they would do one-day strikes throughout the province. And not only would this be a rally talking about the demands, the working class has but also exercising their power by not working and showing how essential they are. And honestly come on pandemic. This has never been a clear argument about how essential workers are to the functioning of everything. We have the term now they've set it themselves, have the term essential workers, essential workers and so the essential workers need to actually be led by their leaders to win the games that they have the power to win. So that's where we are in Ontario. So it's an awful situation. There are another four years of Doug Ford on the horizon, but we're seeing the signs of resistance, keep a lookout, and if you're unionized if you're not union we need to be forming those connections ourselves as well. Unfortunately, we can't just wait for suppose the leaders to like Moses part the Red Sea and show us the direction ultimately,

Emily Steers:  [48:05]  

we need to take charge and rank and file leadership needs to be where we're going.

Daniel Tarade:  [48:09]  

So that's really a huge focus for this ring review has been the re-election of Doug Ford where the labor movement stands there. We've talked about the stirrings of resistance in the May Day committee and the Mayday rallies that we're seeing around the country. And we're still seeing the resistance building across this country in other really important arenas. And it's been

Emily Steers:  [48:28]  

A lot of focus on what's going on domestically and particularly local to us here and Terios or the rest of Canada. We will cover you soon, I promise but we want to turn our attention now to what's going on internationally because a lot of these headlines have been really buried. So, first of all, spring as always, May 15, 1948, has been the commemoration of the Nakba, the catastrophe in Palestine. And this year, particularly, there was a lot of very salient and very strong resistance to the Israeli dogma and Zionist propaganda because just before Nakba, this year on May 11, the Israeli occupation shot and murdered a clearly marked journalist Shireen boo, a click on analyst was attempting to cover an ongoing arrest operation by Israeli security forces at the Jeannine refuge, the northern occupied West Bank. Now originally they attempted to obfuscate and say oh, she was hit by crossfire from Palestinian militants who are also in the area and that's why we were firing because we're returning fire from Palestinian militants and it's like, well, why are they firing in the first place? I wonder? Is it because you were violently clearing them from their homes and Abu Collette it cannot be overstated. She has been a phenomenal force for Palestinian advocacy and activism for so many years. She's a reporter with Al Jazeera and you can look at her body of work. It is phenomenal. She was a steadfast supporter of Palestine throughout her entire career. She was Palestinian herself. Of course, the Israeli military tried to obfuscate the issue of a US-based investigation because Serena was also a US citizen. A US-based investigation basically came to no conclusion. He said We don't know that notwithstanding the United Nations Human Rights Office. did find the Israeli military responsible quote, we at the UN Human Rights Office have concluded our independent monitoring into the incident. All information we have gathered, including official information from this elite military and the Palestinian Attorney General, is consistent with the shots that killed Abu Alclad and injured her colleague Elisa moody coming from Israeli security forces and not from indiscriminate firing by armed Palestinians as was initially claimed by Israeli authorities. We have found no information suggesting there was taken by armed Palestinians in the immediate vicinity of the journalist which is even more damning because they say they were returning fire but there was no activity by armed Palestinians in the area. Why were they firing? Why was a journalist who is clearly marked with a vest, press deliberately targeted, and shot in the head, then is the global community going to hold Israel accountable? And this is of course, a backdrop of last year when they indiscriminately bombed Gaza and attacked and murdered many many Palestinians.

Daniel Tarade:  [51:31]  

It's been an attack on Palestinians continuously we repeatedly and continuously today still see the footage of Palestinians being evicted from the homes that they live in their entire lives. You see the whole bulldoze to make way for Israeli settlers. So in terms of settler colonialism to see how this process works in real-time, all you need to do is look at Palestine to see literally the role that settlers play in this position in the displacement of Palestinians. You see the they have attacked journalists during the bombing of Gaza. They leveled an apartment building that also houses different journalist agencies, including the Associated Press, so they're also deliberately showing a pattern of trying to stifle any coverage. This, because they know that the tides are turning and they know that every single article that comes out, every footage comes out as being spread more and more and that the lies they're sharing about Israeli apartheid. People aren't believing it as much anymore. They're literally trying to silence and so this year and I went to Nakba day in Toronto. We heard chants from Turtle Island to Janene. Justice for Shareen, referencing the slain journalist as well as the refugee camp where the shooting took place, and like past years, I mean, anger but there's also this incredible expression of hope that they will be able to return to their land and increasing solidarity. There were a lot of Palestinians or a lot of Arabic people and there are a lot of allies. Have a recording of Mark Ayyash, who is an academic in Montreal who studies Palestine he was present in Toronto and I will be inserting here the remarks he gave after a very, very difficult week.

Mark Ayyash  [53:07]  

It's so good to be around some beautiful Indian people. You know for us we didn't buy any of these dailies until about her killing. You know why because these lies for decades. Israel burst into the lie that the land was not empty. Palestinians had been living there for generations. Generations and we're gonna stay there nine years ago my second cousin was calling cousin Milan Iyesh was murdered in cold blood just like showing their investigation took four years after which they said, Oh, well, we don't know what happened. Shag all the same lines that we've heard before. The Palestinian struggle is based on the fact that Israel has tried to eliminate some lands, our homelands. That's what they tried to do before even the Nakba. Before 1948. They were trying to kick us off our lands, they work in the software lands. We can see it in the Lahave after Philistine character Lane, the majority of Palestine was fella here. And in the 1920s in the 1930s, there was already Zionist organizations that were buying land and kicking the Fulani and this was something completely out of the ordinary for those that nobody has ever done that to them before. So they were already seeing the true reality of a project from the 1920s. They were screaming right from the 1920s that ism intended to eliminate and replace Palestinians. They knew that before 1948 He struggled against it before 19 unfortunately in 1948 this plan for the mass expulsion of Palestine took place where 750,000 to about 800,000 Palestinians were kicked off and expelled from their homes and lands, never to be allowed to return. This was about 55% of the total population that lives in Palestine from the river to the sea that was kicked off. Today there are about 6 million Palestinians that are living in refugee camps and camps inside Palestine. Since that day 98 But they have never forgotten. Bailey's always believed that we will just forget about it, because we will be hopefully you won't need to, hopefully, the uncle will see the Liberation of Palestine but if we don't, and if the young kids even don't know pass it on to their kids. We're not We're not Indigenous people here. They haven't stopped for 100 years. We'll keep going we'll keep remembering. That's what they're afraid of. They're afraid of the truth or they're afraid of our memory. They have their nuclear weapons. We have truth and justice on our side. They can have our American Masters Yeah, people power on our side. Palestine. Always remember Palestine Thank you.

Daniel Tarade:  [57:33]  

Honestly, upon realism to it, it's so incredibly powerful. The way he draws the connection between the struggle for Palestinians to return to their home and the struggle of Indigenous people with an internal island for the land back and highlights that the Palestinians will fight as long as they take as many generations as it takes to return to their land. In the same way Indigenous people here have never given up the fight. Their land. It's incredibly powerful. And I will also be sharing something with accents that we did. I want people to really listen to these chants and feel what it would feel like if you've been to a rally like this, maybe you felt uncomfortable putting it out there in a public way because there is a strong lobby that will try and silence voices that are positive and supportive of Palestine, to try and silence those voices as being anti-semitic. It's a very intentional strategy. We've seen charges of anti Semitism being launched against really prominent socialists as people like Desmond Cole get slandered with this accusation of antisemitism being willing to say that Palestine lives to need to be centered in discourse. And so there's also a recording of some Jewish people that show up to all of these rallies and marches and they speak very clearly that prism and Judaism are not equivalent, that critiquing Zionism, not antisemitism,

Pro-Palestine Jewish Activist  [58:46]  

The tragedy of not. There are so many levels. Look at this levy that came up and passed without your patience. With each passing day, families who are living in an open-air, so many families and occupied will face discrimination regarding housing policies. This kind of a nation blows my places in the middle of the night. We stand there today in the streets of Toronto, in the name of the Jewish religion, and in the name of the Jews and around the world. To show solidarity with the victimized people of Palestine in Jewish religion forbids stealing. We also saw and deeply this is more than sit down it's time to get to listen, that's another problem. Isn't it? Nice? I'm gonna sign as soon as the problem isn't sleeping side by side all over the Middle East. We should not be able to say that when they try to summarize the largest voiceless people who stand up design is Miss let's pray that this will be the end of the occupation. And today we can live together in peace for the day when you save Thank you people.

Daniel Tarade:  [1:00:46]  

Listen to these feel the energy and realize that the turning against the Israeli apartheid state much like it turned against the South African state then now is the time to stand boldly on the right side of history, and to stand with the people and the right to return to their land, the right leads on their lands.

Emily Steers:  [1:01:05]  

And we're also saying this against that backdrop of Joe Biden's current visit to Israel and reaffirming their political and military partnership where you know, the United States provides almost $4 billion in military aid to Israel every year and what does that military aid do? No clothes, innocent people like Shareen and like many children and young people, elderly people, this is what it funds. And you know, Joe Biden himself says you do not have to be Jewish to be a dentist and I am proud to be a scientist. And I think Jewish voices of peace said best in their replies. They're like you know what? Sure, and you don't have to be a Zionist to be a Jew. And we are proud to be Jewish. So I want to affirm the amazing work of Jewish voices for peace and their ally ship with the Palestinian people,

Daniel Tarade:  [1:01:59]  

And then also the independent Jewish voices as well as Canadian Youth Movement. Obviously, the different BDS coalition's socialist factions, for example, as a member of the Canadian BDS coalition, stand for boycott, divestment, and sanction. We're proud partners in that struggle to abolish the illegitimate apartheid state.

Emily Steers:  [1:02:17]  

Socialist action is very proud to have a long history of Palestinian advocacy and activism and we are honored to be a part of this movement as we are discussing the world of journalism and hotter conditions for journalism and people speaking truth to power. Let's turn our attention to the Julian Assange extradition. So you don't know is the founder and leader of the nonprofit investigative journalist company wiki leaks. He founded WikiLeaks in 2006, and has since leaked 10s of millions of government documents and communications, and has uncovered some of the biggest human rights abuses the United States that have up until this point remained hidden from the general public. So leading into some of the most impactful journalism of the 2010s. This included leaking files and communication regarding treatment of prisoners within Guantanamo Bay, the killing of several journalists during the July 12 2007. Baghdad airstrike, the monetary and human cost of the Iraqi Syrian and Afghanistan war, the American meddling in French elections, as well as exposing even mild anti corporate politicians such as Bernie Sanders within the Democratic National Convention as one of the most famous truly dissident journalists to American imperialism. Assange and WikiLeaks have been the target of many crackdowns to suppress their speech, their server, constantly harassed by a denial of service attacks, and they have been kicked off multiple server networks.

Daniel Tarade:  [1:03:47]  

So 2010 was a big year for WikiLeaks, publishing the Affer mentioned Iran word logs Afghan War logs and the Baghdad airstrike videos. This prompted the beginning of an investigation by the FBI into WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, and issuance of an arrest warrant by the US for Assange and May of a patron of suppose that espionage then an entirely unrelated turn of events in November. of that year. The Swedish police also put out an arrest warrant on counts of sexual assault, but Assad was claimed that this was merely a ploy to secure his extradition to the United States for prosecution related to WikiLeaks publications. This claim would be backed up as the charges would be completely dropped later due to a lack of evidence the fraudulent nature of these accusations after Assange as dissident publications is an example of American infringement on the sovereignty of other humans within this pursuit of Assange, at the time of Taj was residing in the UK would be granted asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in the UK, where he would remain for nine years when he was expelled as a new neoliberal Ecuadorian mirando administration.

Emily Steers:  [1:04:57]  

So immediately after Assange just expulsion, he was arrested by London at least for failing to attend his court date. He remained in UK courts over those three years UK officials engaged in a lengthy court battle regarding Assange is extradition to the US until April of 2018. When despite assumptions, mental health, and the improbability of a fair trial in the US, a UK judge determined that Assange is extradition, it was not a judge would then deny Assange just right to appeal that decision and sent the extradition order to the UK. Priti Patel then, of April 2022, the interior just finished this multi year battle somebody's extradition order for on charges of espionage.

Daniel Tarade:  [1:05:39]  

And so the same situation we saw with Israel, this was a very blatant crackdown. On journalism, it's a lot harder to maintain the Incan Empire as oppressive as explicitly as destructive as it is, if everything they're doing is being widely released. We saw this with Ed Snowden with leaks on the NSA and the fact that the government was spying illegally onto the citizens. Of course, the government is not going to hold itself accountable. This does spur some resistance from people who take this evidence. confirmation that the struggle against American imperialism is racist struggle. Look at all the things they're doing. So one of the imperialists B's tasks is to religious eyes and anybody tries to do it, and I will. 

Emily Steers:  [1:06:27] 

It's not even like the US is particularly averse to seeing the quiet part out loud. We haven't talked about this, because it's not within our scope for this particular podcast. You don't listen to us rambling on for 12 hours. I am pumped with all of the discussion right now about the January 6 hearings in the United States and whether Donald Trump to orchestrate a coup, the former US national security adviser John Bolton in an interview they were discussing whether Donald Trump was planning a coup d'etat and he said this was very chaotic and unorganized and helped plan. He was not here. But there were a lot of very difficult operations. He said this on television. Of course, getting a lot of flack now but there are a lot of questions that raise so openly admitting to deliberate interference in foreign government deliberate relation of international law, but it's not okay when it happens to us because we're America, things have to happen properly here. In a lot of ways things are coming home to roost. And Assange really sparked that and we are really, really sad to see the extradition of Assange to the US because we know is not going to generally we know he is going to face immense, immense violence from the state psychologically I mean, Patrick Manning, when she was imprisoned, I'm very afraid. This is going to intimidate journalists. It was going to embolden the imperialists and it is going to make the fight even more difficult because how can we fight what we do not know?

Daniel Tarade:  [1:08:02]  

That's exactly it was what the AP The Associated Press sad after their headquarters in Gaza was bombed. They ended their statement by saying the world will know lattice about what is happening in Gaza because of what has happened. And that's not an accident. Intentional part of what we're trying to do in the red review. Not only are we trying to highlight the real organizing that's happening we're also trying to create and build an independent work where these ideas can still be shared and spread and connected to the understanding that really makes action global it makes it the conclusion of mass action undeniable because we're up against a system that is based on the exploitation and oppression of us they're never going to be polite about it they're never going to stop before they go too far. That's not in their head can't be in their head because the group that does it get out-competed by the ones that don't it's a system that's racing to the bottom when the most expendable systems rise to the top because they be wheeled and steal the most power and they'll come back together to steal that power back or maybe ready to claim that power situation is just gonna get worse.

Emily Steers:  [1:09:07]  

So there are a lot of things that we've had a chance to cover that happened this spring, but that we are hoping to cover more discussions in the next couple of months. So stay tuned for those we'll be talking about the no pride and coalition and what's been happening this pride month as well as what's been happening in Indigenous peoples month of June and actions take place on July 1, again, with the legacy of residential schools and the Foundation of Canada. So all of those discussions and more will be coming to you. As well as more discussions that I have found beating me about inflation, monetary policy, capitalism, climate crisis and the way all of those things combined with one another. I learned a lot from the discussions that you're gonna hear. 

Daniel Tarade:  [1:09:55]  

And I hope you'll tune in so much for listening to the Spring River route along winter hoping is still around the oppressive and exploitative systems still exist, but so do the workers. So do the lump and proletariat and we're still fighting back and we're still resisting more and more disk resistance increasing the mobile site is increasing. We're forming new alliances new coalition we're linking arms and realizing that even though we don't agree on everything, we are on the same side of this quarter-class war between capitalists and everybody else. And in that context, I find I find their energy going want to invite everybody listening to us, it doesn't necessarily mean you're joining so just some of you have and that's really wonderful to see. Everyone talks to me just dropping in towards discord connecting with us to see what's going on. And you might find that there's organizing going on in your city in your own things going on with host tickets, will you be inspired to give yourself the opportunity to connect with like-minded people or not all alone.

Emily Steers:  [1:11:01]  

Share this podcast with people I think my legacy might be the politics involved.

Daniel Tarade:  [1:11:06] 

So until next time, stay active. We releasing some stuff very soon on interest on inflation on universities' basic income, and I'm looking forward to having a conversation with Paul

Emily Steers:  1:11:16  

Thanks again everyone for listening. Next time