From Embers: New Content in February 2019

From Embers is a regular anarchist podcast produced in Kingston, Ontario. We produce a few episodes each month about actions and projects going on in so-called Canada that inspire us, or about topics that we think will be relevant to anarchists living north of the border. We are a proud member of the Channel Zero Anarchist Podcast Network.

This month we produced three original episodes:

February 14th: Unsettling the Commons

An interview with Craig Fortier, who is an organizer and academic based in Toronto. Among other things, Craig is involved with No One Is Illegal and helps coordinate the Field of Dreamers Cooperative Softball Association, which was featured on a recent episode of Talking Radical Radio. Craig is the author of the short book Unsettling The Commons: Social Movements Within, Against and Beyond Settler Colonialism which was published in 2017 by Arbeiter Ring. In it, Craig draws on more than 50 interviews with organizers within what he calls the “anti-authoritarian current” across Canada and the United States, and discusses what it means to “struggle for the commons” in the context of settler colonialism. Craig’s book recommendations include Undoing Border Imperialism, Red Skin White Masks & Mohawk Interruptus.

February 21st: Not Having to Choose Between Feminism and Anarchy

Today’s episode features a conversation with some members of Feminist Action Hamilton, an anyone-except-cis-men collective organizing around anarchist principles. We talk about some of the actions and workshops Feminist Action Hamilton has been organizing over the past year; feelings and motivations around creating an organizing space without cis men; intentions and desires to support each other, learn together, and take action, and some of the messiness and difficulties of organizing when you’re not pretending to have all the answers.

February 28th: What’s the deal with Yellow Vests Canada?

This week’s episode features two perspectives on the right-wing “Yellow Vests Canada” movement and how anti-fascists are taking them on. Topics include:

• What, if anything, do these people have to do with the yellow vest movement in France?
• Are they workerists, xenophobes, populists, fascists or all of the above?
• How are neo-nazis and other fascists recruiting from inside the movement?
• Should we as anti-fascists treat the yellow vests like fash or like something else?
• What’s up with the United We Roll truck convoy? Is this really a grassroots movement *for* pipelines?

If you have feedback for us, or ideas for future episodes, please get in touch! You can email us at fromembers [at] riseup [dot] net