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Canadian unionists and human rights activists will protest outside the Iranian Embassy in Ottawa on June 26^th as part of the Global Day of Action called to support the rights of workers and against the persecution of labour activists. Members of CUPE, CUPW, CTF, NUPGE, PSAC and CAW will be there as well as Amnesty International and Paul Dewar, NDP Foreign Affairs Critic.  Activists from the Iranian-Canadian community including the non-partisan Solidarity Campaign with the Workers’ Struggles in Iran will gather to demand the respect for human rights and workers rights in Iran.

Speakers include:

Alex Neve, Secretary General of Amnesty International Canada

Denis Lemelin, National President, Canadian Union of Postal Workers

Paul Dewar, MP Ottawa Centre, NDP Foreign Affairs Critic

Rhonda Spence, International Officer, Canadian Union of Public Employees

Demonstrators will call on the Iranian government to:

·        Free all arrested workers, students and political prisoners

·        Justice for people who have been killed or injured by security forces during recent protests in Iran

·        For the right to organize independent organizations and for the right to free speech, protest and freedom of assembly

·        Free bus workers’ union  leaders, Mansour Osanloo, and Ebrahim Madadi, and Farzad Kamangar, a teacher on death row

·        Drop all charges and prison sentences against labour, social and political activists in Iran, including May Day detainees and those arrested during recent protests.

Where:            The Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran – 245 Metcalfe St. Ottawa

Time:               12:00 to 2:00 PM

Date:               Friday June 26, 2009

For more information, please contact:

415-835-8296/ info@workers-iran.org or alliance@workers-iran.org

www.workers-iran.org

Friday is the Global Day of Action for Iranian Workers, planned, believe it or not, long before the current protests started. Iranian trade unions suffer tremendous repression. Leaders are routinely fired for organizing at work and are often imprisoned or physically attacked.

Attendance at union events can lead to punishments like flogging.

Amnesty International and the global labour movement are organizing solidarity for Iran's unions. Send a message of solidarity in 30 seconds HERE.

And while you're there, in a couple of clicks you can find out about events taking place in your region.

As opposed to recession bargaining.

A bit of useful (I hope) fluff to be found HERE.

http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11464

Digital Media and Democracy
Tactics in Hard Times
Edited by Megan Boler

Table of Contents and Sample Chapters

In an age of proliferating media and news sources, who has the power to define reality? When the dominant media declared the existence of WMDs in Iraq, did that make it a fact? Today, the "Social web" (sometimes known as Web 2.0, groupware, or the participatory Web)—epitomized by blogs, viral videos, and YouTube—creates new pathways for truths to emerge and makes possible new tactics for media activism. In Digital Media and Democracy, leading scholars in media and communication studies, media activists, journalists, and artists explore the contradiction at the heart of the relationship between truth and power today: the fact that the radical democratization of knowledge and multiplication of sources and voices made possible by digital media coexists with the blatant falsification of information by political and corporate powers.

The book maps a new digital media landscape that features citizen journalism, The Daily Show, blogging, and alternative media. The contributors discuss broad questions of media and politics, offer nuanced analyses of change in journalism, and undertake detailed examinations of the use of Web-based media in shaping political and social movements. The chapters include not only essays by noted media scholars but also interviews with such journalists and media activists as Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!, Media Matters host Robert McChesney, and Hassan Ibrahim of Al Jazeera.

Contributors and Interviewees:
Shaina Anand, Chris Atton, Megan Boler, Axel Bruns, Jodi Dean, Ron J. Deibert, Deepa Fernandes, Amy Goodman, Brian Holmes, Hassan Ibrahim, Geert Lovink, Nathalie Magnan, Robert McChesney, Graham Meikle, Susan D. Moeller, Alessandra Renzi, Ricardo Rosas, Andréa Schmidt, Trebor Scholz, D. Travers Scott, R. Sophie Statzel, Stephen Turpin.

About the Editor

Megan Boler is Associate Professor of Theory and Policy Studies at the Ontario Institute of Studies in Education at the University of Toronto.

Hardly. But you wouldn't know it to read the nerd, and much mainstream, press.

First, it all gets translated into meatspace, real action by real people, and that is, or should be the story.

Second, if there's a tech story in there somewhere it's in the use of much more mundane stuff like SMS.

Here's a first: I'm pointing you (all three of you, Hi Sis!) to a Business Week article HERE.

TVO Search Engine's segment on the net neutrality forum last week used my presence and Olivia Chow's as evidence that the neutrality movement is dominated by the "the left, maybe the far left".

She can't be the 'far' bit, so it must be me.

Mmmm...I am feeling kinda Bolshie today, but I thought was just because I'm not drinking decafe this morning.

You can subscribe to the excellent Search Engine pod off iTunes or HERE.

The Good: HERE

The Bad: HERE

The Ugly: HERE or read just the bit about me below.

"you know the guy sitting in the middle was a staff representative for CUPE (Canadian Union of Public Employees) DOESN’T have a website (if you don’t have one today you are pretty much irrelevant in my books) and i bet you a hundred bucks you can’t remember (w/o listening to the podcast) one goddamn thing he said - i sure as hell can’t. why was that dude even there again? what? nobody knows? even less relevant than sass and i? yeah, fuck yourselves and you’re welcome."

Thanks for not saying anything about my double chin or shirt Raymi. Whew! :-)