An emergency relief fundraiser has been organized in Winnipeg on Feb 11th for Partners in Health/Zanmi Lasante’s incredible efforts in Haiti. Performers include John K. of the Weakerthans!!

Here are some other events across Canada.

Donations to highly recommended relief efforts which are actually respectful of Haitian sovereignty can be seen here:

canadahaitiaction.ca

…and finally, some context is provided by the excellent and uncompromising journalist and film-maker, John Pilger.

About the same time we were mulling potential beneficiaries over, news began rolling in about a natural disaster unfolding in Haiti.

There’s no good place for a 7.0 magnitude earthquake to hit, but Haiti, the Western Hemisphere’s poorest (and most interfered with) nation, is definitely one of the worst.

According to the Canada-Haiti Action Network, the “illegal coup of 2004 (supported by the Canadian, French and US governments) has had an extremely negative impact on Haiti’s social fabric—breakdown in government services, including education and health care; increased poverty; decline of agricultural production…”

…so the last thing the people of Port-Au-Prince needed on top of this continuing foreign domination of their country was a 7.0 magnitude earthquake to add to their misery.

In immediate terms, we obviously encourage people who want to help, to contact a trusted, pro-democracy aid organization directly. We recommend Partners in Health. PIH are a non-profit organization whose mission is to provide a preferential option for the poor in health care, specifically in Haiti. They were one of the groups we directed income to during the initial release of Supporting Caste and you people stepped up.

Hopefully you will again.

As a small but sincere gesture of solidarity — and in the spirit in which the songs were originally recorded — we’ll release these three vintage tracks as a digital download in late March and donate any profits to Partners in Health to help them continue their mission in the aftermath. Stay tuned.

thanks.

So many of you who came out to any of our North American shows in the past couple of years may remember our pal Josh from the Rainforest Action Network, who stepped up to the mic before we played each night to let people know about the environmental catastrophe known as the Tar Sands project in Canada. Many of you spoke with him at the shows.

Well, Josh has been busy on the frontlines at the Climate Summit in Copenhagen, resisting state intimidation and violence to put pressure on policy-makers to stop the freaks who prefer money to a sustainable future from continuing acts of total ecocide.

Check it out.

Fuckin A Josh!

not only did we manage to finally share the stage with some of the bands that actually inspired us to start Propagandhi back when we were teenagers in the mid-80’s — Bad Brains, Sacrifice, Cromags (ok, not the same stage per se, but same festival…still counts!), SNFU (ok, well, we shared the stage with Chi Pig for 30 seconds when he walked up out of nowhere during our set and kissed me on the cheek…still counts!), Clive Jones from Black Widow and the mighty MDC, we toured with some really great “new” bands comprised almost exclusively of awesome people: Paint it Black, Bridge and Tunnel, The Rebel Spell, Protest the Hero and Strike Anywhere to name but a few. Cheers to all of them!

Cheers also to the living freaks who have been insane enough to hitch a ride on our three-ring-circus as it bumbled across the planet: Keebler, Barney Barnyard Barnhole Red Nuts Barnabus, Ethan, Eton, Mr. D Hugill, Philippe “Fleep” Tremblay and Dewey D. Jackson have been brave enough to endure us on the road. Back home, Jason, Rob and Ruben try to make sense of our conflicting wishes and then bear the brunt of the incessant whining when they manage to make those wishes come true. i send sincere thanks to them. None of it would have happened — none of it — without them.

But among all the remarkable events that 2009 provided, none can compare to what happened on September 5th, when my son Francis-Riel Voyager arrived — with appropriate drama — on the 32nd anniversary of the lift off of the Voyager 1 space-probe. His cosmic namesake carried with it music, images and greetings in over 50 languages from earth’s incredible diversity of cultures on a golden phonograph record. Here in 2009 — the International Year of Astronomy — as Voyager 1 now approaches the known boundary of our solar system, we hope to send Francis out into the frontier of an individual life in the same spirit.

it’s a cold, hard world, but it’s also beautiful, full of love and potential and worth struggling to save from the sociopaths that dominate it.

peace to everyone, everywhere.

See you soon! As always, bring your helmet in case the walls crumble and fall on your little skull.

Eh!

So for much of this year we’ve been trying to coordinate or tours with the people from the Rainforest Action Network who are in turn hooked up with regional indigenous activists trying to draw the public’s attention to the most destructive project on the planet: the tar sands in northern Alberta.

They’ve compiled a short video that we’re hoping you will not only watch, but help spread around to your community of friends, family and acquaintances. The goal is to put pressure on the Royal Bank of Canada (the largest investor in the ecocidal tar sands project) to stop pouring money into this insanity.

Alright peeps, let’s get to it!

(I apologize in advance for having to look at my stupid face and listen to my stupid voice in this video. I also don’t really think Beave is a moron. It just seemed funny at the time. Sorry Beave. I’ll let you punch me in the nuts for Christmas buddy)

Our west coast tour with Rebel Spell was a great time and playing with Millions Of Dead Cops in Portland and Seattle was a total thrill for us!

As we continue our quest to play with bands that rule, we are very happy to announce that the mighty OI POLLOI will be playing in Edinburgh, Scotland with us, Protest The Hero, and Strike Anywhere! What a show!

Afghan women’s rights activist Malalai Joya will begin a tour  across Canada tour for her book “A Woman Among Warlords” starting in Victoria on November 13th. She will be in Winnipeg on November 16th..She’s one of the most courageous(I mean it) people on earth. I hope you’ll go see her speak if you get the chance.

She is also speaking in the US the dates are here. She is in Berkely right now as we speak!

Long live the loud!

We are playing with Sacrifice, Striker, and Evil Survives. One night only! This show is going to be amazing! We have basically dreamed of this chance to play with SACRIFICE for over 20 years.

To benefit some great local organizations, and so we do not sully our evening of thrashing with the stink of money, we will be donating our portion of the shows proceeds to :

Canada Haiti Action Network

Sage House

Sisters in Spirit

Wednesday we begin our journey to Saskatoon for the first show of our Western Canadian tour. We’re playing with some awesome bands  on this journey so show up early to see them all. We’ll also be heading down to Seattle and Portland to play with the legendary MDC! It should be great! The final stop of the trip will be Calgary, Alberta on Halloween! Make sure you bring your costume! No, not your usual punk outfit, a Halloween costume! Ha!

The Rain Forest Action Network will be accompanying us to the shows so stop by their table and see what’s up.

In December we will be heading to the Uk and Ireland for a few shows with Protest the Hero, and Strike Anywhere! We’re looking forward to this extravaganza of total wildness!

Beyond that, we’ve been hard at work on a bunch of new songs which are sounding great so far!

All is well…except my aching neck!