Alberta Advantage Podcast Team Advantage

Gaza solidarity encampments on university campuses in the U.S. and Canada are experiencing violent police crackdowns. How do the student movements of the past inform what's going on now? Team Advantage digs into the history of student radicalism and speaks to encampment supporters about their experiences with police.

What can we learn about the ongoing pandemic and how it's been handled? How's the whole global public health infrastructure, campaign for clean air, and renewed push for workplace going? Does this bode well for future pandemics and crises, and how can we learn from what's happened so far to shape our future demands?

Israel is on a genocidal rampage through Gaza. Team Advantage, joined by intrepid independent journalist Jeremy Appel, examine the historical roots and basic assumptions that underlie Zionism, and discuss a few light topics, like discourse-policing, denouncing Hamas, antisemitism, and settler-colonialism.

In late September 2023, Canadian Parliament clapped for "Ukrainian hero" Yaroslav Hunka, who fought with the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Galician), a unit in the Nazi German military. 
Why did Canada let so many Ukrainian Nazis into the country after WW2, and how did this wave of right-wing Ukrainian nationalist shape Canada's Ukrainian diaspora? Team Advantage digs into the working-class origins of Ukrainians in Canada, Canada's efforts at post-war anticommunism, and the Canadian government's careful management of "multiculturalism."

The area burned by wildfires in Canada this year exceeded 18 million hectares and burned 1,740 megatonnes of CO2, roughly three times Canada's human-made emissions from 2022. As fire season winds down, Team Advantage examines this new, fun, half-year-long weather phenomenon, and considers the role of fossil fuels and the end of "cheap nature." 

Further reading:
John Vaillant - Fire Weather
Edward Struzik - Firestorm: How Wildfire Will Shape Our Future
Alex Callinicos - The New Age of Catastrophe
Jason Moore - Capitalism in the Web of Life 

Support this podcast! Rachel Notley led the Alberta NDP to their second major electoral defeat in Alberta's latest general election. What does this election say about Albertans and our political culture? How might we make basic social democratic values popular? How should we organize as we anticipate Premier Danielle Smith? And what's next for the Alberta NDP?