The Guest List
Thursday December 26th, 2024 with Joe Reilly
We talk to NDP MP Charlie Angus about his new book Dangerous Memory and feature songs from the 80s

The Guest List is sponsored by Spaceman Music at 388 Gladstone Avenue. It's an independent music store run by musicians. Visit them for all your music making needs! https://www.spacemanmusic.com/ Today we take a deep dive into a new book by Charlies Angus - the singer-songwriter who leads the Grievous Angels and is the NDP Member of Parliament for Timmins-James Bay. The book is called Dangerous Memory: Coming of Age in the Decade of Greed and it is a very important read for anyone interested in understanding the challenges we face today and how we might find our way through them. The book is a look back at the 1980s - the geopolitical, neoliberal forces that were reshaping the world during that decade and the grassroots political movements that rose up to counter them. It also chronicles Charlie Angus's personal journey during the 80s, when he worked with homeless and marginalized people in Toronto. It is a powerful story about how the actions of individuals and communities can counter massive corporate forces that are motivated soley by profit and greed. And Charlies Angus knows this because he lived through the challenges of the 80s working to make his community a better place in any way that he could... and he continues to do so today. (Compare Charlie Angus's back story to that of Pierre Poilievre - a lifelong political bulldog who has never held a real job and is solely dedicated to taking the reigns of power to dismantle government.) Dangerous Memory takes us back to the 80s, but it also looks forward to a future that can be brighter if we get motivated and take action to counter the forces of greed that are doing things like dividing us into camps, ensuring that corporations get richer and destroying the environment. This books offers hope and inspiration for those who think we can make a difference as individuals (look at what Charlie did in the 80s) and as communities (the anti-Aparheid movement, the anti-Nuke movement to just name two from the 80s that are discussed in this book.) Here is a link to the webpage for Charlie's book: https://houseofanansi.com/products/dangerous-memory Don't click on the Amazon or Chapters link if you live in Ottawa. Instead consider purchasing it at Perfect Books on Elgin Street. https://www.perfectbooks.ca/ If you use their search engine you can see if the book you are looking for is in stock at Perfect Books. For more information about Charlie, and what he's doing these days, check out his website: https://www.charlieangus.ca/ Thanks for listening to the Guest LIst today. Do what you can to make the world a better place - big and small everything counts.