Michael Skinner is a researcher, human rights and peace activist, musician and composer. For a decade he was a National Education Facilitator for the Canadian Union of Postal Workers. From 2005 to 2013, he was a Researcher and Graduate Fellow at the York Centre for International and Security Studies at York University, Toronto, Canada. Skinner is currently writing his Ph.D. dissertation titled, Peacebuilding, State-building, & Empire-building: The emerging Empire of Capital and its interventions from Central America to Central Asia. Michael Skinner conducted research projects in Afghanistan in 2007 and in Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2011.
Read Michael Skinner’s academic papers and journalism at: http://yorku.academia.edu/MichaelSkinner
© Michael Skinner and Michael Skinner Research, 2011. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Michael Skinner and Michael Skinner Research with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Michael Skinner Research 
JazzSoup42
/ January 11, 2012What a find you are!!! Thank you so much — more, please!
Asad Ismi
/ October 1, 2012Hi Mike,
I got your contact from Brother Mark Evard, one of the National Directors at CUPW. My name is Asad Ismi and I am the international affairs correspondent of the “Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives Monitor”, Canada’s biggest left-wing magazine by circulation. The magazine is the flagship publication of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives () which is Canada’s leading left-wing research institute and is based in Ottawa. I also write radio documentaries and have released five of these so far which are on my website: . All the documentaries have been partly funded by CUPW. My last radio documentary “The Latin American Revolution” was played on 40 radio stations in the, U.S., (by the Pacifica Radio network), Canada and Europe.
I’d like to interview you for my latest radio documentary “Capitalism is the Crisis” which I am writing presently. The interview will be for the first episode “Capitalism is War” and I’d like you to discuss the economic reasons behind the Western occupation of Afghanistan such as the oil factor. Please let me know if you are able to do the interview. Thanks.
In Solidarity,
Asad Ismi
email: redstorm.ismi@gmail.com
Nick Velvet
/ November 30, 2013Mr. Skinner: i a dissident veteran (Viet Nam) currently living in Toronto and working with US military resisters who’ve come up here rather than redeploy. We have joined forces with Afghans to form a group called Front Lines International on FB. One of our members recently had this article published; http://www.vice.com/read/soldiers-in-the-military-are-being-gagged-for-speaking-out We have been coming up against Canadian veterans refusing to speak about what they saw/were a part of lest they be stripped of any benefits they may be receiving. I was putting together a reading list of articles for FLI on the subject of Canadian forces silencing, and I came across your work.
We would like to bring this reality- the blackmailing of “The Heroes” by the government. We think the time is right to raise hell about this…..we Yanks, with our long history of mutiny & rebellion against unjust wars are astounded by the level of repression Canadian veterans seem to be facing. We would like to lend support in any way for a mass coming out of dissident Canadian Afghan vets, strength comes in numbers.
Thank you for any guidance you can provide us-
Chuck Winant, AKA “Nick Velvet”
toronto