Where you gonna run to

July 28

Guest: Richard E. Rubenstein, Professor at George Mason University and former Director of the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution, talks about ways to negotiate an end to the Ukraine War.

Reaching a Just and Lasting Peace in Ukraine

Is it pro-Russian to express some doubt about what the US is doing in Ukraine? The FBI's recent raid on Uhuru Solidarity Center in St. Louis is a very bad sign. Once again, our country is using its  secret police to track down what is now being called "Russian propaganda." This is certainly a revival of that old fascist favorite, the Red Scare.

Richard and I are only asking questions. Why can't the US media talk about some sort of compromise with the Russians? Why is our government obsessed with military solutions? And why are both parties more than willing to pour tens of billions more in another lost cause?

Perhaps this is just the way our empire works. It is determined to undermine any world power that would even think of resisting US global expansion. The Pentagon uses NATO as its battering ram, surrounding Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union. Is this American alliance now going in for the kill?

It doesn't take much to see how risky this US backed aggression really is. Russia has already warned the US of a possible nuclear response to NATO's encirclement. But that seems to be part of the empire's plan. Is it time to bet the house on winning a nuclear war? 

Well maybe it's just US weapons companies making a killing. Tens of billions in military aid are enthusiastically being spent by both parties. When it comes to the war racket, there is no space between Republicans and Democrats. Maybe this provocation of Russia is just the Military Industrial Complex taking more chances.

Pelosi's trip to Taiwan, however, is a very bad omen. Why would the US provoke both Russia and China at the same time? Has the hour finally come, when the United States risks a nuclear Armageddon for power and profit? Are the leaders of the US insane with hubris and greed?

If catastrophic climate change is any indicator, our leaders are hellbent on the annihilation of our species. And the only question remaining is:

Where you gonna run to, when the world's on fire? 

The Democratic Party was never serious about woman's rights

July 21

Guest: Emma Kaplan, organizer for Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights, member of NYC Revolution Club, and follower of Bob Avakian and the new communism, talks about the Democratic Party and cowardice in a Post-Roe world.

Democrats’ Cowardice and Complicity in the Post-Roe World

Emma put down some challenges for the women's movement. Tying abortion rights to the Supreme Court was a mistake from the very beginning. The result was a false sense of security that eventually withered the women's movement. And now, there is nothing left besides some self serving politicians eager to use abortion rights in their campaigns. 

It is not like the Democratic Party was ever serious about a woman's right to control her own body. Rich, white women are exempt from most of this anti-abortion madness. They can travel, and they have money to pay for the procedure. It would have taken an alliance between Black and white women to really make abortion a right for all.

Of course, that is the only way to assure women's rights in America. It must be an alliance that crosses the tracks to organize. It must be an alliance that is in the streets, blocking business as usual all over the country. It took women risking jail to get the right to vote. They stood outside the White House for months, and nothing President Wilson had to say was enough. And when they were beaten in prison, they didn't change their minds. 

Their treatment aroused the country, and Wilson backed down. That's what Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights is advocating. Sure, they love Bob Avakian, and he is a Communist. Isn't it time we freed ourselves from the 1950s?

Talking about peace when the nuclear winter is upon us

July 14

GUEST: Michael Knox, Professor Emeritus at the University of South Florida, Chair of the US Peace Memorial Foundation, and Editor of the US Peace Registry, talks about achieving peace through honoring our nation's peacemakers.

World Beyond War

The idea of peacemaking has not reached the major media in the US. The NYT fills its pages with Ukraine horror stories, praising the "resistance" and urging more weapons to be sent. There is nothing at all about the US role in overthrowing an elected leader in Ukraine, and steering that country to war rather then to compromise. 

The dangers of nuclear war are also forgotten in this rush towards a military solution. With the chances of nuclear confrontation growing larger every day, our newspaper of record has decided to eliminate such worries. Of course, the NYT has been for about every war the US has fought for the last seventy years. But this seems different, and the worry I have is that the NYT is merely reflecting a Pentagon, hell bent to take its chances against Russia and China. 

A hot war would boost the prospects for Democrats in the short term. But at what a monumental cost to our earth and to our species. We need a peacemaker, like JFK was during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Someone who can free us from the collusion of weapons makers, the Pentagon and Congress. And will save talking about peace for when the nuclear winter is already upon us?

Nowhere to go in that nuclear winter

July 7

GUEST: Lawrence Wilkerson, retired United States Army Colonel and former chief of staff to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, talks about NATO, US military bases and our current dangerous drift towards war. 

Overseas Bases

If one starts with the facts about NATO, and then looks at its expansion over the last several decades, there is only one answer for achieving peace with Russia. We have to stop threatening our archrival with NATO bases.

That would be the sensible thing to do. What isn't sensible is turning Eastern Europe into a NATO stronghold with missiles pointed at Moscow. In fact, that expansion of NATO is insane, given the fact that either the US or Russia could end life on earth with a single missile launching. Why risk our planet and our species on empire building?

But the facts are all there, and empire building is what our country is doing in Eastern Europe. In fact, the US is building its empire all over the world, and spending all our money on 800 or more military bases abroad. That brings us to the next fairly obviously conclusion, that US foreign policy is fashioned to make billions for our highly monopolized and hugely profitable war industry. Ukraine is being turned into a giant killing field, all to profit those who are billionaires already.

It is not a system run amok; it is system that is suicidal. Risking nuclear war again and again is like playing Russian roulette until one has a hole in the head. Billionaires, like the rest of us, will have nowhere to go in that nuclear winter they will have created. Our leaders are simply criminally insane. 

 

 

The greatest threat to world peace in our lifetime

June 30

GUEST: Sudip Bhattacharya, Political Education Committee of the NJ Democratic Socialists of America, and political writer for CounterPunch, New Politics, Reappropriate (Asian American LGBTQIA+ identity) and The Aerogram, talks about the US left and empire.

The U.S. Left and Empire

Growing up in a dysfunctional family has its advantages. Whatever happens to you as a child, you think it's normal. It is only later that mistreatment takes its toll, when you realize that other kids were not treated that way. 

My country is also a family of sorts. What American citizens thought was acceptable behavior was not condoned by the rest of the world. Our periodic wars seemed regrettable, and they certainly were dangerous to a young man fresh out of college. But they seemed familiar and even comfortable to us, even when we were being shipped out to war. 

Later, those who survived their military "service" would learn so much more. It was only the US that was bombing and invading other countries. It was only our very own homeland that was assassinating elected leaders in other countries and replacing them with the worst of tyrants. My "God Bless America" nation was making life on the planet a living hell, especially if you were poor, Black or from the Third World. 

PTSD, that catchall label that individualizes group suffering and guilt, is always there to comfort us with its blanket of normalcy. Perhaps that is how US veterans can come back from staring into the abyss of havoc. Screw normalcy; the US is a brutal empire, and has been that way since the end of World War II. It is now, and has always been the greatest threat to world peace in our lifetime. 

There is work to be done, and US veterans are the right people to do it. We should use our blind praise from the US public to tell civilians what the truth is. For the rise of universal truth telling can bring empires to their knees. 

Perhaps liberation is a war being fought all around us

 

June 23

GUEST: Rashida Tyler, Founder of The REAL Kingston Tenants Union and Board Member of Citizen Action of New York, talks about "Losing Our Homes: the Destruction of Community, Culture and Identity." This from a Zoom organized by Mideast Crisis, Jewish Voice for Peace, and Activist Radio.

Ulster Immigrant Defense Network

Rashida talks about colonialism and the destruction of Black heritage and culture. But there is an economic facet as well. Whites have more money, and so can push Blacks out of their neighborhoods and into their streets. The difference between white and Black net worth is truly staggering, and it affects all aspects of life in the United States.

Does it help to recognize this same racism at work in the extended US empire? Is the oppression of Palestinians the same as the oppression of people of color in our own country? And how does learning about racism and ethnic cleansing in other countries dominated by the empire help us achieve some measure of freedom?

Perhaps liberation is a war being fought all around us. Our media wants us to think about Ukraine when we consider what war is. What if we think about our impoverished inner cities or our underfunded and segregated schools? What if we consider the fascist nature of our current white nationalist organizations. Ours is a country brimming over with racial animus, and it is the same racism we use abroad to run our everlasting wars of empire. 

The empire is a long way from dead. Its military machine is still chewing up large sections of the Third World. Perhaps a united resistance would work better than many individuals ones. Our hope is to have the many become involved in world liberation. 

Brining as many with them as possible

 

June 16

GUEST: Henry Giroux, Professor at McMaster University, internationally renowned writer, lecturer and cultural critic, and co-editor of a series on education with Paulo Freire, talks about neoliberalism's assault on our nation's youth.

The War on Youth in the Age of Fascist Politics

Of all the wars the US Empire has fought over the last 70 years, its assault on youth is the least recognized or talked about. 

But the war on youth makes perfect sense. Neoliberal capitalism puts short term greed over long term benefits. One's children hardly count.

Once a billionaire, the rest of the world just looks like dollar bills. There is no limit to how much capital one can acquire, and how many workers, consumers or children will have to pay. This philosophy has been explained to us since the beginning of the European colonization of the Americas. In fact, Native Americans have been pointing out the ultimate insanity of capitalism since the 1600s. In some ways, our Constitution refers to rights often missing in European societies. Whether we want to call it "freedom" or responsibility to the "seventh generation," the indigenous peoples of our country saw the nihilism of European culture from the very beginning. It is a culture of slavery and death.

Can we collectively demand a transition from what we now call neoliberalism? And can we act quickly enough, before our environment is toast, and our warheads fill the skies? Or is our current system a death wish for older Americans to bring as many with them as possible when they die?