The rest of the world gets it

Guest: Mohammed Musabeh, a Palestinian working as an electrical engineer in the Hudson Valley, talks about life for his family still living in east Gaza boarding Israel.

I think Gary and I were successful in personalizing the intense suffering being endured by the Palestinians in Gaza. Our guest was remarkable, and his intimate accounts of his family took the siege of Gaza beyond the usual statistics. What if our families didn't have clean water or enough to eat every day? What if some of our relatives were so traumatized by Israeli military actions that they were incapable of functioning?

The American people have stood by for so many years while this genocidal process created so much suffering. Is it a national failure of empathy, or a sinister manipulation of our news media to hide the realities from our citizens? 

Why does the rest of the world "get it" and the United States doesn't?

The same kind of thinking

Guests: Kira Woodworth (End the New Jim Crow Action Committee) and Paul Bermanzohn (Two Row Wampum Campaign) talk about how their local organizations challenge the mainstream media's support of US foreign and domestic policy. 

Both guests represent groups involved with minority rights in America. The End the New Jim Crow Action Committee fights the institutional racism of our criminal justice system, while the Two Row Wampum Campaign attempts to protect the rights of indigenous peoples.

There is more going on here than meets the eye, however. Exposing the criminal justice system helps us understand the gross race and class inequities in our society. Supporting the treaties made with First Nations helps us come up with better solutions to our rapidly warming planet.

Paul reminded me of Albert Einstein's quote on solutions. "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."

Having created this capitalistic and imperialistic society, can we use this same type of thinking to preserve our existence on earth?