Teaching us how

September 19

GUEST: Lisa Fithian, nonviolent trainer for the Battle of Seattle, the resistance after Hurricane Katrina, Occupy Wall Street, Standing Rock, and Ferguson, explores her fascinating career, and explains why Mother Jones describes her as “the nation’s best-known protest consultant." 

Oct 4 at 6:30 pm. Talk and Book Signing by Lisa Fithian
Oct 5 at 6:00 pm. Talk and Book Signing by Lisa Fithian
Shut It Down: Stories From a Fierce, Loving Resistance

Lisa is an idealist with a mind like a general. She knows her troops for justice and shares their suffering as well as their occasional sweet taste of victory. She is a details person, and recounts her many campaigns in this moving book, Shut It Down.

There is more than a little Abbie Hoffman in her outrageous plans and her sly sense of humor. She has never been afraid to try for the big one, to shut down entire events in the very fortresses of the rich and powerful.

Raphaelle and I had a delightful time reading her book and then getting a chance to interview her. In the end, the hope of Occupy lingers in her writing. We can change the world if we think we can, and are willing to take some risks. Lisa teaches us how. 

Our own place in the American Empire

September 12

GUEST: Ramatu Ahmed, Executive Director of the African Life Center, Bronx, committee member of the U.S. National Council of Women and the Harlem Hospital’s Medina Clinic, talks about the Ghanaian community in New York City and the need for higher education for girls and adult women.

A Celebration of African Women

Ramatu is a very good spokesperson for her people. She is Muslim, an immigrant from Africa and a woman, making her the target of America's new wave of xenophobic, racist and misogynist poison. Trump didn't invent this poison; it has been here since we wiped out the land's indigenous peoples, brought in slaves to make us rich, and then relentlessly oppressed them once they were technically "free."

Ramatu doesn't really want to talk about America this way. Like so many immigrants to our land, she just wants a chance for a better life. We learn courage from Ramatu's advocacy for her people. We don't learn too much about our own place in the American Empire. 

We Thank You

September 5

Once a year our host station, WVKR, has its fund drive. We aired a previous interview while we asked listeners to call 845 437-7178 and make a donation. Our guest was Krystal Two Bulls talking about Standing Rock and her experiences in the US military. I am glad we got to air it again; she is that good. So thanks to Krystal Two Bulls and to all the listeners who called in to support Activist Radio. 

Krystal Two Bulls
WVKR 91.3 FM

More dangerous than either nuclear war or climate change

August 29

GUEST: Jasmine Banks, civil rights activist and Executive Director of the UnKoch My Campus campaign, talks about how the Koch brothers buy their way into college campuses to spread their right wing, racist ideology.

Why the Koch Brothers find higher education worth their money

Jasmin talked about how a country with such potential let it all slip away. It was money from the very top that did it. Millions poured into Congressional elections. Millions more into colleges and think tanks. All to promote a value system much like the Koch Brother's father, one of the founders of the John Birch Society.

In the Neoliberal age, everything is for sale. That is the John Birch Society's vision of freedom: the freedom of the very rich to run our country for their own immense profits. As it turns out, the very rich hate immigrants, Blacks, women and gays. Many of them are singleminded misanthropes, eager to turn our world into a system of slaves and overmasters. As citizens of the late empire, we know what such a world has brought to vulnerable populations in our own country. We don't yet fully realize the devastation that such ideas have produced in the Third World.

Brazil is such a nation. Bolsonaro was funded by the Kochs, and we see what a murderer can do on the streets of Brasília and in the rainforests of the Amazon. The destruction of the Amazon brings us to consider what to do with our nation's filthy rich misanthropes. They are more dangerous than either nuclear war or climate change. They are the embodiment of the death of our species. 

Achieving the will of the people

August 22

GUEST: David Heap, peace activist, teacher at University of Western Ontario, and co-founder of the Canadian Boat to Gaza campaign, talks about his visit to Gaza with Noam Chomsky, and about the continuing efforts to bring the suffering of two million Palestinians to a world audience.

Be Part Of The 2019 Freedom Flotilla For Gaza

David and I come from a similar background in the 1980s. We both went to Nicaragua to thwart US imperialism. And we both came back more determined then ever to spread the sweet freedom of the Sandinista revolution.

We both saw the Contras as part of the US killing machine, determined to annihilate anything in its way. And we felt responsible. We paid the taxes used to manufacture bullets for Nicaraguan hearts. We stood by while yet another country succumbed to torture and death squads.

In the end, we both realized that our country's leaders have no mercy or morality. The forty years that have passed since the Sandinista revolution show a similar criminality when it comes to the Third World. I held onto the hope during the 1980s that US imperialism was an aberration. By 1990, I was convinced that my country had always been that way. I started reading all the history I could get about Native Americans, African Americans, and the Vietnamese. If I was going to make a difference, I had to know my facts.

So David Heap and I share a common message: don't give up, resist and educate. That's is what this blog tries to do, by the way. And the fact that you have read this posting to the last line is a good sign for you. And maybe even for our democracy. We must reject our empire if we hope to achieve the will of the people.