Exposing the savagery of the few

December 5

GUEST: Dr. Nancy Murray, former director of education at the ACLU of Massachusetts, author of the book Palestinians: Life Under Occupation, and co-founder of the Alliance for Water Justice in Palestine, talks about her over 20 trips to the West Bank and Gaza, and her evolving sense of what justice for Palestinians means. 

Water Justice in Palestine

Dr. Murray gave us the background story. Zionist leaders had long planned to seize and control water resources in the Holy Land. Using the ethnic cleansing of the Nakba, and the various invasions of the West Bank since then, Israel has been able to control all the water, giving it freely to five million Jewish citizens while severely limiting it to five million Palestinians.

Of course, the Palestinians can't really grow crops with their restricted access to water. It's all part of the plan. Palestinians in Gaza hardly get any potable water at all, thanks to Israel's invasions and destruction of infrastructure. Half of the apartheid state is thirsty every day. The other half gets an unlimited supply for their pools and manicured lawns.

How does anyone not recognize the monstrosity such treatment? The occupation of Palestine is really a slow genocide, as are most imperialist colonies. The English colonized India and oversaw four major famines that killed over 50 million. The French colonized Algeria and starved large numbers of its native inhabitants. The Germans did the same in Namibia, and the Dutch had a long history of genocide in Ghana, Senegal, Ivory Coast and South Africa.

The colony of Israel is not an aberration, but only the latest in a long line of European bloodletting for profit. Someday, the occupation of Palestine will be over and the survivors will explore how Western civilization allowed such barbarism to thrive. As Gandhi suggested, Western civilization  would have been a "good idea."

What is left for the rest of us who are not profiting from butchering people in the Third World? We can expose the savagery of the few and demand change. Palestine will be free.

Vigilantes on a dying planet

November 21

GUEST: Jon Bowermaster, writer, long time National Geographic filmmaker, and host of the Green Radio Hour, talks about the climate crisis and other environmental issues impacting the Hudson Valley and beyond.

Oceans 8 Films

Jon's documentaries are moving and believable. He has a knack for finding the right people with a story to tell.

The stories are about an environment under threat from the monied elite and their oil and gas industries. Then there are the facilitators like Obama who talk about climate disaster but keep their activism to catchy phrases and hype. Both Hillary and Obama were in love with fracked gas, the source of much of their campaign funds. They were both frauds, and both managed to damage the system enough to elect a madman as president.

I say all this because Jon really doesn't. He doesn't look for villains in the destruction of the planet. He shows how it is happening, but doesn't personalize. He moves his viewers to become more active, but not to become hateful.

It is almost impossible to predict if any tactic can stop the crazy elite and their drive to destroy the world for profit. In years to come, will vigilantes on a dying planet seek out and murder the CEOs of Big Oil? I hope someone is left to make the documentary.