Peace in the New Year

 

December 23

Voices for peace in the Holy Land, a compilation of discussions and music for the holidays. Hear the views of Noam Chomsky, Yonatan Shapira and others.

During the holidays, stories about our common humanity are particularly appealing. Sometimes soldiers don't fight during war. They come out of their trenches for a very brief time to exchange gifts and play soccer. There is sometimes this unmet need to recognize that we are all sisters and brothers. An urge to embrace one another rather than to kill. 

Perhaps our common bonds will save us in the end. And if we destroy our species through global warming or nuclear Armageddon, then at least we tried. 

Work for peace in the New Year.

Empire and the search for truth

December 16

GUEST: Dr. Harry Targ, Professor Emeritus at Purdue University, and a co-chair of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, talks about how Koch funded neoliberalism is becoming hegemonic in higher education.

Heartland Radical

Neoliberalism is the concept that everyone has learned to hate. Perhaps we should call it hyper capitalism, the pursuit of profit by impoverishing whole populations, both in the Third World and in the heart of the empire. Conquering education is the next goal in this march to enrich the few in the name of democracy. The current ferocious war to eliminate any notion of the public good is particularly aimed at the nation's colleges and universities. 

Historically, colleges were centers of debate and learning. Students would gather around thinkers like Noam Chomsky to understand and take part in mutual quest for knowledge. The quest was a group effort, a learned pursuit to satisfy one's intellectual curiosity.

How we got to the current university systems, expensive country clubs that all but a few of our richest students will spend their lives paying off loans for, would make an interesting study. Our most prestigious institutions of higher education are bastions of privilege. At Harvard, 40% of students accepted would not have gotten in if it weren't for parental donations, talent in sports, or some other non academic skill. The Ivy League schools have always reeked of family money. 

So maybe it wasn't that hard for the Kochs to warp the educational system further with their filthy billions. Once the very rich start paying for professors, buildings and academic programs all the supposed intellectual basis for gaining knowledge falls by the wayside. Higher education was ripe for further corruption before the Kochs arrived. 

I noticed that Harry and I talked a good deal about the US Empire, and its endless wars. Can a nation have true intellectual freedom when it commits a growing list of war crimes abroad? Quite possibly, the military empire we are all part of spells the end of a university system based on the search for knowledge and truth. 

 

If you love your Uncle Sam

December 9

GUEST: Brian Robinson, criminal justice reform activist, CEO of Equitable Future Inc, and member of the End the New Jim Crow Action Network (ENJAN), discusses decarceration on the local and state levels.

Coalition takes on mass incarceration

There are all the logical reasons why a society like ours should put fewer people in jail. Our incarceration rate is off the charts when it come to the rest of the world. Over half of those in prison do not present a danger to our society. They may need help ending an addiction or remediating the effects of a mental illness. Prison is just a very expensive waste of taxpayer dollars.

Looked at through another lens, however, our prison system is much worse. A disproportionate number of our prisoners are poor and people of color. Imprisonment is therefore a product of racism and class devision. In a way, our prison system reflects what we as a nation do with our soldiers abroad. Incarceration is the necessary ally of empire. 

But once enough people start to realize the changes that must be made, eager politicians pull out the race card. Suddenly crime is again a problem of the poor rather than a problem of the rich. And Blacks, being the bottom caste of our social system, must pay the worst price. Will young, Black men ever stop ending up in jail? 

There is no justice in empire. Nor was there very much justice during slavery or during Jim Crow. There was no justice to the native peoples who were driven from their land and slaughtered. These United States created a nation on a different model. And our legacy continues as the millions killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the innocent victims who were tortured for 20 years in Guantanamo. 

"If you love your Uncle Sam, bring them home." - Pete Seeger
 

Being honest about what is going on around them

December 2

GUEST: Phillip Pantuso, award-winning journalist, editor of the new weekly magazine, The River, and contributing writer for The Guardian, The New York Times, and Yes! Magazine, talks about publishing local news and articles that break the conservative mold.

Phillip Pantuso

It was interesting to hear the problems of local journalists first hand. Here in the Hudson Valley, we have watched the major papers become thin and brittle versions of their former selves. It is like reading parchment paper, and I feel sorry for all the reporters who no longer ply their trade in empty newsrooms. 

But to tell the truth, local news has always been lame. There was never very much national or international new, and the stores they carried had always been screened by many sieves before they hit the light of day. The recent consolidation of radio, TV stations, newspapers, and magazines, just means that all their stories are vacuous in the same way. Now most articles have become full length advertisements for local businesses.

Just like real history is too interesting to appear in classroom textbooks, real political or personal drama rarely breaks to the surface in local publications. That's why I am hopeful about some new magazines like The River. They carry some stories about racism, police violence, poverty, and social justice. By being honest about what is going on around them, they capture our attention. How do they dare write about this stuff? Will the publication be sustainable if it doesn't trumpet the capitalist class? 

We will see, and the suspense will keep us reading The River.

 

Time to revive Mark Twain's Anti-Imperialist League

November 25

GUEST: Brian Willson, Viet Nam veteran, lawyer, and current resident of Nicaragua, talks about the recent elections there and why the US empire is trying to overthrow President Ortega and the Sandinista Revolution. 

As Nicaragua Resists Regime Change

I was very happy to get Brian as a guest. He lives now in Nicaragua, and is an invaluable source of anti-imperialist opinions. Biden has proven to be just as hawkish as Trump and Obama. No change in pushing for a new cold war with Blinken in charge of the State Department. Why can't either party challenge our huge expenditure on the military? Why is the US still acting aggressively towards any country that tries to be the least bit independent?

It is certainly not to further the cause of democracy in the world. The US sends arms to a vast number of dictators and tyrants, as long as they play nice with our major corporations and allow us to build military bases in their homelands. The motivation is exactly the opposite; the policy of the US is to overthrow governments that try to put their people above US mining, oil, and banking profits. 

Nicaragua has a history of teaching its people to read and giving them access to free healthcare. And that makes the country just too socialist for the kleptocracy class in the US empire. What if those ideas started to spread in the very belly of the beast?

The picture above is Brian right before he was run over by a train, full of mentions that were bound for the Contras. That was another decade, of course. But the US backed terrorists are at it again in Nicaragua, with the full consent and even enthusiasm of The New York Times and Democracy Now. So Brian and others fighting for Nicaragua's freedom are especially important now. Perhaps it is time to revive Mark Twain's Anti-Imperialist League, with its pox on both political parties.