It's too soon to die

December 22

 

Holiday Special. We include some songs we never got to play during the year, as well as some parts of interviews that were just left out. Stay tuned for a Pandora's Box full of wishes and the unexpected gifts. And of course, we don't leave out that most important of treasures, which is our hope for a new world based on peace and love, rather than greed and militarism.   

This was a fun show to do, and I hope you enjoyed it. I just picked music and interviews that I had saved during the year. It was stuff I couldn't throw away.

Activist Radio is usually more formulaic, especially since I now record it in my home studio. I write almost all of the program out before I start recording. That's different than what happened in the Vassar College Radio's studio, where I would often go off subject. Back then I also had a number of so-hosts, which really changed the dynamics of what went out over the air.

The new year gets me thinking about other possibilities for the show. I still enjoy doing it a lot, especially since the program seems to be gaining an audience. KCEI carries Activist Radio now, broadcast from Red River and Taos New Mexico. So does KEPJ of San Antonio, Texas.

KKWE from White Earth Indian Reservation broadcasts Activist Radio in Minnesota, as does WBDY in Binghamton, New York. Wesleyan University airs my program to Middletown, Connecticut from its station, WESU. And WGRN (The Green Renaissance) broadcasts us from Columbus, Ohio. WRFA airs us to Jameston, New York. 

Each week brings a new list of stations. Some carry Activist Radio for a week or two and then drop us. Some have been with us for several years. One of our longest relationships is with WIOF in Woodstock, NY. It is a great little station, with a relatively wide broadcast area in the Mid Hudson Valley. Finally, the show is carried by the Progressive Radio Network which goes out from https://prn.live.

Having listeners always makes things seem more important. I want my country to put a greater emphasis on peace and social justice. I want to talk about racism, neoliberalism, and militarism. I want to expose the filthy rich for what they are doing to the US and to the rest of the world. And I want to convince humankind that it is "too soon to die," as Pete Seeger implored us. 

Here is all of Pete's song for a better new year:

One blue sky above us
One ocean lapping all our shore
One earth so green and round
Who could ask for more
And because I love you
I'll give it one more try
To show my rainbow race
It's too soon to die.
 
Some folks want to be like an ostrich,
Bury their heads in the sand.
Some hope that plastic dreams
Can unclench all those greedy hands.
Some hope to take the easy way:
Poisons, bombs. They think we need 'em.
Don't you know you can't kill all the unbelievers?
There's no shortcut to freedom.
 
One blue sky above us
One ocean lapping all our shore
One earth so green and round
Who could ask for more
And because I love you
I'll give it one more try
To show my rainbow race
It's too soon to die.
 
Go tell, go tell all the little children.
Tell all the mothers and fathers too.
Now's our last chance to learn to share
What's been given to me and you.
 
One blue sky above us
One ocean lapping all our shore
One earth so green and round
Who could ask for more
And because I love you
I'll give it one more try
To show my rainbow race
It's too soon to die.
 
One blue sky above us
One ocean lapping all our shore
One earth so green and round
Who could ask for more

My rainbow race

 

December 15

 

GUEST: Dr. Helen Caldicott, long time peace and environmental activist, former faculty member at Harvard Medial School, and past president of Physicians for Social Responsibility, talks about the environmental and medical dangers of the nuclear age.

Russia’s war could spell worldwide nuclear disaster

I wonder what it is like being right about nuclear power all these years. The concept never seems to die either. There must be a lot of money to be made poisoning the earth. But where do these energy entrepreneurs figure they will go after the last plant is wilted? Perhaps one turns to space fantasies once our planet is done for. We should start a GoFundMe campaign to shoot these aspiring energy speculators far into outer space, where they can't hurt us anymore.

But the idea of nuclear energy seems to be as eternal as its half life. A recent issue of the Jacobin Magazine started out with the familiar truths about poisoning our planet, only to change halfway through the article to an attack on liberals for closing the Indian Point power plant. Maybe the editors of that self branded "socialist" magazine thought that any attack on liberals was worth a try. But take a look at the tortured logic the writer uses. The article is a time capsule of discredited science from the 1960s. Is this the brave new world of socialist thought?

"How Liberals Created, Then Destroyed, Publicly Owned Nuclear Power" By Fred Stafford 

I include this article to show how many lives the nuclear energy industry has. Not only are some supposedly progressive writers (The Intercept describes Fred Stafford as a "STEM professional and independent researcher on the left") pushing nuclear again, but the whole concept of a nuclear exchange with Russia has long since disappeared from our mainstream media. Even the use of the word "exchange" is misleading. A nuclear war would be the catastrophic end of human life on earth. Nothing left to exchange really.

Still we hope that Helen Caldicott is not the Cassandra of our modern age. We must work to end nuclear's threat to humankind. As Pete Seeger sang it:

Then because I promise
I'll give it one more try
To show my rainbow race
It's too soon, too soon to die

Free Julian Assange

An end to all wars

Twenty years of war has cost the United States trillions of dollars, thousands of its young men and women, and the almost universal condemnation from the rest of the world. Afghanistan and Iraq are in ruins, joining Vietnam and Korea as victims of our military prowess and quest for world domination since World War II.

Perhaps these calamities visited on Third World countries will help us dig deeper into our own national psyche, starting with the myth of good intentions. For each invasion of foreign lands, the American people were offered noble reasons for the carnage. For Korea and Vietnam we were told that our country was fighting for freedom from Communism. For Afghanistan, it was freedom for women. For Iraq it was to punish a dictator who was "killing his own people." Of course, we also understood that the latter two invasions were in retribution for 9/11, a moral judgment that most American citizens accepted. Paying back these Islamist countries also became part of the honorable intentions that most citizens believed in.

To preserve this mythology, other aspects of our system need to be obscured. Like the staggering profits of our weapons makers. No matter who ultimately wins these wars or how many innocents get obliterated, the military industrial complex always comes out on top. We are told that wars break out, and that we must spend our national treasure defending ourselves and doing good in the world. We never conceive that it goes the other way around. That the weapons makers sit in the Pentagon strategizing how they can make billions starting new wars, and then our media comes up with the lies to make it all palatable.

Perhaps the war in Ukraine will be an end to all wars. A nuclear exchange with Russia would terminate most life on earth. But our media never dwells on the negatives of our war making. Perhaps we will go marching off to that nuclear winter with all our patriotic righteousness still intact.

Stop taking money from apartheid

December 8

 

GUEST: Jamie Jackson, human rights activist with Citizens for Justice in the Middle East and radio host for Understanding Israel Palestine on KKFI FM in Kansan City, talks about her transition from Zionism to Palestinian rights.

We Are Not Numbers in Gaza

I always enjoy talking with other radio hosts, especially when they have a leftist political prospective. Jamie has been doing her program for several years, so I cut out some of our tech talk about how one starts a radio show. I was more interested in how a person changes their mind about emotionally based beliefs. Jamie is Jewish, and grew up with a strong belief in the righteousness of Israel. It was when these beliefs just didn't match up with what Israel was doing to the Palestinians that Jamie saw a different picture. Maybe growing up in a Jim Crow nation makes us recognize what racist oppression really is. When Jamie took a closer look at the apartheid state of Israel, she started her radio program on KKFI in Kansas City.

I think that the opinion of Jewish people in the US is critical to freeing Palestine's five million people. One of the human rights groups I belong to is Jewish Voice For Peace, an organization built around changing American minds. We talk to candidates for office, reminding them how important it is not be be bought off by the Israel Lobby. We look closely at how much money each of them took from the Lobby, and what was promised in return. Check out your own members of Congress, and ask them to stop taking money from apartheid.

https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/summary.php?ind=q05&recipdetail=M&sortorder=U&mem=Y&cycle=2022

How can they still smile at us?

December 1

 

GUEST: Dr. Diya Abdo, author, English professor at Guilford College, and second generation Palestinian refugee, talks about Arab feminism and the program she founded, Every Campus A Refuge.

American Refuge, True Stories of the Refugee Experience

Dr. Abdo has great plans. Why can't the nation's colleges help provide housing for refugees looking to start a new life in the United States? If every college opened itself to this program, thousands of refugees would be given a chance to make it in our supposedly "land of the free."

The idea brings up a lot of issues, of course. Why is the US a destination for those who have left their homelands, looking for a new life? For Central Americans, we know the answer. For two hundred years this country has been threatening, invading and occupying countries south of our boarders. How many times has the US overthrown a democratically elected president to benefit major corporations? Are there any countries untouched by the CIA since World War II?

Thirty years of US wars in the Middle East has created its own wave of immigrants, desperate for a new life away from bombs and drones. What country in the region has not been blown apart in the interests of Big Oil? Our government's "Project for a New American Century," drawn up during the Clinton administration, argued for the complete destruction of the Middle East. This imperialist wet dream has resulted in millions of desperate people on the move. Where else but to Europe and the US, the only place left that is safe and functioning. 

So one might conclude that imperialism creates these waves of immigrants. But there are other reasons as well. How about trade policies that destroy food production in the Third World? How about the massive debt that Third World countries have to pay off? And how about the global catastrophe that is climate change? First World countries created the problem, while less developed nations have ended up paying the price.

Refuges are the products of racism, war, corporate greed, and financial thievery. How can they still smile at us after what they have gone through?

The epitome of Judaeo-Christian fundamentalism

November 24

 

GUEST: Ahmad Abuznaid, cofounded of the Dream Defenders, and Executive Director of the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, talks about the links between Black Lives Matter and the fight for justice in Palestine.

US Campaign for Palestinian Rights

Ahmad and I talked about the Zionist movement in the US, and how its fascist roots in Israel have come to dominate much of its political advocacy in America. 

A racist ideology in occupied Palestine won't change to something else when brought to our shores. As Israel turns to the right, the Israel Lobby here can be seen supporting Donald Trump and any number of radical, white nationalist movements. As Israel directs more violence towards its Palestinian population, Zionists spend millions of dollars on US candidates who express racial hatreds and advocate armed rebellion. The settler movement in Israel is the Proud Boys here. Maybe it is time that the rest of us realize that the base philosophy is virtually identical. 

In fact, I can imagine the Proud Boys on their first trip to the Promised Land, that settler paradise that depends on ethnic and racial cleansing. They would first compare guns and other weaponry to be used against the "enemy." Settlers hate liberal Jews as much as they despise Palestinians. The Proud Boys feel the same way about white liberals as they do about Blacks. 

Perhaps the settlers and the Proud Boys would plan some joint maneuvers. Some shooting of young Palestinians, or the destruction of some of their olive orchards. Maybe they would even pray together, as the epitome of Judaeo-Christian fundamentalism. Can our maker be very far away? 

Capitalism's propaganda

November 17

GUEST: Andrea Bauer, Managing Editor of the Freedom Socialist newspaper and author of "Thwarting the Cuban Revolution – the long U.S. war and its bitter fruits,” talks about imperialism being the highest stage of capitalism.

The Ravaging of Ukraine

I wonder as our democracy continues to fail us, if more and more people will start to explore other parties and other philosophies of government. Shall we call them revolutionary parties, to distinguish them from the two party, one corporate rule of late capitalism?

When it comes to war and climate collapse, late stage capitalism has proven itself not only oblivious to the public good, but also primarily responsible for our society's ills. It turns out that making money solves nothing when it comes to the perpetuation of life on our planet. And the greed and obsession needed to make billion dollar fortunes turns people into characters better suited to a Dickens novel. They are venial, petty, selfish, and despicable. 

We can't really close the book on these characters either. Their control of our government and our media is now almost complete. There are uprising here and there, of course. But will our thoroughly corrupted system really be challenged? 

Andrea's description of Ukraine as a war between two capitalist countries was her most provocative statement. Will our thinking have to become  revolutionary to throw off the fog of perpetual war propaganda? Capitalism's propaganda, the transparent medium that we swim in our whole lives.     

Real fortunes are made by robbing the rest of us

October 27

Guest: Daniel Atonna, political activist and New York City Coordinator of For the Many, talks about his recent focus, Homes Are Not Hotels, the campaign to expose the role of absentee investors and AirBnB in the scarcity of affordable housing.

For The Many

In the 1980s, many of us used to house exchange for a cheap and intimate way of visiting foreign countries. I exchanged houses at least five times during those years, making lasting friendships with the families that stayed in my house while I and my family enjoyed theirs. We even exchanged cars for the summer. 

Part of the enjoyment was reading about all the homes that were being offered for exchange. For $15 you could post pictures and descriptions of your own house, and gain access to the hundreds of foreign house owners eager for an inexpensive vacation in the US. Matching was all done the old fashioned way, with an exchange of letters and pictures of the family. And living in someone else's house had its own rewards. You often ended up meeting their friends, and shopping in the stores that they recommended. 

House exchanges have gone the way of the web these days. There are web publications of homes being offered, and instantaneous offers readily available. What used to take weeks of planning, now can be done in an afternoon.

Like many successful programs, however, house and apartment exchanges have become commercialized. Services like Air BnB make connections with other families a breeze. And you are often more protected by a long list of previous tenant evaluations. Now you can book a couple of days stay in a foreign country in less time than it used to take writing one letter. 

But turning the process over to large corporations has its downsides. Air Bnb are not exchanges; they are short term rentals. You don't get to know anyone, and even your access to a foreign home is little more than a six digit code that you enter into a designated locked box. Soon, investors were buying up whole buildings to turn all their apartments into rentals. Halls were filled with tourists towing their luggage for a two night's stay. And what parties could be thrown if you didn't have to pick up all the broken dishes in the morning. 

Soon tourist areas in some the the major cities were all Air BnB. Parts of Rome, Venice, and Florance ceased being real neighborhoods. The buildings were owned by distant investors, who drove up prices while they were converting more and more homes into cash paying rentals. The process made real estate more valuable, and working families just couldn't compete.  

Looking at the Hudson Valley, we see the same process at work. Families can't afford to buy property that is owned by distant landlords and reserved for short term rentals. And this is where public good is destroyed for private gain. For fortunes are rarely made by simply providing necessary services. The real profit comes from destroying some measure of the public good. Whether you are warming the planet by oil production, addicting whole segments of society by selling opioids, or turning millions of homes into short term rentals to the affluent, the payoff is the same. The real fortunes are made by robbing the rest of us.

How close does fascism have to come to our shores?

October 20

Guest: Michael Leonardi, Italian activist and author of the Counterpunch article “Introducing Giorgia Meloni: How the US opened the door for Fascism’s Return to Italy" talks about the ascendency of the right in Italy. He currently lives on the island of Procida in the Gulf of Naples.

How the US opened the door for fascism's return to Italy

Michael did a Zoom meeting with me, so I got to see the Gulf of Naples through an open window of his office. Italy has such charm and warmth, that it is almost impossible to believe that a fascist leader has returned to power after all these years.

Maybe it is an example of the fact that fascism never really goes away. In tough economic times, people look for scapegoats. Fascist leaders gain power by directing hate towards minorities, immigrants, and those with non-binary relationships. The wealthy elite like it that way, because they can keep raking in billions while workers suffer. Like many Western democracies, Italy is going through a crisis of inequality. 

What Michael does is to go beyond the obvious to trace US covert operations in Italy's decades long shift to "corporatization," the term Mussolini gave to his brand of fascist leadership. The US and the CIA fought a particularly dirty war, both in Greece and in Italy at the end of World War II. Worried that both countries might fall into the Soviet sphere of interest, the CIA sided with the defeated fascists; Together, they massacred those on the left who were advocating for a new society based on justice and equality. Both Greece and Italy bear the scares of these wars, as well as the ever present US military bases that just never fly home. That's the hidden story that most American never really understand. The idea that the CIA worked with the Italian Mafia to assassinate progressive politicians just seems beyond the pale. 

But to understand Fascism anywhere, we must take an unflinching look at our neoliberal system, one that fosters inequality wherever in the world US combat boots hit the ground. How close does fascism have to come to our shores before we take notice?

A lot to ask

 

October 13

GUEST: Sarahana Shrestha, first generation immigrant from Nepal, surprise winner of a Democratic primary for NY State Assembly, and committed reformer who does not take corporate money, talks about her strong focus on working families and climate. 

Surprise Democratic State Assembly primary winner

Sarahana Shrestha was good enough to give us this 20 minute interview. She is a busy candidate, having just defeated a long time corporate funded Democrat to run for NYS Assembly. 

Is Sarahana the future of the Democratic Party? Will the party pass on to newer, more progressive candidates who care about racism, global warming and workers' rights? Can social change still happen within our corrupted political system?

First we will have to see if she wins. Not taking corporate money is a handicap, even though it scores points with progressives. But some of her opinions are not mainstream ones, especially her emphasis on human rights for all. She is a staunch supporter of Black Lives Matter, and insists that our criminal justice system be reformed. This might make her vulnerable, since she will be attacked as an immigrant who is weak on crime. In fact, the right wing Republican Party has long ago given up running on anything that doesn't incite racial hatred. Candidates like Sarahana should beware. 

Sarahana's success so far, however, says more about the Democratic Party than it does about the Republican. Her organizing skills, and her idealism show us all what the mainstream Democratic Party has become: a corrupted and ineffectual foil for the right wing fascism we see on the horizon. Dare we hope that the Democratic Party can kick out its old guard, the Clintons, Obama and Pelosi? And what about their warmongering? Can we turn the party into one that doesn't keep pushing us to World War III? I know its a lot to ask from a new candidate for state assembly. 

Learning about these United States

 

October 6

GUEST: Jeffrey Sommers, Professor of Political Economy & Public Policy in Global Studies and a Senior Fellow, Institute of World Affairs, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, talks about how Gorbachev became the most reviled man in Russia.

How Gorbachev became the most reviled man in Russia

Gorbachev is one of the most interesting figures to come out of the Cold War. A brilliant and hard working idealist, he was both a Communist and and a champion of his people. In fact, he displayed a moral compass that most international leaders have jettisoned long ago. Did that make him unfit for the realpolitik that he faced as the head of the Soviet Union?

Perhaps his biggest failure was to believe that the United States wanted to spread democracy and free speech to his country. He was conned into giving up his power and dismantling his country for a few verbal agreements that the US had no intention of following through on. He was a country boy, a rube to the imperial powers that wanted to make Russia a neoliberal colony. Gorbachev's failure was the end of Soviet power, for good or for evil.

But the warning remains. The US in its present form is a highly aggressive military machine, interested in corporate power and the domination of the rest of the world. With our hundreds of military bases and our hundreds of billions spent on weaponry every year, we are the behemoth that Gorbachev should have been worrying about. In fact, the US has become the global empire that Americans have always been taught to fear in foreign nations. Studying Gorbachev's life is to learn about these United States.  

At the bottom of a mostly hidden caste system

 

September 29

GUEST: Steve Early, writer for the Jacobin, longtime union representative for the Communications Workers of America, and author of several books, discusses his latest one, Our Veterans: Winners, Losers, Friends and Enemies on the New Terrain of Veterans Affairs.

Our Veterans Duke University Press

Steve Early and Suzanne Gordon: Our Veterans

Jacobin articles by Steve Early

I really liked Steve Early's book on veterans. Maybe that is because I am an antiwar veteran myself. Or because I spent a number of years working in a high school, doing my best to frustrate Army recruiting. It could also be the year I spent in Korea, in the 7th Infantry. 

I am still fascinated by soldiers, and how they are manipulated to pay the price for US imperialism. I paid that price, drafted out of my first teaching job because the Army needed cannon fodder in Vietnam. There I was teaching students about the roots of folk music, while in my briefcase were letters from my draft board. 

So veterans have a special sense of what war and occupation look like. It is a view rarely shared with the public, probably because it would undermine the image of noble war-making so popular in the empire. Veterans can be truth tellers, especially in times when the empire is on the move. Times like this New Cold War.

Veterans also go through a racist and classist selection process, one that middle class whites have little knowledge of. Many inner city schools are in fact militarized charter schools that have inspections, marching drills and war making in the curriculum. To the poor in America, the message is we will feed and house you, give you some skills that may or may not help you get a job later on, and show you at least some respect in our Jim Crow society. 

Our Veterans pries into all these realities. In some way, it is a mirror of what life is really like for those at the bottom of a mostly hidden caste system. The empire has many secrets. 

The step from dysfunctional democracy

September 22

GUEST: Sleydo (Molly Wickham), spokesperson an Indigenous reoccupation site in British Columbia, talks about her people's resistance to the Coastal Gasoline pipeline. This interview is a replay from this spring.

The Unspoken Spread of Fascism

I replayed Molly Wickham's interview because her tribe's battle are still going on. It is part of the indigenous resistance to Canada's participation in the destruction of our common planet. 

I included an article I wrote to the LA Progressive a couple of years ago. It traces the spread of fascism that often follows a dysfunctional democracy, one that is almost completely dependent on corporate cash. In this case, the Canadian government is doing what their big oil companies want done, despite a incursion into First Nation lands, and a reckless indifference to our dying planet. 

Or as Chris Hedges wrote recently:

The step from dysfunctional democracy to full-blown fascism was, and will again be, a small one. 

 

You know what you must do

 

September 15

GUEST: Shahd, young Palestinian activist and political writer living with her family in Gaza, talks about her dangerous life and limited future caused by the Israeli blockade and constant military assaults.

Stories about Palestine
The blockade of Gaza
For Gaza Residents, Trauma and Pain Persist
Podcast: Childhood Under Occupation

It was a privilege to have Shahd on Activist Radio. We did have trouble establishing a good connection because Gaza is often without electricity, much less an internet connection. But we persisted, and only lost the first few minutes of the interview.

I was well aware of the need to understand Shahd's life under the brutal occupation of Israel. That meant reliving some of her life with its trauma of murdered relatives and destroyed communities. At one point, I  apologized for bringing up these topics, even though her outreach to the United States is about just that, helping those of us living in the empire to realize the consequences of our vast military machine. 

For Shahd's life is not some far off story. The bombs and planes making her life a hell on earth are all made in the USA. They are even paid for by the 3.8 billion in military aid we send each year to Israel. When Israel runs out of phosphorus or cluster bombs, the US is always there to insure that there is no interruption to the carnage.  

So take a look at what your government does to the five million living under Israeli apartheid. Is it the millions of dollars the Israel Lobby slips into our hopelessly corrupt political system? Is it Israel's role in US ambitions to control the Middle East and its oil production? Whatever the reasons, the only people who can stop this gradual genocide of the Palestinian people are those reading this blog. You know what you must do. Work for a free Palestine!

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845 437-7178. 

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A closer look at US imperialism

September 8

GUEST: Hillary Walsh, award winning immigrant defense lawyer and adjunct law professor, talks about her career defending human rights in the Supreme Court of Nevada and the US Supreme Court.

New Frontier law firm

Hillary Walsh has some very good arguments for expanding immigration. This country needs young workers, especially if they are willing to do the jobs that most US citizens don't really want. There are so many areas of the US that are severally underpopulated. An immigrant community in these areas would be a win for everyone. In addition, many immigrants have skills that are in need, and would add to the strength of our economy. To Hillary, letting immigrants into the country makes all the sense in the world.

Other arguments for a more open immigrant policy get less attention. The fact that the US is probably responsible for much of the immigration from Central America wasn't part of our discussion. Global warming is probably the biggest reason that small farmers can't grow enough food to feed themselves or their families. In parts of Guatemala and Honduras it doesn't rain anymore. And the empire to the north has been built in part on the burning of fossil fuels. 

The US "War on Terror" has turned large parts of Central America into killing zones. The US has trained some of the worst assassins in the School of the Americas, now the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. The US has also overthrown many elected leaders in the area, turning functioning democracies into military dictatorships. Look at the destabilization efforts aimed at Nicaragua over the last several years. 

Then there is the conversion of these countries into mono-crop farming, all aimed at export markets. Also, foreign based mining operations have poisoned water resources. Economic colonialism has made life very hard south of our boarder. Don't we have some responsibility to these starving people making their way north?

But maybe that is not the best argument to make. US citizens have grown up with the prevailing narrative that depicts the US as a moral country, alway promoting democracy in the rest of the world. Are they ready for a closer look at US imperialism, and the terrible costs of empire? Perhaps it's safer pointing out the advantages of bringing more immigrants into our country. But beneath all that, we must work to expose the military empire that has brought so much suffering to our brothers and sisters in Latin America. 

Why should we worry about nuclear energy?

 

September 1

GUEST: Brian P.J. Cronin, award winning environmental reporter for the Highlands Current in Beacon, NY, and adjunct professor of journalism at Marist College, talks about the troubling decommission of the area's nuclear power plant.

We do not dump to the river

Nuclear reactors have a long shelf-life. In fact, they are permanent. The spent fuel rods will remain in the earth for millions of years after the plants are officially decommissioned. That's because there never was any way to get rid of the rods. That was the logical mistake made time and time again by our media and our politicians. 

Nuclear power plants are like burying "dirty" bombs all over the earth and pretending that they will never go off. But experience an earthquake, a tsunami, a military conflict or a terrorist attack, and you are done for. Not everyone, of course. But in the case of Indian Point, it would be 44,000 people, according to Energy Facts, a research project on the consequences of an accident at the nuclear facility.

An accident at one of Indian Point’s reactors on the scale of the recent catastrophe in Japan could cause a swath of land down to the George Washington Bridge to be uninhabitable for generations due to radiation contamination. A release of radiation on the scale of Chernobyl’s would make Manhattan too radioactively contaminated to live in if the city fell within the plume. 

Just why are politicians and our media is still so enthusiastic about building new nuclear plants? Or keeping them running well past their scheduled end dates? Well, it comes down the the "Benjamins." Wall Street speculators think the risks are worth it, as well as the costs of paying off all those members of
Congress and the media. 

So now the insanity is that nuclear power will help stop global warming. Forget that nuclear energy it is now way more expensive than wind or solar, and that most of New York City would be uninhabitable after a major spill. But Wall Street hedge funds can handle all that risk. So why should we worry?

 

The termination of that most creative and aggressive of species

August 25

GUEST: Melvin A. Goodman, author, senior fellow at the Center for International Policy in Washington, DC, former CIA analyst, and professor of international security at the Department of Defense's National War College, talks about the warmongering of Henry Kissinger.

Henry Kissinger: A Warmonger’s Lying Continues

It felt more familiar talking about US foreign policy with Melvin Goodman. His encyclopedic knowledge of CIA history supports his analysis of both US leaders and the American Empire. He isn't afraid to point out Kissinger's mistakes either. In fact, we both share a particular distaste for this most manipulative and ruthless of national security advisors. 

Melvin's judgements are limited to Kissinger's effectiveness and his penchant for aggrandizing his own successes. Even the costs of American militarism are quantified by counting the billions wasted in pursuing American "interests" in the rest of the world. Less explored is the morality of waging wars of aggression, torturing prisoners in black sites, and assassinating leaders in foreign countries. 

Does the American Empire even make sense in a nuclear age? Will its successes herald in a new era of war, climate collapse and the termination of that most creative and aggressive of species, the Homo sapiens?   

Let us applaud our troublemakers

August 18

GUEST: Sonali Kolhatkar, journalist, activist, and host of Pacifica’s popular program "Rising Up With Sonali," talks about the recent election in Columbia and the declining influence of the US empire in all of Latin America.

Colombia, Once a Pro-U.S. Conservative Bastion, Turns Left

Sonali presents a thoroughly enjoyable show that does its best to defy Western propaganda. The "Life and Times of a Well-Rounded Troublemaker" is both entertaining and carefully researched. There are hardly any limits to the stories that she takes on. We talked today about the recent election in Colombia. How can we make sense of this important change since we have grown up with nothing but media distortions about Latin America?

We can now enjoy the confusion of our lockstep news organizations as they try to come up with alternative narratives about Columbia. Will the Pentagon try to make peace with this new democracy? Or will the empire decide to rearm the right wing forces for a possible military coup against the new president? In the meantime, we the people get a little relief from the dominant and heavy handed reporting about the region. 

As the empire's media contracts into predictable stereotypes about war and "Western values," there is an infinite number of subjects that are just left out. The empire has been hiding its history and lying about Columbia for decades. Let us applaud troublemakers like Sonali as they expose the gross hypocrisy of our warmongering leaders. 

 

Circumscribed Western media

August 11

GUEST: Tom Whitney Jr., retired pediatrician, political writer, member of the Let Cuba Live Committee of Maine as well as Maine Veterans For Peace, talks about why the US Cuban embargo must be lifted.

To Normalize US-Cuban Relations, Restore Working Embassies

When it comes to Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, there is no difference of opinion in the Western World. According to the empire and our at times unwilling allies, these regimes promote terror and suppress their own peoples. The coordination of the empire's media says more about these countries' isolation than official government statements. The New York Times and the Guardian in the UK have the same point of view. So does Democracy Now.

Should we roll over and accept this overwhelmingly dominant propoganda? What is the alternative? Go to a Russian influenced media? In many ways, the media of the "enemy" is much closer to the truth than we can find in the West's compromised news organizations. I see nothing wrong with pursuing the truth through the Russian and Chinese media in this era of a New Cold War.

Another choice is to go to people like Tom Whitney, who have devoted their lives to reporting the news from the supposed "enemies" of the US state. That's what I have tried to do in Activist Radio. Maybe that is the program's niche. I don't pretend to know all the truth about Cuba, Nicaragua, or Venezuela. But I know enough to find alternative voices, because almost all of the major media is obediently following the Pentagon line. It is quite amazing how circumscribed the Western media now is. Can war be far behind?
 

In the country that invented "Government of the people"

August 4

GUEST: Lillian Cicerchia, socialist writer, organizer and postdoctoral researcher in philosophy at the Free University of Berlin, talks about her interview in Jacobin entitled: "Voting Harder Won’t Bring Back Roe."

Voting Harder Won’t Bring Back Roe

Lillian reminds us that social change doesn't happen at elections. Applying this concept to abortion rights is easy. For decades, we have relied on a Supreme Court ruling to give women the right to control their own bodies. What should have been happening is the creation of a broad movement to give women their equal rights in all aspects of their lives. The question is not why the ultra conservatives want to take away a women's rights. That happens in all fascist influenced societies. The real question is why society as a whole has offered so little resistance. 

Part of the problem is the use of human rights issues in elections. In short, Democrats have run on protecting a women's right to choose. But like most election promises on waging peace, protecting the environment, or taxing the rich, it has been all talk. Both the Democrats and the Republicans are comfortable within the embrace of big money. The billionaires and their corporations make all the real decisions in these United States. And whatever is profitable for the ultra rich is what really gets done. 

Of course, there has to be a reinvigoration of the women's rights movement. But more than that, we have to reinvent our government so that our representatives do what we want them to do. That will require the overcoming of both corporate dominated political parties. How to expose the fraud of billionaire backed candidates? How to get our mainstream media to even point out the gross corruption of our system? That's the struggle that we must eventually win. Societies do accomplish massive changes like these, and eventually it can happen here, in the country that invented "Government of the people, by the people, for the people."
 

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?

NRA school to work program

The NRA has come out of hibernation and is now proposing an armed guard be hired and stationed at every school in the country. There are certainly economic advantages to this. Think how many more guns the weapons makers could sell! Gun companies would become our nation's true "job creators," something we so desperately need.

But sadly, the NRA misses the point here. One armed guard to protect all those doors, windows and buses? Without an armed guard for every classroom, our kids just aren't going to be any safer. And what if that guard is taken out by the first blast of an assault weapon? Again, our kids will be helpless.

Helpless unless the children themselves are armed and can shoot back. That's what will ultimately end these one sided massacres at schools. We must arm, train and provide clips of live ammunition to every girl and boy from first grade on. Let someone threaten them now! Why there would be a mass shootout between the bad guys and all the good kids, and we know who would win that one.

By the time our children have survived the occasional gunfight in the playground and graduated from high school, they would be more than ready for the only job their country will have to offer them, being a proud member of the Armed Forces. They will be well equipped to blast bad guys around the world as we expand our glorious American Empire.

The ultimate NRA school to work program.

Fred Nagel (letter to the editor 2012)

A crime in itself

June 9

Activist Radio has the following guest on this week:

GUEST: Jordan Smith, award winning investigative journalist and Senior Reporter for The Intercept, talks about her extensive research into the "junk science" used by the criminal justice system to convict innocent people.

Whistling  Past the  Graveyard 

Activist Radio can be heard: Thursdays 5-6 pm on WVKR 91.3 FM at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, NY; Thursdays from 9-10 pm on WBDY 99.5 FM at The Bundy in Binghamton, NY; Sundays 1:30-2:30 pm on WESU 88.1 FM at Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT; Sundays 4-5 pm from WIOF 104.1 FM in Woodstock, NY; and Sundays 5-6 pm from the Progressive Radio Network at PRN.FM. Past programs are available as a podcast, or anytime on the web at https://ClassWars.org

The criminal justice system is based on the same concept as legal representation. Two points of view are decided on by either a judge or a jury. It is up to the lawyer for each side to do his or her bast in presenting facts and analysis that support one point of view. The telling of these two tales is assumed to result in justice.

But poor people can't afford the best story tellers. Often judges and juries let race prejudices interfere with even handed deliberations. And finally, the police and prosecutors are often motivated to put their thumbs on the scales of justice. That is where "junk science" comes into play. 

Judges and juries assume that prosecutors will always play by the rules, and that the witnesses presented will adhere to the highest standards of science. When that doesn't happen, innocent people go to jail based on false evidence. Bite marks on a body cannot be traced to a particular perpetrator. Yet hundreds of innocent people went to jail based on false assumptions and junk science. 

Bite marks as evidence has finally been discredited by valid scientific studies. But what about other pseudo scientific evidence? Shouldn't the dentists who created this bogus evidence be punished? Or prosecutors who put innocent people in jail? The system of justice is weak, and since the majority of people who can't afford the best lawyers are Black, why then Black people will be denied justice far more often than whites. 

How much of our justice system is set up this way, and is the result a crime in itself?