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?

What if citizens of the US demanded more from their government?

June 2

GUEST: Becca Renk, sustainable community organizer for the Nicaraguan Jubilee House Community and its project, the Ciudad Sandino - the Center for Development in Central America, talks about her work in bringing the revolution to a larger audience.

Alliance for Global Justice

The picture to the right is of Ben Linder, a US volunteer who was ambushed and killed in Nicaragua by the US backed CONTRA rebels. Linder was building a small, water powered generator to bring electricity to a nearby town when he was assassinated.

The CONTRAs were the US answer to the Sandinista Revolution. Rather than pitching in to help one of the poorest countries in Central America, the US tried to bring back the brutal Samosa regime. This meant destroying many of the achievements of the Sandinistas. 

The Sandinistas started out with a campaign to teach all Nicaraguans to read. Hundreds of young, educated volunteers were sent into the countryside to simply bring the nation into the age of literacy. A second campaign was initiated to bring medicine to the people of Nicaragua. Nurses and doctors were trained to finally bring medical aid to the vast majority of people who had never had such services. They established hundreds of rural clinics where everyone could access medical care.

A third pillar of the Sandinista Revolution was education. College education was declared to be free if a student would promise to use that training to benefit the people of Nicaragua. Soon the sons and daughters of impoverished farmers were sent to school to become the doctors and nurses of their communities. Primary and secondary education was similarly brought up to First World standards. Schools were built and teachers were trained all over Nicaragua.

The Contras was the reaction of the United States to Nicaragua's revolution. The US armed and trained this guerrilla army to attack the very advances that the Sandinistas had made. They killed the literacy workers, destroyed the medical clinics, and terrorized the countryside. Hundreds of volunteers were ambushed and murdered in an effort to return Nicaragua to the fold of obedient countries, willing to let their natural resources and peoples be exploited by the empire of the north. 

We can easily see how the same sequence of events have happened to many countries dominated by the United States. Cuba's and Venezuela's literacy, medical, and educational programs looked a lot like Nicaragua's. And the response from the United States has always been the same. For the ideals of these revolutions have always been a danger to the US, a country that gives the fruits of its people's labor to the very richest of its capitalists. What if the American people demanded more for themselves? Free healthcare and free education? What if the United States started asking the billionaires to pay their fair share of taxes. Well, that's the worry that has driven our nation to be at war with the socialist countries of Latin America.