We have joined the murderers

December 21

 

GUEST: Ahmad Katani, Palestinian American and human rights activist, describes his troubled journey from a refugee camp in the West Bank to the heart of the American Empire, where all the bombs and bullets are made for Israel's war crimes.

Chris Hedges on the Death of Israel

How does the "civilized" world deal with one of its own, when that country is committing genocide? When it kills 20,000 people, almost half of them children? Israel's butchery and grotesque war crimes strain the limits of state sanctioned killing. And yet countries like the United States and members of the EU, just look the other way, especially if there is money to be made selling bullets and bombs for the carnage. 

Ahmad brings us down to the individual Palestinian who has suffered from Israeli apartheid. We understand what the camps are like, and what the slaughter of refugees means. But to really understand the extent of the carnage, we have to remember the European country that slaughtered six million of its Jews, in an attempt to purge them from their "Master Race." In one of life's most destructive ironies, the very people who were slaughtered by the Third Reich, are now "cleansing" Israel of all those who are not Jewish. The victims of the Holocaust have learned to be the perpetrators.

The failure of the more "civilized" Western nations to stop this second Holocaust reveals the base nature of their centuries old claim. Instead of "never again," we have joined the murderers.   

 

America is a killer state

There are events in history that reveal underlying truths about our society. The people of the United States are horrified by pictures of Gaza. Can it be that Israel killed 8,000 Palestinian children? And that our country supported and paid for this genocide?

The wealthy elite at the top of our supposed democracy aren't surprised at all. They rule the world with their high tech bombs and killing machines. Israel is their perfect partner in crime, doing the empire's dirty work in Third World countries. In Gaza, these two of the most powerful countries in the world are annihilating tens of thousands of people who are virtually defenseless.

Lesson one: America is a killer state and has been since the end of WW II. Not the citizens, of course. But their political leaders. Millions have been killed in US invasions, all based on crude lies.

Lesson two: America's ruling elite are completely corrupt. They are highly paid by the major weapons makers and by Israel itself. The man who accepted the most in Israeli bribes is our very own President Biden, pulling in a lifetime haul of $4,346,264 (OpenSecrets.org).

Lesson three: If we take to the streets we can shake up their devotion to greed and murder. We can expose them for the monsters they really are. We can throw a wrench into their vulgar political machine and lobby driven existence. There is no major party for working people, and this rule by the elite has got to go.

Fred Nagel

The world now calls it apartheid

There was a period during the Vietnam War when I lost hope for my country. The US was slaughtering whole villages at the time, and pulverizing Cambodia from the air. I was drafted and sent overseas, so I knew what our military was doing in Southeast Asia.

Many Third World Counties later, our military is again slaughtering tens of thousands, this time in Gaza. Israel is doing the dirty work, as it often does. But the world knows who this genocide can be traced back to. We supply the arms, we send Israel billions in aid, and we cover up for them at the UN. And there is so much to cover up. There are seven million Palestinians still living in their homeland, and their treatment is so disgustingly racist that most of the world now calls it apartheid.   

My country, I realized long ago, is not as evil as it is just broken. There is hardly a member of Congress not being paid off by the Israel Lobby. Our weapons makers sit in the Pentagon and plan how to sell more bombs and fighter jets. Our corporate media has been pro-apartheid Israel for decades. These are all failures of a country that was supposed to be "of the people, by the people, and for the people." Would our country starve millions of children in Gaza if it were run by the people? Or for the people? This genocide is the end of an ideal we once held for our nation.

Fred Nagel

Joseph Conrad's “Heart of Darkness,”

I remember when I first read about the Holocaust. I was about 12 years old, and had never learned about it in school.

I couldn't believe it; the savagery was too much to comprehend. So I went to the library and read all I could. But in the mid fifties, there just wasn't much to be had. It was only when I went to college that I was able to learn more: about Kristallnacht, about the Nazis, and about the extermination camps. I spent a lot of time putting it all together. I read about the night of the "long knives," who had funded Hitler, and the failed assignation attempt. I thought if I studied it enough, I could come to terms with what had happened. I could fit it in.

But I was never able to. And when I read Joseph Conrad's “Heart of Darkness,” I thought I knew what "the horror" really meant. The undefinable and the inexpressible.

Watching and listening to the genocide in Gaza brought me all the way back to that 12 year old student. How could human beings kill 5,000 children in a month? How could Israel send millions fleeing without any place to go? And how could the hospitals, the ambulances and the schools be targeted?

How could my country pay for and protect a government in Israel that is as racist and bloodthirsty as the SS? How could the country I had served in the military be the ultimate cause of all that "horror"?

Fred Nagel

Unwashed faces of the Third World

December 14

 

GUEST: Chisato Kimora, member of the a joint Harvard and Yale and student group, that along with community members from New Haven, disrupted the famous Harvard-Yale football game to protest the genocide in Gaza.

Chisato Kimora, Yale School of Law

Chisato was a delight to interview. Her determination to hold her law school accountable for the genocide in Gaza was extortionary. When push came to shove, she was willing to risk her career for doing the right thing. The distance between her idealism and the jaded support for Israel in our Congressional class is simply astounding. 

Chisato and many others were willing to disrupt one of America's most holy rituals, the Harvard/Yale football game to make a point about Gaza. How could all those well fed and privileged football fans enjoy their masculine combat when images of 6,500 starving children were being held in their faces? It was an atrocity! An assault on American's values happening in the heart of the empire!

Don't Harvard and Yale represent the epitome of our national life? The best education and credentials money can get you into. If our holy sites like these can't be protected from the unwashed faces of the Third World, what can?

 

Supporting genocide when the price is right

December 7

 

GUESTS: Jewish and labor union constituents question Congressmen Pat Ryan on his unwavering support of apartheid Israel, and on his recent vote to describe any criticism of Israel as antisemitism.

Antisemitism bill chips away at free speech

A couple of very large rallies in the Hudson Valley has Congressman Pat Ryan running scared. He won a close race for his seat in Congress, and once there has become a dependable supporter of the genocide in Palestine. He has all sorts of reasons for his pro-Israel statements. His wife is Jewish, as are his children. In public, that is about all he talks about when the issue of Palestine comes up. That and how Israel has a right to defend itself. Of course, apartheid and genocide has nothing to do with the right to defend one's own country. 

At a public meeting, I asked Ryan about the money he gets every year from the Israel Lobby. He denied getting any money at all. More recently, he has said that the contributions he gets from Israel are "insignificant." And yet, research done by the website Open Secrets tell a different story. In fact, their data bank makes interesting reading. Israel is spending tens of millions on Congress, all obscured by various pro-Israel groups in the US. Representatives like Pat Ryan are being paid quite well to look the other way while 6,500 Palestinian children are massacred.

I was lucky to get this recording of Jewish and labor groups questioning Pat Ryan. They don't give him much wiggle room, and why should they? Ryan is a member of a class that supports genocide when the price is right.  

 

The second catastrophe of the Holocaust

 

November 30

 

GUEST: Ellen Davidson, member of Jewish Voice for Peace, Veterans For Peace, and contributor to the NY based Indypendent as well as Mondoweiss, talks about her trips to the West Bank and the meaning of apartheid.

Calling Israel an apartheid state

Ellen is a long time activist for Palestine. She uses her considerable writing and newspaper production skills to publish Peace & Planet News, a Veterans for Peace publication. I met her in Cairo during the Gaza Freedom March. About 1,500 members from all over the world waited in Cairo for permission to go into Gaza, permission that never came.

We stayed busy anyway, organizing courses on apartheid and Palestinian liberation. We also stopped the traffic in Tahrir Square, a breathtaking experience when we sat down in front of eight lanes of traffic. You can see what happened to us in a documentary I shot: "Still in Cairo."

So Ellen is one of those people who has worked for social change most of her life. She is Jewish, and considers her work for Palestine to be in the best traditions of Jewish activism and social justice.

How is it that the state of Israel seems to have thrown out all that history of leftist change to become a nationalist state modeled on fascism? Or is the creation of Israel the second catastrophe of the Holocaust?

Pat Ryan has always done what he was told

November 23

 

GUESTS: Two Palestinian women ask their House Representative Pat Ryan to call for an immediate ceasefire, and to oppose the Israeli genocide in Gaza and the West Bank.

Democratic Socialists of America key player

How gratifying it was to hear two bright, young Palestinian women educating Representative Pat Ryan. He doesn't know much, of course. All he does is repeat stale Israeli talking points, while throwing in references to his own Jewish children. What an amazing example of PEP (progressive except for Palestine).

What he doesn't talk about yet is his yearly check from the Israel Lobby for close to $30,000. What incentive does Rep Ryan have to learn about Gaza or to consider the definition of genocide? Pat Ryan has always done what he was told, at West Point, and later during two tours in the Middle East. Congress is the same deal. They tell you what to say and do, and you collect your money. 

He has sharpened up his presentations somewhat. He no longer states that he gets no money from the Israel Lobby. He tries to "feel the pain" of the Palestinian people. He is just a good old boy trying to do what is right.

But these Palestinian women would have none of that. The result is searing and meaningful radio. For that is the way we should all treat the murder of over 5,000 children in one month. We should all be demanding that Rep. Ryan stop the genocide being committed in our names. And we should all be looking for a peace candidate to replace this Democratic Party warmonger. 

 

Class war, plain and simple

November 16

 

GUESTS: Alexandria Shaner, from Extinction Rebellion and Matic Primca, Slovenian activist and journalist, talk about what the Z Network is and how it relates to the Influential radical publication, Z Magazine, that featured the writings of Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn.

Z Network

The history of the left in the US is littered with newspapers and magazines. Z Magazine is one of them. The pinnacle of radical thought in its day, it offered the writings of Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn on the Vietnam War and its aftermath. 

“American imperialism has suffered a stunning defeat in Indochina. But the same forces are engaged In another war against a much less resilient enemy, the American people. Here, the prospects for success are much greater. The battleground is ideological, not military. At stake are the lessons to be drawn from the American war in Indochina; the outcome will determine the course and character of new imperial ventures.” - Noam Chomsky 

Media is where these wars are fought. Having courageous publications is so necessary, especially in times of war, when the major media in our country is always filled with Pentagon propaganda. 

Bury the empire and free the media! The US is now in perpetual war, driven by the all powerful weapons makers who buy and sell our Congress and President. Restoring our democracy has to start with overcoming our billionaire class, whose thoughts and whims often sound like the ravings of emperors in ancient Rome. It is class war, plain and simple. 

Behind this horrific carnage

November 9

 

GUEST: Talal Jabari, Palestinian journalist, award winning documentary filmmaker and managing director of Radio Alam, an Arabic-language talk radio station, talks about the current uprising against Israel's genocide of the Palestinian people.

Award winning filmmaker

Talal has been on Activist Radio before. His thoughts seem to come through the lens of his camera; there is a lot of detail to be had. And the full realization of US hypocrisy is always recognizable, right below the surface. 

How can the elite decision makers of our country be so ruthless? How are they able to support and even pay for the carnage visited on millions of Palestinian people. Do they think about those small body bags, all lined up like sardines. Five thousand of them in the first month of high tech onslaught.

Members of Congress aren't stupid; they are war criminals. And if our governmental leaders can do that to another population, what might they do to the 99 percent in the US who are not rich and isolated from life's traumas.

If there ever was a time to put ourselves on the line, this genocide of the Palestinians is it. We can watch it on our computer screens. We can read about it in our newspapers. We see the mountains of debris, with family members trying to dig through it with their hands. Can nothing touch the empire that is behind this horrific carnage?
 

 

A veteran of the IDF

November 2

 

GUEST: Mark Hammel, PhD, psychologist, Israeli citizen and veteran of the IDF during the Yom Kippur War, talks about his ideological journey to being a post Zionist, and a therapist for disabled veterans.

Explaining the Yom Kippur War

As a US veteran, I understand how a young man goes off to war with the best of intentions. He is defending his family and his country. He is doing his patriotic duty.

Once his finger is on the trigger, things look so different. There are women and children in the way. He is somewhere far from home, shooting people who might have been innocent. Suddenly, he questions how he is defending his family in a foreign country. He sees what invasions and occupations do to humanity in the Third World. He sees the slaughter he has wrought.

Now to come home, to be congratulated for all that carnage. Now to begin to live with all those memories. 

Mark Hammel knows that scenario all too well, having fought for Israel in two wars. I think that talking about war and occupation is a first step in regaining one's humanity. Mark is particularly insightful. He is a veteran of the IDF who can no longer accept apartheid.

 

Taking the money and selling their humanity

I don't know what to say about a country whose political class can't call for a cease fire. We see the absolute slaughter of women and children, and still they say nothing. We listen to the stories of families ripped apart or simply obliterated, and yet Rep. Pat Ryan keeps cheering on the carnage. Is our ruling class filled with war criminals?

Does it help to point out how our Congress is bought and sold by the Israel Lobby? Pat Ryan was paid $28,850 by the lobby in 2022 (reported by Opensecrets.org). That money is now covered with human blood.

Have you no shame, Pat Ryan? As a West Point graduate weren't you taught not to butcher civilians? Not to murder thousands of children? What kind of soulless barbarian would defend Israel's mass murder? What kind of human being would take money from the Israel Lobby, if it meant selling their soul?

Let's show our absolute disgust with such supposed leaders, be they Republican or Democrat. Join a local rally, or go to DC (mideastcrisis.org). Ending US support for this racist, apartheid, and bloodthirsty country has to be our most important goal. We will not be "good Germans," as millions are marched to their extermination.

As a citizen and a US veteran, I demand that my flag not be covered with the blood of millions of Palestinians. And those who take the money and sell their humanity must not only be voted out, but shamed for what they have done to our nation.

A familiar Western greed and hegemony

 

October 26

GUEST: John Pottinger, long time peace activist and investigative reporter for the Socialist Action Newsletter, talks about Niger and Northern Africa being caught in the crosshairs of US and French imperialism.

 

Niger in imperialist crosshairs

John Pottinger is an investigative reporter, willing to expose the imperialism of European and American interests in Northern Africa. It is all about robbing African people and taking their natural resources. 

Uranium is the country's biggest mining operation. But there are many more products to be extracted and sent to Europe and the US. None of the profits ever go to the miners and their families, no matter how dangerous their working conditions are, or how ruined their environment becomes. Nigeria is probably the best example in Africa. The extraction of oil has contaminated large sections of the country, and much of their drinking water is filled with chemicals. 

I noticed that this interview was downloaded by fewer stations on Pacifica than previous ones. Maybe Niger is not really in the news, now that the US and Israeli are committing genocide in the Holy Land. But racism and colonialism are the common bonds, and Palestinians as well as Africans are the victims of a familiar Western greed and hegemony.

Racist war machine must be confronted and torn down

October 19

 

GUEST: Ray Acheson, Director of Reaching Critical Will, the disarmament program of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, and steering committee member of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) talks about Cop City and ending state violence.

Racketeering of state violence

The Cop City resistance is a precursor to the massive demonstrations that we see against Israel. Israel is the symbol of US orchestrated violence in the rest of the world. Cop City is the symbol of violence here at home. The tactics of the empire are plain to see in both the repression of dissent here, and the genocide being perpetrated on the Palestinian people. 

Our elite politicians and military planners have lost their minds. War crimes mean nothing. Killing thousands of children doesn't move them in the least. Our form of government, from the warmongers at the top to racist police, is a failure when it comes to serving the people of our country. In fact, the American Empire is the most dangerous country in the world. Martin Luther King saw it in his famous Riverside Church speech: 

“The greatest purveyor of violence in the world : My own Government, I can not be Silent.”  

Like MLK, we can no longer be silent. The US racist war machine must be confronted and torn down.

 

The recipe for empire

October 12

 

GUEST: Sara Flounders, co-director of the International Action Center, writer for the "Workers World" newspaper, and organizer of mass rallies against imperialism, talks about the US "Pivot to Asia" and the threat of endless wars.

Camp David alliance against China

It seems when we go from war to war, that we lose track of what we have lost and what we have gained. The US military is in so many areas of the world that every new development seems like a challenge to our authority. We drain more than half our wealth and resources just to fight wars for dominance in far away places. 

The left is acutely aware of our nation's imperial paranoia. Every attempt of a Third World country to rule itself sets off alarm bells. Soon our immensely profitable weapons makers are pushing for more military expenditures. And there doesn't seem to be any limit to the dangers the military industrial complex can conjure up for our nation. It is the recipe for empire, and the enslavement of our citizens to the god of war.   

 

Report from the West Bank

This update is sent by Sa'ed Zboun, Arabic teacher at Bethlehem University and one of the founders of the Aida Youth Center, located in a refugee camp in the West Bank. Sa'ed was a guest on Activist Radio on May 25, 2023.

Updates from Palestine
Mon, Oct 16, 2023, at 2:25 PM

The situation here gets worst and worst! We are under a complete lockdown in the West Bank. There is lack of food, the internet keeps cutting off! Above all settlers are attacking us.
I always thought that our Nakba that happened in 1948 because people back then were not educated and didn’t know the term humanity. Now, we witness another Nakba but in front of the whole world!
Israel now is committing a genocide in Gaza where they told more than 1.1 million to evacuate which is impossible because of the size of Gaza. Yet once they started fleeing, they bombed them in the streets! They deprived 2.1 million people of water, food, medicine, and electricity. What is happening now is not a war against Hamas, it’s a war against Palestinians but they are using Hamas as an excuse.
The media is not covering anything about the real situation in Palestine!

If you want the truth, you should always go to the source! You have to watch out for biased news! Fake information is filling the whole internet! Because they are controlling the whole media! We are trying so hard to fight them, but our voice is not heard. They said that women were raped, and kids were beheaded in the beginning without one evidence. Then they all admitted that it is not true, and it’s all lies to make the Palestinians look savages!

We wonder, how can people trust the narrative of country that its leaders lied to the whole world, and these lies reached to a wide audience? On Platform X these lies reached 44 million and still are not deleted!

We need your voice now more than ever. You have to remember: We are fighting for our justice and a humanitarian cause.

Those who struggled against discrimination, segregation, and occupation in many parts of the world were never honored with red carpets and thunderous applause. They were instead murdered, imprisoned, and banished. Yet their legacy is still felt today. Malcolm X and Nelson Mandela are just two examples!

Following the correct path through history has never been simple, and that has been the case from the very beginning.

The path of the oppressed is long and arduous, so most people would rather side with the powerful (oppressor) than the weak (oppressed). We are not surprised by the side of the politicians in Europe and the USA. Those are the same people who saw our suffering and ignored us for more than 75 years.

We lived in this hell through all our life! It’s not something new to us, unfortunately! Of course, now it is more difficult than before! It’s true that we have mixed feelings of anxiety and confusion, but we have nothing to lose!
What we will lose from all of this is our tents and chains!

We have nothing to fear from our oppressors, who will soon be forgotten. We are not scared of them or their collective punishments and aggression, no matter how severe they are.

Among all this tragedy, we hope for a future of peace, liberty and dignity that awaits the Palestinians! If not, then death is better than living under the mercy of the oppressor because leaving is not an option for us!

Much love and respect. Your voice matters.
Saed Zboun
Aida Refugee Camp
Bethelem

A teaching moment

October 5

 

GUEST: Neil Seldman, professor of political science at George Washington University and co-founder of five notable organizations promoting  zero waste and economic justice, talks about helping communities transition from incineration to promoting locally owned businesses.

The Second Recycling Revolution

Services get privatized in a system that has been taken over by corporations. First, these companies buy each other out to form monopolies so that they can control prices. When things get really sweet, a few CEOs make millions, while average wage earners pay a lot for what they get. Or in this case, for what they put in garbage cans and bring to the curb.  

When a society's needs change, these monopolies don't. Take the oil industry. We are burning up the environment and our future is at stake. And yet oil companies are still paying millions to spread disinformation about global warming. They want to hang onto their sweet deal until the last human being runs out of food and shelter. 

With waste management, the story is the same. I few large companies don't want to change anything, even though incinerating all our garbage endangers everyone's health. It's the particulates, stupid. These huge burning pits spew toxins for hundreds of miles. No one's children are safe. 

Right here in Dutchess County, by the beautiful Hudson River, our air quality most days simply sucks. And our county legislature, in all their wisdom, wants to guild a gigantic new incinerator for some 300 million dollars. There are much better alternatives, although the lawyers, contractors and bankers who will profit from this boondoggle simply don't want to hear it. 

The issue is a symbol of our system. We are poisoning ourselves so a few at the very top can have more, more, more. It is a teaching moment for us all. 

 

More than LGBTQ identity

September 28

 

GUEST: Chelsea Villalba, community organizer, interpreter, and licensed social worker, talks about her life's mission to serve the needs of marginalized and systematically oppressed communities, including LGBTQ citizens.

Lavender Graduation Ceremony at SUNY Stonybrook

Chelsea Villalba believes in many of the ideals that liberals talk about. Only she has built her identity and her career on the fight for human rights. So this interview is really about more than LGBTQ identity. It is a discussion of how various campaigns support each other against a right wing fascist movement that threatens us all. 

Becoming aware of why so many feel free to express hate in our society requires an awareness of socioeconomic factors. The very rich live like kings on their royal yachts. They plan flights to the moon. Working people just get by, and have been suffering a particularly debilitating wage theft since the 1970s. And a theft that has worsened under both Republican and Democratic administrations. The vast majority of the US population have been screwed by the elite, ruling class, and by now there is enough anger to fuel an armed uprising.

Fascism is the annihilation of person freedoms. The rights of everyone who is not white, male, and cisgendered is under attack, and would disappear if a demagogue like Trump can actually win the presidency. So the recent attack on the rights of women, minorities, immigrants and LGBTQ members is only a test run. Whatever the fascists can get away with pushes them closer to actually running our country. And if the fascists can cement their alliance to the ruling class, we are back to Germany in 1932.     

Israel is the second catastrophe of the Holocaust

September 21

 

Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh, previous faculty member at Duke and Yale Universities, now teaches and does research at Bethlehem and Birzeit Universities. He is the founder and director of the Palestine Museum of Natural History and Institute for Biodiversity Research in occupied Palestine. [This interview lasts the whole hour.]

Amid Environmental Destruction, Qumsiyeh Sees Hope

I was very happy to have Mazin as a guest. He did a Zoom program for our local Mideast Crisis group, and spoke for an hour to about 50 people. We couldn't get our "Share Desktop" to work, so he couldn't use his Powerpoint program with the audience. But the result was an intimate and fascinating discussion of Israel's future and his part in it. 

According to Mazin, the Holy Land has been invaded by many groups over the last several thousand years. Each group has tried to remake society in its own way, only to eventually fail and intermingle with the local population. And he predicts this will happen to Israelis and Palestinians as well.

The two other scenarios he discusses are overcoming the invaders (like in Vietnam and Algeria), or actual genocide (like in the New World). But he has hopes that perpetual resistance will eventually end the apartheid Jewish state, and restore human rights.

It is the long view for sure. At times I think that Israel will in fact exterminate its 5 million Palestinians, and take all the land in the name of its violent theocracy. For Joel Kovel, the founder of Mideast Crisis and author of Overcoming Zionism the state of Israel is the second catastrophe of the Holocaust: the destruction of two thousand years of Jewish identity. 

When we finally come out of the fascist Trump era

September 14

 

GUEST: Sarahana Shrestha, climate organizer, DSA candidate, and now member of the NY State Assembly as well as the Black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic, and Asian Legislative Caucus, talks about public utilities and why they should be owned by the people.

Rep. Shrestha to hold town hall sessions

Rep. Shrestha makes me wonder what our democracy would be like if we had politicians who put public service ahead of their private interests. Rep. Shrestha wants affordable energy that doesn't destroy our environment, and she is willing to go into county legislatures and explain how it is done. Privatizing our electrical system obviously hasn't worked. Central Hudson was sold to some huge conglomerate in Canada, and has been caught sending out inflated bills for the last several years.  

Now I get letters every day for the last two weeks, giving me credit for my over-payments. Each credit letter has a different amount, sometimes only off by less then a dollar. Why do I get an avalanche of letters signifying nothing? Because my service provider, Central Hudson, was sold to an investment firm that cares so very little about the individuals being provided electricity. Profit is the only goal when public utilities are sold off by county legislators. 

So Rep. Shrestha has made me rethink our system of government. Could we ever get enough people like her to be in Congress? Could they take over the bloated and corporatized Democratic Party? I know its not likely, but it's something. Maybe when we finally come out of the fascist Trump era, we will be looking for new people. People like Sarahana Shrestha.

 

Junkies of the military industrial complex

September 7

 

GUEST: Dr. Ivana Nikolić Hughes, President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Senior Lecturer at Columbia University, and member of the Scientific Advisory Group to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, talks about the overarching need to resist the new Cold War.

Dismantle the nuclear doomsday machine

Perhaps global warming and the threat of nuclear war provoke the same feeling in many people. Maybe it is like dying; you know its going to happen, but let's not think about that now. it is a wondrous response, allowing one to live despite knowing that everything will collapse one day, and you will be gone.

"And to live now as we think beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory."  -Howard Zinn

But that same victory should not be used to accept global warming or nuclear war. For those things can be changed. And if we care at all about generations that come after us, we should be working night and day to turn our fossil fuel saturated and nuclear radiated planet around. 

For there are villains here. Billionaires are making a killing pumping oil. They are gorging on nuclear profits. They exist at the very heart of our political system, like some giant tapeworms, swimming through the body politic. They don't care if the planet dies. They are junkies of the military industrial complex, always spinning the wheel for one more gamble. 

They are psychopaths who will end all life on our planet. That is if we let them destroy what is beautiful and wonderful about the world around us.
 

Travesties of justice

August 31

 

GUEST: Jesse Nevel, National Chair of the Uhuru Solidarity Movement, and supporter of the African People's Solidarity Committee, talks about building white support for black power and the US government's accusation that he is a Russian agent.

Black Agenda Report

Jesse reminds us that Black people in the US do not need a Russian agent to tell them that they are being oppressed. But these are the charges that the FBI is making against the Uhuru Solidarity Movement. Offices of Uhuru have been broken into, with files and computers loaded up and taken away by the "Bureau." Now, three members of the group have been charged, one Black activist and two whites.

They face a 24 page indictment that charges them of being part of a seven year international scheme, all "orchestrated" by the Russian government. The Uhuru has already been sanctioned financially, a federal move that endangers their radio station.

Knowing the history of the FBI in suppressing leftist groups in the US, one can't be too surprised. The problem is that most Americans don't know the sordid history of the Bureau. Or how the FBI mixed racism, and paranoia in the 1961s to make the lives of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X difficult and precarious. The FBI is simply America's thought police.

And this assault on freedom of expression is just another reminder of the travesties that the Bureau is capable of. Read about the Holy Land Five and their campaign for justice.

We could send clowns

 

August 17

 

GUEST: Barbara Larcom, human rights activist, coordinator of the Nicaraguan sister city Casa Baltimore Limay, and co-organizer of the monthly Nicaragua Webinar Series, talks about the successes of the Sandinista Revolution and why the US is still trying to crush it.

Baltimore sister city

 

The wall art to the right is a commemoration of the life of Ben Linder, US peace activist who was killed by the Contras in Nicaragua. He was shot while helping a rural community get access to electricity, and his assassins were paid for by the Pentagon. 

 

Never content with a Latin American president elected by the majority of the people, the US Empire is still trying to rid the region of the Sandinista Revolution. We still blockade its commerce with the rest of the world. We still fund violent coups to overthrow their duly elected presidents. And we still fill our ever compliant media with attacks on Nicaragua's achievements. 

 

People like Barbara Larcom are so important. They bring back what is actually happening in Nicaragua, so that we as citizens can understand our own militarism in the rest of the world. What right does the US have to boycott Nicaragua? To spend millions of dollars fomenting another armed coup? Haven't we learned our lesson yet; the Nicaraguan people don't want to be told what type of government to have.   

Ben was an entertainer too, and often gave performances for the children of his Nicaraguan town. People from the North don't have to be killers. Perhaps Ben Linder will remind us that we don't have to keep hiring killers and sending them to Central America. We could send clowns, and seek peace rather than hegemony.

How dumb does Mr. Gold think the American people are?

Mr. Gold, president of the Jewish Federation of Ulster County, thinks I am lying about Israel. But the "facts" he presents are nothing but ham-fisted distortions. How about: "Israel’s Arab citizens enjoy full rights under the law, including freedom of worship, access to healthcare, education and the courts"?

Human Rights Watch describes a very different reality in Israel and the occupied territories: "Across these areas and in most aspects of life, Israeli authorities methodically privilege Jewish Israelis and discriminate against Palestinians. Laws, policies, and statements by leading Israeli officials make plain that the objective of maintaining Jewish Israeli control over demographics, political power, and land has long guided government policy."

Or how about Amnesty International? A recent 280 page report finds that: "Israel is imposing an institutionalized regime of oppression and domination against the Palestinian people wherever it exercised control over their rights, fragmenting and segregating Palestinian citizens of Israel, residents of the OPT and Palestinian refugees denied the right of return. Through massive seizures of land and property, unlawful killings, infliction of serious injuries, forcible transfers, arbitrary restrictions on freedom of movement, and denial of nationality, among other inhuman or inhumane acts, Israeli officials would be responsible for the crime against humanity of apartheid, which falls under the jurisdiction of the ICC [International Criminal Court]."

Numerous studies have shown that Palestinian residents of both Israel and the Occupied Territories face dozens of Israeli laws that discriminate against them. According to Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace laureate from South Africa: "I have witnessed the systemic humiliation of Palestinian men, women and children by members of the Israeli security forces. Their humiliation is familiar to all black South Africans who were corralled and harassed and insulted and assaulted by the security forces of the apartheid government." The quote is from the Jerusalem Post - March 10, 2014.

So how dumb does Mr. Gold think the American people are? It's apartheid, and shamefully, the Jewish Federation of Ulster County is part of it. Maybe we all are. According to a statement by Jewish Voice for Peace: "Let's be very clear: the U.S. is complicit in this. We send $3.8 billion in annual military funding to the Israeli government; we shield the Israeli government from accountability at the United Nations; we object to investigations into Israel's war crimes at the International Criminal Court; and we silence BDS activists here at home who try to speak out for Palestinian rights."

Fred Nagel

A proud member of Veterans For Peace

 

August 10

 

GUEST: Norman Solomon, American journalist, media critic, activist, and executive director of the media watch group Institute for Public Accuracy, talks about his latest book: War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of its Military Machine.

War Made Invisible - Book Review

I also wrote a book review for War Made Invisible:

"Well researched history of our endless wars.
Why aren't more citizens horrified at America's history of wars over the last seventy years? This book explains why; the military industrial complex has gotten very good at hiding the damage and covering up the dead. Norman Solomon shows us just how it's done, and what we can do about it now."

One can't read this book without rethinking the role our country has played in the world since WW II. That's why people should read it. There is no escaping the fact that most of our wars since then have been colonial occupations, with all the racism and environmental destruction that follows. Our warlike intentions were quite evident in our invasions of Korea and Vietnam. And sense then, we have spread our military power to every nook and cranny of the globe.

Can we the people stop this momentum? For a time in the 1960s I thought that was possible. Our soldiers weren't fighting anymore. In fact, they were sometimes killing their own officers. Drafted and sent to Korea in 1968, I considered myself part of the resistance. And when the colonel of Seventh Aviation Battalion told me that if we were in Vietnam, he would pull out his pistol and shoot me, I told him, "If we were in Vietnam, you would be dead already." I think he knew I was right. The battalion hated him and was sick of the war.

So I give credit to the GIs who refused to go to Vietnam and went to jail instead. And they were only the tip of the iceberg. There is no way the US could win a war with an army that refused to fight. That's why I am a proud member of Veterans For Peace.

Have you no shame?

Law students graduating from CUNY Law School enter a hostile world. The curriculum is all about standing up for the poor and oppressed in society, using one's legal skills to speak truth to power.

But the powerful in our society have learned to use their influence and money  to make such goals difficult indeed. Our representatives in government rarely stand up for the powerless. Our media has no interest in home grown oppression. And our colleges have become dependent on the very rich to fund them. There is hardly room for idealism in the neoliberal world we have created.

So when a young CUNY graduate has the courage to give a commencement speech about the victims no one wants to hear about, all hell breaks loose. Five million Palestinians suffer under a ruthless apartheid occupation, and our country pays for the whole human rights catastrophe. But that subject is taboo, especially in the minds of all the politicians who are generously funded by the Israel Lobby. For ours is a democracy hanging by a thread. The very richest get to speak for us all. How else to explain the obscene disparity between the billionaires and everyone else?

Maybe Fatima Mohammed's commencement address to her class will be the tipping point. Perhaps the American people will finally ask the right question of the Israel Lobby: "Have you no shame?"

Fred Nagel

Our country becoming another apartheid Israel?

Anyone interested in understanding the state of Israel, doesn't have to make much of an effort. Even the New York Times is often blunt about the government sanctioned racism and ethnic cleansing going on in the West Bank and Gaza. Even the propaganda spinners in the Pentagon can't use the usual catchword phrases like "protecting freedom" or "restoring democracy" to explain away Israel's brutal behavior. The Palestinians living under the boot of Israel's apartheid state have never experienced either of these fine principals.

Rather than promoting freedom or democracy, our country actively supports Israel's constant military attacks, home demolitions, detentions of minors, and destruction of infrastructure. How can a country that celebrates the inalienable  rights of its citizens, turn around and pay billions to Israel for denying basic human rights to its non Jewish population?

The website OpenSecrets.org explains part of it. Most members of Congress are feeding at the trough of the Israel Lobby, and are well paid to look the other way. They are scared too. The lobby threatens to defeat any candidate who even mentions Palestinian suffering.

Another supporter of Israel's apartheid is the right wing Evangelical Church. Christian fundamentalists believe that Jesus will appear when all Jews are returned to the Holy Land. And that fits nicely with their plans to restore the supremacy of conservative, Christian, Republican males in the United States.

A third interest group that favors Israel is made up of Jews who believe that the next Holocaust is bound to happen. In their fear, they assume that an ethnically cleansed Israel is the only safe place for them to ever live. For this sanctuary, they are willing to sacrifice the lives of five million Palestinians who are simply in the way.

To change US policy in Palestine, we have to reform Congress. It should be illegal for the Israel Lobby to spend millions bribing our representatives. At the next town meeting held by your House or Senate member, why don't you ask them how much the Israel Lobby pays them each year. Let's put an end to this interference in our elections by a foreign country.

Challenging the Christian right in the US should also be a priority. A theocracy based on Christianity would be as morally reprehensible as one based on Jewish Supremacy. We must protect the rights of all our minorities: immigrants, gays, Jews, Blacks, and Asians. To end Israeli apartheid, we must win the battle against fascism here at home. We cannot allow our country to become another apartheid Israel.

Fred Nagel

Possibilities of a new world

 

August 3

 

GUEST: Zohar Regev Chamberlain, an Israeli citizen, human rights activist, and boat leader for the Al Awda (The Return) during its attempt to break the blockade of Gaza, talks about her life devoted to Palestinian liberation.

Women who build the future

 

I got to know Zohar when she spent several months in the Mid Hudson area, talking about sailing boats to break the siege of Gaza. She has many stories to tell, both about her growing up on a kibbutz in Israel, and traveling the globe to promote Palestinian rights. 

 

Zohar's moral stances are her own. Life in a kibbutz was never focused on human rights. Whatever was shared never made it to Arab workers who traditionally did much of the agricultural work. According to an article in Haaretz:

And while we’re on the subject of comparing settlements and kibbutzim – the majority of the guests in our “hotel” were from the religious-Zionist movement. Together with the good old kibbutzniks, they constituted and continue to constitute, the spearhead of Zionist ideology. And of course they don’t lift a finger. They’re here to vacation. What are they, suckers? The maids are Arabs, the reception clerks are Arabs, the cooks are Arabs, the waiters are Arabs, the lifeguards are Arabs. The Cookilida seller is a Jewish woman. But the gardeners who keep the grass green – Arabs. Not Palestinians, heaven forbid. They are Arabs because that is their fate. To be erased citizens, devoid of political and social aspirations. Condemned to be hewers of wood and drawers of water. Here you have a brief history of Zionism: be a master, not a slave. That’s the basic principle. All the rest is inventions and excuses.

Zohar is tired of Israel's acceptance of the occupation. She is equally disgusted at how the American people have supported their relationship to the apartheid state. The US pays Israel 3.8 billion dollars a year to oppress the Palestinians, and yet few Americans even think about the fate of these five million captive people. Zohar speaks out because she thinks she has to.

 

But societies are not so accepting of truth tellers. Look at the decades long torture of imprisonment of Julian Assange. He proved that the US is indeed an empire, with scarcely any limits on the endless wars it pursues in the name of global dominance. Israel is just a piece of the grander imperialist plans, all paid for by the American public. People like Assange and Zohar show us the possibilities of a new world, and they are always in danger from the old.

Truth and the empire

 

July 27

 

An Israeli Defense Force pilot and a US World War II veteran tell their stories about violence and redemption. David Swanson talks about war and the media.  This is an evergreen program while Activist Radio takes a week vacation.

Ex-Israeli pilot: 'Our army is a terrorist organization'
Study War No More by Jay Wenk
Let's Try Democracy by David Swanson

I really enjoyed putting this program together. There seems to be an important vain of truth that joins these interviews together. And as a US veteran who "served" in the most powerful empire that the world has ever seen, I too am trying to make sense of the many decades of war that I have lived through.

This is my first "evergreen" program. I will be enjoying myself at the beach when you listen to me, instead of working in the studio like I ought to be doing. I picked Jay's book cover as the graphic above, just because I miss him and like hearing him again.

One correction needs to be pointed out. As much as I value David Swanson, he did not write: War Made Invisible, How America Hides the Human Toll of its Military Machine.  That insightful and troubling book is written by Norman Solomon, who will be our guest on Activist Radio the second week of August. I highly recommend you read the book before the interview, for its well documented truths about our empire.

War Made Invisible by Norman Solomon

The embodiment of the US Empire

 

July 20

 

GUEST: Cheryl Qamar, social worker, committed feminist, and political activist, talks about her recent trip to the West Bank and the Aida Refugee Camp with the USA Palestine Mental Health Network. She is on the Board for Eyewitness Palestine and the Steering Committee for USA Palestine Mental Health Network.

The USA-Palestine Mental Health Network

 

Trauma leaves a long trail of suffering. For children living in a brutal apartheid state, the damage keeps accumulating and affects every aspect of their lives. They are stoned by the "settlers" while walking to school. They are chocked by teargas during night raids, and sometimes they are simply kidnapped from their beds to face days or weeks of interrogation. Like all Palestinians, they have no rights in the rigid theocracy of the Jewish state. 

Does focusing on the children help the people of the United States realize the suffering of 5 million Palestinians under illegal occupation? It certainly does that for visitors to the Aida Refugee Camp. There, the occupation isn't very complicated. If you are Palestinian, your house might be crushed one day to make way for Jewish settlements. Your children might to dragged off in the middle of the night. Or worse, simply shot by the Israeli Defense Force. 

 

The next time you read The New York Times, notice how much attention is being paid to the suffering of the Ukrainian people. Most likely, the stories will start with a picture of civilians suffering and houses destroyed. But in the decades long invasions and occupations of the Palestinian people, there is no outrage in the country that is primarily responsible for their suffering. We shovel billions into Israel each year, so that the apartheid state won't run out of bullets and bomb. We protect this criminal state in our media and at the UN. In fact, Israel is a colony of the US, the embodiment of the US Empire. 

No country based on racism and apartheid deserves to survive for very long

Free speech is enshrined in the First Amendment of the United States Constitution as well as Article I, Section 8 of the New York State Constitution. US Citizens have exercised this right from the Boston Tea Party to the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and from the Anti-Nazi Boycott of German goods in 1933 to the Boycott of Apartheid South Africa in the 1980s. 

Since 2016 however, twenty eight states have passed anti-boycott laws, affecting everyone from substitute teachers to construction workers. In these states there are anti-boycott declarations that must be signed by engineers, writers, journalists, students and even storm victims applying for disaster relief. It's the new McCarthy Era, but this time it is the Israel Lobby taking away our free speech rights.

How is it that Israel has such control over our various state and federal legislators? The truth is that the Israel lobby has a great deal of money, and our representative form of government is awash in the corruption of campaign donations. There are virtually no limits to what can be spent influencing our politicians. Take former House Representative Antonio Delgado (D-NY). He came in on a platform of equality and social justice, and he was African American to boot. But once in office, he refused to meet with a number of local groups supporting human rights for Palestinians. A little research revealed why. In his second year in office, he was the recipient of over $32,000 from the Israel Lobby. 

Another supposed champion of human rights, Senator Warnock (D-GA), was an unabashed supporter of Palestine before he ran for office. But once on the inside, he started accepting a lot of cash from the Israel   Lobby. Now, he has changed his tune about his formally idealistic views, and refuses to talk about Israeli apartheid at all. OpenSecrets.org reveals the reason why: Senator Warnock picked up $489,000 from Israel Lobby donations in 2022 alone, the second highest amount in the US Senate.
So why do we see these attacks on our fundamental First Amendment right to boycott? The Israel Lobby is simply using the inherent weakness in our system to further damage what is left of our democracy. And the Israel Lobby isn't doing that for any religious reason, but to make racism and apartheid the official position of our Congress and our President. 

The dangers to our Constitution and Bill of Rights can be clearly seen. Just as Israel cannot be a functioning democracy when half its population is occupied and oppressed, the United States cannot claim to be a just and free society when its official position supports Israel's racial apartheid. The outlawing of our citizens' right to boycott is only the beginning of a rollback of our fundamental freedoms. If we can't get the Israel Lobby out of our politics, what good is our corrupted system?
A strong and vibrant democracy has little to do with the fine words written at the birth of our nation. It is the people's belief in these basic rights that makes a difference. When the belief is gone, we are well on our way to another form of government. That's why we must fight against the influence of the Israel Lobby, lest our democracy becomes as hollow at theirs. And no country based on racism and apartheid deserves to survive for very long.

Their obscene influence and everlasting hubris

July 13

 

GUEST: Thom Hartmann, progressive national and internationally syndicated talk show host, and New York Times bestselling author, talks about his recently published book: The Hidden History of American Democracy.

News & info from the #1 progressive radio

 

Thom Hartmann's latest book is a lot of fun to read, since he goes out of his way to expose the patriotic narrative the media gives us about our founding fathers. As it turns out, the signers of our Constitution were very much against any church involvement in our democracy. "In God We Trust" came with the last Cold War. Moreover, the founders would have been appalled at how much state money now goes to religious groups. 

 

And the all powerful Supreme Court? Why that was never established to judge the laws that Congress passed. Such authority is nowhere in the Constitution or in the history of the 1800s. How hard would it be to restore the Supreme Court to its original purpose, that of resolving property and law enforcement disputes?

 

Thom's book is a call to recover our democracy by restoring the rights that the drafters of our Constitution have given us. We live in a kleptocracy because the last forty years have been dominated by the super rich, who have bent the rules to give themselves unlimited power. Surprisingly, we the people can use our founding document to roll back their obscene influence and everlasting hubris. Check out Thom's new book!

The Hidden History of American Democracy

 

Rise up again Julian Assange

July 6

 

GUEST: Dan Kovalik, Senior Research Fellow at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, and professor of International Human Rights at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, talks about his recent fact finding trip to Russia and Crimea.

Reflections on Russia & Crimea: The Hate Goes One Way

 

I was especially pleased to have Dan Kovalik on Activist Radio. There is so much warmongering in our mainstream media that people are literally dying because there is no alternative. 

Of course, NATO planned the invasion of Ukraine, gambling that Russia would have to respond to a coup that made Ukraine part of Europe. Now the US is simply spending all our tax dollars to continue a senseless war. Same as the last war, and the one before that. Weapons makers are gobbling up every dollar that that could have been used to restore the American Dream.

 

Meanwhile, the US public is being to taught to fear and hate Russia. There just isn't another narrative to be had. I am just so sick of the Pentagon planners and right wing think tank annalists on NPR who speak so seriously about freedom and democracy. When is the last time the empire cared about freedom and democracy? Could it be that easy to fool the American people?  Come back, Daniel Ellsberg; rise up again Julian Assange.

 

The world abhors a racist bully

June 29

 

GUEST: John McDonagh, citizen activist, successful playwrite, DJ on WBAI and long time yellow cab driver in NYC, talks about his engaging and popular play “Off The Meter” that opened at the Irish Repertory Theater.

New York Irish Arts review

 

John and I had a good time talking about New York City's culture and complexities since the 1960s. The humor has a distinct Irish flavor, and John is a consumate story teller. But soon the discussion turned to colonialism, both in Northern Ireland and in Occupied Palestine.

John explained how the Protestants were sent to Ireland to force the Irish Catholics out of their homeland, much like how Jews were sent to ethnically cleans the Holy Land. The real culprits are the empires that make fortunes by invading and occupying foreign lands. The racism one can see in Northern Ireland, Palestine and Apartheid South Africa all stems from the same source, the creation of settlements and the ethnic cleansing that always follows.

In fact, comparing Northern Ireland to Palestine reveals complexities that are important for Americans to know. There will be an end to all apartheid states some day. The world abhors a racist bully, and at some future time, freedom and justice will prevail.      

Here is to the exceptional life of Daniel Ellsberg

June 22

 

Daniel Ellsberg, famous antiwar activist and leaker of the Pentagon Papers, talks to members of Veterans For Peace about his resistance to the Iraq war and their planned arrest in front of Obama's White House.

Unseen video of Dan Ellsberg talking to US veterans

 

I was privileged to do the video above when over 100 US Veterans were arrested at Obama's White House. The majority of the recording is of Ellsberg himself, explaining his moral universe, and the reasons behind his taking and then revealing the top secret Pentagon Papers.

Most people knew what was in the papers before they were published. Most people who were opposed to the Vietnam War certainly did. The US invasion had been started by lies, and as the bodies piled up, these lies grew and grew, until revealing them became an act that could send one to prison for life. In an interesting twist, the man who revealed the lies was to be put away for over 100 years. The men who dreamed up and promulgated these lies to the American people were to lead our country for the next several decades.

Daniel's story in the video about his close friend, Richard Holbrooke, is a good example. As young men, they had both researched the facts in the Pentagon Papers before Ellsberg had revealed them to the public. And when Ellsberg released these secrets to the press, he had asked his friend to back him up. But by then Holbrooke had an impressive career in the State Department, and he know that supporting Ellsberg would cost him his job as well as his reputation. I won't give the story away, but Holbrooke said something on his deathbed that should disturb anyone who cares about America.

Watch the video; it is right on classwars.org. But the issue is simply morality. Most people in the United States believe in doing the right thing, even in foreign policy. But our leaders believe in something else, the ability of our government and the media to cover up the killing fields our country has created in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and now Ukraine. We are the world's most dangerous super power, with an ever expanding number of battlefields around the world. Simply put, to murder that many people, leaders need to lie, and the media needs to back them up with endless propaganda. The Pentagon Papers were a wrench in the machine of world domination. They were a peek at the empire, the most hidden of all national secrets.

Here is to morality and truth telling; here is to the exceptional life of Daniel Ellsberg.

 

The last vestiges of democracy

June 15

 

GUEST: Ahmed White, author and professor of labor and criminal law at the University of Colorado Boulder, talks about his recently released book: Under the Iron Heel: The Wobblies and the Capitalist War on Radical Workers.

Under the Iron Heel: The Wobblies and the Capitalist War

 

The history of the IWW shows how state terrorism has been used in the past to oppress workers and their families. It is no wonder that unions have not prospered in the US. Ahmed White gives example after example of how capitalists destroyed the grand coalition of unskilled workers who were simply trying to achieve some dignity and make a living wage.

Liberals and progressives don't come out so well. Few in the middle class came out to support unskilled, mostly immigrant laborers. One is left to assume that most affluent workers didn't care that masses of seasonal workers were payed very little, forced to work in dangerous jobs, and beaten when they stood up for their basic rights. 

It is a depressing tale, but one full of idealism and heroic acts. Despite the destruction of the IWW, this early labor movement provided an example of what an all inclusive union might look like. Perhaps the IWW was a first step in achieving a just and supportive society for all workers. 

As we face the growing danger of fascism, let's remember how we got here. The billionaires have multiplied exponentially, while the rest of America has suffered. The triumph of our capitalist system paves the way for the destruction of the last vestiges of democracy.