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.

When war is on the horizon, no one is really safe

June 8

 

GUEST: K.J. Noh is a peace activist and scholar on the geopolitics of the Asian continent who writes for Counterpunch and Dissident Voice. He is special correspondent for KPFA Flashpoints on the Pivot to Asia, the Koreas, and the Pacific.

China as holocaust sanctuary

 

K.J. Noh was an interesting guest to have on Activist Radio, in part because he knows so much Asian history. Americans know so very little, and our propaganda drenched media tries to keep it that way. His retelling of the Korean War explains so many things that I went back and listened to that section several times. In fact, the recent history of the region makes little sense unless looked at through the lens of US militarism. Then we of can understand that the "pivot to Asia" is essentially a Pentagon pivot to war.

And since we are coming ever closer to war with both Russia and China, will our free media be the first casualty? I am not talking about the NYT or NPR, standard bearers for the "Project for the New American Century." When the nukes start flying, our mainstream media will certainly have done more than their share in moving the US to war.

I worry about the smaller antiwar news sources. Will they be charged with working for China or Russia? Will they be called treasonous spreaders of anti US propaganda? That has certainly happened before in our history. Eugene Debs, a socialist candidate for president, was arrested and given jail time for opposing the First World War. Wars of aggression and the suppression of freedom of speech are as American as apple pie. 

"ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (WFLA) — Four leaders of the African People’s Socialist Party, including the chairman and founder of the Uhuru Movement, located in St. Petersburg, were indicted alongside three Russian nationals for their alleged ties to a foreign campaign with the “main topic” of influencing the U.S. presidential election." - News Channel 8

What are these members of the Uhuru movement being charged with? “[Sowing] discord and [spreading] pro-Russian propaganda.” Could K.J. Noh be accused of doing the same thing? And could Activist Radio be dragged in for criticizing our mainstream media's warmongering?

Never underestimate the US Empire. When war is on the horizon, no one is really safe.   

We won't stop until Palestine is free

June 1

 

GUEST: Ahmad Abuznaid, executive director at the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, talks about the worldwide movement to end apartheid in the Holy Land.

Palestine in America

There was a time when very few organizations were  speaking out about Palestine. The US Campaign was one of the few launching campaigns for an end to apartheid Israel.

How things have changed. Demands for the US to stop funding Israel's racist state can be heard from every segment of our society. Go to a Black Livers Matter rally and there will be a speaker on Palestine. Go to a women's rally or an LGBTQ event, and someone will be describing the oppression of the apartheid state.

Locally in the Hudson Valley, we have meetings about the Palestinian Children and Families Act, an attempt to reveal the extent of damage caused by the US support of Israeli's racist police state. We have the effort to protect the right of Americans to boycott Israeli products, and we have our own boycott petition. Please sign it if you live in the Hudson Valley:     https://chng.it/FNw5vQKN

In addition we now have two very active Students for Justice in Palestine (Vassar College and Bard College). More recently, we are advocating for the "Not on Our Dime" legislation in New York State to end the non profit funding of the illegal settlements. Why should we all pay more taxes because Israeli non profits send millions to support the ethnic cleansing of Palestine? And finally, we are doing a letter writing campaign to support the CUNY Law student who criticized Israel during her commencement address. 

Last month, we organized 100 human rights advocates to march through the local town of Rhinebeck, and next month it will be Beacon. We want to put pro Palestinian activists on the streets in all our communities. 

So thank you US Campaign for showing us the way. And we won't stop until Palestine is free.

 
https://mideastcrisis.org
https://jvphudsonvalley.blogspot.com
 

The repression that we all pay for

 

May 25

 

GUEST: 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, talks about how Palestinians survive the daily violence, trauma and humiliation directed at them.

The Aida Youth Center

With 75 years of apartheid repression, the individual stories of Palestinians often get lost in a sea of shameful statistics. Sa'ed reminds us that there are real people in occupied Palestine, trying to make lives for themselves. The Aida Youth Center spotlights the stories of young people attacked on their way to school, or held without charges by the Israeli military. Their lives are a constant reminder that Israel can hurt them at any time it wants, and that their parents have no power to protect them. It is the tactic of military occupation and settlement, all in violation of international law and the UN Charter. 

The Israeli military "have their ways to make our lives a hell" Sa'ed tells us. Even small ways to make Palestinian lives harder: the checkpoints, the night raids and arrests, the demolishing of schools for new settlement buildings, and the constant fear that one day they will come home to see their homes demolished. Apartheid is akin to genocide, the systematic destruction of a people and their culture. 

The US has a lot to say about human rights when it suits the Pentagon's war plans. We read story after story about Venezuelan, Nicaraguan, Iranian, Russian and Chinese racism and oppression. But our military ally in the Middle East can do no wrong. Even after decades of ethic cleansing and outright murder, we prefer to look the other way. 

Much of our inattention lies with how completely our Congress has been bought off by the Israel Lobby. Millions of dollars are given to our elected leaders to praise Israel, and to defend it after another massacre has been committed. Why don't you take a peek at how much your representative gets in bribes from the Lobby. Let's make these payments an issue the next time they run for office. Let's finally take a stand against Israeli apartheid. 

OpenSecrets.org

Matzpen is what might have been

 

May 18

 

GUESTS: Lea and Yakov Pipman, long time residents and citizens of Israel, talk about advocating for Palestinian rights and of Matzpen, the revolutionary socialist and anti-Zionist organization founded in 1962.

Matzpen, Anti Zionist Israelis

There was a time when Israel could have been a state for all its people. That's what is so intriguing about Matzpen. It is a philosophy that would have avoided apartheid and fostered a just society for all. 

Who to blame for Israel's failure to become a viable state? Perhaps it was wishful thinking to believe that Israel could be a democracy, when half its citizens were another religion. Or maybe the early leaders of Israel all knew from the start that such a state was impossible. We have early writings of some of these leaders, and the subject matter never touches on human rights or equality. They pretty much planned on ethnic cleansing to solve this dilemma. Palestinians would be pushed off all their lands in the end. 

Only the end hasn't happened yet. At present 5 million Jews and 5 million Arabs still claim their rightful ownership of the Holy Land. And instead of a just society, we have the terror that is always present in an apartheid state. Millions will pay for the Zionist perpetual insistence on getting it all. Matzpen was the way out so long ago. Was it the US and UK that insisted on this creation of Israel? Was the colony simply a way of controlling oil in the Middle East? Should we blame the Western imperialists for their continual drive for dominance and hegemony? Or do we simply blame capitalism for its all to familiar butchery?

Matzpen is what might have been. Or what one day might bring an end this apartheid state in the Middle East.