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.