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.