We haven't evolved fast enough

April 11

 

GUEST: Dr. Larry Wittner, early civil rights and anti-apartheid activist, author of several books, and Professor of History emeritus at SUNY Albany, talks about nuclear winter and Einstein's warnings about nationalism.

Einstein's Postwar campaign to save the world

I woke up last night to a huge explosion. When I rushed to the window, I saw a black cloud rising several miles away. Immediately, I tried to judge whether the explosion was in Kingston, a small city across the Hudson River. Was it the beginning of a nuclear war? I stood there for a while, thinking about my grandchildren. Would there be anyone left?

I don't know how many people in the United States have this nuclear Armageddon stored somewhere in their psyche. I think millions do, especially when the warmongers in our government are in the ascendancy. We don't really have a peace movement to balance the war parties. Little is said about our aggressive behavior towards China and Russia. In fact, Russia talks openly about a nuclear war if their national sovereignty is threatened. The US military support of Ukraine certainly fits that bill. 

In a way, nuclear war is like climate change. Most of us know that there is a good chance our life on earth will end in one of these two ways. As God told Noah: "It won't be water, be fire next time." Will it be the slow but irreversible heating of our planet, or will it be a flash of light seen from my bedroom window?

The wonder of it all is that no one in our political class seems to care. Maybe capitalism makes people live their lives as if there was no tomorrow. Get rich, buy everything you can, and hope the fire comes after you have gone. Perhaps this world view is the fatal flaw of human beings. We haven't evolved fast enough to compensate for our burgeoning technology. As Pete Seeger told us: "We will love or we will perish." 

All shit hole countries belong to the American Empire

April 4

 

GUEST: Sahar Aziz, award winning author, Distinguished Professor of Law, Chancellor’s Social Justice Scholar, and Middle East and Legal Studies Scholar at Rutgers University Law School, talks about how race intersects with religion in the US.

Distinguished Professor of Law

Acknowledgement of racism must be a powerful motivator. At least the right wing fundamentalists think so. Any academic course or publication that acknowledges racism in the United States is attacked, censored or removed from libraries. We don't want to know, and we certainly don't want our children to know. So our history must be lobotomized.

One might think that the same reactionary forces would object to the study of racism in US foreign policy. But it is our elite political class that opposes this type of analysis. It is the military industrial complex that makes sure that any academic who speaks or writes about racism in our foreign policy is attacked or fired. The racism that is at the heart of empire is strictly off limits.

That's because almost every military invasions the United States has undertaken in the last 75 years has involved an attack on people of color. Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya are all countries that are generally considered to be non-white. Or as our fascist leader might say, they always live in "shit hole countries." 

All shit hole countries belong to the American Empire.

Existence that threatens the entire human race

March 28

GUEST: Philippe Diaz, award winning French screenwriter, film director and producer with over 20 documentaries to his credit, talks about his latest project: I Am Gitmo, a movie that follows the travails of a Muslim schoolteacher sold to a CIA black site and transported to Guantanamo.

Cinema Libre Studio

Most countries have parts of their history they would like to forget. Shameful periods when their citizens acted like wild beasts instead of people. Think of the IDF forces in Gaza. How those sharp shooters must love putting a US made bullet between the eyes of a six year old. That will be a story to tell back at the barracks.

The US has more of these shameful periods than most, however. The horrors of slavery and lynching can still be seen in the embedded racism of our economic and criminal justice systems. The ethnic cleansing of indigenous peoples can still be seen in their squalid concentration camps called reservations. And victims of US war crimes are still remembered in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.

 

Guantanamo is a similar boil on the ass of our nation. It hurts every time we sit down to join other nations that don't waterboard prisoners, anal rape them, and hold them for 20 years without charges. 

 

Gaza, however, is different. Our country stands with Israel as it commits another holocaust. As it starves Palestinian children to death, and obliterates the lives of two million parents. No, that is more like a terminal cancer that has spread from Israel to its only ally in the world, the United States. Neither country deserves to survive, just like the Third Reich had to be taken apart to stop its war crimes and crimes against humanity. Israel and the US are no longer viable states, given the extent of their barbarism and slaughter. Their continued existence threatens the entire human race.

War crimes, disguised as a functioning democracy

More 2,000 pound bombs for the genocide. And more jets to drop them on helpless and starving Palestinians in Gaza. Biden comes through once more for the Israel the oppressor, for the pariah of the 21st century.

Genocide Joe will be running against the fascist, racist, would be dictator, Donald Trump. It is a parade of fools for the majority of sane Americans who refuse to starve tens of thousands of children, but don't want a crazy dictator either. Another lesser of two evils moment for the long suffering electorate?

It is more than that. We are presented with two very old men, whose life experiences have been war and crony capitalism. They embody some of the worst excesses of the American Empire since World War II. And they can hardly remember what they did yesterday.

Meanwhile, the very richest own just about everything there is to own. Three people in the US have more wealth than the bottom 50% of the nation. There is rampant hunger, homelessness and lack of medical care for millions, while half the nation's federal budget goes to making war on the rest of the world.

Late stage empires seldom work very well. Roman citizens were impoverished by the endless wars of the first century, while their emperors got crazier and more dangerous. Life was hell except for the very richest, who barricaded themselves against the stricken masses. Our own government is little more than 75 years of war crimes, disguised as a functioning democracy.

Not really a war, of course

The war goes on. Not really a war, of course. This is a widely admitted genocide, and its targets have been tens of thousands of civilians, almost half of them children.

The genocide has links to the one country still sending weapons and financial aid to Israel, our very own land of the free, home of the brave. The US is the accomplice to the worst slaughter of the twenty first century.

We can talk about the Israel Lobby, as well as the Christian Zionists, two groups that put Old Testament ravings above their basic humanity. "Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey."

But the butchery in Gaza can't all be blamed on religious psychopaths. There is something disturbing about our two war parties. Congress and our main presidential candidates are stumbling over each other for more bloodshed. 13,000 children aren't enough. Who could their God be?

Maybe it is Allen Ginsberg's Molech, the God that destroys children though materialism and war. Molech in the twenty first century is wearing an IDF uniform as he shoots starving Palestinians. He is also Congressman Pat Ryan, whose "Top Contributor" for 2024 is AIPAC at $39,900, and "Top Industry" is Pro-Israel at $159,000 (data from OpenSecrets.org). He talks about ceasefires, but always votes to send more bombs and bullets to Israel.

And will this carnage we watch every night eventually be called the American Genocide? We know that it will.

Similar motivations in Hindu Nationalists

March 21

 

GUEST: Andy Izenson, staff attorney, member of the Family Law Institute of the National LGBT Bar Association, and past president of the NYC National Lawyers Guild, talks about the enormous effect the right wing, Christian Zionist movement has on US support for Israel.  

Harvard Law School LGBTQ+ Advocacy Clinic

There are secrets to be revealed when it comes to the Christian Zionist movement. There are twice as many avowed Christian Zionists in the US as there are Jews in the entire world. And their organizational strength and fund raising machine makes them a menace when it comes to influencing how our country treats Palestinians in the Middle East. 

Andy explains that the Christian Zionists want all the Jews in the US to "return" to Israel because that would get rid of them here. The second reason is that Christian Zionists are essentially fascist and want to subjugate our country to a new wave of paternalism, homophobia and anti feminism. In fact, these Zionists want to put their boot heel on the necks of anyone who is not Christian, male and white. Christian Zionists have an inherent congruence of interests with the fascist Israelis. They both seek to create a theocracy based on ethnic cleansing and murder. One could find similar motivations in the Hindu Nationalist movement and with the Islamic State.

The pantheon of killers and war mongers

March 14

 

GUEST: Shahd Safi, born and raised in a Gaza refugee camp and now in Rafah with her family, talks about her work as a freelance journalist and the desperation of the Palestinian people with nowhere else to go.  (Interview from Report Gaza)

Palestinian Women in Gaza: Cruel Realities of Displacement

This talk by Shahd was recorded from Report Gaza, and was somewhat disjointed. I had interviewed Shahd last spring, but lost all connection with her. I was so happy to hear that she and her family were still alive. And her eyewitness accounts were as revealing as they had been before the Israel genocide. 

Shahd stated plainly that her goal was to escape the carnage with her family. She wasn't very hopeful that a ceasefire would ever come. To Shahd, this looked to be another Nakba, the 1948 catastrophe of ethnic cleansing in all of Palestine. She had started a GoFundMe to raise money for her escape.

Since then, I hear that Shahd and her family did escape. They had raised the tens of thousands necessary to survive. They had done something that few have been able to accomplish, and I don't blame Shahd. The pariah state of Israel may well get rid of all its six million Palestinians. Israel may get rid of all the Palestinians through slaughter and starvation, just like the Nazis did to the Jews. 

But the real difference is the role of the US. We fought the Nazis in WWII. We are in bed with the Nazis in 2024. We are sending them the bullets and the bombs. We are keeping the rest of the world from intervening. And the war crimes belong to us, as a nation. The US will take its place in the pantheon of killers and war mongers for the rest of recorded history. 

 

Toxic to the thousands of Palestinian children

March 7

 

GUEST: Ann Wright, author, retired United States Army colonel, and former US diplomat who resigned in March 2003 in opposition to the invasion of Iraq, talks about genocide and Palestinian liberation.

Why Would Anyone Kill Themselves to Stop a War?

Ann Wright has seen a great deal of US foreign policy up close. But she is also clear about what she didn't see in the Army as well as in the diplomatic core. She was never involved in coups or assassination attempts. And when she was confronted with ethical choices, she resigned from working with the US State Department. The invasion of Iraq was one lie too many. 

Ann brings a real sense of realism to how the United States operates in the rest of the world. Take the genocide in Gaza. She knows that our country could demand that Israel stop starving Palestinian children to death. But all our political parties are already bought off by the Israel Lobby. All our politicians can talk, but they can't really act. It is an inability caused by the ruin of our democracy, which has been sold to the highest bidder. In this case it is the hundreds of millions that come from US weapons makers and from Israel. It is a cesspool, toxic to the thousands of Palestinian children who will wither away and die in their obliterated world. 

Wouldn't it be amazing if our politician class included people like Ann Wright? Real people who refuse to murder civilians for profit.  

No escape from their demonic tormentors

There is a madness that comes from the daily view of genocide. All we have learned and all we have read stops at the barbed wire enclosure of Gaza. Inside, there are the images of Hell so ubiquitous in medieval art. For the damned, there is no pity, and no escape from their demonic tormentors.

But somehow to see this in real time breaks down the barriers of what we expect to encounter in our lives. That actual human beings could become the agents of such barbarism is just too horrible to dwell on, much less try to understand. This Hell on earth goes beyond rational thought.

Maybe that is why the genocide enablers keep sending Israel more weapons while they talk about ceasefires and food shipments. Are Biden and Blinken overcome by the horrors they have wrought, or are they simply part of the devil's plan?

Maybe that is why the holy stewards of Judeo/Christian religions are so determined to look the other way. Talking about genocide isn't a very civilized thing to do, especially when some are certain to take offense. The food banks they so generously organize and oversee as part of God's work aren't really for the starving children of Gaza. And the interfaith groups they so proudly belong to, won't lift a finger to condemn the charnel house that Israel has created for the Palestinians.

That leaves the rest of us. Are we too traumatized to act when the genocide is done in our name?

Fred Nagel
 

After our empire crumbles into dust

What can one do when our government provides the bombs and the bullets for the Israeli genocide of the Palestinian people? The current slaughter in Gaza is much worse than the Nakba of 1948, when Israel killed a few thousand while pushing three quarters of a million Palestinians from their ancestral homeland. In Gaza, Israel is just murdering as many Palestinians as it can. It is just an extermination.

Perhaps this slaughter is occurring because the US has encouraged such bloodletting in the past. Our country has always been there to support the worst of Israeli excesses. So machine gunning a long line of starving Palestinians waiting for food trucks is just another step in the moral depravity that our country has learned to live with.

Israel is the wayward child of the American Empire. It is the serial killer that the US has always coddled and protected, no matter what the body count has been. The horror of exterminating 12,000 children makes us all despair. Our country's parenting has created this killing machine, and all we can do is watch the children be bombed, shot and starved to death.

We can point to villains, of course. Like Senators Gillibrand and Schumer, who have grown rich from supporting Israel. We can embarrass Representative Pat Ryan for his huge, pro-Israel bribes. But that is not enough to save our souls. We are the enablers of another holocaust, and the mark of Cain will remain, even after our empire crumbles into dust.

Free, Free Palestine!

 

February 29

 

GUEST: Yakov Pipman, long time Israeli citizen who fought as an IDF soldier for three wars, talks about winning Palestinian human rights and the history of Matzpen, the revolutionary socialist movement in Israel.  

Matzpen, Israeli peace movement

Perhaps Israel could have been different. It could have been that shelter from the storm that this persecuted people most richly deserved, after the genocide of the Third Reich.

But somehow Israel got tangled up with imperialist powers, the United States and England. These victors of World War II never really stopped fighting. They plotted how to gain control over the entire oil rich Middle East, and Israel was to be their linchpin. 

But imperialist powers are always based on racism, and Israel soon learned how to abuse and punish the indigenous people of Palestine. The Nakba of 1948 is one terrible example. Three quarters of a million Palestinians were forced off their land, so that the state of Israel could become a theocracy. To get the Palestinians to move, the new state of Israel slaughtered various villages, a precursor of things to come. 

Today's genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza shows the direction of Israel from some limited form of democracy to a full blown fascist state. And for every step of the way, the US has been there to furnish the ammunition and provide the international cover in the UN. Matzpen is the history of some more progressive Jews who resisted the bloody theocracy. That resistance is now flourishing on campuses as well is in community resistance organizations like Jewish Voices For Peace. 

Join the resistance! Free, Free Palestine!

Poorly disguised kleptocracy

February 22

 

GUEST: Ann Larson, antipoverty activist and contributor to the anthology, Going for Broke: Living on the Edge in the World's Richest Country, talks about how the poorly paid get by in a country designed for the billionaire class.

Ann Larson: The Cashier Philosopher

The poorly paid don't really get by. They cut corners and don't buy what their families really need. Sometimes that is healthcare and education. Sometimes it is just peace of mind.

A nation's money is a zero net gain amount. If one interest group takes more, other groups get less. If half the nation's tax proceeds go to making weaponry, why there is only half left for education, housing, medical care, daycare, etc. If large corporations get tax breaks, why the poor and middle class have to pay more. When a nation has 756 billionaires, why 50% of Americans have to live from paycheck to paycheck. 

And when the nation's working class pushes back, why the plutocracy will often support a fascist, who will keep wages low and punish dissenters. Trump didn't come out of nowhere. 

Nor did our two pro-war parties. We have troops abroad in about half the world, while our working class is the poorest of all in the industrialized nations. War and occupations abroad benefit the very rich, and penalize the very poor. Our system is not a democracy, but a poorly disguised kleptocracy, the rule by the corrupt few.

Made in America

Rep. Pat Ryan's Office

February 15

 

GUEST: Rahul Kumar, high school activist and founder of Poughkeepsie 4 Palestine, talks about how his generation is organizing local rallies and public speak outs against the genocide in Gaza, and the warmongering of our political elites.

Rally in Poughkeepsie, NY

Marxist intellectual and historian Vijay Prashad came to Vassar College yesterday, the guest of the college's Students for Justice in Palestine. Before we started, the packed house gave a hand to Rahul in the audience, thanking him for his community work in pushing our House representative Pat Ryan to at least say the world "ceasefire."

It was a moment of inter generational connection. There were members of Women in Black - New Paltz, Mideast Crisis https://mideastcrisis.org/ and Jewish Voice for Peace, many in their 70s and 80s. There were many Vassar students, some faculty, and then there was Rahul who is 14 years old. 

But you don't have to be of a certain age to see what our country has become: the number one bully of the world. We love "human rights" and "democracy," while butchering and starving children in Gaza. You would think that this gross hypocrisy would eventually kill us, and it will. Our "sweet land of liberty" will drag the whole world down with some deadly combination of nuclear war, global warming catastrophe, and AI. Our planet's Armageddon will have a familiar phrase burned into its remains: "Made in America."

How we might some day break free

February 8

 

GUEST: Michael Zweig, author of the newly published book, Class, Race, and Gender: Challenging the Injuries and Divisions of Capitalism, talks about the uprisings against the wealthy elites who run our state.

Class, Race, and Gender

Michael's new book takes you through the labyrinth of hidden passions and motivations in our society. They are hidden because they are so powerful, and potentially so destructive to our supposedly democratic society. Have you ever doubted the mainstream narrative of why we give tax breaks to the billionaires, or why we keep going to war? Michael Zweig explains what's missing.

Once I decided to read Michael's new book, I found it quite compelling. Soon it became what I did when I had 15 minutes to spare. Of course class has always been interesting to me. ClassWars.org is built around what Americans don't know about their own society. Would we be better citizens of Mother Earth if we were more self aware? And would a world run by the very rich and their bloated corporations ever allow such subversive notions?  

Activist Radio is just a tiny thorn in the bland facade of corporate America. A tiny annoyance to our rulers, who steal most of our money and send our young off to endless wars. Why waste your time with all these AI generated conspiracy theories? Why spin your wheels on fantasy? Class, Race and Gender explains how we became enslaved, and how we might some day break free.

Write my name on my leg, Mama

Write my name on my leg, Mama
Use the black permanent marker
with the ink that doesn’t bleed
if it gets wet, the one that doesn’t melt
if it’s exposed to heat

Write my name on my leg, Mama
Make the lines thick and clear
Add your special flourishes
so I can take comfort in seeing
my mama’s handwriting when I go to sleep

Write my name on my leg, Mama
and on the legs of my sisters and brothers
This way we will belong together
This way we will be known
as your children

Write my name on my leg, Mama
and please write your name
and Baba’s name on your legs, too
so we will be remembered
as a family

Write my name on my leg, Mama
Don’t add any numbers
like when I was born or the address of our home
I don’t want the world to list me as a number
I have a name and I am not a number

Write my name on my leg, Mama
When the bomb hits our house
When the walls crush our skulls and bones
our legs will tell our story, how
there was nowhere for us to run

 

By zeina azzam

Genocide is just another acceptable tactic

We often think of our elected officials as ordinary people, caught up in the spirit of public service. They certainly try to be like the rest of us, with families and favorite teams to cheer for. It's true, they are often a bit more patriotic than the average citizen. Not so carried away, however, as to ever fight America's endless wars in the Third World.

But when the Senate voted today for more aid to Israel, my confidence in our elected leaders faltered. We can see it on every computer screen, the genocide of 2 million at the hands of a rabid and racist Israeli army. Netanyahu's Israel behaves like the Third Reich, and our elected leaders behave like this is what normal people do.

But normal people want a ceasefire, not another shipment of bombs and missiles to Israel. Normal people are horrified at the prospect of tens of thousands of children being starved to death. Not our political leaders, however. Now that Israel has two million Palestinian civilians hopelessly crowded into southern Gaza, the "final solution" can begin. And to that rarified world of the US Senate, that's just fine.

The startling amorality of our ruling class, however, is a teaching moment. Our government is not a democracy, and its two party system is nothing more than a sham. The system is so monstrous that we have to take notice. Our late American empire is a killing machine, and genocide is just another acceptable tactic.

Fred Nagel

We are not monsters

February 1

 

GUEST: Shahd, young Palestinian activist and political writer living with her family in Gaza, is now missing and perhaps one of the tens of thousands murdered by the Israeli state.

UPDATE: Shahd is still alive and reporting on Gaza!

We Are Not Numbers

The long walk to Palestine’s freedom

I was so relieved to learn that Shahd has survived the Israeli genocide. She is now in the south of Gaza, but still writing about the trauma being endured by her people. The interview I did with her about a year ago is still so moving; I am glad I got a chance to air it again. 

Shahd pushes us to consider individuals and not the of thousands of body bags being created. Thinking about how our country is enabling this genocide makes you hate our murderous leaders, who care so little when their demented foreign policy requires the killing of Palestinian 12,000 children. Has our ruling class no morality at all? And has our experiment in democracy finally come to an end? For a nation that provides bombs and planes to expedite a genocide, could not be a government of the people, by the people, or for the people. We are not monsters, like the two party, pro war leaders who rule us. 

UPDATE: Shahd will be interviewed live from Gaza this Thursday! Gaza Unfiltered: Voices from the Ground. You can register through this link: https://natakallam.com/gaza-unfiltered-voices-from-the-ground/

• Online Event on Zoom
• Feb 22, 2024

• At 6:00 pm CET
• At 7:00 pm Gaza
• At 12:00 pm EST

Charnel grounds in its wake

January 25

 

GUEST: Raz, Jordanian/ Palestinian researcher and artist, talks about being part of the diaspora, and how views about the US and its commitment to human rights are changing in light of the Israeli genocide in Gaza.

Urge ICJ to invite journalists covering the war in Gaza

 

Raz and her family escaped the very worst periods of Israeli apartheid. But the oppression lives with her, especially when she considers the role of her new country in supporting Israel's human rights abuses. How can a country that talks endlessly about human rights be a willing participant in the Gaza genocide? Does the United States have a split personality? One side extols freedom and the other widespread butchery?

Perhaps the rulers of our supposedly democratic state are just liars. Their lives revolve around corporate profits and the expansion of the American Empire. Palestinians are just another people to be sacrificed to their gods of greed and war. For the empire leaves nothing but charnel grounds in its wake. 

The First Crusade captured Jerusalem in 1099

White, Christian countries in the West are showing the rest of the world how real charity works. When two million Muslims in Gaza face starvation, these good Christens decide to cut off all food aid to the open air prison. These same countries don't plan to stop selling bombs and rockets to Israel, the perpetrator of this genocide. God no, goodwill has its limits.

It's nothing personal. Israel claims that some aid workers were helping Hamas. These good Christian countries don't need any proof of that. Why would a country committing genocide lie to them?

Maybe these countries have forgotten what Jesus taught: Love, Generosity, and Peace. "The generous will themselves be blessed, for they share their food with the poor." (Proverbs 22:9). It could be that this proverb doesn't apply to Muslim children who are starving. Perhaps they are a shade too brown for lily white tastes.

To be truthful, these white, Christian countries have spread butchery far and wide in the Third World for the last thousand years. Their sordid "colonies" have killed millions, and sold millions more into slavery. It seams that their actual religion is the exact opposite of what their God has supposedly told them. Maybe Jesus on the cross is not a promise of salvation, but a warning to the rest of the world of the genocides yet to come.  

The First Crusade captured Jerusalem in 1099 and then massacred most of its Jewish and Muslim inhabitants. Onward Christian soldiers!

Fred Nagel

Never again, to any people!

The current images coming from the genocide of the Palestinian people are hard to take. For starvation leaves such telltale signs. Often groups of children carry empty pots, looking for anything to put in them. They are much too thin, and sometimes their legs and stomach are bloated. They are listless and confused. Towards the end, they don't even cry.

But before you turn away in horror, consider that the people running our government are orchestrating this starvation directed at millions of indigenous people. The Palestinians happen to live in the country that England and the US have given to the Zionists. Its nothing personal, of course. Israel is our military assassin, our paid killer in the oil rich Middle East. The deal is Israel will do our bidding as long as we look the other way as it creates a theocracy bathed in Arab blood.

The genocide is so obvious that Representatives like Pat Ryan and Senators like Chuck Schumer know that they have to keep talking about Israel's right to "protect itself." Fat with Israel Lobby money, they are more than willing to starve Palestinian children if that's what it takes.

For this genocide is the Holocaust of our lifetime, although some of the roles have changed. The victims of the first Holocaust are the killers this time around. The proud nation that was so instrumental in vanquishing the Nazis, now supplies and provides cover for the murderous war criminals.

We must come together to insist: Never again, to any people!

Fred Nagel

Vote for a socialist

January 18

 

GUEST: Peter Dolack, writer for the Systemic Disorder Blog and author of "It's Not Over: Learning from the Socialist Experiment" talks about COP28 and how Big Oil will bring us all down.

Thanks for all the hamburgers

COP 28 was a joke. Funded by the countries that are the biggest oil producers, the pageantry was much ado about nothing. So why bother reporting on something that is a world wide fraud?

Peter unhesitatingly describes the end result of such a fraud. The world will collapse, with millions of people as refugees. Global warming will eventually turn every country into a tinderbox. Farmland will disappear, as will housing. People will starve.

All this is clear to our leaders, who will do nothing to change the system. They will all have their pictures taken at the conference, and hurry home for their next Big Oil check. It's a thoroughly corrupt system of the big corporations edging out the needs of people. 

Do we call it Capitalism? Or is it "savage" Capitalism, as described by the Pope. At the end, there will no public good, because there will be no public. Vote for a socialist next time, if we are going to have any chance at all.

Dull, stupid sleep

Germans have always been criticized for knowing that the Holocaust was going on and doing nothing to stop it. In truth, during the actual genocide, speaking out against a wartime Nazi regime meant almost certain death. Even passing out leaflets at the University of Munich got a small group called the "White Rose" arrested, tried and beheaded.

Their second of six leaflets had denounced the persecution and mass murder of the Jews: "The German people slumber on in dull, stupid sleep and encourage the fascist criminals. Each wants to be exonerated of guilt, each one continues on his way with the most placid, calm conscience. But he cannot be exonerated; he is guilty, guilty, guilty!"

Today we are free to criticize our government's arming and protecting Israel as it exterminates the Palestinian people. Using the latest US weaponry and drones, Israel is making the home of over 2 million people into a world of rubble. The IDF, self proclaimed as the most moral military force in the world, has slaughtered over 10,000 children and cut the rest of the population off from food, water and shelter. What bombs can't accomplish, starvation and disease surely will.  

This is a genocide, aided and protected by the murderers who run our government. Their pockets are lined with millions from the Israel Lobby (see OpenSecrets.org), like Pat Ryan with $37,650 a year and Kirsten Gillibrand who pulled in $174,104.

So why aren't you speaking out? Still slumbering in dull, stupid sleep?

Fred Nagel

What I learned in my years of CISPES

January 11

 

GUEST: Alexis Stoumbelis, long time activist and Executive Director of the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), talks about the long history of US corporate interests that have frustrated the will of the people for democracy.

CISPES

I remember that time in the 1980s when many of us joined CISPES. A lot of our time was spent learning how the US trained and armed the Salvadoran death squads, and how they murdered famous people like Archbishop Oscar Romano. We let the history in by telling ourselves that El Salvador was a temporary mistake our country was making. When our leaders finally woke up to their war crimes, why things would change. 

We read about the bodies by the side of the road that were picked up in the mornings. We saw pictures of them, freakish looking in their twisted shapes and sizes. 

We opened our homes to Salvadoran refugees, many on speaking tours across the US. I remember two brothers telling us about the murder of their other two brothers. We called a meeting at a local church, so that more people could hear what they had been through. As they drove away, I wondered how long our government would put up with this carnage. 

But Central America is a mirror that reflects US imperialism. There is hardly a country that has escaped US assassinations and invasions. Alexis Stoumbelis is a capable guide, having worked in El Salvador for decades. There is still a CISPES, and there are still murders of environmentalist and union leaders. And like most bloodbaths in the world, the US is in it up to its neck. 

That's what I learned in my years of CISPES. 

Perhaps our time to suffer has come

January 4

 

GUEST: Walden Bello, Internationally known scholar and activist, Professor Emeritus at the University of the Philippines, and winner of the Right Livelihood Award takes a close look at how some societies transition from democracy to fascism.

Fascism 101

Suddenly, fascism is in. We read about it and worry that our Democratic presidential candidate, Joe Biden, just isn't up to it. We then polish off that old conundrum: vote for the lesser of two evils. And since Trump is in fact a fascist, almost anything would be better. 

But Biden has a few tricks up his sleeve. He and his secretary of state, Blinken, are really warmongers, eager to take risks to advance our military empire. We see it in Ukraine, Taiwan, and now the Middle East. Our weapons makers just can't keep up with the tremendous demand for killing instruments. 

With this Cold War mentality comes a willingness to murder entire populations. The genocide in Gaza is part of the expansion of the American empire. The thousands of children starving to death is just the price we must pay to rule the world. During the Bush administration, the Democratic Party joined the peace marches. But they were always just lying.

So do we chose Genocide Joe or Trump the fascist? Are we willing to live with the starvation of children, or acquiesce to a right wing white nationalists takeover? Do we want syphilis or gonorrhea for the next four years?  

Walden Bello walks us through the histories of recent fascist governments, almost all supported by the American Empire. Perhaps our time to suffer has come. 

We get a little shot of Law and Disorder this week

December 28

 

GUEST: Michael Smith, author, attorney, former board member of the Center for Constitutional Rights, and cohost of the radio show Law and Disorder, talks about Zionism, antisemitism, and the genocide in Gaza.

Genocide is not a Jewish value

Genocide and antisemitism are on the rise. Israel commits genocide in Gaza, and the Israel Lobby tries to cover up all those dead children with claims that the Jewish people are the true victims. The Lobby has no morals, of course. But what they do have is power. The Israel Lobby plans to spend at least 100 million dollars in the next elections trying to defeat any member of Congress who questions US aid to the apartheid state. Zionism knows how to play our thoroughly corrupted system.

In trying to defeat progressive representatives, the Israel Lobby has married the far right, Christian fundamentalists. And the stench of their marriage bed can be smelled around the world. Israel is a pariah nation, and its murderous ways have been condemned by a huge number of UN members. Just two days ago, South Africa charged Israel with the war crime of genocide in the International Court Of Justice. It is a charge that may stick, and if it does the US stands to be publicly shamed. If Israel is convicted, the US is sure to be named a co-conspirator. 

Friends ask me about voting for Biden, to avoid the fascist nightmare of a Trump presidency. But I simply can't vote for a person who commits genocide. I don't know what will happen to our country, but voting for a war criminal would make me part of the Palestinian genocide. I know millions will hold their noses and vote for Biden. But at what personal cost? So they can go on living a comfortable, middle class life? So they can join the ranks of the "good Germans" who could smell the gas chambers but tried not to think about it.