The world's last empire

June 20

 

GUEST: Robert Roth, veteran anti-imperialist activist, former member of the SDS and the Weather Underground, and co-founder of the Haiti Action Committee, talks about Columbia University in the last 60s and now.

Reflections on SDS and Black Power

Robert Roth and I are both products of the late 1960s. He was in the Weather Underground and I was a reluctant young draftee sent overseas to occupy Korea. Both of us blamed politicians of the major parties for the mess our country was in. LBJ and then Tricky Dick Nixon were willing to kill any number of Vietnamese for an American win in Southeast Asia. 

But the US could not win the "American War," as the Vietnamese call it. Yes, the US killed millions, but to no avail. Vietnam had been fighting imperial powers for generations and were willing to sacrifice anything for their freedom. What irony you say. Our country that supposedly supported democracy and freedom preferred mass killing to negotiations. There is nothing that the American Empire was not willing to do, even sending 58,000 of its sons to the slaughter.

But is wasn't the Viet Cong that the empire feared. It was its own young people who finally stopped fighting the war, and turned their attention to the streets. "Down with American imperialism" they shouted. And instead of voting for another warmongering Democrat, they simply yelled "Dumped the Hump," as Hubert Humphrey was called.   

The empire is fearful again. It is plain as day that our elites are supporting the genocide of the Palestinian people. Our leaders have all been bought off by the Israel Lobby. Our colleges and universities use antisemitism to limit any debate on campuses. And our media just supports American carnage as it always has.

But making the empire fearful is all we have in this completely corrupted system. Make those Pentagon warmongers shake. Use those encampments to promote a vision of America as a just state, committed to democracy and the good of humankind. "You may say I'm a dreamer. But I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join us. And the world will be as one."

The opposite to dreaming is specicide. The end of the Anthropocene Epoch. America may well be the world's last empire.

The mark of Cain

June 13

 

GUEST: Nina Farnia, professor at Albany Law School, co-founder of the International People's Tribunal on US Imperialism, and co-founder of the newly formed Anti-Imperialist Scholars Collective, talks about free speech on campus.

Center for Constitutional Rights letter

This is the new normal. The original meaning of antisemitism has been changed into a fascist weapon, and used on students and teachers who have expressed horror at the genocide of the 21st century.

Instead of stopping this genocide, the American Empire is paying for the bombs and rockets, as well as the white phosphorus used on Palestinian schoolchildren.

People of color like Dr. Farnia will always be targeted by the willing intellectual thugs that populate the administrations of our schools and colleges. Don't like genocide in Gaza, why you must be an antisemite! Do you think that racism in Israel is linked to the racism of empire? Your voice must be silenced by the new McCarthyism. 

The Israeli holocaust of the Palestinians is a colonial project of the American elites. Both major parties are pro-genocide. The leaders of our colleges and our mainstream media are all pro-genocide. Like Hitler and the German people, we in the American Empire will bear the mark of Cain for as long as people have a history to read. 

The revolution has started

June 6

 

GUEST: Jim Yanda, longtime civil rights activist and New York political organizer, talks about why he is working to elect Cornel West for president, and how his candidate exposes the US empire and its many wars of aggression in the Third World.

Cornel West as president

I thought this conversation with Jim Yanda was going to be interesting. How does an average American citizen move beyond the two party, worst of two evils conundrum? 

Most of Jim's arguments are quite logical. Both major parties favor the very rich in everything they do. The Supreme Court has made overt bribery the driving mechanism of our political system. The Zionists do it, and so do the major oil companies. If you have the cash, why you can write the laws. Voting for either of the major candidates for president is an exercise of wilful ignorance.

Are there any differences? Of course there are. Biden might be a little better on the environment, on LGBTQ rights, on civil liberties, abortion rights and labor issues. But the difference is actually quite small. The Democrats need these issues to run on, so prefer talk rather than action. We heard 8 years of peace talk from the Democrats while Bush was president. During the Obama wars, the peace movement disappeared. 

A major difference is that the Democrats seem to take more risks when it comes to a possible nuclear Armageddon. Trump at least talked about possible friendship with Russia and China. Blinken is a deranged Cold Warrior, as are many leaders of this current administration. 

So there you have it. The only sensible choice is Cornel West or Jill Stein. At least they are talking about how to turn the empire around. And when enough people start listening to them, why the revolution has started.  

 

They are riding naked, of course

May 30

 

GUEST: Alfred de Zayas, Cuban born American lawyer and writer, Fulbright Fellow at the University of Tübingen in Germany, and attorney for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, talks about US reporting on Nicaragua, Venezuela and Gaza.

Venezuela and the US Left at Crossroads

There are those who have prospered in the academic and governmental realms, but whose opinions about the US Empire are unsparingly critical. Dr. de Yayas is one such individual. 

At times he is a voice in the wilderness, talking about the children being slaughtered in Gaza, and the self serving politics of our ruling class. Once we see how corrupt and murderous the rule of the elite is, there is no going back. You can become a cog in the wheel, a toady who mouths the familiar excuses for the empire, or you can become a truth teller. 

We talked also about the media that does its very best to keep our citizenry absorbed in other issues. Besides the dozen or so leftist publications and media programs, our news is entertainment for the masses, a People Magazine made up a short stories of the glamorous and famous. A wasteland of the intellect really.  

So I do my show, all too aware of how bare bones it really is. I get all the guests, write the show, produce and then record it. I pick the songs too. And if you are still reading this, you have probably gotten further than most. But here you are, and I am sorry I can't reach out and shake your hand. You must be interested in truth, and you must think that Activist Radio has a part in revealing the butchers who run our national killing machine. They are riding naked, of course, and their hands are covered with blood.

Ours is a system run amok.

 

May 23

 

GUEST: Claire Cousin, co-founder of the Hudson/ Catskill Housing Coalition, and the first Black woman elected to the Columbia County Board of Supervisors, talks about her run for NY State Assembly and her support for Palestine.

Claire Cousin for NY Assembly

This is what democracy looks like. Claire is a bright person who wants to do good in her community and in her country. She wouldn't end up on some corporate payroll, or looking the other way as Israel annihilates the Palestinian people. She can't be bought; she will never be part of the well bribed elite. 

To see our Congress falling all over itself to kiss the ass of that murderous of all leaders, Netanyahu, is to understand just how important Israeli cash is. Congress lets itself be bribed by one foreign country, the genocidal state that is dropping white phosphorus on all the children of Gaza. There is no shame. Our Senator Schumer and our president are drowning in billionaire donations. Ours is a system run amok. And it's just so amazing that once in a great while we get a real person to run. Vote for Claire Cousin over her Israeli paid opponent.

Israel seems more like a deranged sect

President Biden talks about American "red lines," that protect Palestinians from an ongoing extermination. But these red lines are just another blatant lie; there is no pause in the US support for genocide.

It turns out that people have their own red lines. For me, Israel's recent threats to the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court is my limit. Not only did Israel threaten at least two prosecutors, but its secret intelligence agency also menaced their families. So much for Israel's respect for international justice.

Israel's starving tens of thousands of children in Gaza and its incessant bombing of their refugee camps have shown the state of Israel to be a world pariah. Its entire reason for being is racist violence and murder. That explains Israel's fascist alliance with the ultra right wing in our own country. Zionism is the poison that will bring down both our democracies.

And I don't care what religion Israel claims to be. No religion on earth can justify its endless war crimes and crimes against humanity. At times Israel seems more like a deranged sect, hell bound for self destruction. And we may all end up having to sip its cool-aid. Israel is a nuclear power run by a madman.

We have a new generation that understands what Israel is: the unhinged colony of a crumbling empire. It is not a legitimate state, just like Apartheid South Africa was not worthy of existence. Time to delegitimize the racist and fascist state of Israel.

Fred Nagel