Emmanuel Goldstein's message

GUEST: Jack Smith, radical journalist, editor of the Hudson Valley Activist Newsletter and former editor of the National Guardian, talks about his latest article in CounterPunch, "Obama Intensifies Wars and Threats of War."

This picture is from an interview of Jack on the Rag Blog. His story of activism over the last half century is an impressive one and well worth reading. Radicalized early on, he has maintained an all encompassing leftist viewpoint that I have found to be much closer to reality than the one giving to me by various history classes or our major media.

Jack points out the greed and barbarism of the American Empire since World War II, with its endless invasions, occupations, and overthrowing of democratically elected leaders. Like Emmanuel Goldstein's radical  analysis in 1984, Jack's viewpoint at times has that feeling of truth, freed from the restrictions of falsehoods and obfuscation.

Why is Obama pursuing these endless wars in the Middle East? It's our system of hegemony; we never really stopped fighting after defeating Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany. The US has been working for global dominance during all our lives, just covering up it's war crimes with various calls for democracy and human rights. It is like Emmanuel Goldstein's message to 1984's protagonist Winston Smith. One has the feeling of coming to a startling and terrible truth.

Each BDS campaign represents more nails in its coffin

GUEST: Minnie-Bruce Pratt, member of the International Action Center and Palestine Solidarity Collective, talks about the NY State anti-BDS legislation that threatens all of our First Amendment rights for freedom of speech.

This was a taped interview, since Minnie-Bruce Pratt couldn't do the interview live. We were able to get more people in on this interview, however. In total we had six people doing the conference call.

The NY State anti-BDS legislation is the worst assault on the First Amendment since the McCarthy Era, when thousands were fired from their jobs by FBI pressure on their employers. Back then people were branded as Communist, even though proof was usually lacking. And why shouldn't a person express a point of view, or belong to a political party without fear of being blacklisted? At stake was the First Amendment freedom of expression.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

But just because the Bill of Rights says we have these freedoms, doesn't insure that we actually do. Today it is big money from the Israel Lobby threatening to turn our country into a totalitarian state. The US gives close to four billion a year to apartheid Israel, and the money seeps back to corrupt our political system.

Most of our politicians are in the pocket of one special interest group or another. But very few of our state and national representatives are free from the Israel Lobby. The New York State Senate and Assembly seem more than willing to betray our Constitutional freedoms for a ride on the apartheid gravy train.

Minnie-Bruce Pratt brought up another point, the tight integration between our nation's military, industrial complex and Israeli weapons makers. Think drones, the type that Israel produces and tests on UN schools in Gaza. Where else in the world could a weapons manufacturer target and slaughter 550 school children?

The clock is ticking on this pariah state, and each BDS campaign represents more nails in its coffin. 

Golden Cafe

GUEST: Rev. Graylan Hagler, Senior Minister of Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ in Washington, D.C. and outspoken supporter of Palestinian human rights, talks about his speaking tours as President of Minsters for Racial, Social and Economic Justice.

It hasn't been easy being a Black minister and talking about human rights for all people. My brother sent me Rev. Graylan's story from a Rochester paper, how he was invited and then disinvited from giving a talk at the Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School, all because he supports the rights of Palestinians.

Rev. Hagler wouldn't have it any other way. The racism and murder facing the Palestinian people looks very much like the racism directed at African Americans over the last century. Apartheid in Israel is a mirror held up to see Jim Crow in the American Empire. Whenever people are treated as less than human, the results are the same. Suffering and resistance. 

Rev. Hagler ended up speaking at a number of locations in Rochester as a result of his poor treatment by the Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School, and he drew overflowing crowds. His message is that resistance to the Israeli Lobby is growing, and that people are tired of the endless use of anti-Semitism to cover up the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.

Religion can be a way to achieve justice for all people. Of course, it can also be used to justify the crimes and greed of a specific ethnic group. A Golden Cafe to lead people away from the path of God.

Changing alliances and widespread butchery

Guests: Tarak Kauff, board member for Veterans For Peace, and Bruce Gagnon, Coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space, discuss their trip to Jeju Island and Okinawa to protest the building of new US military bases there. (Due to a streaming failure, this show only includes the above interview.)

The streaming of WVKR was done this week, so only the prerecorded interview is on our website. 

But its a very good interview, in that it combines real dedication to civil disobedience linked with a growing awareness of the immensity of the American Empire. Here were Veteran For Peace activists putting themselves on the line to support two communities that do not want huge military bases in their midst: Jeju Island, Korea and Okinawa, Japan.

Both islands have long histories of resisting foreign invasions and occupations. The US is just the latest foreign army to claim the right to build bases and wage wars from their territories. This time, it is the American Empire trying to strangle China's access to the seas, the famous "pivot to the East" that our Noble Peace Prize President is so ready to brag about.

Having been in Korea for a year at one such massive base, I am all too aware of the price Koreans pay for military occupation. The US has a long and bloody history in Korea, taking over from the Japanese after World War II. But our country never stopped killing leftist "subversives," as any look at recent Korean history will show you. It is a testament to the propagandist strength our our media that more American citizens don't know this history.

Why don't you learn about it? http://www.democracynow.org/2008/8/7/south_korea_commission_probes_civilian_massacres

Moreover, take a moment to think about the 800 US bases around the world. In effect, the US has never stopped fighting World War II. It was too lucrative for our military, industrial complex to give up. What we see is Orwell's concept of perpetual war, with changing alliances and widespread butchery in the Third World.

Tirades about greedy politicians and sycophantic newspapers

GUEST: Wes Brain, retired member of SEIU#503 and organizer with Southern Oregon Jobs with Justice, talks about his weekly radio program in Southern Oregon called The Brain Labor Report.

Wes and I have interviewed each other over the last year. I played a piece that he did for his show in Southern Oregon.

We talked about our programs' attempts to bring a leftist perspective to the national media. At present, there is the Neoliberal and the Neoconservative agendas, but not much else. Quotes from Bernie Sanders are about the first time the US corporate media has even referred to the ascendency of the very rich over the rest of us. Even Paul Krugman, that "liberal" commentator for the NYT, urges Americans to go slowly and support Wall Street's candidate, the war hawk and Goldman Sachs' Monica Lewinsky, Hillary Clinton.

I did get some feedback recently from a listener who said that Eli and I were too caustic about our country and its leaders. She said that she "just turns us off" when we go on our little tirades about greedy politicians and sycophantic newspapers. The rest of the show, she likes.

The feedback raises some interesting questions. Do we moderate what we really think to make the program more palatable? Or is that just doing what most of the US media does already, deny the obvious class war with its impoverished millions and and massive war machine because it isn't a very nice subject.

Or will speaking truth generate more of a resistance to the US Empire? The spirit of truth is a dangerous thing to the imperial powers that be. As everyone should know, truth is the first step to real change.

When we can all sing America

Guest: Deepa Iyer, leading racial justice activist and author of a new book, "We Too Sing America: South Asian, Arab, Muslim, and Sikh Immigrants Shape our Multiracial Future," talks about the consequence of modern day terrorism: the ongoing, state-sanctioned persecution of immigrant peoples.

Deepa Iyer's new book is filled with stories about racism in America. During my interview, she told me that everyone comes to this country with a different history, and that no ethnic group has exactly the same memories. Some were escaping the wars that the US Empire has fought in their homelands, and some were born after the carnage. Some come to raise their families after their economies were destroyed by neoliberal exploitation, and some simply don't remember.

Once here, immigrants must learn the intricacies of an already segregated society. Black people, immigrants learn, must be kept at the bottom if the immigrant wants to be considered white. Therefore, Asian, Arab, Muslim and Sikh immigrants are offered the "racial bribe," join us as whites or be considered a person of color yourself.

Deepa Iyer goes on to describe the opposite of racism, when American citizens reject a hierarchy based on skin color and insist that American institutions do the same. And yes, there will be a date when there are more people of color in the US than there are whites. But that moment will only mean social and economic justice if all the institutions become colorblind as well. 

Our country can overcome the centuries of racism to become an enlightened society. That is the goal, when we can all sing America.

The empire and its racism will be washed away

Guests: Susan Smith, who hosts a biweekly program on WVKR called From Ferguson to Palestine, and Sahar AlSahlani, who serves on the boards of Religions for Peace (UN-affiliated NGO) and the Council of American Islamic Relations, will talk about the rise of Islamophobia and what can be done about it.

Susan Smith and Sahar AlSahlani went beyond the usual warnings about racism in America. There is the history of ethnic cleansing of indigenous populations that created our country. There is the long tradition of pitting one group against another, both in politics and in the workplace. Finally, there is the wealth created by centuries of slavery.

Were does the Empire fit in? Can the US expect to rob 1.6 billion Muslims (concentrated in the Middle East and Northern Africa) of their oil and other natural resources without eventually paying a price? To maintain America's endless war against this region, US citizens must learn to hate Muslims in the same way any invading and occupying country uses racism to support war crimes committed abroad. Empires thrive on hatred. 

Listening to our two guests, all this becomes an exercise in logic, rather than an expression of animosity. With America's history and its present commitment to endless wars, there is really no other way to keep the empire's citizens from rebelling. 

Maybe when the rebellion does come, both the empire and its racism will be washed away, along with the power of the white elite that has lived for centuries on the backs of people of color.