To the editor:

Police violence is probably the most obvious state-sanctioned,  “in your face” violence -particularly if your face is black or brown.     Defunding the police is a good  beginning - but just scratches the surface.    Martin Luther King reminded us that  the largest purveyor  of violence in the world is the US military.   Military violence causes unspeakable suffering  for all living creatures - human and otherwise.  Irag, Afghanistan, Yemen, the Congo, Kashmir, and Palestine.  It’s the violence of guns,  bombs, napalm, land mines,  tanks,  jet fighters,  Cruise missiles, submarines, battle ships,  Apache helicopters,   and  ultimately nuclear bombs which cause  horrifying  death, suffering, sickness, and starvation  for millions around the globe.  It  also causes devastating   environmental  contamination from substances like depleted uranium and  agent orange in Vietnam. 

So yes , let’s  start with defunding racist police violence.  But we must  move on to address the real threats to  life on this planet.  Let’s  defund our military  (ideally, ALL militaries).   And while we’re at it, let’s  defund all the violent enterprises -  like   mining,  logging, and oil drilling.  Defund all activities that hurt mother earth,  we humans,  and all the helpless and voiceless creatures on this planet. 

Our  tax dollars for military  spending are bankrupting us financially and  morally.   It’s why  we can’t afford  universal free health care,  good housing, decent public transportation,  and free education.  Maybe if  Americans had  programs  like these we wouldn’t need to live in a police state. Defunding our military and instituting programs to help and support people  -   that would truly make America great. 

Eli Kassirer

Listener feedback on "Planet of the Humans"

I have loved all of Michael Moore's films so was eager to watch this one, as the point it claims to be making about unsustainability is right on. What i saw was filled with falsehoods about renewable energy straight from the fossil industry playbook. "Smirking" Ozzie Zehner who played a major role in the film, is the guy walking through a solar mirror plant claiming that more fossil fuels are burned to get the plant going than it produces! He also wrote a book called "Green Illusion". It would be interesting to see what ties he has to the fossil industry. There is a reason Breitbart has a new found love for Michael Moore! I wrote the following review. There are others on line far more articulate than mine, that you should take a look at. 

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"Planet of the Humans"  devotes way too much time to echoing outdated and downright false fossil industry tropes about renewable energy, and way too little to the larger point it claims to be making, that Western "civilization" is not sustainable, and techno fixes alone will not save it. System change is necessary. But by spending most of its energy attacking renewable energy and the environmental movement, it exacerbates the problem.

Flat out lies (such as the claim that solar and wind require as much or more fossil energy than they produce); and half truths early on in the film destroy it's credibility.. Outdated statistics and fossil industry talking points paint a negative view of solar and wind power. Electric vehicles are over 90% efficient vs. a max of about 25% for fossil vehicles; if powered by solar they are a no brainer. This is why no less than Pete Seeger drove an electric pickup truck. The array in Lansing Michigan is said to be 8% efficient. Most solar panels today are between 15 and 20 % efficient. It was said to power 10 homes. It has at least 50 times as many as the 10 panels that fully power my house. Germany is shown on one chart to get 1.5% of it's power from solar, and another shows a much higher proportion. Currently, Germany has to give away excess solar generation on the sunniest days. 

Vivid jarring images of mining and grinding up ancient Joshua trees etc. suggest that solar and wind power are more destructive than fossil fuels. Siting issues early on have largely been resolved. All mines need to clean up their act; singling out renewable energy is disingenuous at best. For every kilo of neodymium used for the magnet in a wind generator, untold barrels of oil remain in the ground, and the neodymium is reusable. Lithium mining for batteries is an issue which may be behind the recent fascist coup in Bolivia. But that lithium is highly recyclable. Solar and wind represent a minute fraction of the destruction of fossil fuels. The mirror based solar plants the film focuses on (no pun intended) have largely been supplanted by photovoltaic panels. PV works best on individual rooftops; no joshua trees need be cut. Images in the film suggest that solar panels use huge amounts of coal; in reality they are mainly made of highly refined silicon, i.e.sand or quartz. A PV panel typically recoups the energy used to manufacture it in about 6 -  12 months of use. And despite another false assertion in the film, that panels last 10 years, most panels are guaranteed to maintain at least 80% of output for 20 years. I recently gave away some panels made in the '70's that were still working just fine. Batteries last at least 10 years, not the "few years" in the film, and are constantly improving. Grid tied solar obviates the need for batteries, and supplants the fossil fuel and nuclear generation that currently power the grid. Years ago, fossil companies bought up solar companies for the purpose of greenwashing and keeping them off the market. Thanks to U.S. suppression of solar energy, China ran with it, and today produces most of the panels. In 2016 alone, China installed the equivalent of 34 nuclear power plants in solar PV. Does Koch industry make some panels? I never heard of them, but would boycott that brand if i did.

At an Earth day festival claiming to run on 100% renewable, the film shows a back up diesel generator for the solar panels. Unmentioned, but visible, tho blurry is a BIODIESEL label on the generator. Biodiesel is made from waste vegetable oil.

If, as the film asserts, major deforestation is occurring to fuel biomass generation, that is an issue, for sure. Any type of burning for electricity generation is at best about 30% efficient. Bill McKibbin supported a small Vermont college converting a fossil heating plant to woodchips. He and most other environmental activists repudiated large scale wood burning plants years ago. And no environmentalists support burning plastic waste or treated wood for electric power or any other purpose! The film trashes environmental leaders with lies. All our favorite environmental organizations like 350.org, Union of Concerned Scientists, Sierra Club etc. are secretly in cahoots with billionaires intent on destroying the planet. Real billionaires and the likes of Breitbart are laughing all the way to the bank over this film. I wonder what Michael Moore's cut was.

The underlying point the film claims to be making is important. Our whole civilization is on a collision course with disaster. Renewable energy is one of the bright spots in the otherwise bleak picture of man's impact on the Earth, but alone is not sufficient. Burning rainforests for beef production, factory farms, destroying habitat for palm oil and ten thousand other assaults on Mother Earth need to be stopped. But to the extent folks not familiar with the contribution much cleaner energy can make are discouraged from moving away from fossil fuels, "Planet of the Humans" makes the situation even more dire. Thanks for less than nothing, Michael. I will view anything else you produce with a very jaundiced eye if at all.

Ed Haffmans

The monster we have created in our colony, Israel

June 25

GUEST: Shaina Low, U.S. Advocacy Officer at Defense for Children International - Palestine and former Development Coordinator for The Freedom Theater in Jenin, talks about police abuse and HR 2407, the "No Way To Treat a Child" Act. 

Defense of Children International - Palestine

There is no trouble finding pictures of Israeli soldiers arresting children. Some are so young that you wonder what they could have done. Most have done absolutely nothing as it turns out. They are arrested almost indiscriminately as punishment for comunities that are demonstrating against house demolitions, checkpoints, and the grinding brutality of occupation.

So most arrests are made in the middle of the night, with doors pushed in and children torn from their beds. Children are routinely abused and often tortured to get them to admit some made up offense, usually stone throwing. They don't have lawyers; there is no proof offered. If they want to go home to their parents, they sign. These apartheid plea deals are made in almost every case.

Apartheid? Well Palestinians don't have anywhere near the rights of Jews in Israel and the occupied territories. All the punishments are more sever, and all the judges are members of the Israeli Defense Force.

Now that so many Americans have come to understand the horrors of the "New Jim Crow," perhaps we can also comprehend the monster we have created in our colony, Israel. We fund the monster to the tune of 3.8 billion dollars a year. We defend the monster at the UN and in other international bodies. And with all of our money money and protection, the monster can't even treat Palestinian children with humanity. Shame on us for letting this happen. 

When the body bags are piled at the end of our streets

June 18

GUEST: Jeff Mikkelson, researcher and grassroots healthcare activist, talks about the campaign to get his town, Phillipstown, to pass a resolution supporting the New York State Health Act.

What is the New York Health Act?

Jeff is a determined guy. Universal Healthcare makes so much sense that it is almost a crime against millions of Americans that the richest nation in the world can't have what has become a human right in other developed countries. And why can't we have it? The pharmaceutical and insurance companies, as well as the for profit health corporations. Our government is set up to please these huge corporate entities at the expanse of the rest of us.

Jeff wanted to see if this played well at a local town board. Would board members understand why so many go bankrupt or die because they have no health coverage? And if he was able to explain it locally, would that make any difference?

When advocating for racial justice, there is a moment of enlightenment when white Americans understand that their privilege has come at the cost of someone else's suffering. Perhaps Americans who have good healthcare coverage will experience the same awakening. Some billionaires are getting even richer by jeopardizing the lives of the millions who are uninsured or underinsured. Do we have blood on our hands for living comfortably in such a system?

Or maybe the revolution in healthcare will come when the body bags are piled at the end of our streets. COVID is such a killer because our healthcare system is so dysfunctional that we still can't even buy a mask. That we can't even get tested. Maybe small town all over the US will start pressuring their representatives to wean themselves from the corporate gravy train and do something for this stricken nation.

That "thin blue line" of state terrorists

June 4

GUEST: Omar Ocampo, researcher at the Institute for Policy Studies, and co-author of the IPS study “Billionaire Bonanza 2020: Wealth Windfalls, Tumbling Taxes, and Pandemic Profiteers,” talks about the implications of a neoliberal endgame for the American Empire.

Billionaire Bonanza 2020

We will soon see what happens when a society becomes so unequal that millions come out to march in the streets.

Black lives matter to more white people than ever before. There was that time in the early 1960s when young people of all ages risked their lives during Freedom Summer. They traveled from all over the US to some of the most racists states, all in the name of civil rights. Many were threatened and a few died for the liberation of Black Americans from Jim Crow subjugation.

These current marches are somewhat different. Nor are they the race riots of the late 1960s when African Americans rose up in rage against their oppressors. These demonstrations are much more peaceful, apart from the police riots we see in all the major cities. They are also integrated, with youths of all colors agreeing that the time has come to stop police brutality and murder.

The youth of American seem to agree on socialism as well. A government run by the very rich grinds down all but the few. All but the very richest. So maybe young Blacks and whites understand that there is a common enemy, and that is the kleptocracy our homeland has become. One might say that it is a rebellion against the fascist police, but that may be missing the real point of the revolution. The police are brutal because the elites want them that way. How else to keep robbing the vast majority? If elections can't stop this call for social justice and equality, why it must come down to that "thin blue line" of state terrorists to save the day. This may soon be the class war that many of us have talked about, and even named our radio shows after. It is a dangerous time, for Trump might just be that billionaire supported fascist who ends our long and troubled experiment in democracy.

Common thread to our twin disasters

May 28

GUEST: Dr. Oliver Fein, Professor of Clinical Medicine and Public Health at the Weill Cornell Medical College and Chair of the Board of the NY Metro Chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program, talks about how COVID has changed the national healthcare debate.

PNHP NY Metro Chapter

There is a common thread to our twin disasters of racism and COVID. The state has failed to protect its citizens, or at least the 99% of them. The rich elite got a great deal of the stimulus money, as we knew they would. Our doctors went without protective clothing and masks. Our nursing homes became extermination centers due to lack of testing and substandard conditions.

And as always, Blacks are paying a much higher price. The state keeps itself in power by using racism to divide us. Trump and the Republican Party are just continuing the last hundred years of Jim Crow oppression, and it is tearing the country apart. The Democratic Party isn't much better. They are all talk while they get fat on the corporate gravy train. Look at our own Rep. Delgado. With ties to Wall Street corporations, he has resisted calls for a Green New Deal, for universal healthcare, and for a foreign policy based on respect for human rights. His "foreign policy" aide is an apologist for Israel,  who interned for an Israeli funded propaganda organization in the West Bank.

People like Dr. Fein, of course, are on the front lines in advocating for a fair and affordable healthcare program for everyone. The same program that every other developed country in the world already has. And the only reason we can't have healthcare for all is because the big insurance companies, the pharmaceutical companies and Wall Street buy up our politicians like Rep. Delgado and Governor Cuomo to make sure their obscene profits keep rolling in.

Sometimes there is the heady feeling that we could throw all the bums out. That we could join together and march from city to city and from state to state, demanding that the corporations take their knee off our necks, and let us breath. We could then put an end to racism and corporatism and embrace our multicolored future.

We will march in the street, as brothers and sisters

May 21

GUEST: Cody O'Rourke, human rights activist in the West Bank and coordinator of communications for the Good Shepherd Collective, talks about his organizations commitment to exposing apartheid and ending the occupation of Palestine. 

Good Shepherd Collective

Cody and the Good Shepherd Collective are trying to get Americans to understand what it is like living in a racist police state. That work should be getting easier now that the vail of police good intentions towards Black people has been ripped off. We all see how African Americans are subjected to violence and discrimination during every day of their lives. Black communities have been under served and over policed for more than a century, condemning their children and grandchildren to grow up as second class citizens.

This caste system is what lies ahead for Palestinians, once the State of Israel has claimed all of the Holy Land for its own. Palestinians will get substandard schools, underfunded medical facilities and job discrimination. Moreover, they will continually be targeted by the police for extrajudicial killings in the streets and in their homes. They will live the life of perpetual bondage to fear and depravation.

Their children will be arrested, beaten, tortured and made to confess to crimes that they didn't commit. That is if their children survive the arrest. Each time a Black child leaves the house, there is distinct possibility that he or she won't be coming back.

Black Americans and Palestinians have so much in common. They have both suffered from the same state racism and hatred. They have both watched as corrupt and despicable national leaders have targeted them for political advantage. They both have at times rebelled, demanding equal rights and equality in a repressive society that offers little of either.

One day perhaps we will all rise up and overthrow these corrupt and racist leaders in Israel and the United States. Someday we will march in the street, as brothers and sisters, to reclaim our democracy for we the people. Until that time we salute the resistance, and organize.