Illegitimate

Guest: Ivy Meeropol, director or "Heir to an Execution" (2004) and "Indian Point" (2015). talks about nuclear power and the distortions of the energy industry.

All the facts in the world can't bring the danger home as much as thinking about trying to pickup your children or grandchildren from school after a nuclear meltdown. Ivy lives in Cold Spring, just eleven miles from one of the oldest nuclear power plants in the country. And her children attend the local school.

Imagine the traffic jam trying to even get into the school. And what if the children have already been taken away to "someplace in Carmel"? How would one find them again with the mass hysteria and miles long traffic jams? 

How could any company have built the plant so close to millions of people? And why isn't it shut down now? Indian Point is a wakeup call that those in charge of such things are insane. Paid off by the corporations and heedless of the risks, our leaders politely debate the future of nuclear power as if our lives don't matter. Indian Point is both a constant danger to millions, and a constant reminder that our two party, corporate controlled governmental system is basically illegitimate. 

To the streets you squishy liberals!

Guest: Dr. Craig Holman, Government Affairs Lobbyist for Public Citizen and author of many publications on lobbying and campaign finance reform, talks about defending democracy from the corruption of big money and restoring the voice of the people.

Craig should have his own radio show, that is if he wasn't doing such important work in Congress. Not only does he expose how the rich and their corporations drown everyone else out with their big money, he also works on solutions. Yes, Obama should sign an executive order requiring all companies that do business with the federal government to come clean on what money they give. So, sign the petition:

Obama, Close the Dark Money Corruption Loophole

But trying to change the corruption of our governmental system will take more than that. There has to be a groundswell of angry Americans that forces the two party system off the corporate teat. Now is the time Craig reminds us. Better do something soon before we have no representative government left. 

I was interested in how Craig's advice paralleled what Howard Zinn wrote about social change. Some may call it a form of anarchy, the pressuring of politicians by massive social movements. Black Lives Matter is one such group, demanding social justice in place of the New Jim Crow. Another is the environmental movement, sending a hundred Kayaks out to stop the Shell Oil drilling rig. Yes, we can pressure the crooks to do better, but only if we think big and get ourselves out from under the two party, corporate scam. 

To the streets you squishy liberals! 

Informing the debate about African American rights

Guest: Colia Liddell Lafayette Clark, early member of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) who worked with Medgar Evers and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., talks about the importance of Juneteenth Celebration and the illusive goal of social justice for African Americans.

We would like to thank Colia for being on Activist Radio, and coming to the Hudson Valley for our Juneteenth Celebration in Kingston, NY.

-Saturday, June 13, 5 pm, Juneteenth Celebration at the New Progressive Baptist Church, 8 Hone Street, Kingston. Keynote Speaker:  Colia Liddell Lafayette Clark, National Voter Rights Hall of Fame. End the New Jim Crow Action Network is also Including a delicious southern style dinner.

We had a bad phone connection, but we persisted and it payed off. Colia insisted on looking at the history of Juneteenth first, something I thought listeners might want to skip over. But each of her points informed out current debate about African American rights today. Her view that the country was built on racism against many immigrant groups was so interesting. The Irish lynching blacks in New York City during the Civil War period can be seen in this light. Turning one immigrant group against another is a way to control them all, and the tactic is certainly being used today by the 1% to keep from having to share their obscene wealth with the rest of the population.

So we had a few technical difficulties. There was a lot of wind sound, and at one point, Colia was unable to hear Eli's question. But it is good, authentic radio. We want to make you think, the exact opposite of what the mainstream media is trying to do. 

  

The addiction of war?

GUEST: Elaine Trumpetto, Executive Director for The Council on Addiction Prevention and Education of Dutchess County, talks about drug and alcohol abuse and the options available for treatment.

It didn't take us long to get off the well worn track of drug addiction and how intervention helps. There were questions about whether the emphasis on addiction played a role in the arrest and incarceration of people of color. In Dutchess County, African Americans are three times more likely to end up in jail than whites, despite the fact that whites and blacks abuse drugs at very similar rates. 

Then there were questions about why the state defines addictions in such a narrow range. Worrying about high schoolers smoking dope is pretty silly when we think nothing of sending graduates off to fight in the empire's endless wars. Why isn't there a death and dismemberment council in Dutchess County that would warn students not to listen to military recruiters?

In all, Elaine did very well in returning the discussion to education and intervention as a way to improve people's lives. We ended the interview with Eli's poem on the range of addictions that we know are self defeating. I will ask him for it and post it here.

Eli's Poem:

About Addiction

I do it -  it's bad -  I know it. I do it -  can't stop - I know it.

I do it - I like it - Can't stop. I do it - I hate it -  Can't stop.

Drinking, drugging, sexing, working. Shopping, betting, buying, eating. Smoking, stealing, starving, hoarding. Snorting, sniffing, bingeing, whoring.

I do it -  it's bad -  I know it. I do it -  can't stop - I know it.

Most will come to recognize the evil of apartheid

GUEST: Lia Tarachansky, who grew up in a settlement in the West Bank, talks about her new film, "On the Side of the Road," the story of how Israel fought to erase Palestine and then created a culture of denial.

We had recorded this interview earlier, so I was listening to it again as we did the program today. 

I was stuck this time as she described becoming aware of apartheid when she moved to Canada. People questioned Lia for the first time about Israel's human rights record, and she decided to do her own research. It was all there, from the Nakba of 1948 to the present day massacres in Gaza. She had spent her childhood and teenage years believing something so firmly that it took a new country to get her to analyze what had really transpired. 

I think that is certainly a major theme of Lia's film. And I wondered during our talk, whether there were listeners out there whose minds might be similarly liberated by our discussion. Zionism is religion in that it requires a blind faith in what was done in the name of the Jewish people. Forced to pay closer attention to the suffering and oppression of the Palestinians, most will come to recognize the evil of apartheid, and the truth will help restore their sense of humanity.

How did you let it get this bad?

GUEST: Hatim Kanaaneh, author and Palestinian doctor who has spent decades working with patients in the West Bank, discusses his new book, "Chief Complaint, A Country Doctor's Tales of Life in Galilee" by Just World Books.

Hatim is a very good storyteller. His recently published book of short stories is full of complex and interesting characters, who do their best under the prevailing system of Israeli apartheid. 

Within a page or two in each story, the protagonist becomes your next door neighbor, allowing you to watch the violence and racism right from your bedroom window. 

Americans need to understand how our country funds, arms and protects Israel, the source of all this Palestinian suffering. We need to awaken ourselves and restore our humanity by ending the occupation.

Someday, Hatim will be a hero for writing this book. It will be read in classes by students trying to understand racism and ethnic cleansing. Maybe one of them will ask you or me one day, "How did you let it get this bad?"

How political could an author get in the bad old days?

GUEST: Tom Miller, author of "Trading with the Enemy: A Yankee Travels Through Castro’s Cuba," talks about his views on the end of the 55 year US embargo.

Tom was a very entertaining guest with on obvious love of Cuba (from his Cuban wife to eventing strolls on the Malecón). Most of the interview centered on the readiness of the US and Cuba to put an end to the embargo.

We touched on a few issues. Yes, the US was forced to change its policy, since this country was completely isolated from the rest of the world in its illegal embargo. From the UN to the Organization of American States the rest of the world (except for the pariah state of Israel) had condemned our aggression.

Tom was surprised to hear that the US media never printed anything good about Cuba's revolution, despite its many positive aspects. From universal healthcare and free college education to the absence of childhood hunger and homelessness, The NY Times has never printed a positive fact about Castro's Cuba. 

He had been stopped by the Cuban Police and charged with handing out the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (he was innocent of the charge and was released). I have walked all over Havana and talked to many citizens. They had never seemed worried about what they were saying. We had a Cuban restaurant owner get up before about 35 people to say how capitalism would work better in his business (I am sure he could pay his workers less). He wasn't worried about the police in the least. So I think that our media has overplayed Cuban repression and underplayed the many positive gains of the revolution. Of course, our mainstream media has always been guided by Pentagon propaganda. 

Some critics have attacked Trading with the Enemy for being "strangely apolitical." But really, how political could an author get in the bad old days and still be published? Let's see if this new opening with Cuba can free our mainstream media of Cold War distortions.