National • News & Public Affairs
A weekly one-hour public affairs radio program that provides analyses and views that are ignored or distorted in most media.Guests include Dar Jamail, Michael Pollan, Noam Chomsky, Antonia Jusef, Naomi Klein, Vandana Shiva, Jeff Cohen, David Zirin, Bill Moyers and Howard Zinn.
A weekly one-hour public affairs radio program that provides analyses and views that are ignored or distorted in most media.Guests include Dar Jamail, Michael Pollan, Noam Chomsky, Antonia Jusef, Naomi Klein, Vandana Shiva, Jeff Cohen, David Zirin, Bill Moyers and Howard Zinn.
Upcoming Episodes
May 25, 2022 National, News & Public Affairs
Chronicles of Dissent
In his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” Dr. King memorably said, “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” Our present precarious circumstances make Dr. King’s words abundantly clear. We face war, climate chaos, a pandemic, inequality, hunger and poverty. The perils confronting humankind are unprecedented. And always looming in the background are doomsday weapons that can destroy our precious planet. “The threats are accumulating,” Noam Chomsky says, “We are approaching the most dangerous point in human history. We are now facing the prospect of the destruction of organized human life on Earth.”
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May 18, 2022 National, News & Public Affairs
Roe v. Wade & the Supreme Court
Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision which established a constitutional right to abortion is under attack. The Supreme Court with its super-conservative majority is poised to overturn Roe. According to an editorial in Against the Current: “Poll after poll reveals that the right to abortion care actually has more popular support today than when Roe v. Wade was decided. If that right can be mutilated now, precedent and public opinion be damned, then no rights are secure from reactionary assault. For right-wing sharks getting rid of Roe is blood in the water.” The New York Times estimates more than 20 states “are expected to ban or substantially restrict abortion if the Supreme Court permits it.” However, some states like Colorado are going in the opposite direction, passing legislation legalizing the right to an abortion.
ListenMay 11, 2022 National, News & Public Affairs
The Future of Work
The future of work is unclear. There will be jobs. But what kind? The pandemic drove many to work remotely at home. As the crisis ebbs some will discover that’s the future. Crucial long-term factors affecting workers will be more and more AI, artificial intelligence, and automation. Corporations will be looking to expand in those areas to maximize profits. This is all happening while worker militancy has enjoyed a resurgence. Workers are challenging some of the biggest corporations. There’s been a marked uptick in unionization, organizing, and strikes at such behemoths as Amazon, Starbucks and Apple. Workers, who have seen wages stagnant for decades because of neoliberal economics are demanding higher pay and better benefits. In this changing landscape what will be the future of work?
ListenMay 4, 2022 National, News & Public Affairs
Hidden History of U.S., Ukraine, Russia Relations
The February 24th Russian invasion of Ukraine has rattled the world and has unleashed misery, death and destruction. What prompted Moscow’s attack? From their perspective, the expansion of NATO, a U.S.-led military alliance, up to Russia’s borders threatens their national security interests. It went against assurances given by Washington that that would not happen. Years ago, George Kennan, the much venerated State Department diplomat warned against NATO expansion. With great foresight he said, it “would be the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-cold-war era. Such a decision may be expected to inflame the nationalistic, anti-Western and militaristic tendencies in Russian opinion; to have an adverse effect on the development of Russian democracy; to restore the atmosphere of the cold war to East-West relations, and to impel Russian foreign policy in directions decidedly not to our liking.”
Read MoreApril 27, 2022 National, News & Public Affairs
On the Holocaust
Where does one start when talking about the Holocaust? The word derives from the Greek, a burnt offering, a sacrifice by fire. It is one of the greatest crimes in human history. And we are cautioned to learn its lessons. Historian Timothy Snyder argues that “The history that we might understand is rather different than the history that we generally remember and that if we did it right the lessons that we draw from the present and the future would be different lessons than the ones we draw now. And that’s important,” Snyder says, “because whether we like it or not we are already drawing lessons from the Holocaust. We do it all the time. But what if we understand the Holocaust incompletely or even incorrectly, then we’ve drawn the wrong lessons and we may be accelerating disaster rather than preventing it.”
Read MoreApril 20, 2022 National, News & Public Affairs
Russia, Ukraine, the War & the U.S.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine with its horrific atrocities and massive refugee crisis has turned the world upside down. The war will have a huge impact on global food security as both countries are major exporters of wheat, barley and other grains.
Read MoreApril 13, 2022 National, News & Public Affairs
Can Capitalism be Fixed? (Debate)
Capitalism’s origins, several centuries ago, can be traced to the expropriation of the commons and its transformation into private property. Since those hoary beginnings, it has evolved into an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and its operation for profit. There is no alternative we are told. Why isn’t there?
Read MoreApril 6, 2022 National, News & Public Affairs
Truth is the First Casualty of War
In the old communist countries, comrades who fell out of favor were crudely cut out of photographs. Today in the Digital Era it’s easy to electronically eliminate a person and/or their work. Take Chris Hedges. His show On Contact was aired on RT, a Russian state TV network. It was on YouTube when suddenly its six-year archive of programs disappeared. Hedges said this, “I vanished. In totalitarian systems you exist, then you don’t. I have a hard time seeing how a detailed discussion of Ulysses or the biographies of Susan Sontag and J. Robert Oppenheimer had any connection in the eyes of the most obtuse censors in Silicon Valley with Vladimir Putin.” And then he warns, “If this happens to me, it can happen to you.”
On the April 6th show our speaker will be Chris Hedges who is an award-winning journalist who has reported from the Balkans, the Middle East and Central America. Cornel West calls him, “The greatest radical writer and journalist of our generation.”
Read MoreMarch 30, 2022 National, News & Public Affairs
The Future of Media
The Digital Age has transformed the traditional media landscape. The so-called Fourth Estate is reeling. Thousands of journalists have lost their jobs. Newsrooms have shrunk. Beats have been eliminated. Bureaus have closed. Many important stories are given short shrift or not covered at all. Investigative journalism may soon be an endangered species. City hall and statehouse coverage has been particularly hard hit. Large parts of the country are served by one or no local newspapers. Internet giants like Facebook and Google, swimming in cash, run stories from hard-working reporters without offering fair compensation. It’s a brutal scene. An uninformed or half-informed citizenry undermines democracy. Craig Aaron of Free Press warns, “There are incredibly important decisions being made in Washington that shape the future of media. But they’re being done without the public’s involvement or consent.”
The speaker will be Craig Aaron who is the director of Free Press, a non-profit organization dedicated to safeguarding Net Neutrality, defending public media and sustaining quality journalism. His articles have appeared in The Guardian and The Progressive.
Read MoreMarch 23, 2022 National, News & Public Affairs
The Future of Media
The Digital Age has transformed the traditional media landscape. The so-called Fourth Estate is reeling. Thousands of journalists have lost their jobs. Newsrooms have shrunk. Beats have been eliminated. Bureaus have closed. Many important stories are given short shrift or not covered at all. Investigative journalism may soon be an endangered species. City hall and statehouse coverage has been particularly hard hit. Large parts of the country are served by one or no local newspapers. Internet giants like Facebook and Google, swimming in cash, run stories from hard-working reporters without offering fair compensation. It’s a brutal scene. An uninformed or half-informed citizenry undermines democracy. Craig Aaron of Free Press warns, “There are incredibly important decisions being made in Washington that shape the future of media. But they’re being done without the public’s involvement or consent.”
On our next show, our speaker will Craig Aaron who is the director of Free Press, a non-profit organization dedicated to safeguarding Net Neutrality, defending public media and sustaining quality journalism. His articles have appeared in The Guardian and The Progressive.
Read MoreMarch 16, 2022 National, News & Public Affairs
Extinction Rebellion, the Climate Crisis & Civil Resistance
xtinction Rebellion, also simply known as XR, is a global environmental movement. It was founded in the UK with the explicit aim of using nonviolent civil resistance to compel government action to avoid ecological collapse.
Our speaker will be Roger Hallam who is a Welsh organic farmer and environmental activist. He is co-founder of Extinction Rebellion, the cooperative federation Radical Routes and the political party Burning Pink.
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