www.araustralia.org

Alternative Radio (Aust.) PO Box 687 Cowes Victoria 3922 Australia tel. 61-4-1359 7828 inquiries@araustralia.org

30 Dec 020903 Howard Zinn - A People's History of the United States (Pt. 1)

Howard Zinn, professor emeritus at Boston University, is one of this country's most renowned and influential historians. He has helped spark a movement to reexamine what we call history. His classic book, A People's History of the US reverses traditional perspectives and presents history from the point of view of those who have been largely omitted from traditional texts. Zinn brilliantly reshuffles heroes and villains. The New York Times said the book should be "required reading". And this two-part program should be required listening. Howard Zinn, professor emeritus at Boston University, is perhaps this country's premier radical historian. He grew up in the slums of Brooklyn. As a teenager, he worked in a shipyard. During World War II, he saw combat duty as an air force bombardier. After the war, he went to Columbia University on the GI Bill. He was an active figure in the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements. His masterpiece, A People's History of the US continues to sell in huge numbers. He has written several plays including the widely acclaimed Marx in Soho. 23 Dec 020902 Howard Zinn - Can the System be Fixed

The scale of corporate scandals is unprecedented in American history. Many workers have lost not only their jobs but also their savings, pensions and investments. Upper management, the so-called captains of industry, cashed in their stocks long before they tanked. Wall Street brokers, dependent on commissions, were selling investors stocks they were describing in internal memos as 'crap' and 'junk'. WorldCom, the telecom giant, might take the cake for sheer perfidy. It originally acknowledged it had cooked their books to the tune of four billion dollars. Now it says that there's another three. Responding to public outcry, Congress passed a corporate reform bill that consumer advocate Ralph Nader calls "modest". Rogue capitalism has many people asking the question, Can the system be fixed? Howard Zinn, professor emeritus at Boston University, is perhaps this country's premier radical historian. He grew up in the slums of Brooklyn. As a teenager, he worked in a shipyard. During World War II, he saw combat duty as an air force bombardier. After the war, he went to Columbia University on the GI Bill. He was an active figure in the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements. His masterpiece, A People's History of the US continues to sell in huge numbers. He has written several plays including the widely acclaimed Marx in Soho. 16 Dec 021201 Greg Palast ­ The Best Democracy Money Can Buy

After Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez allegedly resigned in April, 2002 the New York Times declared "Democracy is no longer threatened by a would-be dictator." The US media, following the Bush Administration's lead, praised the shift in power and sidestepped the fact that Venezuela's democratically elected President was ousted by a military coup. Was this simply an exception to the rule of US support for democratic governments around the world? Or is the US Government's disregard of democracy so systemic that its own electoral process suffers? Florida's 2000 presidential election was fraught with technical errors and voter fraud. In any other country, the UN would have sent in election monitors. The hard evidence of this American-style coup was all over the foreign press, but carefully ignored by the mainstream media in the United States. Greg Palast won Britain's highest journalism honours for his 1998 undercover investigation of influence peddling by Enron and other US corporations within Tony Blair's cabinet. He then turned to the Bush Administration and exposed their refusal to investigate Saudi financing of terror. Palast's extraordinary reports have been front-page news in Europe, yet absent from America's mainstream media. He reports for BBC Television's Newsnight, The Observer of London and salon.com. His latest book is The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. 9 Dec 021104 Winona LaDuke - Native America: All Our Relations

Winona LaDuke is one of the most brilliant and articulate representatives of indigenous perspectives. At the age of seventeen she spoke at the UN on behalf of Native Americans. She is a founding member of Women of All Red Nations and director of the Land Recovery Project on the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota. An inspiring speaker, she was the 1996 and 2000 vice-presidential candidate of the Green Party, the first Native American to run for national office. She is the author of All Our Relations: Native Struggles for Land and Life. 2 Dec 21202 Hanan Ashrawi - Prospects for Peace in the Middle East

The adjective most often used to describe the Israeli - Palestinian conflict is intractable. Ancient hatreds, the experts tell us, make it impossible for the two peoples to live in peace. 'Peace, peace, peace' is chanted like a mantra by both parties. Yet what is preventing it from being realised? For decades, there has been an almost unanimous international consensus on solving the problem. UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338 are the foundations for a settlement. Two countries have consistently opposed the implementation of those resolutions: Israel and the United States. Hanan Ashrawi is one of the foremost representatives of the Palestinian viewpoint. She served as Minister of Education in the Palestinian Authority before breaking with Arafat. She is head of the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy. Dr. Ashrawi is the author of From Intifada to Independence and This Side of Peace. 25 Nov 021102 Edward Said - A Palestinian Perspective on the Conflict with Israel

The Palestinian viewpoint is rarely heard in the mainstream media and when it is, like on The O'Reilly Factor or Hardball, it is interrupted and cut off. Palestinians have been demonised and have become virtually synonymous with terrorist. They simply lust for the blood of innocents. There is little or no rational discourse. Context and background are reduced to formulaic constructions. That they have been living under the longest military occupation in modern times is not even mentioned. The great Uruguayan writer and journalist Eduardo Galeano says, "Palestinians have been damned to play the scapegoat for European anti-Semitism and to pay with their land and blood for the holocaust they did not commit". Edward Said, internationally renowned Columbia University professor, practically invented the field of post-colonial studies. His great work, Orientalism has been translated into many languages and is widely used in colleges and universities. The New York Times called him, "one of the most influential literary and cultural critics in the world." As one of the few advocates for Palestinian rights in the US, he was the target of vilification, death threats and vandalism. The Economist said he "repudiated terrorism in all its forms and was a passionate, eloquent and persistent advocate for justice for the dispossessed Palestinians." He was a trenchant critic not just of Israeli policies, but also of Arafat, the corrupt coterie around him and the despotic Arab regimes. He felt strongly that intellectuals had a special responsibility to speak out against injustice, challenge power, confront hegemonic thinking and provide alternatives. His memoir Out of Place won the New Yorker Book of the Year Award. Edward Said died in New York on September 25, 2003. 18 Nov 021101 Rahul Mahajan - The New Crusade: America's War on Terrorism

A year after the Sept. 11th attacks the US Government is still not willing to examine the real source of global discontent. And why do they hate us, as many media figures have asked in hurt, confused tones? When you look beyond the mainstream US media, journalists and intellectuals throughout the world point to the spectre of US imperialism as the obvious culprit in breeding desperation and terrorism. We now have military bases in over 60 countries. We give more aid to Israel, a first world country, than all of sub-Saharan Africa combined. US-backed sanctions against Iraq have led to the deaths of half a million Iraqi children - a price, according to Madeleine Albright, the US is willing to pay. Questioning US foreign policy is considered almost blasphemous - grounds for suspicion and investigation. According to a state department report issued before September 11th, US involvement overseas increases the chances of terrorist attacks. It seems that failing to question US policy may be the most dangerous path to follow. Rahul Mahajan is a member of the Nowar Collective, the National Board of Peace Action, and the National Committee of the National Network to End the War against Iraq. He is a frequent contributor to commondreams.org. He is the author of The New Crusade. 11 Nov 021103 Scott Ritter - Target Iraq

The US is holding military aid hostage, and for ransom they want immunity in the International Criminal Court. This deal, proctered by Bush, would halt military aid to countries unless they agree not to use the Court to try Americans for war crimes. The International Criminal Court, known as the ICC, was created to try individuals accused of war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity in order to bring criminals to justice and deter future atrocities. Bush's unprecedented 'unsigning' of the ICC treaty keeps the US Government on track with its policy of so-called "full-spectrum dominance" - officially defined as the ability of US forces operating alone or with allies, to defeat any adversary and control any situation across the range of military operations. There is no better example of unilateral US policies that lead to ever more animosity than our current trajectory in Iraq. Scott Ritter was a Marine intelligence officer during the Gulf War. He then became a weapons inspector for the UN from 1991 to 1998, at which point he resigned in protest because of its lack of effectiveness. He declared: "the illusion of arms control is more dangerous than no arms control at all." He produced the documentary Shifting Sands which detailed the weapons inspection program during his 7 year tenure. Ritter is the author of Endgame: Solving the Iraqi Problem Once and For All. 4 Nov 990402 Noam Chomsky - US Iraq Policy: Motives and Consequences

The US is poised to launch a major war on Iraq. A day does not go by without urgent new pronouncements from on high about the need to attack Iraq. US missile and air strikes on that country, since the end of the Gulf War, have become so routine as to be hardly noticed. Staples of media coverage include Pentagon-generated footage of jets roaring off carrier decks, bemedalled generals with their pointers and maps showing targets, government officials and pundits warning about weapons of mass destruction. Is there something missing from the official story? Noam Chomsky, renowned MIT professor, has made a careful study of US Iraq policy and has uncovered much hidden history and information. He is recognised the world over as the foremost critic of US foreign policy. His book 9-11 is an international bestseller. 28 Oct 021007** John Pilger - The Power of Dissent in Words and Pictures

For over 30 years Australian born journalist, author and commentator, John Pilger has documented in words and pictures the changing social and political world. An accredited war correspondent he has reported on conflicts from Vietnam, Cambodia, Egypt, India, Bangladesh and Biafra. However, Pilger has not always interpreted what he has seen in the same way as some of his colleagues. With an eye for detail, Pilger has more often than not reported on the inconsistencies and, at times, lies that governments and businesses have perpetrated in their pursuit of power. In August 2002 Pilger staged an exhibition of over 200 photographs from many of the photojournalists he has worked with over his 30 odd year career. Hosted by the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, the exhibition titled Reporting the World highlights not only the atrocities committed during war but also the contradictions and foibles of human existence. John Pilger, author, journalist and filmmaker has been honoured with many awards during his long and distinguished career including two UN Media Peace Prizes. In 2002 he published New Rulers of the World and released a film with the same name. (**CD only) 21 Oct 021006** Paula Aboud, Jude McCulloch, Kylie Wilkinson and David Lyon - City State (Pt. 4): Interventions

CITY STATE goes beyond the continual silence of governments, industry and conservative privacy organisations to map the different ways surveillance is reconfiguring social space, power and the ways we live. Held in Sydney and Melbourne during 2002, CITY STATE is the result of a collaboration between the Surveillance unit (UTS Community Law and Legal Research Centre) and SpaceStation Media Lab, who decided to create a project to increase public debate about surveillance and social control in our society. Paula Aboud is a community worker, writer and activist. She has worked with immigrant and refugee women for the past 15 years in a diversity of settings. She is currently working with ethnic communities on an anti-racism project in Western Sydney. Jude McCulloch currently lectures in Police Studies at Deakin University. Prior to this she worked in various community legal centres for 16 years. She has researched and published on a range of policing issues and is the author of Blue Army: Paramilitary Policing in Australia. Kylie Wilkinson paints and employs video to explore different ways of generic space. She is interested in the gaps between art, audience and public actions. She is a participant in <compound eye>. David Lyon teaches Sociology at Queens University in Ontario, Canada. He is also Director of the Surveillance Project and the editor of the new e-journal, Surveillance and Society. And the author of Surveillance Society: Monitoring Everyday Life. (**CD only) 14 Oct 021005** Angela Metropolous, Jenny Hocking and Jude McCulloch - City State (Pt. 3): Spies and 9/11

CITY STATE goes beyond the continual silence of governments, industry and conservative privacy organisations to map the different ways surveillance is reconfiguring social space, power and the ways we live. Held in Sydney and Melbourne during 2002, CITY STATE is the result of a collaboration between the Surveillance unit (UTS Community Law and Legal Research Centre) and SpaceStation Media Lab, who decided to create a project to increase public debate about surveillance and social control in our society. Angela Metropolous edits and writes for the xborder website and has written for and edited a number of other journals and magazines on the issues of border policing, migration and virtual movements. Jenny Hocking is head of the National Key Centre for Australian Studies, QEII Research fellow and author of Lionel Murphy: A Political Biography and Beyond Terrorism: The Development of the Australian Security State. Jude McCulloch currently lectures in Police Studies at Deakin University. Prior to this she worked in various community legal centres for 16 years. She has researched and published on a range of policing issues and is the author of Blue Army: Paramilitary Policing in Australia. (**CD only) 7 Oct 021004** Dean Wilson, Roger Clark and David Sutton - City State (Pt. 2): Electronic Bodies

CITY STATE goes beyond the continual silence of governments, industry and conservative privacy organisations to map the different ways surveillance is reconfiguring social space, power and the ways we live. Held in Sydney and Melbourne during 2002, CITY STATE is the result of a collaboration between the Surveillance unit, UTS Community Law and Legal Research Centre and SpaceStation Media Lab, who decided to create a project to increase public debate about surveillance and social control in our society. Dean Wilson is a research fellow in the Department of Criminology at the University of Melbourne. He is currently completing the first major study of "town centre" closed circuit television systems in Australia. Roger Clark specialises in the management of information and information technology. He work encompasses corporate strategy, government policy and public advocacy, particularly in relation to privacy and dataveillance. David Sutton is a policy researcher and technology theorist who looks at the modern reality of living among dataphamtoms. (**CD only) 30 Sep 021003** David Lyon City State (Pt.1): Our Surveillance Society

CITY STATE goes beyond the continual silence of governments, industry and conservative privacy organisations to map the different ways surveillance is reconfiguring social space, power and the ways we live. Held in Sydney and Melbourne during 2002, CITY STATE is the result of a collaboration between the Surveillance unit (UTS Community Law and Legal Research Centre) and SpaceStation Media Lab, who decided to create a project to increase public debate about surveillance and social control in our society. David Lyon teaches Sociology at Queens University in Ontario, Canada. He is also Director of the Surveillance Project and the editor of the new e-journal, Surveillance and Society. And the author of Surveillance Society: Monitoring Everyday Life. (**CD only) 23 Sep 021002 Noam Chomsky - A Journalist from Mars Covers the War on Terrorism

America's war on terrorism may last 50 years, says Vice President Cheney, and may extend to 60 countries. A key element in any war is mobilising domestic support. The role of the media is to manufacture consent. According to CBS News anchor Dan Rather, the media are only too willing to go along. He says fear of being called unpatriotic cowers most journalists, including himself, into submission. A prevalent media convention is to focus on enemy crimes with laser-like intensity while never looking at our own. Terrorism just happens. There is no history or context. They, 'the evildoers' hate us. That's it. End of story. A journalist visiting from Mars, unconstrained and free from propaganda, might have a different take on the war on terrorism. Noam Chomsky, MIT professor, in addition to being a pioneer in linguistics, is internationally renowned for his scholarship and activism on media issues, human rights and social justice. The Guardian calls him, "One of the radical heroes of our age." He is a regular contributor to Z magazine. His books include Propaganda and the Public Mind and 9-11. He is in such demand as a speaker that he is literally booked years in advance. And wherever he goes he draws huge overflow audiences, as he did on this occasion at New York's Town Hall. 9/16 Sep 020905 / 020906** Marcus Einfeld - Asylum Seekers: The Highjacking of the Australian Conscience (Pts. 1 and 2)

Many will argue that September 11th 2001 saw the most destructive act in living memory. However, for those with an historical understanding, the events of that day, were just another outcome of the unfolding human tragedy that war, unequal distribution of resources and Western imperialist attitudes bring. For many here in Australia, the changes we are seeing to national security laws and threats to individual freedom, began not in the sky's of a nation 1/2 a world away, but in the waters just to our north some three weeks earlier. On August 26th 2001 the Norwegian registered cargo Vessel, the Tampa, answered a distress signal as is required under international maritime law. The Captain, Arne Rinner, and his crew made their way to a sinking Indonesian ferry overloaded with 438 refugee women, children and men who were attempting to reach the Australian coast. Once the Tampa had picked up his cargo of human misery Captain Rinner set sail for the Australian territory of Christmas Island. On August 27th he was officially refused entry into Christmas Island port. From that point on, the event that we now call the "Tampa Incident" became and remains a focus on the plight of innocent people trying to flee the ravages of brutality in their home countries. Marcus Einfeld, AO, QC, PhD, has long been an advocate for human rights, justice and law reform. He has served as a Justice of the Supreme Court in three Australian jurisdictions and has been a Federal Court Judge. He was Australia's UN Ambassador for Children and was the Foundation President of the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. Marcus Einfeld delivered the 9th Eleanor Shaw Lecture on the first anniversary of the so-called 'Tampa Incident'. (**CD only) 2 Sep 020901 Ralph Nader - Corporate Crime Wave

Years ago Irving Berlin wrote a song entitled Heat Wave. Today we are experiencing what Business Week calls "a corporate crime wave". It is difficult to keep up with the scandal du jour. The bubble has burst for Enron, Xerox, Global Crossing, Qwest, Adelphia, WorldCom and for their employees and investors. 'Aggressive accounting', ie., fraud, has vastly overstated profits and hidden costs. The scale of deceit is staggering. Will the crooks get by with some mild wrist slapping or will those that did the crime serve the time? Ralph Nader has spent a lifetime fighting on behalf of ordinary people. He catapulted into national limelight in the 1960s when he took on GM and its notoriously unsafe Corvair car. Nader practically invented the idea that consumers have rights. Life magazine ranks him among the 100 most influential Americans of the 20th century. He was the Green Party presidential candidate in 2000. 26 Aug 001102** Peter Read - Belonging

Land rights issues are a common cause among indigenous peoples worldwide. The attachment to a sense of place is a defining moment in the lives of indigenous communities as they struggle to regain or maintain sacred sites and places of ritual. Australian indigenous peoples have long fought to maintain their links to the land. But what about those non-indigenous peoples who have settled here? Is it possible for them to create deep and abiding ties to the same earth? If so, what does this mean for land rights issues? Dr. Peter Read has written widely on the subjects of Aboriginal history, place studies and belonging. Dr. Read's book Belonging: Australians, Place and Aboriginal Ownership examines the sense of loss non-indigenous peoples feel when their special places are destroyed. He explores the question of dispossession by investigating the attempts non-indigenous people have made to 'connect' with the land. Dr. Read delivered the inaugural A. W. Howitt Lecture at Monash University's Gippsland Campus on 13th November 2000. (**CD only) 19 Aug 001006 Howard Zinn - War and Democracy

"Truth is the first casualty of war," a wise politician once said. Since Vietnam, the US has tightly controlled the flow of information to the public. Grenada, Panama, the Gulf War and Yugoslavia were carefully orchestrated Pentagon briefings with high ranking officers in front of maps talking about smart bombs and hard targets. For most of the folks at home all they were getting were official stories. When the war is over, citizens get to hear solemn speeches about sacrifice and how it was all worth it to keep the world safe for democracy. Howard Zinn, professor emeritus at Boston University, is perhaps this country's premier radical historian. His masterpiece, A People's History of the US continues to sell in huge numbers. Among the many honours he has received are the Eugene Debs Award and the Upton Sinclair Award. His play Marx in Soho is being widely performed. 12 Aug 991201 Charlie Kernaghan - The Human Face of the Global Economy

When you go down to your nearest mall and shop for clothes you are looking for the best price. If you can get a name brand all the better. Few consider who makes that shirt, sweater, or pair of jeans or sneakers. Evidence has mounted in the past couple of years that a lot of the clothing and shoes we buy from companies like Nike are made under dreadful sweatshop conditions by poorly paid workers, many of them children, in Third World countries. Charlie Kernaghan is the executive director of the National Labor Committee, an independent, human rights organisation based in New York. He is prominent in the movement in drawing attention to and correcting the overseas labor practices of US corporations. The "New York Times" calls him "the labor movement's mouse that roared." 5 Aug 020802 Norman Solomon - Orwellian Media

George Orwell, the author of 1984 and Animal Farm, wrote that "political speech is largely the defence of the indefensible and consists of euphemisms, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness." Newspeak was the official language of 1984. It was designed, "to diminish the range of thought." Today, the media saturate us with terms that would have made Orwell wince. The lexical minefield is littered with 'collateral damage', 'detainees', 'unlawful combatants' and 'terrorism'. Saudi Arabia, one of the most repressive countries in the world, is described as 'moderate'. Norman Solomon, a nationally syndicated columnist, is a leading media critic. The National Council of Teachers of English honoured him with the George Orwell Award for Distinguished Contribution to Honesty and Clarity in Public Language. He is director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, a consortium of policy researchers and analysts. He is the author of many books including The Habits of Highly Deceptive Media. 29 Jul 020801 Michael Moore - Stupid White Men

By chance, Michael Moore's new book Stupid White Men was printed on September 10th, 2001. The next day the publishers suddenly considered Moore's book "inappropriate." Moore's publisher claimed that a book with sections like "Kill Whitey" and a letter asking Bush to resign would not go over well in post-911 America. They asked him to rewrite half the book, but Moore refused. The book languished for months in the warehouse. Disgruntled librarians finally broke the stalemate. They yelled censorship, and the publisher cried mercy, finally shipping the book in its original form. Although opinion polls announced unprecedented support for Bush and the war, Moore's "unpatriotic" book shot to the top of bestseller lists shocking the profiteers and pundits. Moore first brought his humorous and radical analysis to mainstream audiences with the award-winning documentary Roger and Me. His television series include The Awful Truth and the Emmy-winning TV Nation. His first book, Downsize This! was a bestseller. Moore's released the documentary film Bowling for Columbine in 2002. 22 Jul 020704 Frances Fox Piven - Welfare Reform Revisited

In the years following the 1996 welfare reform act, the media were full of success stories of women on welfare who had given up their dependency and were now hard working contributors to society. Their putative laziness and promiscuity were things of the past. Welfare reform would deliver them to the workplace and dignity. It hasn't quite turned out like that. Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF), the new version of welfare, is soon to expire. The economic downturn has left many women out of work and destitute. With no safety net, they and their children are driven to soup kitchens, food pantries and shelters. Frances Fox Piven, founder of the welfare rights movement, is co-author of a number of award-winning books, including Regulating the Poor, The Breaking of the American Social Compact and Why Americans Still Don't Vote. She is Distinguished Professor of political science and sociology at the graduate school of the City University of New York. 15 Jul 020703** Harry Glasbeek - Flat Earth: Corporate Criminality

Every year hundreds of workers are injured or killed in workplace accidents. These injuries and deaths are easily recorded as cause and effect is often immediately evident. However, there are other injuries and illnesses that are insidious and, more often than not, dismissed as lifestyle related rather than workplace induced. No longer disputed is the fact that exposure to asbestos can lead to injury or death but what does remain disputed is who is responsible for allowing workers to remain exposed to it. Even as workers continue to die from mesothelioma and other asbestos related diseases no-one is prepared to admit guilt in allowing the material to be used long after cause and effect were established. Professor Harry Glasbeek has made his life work the study of corporate criminality and the ways corporations kill people. During his student years he worked his summer vacations in Victoria's Latrobe Valley power stations. Although retired, he is still a visiting lecturer at Toronto's York University. He spoke at the May 2002 meeting of the Gippsland Asbestos Related Diseases Support Group (GARDS) in Moe, Victoria. (**CD only) 8 Jul 020702 John Ikerd - Sustainable Agriculture

There is no sanctuary from corporate conglomeration, not even our food supply. A handful of corporations now own the majority of farms. Predictably, the profits are shuttled away from where they are created, and responsibility to the land and its people is absent. The benefits heralded by the corporations fall short of their claims. Pesticide and fertiliser use is up with little or no increased productivity. Topsoil is washing out to sea at alarming rates. Our monoculture food crops are becoming increasingly at risk of catastrophic loss. Sustainable agriculture is the antithesis of this corporate agribusiness and is ultimately about sustaining people, not profits. John Ikerd, Professor Emeritus of Agricultural Economics at the University of Missouri, has written extensively on how sustainable farming practices affect and are affected by industrialisation, the environment, economics, and communities. He now spends his time writing and speaking out on issues related to sustainable agriculture with an emphasis on the economics of sustainability. 1 Jul 020701 Angela Davis - Race, Power, and Prisons Since September 11

In 1992, an all white jury acquitted 4 white police officers after they brutally beat Rodney King, a black man, as he lay prone on the ground. The United States was sitting on a racial tinderbox. Fuelled by enormous inequality between whites and people of colour, it erupted. L.A. burned. 55 people died, 2300 were injured, and 13,000 were arrested, mostly Black and Latino. Smaller riots ensued around the country. Since the uprisings, we have approximately doubled our prison population. 70% of those in prison are people of colour, the majority of whom are in for non-violent drug offences. Have we addressed racial inequality in this country, or have we simply hidden the reality of racism behind bars? Angela Davis is an internationally regarded writer, scholar and lecturer, speaking widely on the prison industrial complex. She's the author of Women, Race and Class, Women, Culture and Politics and Blues Legacies and Black Feminism. She teaches at UC Santa Cruz. 24 Jun 020603 Ronnie Dugger - Reclaiming Democracy

Democracy as theory is celebrated and triumphant. Yet democracy as practice is anaemic. Citizen participation is low. Voting continues to decline. Corporations wield tremendous economic and political power. Ordinary people are relegated to the sidelines. The two political parties have some differences but Clinton and others before him have basically turned the Democrats into Republican-lite. But on one thing they are unanimous. And that is lining up for financial contributions from the wealthy. The practice of one dollar, one vote threatens to transform democracy into cashocracy. So-called campaign finance reform laws are passed but the fat cats always find loopholes around them. The Alliance for Democracy is a national grassroots organisation trying to light a fire under citizens to reenergise and democratise the political system. Ronnie Dugger, a long-time journalist and activist, was instrumental in getting the Alliance going. He was the founding editor of the Texas Observer and author of books on Lyndon Johnson and Ronald Reagan. 17 Jun 020602 Ralph Nader - Crashing the Party

Ralph Nader has spent a lifetime fighting on behalf of ordinary people, and few Americans have the respect and prestige that he commands. Life magazine ranks him as one of the country's most influential Americans of the twentieth century. Founder of Public Citizen, he is a long-time advocate for consumer safety and workers' rights. He rose to fame in the 1960s when he took on General Motors and its unsafe Corvair car. His 1965 book Unsafe At Any Speed not only created a sensation but was instrumental in the enactment of the Motor Vehicle Safety Act. He helped create the Environmental Protection Agency. He has exposed the misdeeds of the corporate sector as well as of the political system. He is perhaps best known for Nader's Raiders and for sparking debate on issues ranging from the Corvair to the Dalkon Shield. In recent years he has led the struggles around NAFTA, the WTO and corporate welfare. In 1996 he was the Green Party presidential candidate, and in 2000 he was their candidate again. 10 Jun 020504 Esmail Nooriala - The Multicultural Middle East

The Middle East is a mix of ethnic groups, cultures, and religions that can hardly be represented as a unified world of Islam. There is not one monolithic Islamic civilization, but rather a multitude. The mentality that groups all the different cultures of the Middle East under one umbrella and then uses it as the basis of foreign policy is both misleading and dangerous. During its long history, the Middle East has evolved its many identities both together and separately. Esmail Nooriala analyses and critiques US policy that postulates that after the end of Cold War and its ideological clash, that now is the time for the "Clash of Civilisations". Nooriala is a Persian poet based in Denver, Colorado. He started the Association of Iranian Writers. He has edited several literary magazines inside and outside of Iran. During his years of exile, he has published a major work of modern Persian poetry called Theory of Poetry and has written extensively on Persian literature and culture. 3 Jun 020503 Charlotte Ryan - Prime Time Activism

The media are powerful tools long used to inform the public and form public opinion. A glut of entertainment, information and propaganda is conveniently delivered to us in a manner that often makes it difficult to discern one from another. As the sources of information continue to narrow and competition for our attention increases, it becomes more important than ever to be a critical consumer. Various groups, the religious right in particular, have used the media quite effectively to bolster their ranks and coffers and further their agendas. Charlotte Ryan argues that progressives have much to learn from them. Ryan is the author of Prime Time Activism: Media Strategies for Grass Roots Organising. She is also co-director of the Boston College Media Research and Action Project, part of their Department of Sociology. Charlotte Ryan was interviewed by David Barsamian. 27 May 020502 Helen Caldicott - Desperate Passions and Direct Actions

Our planet is becoming increasingly polluted and unalterably changed. Governments seem more intent on promoting and protecting corporate interests than those of the citizenry. While corporations experiment with our food supply and find more markets for their ever-expanding arsenals of chemicals, we bear the financial burdens of cleaning up the toxic soup. We also face an epidemic of cancer and other illnesses related to the devastation of our environment as legislators loosen and overturn protective laws. Helen Caldicott says the condition is critical, that the time is now and she has a few ideas. Caldicott is an anti-nuclear and environmental activist and founding president of physicians for Social Responsibility, which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985. Her autobiography is titled, A Desperate Passion. 20 May 020501 John Pilger - Setting the Record Straight

A scathing critic of mainstream media, Pilger has for many years found it difficult to obtain column space for his writings. His films, although shown from time to time on the commercial networks, are usually only viewed on progressive networks thus limiting their exposure to a wider audience. In this address, delivered during his visit to Sydney in February and March 2002, Pilger explores the ways in which mainstream media self-censor and allow, by omission, myths and halftruths to be born out of reality. These halftruths and myths, Pilger argues, become the dominant themes in public discourse and distort the public perspective of actual history. He goes a step further and urges the audience to not just accept what is presented as fact but to actively organise, participate and ultimately transform the media into a vehicle of truth and honesty. John Pilger is one of the worlds most highly acclaimed journalists and documentary filmmakers. Australian born Pilger has lived in the UK since the early 1960s and has won numerous awards for his work including two UN Media Peace Prizes. He spoke to an overflowing audience at Sydney's Town Hall on March 1st 2002. The address was recorded by 2SER's Meagan Phillipson. 13 May 020404 Ira Glasser - Patriotism, Civil Liberties and Terrorism

"He that is not for us is against us," proclaimed the Federalist Gazette of the United States, immediately after President Adams passed the Alien and Sedition Act of 1798. This act had the power to jail critics of the president and government policies. Editors of newspapers and Congressmen were thrown in jail for their opinions. In an eerie parallel, George W. Bush declared, "Either you're with us, or you are with the terrorists," in response to the September 11th attack. He then quickly enacted the Patriot Act and signed it into law. With its broad definition of terrorism and even broader powers of surveillance, detention and prosecution, the Patriot Act can put any dissenter into jail. Even protesting the Patriot Act is grounds for incarceration. Opponents of the vast increase in government policing powers worry that basic liberties are being eroded. They say that only a change in US foreign policy will make our citizens and the world safer. What if they are right? Should their voices be silenced? Ira Glasser is a lawyer and noted civil libertarian. He was Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union for many years. 6 May 020403 David Korten - From Corporate Rule to Civil Society

In 1995, former international development insider David Korten published his influential book, When Corporations Rule the World. At the time, corporate globalisation was largely unopposed. That has changed over the last few years as hundreds of thousands of people across the globe have taken to the streets to protest the growing power of transnational corporations. In this presentation, David Korten proposes how we can move from protesting corporate globalisation to regaining the power of the people: to move from corporate rule to civil society. For over two decades, David Korten worked for the Ford Foundation and the US Agency for International Development. After severing his ties to this past, he moved on to become president of the People-Centered Development Forum. He recently published The Post-Corporate World: Life After Capitalism. 29 Apr 020601** Marcus Clayton, Dave Kerin, Damien Lawson & Martin Kingham - Fighting for our Civil Liberties

Since September 11th 2001 governments around the world have been introducing a range of legislation that have been given the generic term 'anti-terrorism laws'. In Australia there are currently 6 sets of Bills before our legislators. The three most worrying Bills, according to civil rights activists, are 1) The Security Legislation (Terrorism) Amendment Bill, 2) The Suppression of Financing of Terrorism Bill and 3) the ASIO Amendment Act. These three bills alone are causing activists, church leaders, union officials and some politicians of all persuasions to question the real motives behind these repressive proposals. For some the parallels between the current proposals and the laws passed during the infamous "McCarthy" era of the 1950s are striking. These concerns were given voice, in part, at the first Reclaiming Australia Conference held in Melbourne's Trades Hall in Early April. Organised by the Public First Campaign and titled Fighting for Our Civil Liberties the conference examined some of the issues these proposed legislation raise and the concerns held by those who wish to see them defeated in the Parliament. (**CD only) 22 Apr 020402 Howard Zinn - Emma Goldman, Anarchism and War Resistance

Emma Goldman is largely an unknown figure today. She deserves wider recognition. She was born in Lithuania and died in 1940. She spent many years as an organiser in the United States. She was a major anarchist thinker and activist as well as a passionate advocate for women's rights. Anarchism today is mostly viewed negatively. It's seen as a synonym for disorder and chaos. Few recognise it as a political philosophy rooted in the ideals of the Enlightenment. Noam Chomsky calls it "the libertarian wing of socialism." Anarchism not only opposes the institutions of state coercion and violence, it questions the very legitimacy of the state. Howard Zinn, professor emeritus at Boston University, is perhaps this country's premier radical historian. He grew up in the slums of Brooklyn. As a teenager, he worked in a shipyard. During World War II, he saw combat duty as an air force bombardier. After the war, he went to Columbia University on the GI Bill. He was an active figure in the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements. His masterpiece, A People's History of the US continues to sell in huge numbers. He has written several plays including the widely acclaimed Marx in Soho. 15 Apr 020401 Bruce Gagnon - Beyond Star Wars: The Militarisation of Space

Star Wars is back and it's worse than ever. The Bush Administration is pushing to make apace into an arena of war and the frontier for future multinational or rather multiplanetary corporations. National Missile Defence is a misnomer. The US proposal is a provocative, aggressive program aimed at weaponising space and dominating the world. US military and government documents acknowledge their plans to control space and from there dominate the earth below. If they are not stopped, we will have an arms race in space. Bruce Gagnon, a Young Republican turned peace activist during the Vietnam War, is director of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space. 8 Apr 020304 Michael Eric Dyson - Malcolm X and the Politics of Race

The voice of Malcolm X, silenced so abruptly in 1965, speaks today to more people than ever before. His autobiography sells 150,000 copies a year. Malcolm X's life represent an extraordinary evolution and transformation from street hustler and ex-con to an intellectual visionary with a race and class analysis. He articulated a strong challenge to the system of power and privilege. His legacy grows and expands. Malcolm X continues to inform and influence new generations of African Americans and people of colour everywhere. Michael Eric Dyson has written with insight about Malcolm X's contemporary meaning and status as a cultural and political icon. His book, Making Malcolm, has been widely praised. 1 Apr 020303 Ron Daniels - The Wrong Complexion to Get the Protection

Stolen. That's how the year 2000 US presidential election will go down in history to the minds of many Americans. Numerous problems with voting procedures became apparent in the days following the election. But what may be most disturbing is how people of colour were literally stopped from reaching the polls. The events that occurred in Florida and in other states in many ways showed the true colours of the United States. This is a country still filled with racism despite the powerful civil rights movement. Are we returning to the dark days of black disenfranchisement? Ron Daniels is a long time organiser and political activist. He worked on the 1984 and 1988 Jesse Jackson Rainbow Coalition Presidential Campaigns. In 1992, he was an independent candidate for President on the "Campaign for a New Tomorrow Ticket". He is Executive Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York. He spoke in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. 25 Mar 020302 Michael Parenti - Globalisation and Imperialism

"The conquest of the earth, is not a pretty thing when you look at it too much," Joseph Conrad wrote in "Heart of Darkness." Conrad was writing about the Congo a century ago. Today, conquests are different, although they still involve military force at times. Globalisation is the cover for a system of economic, political and cultural domination by mostly US corporations. It is being implemented through the WTO, the IMF and the World Bank. Globalisation is built on sweatshops and economic exploitation. Its advocates ceaselessly triumph its virtues and benefits. However, a growing international movement is saying, Basta, Enough. Michael Parenti is one of America's leading independent political and social analysts. He has taught at major colleges and universities throughout the US and the world. Among his many books are Democracy for the Few, Against Empire, and To Kill a Nation. 18 Mar 020301 Vandana Shiva - Monocultures of the Mind

Over centuries, communities all over the world have developed knowledge and skills to derive livelihoods from the bounties of nature's diversity. Today, traditional agriculture is being undermined by external inputs and new rules of international trade. Globalisation advocates render local knowledge invisible by declaring it non-existent or illegitimate. Monocultures of the mind generate models of production which destroy diversity and legitimise that destruction as progress. Vandana Shiva of India is a leading voice for sustainable development and social justice. A Renaissance-type woman, she's a physicist, scholar, social activist and feminist. Dr. Shiva is Director of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Natural Resource Policy in New Delhi. She's the recipient of the Right Livelihood Award, the alternative Nobel Prize. She's the author of many books including Biopiracy, Stolen Harvest and Water Wars. 11 Mar 020204 Pervez Hoodbhoy - Pakistan, Islam and the US

Since September 11, Pakistan is at the center of American foreign policy. Overnight, the US needed Pakistan's support for the war on Afghanistan. The payoff for the impoverished South Asian country was substantial. Sanctions were lifted, debts were forgiven and aid and loans were offered. Pakistan was created in 1947 when the British partitioned India. That partition resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths, millions of refugees and an on-going conflict over Kashmir. Pakistan's raison d'être is Islam. Its 140 million people make it, after Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country. Pervez Hoodbhoy is professor of physics at Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad. He writes and lectures on South Asian issues. 4 Mar 020203 Philip Agee - Re-emergence of Fascism in Europe and Its Links with Postwar US Policy

Fascist movements are increasingly active throughout Europe and the former Soviet Union. Areas of the Balkans are "ethnically cleansed." Asians are attacked in Britain. Arabs are assaulted in France. Turks are murdered in Germany. While the targets of racism and hate have mostly changed, the rhetoric of vituperation is basically the same. What is startling and not well known is that US policies in postwar Europe assured the survival of Nazism in Germany and fascism in general throughout the continent. The United States found it expedient, because of Cold War politics, to recruit, employ and protect war criminals. Philip Agee, a former Central Intelligence Agency officer who served in Latin America, has pried loose some of its secrets. Since resigning from the CIA, he has lectured and written widely on the Agency's clandestine activities. He has lived all over Europe and has carefully monitored the revival of fascism there. He is the author of Inside the Company (translated into 28 languages) and On the Run. 25 Feb 020202 Eqbal Ahmad - Roots of the Gulf Crisis

Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait precipitated an enormous international crisis and war, the ramifications of which still reverberate throughout the Middle East. Overnight, Saddam Hussein, who for years was supported by the US, became the reincarnation of Hitler. It is instructive to recall that the US backed Hussein right through his worst atrocities including the use of chemical weapons against Iraqi Kurds and Iranians. Even though Iraq was driven out of Kuwait in 1991, the devastating sanctions regime is still in place. The official story of what happened more than a decade ago leaves out history, background and context. Eqbal Ahmad (Eck-baal Ah-mad) of Pakistan was one of the Third World's most astute and innovative thinkers. He taught at Hampshire College in Amherst. His articles and essays appeared in major international journals and magazines. He wrote a weekly column for Dawn, Pakistan's oldest English-language newspaper. 18 Feb 020201 Howard Zinn - Artists in a Time of War

The role of artists, writers, poets, actors, and musicians have an enormous impact on society. Because of the special place they occupy in people's hearts and minds their influence is central. Artists shine light into the dark crevices of the human psyche. They question, nudge and agitate. Bonnie Raitt, Michael Franti, Arthur Miller, Alice Walker, Rage Against the Machine, Bob Dylan, Arundhati Roy, Susan Sarandon all push and expand the parameters of permissible thought. In times of crisis and war, great artists provide comfort, hope, inspiration and understanding. Howard Zinn, professor emeritus at Boston University, is perhaps this country's premier radical historian. He grew up in the slums of Brooklyn. As a teenager, he worked in a shipyard. During World War II, he saw combat duty as an air force bombardier. After the war, he went to Columbia University on the GI Bill. He was an active figure in the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements. His masterpiece, A People's History of the US continues to sell in huge numbers. He has written several plays including the widely acclaimed Marx in Soho. 11 Feb 020104 Maude Barlow, Vandana Shiva and Tony Clark - Liquid Assets: Water for the Highest Bidder

Water is essential to all life forms on this planet. It is a very finite and precious substance. As the human population explodes and ecosystems are destroyed, water sources are being contaminated and used beyond their capacities to be replenished. At current rates, the demand for fresh water will exceed supplies by over 50% in 2025. Traders are already transporting water from ares of abundance to areas of depletion. With the market as a guide, will this basic necessity be available only to those able to pay the price? This program features a panel discussion between Maude Barlow, a leading spokesperson in Canada on trade and biotechnology, Vandana Shiva, an internationally renowned environmental activist and scientist, and Tony Clarke, one of Canada's leading anti-globalisation activists. 4 Feb 020103** John Pilger - Globalisation, Propaganda and the Need to Know

For almost forty years, Australian born journalist and film maker, John Pilger, has been travelling the world documenting the changes to nation states, communities and the lives of individuals as he brings into our lounge rooms pictures of the negative effects of globalisation. His film The New Rulers of the World, examines the effect so called 'global monetary policy' has had in countries such as Indonesia. This once relatively wealthy country has been brought to its knees by the increasingly powerful multinationals and the institutions that back them, most notably the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. John Pilger is one of the worlds most highly acclaimed journalists and documentary filmmakers. Australian born Pilger, who has lived in the UK since the early 1960s, has won numerous awards for his work including two UN Media Peace Prizes. He has also published hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles and almost a dozen books. With over forty films and documentaries to his credit, John Pilger's work constitutes the most definitive critique of Western capitalism and militarist ambition in the popular mass circulation media. (**CD only) 28 Jan 020102 John Robbins - The Food Revolution

Two-thirds of the products on supermarket shelves now contain genetically engineered ingredients that are not labelled. Do corporations have a responsibility to inform consumers about what's in their food? With livestock shot full of hormones and antibiotics to combat the disease generated in filthy crowded factory farms and with much of soybean and corn genetically altered, how can consumers be sure they are eating a safe and healthy diet? John Robbins is a leading spokesperson for vegetarianism and animal rights. Son of the founder of the Baskin and Robbins ice cream empire, he walked away from a life of immense wealth and privilege to become a leading authority on the dietary link between environment and health. His book Diet for a New America was a national bestseller as is his other book The Food Revolution. 21 Jan 020101 Ward Churchill - Big Brother is Watching

In its efforts to root out terrorists, the Bush Administration is weakening the powers of the United States Constitution. From military tribunals to unjustified detentions, its actions conjure up images of fascist regimes rather than democratic institutions. The US Justice Department is taking furthers steps that will allow it greater freedom to tap phones, to read emails, and to listen in on client-lawyer conversations. US Attorney General John Ashcroft also wants to relax restrictions on how the Federal Bureau of Investigation can spy on religious and political organisations. These surveillance guidelines were originally imposed on the FBI in the 1970s after it was revealed that they were conducting widespread domestic surveillance programs targeting everyone from anti-Vietnam war demonstrators to the Black Panther Party. The program was called Cointelpro. The world's leading expert on the FBI's Counter Intelligence Program is Ward Churchill. Ward Churchill is professor of American Indian Studies at the University of Colorado. He is a prolific author. Among his many books are The Cointelpro Papers, Agents of Repression, and A Little Matter of Genocide. 14 Jan 011204 Stephen Zunes - The Missing Elements of US Middle East Policy

US rhetoric about the war against terrorism creates many contradictions. While we criticise the fundamentalist Taliban, we ignore the excesses of the Saudi Arabian theocratic dictatorship. US foreign policy creates extremists. The more we militarise the Middle East, the less secure it becomes. Instead of relying on arms sales and air strikes, the US should pursue a Mideast foreign policy based on human rights, international law, and sustainable development. Stephen Zunes is associate professor of politics and chair of the Peace and Justice Studies Program at the University of San Francisco. A veteran peace and human rights activist, Zunes serves on the Middle East Task Force of the Fellowship of Reconciliation. 7 Jan 011201 Francis Moore-Lappe - Restoring the Planet

Part of the success of humans as a species can be attributed to the formation of social groups. These groups worked together and provided security and community for its members. Our society has largely become an entity that no longer nourishes the individual. The planet is now exploited and polluted for the financial gain of a few. Mechanisms to ensure that basic needs met are being dismantled. Most of us are shocked by much of what we see in society today. So how did we get here? People around the world from diverse cultures are turning away from what they see as the harmful new world order and turning again to sustainable communities. Frances Moore Lappé travelled the world, gathering stories of this movement. Frances Moore Lappé is the author of Diet for a Small Planet and co-founder of the Institute for Food Development Policy. She recently published The Quickening of America. She spoke before a large audience in Euguene, OR.