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(26 Dec) 051002 Thomas Frank - What's the Matter with Kansas? Why are so many white working class Americans supporting the party that's killing the estate tax, passed massive tax cuts for the rich, gutted workplace safety standards and represses unions? Republicans have succeeded in framing themselves as the party of the people and Democrats as the party of the elite. Democrats have passively accepted their fate. They have sacrificed progressive economic policies on the altar of corporate support. The major media play a crucial role. They rarely report on class and the ever-growing disparity between the haves and the have-nots. Thomas Frank is the founding editor of The Baffler magazine. He's the author of, One Market Under God and The Conquest of Cool. His latest book is the bestseller, What's the Matter with Kansas? (19 Dec) 051001 Johann Galtung - The Decline & Fall of the American Empire Empires come and go. The United States with ruinous wars, a bloated Pentagon budget and an economy that spews red ink may have a short imperial shelf life. Recall the words of President Eisenhower in his 1961 Farewell Address. He warned of the "conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry. The total influence, economic, political, even spiritual, is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government....we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications....we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist." Johann Galtung of Norway is a leading advocate of non-violent solutions to resolving conflicts. He is founder and director of Transcend, a global network for conflict resolution. Among his many books are Choose Peace and Peace by Peaceful Means. He is the winner of the Right Livelihood Award, also known as the Alternative Nobel Prize. (12 Dec) 050804 John Perkins- Confessions of an Economic Hit Man Loan sharks prey on the vulnerable, loaning to people who can't get help elsewhere. Sharks are great salesmen, appearing as friends when you need a lift out of an economic hole. The shark is good at hiding the true terms of the arrangement, and soothes your fears about his demands for collateral. When the inevitable repayment crisis hits, the shark shows his teeth. This is when you find out what he really wants--your regular social security or pension check, your diamond ring, or your house. When the loan shark is a country, the collateral that is demanded is control over the debtor country's assets. That's oil and natural gas, minerals, water, land, or manufacturing capacity. John Perkins was a loan shark to developing countries. After a stint in the Peace Corps in Latin America, he went to work as an economic planner for an international consulting firm that was a front for the National Security Administration. His book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, is a bestseller. (05 Dec) 050803 Stephen Bezruchka - From the Womb to the Tomb The United States, the richest country in the world, currently ranks 27th in the health of its citizens. Lagging behind not only most of the rich countries, but a few poor ones as well. Fifty years ago, the US was among the top five. What happened in the past five decades to cause this decline? Bezruchka explains that an increasing stratification between the rich and the poor plays a major role. Life spans and infant mortality rates depend very much on the hierarchical structure of a society. And new research shows that half of what influences our health as adults is largely determined before the age of five. What can we learn form other countries whose citizens live longer and healthier lives? Stephen Bezruchka is a senior lecturer at the University of Washington and works as an emergency room physician in Seattle. His particular areas of research are population health and societal hierarchy and its application to health. He is author of numerous articles and essays. His most recent contribution is to Sickness and Wealth, a collection of essays on the effects of global corporatization on health. (28 Nov) 050203 Eric Schlosser - Fast Food Nation Here's the short answer to why fast food is so successful: it's quick, cheap and tasty. Plus, you never have to leave your car. But like the reeking dumpster behind a brightly lit McDonald's, there's a nasty side to fast food success. It's quick because of an assembly line kitchen that relies on low-paid, unskilled workers. It's cheap thanks to subsidized agribusiness giants that control massive factory farms. It's tasty because fast food is loaded with three things humans crave: sugar, salt and fat…plus plenty of preservatives, dyes, antibiotics and growth hormones. And the drive-thru window is emblematic of the car culture and the sprawling development of American cities. Eric Schlosser is the author of the widely acclaimed, best-selling books Fast Food Nation and Reefer Madness. He's an award-winning correspondent for the Atlantic Monthly. (21 Nov) 050802 John Bonifaz - The Case for Impeaching Bush On May 1, 2005 the Sunday Times of London published a secret memo which summarized meetings between top British officials and the Bush Administration. Dubbed the "Downing Street Memo" it instantly became front-page news in Britain but not in the United States. The memo's explosive content reveals that by July 2002 George W. Bush had already decided to invade Iraq, that he knew that legal cover for the war was "thin," and that he would need to sell it to the public using "fixed" intelligence claims about 9/11 terror links and WMDs. John Bonifaz, lawyer, activist, and author of Warrior King, has launched a legal and citizens campaign aimed to impeach President Bush. The campaign is online at afterdowningstreet.org. (14 Nov) 050801 Dahr Jamail - Dateline: Baghdad All journalists have perspectives that color and shape their reporting. Many factors influence not just what questions get asked but what issues get reported on in the first place. It takes much more work to remain objective when some of the people journalists cover are similar to them in terms of class and culture while others are very different. For embedded reporters in a war zone, there are further complications. They travel, eat, sleep and are protected by the soldiers they are with. There is literally no distance between the journalists and the troops thus their vision can easily be blurred. This has been a particular problem with reporting in Iraq. Dahr Jamail, an American, saw these problems of perspective clouding the reporting about the war in the U.S. media. He decided to do something about it. He went to Iraq where he reports outside the bubble of American control. His articles appear in The Guardian and The Nation. He also posts his dispatches on his own widely read website, dahrjamailiraq.com. (07 Nov) 050704 Robert McChensney - The Problem of the Media Poor, black, and suffering Americans. These are the images that flashed across TV screens in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Reporters asked why there was no help for people who couldn't afford to evacuate. And columnists wrote of a shocked and outraged America, an America which had finally discovered its own poverty and racism. For a brief moment, the corporate media drew back the curtains and revealed a reality we hardly ever see. Now, we have a choice. We can make cosmetic changes. Or, we can reach beyond the issues that have divided us, and challenge the structural causes of this catastrophe. One of those structural causes is the corporate media which have systematically failed to inform us about poverty and racism here at home. Robert McChesney is president and co-founder of the Free Press, an organization working to increase public participation in media policy debates, and to generate policies that will produce a more democratic media. He is also professor of communications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and author of numerous books including Rich Media, Poor Democracy and The Problem of the Media. (31 Oct) 030304 Robert McChesney - Write What We Say, Not What We Do Seems like journalist are letting the big stories fall through the cracks. Maybe they should start with simpler questions. How about who really won the 2000 Presidential election? Or what about the ties between President Bush and Enron? Cheney and Haliburton? Journalists, columnists, and pundits report what politicians and corporate moguls say ... not what they do. Period. The reporter has simply become the bridge between politician and print. Lost is the deep digging of investigative journalism that exposes stories people in power don't talk about ... stories essential for an informed democracy. Robert McChesney is Professor of Communications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is a leading critic of corporate media. He is the author of Telecommunications, Mass Media and Democracy. His latest book is Rich Media, Poor Democracy. (24 Oct) 050703 Bill Moyers - In Defense of Public Broadcasting The founding principles of public broadcasting urged that programming serve as "a forum for debate and controversy" and "provide a voice for groups that may otherwise be unheard." Ever since its inception public broadcasting in the U.S. has been a lightening rod for political attack. A heat shield funding proposal to isolate PBS and NPR from the whims of Congress was defeated. The Nixon administration was the first to launch the canard that the system was biased in favor of liberals. Today once again this allegation is being bandied about. Bill Moyers has incurred the wrath of those who want to transform public broadcasting into something quite remote from its founding principles. Bill Moyers is one of America's best known and respected journalists. He was Lyndon Johnson's press secretary. He was senior correspondent for CBS News, and producer of many of public television's most heralded programs. He is the winner of the more than 30 Emmy Awards, and the author of several bestsellers. His latest book is Moyers on America A longtime fixture on PBS, he retired as anchor of NOW with Bill Moyers in 2004. (17 Oct) 031304 Bill Moyers - The Progressive Story of America The U.S. economy grew steadily through most of the 1990s. However, nearly all of the newly created wealth has gone to the already rich, magnifying market-generated inequalities. President Bush and the Republicans have reduced taxes paid by the rich and services for everyone else, while increasing corporate subsidies. Democrats for the most part have not opposed, but complained and followed. Greater inequality in income and wealth are both cause and effect of greater inequality in political power. Corruption of the political system by wealth is not new in the United States. But neither is the progressive movement, which rose in the late 19th Century and had some influence for much of the 20th. Whether it be in what the late Senator Paul Wellstone termed "the democratic wing of the Democratic Party," or in the Greens or other political forces, the progressive tradition has been to overcome the dominance of the extreme right. Bill Moyers work has been recognized by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, the Television Hall of Fame, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and many others. In 2002, he launched NOW with Bill Moyers, the only weekly progressive public affairs program carried on PBS. (10 Oct) 050701 Aaron Glantz - How America Lost Iraq In Iraq, most of the corporate journalists, when they venture outside their heavily guarded hotels, travel with US troops and base their stories on what the military tells them. Not so - Aaron Glantz, who went to Iraq totally un-embedded. And what he learned initially was not what he had expected. Most Iraqis welcomed the Americans and patiently accepted the hardship and destruction as a final sacrifice on their way to freedom. But as the occupation dragged on, and as living conditions and the security situation steadily worsened, the Americans were no longer viewed as liberators, but as oppressors. Glantz's eyewitness account gives insight into what is fueling the insurgency in Iraq. Aaron Glantz, a reporter for Pacifica Radio, has been to Iraq many times. He is the author of How America Lost Iraq. (03 Oct) 050603** Mary Robinson – Globalisation and Human Rights The issue of Human Rights and the Howard government's record in this area has been, since the 2001 federal election, an almost daily front page issue. But human rights are not an obscure, academic pursuit. National and global institutions need effective means by which to enforce the international agreements nations have signed and the means to coerce those nations who choose to opt out of signing treaties meant to sustain and nurture their communities. Radical action is needed to shift patterns of globalisation to Make Poverty History and achieve human rights for all people. Mary Robinson was the first female President of the Republic of Ireland. She is also a former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and is currently the Honorary President of Oxfam International. She is also the Executive Director of Realising Rights: The Ethical Globalisation Initiative based in New York. Mary Robinson spoke to packed house in Melbourne in August 2005. (**CD only) (26 Sept) 030403 Martin Luther King - Beyond Vietnam Every year, almost like clockwork Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech gets airplay. The charismatic orator is frozen on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in August 1963. No doubt it was a great presentation, deeply moving and full of dazzling poetry and inspiring images. But it was not his most important speech, nor was it his most courageous one. That was to come on April 4, 1967 in Riverside Church in New York. There King demonstrated his political maturity and understanding of how the system works. He moved beyond a simple race analysis to include class and foreign policy issues. He forcefully denounced the war in Vietnam. He called the US "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world" and he deplored the "giant triplets of racism extreme materialism and militarism." Exactly one year later King was assassinated in Memphis. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, Nobel Peace Prizewinner, is one of the 20th century's most enduring figures. He was born on January 15, 1929 in Atlanta. He was an early convert to civil disobedience and non-violence. He said, "Christ gave us the goals and Mahatma Gandhi the tactics." He rose to national prominence in 1955 during the epic 382-day Montgomery bus boycott. He went on to spearhead a movement which effectively ended juridical apartheid in the US. (19 Sept) 040502 Nafezz Mossadeq Ahmed - Behind the War on Terrorism The Bush-led war party of vulcans drive the war on terror. These born-again nationalists have an agenda that was announced several years ago. They formed the Project for a New American Century. Read their key document "Rebuilding America's Defenses." It is a blueprint for America as Sparta and a formula for permanent war. It says what was required to achieve US global domination was "some catastrophic and catalyzing event-like a new Pearl Harbor." Well, they got it. September 11. The attack on Iraq was launched on false pretenses. Evidence was manufactured. Fear was generated. The media saluted and went along. War was what the hawks wanted and war is what they got. In the background is an imperial grand scheme to remake the map of the Middle East and control its oil. Nafeez Mossadeq Ahmed, based in the UK, is the Executive Director of the Institute for Policy Research & Development. He is the author of Behind the War on Terror: Western Secret Strategy & the Struggle for Iraq. (12 Sept) 040503 Sut Jhally - 9/11 and the Uses of Fear 9/11 is a template and trigger for a range of emotions. Who can forget the horror of that day? One shouldn't. But at the same time we should be aware of how 9/11 is being used as a weapon of intimidation to silence critics of the Bush war on terrorism. Those who speak out are labeled anti-American. We are all supposed to suspend critical thinking, be obedient and listen in awe to the pronouncements from Big Brother.People are kept on the edge of their seats by constant alerts, warnings and threats of new attacks. In a state of fear, citizens are vulnerable to manipulation by opportunistic politicians and a sensationalist media. "Dissent in a time of war," historian Howard Zinn says, "is the highest form of patriotism." Sut (sounds like but) Jhally, professor of communication at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He is a leading media critic and an award-winning film producer. He is the founder and Executive Director of the Media Education Foundation. (05 Sept) 050103 Seymore Hersh - From 9/11 to Abu Ghraib After World War Two the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal declared: "Individuals have international duties which transcend the national obligations of obedience...and have the duty to prevent crimes against peace and humanity from occurring." The defense of "I was just following orders" was judged to be legally unsupportable and morally reprehensible. The Geneva Conventions have specific rules about the treatment of prisoners. In Cuba, Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. has tortured detainees. Who pays the price for gross violations of basic morality, human rights and international law? Only low level American soldiers, the proverbially few bad apples, are being held accountable. The top military and the civilians who direct them are insulated. They have, in that infamous phrase from the Iran/Contra era, "plausible deniability." Seymour Hersh is a legendary investigative journalist. He catapulted to fame when he broke the story of the infamous My Lai massacre of Vietnamese civilians by U.S. troops. He's has won practically every single award in journalism. Author of many books his latest is Chain of Command. He is a regular contributor to The New Yorker where he broke the story of U.S. torture of prisoners. (29 Aug) 990305 Kwame Ture - Black History History is often refracted through the narrow lens of those who own the cameras. To some, black nationalist leaders of the 1960s like Malcolm X, Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, Angela Davis and Stokely Carmichael were menacing ideologues. To others, they were icons in the struggle against white supremacy. All emphasized the need to discover and uncover black history and connect the past with the present. Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael) discusses the urgency for people to know their own history. Kwame Ture was born Stokely Carmichael in Trinidad. His family moved to New York. He joined the civil rights movement in the early 1960s while still a student at Howard University. A hardworking field organizer and charismatic speaker, he became chair of SNCC, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Impatient with the slowness of change, he sent shock waves throughout the civil rights movement and the white establishment with his call for "Black Power." He left SNCC in 1967 and became prime minister of the Black Panther Party. Two years later he moved to Guinea in West Africa. He changed his name in honor of his political heroes, Ahmed Sekou Ture of Guinea and Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana. From his new base he advocated Pan-African unity through the All African People's Revolutionary Party. Kwame Ture died at the age of 57 in November 1998. (22 Aug) 990304 Bobby Seale - The Black Panther Party In the sixties and seventies, the Black Panther Party captured the imagination of millions in the U.S. and around the world. The organization also attracted the rapt attention of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. J. Edgar Hoover's FBI launched a sustained counterintelligence program to infiltrate, disrupt and destroy the Panthers. The media and popular history have focused on gun-toting Panther militancy and ignored the group's dedication to community organizing and providing much-needed services. Bobby Seale, along with Huey P. Newton, started the Black Panther Party. He was the organization's first chairman. His candid account of the Panthers' rise and fall makes for a memorable program. (15 Aug) 050602 Angela Davis - Radical Multiculturalism In the United States, the term multicultural is often linked with a surface-level diversity. People of color in leadership positions are cited as examples of our move toward a society that truly values diversity. The so-called "black face in a high place" is therefore evidence of our commitment to multiculturalism. Meanwhile, the Bush administration engages people of color around the world and in some cases winds up invading and occupying their countries. And it pursues trade policies that encourage resource and labor exploitation of the global South. Social and economic justice are not connected with the prevailing view of what it means to have a multicultural society. Angela Davis was only the third woman named to the FBI's "Most Wanted" list. She was acquitted of conspiracy charges in 1972 after one of the most famous trials in US history. She went on to become an internationally regarded scholar and writer. She is the author of several books, including Women, Culture and Politics and Blues Legacies and Black Feminism. She teaches at the University of California-Santa Cruz. (08 Aug) 050601 Laura Flanders - Bushwomen The Bushwomen have created an estrogen shield for the White House. "Theirs is the politics of masquerade," says Laura Flanders. "They are the media friendly face of one of the most extreme administrations in U.S. history." The mission of the Bushwomen is to cosmetically transform the Republican Party's image without changing its policies. Are they feminists? Hardly. Flanders adds, "We had twenty seconds of a women's movement and it's been backlash every since." Laura Flanders is the host of the Laura Flanders Show on Air America Radio, and co-host of Your Call on public radio KALW in San Francisco. She is the author of Real Majority, Media Minority. Her latest book is Bushwomen. (01 Aug) 050505 Howard Zinn - Voices of a People's History (Pt. 2) Traditional history we are taught is dominated by generals, presidents, and other so-called important people. When we read in standard texts about the sinking of the Spanish Armada, we learn King Philip wept. Oral historian Studs Terkel asks, "Were there no other tears?" Historians have difficulty matching the eloquence of those who experienced events firsthand such as soldiers at war, the survivors of massacre and genocide, and those who fought oppression. When they tell their own story, history is not only different, but authentic. An all-star cast including John Sayles, Wally Shawn, and Paul Robeson Jr. join Zinn in this engaging two-part program. Howard Zinn, professor emeritus at Boston University, is perhaps this country's premier radical historian. He was born in Brooklyn in 1922 to poor immigrant parents. During World War II, he saw combat duty as an air force bombardier. He was an active figure in the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements. His masterpiece, A People's History of the United States continues to sell in large numbers. His latest book is, Voices of a People's History of the United States. (25 Jul) 050504 Howard Zinn - Voices of a People's History (Pt. 1) Traditional history we are taught is dominated by generals, presidents, and other so-called important people. When we read in standard texts about the sinking of the Spanish Armada, we learn King Philip wept. Oral historian Studs Terkel asks, "Were there no other tears?" Historians have difficulty matching the eloquence of those who experienced events firsthand such as soldiers at war, the survivors of massacre and genocide, and those who fought oppression. When they tell their own story, history is not only different, but authentic. An all-star cast including John Sayles, Wally Shawn, and Paul Robeson Jr. join Zinn in this engaging two-part program. Howard Zinn, professor emeritus at Boston University, is perhaps this country's premier radical historian. He was born in Brooklyn in 1922 to poor immigrant parents. During World War II, he saw combat duty as an air force bombardier. He was an active figure in the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements. His masterpiece, A People's History of the United States continues to sell in large numbers. His latest book is, Voices of a People's History of the United States. (18 Jul) 050503 Saad Eddin Ibrahim Egypt, the largest Arab country, has long been ruled by a series of autocrats. The latest and one of the most enduring is Hosni Mubarak, a close ally of Washington and recipient of billions in U.S. aid. He is trying to maintain his grip on power. The winds of change may alter his plans. There are growing movements for democratization and reform. In this program, Ibrahim discusses the increasingly popular Kefaya-Enough-movement and the possibilities of political change in Egypt. Saad Eddin Ibrahim is one of Egypt's most prominent human rights activists. For criticizing the regime he spent three years in Mubarak's jails. He is professor of sociology at the American University of Cairo. (11 Jul) 050502 Elaine Bernard - In Defence of Government George Bush likes to talk about an ownership society in the United States, a place where more people own property, businesses and shares of stock. The president says we can get there by cutting taxes and by reducing regulation of commerce and industry. Except for the military, government is the bad guy who should get out of the way and let private enterprise flourish. But it's the biggest owners who benefit from those policies. Wealth in America continues to concentrate at the top. Elaine Bernard says government is not the enemy. It's the way forward. Only through greater investment in public services can we truly democratize wealth. Elaine Bernard is Director of the Harvard Law School Labour and Work Life Program. She lectures throughout the world and writes extensively on political, trade and labour issues. (04 Jul) 050501 Robert Fisk - Dateline Beirut The U.S. is burning a perilous path in the Middle East. The empire builders in Washington want control of the region's oil and command of its strategic position. Two key countries are Lebanon and Iraq. And on the edge is Afghanistan. What's really going on there? You won't know much if you're feeding at the corporate media trough with its drive-by journalism. Robert Fisk, award-winning correspondent for The Independent, is one of the very best reporters in the Middle East. He has called Beirut home for almost 30 years. From there he travels throughout the region. He is one of few that has met with bin Laden and in this program he talks about the head of Al Qaeda as well as the situation in Lebanon and Iraq. AR's David Barsamian went to Beirut to interview Fisk. (20 & 27 Jun) 050403 / 050404 Studs Terkel - Which Side Are You On? (Pt 1 & 2) Historian Howard Zinn says, "You can't be neutral on a moving train." Indeed, in a time of crisis you can't sit on the fence and wait for others to make the decisions for you. An engaged citzenry is the essence of democracy. The classic union song asks, "Which Side Are You On?" If we are all rendered onlookers then are we really a democracy? The soundbite media to a great extent contribute to a general feeling of helplessness and fear, thus leading to apathy and inaction. Studs Terkel has never been neutral or passive. He has made a career of in depth interviews with people who take sides on important issues. He's the author of Working, Hard Times, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Good War" His latest is Hope Dies Last: Keeping the Faith in Troubled Times. He has received the lifetime achievement award from the National Critic's Circle. (13 Jun) 050402 Scott Ritter - Iraq to Iran: The Empire Attacks Speculation is running rampant on what country will be the target of the next U.S. attack. Iran ranks high. It was an original member of the president's "axis of evil." Before going to Baghdad, the neocons used to say, "Real men go to Teheran." Then there's Syria of course. North Korea? Well maybe not. They can fight back and do real damage. Iran, like Iraq has lots of oil. That makes it a tempting target. Is oil a profit making business? ExxonMobil's net profit for 2004 topped $25 billion. So perhaps coming soon to a theatre near you: another exciting installment of "The March of Freedom." Halliburton, Bechtel and LockheedMartin can't wait. They'll have front row seats. Scott Ritter is a former Marine intelligence officer and a veteran of the first Gulf War. He served as a UN weapons inspector in Iraq for seven years. As an expert on arms control, he has addressed governments around the world as well as being a frequent guest on radio and TV talk shows. In the lead up to the attack on Iraq, Ritter openly questioned whether Iraq had any weapons of mass destruction. He is the author of Endgame and Frontier Justice: WMDs and the Bushwhacking of America. (06 Jun) 050401 Philip Agee - The CIA and Cuba The island of Cuba occupies a big place in the imagination and politics of the United States. The powerful anti-Castro lobby has greatly influenced U.S. policy toward the Caribbean nation. The landscape of U.S./Cuba relations is dotted with the missile crisis, blockades, embargoes and boat refugees. Few know the details of the extensive CIA operations against Cuba. They range from sabotage to invasion to biological warfare to assassination plots. At one time, the Miami-based CIA station was the largest outside of HQs in Langley, Virginia. Philip Agee was a former Central Intelligence Agency officer who served in Latin America. Since resigning from the CIA he has lectured and written widely on the Agency's clandestine activities. He is the author of Inside the Company: CIA Diary and On the Run. His activities have not gone unnoticed. Ex-CIA Director and later President Bush the first called Agee "a traitor to our country." (30 May) 050304 Arundhati Roy - The Chequebook and the Cruise Missile The "overall framework of power," as Henry Kissinger calls it, consists of the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO. The muscle that enforces the economic regime is the U.S. military. With a bloated budget of half a trillion dollars a year, the Pentagon's warriors straddle the earth. The president announces that America is "the greatest force for good in history." Somehow that view is not widely shared. The New York Times reports, Bush's policies have "generated a tsunami of anti-Americanism." In these critical times dissent is crucial. As Orwell said, "If liberty means anything at all it's the freedom to tell people what they don't want to hear." Arundhati Roy is the celebrated author of The God of Small Things, winner of the prestigious Booker Prize. The New York Times calls her, "India's most impassioned critic of globalization and American influence." She is the winner of the Lannan Award for Cultural Freedom and the Sydney Peace Prize. Her latest books are An Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire and The Checkbook & the Cruise Missile with David Barsamian. (23 May) 050303 Howard Zinn - Airbrushing History Studs Terkel, the great historian, says the U.S. suffers from a kind of national Alzheimer's disease. Aided and abetted by the media and the education system there are aspects of history that are simply forgotten. Take say the Nuremberg trials after World War II where the top Nazis faced justice. What were they accused of? Attacking other countries without cause. The judges spoke as one when they declared: "To initiate a war of aggression is the supreme international crime that contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." Many legal scholars say the judgment at Nuremberg could apply to the U.S. attack on Iraq. However Nuremberg and its significance is air-brushed out of history. Howard Zinn, professor emeritus at Boston University, is perhaps this country's premier radical historian. He was born in Brooklyn in 1922. His parents were poor immigrants. 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. Today, he speaks all over the country before large and enthusiastic audiences. His masterpiece, A People's History of the U.S. continues to sell in huge numbers. His latest book is Voices of a People's History. (16 May) 050302 Noam Chomsky - Democracy and US Foreign Policy CIA Director Porter Goss warned Congress that "Islamic extremists are exploiting" the Iraq war "to recruit new jihadists." Those who survived the war, he said, were likely to leave Iraq "experienced and focused on acts of urban terrorism." And that it would "only be a matter of time before Al Qaeda" uses weapons of mass destruction. How does that track with the frequent Administration statements that the war has made the world safer? Do the pliant corporate media even notice these glaring contradictions? Iraq has become exactly what critics predicted: a magnet for the jihad and a breeding ground for terrorism. The response from the White House? Not to worry. Democracy will save the day. Noam Chomsky, internationally renowned MIT professor, practically invented modern linguistics. In addition to his pioneering work in that field he has been a leading voice for peace and social justice. He is in such demand as a public speaker that he is booked years in advance. And wherever he appears, he draws huge audiences. The New Statesman calls him, "The conscience of the American people." He is the author of scores of books, his latest is the bestseller Hegemony or Survival. (09 May) 050301 Tariq Ali - Delusions of Empire In 1920, T. E. Lawrence, the famous Lawrence of Arabia wrote, "The people of England have been led in Iraq into a trap from which it will be hard to escape with dignity and honour. They have been tricked into it by a steady withholding of information. It is a dsgrace to our imperial record, and may soon be too inflamed for any ordinary cure. We are to-day not far from a disaster...our unfortunate troops, under hard conditions of climate and supply are policing an immense area, paying dearly every day in lives for the willfully wrong policy...." If you just changed a couple of those words around, it could sound like a report coming from Iraq today. Tariq (Tah-rick) Ali, born in Lahore, then a part of British-ruled India, now in Pakistan is an internationally renowned writer. He is based in London where he is an editor of Left Review. He's written more than a dozen books on world history and politics. A charismatic speaker, he is in great demand all over the world. In his spare time he is a filmmaker, playwright and novelist. He is the author of The Clash of Fundamentalisms and Bush in Babylon. His latest books are Street Fighting Years and Speaking of Empire & Resistance with David Barsamian. (02 May) 050204 Lester Brown - Plan B: A Blueprint for People & the Planet The global demand for food and fresh water continues to rise. But world grain production is down. And we're depleting groundwater at an unsustainable pace. Global temperatures are rising rapidly due to emissions from cars, factories and power plants. "Plan A," maintaining the status quo thru over consumption of resources, is not working. In a science fiction movie, "Plan B" might mean moving to another planet. But in the real world, it means telling the ecological truth in economic and policy decisions. It means faster movement to current sustainable technologies-solutions that are not science fiction but exist right now. Lester Brown offers a way forward in his book Plan B: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble. He is founder and president of the Earth Policy Institute, a nonprofit research organization based in Washington, DC. He's been described as "the guru of the environmental movement"and "one of the world's most influential thinkers". (25 Apr) 041104 Stephen Kinzer - Iran: The 1953 American Coup Regime change started decades ago. The new term is just a change of clothes. Dwight Eisenhower was president when the U.S. overthrew the popular democratic government of Mohammad Mossadegh in Iran in 1953. What was Mossadegh's transgression? He wanted Iran's oil to benefit the Iranian people. The coup brought the shah back from exile and put him on the Peacock Throne. What ensued was 25 years of tyranny and repression culminating in Ayatollah Khomeini's Islamic Revolution. The coup in Iran was a pivotal event of the 20th century. Virtually all Iranians know about it. Yet most Americans haven't even heard of it. The U.S. professes that it supports democracy in the Middle East yet when there was a democratic government in Iran the U.S. destroyed it. Stephen Kinzer is a veteran New York Times correspondent. He is co-author of Bitter Fruit and author of Crescent and Star. His latest book, a Times Notable Book of the Year, on the1953 coup in Iran is All the Shah's Men. (18 Apr) 050202 Cedric Robinson - Jim Crow and Jezebel go to Hollywood The power of cinema to shape public perception is as old motion pictures themselves. In the late 19th century, Jim Crow was the term for a system of laws and policies designed to maintain racial segregation. Jezebel was a featured character in Southern literature at that time, an irresistible black woman seducing white men. The silent films of the early 20th century offered a powerful new medium for re-enforcing these stereotypes. It was an inexpensive entertainment. Millions of new immigrants went to the movies and absorbed Hollywood's version of race in American history. Cedric Robinson teaches political theory and black studies at the Univeristy of California at Santa Barbara. He hosts Third World Review on community radio station KCSB. (11 Apr) 050201Manning Marable - By Any Means Necessary: The Life and Legacy of Malcolm X The singular voice of Malcolm X speaks today to more people than ever before. His autobiography sells more than 150,000 copies a year. Millions have seen the Spike Lee movie. Malcolm endures as a powerful and inspirational figure. It's not hard to understand why. It was Malcolm who redefined the discourse on race. He moved the discussion from notions of "prejudice" and "discrimination" to racism. It was Malcolm who articulated concepts like "community control" and "white power structure." It was Malcolm who made it clear that blacks were the victims of a system of domination and exploitation that was not regional but national, not superficial but structural, not episodic but ongoing and intentional. His uncompromising critical analysis gave Malcolm his moral authority. Manning Marable is one of America's most influential and widely read scholars. He is professor of history and African-American studies at Columbia University. For ten years he was the founding director of the Institute for Research in African-American Studies at Columbia. His most recent book is The Great Wells of Democracy. His syndicated column Along the Color Line appears in over 400 newspapers and journals nationally and internationally. (04 Apr) 031005** Doug Rokke - Silent Killer: The Hidden Legacy of Depleted Uranium For the last fifty years we have been told that the nuclear energy industry is clean, safe and reliable. However, any truth in those claims is soon dispelled when we find out that one of the most deadly by-products of the nuclear industry is not to be found at the nuclear plants. This by-product is given the misnomer of 'depleted uranium' or DU as it's usually called, and constitutes over 99% of the waste material of the nuclear industry. Given the fact that almost a million metric tonnes of this material is lying around in nuclear storage facilities in the US, and the fact that the US military industrial complex produces some of the most deadly weapons on earth, it should be of no surprise that the two would soon meet up in the most unholy of alliances. Doug Rokke's specialty is emergency rescue in biological and nuclear warfare. In 1991 he was recalled to active duty in the aftermath of the first Gulf War and he went on to become the head of the US government's depleted uranium project. Knowing full well the dangers of DU, by the late 1990's Doug could no longer stay within a system that would not ban its use, even though the adverse medical effects were well known to those giving the orders for its use. Doug spoke out against his employer, the US government, and has borne the consequences ever since. He spoke to Alternative Radio's Shane Elson by phone just prior to his first public lecture in Melbourne. (**CD only) (28 Mar) 050102 Robert Jay Lifton - Apocalyptic Violence With no definition of victory in the war on terrorism the U.S. may be entering a long period of perpetual war. The president invokes the name of God on a regular basis. Clearly, with such power on our side, how can we lose? Al-Qaeda and the Islamists are also certain that the almighty is in their corner. Can God be hedging his bets and backing both sides? Each day brings new reports of gains in Iraq. Parts of towns and cities are destroyed in order to save them. U.S. military commanders claim the enemy is Satan. Buried in the back pages was a report from "The Lancet," the respected British journal, conservatively estimating that more than 100,000 Iraqis have been killed, over half of them women and children. Robert Jay Lifton taught for many years at the John Jay College of the CUNY. He is currently a lecturer in psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School. His book Death in Life: Survivors of Hiroshima won the National Book Award. He is also the author of The Nazi Doctors. His latest book is Superpower Syndrome. (21 Mar) 050101 Naomi Klein - Debacle in Iraq President Bush declared after the attack on Iraq, "We're not an imperial power. We're a liberating power." The president maintains the rhetoric that empires throughout history have taken-wars are waged for "liberation" rather than for domination. Perhaps Bush is unaware that he was echoing British General Stanley Maude, who, after conquering Baghdad in 1917, proclaimed, "Our armies do not come into your cities and lands as conquerors or enemies, but as liberators." A major revolt by Iraqis against their liberators ensued. Sound familiar? Language is important in providing legitimacy and a facade for aggression. The debacle in Iraq today is infused with the same kind of imperial doubletalk that the British used. Naomi Klein of Canada, an award-winning journalist, has reported on the war in Iraq. Her articles appear in major newspapers and magazines all over the world. No Logo , her book on globalisation and marketing was an international best seller. Her latest book is Fences & Windows. Her documentary film on the economic crisis in Argentina is The Take. (14 Mar) 041104 Steven Kinzer - Iran and the 1953 American Coup Regime change started decades ago. The new term is just a change of clothes. Dwight Eisenhower was president when the U.S. overthrew the popular democratic government of Mohammad Mossadegh in Iran in 1953. What was Mossadegh's transgression? He wanted Iran's oil to benefit the Iranian people. The coup brought the shah back from exile and put him on the Peacock Throne. What ensued was 25 years of tyranny and repression culminating in Ayatollah Khomeini's Islamic Revolution. The coup in Iran was a pivotal event of the 20th century. Virtually all Iranians know about it. Yet most Americans haven't even heard of it. The U.S. professes that it supports democracy in the Middle East yet when there was a democratic government in Iran the U.S. destroyed it. Stephen Kinzer is a veteran New York Times correspondent. He is co-author of Bitter Fruit and author of Crescent and Star. His latest book, a Times Notable Book of the Year, on the1953 coup in Iran is All the Shah's Men. (7 Mar) 050103 Seymour Hersh - From 9/11 to Abu Ghraib After World War Two the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal declared:"Individuals have international duties which transcend the national obligations of obedience...and have the duty to prevent crimes against peace and humanity from occurring." The defense of "I was just following orders" was judged to be legally unsupportable and morally reprehensible. The Geneva Conventions have specific rules about the treatment of prisoners. In Cuba, Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. has tortured detainees. Who pays the price for gross violations of basic morality, human rights and international law? Only low level American soldiers, the proverbially few bad apples, are being held accountable. The top military and the civilians who direct them are insulated. They have, in that infamous phrase from the Iran/Contra era, "plausible deniability." Seymour Hersh is a legendary investigative journalist. He catapulted to fame when he broke the story of the infamous My Lai massacre of Vietnamese civilians by U.S. troops. He's has won practically every single award in journalism. Author of many books his latest is Chain of Command. He is a regular contributor to The New Yorker where he broke the story of U.S. torture of prisoners. (28 Feb) 041202 Howard Zinn - Critical Thinking The US is now bogged down in a guerilla war in Iraq. The political leadership misled the people in a pattern of deception that Machiavelli would have admired. The media, with few exceptions, never challenged the official stories. Only a handful in Congress asked questions. In a remarkable propaganda triumph, the Bush Administration managed to conflate the country and the government as one and the same. Mark Twain, a fierce opponent of an earlier outburst of American imperialism, declared that he supported the country all of the time and the government when it deserved it. Citizens can cut through the spin if they are armed with independent information, knowledge of history and critical thinking. Without those tools then people are easy prey for Swift Boat and wolf pack ads. Howard Zinn, professor emeritus at Boston University, is perhaps this country's premier radical historian. He grew up in a poor immigrant family in Brooklyn. 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. Today, at 82 he speaks all over the country before huge audiences. His masterpiece, "A People's History of the U.S." continues to sell in huge numbers. His latest book is "Voices of a People's History." (21 Feb) 041201 Tariq Ali - Enablers of Empire Every imperial system needs a specialized class of collaborators and informants. As Edward Said pointed out, a group of scholars and cultural workers gave gravitas and legitimacy to European conquests of centuries past. They were the instruments and the enablers of empire. Knowledge and power intersected with the former subordinated to the latter. Today, with the US as the imperial hegemon, a new class of intellectuals has emerged but the techniques are the same. Complex arguments and new jargon obfuscate the realty of aggression and domination. They advance as Michael Ignatieff does in one NYTimes article after another, rationales for state policies. The sugar coating and veneer of politesse provides solace to doubters. After all these are the best and the brightest, trained at the finest schools. They must know something we don't.. Tariq (Tah-rick) Ali, born in Lahore, then a part of British-ruled India, now in Pakistan is an internationally renowned writer. He is based in London where he is an editor of New Left Review. He's written more than a dozen books on world history and politics. A charismatic speaker, he is in great demand all over the world. In his spare time he is a filmmaker, playwright and novelist. He is the author of The Clash of Fundamentalisms. His latest book is Bush in Babylon. (14 Feb) 030901** Howard Zinn - Stories Hollywood Never Tells Zinn, the people's historian, provides numerous examples of hidden material for possible movie scripts. There are great stories out there waiting to be told. Zinn recounts some of them. Recorded at the 1999 Taos Talking Film Festival. April 17, 1999. Introduction/tribute by David Barsamian. Howard Zinn, professor emeritus of history at Boston University, is perhaps this country's premier radical historian. His masterpiece, A People's History of the United States, continues to sell in huge numbers. Among the many honors he has received are the Eugene Debs Award and the Upton Sinclair Award. His play Marx in Soho is being widely performed. He is also the author of Failure to Quit and The Future of History. (**CD only) (7 Feb) 041203** Paul Connett - Fluoride. What are you Drinking? Nearly 2/3 of the Australian population receives fluoride in their water supply. Yet only 4% of the worlds water supply is artificially fluoridated. This occurs mainly in the US, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Columbia and Singapore. Many countries and cities have abandoned fluoridation because they have found that there is no evidence to demonstrate that tooth decay rates are lower than in non-fluoridated places or that it is safe. Sodium Silicofluoride and Hydrofluorosilicic Acid , hazardous industrial waste by-products from the manufacture of phosphate fertiliser are used to fluoridate our water supply. Melbourne began fluoridation in 1977 despite scientific opposition from Sir Weary Dunlop and former Dean of Dentistry Sir Arthur Amies. Professor Paul Connett is among the worlds leading experts on fluoridation. He graduated from Cambridge University holding a PhD in chemistry from Dartmouth College. Since 1983 he has been professor of chemistry at St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York where he teaches environmental chemistry and toxicology. He has written extensively on waste management and his most recent publication is the booklet, A Citizens Agenda for Zero Waste co-authored with Bill Sheehan of the Grass Roots Recycling Network. He helped found the Fluoride Action Network in the US. He spoke at a seminar titled Fluoride. What are you Drinking? held at RMIT's Kaleide Theatre in Melbourne in October 2004. (**CD only) (31 Jan) 030701 Vandana Shiva - Democracy and The Global Economy The media's attention is on terrorism. Yet, in the background are other critical issues. Perhaps none so important as to what is happening to the global economy. The mantra of free trade and open markets has widened the gap between rich and poor nations. Level playing fields don't seem very level to the have-nots. Democracy is weakened by powerful institutions such as the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO. The US largely dominates these organisations. The massive monopoly of resources by the US and a handful of other countries has created tremendous imbalance and inequality. Vandana Shiva says, "The dispossession from the Earth's natural wealth is at the root of instability." 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. (24 Jan) 041102** Vandana Shiva and Mae-Wan Ho - Living Rivers & the Genetic Engineering Nightmare All over the world rivers are dying. They are being polluted, diverted, privatized. The very life of our rivers and our civilizations is under threat. Instead of being treated as life lines, rivers have either been treated as "sinks" for the waste of chemical farms and urban and industrial complexes, or as "mines" for extracting water as "raw material" to be commodified and sold. The separation and disembedding of our rivers from ecology and culture, and their embedding in markets is promoting non-sustainable water use, a hydro-divide of the haves and have nots, and the potential for hydro jihads and water wars. For both peace and sustainability it is an imperative to re-embed our rivers in ecosystems and cultures of conservation. Living rivers need living cultures that care and living democracies that share. 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 is the author of many books including Biopiracy, Stolen Harvestand Water Wars. Dr. Shiva spoke in Brisbane on September the 1st 2004 at the 7th Annual Rivers Symposium. Dr. Mae-Wan Ho is the Director of the UK Institute of Science in Society and editor of Science in Society magazine, the world's only radical science magazine. She is also a scientific adviser to the Third World Network. A prolific author, she has published over 400 articles and 12 books including Living With the Fluid Genome, The Rainbow and the Worm: The Physics of Organisms, The Case for a GM-Free Sustainable World and the forthcoming Unravelling AIDS and Rice is Life. In 2003 she helped to launch and currently sits on an international Independent Science Panel set up to advise governments and the public on the hazards of Genetic Engineering. Mae-Wan Ho spoke in Melbourne at the Coburg Town Hall in October 2004 as part of a speaking tour organised by the GeneEthics Network. (**CD only) (17 Jan) 041004 Marjorie Kelly - The Divine Right of Capital Ordinary people work all their lives, expecting their pensions upon retirement. Instead, they're handed pink slips, then told their pensions are worthless. Corporate executives rake in millions while shady accounting practices hide the fact that they are at the helms of ships in trouble. When news of massive corporate scandals at Enron, WorldCom and Global Crossing broke, people demanded change. High profile hearings were held, CEOs were indicted and a corporate crime bill was easily passed by the House and Senate. But has anything really changed? Marjorie Kelly is co-founder and editor of Business Ethics, a national publication on responsible business practices launched in 1987. She writes for many other magazines and newspapers, including The Utne Reader and Harvard Business Review. She is the author of The Divine Right of Capital. (10 Jan) 041101** Greg Jarjoura - Classic Economics, the Free Market and our Future Where did the economy and the market come from? Who invented them and what exactly do they do? Our political leaders and corporate media commentators treat them as if they are living breathing entities. They're not. The economy is a theoretical construct. However, it is made material in the form of capital transactions using cash as the basis for economic relationships which are cemented in the market place of goods. But what is it they actually contribute to our society? Pundits would argue that the markets are our saviours. Critics would argue that they economic structures and the markets that represent them only reinforce class and social divisions. What models are there we can look to for hope and what lessons can we learn from the classics? Greg Jarjoura holds a Masters Degree in Economics and lectures in Economics and International Relations at The University of New South Wales. He is the winner of a Sydney University award for the Best Dissertation in a PostGraduate Degree for his Masters Thesis. He has published a number of journal articles on economic theory. Greg lives in inner Sydney with his family. I spoke with Greg in a rather noisy office in Alexandria in September 2004. (**CD only) (03 Jan) 041003 Stephen Bezruchka - Health & Wealth For most of us in the developed world, death is so remote we don't even concern ourselves with it. Later in life, it becomes a distant, inevitable reality, but still nothing for immediate concern. Then, as Rudyard Kipling wrote, "Man dies too soon, beside his works half-planned." Health and longevity are based upon factors we can all acknowledge: genetics, lifestyle and luck among them. They are also largely taken for granted. But as Stephen Bezruchka explains, social class has a far more profound effect in the US than we realize, in ways we wouldn't guess, even for the many of us who consider ourselves middle class. Stephen Bezruchka is a senior lecturer at the University of Washington and works as an emergency room physician in Seattle. His particular areas of research are population health and societal hierarchy and its application to health. He is author of numerous articles and essays. His most recent contribution is to Sickness and Wealth, a collection of essays on the effects of global corporatization on health.