TUC Radio: Recent Episodes
TUC Radio
Recent news: The Bandolero was seized on August 1 by the Icelandic Coast Guard and the crew detained. Reported by AP. Story here.When Captain Paul Watson – co-founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society returned from exile in France, TUC radio broadcast an interview with him that surpassed in downloads all programs of 2016 except for one. So here is an update on occasion of the beginning of the Japanese whale hunt in the Southern Ocean.Sea Shepherd is an international non-profit, marine wildlife conservation organization. Their 1977 founding mission is to end the destruction of habitat and the slaughter of wildlife in the world’s oceans. Their decades long practice of aggressive non-violence has led to charges of [ . . . ] Read More
Interview of Annie Jacobsen by tech writer Quentin Hardy for the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco.The investigative journalist and acclaimed author, specializing in weapons and war, Annie Jacobsen, has come closer than other investigators to the razor edge of secrecy that surrounds the current nuclear war machine. Her book, Nuclear War, is based on hundreds of interviews with war planners and engineers – plus recently declassified documents.Annie Jacobsen, reminds us that a Doomsday killing machine has been designed, capable of destroying not just two cities but life on this planet – first with fire and heat and then seven to ten years of darkness and ice sheets from nuclear winter.Annie Jacobsens book, Nuclear War, A Scenario, has 373 pages of [ . . . ] Read More
This is an updated archival program in memory of Cecile PinedaCecile Pineda had come to the Unitarian Universalists Fellowship Hall in Berkeley on Hiroshima Day 2014 to support Harvey Wasserman. He campaigns to prevent the opening of nuclear power plants – to limit their operation – or to close them down.Cecile Pineda had just finished her novel: Devil’s Tango: How I Learned the Fukushima Step by Step, that the Nation’s John Nichols called: “An astonishing anatomy of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster…”Cecile Pineda died at home on August 11, 2022. Her friends and students miss her voice, her humor, her deep scientific knowledge and her rebellion – all inside her art of writing.This replay of her appearance, along with Harvey [ . . . ] Read More
Prof. Moomaw wrote in 2021: Humanity puts out 11 billion tons of carbon each year – amazingly less than half ends up in the atmosphere. NASA satellite data and research show that a bit more than half of the remaining 6 billion tons of carbon are going into forests, plants, wetlands and soils. The other 40 – 45% is being absorbed by the oceans.However the extraordinary capacity of forests to absorb carbon is being undermined by world-wide logging and clear-cutting – which ironically turns forests, that could be our best protection from climate disaster – into yet another powerful source of greenhouse gases.William Moomaw is Professor Emeritus of International Environmental Policy at Tufts University. Stuart Scott was founder/executive producer of [ . . . ] Read More
A report on the underground networks in the forestSuzanne Simard is Professor of Forest Ecology in the University of British Columbia’s Faculty of Forestry. In spite of her status in academia, rigorous research and love and respect from her students it took over 30 years for her ideas to break through.Ferris Jabr writes in the New York Times Magazine: “By analyzing the DNA in root tips and tracing the movement of molecules through underground conduits, Simard has discovered that fungal threads link nearly every tree in a forest — even trees of different species. Carbon, water, nutrients, alarm signals and hormones can pass from tree to tree through these subterranean circuits…Resources tend to flow from the oldest and biggest trees [ . . . ] Read More
A small bookstore in Point Reyes Station, a coastal town in West Marin, California, was the first to invite Suzanne Simard for a conversation. Three days earlier, on May 4, her book had been published. Finding the Mother Tree, Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest, has already become a best-seller. Suzanne Simard was born in the Monashee Mountains of British Columbia and grew up in an old growth forest. She was educated at the University of British Columbia and Oregon State University; and is now Professor of Forest Ecology in the University of British Columbia’s Faculty of Forestry. Over 1,000 people participated on the Zoom book release hosted by David Haskell. He is professor of biology and environmental studies at [ . . . ] Read More
On August 28, 2008 analysis of the media Michael Parenti’s most up-to-date contribution. He gave the keynote speech for the Modern Media Censorship lectures by Project Censored. Each year Project Censored gives awards for the most censored news stories of the year. Parenti lists important criteria by which to judge media bias, ranging from ownership to labeling, false objectivity and sensationalism, omission, outright lies and the denial of causality with the famous theory of “stuff happens”.Michael Parenti (1935-2026) wrote and lectured on the mainstream media for decades. His key book on this topic is “Inventing Reality – The politics of the News Media.” With roots in a working class Italian district of New York and a Ph.D. in political science [ . . . ] Read More
This is The second part of Dr. Michael Parenti’s talk on his book: God and His Demons. The 2010 book covers the many evils committed in the name of godly virtue throughout history, and the threat posed by fundamentalists and theocratic reactionaries.Parenti (1935-2026) was one of the nation’s leading progressive political analysts. He was a prolific author and an engaging speaker. Parenti grew up in a conservative, catholic, working class Italian community in New York city. After receiving his Ph.D. in political science from Yale he taught at colleges and universities, in the United States and abroad. He risked and ended his academic career when he openly opposed the war on Vietnam. He served on the board of judges for [ . . . ] Read More
This is The first part of Dr. Michael Parenti’s talk on his book: God and His Demons. The 2010 book covers the many evils committed in the name of godly virtue throughout history, and the threat posed by fundamentalists and theocratic reactionaries.Parenti (1935-2026) was one of the nation’s leading progressive political analysts. He was a prolific author and an engaging speaker. Parenti grew up in a conservative, catholic, working class Italian community in New York city. After receiving his Ph.D. in political science from Yale he taught at colleges and universities, in the United States and abroad. He risked and ended his academic career when he openly opposed the war on Vietnam. He served on the board of judges for [ . . . ] Read More
Why the rich can’t save anybody – not even themselvesParenti predicted the financial crisis and said that giant corporate capitalism – by it’s very nature – is an apocalyptic system. When unregulated the built in elements of ever increased growth may well bring the whole system down. And he described the growing national debt not as a tragic mistake but as a means to shift ever more money from the tax payers to the financial institutions in the form of interest payments. This speech is an analysis of the many structural flaws of a capitalist system that puts it on a permanent collision course with democracy.Recorded on August 23, 2008 at the closing reception for Maria Gilardin’s art show. [ . . . ] Read More
From the University of Hartford Series: CIVIL LIBERTIES IN THE 21st CENTURY – In his November 2009 lecture at the University of Hartford Dr. Michael Parenti answers intriguing questions about democracy. Is US democracy a result of capitalism as some claim – or does it exist – such as it is – in spite of the current economic system. AND did the founding fathers even envision a democratic system – and why were so many of them opposed to democracy.Parenti (1933-2026) was one of the nation’s leading progressive political analysts. This is part two of his one hour lecture. He was introduced by the President of the University of Hartford, Walter Harrison. After receiving his Ph.D. in political science from [ . . . ] Read More
From the University of Hartford Series: CIVIL LIBERTIES IN THE 21st CENTURY – In his November 2009 lecture at the University of Hartford Dr. Michael Parenti answers intriguing questions about democracy. Is US democracy a result of capitalism as some claim – or does it exist – such as it is – in spite of the current economic system. AND did the founding fathers even envision a democratic system – and why were so many of them opposed to democracy.Parenti (1933-2026) was one of the nation’s leading progressive political analysts. This is part one of his one hour lecture. He was introduced by the President of the University of Hartford, Walter Harrison. After receiving his Ph.D. in political science from [ . . . ] Read More
How the Vote was Won and Lost If the right to vote is taken as a measure of a vibrant democracy, the United States came off to a bad start. Dr. Michael Parenti says that the most interesting list from the period of 1787 is the rather long one of people who were not allowed to vote and the many ways in which votes have been stolen during the Bush administration.This archival recording is a primer on the history of voting and the day to day efforts to make democracy come alive that shows Parenti at his best as historian and engaged political thinker.Parenti (1933-2026) was one of the nation’s leading progressive political analysts. After receiving his Ph.D. in political [ . . . ] Read More
Chris Hedges gets the first take on the November 2024 Election Here are excerpts from an extraordinary 54 minute conversation on the current and future wars coming out of the transition from the Biden to the Trump administration. With his extensive insights and expertise into the Middle East and American foreign policy, Lawrence Wilkerson provides a valuable understanding into what a Trump presidency may look like outside of the borders of America.It’s hard to imagine two better matched partners in this conversation. Chris Hedges is a former war reporter for the New York Times, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson was a former war planner and chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell.Christopher Hedges is an American journalist, author, and Presbyterian [ . . . ] Read More
Why the Zionist project embraced settler colonialism and why it will ultimately fail to achieve its goals Here are excerpts from a much longer interview with the Israeli historian Ilan Pappe, first broadcast on the Middle East Eye channel on November first 2024. This program goes into distribution on November 5, 24 – election day in the U.S. – where support for Israel’s bombing of Gaza has an outsized influence on the outcome.Thanks to Middle East Eye (MEE) for the excerpts. They are a UK-based news website founded in 2014 and cover the Middle East and North Africa. Mohamed Hassan welcomed Ilan Pappe to their studios in London. Pappe is one of Israel’s New Historians. Since the release of British [ . . . ] Read More
Danny Haiphong interviews Jeffrey Sachs on the 2024 BRICS Summit The annual BRICS summit was held on Oct. 22–24 in Russia’s southwestern city of Kazan. BRICS stands for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The group started in 2006, and has since doubled in numbers. This was the first BRICS summit to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates as members.Thirteen nations have now been added as partner countries of BRICS: Algeria, Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Nigeria, Thailand, Turkey, Uganda, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam.The aim of the BRICS alliance is to challenge the economic and political monopoly of the West. So-called Western Governments, and analysts and podcasters are now trying to make sense of what this [ . . . ] Read More
With an update on the arrest, on July 21,2024, of Paul Watson on a Japanese warrant This is an archival TUC Radio program from 2016. You will hear Captain Paul Watson describe his extraordinary journey saving whales and life in the oceans. Paul Watson was co-founder of Greenpeace and CEO of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. He was commander on seven different Sea Shepherd ships since 1978 and now, at age 73, leads vessels under the flag of the Captain Paul Watson Foundation. Thanks to the French Thinkerview collective for the interview.This archival program has contemporary significance: On October 23, 2024, the day this program is being placed back into distribution, Paul Watson remains in prison in the capital city [ . . . ] Read More
Against the Threats of Use of Nuclear Weapons by NATO, the U.S., Russia and Israel The investigative journalist and acclaimed author, specializing in weapons and war, Annie Jacobsen, has come closer than other investigators to the razor edge of secrecy that surrounds the current nuclear war machine. Her book, Nuclear War, is based on hundreds of interviews with war planners and engineers – plus recently declassified documents.Annie Jacobsen, reminds us that a Doomsday killing machine has been designed, capable of destroying not just two cities but life on this planet – first with fire and heat and then seven to ten years of darkness and ice sheets from nuclear winter.Annie Jacobsen’s book, Nuclear War, A Scenario, has 373 pages of [ . . . ] Read More
On October 2, the French author and film producer Frank Barat invited him to a conversation Yanis Varoufakis comments on the role of global powers, particularly the United States, in perpetuating the war on Gaza. Frank Barat asks him about the unparalleled violence, the media’s portrayal of the situation, and the historical context of Zionism.These are excerpts from a 35 minute interview of the Greek university lecturer, economist and politician Yanis Varoufakis. Since 2018, he has been Secretary-General of the Democracy in Europe movement, a left-wing pan-European party he co-founded in 2016. Previously, he was Greece’s Minister of Finance during much of 2015. Varoufakis’ most recent book is Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism.You can find the full 35 minute interview under [ . . . ] Read More
The former British diplomat Alastair Crooke is interviewed by Judge Andrew Napolitano Hassan Nasrallah led Hezbollah in Lebanon for more than three decades and made it into a military and political force. Nasrallah’s killing in a massive Israeli air attack in a southern suburb of Beirut raises fears of a dangerous expansion of Israel’s wars – even more deeply involving the U.S.Alastair Crooke was a ranking figure in both British Intelligence with MI6 and European Union diplomacy. His specialty is political Islam. He was interviewed by Judge Andrew Napolitano on his channel: Judging Freedom on Sept. 30, 2024.DATE: – Streamed live on Sep 30, 2024.CREDIT: Andrew Napolitano’s podcast channel: Judging FreedomThe longer interview is posted on Napolitano’s podcast channel, Judging [ . . . ] Read More
When Penguin Random House prepared the release of Annie Jacobsen’s most recent book: Nuclear War, A Scenario; for early 2024, they did not anticipate that it would appear at a time of heightened risk of a nuclear war.The risks include casual threats of the use of nuclear weapons over Ukraine or in the Middle East; as well as the actual attacks or threats to the nuclear plants in Ukraine and Russia.Annie Jacobsen’s book is based on dozens of exclusive interviews with military and civilian experts who built the modern nuclear weapons and launch systems.Annie Jacobsen and Professor Steven Starr explain how nuclear weapons and the highly automated systems that set them off, have become so much more deadly than in [ . . . ] Read More
The Grayzone, Col Larry Wilkerson, Miami Herald and the New York Times Print and Internet media in mid September 2024 were filled with speculation whether the U.S. would agree with the UK to allow Ukraine to use long-range missiles to strike deep inside Russia.The Miami Herald from September 16, 2024, wrote: US may let Ukraine fire missiles deep inside Russia. Here’s why experts say it’s risky.The leading argument by politicians for an incursion into Russia is the often repeated statement that Putin plans to take over all of Ukraine and move on from there. A secret guarded for over two years now is the fact that the fist meeting to end the war, was held four days after the start [ . . . ] Read More
Replay of the Fukushima Symposium, 2013, the first comprehensive analysis of the health and environmental damage done by one of the worst nuclear accidents of our time Steven Starr says: “Long lived radio-nuclides such as Cesium 137 are something new to us as a species. Although they are invisible to our senses they are millions of times more poisonous than most of the common poisons we are familiar with. They emit radiation, invisible forms of matter and energy, that we might compare to fire. It’s not a fire that can be scattered of suffocated because it burns at the atomic level, it comes from the disintegration of single atoms”.Starr gives an update as to what people in Japan are facing now [ . . . ] Read More
The team studies birds, insects, microbes, and plants at over 1,000 sites, returning year after year. They found significantly increased rates of genetic damage When the biologist, Professor Tim Mousseau, concluded this talk by showing heartbreaking pictures of the birds of Chernobyl and their tumors and birth defects, the physician and anti nuclear campaigner Dr. Helen Caldicott stepped up to the podium to thank him.She said: “I want to pay homage to Tim Mousseau, who with his colleagues is actually endangering his life by going into extremely high radioactive areas doing pioneering work, which is going to change the concept of radiation exposure to humans. What is happening to the animals, the insects and the plants is going to happen [ . . . ] Read More
Now campaigns across the world demand to keep nuclear power plants open. A controversy between Helen Caldicott and Australian opposition leader Peter Dutton. He wants to build seven new nuclear reactorsOn June 18, 2024, the Australian opposition leader, with his shadow cabinet, dropped the bombshell of making the upcoming elections in Australia a referendum on returning to nuclear power plant construction.One day later ABC News Australia broadcast an interview with David Speers. They call this a decision between renewable energy and nuclear.Only three days later, On June 22, 2024, the Australian antinuclear campaigner Helen Caldicott joined the debate with a line of reasoning that nobody had yet mentioned: Safety.Helen Caldicott is best known for having founded several associations dedicated to [ . . . ] Read More
Microsoft, Twitter/X, Facebook, Amazon and Google demand electricity for Data Centers – On June 18, 2024, the US Congress passed the misnamed “Advance Act” that will provide electric power to data-centers.The Advance Act aims to expedite the development of next generation nuclear reactors and pays to support aging ones. It directs the Department of Energy to reduce regulatory cost for advanced reactors and provides deployment incentives.Joe Biden signed the Advance Act into law on July 9, 2024. All this while so-called modern societies have not yet cleaned up the damaged nuclear reactors at Fukushima, Chernobyl and Three Mile Island. And the so-called “spent” highly radioactive nuclear fuel is still piling up at the power plants. With one exception, Onkalo [ . . . ] Read More
A new argument is emerging in favor of using nuclear to cover the increased power demands of Artificial Intelligence, and – almost as an afterthought – fuel the green transition to solar and wind.Legislation in Congress, such as the Advance Act, supported by the Biden administration, has already passed, with bi—partisan support, as recently as June 2024. It is written to fund all stages of the cycle – from uranium mining to accelerated building and licensing of new nuclear power plants.Strangely the mining industry has always prepared for the new market in uranium. And we all would have known had we attended their conferences. The program begins with an interview from the World’s Premier Mineral Exploration & Mining Convention. They [ . . . ] Read More
Helen Caldicott interviews Michael Madsen on the building of the world’s first storage site for nuclear waste – Archive This archival TUC Radio program comes to you in August of 2024 in the face of the so-called nuclear renaissance driven by Artificial IntelligenceThis is the conclusion of a conversation between Helen Caldicott and Michael Madsen whose film, Into Eternity, premiered in the US in February 2011. Helen called Madsen “One of the more extraordinary people I’ve ever interviewed”. This is a thought provoking exchange between the veteran campaigner, Helen Caldicott, who dedicated her life to alerting us to the nuclear danger, and the young Danish artist. He introduces thoughts about civilization, language, danger and eternity.Into Eternity is a documentary about [ . . . ] Read More
Documentary on the first permanent storage for waste from nuclear power plants in the world Blasted into bedrock of the island of Olkiluoto in Finland on the shores of the Baltic Sea, Onkalo has to remain secure for 100,000 years.Danish filmmaker Michael Madsen’s documentary of the building in progress of Onkalo is a meditation on eternity, insanity and the impossibility of projecting anything 100,000 years into the future.The film also proves eloquently and with expert statements the terrible danger that arises from so-called “spent” nuclear fuel from power plants and makes us see Fukushima with very different eyes.This radio program presents excerpts from the film and its amazing sound design.DATE: film released in 2010CREDIT: Filmmaker Michael Madsen
Dr. Shir Hever with Nora Barrows Friedman and Ali Abunimah On July first, 2024, the New York Times published an anonymous report from inside the leadership of the IDF, The Israeli Defense Forces. Top generals said they are convinced that an exhausted and depleted Israeli army cannot win and are demanding a cease fire.In reaction to the NY-Times article, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the following day, that the war in Gaza will not end until Hamas is destroyed. And that the “IDF will continue fighting and improve our readiness for a war in the north with Lebanon.” Dr. Shir Hever is an Israeli living in exile. His PhD is from the Free University Berlin. He is the military embargo [ . . . ] Read More
With Yanis Varoufakis, Max Blumenthal and Aaron Mate Ghida Fakhry interviews Yanis Varoufakis about the new wave of nationalism sweeping across Europe. Fakhry Lebanese-British journalist. She was a lead anchor for the global news channel Al Jazeera English at its launch in Washington D.C. and now works with TRT World – a Turkish public broadcaster in English 24 hours a day.The former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis is an economist and acclaimed author. Since 2018, he has been Secretary-General of DIEM25, the Democracy in Europe Movement. That’s a left-wing pan-European political party that he co-founded in 2016. They spoke on Jul 12, 2024. The conversation was published on YouTube under the title: Tipping Point: Europe’s Surge to the RightThat’s [ . . . ] Read More
Which country is the worst enemy for Ukraine – Russia or the U.S. When Judge Napolitano began his interview with Jeffrey Sachs, his opening question was: Which country is the worst enemy for Ukraine – Russia or the United States? And Sachs makes the case that the loss of life and infrastructure in Ukraine in the proxy war against Russia makes the US a candidate for worst enemy. He also quotes Henry Kissinger who said: “To be an enemy of the United States is dangerous, but to be a friend is fatal.”Jeffrey Sachs also explores how promises of NATO membership to Ukraine may have fueled the ongoing conflict; and why the peace negotiations between Ukraine and Russia in March 2022 [ . . . ] Read More
Yanis Varoufakis and DiEM25 Immediately after it became known that the founder of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, was set free from a prison in London, and had boarded a plane towards Guam, the DiEM25 channel launched a conversation between Yanis Varoufakis, Srećko Horvat, Karin De Rigo and others. Here are excerpts from that conversation.Yanis Varoufakis is a Greek economist and politician. He is Secretary-General of DiEM25, a radical political movement in Europe that he co-founded in 2016. Srecko Horvat is a Croatian philosopher, author, political activist and co-founder of DiEM25. And Karin De Rigo is coordinator of the local DiEM25 group in Berlin.They spoke while the plane, carrying Julian Assange to freedom, was still in the air, heading to Guam. By [ . . . ] Read More
With Tony Gonzales of the American Indian Movement West For the first time in 15 years, Leonard Peltier had a full parole hearing on Monday, June 10, at the United States Penitentiary at Coleman, Fla. The decision whether he will be free will be rendered by mid July 2024.Peltier is Turtle Mountain Ojibwe. He has been incarcerated for 48 years for the alleged killing of two FBI agents at Oglala on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in June 1975. For five decades, Peltier has maintained his innocence and hoped for the chance to clear his name.Peltier had a controversial trial marred by falsified testimony, and fabricated evidence. And criticism of the trial even came from judges involved in the case: [ . . . ] Read More
How close are we coming to nuclear war? Ray McGovern is interviewed by Judge Andrew Napolitano on his Podcast Judging Freedom.McGovern served as CIA analyst for 27 years, from the administration of John F. Kennedy to that of George H. W. Bush. His duties included chairing National Intelligence Estimates and preparing the President’s Daily Brief. After retiring from the CIA, McGovern became a commentator on intelligence-related issues and was one of the best informed critics of the war on Iraq.Once a week Judge Andrew Napolitano interviews the same group of progressive commentators on war and current affairs. He spoke with Ray McGovern on June 17, 2024.You can find the video of this interview on Youtube on the channel: Judging Freedom. [ . . . ] Read More
The Biden Administration authorized Ukraine to use American Weapons to attack inside Russia Once a week Judge Andrew Napolitano interviews the same group of progressive commentators on war and current affairs. On June 4, 2024 he spoke to Columbia University Professor Jeffrey Sachs.Sachs is an American economist, and public policy analyst. He is known for his work on Sustainable Economics and the fight to end climate change and poverty. He has worked as an economic adviser to governments in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. He works with the United Nations as President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network.Sachs has authored and edited numerous books, including three New York Times bestsellers: The End of Poverty (2005), Common Wealth: [ . . . ] Read More
Edward Said’s last major speech on Palestine before his death in September 2003 Among the over twelve hundred programs in the TUC Radio archives this is one of my favorites. That’s based on the respect I have for the speaker, Edward Said, and the ongoing sadness that, to this day, so little is known about the history of Palestine.This is Edward Said’s last major speech on Palestine, the war on Iraq and the Bush administration. On September 25, 2003, a message made its way around the world. Edward Said, Palestinian American, world famous professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, and fearless defender of the Palestinian cause had died of leukemia in New York City, far from the [ . . . ] Read More
The historian Ilan Pappe comments on the missile launch towards Tel Aviv, the ICC ruling, and his own interrogation by the FBI Ilan Pappe is an Israeli historian and political scientist. He is now a professor with the College of Social Sciences and International Studies at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom.His best known book is The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. Based on declassified British and Israeli government documents, the book explains that the expulsions of Palestinians were executed based on a plan drawn up in 1947 by Israel’s future leaders. Ilan Pappe left Israel in 2008 after being condemned in the Knesset. A minister of education had called for him to be sacked.Frank Barat, the French activist, [ . . . ] Read More
On May 18, 2024, Paul Salvatori, Presenter & Senior Producer at TRT World, invited Professor John Mearsheimer for a conversation Professor Mearsheimer is an American political scientist and international relations scholar who belongs to the realist school of thought. He is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago. Mearsheimer is best known for describing the interaction between great powers as being primarily driven by the desire to achieve regional hegemony.Mearsheimer is also internationally known for the 2007 book he co-authored with Stephen Walt, entitled “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy”. The core argument is that the Israel Lobby wields disproportionate influence over U.S. policy – both domestic and international.Mearsheimer has recently been in high [ . . . ] Read More
and The conflation of antisemitism and criticism of the Israeli government Within a week, in early May of 2024, the renowned professor of economics put out two commentaries on his Wolff Responds podcast that break the mainstream media taboo, or misinformation, on the responses by university administrators and police to campus opposition to the war on Gaza.Richard Wolff is a professor emeritus of economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a visiting professor in the graduate program in international affairs of the New School in New York City.This is also a personal response by Prof. Wolff to the extraordinary harsh actions by the New School administrators to the pro-Palestinian encampments at the university. They called the New York City [ . . . ] Read More
With 2024 Updates of the 1872 Mining Law Even though mines – from iron to copper to gold to minerals, such as lithium mines can be so huge that they can be seen from space – and are destructive to land and water and forests – recent proposed legislation in the US aims at expanding mining.It turns out that, ironically, the transition to a green economy with wind turbines, solar arrays, electric vehicles and battery storage requires an unprecedented increase in mining for lithium, cobalt, nickel, copper, tungsten, aluminum, graphite and more.Here is an archival TUC Radio program on Mining in America. In 1995 I bought a beat up RV, put all my radio equipment in it and took off [ . . . ] Read More
Excessive screen time on phones coincides with the sharp increase in depression, anxiety, and self-harm in young people Jonathan Haidt is the author of The Anxious Generation and the Epidemic of Childhood Mental Illness, published in March 2024. He is in conversation with Tristan Harris, an ex-employee of Google. Harris had a key role in the Netflix documentary film The Social Dilemma and explained how the design of social media platforms manipulates people’s views, emotions, and behavior.Thanks to the Commonwealth Club of California Jonathan Haidt and Tristan Harris appeared together on stage on April 1, 2024.This is a 24 minute excerpt of their conversation. For the full hour recording, that also shows the images of the graphs that present the [ . . . ] Read More
A crucial effort to ship humanitarian supplies to Gaza and bring about a ceasefire “We are calling on countries around the world to pressure Israel to allow us “free and safe passage” to deliver much-needed humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip.” That’s a message from Medea Benjamin, the co-founder of CODEPINK.She is one of hundreds of participants from 32 countries that are now gathered in Istanbul, Turkey, to sail on three ships to Gaza, carrying 5,500 tons of humanitarian aid.TUC Radio is helping spread the word of this crucial effort by quoting George Galloway from the UK, and former U.S. Colonel Ann Wright in an interview with Eleanor Goldfield of Project Censored. Also a brief clip from a news report [ . . . ] Read More
Les Leopold is the author of Wall Street’s War on Workers Chris Hedges interviewed Leopold on April 5, 2024 on The Real News Network. Hedges is an American journalist, author, commentator and Presbyterian minister. He hosts the program The Chris Hedges Report on The Real News Network.Leopold co-founded the Labor Institute and wrote How Mass Layoffs and Greed Are Destroying the working-class – And What to Do About It. Published on Feb. 22, 2024This is a 26 minute excerpt of an extraordinary 54 minute video that I urge you to see on line under the title: Billionaires are pillaging America. How to fight back?Please make use of the facts and strategies presented in this program, they might play a crucial role [ . . . ] Read More
How to reach a sustainable future with renewable energy Where will all the metals and minerals come from that we need for solar panels, windmills, batteries and electric cars?Simon Michaux did 18 years of development and research in the mines of Australia. He knows that minerals and metals are already running short and that we need to create a circular economy based on recycling.In 2015 Simon Michaux came to Europe to learn industrial recycling and the circular economy at the University of Leiden, Netherlands. Michaux is now Associate Professor at GTK, the Geological Survey of Finland. He works with governments, United Nations agencies, non profits and financial institutions to help develop the renewable grid.He was interviewed by Tony from Sustainable [ . . . ] Read More
They spoke on March 28, 2024 before an overflow audience Here are highlights from an almost two-hour event streamed Live and archived by the Real News Network.Norman Finkelstein is the author of many books, including the Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering; and Gaza: An Inquest into Its Martyrdom. He received his PhD from Princeton University’s Department of Politics and has held faculty positions at Brooklyn and Hunter Colleges, and Rutgers, New York, and DePaul Universities. Finkelstein’s personal experience shaped his life. His mother survived the Majdanek concentration camp, his father survived Auschwitz.Chris Hedges was the Middle East Bureau chief for the New York Times and a vocal critic of the invasion of Iraq. He left the [ . . . ] Read More
Why the rich can’t save anybody – not even themselves 2024 Tribute – Updated Archive: Parenti predicted the financial crisis and said that giant corporate capitalism – by it’s very nature – is an apocalyptic system. When unregulated the built in elements of ever increased growth may well bring the whole system down. And he described the growing national debt not as a tragic mistake but as a means to shift ever more money from the tax payers to the financial institutions in the form of interest payments.This speech is an analysis of the many structural flaws of a capitalist system that puts it on a permanent collision course with democracy. Recorded on August 23, 2008 at the closing reception [ . . . ] Read More
A People’s History of Ancient Rome with Lessons for Today Who was Julius Caesar, a dictator or a populist? And who really was Brutus, who murdered him on the Ides of March? A young hero or a participant in a deep seated conspiracy? This intriguing lecture by the noted author, speaker, activist and scholar Michael Parenti provides surprising new insights and parallels to today that are both shocking and amusing.This rebroadcast is part of the very popular and ever expanding series on what Parenti called Real History, a different and intriguing reading of a surprisingly large number all too familiar stories.Parenti spoke about his Pulitzer Price nominated book: The Assassination of Julius Caesar, a people’s history of ancient Rome. He [ . . . ] Read More
Nuland was Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, the third highest ranking US Diplomat position Glenn Greenwald is an American journalist, author, and former lawyer. He became a vocal critic of the Iraq War and American foreign policy. In 2014, he cofounded The Intercept and was the editor until he resigned in October 2020. Greenwald now is self-publishing on Substack.The Hill is a source for policy and political news. Glenn Greenwald was interviewed on their news commentary show, “Rising”.Five days after the Greenwald interview the former CIA analyst Ray McGovern speculated that political differences between Nuland and Biden administration officials may have led to her surprise ouster.Ray McGovern served as a CIA analyst for 27 years, from the administration [ . . . ] Read More
The Israeli historian Ilan Pappe is interviewed by Dareen Abughaida on Al Jazeera English Dareen Abughaida is a Palestinian-Lebanese broadcast journalist based in Doha, Qatar. She’s currently working as the principal news presenter and host for Al Jazeera English. Dareen previously worked for Bloomberg L.P., CNBC, the World Bank, and the United Nations.Al Jazeera English is a 24-hour English-language news channel. It is funded by the government of Qatar and the first world-wide English-language news channel to be headquartered in the Middle East. Al Jazeera broadcasts in over 150 countries and territories, and has a global audience of 430 million people.Dareen Abughaida interviewed Ilan Pappe on Feb 25, 2024. Pappe is the author of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. This [ . . . ] Read More
DiEM25 goes Live Stream while London’s High Court decides whether Julian Assange can be extradited to the US DiEM25 is a pan-European, progressive movement. They aim to democratize the EU before it disintegrates. DiEM25 members met by ZOOM on Feb 20, 2024, to comment on the court proceedings.The moderator, Mehran Khalili, is an adviser to DiEM25 and writes about censorship and misinformation.Yanis Varoufakis, economics professor and acclaimed author, was Minister of Finance in 2015, negotiating on behalf of the Greek government during their debt crisis.Judith Meyer from Berlin, Germany, is a linguist and author and has been working for DiEM25 since 2016.This recording, The War on Truth – Julian Assange with Yanis Varoufakis, is part of a 58 minute Live [ . . . ] Read More
Hosted by the Surfrider Foundation, San Diego, in January 2024 Matt Simon is the author of the book: A Poison Like No Other, How Microplastics Corrupted Our Planet and Our Bodies.He traces how the plastic we are using and discarding breaks into ever smaller pieces that poison water, soil and the atmosphere. Scientists have found micro plastics in the deepest ocean trenches and in snow of the North and South Poles. They are in our food, and from there travel though our bodies. And most plastic is made from a mix of toxic petro-chemicals.Matt Simon has been a science journalist at Wired magazine for nine years. He covers a range of beats, including biology, robotics, climate change, and of course, [ . . . ] Read More
How Microplastics Corrupted Our Planet and Our BodiesWelcome to this program from TUC Radio’s Archives, first broadcasts on Jan. 3, 2023.Almost all plastics in use today are so called “petrochemicals,” products made from fossil fuels like oil, coal, and gas. This industry is booming and plastics are showing up not just in manufacturing, construction and road building, but in our personal environment, our homes, households, clothes, furniture, and the food distribution systems we depend on.The very thing that makes plastic so useful – its toughness – means it never really goes away. It just gets smaller and smaller: eventually small enough to enter the atmosphere and be inhaled, or be absorbed by food crops that are watered with sewage sludge. [ . . . ] Read More
Excerpts from an interview by 99ZuEins – a podcast on the channel 99ToOne Yanis Varoufakis is a Greek economist and politician. He has been an outspoken dissident voice in the western discourse on the ongoing war in Gaza.Since 2018, Varoufakis has been Secretary-General of Democracy in Europe Movement, DiEM25, a left-wing pan-European political party he co-founded in 2016. Nadim, from 99ToOne, spoke with him about the nature of the war, the purpose and function of international institutions and humanitarian law, as well as the peculiar stance of the EU and Germany towards the war. These are excerpts from a 45 minute interview,recorded on Feb. 2, 2024. Thanks to Nadim at 99ZuEins – a podcast on the [ . . . ] Read More
McCully was the executive director of the International Rivers Network This is the second part of a program on the epic struggle over dams, displaced people and the environment, that I recorded for TUC Radio in 2006. Patrick McCully was then the executive director of the International Rivers Network. They are supporting communities around the world that are impacted by destructive dams. On their 2023 website International Rivers Network dot org list 217 dam projects around the world that they have helped delay or stop. Globally the building of mega dam-projects is slowing down but the world is left with dams and reservoirs that are decaying and becoming a danger to people downstream. Just this morning, as I’m preparing this program for [ . . . ] Read More
Jacques Leslie is a foreign correspondent turned non-fiction writer who once covered the war on Vietnam for the Los Angeles TimesJacques Leslie discovered when he wrote for Harper’s that “At the core of every argument about water are dams, the modern pyramids, generators of extravagantly apportioned electricity, water storage, and environmental and social disasters.“Millions of people have been displaced and some of the most fertile land been drowned. In spite of their size dams are not forever. Sooner or later they will all silt up and become expensive waterfalls. They pose a constant looming danger to life downstream when they fall into disrepair or are damaged by earthquakes or acts of war.A battle is being fought by independent scientists and [ . . . ] Read More
Johnson’s name is being quoted in the 2023 work of analysts and historians Today’s analysts and historians say that one statement is more timely now than when Johnson first made it in 2006 that “nothing is more dangerous to democracy, than military expansion and war” and argued that the U.S. is in danger of internal collapse, due in large part to the vast expenditures required to maintain its ever-expanding empire. Chalmers Johnson is the acclaimed author of Blowback, The Sorrows of Empire and Nemesis. He is a former analyst for the CIA and professor emeritus of the University of California San Diego. Chalmers Johnson was interviewed by the California based author of “Imperial San Francisco”, Gray Brechin, in March 2007. DATES: March, 2007 Location: [ . . . ] Read More
Johnson’s name is being quoted in the 2023 work of analysts and historians. ONE of TWO Chalmers Johnson wrote that “nothing is more dangerous to democracy, than military expansion and war” and argued that the U.S. is in danger of internal collapse, due in large part to the vast expenditures required to maintain its ever-expanding empire. Chalmers Johnson is the acclaimed author of Blowback, The Sorrows of Empire and Nemesis. He is a former analyst for the CIA and professor emeritus of the University of California San Diego. He was interviewed by the California based author of “Imperial San Francisco”, Gray Brechin, in March 2007. DATES: March, 2007 Location: MLK Junior High in Berkeley
An August 9, 2023, conversation with Robert Scheer McGovern told Bob Scheer: “I spent six decades following Soviet and now Russian policy. Most of that time professionally… I have never, never had so much fear that we are on the cusp of a nuclear catastrophe.” They discuss why the danger is so high right now, and how a peace agreement could be reached. Ray McGovern was a CIA analyst on the Soviet Union and Russia from 1963 to 1990 and advisor to seven US presidents. He prepared the President’s Daily Brief. In 2006 he protested the CIA’s involvement in torture. Bob Scheer came out of the student movement of the 1960 and was and remains a journalist and author of books. He [ . . . ] Read More
Daniel Ellsberg at the gates of Lawrence Livermore Lab There are two locations where all US nuclear weapons are designed. Lawrence Livermore National Lab in California is one of them. Since 1983 Tri-Valley CAREs has monitored nuclear weapons and environmental clean-up throughout the US, with a special focus on Livermore Lab. Every year on August 6 Tri-Valley CAREs and supporters gather at the gates of Livermore Lab to remember the victims of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This year, 2023, the silent vigil was also dedicated to Daniel Ellsberg. He had been at the gates of Livermore Lab many times in the past and gotten arrested for blocking the entrance. He died in June of this year at age 93. [ . . . ] Read More
Paul Jay and Peter Kuznick challenge the claims that the bombing ended WWII Two weeks before Hiroshima and Nagasaki Day 2023 Paul Jay and Peter Kuznick had a conversation about the just released film Oppenheimer by Christopher Nolan. They acknowledged the importance of the film at a time when the risk of a nuclear war is the highest since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. But they also raised the question why it is still possible to claim that the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima saved lives by ending WWII. Thanks to Paul Jay, host and co-founder of The Analysis, for inviting Peter Kuznick, professor of history and director of the Nuclear Studies Institute at American University and co-author with [ . . . ] Read More
How America hides the human toll of its Military Machine Kirkus Reviews called this book “a powerful, necessary indictment of efforts to disguise the human toll of American foreign policy” and “a provocative overview of the consequences of the media’s appalling failures in making important truths known.” Norman Solomon is an American journalist, media critic, author and activist. He is the founder of the Institute for Public Accuracy and co-founder and national director of the online organization RootsAction.org, which now has upwards of 1.3 million online supporters. He is the author of 13 books, among them Made Love, Got War; War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death; and Target Iraq: What the News Media Didn’t Tell You. Massachusetts [ . . . ] Read More
Join Dr. Peter Carter, Paul Beckwith and Regina Valdez in a discussion of the recent temperature records set in the first truly global heatwave on land and in the ocean This recording was made on July 12th when the World Meteorological Organization confirmed one record hottest day after another. Dr. Peter Carter, is expert reviewer for the IPCC (the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) and the director of the Climate Emergency Institute. Paul Beckwith is a physicist, engineer, and now a part-time professor at the University of Ottawa. And Regina Valdez is Climate Reality Project Director, NYC. They met by Zoom on July 12th, 2023. And as I am recording this on Tuesday, July 18, AXIOS news reports that again – [ . . . ] Read More
For Brecht’s 100ds birthday in 1998 the Royal National Theatre from London gave a performance in his honor at Theater Artaud in San Francisco Bertolt Brecht and many other artists in post WWI Germany were courageously and proudly democrats, socialists or communists. They had experienced the horror of the first World War and were determined to prevent a second one. So when Hitler and the Nazi party actually assumed state power in 1933 they were all marked and most of them left the country immediately. Their exodus destroyed much of the cultural/political rebellion of the 1920s. Even though Brecht, the playwright, poet, director and theoretician of the stage, was persecuted by the Nazi’s, he was forced to leave his home in [ . . . ] Read More
Neta Crawford, Professor in international relations at the University of Oxford Neta Crawford co-founded the Costs of War Project at Brown University in 2010 and currently serves as a project co-director. She is the author of “The Pentagon, Climate Change, and War: Charting the Rise and Fall of U.S. Military Emissions” (MIT Press). She spoke at a book release event on September 29, 2022, at Harvard University. The military has for years (unlike many politicians) acknowledged that climate change is real, creating conditions so extreme that some military officials fear future climate wars. At the same time, the U.S. Department of Defense—military forces and DOD agencies—is the largest single energy consumer in the United States and the world’s largest institutional greenhouse gas emitter. [ . . . ] Read More
Redwoods Retirement Center in Mill Valley, CA When I joined Seniors for Peace at their second ever rally for peace in Iraq on February 7, 2003, I did not dream that 20 years later they would still be coming out every Friday from 4 to 5 pm to the busy intersection near their home. Undaunted – even by hostility – they have called for peace in all the subsequent wars since then. Among those who I met in 2003 was a survivor of the firebombing of Dresden and a Red Cross worker in London who saw the young men dead on both sides and still mourned their loss of life. I’m honoring them now – 20 years later – for the [ . . . ] Read More
First the United Kingdom, now the Biden Administration, are planning on sending Depleted Uranium tank shells to Ukraine When the UK Ministry of Defense (MOD) made the announcement on March 20, 2023, peace groups and investigative reporters raised the alarm. Toxic and radioactive uranium dust, that appears when these DU shells are detonated, pose a danger to the health of anyone who inhales it. And they contaminate the soil and water. The investigative reporter and documentary filmmaker John Pilger remembers the devastating effects the DU shells had when they were used in Iraq. In conversation with John Pilger is Phil Miller, chief reporter for Declassified UK. Miller was the first to expose Britain’s plan to send Depleted Uranium ammunition to Ukraine. Miller [ . . . ] Read More
The Community Church of Boston celebrated the 60th anniversary of Kennedy’s speech on World Peace on June 10, 2023 They invited Professor Jeffrey Sachs to speak to the congregation. Sachs wrote a book on the American University speech entitled: To Move the World – JFK’s Quest for Peace. Jeffrey Sachs is an economist, academic, and public policy analyst. He is Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, and President of the UN Sustainable Solutions Network, and an SDG advocate for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. Sachs has credentials for Eastern Europe and Russia as former advisor to the economic team of Presidents Michael Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin. He also spent time in Ukraine as advisor to the President of independent [ . . . ] Read More
The Land Back Symposium was a day-long event at Cal Poly Humboldt, Arcata, held on March 24, 2023 The event focused on the indigenous peoples of Northern California and how a growing LandBack movement can protect former tribal land from mining, logging and climate change. Corrina Gould is the co-founder and Co-Director of the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust. She is the Spokeswoman and Tribal Chair of the Confederated Villages of Lisjan, now known as the San Francisco Bay Area. Five of the eight Ohlone Tribes lived on that land and their sacred sites are now buried under cement slabs and their rivers turned into toxic storm drains and their food trees were cut down. Today nobody even wonders why there is [ . . . ] Read More
From Ellsberg’s 2017 book “The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner” Daniel Ellsberg is best known for having made public the Pentagon Papers in 1971. They showed the world that the U.S. government had lied about planning war on Vietnam and using a lie to start it. At the same time Ellsberg had copied and taken 7,000 pages from the nuclear command and control system in the US – that also contained the targeting for a first strike launch against the Soviet Union and China. Ellsberg always said that this was information even more vital for the world to have than the Pentagon Papers. And in part one of this program he described how these records [ . . . ] Read More
From Ellsberg’s 2017 book “The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner” In 1971, the young defense analyst Daniel Ellsberg had taken on the Nixon administration, risking his career and freedom to leak the Pentagon Papers. He showed the world that the U.S. government had lied repeatedly about beginning and winning the war on Vietnam. Now, over 40 years later, Ellsberg is sharing the research from his most ambitious project yet, The Doomsday Machine — a stunning insider’s tale of the American nuclear procedures.Ellsberg was a nuclear war planner during the 1950s and ’60s. In The Doomsday Machine Ellsberg offers an expose about “the nuclear war planners, of which I was one, who have written plans to kill billions [ . . . ] Read More
How the Morrill Act of 1862 gave nearly 11 million acres of land, taken from more than 250 tribal nations, to finance 52 land grant collegesLand Grant Universities got their money through land confiscations, often through violence and threats. The Land Back Symposium was a day-long event at Cal Poly Humboldt, Arcata, CA, held on March 24 of 2023. A powerful movement of land return is spreading across the world and has even reached some support from state governments.The Land Grab Universities session was led by Dr. Brittani Orona, Hoopa Valley Tribe (Assistant Professor of American Indian Studies, San Diego State University)The panelist were: He-Lo Ramirez, Menchoopda Indian Tribe, (Council Member & Director of Environmental Planning and Protection [ . . . ] Read More
Panels discussed Public & Private Land Return, Land Grant Universities, Indigenous Land Trusts, and Legal RecommendationsThe Land Back Symposium was a day-long event at Cal Poly Humboldt, Arcata, held on March 24. The meeting broke many taboos and told the story how a powerful movement of land return is spreading across the world and – at least in California – has even reached some support by state government.The opening session began with a welcome from Chairman Ted Hernandez of the Wiyot Tribe, followed by Geneva Thompson, the Assistant Secretary for Tribal Affairs at the California Natural Resources Agency; and ended with a talk by Dr. Cutcha Risling Baldy on “Land Histories & Decolonial Land Futures”. She is Cal Poly Humboldt’s [ . . . ] Read More
Told by a veteran, journalists and historians, with an update from Democracy Now On Wednesday, April 26, 2023, Joe Biden pledged to deploy nuclear armed submarines to South Korea for the first time in 40 years. The US would involve officials from South Korea in nuclear planning operations targeting North Korea.How has it come to this, what is the experience of people on the ground in North and South Korea. And why do we know so little about the US War on Korea, that began 70 years ago, and never ended in a peace agreement.I had the moving experience to record one of the few living veterans of that war. The great late folk singer and story [ . . . ] Read More
Of course Ellsberg is best known for the release of the Pentagon Papers, a top secret study of the decision-making of the U.S. government in relation to the war in Vietnam, how long it had been planned for, and how – like in the bombing of Iraq – lies were used to actually begin the war in Vietnam. Less known is his support of whistle-blowers and his anti-nuclear work.Daniel Ellsberg has used his experience to defend Julian Assange and other whistleblowers – even up to current days – when it has become known that he received a cancer diagnosis that gives him only a few more months to live.Frank Barat spoke with Daniel Ellsberg on Jan 19, 2023. He is [ . . . ] Read More
His encouragement to others to disclose government lies – and his response to the accusation of treason This is the second part of a talk by Daniel Ellsberg that he gave on December 18, 2007 in downtown San Francisco to a small group of members of the Republican Roundtable. Those were the George W Bush years and it was well known that Ellsberg campaigned against the threats war on Iran. I had permission to film the event and was concerned about a possible confrontation. Half-way through this 29 minute segment Ellsberg responds to a statement that he was advocating treason – to which he gives a legally and historically brilliant response that still applies today, to Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning [ . . . ] Read More
And his first hand experience of The Gulf of Tonkin DeceptionIt was the evening of December 18, 2007, and I was setting up my recording equipment in an unfamiliar downtown San Francisco conference room.The events coordinator of the Republican Roundtable had offered me an invitation to record Daniel Ellsberg – and of course I said yes – in spite of the unfamiliar venue.One of the guests walked past me and said matter-of-factly: Ellsberg is a traitor and proceeded to his chair. And by the time that Daniel Ellsberg arrived I was certain that there were only two people in the room who were not Republican. In spite of some skepticism Ellsberg moved the audience with one of the most [ . . . ] Read More
Marc Lamont Hill speaks to Varoufakis on UpFront on Al Jazeera on March 31, 2023 This interview – plus the original article by Varoufakis: “Let the Banks Burn”, published in Project Syndicate on March 24, 2023, generated over a quarter million entries on search engines in only ten days. They may be one of the most unorthodox but also well thought out solutions to the current banking crisis.The interviewer, Marc Lamont Hill, is an American author, activist, and professor of media studies and urban education at Temple University in Philadelphia. He is host of UpFront on Al Jazeera English. Al Jazeera is the international news conglomerate, based in Doha and financed by the Qatari government.Yanis Varoufakis is [ . . . ] Read More
Annabelle Goldie, the British minister of state for defense, made this announcement last week, on March 20, 2023Britain already has sent the first Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine and the Depleted Uranium munitions are designed to be fired from these tanks. This announcement came just two days after the commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the Iraq war, where DU ammunitions were used on a large scale.The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament has attacked the UK’s decision. Kate Hudson, its General Secretary, said: “CND has repeatedly called for the UK government to place an immediate moratorium on the use of Depleted Uranium…”DU munitions were used by the US and Britain in the Gulf war in 1991 and in Iraq in [ . . . ] Read More
Jordan Chariton asks Prof. Wolff – Is this crisis contained – or will it spread?They spoke on March 15 – when the news broke that the Silicon Valley Bank was to receive a bailout.Richard Wolff is Professor of Economics Emeritus, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and the founder of Democracy at Work and host of their nationally syndicated show Economic Update. Jordan Chariton is an investigative reporting news producer with Status Coup News. They feature in-field and investigative reporting, and aim to cover what corporate media covers up.Find the interview from March 15, 2023 on YouTube under the title: Professor Richard Wolff: Silicon Valley Bank Bailout Crisis.Credit: Jordan Chariton, Status Coup NewsDate: 2023/03/15
Special for International Women’s Month This is the conclusion of Dr. Riffat Hassan’s extraordinary feminist lecture on the story of Adam and Eve, a story that forms the basis for the oppression of women in Islam, Judaism and Christianity. Plus my interview with her about her radical re-interpretation of the significance of Eve’s acceptance of the apple. Dr. Riffat Hassan is a Muslim theologian from Pakistan who opposes the Islamic view of the inferiority of women. She says that since anti women legislation and custom are enacted in the name of theology, it is necessary to study the Koran and critique the source.In the original text, says Hassan, women are neither inferior nor sinful. Adam is not a man’s name – it [ . . . ] Read More
Special for International Women’s Month 2023 Dr. Riffat Hassan is a Muslim theologian from Pakistan who opposes the Islamic view of the inferiority of women. She says that since anti women legislation and custom are enacted in the name of theology, it is necessary to study the Koran and investigate the source. This required courage since challenging traditional interpretation of the Koran can be a capital offense. On the other hand we are all familiar with the claim that Islam has given women more rights than any other religious tradition. And Riffat Hassan decided to deal with that contradiction.Riffat Hassan began her quest in 1984 when her feminist friends in Pakistan asked her to help define the theological [ . . . ] Read More
A speech on the one year anniversary of the climate destroying war in Ukraine Peter Carter from British Columbia, Canada, is a retired medically trained doctor with a background in environmental health protection. In 2009, moved by James Hansen’s public statement that the world was in a state of planetary emergency due to climate change, he founded the Climate Emergency Institute and remains it’s director. He published on global climate change science and impacts, Arctic climate change, risk assessment and biodiversity. He has presented at many leading science and climate change conferences including the American Geophysical Union (AGU) and the European Geosciences Union (EGU). And he is an IPCC expert reviewer.The IPCC and other United Nations organizations have warned us that [ . . . ] Read More
An interview by Steve Taylor for the Global Justice Ecology Project This thought provoking conversation took place on January 25, 2023, one day after the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists advanced the hands of the Doomsday Clock to 90 seconds before midnight—in large part due to war in Ukraine.Dr. Helen Caldicott is an Australian peace activist and environmentalist. She discusses the extreme and imminent threat of a nuclear holocaust due to a proxy war between the U.S. and Russia in Ukraine. She also addresses nuclear fusion and the relationship between the nuclear power industry and nuclear weapons.Helen Caldicott is the author of many books and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. She was named by the Smithsonian as one [ . . . ] Read More
Hamilton 68 was a Twitter based dashboard designed to be used by reporters and academics to “measure Russian disinformation” Chris Hedges wrote: The panic over Russian disinformation that followed the election of Donald Trump often relied on a source now known to have been fraudulent, Hamilton 68.Matt Taibbi wrote: Virtually every major news organization in America has used material from the Hamilton 68 dashboard, including NBC, CBS, ABC, PBS, CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times and the Washington Post. Mother Jones alone did at least 14 stories pegged to the group’s “research.” Even fact-checking sites like Politifact and Snopes cited Hamilton 68 as a source.This is a February 10, 2023, interview by Chris Hedges of Matt Taibbi on The Real [ . . . ] Read More
Credit to Ben Norton, founder and editor of Geopolitical Economy ReportIn his speech to the U.S. National Association of State Chambers on Jan. 23rd, 2023, Zelensky credited asset managers and corporations that are already active in Ukraine – among them BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, and J.P. Morgan Chase, Elon Musk’s Starlink and Westinghouse.But that is just the beginning. Rebuilding Ukraine, Zelensky said, “will be the largest economic project of our time in Europe.” The areas of investment listed by Zelensky range from weapons and defense to construction, from communications to agriculture, from transport to IT, from banks to medicine. “And, I invite you to work with us right now”.Ben Norton, investigative journalist and the founder and editor of the Geopolitical Economy [ . . . ] Read More
With Prof. Yogi Hendlin & Ari WhittenWhen this conversation took place in April 2022 Ari Whitten and Prof. Yogi Hendlin had just met in Costa Rica and were inspired by their common interests.Here are excerpts from their 90 minute conversation on environmental toxins and how they affect our health. They discuss in detail how industries, that produce these toxins, manipulate research and evade responsibility. Ari Whitten is the founder of The Energy Blueprint, and a best-selling author.Prof. Yogi Hendlin is an environmental philosopher and public health scientist. He has a PhD in Environmental Philosophy from the University of Kiel, Germany, and holds graduate degrees from the London School of Economics and UCLA and bachelor’s degrees from UC Berkeley. He’s currently [ . . . ] Read More
Killing people, or preparing to kill them, is considered very valuable in the international economic systemMarilyn Waring was only 22 when she was first elected to the New Zealand Parliament. She was shocked and dismayed when she learned that all countries that are members of the UN are forced to keep their books and design their budgets under the system of National Income Accounting. The international trade in arms is the biggest growth industry of all. Killing people, or preparing to kill them, is considered very valuable in the international economic system. The death, homelessness, injury, poverty and starvation caused by the use of these weapons is not even registered as a deficit.This segment opens with war. Under the GDP [ . . . ] Read More
Under the GDP accounting system war is the biggest growth industry of all Marilyn Waring’s work and inspiring life are described in a documentary film by Terre Nash. I’m bringing back the soundtrack of this film to support a debate on the unquestioned need for economic growth at all cost and on what course to take to end the war on Ukraine.At age 22 (in 1974) Marilyn Waring became the youngest member of the New Zealand Parliament. She chaired the prestigious Public Expenditures Committee and became familiar with the Gross Domestic Product system and decided to disclose its pathologies in a film, her teachings at AUT University in Auckland and really her life as a feminist economist. The [ . . . ] Read More
Mark Leon Goldberg interviews Andres del CastilloBy now we have all seen images of plastic garbage patches floating in the ocean, beaches and riverbanks swamped with plastic trash, entangled sea-creatures suffocating – but data on the presence of plastics in soils and air are new – Discarded plastics break down into microplastics less that 5 mm in length – and they degrade further into nano-plastics that can only be seen under a microscope.There are now microplastics found in human lungs and blood and placentas; and the latest scientific studies show that babies are drinking microplastics in their mothers’ milk.Here is a report from the first meeting to control plastic held in Uruguay in December 2022. 160 of the 192 [ . . . ] Read More
How Microplastics Corrupted Our Planet and Our BodiesMicroplastics are making the news. This program opens with a clip from Aukland, New Zealand, broadcast on December 15, 2022. Research published in the Environmental Science & Technology journal shows that 74 tons of microplastics fell from the air on Auckland in 2020.Almost all plastics in use today are so called “petrochemicals,” products made from fossil fuels like oil, coal, and gas. This industry is booming and plastics are showing up not just in manufacturing, construction and road building, but in our personal environment, our homes, households, clothes, furniture, and the food distribution systems we depend on.The very thing that makes plastic so useful – its toughness – means it never really [ . . . ] Read More
2023 Rebroadcast to remember and honor Michael Parenti who will turn 90 later this yearParenti rarely talked about his life. How does a NYC street kid get accepted to Yale? How does he lose the privilege of his PhD. in an arrest at a demonstration against the war on Vietnam, and become an internationally acclaimed author and lecturer?Michael Parenti grew up in a poor, working class Italian community in New York City. When he received his PhD in political science from Yale in 1962 he was the success and pride of his family. He risked and ended his academic career when he openly opposed the war on Vietnam. Ultimately the choice he made then was a good one. He now [ . . . ] Read More
I’m recording this at the end of December 2022 – as a celebration of three decades of producing TUC radio as an independent community program. And as a love letter to my grandmother who did all the clothes-making and repairing at home.If she were now by my side would she even recognize the land she walked on when she was a teenager at the turn of the century? And how would she react to fast fashion?An article in the Guardian says that textile production consumes more oil than Spain uses in a year, and significantly contributes to the fashion industry’s huge climate footprint. Synthetics also continue to have an impact long after production, shedding plastic microfibers into the environment when [ . . . ] Read More
Silent Night in trenches of the Western FrontThe Christmas Truce was an unofficial cease-fire on parts of the Western Front. Guns fell silent for one to several days. Soldiers emerged from the trenches and talked, exchanged gifts and kicked around a soccer ball. Trenches were close in some places, separated by 50 yards or less.The Story of the Christmas Truce WWI is a documentary film about this spontaneous cease-fire. Thanks to historians Peter Hart, Taff Gillingham and Robin Schaefer, and their choice of rare documentary photos, footage and archived letters from soldiers of both sides. The documentary focuses on the section of the trenches where British and German soldiers were facing each other. This radio program goes into distribution on [ . . . ] Read More
“On the way to destroying our world we are beginning to wake up from a millennia long sleep.”Here are excerpts from a conversation between the scholar of Buddhism and activist Joanna Macy and Vicki Robin, a writer, speaker, and host of the What Could Possibly Go Right podcast. Robin’s goal is to interview people who see far and serve the common good and help us to see more clearly and act more courageously.Joanna Macy wrote: “The most remarkable feature of this historical moment is not that we are on the way to destroying our world – it’s that we are beginning to wake up – as if from a millennia long sleep.”Joanna Macy is an author, teacher and a scholar [ . . . ] Read More
By Dr. Gray Brechin: Imperial San FranciscoThis is Part TWO of the history of San Francisco. The town that grew from 16 houses on sand dunes in 1850 to the largest city on the West Coast in only 30 years.Gray Brechin explains in the first chapter of his book Imperial San Francisco how the gold rush connected two major factors for city building: A swelling of the population and the growth of investment capital. But the mix of people and money was lacking another major ingredient: water. As the first wave of destruction of California was brought about by gold mining, the second wave was caused by the damming of rivers, and the flooding of land for reservoirs, even eventually [ . . . ] Read More
By Dr. Gray Brechin: Imperial San Francisco This is part of the history of a city, grown from 16 houses on sand dunes in 1850 to the largest city on the Pacific Coast in only 30 years. The book, Imperial San Francisco by Dr. Gray Brechin, is one of the few examples of a scholarly dissertation that becomes a very popular book. Imperial San Francisco brings to light the huge sacrifices extracted from the surrounding land by large cities, from Babylon to the Italian city states to the instant cities of North America. This program focuses on the Gold Rush and the early conflicts between mining and farming. Next week we’ll talk about the valleys flooded and the rivers diverted to [ . . . ] Read More
The destruction of San Francisco in the late 1990s A new generation of writers Rebecca Solnit, Mike Davis, and Gray Brechin are inspiring us into seeing our familiar surroundings with new eyes. They also offer a different perspective on the radical transformation that development and venture capital have brought to so many cities. San Francisco, formerly famous for taking a travelers heart away, is now reaching for the soul and the wallet. A dot com boom combined with the growing biotechnology industry have driven housing prices up and residents and local small businesses out. Rebecca Solnit says she wrote Hollow City in a hurry to document the beauty and rich culture that was being destroyed, and to support the growing movement of [ . . . ] Read More
Here are excerpts from a conversation on the new podcast site: India & Global Left. The well prepared host, Jyotishman Mudiar wants to know: “Why the US has a unique place in the history of imperialism?” And Michael Hudson describes how much power can be projected by control of the instruments of finance. Michael Hudson is Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City – But unlike most academics he has also practiced banking as a balance of payments economist in Chase Manhattan Bank from 1964 to 1968. Michael Hudson acts as an economic advisor on finance and tax law to governments worldwide including China, Iceland and Latvia. Michael Hudson is the author of many books, among them: Super Imperialism: [ . . . ] Read More
A Conversation with Tim Redmond – TUC Archives It was with sadness that I received the news that the urban historian Mike Davis died on October 25, 2022, at home in San Diego – in the county his parents reached by hitch-hiking during the Great Depression. From meat cutter and truck driver to college student and teacher – editor of The New Left Review, and successful author of twenty books – his life and academic career were extraordinary. I met and recorded Mike Davis in San Francisco in March 2000 when he visited my neighborhood, the North East Mission Industrial Zone. We had all been affected by the dot.com boom of 1998 through 2000, driven by [ . . . ] Read More
Steven Parton interviews Varoufakis on Singularity Radio Yanis Varoufakis is a Greek economist and politician who was the acting Minister of Finance in Greece during their debt crisis in 2015. Varoufakis defines Techno Feudalism and how corporations have appropriated our identity and convinced us to consume things that we neither need nor want – creating environmental destruction. Also covered in this interview: why 2008 is a watershed moment for Capitalism; block chain VS bit coin; Universal Basic Income; and the question of democratic control of our technologies. The host of Singularity Radio, Steven Parton, has focused on how technology is impacting the human condition and society as a whole. These are excerpts from the original podcast published on Sept. 23, 2022 [ . . . ] Read More
American University, June 10, 1963 Considered one of his most visionary and courageous speeches, Kennedy outlined a way to stop an imminent nuclear disaster, and beyond that find a path to world peace and nuclear disarmament. The historic records give much of the credit to Kennedy for avoiding a nuclear war with the Soviet Union in 1962 over nuclear missiles in Cuba and Turkey during the Cuban Missile Crisis. On the 60th anniversary of the Missile Crisis, that brought the world closer to nuclear war than ever, analysts say that history repeats itself now, in October 2022. The two largest nuclear powers, the US and Russia, are in confrontation over Ukraine. And instead of de-escalating all sides in this conflict [ . . . ] Read More
The New York based organization Brooklyn For Peace invited Prof. Jeffrey Sachs to help devise a strategy to prevent nuclear war by negotiating a peace agreement. In their introduction to this talk on October 6, 2022, they praised him as a world-renowned economics professor and bestselling author. Sachs serves as the Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, where he holds the rank of University Professor. Jeffrey Sachs is very familiar with Russia and the former Soviet Union. Soviet President Gorbachev, and then Russian President Yeltsin, invited him to advise them on the transition from central planning to a market economy. He also observed directly the history and expansion of NATO. Brooklyn For Peace has begun a campaign [ . . . ] Read More
With Chris Hedges, Taylor Hudak and Stella Morris-Assange Support for the journalist and publisher of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange focused on rallies in London and Washington DC on October 8, 2022. The former war correspondent and author Chris Hedges gave the most eloquent summary of the situation. A new generation of journalists is coming out in support of Assange. Taylor Hudak is an American-Hungarian journalist and covers human rights, free speech, press freedom, US foreign policy and corruption. She produces video reports and interviews for the online publication acTVism Munich. She was invited to speak about Julian Assange at the Better Way Conference in Vienna on September 29, 2022. Ten days earlier Chris Hedges was the guest of Project Censored. Director Mickey Huff asked [ . . . ] Read More
With Rachel Thunder and Attorney Kevin Sharp At the end of September 2022, after Leonard Peltier’s 78th birthday, chances for his release are possibly better than ever before. His new attorney, Kevin Sharp, confirmed that no proof exists that ties Peltier to the 1975 deaths of two FBI agents on the Pine Ridge reservation. And the Democratic National Convention voted unanimously on September 10, 2022, to urge President Biden to release Leonard Peltier from prison. The Huffington Post called this a sign of the growing momentum to remedy what many consider a decades long stain on the nation’s criminal justice system. And a 2 1/2 months long walk began in Minneapolis on September first with an arrival date in Washington, DC, for [ . . . ] Read More
TUC Radio is joining independent media across the country in the Fall of 2022 for a celebration of the 100th birthday of this great historian Howard Zinn spoke about the United States as occupied territory. He said that political and ideological power have been seized by a small group of radical anti-democratic ideologues. In this part TWO Zinn talks about US exceptionalism, the myth of the US being number One, and the various forms of patriotism that cloud views and perceptions. And he asks how a war on terrorism can be declared – even though war itself is terrorism. Howard Zinn was a historian, author, professor, playwright, and activist. He taught political science at Boston University and wrote more than 20 books, including [ . . . ] Read More
TUC Radio is joining independent media across the country in the Fall of 2022 for a celebration of the 100th birthday of this great historian Howard Zinn spoke about the United States as occupied territory. He said that political and ideological power have been seized by a small group of radical anti-democratic ideologues. Howard Zinn was a historian, author, professor, playwright, and activist. He taught political science at Boston University and wrote more than 20 books, including his best-selling and influential A People’s History of the United States. Zinn died suddenly in January 2010. He was about to give two major talks in Santa Monica, CA. He grew up in Brooklyn in a working-class, immigrant household. At 18 he became a shipyard worker [ . . . ] Read More
Diablo Canyon was scheduled to close by 2025 Governor Gavin Newsom got a bill approved in California’s assembly and senate (SB-846), that changed state law so the operator of Diablo Canyon, Pacific Gas and Electric, (PG&E) can receive at least $1.4 billion of taxpayer and ratepayer money to keep the compromised Diablo Canyon nuclear reactors operating. Even before construction at Diablo Canyon began in the 1960s local and national organizations campaigned to prevent the plant from being built on the California coast line on top of several earthquake faults and in a tsunami zone. Placed half way between two major cities, Los Angeles and San Francisco, a reactor vessel explosion (a class 9 nuclear accident) would affect either metropolis – depending [ . . . ] Read More
This is an updated archival program in memory of Cecile Pineda Cecile Pineda had come to the Unitarian Universalists Fellowship Hall in Berkeley on Hiroshima Day 2014 to support Harvey Wasserman. He campaigns to prevent the opening of nuclear power plants – to limit their operation – or to close them down. Cecile Pineda had just finished her novel: Devil’s Tango: How I Learned the Fukushima Step by Step, that the Nation’s John Nichols called: “An astonishing anatomy of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster…” Cecile Pineda died at home on August 11, 2022. Her friends and students miss her voice, her humor, her deep scientific knowledge and her rebellion – all inside her art of writing. This replay of her appearance, along with Harvey [ . . . ] Read More
A meditation on the 100,000 year legacy of nuclear waste – TUC Archives As people using and promoting solar power we often jokingly said that we prefer our nuclear reactor in the sun at a safe 93 million mile distance. As humans have mastered one power of the universe and split the atom, the discovery has outstripped human ability to understand the consequences. We have copied the nuclear heating mechanism of the sun in 440 nuclear power plants along coastlines and rivers of the world and are barely aware of the danger they cause way beyond their place and time of use. The physician and anti nuclear campaigner Helen Caldicott says that vast amounts of highly toxic radioactive waste are generated every [ . . . ] Read More
A meditation on nuclear danger and war, and the 100,000 year legacy of nuclear waste The shelling around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine and the managed acceptance of Onkalo, the underground storage site for nuclear waste in Finland, are in the August 2022 news while I am updating this re-broadcast. Helen Caldicott called Madsen “One of the more extraordinary people I’ve ever interviewed”. This is a thought provoking exchange between the veteran campaigner, Helen Caldicott, who dedicated her life to alerting us to the nuclear danger, and the young Danish artist. In his documentary film he introduces thoughts about civilization, language, danger and eternity. Into Eternity is a film about the building of the world’s first permanent repository for nuclear waste [ . . . ] Read More
From GATT to the World Trade Organization – TUC Radio ARCHIVES When the rules of the GATT, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, were re-written, and the World Trade Organization formally established in 1995, the world was promised peace, prosperity and an end to hunger. However the WTO, with now 164 members and representing over 98% of global trade, did not follow through on its commitments. Today, in 2022, there is no peace, the gap between rich and poor is larger than ever, and the environment is devastated by mining, logging, fishing and industrial agriculture. What role has global trade played in all this? For example at the June, 2022, WTO conference in Geneva WTO members were mandated, under Sustainable [ . . . ] Read More
TUC Radio’s 30th Anniversary Celebration – ARCHIVE Looking back over the last three decades and trying to understand the heating of the climate and the melting glaciers and the poisoning of all waters and the air; and when hard pressed to put it all into one sentence I used to say that the worlds largest corporations re-wrote the rules of international globalized trade that accelerated mining and manufacturing and transport and fuel extraction and led to climate collapse and concentrated power in very few hands. In the 1990s I worked as radio producer with the IFG, The International Forum on Globalization. They pointed out that the globalized trade rules of the GATT and the WTO fundamentally limited rights and power [ . . . ] Read More
…and the founding of the The International Forum on Globalization How the rules of the GATT, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, were re-written and how, in 1995, the GATT became the WTO. The World Trade Organization enforces the rules of globalized trade and is the most powerful organization that hardly anybody heard of – to this day. The WTO can override a member country’s governments, laws and regulations if they are deemed a barrier to trade. Against the background of the war in Ukraine, the collapse of the climate and todays extraordinary power of corporations, some business consultants are now warning that we are heading into an era of “de-globalization” with guaranteed disorder and scarcity. They say that global [ . . . ] Read More
The author Peter Zeihan in conversation with Ian Bremmer and Sam Harris Today some of the consultants who are advising business, finance and the military, are warning that we are heading into an era of “de-globalization” with guaranteed disorder and scarcity. Thanks to Sam Harris for hosting a debate on some of the causes of de-globalization on his podcast: Making Sense. Harris is a neuroscientist, philosopher, and New York Times best-selling author. Peter Zeihan founded the consulting firm “Zeihan on Geopolitics”. His clients include energy corporations, business associations and the US military. Ian Bremmer is president and founder of the Eurasia Group, a research firm advising investors and business decision-makers with offices in Washington, DC, London, Tokyo, Sao Paulo, Brasilia and Singapore. CREDIT: [ . . . ] Read More
Looking ahead on planet earth in the year 2050 and the collapse of empires in the not-so-distant future With minimal edits here is an extraordinary conversation between Chris Hedges, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and former foreign correspondent for The New York Times – and the novelist and playwright John Feffer, who is also co-director at the Institute for Policy Studies. A lively and inspiring discussion between two well-read people. And thanks and credit to the Real News Network where this conversation was broadcast on July 8, 2022. In his dystopian novel, Splinterlands, Feffer looks at climate, refugees, collapsed states, militias and gangs battling over diminishing resources. Feffer begins with the fissures that are already around us. Splinterlands is the first book [ . . . ] Read More
Tamara Lorincz in a July 1, 2022, conversation with Bruce Gagnon from space4peace There is a marked difference between the peace movements in Canada and the US. Canadian Voice of Women for Peace, and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Canada, are campaigning for an end to the War in Ukraine, and for an end to weapons shipments. They also demand that Canada withdraw from NATO. Coinciding with the NATO summit in Madrid, at the end of June 2022, there were more than a dozen protests against NATO held from coast-to-coast in Canada. Bruce Gagnon is the coordinator and co-founder of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space. He invited Tamara Lorincz for [ . . . ] Read More
In a Zoom call on the summer solstice of 2022 in India and the winter solstice in Australia, the founders of Spiniflex Press celebrated the publication of Vandana Shiva’s most recent book: Terra Viva. Among her many prior books such as: Soil not Oil; Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature & Knowledge; or Oneness Vs. The 1%, this is the first that might be called a memoir. Her 50 years of activism and writing began with her volunteer work for the Chipko movement. Women in India embracing trees to save them from the running chainsaws of loggers, to taking on the World Bank, corporations such as Monsanto, and Bill Gates promotion of geoengineering and false climate solutions. Find the one hour video of this [ . . . ] Read More
Comments by George Galloway, Ambassador Craig Murray, Glenn Greenwald, and Assange’s attorney and wife, Stella Moris Julian Assange is an Australian editor, publisher, and activist who cofounded WikiLeaks in 2006. WikiLeaks came to international attention in 2010 when it published material provided by U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning. The material includes the Baghdad airstrike Collateral Murder video from April 2010, the Afghanistan and Iraq war logs and more. All containing evidence of war crimes. Julian Assange is currently held in the high security Belmarsh prison in the UK pending extradition to the US. George Galloway is a British politician and broadcaster. He was a member of parliament between 1987 and 2010, and then between 2012 and 2015. [ . . . ] Read More
An Urgent Appeal for Peace in Ukraine Rob Johnson is President of the Institute for New Economic Thinking, iNEP. They publish interviews on line and on June 6, 2022, Johnson spoke with Professor of Economics, Jeffrey Sachs, about Ukraine; the danger of nuclear war inherent in the current US/Russian confrontation (with reference to the 60th anniversary of the Cuban missile crisis); and on US Exceptionalism. Jeffrey Sachs is an American economist, academic, public policy analyst and former director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University, where he holds the title of University Professor. Sachs is known as an expert on sustainable development, economic development, and the fight against poverty. During the dissolution of the Soviet Union he was [ . . . ] Read More
Historic Opposition to the Global Trade Agreements On May 7, 2022, I heard Hazel Henderson in a spirited one hour interview on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. She was introduced as Nader’s personal friend and advocate for economic models that are based on principles of cooperation and sharing in our abundance. She sadly died, age 89, only two weeks after the interview. Here is my tribute in memory of Hazel Henderson. I met her in 1993 and recorded her whenever she visited San Francisco. This is my archival recording of Hazel Henderson from the Healthy Cities and Communities Conference in SF in December 1993. She was applauded as a “world-renowned futurist, evolutionary economist, a syndicated columnist, consultant on sustainable [ . . . ] Read More
Interview with Kshama Sawant, Socialist City Council Member, Seattle, WA Imagine a woman running and winning in 2013 as socialist for City Council in a town that is dominated by some of the world’s largest corporations. Seattle Washington is home to Amazon, Microsoft, Starbucks, and seven more Fortune 500s. Kshama Sawant helped lead the fight, in 2014, that made Seattle the first major American city to mandate a $15 an hour minimum wage. She and her allies took on Jeff Bezos and pushed through a business tax that increased city revenues by an estimated $230 million a year. In December 2021 Amazon had spent over $3 million to recall her but failed. Here are excerpts of an inspiring conversation [ . . . ] Read More
On May 13, 2022, the Ukrainian exile, Wlad Jachtchenko, interviewed the linguist, philosopher, historian, social critic, and analyst of US foreign policy, Prof. Noam Chomsky. Wlad Jachtchenko studied law, modern history and literature and holds degrees from Munich and Columbia University, New York City. After working for the United Nations and as lawyer in Munich, Wlad is now teaching public speaking and how to develop critical thinking. Here are excerpts from their conversation. You can find the full 48 minute interview on YouTube under the title: Noam Chomsky: War in Ukraine is “an insane experiment” by the US. DATE 2022/05/13
From the TUC Radio Archives, Feb. March 2015 – The New York Academy of Medicine In his 2013 book: Nuclear War and Environmental Catastrophe, Noam Chomsky warned that we are facing “two problems for our species survival — nuclear war and environmental catastrophe.” Up to this point in history problems caused by humans were regional. However just in the last few decades climate change and nuclear war have become a threat to all life. Chomsky was born in Philadelphia in 1928. He studied at the University of Pennsylvania where he received his PhD in linguistics in 1955. In 1967 he gained public attention for his vocal op2015position to U.S. involvement in the war on Vietnam and was arrested several times. [ . . . ] Read More
On April 19, 2022, the former CIA analyst Ray McGovern spoke in a talk sponsored by the Social Justice Forum, Raleigh. Excerpts on this program focus on nuclear weapons, the Maidan Coup, and the Minsk Agreement. McGovern’s CIA career began under President John F. Kennedy, and lasted through the presidency of George H.W. Bush. McGovern advised Henry Kissinger during the Richard Nixon administration. Under Ronald Reagan he chaired the National Intelligence Estimates and prepared the President’s Daily Brief.He received the Intelligence Commendation Medal at his retirement, returning it in 2006 to protest the CIA’s involvement in torture. McGovern had been invited by the Social Justice Forum, Raleigh, to fill in what was not talked about in the media regarding Ukraine. [ . . . ] Read More
Yanis Varoufakis taught economics in Britain, Australia, and his home town of Athens, Greece. In 2015 he became part of the Greek government. After his resignation he remained deeply involved in European politics. This is an interview by Steve Paikin on Canadian public TV, on April 21, 2022. Paikin is host of TVO’s Public Affairs program, The Agenda, and a well known documentary producer. Paikin also brought up the four hour documentary about Varoufakis just released in May 2022 under the title: In the Eye of the Storm: The Political Odyssey of Yanis Varoufakis. The filmmaker Raoul Martinez says: “In this documentary Varoufakis raises urgent questions about where our civilization is headed and how power works at the highest levels. [ . . . ] Read More
On April 20, 2022, the podcaster Katie Halper presented Richard Wolff, Professor of Economics Emeritus at UMassAmherst, and Visiting Professor at New School, New York City, with a very different view on Ukraine. How is the war affecting the status of the US as dominant Empire, and how will the sanctions on Russia change all global economic relations. This is an excerpt from a 45 minute presentation – beginning with the history of the world wars. Professor Richard Wolff is the author of several books including Democracy at Work, Understanding Marxism, and Capitalism Hits the Fan. He hosts the weekly radio program Economic Update. Thanks to podcaster Katie Halper for excerpts from her interview. She is a comedian, writer, filmmaker, and political commentator. [ . . . ] Read More
Marilyn Waring was only 22 when she was first elected to the New Zealand Parliament. She was shocked and dismayed when she learned that all countries that are members of the UN are forced to keep their books and design their budgets under the system of National Income Accounting. The international trade in arms is the biggest growth industry of all. Killing people, or preparing to kill them, is considered very valuable in the international economic system. The death, homelessness, injury, poverty and starvation caused by the use of these weapons is not even registered as a deficit. This segment opens with war. Under the GDP accounting system war is the biggest growth industry of all. A segment recorded in the [ . . . ] Read More
Our economic system assigns no value to peace and to the preservation of the environment Marilyn Waring’s work and intriguing life are described in a documentary film by Terre Nash. I’m bringing back the soundtrack of this film to support a debate on the unquestioned need for economic growth at all cost and on what course to take to end the war on Ukraine. At age 22 (in 1974) Marilyn Waring became the youngest member of the New Zealand Parliament. She chaired the prestigious Public Expenditures Committee and became familiar with the Gross Domestic Product system and decided to disclose its pathologies in a film, her teachings at AUT University in Auckland and really her life as a feminist economist. The film, [ . . . ] Read More
“This transition to a life sustaining culture is a revolution in the magnitude and scope of the agricultural revolution 10,000 years ago.” The Great Turning, Awakened Action Symposium On the Summer Solstice of 2020 Joanna Macy, from her home in Berkeley, spoke at the Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The Buddhist monastery had called for Awakened Action and invited Women Leaders to Speak to Race, Poverty, Climate, and the Covid Pandemic. Joanna Macy is an eco-philosopher and a scholar of Buddhism, general systems theory, and deep ecology. Now in her very early nineties she has for decades helped transform despair and apathy into constructive change. As teacher, writer of eight books and antinuclear activist she has created [ . . . ] Read More
An interview by lay Buddhist practitioner Jo Confino Thich Nhat Hanh was a Vietnamese monk, peace activist, poet, author, teacher and an inspiration for engaged Buddhism. Called Thay for short, Thich Nhat Hanh was exiled from Vietnam in 1966 after expressing opposition to the war. A year later Martin Luther King nominated him for a Nobel Peace Prize. After a 39-year exile, Thay was permitted to visit Vietnam in 2005. He died on January 22, 2022. Joanna Macy has lived in the SF Bay area for much of her life. While I was living in the area as I never missed a chance to hear her and talk to her. What intrigued me most were her anti nuclear campaigns – her many [ . . . ] Read More
Neutrality or Membership? On January 10, 2022, the author, linguist, and historian Noam Chomsky addressed the question: Was Ukraine invited to become part of NATO – and who did the inviting and when. Chomsky speaks on the risk of Europe being subordinated to US NATO politics. After a lifetime teaching at MIT Chomsky is now Laureate Professor of Linguistics at the University of Arizona; and still active as philosopher, historian, and author. On March 3, 2022, John Mearsheimer spoke on the topic of Putin’s Invasion of Ukraine. NATO membership VS neutrality has become the most contested factor in the attempts to bring peace to Ukraine. However the history of the founding and subsequent expansion of NATO is [ . . . ] Read More
Varoufakis March 9 message to the «Peace Forum» and his response to radio host and YouTuber Russell Brand. This is a passionate appeal for peace by the former academic and Minister of Finance. After resigning from the Greek government in 2015 Yanis Varoufakis did not return to academia. He is now engaged in European politics as a visionary speaker, writer, and active participant. In February 2016, he launched the Democracy in Europe Movement and is active in the building, social justice and financial goal setting of the European Union and holds a parliamentary seat since July 2019. The first clip is Varoufakis’ message for peace in Ukraine to the Progressive International. Varoufakis records from his kitchen for the meeting on [ . . . ] Read More
In conversation with Marc Steiner on The Real News Network On March 4, 2022, Marc Steiner talked with Chris Hedges about the path that led to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and about the corporations that benefit from the expansion of NATO and the current war. The five largest weapons makers are all American. In first place Lockheed Martin – followed by Raytheon Technologies, Boeing, Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics. Chris Hedges is the former Middle East bureau chief of The New York Times, a Pulitzer Prize winner, and a columnist at ScheerPost. Marc Steiner came from FM Radio beginning in 1993. In 2018 he started The Marc Steiner Show on The Real News Network – where [ . . . ] Read More
QUOTE: “We are in an unprecedented situation. For the first time a war is being fought in a region where there are operating nuclear reactors. This presents an extreme risk to human life unlike anything we have seen in previous wars.” That’s a statement from Beyond Nuclear, of Feb. 25, 2022. For a relatively small country the nuclear statistics are impressive: Ukraine operates 15 reactors, ranking 7th in the world in 2020. The single largest nuclear power plant in Europe is in Ukraine. Ukraine’s power sector is the twelfth-largest in the world in terms of installed capacity. 54 gigawatts are providing over 50% of Ukraine’s electricity. Linda Pentz Gunter presents a list of 6 catastrophes that can befall a nuclear power [ . . . ] Read More
Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson and Prof. David Gibbs Professor of History at the University of Arizona, David Gibbs joined the effort by Rootsaction to explain Russia’s longstanding issue with NATO. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was created in 1949 by the United States, Canada, and several Western European nations to – in their own words: “provide collective security against the Soviet Union.” Both Gibbs and Wilkerson say that the promise of not expanding NATO East towards the then Soviet Union was indeed a formal quid pro quo in return for the USSR allowing Germany to re-unite, not just a casual conversation. On February 6, 2022, the Coalition for Peace Action held a webinar with Col. Lawrence Wilkerson on peaceful alternatives in the Russia-Ukraine-NATO crisis. Wilkerson [ . . . ] Read More
Kamana-maikalani Beamer, Hawaii and Kate Raworth, England Kamana-maikalani Beamer is full professor at the University of Hawaiʻi-Mānoa. In his teaching and everyday practice he is uncovering the restorative way in which most people of the Hawaiian Islands interacted with the natural world before colonization by the US. From the late 1800s settlers began by imposing sugar plantations and cattle herds that began the destruction of whole ecosystems. Kate Raworth, based in Oxford, England, is the author of the book Doughnut Economics that has been translated into over 20 languages. She is Senior Associate at Oxford University’s Environmental Change Institute. Kate Raworth puts out the challenge that we need to eliminate human deprivation and ecological degradation at the [ . . . ] Read More
Kate Raworth, England, and Kamana-maikalani Beamer, Hawaii In early February of 2022 a news caster warned that the US may be about to lose it’s status as a world superpower to China, based on the GDP. The Gross Domestic Product is the total market value of the goods and services produced by a country’s economy. For the year 2021 the GDP of the US has been growing by only 5.7% – while that of China has grown 8.1% The GDP system counts only cash transactions in the market and recognizes no value other than money. This means there is no value to peace and to the preservation of the environment. Hawaii was taken over in 1898 by American [ . . . ] Read More
Chris Hedges Interviews Judge Kevin Sharp On Friday, January 28, 2022, Leonard Peltier’s attorney Kevin Sharp, confirmed what had been feared for several months. Peltier, who is incarcerated at the Coleman Federal Correctional Complex in Florida, had been diagnosed with Covid. Since Peltier also suffers from heart problems and diabetes this diagnosis may become his death sentence if he is not released now. Peltier has been in prison for 45 years without any evidence, as we now know from freedom of information records, that he committed a crime. He was charged with the 1975 murders of two FBI agents during a shootout on the Pine Ridge reservation. There are few political prisoners in the US who had, and continue to have, as [ . . . ] Read More
Emma Dabiri in conversation with David Wengrow The British Library held a celebration of ideas in the book by David Graeber and David Wengrow. They said: The Dawn of Everything challenges our assumptions about the origins of farming, property, cities, democracy and slavery and, in doing this … offers a path toward imagining new forms of freedom and new ways of organizing society. David Wengrow co-authored the book with the late David Graeber. Emma Dabiri is a teaching fellow in the African department at SOAS, a Visual Sociology PhD researcher at Goldsmiths and the author of Don’t Touch My Hair and What White People can do Next: From Allyship to Coalition, a Sunday Times and Irish Times bestseller. She has [ . . . ] Read More
Hosted by Artangel at the Royal Geographical Society, London on October 7, 2014 Even though Brian Eno and David Graeber both had become internationally famous by 2014, the musician, visual artist and culture critic Brian Eno and the Professor of anthropology, author and co-founder of Occupy Wall street, David Graeber had not yet met in person. And here, thanks to the creative concepts of Artangel, they met on stage for an improvised conversation. Artangel is a London-based arts organization that has – since 1985 – commissioned and produced notable site-specific works in unexpected places, plus several projects for TV, film, radio and the web. Michael Morris is the co-director. He is introducing Brian Eno and David Graeber. These are excerpts [ . . . ] Read More
This program is part of a celebration of the connection of David Graeber’s work to the real-life events of our time – In late December, 2021, this long lost interview reappeared on YouTube The name of the anthropologist David Graeber came – again – into huge prominence at the end of 2021 when the book he coauthored with archaeologist David Wengrow was published. “The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity” is described as a “dramatically new understanding of human history, challenging our most fundamental assumptions about social evolution — from the development of agriculture and cities to the origins of the state, democracy, and inequality — and revealing new possibilities for human emancipation”. Sadly, David Graeber is not present [ . . . ] Read More
Archive: Journalist John Pilger has called Alex Carey “a second Orwell in his prophesies” This segment covers the little known role of the US Chamber of Commerce in the McCarthy witch hunts of post WWII. Carey also shows how the continued campaign against “Big Government” plays an important role in bringing Reagan to power. Also mentioned the famous secret memo by Lewis Powell, later Supreme Court Justice, that set in motion what Bill Moyers today calls “the revolt of the rich.” Alex Carey said that the people of the US have been subjected to an unparalleled, expensive, 3/4 century long propaganda effort designed to expand corporate rights by undermining democracy and destroying the unions. Carey’s unique view of US history goes [ . . . ] Read More
Archive: This is TUC Radio’s all time most popular program Alex Carey wrote that the people of the US have been subjected to an unparalleled, expensive, 3/4 century long propaganda effort designed to expand corporate rights by undermining democracy and destroying the unions. The 20th century, he wrote, is marked by three historic developments: the growth of democracy via the expansion of the franchise, the growth of corporations, and the growth of propaganda to protect corporations from democracy. Carey’s unique view of US history goes back to World War I and ends with the Reagan era. Noam Chomsky dedicated his book “Manufacturing Consent” to the memory of Alex Carey. Chomsky says that the Australian sociologist would have written the definitive [ . . . ] Read More
From an interview by Katie Halper and Matt Taibbi This conversation was held Live on the day of the court ruling in the UK against Julian Assange, founder and publisher of WikiLeaks. The British Court of Appeal ruled that Assange could be extradited to the US to face charges under the Espionage Act of 1917. The WikiLeaks website came to international attention in 2010 when it published a series of documents and films provided by U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning. These leaks included the Baghdad airstrike Collateral Murder video and the Afghanistan war logs. All with evidence of war crimes. Six years later WikiLeaks published the Democratic National Committee email leaks which showed attempts to denigrate the Bernie Sanders’ presidential [ . . . ] Read More
Chris Hedges interviews Joe Lauria On the day of the court ruling against Assange, December 10, 2021, Chris Hedges invited Joe Lauria on the show he is hosting: On Contact on RT America. Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and author. He was a foreign correspondent for 15 years for The New York Times. Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former U.N. correspondent. Allowing the extradition of Assange, an Australian national, to be tried in the US for violating the Espionage Act of 1917 raised protests around the world. If convicted Assange faces 175 years in prison and journalists everywhere fear the loss of free speech and freedom of the press. Julian Assange founded WikiLeaks in 2006. The website came to [ . . . ] Read More
With Sea Shepherd founder Paul Watson, Maike Baun and Taïme Smit Paul Watson was cofounder of Greenpeace and led the campaigns against the slaughter of baby seals in the late seventies. Over a disagreement about direct action Watson separated from Greenpeace and founded the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society in 1977. That’s a non-profit, marine conservation organization based on the San Juan Island, Washington, in the US. Best known for their protection of whales in confrontations with Russian, Norwegian and Japanese fleets, Sea Shepherd have defended dolphins, seals, sharks, penguins, turtles, fish, krill and aquatic birds from poaching, unsustainable fishing, and habitat destruction. They say: “We have to halt the destruction of life in our Ocean, for if life in the Ocean dies, [ . . . ] Read More
With Ananda Tan, Tom Goldtooth, and Jacqui Patterson US, and Eriel Deranger, Canada, and Moneka De Oro, Micronesia After the recent heat-waves, fires, floods and storms the word climate change finally shows in mainstream media and politics. And some hold out hopes that the burning of fossil fuels will be phased out. For the last 20 years Indigenous organizations have come together to take their issues with deforestation, mining, ocean acidification and sealevel rise to the United Nations climate conferences but were not given a seat at the table and often forcibly expelled. In 2009 the second edition of Hoodwinked in the Hothouse – False Solutions to climate change was published for COP15 in Copenhagen. It was 28 pages long. The [ . . . ] Read More
This is another webinar on Indigenous Resistance to Climate False Solutions. It was co-sponsored by the New School in New York City with the Indigenous Environmental Network as key organizer. This webinar is about fighting climate change from the grassroots and within indigenous communities in Canada, the Pacific Islands and the US. Jacqueline Patterson is the Founder and Executive Director of the Chisholm Legacy Project, a resource hub for Black Frontline Climate Justice Leadership. Before that Patterson served as the Senior Director of the NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program for over a decade. Eriel Deranger was a founding member of Indigenous Climate Action (ICA) in Canada and spent two years as interim director. She is challenging fossil fuel development and championing the [ . . . ] Read More