We live in the best of times in which we are able to learn about the world and its incredible diversity of cultures/beings/places/perspectives in a way never historically possible. We live in the worst of times when we are able to isolate ourselves completely from anything different from our own narrow view/conception of the world/reality. The choice is yours!
Lessons From Stories. "The Banshees of Inisherin: Overcoming Existential Loneliness." (Posted on Youtube: January 31, 2023) ["Martin McDonagh's film The Banshees of Inisherin is an insightful portrayal of existential loneliness. Halfway through the movie, Siobhan asks, “Do you never get lonely, Padraic?” Padraic never gives his sister an answer. Nevertheless, this question echoes throughout the entire movie permeating the life of all characters. In this video, I reflect on the lessons we can learn from how each character deals with loneliness in their own lives."]
Sociocinema. "The War Allegory in The Banshees of Inisherin Explained." (Posted on Youtube: February 2023) ["The Banshees of Inisherin explained the Irish Civil War through the allegory of Pádraic and Colm. The sudden and severe end to their friendship parallels the conflict that broke out between the Free State and the anti-treaty IRA following the Irish War of Independence. Whilst little was gained from the fighting, the war had devastating consequences, affecting many that weren't directly involved. We see that Siobhán may represent the Irish diaspora, Peadar the British State and Dominic the youth that had their futures ripped up by conflict."]
---. "Isabel Wilkerson’s Leaderless March that Remade America."Open Source (October 12, 2010) [Should they go or should they stay? That was a question millions of African Americans living in the South asked themselves in the 20th Century. For many the answer was simple. Life in the South was hard and dangerous, with lynching, Jim Crow laws, and lack of economic opportunities. From 1910 to the 1960s an estimated 6 million African Americans left the South and moved North, in what became known as 'The Great Migration.]
---. "The Leaderless March that Remade America."Open Source (October 12, 2010) ["Isabel Wilkerson is the epic tale teller of the Great Migration of Southern black people that remade America — sound, substance and spirit — in the 20th Century. The proof is in the soundtrack — musical highlights of a comprehensive revolution. It was one of two modern migrations, it’s been said, that made American culture what it is — of blacks from the Jim Crow South, and of Jews from Central and Eastern Europe. The movement of masses is an ageless, ongoing piece of human history: in India and China today, more people migrate internally from village to city in one year than left the South from the onset of World War I (1915) to the end of the Civil Rights era (1970), as Isabel Wilkerson frames her story. But was there ever a migration that beyond moving people transformed a national culture as ours did? Songs, games, language, art, style, worship, every kind of entertainment including pro sports — in fact almost all we feel about ourselves, how we look to the world, changed in the sweep of Isabel Wilkerson’s magnificent story, The Warmth of Other Suns. Great swaths of the pop and serious culture I grew up in – my children as well – were fruit of Ms. Wilkerson’s story: Jazz and its immortals like Louis Armstrong, Nat King Cole, Illinois Jacquet, Miles Davis, the Basie and Ellington bands and stars like Duke’s greatest soloist Johnny Hodges, whose family moved from Virginia to Boston very early in the century; Mahalia Jackson and Gospel music; Rhythm and Blues, Ray Charles, the Motown sound, the Jackson family and little Michael; sports immortals like Bill Russell and Jackie Robinson, and athletes without number are players in this story. Writers, actors, politicians, comedians… Toni Morison, Spike Lee, Michelle Obama are all children of the Great Migration."]
---. The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration. Knopf Doubleday, 2010. ["In this beautifully written masterwork, the Pulitzer Prize–winnner and bestselling author of Caste chronicles one of the great untold stories of American history: the decades-long migration of black citizens who fled the South for northern and western cities, in search of a better life. From 1915 to 1970, this exodus of almost six million people changed the face of America. Wilkerson compares this epic migration to the migrations of other peoples in history. She interviewed more than a thousand people, and gained access to new data and official records, to write this definitive and vividly dramatic account of how these American journeys unfolded, altering our cities, our country, and ourselves. With stunning historical detail, Wilkerson tells this story through the lives of three unique individuals: Ida Mae Gladney, who in 1937 left sharecropping and prejudice in Mississippi for Chicago, where she achieved quiet blue-collar success and, in old age, voted for Barack Obama when he ran for an Illinois Senate seat; sharp and quick-tempered George Starling, who in 1945 fled Florida for Harlem, where he endangered his job fighting for civil rights, saw his family fall, and finally found peace in God; and Robert Foster, who left Louisiana in 1953 to pursue a medical career, the personal physician to Ray Charles as part of a glitteringly successful medical career, which allowed him to purchase a grand home where he often threw exuberant parties. Wilkerson brilliantly captures their first treacherous and exhausting cross-country trips by car and train and their new lives in colonies that grew into ghettos, as well as how they changed these cities with southern food, faith, and culture and improved them with discipline, drive, and hard work. Both a riveting microcosm and a major assessment, The Warmth of Other Suns is a bold, remarkable, and riveting work, a superb account of an “unrecognized immigration” within our own land. Through the breadth of its narrative, the beauty of the writing, the depth of its research, and the fullness of the people and lives portrayed herein, this book is destined to become a classic."]
---. “We all know in our bones that things are harder than they have to be.”On Being (March 9, 2023) ["In this rich, expansive, and warm conversation between friends, Krista draws out the heart for humanity behind Isabel Wilkerson’s eye on histories we are only now communally learning to tell — her devotion to understanding not merely who we have been, but who we can be. Her most recent offering of fresh insight to our life together brings “caste” into the light — a recurrent, instinctive pattern of human societies across the centuries, though far more malignant in some times and places. Caste is a ranking of human value that works more like a pathogen than a belief system — more like the reflexive grammar of our sentences than our choices of words. In the American context, Isabel Wilkerson says race is the skin, but “caste is the bones.” And this shift away from centering race as a focus of analysis actually helps us understand why race and racism continue to shape-shift and regenerate, every best intention and effort and law notwithstanding. But beginning to see caste also gives us fresh eyes and hearts for imagining where to begin, and how to persist, in order finally to shift that."Isabel Wilkerson won a Pulitzer Prize while reporting for the New York Times. Her first book, The Warmth of Other Suns, brought the underreported story of the Great Migration of the 20th century into the light, and she published her best-selling book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents in August 2020. Among many honors, she was awarded the National Humanities Medal from President Barack Obama.]
By conflicts, I am referring to opposing sides that turn to violence.
"Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes … known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.… No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.
Those truths are well established. They are read in every page which records the progression from a less arbitrary to a more arbitrary government, or the transition from a popular government to an aristocracy or a monarchy." — James Madison, Political Observations, 1795
"60 Words."Radiolab (April 18, 2014) ["This hour we pull apart one sentence, written in the hours after September 11th, 2001, that has led to the longest war in U.S. history. We examine how just 60 words of legal language have blurred the line between war and peace. In the hours after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, a lawyer sat down in front of a computer and started writing a legal justification for taking action against those responsible. The language that he drafted and that President George W. Bush signed into law - called the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) - has at its heart one single sentence, 60 words long. Over the last decade, those 60 words have become the legal foundation for the "war on terror." In this collaboration with BuzzFeed, reporter Gregory Johnsen tells us the story of how this has come to be one of the most important, confusing, troubling sentences of the past 12 years. We go into the meetings that took place in the chaotic days just after 9/11, speak with Congresswoman Barbara Lee and former Congressman Ron Dellums about the vote on the AUMF. We hear from former White House and State Department lawyers John Bellinger & Harold Koh. We learn how this legal language unleashed Guantanamo, Navy Seal raids and drone strikes. And we speak with journalist Daniel Klaidman, legal expert Benjamin Wittes and Virginia Senator Tim Kaine about how these words came to be interpreted, and what they mean for the future of war and peace."]
Abrams, Eliot. "Identity, Values, and the Conduct of US Foreign Policy."Conversations with History (April 19, 2017) ["Conversations host Harry Kreisler welcomes Elliot Abrams former deputy National Security Advisor to President George W. Bush for a conversation on the values and interests that define U.S. foreign policy. Reflecting on his formative experiences, he recalls the influence of his parents, his education, and his work experiences under Senators Jackson and Moynihan. After discussing the skills and temperament necessary for the work of foreign policy, he analyzes the challenges of navigating the tensions between security and human rights. Reflecting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he offers his assessment of the preconditions for its resolution. He also discusses his analysis of Jewish support for Israel in the United States, and concludes with advice for students preparing for a future in international affairs."]
Ali, Zahra, Matt Howard and Sami Rasouli. "'It Was a Crime': 15 Years After U.S. Invasion, Iraqis Still Face Trauma, Destruction & Violence."Democracy Now (March 20, 2018) ["It was 15 years ago today when the U.S. invaded Iraq on the false pretense that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction. The attack came despite worldwide protest and a lack of authorization from the United Nations Security Council. At around 5:30 a.m. in Baghdad on March 20, 2003, air raid sirens were heard as the U.S. invasion began. The fighting has yet to end, and the death toll may never be known. Conservative estimates put the Iraqi civilian death toll at 200,000. But some counts range as high as 2 million. In 2006, the British medical journal Lancet estimated 600,000 Iraqis died in just the first 40 months of the war. The U.S. has also lost about 4,500 soldiers in Iraq. Just last week, seven U.S. service members died in a helicopter crash in western Iraq near the Syrian border. The war in Iraq has also destabilized much of the Middle East. Former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan and others have directly blamed the U.S. invasion of Iraq for the rise of ISIS. We speak to the Iraqi-French sociologist Zahra Ali, who teaches at Rutgers University; Matt Howard, co-director of About Face: Veterans Against the War, the organization formerly known as Iraq Veterans Against the War; and Sami Rasouli, founder and director of the Muslim Peacemaker Teams in Iraq."]
All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace (United Kingdom: Adam Curtis, 2011) ["All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace is a series of films about how this culture itself has been colonised by the machines it has has built. The series explores and connects together some of the myriad ways in which the emergence of cybernetics—a mechanistic perspective of the natural world that particularly emerged in the 1970s along with emerging computer technologies—intersects with various historical events and visa-versa. The series variously details the interplay between the mechanistic perspective and the catastrophic consequences it has in the real world."]
Alperovitz, Gal. "'Mr. Boston': Meet the Man Who Secretly Helped Daniel Ellsberg Leak Pentagon Papers to the Press."Democracy Now (February 2, 2018) ["Historian Gar Alperovitz has revealed for the first time the key role he and a handful of other activists played in helping whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg leak to journalists the Pentagon Papers—a 7,000-page classified history outlining the true extent of U.S. involvement in Vietnam. Daniel Ellsberg told The New Yorker the secret role this group played was so crucial in releasing the Pentagon Papers that he gave them a code name: “The Lavender Hill Mob.” Alperovitz went by the alias “Mr. Boston.” Ellsberg told The New Yorker, “Gar took care of all the cloak-and-dagger stuff.” We speak to historian and political economist Gar Alperovitz about why he is going public now."]
Amer, Karim, Emma Briant and Brittany Kaiser. "The Weaponization of Data: Cambridge Analytica, Information Warfare & the 2016 Election of Trump."Democracy Now (January 10, 2020) ["We continue our conversation with the directors of “The Great Hack,” Jehane Noujaim and Karim Amer, as well as former Cambridge Analytica employee Brittany Kaiser and propaganda researcher Emma Briant, about Cambridge Analytica’s parent company SCL Group’s history as a defense contractor. “We’re in a state of global information warfare now,” Briant says. “How do we know if our militaries develop technologies and the data that it has gathered on people, for instance, across the Middle East … how do we know when that is turning up in Yemen or when that is being utilized by an authoritarian regime against the human rights of its people or against us? How do we know that it’s not being manipulated by Russia, by Iran, by anybody who’s an enemy, by Saudi Arabia, for example, who SCL were also working with? We have no way of knowing, unless we open up this industry and hold these people properly accountable for what they’re doing.”"]
Antoon, Sinan. "Anti-Government Protests Have Led to “Reclaiming of Iraqi Identity.”"Democracy Now (November 26, 2019) ["In Iraq, more than 340 people have died since anti-government protests began in early October. More than 15,000 Iraqis have been injured. Tires were set on fire Monday and main roads and bridges were blocked in the cities of Basra and Nassiriya. Over the weekend, security forces opened fire on civilians in Baghdad and other cities. Demonstrators are protesting corruption and lack of jobs and basic services, including clean water and electricity. In Baghdad, many university students are taking part in the demonstrations. To talk more about the protests in Iraq we are joined by the Iraqi poet, novelist, translator, and scholar Sinan Antoon. He was born and raised in Baghdad and his most recent novel is titled, “The Book of Collateral Damage.” “What’s really important is the reclaiming of Iraqi identity and a new sense of Iraqi nationalism that transcends the sectarian discourse that was institutionalized by the United States in 2003,” Antoon says."]
Arreaza, Jorge. "A Coup in Progress? Venezuelan Foreign Minister Decries U.S. & Brazil-Backed Effort to Oust Maduro."Democracy Now (January 18, 2019) ["The United States and allied nations in Latin America are ratcheting up pressure on Venezuela in what appears to be a coordinated effort to remove Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro from office. Maduro was sworn in last week to a second 6-year term following his victory in last May’s election, which was boycotted by the opposition. Days before Maduro was sworn in, opposition figure Juan Guaidó became head of the National Assembly, which soon voted to declare Maduro a “usurper” in an effort to remove him from office. The United States, Brazil and other nations have welcomed the effort. As the political crisis intensifies, Maduro has reached out to the United Nations to help establish a peace dialogue in Venezuela. We speak with Jorge Arreaza, Venezuelan foreign minister. He met with U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres this week."]
---. "The U.S. Needs to Abandon 'Militarized Approach' to Middle East and Build Peace."Democracy Now (January 9, 2020) ["We continue our conversation with Andrew Bacevich, president and co-founder of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. He is a retired colonel, Vietnam War veteran and author of, most recently, of “The Age of Illusions: How America Squandered Its Cold War Victory.” Bacevich says the crisis with Iran, sparked by President Trump’s assassination of top general Qassem Soleimani, is just the latest in a long series of ill-advised American actions in the Middle East. “The only conceivable way for us to begin to extricate ourselves from this terrible mess in the region … is to abandon this militarized approach and to take a more balanced position with regard to the rivalries in the region,” Bacevich says."]
Bacevich, Andrew, Hugh Roberts and Melani McAlister. "America's War for the Greater Middle East."Open Source (August 7, 2014) ["How do you end an endless war? Thirty years ago Jimmy Carter declared the Persian Gulf a “vital” focus of American foreign policy. Since then, U.S. forces have invaded, occupied, garrisoned, bombed or raided 18 nations, absorbing thousands of casualties and getting little in return in terms of peace or goodwill. Andrew Bacevich, the military historian, veteran and professor of international relations at Boston University calls it America’s War for the Greater Middle East and says there’s no end in sight. This fall he’s teaching a twelve-week online course on the history of that long war: he begins it in the Iran hostage crisis during Jimmy Carter’s presidency, through stages of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the first Gulf War, then September 11 and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan."]
Bajoghli, Narges. "Soleimani’s Death Could Galvanize Shia Coalitions Against One “Foreign Aggressor” — The U.S."Democracy Now (January 6, 2020) ["Fallout continues to mount following the U.S. assassination of Iran’s top military commander Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad last week. Iranian media reports that over a million mourners took to the streets of Tehran today for the funeral of Soleimani, who headed Iran’s elite Quds Force. On Sunday, Iran announced it would suspend its commitments under the landmark 2015 nuclear deal, which the U.S. pulled out of in 2018. Trump has also threatened to target 52 locations in Iran, including cultural sites, if Iran retaliates against the U.S. The targeting of cultural sites is widely viewed as an international war crime. Meanwhile, Iraq’s caretaker Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi has revealed he had plans to meet with Soleimani on the day he was killed to discuss a Saudi proposal to defuse tension in the region. From Washington, D.C., we speak with Narges Bajoghli, professor of Middle East studies at Johns Hopkins University and the author of “Iran Reframed: Anxieties of Power in the Islamic Republic.”"]
Bamford, James. "The Man Who Sold the War: John Rendon, Bush's general in the propaganda war."Democracy Now (November 21, 2005) ["Investigative journalist James Bamford examines how the Bush administration and Iraqi National Congress used the PR firm Rendon Group to feed journalists — including Judith Miller — fabricated stories in an effort to sell the war. The firm has received millions in government contracts since 1991 when it was hired by the CIA to help “create the conditions for the removal of Hussein from power.” Iraq wasn’t the first regime change case for Rendon. In 1989, the CIA turned to Rendon to use a variety of campaign and psychological techniques in Panama to put the CIA’s choice, Guillermo Endara, into the presidential palace to replace Gen. Manuel Noriega."]
Banai, Huss, et al. "John Bolton's War."Open Source (May 16, 2019) ["We’ve seen a lot of this movie before, have we not? The crackling threats to punish unproven charges: it was weapons of mass destruction the last time; now it’s some unverified damage to tanker traffic, maybe. Again, the case is being made for a war of choice, by a pick-up “coalition of the willing”—this time, it would be an alliance of Sunni Arabs with the US and Israel, against Iran. Out front beating the war drum is the man with the mustache, John Bolton, who’s always loved “regime change” for Iran, who still defends the Iraq War, and who now runs the national security desk for President Trump, dropping phrases like “unrelenting force” against Iran if Iran should threaten or damage us. Part of what’s familiar in the picture is that Congress is largely out of the loop and the sovereign people are not in on the argument. A lot of what you can hear on the news is circus stuff, like the President’s lawyer, the sometime Mayor of America, Rudolph Giuliani, chanting, “Regime change!”"]
Baraka, Ajamu, Eli Kane and Pamela Spees. "Pipeline Resistance Groups and the film On A Knife Edge; Perpetual War and the Anti-War Movement."Law and Disorder (March 18, 2018) ["Pipeline Resistance Groups and the film On A Knife Edge: It’s now more than one year since law enforcement evicted the last Dakota Access Pipeline resistance camps. The pipeline was near completion and was supposed to cross sacred Indian land in South Dakota in order to bring Canadian tar sand oil from north to south through the United States. Then the project was stalled by a tremendous solidarity movement lead by indigenous peoples along with their allies only to be green lighted by the newly elected Trump administration which has proven to be a handmaiden of the fossil fuel industry. Guest – Eli Kane, a Brooklyn-based producer who has worked in film and music for 15 years. He has made two other documentaries for PBS about land rights and food sovereignty, including Land Rush, which won a Peabody Award in 2013. Guest – Attorney Pamela Spees is an attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights and represents environmental justice groups opposing the efforts of Tigerswan, a private military company which worked with corporate and governmental entities at Standing Rock in an attempt to suppress the movement against the pipeline, to operate in Louisiana. Perpetual War and the Anti-War Movement: The United States of America has been in a perpetual state of war since September 11, 2001 and before that almost continuously since 1918. The United States has overthrown democratically elected governments it could not control since the invasion of Mexico in 1848. It has overturned elected government and assassinated or attempted to assassinate many heads of foreign states. World War I was a massive slaughter between imperial powers with the United States, France, Britain and Russia on one side against Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire on the other. In one week alone, Great Britain lost 250,000 young men. The war wiped out almost an entire generation. It had been billed as “the war to end all wars.“ November 11th is known as the armistice between the hostile countries and was made a national holiday to venerate peace. It was called Armistice Day. But by 1953 Armistice Day was turned into “Veterans’ Day” and fighting was glorified. Donald Trump plans to spend $30 million on a massive military parade in Washington DC this coming November 11, Veterans’ Day. Tanks, missiles and troops will be paraded through the streets of our nations’ capital in a show of military force and adulation of Trump. A coalition of antiwar organizations are planning mass actions against this military parade and the normalization of war, violence and authoritarianism Guest – Ajamu Baraka, an initiator and leader of the Black Alliance for Peace, an organization which is part of the coalition. He has also just returned from a meeting of international leaders because the USA’s involvement of a possible overthrow of the government of Venezuela. Ajamu Baraka helped organize a conference in Baltimore Last month concerning USA’s 800 bases abroad particularly the new ones in Africa."]
Barnard, Anne and Yazaan al Saadi. "'It’s Hard to Believe, But Syria’s War Is Getting Worse': World Powers Clash as Civilian Deaths Soar."Democracy Now (February 13, 2018) ["Tensions across northern Syria are escalating sharply amid a series of clashes between external and internal powers, including Israel, Iran, Turkey, Russia and the Syrian government. On Saturday, Israel shot down what it says was an Iranian drone that had entered Israel’s airspace after being launched in Syria. Israel then mounted an attack on an Iranian command center in Syria, from where the drone was launched. One of the Israeli F-16 military jets was then downed by a Syrian government anti-aircraft missile. Meanwhile, also in northern Syria on Saturday, a Turkish Army helicopter was shot down by U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish YPGfighters near the Syrian Kurdish city of Afrin, where Turkey has launched a bombing and ground offensive. All this comes as the United Nations is warning of soaring levels of civilian casualties in Syria. For more, we speak with Anne Barnard, The New York Times bureau chief in Beirut, Lebanon. Her recent articles are titled “Israel Strikes Iran in Syria and Loses a Jet” and “It’s Hard to Believe, But Syria’s War Is Getting Even Worse.” And we speak with Syrian-Canadian researcher Yazan al-Saadi."]
Beals, Emma, Juan Cole and Rami Khouri. "The Death of al-Baghdadi: ISIS Grew Out of U.S. Invasion of Iraq. What Will Happen Next?"Democracy Now (October 28, 2019) ["President Trump announced Sunday that ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed in a U.S. special forces raid on his compound in northwestern Syria. According to Trump, al-Baghdadi detonated an explosive vest he was wearing, killing himself and three of his children. The raid began early Sunday when eight U.S. military helicopters flew from a base near Erbil, Iraq, to northwestern Syria over airspace controlled by Syria and Russia. Baghdadi had led ISIS since 2010. In 2014, he proclaimed the creation of an Islamic State or caliphate during a speech in Mosul. At its peak, ISIS controlled a large swath of land across Syria and Iraq and maintained a force of tens of thousands of fighters recruited from more than 100 countries. The group also claimed responsibility for deadly attacks across five continents. We speak with three guests: Juan Cole, author and professor of history at the University of Michigan; Emma Beals, award-winning investigative journalist and researcher who has covered the Syrian conflict since 2012; and Rami Khouri, senior public policy fellow and journalist-in-residence at the American University of Beirut, and a columnist at The New Arab."]
Becker, Elizabeth. "You Don't Belong Here."On the Media (April 30, 2021) ["Before the Vietnam War there was a law that banned women from reporting on the frontlines of any war for the U.S. When President Johnson refused to officially declare a state of war in Vietnam, an opening appeared: no war, no ban. A handful of pioneering women bought one-way tickets into the battlefield. They had no editors, no health insurance and little or no formal training. This week, Brooke spoke about this time to reporter Elizabeth Becker, formerly a Washington Post war correspondent in Cambodia, NPR's foreign editor and then national security correspondent for the New York Times. Becker is the author of a new book: You Don't Belong Here: How Three Women Rewrote the Story of War."]
Bevins, Vincent. "The Jakarta Method: Washington’s Anticommunist Crusade & the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World."New Books in History (July 1, 2020) ["Why did the word “Jakarta” appear as graffiti on the streets of Santiago in 1973? Why did left-wing Chilean activists receive postcards in the mail with the ominous message “Jakarta is coming”? Why did a Brazilian general lose his temper in an interview with university students, threaten their safety, and yell the name of Indonesia’s capital city? In The Jakarta Method: Washington’s Anticommunist Crusade & the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World (Public Affairs, 2020) journalist Vincent Bevins links the history of the overthrow of Sukarno – a leader of 1960s Third Worldism –, the rise of the Suharto – one of the most brutal and corrupt dictators – , and the slaughter of 500,000 to one million Indonesians allegedly linked to the Indonesian Community Party (the PKI) to the Latin American “dirty wars”, including Brazil, Chile, Argentina, and Central America. This is a major achievement and something that very few scholars have been able to do. Bevins persuasively argues that the long-ignored and even silenced history of Indonesia 1965 was of truly world historical significance. The Jakarta Method joins a growing body of scholarly work on what some call a “political genocide” and what a 1968 CIA report deemed “one of the worst mass murders of the 20th century”. By showing how the overthrow of the radical Sukarno, the rise of the pro-American Suharto, and the brutal destruction of the largest Communist party outside of the USSR and the PRC impacted both right-wing generals and left-wing revolutionaries from the streets of Rio de Janeiro to the jungles of Cambodia, The Jakarta Method is a much needed and very welcome globalization of this history."]
Beyond the Frame: Alternative Perspectives on the War on Terrorism."Media Education Foundation (2004) ["Launched in September 2001, Beyond the Frame is a series of interviews with leading scholars, experts, and activists offering alternative perspectives on the 9/11 tragedy and its aftermath. Originally a web-only project, it was a response to MEF's alarm at the dangerously restricted range of views presented by the mainstream media, largely confined to the opinions of political elites and a commercial frame dependent on advertisers and ratings. Featuring some of the most prominent names in political and social thought: Seth Ackerman, Belquis Ahmadi, Joan Blades, Maliha Chishti, Noam Chomsky, Jo Commerford, Kevin Danaher, Cynthia Enloe, Henry Giroux, Janine Jackson, Robert Jensen, Sut Jhally, Darryl Kimball, Michael Kimmel, Mhahsa Khanbabai, Naomi Klein, Manning Marable, Mark Crispin Miller, Bernie Sanders, Ritu Sharma, Vandana Shiva, and Alisa Solomon. Sections: Asking Why: Historical Contexts | Watching the Media | Women & the Afghan War | Homeland Insecurity | Resisting War, Defending Democracy | The Iraq War & Militarism"]
Biagetti, Samuel. "Spanish and Portuguese Expansion and the Conquest of the Americas."Historiansplaining (2018) ["We trace how Portugal and Spain, two previously marginal European kingdoms, rapidly and unexpectedly exploded onto the world scene, building a chain of fortified colonies stretching from North Africa to China, and conquering the larger and richer empires of Mexico and Peru. The early Iberian colonizers sought to continue the tradition of the Crusades and the Reconquista, and saw their foreign conquests as steps towards retaking Jerusalem; the benefited not only from superior weaponry and navigation, but from cataclysmic disease epidemics that brought the Pre-Columbian empires to their knees."]
Blumenthal, Max. "Max Blumenthal At “Against Israeli Apartheid” in New York City"Law and Disorder Radio (April 7, 2014)["... a speech by award winning journalist, and best selling author Max Blumenthal speaking at the event Against Israeli Apartheid along with Palestinian journalist Ali Abunimah. Max’s new book Goliath: Life and Loathing In Greater Israel shows the reader how the Netanyahu right wing government is actually moderate compared to most other institutions in Israel. His book takes a hard look at Israeli authoritarian politics from a cross section of interviews, from the homes of Palestinian activists to the political leaders behind the organized assault on democratic rights."]
Bombach, Alexandria. "On Her Shoulders: Stunning Film Follows Nobel Peace Winner Nadia Murad’s Fight to End Sexual Violence."Democracy Now (January 3, 2019) ["We look at the remarkable story of Nadia Murad, the Yazidi human rights activist from Iraq who was recently awarded the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize. Murad was kidnapped by the Islamic State in 2014 and repeatedly raped as she was held in captivity. After managing to escape, Murad fled Iraq and has dedicated her life to drawing international attention to the plight of the Yazidi people. The documentary “On Her Shoulders” follows Murad as she shares her story with the world. The documentary has been shortlisted for an Academy Award for Best Documentary and recently received the Columbia Journalism duPont Award. We speak with the film’s award-winning director Alexandria Bombach."]
Bromwich, David. "Stay Out of Syria!"The New York Review of Books (June 20, 2013)
Bookchin, Debbie, Ertugrul Kurkcu and Elif Sarican. "Turkey Moves to Crush Rojava, the Kurds’ Radical Experiment Based on Democracy, Feminism & Ecology."Democracy Now (October 10, 2019) ["As Turkey launches an aerial and ground assault on northern Syria targeting Kurdish-controlled areas, we look at how the offensive threatens the Kurdish region of Rojava with Debbie Bookchin, co-founder of the Emergency Committee for Rojava. She is a journalist and author who co-edited a book of essays by her father, Murray Bookchin, “The Next Revolution: Popular Assemblies and the Promise of Direct Democracy.” We also speak with Elif Sarican, a Kurdish Women’s Movement activist and anthropologist at the London School of Economics, and Ertuğrul Kürkçü, honorary chair of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party in Turkey, known as the HDP. He is a former member of Parliament in Turkey." Part 1: "After Trump Abandoned Kurds, Turkish Invasion Raises Fear of Kurdish Genocide & ISIS Resurgence."]
The Burning Times (Canada: Donna Read, 1990: 56 mins) ["This documentary takes an in-depth look at the witch hunts that swept Europe just a few hundred years ago. False accusations and trials led to massive torture and burnings at the stake and ultimately to the destruction of an organic way of life. The film questions whether the widespread violence against women and the neglect of our environment today can be traced back to those times. Part two of a series of three films on women and spirituality, which includes Goddess Remembered and Full Circle."]
Buttu, Diana, Miko Peled and Raji Sourani. "Massacre in Gaza: Israeli Forces Open Fire on Palestinians, Killing 18, Wounding As Many As 1,700."Democracy Now (April 2, 2018) ["At least 18 Palestinians have died in Gaza after Israeli forces opened fire Friday on a protest near the Gaza Strip’s eastern border with Israel. As many as 1,700 Palestinians were wounded. The deaths and injuries came as 30,000 Gaza residents gathered near the wall, as part of a planned 6-week-long nonviolent protest against the blockade of Gaza and to demand the right of return for Palestinian refugees. The protests began on Friday, March 30, known as “Land Day,” marking the anniversary of the 1976 killing of six Palestinians protesting the Israeli confiscation of Arab land. Video posted online shows unarmed Palestinians being shot in the back while taking part in Friday’s protest. Another 49 Palestinians were injured by Israeli forces on Saturday. Israel’s actions have been condemned around the world, but Israel is rejecting calls to investigate the killings. At the United Nations, the U.S. blocked a move by the U.N. Security Council to open an investigation."]
Call, Tristan and Nicole Ramos. "As Caravan of Migrants Begins Entry at U.S.-Mexico Border, Trump Admin Attacks Legal Asylum Process."Democracy Now (May 3, 2018) ["A standoff continues on the U.S.-Mexico border, where scores of asylum seekers are attempting to cross into the United States after taking part in a month-long caravan that began more than 2,000 miles away in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas. Many of the caravan participants are migrants fleeing violence in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. Around 100 have been accepted for processing, but scores remain camped out by the border near San Diego, California, as officials claim the border entry point has limited capacity. President Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions have attacked the migrants in statements and tweets. “It’s very clear that President Trump and Attorney General Sessions do not understand this section of federal law,” says attorney Nicole Ramos, director of the Border Rights Project of Al Otro Lado, who represents members of the caravan. “The caravan members that are camped out at the border are trying to access a legal process which has existed for decades.” We speak with Ramos, who is in Tijuana, Mexico, and with Tristan Call, a volunteer with Pueblo Sin Fronteras, or People Without Borders, just back from spending time with the caravan."]
Carlin, Dan. "Supernova in the East (Part 1)."Hardcore History #62 (July 14, 2018) ["The Asia-Pacific War of 1937 - 1945 has deep roots. It also involves a Japanese society that has been called one of the most distinctive on earth."]
Carney, Maurice. "The US Has Always Been the Wrong Side of History in Africa."Black Agenda Report (January 23 , 2018) ["With AFRICOM and its "soldier-to-soldier" relationships having taken the place of US African diplomacy in the last decade the US is positioned to exercise hegemonic power over Africans in their own countries and across the planet, explains Maurice Carney of Friends of the Congo."]
Carver, Ron, Paul Cox and Susan Schnall. "The GI Resistance Continues: Vietnam Vets Return to My Lai, Where U.S. Slaughtered 500 Civilians."Democracy Now (March 16, 2018) ["As a group of Vietnam War veterans and peace activists travel back to Vietnam to mark the 50th anniversary of the My Lai massacre, Amy Goodman and Juan González speak with three members of the delegation: Vietnam veteran Paul Cox, who later co-founded the Veterans for Peace chapter in San Francisco; Susan Schnall, former Navy nurse who was court-martialed for opposing the Vietnam War; and longtime activist Ron Carver, who has organized an exhibit honoring the GI antiwar movement at the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City."]
Chossudovsky, Michael. "The Globalization of War."Needs no Introduction (June 8, 2018) ["The lecture is based on Professor Chossudovsky's book, The Globalization of War: America's Long War on Humanity. In this speech, he postulates that the U.S. and its Western allies have embarked on a hegemonic war of conquest, using the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks as a pre-text. Further exacerbating this agenda is the complicity of media and co-opted movements which refuse to challenge the pre-text of a war on terrorism."]
Cole, Matthew, et al. "The Lyin', The Rich, and the Warmongers."The Intercepted (March 14, 2018) ["This week on Intercepted: Exxon Mobil is out at the State Department. A radical Christian ideologue is in. And a veteran CIA officer who tortured detainees and set up the CIA black sites after 9/11 is slated to take the helm at Langley. And all of this happened in one fell swoop on Tuesday morning. The Intercept’s Matthew Cole and Jeremy analyze the major re-shuffle in Trumpland and what it means for the future of the planet. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, who led the investigation of Erik Prince and Blackwater for years in Congress, analyzes the ongoing scandal over his alleged role in the Trump era and explains why she had her house swept for surveillance when she was investigating Prince. Musical artists Ana Tijoux and Lila Downs talk about the politics of colonialism, neoliberalism, and revolution and their new collaboration on the song, “Tinta Roja.” And, fresh off her stellar debut on 60 Minutes, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos stars in “Kindergarten Cop.”"]
Coll, Steve. "Directorate S: Steve Coll on the CIA & America’s Secret Wars in Afghanistan & Pakistan."Democracy Now (February 8, 2018) ["The U.S. is intensifying its air war in Afghanistan as U.S. Central Command has announced it is shifting military resources from Iraq and Syria back to Afghanistan, where the United States has been fighting for over 16 years in the longest war in U.S. history. U.S. Air Force Major General James Hecker recently said Afghanistan has “become CENTCOM’s main effort.” The news comes after a particularly bloody period in Afghanistan. Despite the spiraling violence, President Trump recently ruled out negotiations with the Taliban during a meeting of members of the United Nations Security Council. We speak to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Steve Coll about his new book, Directorate S: The C.I.A. and America’s Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan."]
Collins, John, Danny Kushlick and Michael Shiner. "Why haven't we won the War on Drugs?"LSE IQ #5 (2018) ["For nearly 50 years, governments around the world, led by the US, have been fighting a war on drugs. The aim? To reduce the production, supply and use of certain drugs and ultimately create a 'drug-free society'. But, having cost the US more than $1 trillion to date and taken hundreds of thousands of lives, it’s a war with high collateral damage. In this episode Jess Winterstein asks why, after nearly half a century of global cooperation, haven’t we won the war on drugs? To find out what the problems with the policy are, and why the belief that prohibition is still the best way to manage drugs, still persists, she speaks to: John Collins, Executive Director of the LSE IDEAS International Drug Policy Project and coordinator of the Expert Group on the Economics of Drug Policy; Michael Shiner, Associate Professor in the Department of Social Policy and head of teaching at the International Drug Policy Project at LSE; and Danny Kushlick, founder and head of external affairs of the Transform Drug Policy Foundation."]
Chomsky, Noam, et al. "Israeli right-wing politics has lead to some strange, fascist bedfellows."Best of the Left #1254 (March 5, 2019) ["Today we take a look at how the illiberalism of the Israeli government has alienated the vast majority of democratic nations and individuals who support human rights, leaving the country with some of the most far-right, fascist, white-supremacist, anti-Semitic people in the world as their only remaining allies."]
Cioffi, Sandy and Riki Ott. "Sandy Cioffi on Nigerian Oil, Riki Ott Looking Back at Exxon Valdez Spill."Counterspin (June 14, 2019) ["The BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico happened from the spring through the fall of 2010. The blowout of the Deepwater Horizon rig killed 11 people, and countless animals, on its way to becoming the worst marine oil spill in history. It seemed to take that protracted disaster on the US coast to generate a New York Times front-page story on June 16, 2010, about oil industry ravages in Nigeria’s delta region, which, the article noted, “has endured the equivalent of the Exxon Valdez spill every year for 50 years, by some estimates.” CounterSpin had a powerful conversation that week with filmmaker and video artist Sandy Cioffi, whose film, Sweet Crude, looks at the oil industry in Nigeria, and the way it is covered in the US. ... Oil spills are often discussed in media in terms of the Exxon Valdez. But if the use of the Valdez as a touchstone might give the impression that “lessons were learned” from that 1989 disaster…. Well, that mainly applies to the lesson that not disaster, but activism—dogged, ongoing, out-of-the-spotlight, misunderstood and maligned activism—is what changes things. That’s part of what we learned when we spoke with activist and marine biologist Riki Ott in 2009—then the 20-year anniversary of that “oil spill to end all oil spills”—now many spills ago."]
Cockburn, Patrick. "'A Shakespearean Act of Betrayal': Trump Agrees to Let Turkey Invade Kurdish-Controlled Syrian Area."Democracy Now (October 7, 2019) ["U.S. troops have begun withdrawing from northeast Syria as Turkey prepares to invade Kurdish-controlled areas of the country. For years, the Kurds have been close allies to the United States in the fight against ISIS. On Sunday, however, the White House released a statement that surprised many in the region, announcing that Turkey would be “moving forward with its long-planned operation in Northern Syria,” following a phone call between President Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. “The United States Armed Forces will not support or be involved in that operation, and the United States forces, having defeated the ISIS territorial 'Caliphate,' will no longer be in the immediate area,” the statement said. The announcement marks a major shift in U.S. policy, since as recently as January President Trump threatened to “devastate Turkey economically” if it attacked Kurdish forces in Syria. Meanwhile, in neighboring Iraq, the death toll continues to rise as police and soldiers fire on people defying a government-imposed curfew in mass anti-government protests. For more on events in the region, we speak with Patrick Cockburn, Middle East correspondent for The Independent newspaper."]
Crawford, Neta C. "United States Budgetary Costs and Obligations of Post-9/11 Wars through FY2020: $6.4 Trillion."Costs of War (November 13, 2019) ["Since late 2001, the United States has appropriated and is obligated to spend an estimated $6.4 Trillion through Fiscal Year 2020 in budgetary costs related to and caused by the post-9/11 wars—an estimated $5.4 Trillion in appropriations in current dollars and an additional minimum of $1 Trillion for US obligations to care for the veterans of these wars through the next several decades. 2 The mission of the post-9/11 wars, as originally defined, was to defend the United States against future terrorist threats from al Qaeda and affiliated organizations. Since 2001, the wars have expanded from the fighting in Afghanistan, to wars and smaller operations elsewhere, in more than 80 countries — becoming a truly “global war on terror.” Further, the Department of Homeland Security was created in part to coordinate the defense of the homeland against terrorist attacks. These wars, and the domestic counterterror mobilization, have entailed significant expenses, paid for by deficit spending. Thus, even if the United States withdraws completely from the major war zones by the end of FY2020 and halts its other Global War on Terror operations, in the Philippines and Africa for example, the total budgetary burden of the post-9/11 wars will continue to rise as the US pays the on-going costs of veterans’ care and for interest on borrowing to pay for the wars. Moreover, the increases in the Pentagon base budget associated with the wars are likely to remain, inflating the military budget over the long run."]
Daragahi, Haideh, Minoo Jalali and Shahin Navai. "The Stolen Revolution: Iranian Women of 1979."Ideas (March 8, 2019) ["'We didn't have a revolution to go backwards.' That was the rallying cry which brought tens of thousands of Iranian women together onto the streets of Tehran on March 8, 1979. After finally ousting the Shah, and just mere weeks after Ayatollah Khomeini took power, Iranian women marched to show their fury at the revolution, which now seemed to be turning against them. On the 40th anniversary of their protests, CBC Radio producer Donya Ziaee spoke to three women who were on the streets of Tehran, fighting to to turn the tide of history."]
Davis, Angela. "Angela Davis Speaks Out on Palestine, BDS & More After Civil Rights Award Is Revoked."Democracy Now (January 11, 2019) [MB - This should be of concern to all Americans. Our politicians at the state (26 states) and national (failed senate bill) level are trying to make it illegal (or to unduly penalize them) for American citizens, non-profits, journalists, businesses and contractors to speak out against Israel's treatment of Palestinians.]
Democracy Now ("Democracy Now!’s War and Peace Report provides our audience with access to people and perspectives rarely heard in the U.S.corporate-sponsored media, including independent and international journalists, ordinary people from around the world who are directly affected by U.S. foreign policy, grassroots leaders and peace activists, artists, academics and independent analysts. In addition, Democracy Now! hosts real debates–debates between people who substantially disagree, such as between the White House or the Pentagon spokespeople on the one hand, and grassroots activists on the other.")
Dorfman, Ariel and Thanh Nguyen. "The Displaced: Refugee Writers Ariel Dorfman & Viet Thanh Nguyen on Migration, US Wars & Resistance."Democracy Now (May 4, 2018) ["As dozens of migrants from Central America remain camped out at the U.S.-Mexico border attempting to seek asylum in the United States, we spend the hour with two of the nation’s most celebrated writers, both refugees themselves. Viet Thanh Nguyen was born in Vietnam in 1971. After the fall of Saigon in 1975, he and his family fled to the United States. He is the author of three books, including “The Sympathizer,” which won the Pulitzer Prize, and he teaches at the University of Southern California. He is also the editor of a new collection titled “The Displaced: Refugee Writers on Refugee Lives.” We are also joined by the Chilean-American writer Ariel Dorfman, who has been described as one of the greatest Latin American novelists. Forty-five years ago, he fled Chile after a U.S.-backed coup displaced President Salvador Allende. Dorfman had served as Allende’s cultural adviser from 1970 to 1973. Living in exile, he became one of Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s most vocal critics, as well as a celebrated playwright and novelist. Dorfman, who teaches at Duke University, has just published a new novel, “Darwin’s Ghosts,” and a new collection of essays titled “Homeland Security Ate My Speech.” He also contributed an essay to “The Displaced: Refugee Writers on Refugee Lives.”]
"Drones."Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (September 28, 2014)
Dunbar-Ortiz, Roxanne. "In Conversation with Nick Estes."Lannan Lectures (October 11, 2017) ["Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz is known for her lifelong commitment to national and international social justice issues. She has been active in the international Indigenous movement for more than four decades, working with Indigenous communities on sovereignty and land rights and helping to build the international Indigenous movement. She is Professor Emerita of Ethnic Studies at California State University, East Bay. She is the author of numerous books and articles on indigenous peoples’ right to self-determination, including Roots of Resistance: A History of Land Tenure in New Mexico, The Great Sioux Nation, and An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States, which received the 2015 American Book Award. A new book, Loaded: A Disarming History of the Second Amendment is forthcoming in January."]
Dunbar-Ortiz, Roxanne. An Indigenous Peoples' History of America. Beacon Press, 2014: 1-14; 133-161. ["Today in the United States, there are more than five hundred federally recognized Indigenous nations comprising nearly three million people, descendants of the fifteen million Native people who once inhabited this land. The centuries-long genocidal program of the US settler-colonial regimen has largely been omitted from history. Now, for the first time, acclaimed historian and activist Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz offers a history of the United States told from the perspective of Indigenous peoples and reveals how Native Americans, for centuries, actively resisted expansion of the US empire. With growing support for movements such as the campaign to abolish Columbus Day and replace it with Indigenous Peoples’ Day and the Dakota Access Pipeline protest led by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States is an essential resource providing historical threads that are crucial for understanding the present. In An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States, Dunbar-Ortiz adroitly challenges the founding myth of the United States and shows how policy against the Indigenous peoples was colonialist and designed to seize the territories of the original inhabitants, displacing or eliminating them. And as Dunbar-Ortiz reveals, this policy was praised in popular culture, through writers like James Fenimore Cooper and Walt Whitman, and in the highest offices of government and the military. Shockingly, as the genocidal policy reached its zenith under President Andrew Jackson, its ruthlessness was best articulated by US Army general Thomas S. Jesup, who, in 1836, wrote of the Seminoles: “The country can be rid of them only by exterminating them.” Spanning more than four hundred years, this classic bottom-up peoples’ history radically reframes US history and explodes the silences that have haunted our national narrative."]
Dunbar-Ortiz, Roxanne and Abby Martin. "Native American Genocide & Resistance."Empire Files (November 25, 2015) ["Indigenous scholar Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, author of an ‘Indigenous People’s History of The United States’, joins Abby Martin for this week’s episode of The Empire Files to give insight on the history and present-day struggle of native peoples. Native society, despite pervasive mainstream mythology, was rich in agriculture and was advanced to such a degree that they were appropriated by colonialists. These civilizations were turned into slaves, bought and sold on the market and taken to work in mines and forcibly displaced so they did not have their housing or food supplies. The desire of the colonial forces was to weaken and control native populations so that could occupy and control the land, and use natives for slave labor. Dunbar-Ortiz discusses not only the intention of colonial forces, which included killing off cultural ties and languages, but how native people have survived despite widespread terror campaigns. Armed settlers had to fight against native people in order to maintain dominance. The Plains People, for example, had to endure a “food fight” involving their buffalo. The primary goal of a food fight was to kill off the food supply of civilians so that they starve or give in to the demands of occupying forces. Native resistance today has taken new, creative form—aimed at disrupting normalized dehumanization by the military establishment, sport establishment and school industries, all of which carry names and caricatures of natives which are deeply colonial and racist: from things like Tomahawk missiles to the Redskins sports team. Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz and Abby Martin break down the colonialist fabrications which have long permeated our history books and follow through with how we can join the fight to amplify native voices."]
Edwards, David. "The Filter Bubble - Owen Jones And Con Coughlin."Media Lens (November 14, 2018) ["In a dream, the common sense rules and rationality of everyday life are, of course, suspended – we float to the top of the stairs, a cat smiles, a person is beheaded at the dinner table and the vegetables are served. In similar vein, Iraq was destroyed in a nakedly illegal oil grab, more than one million human beings were killed, and the 'mainstream' continued to treat the criminals responsible as respectable statespeople, and to take seriously their subsequent calls for 'humanitarian intervention' in oil-rich Libya. With Libya reduced to ruins, the same journalists dreamed on, treating the same criminals with the same respect as they sought yet one more regime change in Syria. This nightmare version of 'news' is maintained by a corporate 'filter bubble' that blocks facts, ideas and sources that challenge state-corporate control of politics, economics and culture. It is maintained by a mixture of ruthless high-level control and middle- and lower-level compromise, conformity and self-serving blindness."]
Edwards, David and David Cromwell. "Anatomy of a Propaganda Blitz."Propaganda Blitz: How the Corporate Media Distort Reality. Pluto Press, 2018: 1-19.
Eisenbrandt, Matt. "'Assassination of a Saint': Salvadoran Archbishop Óscar Romero Is Canonized as Murder Remains Unsolved."Democracy Now (October 15, 2018) ["As Pope Francis names Salvadoran Archbishop Óscar Romero a saint, we continue our interview with Matt Eisenbrandt, a human rights lawyer and the author of “Assassination of a Saint: The Plot to Murder Óscar Romero and the Quest to Bring His Killers to Justice.” Romero was a champion for the poor and oppressed who was murdered by a U.S.-backed right-wing death squad in 1980 at the beginning of the brutal U.S.-backed military campaign in El Salvador. Eisenbrandt served on the trial team that brought the only court verdict ever reached for Romero’s murder."]
---. "Vatican Canonizes Salvadoran Archbishop Óscar Romero, Who Was Killed by a U.S.-Backed Death Squad."Democracy Now (October 15, 2018) ["Pope Francis has named Salvadoran Archbishop Óscar Romero a saint. Romero was a champion for the poor and oppressed who was murdered by a U.S.-backed right-wing death squad in 1980 at the beginning of the brutal U.S.-backed military campaign in El Salvador. Wearing the blood-stained rope belt that Romero wore when he was assassinated, Pope Francis praised Romero for disregarding his own life “to be close to the poor and to his people.” We speak with Matt Eisenbrandt, a human rights lawyer and the author of “Assassination of a Saint: The Plot to Murder Óscar Romero and the Quest to Bring His Killers to Justice.” Eisenbrandt served on the trial team that brought the only court verdict ever reached for Romero’s murder."]
El-Ad, Hagai. "'Reminiscent of South Africa's Grand Apartheid': Israeli Human Rights Group Slams Israel at U.N."Democracy Now (October 22, 2018) ["Shortly after Israel announced a new “zero tolerance” policy toward demonstrations in Gaza, some 130 Palestinians were injured Friday while protesting ongoing Israeli occupation and demanding the right of return. Four paramedics and 25 children were among the injured. Ten thousand protesters gathered along Israel’s heavily militarized separation barrier with Gaza as part of the weekly Great March of Return protests that began March 30. Since then, Israeli forces have killed at least 170 Palestinians, including more than 30 children, and injured thousands more. We speak with Hagai El-Ad, the executive director of the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem. He was in New York last week testifying before the U.N. Security Council officially for the first time."]
Ellerby, Kara and Sumita Mukherjee. "How Empire Uses ‘Feminist’ Branding to Sell War and Occupation."Citations Needed #65 (February 6, 2019) ["Since the dawn of the American Empire, thin moral pretexts in our politics and press have been used to justify our wars and conquest. The invasion of Cuba and Philippines in 1898 was declared to be a fight for freedom from Spanish oppression. Vietnam was about stopping Communist tyranny. The pioneer myth of Manifest Destiny and “westward expansion” was built about “taming” and “civilizing’ the land from violent savages. But one current that flows through all of these imperial incursions has been the idea that the United States – as well as its allies the Great Britain and Israel – are out to protect women. Today's endless occupations in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan are, in large part, justified in perpetuity because the United States is a self-declared, unique protector of modernity and women’s rights. All the same, the Pentagon is increasingly promoted, in press releases and media puffy pieces, as a place where women can exercise their agency: the ultimate apex of meritocracy and a vanguard of equality. But what if this approach misses the point of equality altogether? What if this is simply a craven branding exercise, putting a liberal face on what is a fundamentally oppressive system of violence? On this episode, we explore various ways women’s rights and empowerment has been used to sell colonial objectives and how one can differentiate between actual progress and the superficial language of inclusion used cynically in service of mechanized violence."]
Ellsberg, Daniel. "Daniel Ellsberg Reveals He Was a Nuclear War Planner, Warns of Nuclear Winter & Global Starvation."Democracy Now (December 6, 2017) ["Could tension between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un bring us to the brink of nuclear war? As tensions ramp up, we discuss what nuclear war would look like with a former nuclear war planner and one of the world’s most famous whistleblowers—Daniel Ellsberg. In 1971, Ellsberg was a high-level defense analyst when he leaked a top-secret report on U.S. involvement in Vietnam to The New York Times and other publications, which came to be known as the Pentagon Papers. He played a key role in ending the Vietnam War. Few know Ellsberg was also a Pentagon and White House consultant who drafted plans for nuclear war. His new book, published Tuesday, is titled “The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner.” We speak with Ellsberg about his top-secret nuclear studies, his front row seat to the Cuban missile crisis, whether Trump could start a nuclear war and how contemporary whistleblowers Chelsea Manning and Ed Snowden are his heroes."]
Ensler, Eve. "Nobel Peace Prize for Mukwege & Murad Is an Award for Every Rape Survivor in the World."Democracy Now (October 5, 2018) ["After a landmark year for the “Me Too” movement, which ignited an international conversation on sexual assault, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded Friday morning to two champions of women’s rights who have built their careers fighting sexual violence: physician Denis Mukwege and human rights activist Nadia Murad. Dr. Denis Mukwege founded the Panzi Hospital in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1999. The clinic receives thousands of women each year, many of them requiring surgery as a result of sexual violence. Nadia Murad is a 25-year-old Yazidi Kurdish human rights activist from Iraq. She was kidnapped and held by the Islamic State for almost three years. During her captivity she was repeatedly raped. We speak with Eve Ensler, award-winning playwright and author of “The Vagina Monologues” and the founder of V-Day, a movement to end violence against women and girls. She is a good friend of Dr. Mukwege and has also worked with Nadia Murad."]
Estefan, Kareem, et al. "Understanding Boycott, Divest, Sanctions (BDS)."Best of the Left #1249 (February 12, 2019) ["Today we take a look at both the BDS movement and the backlash response to it resulting in firings and legislation in many states (and pending federally) to restrict employment and business opportunities from those who fail to pledge in writing to not support of the boycott of Israel."]
Estes, Nick. "Our History of the Future."Dig (June 29, 2019) ["Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance." Michael Benton -- This is one of the best discussions I have heard about indigenous cultures, settler colonialism, racism/apartheid in America and intergenerational indigenous resistance movements. I cannot laud this enough - totally revolutionized and extended my thinking/understanding of contemporary movements like Standing Rock and their place in the long history of intergenerational indigenous struggles against genocidal policies. I highly recommend this episode and check out The Dig podcast (they also just did an impressive 5 part episode on contemporary European politics)]
Evans, Richard and Bryan Stevenson. "How Germany Can Help America Remember."On the Media (July 3, 2020) ["It’s often said the North won the Civil War, but the South won the narrative. That’s why the battle still rages, and still takes casualties, every single day. To chronicle the opening of a new front in the war over the Civil War, Brooke and OTM producer Alana Casanova Burgess went to Montgomery, the first capital of the Confederacy, to speak with public interest lawyer Bryan Stevenson about his new civil rights museum and memorial. When it comes to honoring and learning from our historical ills, Stevenson says America should look to another conflicted capital city, Berlin, Germany. In this piece, Brooke also speaks with historian Sir Richard Evans, author of The Third Reich in History and Memory, about how vestiges of the Nazi regime have been carefully curated to remember the victims of the Holocaust without reverence for their oppressors."]
Falconer, Bruce. "The Torture Colony."The American Scholar (September 1, 2008) ["In a remote part of Chile, an evil German evangelist built a" dystopia "whose members helped the Pinochet regime perform its foulest deeds."]
Fisher, Max. "How Neoconservatism Led the U.S. to Invade Iraq."On the Media (March 22, 2023) ["If you ask Democrats why the US invaded Iraq in 2003, many will say that President George W. Bush cynically lied about weapons of mass destruction. Meanwhile, some Republicans will say that President Bush meant well, but had been led astray by faulty intelligence. As we pass the 20th anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq, both of these narratives persist — and both distort the past, according to New York Times columnist Max Fisher. Fisher argues that the invasion was instead simply the natural unfolding of the neoconservative worldview. In this week's pod, we revisit his 2018 conversation with Brooke to unpack the hubris behind this worldview and examine how it grew from an esoteric, academic ideology into a force that still shapes American policies and minds today."]
"The Forgotten War."Throughline (February 21, 2019) ["President Trump and North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un are preparing to meet for a second nuclear summit. What has fueled the hostility between these two countries for decades? On this episode, we revisit the tangled history that helps explain how we got to where we are today."]
Gallagher, Katherine, John Kiriakou and Sejal Zota. "Gina Haspel, Rule of Law and Torture; The National Immigration Project And Protecting Haitian Refugees." Law and Disorder Radio (March 26, 2018) ["Gina Haspel, Rule of Law And Torture: Nazi generals and Nazi leaders were prosecuted at the end of World War II for war crimes and crimes against humanity and genocide. These crimes were incorporated into international law. The chief prosecutor was Robert Jackson, a Supreme Court judge. The Nazis defended themselves by arguing that they were just following orders. This defense was deemed unavailing. In many cases, they were found guilty and sentenced to lengthy prison terms or hung. He said that the war crimes tribunal at Nirenberg was not merely victors’ justice. But that the principles it followed would be universal and applied in the future, to all countries including the USA. And indeed, the United States signed on to the Geneva Conventions and Convention Against Torture and incorporate both the crimes and the concept of universal jurisdiction into its law. Gina Haspel has been nominated by President Donald Trump to head the CIA. She is a war criminal. She violated both international and national law by running a black site secret detention center in Thailand where men were tortured. Although there were several court orders that the evidence be preserved, Gina Haspel had the videotapes of torture destroyed. John Brennan, Obama’s ex head of the CIA, who was involved in the torture program, recently came to her defense, stating that she was just following orders: The Nazi defense. Trump supports torture. He believes that torture works. This is both immoral and untrue. He says he is for waterboarding and worse. He now has a subordinate with whom he is in agreement. Obama refused to prosecute the lawbreakers. Instead he threw CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou in prison for two years for disclosing American torture. He said we must look forward, not backward. This greenlighted what is going on now with Haspel. Michael Ratner warned us about this eventuality. The European Center for Human and Constitutional Rights may seek Haspel’s arrest if she goes to Germany. Such is the irony of history that the German fascist government that perpetrated the greatest crimes against humanity has been superseded by an American government which condones and is perpetuating them as well. The National Immigration Project And Protecting Haitian Refugees: The National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild filed a lawsuit in Brooklyn on March 15 to block President Trump’s cancellation of temporary protected status which had been granted to more than 50,000 Haitian refugees because of the terrible conditions in that country since the hurricane in 2010. The National Immigration Project declared President Trump’s actions to be unlawful, racially motivated, and evidence of a complete lack of knowledge of immigration law. The TPS program exempts from deportation people from countries in turmoil due to war, natural disasters, and other extraordinary conditions. The suit alleges that the federal government was arbitrary and capricious in his decision to end the program and was motivated by Donald Trump’s “racial and national origin animus towards patients.” The suit cites Trump’s demeaning remarks towards Haitians and Haiti. He has said that Haitians have AIDS and Haiti is a “s&*t hole” country. The Trump administration‘s position is that protecting Haitians is no longer necessary because conditions in Haiti have improved."]
Gilmore, Jim, et al. "Netanyahu at War."Frontline (January 6, 2017) ["An inside look at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s political rise and his relationship with the U.S."]
Gladwell, Malcolm. "Saigon, 1965."Revisionist History 1.2 (ND) ["In the early 1960s, the Pentagon set up a top-secret research project in an old villa in downtown Saigon. The task? To interview captured North Vietnamese soldiers and guerrillas in order to measure their morale: Was the relentless U.S. bombing pushing them to the brink of capitulation? Saigon, 1965 is the story of three people who got caught up in that effort: a young Vietnamese woman, a refugee from Nazi Germany, and a brilliant Russian émigré. All saw the same things. All reached different conclusions. The Pentagon effort, run by the Rand Corporation, was one of the most ambitious studies of enemy combatants ever conducted—and no one could agree on what it meant."]
Goodman, Amy. " 50 Years After My Lai Massacre in Vietnam, Revisiting the Slaughter the U.S. Military Tried to Hide."Democracy Now (March 16, 2018) ["Fifty years ago, on March 16, 1968, U.S. soldiers attacked the Vietnamese village of My Lai. Even though the soldiers met no resistance, they slaughtered more than 500 Vietnamese women, children and old men over the next four hours, in what became known as the My Lai massacre. After the massacre, the U.S. military attempted to cover up what happened. But in 1969 a young reporter named Seymour Hersh would reveal a 26-year-old soldier named William Calley was being investigated for killing 109 Vietnamese civilians. Today, memorials have been held in My Lai to mark the 50th anniversary of this horrific attack."]
---. "Four Days in Occupied Western Sahara—A Rare Look Inside Africa’s Last Colony."Democracy Now (August 31, 2018) ["In this exclusive broadcast, Democracy Now! breaks the media blockade and goes to occupied Western Sahara in the northwest of Africa to document the decades-long Sahrawi struggle for freedom and Morocco’s violent crackdown. Morocco has occupied the territory since 1975 in defiance of the United Nations and the international community. Thousands have been tortured, imprisoned, killed and disappeared while resisting the Moroccan occupation. A 1,700-mile wall divides Sahrawis who remain under occupation from those who fled into exile. The international media has largely ignored the occupation—in part because Morocco has routinely blocked journalists from entering Western Sahara. But in late 2016 Democracy Now! managed to get into the Western Saharan city of Laayoune, becoming the first international news team to report from the occupied territory in years."]
Greenwald, Glenn. "Is Facebook Operating as an Arm of the Israeli State by Removing Palestinian Posts?"Democracy Now (January 2, 2017) ["Facebook is being accused of censoring Palestinian activists who protest the Israeli occupation. This comes as Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked reportedly said in December that Tel Aviv had submitted 158 requests to Facebook over the previous four months asking it to remove content it deemed “incitement,” and said Facebook had granted 95 percent of the requests."]
---. "White House Spread False Story About Venezuela Burning Aid Trucks to Win Support for War."Democracy Now (March 11, 2019) ["An investigation by The New York Times has found that several trucks carrying so-called humanitarian aid that were set ablaze during a showdown at the Colombia-Venezuela border last month were not caused by President Nicolás Maduro’s forces, as was widely reported at the time by the media and Trump administration officials. We speak with Glenn Greenwald, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and one of the founding editors of The Intercept. His latest piece is “NYT’s Exposé on the Lies About Burning Aid Trucks in Venezuela Shows How U.S. Government and Media Spread Pro-War Propaganda.”"]
The Guantanamo Testimonials ProjectCenter for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas (Ongoing Archive) [" Pursuant to its mission, the UC Davis Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas (CSHRA) launched, in Fall 2005, a long term research project to assess the effects of the U.S. war on terror on human rights in the Americas. Whether invoked as the rationale for the "extraordinary rendition" of Canadian citizen Maher Arar to Syria or as the basis for the suppression of indigenous movements in South America, the war on terror has had significant effects on human rights in the Americas. But nowhere have these effects been greater than at the detention facilities of the U.S. naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Consequently, it seemed appropriate to begin our project by looking into the human rights situation at these facilities. We begin our endeavor with The Guantánamo Testimonials Project. The goals of this project are to gather testimonies of prisoner abuse in Guantánamo, to organize them in meaningful ways, to make them widely available online, and to preserve them there in perpetuity. The strength of these testimonies is considerable. Based on them, a number of distinguished individuals and organizations have called for the closure of Guantánamo."]
Gusterson, Hugh and Elaine Scarry. "Are We Numb to Nukes?"Radio Open Source (April 10, 2014) ["We’re thinking our way through a plausible nuclear emergency with Elaine Scarry who reminds you – we’ve got a weapons monarchy in this democracy. Two decades after the fall of the Berlin wall and a nuclear football still accompanies the president at all times, nuclear missile silos still dot the great plains, and hundreds of nukes remain constantly on alert. How can we call it a democracy, the rule of the people, when there’s one man’s finger on the trigger that could destroy us all?"]
Hamparian, Aram. "The ARNCA Urges US President and Congress To Stop Attacks on Kessab."Law and Disorder Radio (April 7, 2014)["In the early hours of March 31, 2014 civilians in the ancient Armenian settlement of Kessab and surrounding villages were attacked by forces opposed to the Syrian government crossing the border from Turkey. Kessab is an Armenian-populated town situated in northwestern Syria. The cross border attacks, which included church desecrations, forced immediate civilian evacuation of the area, alarming Armenians around the globe concerned about the safety of their relatives. Considered safe haven for refugees fleeing nearby war torn cities in recent years, the local Armenian population in Kessab has increased. In response to the recent multi-pronged attack, the Armenian National Committee of America has called on President Obama and Congress to press Turkey to stop facilitation attacks on civilians in Kessab, to investigate Turkey’s reported assistance to foreign fighters associated with the U.S. designated terrorist groups and to direct humanitarian aid to victims in the Armenian settlement."]
Hellstrom, Monica and Simon Lereng Wilmont. "The Distant Barking of Dogs."Film School Radio (January 11, 2019) ["THE DISTANT BARKING OF DOGS is set in Eastern Ukraine on the frontline of the war. The film follows the life of 10-year-old Ukrainian boy Oleg throughout a year, witnessing the gradual erosion of his innocence beneath the pressures of war. Oleg lives with his beloved grandmother, Alexandra, in the small village of Hnutove. Having no other place to go, Oleg and Alexandra stay and watch as others leave the village. Life becomes increasingly difficult with each passing day, and the war offers no end in sight. In this now half-deserted village where Oleg and Alexandra are the only true constants in each other’s lives, the film shows just how fragile, but crucial, close relationships are for survival. Through Oleg’s perspective, the film examines what it means to grow up in a warzone. It portrays how a child’s universal struggle to discover what the world is about grows interlaced with all the dangers and challenges the war presents. THE DISTANT BARKING OF DOGS unveils the consequences of war bearing down on the children in Eastern Ukraine, and by natural extension, the scars and self- taught life lessons this generation will carry with them into the future. Director Simon Lereng Wilmont and Producer Monica Hellström stop by to talk about this harrowing, intimate and loving look at Oleg and Alexandra’s claustrophobic life on the frontlines of an undeclared war."]
Hoock, Holger. "Scars of Independence."Radio West (August 9, 2017) ["we’re taking a different look at the American Revolutionary War. We think of it as brave patriots fighting for a noble cause, which is true, but in his new book historian Holger Hoock is trying to remind us just how bloody it was. The British brutalized American soldiers; we tortured loyalists. In fact, this cruelty shaped the outcome of the war. Hoock’s book is called Scars of Independence: America’s Violent Birth and he's joining us to talk about it."]
Horton, Scott. "The Torture Doctors."Harpers (November 4, 2013) [An expert panel concludes that the Pentagon and the CIA ordered physicians to violate the Hippocratic Oath.]
Hypernormalisation (BBC: Adam Curtis, 2016: 166 mins) ["HyperNormalisation wades through the culmination of forces that have driven this culture into mass uncertainty, confusion, spectacle and simulation. Where events keep happening that seem crazy, inexplicable and out of control—from Donald Trump to Brexit, to the War in Syria, mass immigration, extreme disparity in wealth, and increasing bomb attacks in the West—this film shows a basis to not only why these chaotic events are happening, but also why we, as well as those in power, may not understand them. We have retreated into a simplified, and often completely fake version of the world. And because it is reflected all around us, ubiquitous, we accept it as normal. This epic narrative of how we got here spans over 40 years, with an extraordinary cast of characters—the Assad dynasty, Donald Trump, Henry Kissinger, Patti Smith, early performance artists in New York, President Putin, Japanese gangsters, suicide bombers, Colonel Gaddafi and the Internet. HyperNormalisation weaves these historical narratives back together to show how today’s fake and hollow world was created and is sustained. This shows that a new kind of resistance must be imagined and actioned, as well as an unprecedented reawakening in a time where it matters like never before."]
Ibish, Hussein and David Shulman. "War and Dread."Open Source (October 19, 2023) ["We are listening in the dark, after a catastrophe yet to be contained: more than 1,000 Israeli civilians killed in a terrorist invasion from Gaza two weeks ago, thousands more Palestinians dead in a first round of punishment from Israel. “Only the beginning” says Prime Minister Netanyahu, while President Biden, in support, warns him against “all-consuming rage.” In all-consuming anxiety, more than a million Palestinians, under Israeli orders, have fled their homes in Gaza, without a clue where safety will be found.What we went to find in conversation was the sound of deep experience in the war zone of the Middle East, and also, in a time of dread, some measure of confidence in restraint."]
Immerwahr, Daniel. "Empire State of Mind."On the Media (April 5, 2019) ["Recently, a member of the Trump administration called Puerto Rico “that country,” obscuring once more the relationship between the island colony and the American mainland. In a special hour this week, On the Media examines the history of US imperialism — and why the familiar US map hides the true story of our country. Brooke spends the hour with Northwestern University historian Daniel Immerwahr, author of How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States."]
---. "'How to Hide an Empire': Daniel Immerwahr on the History of the Greater United States."Democracy Now (March 5, 2019) ["“How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States.” That’s the title of a new book examining a part of the U.S. that is often overlooked: the nation’s overseas territories from Puerto Rico to Guam, former territories like the Philippines, and its hundreds of military bases scattered across the globe. We speak with the book’s author, Daniel Immerwahr, who writes, “At various times, the inhabitants of the U.S. Empire have been shot, shelled, starved, interned, dispossessed, tortured and experimented on. What they haven’t been, by and large, is seen.” Immerwahr is an associate professor of history at Northwestern University."]
Iraq: The War Logs." (UK Guardian's archive and analysis of the Wikileaks Iraq War documents.)
Johnson, Adam and Nima Shirazi. "The Root of All Evil."Citations Needed #4 (July 26, 2017) ["... we talk about a recent New York Times article — and the broader media habit of painting the US as benevolent democracy-seeker and Iran and other Official Enemies as cynical imperialists. In this episode we dissect the true history of what caused chaos in Iraq, who’s to blame and what the real motives were behind the Bush, Obama and Trump administrations designs for the country. All this in the context of a battle for control over remaining ISIS territory in Syria and Washington, Riyadh, and Tel Aviv’s desire to stop the dreaded “Shia crescent”."]
Kelly, Kathy. "Forty-One Hearts are Still Beating in Guantanamo."The Progressive (January 11, 2018) ["Today, January 11, 2018, marks the 16th year that Guantanamo prison has exclusively imprisoned Muslim men, subjecting many of them to torture and arbitrary detention."]
Kinzer, Stephen and William Murphy, Jr. "US Wars and Social Control (From Regime Change Abroad to the War on Drugs at Home)."Unwelcome Guests #304 (April 30, 2006) ["In our first hour, this week, Stephen Kinzer, whose book, Overthrow, details the US empire's long history of instigating regime change, both the public pretext and the real interests at play. In our second hour, William Murphy Jr speaks about the "War On Drugs"."]
Koresky, Michael and Jeff Reichert. "This Means War! Introduction."Reverse Shot (June 23, 2003) ["Project for a New American Criticism,Or: How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Hate the War."]
Krajeski, Jenna. "What the Kurds are Fighting For: The Idea of Rojava is at Stake."What Next (October 16, 2019) ["When the U.S. abandoned its Kurdish allies, it not only left the Kurds vulnerable to devastating attacks from Turkey, but it also abandoned Rojava, the Kurdish autonomous region that lies in the northeast of Syria. Right now, the Kurds are fighting to preserve what they can of this unique political arrangement, but it might already be too late. And, maybe, it was always destined to fall."]
Krajeski, Jenna and Rapareen abd Elhameed Hasn. "The Rojava Revolution in Peril."On the Media (October 18, 2019) ["Rojava: it’s the three cantons at the top of Syria that comprise what’s more commonly referred to as “Kurdish Syria.” Each canton is governed independently but according to a shared social contract based on principles of local democracy, feminism and ecology. It’s a land that, until recently at least, had about two million people, mostly Kurdish but with ethnic and religious diversity. And its political experiment was mainly functioning — until the abrupt retreat of the United States from northern Syria. Now Rojava is being pummeled by the invading Turks — martyred to the impulses of an unmoored American president. And so it has been reported: a ruinous betrayal of an ally that has made unimaginable sacrifices in the Ameican wars against Sadaam Hussein and ISIS. But lost in that narrative is another story: the equally unimaginable sacrifice of an equitable model of governance in a region where other models have stifled freedom for centuries. First, Bob speaks with Jenna Krajeski, a journalist with the Fuller Project for International Reporting who has reported on the Kurds. Then, he speaks with Rapareen abd Elhameed Hasn, a 27-year-old activist and co-president of her local health authority in Rojava, about what it's been like on the ground."]
Krauss, Dan. "Through the Lens: The Kill Team."Radio West (September 2, 2014)["We continue our Through the Lens series Tuesday with "The Kill Team." A U.S. Army platoon made headlines in 2010 after if was learned they'd murdered several innocent Afghan civilians. In his film, director Dan Krauss examines those events and their fallout through the story of Adam Winfield, one of the guilty soldiers. Winfield tried to alert the military of the atrocity he and his comrades committed. His warnings went unheeded and Winfield found himself the target of a massive war crimes investigation. Krauss joins us to discuss his film, which explores the intersection of morality, conflict, and violence.">
Landrieu, Mitch, et al. "Confronting the Legacy of the Confederacy."Best of the Left #1186 (May 29, 2018) ["Today we take a look at the legacy of the Confederacy, the monuments and white supremacy it left behind and the racial terror institutionalized in America based on upholding its values."]
Lederach, John Paul. "The Art of Peace."On Being (July 8, 2010) ["What happens when people transcend violence while living in it? John Paul Lederach has spent three decades mediating peace and change in 25 countries — from Nepal to Colombia and Sierra Leone. He shifts the language and lens of the very notion of conflict resolution. He says, for example, that enduring progress takes root not with large numbers of people, but with relationships between unlikely people."]
Martin, Abby, et al. "There you go again. Venezuela and America's addiction to imperialism."Best of the Left #1248 (February 8, 2019) ["Today we take a look, briefly, at the last 100 years of Venezuelan history to understand how they went from oil riches and inequality to revolution and social progress only to run afoul of American imperialism."]
McMahan, Jeff. "On Killing in War."Philosophy Bites (November 21, 2009) ["If someone is shooting at me in a war, surely it is morally acceptable for me to shoot back and kill him or her. Jeff McMahan of Rutgers University, author of a new book on this topic, challenges the view that such killing is always acceptable."]
Merat, Arron. "Terrorists, cultists – or champions of Iranian democracy? The wild wild story of the MEK."The Guardian's Audio Long Reads (Read by Lucy Scott: November 30, 2018) ["They fought for the Iranian revolution – and then for Saddam Hussein. The US and UK once condemned them. But now their opposition to Tehran has made them favourites of Trump White House hardliners."]
Michael, Maggie and Shireen Al-Adeimi. "AP Investigation: Behind the Scenes in Yemen, U.S.-Backed Saudi Coalition Is Working with al-Qaeda."Democracy Now (August 14, 2018) ["The U.S.-backed, Saudi-led coalition in Yemen has repeatedly cut secret deals with al-Qaeda, even paying its fighters to retreat from towns or join the coalition, a bombshell Associated Press investigation has revealed. The AP probe accuses the United States of being aligned with al-Qaeda in the fight against Yemen’s Houthi rebels, despite claiming to be fighting the extremist group in the region. One senior tribal leader told the AP, “Al-Qaeda wasn’t defeated. It didn’t fight in the first place.” We speak with Maggie Michael, one of the three reporters for the Associated Press who broke the story, headlined “U.S. Allies Spin Deals with al-Qaida in War on Rebels.”"]
Munayyer, Yousef and Rebecca Vilkomerson. "Advocates: Israel’s Jewish Nation-State Law Constitutionally Enshrines Racism Against Palestinians."Democracy Now (July 23, 2018) ["A fragile ceasefire remains in effect after four Palestinians and one Israeli soldier were killed during violence Friday along the border with Gaza. During the flare-up, Israel launched dozens of strikes it said were targeted at Hamas rockets and mortars. The death of the Israeli soldier was the first since Palestinians launched weekly nonviolent protests at the border in March. Israeli forces have shot and killed at least 140 Palestinians during those protests, while wounding thousands of others. This comes as Israeli lawmakers drew condemnation Thursday for passing a law that defines Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people and gives them the sole right to self-determination. The law declares Hebrew the country’s only official language and encourages the building of Jewish-only settlements on occupied territory as a “national value.” We get response from Yousef Munayyer, executive director of US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, and Rebecca Vilkomerson, executive director of Jewish Voice for Peace. She co-authored a new op-ed in The Independent headlined “As Jews, we reject the myth that it’s antisemitic to call Israel racist.”"]
Mate, Gabor. "Roots Run Deep: Gabor Maté."Sounds of Sand #61 (November 16, 2023) [MB: This is one of the most profound intellectual and spiritual statements (on a communal level) I have come across and so important to all aspects of our lives (beyond the specific subject being discussed). It is an introduction to a longer Q & A. In a more general sense, Gabor Maté over time has radically changed the way I think about the world and despite never meeting him has helped me to recover (always a work in progress) from my own trauma: "No statement, no words can speak to the immense human suffering, the devastation and the horrendous humanitarian crisis intensifying in the Middle East. The current tragedy is awakening existential fear, acute grief and deep despair. Unspeakable atrocities have left many in a state of deep shock and in need of support. Gabor Maté, M.D. is a renowned speaker, and bestselling author who is is highly sought after for his expertise on a range of topics including addiction, stress and childhood development. Rather than offering quick-fix solutions to these complex issues, Dr. Maté weaves together scientific research, case histories, and his own insights and experience to present a broad perspective that enlightens and empowers people to promote their own healing and that of those around them."]
"Myanmar's Killing Fields."Frontline (Season 34: Episode 18 - May 8, 2018: 55 mins) ["Secret footage and eyewitness accounts shine new light on a brutal campaign by the Myanmar military against Rohingya Muslims — an effort that has been described by both the United Nations and the United States as 'ethnic cleansing.'"]
Nader, Ralph. "Where are the Lawyers?: Obama at Large."Counterpunch (May 31, 2012) ["The rule of law is rapidly breaking down at the top levels of our government. As officers of the court, we have sworn to “support the Constitution,” which clearly implies an affirmative commitment on our part."]
Nazar, Nazia. "Israel’s Role in Hamas’ Creation and its Retaliatory Genocide in Gaza."Counterpunch (October 23, 2023) ["Hamas’s recent attacks on Israel, in the presence of one of the best intelligence outfits in the world, has once again brought to mind the statements made by certain Israeli officials regarding Israel’s covert role in the formation of Hamas, which is an Arabic acronym for “Islamic Resistance Movement.” Brig. Gen. Yitzhak Segev, who served as an Israeli military governor in Gaza in the early 1980s, had disclosed in an interview to the New York Times that he had contributed to financing the Palestinian Islamist movement as a “counterweight” to Palestine Liberation Organization and the Fatah party. He further confessed that the Israeli government had provided him with a budget. A retired Israeli official Avner Cohen had also given a similar statement during his interview to the Wall Street Journal on Jan 24, 2009. “Hamas, to my great regret, is Israel’s creation,” he confessed and further explained that “Israel cooperated with a crippled, half-blind cleric named Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, even as he was laying the foundations for what would become Hamas.” Furthermore, Cohen disclosed that he had warned his officers against pursuing a divide-and-rule policy in the Occupied Territories and vehemently opposed Israel’s support for Palestinian Islamists over Palestinian secularists. Former Republican Congressman Ron Paul also stated that “Hamas was actually encouraged and initiated by Israel to counteract Yasser Arafat.” Furthermore, Col. David Hacham, an expert in Arab Affairs in the Israeli military, has described Israel’s support as the ‘original sin.’"]
Neuwirth, Jessica and Leana Wen. "'A Shameful Week for the U.S.: Trump Admin Guts U.N. Resolution to End Rape as Weapon of War."Democracy Now (April 26, 2019) ["The Trump administration is under fire after the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution to end rape as a weapon of war on Tuesday that excluded any mention of sexual and reproductive health. The resolution was gutted after the U.S. threatened to veto the measure altogether unless language referencing reproductive health was taken out due to the Trump administration’s belief that the language was code for abortion. The watered-down measure also weakened references to the International Criminal Court, making it harder for women and girls to seek justice. We speak with Jessica Neuwirth, director of the Human Rights Program at Roosevelt House at Hunter College and the director of the Sisterhood Is Global Institute. She sent a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo protesting the U.S. stance on the Security Council resolution. We also speak with Planned Parenthood President Dr. Leana ." ]
Oliver, John, et al. "Confronting the Legacy of the Confederacy."Best of the Left #1186 (May 29, 2018) ["Today we take a look at the legacy of the Confederacy, the monuments and white supremacy it left behind and the racial terror institutionalized in America based on upholding its values."]
Ortiz, Roxanne Dunbar, et al. "Taking the first steps of American imperialism (Native Peoples Series Part 3)."Best of the Left #1252 (February 26, 2019) ["Today we take a look at the process of systematic, government-sponsored genocide against the native peoples of North America that kicked off the wealth-accumulating, territory-expanding American empire we know and love today."]
"Osama Bin Laden File."The National Security Archive (National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 343: May 2, 2011)
Paley, Nina. "This Land is Mine."Brain Pickings (August 6, 2014) ["Ever since her remarkable 2008 animated feature film Sita Sings The Blues, I’ve been a great admirer of animator, cartoonist, and free-culture activist Nina Paley’s creative and meta-creative work. The recent situation in Gaza makes Paley’s 2012 animated short film This Land Is Mine — “a brief history of the land called Israel / Palestine / Canaan / the Levant” — particularly timely."]
Phelan, Stephen. "Watching the End of the World."The Boston Review (June 11, 2019) ["The Doomsday Clock is set to two minutes to midnight—the same position it held in 1953, when the United States and USSR detonated their first hydrogen bombs. So why don't we make movies about nuclear war anymore? "]
The Power of Nightmares (United Kingdom: Adam Curtis, 2004) ["Is the threat of radical Islamism as a massive, sinister organised force of destruction—specifically in the form of al-Qaeda—a myth perpetrated by politicians across the globe, but particularly the American neo-conservatives, in order to unite and justify empire? This series of films charts the rise of both groups and movements, drawing comparisons between them and their origins, to provide much-needed and missing context to the War of Terror."]
Prashad, Vijay and Francisco Rodriguez. "Venezuela in Crisis: As U.S. Pushes Regime Change, Fear Grows of Civil War & Famine." Democracy Now (February 19, 2019) ["President Trump called for regime change in Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua on Monday, in a major speech urging the Venezuelan military to abandon its support for President Nicolás Maduro and to support self-proclaimed Venezuelan president Juan Guaidó. During the speech, Trump said the U.S. seeks a peaceful transition of power in Venezuela, but that all options remain on the table. This comes as a new book out by former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe reveals Trump privately discussed going to war with Venezuela in 2017. Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro responded to Trump’s speech in Miami by accusing him of engaging in Nazi-like discourse."]
"Radio Evasión—dispatches from Chile Part 1."The Ex-Worker #70 (November 2019) ["Reports from fare-dodging to a week of full-blown revolt" Part Two: "neighborhood assemblies & daily rioting downtown" Part Three: "Narratives of daily conflict, Anarchist analysis" Part Four: "Mauricio Fredes—Prisoner support—Anarchist assemblies—Support our documentary."]
Radsch, Courtney and Sarah Leah Whitson. "Netflix Censors Hasan Minhaj in Saudi Arabia, Sparking Backlash over Khashoggi Killing, War in Yemen."Democracy Now (January 3, 2019) ["Netflix is under fire for pulling an episode of U.S. comedian Hasan Minhaj’s show “Patriot Act” from Saudi Arabia, after officials from the kingdom complained to the streaming company that it violated Saudi cybercrime laws. The episode was posted in late October, a few weeks after Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s murder in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. Hasan Minhaj sharply criticized the Saudi royal family and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The censored episode has been viewed more than 1.6 million times on YouTube, where it remains available to viewers in Saudi Arabia. On Wednesday, Minhaj tweeted, “Clearly, the best way to stop people from watching something is to ban it, make it trend online, and then leave it up on YouTube. Let’s not forget that the world’s largest humanitarian crisis is happening in Yemen right now. Please donate: help.rescue.org/donate/yemen.” We speak with Courtney Radsch, advocacy director at the Committee to Protect Journalists, and Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa Division."]
Rahma, Mahmound Abu. "Under Siege: A Report from Gaza."Building Bridges (July 22, 2014) ["It is essential that U.S. citizens understand that this conflict should not continue to be viewed as a symmetrical one anymore and while they largely do not hear about it there are vicious violations of international law against Palestinians every day; including closures/blockades, settlement activities (population transfer on our land) displacement, killings, detention and torture."]
Robinson, Andrew. "Anarchism, War and the State."CeaseFire (August 6, 2010) ["This article summarises how a number of anarchist and anarchistic authors view the relationship between the state and war."]
Khanna, Ro. "By Blocking Yemen Resolution, House GOP Is Abdicating Its Duty to Decide War & Peace."Democracy Now (November 15, 2018) ["House Republicans have quashed debate on a resolution that aims to end U.S. military support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen, by sneaking a single line into an unrelated resolution about wolves. The House voted 201 to 187 on the bill Wednesday, approving a provision that blocks the Democrats from forcing a vote on the U.S. role in Yemen under the War Powers Act. For nearly four years the United States has played a key role supporting the Saudi-led invasion, which has devastated Yemen, creating the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. The U.N. is warning 14 million Yemenis are on the brink of famine. One new study has estimated the war has killed at least 57,000 people since the beginning of 2016. We speak with Congressmember Ro Khanna, who introduced the resolution in the House."]
Rosenwald, Michael. "Top Secret."Columbia Review of Journalism (Fall 2019) [British and American origins of the contemporary information war "As the US press has covered Russia’s meddling in American politics, a counternarrative, about information warfare waged by our own government, has gone largely ignored. In fact, American reporters, if they wanted, could build a credible case that Putin’s disinformation efforts, which often use the media as an unknowing accomplice, simply carry on a tradition honed in this country, going back decades."]
Savell, Stephanie. "Fueling the Backfire: Our Everywhere War on Terror."Keeping Democracy Alive (March 7, 2019) ["Always out of the headlines, on purpose, America’s military footprint truly spans the globe. And how well is our nearly 18 year old “war on terror” going? Is it working? After what she calls a “research odyssey” Stephanie Savell of CostsofWar created a map for Smithsonian magazine, showing there are 80 countries involved in the US war on terrorism, including 7 that are sites of air and drone strikes, 14 that see direct combat by American troops against militant targets, and other sites of military exercises, bases, and training/assistance to military, police, and other ill-defined security forces. Often in places like Africa and South America, what is labeled terrorist is really internal dissidents. Savell calculated the cost to US taxpayers as $5.9 trillion, all of it borrowed money, meaning another $8 trillion paid in interest. Perhaps actually addressing the grievances might yield better results in terms of stopping terror attacks."]
---. "'Trump Is Not the Root of the Problem, He Is a Product of American Imperial History.'"Democracy Now (October 19, 2020) ["Donald Trump ran for president in 2016 with a mixed message of attacking the legacy of the Iraq War and U.S. military adventurism, while simultaneously pledging to commit war crimes and promote imperialism. As we look back at Trump’s record, Jeremy Scahill, co-founder of The Intercept, says his flouting of international norms and bullying of other countries is in keeping with how U.S. presidents have long behaved. “Donald Trump is not the root of the problem. Donald Trump is a product of American imperial history,” Scahill notes."]
Scahill, Jeremy, et al. "Very Bad Men: Trump, the Saudi Crown Prince, Sexual Assaulters, and Robert Mugabe."Intercepted (November 29, 2017) ["THE UNCONSCIONABLE GENOCIDAL destruction of Yemen is continuing unabated. This week on Intercepted: Sen. Chris Murphy blasts the U.S. government for its support of Saudi Arabia and lays out his fight to end the carnage in Yemen. Jeremy tears apart Thomas Friedman’s gross love letter to the Saudi crown prince and talks about the bi-partisan war against journalism from Bill Clinton to Donald Trump. As more women come forward to name their sexual assaulters and harassers, Intercept Editor-in-Chief Betsy Reed and BuzzFeed’s Katie Baker analyze this unprecedented moment. Robert Mugabe was removed in a military coup, but his successor is a brutal thug from the same party. We get analysis from Harare, Zimbabwe, about why the U.S. and Britain supported Mugabe’s repressive regime, who is in control now, and what the future holds in this mineral rich country. Comedian Joe Pera performs a dramatic re-enactment of a secret Snowden document about a summer intern at the National Security Agency who experiences culture shock. And Donald Trump stars in the exciting finale of ‘Merican Beauty.'"]
Scheindlin, Dahlia. "A Solution for Israelis & Palestinians."How Do We Fix It? #153 (2018) ["President Trump's rejection of the Iran nuclear agreement and Israeli military attacks on Iranian sites in Syria are among the latest signs of rising tensions in the Middle East. The threat of war is ever-present. Twenty five years after the signing of the Oslo Accords, relations between the Israeli government and Palestinian Authority are at a low point. There has been no significant peace process in many years. We speak with Israeli public opinion analyst, strategic consultant and peace researcher, Dahlia Scheindlin, who is hopeful that a new peace agreement will emerge. In addition to her work with Israelis and Palestinian, she has expertise in conflict resolution in Eastern Europe and the Balkans. Dahlia is co-host of the podcast, The Tel Aviv Review. In this episode, we discuss the proposal for a confederation between Israel and Palestine. Unlike the hard borders in a traditional two-state solution, a two-state confederation would allow for greater movement of both peoples. While the idea has received little coverage in the international media, the confederation debate is gathering strength in Israel. The concept calls for a softer separation with more Palestinians living as non-citizens in Israel, while Jewish settlements with Israeli citizens may remain in Palestine. "]
Segal, Raz. "A Textbook Case of Genocide."Jewish Currents (October 13, 2023) ["Israel has been explicit about what it’s carrying out in Gaza. Why isn’t the world listening?"]
Seibel, Mark. "As U.S. Pushes For Syria Strike, Questions Loom over Obama Claims in Chemical Attack."Democracy Now (September 4, 2013) ["During Tuesday’s Senate hearing on Syria, Secretary of State John Kerry insisted the administration has irrefutable evidence showing the Assad regime was responsible for the deadly chemical attack in late August. But questions remain over key parts of the administration’s case for military action. To explore these issues, we speak with journalist Mark Seibel of McClatchy, co-author of the article, “To Some, U.S. Case for Syrian Gas Attack, Strike Has Too Many Holes.” “When it came to questions of the efficacy of a U.N. investigation, or the number of people killed in the conflict, or even the U.S. rendition of what happened in what order, there are contradictions,” Seibel says. The United States has claimed it had “collected streams of human, signals and geospatial intelligence” that showed the Assad government preparing for an attack three days before the event. “That claim raises two questions,” Seibel writes. “Why didn’t the U.S. warn rebels about the impending attack and save hundreds of lives? And why did the administration keep mum about the suspicious activity when on at least one previous occasion U.S. officials have raised an international fuss when they observed similar actions?”"]
Shamsi, Hina, Flint Taylor and Eli Valley. "The American Machine: Police Torture to Drone Assassinations."The Intercepted (March 13, 2019) ["In 1969 Black Panther Leader leader Fred Hampton was gunned down by Chicago Police in his bedroom. This week on Intercepted: Famed civil rights lawyer Flint Taylor discusses his 13 year struggle for justice for Hampton, his work in exposing the torture program in Chicago that was unleashed on black men, and his career fighting against violent corrupt cops, the city of Chicago, and J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI. Taylor’s new memoir is called “The Torture Machine: Racism and Police Violence in Chicago.” As Donald Trump ramps up drone strikes, he has officially wiped out the already minimal accountability guidelines implemented by Barack Obama. Hina Shamsi of the American Civil Liberties Union talks about the expansion of drone strikes under Trump, how Obama paved the way for his successor, and what we might expect from Attorney General William Barr. Meghan McCain is not Jewish, but she is accusing a Jewish comic artist of creating “one of the most anti-Semitic things” she has ever seen: a cartoon about her hypocrisy in attacking Ilhan Omar and appropriating Jewish suffering. Artist Eli Valley talks about why he drew it and why he believes McCain’s attacks on his cartoon prove the very point he was making."]
Shattuck, John. "Viktor Orbán’s 'velvet repression' in Hungary."Democracy Works (February 18, 2019) ["This episode begins a four-part series examining the state of democracy around the world. First up is Hungary, a country that’s often referred to in a group of countries in central and Eastern Europe that are seeing authoritarian leaders rise to power. You might have heard of Viktor Orbán or know that the country is in some way associated with George Soros, but beyond that, it’s not a place many of us spend a lot of time thinking about. We could not have found a better guest to help us make sense of what’s happening there. John Shattuck is the former President and Rector of Central European University, which Hungary’s Prime Minister recently forced out of the country. He is currently Professor of Practice in Diplomacy at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. In this episode, John discusses Viktor Orbán’s rise to power, how he is waging war on democratic institutions, and what people in Hungary are doing to fight back."]
Shorrock, Tim. "North Korea Nuclear Deal: Will the U.S. Drop Sanctions & Economic Embargo?"Democracy Now (April 30, 2018) ["North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has pledged to abandon his nuclear weapons if the United States agrees to formally end the Korean War and promises not to invade his country. The announcement came after a historic meeting Friday between Kim and South Korean leader Moon Jae-in in the truce village of Panmunjom. Then, on Sunday, North Korea’s state media said Kim had vowed to immediately suspend nuclear and missile tests, and would dismantle its Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Site."]
---. "Wired for War."The Geek's Guide to the Galaxy #3 (July 18, 2011)
Singh, Nikhil Pal, with Jeremy Scahill. "Talk and Conversation."Lannan Foundation (September 26, 2018) ["Nikhil Pal Singh is an associate professor of social and cultural analysis and history at New York University and the founding faculty director of the NYU Prison Education Program. He is the author of Race and America’s Long War (2017), in which, historian Robin Kelley argues, “Singh obliterates any myth of American peace, revealing instead that the thread tying America’s past and present is long and continuous war—”hot, vicious, global, and racial.” Singh’s work helps us understand the historical sweep of racist ideology that brought us to the election of Donald Trump in 2016 and shows the connection between the election and US military defeats abroad. He writes, 'Marred by military atrocities, torture scandals, fiscal waste, toxic exposure, popular opposition, and public disgust, the US invasion of Iraq induced a regional death spiral and inspired new terrorist networks of the kind that the war was ostensibly fought to vanquish.'"]
Sperber, Amanda. "Inside the Secretive U.S. Air War in Somalia: How Many Civilians Have Died as Strikes Escalate?"Democracy Now (March 5, 2019) ["The Trump administration is rapidly escalating a secretive air war in Somalia. According to the think tank New America, at least 252 people have been killed in around two dozen U.S. airstrikes in Somalia so far this year. The U.S. has already carried out more strikes in Somalia in 2019 than in any single year under President Obama. In addition to the air war, the Pentagon reportedly has about 500 U.S. troops on the ground in Somalia, including many special operations forces. For years, the U.S. has attempted to aid the Somali government by targeting members of al-Shabab, but the effort has increased dramatically under Trump, and it has come with little congressional oversight or media attention. We speak with Amanda Sperber, a freelance journalist who reports from Nairobi, Kenya, and Mogadishu, Somalia. Her new article for The Nation is titled “Inside the Secretive US Air Campaign in Somalia.”"]
Sumanthiran, Shiloh and Serena Sung-Clarke. "Rohingya Refugee Crisis (Part 1)."War News Radio (October 28, 2017) ["In August, clashes between the Burmese government and the ethnic minority Rohingya intensified, leaving casualties and many Rohingya people vulnerable to violence. Since then, over 500,000 Rohingya have fled their home in Myanmar’s Rakhine State. The media and foreign workers have been barred from entering Rakhine, but stories of ethnic cleansing and plunder have emerged. Who, exactly, are the Rohingya and how did this happen? To understand the current crisis, we have to go back in time…"]
Talaga, Tanya. "Big Brother's Hunger."Ideas (March 25, 2019) ["In her 2018 CBC Massey Lectures series, titled All Our Relations: Finding the Path Forward, prize-winning journalist Tanya Talaga (author of Seven Fallen Feathers) explores the legacy of cultural genocide against Indigenous peoples."]
Taub. Ben. "Guantanamo's Darkest Secret."The New Yorker (April 15, 2019) ["The U.S. military prison’s leadership considered Mohamedou Salahi to be its highest-value detainee. But his guard suspected otherwise."]
Taxi to the Dark Side (USA: Alex Gibney, 2007: 106 mins) ["Taxi To The Dark Side examines America’s policy on torture and interrogation in general, specifically the CIA’s use of torture and their research into sensory deprivation. There is description of the opposition to the use of torture from its political and military opponents, as well as the defence of such methods; the attempts by Congress to uphold the standards of the Geneva Convention forbidding torture; and the popularisation of the use of torture techniques in American television shows…"]
Teruggi, Marco. "The Social Fabric of Chavismo."Verso (January 30, 2019) ["On January 23, Juan Guaidó, who had recently been installed as president of the country’s opposition-led National Assembly, declared himself interim president of Venezuela in an attempt to oust the incumbent, Nicolás Maduro. But with Venezuelan society deeply divided, and the military continuing to support Maduro, it isn't clear how Guaidó can succeed. In this article, Marco Teruggi, who has spent the last six years observing first-hand this complexity as a participant in Venezuela’s communal project, reflects on the opposition’s attempt to form a parallel government and their failure to grasp the social reality of the Chavista base."]
Thompson, Paul. "Terror Timeline."Boiling Frogs (3 Pt interview: September 1, September 6, and September 16, 2011)
Tlaib, Rashida. "'I Will Not Be Silenced': Rep. Rashida Tlaib Calls for Gaza Ceasefire as House Votes to Censure Her."Democracy Now (November 8, 2023) ["As the death toll from Israel’s relentless assault on Gaza tops 10,000 and millions around the world march in the streets for a ceasefire, the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday voted to censure the only Palestinian American in Congress. By a vote of 234 to 188, lawmakers officially rebuked Congressmember Rashida Tlaib for her criticism of Israel, including her defense of the slogan “from the river to the sea” as a Palestinian call for freedom and equality; 22 Democrats joined Republicans in the vote. “The cries of the Palestinian and Israeli children sound no different to me,” Tlaib said in an emotional speech before the vote. “What I don’t understand is why the cries of Palestinians sound different to you all.”"]
Verdeja, Ernesto. "Why is the Definition of 'Genocide' So Controversial?"On the Media (December 1, 2023) ["As the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas officially ended this week, fighting has resumed in Gaza. Meanwhile, some of the public discourse around the war has narrowed in to a debate over a word: genocide. Beyond its cultural and political implications, genocide is a criminal charge—with strict criteria observed by international courts. So strict that since the creation of the law in the 1950s, only three genocides have been formally recognized by the UN Convention and gone to trial. This week, Micah speaks with Ernesto Verdeja, the Executive Director of the Institute For The Study of Genocide and a professor of Peace Studies and Global Politics at the University of Notre Dame, about how the term means different things to different groups of people. And why the legal limitations of the word could derail discussions from focusing on ending the violence in Gaza."]
The War Logs (The New York Times: "An archive of classified military documents offers views of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.")
War Made Easy: How Presidents & Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death (USA: Loretta Alper and Jeremy Earp, 2007) ["Reaching into the Orwellian memory hole, War Made Easy exposes the some 50-year pattern of government deception and media spin that has dragged the United States into one war after another from Vietnam to Iraq. Using archival footage of official distortion and exaggeration from LBJ to George Bush, this film reveals how the American news media have uncritically disseminated the pro-war messages of successive governments — paying special attention to the parallels between the Vietnam war and the war in Iraq…"]
Weisbord, Noah. "Introduction."The Crime of Aggression: The Quest for Justice in an Age of Drones, Cyberattacks, Insurgents, and Autocrats. Princeton University Press, 2019: 1-7.
Whitlock, Craig. "'Afghanistan Papers' Reveal How Presidents & Generals Misled the American Public on War’s Progress."Democracy Now (March 9, 2020) ["Washington Post reporter Craig Whitlock has just won a George Polk Award for Military Reporting for his in-depth investigation called “The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War.” He joins us to describe how, after getting a tip, he fought for three years to get the federal government to release a trove of confidential interviews it conducted with people directly involved in the nearly two-decade-long war. He ultimately obtained more than 2,000 documents that revealed how presidents, generals and diplomats across three administrations had intentionally misled the American public about the longest war in U.S. history."]
---. "The 'Pentagon Papers' Of Our Time."On the Media (December 11, 2019) ["On Monday, the Washington Post released the fruits of a three-year investigative effort: the "Afghanistan Papers," a once-secret internal government history of a deadly, costly, and ultimately futile entanglement. The hundreds of frank, explosive interviews — along with a new tranche of memos written by the former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld — revealed the extent to which American leaders misled the public on their efforts to hunt down Osama Bin Laden, rout the Taliban, expel Al Qaeda, install democracy, and undo corruption. In this podcast extra, investigative reporter Craig Whitlock tells Bob about the monumental story that the Post uncovered — and the extraordinary effort it took to report it out. "]
Wilkerson, Lawrence. "I Helped Sell the False Choice of War with Iraq; It’s Happening Again with Iran."Democracy Now (February 9, 2018) ["Fifteen years ago this week, Secretary of State General Colin Powell gave a speech to the United Nations arguing for war with Iraq, saying the evidence was clear: Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. It was a speech Powell would later call a blot on his career. Is President Trump doing the same thing now with Iran? We speak to Powell’s former chief of staff, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson. He recently wrote a piece titled 'I Helped Sell the False Choice of War Once. It’s Happening Again.'"]
Wolin, Sheldon S. "Myth in the Making."Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism. Princeton University Press, 2008: 4-14. ["Democracy is struggling in America--by now this statement is almost cliché. But what if the country is no longer a democracy at all? In Democracy Incorporated, Sheldon Wolin considers the unthinkable: has America unwittingly morphed into a new and strange kind of political hybrid, one where economic and state powers are conjoined and virtually unbridled? Can the nation check its descent into what the author terms "inverted totalitarianism"? Wolin portrays a country where citizens are politically uninterested and submissive--and where elites are eager to keep them that way. At best the nation has become a "managed democracy" where the public is shepherded, not sovereign. At worst it is a place where corporate power no longer answers to state controls. Wolin makes clear that today's America is in no way morally or politically comparable to totalitarian states like Nazi Germany, yet he warns that unchecked economic power risks verging on total power and has its own unnerving pathologies. Wolin examines the myths and mythmaking that justify today's politics, the quest for an ever-expanding economy, and the perverse attractions of an endless war on terror. He argues passionately that democracy's best hope lies in citizens themselves learning anew to exercise power at the local level."]
Wright, Ann. "'Our Dreams are Coming True': Peace Activists Celebrate as Korean Leaders Vow to Officially End War."Democracy Now (April 27, 2018) ["History has been made on the Korean peninsula today, as South Korean President Moon Jae-In and North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un shook hands at the Demilitarized Zone between the two countries and pledged to work to denuclearize the peninsula and to declare the official end to the Korean War. Today’s historic summit marks the first time a North Korean leader has ever set foot inside South Korea. During the meeting, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said “I came here to put an end to the history of confrontation.” The North and South Korean leaders pledged to pursue talks with the United States aimed at negotiating a formal peace treaty to replace the uneasy 1953 armistice. For more we speak with Ann Wright, retired U.S. Army Colonel and former State Department diplomat. She is a member of Women Cross DMZ, a group of international peacemakers who have been calling for an end to the Korean War."]
Zollman, Florian. "Fake News by Design."Monthly Review (March 7, 2018) ["Mainstream news media reporting and the manufacture of bloodbaths in Libya and Syria"]
