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Langston Hughes, the great African American poet, said decades ago, “Fascism is a new name for that kind of terror the Negro has always faced in America.” Fascism can and has led to genocide. Progressive African American intellectuals, writers, poets, and musicians have had a long tradition and history of solidarity and resisting fascism and genocide, from Frederick Douglass to Gil Scott-Heron, from Sojourner Truth to Angela Davis, from W.E.B. Du Bois to John Lewis, from Paul Robeson to Amiri Baraka, from Ida B. Wells to Malcolm X, from Ella Baker to Dr. King, from Harry Belafonte to Sonny Rollins, from James Baldwin to Cornel West and up to the present moment where Robin D. G. Kelley warns “We're witnessing the consolidation of a fascist police state.” Recorded at the University of Massachusetts.

We are at an inflection point. A chill is sweeping the country. We ignore it at our peril. The warning signs are everywhere. Alaska GOP Senator Lisa Murkowski says, “We are all afraid.” Massachusetts Democratic Governor Maura Healey says, “The fear is real.” New York Times columnist Masha Gessen writes, “America's Police State Has Arrived.” A Columbia University dean told students, “Nobody can protect you. These are dangerous times.” Conservative PBS commentator David Brooks calls for “a civic uprising to fight back and adds: “We have nothing to lose but our chains.” Dissent is being criminalized. People are being deported without any kind of due process. Court rulings are being ignored. Democracy, civil liberties and free speech are all under attack. What can be done to reverse cowboy authoritarianism in America? Recorded at the University of British Columbia.

April 24th marks the 110th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. I grew up in the 1950s in New York in the shadow of that tragedy. I was surrounded by survivors named Garabedian, Giragosian, Hagopian and others who always spoke fondly of “yergeer,” the country they were forced to abandon. My mother, Araxie, was from Dubneh, a village near Diyarbakir, and my father, Bedros, was from Nbishi, a village near Palu in what is now Eastern Turkey. Their memories, and those of others from the “old” country, filled my ears as did their tales of how they escaped death and got to America. I'd listened to their stories in Armenian, not understanding everything, but knowing for them, “yergeer” was a special place. It was home. Houshamadyan are precious memory books of a millennial-old civilization virtually lost but not forgotten. Recorded at the National Association of Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR).

Monopoly isn't just a board game it is the animating dynamic of our economic system. Really existing capitalism, which relies heavily on taxpayer support, embodies a near genetic drive to consolidate, to dominate and ultimately to eliminate competition. This leaves people with fewer choices and higher prices, exactly the outcome desired by the monopolists. Democracy, particularly in the U.S., has largely morphed into an oligarchy run by and for plutocrats. As corporate control of media increases and as inequality widens, and as the eco-crisis continues apace, one can expect a future of social unrest.

Noam Chomsky calls the Israel, U.S., and Palestine relationship a “Fateful Triangle.” He says,“ In no other region of the world are the problems so likely to lead to devastating regional conflict.” He adds, those problems “have only been aggravated by the irrationality and intolerance that has dominated discussion in the U.S. It will be unfortunate if this state of affairs persists,” he warns. Alas, Chomsky wrote those words more than 50 years ago. The U.S. has given Israel hundreds of billions in aid over the years. In addition, Washington provides crucial diplomatic, political and military support. Internationally, because of Gaza both the U.S. and Israel are increasingly isolated. General Moshe Yallon, former Israeli chief of staff and defense minister, says Israel is committing war crimes and ethnic cleansing. Interview by David Barsamian. Recorded at the Boulder Public Library.

Parts of the U.S. are an eco-disaster, a sacrifice zone. Take Newark, NJ. If you travel down a one-mile stretch of Doremus Avenue in Newark you pass a natural gas plant next to a sewage treatment facility next to an animal fat rendering plant next to a series of ominous-looking chemical storage containers behind acres of fencing. Airplanes pass overhead every two minutes, their engines rattling windows, while a putrid smell wafts from the open pools at the sewage treatment plant. Nationally, where are these polluters located? Overwhelmingly in poor communities of color like the Ironbound section of Newark where activists are organizing and fighting back to create a just, vibrant and sustainable community.

Bigotry and hatred, fear and loathing, are on the rise. Vulnerable groups are being targeted. It's happened before. Decades ago, speaking to the National Jewish Congress, Dr Martin Luther King, Jr said, “My people were brought to America in chains. Your people were driven here to escape the chains fashioned for them in Europe. There are Hitlers loose in America today, both in high and low places. As the tensions and bewilderment of economic problems become more severe, history's scapegoats, the Jews, will be joined by new scapegoats, the Negroes. The Hitlers will seek to divert people's minds and turn their frustrations and anger to the helpless, to the outnumbered.” Recorded at the University of Colorado.

History, “The past” as Faulkner wrote, “is never dead. It's not even past." Trauma, a Greek word for wound, takes on myriad shapes and forms. It often remains and reverberates through generations. There is individual trauma and collective trauma. However, just because you suffered does not give you permission to inflict suffering on others. Angela Davis said, “Victimization cannot be permitted to function as a halo of innocence.” Empathy is the ability to take on another person's perspective, to understand, feel, and possibly share and respond to their experience. Victims need our empathy, our compassion but not according to the world's richest man. Elon Musk has said, “The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy.”

The so-called Department of Government Efficiency, DOGE, is led by Elon Musk, the richest man in the world. It operates in virtual secrecy. Its slash and burn tactics have resulted in thousands of government workers losing their jobs, sometimes with little or no notice. Budgets are being hollowed out to pay for massive tax breaks for the oligarchs. Activist, organizer, politician Kshama Sawant warns, “We cannot understate the damage being done by Trump, Musk and company. It is austerity on steroids, deregulation on steroids, imperialism on steroids” and along with that she says it's “the most dramatic concentration of executive power” in memory. There's only one thing that will stop the Trump-Musk juggernaut. Collective citizen action. Workers! Fight Back! Recorded at the Langston Hughes Center for the Performing Arts.

When faced with adversity one can look away and do nothing. But for our own dignity and self-respect we must fight back and resist the depredations of the state and corporate sector. Historically speaking this is one of those critical inflection points. A lot of people are deeply concerned about the Trump regime and Elon Musk. The social safety net is being shredded while the gazillionaires make out like bandits. Tariq Ali says, “What the United States needs today is an opposition, which fights back politically, intellectually, and culturally with arguments, and, when necessary, comes out on the streets to defend democracy, a grassroots uprising. We need activists more than ever before.” Recorded at St. Thomas University.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said "Conditions for Palestinians in Gaza are appalling and apocalyptic. What we are seeing may well amount to the gravest international crimes." Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, said, "We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly." Prominent Israeli scholars such as Omer Bartov, Raz Segal, Ilan Pappe, Lee Mordechai and Amos Goldberg, have all said Israel's actions in Gaza amount to genocide. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Jewish Voice for Peace, and other organizations have also reached the same conclusion. Apart from the U.S., Canada, and a few European countries Israel is largely isolated internationally. Arrest warrants for Prime Minister Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant have been issued by the International Criminal Court. Israel's goal in Gaza has been made explicitly clear by Netanyahu on down: eliminate the Palestinians. Recorded at the University of Wisconsin.

Paul Robeson, an enduring and multitalented figure, broke color barriers in sports, music, film and theater. He was an internationally famous singer and actor yet in the U.S. he was persecuted and blacklisted for his political beliefs. He died impoverished and in obscurity. His singular life is a model of courage and steadfastness in the face of racial and political prejudice. He said, “The artist must fight for freedom or for slavery. I have made my choice. I had no alternative.” This program includes Paul Robeson singing in his magnificent bass-baritone voice "Joe Hill" and "Ol' Man River." Recorded at Columbia Law School.

The ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinians is in its first phase. Some captives have been released with more to follow. Aid trucks are delivering desperately needed food, water and medicine to the besieged Palestinians. What the future will bring is uncertain. The situation is fragile. What is certain is the Palestinians have endured disproportionate death and destruction. Israel has a powerful military and the backing of the U.S. The BBC says, “After 15 months of war in Gaza, the conflict is as bitter and intractable as ever. The consequences of so much destruction and death will be felt for a generation, at least. The long-overdue ceasefire may stop the killing but won't end the conflict.”

There's power in a union is not just an empty slogan or the title of a song it's a shared reality for many working people. When labor organizes itself into a union it can exert power over bosses. It can demand higher wages and better working conditions and benefits. The CEO class offers workers crumbs while pocketing the big bucks in salaries, bonuses and stock options for themselves. The propaganda system is largely under the control of ruling elites and big business. Thus, unions are painted negatively. However, a Gallup poll shows that union support among workers has increased significantly in recent years. From Amazon to Starbucks to Kaiser to postal workers in Canada there has been an upsurge in workers going on strike and unionization. Solidarity makes a difference.

Traditional totalitarianism conjures images of jack-booted stormtroopers, death camps and gulags. In recent years a new variety of totalitarianism has emerged. Noted political theorist Sheldon Wolin calls it “the inversion of totalitarianism” and that it “represents the coming of age of corporate power and political demobilization of the citizenry. Unlike classical totalitarian systems which openly boasted of their intentions to force their societies in a preconceived totality, inverted totalitarianism is not expressly conceptualized as an ideology, nor is it objectified in public policy.” Corporations have de facto power and have carried out a slow-motion coup d'état. How to resist? Wolin says it starts at the local level.

The murder of UnitedHealthcare's CEO on a Midtown Manhattan street “unleashed,” the New York Times reported, “a torrent of morbid glee from patients and others who say they have had negative experiences with health insurance companies at some of the hardest times of their lives.” Some comments were, “Thoughts and deductibles to the family.” Another one said, “Unfortunately, my condolences are out of network.” The dark commentary highlighted deep anger over the state of health insurance. Millions can't afford it and go without it. And many who are on some plan have inadequate coverage with high deductibles. The answer, Ralph Nader says, is single-payer: “Everybody in, nobody out.” That would bring down prices. But the handful of corporations monopolizing the health insurance industry don't want that. Why? That would cut into their profits. So, the insanity continues.

What's going on in the United States? People are asking that question not only in this country but around the world. Ralph Nader says “The twin swelling heads of empire and oligarchy are driving our country into an ever-deepening corporate state, wholly incompatible with democracy and the rule of law. America was not designed for kings and their runaway military pursuits. The media rolls over and fails to hold officials accountable.” So, what is to be done? Historically it's always been citizens, overcoming differences, finding common ground, coming together and making progressive change. It can happen. As Nader says, “It's in the hands of the people. Interviewed by David Barsamian.

On December 5th, 2024, Amnesty International determined that “Israel committed and is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.” In the landmark 296-page report entitled “You Feel Like You Are Subhuman,” Amnesty documents how, “during its military offensive launched in the wake of the deadly Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, Israeli forces have carried out acts prohibited under the Genocide Convention, with the specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza.” Amnesty goes on to say, “By continuing to supply weapons to the Israeli government, the U.S. government is violating its obligation to prevent and punish genocide and is at serious risk of becoming complicit in genocide.”

Rene Descartes, the 17th-century French philosopher once said, “I think, therefore I am.” In today's context, it may be more like, I buy therefore I am. Orchestrated wants driven by sophisticated advertising techniques have created a culture of consumption. Appetites for the latest hot things are manufactured. Media campaigns sell cool and sexy. Data are collected. People are profiled, and then targeted. Take cell phones. You have to get the latest one with all the new features. We can't be left behind. The capitalist economic system is predicated on making money and barely considers the environmental effects down the road. That's somebody else's problem. In the U.S., consumerism is connected to ideology. Freedom is equated with the ability to buy things. But the pattern of endless consumer capitalism is not sustainable. Recorded at Smith College.

On the occasion of Noam Chomsky's 96th birthday on December 7, we are honored to broadcast for the first time this classic recording of a talk he gave in Albuquerque in the year 2000. Many of the issues he addressed then remain salient today. Chomsky says that the right of sovereignty is fundamental to the task of taking control of our lives. He describes what citizens are up against as “an array of mega-corporations often linked to one another.”

Algorithms are processes or sets of rules to be followed in calculations or other problem-solving operations, especially by computer. Sounds innocuous enough. But hang on. It has a dark side. Algorithms can make mistakes due to biases, poor design, coding errors, or flawed assumptions. They can collect and process large amounts of personal data which can put people's privacy rights at risk. There are lethal dangers. Koohan Paik-Mander warns the algorithms that missiles have spawned “have been a scourge on Mother Earth and our own humanity with our smartphones, satellites, robotics, AI, nuclear power and all the rest through which civil society has unwittingly become militarized through and through.”

Francesca Albanese of the UN says, “Gaza is now a wasteland of rubble, garbage and human remains.” And it may be worse than that. In the litany of crimes genocide is the most heinous. Omer Bartov, Brown University genocide scholar and former Israeli military officer in November 2023, a month after the October 7 attack on Israel said, “There is no proof that genocide is taking place in Gaza.” By May 2024 he said, “I no longer believe that. It was no longer possible to deny that Israel was engaged in systematic war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocidal actions.” He said Israel in Gaza was acting as the Genocide Convention puts it “with intent to destroy, in whole or in part inflicting conditions of life meant to bring about the group's destruction.” Recorded at Georgetown University.

The day after the Trump election, the New York Times wrote: “America stands on the precipice of an authoritarian style of governance never before seen in its 248-year-old history.” For many, the results of November 5th confirmed the view that we are in dark times. So, the big question is: what are we going to do? We can wallow in self-pity and depression, or we can find kindred spirits and organize and form alliances to not just resist the repression to come but promote progressive causes. As writer Rebecca Solnit says, “Not acting is a luxury those in immediate danger do not have, and despair is something they cannot afford. But despair is all around us, telling us the problems are insoluble, that we are not strong enough, our efforts are in vain, and no one really cares.” Hope, Solnit says, counteracts cynicism and pessimism. Recorded at the University of Colorado.

India, the world's most populous country, is ruled by Narendra Modi who is the head of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the BJP. He first became prime minister in 2014 and has been reelected twice since though in 2024 with much lower margins. Before coming to power in Delhi he was chief minister of the state of Gujarat where he presided over a major massacre of Muslims. Modi and the BJP promote Hindutva, Hindu majoritarianism. It is laced with Islamophobia. Modi is allied with India's billionaire class who control the country's major media and function as cheerleaders for a regime that gags democracy, free speech, and dissent. Recorded at Surrey Public Library.

In times of war the corporate media play a salient role in shaping public opinion. There are worthy and unworthy victims. Muslims, Arabs, and Iranians generally fall into that latter category whereas Washington and its allies are worthy victims that we support and empathize with. The current phase of the Gaza war did not begin on October 7 as the media repeat ad nauseum. But to dig into the underlying causes and provide context and history rarely occurs because it would undermine the dominant propaganda. Thus the Norah O'Donnells, Wolf Blitzers,  Lester Holts and other corporate news anchors don't question the embedded assumptions and simply mimic, with few exceptions, the dominant official line. Interviewed by David Barsamian.

Zion is the name of a hill in ancient Jerusalem. The Jewish nationalist movement coined the term Zionism in the 1890s. Zionism got the big power backing it was looking for when Britain issued the Balfour Declaration on November 2, 1917. Arthur James Balfour, the British foreign secretary stated: “His Majesty's Government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.” This declaration became the major legal cornerstone for Zionist claims to Palestine. Two issues complicated things. At the time, 90% of Palestine's population was Arab Muslim and Christian, and only 10% Jewish. And the British were signing away land that was not theirs. Recorded at NYU.

Indigenous communities are among the poorest in the U.S. This is one of many persistent symptoms of the colonial relationship imposed by force upon Indigenous peoples. As famed historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz says, “Neither arcane colonial laws nor the historical trauma of genocide simply disappear with time and certainly not when conditions of life and consciousness perpetuate them.” From the earliest days of colonial settlement, a theme of eliminating Indians in the name of expansion and settler opportunity became embedded into the U.S. political system and culture. The violence unleashed on the largely defenseless Indian nations had few parallels in history. Treaties and policies involving Indigenous peoples have consistently been designed to disadvantage them, locking them into suppressed social status and codifying their dependence on the U.S. government. Recorded at Bowdoin College.

Blaming the victim is as old as the hills. It occurs when the victim of a crime or tragedy is held at fault for the harm that befell them. In other words, you had it coming to you. The great scholar Edward Said ruefully remarked that the Palestinians were the victims of the victim hence it was very difficult for them to generate support. Said quoted Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, the “conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion…than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much. What redeems it is the idea.” From the Palestinian perspective in the wake of the Holocaust, they were paying for the crimes of Europeans. Interviewed by David Barsamian. Recorded at Boulder Public Library's Canyon Theater.

After the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the term international rules-based order would be repeated by Washington officials almost daily to describe Moscow's action. Then a curious thing happened when Israel invaded Gaza in 2023. The term virtually disappeared as the U.S. sought to protect its close ally Israel. But the U.S. itself has a long record of violating the international rules-based order with its invasions, occupations, coups, assassinations, sanctions and UN vetoes. Compliant corporate media consistently fail to point out this brazen hypocrisy. Since the leader of the so-called free world and its allies are not held to account the rules-based order is in total disorder. From Washington's perspective, the rules are for thee but not for me. Recorded at Socialism 2024.

A myth is a story passed down through generations that attempts to explain the origins of something. The foundational myth of Israel was “a land without people for a people without a land.” That myth had profound consequences that reverberate today. There were people there - the Palestinians. Such myths are characteristic of settler colonial societies such as South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the U.S. Sure there were a few primitive savages but they had to give way to superior beings. John Kennedy famously said: “We stand today on the edge of a New Frontier. The pioneers gave up their safety, their comfort, and sometimes their lives to build our new west.” Kennedy did not mention the great Indigenous nations that were slaughtered by the colonizers. We must deconstruct the myths and reveal the realities behind them. Recorded at Socialism 2024.

As a kid, did you ever play "What If"? Like, what if the Kennedys, Dr. King and Malcolm X weren't gunned down in the 1960s? Like, what if the votes in Florida were counted and Al Gore won the 2000 election? What if the U.S. did not support the jihadis in Afghanistan? What if the U.S. did not invade Iraq? History, the world would have been very different. And on a personal level: what if your partner didn't take that job baking bread you never would have met? What if you got stuck in traffic and missed your job interview? You get the point. Why do things happen? Random chance events can divert our lives and change everything. Social scientist Brian Klaas examines this phenomenon and the chaos it can sow. Recorded at Carleton College.

Fascism is being mentioned more and more in the context of U.S. and European elections. It is a term that is bandied about often rather loosely. Orwell wrote that it is understood to be "something not desirable." But it is a complex political and economic synergy that has racism, force and nationalism as its animating matrix. It involves heavy doses of propaganda and media manipulation. Mussolini, in one of his more honest moments said, "Fascism should be more properly called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power." For Americans it is universally associated with despotic regimes in other countries. It can't happen here. Huey Long, the self-styled populist governor of Louisiana, once warned, "If fascism ever comes to America, it will come wrapped in an American flag."

The back story in journalism and scholarship uncovers vital information on important issues that had been obscured or omitted. For example, the origin of Zionism is usually traced to a pamphlet Theodor Herzl wrote in 1896 called The Jewish State. However, the eminent Israeli scholar Ilan Pappe writes "Many people do not know that Zionism began as an evangelical Christian project long before any Jew was thinking about Zionism. Christian Zionists were advocating the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine knowing very well that there were other people living there” but thought that the creation of a Jewish state would not only advance British imperial interests but also “precipitate the second coming of the Messiah.” Recorded at the University of Massachusetts.

The United States is moving toward a multiracial society. But that demographic development has sparked an authoritarian political backlash. Powerful forces like things just the way they are. Our political system makes the U.S. vulnerable to minority rule. Perhaps the most undemocratic mechanism enabling minority rule is the antiquated Electoral College. No other country has one. The Electoral College has given the presidency to a candidate that received fewer votes multiple times. Most recently, in 2016, Donald Trump was elected president even though Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. It almost happened again in 2020 where a shift of a few thousand votes would have given the White House to Trump even though Joe Biden got seven million more votes. Recorded at the University of Notre Dame.

The rise of AI, artificial intelligence, is a major development in human history. Its ramifications are profound. What is it exactly? AI provides a computer program with the ability to think and learn on its own. It is a simulation of human intelligence into machines to do things that normally humans do. A government advisory committee states that the emergence of AI as a dominant technological force has brought with it a wave of transformative possibilities for society ranging from medical breakthroughs to driverless cars to greater efficiency. However, potential dangers posed by unregulated AI range from biases in decision-making algorithms to massive unemployment, deep fakes, privacy issues, abuse of civil liberties, and even global security. AI is a classic double-edged sword, a mix of promise and peril. Recorded at King's College.

Guns, Guns, Guns. In the United States gun violence and shootings in schools, supermarkets, and malls are widespread and have almost become routine. The country is flooded with weapons. Americans may be the most heavily armed people on earth. Fascination with guns has its roots in the American Revolution when notions of patriotism fused with a belief in white male supremacy and maintaining racial and gender hierarchies. It's patriotic to possess a gun. The corpses keep piling up and the rulers do little to ameliorate the situation beyond mouthing platitudes such as “our thoughts and prayers go out to the victims.” It's astonishing that a country with so many gun-related deaths does not enact meaningful regulation. Recorded at the University of Oregon.

Few issues are more freighted than the U.S.-Israel relationship. Overwhelmingly, Democrats and Republicans give Israel “unwavering” support. Internationally, it's a different story. Opposition to the U.S.-Israel alliance is mounting, particularly on Palestine. Nowhere is this more apparent than at the UN where scores of U.S. Security Council vetoes shield Israel from criticism. Can policy change? Noam Chomsky says, “It's very much in our hands. There are plenty of things we can do to compel the U.S. to join the world on this issue.” If that happens, he concludes, “the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can certainly be mitigated, not solved, but set on a basis of a much more favorable outcome.” Recorded at UCLA.

China is a paradoxical global power. It's run by the Communist Party and at the same time it has a huge private sector which includes the world's largest number of billionaires. Its economy has been described as a mix of state capitalism and market socialism. Internationally its Belt & Road Initiative has spread its economic and political influence. Washington views China as “a grave threat to the economic well-being and democratic values of the United States.” The trade war grows. Washington imposes tariffs on Chinese imports. China just sends more goods to Africa and Latin America. The U.S. has surrounded China with a string of military bases. Taiwan and the South China Sea remain highly contentious issues. How U.S.-China relations play out will define geopolitics in the coming years.

Gaza's 2 million plus Palestinians are jam-packed in a small narrow enclave bordered by the Mediterranean Sea, Egypt and Israel. Since 2007 it has been ruled by Hamas. Hamas is an Arabic acronym for the Islamic Resistance Movement. Israel immediately imposed a blockade. Since then, Gaza has routinely been called the world's largest open-air prison. Its air, land and sea routes are controlled by Israel. On October 7th, Hamas attacked Israel resulting in over 1,100 Israelis dead and the taking of several hundred hostages. Israel, with one of the world's most advanced militaries, responded. Today, Gaza is in ruins. Palestinians have been killed and wounded in the tens of thousands. It has become, the UN says, “a graveyard.” How did this catastrophic situation develop? How did Gaza become Gaza?

Holocaust, derived from the Greek, is a large-scale calamity involving fire. Today, the term is specifically used to describe the German genocide of the Jews. But it has a long history. The European mass murder of Indigenous peoples in North and South America killed 55 million or 90% of the population, between 1492 and 1600, in a little more than one hundred years. More bloodbaths were to follow. In Africa, many millions were killed in the Congo by Belgium. Germany wiped out the Herero and Nama peoples in Southwest Africa. In the Middle East, that was quickly followed by the Turkish slaughter of the Armenians. Then came Auschwitz. Since the end of World War Two, barbarisms and genocides have continued: in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, Myanmar and Gaza. Naomi Klein says, “The Nazi Holocaust is finally being placed in history connected to the terrors that came before and after.” Recorded at Swarthmore College.

In a May 1976 column in the Boston Globe Howard Zinn wrote “Memorial Day should be a day for putting flowers on graves and planting trees. Also, for destroying the weapons of death that endanger us more than they protect us, that waste our resources and threaten our children and grandchildren.” Sadly his column in the Globe was discontinued soon after. And even more sadly his words are evergreen. Veterans are still returning from foreign wars with lost limbs, bodies and souls. If an honest history is ever written of the U.S. shock and awe war on Iraq it may not be believed. Remember: weapons of mass destruction, axis of evil, mobile chemical labs, slam dunks, Curveball, smoking guns, mushroom clouds, cakewalks, liberators, regime change and mission accomplished? The architects of the war: Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Feith, Wolfowitz, and others should be doing time instead of having a good time. Today, Iraq is a broken country. Nothing will bring back the hundreds of thousands of dead. The U.S. owes Iraq reparations for the destruction it has caused. But being the global superpower means you never have to say you're sorry or face justice. The permanent war economy feeds on conflict and strife. Is it utopian to imagine a different future? Recorded at the University of Texas.

The Global North or the West is a group of countries led by the United States. In juxtaposition is the Global South, once called the Third World. In recent years, the Global North has undergone a significant economic and political decline. The geopolitical landscape is shifting thus opening new possibilities for Global South countries, particularly for China. A dramatic example of America's isolation was the UN vote on Palestinian membership. The vote was 143 in favor, 25 abstentions and 9 against. Joining the U.S. no vote were such powerhouses as Nauru, Micronesia, and Palau. Increasingly, the U.S. position in the world is weakening. Its double standards, one set of rules for the master and his servants and another set for everyone else, has not won Washington many friends in the Global South. Recorded at Connolly Books.

In Sanskrit, Maya means illusion or magic. Maya is at work among people and nations who project carefully crafted positive images of themselves. The U.S. and Israel are no different from other countries. They claim self-defense as they launch massive attacks. They invoke international law when it suits them then ignore it when it doesn't. Then there's always the standard line about our so-called values which justifies their actions. Most people don't have a clue about Israel-Palestine because they depend on heavily biased corporate news. Instead, they cling to shopworn myths and fantasies about themselves and their country. The Gaza bloodbath is enabled by the U.S. Are we “good Germans” pretending not to see? Recorded at the Chinook Center.

Why does the United States, the richest country on earth, have more poverty than any other advanced democracy? Why does this land of plenty allow one in every eight of its children to go without basic necessities, permit its citizens to live and die on the streets, and authorize its corporations to pay poverty wages? What perpetuates poverty and what can be done to end it? “Poverty persists,” Matthew Desmond says, “because the rest of us benefit from it.” Recorded at Town Hall.

It's axiomatic that anything dealing with Palestine is deemed controversial. And if it is Palestinian American women speaking out even more so. Look at the vitriol and death threats directed at Michigan congresswoman Rashida Tlaib. She is Palestinian American and is speaking out as is Maryam Alwan, a Palestinian American student at Columbia. She is a Students for Justice in Palestine organizer in alliance with Jewish Voice for Peace. There is pushback. Asna Tabassum, an American Muslim, was chosen to give the commencement speech at USC until she was canceled after being targeted by pro-Israel groups. The sheer scale of death and destruction in Gaza and the ongoing expansion of illegal colonies and violence in the West Bank and East Jerusalem has shifted the narrative. In communities and campuses across the U.S., Palestinian American women are breaking down Orientalist cliches about being meek and submissive and are actively taking the lead. Recorded at Colorado State University.

The Iran-Israel attacks and the prospects of a wider Middle East war have dominated the news. Meanwhile, the bloodbath in Gaza continues. Genocide is the crime of crimes. We are witnessing it in real time in Gaza. The UN says, “The entire population of Gaza is enduring destruction at a scale and speed without parallel in recent history. Nothing can justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.” Israeli Prime Minster Netanyahu's promised “mighty vengeance” quickly became genocide. As Chris Hedges points out racism enables genocide. He says, “Arabs, like all those with darker skin, are worth less in this moral calculus. This explains the outrage over the murder of seven employees from the World Central Kitchen and the silence over the killing of over 175 UN” Palestinian aid workers. Those who remain silent in the face of genocide are complicit.

Power. What is it? Political theorist Robert Dahl gave one example. He said, “A has power over B to the extent that he can get B to do something that he would not otherwise do.” Why is it that often that those who are on top are the wrong people? The high rollers and the nabobs lust for power behind a smokescreen of homilies about doing good. Today, more and more power is concentrated in the hands of the few, thus weakening democracy. Who wields it? How is it allocated? What are effective ways to ensure power is not abused and serves the societal greater good? How can we organize and protect ourselves from those seeking personal power and profit? How can we get the right people on top?

Empires come and go. They're sometimes long, sometimes short. But ultimately they fall. Hubris, incredible arrogance, is often the element that brings the mighty down. The U.S. is not immune from decline. With its ruinous wars, bloated Pentagon budget, military bases all over the earth, grotesque levels of inequality and an economy that spews red ink we are witnessing its diminishing power. Recall the words of President Eisenhower in his 1961 Farewell Address. He warned of the dangers posed by “the military-industrial-complex” and its “potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.” Recorded at the University of California.

"India's democracy is being systematically disassembled,” says renowned writer and activist Arundhati Roy. She adds, “Any kind of dissent is just smashed with an iron fist." Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party openly espouse Hindutva, a racist ideology rooted in a mythical past and fueled by magical thinking. It's a supremacist doctrine that privileges and elevates one group, Hindus, over all others. Its animus toward Muslims is particularly acute but Christians and other minorities also incur its wrath. Hindutva nationalists want to dominate Kashmir, India's only Muslim-majority state. The Himalayan region has endured decades of occupation by hundreds of thousands of Indian troops. There is resistance. Tens of thousands of Kashmiris are dead and missing. Human rights violations are routine. Yet the Kashmiri quest for azadi, freedom, continues.

The award-winning Oppenheimer film has brought attention to the origins of the atomic bomb and the anguish of its inventor. Almost 80 years after that first explosion in New Mexico, the threat of global Armageddon not only remains but has increased. Until and unless nuclear weapons are abolished, humankind will always be in danger of massive death and destruction. Yet instead of moving toward abolition, the U. S. is upgrading its arsenal. The Doomsday Clock is ticking. Sooner or later, intentionally or unintentionally, terminal war will destroy the planet. The only way to prevent that from happening is to eliminate all nuclear weapons. As long as they exist, humanity hangs by a thread.

How can the Palestinian struggle for freedom and dignity take lessons from the Black Liberation Movement? Historical circumstances are clearly different yet there are similarities. Both are located in a colonial-like situation, where a powerful oppressor dominates another less powerful group. Racism is a major factor. The Black Liberation Movement and Malcolm X's eloquent voice and militant politics resonate with Palestinians struggling for their freedom. Liberation struggles are not easy. Resistance to change is entrenched. Power does not readily give up its prerogatives. 2CDs