Saturday, February 20, 2010

Resisting Violence: Kathy Kelly (R) + LIVE on WWUH




New World Notes News
Vol. 3, No. 7 -- February 20, 2010

This Week EXCEPT on WWUH: radio program #103, Feb. 23:

Resisting Violence: Kathy Kelly


Last week's installment, "Not ALL Christians Are Evil," started off by whacking the Institutional Church--Protestant Division. This week's starts off by whacking the Roman Catholic Division. Outraged Catholic listeners are asked not to turn off the radio the instant they hear the late Cardinal Spellman described as a "fascist warmonger." Please wait for the "However, . . . ."

This "encore presentation" (with minor revisions) celebrates and features the great American and Catholic antiwar activist Kathy Kelly. She tells a touching and funny story about ordinary citizens who fought against the U.S. War Machine . . . and won. The hero(ine)s of the story happen to be ordinary citizens of Ireland. But who's to say it wouldn't work just as well at home?

Kelly says almost nothing about her religious beliefs--which, however, clearly underlie her antiwar crusade. Imagine! Two weeks in a row, we've managed to turn up some people (two of them still alive!) who believe that Christianity requires something other than killing "evildoers," stealing oil, and persecuting homosexuals! Who'd a' thunk?

(l. to r.:) Kathy Kelly, Australian Catholic Worker activist Ciaron O'Reilly,
and the five Pitstop Ploughshares, outside the courthouse, Dublin, 2006.

For details and more photos, please see the blog entry for the original incarnation of this installment: http://newworldnotes.blogspot.com/2008/11/resisting-violence-kathy-kelly.html . Note that the links to the audio file on that old page are to the unrevised, lower-audio-fidelity version (installment #39), of December 2008.

Listeners in central Connecticut--and all others--who wish to hear the updated version of the program (installment #103) can listen online or download an MP3 audio file for later listening. You'll find the download links at the top of this blog page.


This Tuesday, noon to 1 PM, on WWUH 91.3 and wwuh.org:

Special Hour-Long Live Show

In this special broadcast for Pledge Marathon Week, regular but brief appeals for money will punctuate a potpourri of insightful political/social commentary by a range of voices. You'll hear none of these voices on corporate-controlled radio or TV stations--neither the overtly commercial stations nor the ones dependent on grants from Cargill, Exxon Mobil, and other social ils. Plus we'll have a reflection or two by me and two or three songs (not by me).

Black Agenda Report Senior Columnist Margaret Kimberley

Pledges of support to any noncommercial, alternative, community-based radio station are always in good taste. Pledges of support to WWUH made by telephone while New World Notes is broadcasting--noon to 1 PM (Eastern) this Tuesday, February 23--are even nicer, as I'll be able to thank you on-air . . . unless you prefer to remain anonymous. A tally is made of the amount pledged by phone during each show--and the loser has to buy beer and pizza for the other 67 volunteer staff members. No, just kidding about the beer and pizza.

The phone number for pledges is 1 - 800 - 444 - WWUH ( - 9984). You can also pledge online at http://wwuh.org/ or else print out a form and mail in a check (same Internet address).

Words and voices included in this Tuesday's show come from people including

  • the late the Rt. Hon. Robin Cook, MP--a high official in Tony Blair's Labour government--denouncing the U.K.'s imminent invasion of Iraq and resigning from the Government (March 17, 2003). Ends with the first-ever standing ovation in the House of Commons. Then the next day they voted for war. Cook died in 2005
  • Margaret Cook--Robin's estranged divorced wife at the time of the resignation--in a stunning new appreciation marking the Chilcot Inquiry, titled, "I'm So Proud of You, Robin Cook" (February 7, 2010)
  • Margaret Kimberley on the Obama administration claiming the right--and attempting--to assassinate U.S. citizens (Don't the 5th and 12th Amendments sort of discourage this sort of thing?)
  • Jello Biafra, in the summer of 2008, predicting almost exactly what an Obama presidency would be like. Jello's batting average: .980. He failed to imagine assassinating American citizens or the magnitude of the strings-free giveaway of the nation's wealth to Wall Street
  • Michael Parenti, from a phone interview with me last October, discussing the real agenda of U.S. foreign policy
  • comedians Jimmy Tingle and George Carlin, proving that you can be serious and funny too. And that even the darkest tragedy can use a little Comic Relief. Yes, we do lighten up from time to time . . . at frequent intervals!
  • 3 Vietnam Veterans--Greg Payton, Susan Schnall, and David Kline-- recalling their and other GIs' rebellion against an evil and unnecessary war
  • urban poet Benjamin Zephaniah, showing the ill effects of bad media choice, in "(I've Been Listening to the) Rong Radio Station"--performed in the back of a cab driving around west London. Listener, beware! Don't let this happen to you!*

Robin Cook, denouncing the imminent Iraq War and resigning from
Blair's Labour Government, March 17, 2003. His speech prompted
the first-ever standing
ovation in the House of Commons. "Principled
resignation" is another bit of eccentric British behavior unknown in
the upper ranks of American government. Compare Colin Powell.

Catch New World Notes (all times Eastern):


* Thanks to fellow radio guy Tereza Coraggio (http://www.thirdparadigm.org/) for finding & sharing the Zephaniah video from which I'll broadcast the audio.


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