Friday, May 21, 2010

Bruce Gagnon on Endless War and the Economy



New World Notes News
Vol. 3, No. 21 -- May 23, 2010

This Fortnight in New World Notes, radio programs #116-117, May 25 & June 1:

Bruce Gagnon on
Endless War and
the Economy


In brief

Anti-war and anti-nuke activist Bruce Gagnon (pronounced GAG-non) explains how militarism and endless war are detroying the American economy and the lives of Americans.

In Part 1 (NWN #116), he discusses his radicalization during his own military service . . . and the connections among our crumbling infrastructure, increasing unemployment, decreasing educational opportunities for working-class kids, the increasing militarization of our society, the export of weapons (our #1 export), aggressive U.S. foreign policy, corporate globalization, our ruling elites' desire to control the world's oil supply, . . . and the wisdom of Progressives' forming alliances with the "Tea-partiers."

In Part 2, (NWN #117), Gagnon discusses the destabilization of the world by (a) the globalization and expansion of NATO and (b) the US's encircling Russia and China with "missile defense" installations. He discusses the increasing dependence of public universities on funding from the Pentagon (in exchange for secret war research); ... the joint support by Republicans and Democrats alike for "free-market" capitalism, oligarchy, and military empire; ... how spending on peaceful projects creates many more jobs than "defense" spending; ... and why his nickname for Obama is "The Magician."

Top: Gagnon in 2004. Bottom: Aegis-class destroyer USS Oscar
Austin leaves the Bath (Maine) Iron Works. Balloons for the kiddies
of Gagnon's home town. Maine's principal exports appear to be
Aegis destroyers and potatoes. Most graphics: Click to enlarge.


Notes and credits

No song on #116 (apart from a bit of Little Stevie Wonder on the "outro"). #117's song: David Rovics, After the Revolution

Recorded live at Saint James Church, West Hartford, Connecticut, by moi, on April 16, 2010. Bruce's talk was sponsored by the West Hartford Citizens for Peace and Justice (http://www.westhartfordpeace.org/ ).

#117 includes only one question from the very good Q&A. The entire Q&A (34 minutes--uncut & unedited) will be uploaded as a separate file along with #117 (link at the top of this page).

Bruce Gagnon is Coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space.

New World Notes is produced under the auspices (Latin for "unisex bathroom") of WWUH-FM, a community service of that beacon of light in darkest Connecticut, the University of Hartford.

To send feedback, you can post a Comment to this page or else email kdowst at hotmail period com.

Free weekly NWN email newsletter on request.

Series Overview: Political and social commentary in a variety of genres. Exploring the gap between what we want ... and what they're trying to make us settle for.

Top: Aegis-class destroyer Decatur touches off an SM-3 "missile defense"
missile.
Bottom: Why "we" are in Afghanistan. The red curve shows the
desired oil and gas pipeline from the Caspian Basin to the Sea of Arabia.
A shorter route through Iran seems to have been Not An Option.


Coming Soon -- Tuesday debut dates shown:

  • June 2 -- Civil-liberties activist Paul Siegel on Gay Rights As a First-Amendment Issue.

Catch New World Notes (all times Eastern):

Bruce Gagnon in South Korea, 2009. I'm not sure what "UFG" stands for,
but it almost certainly involves more US military/naval bases in that
small & oppressed country. When will the U.S. government withdraw
its troops from Iraq? Hell, after 57 years, it still hasn't withdrawn them
from
Korea!
Postscript, May 24: A friend, knowledgeable about Korea, sent a
newspaper story on UFG. It stands for Ulji Freedom Guardian. It's a
joint training program for South Korean and "allied" (U.S. and/or NATO)
troops. Officially, they're training to defend South Korea from invasion
from the North. Skeptics believe that they're actually training to invade
North Korea. In either case, UFG is further destabilizing a region that had
little stability to begin with.


A-Infos Radio Project http://www.radio4all.net


Friday, May 14, 2010

Chris Hedges on The Empire of Illusion


New World Notes News
Vol. 3, No. 20 -- May 16, 2010

This Week in New World Notes, radio program #115, May 18:

Chris Hedges
on The Empire
of Illusion

Executive summary

In a brilliant and brilliantly interconnected talk, journalist-prophet Chris Hedges discusses the pacification of the exploited citizenry by the corporate media, the fraud at the heart of the national economy, Wall Street's destruction of the U.S.'s manufacturing sector, "Brand Obama," the perfidy of Obama and of other "courtiers" to the real power, the failure of the Left to challenge Obama's Bush-ist policies, & the funeral of Michael Jackson. Our best hope, Hedges concludes, is a revival in the U.S. of Democratic Socialism.

Top: Chris Hedges. Bottom: Abandoned factory.
All photos: Click to enlarge.

Notes and credits

This week's song: Leonard Cohen, Democracy (is coming ... to the U.S.A.)

This program contains half of Hedges' 50-minute talk in Winnipeg. The full-length original is here: http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/36777. (This link is to the Program Information page at the archive. There's a download link near the bottom.) Thanks to producer Ethan Osland & Black Mask Winnipeg (http://blackmask.ca/).

Thanks to (and please help support) the invaluable radio archive, the A-Infos Radio Project / radio4all.net, whence I obtained the original recording.

New World Notes is produced under the auspices (Latin for "oppressive yoke") of WWUH-FM, a community service of that beacon of light in darkest Connecticut, the University of Hartford.

New World Notes installments beginning with #90 are archived also at The Internet Archive, in a variety of file formats. This URL should get you a listing: http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=%22New%20World%20Notes%22%20AND%20collection%3Aopensource_audio&sort=-date .

Series Overview: Political and social commentary in a variety of genres. Exploring the gap between what we want ... and what they're trying to make us settle for.


Coming Soon -- Tuesday debut dates shown:

  • May 18 & 25 -- Peace- & anti-nuke activist Bruce Gagnon on Endless War and the Economy (2 parts). Recorded live in West Hartford (by moi) on April 16.

Catch New World Notes (all times Eastern):



Saturday, May 8, 2010

Suppressed by The Press



New World Notes News
Vol. 3, No. 19 -- May 9, 2010

This Week in New World Notes, radio program #114, May 11:

Suppressed by
The Press

January 3, 2006: The press got the story right, apart from one small
detail: the vitality of the trapped miners. The
venerable Rocky
Mountain News (right column) is no longer alive, either. Credit to the
Boston
Globe, though (left column), for refusing to treat unconfirmed
assertion as fact. (Note the "reportedly" in the headline.)

In brief

The commercial press continues its tailspin descent--a problem largely of its own making (and also of Wall Street's making). While commercial newspapers (to say nothing of TV news) have served the public poorly, when they're gone, whatever good they did provide will be missed.

Following a brief rant by me, I read Robert Freeman's interesting essay, "The Real Top Ten Stories of the Past Decade"--none of which received much honest press coverage. I'll supplement Freeman's tragicomic catalogue with Robert Parry's expose', "Gore's Victory"--story #1 on Freeman's list.

By any sane criterion of ballot inclusion or exclusion, the majority of voters in the state of Florida voted for Albert Gore in 2000. The U.S. Supreme Court prematurely halted the State-Supreme-Court-ordered recount of Florida's ballots. That effectively gave Florida to Bush, hence a majority of Electoral votes, hence the Presidency. The major news media know who won the popular vote because they paid the Roper Organization to do a thorough recount of Florida's ballots. The commercial press either suppressed the story or else grossly misrepresented Roper's results.

Freeman's list of uncovered crucial stories includes the failure of "the free market" to sustain properity, ... the collapse of the media, ... Bush's prior knowledge of 9/11, ... the destruction of civil liberties, ... the meaninglessness of elections (notably 2008's), and others.

We end with a few words by Australian filmmaker and media critic John Pilger on professional journalism as propaganda.


Notes and credits

This week's song: David Rovics, Evening News

John Pilger's remarks courtesy of democracynow.org

Robert Freeman's "The Real Top Ten Stories of the Past Decade" from Common Dreams, January 1, 2010. http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/01/01-0

Robert Parry's "Gore's Victory" is from consortiumnews.com, November 12, 2001.

Fun Web page: "25 Weirdest Newspaper Headlines" -- http://www.masalatime.com/?p=501 . These are photos of newspaper clippings, with headline and at least part of the story. My favorite: "Federal Agents Raid Gun Shop, Find Weapons" (see below).

New World Notes installments from #10 are archived at A-Infos Radio Project/radio4all.net. Installments beginning with #90 are archived also at The Internet Archive, in a variety of file formats. Either link should get you a reverse-chrono listing of available installments.

New World Notes is produced under the auspices (Latin for "bad influence") of WWUH-FM, a community service of that beacon of light in darkest Connecticut, the University of Hartford. Feedback to kdowst at hotmail period com.

Free weekly NWN email newsletter on request.

Series Overview -- Political and social commentary in a variety of genres. Exploring the gap between what we want ... and what they're trying to make us settle for.

Coming Soon -- Tuesday debut date shown:

  • May 18 -- Chris Hedges on the Empire of Illusion


Catch New World Notes (all times Eastern):