Showing posts with label class. Show all posts
Showing posts with label class. Show all posts

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


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Saturday, December 5, 2009

Michael Parenti on "Political Liberties and Economic Democracy"


Bread line, Louisville, Kentucky, 1937. Photo by Margaret
Bourke-White. All Graphics: click to enlarge.


New World Notes News
Vol. 2 No. 48 -- December 8, 2009

This week in New World Notes, radio program #92, Tuesday, December 8:

Michael Parenti on
"Political Liberties and
Economic Democracy"

Workers' Summary

The best parts of Parenti's lecture and Q&A at the University of Hartford on November 4 are here. Parenti argues that improvements in public policy--and in living conditions for the non-rich--resulted from struggle from "below," not from the goodness of the governing elites' hearts. Average citizens fought for greater political liberties as tools to compel concrete improvements in their lives.

This program includes fine parts on airport security, Saddam Hussein, the Maine anti-gay-marriage referendum, and Parenti's forthcoming book on organized religion, God and His Demons.

Egypt, 21st Century

Notes

www.michaelparenti.org

The first 20 or so minutes of Parenti's lecture--on the dislike of democracy by the Framers of our Constitution--with parallels drawn to the Classical world--are not included in this installment of NWN. This omitted segment is intellectually substantial and well worth hearing when you're in the mood for some serious history & political science. Some later parts are snipped as well. I've made a complete, uncut, unedited recording of the entire presentation and Q&A (1h, 12m) available for anyone who cares to hear same. The introduction is by University of Hartford President Walter Harrison.

Recorded live by moi.

Free subscription to weekly New World Notes email newsletter upon request. (Subscribers list is totally confidential.) The newsletter essentially duplicates the weekly blog entry--but some people like the weekly reminder.

Dr. Michael Parenti (plaid shirt)

Coming Soon -- Tuesday debut dates on WWUH shown:

  • December 15 -- Afghanistan: Won't Get Fooled Again!
  • December 22 -- Christmas Special ... including reflections on the sack of Fallujah (5th anniversary) and the sack of Gaza (1st anniversary)

Catch New World Notes (all times Eastern):

"Freedom of Speech" by Norman Rockwell. No comment.



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Saturday, February 7, 2009

Radio-Great Revived: Mr. Jean Shepherd



In this week's installment, Shepherd talks a lot about Covington, Kentucky. Here it
is (foreground)--looking northwards toward the Ohio River and Cincinnati, Ohio.
(Click photo for larger image.) Madison Avenue, where Shepherd lived,
runs from the lower-right corner to the river. Shep says he lived two blocks from
the river. Alas, the Wheel Inn diner appears long-gone. The round and surprisingly
gray twin towers of Procter & Gamble's world headquarters can be seen beyond
Cincinnati's red-and-white baseball stadium. Covington is a city of bricks--as are
its fellow river-towns Pittsburgh (upstream) and St. Louis (downstream).


New World Notes News

Volume 2, Number 7 -- February 17, 2009


This week in New World Notes, #52 -- February 17 & 20:

In contrast with George Carlin and Jello Biafra--both heard recently on this show--Jean Shepherd created humorous spoken-word-art that seemed almost devoid of political content. Theoretically, this isn't possible, but darned if I can figure out even what his political assumptions are.

He liked to show the foibles of Americans and of 20th-Century American culture. Did he want to change anything? I dunno. Did Picasso?

Said to be a good book on the subject.

For 21 years, late at night, he'd lean into a microphone at WOR radio in New York and deliver a loosely-structured 45-minute narrative. It sounded like a shaggy-dog story. Later you'd begin to see how every element of the story was beautifully connected. Well, lotsa elements were, anyway . . . including scripts for commercials that he was supposed to read verbatim but never did. I'll always remember a commercial he delivered for the French automobile brand Peugeot. It ended (approximately), "Don't even think of buying a car until you've had a chance to test-drive the new Peugeot. That's spelled P-O-O-J-O-E. Peugeot."

Covington at night. What could be more American than that sign?
Why is education good? Because it gets you money!

Covington night-life: admiring "mullets" at the Blue Moon Cafe.
See mulletsgalore.com for more creative hair-styling ideas.

This week, NWN will play a substantial portion of Shepherd's broadcast of October 28, 1965. I don't want to spoil the story for you, so I'll give only some general listening advice. Two themes are important. The first is ordnance (e.g., hand grenades, guns, and whatnot). The second is that an event as you experience it seldom resembles the same event as the media depict it.

For me, the highlight is Shep's recreation of Covington, Kentucky, in the 1950s. Covington is a poorer, louder, and wilder version of genteel Cincinnati, Ohio--which lies just across the Ohio River. If you understand Covington, you understand America.

What sort of "roscoe" did Claire employ? In the 1950s, revolvers were much
more commonly used than semiautomatics, outside the military. I'm betting on this
period (1953) Smith & Wesson "Military & Police" model chambered in .38 Special.
Full-sized, yet compact enough to fit into a ladies' handbag.

Note: I had to discard about half of Shepherd's monologue. What remains amounts to a good introduction to Jean Shepherd's art; and Shepherd's show works well, as condensed. If you like it, why not try some in their original form? Radio Veronica (U.S.) has restored, and made available for free download, fourteen 45-minute episodes, here: http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/series/Jean+Shepherd+Rewound. NWN #52 is taken from Program #2 in this series.

Shepherd (left) visiting the studios of WITR, at the Rochester Institute of
Technology, fall 1968. An interview may be in progress.


A better essay than this one:

Musician Donald Fagen (left: click to enlarge), co-founder of Steely Dan, has written a subtle, complex, and very personal appreciation of Shepherd--who had played as large a role in Fagen's early adolescence as Mad magazine played in mine. It was the same role, too, and with the same qualities: sanity-preserving, reassuring, necessary, and ultimately flawed and inadequate. (Sounds a little similar to New World Notes, no?)

Fagen's writing abilities are on a par with his musical abilities. This fine essay should interest anyone who was a bright and alienated suburban kid or who is interested in Jean Shepherd's "word jazz"--as Fagen aptly names it (pace Ken Nordine). The essay is here: http://www.slate.com/id/2207058/pagenum/all/#p2


This week's music:

  • Intro: Fiedler, Boston Pops, Bahn Frei Polka by Eduard Strauss
  • California Ramblers (?) with Jean Shepherd (vocals and kazoo), Sheik of Araby
  • Outro: Warren Zevon with Something Happens, Werewolves of London

Catch New World Notes (all times Eastern) . . .

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Sunday, December 28, 2008

Voices We Have Lost (I): George Carlin



New World Notes News
Volume 2, Number 1 -- January 6, 2009


This week in New World Notes, #46 -- January 6 & 9, 2009:

From time to time this winter, New World Notes will look back and pause to appreciate--and commemorate--some of those who died in 2008. People whose voice had helped keep us sane(r) in an increasingly insane world. People whose absence we already regret.

The list is far too long, even if we limit it to those whose whose voices would have been (or had been) at home on this program. Utah Phillips, for instance. Studs Terkel. Most recently, Harold Pinter. And the saddest loss to me: George Carlin.

A touching memorial poster. Found on Carlin's Web site a few days
after his death. An FCC obscenity complaint (largely upheld by the courts)
resulted in Carlin's famous routine, "Seven Words You Can't Say on TV."
Unfortunately, you can't say them on radio, either! Click to enlarge.

A troublesome student and a high-school drop-out, Carlin displayed an extraordinary shrewdness of mind. He would analyze a scene and identify its key forces, key actors, key conflicts--the real conflicts, not just the most apparent ones--and find every moment in which somebody was BS'ing somebody else. Which, as he saw it, was generally the power elite and the prostitute politicians together BS'ing the average citizen.

And no, he didn't use the initials B.S. Even more than Orwell, Carlin hated euphemism. If you had two mangled legs, don't tell Carlin that you are "differently abled." Let alone, "not handicapped but handy-CAPABLE!" He'd tell you to go f*** yourself. Without the asterisks.

This was far from cold-heartedness. He felt that both society and government should help the cripples. And that nobody would lift a finger to help, so long as there weren't any cripples but only hundreds of thousands of differently-abled "handy-CAPABLES."

Carlin then (sorry: dunno when) . . .


Wish I could say, "And now." And not so long ago. Apparently 2001.

In addition to this utopian side, Carlin also had a soft, gentle side. You can hear it in this week's installment, when he talks about "the little things that bring us together." You could see it also in the gentle roles he played in children's shows. As "Mister Conductor" in the lovely TV series Shining Time Station, featuring Thomas the Tank Engine. (Ringo Starr played the same role; as did, less ably, Alec Baldwin.) Carlin also played Rufus, the kindly envoy from the future in the movie for adolescents, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.

In this week's program, though, we short-change Carlin's sweet and gentle side and focus on the acerbic. In four excerpts, Carlin blasts back at religion, euphemism--hard to tell which one he likes less: probably religion--and (twice) Class Warfare.

Credit where due: elsewhere, Carlin has praised the fine education he received during a stint in a Jesuit-run high school. He credits the Jesuits with equipping him with the analytical and reasoning skills that enabled him to reject organized religion in general and Christianity in particular. The best-laid plans of mice and St. Ignatius Loyola sure ganged agley in Carlin's case!


Agitator, definitely. Was he also a terrorist?
Refer to the chart, and then YOU decide!

Ironically--like those who shaped his habits of mind--George Carlin's great predecessor also was a clergyman. In 1731, this Anglican priest--Jonathan Swift, Dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin--wrote what could serve well as an obituary for our own departed satirist. In "Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift, D.S.P.D.," the good Dean showed how he hoped people would speak of him after his death. If Carlin had endowed an insane asylum in his will--as Swift did, in Ireland--the parallels would be exact:
  • Perhaps, I may allow, the Dean
    Had too much Satyr [satire] in his Vein;
    And seem'd determin'd not to starve it,
    Because no Age could more deserve it.
    Yet Malice never was his Aim;
    He lash'd the Vice, but spar'd the Name. . . .
    His Satyr points to no Defect,
    But what all Mortals may correct; . . .
    He spar'd a Hump or crooked Nose,
    Whose Owners set not up for Beaux.
    True genuine Dulness mov'd his Pity,
    Unless it offer'd to be witty.
    Those, who their Ignorance confess'd,
    He ne'er offended with a Jest;
    But laugh'd to hear an Idiot quote,
    A Verse from Horace, learn'd by Rote. . . .

    He gave what little Wealth he had,
    To build a House for Fools and Mad:
    And shew'd by one satyric Touch,
    No Nation wanted it so much:
    That Kingdom he hath left his Debtor,
    I wish it soon may have a Better.

Carlin was never was a religious man. Well, rest in peace anyway! And rest in peace, Professor John W. Tilton, who, many years ago, taught me to appreciate Swift and satire, and whom I should have thanked somewhat earlier. --K.D.

Catch New World Notes . . .
Tuesdays, Noon to 12:30 PM, WWUH-FM 91.3 (West Hartford) & http://wwuh.org/
Fridays, 7:30 to 8:00 AM, WHUS-FM 91.7 (Storrs) & http://www.whus.org/
Any time: Listen to or download any installment ... or subscribe to a podcast ... at A-Infos Radio Project: http://www.radio4all.net/index.php?op=result&action=series&series=New%20World%20Notes


This week's music:

  • Intro: Warren Zevon with Something Happens, "Werewolves of London"
  • Anne Feeney with Commander Cody (vocals & piano), "Preacher and the Slave"
  • Outro: Rich Wyman, "Guantanamo" (band version)




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