Thursday, April 22, 2010

Michael Parenti vs. God and His Demons

Part Two is now available! See link, above.

New World Notes News
Vol. 3, No. 17 & 18 -- April 25, 2010

This Fortnight in New World Notes, radio programs #112 & 113, April 27 & May 4:

Michael Parenti
vs. God and His Demons

Good guy, in Parenti's book:
unorthodox thinker & monk Giordano Bruno
(burned at the stake by the Inquisition in 1600)

In brief:

In a telephone interview with me of April 6, political scientist Michael Parenti discusses his new book, about Organized Religion, God and His Demons (Prometheus Books). We'll replay the conversation over two installments of the radio program.

In the first part (NWN #112), Parenti talks about rampant child sexual abuse by the Christian (and other) clergy and the coverup thereof--and now, at the Vatican, the coverup of the coverup. He talks about the oppressive Buddhist theocracy in Tibet before the Chinese Communists took over. He talks about our society's ignoring some sins frequently denounced in the Bible--e.g., charging high interest rates ("usury")--while we piously condemn "sins" the Bible never mentions (gay marriage, abortion). And he rebuts creationism, "Intelligent Design," . . . and some of the conclusions of Charles Darwin.

In the second part (#113), Parenti discusses the unholy alliance of the Church, the nation-state, and economic power; ... FEMA's enlistment of the clergy to preach obedience to authority if and when martial law is imposed; ... and the Christian Right's takeover of the Air Force Academy. He ends with praise for 2 unorthodox 16th-century Christians--Montaigne and Giordano Bruno--and explaining why, despite everything, he's not an atheist.

Bad guys, in Parenti's book: Televangelist Robert Tilton, Cardinal
William Levada. For his services in protecting pedophile priests as
Archbishop of Portland (Oregon, 1986-1995) and then Archbishop
of San Francisco (1995-2005)--and in bankrupting the Archdiocese
of Portland--Levada was promoted to Cardinal and given a very
high church office in Rome--Head of the Inquisition. Sorry: "Prefect
of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith."
As for Tilton, that "giant sucking sound" you hear is money being
removed from the wallets of the poor and desperate.


Notes and credits

http://www.michaelparenti.org/
http://www.prometheusbooks.com/

This week's song: Roy Zimmerman, Creation Science 101
Next week's: Roy Zimmerman, Jerry Falwell's God

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 "very noses") 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 (which much resembles the weekly blog entry) 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 11 -- Suppressed by The Press. The top 10 vitally important stories (2000-2009) that commercial journalism didn't want you to worry your pretty little head about. With contributions by Robert Freeman and Robert Parry.
  • May 18 -- Chris Hedges on the Empire of Illusion

Parenti & dust jacket

Catch New World Notes (all times Eastern):



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


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Sunday, April 18, 2010

The Unheard Voice of the Majority


Our principal archive, radio4all.net, has been encountering some problems.
If you have any difficulty listening online or downloading any recent
installment of the radio show, please try our other archive at
The Internet Archive.


New World Notes News
Vol. 3, No. 16 -- April 18, 2010

This Week in New World Notes, radio program #111, April 20:

The Unheard Voice
of the Majority

Joe Bageant, with crummy truck, posssibly at Gunther's Garage

In brief:
Social critics from both Left and Right feel that we're lonely kooks muttering in the wilderness. That's what the Powers That Be want us to feel and, through their mass-media, make us feel. Guess what: (1) We're right & they're wrong; (2) we're the majority; and (3) Leftists and Tea Partiers agree with each other on many issues. More than we agree with the Powers That Be.

By way of proof, the show offers words by "minority" types the "mainstream" media seldom quote: African-Americans Mumia Abu-Jamal & Glen Ford, Afro-Caribbean Englishman Benjamin Zephaniah, Appalachian White Joe Bageant, & moi. (Yes, I know, it's an All Male Cast this week.)

Does any articulate thoughts & feelings close to your own?

The show courageously declines to play the song, "Smile on your brother / Everybody get together, / Try to love one another right now." However, we do go out on a bit of "Fingertips, Part 2" . . . .

Top: Mumia Abu-Jamal. Bottom: Glen Ford (at MIT, in January 2010)

Notes and Credits

The video of Benjamin Zephaniah's "Rong Radio Station" is worth a look. Thanks to fellow radio guy Tereza Coraggio, producer of Third Paradigm, for turning me on to it.

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.

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.

New World Notes is produced under the auspices (Latin for "Executive Dining Room") 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.

Coming soon -- Tuesday debut dates shown:

  • April 27 & May 1 -- Two-part interview with Dr. Michael Parenti on his new book about organized religion, God and His Demons

Top: Dr. Kenneth Dowst. Bottom: Benjamin Zephaniah

Catch New World Notes (all times Eastern):



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


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Saturday, April 10, 2010

Reproductive-Rights Crusader Bill Baird



Our principal archive, radio4all.net, has been encountering some problems.
If you have any difficulty listening online or downloading any recent
installment of the radio show, please try our other archive at
The Internet Archive.


New World Notes News
Vol. 3, No. 15 -- April 10, 2010

This Week in New World Notes, radio program #110, April 13:

Reproductive-Rights Crusader
Bill Baird

Moments before the bust: Baird tests Massachusetts' crimes-against-chastity
law at Boston University, April 6, 1967. Most graphics: Click to enlarge.


In (not overly) brief:

What John Brown was to Abolition, Bill Baird was and is to reproductive rights, including the right to abortion and the right to purchase contraceptives. The latter was still illegal in Massachusetts (and elsewhere) in the 1960s! Seeing a woman die from an attempted coat-hanger abortion changed his life. He determined to change the law.

One way to do this is to break the law, get convicted, appeal the conviction, and invite the Supreme Court to declare the law you broke unconstitutional. This method is probaby easier than persuading the Massachusetts legislature to vote in favor of any bill that even hints at encouraging "sin." So, in a talk at Boston University in 1967, Baird methodically broke just about every provision of the law that prohibited transfer, possession, display, or even discussion of contraceptives.

For reasons unknown, the authorities had neglected to bust Cardinal Cushing--even though the Archdiocese of Boston had been flagrantly violating the law for years by distributing a pamphlet titled "The Rhythm Method." They didn't neglect to bust Baird for displaying a contraceptive diaphragm and giving a can of Emko Foam to an undergraduate.

Baird had to explain to the arresting officers what a diaphragm was. None had ever seen one. One guessed that it was a large rolled condom.

Top: IUDs make great tie clips. I won't spoil the story by retelling it here.
Hear it from Baird at about 25:30 [min:sec] into the show. Actually, the
now-notorious Dalkon Shield (left) made a better tie clip than
contraceptive device.
Bottom: Fellow-traveller Michael Luckman at Saint Patrick's Cathedral,
in 1968, protesting yet another anti-birth-control encyclical from the
Vatican (Pope Paul VI).


It worked. After a fashion. Baird v. Eisenstadt became a milestone in the struggles for reproductive rights and privacy rights. Roe v. Wade cites the decision five or six times.

Baird also founded the nation's first abortion clinic.

He survived assassination attempts, 8 criminal convictions, prison brutality, the firebombing of his clinic, the breakup of his family, and the absence of any help from Planned Parenthood, NOW, ACLU, & other potential allies.

A scary, stunning, and often very funny story, well-told by Baird himself.

Notes and credits

Baird's words were recorded at a panel discussion on civil liberties--titled Courageous Convictions--held at the University of Hartford on February 16, 2010. Edited for radio by moi.

Baird's Web site: http://prochoiceleague.org/

New World Notes is produced under the auspices (Latin for "imprimatur") 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.

Top: The Massachusetts jury agreed with Baird, convicting anti-abortion
terrorist John Salvi of murder in 1996.
Bottom: Reproductive-rights rally at Union Square, September 2009.
Women's-health-care pioneer Merle Hoffman stands at the mic (left).


Coming Soon -- Tuesday debut date shown:

  • April 20 -- The Unheard Voice of the Majority


Catch New World Notes (all times Eastern):


Except in Massachusetts (and other states) in the 1960s--where
education was considered a "crime against chastity." The "chastity-
through-ignorance" movement flourished again in the W. Bush
years with the preposterous & discredited (but that never stopped
'em!) "abstinence-only sex education." When it comes to anti-sex
lunkheadedness, the Evangelical Protestants have reached parity
with the Catholic hierarchy. (In my experience, the Catholic
congregants are a good deal saner than the Pope, Cardinal Cushing,
Jerry Falwell, Joe Biden, & the entire Bush Administration, combined--
including former Postmaster-General John C. Potter!)

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Friday, April 2, 2010

False-Flag Operations, Part 2


New World Notes News
Vol. 3, No. 14 -- April 3, 2010

This Week in New World Notes, radio program #109, April 6:

False-Flag Operations,
Part 2

Spanish Plots . . . Spanish Treachery . . . England Believes It
Foul Play . . . Crisis Is At Hand. . . . Any resemblance to the media's
role in the invasion of Iraq is strictly coincidental. Somebody check to
see if Judith Miller's grandfather worked for Hearst. . . . The Maine
exploded in Havana harbor on February 15, 1898.
Most graphics: Click to enlarge.
A current U.S. Navy history of the Maine notes that "The survivors
of the disaster were taken on board . . . Spanish cruiser Alfonso XII. The
Spanish officials at Havana showed every attention to the survivors of the
disaster and great respect for those killed. The court of inquiry convened
in March was unable to obtain evidence associating the destruction of the
battleship with any person or persons, but public opinion in the United
States was so inflamed that the Maine disaster led eventually to the
declaration of war on Spain 21 April."
That last sentence is disingenuous. In fact, the McKinley
Administration had decided to go to war with Spain long
before the Maine exploded and used the misfortune to rouse
public support for launching a war that had few justifications.


In brief:

"False-flag" ops are incidents used to justify war or abolition of civil liberties. These incidents are staged, or misrepresented, or imaginary.

This week I review the major types of "false-flag operations"--with details on the battleship Maine (1898) and U.S. Air Force provocations of the USSR during the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962). Guess who saved the world in 1962. Nikita Khrushchev! Then ex-MI-5 agent Annie Machon discusses terrorism by both sides in Northern Ireland (1990s), operations Gladio (post-WWII) and Northwoods (1962), and 9-11. Last, she details the huge loss of civil liberties in the U.K. following 9-11.

Top: Sheet music. Bottom: New York Journal and Advertiser.


Notes and credits

Annie Machon speech of May 14, 2007, courtesy of London Sound Posse. The complete speech (1h, 8m) is available here.

See also last week's installment, #108: False-Flag Operations: An Introduction (scroll down).

This week's song: Chumbawamba, Passenger List for Doomed Flight 1721. Download your own copy for free from Chumba's Web site (scroll to bottom of the page).

Correction: In the program I state that the Maine probably exploded from spontaneous combustion of damp "black powder" (gunpowder). The Navy has concluded that spontaneous combustion of coal ignited the powder in an adjacent storeroom. The Navy's brief & good history of the Maine is worth a look.

New World Notes is produced under the auspices (Latin for "nihil obstat") 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.

While Annie Machon smiles (top, with fellow spy David Shayler),
the Goddess of Liberty weeps at Spanish perfidy.


Coming Soon -- Tuesday debut dates shown:

  • April 13 -- Reproductive-Rights Crusader Bill Baird
  • April 20 -- The Unheard Voice of the Majority

Catch New World Notes (all times Eastern):

Top: Secret pen-pals Nikita Khrushchev and JFK. It was the chubby bald guy on the left who, at the expense of his career, prevented the World War III that the generals on both sides (especially ours) were trying hard to bring about. For details & more illustrations, see this site's post, The Story Behind the Greatest Speech You Never Heard.
Bottom: Back in the old days, though, the entire commercial media did not march in lock-step to the rulers' drummer. The waiter depicted is President McKinley. Hey! Those traitorous socialists at the Boston Globe are failing to Support Our Troops!
Cuba was a cakewalk, but the conquest of the Philippines--the U.S.'s main objective--proved a bloody and long struggle. The fiercest opposition to the Yankee invaders was mounted by Muslim insurgents, the "Moros." Some empires never learn--or, more likely, don't give a damn. Mark Twain scathingly denounced the campaign in "A Defence of General Funston" and other essays.



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

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Friday, March 26, 2010

False-Flag Operations: An Introduction


New World Notes News
Vol. 3, No. 13 -- March 27, 2010

This Week in New World Notes, program #108, March 30:

False-Flag Operations:
An Introduction

Former MI-5 spy--and now whistleblower--Annie Machon.
Most graphics: Click to enlarge.

In brief:

"False-flag" ops. are incidents used by the authorities to justify war or the revoking of civil liberties. These incidents are staged, or misrepresented, or imaginary. Ex-MI-5 agent Annie Machon discusses the London IRA bombings (1990s) and the bombing of the Israeli Embassy in London (1994). The latter, it turns out, was done by . . . Israel itself--for a purpose. I discuss the faked Polish invasion of Germany (1939), Gulf of Tonkin incident (1964), bombing of 3 Russian apartment buildings (1999), and the Underwear Bomber scam (December 2009). I try my hardest not to call 9-11 a false-flag op. Plus expert Rufus T. Firefly.

Notes and credits

Annie Machon speech of May 14, 2007, courtesy of London Sound Posse. Their recording of the complete speech (1:08:28, 31 MB .mp3) is available here.

Dialogue and song ("We're Going to War") from The Marx Brothers' Duck Soup (1933). See the unedited video segment.

Credit to Wikipedia for several of the facts I relate on false-flag ops in Germany, Vietnam, and Russia, 1939-1999.

New World Notes is produced under the auspices (Latin for "average quality") 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.

Top: the Reichstag fire, the morning after it began. The German parliament building was set ablaze on the night of February 27, 1933, possibly with the connivance of the NSDAP (Nazi party). Newly-installed Chancellor Hitler and cohort blamed the arson on the communists, persuaded President Hindenberg to suspend civil liberties (cf. the USA-PATRIOT Act), unseated and imprisoned left-wing MPs, and consolidated their own power. By removing the communist MPs, the Nazi party increased its lead in parliament from a plurality to a majority.
Bottom: On August 7, 1964--following in imaginary attack on a U.S. naval ship in Vietnam--Congress overwhelmingly passed a resolution giving the President carte blanche to wage war against the Vietnamese. A massive escalation of the war followed.

Coming Soon -- Tuesday debut date shown:

  • April 6 -- False-Flag Operations, Part 2. K.D. discusses the battleship Maine, the reasons the U.S. started the Spanish-American War, and USAF attempts to provoke the Soviet Union during the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962). Annie Machon explains false-flag terrorism in Northern Ireland (1990s), operations Gladdio and Northwoods, and the great loss of civil liberties in the U.K. following 9-11.

Catch New World Notes (all times Eastern):

In September 1999, Russian state security forces bombed apartment buildings in three cities of the Russian Federation, including Moscow. Blamed on "Chechen terrorists," the incidents were used to justify Russia's invason of the troublesome Republic of Chechnya at the end of September. For some reason, the "Chechen terrorists" chose to bomb only low-rent apartment buildings.
Top: Propaganda photocollage. Note sinister "terrorist" in the center. Doesn't look at all like President Putin. Bottom: First-responders carry one of the 300 murder victims.

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Friday, March 19, 2010

Airport Security and Related Scams



New World Notes News
Vol. 3, No. 12 -- March 19, 2010

This Week in New World Notes, radio program #107, March 23:

Airport Security and Related Scams

Precursor and spiritual ancestor of the Transportation Security Administration
(TSA): Mack Sennett's The Keystone Kops. Most graphics: Click to enlarge.

Executive summary

Twenty years ago, airports and commercial aircraft were scenes of Orwellian mind-control (hear George Carlin in this installment). And those were the good old days! After 9/11, the police state--fortunately run by the Keystone Kops--seized our airports (hear Jimmy Tingle, Michael Parenti). As we lead up to the preposterous Underwear Bomber scam of last Christmas (hear me, Jim Hightower, & Jon Stewart), we hear from student Nicholas George, busted for trying to carry "learn Arabic" flash cards onto a plane. It is to laugh--and the show does (between screams of outrage).

Notes and Credits

New World Notes is produced under the auspices (Latin for "What, me worry?") 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.

http://www.jimmytingle.com/
http://www.michaelparenti.org/

Bottom: Maidenform bra ad, apparently from 1963. Somehow, the
extremely long-running "I Dreamed ..." ad campaign never tried, "I
dreamed I blew up an airliner with PETN explosives in my Maidenform
bra ... and panties." A pity.

Coming Soon -- Tuesday debut dates shown:

  • March 30 -- False-Flag Operations: An Intruduction
  • April 6 -- False-Flag Operations, Part 2

Terrorist suspect Nicholas George, here cleverly disguised as a harmless
backpacker and college student. The TSA, Philadelphia Police, and FBI
were too smart to fall for that old trick. George was busted for trying to
carry basic-Arabic-vocabulary "flash cards" onto a commercial flight.
Why do you think they call them "flash" cards, eh?! Good work, officers!
Mack Sennett would be proud.

Catch New World Notes (all times Eastern):

Populist commentator Jim Hightower. The former Texas state
official (State Agriculture Commissioner) can recognize a scam--
such as full-body scanners in airports--when he smells one.


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Thursday, March 11, 2010

The Second Coming



New World Notes News
Vol. 3, No. 11 -- March 11, 2010

This Week in New World Notes, radio program #106, March 16 & 20:

The Second Coming
(in American Imagination
and Popular Culture)

Nike sportswear ad. All graphics: Click to enlarge

In brief:

Artists & social critics have used the idea of the Second Coming of Christ as a metaphor to highlight social ills. (Bumper sticker: "Christ has come ... and boy, is He p***ed!") We hear & look at 4 works of art that do this: Lenny Bruce's famous "Christ and Moses" routine, a Langston Hughes story featuring the Harlem character "Simple," W.B. Yeats's poem "The Second Coming," and The Police's song "Synchronicity II"--which is pretty much Yeats's poem, updated & set to music.

Is that Dick Cheney, in the brown suit?

This week's song

  • The Police, Synchronicity II (1983)

Notes and credits

New World Notes is produced under the auspices (Latin for "aegis") 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 .

"Simple Prays a Prayer"--which I condense for broadcast--is from the Langston Hughes anthology, The Best of Simple. Support your public library!

Coming Soon

  • March 23 -- Airport Security & Related Scams
  • March 30 -- False-Flag Operations: An Introduction

Bottom: Irish poet and visionary William Butler Yeats

Catch New World Notes (all times Eastern):

Langston Hughes in Harlem


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Friday, March 5, 2010

Psychopaths With Occam's Razor



New World Notes News
Vol. 3, No. 10 -- March 5, 2010

This Week in New World Notes, radio program #105, March. 9:

Psychopaths With Occam's Razor

Exeutive summary

Hierarchies (government, military, & Wall Street) become top-heavy with psychopaths--all of whom are capable of harming others without feeling the slightest guilt, empathy, or remorse. The Official Explanation of each outrage they commit is always convoluted. The principle of "Occam's Razor" posits that (all else equal) simpler explanations are more likely to be true than explanations worthy of Rube Goldberg. An example of the latter is the Official Story of why there was no air defense on 9-11-2001.

Here's a simple, Occam-friendly explanation of U.S. foreign policy since 1990: The psychopaths are running the show for their own benefit.

In this program, various observers discuss the decade-long genocidal sanctions against the Iraqi people (1990s, mostly under Clinton), Jewish Nazi-collaborator George Soros, 9/11, and General S.L.A. Marshall's groundbreaking discovery of soldiers' extreme reluctance to kill other humans, even "enemy" troops.

We even end on a note of hope and optimism. After all, the normals still outnumber the psychopaths 20-to-1, and the psychos haven't yet succeeded in grabbing complete control of the Internet!

Top: The Anti-occam: Rube Goldberg (1883-1970)
Bottom: Goldberg's soup-cooling machine


And the winners are . . .

Rube Goldberg Award-winning byzantine Official Explanations include

  • How 2 airplanes caused 3 steel skyscrapers to collapse, each onto its own footprint, at near-freefall speed, while mimicking every characteristic of a controlled implosion
  • Why, on 9-11-2001, there was no air defense of "the Homeland" and no missile defense of the Pentagon
  • How giving a trillion dollars to private Wall Street corporations--no strings attached--will create jobs and reduce home foreclosures
  • Why U.S. forces are killing people in Afghanistan

Notes and credits

Thanks to James Corbett (http://www.corbettreport.com/ -- episode #113) for the audio on George Soros. Thanks to Tereza Coraggio (http://www.thirdparadigm.org/) for the article by Dr. Kevin Barrett, "Twilight of the Psychopaths." Regular podcasts by both Corbett & Coraggio are archived on radio4all.net.

New World Notes is produced under the auspices (Latin for "counter") 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.

See last week's installment (#104) for more on psychopaths in power (and the predictable results).

On the show I've condensed--and in the process toned down --Kevin Barrett's essay, "Twilight of the Psychopaths." Here's the full text (in .pdf).

As Clinton's Secretary of State, Madeline Albright (then a brunette) famously
defended, on TV, the Administration's murder of 500,000 Iraqi children by
its oppressive regime of sanctions. The equal number of adult civilians
murdered didn't bear mentioning. Here, in February 2004, she arrives in
Berkeley to plug her published memoirs. And no, the sign on the window
isn't exaggerated, inflammatory rhetoric. Even so, the buck stops with her
boss, the Psychopath-in-Chief. Apologies to Sassacus, Black Elk, & Sitting Bull.

Coming Soon

  • March 16 -- The Second Coming (in American imagination & popular culture)
  • March 23 -- Airport Security & Other Scams

Catch New World Notes (all times Eastern):

Could a teenaged Jew in Hungary, ca. 1944, actively assist the Nazi
Occupiers in robbing other Jews of their wealth and shipping them off
to extermination camps . . . and--decades later--feel not the slightest
guilt or remorse? Easy as goulash to a psychopath!


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    Saturday, February 27, 2010

    Hannibal Lecter To Replace Dodd in Senate


    New World Notes News
    Vol. 3, No. 9 -- February 27, 2010

    This Week on New World Notes: Radio pgm. #104, March 2:

    Hannibal Lecter To Replace
    Dodd in Senate,
    or:
    Psychopaths: An Introduction

    The Ford Pinto, 1971-1980 (1979 model shown)
    All photos: Click to enlarge.

    Executioner's summary:

    Psychopaths are quite common. Most are not hands-on killers. They differ from us in their lack of conscience, inability to imagine others' pain, and total lack of remorse for harm they cause. With these advantages, they rise to the top of hierarchies; and hierarchies become top-heavy with psychopaths. Which explains a good deal of U.S. domestic and foreign policy. Drs. Susan Rosenthal, Michael Parenti, K. Dowst--& redneck social commentator Joe Bageant--explore the implications.

    Pinto gas tanks would explode from a 28-mph bump on the rear, jamming
    the doors and incinerating the occupants. Ford designed a fix that would
    prevent this at a cost of $6 per car. Then Ford did the numbers, calculated
    it would be cheaper to settle with the deceased's next-of-kin, and decided
    not to employ the fix. Susan Rosenthal tells more, in this installment.
    (Photo: skoblin,     photobucket.com)

    This week's song

    • James McMurtry, Dancin' in the Ruins of the Realm

    Notes and credits

    The passage by Dr. Susan Rosenthal is read by Lyn Gerry, rebroadcast from an installment of her Unwelcome Guests radio program (see link under "Worth a Look," in the gray sidebar; the URL is below). Thanks to Lyn & the Unwelcome Guests Collective.

    The passage is from Chapter 2 of Rosenthal's 2006 book, Power and Powerlessness. The book is available--in some cases without charge--in 3 ways: (1) printed & bound, (2) by Internet download, (3) read aloud over several installments of "Unwelcome Guests."

    http://www.susanrosenthal.com/

    http://www.unwelcomeguests.org/

    Joe Bageant's "Bass Boats and Queer Marriage" is here: http://www.counterpunch.org/bageant01152010.html

    The hour-long "Corbett Report" podcast has a couple of interesting installments on the same subject: #90 ("Our Leaders Are Psychopaths") & #113 ("Meet George Soros").

    For more fun, see LA Weekly online's "12 Consumer Products That Should Not Have Exploded But Did: Recall-a-rama" (April 1, 2009). Of course they include the Pinto, a.k.a. "the barbecue that seats four."

    New World Notes     is produced under the auspices (Latin for "Freedom of Information Act") 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.

    Top and bottom: New Orleans rooftops, 2005. The authorities knew the
    flood was coming, did nothing to prevent it, and took no steps to evacuate
    the (mostly poor and black) citizens. Somebody explain why ethnic
    cleansing     isn't the best term for what happened. Michael Parenti has
    more to say on it, in this installment.

    Did I mention that--for the first time in 32 years--New Orleans now will have
    a white mayor? Scion of the statewide ruling-elite Landrieu family? Son of the
    city's last white Mayor (Moon) and brother of a U.S. Senator (Mary)? Mitch
    takes office on May 3, 2010, God willing.

    Coming Soon

    • March 9 -- Psychopaths With Occam's Razor. The Official Explanations of, say, why the U.S. is invading Afghanistan ... or of what happened on 9-11-2001 ... are of baroque complexity. The principle of "Occam's Razor" suggests that simpler explanations are more likely than Rube Goldberg fantasies to be true. Could "psychopathocracy" be part of a simpler & better explanation?
    • March 16 -- The Second Coming (in American consciousness & popular culture)

    Catch New World Notes (all times Eastern):

      Semantics 101: In a disaster, white folks scavenge for food. Black folks
      loot. No officials were available to help evacuate the city's poor & infirm.
      Few were available to rescue the stranded; feed, clothe, & shelter the
      victims; or provide medical care to the injured or ill. Plenty of officials
      were available to protect property (already flood-damaged!) from
      "looters." Incompetence? Or       Heckuva job, Brownie! ?

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