Crime and Punishment

New World Notes #460, 28:32 (December 27)
Broadcast quality MP3 (39 MB)
Decent quality MP3 (13 MB)

The electric chair at Sing Sing (date unknown)

KD ties together several recent crime stories--from a vehicular homicide trial in his town ... to the police shootings in Ferguson and New York ... to the rash of alleged gun-suicides committed by frisked and handcuffed black men in the back seat of police cars ... to the surprising indictment of former mining company CEO Donald Blankenship.

Among the perps, we see who gets the book thrown at him, who gets his wrist slapped, and who walks away without even a trial. Is there any pattern here?

Includes commentary by Glen Ford and a song by Anne Feeney.

With an update of December 2016. Much of this program was previously broadcast, as NWN #353, in December 2014.

Scooter's War on Christmas Kickstarter

An "encore performance" from 2015.  For a summary and download links, please click here.

The Three Global Crises: How Should We Respond?

Part 1: New World Notes #457, 28:31 (December 6)
Broadcast quality MP3 (39 MB)
Decent quality MP3 (13 MB)

Part 2: New World Notes #458, 28:49 (December 13)
Broadcast quality MP3 (40 MB)
Decent quality MP3 (13 MB)

Vincent Emanuele

An eye-opening and well-researched talk by activist Vincent Emanuele. He explores the three crises that are making the world--at best--highly unstable. Then he suggests some steps that the people can take to make our uncertain future as livable as possible.

Since neither government nor business is likely to do anything positive about these crises, useful responses will have to come from the grassroots.

All three crises are deeply rooted in the United States. Two of them are now global. The crises are

• social collapse in the U.S.
• militarization
• ecological disaster

 In Part 1, Emanuele shows the dimensions of social collapse and militarization and begins his discussion of the ecology crisis.

In Part 2, Emanuel explores the ecology crisis in depth and then proposes some general actions that the organized grassroots can take to maintain (insofar as possible) a good,decent, and cooperative life for the people.

Emanuele spoke at the Open University of the Left, in Chicago, on September 24, 2016. Thanks to Dale Lehman/WZRD, for the original audio recording, which I have condensed and slightly edited.