True to Earth

Part 1: New World Notes #657, 28:32 (October 6)
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Part 2: New World Notes #658, 27:54 (October 13) 
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A classic audio collage by Chazk / Virtual Renderings, condensed a bit by KD. It explores the root of today's social, economic, and environmental crises: Western civilization's out-of-touch-ness with the natural world. American Indians provide better examples of how to thrive in the world. 

Included: the greatest Navajo insult, why hunter-gatherers lived longer and better than people in agricultural societies, and other interesting ideas.

The piece blends commentary by indigenous people and Euro-Americans, plus a good deal of music.

Unedited versions of Virtual Renderings' 114 audio collages are archived at radio4all.net. (Another link is under "Worth a Look," at the top of this blog's gray right-hand sidebar.)

Life in a Declining Empire

New World Notes #656, 28:21 (September 29)
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Senator Bernie Sanders. Both Mark Crispin Miller (in this
installment) and Chris Hedges (elsewhere) have
criticized him as a fake progressive--though

perhaps less fake and less evil than Joe Biden.

Living in a collapsing empire is no fun at all. The elites plunder the metropolis, public institutions fail, and politics become nearly meaningless. Both journalist Chris Hedges and propaganda expert Mark Crispin Miller share some good insights on the subject.

Just as you suspect, they are not talking about ancient Rome or the USSR but about the United States in the Fall of 2020.

Speaking of "nearly meaningless" politics ... neither Hedges nor Miller has anything good to say about the alternative to Trump that the Democratic Party now is offering. In their view, this November 3rd Americans get to choose between two different styles of evil. Choose your poison! as the saying goes.

My own fearless prediction: The winner of the 2020 election will be Goldman Sachs.

Chris Hedges

Many thanks to Richard D. Wolff's Economic Update program for his interview with Chris Hedges, broadcast August 31, 2020. Likewise, many thanks to the Politics and Science program on WMRW, Warren, VT (May 25, 2020) for my selections from John Barkhausen's long interview with Mark Crispin Miller. The complete original programs are available on YouTube (Hedges) and radio4all.net (Miller). I have shortened pauses and deleted stumbles in both interviews.

Mark Crispin Miller

Celebrities

New World Notes #655, 28:49 (September 22)
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An interesting look at our fascination with celebrities ... and corporate marketers' exploitation of this fascination to sell products.

In fact our attraction to celebrities appears rooted in our evolution: the closer our ancestors got to the alpha male, the more likely they were to survive.

The show includes parts of the documentary film Starsuckers and also Chris Hedges' critique of Michael Jackson's funeral.

Chris Hedges' speech was recorded on October 14, 2009, by Ethan Osland, of Black Mask Winnipeg (www.blackmask.ca). Thanks to Ethan and Black Mask for permission to rebroadcast.

Previously broadcast, in 2011 and 2017. Files downloaded from the links, above, may be identified as NWN #500.

Popular Resistance and Rebellion

New World Notes #654, 29:00 (September 15)
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Tahrir Square, Cairo, December 19, 2011

(Click to enlarge.)

KD explores some popular nonviolent rebellions that nobody saw coming--such  as the "Arab Spring" and Occupy (both 2011)--and draws parallels to today's popular rebellion against the racist violence of police.

Then the young Howard Zinn, in a debate from 1971, argues that nonviolent mass protests have always been necessary in the U.S. to compel the System to change.

Zinn was defending in advance a massive protest against the Vietnam War, which was then being planned for Washington, DC, in May 1971. Zinn's eloquent defense of large-scale popular protests including civil disobedience illuminates the widespread "Black Lives Matter" demonstrations of our own time.

Plus one and a half relevant songs by David Rovics.

Surviving the Collapse

New World Notes #653, 28:26 (Sept. 8)
Broadcast quality MP3 (38 MB) 

Ex-cop, investigative journalist, activist, and prophet Michael Ruppert (1951-2014)  was quirky, controversial ... and very often right. In this interesting monologue, he explains why Western industrial civilization is unsustainable and beginning to collapse--and what Americans can do to weather the transition. Surprisingly, he ends on a note of optimism.

From Chris Smith's 2009 film, Collapse. Previously broadcast, in December 2012. 

Labor Day Musical Special

New World Notes #652, 29:13 (September 1)
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Bindery workers assembling the Sears, Roebuck catalog (1942)
(Click to enlarge.)

American Labor celebrated in some really good contemporary songs--by Anne Feeney, The Foremen, Mad Agnes, John McCutcheon, Utah Phillips, and David Rovics. Featuring (in order of appearance)

David Rovics, The Day the Minimum Wage Workers Went on Strike. An upbeat celebration of the working class and of strength in solidarity ... with some very nice banjo picking

Mad Agnes, Katie. A witty and sharp critique of bourgeois life from the perspective of the long-suffering--and admirable--cleaning lady

The Foremen, Workin' on an MBA. Comic satire of the cushy life & boundless self-pity of the men in the gray flannel suits--set to a tune that recalls a chain gang work-song. Yep, one of those voices is Roy Zimmerman's

Utah Phillips, Moose Turd Pie. Spoken, with a little guitar. Utah recalls (with only the slightest hint of exaggeration) the worst job he ever held

Anne Feeney, Business News / Hallelujah, I'm a Bum! A beautiful rendition of an 1890's song about unemployment. A fine homage to Simon & Garfunkel's 1965 classic "Silent Night / 6 o'Clock News" and a good song in its own right

John McCutcheon, Doing Our Job. McCutcheon applies Cal Ripken Jr.'s modest remarks upon breaking a major-league record to working people generally. A long-overdue celebration of the best of American working-class values.

This installment was previously broadcast. Files downloaded from the links, above, are identified as NWN #391.

Charles C.Ebbetts, Lunch: Rockefeller Center (1932)