Showing posts with label Christianity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christianity. Show all posts

Friday, January 14, 2011

Chris Hedges: The Corporate War on the People


New World Notes News
Vol. 4, No. 3 & 4 -- January 14, 2011

This fortnight in New World Notes, radio programs #150-151, January 18 & 25:

Chris Hedges:
The Corporate War
on the People

December 16, 2010: Hedges at an antiwar protest outside the White House. Hedges, Daniel Ellsberg, and others later chained themselves to the surrounding fence. 131 were arrested.

In brief

Journalist, columnist, and former war correspondent Chris Hedges discusses the corporate attack on the American people and on the "liberal" institutions that once helped empower the people.

Part 1: How we got here. In the first of two installments, Hedges discusses how things got to their unhappy current state. He explores the mass-propaganda machine created during World War I, the rise of the public relations industry to serve corporate power, the campaign against labor unions and other liberal institutions, militarism, the replacement of traditional American values (such as thrift) with corporate values, and the sell-out of the Democratic Party.

Part 2: How to fight back. In the second installment, Hedges discusses totalitarianism, American-style; the Christian Right; why the Tea Party (rightly) hates the Liberal Establishment; the perfidy of the Democratic Party; U.S. parallels with the former Yugoslavia; the necessity of resistance; and the importance that the resistance be nonviolent.

Top: Master propagandist of the Wilson administration, George Creel manufactured American public support for World War I. After the war, Creel's techniques would serve the interests of the large corporations.
Bottom: Creel-sponsored propaganda film. Most graphics: Click to enlarge.

Notes, credits, & links

NWN #150 and 151 rebroadcast an interview conducted by Mike McCormick, of the radio program "Mind Over Matters," on December 2, 2010 (slightly condensed by me). http://www.talkingsticktv.org/ . Thanks to Mike for a fine interview and permission to rebroadcast it.

http://www.truthdig.com/chris_hedges

Chris Hedges' most recent book is Death of the Liberal Class (2010).

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

You can listen to any installment of New World Notes online or else download it (as an mp3 audio file) for later listening. The show is archived at both radio4all.net and (from #90 onwards) The Internet Archive. Either link should get you a reverse-chrono listing of available installments. Or browse the show's Web site: Each installment has a page, and each page has links to the recorded audio.

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: abandoned U.S. factory

Coming soon (Tuesday air debut date shown)

  • February 1 -- Military Rape
Catch New World Notes (all times Eastern):



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

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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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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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Saturday, February 20, 2010

Resisting Violence: Kathy Kelly (R) + LIVE on WWUH




New World Notes News
Vol. 3, No. 7 -- February 20, 2010

This Week EXCEPT on WWUH: radio program #103, Feb. 23:

Resisting Violence: Kathy Kelly


Last week's installment, "Not ALL Christians Are Evil," started off by whacking the Institutional Church--Protestant Division. This week's starts off by whacking the Roman Catholic Division. Outraged Catholic listeners are asked not to turn off the radio the instant they hear the late Cardinal Spellman described as a "fascist warmonger." Please wait for the "However, . . . ."

This "encore presentation" (with minor revisions) celebrates and features the great American and Catholic antiwar activist Kathy Kelly. She tells a touching and funny story about ordinary citizens who fought against the U.S. War Machine . . . and won. The hero(ine)s of the story happen to be ordinary citizens of Ireland. But who's to say it wouldn't work just as well at home?

Kelly says almost nothing about her religious beliefs--which, however, clearly underlie her antiwar crusade. Imagine! Two weeks in a row, we've managed to turn up some people (two of them still alive!) who believe that Christianity requires something other than killing "evildoers," stealing oil, and persecuting homosexuals! Who'd a' thunk?

(l. to r.:) Kathy Kelly, Australian Catholic Worker activist Ciaron O'Reilly,
and the five Pitstop Ploughshares, outside the courthouse, Dublin, 2006.

For details and more photos, please see the blog entry for the original incarnation of this installment: http://newworldnotes.blogspot.com/2008/11/resisting-violence-kathy-kelly.html . Note that the links to the audio file on that old page are to the unrevised, lower-audio-fidelity version (installment #39), of December 2008.

Listeners in central Connecticut--and all others--who wish to hear the updated version of the program (installment #103) can listen online or download an MP3 audio file for later listening. You'll find the download links at the top of this blog page.


This Tuesday, noon to 1 PM, on WWUH 91.3 and wwuh.org:

Special Hour-Long Live Show

In this special broadcast for Pledge Marathon Week, regular but brief appeals for money will punctuate a potpourri of insightful political/social commentary by a range of voices. You'll hear none of these voices on corporate-controlled radio or TV stations--neither the overtly commercial stations nor the ones dependent on grants from Cargill, Exxon Mobil, and other social ils. Plus we'll have a reflection or two by me and two or three songs (not by me).

Black Agenda Report Senior Columnist Margaret Kimberley

Pledges of support to any noncommercial, alternative, community-based radio station are always in good taste. Pledges of support to WWUH made by telephone while New World Notes is broadcasting--noon to 1 PM (Eastern) this Tuesday, February 23--are even nicer, as I'll be able to thank you on-air . . . unless you prefer to remain anonymous. A tally is made of the amount pledged by phone during each show--and the loser has to buy beer and pizza for the other 67 volunteer staff members. No, just kidding about the beer and pizza.

The phone number for pledges is 1 - 800 - 444 - WWUH ( - 9984). You can also pledge online at http://wwuh.org/ or else print out a form and mail in a check (same Internet address).

Words and voices included in this Tuesday's show come from people including

  • the late the Rt. Hon. Robin Cook, MP--a high official in Tony Blair's Labour government--denouncing the U.K.'s imminent invasion of Iraq and resigning from the Government (March 17, 2003). Ends with the first-ever standing ovation in the House of Commons. Then the next day they voted for war. Cook died in 2005
  • Margaret Cook--Robin's estranged divorced wife at the time of the resignation--in a stunning new appreciation marking the Chilcot Inquiry, titled, "I'm So Proud of You, Robin Cook" (February 7, 2010)
  • Margaret Kimberley on the Obama administration claiming the right--and attempting--to assassinate U.S. citizens (Don't the 5th and 12th Amendments sort of discourage this sort of thing?)
  • Jello Biafra, in the summer of 2008, predicting almost exactly what an Obama presidency would be like. Jello's batting average: .980. He failed to imagine assassinating American citizens or the magnitude of the strings-free giveaway of the nation's wealth to Wall Street
  • Michael Parenti, from a phone interview with me last October, discussing the real agenda of U.S. foreign policy
  • comedians Jimmy Tingle and George Carlin, proving that you can be serious and funny too. And that even the darkest tragedy can use a little Comic Relief. Yes, we do lighten up from time to time . . . at frequent intervals!
  • 3 Vietnam Veterans--Greg Payton, Susan Schnall, and David Kline-- recalling their and other GIs' rebellion against an evil and unnecessary war
  • urban poet Benjamin Zephaniah, showing the ill effects of bad media choice, in "(I've Been Listening to the) Rong Radio Station"--performed in the back of a cab driving around west London. Listener, beware! Don't let this happen to you!*

Robin Cook, denouncing the imminent Iraq War and resigning from
Blair's Labour Government, March 17, 2003. His speech prompted
the first-ever standing ovation in the House of Commons. "Principled
resignation" is another bit of eccentric British behavior unknown in
the upper ranks of American government. Compare Colin Powell.

Catch New World Notes (all times Eastern):


* Thanks to fellow radio guy Tereza Coraggio (http://www.thirdparadigm.org/) for finding & sharing the Zephaniah video from which I'll broadcast the audio.


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Saturday, February 13, 2010

Not ALL Christians Are Evil!


New World Notes News
Vol. 3, No. 6 -- February 13, 2010

This Week in New World Notes, radio program #102, Feb. 16:

Not ALL Christians Are Evil!

How to destroy a religion: Establish it as the official religion
of your empire, elect yourself Pope, then appoint the
bishops yourself. Worked for Constantine (shown), ca. 313.
Detail from mosaic at Hagia Sophia, Constantinople, ca. 1000.
Click graphics to enlarge.

Executioners' summary

Organized Religion (O.R.) has served Mammon & Mars well, while diverting its customers from virtuous thoughts & actions. ("Episcopal" does mean "overlook"!) What killed O.R. for me--by age 10--was the Required Weekly Perjury, a.k.a. reciting the "Apostles' Creed." A few Believers, though, actually try to enact the teachings of their religion's founders and thereby do much good in the world. We'll hear two speak: veteran CIA analyst Ray McGovern and Martin Luther King, Jr. (from the Riverside Church antiwar speech, April 4, 1967).

A few more details

McGovern lucidly shows the oily roots of the Bush-Obama invasion of Afghanistan. Parts of his talk are funny--for instance when he recreates a discussion he had with a burgher of a rich Milwaukee suburb, on whether saving a dollar a gallon on gas is worth a half-dozen dead American soldiers a week. And on how many Commandments the State Department and Pentagon have broken by the time the gasoline reaches the pump.

Martin Luther King's hour-long speech contained, among other delights, a lucid history of the Vietnam conflict (not rebroadcast here), a fine discussion of how a Christian should respond to Communist revolutionaries, and a stirring denunciation of the Administration's policies of defunding programs that helped the poor ("both black and white") at home in order to pay for more bullets, napalm, bombs, and bombers to kill (primarily) innocent peasants abroad. Does any of this sound at all familiar?

One sign of the quality and power of King's speech: it was strongly denounced by almost all of the corporate-controlled American media. "Life magazine called the speech 'demagogic slander that sounded like a script for Radio Hanoi,' and The Washington Post declared that King had 'diminished his usefulness to his cause, his country, his people'" [Wikipedia].

Notes and Credits

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

Thanks to Seattle's Mike McCormick for the talk by Ray McGovern--which I yanked from a half-hour interview on Mike's radio program, Mind Over Matters (November 2009).

Owing to time constraints, only Christians reached the mic today. They don't hold the patent on virtue. Just to toss off a few names that come immediately to mind, let's acknowledge the faith-based good works of Jews Howard Zinn, Rabbi Michael Lerner, journalist Amira Haas, and the hundreds of "Refusers" in the Israeli military, among many others.

Moslems--apart from "terrorist suspects"--receive scant attention in America, but two that come immediately to mind are Malcolm X (see the final photo caption, below) and the Grand Ayatollah Sistani. The latter was responsible more than anybody for bringing to Iraq whatever measure of democracy it enjoys today--bringing it in the face of determined opposition by the U.S.-installed Coalition Provisional Authority, the Pentagon, the State Department, and the administration named after W Bush.

Free weekly NWN email newsletter on request.

Top: 27-year veteran CIA analyst--now social activist--Ray McGovern.
Bottom: Detail from "Expulsion From the Garden of Eden." Artist: Bolton
Morris (1920-2004); Church of St. Mary Magdalene, Media, Pennsylvania.

This week's song

  • Bye Bye Birdie (Original Cast), Hymn for a Sunday Evening (1960)

Coming Soon

  • February 23 (except WWUH) -- Resisting Violence: Kathy Kelly (R)
  • February 23 on WWUH -- Special hour-long live show for Pledge Marathon week

Catch New World Notes (all times Eastern):

Martin Luther King, Jr.
Top: Delivering his address, "Beyond Vietnam," at a "Clergy and
Laymen Concerned ..." antiwar rally, Riverside Church, Manhattan,
April 4, 1967--one year, to the day, before his assassination.
Bottom: With Malcolm X, March 26, 1964--11 months before Malcolm's
assassination. The two leaders' paths had already begun to converge.
Following his conversion to Sunni Islam and his pilgrimage to Mecca,
Malcolm adopted the racial inclusivenesss of King's approach. For his
part, King came to adopt more of Malcolm's willingness to oppose and
confront established power including the national government--as we
can plainly hear in his great speech at Riverside Church. IMHO, this is
King's finest speech.
Each man died at age 39. In each case, elements of the National
Security State either connived in the assassination (Malcolm) or else
pulled the trigger (MLK).



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