Showing posts with label deindustrialization. Show all posts
Showing posts with label deindustrialization. Show all posts

Saturday, May 7, 2011

Sick of War

New World Notes News
Vol. 4, No. 19 -- May 7, 2011

This week in New World Notes, radio program #166, May 10, 2011

Sick of War

In brief

Since my birth in 1950, U.S. foreign policy seems to have consisted of war, war, empire building, and more war. Is anybody else sick of this? ... or at least feeling broke from paying for it all?

Two fine thinkers (and I too) explore the problem.

(1) Michael Parenti (1990s) discusses the the functions & purposes of the American empire and why "we" invade so many countries and overthrow their governments--many of them democracies. With an update by Parenti, from 2009, on the real reasons for our bombing of the former Yugoslavia (recorded live in West Hartford by me).

(2) Bruce Gagnon--famed crusader against the militarization of space & related worthy issues--discusses the U.S.'s policy of Endless War and the related destruction of our industrial base. And he shows who profits from these events. HINT: it's not our children, who face a future of no jobs outside the armed forces. (Also recorded live in West Hartford by me, in 2010.)

Above: Bruce Gagnon in 2004.

Notes, credits, & links

Music (outro): from Pete Seeger, Bring 'Em Home

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


Kenneth Dowst


Coming soon (Tuesday air debut date shown)



  • May 17 -- Joe Bageant
Catch New World Notes (all times Eastern):




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


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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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Friday, May 14, 2010

Chris Hedges on The Empire of Illusion


New World Notes News
Vol. 3, No. 20 -- May 16, 2010

This Week in New World Notes, radio program #115, May 18:

Chris Hedges
on The Empire
of Illusion

Executive summary

In a brilliant and brilliantly interconnected talk, journalist-prophet Chris Hedges discusses the pacification of the exploited citizenry by the corporate media, the fraud at the heart of the national economy, Wall Street's destruction of the U.S.'s manufacturing sector, "Brand Obama," the perfidy of Obama and of other "courtiers" to the real power, the failure of the Left to challenge Obama's Bush-ist policies, & the funeral of Michael Jackson. Our best hope, Hedges concludes, is a revival in the U.S. of Democratic Socialism.

Top: Chris Hedges. Bottom: Abandoned factory.
All photos: Click to enlarge.

Notes and credits

This week's song: Leonard Cohen, Democracy (is coming ... to the U.S.A.)

This program contains half of Hedges' 50-minute talk in Winnipeg. The full-length original is here: http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/36777. (This link is to the Program Information page at the archive. There's a download link near the bottom.) Thanks to producer Ethan Osland & Black Mask Winnipeg (http://blackmask.ca/).

Thanks to (and please help support) the invaluable radio archive, the A-Infos Radio Project / radio4all.net, whence I obtained the original recording.

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

New World Notes installments beginning with #90 are archived also at The Internet Archive, in a variety of file formats. This URL should get you a listing: http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=%22New%20World%20Notes%22%20AND%20collection%3Aopensource_audio&sort=-date .

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 dates shown:

  • May 18 & 25 -- Peace- & anti-nuke activist Bruce Gagnon on Endless War and the Economy (2 parts). Recorded live in West Hartford (by moi) on April 16.

Catch New World Notes (all times Eastern):



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Friday, January 15, 2010

Cheap Junk & The Deindustrialization of America



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

Annie Leonard (from NWN #48, "The Story of STUFF")

This Week in New World Notes, radio program #98, Jan. 19:

Cheap Junk and
The Deindustrialization of America

Workers' summary

We explore the connections among ubiquitous cheap junk merchandise, domestic unemployment and poverty, starvation wages abroad, pollution everywhere, the destruction of the environment, the deindustrialization and Third-World-ization of America, and the ever-increasing wealth of the already-rich. Was there a vote on all this that somehow I missed? Includes unflattering words on G.E. by labor leader Marie Lausch and an equally unflatttering discussion of IKEA from Ellen Ruppel Shell's book, Cheap: The High Price of Discount Culture.

Marie Lausch at UCONN, November 14, 2009

This week's song

  • Anne Feeney, Brave New Christmas

Coming Soon -- Tuesday debut dates on WWUH shown:

  • January 26 -- Lenny Bruce and the Meaning of Obscenity
  • February 2 -- Merchants of Fear (Installment #100!)

Ellen Ruppel Shell

Credits

  • Connecticut United Electrical Workers Union president Marie Lausch recorded by me at a symposium on converting Connecticut to a peacetime economy held at the University of Connecticut, Storrs, November 14, 2009.
  • Shell passage as reprited by the Toronto Globe & Mail, July 19, 2009, condensed for radio by me.
  • New World Notes is produced under the auspices (Latin for "radar") 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

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