LUMPENPROLETARIAT—[Friday, 06 JAN 2023] Here are some of today’s media/press notes to help us track and make sense of this plandemic dystopia we all find ourselves living through in the 2020s, including inverted totalitarianism, medical authoritarianism, medical apartheid, police state, post-COVID-19 controlled demolition of the global economy, the rise of neo-feudalism, houseless encampments of the neo-peasantry, nuclear danger, creeping WWIII provoked by US/NATO/AUKUS imperialism against the BRICS nations and the global south, military pollution, petrol pollution, corporate pollution, chemical pollution, endocrine disrupting chemicals in the food and water, a worsening global fertility crisis, and human-induced climate change leading to a climate crisis of melting ice caps, record heatwaves, tornadoes, floods, drought, drying rivers, and other extreme weather events, which threaten life on Earth.
Let’s learn together and find solutions together. Let’s build working class solidarity. Let’s build human solidarity. Let’s form groups and “act for justice”. “[There’s] power anywhere where there’s people, as Fred Hampton said. Siempre hay esperanza. (Please see below for samples of today’s news cycle.)
OTHER SALIENT OBSERVATIONS:
- “50 Years After Allende at the UN: A Corporate Triumph Named Multistakeholderism” by theAnalysis-news [via YouTube], 6 JAN 2023. [29min 28sec]
- “The Grayzone live on McCarthy, Twitter’s Russiagate files exposed” by The Grayzone [via YouTube], 6 JAN 2023. [2hrs 11min 34sec]
- “Steve Keen on Inflation” by Wellbeing Economics Brighton, 6 JAN 2023. [14min 37sec] | Heterodox economics > Post-Keynesian economics. This is worthy of our attention, if we want to understand the world through the lens of good, scientific/mathematical economics.
@LumpenProles, last modified/edited/updated on 23 MAR 2023 at 20:16 PDT.
MEDIA/PRESS NOTES, NEWS, VIEWS, WORKING CLASS BLUES, INFORMATION, INSPIRATION, PERSPIRATION, AND AGITATION FROM A WORKING CLASS PERSPECTIVE
[Ideally, your author would have included links to all programs listed below. Programs listed without an embeded link or listener notes are based on past scheduling and have not yet been verified. Please check relevant websites for actual programming. / Notes will be modified/edited/updated as time and labor constraints allow. Working class solidarity. ✊🏽✊🏼✊🏿✊]
Friday, 6 January 2023
The Psychology of Totalitarianism by Prof. Mattias Desmet is still relevant to understanding the totalitarian movement taking over the USA and most of the western world, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 psyop.
05:00 PST, KPFA > Rising Up with Sonali Kolhatkar
QUOTATION FROM RADIO ARCHIVE DESCRIPTION: “A daily digest of independent news analysis, investigation, education, artistic expression, and activism in the public interest, emphasizing the connection between global issues and those in local communities. Hosted by Sonali Kolhatkar.”
NOTES: [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet]
COMMENTS: This program, Rising Up with Sonali Kolhatkar, suffers from the same “liberal bias”, as UpFront, Democracy Now!, Letters and Politics, Talkies, Leonard Lopate at Large, et al., which Dr. Noam Chomsky warned about since at least the 1990s. Dr. Chomsky’s critique of establishment media/press now also applies to much of Pacifica Radio. ‘They will only go but so far…’ Democrat Party apologism and a refusal to critique or interrogate the two-party dictatorship is the common thread…
06:00 PST, KPFA > Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman & company | “Democracy Now! is a daily independent award-winning news program hosted by journalists Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez.”
NOTES: [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet]
COMMENTS: Democracy Now! used to be a hard-hitting, adversarial newscast. Now, Amy Goodman is a millionaire and Democracy Now! is no longer willing to be honest about various things, including the two-party dictatorship, 9/11, COVID-19, and US/NATO imperialism. As Danny Haiphong wrote in 2021, “[Democracy Now!] has become a reliable platform for uncritical regime change propaganda, demonizing targets of US empire from Syria to Nicaragua.” [ 1 ]
07:00 PST / 10:00 EST, WPFW > On The Ground with Esther Iverem
QUOTATION FROM PODCAST DESCRIPTION: “Voices from the DC Emergency Rally for Returning Citizens, held December 19, 2022. Here in the expensive capital, where the first Gen Z member of Congress, Maxwell Frost of Florida, struggles to rent an apartment, the formerly incarcerated are in worse shape, with limited possibility of housing or employment. Including Roach Brown, Rev. Graylan Hagler, Rev. Willie Wilson, DC Council Member Robert White, Tony Lewis, April Goggans of Black Lives Matter DC, and more speakers at the rally. […]”
NOTES: [L1] | No direct link to WPFW radio archive. To access the audio archive, search WPFW by scrolling down to find the archives for Friday, 6 JAN 2023 (10:00 EDT) and clicking on the audio stream for On The Ground. Also see On the Ground website for broadcast archives.
COMMENTS: On the Ground is one of the best programs on the free speech Pacifica Radio Network, or anywhere for that matter. On the Ground deserves a timeslot on prime time mass media more than any corporate talking head. What have we allowed our government to do to our media in the USA? It seems very few of us actually read Manufacturing Consent, like very few of us actually read Das Kapital.
07:00 PST, KPFA > UpFront with Brian Edwards-Tiekert
NOTES: [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet]
COMMENTS: UpFront is some of the worst Machiavellian perception management, which will never inform the working class, which is oppressed by the power elite, nor help them connect the dots between issues to help the public see the larger truths to be able to learn from past experience. This is liberal [i.e., pro-capitalist or non-anti-capitalist] entertainment and Democrat Party apologism masquerading as critical leftist [i.e., anti-capitalist] journalism and analysis. [ 2 ]
07:00 PST / 10:00 EST, WBAI > Heart of Mind with Kathryn Davis
NOTES: [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet]
08:00 PST, KPFA > A Rude Awakening with Sabrina Jacobs
NOTES: [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet]
08:00 PST / 11:00 EST, WPFW > Community Watch & Comment – Friday with Ron Pinchback(sp?), Tom Williams(sp?), and Chip Jones
NOTES: [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet]
09:00 PST / 12:00 EST, WBAI > The Gary Null Show
NOTES/COMMENTS (re: Gary Null Show for 06 MAR 2023, PRN.Live): Health & Healing Information: high antioxidant foods can protect the lungs… 0902 cc 0904 … 1006 overtime
NOTES/COMMENTS (re: Gary Null Show for 06 MAR 2023, WBAI Livestream): 0902 pst wbai sounds like simulcast 0904 cc
COMMENTS: This program, The Gary Null Show, is one of the most honest, compassionate, and hard-hitting shows on Pacifica Radio, or anywhere for that matter. This program is easily as important, as the best of them: Flashpoints; Project Censored; On The Ground: Voices of Resistance From the Nation’s Capitol; Covid, Race & Democracy, Guns and Butter, et al.
09:00 PST, KPFA > Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman & company
QUOTATION FROM RADIO ARCHIVE DESCRIPTION: “Democracy Now! is a daily independent award-winning news program hosted by journalists Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez.”
NOTES: [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet] (See earlier broadcast above for additional notes.)
09:00 PST, KPFK > Thom Hartmann Program
NOTES: [noets pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet]
10:00 PST / 13:00 EST, PRN.Live > Leid Stories with Eutrice Leid
NOTES: [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet]
COMMENTS: This program, Leid Stories, is dedicated to free speech, but free speech with common sense, courtesy, and focus. Listeners are invited to call in to speak freely about a particular question posed by the host, Eutrice Leid. Unlike other call-in shows, like Thom Hartmann, Kris Welch, Mitch Jeserich, and many others on free speech Pacifica Radio, callers aren’t screened or filtered, dissonant voices aren’t cut short, or otherwise handled to control the narrative. Instead, the host, Eutrice Leid, helps callers make their point, as long as it’s a cogent argument. Eutrice Leid encourages critical thinking. On Fridays, the discussion theme is “Free Your Mind Fridays”, where listeners are invited to call in to speak freely on any topic they wish. KPFA listeners deserve a radio host, like Eutrice Leid, during weekdays, instead of partisan hosts, such as Kris Welch, who perpetuate phony establishment narratives, and stifle call-ins. | Leid Stories is one of the most honest, hard-hitting, yet compassionate, programs on the free speech Progressive Radio Network, or anywhere for that matter. This program is easily as important, as the best of them: Project Censored; Flashpoints; The Gary Null Show; On The Ground: Voices of Resistance From the Nation’s Capitol; Guns and Butter; Clearing the FOG; Covid, Race & Democracy; et al.
10:00 PST, KPFK > Michael Slate Show
NOTES: [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet]
COMMENTS: This program is dedicated to following Bob Avakian’s Revolutionary Communist Party (USA). Your author does not agree with everything Bob Avakian or the RCP espouses. But the messaging of Mr. Avakian and his RCP is important for all to understand.
10:00 PST, WBAI > Leonard Lopate at Large
NOTES: [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet]
COMMENTS: This program, Leonard Lopate at Large, suffers from the same “liberal bias”, as UpFront, Democracy Now!, Letters and Politics, Talkies, et al., which Dr. Noam Chomsky warned about since at least the 1990s. Dr. Chomsky’s critique of establishment media/press now also applies to much of Pacifica Radio. ‘They will only go but so far…’ Democrat Party apologism and a refusal to critique or interrogate the two-party dictatorship is the common thread…
10:00 PST, KPFA > Economic Update with Prof. Richard Wolff
NOTES: [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet]
COMMENTS: Dr. Richard Wolff is co-author of Contending Economic Theories: Neoclassical, Keynesian, and Marxian (The MIT Press), an important book for economics students to understand some of the main differences between neoclassical (i.e., establishment approach to economics) and heterodox economics (i.e., alternative approaches to economics). But Dr. Richard Wolff, a heterodox economist and an ally and colleague of the heterodox economics department at the University of Missouri-Kansas City (USA), your author’s alma mater, somehow publicly feigns ignorance of modern monetary theory (MMT) or its policy prescriptions, such as the MMT-based job guarantee program. [ 3 ]
10:00 PST / 13:00 EST, WPFW > Latino Media Collective
NOTES: [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet]
11:00 PST, PRN.Live > Alternative Visions with Dr. Jack Rasmus
NOTES: [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet]
COMMENTS: This is the real economic update. We love Dr. Richard Wolff, but he’s more of a performer than an educator, or a reporter.
11:00 PST, KPFA > Voices of the Middle East and North Africa (VOMENA) | “The richly diverse and fascinating world of culture and politics of the Middle East and North Africa, co-hosted by Khalil and Malihe.”
NOTES: ‘Did you handle dead bodies? … all have an influence on their reproductive health…map them onto…the idea is to get as broad and comprehensive a picture of all these exposures…’ 1140 1141 ‘Basra, Baghdad…are all seeing myriad problems all related to war…’ 1142 PST CC
COMMENTS: VOMENA is an anti-colonial, anti-racist, anti-white supremacist, anti-imperialist program. Of all the programmers/radio hosts on KPFA’s Local Station Board (LSB) (c. 2007-2012), Algerian-born VOMENA host Khalil Bendib seemed like one of the honest ones, based on your author’s various personal interactions with Khalil, and being a longtime listener of VOMENA. [ 4 ]
11:00 PST / 14:00 EDT, WPFW > Resistance Radio with John Kane and Regan de Loggans
NOTES: [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet] No direct link to WPFW radio archive. To access the audio archive, search WPFW by scrolling down to find the archives for Friday, [date], 2pm [14:00 EDT] and clicking on the audio stream for Resistance Radio.
COMMENTS: Resistance Radio is explicitly anti-racist, anti-colonial, anti-imperialist, and focuses on Native American/indigenous issues, rights, and justice.
12:00 PDT, PRN.live > Guns and Butter with Bonnie Faulkner
NOTES: Guns and Butter with Bonnie Faulkner > … Roland Morgan … book, Flight 93 Revealed. …. ‘the fourth plane to disappear or crash…in my view, it disappeared under mysterious circumstances…and we’ve never really had a satisfactory explanation of what happened to it.’ [This sounds like a classic, an important interview to revisit…] … 1210 PST
12:00 PDT / 15:00 EDT, WBAI > Live On The Fly with Randy Credico
NOTES: [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet]
12:00 PDT, KPFA > It’s Going Down with anonymous male-sounding host
NOTES: […] 1210 PST, underway: talk, meandering, [Sounds like another chat between anonymous liberals, who posture as radicals…Squandered free speech radio airwaves, terrestrial radio broadcasting…] 1213 [Oh, there’s the host, the same anonymous host of It’s Going Down…] … 1214 On the trials and tribulations of the houseless…. [The good thing is this conversation raises awareness of the plight of the poor and the houseless. The disappointment comes when we realize the framing of the whole program allows misguided liberal listeners to continue in their folly of supporting the corporate Democrat Party and the two-party dictatorship… In terms of relating this issue to existing political power structures, this program neglects…nihilistic… ] … 1248 [Anonymous host just asked: ‘What are some of the people in power saying? And what is your reaction to that?’ Then guest was allowed to ramble on with vague notions of their being a “disconnect”, followed by further supplication about the benevolence of their ‘Wood Street’ squatters community in Oakland, presumably. No doubt the neo-peasants are mostly well-meaning. But the question is a political question. But the host allowed this interview, like most interviews, to avoid any meaningful, critical political analysis.] 1253 [ 1254 [Guest: ‘I’m looking for a legal pursuit…my lawsuit against the local authorities…a land trust…’] [We notice how individual or individualistic solutions are emphasized, and collective, political organization is avoided. Clearly, the host’s main priority is to ‘manage’ each program, such that the Democrat Party is always let off the hook…like other programs of this liberal faction colonizing KPFA’s airwaves…]
COMMENTS: It’s Going Down is usually a disappointing program for leftists, as it functions as a synthetic left shill for the establishment by perpetuating the false left-right paradigm whereby the Republican Party and the ‘far-right’ are usually framed as the bogeymen, of which listeners must be wary. Meanwhile, the Democrat Party is usually let off the hook, usually not critiqued as sharply as the Republican Party. [ 5 ]
10:00 PDT / 12:00 EDT, WPFW > Jazz and Justice – Bobby Rox
NOTES: [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet]
13:00 PDT, KPFA > Project Censored with Mickey Huff
NOTES: climate change. Panel discussion, including Bill McKibben(sp?) with his 350 dot org story…resting on past laurels and organizing ‘a third act’… … ‘Dr. Jim Hansen’ on “civil disobedience” [I’d like to hear Dane Wigington on this panel…And at least one other critic of McKibben and Hansen, and their apparent acquiescence with failed establishment policies…] … 1311… 1321 ‘It doesn’t happen because both political parties are taking money…’ [transcript-worthy (TW)] … he said, ‘That may be best. But I won’t get a single vote for that. So, …we need a third political party….’ 1322 … | Mickey Huff ‘took place last month’ 1330 | 1330 next speaker
13:00 PDT / 16:00 EDT, WBAI > Sojourner Truth with Margaret Prescod
NOTES: [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet]
14:00 PDT / 17:00 EDT, WPFW > Sojourner Truth with Margaret Prescod
NOTES: [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet]
14:00 PDT / 17:00 EDT, WBAI > Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley cancelled? > Max Politics with Ben Max
NOTES: [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet]
COMMENTS: Black Agenda Report was revolutionary, especially as led by Bruce Dixon, Glen Ford, and Margaret Kimberley. Lately, Margaret Kimberley has been hosting Black Agenda Radio. But, for some unfortunate reason, listeners must now listen to establishment politics and Democrat Party apologism with Ben Max. On Friday, 21 OCT 2022, the WBAI board operator mentioned on-air that Max Politics is the regularly scheduled program at this time-slot. No mention was made about what happened to Black Agenda Radio.
15:00 PDT, KPFA > Rising Up with Sonali Kolhatkar
NOTES: 1. housing rights activism… … 1524 ‘the political class’ … ‘those in power’ [The guest presented his alternative plan to the city or state giving money to developers to build housing, which always fails because after developers are given funding, there are still affordable housing shortages. But, at this point, when the discussion becomes political, the guest, along with the host, become woefully naive, with the guest saying, Well, we’ll have to wait and see, if those in power are willing to support our alternative housing ideas. What? Wait and see? Why wait and see? And there is no indication that these housing ideas have even been communicated to any politicians. The subtext, since these are liberals (i.e., pro-capitalists or non-anti-capitalists), without a single critical word to say about the corrupt, corporate Democrat Party or the rigged two-party dictatorship, the subtext is to do fundraisers and buy property, without critiquing the system, the political system, the economic system, which forced us into these circumstances to begin with…| 1525 SK: asks about one particular group, Black Women Build. ‘a non-profit working with the city on how to rehab and fix up vacant homes…’ [Like most of this interview, as expected from liberals, we get individualistic, capitalistic ‘solutions’, which are passed off as collective solutions because they depend on philanthropy and donations, or a form of taxing themselves, to purchase land or buildings for housing. A political problem is steered away from political solutions and toward a so-called free market solution.] | lame music break | 1529 On January 6th anniversary ‘Alan Jenkins, prof of law, and his co-author, of The Adventures of the Unemployed Man, … ‘an alternative timeline of what the Trump mob would have done…’ … ‘after January 6th, I would wake up in a cold sweat worrying about our democracy…’ [What democracy? We’ve never had a democracy in the USA…] … 1535 ‘the dystopia…’ 1536 … 1541 … [This is a liberal perspective, which assumes their liberal and/or Democrat tribalism or identity is the politically correct one, which takes a principled stand against the foolish MAGA types and Republican types. But it never occurs to these liberals, or if it does, it benefits their cottage industry to deny, it never occurs to these liberals that their Democrat Party partisanship and/or apologia is how they’re being misled the same way rightists are being misled into identifying with Trump and with the Republican Party. The truth is both corporate political parties mislead the working class. This interview perpetuates a false left-right paradigm, which falsely suggests that Trump and the Republican Party are the political bogeymen, when the Democrat Party is just as villainous.] … 1548 SK: ‘…the dystopia…’ … ‘graphic novel’ … 1551
15:00 PDT / 18:00 EDT, WPFW > News Views with Garland Nixon
NOTES: [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet]
16:00 PDT, KPFA > Hard Knock Radio
NOTES: News Headlines with Aileen Alfandary, more uncritical amplification of establishment narratives… | 1606 DD, ‘today, we continue with Rickey Vincent interview…’the Black Panthers band, The Lumpen…’ former athlete on his book raising awareness of double-standard of black and brown people having to be careful about protesting the goverment, like the J6 protest and rioting and invasion of the Capitol Building.
17:00 PDT, KPFA & KPFK [simulcast] > Flashpoints with Dennis Bernstein
NOTES: American Indian Movement report from the Dakotas… 1704 signal loss, country road… 1710, signal restored; tuned back in. ‘Missouri River is the longest river…eastern border of our Treaty lands…we went from a nation to being eleven reservations…’ … 1712 … ‘mining that was illegal…arbitrary laws took all of the Black Hills…’ … ‘put on reservations forcibly…fighting for our rights…we were able to make some gains…along with the blacks and the Chicanos and the Civil Rights movements…’ | 1712 DB: ‘…we’re speaking with Bill Means….50 years after Wounded Knee… …forced migration… How do you see the immigration problem?’ ‘We don’t have an immigration problem. We have migration. Those are our relatives because they are also indigenous, our brothers migrating from the south’ … Miguel ‘El Gavilan’ Molina joins the discussion… | 1720 music break, country/Americana … ‘in a world without tomorrow…my friend, that day is coming fast…’ | … DB: … 1724 ‘Remind us about Leonard Peltier…’ | 1724 Bill Means: ‘Leonard Peltier came from another reservation…’ … 1725 … 1755 PST, Bill Means. Co-founder of AIM and … Indian Treaty Council .mm| Gavilan… 50th Anniversary will be on the 24th thru 27th … Flashpoints will be on the scene, reporting back…
18:00 PDT, KPFA & KPFK [simulcast] > The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays
NOTES: 1820 … on Wood Street encampment and San Jose encampment raids are drivinghouseless people, the neo-peasantry deeper into the creeks, where some have perishedand others needingrescue from freezing weather and flooding… Houseless people, feel pressures to flee to the creeks because they’ve been banned from the other areas, where the felt safe. The only choice they have is a city sidewalk, which sets them up for police harrasment late at night… [The streets are being closed off by the capitalist police state…] 1829….. 1851 offline
COMMENTS: The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays is usually, honest on basic social justice issues, but KPFA newscast bosses tend to gaslight listeners on COVID-19 (never mention VAERS data, VAERS deaths, assaults on informed consent, assaults on parental consent, no mention of dissenting doctors, no mention of any relevant pending litigation, no mention of litigation in India against the World Health Organization, etc.) and also gaslight listeners regarding establishment Democrat Party politics (i.e., usually engaging in Democrat Party apologia and perception management to keep people within the Democrat Party imaginary and away from the third-party politics imaginary, in the sociology sense of the term, ‘imaginary’). I.e., in other words, ‘it’s all good, just don’t question 9/11, COVID-19, nor establishment electoral politics.’ Having said all that, this is still a better nightly newscast than most. I’m hard-pressed to think of a better one, especially since the demise of Free Speech Radio News (FSRN), especially not locally. But that doesn’t excuse the KPFA news bosses’ intellectual dishonesty, lying by omission, and other deficiencies of journalistic integrity. WION is pretty good on global news; but there, too, one can detect the liberal bias, which Dr. Noam Chomsky has warned about since at least the 1990s.
20:00 PDT, KPFA > La Onda Bajita
NOTES: [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet]
22:00 PDT, KPFA > The History of Funk
QUOTATIONS FROM RADIO ARCHIVE DESCRIPTION (playlist):
- Rickey Vincent: “Ride on It” (The “History of Funk” Intro Song) [album: Phool 4 the Funk] [label: Dribblous Mayhem
- Larry Graham & Graham Central Station: “The Jam” [album: The Jam] [label: WMG – Warner Urban Music]
- Slave: “Baby Sinister” (2006 Remaster) [album: Party Lights: More Of The Best [Digital Version]] [label: WMG – Rhino Atlantic]
- Slapbak: “Mighty Mighty” [album: demo] [label: Slapbak]
- Chuck Brown: “Block Party” [album: We’re About the Business] [label: Raw Venture Records & Tapes, Inc.]
- United Funk Order: “Zone 3 / 2.0 (UFO Funky Groove Mix)” [album: Zone 3 / 2.0 (UFO Funky Radio Edit)] [label: MERLIN – Famous Rebel Music]
- Jill Scott. featuring Eddie Hazel: “Le BOOM Vent Suite pt. 2 (Darris Hoskins remix)” [album: remix] [label: Darrishoskins.com]
- Mofo Rising: “Potentially Lethal Swing (feat. Ishan Cooper)” [album: Mofo Rising III] [label: Mofo Rising Music]
- Kendra Foster, Kelvin Wooten: “Promise to Stay Here” [album: Promise to Stay Here] [label: Ear Kandy Music]
- Ptfi: “Y’All AIN’T READY YET” [album: Y’All AIN’T READY YET] [label: Eula Music]
- Boogie Boys: “Dealin’ With Life” album: Survival Of The Freshest] [label: UMG – Capitol Records, LLC]
- Leon Haywood: “Party” [album: Energy] [label: MCA]
- Sun: “Radiation Level” [album: The Greatest Hits] [label: UMG – The Right Stuff]
- Parliament: “One Of Those Funky Thangs (Funkster Jones Remix)” [album: Motor-Booty Affair] [label: UMG – Mercury Records]
- ParliamentRiddle Me ThisMedicaid Fraud DoggC Kunspyruhzy Records Inc.Larry Graham & Graham Central StationThe Bass SoloLive In LondonGraham Central StationOCTAVEPUSSY feat. GEORGE CLINTON, PARLIAMENT, FUNKADELICLong Live The FunkStraight From #1 Bimini RoadP-VINE RECORDSSnarky PuppyTake It! (feat. Bernard Wright)Empire CentralORCHARD – GroundUP Music LLCNappy Head Funk ArmyWhat came first? The Funkin’ or the EggWhat came first? The Funkin’ or the EggOak City Music RecordsExiles of the NationGratefulThe Obstacle Curse604168 Records DKMofo RisingBasics of Space Flight (Hindsight Is 2020)Mofo Rising IIIMofo Rising
NOTES: [scribe hasn’t listened yet]
[ 1 ] Your author will never forget the day Amy Goodman interviewed former President Bill Clinton. He got his comeuppance. And we got to hear Mr. Clinton’s true personality, his bullying nature. I never understood people, who interview people in positions of power, but then ask softball questions. People called it an ambush interview. Pfft. After 9/11, many of us were disappointed by the dishonesty of Democracy Now!, the lying by omission, the gaslighting. After COVID-19, it was clearer than ever that Democracy Now! (DN!) has been compromised, or has sold out. As Lewis Lapham said about reading The New York Times, ‘I still read it,’ he said, ‘But, when I do, I know they’re lying to me.’ The same thing goes for DN! Like the KPFA news bosses and most of the Pacifica Radio news bosses, DN! suffers from what Dr. Noam Chomsky called the “liberal bias” back in the day, when he was critiquing corporate media. Now, Dr. Chomsky’s critique also applies to most of the Pacifica Radio Network newscast bosses, who must make U.S. spooks proud for providing synthetic left programming, if the news bosses aren’t in fact on some spook payroll.
[ 2 ] UpFront is some of the worst kind of Machiavellian gaslighting in radio. This type of Machiavellian talk radio hides its lack of concern for the suffering of others behind a veneer of journalistic objectivity or journalistic professionalism—professionalism, the journalistic refuge of scoundrels. Liberals (i.e., pro-capitalists or non-anti-capitalists), like this host, appear to be professional amnesiacs, conveniently forgetting lessons from their own past interviews, if such lessons threaten the status quo, not to mention other common sense lessons from the broader society. There are so many examples of when listeners can remember a key piece of information, which can help an interview reach deeper conclusions or attain new insights, but the liberal host feigns ignorance or simply failed to make the connection. And listeners are given the mushroom treatment, as Nicole Sawaya used to say (former KPFA manager, described the long-standing culture behind the scenes at Pacifica Radio): ‘keep them in the dark and feed them bullshit.’ At any rate, the listeners, who listen because they care about social justice, are the losers because these liberal hosts force each conversation to start at square one. Important insights culled from interview A will never show up on interview B or C. Sure, such liberals will go into meticulous and sophisticated detail. But only when it doesn’t impact the status quo. Of course, there are exceptions at Pacifica Radio, such as Flashpoints and Guns and Butter (which was forced off the air at KPFA), but they are viewed as the black sheep by the bosses, not supported or embraced as allies. Oddly, during the first quarter of 2022, Mickey Huff was on Letters and Politics. I’ll have to relisten, if possible. It’s plausible Mickey Huff is open to collaboration and cooperation. But it’s not plausible entertainers, like Mitch Jeserich, would ever do anything with sincere educators and truth-seekers, like Mickey Huff, without an ulterior motive, such as reputational rehabilitation. Examples of established ideas and conclusions, which can help liberate the working class, but which are marginalized or ignored by such liberals, as the hosts of UpFront, Letters and Politics, Talkies, etc., include modern monetary theory, the job guarantee program, the two-party dictatorship, the fact that two-party systems are polarizing, benefits of ranked-choice voting, proportional representation, the incompatibility between democracy and capitalism, and so on. And these are not partisan issues. They’re only partisan issues, if you’re an antidemocratic partisan, a fascist, or an authoritarian. Otherwise, we all have the common sense to identify basic democratizing features of a healthy democracy. These are undisputable conclusions about a healthy democracy versus a diseased democracy, which have been accumulated after listening to voices advocating for social justice for decades. When you listen to voices for peace and justice for years and decades, it’s hard not to learn basic truths over time. Yet, somehow, some people never learn anything. They still haven’t grasped the fundamental contradictions within capitalism, for example. Only willful ignorance seems adequate to explain this. The underlying presuppositions of such liberals deny all of these realities and begin with the false left-right paradigm, in which the Democrat Party is assumed to be a sincere opposition party, when, in fact, as Chris Hedges, Ralph Nader, et al, have long admitted, we have a two-party dictatorship because America has undergone a corporate coup d’etat decades ago. But you’d never know any of this from listening to liberals, such as this particular host.
[ 3 ] Economic Update with Richard Wolff… Your author left Kansas City in mid-2015 before one of Dr. Wolff’s then-recurring visits to UMKC (then a hotbed of MMT); so he was unable to ask Dr. Wolff why he does that. Presumably, Dr. Wolff avoids informing his audience of MMT because he sees it as liberal (i.e., pro-capitalist or non-anti-capitalist), reformist bullshit (i.e., communication intended to persuade without regard for truth, as philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt defined “bullshit”).
[ 4 ] VOMENA… Thankfully, based on personal interactions and being a longtime VOMENA listener, VOMENA staff didn’t seem to be politically allied with the liberal (i.e., pro-capitalist or non-anti-capitalist, i.e., non-pacifist/war apologists) faction at KPFA and its LSB, the faction known as KPFA Forward, which then changed its name to Concerned Listeners, then to SaveKPFA (co-opting the original Save KPFA moniker coined by the grassroots, listener activists, who defended the station in 1999 from a liberal coup d’état of sorts led by Mary Frances Berry and Lynn Chadwick, with apparent support from Janet Reno and the Clinton administration. From speaking to one of the liberal faction’s followers after a Chris Hedges event in Berkeley on 26 SEP 2022, the liberal KPFA faction has changed its name again. The name changes are done, evidently, to try and shed their negative reputation, as listeners see their true imperialist colors. The liberal news bosses (e.g., Aileen Alfandary, Mark Mericle, et al) and program hosts (e.g., Brian Edwards-Tiekert, Mitch Jeserich, et al) at KPFA cannot serve two masters; they cannot uncritically amplify establishment narratives, including the presuppositions that US-funding of war in Ukraine or Yemen, for example, are reasonable foreign policies, which warrant no critique, whilst claiming to be pacifists, faithful to the pacifist Pacifica Radio Network Mission Statement.
[ 5 ] It’s Going Down is usually a disappointing program for leftists, as it functions as a synthetic left shill for the establishment by perpetuating the false left-right paradigm whereby the Republican Party and the ‘far-right’ are usually framed as the bogeymen, of which listeners must be wary. Meanwhile, the Democrat Party is usually let off the hook, usually not critiqued as sharply as the Republican Party. It’s usually (and insidiously) implied that the Democrat Party is some sort of opposition party to the Republican Party. Of course, this implicit framing is absurd. So, occasionally, a word or two of critique of the Democrat Party is allowed to allow for plausible deniability, if publicly challenged on this point. But the critique of the Democrat Party is usually lopsided enough to frame rightists as the only political villains, when most Democrats, if not all, are also rightists, if not centrists. Democrat Party operatives are not leftists (i.e, anti-capitalists or non-anti-capitalists). Two-party systems are polarizing and anti-democratic. (Cf. “America’s Stunted Political Spectrum” by Second Thought [via YouTube], 24 APR 2020; “America’s Corporate Two-Party Duopoly [Two-Party Dictatorship]” by Second Thought [via YouTube], 25 SEP 2020.) This subtle and insidious style of Democrat Party apologism, exemplified by It’s Going Down, which perpetuates a false left-right paradigm, is aided by the anonymous host and recurring interview guests (presumably the host’s friends or political allies, usually the same few people) posturing as “anarchists”, which ostensibly means electoral politics are a low priority in an anarchist discourse, which shuns the state. (Notably, guests are often also anonymous or merely identified by a first name or a nickname. Hiding behind anonymity is bullshit, as sharp observers, such as Chris Hedges have acknowledged.) Anarchist posturing is convenient for Democrat Party shills because it allows them to focus their discourse on anything but challenging the two-party dictatorship in the USA, prevents working class listeners from thinking about and contributing to meaningful third-party politics, ranked-choice voting, a national popular vote interstate compact, or viable electoral reforms. Anarchist posturing redirects social justice critique and political critique away from the Democrat Party, away from the two-party dictatorship (as Ralph Nader described it), and narrowly towards the Republican Party. If listeners listen to It’s Going Down regularly, they will be led to believe that ignoring the federal government, ignoring electoral politics, refusing to build a viable opposition party for the working class, picking fights with rightist protesters on the streets, and simply squatting in abandoned buildings to engage in mutual aid and cultural activities will lead social justice warriors to some panacea or utopia. This is naïve, as the Occupy Wall Street movement learned during President Obama’s nationwide crackdown on Occupy movement encampments, in a coordinated operation involving many of the nation’s big city mayors. Unless ostensible anarchists buy property and buy into the capitalist system, the Feds will come sooner or later to infiltrate and/or clean house, until NATSEC goons are put out of business by an enlightened populace. But don’t expect It’s Going Down to challenge NATSEC, the CIA, the Democrat Party, the two-party dictatorship, or the status quo any time soon, as the program appears to be part of the Democrat Party apologist faction at KPFA, which includes the KPFA news bosses, Aileen Alfandary and Mark Mericle, as well as most of the public affairs programmers, including Brian Edwards-Tiekert, Mitch Jeserich, Kris Welch, Sasha Lilley, C.S. Soong, and their ideological allies across the Pacifica Radio Network, such as Leonard Lopate (WBAI), Sonali Kolhatkar (KPFK), Stephanie Miller (KPFK), Amy Goodman (ex-WBAI), et al. Amy Goodman is like the patron saint of such liberals (i.e., pro-capitalists or non-anti-capitalists) and wannabe sellouts. Democracy Now! used to be a hard-hitting, adversarial newscast. Now, Amy Goodman is a millionaire and Democracy Now! is no longer willing to be honest about various things, including the two-party dictatorship, 9/11, COVID-19, and US/NATO imperialism. As Danny Haiphong wrote in 2021, “[Democracy Now!] has become a reliable platform for uncritical regime change propaganda, demonizing targets of US empire from Syria to Nicaragua.” Amy Goodman, now a millionaire associated with the Ford Foundation and the establishment, is clearly compromised, a class traitor, who has betrayed the original mission of Democracy Now!, betrayed the Pacifica Mission Statement, and betrayed the working class, yet represents the aspirations of the cynical liberals (i.e., pro-capitalists or non-anti-capitalists), who are transforming the Pacifica Radio Network into a propaganda vehicle for the Democrat Party. Shame on all of them. And shame on us listeners, who have abandoned the Pacifica Radio Local Station Boards (LSB) and allowed democratic governance of KPFA and all Pacifica Radio stations to be dominated by liberals, like Brian Edwards-Tiekert abusing Robert’s Rules of Order and parliamentary procedures at the Local Station Board meetings and the Pacifica National Board meetings. Your author sat through many LSB meetings and even ran for the KPFA LSB in 2010, so this perspective comes from direct experience, observation, and research. If you care about free speech radio, please form groups or join others in the struggle to take back KPFA and the Pacifica Radio Network from establishment shills, who only perpetuate or amplify establishment narratives. These partisans, as Bob Marley sang in “Babylon System”, are “deceiving the people continually…” Once free speech advocates expose and shun establishment shills from free speech radio, who undermine free speech and stifle dissent, the task will be to expand free speech radio across the nation and the world, terrestrial radio and digital radio. Pacifica Radio programs, like Project Censored, Guns and Butter (censored by Pacifica), Flashpoints, On the Ground, The Gary Null Show, Covid, Race & Democracy, Sojourner Truth, and What’s The Verdict with Wendell Harper (retired, ex-KPFA) are examples of the best of honest, hard-hitting, yet compassionate free speech radio, truly honoring the Pacifica Radio Mission Statement.
[06 JAN 2023]
[Last modified/edited/updated on 23 MAR 2023 at 20:03 PDT]
Lumpenproletariat 