LUMPENPROLETARIAT—[Friday, 03 MAR 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, looming food crisis, 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, geoengineering, chemical cloud seeding, endocrine disrupting chemicals in the food and water, a worsening global fertility crisis, and industry-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.)
I think our priority should not be electoral politics. I think our priority should be building, disciplined, organized, militant popular movements. And electoral politics can be part of that movement, but shouldn’t be the primary focus. We have to rebuild those organizations because the only strength we have is in our numbers. And, if we use those numbers correctly, we can pit power against power. But that requires organization.
Chris Hedges (quoted from a 2021 talk at Brooklyn College)
OTHER SALIENT OBSERVATIONS:
- “After Socrates: Episode 11 – Proper Proportions & The Right Mode | Dr. John Vervaeke” by John Vervaeke [via YouTube], 3 MAR 2023. [1hr 29min 24sec] NOTES: [transcript-worthy (TW)] ‘Love isn’t an emotion. It is something expressed through various emotions. Love is an existential stance.’ [Brilliant! Absolutely, brilliant, Prof. Vervaeke! ] … (c. 12min 06sec) ‘There’s a quote from [philosopher David] Hume [1711-1776], who’s, of course, not a Platonist; but, nevertheless, it’s an important idea: We don’t—sort of—directly do evil; we fail to love wisely. And the idea that we pursue a lesser good at the expense of a greater good.” … (c. 12min 30sec) … (c. 29min 06sec) ‘Apter’s reversal theory‘ [NB: Michael J. Apter is a British psychologist at Cardiff University in Wales. Apter’s work has been mainly in personality, in particular reversal theory. ] (c. 29min 17sec) … (c. 36min 22sec) ‘Play is how intelligent organisms develop.’ … | COMMENTS: Wow! What a brilliant presentation! Your author highly recommends this. But, if the terminology and concepts are too new, or unknown, your author highly recommends working through the previous lecture series entitled “Awakening From the Meaning Crisis.” In “Awakening”, Prof. Vervaeke defines all technical terms across 50 lectures of about an hour each. And he builds everything up, like a great towering structure. So, all the cognitive science, psychology and a bunch of other fields of study make sense in a highly accessible way for anybody new to philosophy, cognitive science, and psychology, for people, as he says, who have a genuine existential interest. “After Socrates” expands on the concepts from “Awakening” as well as develops an ecology of practices to realize, to make real, and to help us make practical use of the propositions. So, we get, not just procedural knowing, knowing how to do something, not just propositional knowing, knowing something is true, but also perspectival knowing (embodied perception), and participatory knowing (acting with more wisdom than we could before), within an agent-arena relationship or environment. Gosh, your author just can’t say enough good things about this project of Dr. Vervaeke, of helping us all, together, awaken from the meaning crisis, helping us be better prepared to take on the monumental challenges before us, not just existential crisis, but all of the societal crises, crises enmeshed in other crises. As Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh would say, being peace: “For things to reveal themselves to us, we need to be ready to abandon our views about them.” “You are not an observer; you are a paricipant.” Even self-defense becomes more peaceful, like Judo or a “gentle way” of using an opponent’s momentum and weight against them to subdue them with the least amount of harm. Your author thinks of all the foolish things he’s said or written or done, and humbles himself, strives to be a better person than he was yesterday. He is trying, fellow readers, as we are all. | “I would not look upon anger as something foreign to me that I have to fight… I have to deal with my anger with care, with love, with tenderness, with nonviolence.” —Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, Being Peace
- “Europeans Protest the Proxy War” by usefulidiots [via YouTube], 3 MAR 2023. [44min 51sec] | QUOTATION FROM THUMBNAIL IMAGE: “WE’RE WAKING UP” | NOTES: Hosts: Katie Halper and Aaron Maté | ‘FOUR FOOD GROUPS’ segments – 1. “Democrats Suck” segment, a critique of a Democracy Now! ‘woke-washing’ news story … | 2. “Republicans Suck” segment … ‘Governor Bill Lee, a former drag high school picture reveals his hypocrisy… … | 3. (c. 6min 10sec) “Isn’t That Weird” segment … 4. … | [TW] (c. 11min 45sec) ‘This week’s guest is Glen Diesen, Professor at Southeastern University of Norway (USN)’ [cf. Wikipedia entry] on facing ad hominem attacks and other logical fallacies during these ‘strange times’ of gaslighting and uncritical acceptance of pro-US/NATO imperialist, prowar establishment narratives … | (c. 29min 00sec) clip of CNN “town hall” with imperialist Samantha Power, gaslighting the audience [Also see previous analysis by The Grayzone, which contrasted past “town halls”, such as with Madeline Albright, who was challenged by informed, critical people. Today, these fake ‘town halls’ are controlled environments, where no one is allowed to ask critical questions.] … [Full interview is at Substack…]
- MINING MEMORY HOLES:
- “Panel: Are Vaccine Passports ‘Inevitable” And Should They Be Resisted?” by The Hill [via YouTube], 30 MAR 2021. [10min 57sec] | This is an important issue, but a perpetually disappointing program. Of course, Krystal Ball is a Democrat Party partisan, apologist. Saagar Enjeti is a Republican Party partisan. And Emily Jashinsky is a rightist libertarian, a contradiction in terms, in your author’s humble opinion. So, your author expects from this trio lying by omission, obfuscation, and so on. Maximillian Alvarez seems like a leftist (i.e., anticapitalist); so it was surprising to hear his rather milquetoast arguments against the totalitarian proposal for ‘vaccine passports, or segregating society by banishing from society those who refuse to submit to dangerous, experimental gene therapy drugs, ostracizing from jobs, from schools, from communitas the non-compliant, who insist on defending their bodily autonomy. #MedicalApartheid. Your author is shaking his head in disbelief, listening to this phony ‘debate’. But, then, your author is not so good at compromising on certain things. Some things are red lines, where we draw a proverbial line in the sand, we draw healthy boundaries, and say, not one step further, or I will be forced to defend myself. The COVID-19 psyop is a red line for your author. The totalitarians have crossed a red line. So, now, we must all defend ourselves from their abusiveness. The global power elite (e.g., Anthony Fauci, Bill Gates, Michael Callahan (CIA), Robert Kadlec, Albert Bourla (Pfizer), Rochelle Wolensky (CDC), et al.) have gone too far this time. They must be held accountable for crimes against humanity. Now, in 2023, it seems the totalitarians previously pushing for the so-called “Vaccine Passports” and medical apartheid have backed off on that—at least in the USA—at least for now. Thankfully, enough of us have made enough noise and spoken out enough to fend off, if only momentarily, the biosecurity state agenda, which seeks to impose totalitarian controls under false pretenses of public health. But we, the people, have got something just as bad or worse to watch out for now, to refuse and resist—central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), programmable money, which is threatening to push us into a cashless society. What’s wrong with a cashless society? With a purely digital currency, the state can repress First Amendment-protected activity by cutting off access to one’s own bank account(s), as Klaus Schwab mentee and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau did to the Canadian truckers standing up for bodily autonomy, for human rights, and against medical apartheid. And that’s just one of the myriad problems CBDCs pose for humanity. And, if you think you’ll be safe because you are not now, nor will you ever be, a dissident. Think again. Totalitarianism eventually turns everyone into a dissident. But, once enough totalitarian controls are in place, there will be nowhere to hide. As Robert F. Kennedy, Jr has emphasized recently, Nobody has ever complied their way out of totalitarianism. This is a hill upon which we must be willing to defend ourselves, to the death, if need be. They have indoctrinated our kids at school to get these injections, which don’t make sense, for crying out loud. Some of us, as parents, have had our parental rights violated by the state pushing these experimental gene therapy drugs on our children, even had our children injected without our parental consent! Whether it’s injection mandates, which don’t make sense, or it’s “vaccine passports” and medical apartheid, or CBDCs, something big, something ominous is afoot. Please pay attention. And, please, keep raising up your voice in the public square, whether digitally or physically. Peace be unto you. | Thanks to Facebook user Joseph Espinal for sharing this video and for exercising his #FreedomOfSpeech.
@LumpenProles, last modified/edited/updated on 12 MAR 2023 at 13:27 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 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, 3 March 2023
Please read this book, if you haven’t already…
*The opinions expressed by the hosts, guests, journalists, authors, and other speakers in today’s sampling of news and information are not necessarily the views of Lumpenproletariat.
The free speech Pacifica Radio Network, perhaps the world’s oldest listener-sponsored, definitely the world’s first and only listener-owned radio network, includes KPFA (the first Pacifica Radio station; Berkeley, CA), WBAI (NYC), KPFK (Los Angeles), WPFW (D.C.), and KPFT (Houston), and has many other affiliate stations. The U.S. government, having undergone a corporate coup d’état in slow motion (if not a military coup on 22 NOV 1963), and being inimical to the Bill of Rights, is opposed to free speech radio. After the 1999 KPFA Lockouts, listeners won democratic governance of the Pacifica Radio Network. Unfortunately, since then, a liberal (i.e., pro-capitalist or non-anti-capitalist) faction, including KPFA news bosses (Aileen Alfandary, Mark Mericle, et al.), have colluded to undermine democratic governance and to NPR-ize Pacifica Radio. Free speech Pacifica Radio is your radio network, built to broadcast news and information, which the establishment tries to distort or hide from you. We cannot hope for a democratic society without an informed citizenry. Please support free speech Pacifica Radio. Become a member with full voting rights for as little as $25 per year. Then, hold your Pacifica Radio stations accountable and keep Pacifica Radio true to the Pacifica Mission Statement. Then, help expand free speech radio and digital media. Most media/press is state-corporate propaganda. The airwaves belong to the people. Don’t let Democrat partisans colonize free speech radio. Don’t let Democrat partisans keep the working-class imaginary confined within the false left-right paradigm, within the false opposition party that is the Democrat Party, within the corporate two-party dictatorship. The working-class needs institutional power to build political power, not just cultural awareness or cultural celebration, not just “identity politics”, which are mostly cultural, not political, concerns. Political education is as necessary for working-class liberation, as it is central to the Pacifica Mission Statement. Unfortunately, the Democrat Party, the two-party system, the establishment is dumbing down America. And this process of depoliticization and demobilization is being advanced within Pacifica Radio by certain people, apparently connected to the Democrat Party and/or the U.S. government. Please support free speech Pacifica Radio; then, hold it accountable to its Mission Statement. Oust the sophists. Lift up the truth-seekers. This daily column is dedicated to the Pacifica Mission Statement, dedicated to exposing sophistry and deception, dedicated to the liberation of the working-class through communication, dia logos, encouraging mindful action within and between wisdom-cultivating communities. As Einstein suggested, like Socrates before him, the important thing is to not stop questioning.
21:00 PST / 00:00 EST, WBAI [NYC] > Jimmy Dore Show
NOTES: [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet]
05:00 PST, KPFA [Berkeley, CA] > 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 [Berkeley, CA] > 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]
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 [D.C.] > On The Ground with Esther Iverem
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 [day], [date] (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 [Berkeley, CA] > 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 [NYC] > Heart of Mind with Kathryn Davis
NOTES: [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet]
08:00 PST, KPFA [Berkeley, CA] > A Rude Awakening with Sabrina Jacobs
NOTES: [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet]
08:00 PST / 11:00 EST, WPFW [D.C.] > 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 [NYC] & PRN.Live (livestream) [NYC] > The Gary Null Show
NOTES/COMMENTS (re: Gary Null Show for Friday, 3 MAR 2023, PRN.Live livestream): [transcript-worthy (TW)] […] (09:07 PST) Health & Healing Information: ‘carnitine…’ | Results from Dr. Gary Null’s recent anti-aging study
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 [Berkeley, CA] > 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 [Los Angeles, CA] > Thom Hartmann Program
NOTES: [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet]
10:00 PST / 13:00 EST, PRN.Live [NYC] > Leid Stories with Utrice Leid
NOTES: Utrice Leid, live. [TW] … | (10:30 PST) Utrice cut her live segment short due to a doctor’s appointment. (10:30 PST) [TW] ‘Jeremiah from Harlem’ called in with another thoughtful commentary, including “carefully” stating we, the people, have a right to make the government fear us… [Indeed, better that, than the other way around…] Other callers exercised their First Amendment right to free speech.
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, Utrice Leid. Unlike other call-in shows, like Thom Hartmann, Kris Welch, Mitch Jeserich, and many others on free speech Pacifica Radio, on Leid Stories, callers aren’t screened or filtered, dissonant voices aren’t cut short, or otherwise handled to control the narrative. Instead, the host, Utrice Leid, helps callers make their point, as long as it’s a cogent argument. Utrice Leid encourages critical thinking. On Fridays, the discussion theme is “Free Your Mind Fridays”, where listeners are invited to call in to articulate an opinion on any topic they wish. KPFA listeners deserve a radio host, like Utrice 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 [Los Angeles, CA] > 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 [NYC] > 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 [Berkeley, CA] > 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 [D.C.] > Latino Media Collective
NOTES: [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet]
11:00 PST, PRN.Live [NYC] > Alternative Visions with Dr. Jack Rasmus
NOTES: Red flags in the US economy. [TW] On the state of the US economy, with a focus on the state of the U.S. Social Security trust fund. A looming ‘sovereign wealth fund’ is a pathway to the ‘privatization’ of the U.S. Social Security trust fund.
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 [Berkeley, CA] > Voices of the Middle East and North Africa (VOMENA)
QUOTATION FROM RADIO ARCHIVE DESCRIPTION: “The richly diverse and fascinating world of culture and politics of the Middle East and North Africa, co-hosted by Khalil and Malihe.”
NOTES: [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet]
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 [D.C.] > Resistance Radio with John Kane and Regan de Loggans
NOTES: [notes pending; author 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 [NYC] > Guns and Butter with Bonnie Faulkner
NOTES: Interview guest: James Bacque(sp?) on ‘overstepping the bounds of [orthodox?] history’ … book: Other Losses … (12:01 PST) [channel change (CC)] … (12:04 PST) [tuned back in] … [tuned out, coworker keeps socializing with me] (12:06 PST) [tuned back in, but portable digital device battery dead] (12:07 PST) [tuned out] | (12:48 PST) [tuned back in] ‘the horror of the Soviet regime’ Bonnie Faulkner: ‘…What was the consequence of you overstepping the bounds of orthodox history?’ Guest: ‘I’m bankrupt…and I can’t publish, anymore…’ ‘GoFund Me’ … … ‘mass graves’ [Eisenhower’s] death camps’ [TW] | #DeepPolitics
12:00 PDT / 15:00 EDT, WBAI [NYC] > Live On The Fly with Randy Credico
NOTES: [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet]
12:00 PDT, KPFA [Berkeley, CA] > It’s Going Down with anonymous male-sounding host
NOTES: [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet]
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 [D.C.] > Jazz and Justice – Bobby Rox
NOTES: [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet]
13:00 PDT, KPFA [Berkeley, CA] > Project Censored with Mickey Huff (pre-empted) > Fund Drive Rerun with Brian Edwards-Tiekert
NOTES: This program is inaccurately and deceptively labeled as “Project Censored” on the KPFA.org website radio archive. | […] (13:05 PST) [Sounds like Paul Stamets(sp?) on mycelium…fascinating stuff, but this sounds like a rerun…the synthetic left charlatans at KPFA (Brian Edwards-Tiekert, et al; not Mickey Huff, et al.] like to entertain us into passivity, to demobilize us, to depoliticize us, always pushing psychedelics on us, so we can be tripping balls, whilst learning nothing, whilst perpetually making the same mistakes as a working class… Shame on them. Use of psychedelics is liable to folly and foolisness, lack of wisdom, in the absence of a wisdom-cultivating community. No shade on Stamets(sp?). But his content is being used in the context of Brian Edwards-Tiekert’s radio programming to keep the working-class ignorant of reality, of the full big picture, of politics, especially ignorant of deep politics. (cf. Dr. Peter Dale Scott, Guns and Butter, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Dr. Gary Null, et al.) … ‘almond orchards in the California Valley’ … ‘deformed wing virus’ [Definitely a rerun…] 1315 CC
13:00 PDT / 16:00 EDT, WBAI [NYC] > Sojourner Truth with Margaret Prescod
NOTES: [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet]
14:00 PDT / 17:00 EDT, WPFW [D.C.] > Sojourner Truth with Margaret Prescod
NOTES: [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet]
14:00 PDT / 17:00 EDT, WBAI [NYC] > 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 / 18:00 EDT, WPFW [D.C.] > News Views with Garland Nixon
NOTES: [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet]
16:00 PDT, KPFA [Berkeley, CA] > Hard Knock Radio with Davey D
NOTES: [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet]
17:00 PDT, KPFA [Berkeley, CA] & KPFK [simulcast] [Los Angeles, CA] > Flashpoints with Dennis Bernstein
NOTES: [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet]
18:00 PDT, KPFA [Berkeley, CA] & KPFK [simulcast] [Los Angeles, CA] > The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays
NOTES: [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet]
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 [Berkeley, CA] > La Onda Bajita
NOTES: [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet]
22:00 PDT, KPFA [Berkeley, CA] > The History of Funk
NOTES: [notes pending; 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.
[03 MAR 2023]
[Last modified/edited/updated on 12 MAR 2023 at 12:29 PDT]
Lumpenproletariat 