LUMPENPROLETARIAT—[Tuesday, 14 MAR 2023]  Greetings, fellow readers. 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 surveillance, repression, and lockdowns, COVID-19 psyop, 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.)

Of course, the big news today continues to be the ongoing banking crisis.  The other big news story, which is developing, but which your author hasn’t had time to dig into is the Congressional Subcommittee hearing on the origins of COVID-19, i.e., the Wuhan Cover-Up.  But Robert F. Kennedy, Jr’s forthcoming book on that topic, The Wuhan Cover-Up: How US Health Officials Conspired with the Chinese Military to Hide the Origins of COVID-19 (Children’s Health Defense), is doubtless a must-read. (cf. Amazon link)

But, as far as the banking crisis, your author is content to share with you Geopolitical Economy Report‘s discussion with Dr. Michael Hudson on the past week’s systemic fragility events in the US banking system.  Now, this is one of the perspectives your author has been anticipating the most, since he first heard of the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank on Friday (10 MAR 2023) from Dr. Jack Rasmus via PRN.Live on his weekly radio program, Alternative Visions.  By then, Silvergate Bank had already collapsed on Wednesday (8 MAR 2023).  And, over the weekend, Signature Bank also collapsed on Sunday (12 MAR 2023).  According to Joe Blogs, Silvergate, which was the first to collapse dealt with a lot of the crypto markets.  Silicon Valley Bank specialized in banking for the venture capital community, particularly tech sector startups.  And, as Joe Blogs noted today, Signature Bank is commonly misrepresented in the news media as a ‘crypto bank’.  However, ‘only 14% of its assets were related to the corporates in the crypto markets.’  Since the Silicon Valley bank collapse occurred over the weekend, along with Signature Bank, that gave the Biden administration time to set up a loan scheme to try and stop the contagion of bank panic and bank runs.  However, asserts Joe Blogs, only $25 billion have been allotted, whilst the potential losses are on the order of over $1 trillion dollars. 

It’s important to note that the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 separated commercial banks (i.e., regular banks, which working-class people must use) from speculative banks (i.e., banks, which gamble with money and prioritize profit motive).  Of course, capitalist types (i.e., people, who prioritize capital over labor) have partially repealed the Glass-Steagall Act, which has now allowed commercial banks (i.e., regular banks…) to make risky investments with people’s deposits.  Also, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) was created by the Banking Act of 1933 during the Global Great Depression to restore people’s confidence in commercial banks, after bankers had gambled with people’s deposits and lost many people’s money.  So, the FDIC promised to insure people’s deposits up to a certain amount.  That way, if a bank fails for whatever reason, the FDIC will make depositors whole up to $250,000 per bank account.

The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) is the second-largest bank failure in US history! That’s major news.  There were lines of people standing outside of SVB in Santa Clara, lined up to get their money out. And, of course, there was a critical mass of people online trying to move their money out of SVB crashing the system, or forcing the banksters to shut it down. Only so many people were able to get their money out.  Then, they closed the door and promised to open up on Monday morning, yesterday.  But most of those people were CEOs of small and medium-sized companies, tech startups, with large sums on the order of millions or tens of millions of dollars.  As one CEO said, a woman with a vegetable delivery tech startup company said getting back only $250,000 is nothing when she had “eight figures” in SVB.  So, many of these companies are struggling to make payroll; and that will create waves across society. 

Also salient is the role of mortgage-backed securities (MSBs) in the failure of SVB, which, of course, were one of the main culprits in the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) of 2007/08—well MSBs and fraud (i.e., white-collar crime or corporate fraud), as one of your author’s former UMKC professors, Prof. William K. Black has written about and discussed extensively in public, including on the Bill Moyers program.  It’s as if we, as a society, refuse to learn from past mistakes, to learn from history.  Certainly, these bank failures last week may be one-off events, but, as Joe Blogs points out in his video today, six other banks are now at risk of collapse.  And Dr. Jack Rasmus has been tweeting about indicators, which are pointing to which banks may be next.  So, this is increasingly looking like a sign of another Global Financial Crisis, which could affect us all in various ways.

Again, Dr. Jack Rasmus is one of the macroeconomic analysts, your author recommends.  But, since Dr. Jack Rasmus’ radio show, Alternative Visions, is only produced on a weekly basis, your author has sifted through a variety of reporters on this week’s historic banking crisis to filter for readers some of the most accurate and reliable analysts in the world of banking and finance to help us track this global financial crisis. 

The perspectives your author has most anticipated are those from his alma mater, the economists (formerly) associated with the heterodox economics department at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.  Unfortunately, Dr. L. Randall Wray doesn’t seem to have been called on for interviews. He rarely does, it seems. Dr. Wray doesn’t seem to have written anything about the current banking crisis yet.  Although his work on Minsky’s Financial Instability Hypothesis is important for understanding the intensifying and recurring economic crises we are seeing throughout the years.  Prof. William K. Black is another good source; but his focus is on fraud and white-collar crime, or corporate fraud.  And, notably, fraud doesn’t seem to be a major factor in this past week’s banking crisis.  This is an important point, which Dr. Michael Hudson makes in today’s Geopolitical Economy Report because that means that systemic fragility best explains the cause of this banking crisis, which threatens to lead to another Global Financial Crisis.  In other words, capitalism is proving itself unstable, again. Capitalism keeps failing over and over again. Yet, its propagandists say it’s the best possible economic system.

As Dr. Jack Rasmus pointed out last week, banks used to keep around 20% in cash reserves.  Then, banksters lobbied government to lower and lower the cash reserve requirements to the point where, nowadays, banks lend out some 98% to 99% of their funds!  Imagine how fragile a banking system is with, basically, no reserves on hand.  This is why Joe Blogs keeps emphasizing in his video reports that the banking system is completely reliant on banking customer confidence (cf. confidence trick), because any nervousness on the part of customers can very easily trigger bank runs.  And, as soon as a bank panic occurs, nobody wants to be at the back of the line to get their money out of a failing bank and risk losing their funds.  The fact that ‘nervousness’ can quake the economic house of cards is another way of describing the systemic fragility, which Dr. Jack Rasmus has been writing about whereby any nervousness on the part of bank depositors can cause banking panic contagion and threaten to collapse the banking system.  For more on that topic, check out Dr. Jack Rasmus’ 2015 book, Systemic Fragility in the Global Economy, which expands on the work of Keynes, Minsky, and others. 

Dr. Stephanie Kelton is on Twitter; she’s another good source of accurate and reliable information.  New Economic Perspectives, which used to be run by Dr. Kelton, was a good source. Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear to be updated consistently now.  Certainly, all of the featured writers at New Economic Perspectives are good sources as well. Dr. Kelton does write regularly nowadays at Substack.  So, that’s good because she is one of the few people out there, who—as Dr. John F. Henry said, perhaps tongue in cheek (because she was one of his students at Sacramento State University), when he introduced Dr. Kelton at her awesome “Angry Birds Approach to Understanding Deficits” presentation, he said, “The point is that she knows what she’s talking about.”  Your author dearly misses, Dr. Henry.  He was a beloved professor.  Life is too short. Your author looked forward to every lecture with Dr. Henry.  Your author just can’t say enough good things about the years he spent at the heterodox economics department at UMKC.  Your author’s point, here, is none of us ought to pretend to know what we don’t know.  But, as Utrice Leid reminds us on her excellent radio show, Leid Stories with Utrice Leid (PRN.Live):  It’s important for us to form an opinion and to express that opinion, to express ourselves.  We all gotta sharpen our communication skills, to learn to articulate what we are thinking, so we can make sense of the world around us, together, as Prof. John Vervaeke says, dialectic into dia-logos. And that requires practice. 

There are a lot of popular pundits out there.  But, unfortunately, many of them don’t truly know what they’re talking about, despite having so many followers.  It’s fine to have limited knowledge.  We all have to begin somewhere. Sometimes, simple common sense is all we need.  But the important thing is to not pretend to know what we don’t know.  It’s important to avoid being a phony or a bullshitter.  (Bullshit, here, is a technical term, as defined by philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt in his 2005 book, On Bullshit, which he defines as communication intended to persuade without regard for truth.)  A liar is different from a bullshitter.  Lying is bad enough; but bullshitting is the worst.. This is why your author seeks to recommend to you, fellow readers, only people, who truly know what they’re talking about.  Your author is just like most of you, not a professional economist, nor academic, nor expert, just a working-class bloke, who tries to stay informed. These remarks about this blog’s purpose are primarily addressing some of the reader’s complaints in the comments section.

So, your author is no oracle, only someone willing to share pages from his private journals publicly and someone who isn’t going to pretend to know what he doesn’t know, especially when he doesn’t have expertise in a field. Your author is a student of economics, but not a professional economist. The only things your author promises to readers are honesty and sincerity.  Outside of that, your author works hard to keep learning and sharing what he’s learning. We gotta learn together. The shared content and commentaries are for fellow readers, but the “NOTES” included below in this series of columns are mainly for your author’s future reference, especially since they usually must be written hastily, in between doing other tasks of the day’s rat race.  The sharing of links and other people’s content is the main service, which this daily column aims to provide for fellow readers.  As far as actual analysis, your author defers to experts and professionals, except where your author holds strong convictions borne of years or decades of experience.  Occasionally, your author has strong opinions to share; so, he does—hence the third-person tense.  This column is not meant to be a personal subjective perspective, but a perspective as objective as possible.  The main point of this Plandemic Dystopia series is to share information, which your author thinks is important for all of us to consider because these societal developments affect us all.

With that in mind, one of the clearest reporters on the current banking crisis on YouTube right now, as noted above, is Joe Blogs, who has been producing articulate, technical, yet accessible presentations of about a half-hour in length almost daily.  Joe Blogs provides his audience with a good foundation, from which to understand this historic banking crisis.  One aspect, which your author finds lacking, however, from Joe Blogs’ presentations is the political dimension to this current banking crisis.  Joe Blogs tends to stick to basic neoclassical (as opposed to heterodox) economics principles and middle-of-the-road perspectives, and stating the facts, which is understandable.  But we must not overlook the political dimension.  To bring in more of the political economy aspects to this unfolding banking crisis, your author recommends reading Dr. Jack Rasmus’ writings and listening to his weekly radio show.  Dr. Rasmus is also on Twitter.  So, for those of you, who are interested in more frequent updates, his Twitter page and blogs are an excellent source of accurate information on the economy. 

However, adding political economy into the mix still leaves out geopolitical economy.  And that’s why Geopolitical Economy Report is also an excellent source to include in our assessments of reality.  That is why your author is looking forward to listening to today’s new discussion with Ben Norton and Dr. Michael Hudson. 

Your author’s dream team panel discussion on this banking crisis would definitely involve all of the aforementioned:  Dr. Michael Hudson, Dr. L. Randall Wray, Dr. Stephanie Kelton, Dr. Jack Rasmus, Prof. William K. Black, Marshall Auerback, and Joe Blogs, as well.  That would be a killer panel discussion.  But since we don’t have that.  We can look out for their writings, videos, and commentaries, along with any other perspectives you all think are worthwhile.  Please share any perspectives you think are worthwhile in the comments section.  Your author just went through the reader comments, which he shamefully neglected for years.  But that’s over now.  Your author has resolved to check the reader comments at least weekly, if not daily.  Thank you for reading.

Peace be unto you.

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 (i.e., meaningful, truth-seeking, truth-tracking) OBSERVATIONS:

• “The WEF and The End of Online Privacy” by Unlimited Hangout [via Rokfin], 14 MAR 2023. [1hr 17min 33sec] (Rokfin app provides best functionality.) [L4] “In this video, Whitney delves deep into the WEF’s [World Economic Forum’s] Partnership Against Cybercrime and how its efforts are aimed at eliminating financial and online privacy to pave the way for CBDCs [Central Bank Digital Currencies] and complete online surveillance.” [Show notes, including links to sources cited at UnlimitedHangout.com]
• “6 USA Banks at Risk of BANK RUNS as $1 Trillion Uninsured Deposits Raises Risks of Bank Failures” by Joe Blogs [via YouTube], 14 MAR 2023. [25min 53sec] [13:25 PDT] [TW]
• “Why 3 US banks collapsed in 1 week” by Geopolitical Economy Report [via YouTube], 14 MAR 2023. [1hr 02min 08sec] [13:00 PDT] [TW] | NOTES: … (c. 24min 10sec) Dr. Michael Hudson: ‘The depositors [of SVB], we know that 80% were people, like Peter Thiel [i.e., “Peter Andreas Thiel is a German-American billionaire entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and political activist. A co-founder of PayPal, Palantir Technologies, and Founders Fund, he was the first outside investor in Facebook. (Wikipedia)“] […] well-connected rich people, who were […] the major depositors […] They talk to each other. And, when they see that there’s no way the bank can pay them anywhere near the 4.2% [profit yield] anymore [because, as Joe Blogs said, those bonds were purchased when interest rates and, thus, profit yields were low; and they’re seeing high interest rates, which means they could move their money into higher-yield bonds elsewhere now], they jump ship. And that’s exactly what happened. They talk to each other. And there was a run on the bank. Now, most people think that a run on the bank [is] the madness of crowds. This wasn’t the madness of crowds. The crowd was not mad. The bank may have been mad. But the crowd was perfectly rational. They said, Look, I think the free lunch may be over. Let’s pull our money out. What we want now is not to hope and pray for a 4.2% return. Let’s just move for safety. If you have a billion dollars, you’re more concerned with keeping that billion dollars safe, than actually making an income on it. And I think that’s what happened.” (c. 25min 19sec) … Ben Norton: ‘…Pam Martins and Russ Martins over at Wall Street On Parade‘ … Dr. Michael Hudson: “They’ve done a wonderful job of following all this!” … | (c. 29min 00sec) Ben Norton: “Michael, I want to talk about the scheme, that the Federal Reserve has created in order to bail out Silicon Valley Bank and its clients without calling it a bailout.” (c. 29min 07sec) … (c. 39min 25sec) Ben Norton: “Professor Hudson, you’ve written an article about this, which is: “Why this banking system is breaking up“. […]. And you said the U.S. bank crisis is not over. And you warned that it could spread.” (c. 39min 37sec) … | (c. 49min 36sec) Ben Norton:  “If you look at a graph of asset price inflation, we see that it seems like the economy in the US is at a point where it’s so financialized, and it relies so much on these bubbles, that it doesn’t seem like it can survive without low interest rates and without quantitative easing. So, you’ve argued that this crisis is here to stay. There needs to be fundamental systemic change. It’s gonna either be stagflation, with the continuation of these policies of QE and low interest rates, or it’s going to be economic crisis like we’re seeing now.” | (c. 49min 55sec) Dr. Michael Hudson: “This is the corner into which the Fed has painted itself. We’re in the culminating part of the ‘Obama Depression.’ This is what Obama set in motion by bailing out the banks and supporting the banks instead of the economy as a whole. Obama and Geithner and Obama’s cabinet declared war on the economy by the 1%. And the amazing thing is that the economy doesn’t see how dangerous what he did was, and how consciously he sold out the voters, that had put their trust in him—to do everything he could to hurt them because the degree to which he could hurt the economy was the degree to which the 1%, the 10% was able to make a killing, that you just showed in the asset inflation chart. So, this is not the class interest that Marx talked about. It’s not the class interest of employers versus wage earners. It’s the financial class, its allied real estate and insurance class—the FIRE sector [i.e., finance, insurance, and real estate]—against the economy at large—the real economy of production and consumption. That is what we’re seeing, and something has to give. And in every case, both, the Republicans and the Democrats say, ‘If something has to give, we’re willing to shrink the economy in order to protect the financial, insurance, and real estate sector [i.e., the FIRE sector] from taking a loss because that’s where the 10% have it’s assets.’ We’re not in industrial capitalism anymore—we’re in finance capitalism. And the way that finance capitalism works is very different from the dynamics of industrial capitalism, as was forecast in the nineteenth century.” […] | While fraud didn’t play into the mechanics of what led to the ‘bank runs’ (or walks), regulatory capture and corruption did play a role. Ben Norton and Dr. Michael Hudson go on to discuss the regulatory capture of the banking system in today’s financial capitalism, which is distinct from industrial capitalism.  This is late-stage capitalism. which is distinct from industrial capitalism.  This is late-stage capitalism.  | The full transcript is available at Geopolitical Economy Report.
• MINING MEMORY HOLES:
  • “Exposing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac” by V for Voluntary Library [via YouTube], 16 SEP 2008. [26min 49sec] | Daryl Montgomery, exposing some of the contradictions of the U.S. mortgage loan market. | (c. 4min 35sec) “Probably few institutions in the United States, that are more corrupt than Fannie and Freddie. And it is frightening what went on. And it is probably still going on.”

@LumpenProles, last modified/edited/updated on 6 APR 2023 at 03:19 PDT.

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MEDIA 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 embedded 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. ✊🏽✊🏼✊🏿✊]

Tuesday, 14 March 2023

*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.

04:00 PST / 06:00 CST, KPFT [Houston, TX] > Flashpoints

NOTES:  [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet] 

04:00 PST / 06:00 CST, KPFT > The Thom Hartmann Program

NOTES:  [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet] 

COMMENTS: Thom Hartmann appears to come out of the 1960s SDS generation of antiwar activists. That fact makes his Democrat Party apologist tendencies all the more disappointing.

04:00 PST / 07:00 EST, WBAI [NYC] > What’s Going On! Tuesday with Bob Hennelly > Special with Dr. Gary Null

NOTES:  [L5] This program is mislabeled. The actual program is a special with Dr. Gary Null about a seminar with many doctors, including Dr. Peter McCullough, Dr. Pierre Kory, et al., sharing important information about recovering from the COVID-19 infections and injections. [TW] “Gary Null’s Rescue and Hope” is a thank-you gift for your pledge of support to free speech WBAI radio. Call 212.209-2950 or visit the WBAI website. …

05:00 PST, KPFA [Berkeley, CA] > Letters and Politics with Mitch Jeserich

NOTES:  [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet] 

COMMENTS: This 05:00 timeslot wastes a one-hour block on repeating the previous day’s show, as if this show was worthy of such repetition. [ 1 ]

05:00 PST / 07:00 CST / 08:00 EST, WBAI & KPFT & WPFW [D.C.] [simulcast] > Democracy Now!

NOTES:  [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet] 

COMMENTS: This show used to be a hard-hitting, adversarial newscast. Now, it’s mostly sellout entertainment with a liberal bias. [ 2 ]

06:00 PST, KPFA > Democracy Now!

NOTES:  [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet] 

COMMENTS: [also see comments above for earlier broadcast of this same daily episode]

06:00 PST / 09:00 EST, WBAI > Law and Disorder [pre-empted?] > Law of the Land with Gloria J. Browne-Marshall

NOTES:  [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet] 

COMMENTS: Gloria J. Browne-Marshall seems to have a great deal of integrity and honesty in her broadcasts.

07:00 PST / 10:00 EST, WBAI > Project Censored (pre-empted? cancelled?) > Clearing the FOG (Forces of Greed)

NOTES:  [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet] 

COMMENTS: This is one of the best (i.e., honest, hard-hitting description and solution/prescription-orientated) programs on the free speech Pacifica Radio Network, or anywhere, for that matter.

07:00 PST, KPFA > UpFront

NOTES:  [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet] 

COMMENTS: UpFront is among the worst Machiavellian perception management radio one can find, 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. [ 3 ]

08:00 PDT / 11:00 EDT, PRN.Live (NYC) > Project Censored with Mickey Huff

QUOTATIONS FROM PROJECT CENSORED PODCAST DESCRIPTION: “Mickey’s guest for the first half-hour is Mnar Adley, CEO and editor-in-chief of MintPress News. She explains Israel’s everyday brutality against Palestinians and how most Western media fail to cover it. She also points out the powerful interests that aim to discredit and defund independent media like MintPress for their coverage of the ongoing occupation. Then in the second half of the program, independent journalist Ann Garrison summarizes recent developments in the Horn of Africa region, and the Biden Administration’s efforts to undermine the governments there, even supporting the “Tigray” civil war in Ethiopia, which killed hundreds of thousands, and displaced millions. | Notes: Mnar Adley is the founder and editor-in-chief at MintPress News. She founded MintPress as a venue for accurate reporting on the Middle East and the US military-industrial complex. Ann Garrison is an independent journalist based in northern California. Her writing has appeared in the Black Agenda Report, the Grayzone, and the San Francisco Bayview. She is also a co-producer of Pacifica Radio’s “Covid, Race and Democracy.” She traveled to Ethiopia and Eritrea in 2022 to investigate conditions there first hand.”

NOTES/[COMMENTS]: Project Censored Podcast link for Tuesday, 14 MAR 2023. | 1. Mnar Adley interview. … (c. 25min 08sec) Minar Adley: “And, so, this is what I mean that the [Palestinian human rights, anticolonial] movement has been co-opted. Like, you’ll find people, who are promoting the idea of, like, critiquing Israel and the occupation of Palestine. But they’ll only allow you to have the conversation up to a certain point, where you can’t go as far as talking about Palestinian liberation and resistance.” [Yes! This is an important point, which Minar Adley is making about how infiltrators of pro-Palestinian movements subvert the goals of liberation and resistance to occupation. Your author has encountered the same exact thing with regard to the liberal (i.e. pro-capitalist or non-anti-capitalist) faction at free speech radio KPFA, such as Brian Edwards-Tiekert, Mitch Jeserich, and the news bosses, Aileen Alfandary and Mark Mericle. It’s just as Dr. Noam Chomsky has articulated over the years, including one video clip, which I wish I could find where he says, the discussion may only go but so far, and no further. For example, we may consider the following quotation from Dr. Noam Chomsky’s How the World Works (2013, Soft Skull Press), p. 234: “The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum – even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there’s free-thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.”] … Minar Adley: ‘We have several great podcasts. One of them is called The Watchdog by Lowkey…on our YouTube channel and another one is MintCast, hosted by myself and Alan MacLeod, and also Lee Camp‘s The Most Censored News on our YouTube channel. … | (c. 31min 05sec) music break, conscious hip hop … | (c. 32min 00sec) 2. Ann Garrison interview. [TW] … (c. 49min 48sec) Ann Garrison: “Eritrea is like the Cuba of Africa. I went to Eritrea; and I loved it. It was so peaceful. It was so beautiful. And the city, the main city there, Asmara, is an Italian modernist classic.” (c. 50min 06sec) […] (08:54 PST) Ann Garrison reporting on Somaliland, Somalia, and US intervention and/or imperialism in the horn of Africa. Host: Mickey Huff.

COMMENTS: Ann Garrison is one of the best independent journalists out there, definitely the go-to independent journalist on US imperialism and US political interventions in the African continent, an honest, truth-seeking journalist, unafraid to report the truth on the ground, even if it goes against the prevailing limited spectrum of ‘acceptable’ opinion. Similarly, Mnar Adley and MintPress News is one of the best independent news outlets around because of its unflinching honesty.

08:00 PST, KPFA > Law & Disorder with Cat Brooks

QUOTATIONS FROM RADIO ARCHIVE DESCRIPTION: “Electoral Recalls as a Conservative Tool; Plus, Oakland Teachers Rally on Wed | On today’s show we’ll take a deep dive into the history of electoral recall efforts, and then explore current recall efforts both locally and nationally. We’ll start with a conversation with Kathryn Olmsted, a history professor at UC Davis who studies anti-communist efforts and the roots of modern conservatism. She is the author of four books, with her most recent titled: Right Out of California: The 1930s and the Big Business Roots of Modern Conservatism. Kathryn has also been published in the New York Times discussing the recall effort against Gavin Newsom in 2021.

“Then, we speak with Joshua Spivak, author of Recall Elections: From Alexander Hamilton to Gavin Newsom. Joshua tracks recall efforts globally on his blog: recallelections.blogspot.com.

“Finally, our Resistance in Residence Artist this week is low impact painter and climate optimist Joelle Provost. Her works have been featured in the Zhou B Art Center in Chicago, Good Mother Gallery in Oakland, ROOM art gallery in Mill Valley, & Spacewomb Gallery in Manhattan. Joelle holds an MFA in Studio Art and Integrated Media from Brooklyn College. She has dedicated herself to using her art as a means for communicating issues of Environmental degradation and other problems of our modern world. Joelle is collaborating to plan a Regenerative Gala coming up on April 1st, 2023, which includes a sustainable fashion show and regenerative art sale. Learn more by checking out their website: www.WeAreTheGeneralPublic.com.

“Check out Joelle Provost’s website: https://www.joelleprovost.com/“

NOTES:  [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet] 

08:00 PST / 11:00 EST, WPFW > Community Watch & Comment – Tuesday

NOTES:  [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet] 

09:00 PDT / 12:00 EDT, WBAI (NYC) & PRN.Live (NYC) > The Gary Null Show

NOTES (re: The Gary Null Show for Tuesday, 14 MAR 2023, PRN.Live livestream): Health & Healing Information: Critique of inflammatory agents, such as ‘electromagnetic pulses’ and 5G radiation, wireless meter readers, and wireless communication towers, which “create inflammation”, and other causes. … (c. 09:18 PDT) A compound in seaweed, ‘fucoidan’, helps fight cancer cells… (c. 09:25 PDT)  A study from Newcastle University shows Mediterranean diet, rich in legumes, helps mitigate or reverse dementia.  … ‘Journal of Alzheimers Disease‘ … (09:27 PDT) … University of Leicester, red meat and trimethylamine(sp?)  |  (09:30 PDT) music break, “It’s Alright” classic soul song. | (09:31 PDT) Dr. Gary Null’ remembrances, including broadcasting on free speech radio KPFK (Pacifica Radio Network) “for 33 years”… | (09:34 PDT) Audio clip from Tulsi Gabbard on Nancy Pelosi’s insider trading, talking to “Jesse” … | (09:36 PDT) Back to Dr. Gary Null’s remarks, and asking for call-ins. | ‘Dr. Fleming(sp?)’, and “evidence” about the individuals, ‘who conspired to lie about COVID-19 agenda’ … ‘former CDC director has become a whistleblower ‘ | (09:39 PDT) clip, testimony from an unidentified woman in Congress about the Wuhan origins of COVID-19, questioning Dr. Redfield who communicated with Fauci (NIH), Tedros (WHO), and Farrar (of Wellcome Trust in UK, Fauci’s counterpart in the UK)…who communicated with Fauci, Tedros, and Farrar (of Wellcome Trust in UK, Fauci’s counterpart in the UK)… … 0943 ‘Do you think Fauci used this paper to hide the gain of function research?’ ‘I can’t speak to the motivations of Fauci.’ … ‘I think it’s an inaccurate paper.’  | (09:46 PDT) ‘We found an Australian researcher…they were using the materials from Ralph Baric…this was being weaponized…  (09:47 PDT)  ‘And what about all the other gain of function labs in the Ukraine?  …  This is all about biological weapons.  …  This is what the media could have found, if they would have at least allowed other dissenting doctors to have a voice…  Even on Pacifica Radio…  …  Yet, you condemned people…  Just like Rachel Maddow…  …lies.  They never did their research.  …  And, yet, that was the purpose of not allowing people from other nations in…  Israel, where they had the vaccine apartheid…  They lied about Remdesivir…  That’s the only drug, given to people…  We believe most people, who died early on were due to [?] being given the wrong drug…  and, hence, almost everyone was testing positive… [on the PCR test, which is not designed to be a diagnostic test] … and we stopped giving many people cancer treatments and other treatments because they were saving it for younger people.  They were wrong on everything they said.  We were right about everything we said.  …  Understand people will see this through their filters…  The masks were wrong.  They didn’t work.  … So, there’s one thing where groupthink really got it wrong.’  [Dr. Gary Null asked for call-ins.  Your author felt like calling, but has called many times and never got through.  One time, Dr. Null even acknowledged your author on the air, saying, ‘Phil, tomorrow, you’ll be first on the air.  I’ll give you five whole minutes to speak your mind.’  (09:58 PDT)  Dr. Null switched to the topic of the recent bank failures.  Your author, then, decided to call, since he didn’t mind missing that commentary.  PRN picked up right away.  Your author asked, if it was too late to make a comment.  “Yes, it is,” said the bloke at PRN.  “Okay.  Thank you very much,” said your author.  “Have a nice day.”  Your author didn’t really have much to say, perhaps, a bit fatigued. The COVID-19 psyop is the issue of our times. But your author has been unable to keep up with much news lately due to time constraints with family obligations.  But your author is aware of the fact that questions about the Wuhan cover-up have reached the U.S. Congress, which is very good news… We need more people in media/press to speak out against gain of function and the US military products of lab-engineered viruses and cytotoxic COVID-19 drug products… Your author just wanted to thank Dr. Null on the air, so that listeners know there are people listening, who are very appreciative of Dr. Null’s truth-seeking efforts with regard to the COVID-19 psyop.’ | Additional “Show Notes” (for Tuesday, 14 MAR 2023, at PRN.Live.

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!

NOTES:  [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet] 

COMMENTS: [see comments above for 06:00 broadcast]

10:00 PST / 13:00 EST, PRN.Live > Leid Stories with Utrice Leid

NOTES/COMMENTS: Today’s topic for discussion:  ‘the recent bank failures of Silicon Valley Bank and Silvergate…  What are your feelings about this event?  What is a bank supposed to be and do?’  …  | 1. The first caller is “Phil from California”  [Your author called in, was first up at bat, so to speak…]  |  (10:21 PDT)  Utrice Leid:  ‘…I used to work at a bank… The thing was that it was an expression to the community that the community should have its own relevant banking system…I was born and raised in Trinidad…There were thrift banks…associated with lodges and community organizations…But the banks didn’t want their money [They didn’t want the money from non-whites…]…they were rigidly racist.  …  And, so, alternative systems emerged locally…  So, banking has been a necessary service in all communities…  It’s not just about finding a place to put the few cents that they had, but places that would accept money from black people and Latinos…   Today, they’re prying money out of communities in unbelievable, sophisticated ways…  It’s not as simple as it used to be… Banking has become a very sophisticated issue.  And you have to keep pace with it.  So, I’m asking you: How has it affected you?  And what are you doing to adjust to it?  (10:26 PDT)  ‘Oh, we don’t have any callers just yet.’  |  (10:27 PDT) 2. “Ed from Queens”  [Your author very much appreciates Ed from Queens.  He is always a straight shooter, a stand-up guy.]  ‘How are you banking?”  I keep it in my mattress.  [both laugh]  And I have some hounds from hell to protect it…  No, seriously, ever since the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, I don’t trust banking.’  …  [Good.  Your author is glad Ed brought up the repeal of Glass-Steagall because he wanted to bring it up, too, but he spoke for a long time, and there’s so much to say.  Your author just wanted to have a natural conversation with Utrice and avoid too much lecturing or what have you…]  …  (10:31 PDT)  Utrice Leid: ‘So, what is your attitude now about managing your finances?’  ‘Well, I was joking about the mattress, but not really.  …Try to keep your assets local, but try to diversify…’  Utrice Leid:  ‘Would you recommend what you are doing to others?’  Ed:  ‘I don’t give financial advice.  But I suggest people inform themselves because when it’s gone; it’s gone.  Do your own research…’  Utrice Leid:  ‘And, as mattresses go, which do you recommend?  Serta?  [laughs]  Ed:  Sealy-Posture-Pedic.  You got a lot of room in them. [both laugh]’  |  (10:34 PDT)  Utrice Leid reiterated the questions…  |  3. “Marcus from Wisconsin”  [another regular caller and one of the more brilliant callers…]  ‘Anyone…can follow the FDIC…and read the text of what they have been talking about…the discussion was about how they would treat it…the discussion mainly focused on whether or not to inform the public…they came up with a group who are corralled in a need-to-know basis… the group included the CEOs of the top investors, who managed to unload their own millions out…  These are the people, who according to the FDIC say, need to know.  … I was born in the 1950s.  And in the early 1950s, a bank’s balance sheet…what it legitimately showed was the depositors deposits… That’s all the balance sheet showed.  But in 1971, Nixon took the US off the gold standard…  Stocks were taxed… He got rid of that, after he decided to let the currency float [i.e., let the value go up and down]. … You no longer had a real economy…  That didn’t work.  So, they went to use mortgages as assets to back up their banking value…  That didn’t work… So, later it was commodities, then by 2008 you had the complete collapse of the banking system…  And, they continued the scam of derivatives…  COVID-19 was a distraction of the economic system collapsing… So, now the next scam is going to be the digital currencies and magic money…  But you’ll notice that the time-frame between these crises is getting shorter…because the capitalist system is winding down; it’s dying.  …  It’s a scam.  They can’t find any more ways to prop this thing up.  … And, instead, of people rising up to overthrowing this rotten system, we are the jack-asses getting kicked…’  (10:41 PDT) Utrice Leid:  ‘You laid out quite an explanation…a masterpiece.  But let us know; what are you doing to protect your finances?’  Marcus:  ‘Well, like Ed, I wouldn’t dream of giving financial advice.  But I advise people to pay attention to these scams…do everything in your power to subvert these digital currencies…  …concentrate on cash.  The less you put your finances in digital, the less control over you they have…  Don’t give them your data… You are giving up your data and they will use it to enslave you.  You know Harriet Tubman said she freed thousands of slaves.  I would have freed thousands more, if they knew they were slaves.  [Utrice recited the quote in unison with Marcus]  …  Stop obsessing about [political theater].  Find out who is really in charge and resist them…’  (10:45 PDT)  Utrice Leid:  ‘Well, thank you, Marcus, for your polemic today, very insightful.’  |  Utrice Leid reiterates today’s questions for listeners.  … ‘What are you expecting to happen.  And how are you preparing for that eventuality.’  |  4. “Henry from Chicago”, you’re on the air.’  … (09:48 PDT) Henry: ‘Banking has permeated every part of our lives…whether it’s the grocery stores or buying a car…the banking system is everywhere in our lives…they use it to pillage and to be exploitative of its depositors… I remember reading this book, The Half that Has Never Been Told about how President Jackson broke up the big banks so more people can get loans to buy slaves… (10:50 PDT)  …  But when you think about the exploitation of the banking system…less and less regulation of the exploitative practices…and no protection for people like me and the 99%, for paying bills, because nowadays, you know, most people pay their bills through their bank account [and digital banking]. Utrice Leid: ‘So, how are you adjusting? Have you adjusted and are you committing to it?’  Henry: ‘Well, you know I had a judgment against me over $500…and they were able to put a hold on my bank account.  So, I still keep my bank account.  But the only reason for that is to pay bills.  So, I only keep a minimal amount in there for paying bills.  And I keep my money in a safe.’  Utrice Leid:  ‘Wow.’  Henry: ‘…I realized now that banks can put a hold on your account.  I used to think only the IRS can do that.  But that has changed.  …  Recently, I’ve noticed Bitcoin rising in popularity again.’  | Utrice Leid: What do you think about Marcus’ suggestions that we avoid digital currencies and use cash more?’  Henry: ‘Well, he had a lot of illustrious points…But I’m seeing Bitcoin rise in popularity again…’  [No, Henry.  Bitcoin is not going to work.  The decentralization aspect was good.  But it has been coopted by the state, as the state uses the blockchain technology to create their own centralized CBDCs.  We, the people, must recapture public banking for public purpose.]  …  |  (10:55 PDT) Utrice Leid summarized the callers, Phil from California, Ed from Queens, Marcus from Wisconsin, and Henry from Chicago.  That’s really nice, how Utrice summarizes or at least acknowledges the callers.  That’s very rare these days.]  Utrice Leid: ‘We need to have a political understanding of money and banking.  Money is your power.  And how you use it is powerful.’  [Yes, Utrice! That’s what I was getting at!  We can’t forget the fact that we must harness our political agency.  It’s good that we are thinking about money and banking to protect ourselves and our families.  But we must also think about the political implications.  As Ralph Nader says, if you turn your back on politics, politics will turn on you.  And we don’t want society to worsen, like being enslaved by CBDCs, which will be programmable and dissidents will be cut off from their own funds, if they speak out about something wrong in society or if they try to defend the Bill of Rights, Constitutional Rights, or human rights.  We must recognize that we are being governed by antidemocratic forces and we are in the grips of a totalitarian movement, which is mostly subconscious, with people acquiescing to the COVID-19 psyop.  And we must build meaningful relationships in our communities to help keep each other informed.  Beyond that, as Chris Hedges said and many would agree, we must build organized, disciplined, militant popular movements.  And electoral politics can be part of that, but the foundation is organized, grassroots popular movements.] | As of 14 MAR 2023 at 19:16 PDT, there is no archive for this broadcast/livestream in the PRN.Live archives. Unfortunately, Leid Stories is not archived consistently at PRN.Live. Perhaps, you can volunteer and help with archiving. In the meantime, please search PRN’s archives for past editions of this excellent and important free speech radio program, Leid Stories.

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, 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, KPFA > Letters and Politics with Mitch Jeserich

QUOTATIONS FROM RADIO ARCHIVE DESCRIPTION: “Richard Wolff on The Meaning of the Collapse of SVB and Signature Banks. Then, Civil Rights and Freedom of the Press

“Part I. The Meaning of the Collapse of SVB and Signature Banks 

“Guest: Richard Wolff is professor emeritus of economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and a Visiting Professor at the New School in New York. He is the host of the weekly program, Economic Update, which is produced by Democracy at Work, which he co-founded.

“Part II. Civil Rights and Freedom of the Press

“Guest: Samantha Barbas is a Professor of Law at the University at Buffalo. She is the author of several books on media history and law. She is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Humanities Public Scholar Award. Her latest book is Actual Malice: Civil Rights and Freedom of the Press in New York Times v. Sullivan.”

NOTES:  [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet] 

COMMENTS: This program suffers from the same “liberal bias”, as UpFront, Democracy Now!, Letters and Politics, Lopate at Large, Talkies, et al. A Democrat apologist lens is the common thread. As Dr. Noam Chomsky wrote in How the World Works (2013, Soft Skull Press), p. 234: “The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum – even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there’s free-thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.”

10:00 PST / 13:00 EST, 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, Rising Up, Talkies, et al.

11:00 PST / 14:00 EST, WPFW [D.C.] > Covid, Race & Democracy

NOTES:  [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet] 

COMMENTS: With all of the news about the U.S. Congress finally asking serious questions about the origins of COVID-19 and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr’s much anticipated follow-up to The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the War On Democracy and Public Health, his new book The Wuhan Cover-Up: How US Health Officials Conspired with the Chinese Military to Hide the Origins of COVID-19 (Children’s Health Defense) [cf. Amazon link], I’m looking forward to hearing this episode of Covid, Race & Democracy.

11:00 PST, KPFA > Talkies with Kris Welch

NOTES:  [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet] 

COMMENTS: This program, Talkies, suffers from what Dr. Noam Chomsky described circa 1991 as “the liberal bias”. Kris Welch is a stalwart defender of Democrat Party reformism. But, of course, the defense is done with subtlety and nuance. Uncritical listeners might even project their own views on to her liberal (i.e., pro-capitalist or non-anticapitalist) rhetoric and see what they want to see. But, make no mistake, Kris Welch is a staunch Democrat, a Wellstone Democrat to be precise. The Democrat Party will always be a corrupt, corporate party. Yet, some Democrat reformists never stop with their false left-right paradigm, operating from an underlying assumption or from the presupposition that the Democrat Party is a sincere opposition party to the racist, anti-working class Republican Party. Over time, a pattern of Democrat Party apologia emerges. This seems implausible as an ideological stance. Such apologia only makes sense coming from shills on some covert payroll.

12:00 PST, KPFA > Against the Grain

QUOTATIONS FROM RADIO ARCHIVE DESCRIPTION: “Celebrating Twenty Years | In the first of a two-show retrospective marking Against the Grain’s twentieth anniversary, C. S. presents excerpts of some of his favorite interviews. Featured are David Hawkes talking about money, magic, and ideology; Laura Kipnis on monogamous coupledom; Theodore Brown on the history of socialism; Juliet Hooker on “democratic loss” and Black activism; and Louise Erdrich on the search for answers to life’s big questions.”

NOTES:  [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet] 

COMMENTS: ‘Celebrating 20 years’ of Democrat Party apologism and synthetic left controlled opposition…

12:00 PST / 15:00 EST, WBAI > Vantage Point (pre-empted? cancelled?) > Black Star News with Milton Allimadi and Colin Benjamin

NOTES:  [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet] 

13:00 PDT / 16:00 EDT, WPFW (D.C.) > Black Agenda Report Radio with Margaret Kimberley

NOTES:  [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet] 

COMMENTS: Black Agenda Report Radio is definitely one of the best programs on the free speech Pacifica Radio Network, or anywhere for that matter. We miss Glen Ford and Bruce Dixon, former hosts; but Margaret Kimberley is holding it down… Also check out their website, Black Agenda Report.

13:00 PST / 16:00 EST, WBAI > Covid, Race & Democracy with PNB Covid Taskforce (pre-empted? rescheduled? cancelled? > Sojourner Truth

NOTES:  [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet] 

COMMENTS: | Covid, Race & Democracy is a good show. But… [ 4 ]

13:00 PST / 15:00 CST, KPFT > Hard Knock Radio

NOTES:  [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet] 

13:00 PST, KPFA > The Herbal Highway

NOTES:  [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet] 

COMMENTS: This program, The Herbal Highway, deserves your attention, dear reader, if you care about health and healing. Your author has learned a lot from this program over the years, even though he hasn’t always acted on those lessons.

14:00 PST / 17:00 EST, KPFK > Sojourner Truth

NOTES:  [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet] 

COMMENTS: This program, Sojourner Truth, is usually revolutionary, but has been known to be soft on the corporate Democrat Party, prone to “liberal bias”, when it comes to the two-party dictatorship, which can clearly see the corruption of the Republican Party, but has a blindspot for the corruption of the Democrat Party.

14:00 PST, KPFA > About Health

NOTES:  [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet] 

15:00 PDT, KPFK [Los Angeles, CA] > News and Views with Garland Nixon

NOTES:  [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet] 

COMMENTS: Garland Nixon usually provides a healthy dose of common sense, from an anti-imperialist, antiwar, anti-racist perspective.

15:00 PST / 18:00 EST, WBAI > WBAI Evening News

NOTES:  [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet] 

15:00 PST / 17:00 CST, KPFT > Code Pink Radio

NOTES:  [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet] 

15:00 PST, KPFA > UpFront PM

NOTES:  [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet] 

COMMENTS: This is a rerun of content from the morning broadcast, which automatically makes this broadcast offensive, especially when there are so many censored, dissenting voices out there, which deserve airtime. Instead, we get duplication 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. (See comments above for UpFront.)

15:30 PST / 18:30 EST, WBAI > CounterSpin

NOTES:  [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet] 

COMMENTS: Your author used to dig this show back in the day, when it was on KPFA. In recent years, it seems disappointing. your author is not sure if the program became less hard-hitting, or if his perception is less susceptible than it used to be to “the liberal bias”, deceptions, and wishful thinking. Maybe it’s a combination of all of those elements.

16:00 PST, KPFA > Hard Knock Radio

NOTES:  [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet] 

16:00 PST / 19:00 EST, WBAI > We Only Want the World with Sunsara Taylor

NOTES:  [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet] 

COMMENTS: This program, We Only Want the World, is dedicated to following Bob Avakian, the boss or leader of the Revolutionary Communist Party (USA). Your author doesn’t agree with everything the RCP line espouses. Sometimes, we gotta agree to disagree.

17:00 PST, KPFA > Flashpoints

NOTES:  [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet] 

17:00 PST, KPFK [Los Angeles, CA] > Grayzone Radio with Max Blumenthal

NOTES:  [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet] 

COMMENTS: You can’t go wrong with Max Blumenthal; he is one of the best in independent, investigative journalism around today. Your author only wishes it didn’t have to compete with Flashpoints on at the same time on KPFK’s sister station in Berkeley, California, KPFA. At least listeners can listen online to the archive of either radio show they miss because they won’t want to miss either one. | Circa mid-January 2023, Max Blumenthal mentioned a new Grayzone radio show on Pacifica Radio out of LA. Then, today, 19 JAN 2023, in a livestream with Revolutionary Blackout Network, Max Blumenthal mentioned the new Grayzone radio program on Pacifica Radio will be on in L.A. and in New York. This is good news. If only KPFK didn’t have to pre-empt Flashpoints. KPFK should’ve cut Rising Up, instead. Pacifica Radio Network listeners do not need the uncritical amplification of establishment narratives of Sonali Kolhatkar and Rising Up, an apologist for the corporate Democrats.

18:00 PST, KPFA & KPFK [simulcast] > The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays

NOTES:  [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet] 

COMMENTS: 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 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), particularly regarding local news coverage. 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.

19:00 PST, KPFA > La Raza Chronicles

NOTES:  [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet] 

COMMENTS: Back at San Mateo High School, recognized as one of the more “radical” students by his peers, your author was nominated to lead the school’s “La Raza” club. Your author wasn’t feelin’ it, to be the ringleader of that motley bunch. They had their own liberal ideas, not a revolutionary outlook. Your author left them to their own devices. And he was left to his own devices. Since then, outside of La Onda Bajita, and there are doubts even there, most “La Raza” types appear to be liberals (i.e., pro-capitalists or non-anti-capitalists). They have no anti-capitalist analysis, nor outlook. (As far as La Onda, your author feels it was far more subversive when El Gavilan was breathing Aztlan fire over the airwaves and El Tecolote played firme rolita after rolita, rather than having pundits speak in Spanish, yet provide liberal analysis. It’s great that there is Spanish language programming on free speech radio KPFA; but it’s disappointing that programming is liberal programming. This disappointment is akin to the election of people of color or minority groups to office, as if their identity claim as a minority group member guarantees such people will have a perspective, which is different from the status quo. More often than not, when minority group members finally gain entry into positions of power and/or influence within the establishment, minority group members reflect and maintain the status quo)

20:00 PST, KPFA > Bebop, Cubop and the Musical Truth

NOTES:  [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet] 

22:00 PST, KPFA > The Reggae Express

NOTES:  [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet] 

---

[ 1 ] This 05:00 timeslot wastes a one-hour block on repeating the previous day’s broadcast of Letters and Politics, as if this show was worthy of such repetition.  Not even Democracy Now! is worthy of being aired twice per day on the same station.  But this is an example of the way liberals (i.e., pro-capitalists or non-anti-capitalists) colonize and monopolize the free speech radio airwaves and prevent voices to the left of them from having a fair opportunity to be heard. Instead of deep politics, like Guns and Butter or Flashpoints or Project Censored or The Grayzone, we get shallow politics and mealy-mouthed critique of the status quo, if not uncritical amplification of establishment narratives.

[ 2 ] Democracy Now! used to be a hard-hitting, adversarial newscast. Now, it’s mostly sellout entertainment with a liberal bias. I’ll never forget the day Amy Goodman interviewed former President Bill Clinton. He got his comeuppance. And we got to hear his 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, 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, it also applies to most of the Pacifica Radio newscast bosses, who must make U.S. spooks proud, if they aren’t in fact on some spook payroll.

[ 3 ] UpFront is the worst Machiavellian perception management radio, 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 type of Machiavellian hides their 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.

[ 4 ] Covid, Race & Democracy is a good radio program. I am acquainted with at least two contributors. Yet, regarding the COVID-19 issue, I disagree most with the contributor I know best. I disagree with the so-called Zero Covid approach because human history has proven it’s impossible for humans to ever be free of seasonal respiratory diseases such as coronaviruses or rhinoviruses. Also, the scientific consensus is clear: coronaviruses, when first introduced to a species, are more harmful, but less contagious; then, they become more contagious, but less harmful. Of course, this is what happened with Omicron. Age stratification means the older one is, the more vulnerable one is to any and all respiratory diseases. But this program has aired conflicting perspectives on COVID-19. Debates or panels with opposing perspectives could help resolve, or at least address some of the contradictions of occasionally allowing dissenting views, such as the Great Barrington Declaration, but mostly amplifying establishment assumptions, such as citing “case rates”, rather than truly sick and infected or hospitalized people. Most COVID-19 statistics cite PCR test results, which are prone to error, depending on the cycle threshold used to magnify samples. At any rate, the PCR test’s inventor, Dr. Kary Mullis, has stated categorically that the PCR test is not a diagnostic test. Then, there’s the VAERS data, which is usually occulted, and the official statistical models have been occulted, and the 17,000 doctors speaking out in dissent, and the doctors being persecuted, targeted, smeared, for refusing to be coerced into pushing an absurd agenda. The Gary Null Show addresses most, if not all, common sense concerns and critiques about the police state psyop response to COVID-19, which is threatening to close the open society, to force ‘COVID passports’ on everyone, to mandate jabs for kids without parental consent, to impose unscientific ‘social distancing’, to abolish cash and impose a central bank digital currency (CBDC), to make most people fearful of everyone else, to further alienate people and atomize society, in short, to incrementally impose inverted totalitarianism.

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[14 MAR 2023]

[Last modified/edited/updated on 6 APR 2023 at 04:53 PDT]