LUMPENPROLETARIAT—[Friday, 28 APR 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 and/or geoengineering-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”, as Ralph Nader has long advised.  “[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.)

Sometimes, people only see what they want to see. For example, former U.S. President Donald Trump may have somehow cultivated a reputation as being an antiwar president. If anyone thinks so, that is a false reputation. Many of his supporters commonly boast: ‘Trump is the only president, who didn’t get us into any wars.’ Yet, they rarely acknowledge the fact that the U.S. military-industrial-congressional-complex is always at war, whether Mr. Trump was embroiled in scandals for starting new wars or not. Moreover, the U.S. military and intelligence agencies have their dirty hands in all sorts of proxy wars all over the place. The war in Yemen is one example. The U.S. military has been involved since the Obama administration. Mr. Trump took no initiative to end U.S. involvement there. The U.S. is engaged in forever wars at all times with upwards of 800 U.S. military bases around the world. In fact, real estate industry people know, for example, that V.A. loans provided to qualifying military veterans by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs have different tiers of mortgage loan perks, depending on whether the mortgage loan is provided to a veteran, who served during a “time of war” or a “time of peace”. So, “active duty” during a “time of war” is defined as listed by the V.A. According to the V.A., the USA has been in a continuous “time of war” since World War II until the present. The V.A. lists the most recent period “Between Aug. 2, 1990 and the present (Gulf War period to present).” But there are ten other consecutive periods going all the way back to World War II. Without the military draft, of course, replaced by a de facto poverty draft, most Americans might tend to think the U.S.A. hasn’t been at war since its imperialist war against Vietnam. Yet, the U.S. has had a permanent war economy since at least World War II, which ballooned post-9/11. Mr. Trump did nothing to challenge that, despite his rhetoric—not that his supporters care about him being an antiwar president, anyway. Some Trump supporters have articulated to your author that ‘the best way to have peace in the world is for the U.S. to be the biggest bully in the world to intimidate the rest of the world into submission.’ Wow. That’s not peace, as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr brilliantly articulated in a famous sermon: “True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice.” That belligerent perspective amongst many of our seemingly decent neighbors is an important point to appreciate because Trump supporters do not tend to say that out loud publicly. However, privately, this is what they’ll tell you in confidence: being the biggest bully in the world is the best way to achieve peace in the world. Never mind the enmity created therewith. But, since the corporate media, like his fawning independent media supporters, tend to give Mr. Trump’s gaslighting about militarism a pass, it’s important we recall some facts about Trump’s two-faced support for the U.S. military-industrial-congressional-complex. Meanwhile, the only antiwar candidate for U.S. President is Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. But, first, let’s dispel some of the fictions about Mr. Trump’s phony antiwar facade.

Writing for Politico in 2020, Jacqueline Feldscher pointed out, “Since becoming president, Donald Trump has overseen historic increases in defense budgets, fawned over military equipment, installed a number of defense industry insiders in top Pentagon positions and made a major push to sell weapons overseas.” But that didn’t stop Mr. Trump from engaging in narcissistic abuse, in gaslighting, as Feldscher noted, “But on Monday, Trump said leaders at the Pentagon “want to do nothing but fight wars so that all of those wonderful companies that make the bombs and make the planes and make everything else stay happy.”” And his followers eat that up all day, likening Mr. Trump to President Dwight D. Eisenhower warning about the military-industrial complex. It would be hilarious, if it wasn’t so sad. Feldscher continues: “All three of his hand-picked defense secretaries had ties to the defense industry: Jim Mattis was a member of the General Dynamics board of directors, Pat Shanahan was an executive with Boeing, and Mark Esper was Raytheon’s top lobbyist. Mattis also returned to his board position shortly after leaving the Pentagon, showing the revolving door between industry and the Defense Department. Nearly half of senior Defense Department officials are connected to military contractors, according to an analysis by the Project on Government Oversight.” She goes on with facts and stats and dollar amounts and whatnot. Don’t take my word for it. Read the article for yourself: “Trump is blasting the military-industrial complex. But he’s one of its biggest boosters.: Trump has made the purchase, public display and foreign sales of military hardware a major priority of his administration.”

The idea that Mr. Trump is good for anything but his own ego is a sick joke. Your author is starting to see the “Fuck Biden” flags waving around his neighborhood and all over the California Central Valley. Your author just has to shake his head. But we still try to engage in dialogue, wherever possible. Perhaps, we need to get giant flags, too, ones, which read in similar letters: “Fuck Trump.” If they expect to be treated respectfully for their right to free speech. We must expect the same. Yes? Or, no? Talk about putting a target on your back. It almost seems like we are living in Nazi Germany, the notion of doing something so subversive as being as bold as the Trump followers. It almost feels like one might imagine being a Jew in Nazi Germany and hoisting a huge flag that says: “Fuck Hitler.” Right now, it’s easy to be bold in Trump country with “Fuck Biden” flags and truck decals and what have you because the whole culture is accepting of it, especially cops and the establishment. Don’t get your author wrong. Biden and the Democrats are wolves in sheep’s clothing. Trump and the Republican Party are wolves in wolves clothing.

The Republicans are talking about the phony debt ceiling drama. But it’s thinly-veiled class warfare from above against the poor. It’s also class warfare from above against the working class, who are losing more and more ground day by day, as ChatGPT appears to eliminate some 300 million jobs around the world, and technological unemployment continues to make scarce jobs scarcer. The corporate Democrats pretend to oppose the corporate Republicans in this corporate political theater; but they’re both in on the joke. Meanwhile, the political center perpetually shifts rightward because there is no true leftist (i.e., anticapitalist) political opposition against the rightist (i.e., pro-capitalist or non-anti-capitalist) politics of the Democrat and Republican parties, of the two-party dictatorship.

Writing for Reason in February of 2023, Joe Lancaster cited Politico, “to distinguish himself from potential candidates like Haley or former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Trump will run as “an anti-war dove amongst the hawks.” But while a forceful nudge in an anti-war direction would be a welcome development for the party, Trump’s record casts doubt on his seriousness.” Of course, we can’t forget the assassination of Iranian Major General and diplomat Qasem Soleimani on the 3rd of January, 2020, during the Trump administration. You might find it difficult; but just try to imagine an American Major General acting as a diplomat being assassinated by a foreign government like that, driving away from an airport. Joe Lancaster further added: “Trump’s record once elected did not reflect the promise of a more constrained foreign policy. Just days into his administration, Trump greenlit a military operation in Yemen that yielded no valuable intelligence but led to the death of Navy Seal Ryan Owens. When pressed on the failure, he blamed his military advisers, shrugging that “they lost Ryan.” Weeks later, he launched 59 missiles into Syria […]”

There are no shortages of examples of Mr. Trump’s prowar record. And the best indicator of future behavior is past behavior. Unfortunately, too often people see only what they want to see.

What people must see is the fact that the only antiwar candidate and, equally importantly, the only antitotalitarian candidate for U.S. President running right now is Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. During his announcement speech, RFK Jr brilliantly pointed out the contradictions between the Biden administration’s rhetoric of peace and the reality of attempting to exhaust Russian military forces, which means, by definition, ongoing war, not diplomacy or ending the conflict. As RFK, Jr said during his announcement speech in Boston (c. 1hr 16min 00sec):

“I want to talk about the war in Ukraine. We need to have a national conversation about this war. We need to have a mature conversation, that allows for nuance and that allows for complexity. And we need to do it respectfully. We can’t be telling one side that they’re Nazis and the other side that they love Putin. Everybody in this country loves our country. And we have to respect differences of opinion. And we have to respect the people’s capacity to ask questions.

“Some of the issues, that we need to talk about is, number one, is that: Is this war in the U.S. national interest? We just need to isolate that question. Is it in the U.S. national interest?

“And there are, you know, some of the leading […] uh, most respected people and, um, in our national diplomats. I’d say Henry Kissinger, Jack Matlock, Larry Wilkerson is Colin Powell’s Chief of Staff. [Well, certainly respected by the establishment, Bobby…] They have all said, definitively, if you just want to ask: Is it in our national interest? It is not in America’s national interest to push Russia closer to China. That is a cataclysm.

“Number two: It is not in our national interest to do something, that could involve us in a nuclear exchange with a country, that has more nuclear weapons than us. 

“Now, having said that, I want to say that we are in the Ukraine for all the right reasons.  We are there because we are a good people. 

[This belief most Americans have about being in Ukraine for all the right reasons, obviously applies to those Americans, who naively believe the Russian Federation started the Ukraine conflict in 2022, those Americans, who are unaware of the fact that U.S. neocons under the Obama administration, people like Victoria Nuland and Robert Kagan helped to orchestrate a coup d’état against the democratically-elected government in Ukraine…  And, obviously, this is an announcement speech, not a lecture on geopolitics…  And this is a speech, which a number of ostensibly sympathetic observers, such as Sabby Sabs, said was too long to begin with.  So, there was no way RFK Jr was going to delve at great length into the history of US/NATO imperialism in Ukraine, using it as a pawn in the US imperialist encirclement and provocation of the Russian Federation. Nevertheless, RFK Jr did manage to touch on that very fact in a Socratic manner by asking his audience, whether or not Ukraine is being used as a pawn by two great superpowers…] 

“And, you know, Abraham Lincoln said, America is a great nation because we’re a good nation.  And we continue to be a good people.  And we are there because of our compassion.  The Ukrainian people, who have been brutalized, who’ve been illegally invaded and have shown extraordinary valor and courage defending their country and defending their families and their beliefs and their liberties and their independence, things that Americans have to admire.  My own son, Conor, I’m very proud, Conor joined the Foreign Legion and fought in the Ukraine during the Kharkiv offensive as a machine gunner for a special forces group.

“But I think we need to know, as Americans.  And we have a right to know.  What is our government’s chief objective in this war?

“Now, we were told, initially, that the objective was humanitarian.  And that is a good reason to be there, a humanitarian [reason].  And what that means is trying to end the bloodshed and minimize it as much as possible.

[Of course, that would have to be a decision made by the United Nations Security Council, which has not made that decision.  We know, as RFK Jr knows, that the US has increasingly abused its ability to impose economic sanctions, i.e., economic warfare, around the world post-9/11.  And we know the U.S. has pressured member states of the UN to go along with its US/NATO imperialist encirclement of Russia and China with a view of destabilizing Russia, imposing a regime change or coup in Russia as part of a larger plan to destabilize China.  In the wake of the UN vote to condemn Russia’s special military operation to defend the Donbas region’s Russian-speaking population from neo-Nazi-infested military battalions, like the Azov Battalion, followers of Stepan Bandera, in the wake of the UN vote to condemn Russia’s special military operation of denazification of the Donbas region, which had been suffering eight years of civil war since the U.S.-orchestrated coup of the democratically-elected government in Ukraine, in the wake of all this, U.S. corporate media denied these truths to the American people.  But the truth was stated clearly by the Russian permanent representative (as reported in The Guardian, “UN votes to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and calls for withdrawal: In an emergency session, 141 of the 193 member states voted for the resolution, 35 abstained and five voted against” by Julian Borger, 2 MAR 2022), Vasily Nebenzya, reiterated Moscow’s position “that its forces were not targeting civilian areas.”  And, indeed, this would become obvious as time went on and news reports would confirm the relatively light approach of Russia’s special military operation.  Instead of acknowledging this, US corporate news would absurdly spin this as a sign that ‘Russia is losing the war’.  Vasily Nebenzya “attributed the lopsided nature of the [United Nations] vote to behind-the-scenes coercion on member states from Ukraine’s allies.”  Nebenzya further added:  ““We know about the unprecedented pressure that our western partners are exerting on a large number of countries urging them to vote as they [the west] see fit,” Nebenzya said. “This is not something even we can call pressure. It was open and cynical threats.”  Nebenzya shrugged off the significance of the vote, making clear that Russia would press on with its offensive.  “This document will not allow us to end military activities,” Nebenzya said, blaming the fighting on “radicals and nationalists” in the Kyiv government.”  Indeed.  Your author isn’t making any apologies for the Russian Federation’s special military operation.  But, if we are to condemn the Russian Federation’s military aggression, we must first condemn US/NATO’s decades of belligerence and provocations of crossing red lines, such as expanding NATO eastward after promising never to expand “not one inch eastward” of the former East German border towards Russia’s sphere of influence.  NATO was established as a defensive military gang of nations, ostensibly, to defend itself against the Soviet Union, which never came close to posing a military threat to the USA’s bloated military spending.  When the Soviet Union collapsed, NATO lost its raison d’être; NATO lost its legitimacy.  Yet, instead of disbanding itself, NATO expanded and became an offensive, rogue military organization.  If we cannot acknowledge any of these truths, yet insist on only condemning the Russian Federation’s right to self-defense against US/NATO/AUKUS imperialism, then we are engaging in deception and/or self-deception.  If we would refuse to acknowledge any of these truths, we would be engaging in narcissistic abuse; we would be engaging in gaslighting.  RFK, Jr, like the minority of well-informed Americans know all of this.  But most Americans, unfortunately, do not know all of this.  So, no political candidate can be expected to sound like Dr. Noam Chomsky, or Dr. Michael Parenti, or Prof. John Mearsheimer during his presidential announcement speech.  Even a well-informed presidential candidate, like RFK Jr, must be afforded time to articulate these deeper truths, which he has done in the past, and will continue to do so, despite the bellyaching of naysayers.  And, yet, despite the bellyaching of naysayers, RFK Jr did point to the hypocrisy and contradictions, for example, of the Biden administration’s foreign policy related to the U.S. proxy war in Ukraine.]

“But, in recent times, President Biden said that one of our objectives, at least, is regime change of Vladimir Putin.  And this is the same strategy, that did not work well for us in Iraq.  And it’s many of the same people, who are around, the neocons [e.g., Victoria Nuland, Robert Kagan, et al.], who are around President Biden, who have been talking about that for a long time and have been engaged in geopolitical machinations in the Ukraine since 2014.

“And, then, President Biden’s Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin validated President Biden’s statement by saying that our objective in the Ukraine is to exhaust and degrade the Russian army, so they’re incapable of having battles anywhere else in the world. 

“Now, and, indeed, many of the steps, that we’ve taken in the Ukraine have seemed to indicate that our interest is in prolonging the war, rather than shortening it.  So, if those are our objectives, to have regime change and exhaust the Russians, that is completely antithetical to a humanitarian mission.  If we’re there for a humanitarian mission, it means to reduce bloodshed and bring an end to the war quickly.  If we’re there to exhaust the Russians or regime change, then doesn’t it mean that the Ukraine is just a pawn in a political battle between two great superpowers and that our strategy is to put the flower of Ukrainian youth into an abattoir of death in order to exhaust Russia?

“And, if that’s true, we need to know about it.  If it’s not true, then we need a pretty good discussion with the President and the Secretary of Defense and others to tell us exactly what we are doing there.”

Yes, we do, Bobby. We need to wake the folk up!

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 Global Pandemic Treaty Is A Threat To Us All” by The Corbett Report [via Rokfin], 28 APR 2023. [T] #RFKJr2024 is the only candidate willing to stop US #PowerElite & #GlobalPowerElite schemes to impose #TotalitarianControls, incl the unelected, unaccountable #WHO’s insane #PandemicTreaty. We must exercise #CivilDisobedience against nonsensical treaties.
• “Episode 442 – The Global Pandemic Treaty Is A Threat To Us All” by James Corbett, The Corbett Report, 28 APR 2023. [article with links and video] [T] #GlobalPandemicTreaty is a threat to us all. #BodilyAutonomy. #Liberty. The issues of our time: refusing & resisting #GlobalPowerElite agenda to impose #TotalitarianControls, to supersede sovereignty of nation states. #JamesCorbett gives excellent summary.
• “Part 2: Debt and the Collapse of Antiquity – Michael Hudson” by theAnalysis-news [via YouTube], 28 APR 2023. [27min 22sec] [T]
  • RELATED: “Debt and the Collapse of Antiquity – Michael Hudson (pt 1/2)“, 21 APR 2023. [38min 40sec]
• “Matt Taibbi Unveils New Twitter Files“ by usefulidiots [via YouTube], 28 APR 2023. [51min 08sec] [04:28 PDT] [L0]
• MINING MEMORY HOLES:
  • “Trump is blasting the military-industrial complex. But he’s one of its biggest boosters.: Trump has made the purchase, public display and foreign sales of military hardware a major priority of his administration.” by Jacqueline Feldscher, 9 AUG 2020.

@LumpenProles, last modified/edited/updated on 14 MAY 2023 at 08:23 PDT.

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MEDIA/PRESS NOTES, NEWS, VIEWS, WORKING CLASS BLUES, INFORMATION, INSPIRATION, PERSPIRATION, AND AGITATION FROM A WORKING CLASS PERSPECTIVE*

[Ideally, your author would have included links to all programs listed below. Programs listed without an 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. ✊🏽✊🏼✊🏿✊]

Friday, April 28, 2023

This book is still under-appreciated, despite its importance for understanding the mass psychology of the American people (and most of the so-called west) going along with so many bad policies, from the COVID-19 psyop to forever wars…

*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 (cancelled? rescheduled?) > Background Briefing with Ian Masters

QUOTATION FROM RADIO ARCHIVE DESCRIPTION: “

We begin with the House Republican budget that Speaker McCarthy barely got enough votes from his side to pass 217 to 215 which is dead on arrival and has nothing to do with raising the debt limit but is being used as leverage to exact Draconian cuts in an already inadequate social safety net. We discuss McCarthy’s call for “fiscal responsibility” after successive tax cuts for the rich that have ballooned the debt while instead he is offering up a budget that is cruel and unnecessary and won’t make a dent in the debt that targets the poorest and most vulnerable, America’s children who had nothing to do with running up the debt. Joining us is Jeff Madrick, a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books, and a former economics columnist for The New York Times. He is editor of Challenge Magazine, and a visiting professor of humanities at The Cooper Union. His books include Age of Greed: The Triumph of Finance and the Decline of America, 1970 to the Present and Seven Bad Ideas: How Mainstream Economists Have Damaged America and the World and his latest book is Invisible Americans: The Tragic Cost of Child Poverty.

Then we examine the Washington Declaration that emerged from the White House meeting yesterday with South Korea’s President Yoon who was feted with a state dinner at which he displayed his karaoke skills singing “American Pie.” We discuss the nature of the nuclear guarantees South Korea got to allay the call for “self nuclearization” in response to North Korea’s growing nuclear threats. Joining us is Sung Yoon Lee, a Professor of International Affairs at The Fletcher School at Tufts University, a National Asia Research Fellow and a Faculty Associate at the US-Japan Program at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University. He has testified as an expert witness in the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee hearings on North Korea policy, and his forthcoming book, out soon, is The Sister: The extraordinary story of Kim Yo Jong, the most powerful woman in North Korea. We discuss his article at The Conversation, “US-South Korea nuclear weapons deal – what you need to know.”

Then finally, following yesterday’s call between Xi Jinping and Ukraine’s President Zelensky in which the Chinese leader offered to send a peace delegation to Kyiv, we assess how serious China’s commitment is to get Russia to the table and how long the war will go on short of a decisive blow to Russia’s already weakened military from the upcoming Ukrainian offensive. Joining us is Michael Kimmage, a professor of history and department chair at the Catholic University of America, chair of the Kennan Institute Advisory Council and a fellow at the German Marshall Fund. From 2014 to 2017, he served on the Secretary’s Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. Department of State, where he held the Russia/Ukraine portfolio. His latest book is The Abandonment of the West: The History of an Idea in American Foreign Policy and he has an article at Foreign Affairs, “How China Could Save Putin’s War in Ukraine: The Logic—and Consequences—of Chinese Military Support for Russia.”” | “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: Ian Masters used to be on KPFK. At one point, he was outspoken about some of the problems going on behind the scenes with the KPFA bosses and the Pacifica Radio Network governance structure. We’ll see if he’s a stand up guy, or another tool of the liberal (i.e., procapitalist or non-anticapitalist) faction at the Pacifica Radio Network, which blocks grassroots activist voices. | 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, WBAI [NYC] & WPFW [D.C.] > On The Ground with Esther Iverem

QUOTATION FROM WPFW ARCHIVE: “On the Ground, which premiered on May Day, May 1, 2014, counters this trend by giving a voice to the voiceless [i.e., amplifying the voices of the silenced]. The weekly hour hosted by Esther Iverem covers social justice activism, with a special emphasis on sustainable living, the environment, economics, labor and the left edge of culture and media.”

NOTES:  [L14] RIP Harry Belafonte. Gerald Horne remembers Harry Belafonte. |  If a direct link to a WPFW radio archive is not included here, please access the WPFW archive by scrolling down to find the archives for [day], [date] (10:00 EST) 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

QUOTATION FROM RADIO ARCHIVE DESCRIPTION: ““BIRTH” offers intimate look at maternal healthcare in the United State” | “0:08 — Rebecca Grant has reported on maternal health justice for the past decade, with work appearing in New York magazine, Marie Claire, The Guardian, and more. Her latest book is BIRTH: Three Mothers, Nine Months, and Pregnancy in America.“

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

QUOTATION FROM RADIO ARCHIVE DESCRIPTION: “A Rude Awakening with Kevin Stein and Kobi Naseck” | “Today on A Rude Awakening, bank acquisitions and clean air initiatives I’ll speak to California Reinvestment Coalition’s Kevin Stein on Washington Federal acquisition of Luther Burbank Savings and then switch gears and discuss a fossil fuel backed referendum with Kobi Naseck of VISION. *originally aired 03.17.23“

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 [NYC] > The Gary Null Show

NOTES/COMMENTS (re: Gary Null Show for Friday, 28 APR 2023, WBAI livestream): [notes pending; scribe hasn’t listened yet to the WBAI archive. Scribe listened to the PRN.Live livestream, though]

NOTES/COMMENTS (re: Gary Null Show for Friday, 28 APR 2023, PRN.Live livestream): Health & Healing Information:  health benefits of avocados, a study finds… And more… |  music break: “Unchained Melody” by The Righteous Brothers  |  … 0920 Hunter Biden laptop info  …  COVID-19 psyop truth-seeking  … c. 0930 Null said he testified at a hearing  |  0933 clip on Cochrane Review on useless mask mandates and other false COVID-19 claims now proven false |  Null:  … 0936 ‘We need more citizen activism involved.’  [Yes!  That’s right, Dr. Null!] |  0939 CLIP Andrew Lowentall(sp?) AUSTRALIAN (?) |  0957. |  0958.

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. Your author doesn’t agree with everything Dr. Null says. But, when it comes to health and healing information, Dr. Null is one of the most important voices around today.  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:  (08:59 PDT) An early start today. But an announcer states this is a prerecorded program, i.e., a rerun. | Sounds like an old “Free Your Mind Fridays” announcement. | 1. 1004 Duke from new jersey …  NYC politics. 1015 cc

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.

Your scribe replied (6 MAY 2023 at 09:37 PDT): These mistakes, at least 1st 1 about taking off interest rate hedges in March 2022, appear deliberate. #ProfLRandallWray warned via #LevyInstitute 2022 Fed cannot engineer soft landing. #ZeroReserveRequirements = #BankingFragility Fed knew rate hikes would lead to banking crisis.

Your scribe replied (6 MAY 2023 at 09:48 PDT): @_whitneywebb discussed some of the politics & players behind past banking crises, which in hindsight appear quite deliberate, incl #SavingsAndLoanCrisis & #GFC2007/08. #2023BankingCrisis smacks of deliberate banking consolidation for cartelized #CBDC… [Link to Whitney Webb interview cited]

Your scribe replied (6 MAY 2023 at 10:00 PDT): It appears we’re witnessing a #ControlledDemolition of the #BankingSector, as #DanielleDiMartinoBooth described it in your latest interview w/her, to funnel everyone into a cartelized banking system for #totalitarian #CBDC future, as #Unicoin arrives…

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

QUOTATION FROM RADIO ARCHIVE DESCRIPTION: “Varoufakis’ Critique of Capitalism Today – Economic Update – April 28, 2023” | “Yanis Varoufakis, elected member Greek parliament, joins Prof. Wolff on this week’s show and offers his original, critical perspectives on (1) the banking crisis, (2) the decline of the US empire and US capitalism, (3) the mass uprisings of the French and Greek working classes in Europe, (4) the collapse of Europe’s efforts to shape an independent (from the US and China) economic position, and (5) class struggle inside China.”

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] 

10:30 PDT, KPFA > Terra Verde with random liberal (i.e., pro-capitalist or non-anti-capitalist) hosts

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

COMMENTS: This program, Terra Verde, was hosted by Brian Edwards-Tiekert back in the 2000s; so, predictably, it suffers from the same “liberal bias”, as Leonard Lopate at Large, UpFront, Democracy Now!, Letters and Politics, Talkies, et al., which Dr. Noam Chomsky warned about since at least the 1990s. Terra Verde can be filed under the corrupt faction’s category of NPR-izing programs. If the random lackeys, apparently selected by the patronage system of which Britain Edwards-Tiekert is a partisan, if they truly cared about the environment, they would connect the issues to the power structures of society, especially both major corporate political parties because electoral p. 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…

11:00 PST, PRN.Live [NYC] > Alternative Visions with Dr. Jack Rasmus

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

COMMENTS: Alternative Visions with Dr. Jack Rasmus is the real economic update.  We love Economic Update with Dr. Richard Wolff, but he’s more of a performer than an educator, or a reporter, at least with regard to Dr. Wolff’s economic updates.  We cannot deny the importance of Dr. Wolff’s popularization of leftist (i.e, anticapitalist/prosocialist) economics.  But Dr. Jack Rasmus provides real-world nuts and bolts explanations of economics topics, tracking actual data in accessible language for everyday working-class people, defining terms along the way.  Leftist (i.e., anticapitalist) economic perspectives prioritize labor’s interests over the interests of capital.  Rightist (i.e., procapitalist) economic perspectives prioritize capital’s interests over the interests of labor.  Please keep in mind, capitalism is not necessarily synonymous with liberty/libertarianism; and socialism is not necessarily synonymous with authoritarianism.  The left-right spectrum is a range of possibilities of economic systems, not political systems.  Political systems have to do with the role of the state, which is a separate dimension; so they must be considered and, therefore, graphed on a separate axis, such as a vertical axis.  (To consider graphs and further details on these important political compass explanations, see “America’s Stunted Political Spectrum” by Second Thought [via YouTube], 24 APR 2020.) [ 4 ]

11:00 PST, KPFA [Berkeley, CA] > Voices of the Middle East and North Africa (VOMENA) (pre-empted? rescheduled? cancelled?) > Talkies with Kris Welch

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.” “The cultural, the intellectual, the political, the spiritual — and the silly. Life as we know it, fear it, love it, question it, live it. Hosted by Kris Welch.”

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. [ 5 ]

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

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. [ 6 ]

“Kim Iversen ASKS Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The Million Dollar QUESTION (clip)” by Sabby Sabs [via YouTube], 28 APR 2023.

YOUR AUTHOR’S COMMENT POSTED IN YOUTUBE COMMENTS SECTION: (1:37)  Sabby Sabs laughed at the idea that traditional American values of liberty and justice are still alive in the USA. 

I don’t get it, Sabby.  Basically, you’re laughing at yourself with your cynicism and defeatism.  What RFK Jr means is that his supporters and others still hold values of liberty and justice.  If you can laugh at those values, Sabby, perhaps, it’s because you do not truly hold those values of liberty and justice.  Perhaps, you’re laughing because you know those values are not alive in you.  If you do hold those values, then what are you doing to support a candidate in the 2024 Presidential Election to uphold those values?

I mean I get it; I have been opposed to the Democrat Party and the two-party dictatorship since I naïvely voted for Bill Clinton in his first run for U.S. president.  Then, I realized I had been fooled by the false left-right paradigm.  Then, I moved leftward and supported Ralph Nader, campaigning for Nader, then moving to the only socialist party in California, the Peace and Freedom Party.  And I understand we must build third-party politics and dismantle the two-party dictatorship.

But RFK Jr is a principled candidate running an insurgent campaign in the Democratic Party primary.  If you don’t agree with RFK Jr’s values, then please say so.  But please don’t conflate RFK Jr’s insurgent campaign with the past problems of the Democrat Party machine.  RFK Jr is running as an outsider.  And his only chance of success is if we, the people who agree with his antiwar, antitotalitarian, anti-corporate, anti-regulatory capture values, his only hope is we all get behind his campaign and support it.  But, instead, your laughing at those values.

Maybe I’m missing something, Sabby.  But I’m very disappointed in your response (and in Kim Iversen’s response) to RFK’s campaign.  Max Blumenthal makes a lot more sense; and he is more honest about the political realities, not just nitpicking on straw man arguments, or sophistically making salient details, which do not track truth. 

We must support RFJ Jr, among other reasons, because he is the only antiwar candidate.  And, whether he wins or loses, we must continue to build third-party politics and dismantle the two-party dictatorship.

If you see another antiwar candidate, or a better candidate, Sabby, please let us know.  Otherwise, why poo pooh the only antiwar candidate?  RFK Jr, or any candidate, wouldn’t stand a chance running as an independent, without an ability to debate and be heard widely.

Working-Class Solidarity ✊🏽✊🏼✊🏿✊
Lumpen.org

10:00 PDT / 12:00 EDT, WPFW [D.C.] > Jazz and Justice – Bobby Rox

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

COMMENTS: Bobby Rox is one of the honest broadcasters on the free speech Pacifica Radio Network (like Mickey Huff, Dennis Bernstein, Esther Iverem, Gary Null, et al.), as opposed to the intellectually dishonest ones, such as Brian Edwards-Tiekert, Mitch Jeserich, Leonard Lopate, Kris Welch, Aileen Alfandary, Mark Mericle, et al. The intellectually dishonest broadcasters have in common a tendency to prioritize Democrat Party apologism over truth-seeking.

13:00 PDT, KPFA [Berkeley, CA] > Project Censored with Mickey Huff

QUOTATIONS FROM RADIO ARCHIVE DESCRIPTION: “On the latest program, we celebrate Daniel Ellsberg Week (April 24-30), co-sponsored by The Ellsberg Initiative for Peace and Democracy & and RootsAction Education Fund, as we honor whistleblowers in support of a truly free press from Dan Ellsberg to Julian Assange. First, Mickey talks with journalist Kevin Gosztola, author of Guilty of Journalism. Kevin gives important updates on the Assange case as the WikiLeaks founder languishes in a Belmarsh prison awaiting potential extradition to the US to be tried under the Espionage Act. Then, in the second segment, we share more from a very special conversation between Kevin Gosztola and famed Pentagon Papers whistleblower, Daniel Ellsberg. Ellsberg spoke with Kevin last month on the occasion of the release of Kevin’s book Guilty of Journalism: The Political Case Against Julian Assange. In part two of this interview, Ellsberg shares information about his historical relations with the press, as well as his pessimistic view of today’s US press. We share it in honor of Daniel Ellsberg Week.

“NOTES:
“Kevin Gosztola is the managing editor of Shadowproof, and also writes at The Dissenter. He has covered the Julian Assange legal proceedings in the UK from their beginning, as well as other press-freedom and whistleblower cases. His new book on the Assange case, Guilty of Journalism is now available in bookstores. Daniel Ellsberg is best known for leaking classified Pentagon documents in 1971, which revealed covert operations against North Vietnam, as well as secret assessments that the war could not be won, and executive-branch lies to Congress and the US public. In the decades since then, Ellsberg has remained an antiwar activist, and an ally of whistleblowers. The news of his recent diagnosis of an inoperable cancer has prompted press-freedom advocates to declare a week of appreciation for Ellsberg, to begin Monday April 24.”

NOTES:  […] (Your scribe tuned in late)  (13:14 PDT)  ‘Article:  In Push to Dismiss Lawsuit… by Kevin Gosztola with a reportback on journalist and political prisoner Julian Assange… [TW]  … another journalist has been arrested for ‘gathering U.S. secrets’, the same bogus charges as are being leveled against Julian Assange.   |  1321 Mickey Huff asked about one of the persistent false allegations against Julian Assange, that Assange helped defeat Hillary Clinton’s campaign.  Kevin Gosztola said there is no evidence of that nor even an actual allegation of that, as Robert Muller(sp?)…’  1324 ‘I believe that settles it…Also, there are no charges against Assange by the Justice Department for anything related to 2016…  This is about 2010 and 2011 and the reporting of US military war crimes, including the Collateral Murder video…’  1325
|  1330 PDT music break:  Gil Scott Heron’s ‘the military and the monetary…’  |  1332 Kevin Gosztola introduces extra clips of a recent interview wilth Daniel Ellsberg, aged 92, and facing ostensibly terminal cancer… [Notably, Dr. Gary Null has suggested some weeks ago that he reached out to Daniel Ellsberg to urge him not to give in to a terminal cancer diagnosis, that he can be helped, as many people have been with alternative treatments focusing on detoxification, nutrition, and fitness.  But, allegedly, Ellsberg reacted in a way averse to having to give up his comfort foods or comfort lifestyle…]  … [transcript-worthy (TW)]

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.

14:00 PDT, KPFA > Making Contact with random liberal (i.e., pro-capitalist or non-anti-capitalist) host

QUOTATIONS FROM RADIO ARCHIVE DESCRIPTION: “Self-Managed Abortion: Medicine of the Future? – Making Contact – April 28, 2023” | Since Roe V. Wade was overturned last summer, it’s harder than ever to access abortion services. But it’s never been easy in the rural midwest and southern states, even when Roe was the law of the land. We sat down with staff at All Options Pregnancy Resource Center in Bloomington, Indiana to talk about how they handle an increase in need for funding the rising cost of abortion.

“They do a lot, but there’s one thing they can’t do. They can’t talk to clients about self-managed abortion, even though experts at the World Health Organization say it’s safe and effective.

“While abortion is debated in the American court system, we talk with researcher Dr. Melissa Madera to learn about the ways folks are getting access to abortion pills, what to expect from a self-managed abortion and what people should know about the risk of criminalization.

“Featuring:

• Dr. Manjulaa Narasimhan: Scientist, Department of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Research at the World Health Organization
• Dr. Melissa Madera: Founder of Abortion Diary Podcast, Choix Telehealth team member, Researcher on Project SANA team, Special Projects Consultant for Plan C Pills
• Jessica Marchbank: State Programs Manager at All Options Pregnancy Resource Center in Bloomington, Indiana
• Loretta Ross: Activist, Public Intellectual, Professor, Calling In movement maker, Co-founder of Sister Song, A Godmother to reproductive justice & survivor advocate
• Wes: Bloomington resident and volunteer at All Options Pregnancy Resource Center”

NOTES/[COMMENTS]: Random NPR-like host or recycled liberal podcast > topic: ‘self-managed abortion’  opening uncritically cited the World Health Organization (WHO) [The WHO is basically a criminal organization, which is pushing a totalitarian pandemic treaty, which is seeking to override the sovereignty of nation states, as it did through its totalitarian COVID-19 agenda…  narration is NPR-like.  Who’s paying for this?  Who produced this? This is depoliticizing, demobilizing, status-quo-enablers, staus-quo-preservers.]  Your scribe doesn’t recognize this host, despite listening often… [This is all pearl-clutching drama with no meaningful political analysis of what listeners can do about the issue…] | (14:08 PDT) offline, back to making ends meet offline…

COMMENTS: This program, Making Contact, suffers from the same “liberal bias” (which Dr. Noam Chomsky has warned about for decades), as UpFront, Democracy Now!, Letters and Politics, Leonard Lopate at Large, Talkies, Rising Up, et al.  Democrat Party apologism and a refusal to critique or interrogate the two-party dictatorship is the common thread between all these liberals (i.e., pro-capitalists or non-anti-capitalists)…

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:  […] [Your scribe tuned in late] (16:28 PDT)   ‘I just keep lowriding…’ Nano(?) from Barrios Unidos…Paradise from X-Clan…’   |  1629 RIP Harry Belafonte:  ‘Day-O’ by Harry Belafonte  |  1630  On the ‘Oakland police commission to oversee their policing and to oversee the Office of the Inspector General and also to oversee the CIPRA, the Community Investigation of Policing…’  ‘2016 ballot measure amended…’  ‘So, we’re relatively new…’  1634 Davey D:  ‘One of the attempts to undermine police oversight has been to say community members, like yourself, really don’t understand what policing is about…’  |  1635 female-sounding guest:  ‘…Sure, we’re community members…’  [Guest provided clear details…]  ‘I’m an attorney. There’s a judge on there, also a comparative literature person…all these different types of people with their professionalism…’  (16:39 PDT)  DD:  ‘…the text messaging scandal in Antioch…the scandal in San Jose… How has Oakland fared?’  |  1639 ‘a report on a very awful situation in OPD where a sergeant committed a hit and run…the investigation was severely flawed…he fired his weapon in an elevator…’ |  DD:  ‘He threw the evidence over the bridge…’  |  guest:  ‘…through 2022, 2021, that such egregious problems could happen shows there’s a deep cultural, structural problem…for example, the book, The Riders Come Out at Night, shows it’s structural.  It’s cultural.’  |  1642  DD:  ‘This is the kind of torture, like Fannie Lou Haimer(sp?) endured…’  ‘Marcia Pedersen(sp?) is our guest …. in every city, police say their morale is low.  Some call it the blue flu, ever since the George Floyd protests.  Are police policing?  Because people are saying there’s a lack of policing?  … Is there a blue flu?’  |  … 1649 ‘crime is happening everywhere. In Walnut Creek, there’s armed robbery.  They’re clutching their pearls out there.  They thought the [Caldicott] tunnel would protect them.’ [Walnut Creek is a wealthy enclave, with a downtown shopping district akin to a Rodeo Drive, almost…]  ..  1651  1657. ‘Allen dash temple dot org, for info on a community gathering and meet-and-greet in Oakland, 85th & E. 14th Street, I think she said…’

17:00 PDT, KPFA [Berkeley, CA] & KPFK [simulcast] [Los Angeles, CA] > Flashpoints with Dennis Bernstein

QUOTATIONS FROM RADIO ARCHIVE DESCRIPTION: “Today on the Show: We welcome again the legendary investigative filmmaker, John Pilger. We’ll talk about China bashing and the fight to free John’s friend, Julian Assange. And A Longtime police-accountability activist and KPFA contributor files suit against the violent cops of the East Bay, here in the Bay Area”

NOTES:  1700 PDT, KPFA > db intro: John Pilger.  And longtime KPFA broadcaster sues Antioch police.  |  1. John Pilger on Julian Assange and the coming war on China  |  1735 music break, then Freewheelin’ Franklin’s lawsuit against the Antioch Police Department  |  (c. 17:40 PDT)  Franklin Sterling update on Department of Justice investigating the Antioch Police Department for a range of crimes, including cocaine, illegal steroids, etc.  Also, there has been a scandal involving text messages, which have exposed a group of some 45 cops engaging in all manner of heinous communications  …  1745 dead air…  Franklin Sterling, hearing no response from Dennis Bernstein, said,  “Okay.  Then, he continued.  ‘Antioch Police Chief Ford’  …  1747 DB is back… ‘My lawsuit stems from a 2021 protest we had out here in Antioch…a group called Antioch Backs the Blue, comprised of dispatchers and wives of cops, etc.  So, we went out to the pro-police celebration to say he was running out as his investigation was heating up.  So, we were outnumbered…Then, we got attacked… They tried to rip up our signs and take our bullhorn…  And the police turned their backs on us.  And I was videotaping it… I said, Hey, what are you doing?   Then, they tackled me and twisted me up into a pretzel… I was on NBC News…  Then, they tased me… So, my lawsuit stems from that… And there was a double standard because they were allowing pro-police people cross the police line to videotape me, but not the others…  1752 … ‘So, the text messaging scandal also exposed some of the disgusting things they said about one of the female protesters…  Also, it seems I’ve been targeted for my reporting on this…’  ‘The police targeting me stems from a 2009 incident about music…  The Antioch police came and beat me, particularly officer Rick Hoffmann(sp?).  He beat me until I collapsed…  Then I could hear all these flashlight blows on my back and on my head…  And then he kicked me in my face and said, ‘That’s what you get for fucking with the cops!’  And then he put some sort of martial arts chokehold on me to cut off my oxygen until he rendered me unconscious…  But all of this had been video recorded…  It was found in a lockbox at the police department…  And they had charged me with false charges…  But when the judge saw the videotape, the judge threw out all the charges…  So, the officer lost his lawsuit, but was still awarded a merit badge and promoted… But, since then, fortunately we got a more progressive City Council.  And, now, he’s embroiled in this text messaging scandal exposing the racism, lawlessness, corruption, and unconstitutional culture and deep structural problems with the Antioch Police Department..’  [Indeed.  They’re under investigation by the Justice Department…]  … Dennis Bernstein: ‘And, as a Native American,  wouldn’t you say that racism is also at the core?’  FS:  ‘Yes, and as we talk about allegations, the text messages are NOT allegations.  This is proven fact.  So, we are asking that these officers not get their pensions…  And the internal affairs departments, they are using the N-word…  So, we have some serious work to do out here.’  (17:59 PDT)  Closing remarks from Dennis Bernstein  First Voice Media on Facebook will have some of our videos.’  |  Credits read by Mike Biggs(sp?), the technical director. 

18:00 PDT / 21:00 EDT, WBAI > Sojourner Truth with Margaret Prescod

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] 

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[ 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 ]  Alternative Visions with Dr. Jack Rasmus is the real economic update.  We love Economic Update with Dr. Richard Wolff, but he’s more of a performer than an educator, or a reporter, at least with regard to Dr. Wolff’s economic updates.  We cannot deny the importance of Dr. Wolff’s popularization of leftist (i.e, anticapitalist/prosocialist) economics.  But Dr. Jack Rasmus provides real-world nuts and bolts explanations of economics topics, tracking actual data in accessible language for everyday working-class people, defining terms along the way.  Leftist (i.e., anticapitalist) economic perspectives prioritize labor’s interests over the interests of capital.  Rightist (i.e., procapitalist) economic perspectives prioritize capital’s interests over the interests of labor.  Please keep in mind, capitalism is not necessarily synonymous with liberty/libertarianism; and socialism is not necessarily synonymous with authoritarianism.  The left-right spectrum is a range of possibilities of economic systems, not political systems.  Political systems have to do with the role of the state, which is a separate dimension; so they must be considered and, therefore, graphed on a separate axis, such as a vertical axis.  (To consider graphs and further details on these important political compass explanations, see “America’s Stunted Political Spectrum” by Second Thought [via YouTube], 24 APR 2020.)  Post-WWII conflating of the role of the state (i.e., authoritarian political systems vs. libertarian political systems) with the range of economic systems (i.e., rightist/capitalist economic systems vs leftist/socialist economic systems) has mired working-class people within rightist economics ideologies, which prioritize capital over labor and, thus, mired working-class people in political ideologies inimical to the interests of working-class people.  Paying attention to the economic updates, reporting, and commentaries of experts, like Dr. Richard Wolff, alongside experts, like Dr. Jack Rasmus, makes all of this crystal clear.  Your author often hears well-meaning people suggest it’s divisive to choose between the economic left or right of the spectrum.  But the true left-right distinction is a matter of fact based in reality, unlike the false left-right paradigm of corporate media, which conflates the economic dimension with the political dimension.  The fact is there will always be a point at which the interests of capital will be at odds with the interests of labor when it comes to deciding how to divide profit.  It is not divisive to point out this reality.  The division in human societies between the educated, wealthy, powerful few and the uneducated, impoverished, disempowered many preceded the recognition of the class dynamics of left and right.  Class analysis only makes plain and clear the fact that we, the people, always choose, wittingly or unwittingly, between prioritizing labor or capital.  No well-meaning, decent, or humanitarian person wants to be divisive.  Unfortunately, some divisions precede our recognition of them.  We cannot wish away the fundamental division between capital and labor anymore than we can wish away the division between predators and prey.  It is impossible to deny capital is predatory; and disorganized labor are prey.  The capitalist never hires a worker, unless the capitalist can make more money off of the worker’s labor than the capitalist will pay the worker in wages.  Capital is a social relation, in which capitalists are wolves and workers are sheep, unable to thoughtfully respond, only react helplessly and be herded by the wolves for feeding the wolves.  A capitalist economic system will always tend toward authoritarianism because authoritarianism is built into the mode of production.  There is no democracy on the job; so, there is no true democracy in society.  The concentration of wealth and power in few hands at the workplace is multiplied across society, inevitably, into concentration of wealth and power in few hands in the political system.  Libertarian capitalism is a contradiction in terms because capitalism is not compatible with democracy.  Any economic system, whether socialist or capitalist, is susceptible to authoritarian leadership in the absence of an informed, active populace.  But only a socialist economic system is compatible with a libertarian political system because only a socialist economic system prioritizes labor over capital and, therefore, can be stabilized into a democratic society.  But this requires the organization of labor.  And capital never rests to disorganize and divide labor, in order to keep workers from seeing the bigger picture, to keep workers reactive instead of proactive, like mindless sheep whenever the wolves snarl and gnash their teeth.  As Jim Morrison sang in The Doors’ classic song, “Five To One”, “they got the guns, but we’ve got the numbers…”  Imagine, if we, the people, recognized there are more of us than there are of them.  Then, we, the people, could have waves of general strikes and, as Malcolm X hoped, a bloodless revolution.  Working-Class Solidarity. ✊🏽✊🏼✊🏿✊🏻

[ 5 ] 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. 

[ 6 ] 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.

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[28 APR 2023]

[Last modified/edited/updated on 6 MAY 2023 at 10:24 PDT]