Our semi-occasional weekly round-up of the most absurd and head shaking news!
Click on the small triangle or mp3 link to hear it as broadcast on the Arts Express program this week on WBAI FM NYC, WBAI.org and Pacifica affiliates across the nation
“Last week I gave my personal remembrances on the death of political activist, organizer, thinker and writer Mitchel Cohen. I was able to find a really extraordinary recording that was made by Mitchel and Robert Gold on a trip they took to Cuba in 1992. While they were there, they got to attend a kind of informal talk given by Assata Shakur, who, of course, was an American Black Panther, arrested by the police for murder, put in prison and then freed in a daring escape. From there she went to Cuba which welcomed her with open arms…”
Click on the mp3 link or small triangle above to hear the talk as broadcast this week on the Arts Express radio program, heard on WBAI FM NYC, WBAI.org and Pacifica affiliates across the country.
“This past week, we lost Mitchel Cohen, a passionate radical Marxist activist, thinker, writer, environmentalist, organizer, poet, and Phil Ochs fan, who was seemingly everywhere, connected to everyone on the left, including here on WBAI and Pacifica. It seemed like there was hardly a protest, demonstration, civil disobedience, or conference that he wasn’t a part of in one way or another…”
Click on the small triangle or mp3 link above to hear our remembrance of Mitchel, as broadcast this week on the Arts Express radio program, heard on WBAI FM NYC, WBAI.org and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.
A posthumous collection of essays by anarchist anthropologist David Graeber, who coined the phrase “We are the 99%,” has just come out, and we look into one of its most interesting pieces.
Click on the triangle above or mp3 link to hear my commentary on the book, as heard on the Arts Express radio program this week, broadcast on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.
In a geopolitical world where the US is increasingly using every tool of control and coercion it can on other countries, the truth can be deeply hidden. Now a new book titled, Underground Empire: How America Weaponized the World Economy, clearly outlines the ways in which technological and economic choke points, many on U.S land, are being weaponized to pressure the worlds’ foremost powers into complying with America’s interests. I was happy to interview the authors of Underground Empire, Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman.
Click on the mp3 link or triangle to hear the interview as broadcast today on the Arts Express radio program, heard on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica stations across the country.
Fewer than 10 years ago, former NSA employee Edward Snowden blew the whistle on the US government’s illegal, unconstitutional, worldwide warrantless surveillance. Throughout history, brave whistleblowers have risked their lives and livelihoods for what they considered the greater good. But what is the cost these whistle blowers pay, and more importantly, how do the successful whistleblowers succeed?
I was happy to talk with author Tim Schwartz who has written a how-to guide for would-be whistle-blowers, uncovering many of the traps and missteps one can fall into, A Public Service: Whistleblowing, Disclosure, and Anonymity.
Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to hear the conversation with Tim Schwartz as broadcast today on the Arts Express program on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.
As corporations are making record profits, workers are being squeezed more than ever. But workers are fighting back in surprising ways. Jon Melrod, has been involved as hell raiser and union organizer for decades, ever since his groundbreaking union organizing on the shop floor for the United Auto Workers in the 70s and 1980s. He’s now written a rip-roaring memoir called Fighting Times: Organizing on the Front Lines of the Class War about his fight to make workers lives better, and I was happy to get the chance to interview him.
Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to hear my interview with Jon Melrod, as broadcast today on the Arts Express radio program on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.
The newest book by Marxist economist Michael Hudson has the imposing title of The Destiny of Civilization: Finance capitalism, industrial capitalism or socialism. It’s not exactly summer beach reading but it is one of those books that has added to my framework for understanding world events and I greatly appreciate that.
Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to hear my review of the book as broadcast today on Arts Express radio program heard on WBAI-FM and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.
Wherein your correspondent reads from the classic anti-war book by America’s most decorated soldier, US Marine Major General Smedley Butler.
“I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer; a gangster for capitalism…”
Click on the gray triangle or mp3 link above to hear War is A Racket as broadcast today on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.
In the early nineteen sixties, a hidebound Catholic Church attempted to modernize with a movement known as Vatican 2. But some Church people, nuns and priests, wanted changes that were a bridge too far for Vatican 2. In Los Angeles, the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary went toe to toe with the church hierarchy, involving themselves in anti-war and social justice movements. I was happy to speak with Pedro Kos, the director of a new film documentary called Rebel Hearts about those women of the Immaculate Heart who insisted on staying true to their consciences.
Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to hear the interview with Pedro Kos as broadcast today on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica stations across the nation.
Leftists who have followed the recent fortunes of socialist governments in Latin America can’t help but be both heartened and chastened by the ups and downs in those economies and in their social development projects. The dynamics of building socialism in the midst of an imperialist world presents enormous challenges. I was happy to interview journalist Andy Robinson who succeeds in demystifying much of the politics of the area by getting down to basics in his fascinating and illuminating new book, Gold, Oil, and Avocados: A Recent History of Latin America in Sixteen Commodities.
Click the triangle or mp3 link above to hear my interview with Andy Robinson, as broadcast today on Arts Express on WBAI FM NYC, and Pacifica stations across the country.
The longtime head of the Portuguese Communist Party, Álvaro Cunhal, spent many years of his life in Portuguese fascist prisons. Later in exile, from the 1950s onward, he wrote novels, novellas and short stories about Portuguese life under the fascists who ruled from 1927 to the early 1970s. In particular, he wrote of the leading role of the Portuguese Communist Party in the anti-fascist struggle for almost 50 years. To create a literary identity apart from his political renown, he employed the pen name Manuel Tiago.
Author and translator Eric Gordon set himself the task of translating Cunhal’s work into English, and so far, the books Five Days, Five Nights and The Six-Pointed Star have appeared from International Publishers. The 3rd Floor has just been issued, with five more books on their way.
The title story is a prison break tale. In the excerpt I’ll be reading, the Communist prisoners have worked out a messaging system with the Party by writing on little bits of cigarette papers and smuggling them in and out under the buttons of shirts in the dirty prison laundry. A trio of prisoners who are secretly working on a prison break have just received back a message from the Party.
Click the triangle or mp3 link above to hear the story, as broadcast today on Arts Express on WBAI FM NYC, and Pacifica stations across the country.
American artist Eli Valley created his Diaspora Boy comics because of his anger with the corruption of American Jewish institutions and so-called Jewish “leaders” that he was constantly exposed to. His response was a savage comic strip with a visual style that mixed the 50s Mad’s Harvey Kurtzman and the 60s R. Crumb.
I broadcast a radio commentary about the collected strips that Valley published in book form, and I also read one of his 9-panel cartoons on the air.
Click the triangle or mp3 link above to hear the commentary, as broadcast today on Arts Express on WBAI and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.
Agent Orange has been called the most destructive instance of chemical warfare in modern history. Sad to say the US government has been instrumental in the awful deaths caused by Agent Orange both in Vietnam and the United States. A powerful new documentary, The People Vs. Agent Orange, depicts the horrific story but also the courageous action by two extraordinary women, Tran To Nga and Carol Van Strum, who fought and sacrificed so much to bring the guilty parties responsible to account.
I was happy to speak with the directors and producers of the film, Alan Adelson and Kate Taverna, and also with one of those extraordinary women, Carol Van Strum, on Arts Express.
The film, The People vs Agent Orange is broadcast on PBS starting 6/28/21 and can be streamed via the PBS streaming app until July 11.
Click the triangle or mp3 link above to hear our interview, as broadcast this week on Arts Express Pacifica stations across the nation, and later in the week on WBAI FM NY.
Here’s a re-working of an essay that I originally printed on this blog some time ago, and revised for radio broadcast.
“Well everyone’s all aflutter these days with our newly elected overlords, and far be it from me to burst anyone’s bubble. I mean, what fun is it in having enemies if you can’t beat up on them and blame them for all the country’s ills? Of course our unelected overlords still continue apace, but today I want to talk about a different level of reality that remains largely unspoken...the one incontrovertible fact about life in these United States regardless of who is ruling is the following…”
Click on the triangle or link above to hear it as broadcast today on the Arts Express radio program on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.
Nellie McKay stops the music to talk to her audience in a way you probably have not seen before. This was the first in-person concert she had done since the advent of the pandemic. It was an outdoor concert in a small field in a small town in Ohio. If you watch the video of the whole concert (see the link below), you realize that some have walked out, but by the end of the concert she wins the crowd back over again.
Warning: Not Suitable For Work
More at Paula Conklin
I was led to Montreal-based singer/songwriter activist Louise Dessertine by poet Steve Bloom who had sent me a YouTube video of her singing her extraordinary song, “Put Your Red Dress On.” I was able to contact her and we had a lovely Zoom talk. You can listen to our conversation as well as some of her wonderful songs by listening to the radio segment I put together, which was broadcast today on the Arts Express radio program on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica radio affiliates across the country.
Click on the triangle or link above to listen.
More Louise Dessertine here:
Louise Dessertine – Home | Facebook
Louise Dessertine | ReverbNation
In 1980, Joel Sucher made a film called Free Voice of Labor: The Jewish Anarchists, which was a portrait of immigrant life in the U.S. as seen through the eyes of sweatshop workers who made up the Jewish anarchist movement. Between 1900 and World War I, these Yiddish-speaking anarchists constituted an influential political movement affecting trade unions, newspapers, left-wing culture—and hysteria—in the US. Now 40 years later, that film has been re-released. I was happy to interview one of the original directors of Free Voice of Labor, Joel Sucher.
Click on the triangle or link above to hear my conversation with director Joel Sucher as broadcast today on WBAI NY and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.
David Graeber died last month and it was a real loss. The radical anthropologist was probably best known as the author of Debt: The First 5000 Years, but my favorite book of his is the quirky Bullshit Jobs: A Theory. Here’s my commentary on this important book as broadcast today on the Arts Express program on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the country.
Click on the triangle or the image above to listen.
In her fascinating new book, The Young Lords, Professor Johanna Fernández makes a compelling case that the Young Lords were one of the most important revolutionary groups of the late 60s and early 70s. They won lasting victories by coupling street smarts, sophisticated organizing techniques, and intense political analyses. There’s much to be learned from their story, both successes and failures, which is cogently and lovingly told by the author.
Click on the triangle or image above to hear my interview with Johanna Fernández, as broadcast today on the Arts Express radio program, heard on WBAI NYC and Pacifica stations across the nation.
You can find Part 2 here:
Jeremy Brecher has just come out with a revised and updated 50th anniversary edition of his brilliantly readable book called STRIKE! about the history of strikes in the United States. It’s an eye-opening history in so many ways, but for now, I’d just like to excerpt from the book an editorial that was published in the Seattle Union Record concerning the general strike that had taken hold in Seattle in 1919. The general strike involved shipbuilders, dockworkers, laundry workers, restaurant workers, milk-wagon drivers, and many more trades who brought the city to a standstill. If this rings a bell for you today, it’s not a coincidence.
There will be many cheering, and there will be some who fear. Both these emotions are useful, but not too much of either. We are undertaking the most tremendous move ever made by LABOR in this country, a move which will lead—NO ONE KNOWS WHERE! We do not need hysteria. We need the iron march of labor. LABOR WILL FEED THE PEOPLE. Twelve great kitchens have been offered, and from them food will be distributed by the provision trades at low cost to all. LABOR WILL CARE FOR THE BABIES AND THE SICK. The milk-wagon drivers and the laundry drivers are arranging plans for supplying milk to babies, invalids and hospitals and taking care of the cleaning of linen for hospitals. LABOR WILL PRESERVE ORDER. The strike committee is arranging for guards and it is expected that the stopping of the cars will keep people at home.. A few hot-headed enthusiasts have complained that strikers-only should be fed, and the general public left to endure severe discomfort. Aside from the inhumanitarian character of such suggestions, let them get this straight— NOT THE WITHDRAWAL OF LABOR POWER, BUT THE POWER OF THE STRIKERS TO MANAGE WILL WIN THIS STRIKE. What does Mr. Piez of the Shipping Board care about the closing down of Seattle’s shipyards, or even of all of the industries of the northwest? Will it not merely strengthen the yards at Hog Island, in which he is more interested? When the shipyard owners of Seattle were on the point of agreeing with the workers, It was Mr. Piez who wired them that, if they so agreed— HE WOULD STILL NOT LET THEM HAVE STEEL. Whether this is camouflage we have no means of knowing. But we do know that the great eastern combinations of capitalists COULD AFFORD to offer privately to Mr. Skinner, Mr. Ames and Mr. Duthie a few millions apiece in eastern shipyard stock. RATHER THAN LET THE WORKERS WIN. The closing down of Seattle’s industries, as a MERE SHUTDOWN, will not affect these eastern gentlemen much. They could let the whole northwest go to pieces, as far as money alone is concerned. BUT, the closing down of the capitalistically controlled industries of Seattle, while the WORKERS ORGANIZE to feed the people, to care for the babies and the sick, to preserve order— THIS will move them, for this looks too much like the taking over of the POWER of the workers. Labor will not only SHUT DOWN the industries, but Labor will REOPEN, under the management of the appropriate trades, such activities as are needed to preserve public health and public peace. If the strike continues, Labor may feel led to avoid public suffering by reopening more and more activities. UNDER ITS OWN MANAGEMENT And that is why we say that we are starting on a road that leads— NO ONE KNOWS WHERE!
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Last week I posted Part One of my interview with Jodi Dean, author of the new book, Comrade. In that part of the interview, she talked about the origin and unique importance of the word, “comrade,” and how it differs from other terms like friend or ally.
This week we continue with Part Two of that conversation as we talk about what happens when comrades and party part company, and what the opening for a real politics might be in the time of pandemic. As events occur at lightening speed, her point of view becomes more important than ever.
Click on the triangle or the mp3 link above to hear the interview as broadcast today on Arts Express on WBAI NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the country.
You can listen to Part One, here.
Phil Ochs in 1966, 54 years ahead of his time.
A few notes on the jokes in his intro:
Senator Carl Hayden was the oldest senator in the Senate at the time at 89 years old at the time of the recording; and George Murphy was a former song and dance man who had been elected Senator from California in 1965, predating Ronald Reagan who became California governor a year later.
Thanks to YouTuber farmboy10001
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In Jodi Dean’s provocative new book called Comrade, she argues that the word “comrade” is an indispensable one that describes a unique political relationship not captured by words like citizen, colleague, friend, brother/sister, or even ally. If the future of revolutionary change is through the vehicle of the revolutionary political party, she says, then the understanding of what “comrade” really means is vital.
I was happy to interview Jodi Dean on the Arts Express radio program. To hear Part One as broadcast today on WBAI 99.5 FM NYC and Pacifica radio affiliates across the country, click on the triangle or mp3 link above.
You can hear Part Two here
