AlternativeRadio

By David Barsamian

News & Politics Government & Organizations Non-Profit

What's AlternativeRadio about?

Alternative Radio is an "unembedded" weekly one-hour public affairs program offered free to all public radio stations in the US, Canada, Europe, South Africa, Australia, and on short-wave on Radio for Peace International. AR provides information, analyses and views that are frequently ignored or distorted in other media.

4.7

357357 ratings

Download our free app to listen on your phone

AlternativeRadio episodes:

04.18.2024
[Sarah Scoles] The Future of Nuclear Weapons
The award-winning Oppenheimer film has brought attention to the origins of the atomic bomb and the anguish of its inventor. Almost 80 years after that first explosion in New Mexico, the threat of global Armageddon not only remains but has...
04.11.2024
[Eugene Puryear] From Birmingham to Bethlehem (part 2)
How can the Palestinian struggle for freedom and dignity take lessons from the Black Liberation Movement? Historical circumstances are clearly different yet there are similarities. Both are located in a colonial-like situation, where a powerful oppressor dominates another less powerful...
03.28.2024
[Arundhati Roy] India: On the Road to Theocracy
Hindutva is theocratic Hindu nationalism. It is a powerful force in what is now the world’s most populous country. Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, is a lifelong member of the RSS, an openly Hindu supremacist organization. Le Monde Diplomatique reports:...
03.21.2024
[Ralph Nader] Corporate Autocracy, Fascism, Trump & the Election
Corporate power is more concentrated than ever before. The rich are significantly richer. And the poor? Well, they know their place. There’s an odor of fascism in the air. FDR once warned, “The liberty of a democracy is not safe...
03.14.2024
[Andrew Seidel] Weaponizing Religious Freedom
The separation of church and state has long been a cornerstone of American democracy. The Founders of the Republic, Jefferson, Madison, et al, insisted on a secular government unencumbered by religious dogma. However, in recent years decisions by a conservative-dominated...
03.07.2024
[Sarah Leah Whitson] Gaza, International Law & the Biden Presidency
Julia Conley, staff writer for Common Dreams writes, “Along with persistent protests at public events held by President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, recent polling is continuously demonstrating that the White House's vehement support for Israel's bombardment of...
02.29.2024
[Chris Hedges] Biden, Gaza Genocide & Israel
In a landmark decision the International Court of Justice, the UN’s highest judicial body, based in The Hague, by an overwhelming vote ruled that the accusation that Israel in its assault on Gaza is committing genocide is “plausible.” The Israeli...
02.22.2024
[John Pilger] Lapdogs with Laptops
A vital and independent press is essential to the functioning of democracy. In recent years, media concentration has accelerated. This has resulted in the closing down of many domestic and foreign bureaus and a sharp reduction in the number of...
02.15.2024
[Adila Hassim, Richard Falk, Irene Gendzier] Gaza: A Case of Genocide
In the wake of the Holocaust in the 1940s and earlier in the century the genocidal attacks against the Armenians by Turkey and the German slaughter of the Herero and Namaqua peoples in SW Africa, the Polish jurist Raphael Lemkin...
02.08.2024
[Koohan Paik-Mander] Arms Race = Suicide Race
The “Oppenheimer” movie and the Ukraine war have brought much-needed attention to the possibility of terminal war. The arms race will end the human race. To call nukes weapons of mass destruction comes nowhere near describing the level of devastation...
02.01.2024
[Max Blumenthal] October 7th was Inevitable
Gideon Levy, the noted Israeli journalist, says "Gaza is a cage, the biggest prison in the world." 2.3 million Palestinians are locked in a small area. For years they have been under siege by Israel and now relentless bombing resulting...
01.25.2024
[Roxanne Dunbar-Ortíz] Genocide & Settler Colonialism
Genocide is the most heinous of crimes and it connects to settler colonialism. Historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz says, “Settler colonialism requires genocidal violence to attain its goal” of acquiring land. In North America and elsewhere this meant the Indigenous population was...
01.18.2024
[Norman Finkelstein] A Brief History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
The world's eyes are on Gaza and Hamas. Hamas is an acronym in Arabic for the Islamic Resistance Movement. Here's a bit of history, usually ignored. Gaza came under Israeli military control in 1967. That continued for thirty-eight years until...
01.11.2024
[Chris Hedges] The Israeli-Palestinian War
The death toll of Palestinians in Gaza will soon surpass 20,000 with many more wounded. The UN says Gaza is “a graveyard for children.” The history of the Israeli-Palestinian war did not begin on October 7. While the atrocities of...
01.04.2024
[Norman Solomon] The Madness of Militarism
Many are familiar with Eisenhower’s 1961 warning of “the military industrial complex.” Veteran CIA analyst Ray McGovern has expanded on Ike’s phrase. He coined the term MICIMATT, the Military-Industrial-Congressional-Inteligence-Media-Academia-Think Tank complex. How does it work? The notorious revolving door syndrome...
12.28.2023
[Noam Chomsky] When Lunatics Run the Asylum
The future of humankind and the planet are in danger from the twin existential threats of terminal nuclear war and climate catastrophe. The response? The Biden administration is following through on Pentagon plans to “modernize” its nuclear arsenal. Instead of...
12.21.2023
[Joseph Stiglitz] Democracy & the Failure of Neoliberal Globalization
Neoliberal economics has exposed the dark side of the American dream. It took off with Reagan and Thatcher. For most workers incomes have stagnated except for the very rich, whose incomes have more than quadrupled. Biden correctly points out that...
12.14.2023
[Russell Means] Knowing Who You Are: Lessons from Native America
For years the indigenous peoples of the U.S., after having been dispersed and decimated and relegated to reservations, were reduced to caricatures. We all knew Indians and their culture. There was the familiar medicine man, the trading post, Geronimo and...
11.30.2023
[Phyllis Bennis] Ending Cycles of Violence: Israel & Palestine
The conflict between Israel and Palestine is in a new and extremely deadly period with many thousand dead, wounded and displaced. The battleground is the narrow coastal enclave of Gaza, home to over two million Palestinian Arabs. Often called the...
11.23.2023
[Vandana Shiva] Real Food, Real Farming
We live in a time where our connection with food and with the farmers that grow it has been undermined. The root of the problem is a growing dependence on a dysfunctional paradigm based on pesticides and monocultures, and a...
11.16.2023
[Bedross Der Matossian] Armenia, Artsakh & Azerbaijan
Quickly lost in media coverage was the conflict between the Armenians of Nagorno Karabakh, Artsakh in Armenian, and Azerbaijan. It resulted in the ethnic cleansing of the overwhelmingly Armenian enclave. For many months, their land was under siege and blockade...
11.09.2023
[Richard Wolff] The Resurgent U.S. Labor Movement
In 1970 unions represented about 30% of private-sector workers. Today that number is just 6%. As unions declined over the past half-century, workers suffered. They were paid poorly, they lost health care, retirement benefits and control over their schedules. Deaths...
11.02.2023
[Brian Becker] Cold Wars: Old & New
We are in the midst of a new cold war. In this go-round, the principal adversary is China with Russia taking second place. In the old Cold War, it was the reverse. Today, Russia is nowhere near China economically. And...
10.26.2023
[Naomi Klein] Conspiracy Culture
Conspiracy. Conspiracy culture. Conspiracy theories. Just hearing those words can make some people cringe and others embrace them. Conspiracy theories are as old as the hills. But today, thanks to social media algorithms that push users toward ever more emotional,...
10.19.2023
[Michael Parenti] Class Struggle from Roman Times to Today
A constant throughout history from Ancient Rome to today is the rich and powerful seek ever more wealth and control. If a popular leader innovates reforms that help the poor they come under sustained attack or worse they are killed....
10.12.2023
[Edward Said] Palestine: Memory, Inequality & Power
The 1993 Oslo Accords between Israelis and Palestinians. You might recall the scene. Arafat, Rabin and Clinton at the White House beaming away and shaking hands. It was a euphoric moment. Peace and stability were at long last at hand....
10.05.2023
[Nader Hashemi] Iran: The Struggle for Democracy
Zhou Enlai of China once said, "One of the delightful things about Americans is that they have absolutely no historical memory." Perhaps the former Chinese premier was being too harsh, but then again maybe he wasn’t. Take the case of...
09.28.2023
[Peter Kornbluh] The Other September 11: Chile, 1973
September 11 is now engraved on the consciousness of Americans. Yet for the South American country of Chile, the date has a different and much more tragic significance. It was on that day in 1973 that the democratically-elected government of...
09.21.2023
[Vijay Prashad] Africa: From Neocolonialism to Independence
Almost every country in Africa was colonized by Europe. Today, while nominally sovereign many of these countries are in the clutches of the big international banks. The old colonial masters Britain and France still have a foothold in Africa but...
09.14.2023
[Bernie Sanders] You Can Save the Planet
The crises facing humankind are, to use a much overused but accurate word – unprecedented. Plutocratic power in the hands of the few is a disaster for democracy and our ecosphere. The ruling class is driven by its voracious lust...
09.07.2023
[Vandana Shiva] Interconnectedness
The corporate takeover of food with its toxic chemical inputs poses serious health and environmental problems. Corporate agriculture, The New York Times states unequivocally "is causing irreparable harm to the planet." It is "ravaging the air, soil and water, destroying...
08.24.2023
[Mary Wood] Environmental Law & the Defense of Nature
As ecosystems collapse and the climate emergency intensifies, the government often uses its authority to allow the very harm that it is supposed to prevent. Sound crazy? It is. The granting of permits is a battleground where corporations, with their...
08.17.2023
[Victor Navasky] Naming Names: The Hollywood Blacklist
The anti-Communist hysteria rampant in the U.S. in the 1940s and 1950s is often called the McCarthy period. But the red-baiting and persecution started even before McCarthy was elected to the Senate in 1946. The notorious House Un-American Activities Committee...
08.10.2023
[Noam Chomsky] Censorship, Free Speech & the Media
States want to dominate the narrative with their version of events. There are two basic models. One follows Aldous Huxley, the other George Orwell. The latter is best known for 1984. Big Brother is brutal. He wields a big stick...
08.03.2023
[Norman Solomon] War Crimes & War Criminals
At the end of World War Two, the victorious Allies decided to try top Nazi officials as war criminals. A tribunal was convened in Nuremberg. Some of them were hanged. Others were given jail sentences. Today, Nuremberg is largely forgotten....
07.27.2023
[Stephen Kinzer] Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Twain & American Empire
Why has the United States intervened so often in foreign lands? What are its origins? Having expanded its borders largely through its destruction of Indigenous peoples the U.S. went on to project its power globally. Today, its empire of bases rings...
07.20.2023
[Daniel Ellsberg] Origins of the Vietnam War
In this program, Daniel Ellsberg discusses early U.S. support for France’s effort to retain control of its Indochina colony. In a little-known and scary fact of history, he describes Eisenhower’s offer of nuclear weapons to the French to stave off...
07.13.2023
[Nick Estes] Wounded Knee to Standing Rock: Indigenous Resistance
In South Dakota, in 1973, hundreds of Native American activists led by members of the American Indian Movement occupied the Pine Ridge Reservation village of Wounded Knee— which was also the site of a notorious massacre in 1890 in which...
07.06.2023
[Omar Shakir] Israel/Palestine: A Threshold Crossed
Thirty years ago, the Oslo Accords between Israelis and Palestinians were signed. There was widespread fanfare and jubilation. There was Clinton standing between Rabin and Arafat bringing them together at the White House. It was a new dawn. Finally, peace...
06.22.2023
[Greg Grandin] Kissingerism
Turning 100, the accolades for Henry Kissinger are pouring in. He is a legend. Over decades, he has assiduously cultivated and constructed the image of the sagacious elder statesman. Corporate journalists hang on his every word. Politicians seek his advice....
06.15.2023
[Khurram Parvez] Kashmir: Telling the Story
I interviewed Khurram Parvez in Srinagar, Kashmir in February 2011. When I returned to India that September to follow up on reporting on the mass graves in Kashmir, I was denied entry by the Indian government. I’ve been banned from...
06.08.2023
[Omer Aziz] Fascism in America
The term fascism is loosely bandied about. When most people think of it the images that come to mind are of stormtroopers and Hitler ranting and raving. It is often automatically assumed that fascism developed in Europe in the 1920s....
05.18.2023
[Stephen Bezruchka] Inequality Kills Us All
In the 1950s the United States had among the lowest mortality rates and highest life expectancy in the world. Today, other rich nations and quite a number of poor ones have better health outcomes than Americans. Why? How can the...
05.04.2023
[Medea Benjamin] System Change
The multiple problems facing the U.S. can no longer be swept under the rug. Modest so-called reforms are not sufficient given the magnitude of the crises we face from imperialism and militarism to war and the climate emergency. Our dollar-driven...
04.20.2023
[Jeffrey Sachs] Wars of Hegemonic Competition
Hegemony is from the Greek meaning authority, rule, and political supremacy. Since 1945 the United States has been the global hegemon. That is changing now. The U.S. recently issued its Annual Threat Assessment. It makes for interesting reading. It lists...
04.13.2023
[Jeff Cohen] Break Up the Media Monopolies
Concentration of any industry is dangerous but media concentration is particularly dangerous because of the vast influence media exert in shaping public opinion. Years ago, legendary journalist and media critic Ben Bagdikian warned of the dangers posed by media monopolies....
04.06.2023
[Richard Wolff] The United States of Denial
States can’t easily accept unpleasant realities like their power is waning. America is no different. In geopolitics, China is an ascending power and challenging U.S. hegemony. Unlike in the past, China can’t be easily pushed around. Its top diplomat says...
03.30.2023
[Medea Benjamin] The Selling of the Ukraine War
February 24 marks the first-year anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Moscow’s action is a clear violation of international law. But it was not unprovoked. The NATO military alliance has expanded its bases right up to Russia’s borders. The...
03.23.2023
[Manning Marable] By Any Means Necessary: Malcolm X
The singular voice of Malcolm X speaks today to more people than ever before. He endures as a powerful and inspirational figure. It's not hard to understand why. With his mesmerizing oratorical style and cadence, it was Malcolm who redefined...
03.16.2023
[Juan González] The Young Lords
Puerto Rico. The U.S. seized the Caribbean island from Spain in 1898. Officially it is “a locally self-governing unincorporated territory of the United States.” Since 1917 those born in Puerto Rico have U.S. citizenship but they can’t vote in federal elections....

What's AlternativeRadio about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

AlternativeRadio episodes:

[Sarah Scoles] The Future of Nuclear Weapons

[Eugene Puryear] From Birmingham to Bethlehem (part 2)

[Arundhati Roy] India: On the Road to Theocracy

[Ralph Nader] Corporate Autocracy, Fascism, Trump & the Election

[Andrew Seidel] Weaponizing Religious Freedom

[Sarah Leah Whitson] Gaza, International Law & the Biden Presidency

[Chris Hedges] Biden, Gaza Genocide & Israel

[John Pilger] Lapdogs with Laptops

[Adila Hassim, Richard Falk, Irene Gendzier] Gaza: A Case of Genocide

[Koohan Paik-Mander] Arms Race = Suicide Race

[Max Blumenthal] October 7th was Inevitable

[Roxanne Dunbar-Ortíz] Genocide & Settler Colonialism

[Norman Finkelstein] A Brief History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

[Chris Hedges] The Israeli-Palestinian War

[Norman Solomon] The Madness of Militarism

[Noam Chomsky] When Lunatics Run the Asylum

[Joseph Stiglitz] Democracy & the Failure of Neoliberal Globalization

[Russell Means] Knowing Who You Are: Lessons from Native America

[Phyllis Bennis] Ending Cycles of Violence: Israel & Palestine

[Vandana Shiva] Real Food, Real Farming

[Bedross Der Matossian] Armenia, Artsakh & Azerbaijan

[Richard Wolff] The Resurgent U.S. Labor Movement

[Brian Becker] Cold Wars: Old & New

[Naomi Klein] Conspiracy Culture

[Michael Parenti] Class Struggle from Roman Times to Today

[Edward Said] Palestine: Memory, Inequality & Power

[Nader Hashemi] Iran: The Struggle for Democracy

[Peter Kornbluh] The Other September 11: Chile, 1973

[Vijay Prashad] Africa: From Neocolonialism to Independence

[Bernie Sanders] You Can Save the Planet

[Vandana Shiva] Interconnectedness

[Mary Wood] Environmental Law & the Defense of Nature

[Victor Navasky] Naming Names: The Hollywood Blacklist

[Noam Chomsky] Censorship, Free Speech & the Media

[Norman Solomon] War Crimes & War Criminals

[Stephen Kinzer] Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Twain & American Empire

[Daniel Ellsberg] Origins of the Vietnam War

[Nick Estes] Wounded Knee to Standing Rock: Indigenous Resistance

[Omar Shakir] Israel/Palestine: A Threshold Crossed

[Greg Grandin] Kissingerism

[Khurram Parvez] Kashmir: Telling the Story

[Omer Aziz] Fascism in America

[Stephen Bezruchka] Inequality Kills Us All

[Medea Benjamin] System Change

[Jeffrey Sachs] Wars of Hegemonic Competition

[Jeff Cohen] Break Up the Media Monopolies

[Richard Wolff] The United States of Denial

[Medea Benjamin] The Selling of the Ukraine War

[Manning Marable] By Any Means Necessary: Malcolm X

[Juan González] The Young Lords