AlternativeRadio

Extinction Rebellion, also simply known as XR, is a global environmental movement. It was founded in the UK with the explicit aim of using nonviolent civil resistance to compel government action to avoid ecological collapse. The latest UN IPCC report paints a dire picture of what the future will bring. By 2050, a billion people will face coastal flooding from rising seas. Using radical tactics, Extinction Rebellion draws inspiration from grassroots movements such as the civil rights movement.  XR aims to instill a sense of urgency to prevent further climate breakdown and the ongoing sixth mass extinction. A number of XR activists accept arrest and imprisonment. The movement’s symbol is a stylized, circled hourglass to serve as a warning that time is running out for us.

Concentrated wealth and power undermine democracy and advance plutocracy. The 1% have inordinate influence over the rest of us. Wall Street dominates Main Street. How do ordinary people break through the oligarchic system to assert their interests over the interests of the super-rich? As Ralph Nader says, "However we look at it, the wealthy few use the relentless mechanism of commercialism to trample democracy, the natural environment, and the common good. Our grievances are many, and the power of citizenship, community, and national pride should be enough to mobilize the population to organize resistance and change."

The conventional media image of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. has him frozen in time at the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963 giving his inspirational "I Have a Dream" speech. Little attention is paid to King's remarkable political and social evolution in the last five years of his life. He became a trenchant critic of the Vietnam War. In his classic sermon at the Riverside Church in New York he denounced the war and "the giant triplets of racism, materialism and militarism." King increasingly saw the link between economic justice and racial equality and insisted that one was impossible without the other. His final days were spent in Memphis where he was actively supporting a strike by black sanitation workers and he was planning to launch a poor people’s march on Washington, D.C.. An assassin’s bullet ended his life on April 4, 1968. Recorded at the University of Denver.

Malcolm X is a singular figure in African-American history. He led an extraordinary life. He was born in an impoverished family in Omaha, NE on May 19, 1925. He recalled being “dizzy” with hunger. He said, “My whole life has been a chronology of changes.” Indeed it was. He went through a remarkable series of transformations from being a street hustler known as Detroit Red to going to jail, to converting to Islam then breaking with Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad and becoming an independent voice for black dignity, self-reliance, and economic independence. Malcolm challenged the racist white power structure and the blacks who went along with it. He was only 39 years old when he was assassinated on February 21, 1965 in New York. Maya Angelou said of him, “His aura was too bright.” He had a charismatic presence and a radiant smile. And he was an electrifying orator. At his funeral, Ossie Davis eulogized him as our “prince. Our own black shining prince.” Today, Malcolm’s autobiography continues to be read and his words continue to inspire.

Imagine it is 2030. A youngster asks you, What was is like back then at the turn of the century? What will you say about capital punishment, the drug war, guns or why more money was spent on prisons than education? What will you say about racism, the criminal justice system and the vast discrepancies in sentencing? What will you say about gender and class bias and the huge income and wealth gap between the rich and the poor? What will you say? Recorded at the Boulder Theater.

What role do intellectuals play in society? Are they apparatchiks, yes men and women or do they challenge the half-truths, mendacities and fabrications of the rich and powerful? Noam Chomsky explored these themes in his famous essay, “The Responsibility of Intellectuals." published in The New York Review of Books during the height of U.S. aggression in Indochina. Chomsky unambiguously declared, "It is the responsibility of intellectuals to speak the truth and expose lies." He called them the "new mandarins" who are subservient to the ruling class and use their privileged position to advance their careers. They provide the cover for the crimes of state, articulating the underpinning and embedded ideology. For their services, they are well rewarded with endowed chairs at the best universities, frequent media appearances and fat book contracts. In this program, Eqbal Ahmad examines the work of intellectuals such as Chomsky, Antonio Gramsci, Edward Said, I.F. Stone, Rabindranath Tagore and others and the relationship of knowledge to power. Recorded at MIT.

In his 1967 book Where Do We Go From Here? Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr wrote these prophetic words: “A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. This may well be mankind’s last chance to choose between chaos or community.” More than five decades later the chaos is all too apparent: When we look around we are faced with a raging pandemic with its mounting death toll, acute economic distress, a climate in peril and the fury of the January 6th insurrection and all that was behind it. We are at a proverbial crossroads. Collective action can address these problems. We can choose. Will it be chaos or community?

Inertia. We all experience it. It can lead to despair and despair can lead to paralysis. And that’s just where the oligarchs and plutocrats want us to be. Keeps the focus away from their destructive policies. Many of us have resources and privileges but don’t use them. The attitude is if something’s wrong let someone else deal with it. But throughout history small groups of organized people have fought against and overcome many difficult obstacles such as patriarchy, misogyny, homophobia and racism to make progress. That didn’t happen by wishing them away but by articulating what the problems were and formulating solutions. The multiple crises we face today demand action. Are we supposed to sit back and ignore what’s going on? What are we waiting for?

The great 20th-century Irish poet William Butler Yeats wrote, "We had fed the heart on fantasies, The heart’s grown brutal from the fare." The United States has long fed its heart with fairy tales about itself. Hardly a day goes by without some new story being spun about our noble intentions, benevolence and devotion to international law. Sadism is not something new. Just ask indigenous peoples and Blacks or the Vietnamese and Iraqis. Chris Hedges warns, “The violence and exploitation, which has long defined imperial projects, now defines existence at home. For empires, in the end, cannibalize themselves. The tyranny we long imposed on others, we now impose on ourselves. The dark pleasure derived from exploiting others is all that is left.” Recorded at the Sanctuary for Independent Media.

The great 20th-century Irish poet William Butler Yeats wrote, "We had fed the heart on fantasies, The heart’s grown brutal from the fare." The United States has long fed its heart with fairy tales about itself. Hardly a day goes by without some new story being spun about our noble intentions, benevolence and devotion to international law. American sadism is not something new. Just ask indigenous peoples and Blacks or the Vietnamese and Iraqis. Chris Hedges warns, “The violence and exploitation, which has long defined imperial projects now defines existence at home. For empires in the end, cannibalize themselves. The tyranny we long imposed on others, we now impose on ourselves. The dark pleasure derived from exploiting others is all that is left.” Recorded at the Sanctuary for Independent Media.