AlternativeRadio

If you weren’t aware of it before, the pandemic demonstrates the fact that the virus recognizes no boundaries or borders. There is no safe place. Our collective fragility has been made all too evident. What will we take away from the Covid-19 plague?  We go back to business as usual only at our peril as other pandemics are sure to come. As Dr. Stephen Bezruchka says, “We need to rally around creating a society to work for global sustainability. Covid-19 threatens the planet. This crisis is an opportunity to make big changes in our relationship with each other and the planet. Incremental change is not going to work.”

Capitalism is exhibiting a hardening of its economic arteries. The pandemic has exposed profound structural problems. The crisis demands a serious examination of not only its root causes but for viable solutions. Once we are passed the pandemic do we go back to the status quo ante of massive eco-devastation and inequalities in income and wealth or do we create a new paradigm? Economist Richard Wolff suggests cooperatives offer equitable alternatives. He says, “If workers collectively and democratically owned and operated the enterprises, they wouldn't be profit maximizers that goes to a tiny group of people. The passion Americans sometimes bring to democratic values in politics, have been peculiarly un-applied to economics with disastrous results. Cooperation is not just a nice, warm, cuddly, good thing to do. Cooperation is what can save us from the collapse of our system.”

The news from India is grim. A Covid wave is sweeping the country, inflicting widespread misery and deaths. Government figures of Covid-related fatalities are widely seen as very much underreported. India may soon pass the U.S. as the global leader in deaths. Analysts say that the country wasn't prepared to handle the surge. Hospitals have been overwhelmed and there are acute shortages of oxygen, medicine and vaccines. The country is ruled by Narendra Modi of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the BJP. It is a Hindu nationalist party. It has come under wide criticism for its handling of the crisis. Noted writer Arundhati Roy says, “It is hard to convey the full depth and range of the trauma, chaos and indignity that India’s Covid catastrophe has inflicted. Meanwhile, Modi and his allies tell people not to complain.” Interview by David Barsamian.

While we are regaled with images of Mars, back here on Earth our planet and its people are in distress. The eco-crisis continues unabated. There are wars and the threats of wars. And, of course, the coronavirus. The pandemic has not only taken millions of lives it has revealed in graphic terms the acute inequalities between the haves and the have nots. Rapacious capitalism preys on insecurity. It creates a class of vulnerable people who are easily exploited. To secure a brighter, more equitable and just future a radical transformation of our economy and society is required. As Astra Taylor warns us we either “shift course or race off the cliff, taking” the future “down with us.”

China is one of the oldest cultures in the world with a rich history. The ancient Middle Kingdom is today's People's Republic of China. For several centuries prior to the creation of the PRC, China endured invasions, occupations, civil wars and famine. Today it is an economic powerhouse. Its influence is expanding across the globe. However, relations between Washington and Beijing have become increasingly confrontational. Secretary of State Blinken warned China not to upset what he called the “rules-based order” and “anyone who poses a challenge to that order, we're going to stand up and defend it." He noted China is acting "more aggressively abroad." At the same time, the Pentagon sends its warships off of China’s coast and surrounds China with American military bases. Washington sees China as a threat to its hegemony. A new Cold War is brewing. 2CDs Interviewed by David Barsamian.

The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States have been at loggerheads ever since America's ally, the shah, was overthrown in 1979. Iran was an important part of U.S. hegemony in the Middle East. In the decades since, Washington has waged cyber warfare, drone strikes, assassinations, sabotage and sanctions against Tehran. Washington and its media echo chamber portray Iran as dangerous and threatening even though it's surrounded by American bases and spends just a pittance on weaponry compared to the U.S. But hostility wasn’t always the norm. There’s a rich and mostly hidden history that began several hundred years ago where the two countries had friendly relations. Historian John Ghazvinian said that relationship was filled mutual "admiration, warmth, and benevolence."

A great practitioner, publisher and defender of poetry was Lawrence Ferlinghetti. He passed away just shy of his 102nd birthday earlier this year. Born in Yonkers, New York in 1919, his education was paused for World War II and Atlantic and Pacific tours in the U.S. Navy. He witnessed firsthand the ruins of Nagasaki after the atomic bombing in 1945. He became a committed voice for peace and social justice. Ferlinghetti co-founded the country’s first all-paperback bookstore, City Lights Books in San Francisco in 1955. Bay area poets Kenneth Patchen and Kenneth Rexroth, then Denise Levertov and Allen Ginsberg appeared under the City Lights imprint. The small press got national attention when Ferlinghetti and his partner were arrested on obscenity charges for publishing Ginsberg’s poem Howl. The People of the State of California v. Lawrence Ferlinghetti proved an important victory for freedom of expression over censorship laws. Ferlinghetti had anarchist leanings. He remained politically committed through his art, and to liberation movements in Latin America especially.

Is Noam Chomsky an anti-Semite? How about Amy Goodman and Naomi Klein? The question may sound absurd. Yet, according to the definition of anti-Semitism that more than 30 countries including the United States under the Biden administration have adopted, Chomsky, Goodman and Klein could very well be labeled as such. Why? They are critical of Israeli policies. Zionism is the late 19th century Jewish national movement. The origin of the term is the Hebrew word “Zion” often used as a synonym for Jerusalem and Israel. Anti-Zionism is Anti-Semitism is the motion debated at the Emmanuel Centre in London. Before a large audience, this lively and contentious discussion features voices arguing pro and con. Speakers for the Motion: Melanie Phillips, Journalist, broadcaster and author Einat Wilf, Israeli politician, former Knesset member Speakers Against the Motion: Mehdi Hasan, Journalist and broadcaster Ilan Pappé, Israeli historian, university professor The moderator is Carrie Gracie of the BBC.

There’s a new Jim Crow in the U.S. This 2.0 version is legislation passed by politicians who mouth pieties about protecting our sacred right to vote and the integrity of elections. After one of the most secure and verified elections in U.S. history there is a wave of voter suppression laws being proposed across the country. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, Republican legislators in 43 states have introduced more than 250 bills that would make it harder to vote. These measures primarily seek to impose stricter voter ID requirements, reduce the number of polling places, limit mail drop boxes and early voting. These actions are an open assault on the 1965 Voting Rights Act that Dr. King, John Lewis and so many others fought for. What’s going on with American democracy?

Gun violence exacts an enormous toll on U.S. society-claiming tens of thousands of lives every year. Many more thousands are wounded and scarred physically and psychologically. From malls to schools from places of worship to concerts there is no safe space. Weapons of war are easily obtainable. We have the spectacle of armed militias in combat gear roaming statehouses, threatening the lives of government officials and invading the national Capitol itself on January 6. The main lobby for guns is the National Rifle Association, the NRA. It resists common-sense reforms. No matter the tragic occasion, the NRA recites its slogan, “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” The NRA denounces calls for reasonable gun control as attacks on freedom and liberty. The organization’s actual history is hidden not only from the general public but even from its own members.