AlternativeRadio

Noam Chomsky warns,  “There has to be some kind of Green New Deal if we’re going to survive. The human species is facing questions which have never arisen before. Is organized human life going to survive in any recognizable form? We’re approaching the level of global warming of roughly 125,000 years ago, when sea levels were about 25 feet higher than they are now. You don’t have to have much of an imagination to know what that means. Well, shall we race towards it the way the Trump administration and the Republican Party wants us to do? Shall we do something about it, the way Sunrise Movement and Extinction Rebellion and Ocasio-Cortez want to do? That’s the decision that has to be made.”

A conversation between Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald reportedly went like this: Fitzgerald says, “The rich are different from you and me.” To which Hemingway responded, “Yes, they have more money.” You bet they do. And now more than ever. The old Gilded Age pales in comparison to the current one. The wealthy of the late 19th century: Rockefeller, Vanderbilt and Mellon look impoverished in relation to the current crop of Bezos, Gates and Buffet. Inequality is at record levels. How has it happened? The attack on unions has hurt workers. CEO pay has gone through the roof. There have been massive tax cuts for the haves while the have-nots see their social safety net eroded. The enormous excesses of the first Gilded Age led to a populist backlash and the Progressive Era. Could we see a repeat of that today?  

Eduardo Galeano in his masterwork, The Open Veins of Latin America wrote that 500 years ago European settler colonialists came to this hemisphere and “sank their teeth” into the throats of Indian civilizations. You know the story. Genocide. Land was stolen. Broken promises and broken treaties. Survivors exiled to inhospitable reservations. In recent years indigenous people are organizing and asserting their rights. Standing Rock in North Dakota was a key moment where some 200 nations came together to resist the Keystone XL pipeline. New terms entered the lexicon of resistance such as water protectors and stewards of the land. Keystone and other struggles continue as does corporate capitalism’s monomaniacal drive for profits regardless of the cost to Mother Nature and indigenous peoples.  Chief Seattle once said, "The Earth does not belong to us; we belong to the Earth."

We’ve all seen the images of huge icebergs breaking off the Antarctic ice sheets into the ocean. It’s not just polar bears and penguins who are in danger of losing their habitat. Our “pale blue dot” in the universe as Carl Sagan described Earth, is in peril. The top scientists of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change say we have only until 2030 to “avoid catastrophic environmental breakdown.” Young people see their future fraught with risk. And they are stepping up and speaking out. Sixteen-year-old Greta Thunberg of Sweden began a school strike protesting the lack of urgency in addressing climate chaos. Her action caught on and spread all over the world. New groups of climate activists such as 350.org, Extinction Rebellion and the Sunrise Movement have arisen. They are demanding radical change in business as usual. Interviewed by David Barsamian. Recorded at KGNU.

The list of U.S. invasions, occupations, coups and sanctions in Latin America is a mile long. It is after all, “our little region over here,” and our “backyard” according to policymakers in Washington. Starting with the Monroe Doctrine in 1823 the continent and its people have been a laboratory for U.S. intervention, a kind of piñata, a punching bag. As the U.S. became a world power techniques perfected in Latin America were then globalized. Today, once again Washington turns its hegemonic gaze south. The National Security Advisor John Bolton denounces the “troika of tyranny”— Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua and the leaders of those countries as “the three stooges of socialism.” Apparently with no sense of shame or of history Bolton declared, “We’re not afraid to use the phrase ‘Monroe Doctrine’ in this administration.”

Artists, creative people, occupy a special place in our hearts and minds. They interpret the world around us and imagine things outside the box. What is the connection between them and their creative output and society? Is it just to take curtain calls and sign autographs or is there something more? Picasso asked the question, “What do you think an artist is? An imbecile who only has eyes if he’s a painter, ears if he’s a musician, or a lyre in every chamber of his heart if he’s a poet – or even, if he’s a boxer, only some muscles? Quite the contrary, he is at the same time a political being constantly alert to the horrifying, passionate or pleasing events in the world, shaping himself completely in their image. How is it possible to be uninterested in other men and by virtue of what cold nonchalance can you detach yourself from the life that they supply so copiously? No, painting is not made to decorate apartments. It’s an offensive and defensive weapon against the enemy.”

Warren Buffett, the much-admired genius investor and one of the world’s richest men said, “There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” And who are the losers? The working class, people who work for an hourly wage or are salaried. The ruling class has driven down wages and benefits, smashed unions, and cut programs that protect the disadvantaged. All of this at a time when income and wealth inequality has reached historic extremes. Who’s to blame? In a classic example of divide and rule immigrants are demonized and scapegoated. It’s all their fault. Not the bosses and CEOs who make oodles of money. Can the working class, long taken for granted by the Democratic Party, be a force for positive progressive change? How might it overcome its own internal divisions and contradictions? Interviewed by David Barsamian. Recorded at KGNU.

Are marches and demonstrations just feel good affairs? You vent some spleen then go home satisfied as if you’ve done something worthwhile and before you know it the glow wears off? Or does the power of collective action, solidarity and mass mobilizations have a deeper effect? The key to resistance is organization leading to sustained efforts. The danger of demonstrations is if they are not connected to movements. The former is episodic whereas movements are enduring. The historic 1963 March on Washington for civil rights and the subsequent anti-Vietnam War demonstrations had a major impact. Those protests attracted hundreds of thousands. Since the Trump inauguration in January 2017 there have been more protests than during any comparable period in U.S. history, literally millions have turned out. People are getting off of tweets and into the streets in larger and larger numbers.

From Seattle to Toronto, the cost of owning a home is soaring. Rents are no better. Accelerated by neoliberal economic doctrine a paradigm shift in housing has occurred in recent years. There is a growing disconnect between housing as a human right and housing as a financial vehicle for investment. We’ve come a long way from FDR’s remarkable 1944 State of the Union address where he advocated for, “The right of every family to a decent home.” Today, housing is viewed by the global investor class as a commodity to be bought and sold in markets, a repository for capital and a means of accumulating wealth. Financialization of housing causes gentrification, undermines community, exacerbates inequality and contributes to the disgrace of homelessness. We need to develop and encourage politics that not only restores housing as a universal human right but to make it affordable as well.

Ralph Nader points out the term climate change is a vast understatement and does not convey the gravity of what we are facing. He says, climate disruption is more accurate. Study after study, report after report make it clear that human activity is transforming our planet. With heat waves, droughts, wildfires, floods, melting ice sheets and rising sea levels, millions of people will be at risk. But the fossil-fuel industry with its insatiable hunger for profits continues its assault on the Earth. It has an ally in the president who claims to “have a natural instinct for science,” and asserts: “Any and all weather events are used by global warming hoaxsters to justify higher taxes.” Note that he asked for and obtained approval to build two sea barriers to protect his golf resort in Ireland from rising water.