AlternativeRadio

(2 CDs) The discontent in the U.S. is more than palpable. Income and wealth inequality continue to soar. The middle class is getting hammered. Fifty million are poor. Americans are disheartened about the nation’s course. According to a new Gallup poll 82% of voters believe the country is on the wrong track. Another poll from the Associated Press says one in four registered voters have hardly any confidence their vote will be counted. Both major presidential candidates have very high negatives. Many people are fed up with the choices the two major parties dish up. In the wake of the Bernie Sanders campaign and the spark it generated, there seems to be an opportunity for progressives to advance their ideas.Interviewed by David Barsamian.

(2 CDs) The discontent in the U.S. is more than palpable. Income and wealth inequality continue to soar. The middle class is getting hammered. Fifty million are poor. Americans are disheartened about the nation’s course. According to a new Gallup poll 82% of voters believe the country is on the wrong track. Another poll from the Associated Press says one in four registered voters have hardly any confidence their vote will be counted. Both major presidential candidates have very high negatives. Many people are fed up with the choices the two major parties dish up. In the wake of the Bernie Sanders campaign and the spark it generated, there seems to be an opportunity for progressives to advance their ideas.Interviewed by David Barsamian.

Since the beginning of time people have been telling stories from Gilgamesh in Iraq to The Odyssey in Greece. These tales convey lessons and societal values and warnings about arrogance. The U.S. spins its own yarns. Take say, the one about brave pioneers who fought off savage Indians to settle the country and establish dominion from coast to coast. That Indians were defending their land against invasion is, well, an inconvenient fact. Fast forward to today and there are stories about the economy. If you work hard enough you’ll be justly rewarded. Money is everything. The market is all knowing. Bow before it. Worship it. The Earth is simply a source of raw materials. Inequality and environmental destruction are unfortunate but unavoidable. How do you change the narrative, change the story to reflect an ethical, compassionate and nurturing worldview?

Seeds, those little things we kind of take for granted, are the essence of life. Increasingly, corporations have taken over agriculture and in their insatiable quest for profits have injected GMOs, genetically modified organisms, into the food chain. As the joke goes, GMO stands for “God Move Over.” The four largest GMO crops, corn, soy, sugar beets and canola constitute 70 percent of all products. Should the government require mandatory labeling on foods containing genetically engineered ingredients? A lot of people think so. Large agribusiness and biotech companies have spent hundreds of millions fighting labeling. With control of seeds through patents and so-called intellectual property rights in the hands of a few corporations, biodiversity disappears, and is replaced by GMO monocultures. Seeds in traditional cultures were regarded as sacred. It’s time we stopped soiling the soil.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt must be flipping in his grave as many of his cherished New Deal programs have come under assault from not just Republicans, but from his own Democratic Party. Democrats in the 1990s picked up and adopted Ronald Reagan’s right-wing agenda of deregulation, tax cuts for the rich, so-called free trade deals, crime bills, mass incarceration and cutting programs for the poor. Democrats abandoned the working class and in particular turned its back on unions. Theycuddled up and embraced hedge fund managers and celebrities in their mansions in Malibu and the Hamptons. They watched as wages went flat, people lost their homes and inequality mushroomed to obscene levels. Campaign rhetoric aside, Hillary Clinton will most likely continue with business as usual unless she is pushed hard to adopt a truly progressive agenda.interviewed by David Barsamian.

The Black Panther Party was founded fifty years ago. It did much to raise consciousness and pride among African-Americans. It was seen as a threat by the establishment and was thus targeted by Hoover’s FBI in a campaign of infiltration, destabilization and assassination. Today a new generation of activists has arisen in the aftermath of a series of outrageous killings of African-Americans by police. The Black Lives Matter movement has reawakened attention to the historical and contemporary ravages of racism and the persistence of structural inequality such as mass incarceration and unemployment. Who can forget Eric Garner’s plea of “I can’t breathe” before he was choked to death on a Staten Island street? It symbolizes the plight of many blacks trying to survive in crushing poverty. The Black Lives Matter movement holds the potential to reignite a broader push for black liberation.  This event was presented by the Lannan Foundation.

The ironies, agonies and hypocrisies in the U.S. political system are in high-relief during a presidential election year. The role of big money undermines the integrity of one person, one vote. The state of the electoral infrastructure is a national embarrassment, long lines, broken machines and purges of voters without their knowledge. In addition the primaries have made abundantly clear: a two-party monopoly snuffs out populist uprisings and credible third party challenges. Working class people are propagandized into voting against their own interests. Indeed, what has happened to the Democrats, the so-called party of the people? Why is the Democratic Party where movements for progressive social change go to die?

In Cochabamba, Bolivia people rose up against the privatization of water. They marched and chanted El Agua es Vida, Water is Life. They drove Bechtel, the U.S. corporate behemoth out of Cochabama. How important is clean water? Just ask the residents of Flint, Michigan. Water is a huge issue. We expect it to flow when we open the faucet. Long showers, green lawns and swimming pools are considered almost a birthright. But with hotter global temperatures more and more parts of the world are water stressed. One of the triggers of the uprising in Syria was a prolonged drought. Israel has been using the aquifer in the occupied West Bank leaving Palestinians with very little thus exacerbating tensions and conflict. In Bangladesh, desperate people have dug so deep for water that it is contaminated with arsenic resulting in the largest mass poisoning in history.

Political organizers are aware of “wedge issues” that divide us and “web issues” that bring us together. What could be more unifying than saving the planet? The Earth is heating up. Polar ice caps are melting. Sea levels are rising. April was the 12th consecutive hottest month on record. The December 2015 Paris Climate Change Agreement, doesn’t rise to the challenge. Clearly, it is going to take mobilization from below to radically change the fossilized attitudes of the fossil fuel industry and the politicians that they bankroll. Broad coalitions of diverse groups seek to do just that. Climate activism engages a new intersectional politics. From Pope Francis to the Dalai Lama, workers and trade unionists, indigenous peoples, and many others are speaking with one voice on the issue like never before.

Juneteenth is the oldest commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States. June 19th is recognized as African American Emancipation Day or Freedom Day. It marks the day in 1865 when the people of Texas were informed that, in accordance with a presidential proclamation, all slaves were free. It says: “This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor.” A century and a half later, African-Americans remain at the bottom of almost every social index from infant mortality and homelessness to unemployment and poverty. The road to freedom is a long one and yes there have been some steps forward but this is no time for victory laps. There is too much work to be done.