Bringing Light Into Darkness - News & Analysis

Elevating Juneteenth with Roscoe Overton

Happy Juneteenth!

Roscoe Overton details the extensive research project he completed and the discovery along the way that the Overtons were among the first black families to have purchased land in Texas as he shares and connects his generational ancestry from Nashville Tennessee to Austin and central Texas. Roscoe’s research and curiosity began some 70 years ago, with a conversation with his Uncle at age 10 years old

We feature also the work of another KOOP Community Organization Member as their executive director, Marva Overton joins Bringing Light Into Darkness to describe the work of the Alliance for African American Health in Central Texas, a nonprofit organization that engages community members to address health issues that disproportionately impact African Americans. Marva describes some of the specific health challenges that disproportionately impact the Austin African American community.

Penny Jo Pullus, producer and host of KOOP Radio’s Texchromosome show, co hosts the show tonight and shares her experiences learned through a series of lunch dialogues with Roscoe. Penny Jo leads our discussion with Roscoe over the path his research took him regarding Juneteenth. Roscoe describes the slave colonies that existed and that a hundred years ago the Overtons in Bastrop were already celebrating Juneteenth. Roscoe shares the importance of all KOOP’s Celebration Events of culturally and historically events KOOP celebrates throughout the year and his specific participation in the KOOP Celebration of Juneteenth. Roscoe’s research and curiosity began some 70 years ago, with a conversation with his Uncle at age 10 years old

Penny Jo concludes the show by questioning Pedro Gatos on the degree of wealth inequality and why it so important to address and queries the significance and to better describe the importance of race as a social construct. We conclude the show with an invite to join in Roscoe led and Community Council supported quest to create a city wide Elevate Juneteenth Celebration Committee to carry forward issues raised during the show tonight.

Please join us as Roscoe brings light into darkness.

Elevating Juneteenth with Roscoe Overton

Happy Juneteenth!

Roscoe Overton details the extensive research project he completed and the discovery along the way that the Overtons were among the first black families to have purchased land in Texas as he shares and connects his generational ancestry from Nashville Tennessee to Austin and central Texas. Roscoe’s research and curiosity began some 70 years ago, with a conversation with his Uncle at age 10 years old

We feature also the work of another KOOP Community Organization Member as their executive director, Marva Overton joins Bringing Light Into Darkness to describe the work of the Alliance for African American Health in Central Texas, a nonprofit organization that engages community members to address health issues that disproportionately impact African Americans. Marva describes some of the specific health challenges that disproportionately impact the Austin African American community.

Penny Jo Pullus, producer and host of KOOP Radio’s Texchromosome show, co hosts the show tonight and shares her experiences learned through a series of lunch dialogues with Roscoe. Penny Jo leads our discussion with Roscoe over the path his research took him regarding Juneteenth. Roscoe describes the slave colonies that existed and that a hundred years ago the Overtons in Bastrop were already celebrating Juneteenth. Roscoe shares the importance of all KOOP’s Celebration Events of culturally and historically events KOOP celebrates throughout the year and his specific participation in the KOOP Celebration of Juneteenth. Roscoe’s research and curiosity began some 70 years ago, with a conversation with his Uncle at age 10 years old

Penny Jo concludes the show by questioning Pedro Gatos on the degree of wealth inequality and why it so important to address and queries the significance and to better describe the importance of race as a social construct. We conclude the show with an invite to join in Roscoe led and Community Council supported quest to create a city wide Elevate Juneteenth Celebration Committee to carry forward issues raised during the show tonight.

Please join us as Roscoe brings light into darkness.

Wealth Inequality, Trade Agreements & How a Progressive Annual Wealth Tax Could Help Promote Economic Democracy

Tonight, we feature a January 17, 2023 report by the Institute for Policy Studies entitled, Report: “Extreme Wealth: The Growing Number of People With Extreme Wealth and What an Annual Wealth Tax Could Raise” by Chuck Collins, Omar Ocampo. Joining us on Bringing Light Into Darkness is co author Omar Ocampo. Omar Ocampo is a researcher for the Program on Inequality and the Common Good at the Institute for Policy Studies. His work focuses on wealth inequality, housing and the politics of Colombia. He is currently in the process of establishing a working group at IPS on Artificial Intelligence and its effects on labor and inequality.

Tonight, our show focus is on world wealth inequality, trade agreements that promote it and ways to reverse the destructive direction gross wealth inequality is taking the world. We review the corporate advantages that the Transpacific Partnership Trade (TPP) Agreement that the Obama Administration sought to fast track sought to implement that prioritized and gave corporation profiteering leverage over the will of governments in the countries they operate in, with respect to rules governing behavior. These types of trade agreements have helped to maintain and expand wealth inequality.

Our show guest walks us through a solution oriented progressive tax plan that the report he co authored details. Our guest argues that a tax on the ultra-rich would not impact their spending patterns or retirement. Instead, it would be just a slight constraint on their rates of accumulation of wealth. Such a progressive tax rate would raise $580B annually in the US. As of 2022 wealth data they evaluated those at 5m or more would be taxed at 2%, those at 50m or more would be taxed at 3% and those in billionaire class would be taxed at 5%. The result would be not only an annual generation of $580B in the US alone but worldwide it would generate an annual amount of 1.7B that could be used to alleviate worldwide poverty and extreme poverty rates and set in motion a system of economic democracy.

Our guest shares that “historically speaking, there is actually a direct correlation between lower tax rates and higher concentrations of wealth which then (further) exasperates wealth inequality”, and that, In the US some “1.5m people own $5m or more and when you add up all that wealth it equals some $28T”. Since 2012 - 2022 the richest 1% have been the beneficiaries of a wealth increase that has been some 19x greater than the bottom 50%.

What promotes wealth disparity at the macro level includes trade agreements such as TPP. This helps explain why it was largely negotiated in private by a select few that did not represent majority interests but instead lined up mainly in line with corporate interests. Please join us.

Siempre fieles, Pgatos 6/12/23 [email protected]

If you are not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing. Malcolm X

Wealth Inequality, Trade Agreements & How a Progressive Annual Wealth Tax Could Help Promote Economic Democracy

Tonight, we feature a January 17, 2023 report by the Institute for Policy Studies entitled, Report: “Extreme Wealth: The Growing Number of People With Extreme Wealth and What an Annual Wealth Tax Could Raise” by Chuck Collins, Omar Ocampo. Joining us on Bringing Light Into Darkness is co author Omar Ocampo. Omar Ocampo is a researcher for the Program on Inequality and the Common Good at the Institute for Policy Studies. His work focuses on wealth inequality, housing and the politics of Colombia. He is currently in the process of establishing a working group at IPS on Artificial Intelligence and its effects on labor and inequality.

Tonight, our show focus is on world wealth inequality, trade agreements that promote it and ways to reverse the destructive direction gross wealth inequality is taking the world. We review the corporate advantages that the Transpacific Partnership Trade (TPP) Agreement that the Obama Administration sought to fast track sought to implement that prioritized and gave corporation profiteering leverage over the will of governments in the countries they operate in, with respect to rules governing behavior. These types of trade agreements have helped to maintain and expand wealth inequality.

Our show guest walks us through a solution oriented progressive tax plan that the report he co authored details. Our guest argues that a tax on the ultra-rich would not impact their spending patterns or retirement. Instead, it would be just a slight constraint on their rates of accumulation of wealth. Such a progressive tax rate would raise $580B annually in the US. As of 2022 wealth data they evaluated those at 5m or more would be taxed at 2%, those at 50m or more would be taxed at 3% and those in billionaire class would be taxed at 5%. The result would be not only an annual generation of $580B in the US alone but worldwide it would generate an annual amount of 1.7B that could be used to alleviate worldwide poverty and extreme poverty rates and set in motion a system of economic democracy.

Our guest shares that “historically speaking, there is actually a direct correlation between lower tax rates and higher concentrations of wealth which then (further) exasperates wealth inequality”, and that, In the US some “1.5m people own $5m or more and when you add up all that wealth it equals some $28T”. Since 2012 - 2022 the richest 1% have been the beneficiaries of a wealth increase that has been some 19x greater than the bottom 50%.

What promotes wealth disparity at the macro level includes trade agreements such as TPP. This helps explain why it was largely negotiated in private by a select few that did not represent majority interests but instead lined up mainly in line with corporate interests. Please join us.

Siempre fieles, Pgatos 6/12/23 [email protected]

If you are not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing. Malcolm X

Where US Militarism & Wealth Inequality Merge

A recent 5/14/23 NYT article by Talmon Joseph Smith entitled The Greatest Wealth Transfer in History Is Here, With Familiar (Rich) Winners, indicates that at the end of 2022 the top 1% holds about as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent, and is predominantly white. The growing gap between the very rich and everyone else is nothing new. Bernie Sanders in a Guardian article published on March 29, 2021 entitled, The rich-poor gap in America is obscene. So let's fix it – here's how, indicates “the top 1% now own more wealth than the bottom 92%, and the 50 wealthiest Americans own more wealth than the bottom half of American society – 165 million people. While millions of Americans have lost their jobs and incomes during the pandemic, over the past year 650 billionaires have seen their wealth increase by $1.3T. The unfortunate reality is that we are moving rapidly toward an oligarchic form of society, where a handful of billionaires have enormous wealth and power while working families have been struggling in a way we have not seen since the Great Depression. This situation has been exacerbated by the pandemic.” But it has not just been exacerbated by the pandemic.

Tonight we feature disturbing findings of the 5/24/23 report from the Institute for Policy Studies, The Warfare State How Funding for Militarism Compromises Our Welfare. Joining Bringing Light Into Darkness is the lead author of the report, Lindsay Koshgarian, who in a fascinating and well informed interview, brings to light the disturbing reality that draws a straight line between excessive military spending and the deteriorating quality of life for our US majority population.

Referencing the words and warnings of Dr King’s 4/4/67 speech, our guest suggests that history shows that our government uses violence or the threat of violence to achieve its aims, instead of looking for ways to prevent problems or ways to support and help people strive. Lindsay provides report findings that suggest that proof of the concerns lies in the observation that the US foreign policy driven interests in the rest of the world has been, and still is, guided by a militarism first approach and also by a wealth protecting approach “. We have 750 military installations around the world, a number that dwarfs our adversaries, and that is how we are making our worldwide influence felt warns our guest.

While diplomacy and humanitarian aid should be our priority investment if we are trying to avoid war and conflict and seek peaceful resolutions to world problems, we instead find a reverse ratio of 16:1 in dollars invested in militarism compared to government spending in the discretionary budget for diplomacy and humanitarian aid. And the reciprocal effect is essentially a wealth transfer from the lower and middle class to the financial elite, a defunding, if you will, of badly needed quality of life improvements for the majority population of the public sector as an unavoidable side effect from the extreme levels of wealth inequality that are fueled by this military industrial complex. Please join us for this important dialogue and critique of our Warfare heavy National Budget.

Siempre fieles, Pgatos 6/5/23 [email protected]

If you are not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing. Malcolm X

Where US Militarism & Wealth Inequality Merge

A recent 5/14/23 NYT article by Talmon Joseph Smith entitled The Greatest Wealth Transfer in History Is Here, With Familiar (Rich) Winners, indicates that at the end of 2022 the top 1% holds about as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent, and is predominantly white. The growing gap between the very rich and everyone else is nothing new. Bernie Sanders in a Guardian article published on March 29, 2021 entitled, The rich-poor gap in America is obscene. So let's fix it – here's how, indicates “the top 1% now own more wealth than the bottom 92%, and the 50 wealthiest Americans own more wealth than the bottom half of American society – 165 million people. While millions of Americans have lost their jobs and incomes during the pandemic, over the past year 650 billionaires have seen their wealth increase by $1.3T. The unfortunate reality is that we are moving rapidly toward an oligarchic form of society, where a handful of billionaires have enormous wealth and power while working families have been struggling in a way we have not seen since the Great Depression. This situation has been exacerbated by the pandemic.” But it has not just been exacerbated by the pandemic.

Tonight we feature disturbing findings of the 5/24/23 report from the Institute for Policy Studies, The Warfare State How Funding for Militarism Compromises Our Welfare. Joining Bringing Light Into Darkness is the lead author of the report, Lindsay Koshgarian, who in a fascinating and well informed interview, brings to light the disturbing reality that draws a straight line between excessive military spending and the deteriorating quality of life for our US majority population.

Referencing the words and warnings of Dr King’s 4/4/67 speech, our guest suggests that history shows that our government uses violence or the threat of violence to achieve its aims, instead of looking for ways to prevent problems or ways to support and help people strive. Lindsay provides report findings that suggest that proof of the concerns lies in the observation that the US foreign policy driven interests in the rest of the world has been, and still is, guided by a militarism first approach and also by a wealth protecting approach “. We have 750 military installations around the world, a number that dwarfs our adversaries, and that is how we are making our worldwide influence felt warns our guest.

While diplomacy and humanitarian aid should be our priority investment if we are trying to avoid war and conflict and seek peaceful resolutions to world problems, we instead find a reverse ratio of 16:1 in dollars invested in militarism compared to government spending in the discretionary budget for diplomacy and humanitarian aid. And the reciprocal effect is essentially a wealth transfer from the lower and middle class to the financial elite, a defunding, if you will, of badly needed quality of life improvements for the majority population of the public sector as an unavoidable side effect from the extreme levels of wealth inequality that are fueled by this military industrial complex. Please join us for this important dialogue and critique of our Warfare heavy National Budget.

Siempre fieles, Pgatos 6/5/23 [email protected]

If you are not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing. Malcolm X

Memorial Day Reflections from a Vietnam War US Medic Veteran & Seeking Honest Casualty Rates: Release Lira! Part II

On Memorial Day we share reflections from Alan Pogue a Vietnam Medic and Chaplain assistant on how to honor the memories of the fallen. Alan Pogue co-founder of the Austin Chapter of Veterans for Peace also is on KOOP Radio’s Community Council and describes his experiences in Vietnam including the 1968 Tet Offensive.

We also highlight an important development over the last couple of years, namely that while US foreign policy has a long history of promoting war and conflict since post WWII that has promoted and sought to maintain a US unipolar economic and military dominance in the world, we have been sidelined as China and Russia, as proof of an emerging multi polar world, have been instrumental in promoting diplomatic reconciliation between Syria and Turkey, between Iran and Saudi Arabia, as well as between Saudi Arabia and Syria. Meanwhile, the Yemen – Saudi Arabia conflict since 2015 is moving towards resolution while the Arab League are welcoming back diplomatic relations with Syria all being brokered by China and or Russia while the US sits on the sideline.

We also return to our focus on jailed and unjust jailing of journalist Gonzalo Lira since 5/1 in Ukraine and share words of his father and those of Alexander Mercouris, editor of the Duran. We return to the issue of casualty rates and suggest that the US public is once again being deceived into believing Russia not Ukraine is suffering debilitating fatality rates. We present our contradictory findings in the form of six different estimates in time from August 2022 through May 2023 that are internally consistent with each other and include military as well as non-military political leaders from all sides of the conflict.

Additionally, we include evidence to suggest that the fatality numbers we believe to be closest to the truth, and which are completely and diametrically opposed by our government and mainstream media provided numbers, are in fact ones whose integrity YOU should pay attention to and consider as trustworthy. That evidence is cited from a March 2023 posting from the Moon of Alabama which documents the number of shellings a reflection of the artillery advantage that Russia has displayed since the initiation of their Special Operation invasion in February 2022. Those numbers are a staggering 10 to 1 ratio (admitted to by both sides) and the author provides proof that past wars casualty rates generally parallel artillery superiority. We suggest this makes the western claims that Russian losses are multiple times greater than Ukraine’s clearly a deceitful misrepresentation.

Please join us tonight as we seek to raise the fog of propaganda and bring light into the darkness our media and government is promoting around the Ukraine war.

Again we believe a potential motive to mislead the US public about these casualty rates is that if the US public knew of the truly one-sided carnage taking place, , as the honorable people we are, we would demand an end to the war. A war that continues because we (our US government) are the primary funders of and therefore are primarily responsible for.

Siempre fieles, Pgatos 5/29/23 [email protected]

Memorial Day Reflections from a Vietnam War US Medic Veteran & Seeking Honest Casualty Rates: Release Lira! Part II

On Memorial Day we share reflections from Alan Pogue a Vietnam Medic and Chaplain assistant on how to honor the memories of the fallen. Alan Pogue co-founder of the Austin Chapter of Veterans for Peace also is on KOOP Radio’s Community Council and describes his experiences in Vietnam including the 1968 Tet Offensive.

We also highlight an important development over the last couple of years, namely that while US foreign policy has a long history of promoting war and conflict since post WWII that has promoted and sought to maintain a US unipolar economic and military dominance in the world, we have been sidelined as China and Russia, as proof of an emerging multi polar world, have been instrumental in promoting diplomatic reconciliation between Syria and Turkey, between Iran and Saudi Arabia, as well as between Saudi Arabia and Syria. Meanwhile, the Yemen – Saudi Arabia conflict since 2015 is moving towards resolution while the Arab League are welcoming back diplomatic relations with Syria all being brokered by China and or Russia while the US sits on the sideline.

We also return to our focus on jailed and unjust jailing of journalist Gonzalo Lira since 5/1 in Ukraine and share words of his father and those of Alexander Mercouris, editor of the Duran. We return to the issue of casualty rates and suggest that the US public is once again being deceived into believing Russia not Ukraine is suffering debilitating fatality rates. We present our contradictory findings in the form of six different estimates in time from August 2022 through May 2023 that are internally consistent with each other and include military as well as non-military political leaders from all sides of the conflict.

Additionally, we include evidence to suggest that the fatality numbers we believe to be closest to the truth, and which are completely and diametrically opposed by our government and mainstream media provided numbers, are in fact ones whose integrity YOU should pay attention to and consider as trustworthy. That evidence is cited from a March 2023 posting from the Moon of Alabama which documents the number of shellings a reflection of the artillery advantage that Russia has displayed since the initiation of their Special Operation invasion in February 2022. Those numbers are a staggering 10 to 1 ratio (admitted to by both sides) and the author provides proof that past wars casualty rates generally parallel artillery superiority. We suggest this makes the western claims that Russian losses are multiple times greater than Ukraine’s clearly a deceitful misrepresentation.

Please join us tonight as we seek to raise the fog of propaganda and bring light into the darkness our media and government is promoting around the Ukraine war.

Again we believe a potential motive to mislead the US public about these casualty rates is that if the US public knew of the truly one-sided carnage taking place, , as the honorable people we are, we would demand an end to the war. A war that continues because we (our US government) are the primary funders of and therefore are primarily responsible for.

Siempre fieles, Pgatos 5/29/23 [email protected]

Preventable Misery: The Breadth, Consequences and Harm of Economic Sanctions with Dr. Francisco Rodriguez

Over the past six decades, there has been significant growth in the use of economic sanctions by Western powers with the overwhelming majority not endorsed by the UN. In 1960 less than 4 percent of countries were subject to sanctions imposed by the United States, European Union, or United Nations in the early 1960s; today, that share has risen to some 29 percent of world GDP and some two billion or more persons. In other words, more than one fourth of countries and nearly a third of the world economy are now subject to sanctions by the UN or Western nations.

Joining us tonight is the esteemed economist Dr Francisco Rodriguez, the Rice Family Professor of the Practice of International and Public Affairs at the University of Denver’s Josef Korbel School of International Studies. A native of Venezuela, he is also the founder of Oil for Venezuela, a non-profit organization focused on finding solutions to Venezuela’s humanitarian crisis. He received an M.A. and Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University. We review the findings of his comprehensive study recently released on 5/4/2023 by the Center for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) entitled The Human Consequences of Economic Sanctions. It reviews the findings of the thirty plus studies that have examined the same subject.

Sanctions, especially those not endorsed by the UN Security Council can be seen as a regressive act of economic war. It is an act of war because it is a direct attack on the welfare of an entire population not just those you seek to sanction. They directly attack the economic and nutritional well-being of the majority population through its main mechanism pf cutting off the government from foreign currency.

What we will learn in our show tonight is that when foreign currency is drastically reduced it means cutting back on government spending for health care. It means cutting back on government spending on education. It means cutting back on government spending for public services. It means cutting back on government spending for food assistance. It means cutting back on government spending for pensions. And perhaps its most pernicious aspect is that although it hurts everyone, it particularly disproportionately harms the most vulnerable within the sanctioned nation. Think about that. It is not just an act of economic war on a nation, it is regressive in that it disproportionately harms the most vulnerable.

Please join us tonight for important insights into how sanctions impact close to one third of the world population, are not supported by a another third of the world yet there is barely a peep of discussion within our mainstream media (MSM).

Siempre fieles, Pgatos 5/15/23 [email protected]

Preventable Misery: The Breadth, Consequences and Harm of Economic Sanctions with Dr. Francisco Rodriguez

Over the past six decades, there has been significant growth in the use of economic sanctions by Western powers with the overwhelming majority not endorsed by the UN. In 1960 less than 4 percent of countries were subject to sanctions imposed by the United States, European Union, or United Nations in the early 1960s; today, that share has risen to some 29 percent of world GDP and some two billion or more persons. In other words, more than one fourth of countries and nearly a third of the world economy are now subject to sanctions by the UN or Western nations.

Joining us tonight is the esteemed economist Dr Francisco Rodriguez, the Rice Family Professor of the Practice of International and Public Affairs at the University of Denver’s Josef Korbel School of International Studies. A native of Venezuela, he is also the founder of Oil for Venezuela, a non-profit organization focused on finding solutions to Venezuela’s humanitarian crisis. He received an M.A. and Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University. We review the findings of his comprehensive study recently released on 5/4/2023 by the Center for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) entitled The Human Consequences of Economic Sanctions. It reviews the findings of the thirty plus studies that have examined the same subject.

Sanctions, especially those not endorsed by the UN Security Council can be seen as a regressive act of economic war. It is an act of war because it is a direct attack on the welfare of an entire population not just those you seek to sanction. They directly attack the economic and nutritional well-being of the majority population through its main mechanism pf cutting off the government from foreign currency.

What we will learn in our show tonight is that when foreign currency is drastically reduced it means cutting back on government spending for health care. It means cutting back on government spending on education. It means cutting back on government spending for public services. It means cutting back on government spending for food assistance. It means cutting back on government spending for pensions. And perhaps its most pernicious aspect is that although it hurts everyone, it particularly disproportionately harms the most vulnerable within the sanctioned nation. Think about that. It is not just an act of economic war on a nation, it is regressive in that it disproportionately harms the most vulnerable.

Please join us tonight for important insights into how sanctions impact close to one third of the world population, are not supported by a another third of the world yet there is barely a peep of discussion within our mainstream media (MSM).

Siempre fieles, Pgatos 5/15/23 [email protected]