Pacifica National Specials

In this 2007 talk for Antioch College in Seattle Parenti raises the intriguing question of how we arrive at a valid analysis of our social reality – given that so many lies are told to confuse us.

In Part one of this talk Parenti speaks about lies, dissent, and how we arrive at the truth of our situation and still retain our sanity.

In the second half of his talk Parenti raises the question whether the Iraq war was not a failure but a success for some parts of the empire – and why.

Michael Parenti is one of the nation’s leading progressive political analysts. He is a prolific author and an engaging speaker.

After receiving his Ph.D. in political science from Yale he has taught at colleges and universities, in the United States and abroad. He serves on the board of judges for Project Censored and is the author of twenty books.

The most recent are:

Contrary Notions: The Michael Parenti Reader; the eighth edition of his classic: Democracy for the Few; Superpariotism; and The Assassination of Julius Caesar.

On this series premiere of From the Vault, we’re celebrating the 57th anniversary of the legendary community radio network Lewis Hill founded in 1949. But instead of a typical collage of all the great clips from Pacifica’s past, we’re looking specifically at the two people who most defined the network. The first, of course, is Lewis Hill: pacifist, conscientious objector, and Pacifica’s original visionary. The second is Elsa Knight Thompson: one of the first women radio broadcasters, an award-winning journalist, and famed interviewer. These two were the spirit of Pacifica for the Network’s first 20 years. And their spirits still guide Pacifica and all listener-sponsored radio. They shared a common belief - a fundamental belief - that all opinions were entitled to an outlet, that everyone was entitled to a voice. This week, we hear theirs.

The second half of this show introduces David Moore, Lewis Hill’s son. David Moore selected one program out of the entire Pacifica Radio Archives’ vault to play raw and unedited, and we’ll hear his comments on why this particular recording is so important to him.