Talk World Radio

This week on Talk Nation Radio: Where's our money? Why so many wars? A bill to put the Pentagon on the flag? Is everything we've been told a lie? Are there some things that are not Putin's fault? And how do you talk to people who won't wear masks?

This week on Talk Nation Radio: massive, shameless, and endlessly expanding war profiteering by weapons dealers. Our guest is Heidi Peltier, author of a new report called “The Growth of the ‘Camo Economy’ and the Commercialization of the Post 9/11 Wars.” Heidi Peltier is the Director of the “20 Years of War” project at Boston University and part of the Costs of War Project at Brown University.  She has written reports and articles on various costs of war, including the hidden costs of financing war through debt, as well as the opportunity costs of spending federal dollars on the war economy instead of on other domestic priorities such as healthcare, education, or clean energy.

This week on Talk Nation Radio: Why is much of what many people believe about the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki not true? And how did Hollywood help get various myths started? Our guest is Greg Mitchell, author of numerous books, whose latest is called The Beginning or the End: How Hollywood -- and America -- Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.

Nina Turner is the former national co-chair of the Bernie 2020 campaign. She is a former Ohio state senator, and a former professor of African American history. Nina Turner is currently a Strategic Delegate Advisor for RootsAction.org. And she hosts a podcast called “We the People.”

Sonali Kolhatkar is the host and executive producer of Rising Up With Sonali, a daily, primetime television and radio program syndicated on Free Speech TV and Pacifica Radio stations and affiliates. She is also a weekly columnist with Independent Media Institute and lead author of Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence. Sonali Kolhatkar recently wrote an article titled "If We’re Going to Defund Militarized Police Departments, Why Not Add the Pentagon?"

Jake Johnston is a Senior Research Associate at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C. His research has focused predominantly on economic policy in Latin America, the International Monetary Fund, and U.S. foreign policy. Jake Johnston co-authored a report in March on the role of the Organization of American States in the coup in Bolivia in November of last year. The New York Times has recently admitted that OAS claims of fraud in last year’s Bolivian election were baseless, but at the time that paper promoted those claims, while Jake Johnston and his colleagues refuted them.

Peadar King is director of KMF Productions and presenter / producer of the RTÉ documentary series What in the World? We discuss his latest book, War, Suffering, and the Struggle for Human Rights.

John Perkins is an author and activist whose 10 books on global intrigue, shamanism, and transformation including Touching the Jaguar, Shapeshifting, and the classic Confessions of an Economic Hit Man have been on the New York Times bestseller list for more than 70 weeks, sold over 2 million copies, and are published in 35 languages. As chief economist at a major consulting firm, he advised the World Bank, United Nations, Fortune 500 corporations, and the U.S. and other governments. He regularly speaks at universities, economic forums, and shamanic gatherings around the world and is a founder and board member of the nonprofit organizations, the Pachamama Alliance and Dream Change. See: http://touchingthejaguarbook.com

Helena Cobban is a veteran analyst of international affairs and an anti-imperialist activist who campaigns for human equality at all levels. She's a Quaker who lives in Washington DC, which she describes as "the belly of the beast." Helena has authored seven books on international issues, four of which have been about the Middle East; and for 20 years she contributed a regular column about global affairs to The Christian Science Monitor. She has also been a publisher. Her company, Just World Books, has helped midwife the work of writers like Miko Peled, Laila El-Haddad, Leila Abdelrazaq, and David Swanson. She's the head of the non-profit Just World Educational, which has some great web-based programing, most recently on Syria. She has also resumed blogging on her blog Just World News, where her major current preoccupation is the ways the coronavirus crisis affects the hegemonic role the United States has played in world affairs since 1945. See: https://justworldnews.org

This week on Talk Nation Radio, we discuss the past and possible future of the U.S. Postal Service. Our guest, Richard John, is a historian who specializes in the history of business, technology, communications, and American political development. He teaches and advises graduate students in Columbia University’s Ph.D. program in communications, and is member of the core faculty of the Columbia history department, where he teaches courses on the history of capitalism and the history of communications. Richard John is author of Spreading the News: The American Postal System from Franklin to Morse and recently wrote the Washington Post article “The Founders never intended the U.S. Postal Service to be managed like a business.”