This week’s program is an interview with Dr. Walter Hixson.  Hixson is a historian and commentator whose work has focused mainly on the intersection of American culture and foreign relations. A prolific writer and publisher, he has a produced a series of works critically examining the history of US foreign relations, with particular emphasis on the Middle East in recent years. Since 2019 Hixson has been a columnist and contributing editor of the magazine, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. 

Hixson’s forthcoming book, Architects of Repression: How Israel and its Lobby Put Racism, Violence and Injustice at the Center of US Middle East Policy is published by the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy. His previous book on the lobby is Israel’s Armor: The Israel Lobby and the First Generation of the Palestine Conflict.  

Human Rights Watch has just issued a report on Israel entitled “Abusive Israeli Policies Constitute Crimes of Apartheid, Persecution: Crimes Against Humanity Should Trigger Action to End Repression of Palestinians”

If you are Jewish and concerned about the human rights violations of the Israeli state, you may want to investigate Jewish Voice for Peace and B’Tselem .  Concerned citizens of all faiths should be aware of the most effective of current efforts to rein in the Israeli government - the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement or BDS. 

Bruce Gagnon is a lifelong activist for peace and justice and a co-founder of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space. He has traveled to Russia, Crimea and Ukraine and watched this crisis unfold over the last 7 years.  

I asked him to bring us up-to-date on the situation in Ukraine and how we got ourselves in this mess. 

This week I am reading excerpts from news and analysis stories from a number of alternative sources - outside the mainstream establishment media.

Sources include Strategic Culture, Counterpunch, Anti-War and New Eastern Outlook.  I also strongly recommend taking a look at Covert Action Magazine which has published a number of important in-depth articles over the last few months.

As the Biden regime seems determined to start another Cold War, this time with both Russia and China, I take a look at the rationale and origins of the first one and the similarities between Cold Wars I and II.

Barbara Boland is a journalist living and working in Washingon, DC who writes primarily about US foreign policy.  She has been published in the American Conservative and Responsible Statecraft, among others.  We take a look at President Biden's foreign policy, its goals and methods, and who's running the show.

Russell Dobular lives in New York City where he is a playwright and the owner and artistic director at Endtimes Productions, an independent Theater/Film Production Company.  He is also a political commentator appearing on the Due Dissidence Podcast with Keaton Weiss, who was my guest a few weeks ago.

We had a wide-ranging conversation centered on the failed state in which we live and the political morass in which we find ourselves.  Thankfully Russell has a great sense of humor so it isn't that depressing.

This week I'm exploring the efforts of the elites to control us through control of the media narrative. We explore the role of social media and government efforts to put tight controls on what we can read and write on the internet. 

This is a very timely episode discussing the posture of the US vis-a-vis Iran and the effects of this week's bombing in Syria and the sanctions regime being continued by Biden. 

My guest this week is Assal Rad.  Dr. Rad is a Senior Research Fellow at the National Iranian-American Council.  She graduated with a Ph.D. in Middle Eastern History from the University of California, Irvine in 2018.  Her writing can be seen in Newsweek, Independent, the National Interest, and Responsible Statecraft, and she has appeared as a commentator on the BBC, Al Jazeera, BBC Persian, and NPR.

This episode details the sources I use for news and opinion outside the narrow confines of the mainstream media.  

Web Sites mentioned on this broadcast (Please note that I do not endorse everything posted on any of these web sites.  I do think they are worth reading because they provide missing alternative perspectives.):

• • Economics
    • Naked Capitalism

• Moon of Alabama

• • Mainstream Left
    • Responsible Statecraft

Keaton Weiss lives in Beacon, NY on the Hudson River, and is a published playwright and award-winning filmmaker.  I came to know him through his Due Dissidence blog, film club, and podcast.  He tweets (much more rationally than our former President) at @DueDissidence and you can support his work on Patreon at https://patreon.com/duedissidence.  The Due Dissidence Podcast is available on Google, Apple, Soundcloud, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts.