Author Archives: Maria

Michael Parenti: How I Became an Activist – PARENTI SPECIAL

By MariaFebruary 17, 2026Newest Catalog Items, Newest Podcasts

Rebroadcast to remember and honor Michael Parenti (1933-2026)
Parenti rarely talked about his life. How does a NYC street kid get accepted to Yale? How does he lose the privilege of his PhD. in an arrest at a demonstration against the war on Vietnam, and become an internationally acclaimed author and lecturer?
Michael Parenti grew up in a poor, working class Italian community in New York City. When he received his PhD in political science from Yale in 1962 he was the success and pride of his family. He risked and ended his academic career when he openly opposed the war on Vietnam. Ultimately the choice he made then was a good one. He was an independent political writer and thinker and [ . . . ]

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Michael Parenti: Superpatriotism and the Importance of Being Number One – 2018 Tribute to Parenti

By MariaFebruary 10, 2026Newest Catalog Items, Newest Podcasts

What does it mean to love one’s country? Why is it so important to be number one?
In this sharp and funny speech MP dissects the uses of patriotism.
That was the introduction to a Michael Parenti talk given in 1988, at the end of the Reagan administration. That talk became a TUC Radio program and 2004 book published by City Lights. Superpatriotism: How hype, fear, and mindless flag-waving are supplanting informed debate and commitment to democracy.
Now, in 2018, so many years later, slogans such as: America First, America the Greatest Country on Earth are having a powerful come back. Resistance to Superpatriotism – even if it is simply remaining seated or taking a knee during the national anthem at a [ . . . ]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:58 — 19.9MB)

The Execution of Martin Luther King, William Pepper (TWO of TWO)

By MariaJanuary 27, 2026Newest Catalog Items, Newest Podcasts

updated archival program
In Part ONE: Bill Pepper became James Earl Ray’s lawyer when he found out that Ray was not the murderer. His friendship with King and his family goes back to 1967. Pepper had gone to Vietnam and taken photos of children burned by napalm. King asked to meet with him and they worked closely together during the anti-Vietnam war phase of King’s life.
After the failure of all his efforts to get James Earl Ray a new trial, William Pepper recommended one more option to the King family. In this Part TWO Pepper explains why he recommended a wrongful death suit against Loyd Jowers and other known and unknown conspirators. For the first time under oath in any assignation [ . . . ]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:59 — 19.9MB)

The Execution of Martin Luther King – William Pepper (ONE of TWO)

By MariaJanuary 20, 2026Newest Catalog Items, Newest Podcasts

Bill Pepper became James Earl Ray’s lawyer when he found out that Ray was not the murderer. His friendship with King and his family goes back to 1967. Pepper had gone to Vietnam and taken photos of children burned by napalm. King asked to meet with him and they worked closely together during the anti-Vietnam war phase of King’s life. In this recording Pepper explains why he became convinced of Ray’s innocence and, during 25 years of investigative work, pieced together the plot to kill King. The extraordinary story has implications for history, civil rights, justice and democracy. (Feb. 2003)
William Pepper was an acclaimed lawyer who practiced international law in London. His book by Verso is: AN ACT OF STATE, [ . . . ]

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Feminist Theology and Women in the Muslim World (TWO of TWO) Archive

By MariaJanuary 13, 2026Newest Catalog Items, Newest Podcasts

This is the conclusion of Dr. Riffat Hassan’s extraordinary feminist lecture on the story of Adam and Eve, a story that forms the basis for the oppression of women in Islam, Judaism and Christianity. Plus my interview with her about her radical re-interpretation of the significance of Eve’s acceptance of the apple.
Dr. Riffat Hassan is a Muslim theologian from Pakistan who opposes the Islamic view of the inferiority of women. She says that since anti women legislation and custom are enacted in the name of theology, it is necessary to study the Koran and critique the source.
In the original text, says Hassan, women are neither inferior nor sinful. Adam is not a man’s name – it is the word for [ . . . ]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:59 — 39.8MB)

Feminist Theology and Women in the Muslim World (ONE of TWO) Archive

By MariaJanuary 6, 2026Newest Catalog Items, Newest Podcasts

Special for International Women’s Month 2023  Dr. Riffat Hassan is a Muslim theologian from Pakistan who opposes the Islamic view of the inferiority of women. She says that since anti women legislation and custom are enacted in the name of theology, it is necessary to study the Koran and investigate the source. This required courage since challenging traditional interpretation of the Koran can be a capital offense. On the other hand we are all familiar with the claim that Islam has given women more rights than any other religious tradition. And Riffat Hassan decided to deal with that contradiction.
Riffat Hassan began her quest in 1984 when her feminist friends in Pakistan asked her to help define the theological argument [ . . . ]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:58 — 39.8MB)

Daniel Ellsberg’s Pentagon Papers – TUC Radio Archives – TWO of TWO

By MariaDecember 30, 2025Newest Catalog Items, Newest Podcasts

His encouragement to others to disclose government lies – and his response to the accusation of treason
This is the second part of a talk by Daniel Ellsberg that he gave on December 18, 2007 in downtown San Francisco to a small group of members of the Republican Roundtable.
Those were the George W Bush years and it was well known that Ellsberg campaigned against the threats of war on Iran. I had permission to film the event and was concerned about a possible confrontation. Half-way through this 29 minute segment Ellsberg responds to a statement that he was advocating treason – to which he gives a legally and historically brilliant response that still applies today, to Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning [ . . . ]

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Daniel Ellsberg’s Pentagon Papers – TUC Radio Archives – ONE of TWO

By MariaDecember 23, 2025Newest Catalog Items, Newest Podcasts, Uncategorized

And his first hand experience of The Gulf of Tonkin Deception
It was the evening of December 18, 2007, and I was setting up my recording equipment in an unfamiliar downtown San Francisco conference room.
The events coordinator of the Republican Roundtable had offered me an invitation to record Daniel Ellsberg – and of course I said yes – in spite of the unfamiliar venue.
One of the guests walked past me and said matter-of-factly: Ellsberg is a traitor and proceeded to his chair. And by the time that Daniel Ellsberg arrived I was certain that there were only two people in the room who were not Republican.
In spite of some skepticism Ellsberg moved the audience with one of the most personal and [ . . . ]

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Seniors for Peace – A celebration of 20 years of Peace Work (TUC Archives)

By MariaNovember 25, 2025All Time Favorites, Catalog, Creative Communities, Newest Catalog Items, Newest Podcasts

Redwoods Retirement Center in Mill Valley, CA
When I joined Seniors for Peace at their second ever rally for peace in Iraq on February 7, 2003, I did not dream that 20 years later they would still be coming out every Friday from 4 to 5 pm to the busy intersection near their home. Undaunted – even by hostility – they have called for peace in all the subsequent wars since then.
Among those who I met in 2003 was a survivor of the firebombing of Dresden and a Red Cross worker in London who saw the young men dead on both sides and still mourned their loss of life.
I’m honoring them now – 20 years later – for the work [ . . . ]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:00 — 39.8MB)

The Beginning of the Nuclear Age (TWO of TWO)

By MariaNovember 18, 2025Catalog, Newest Catalog Items, Newest Podcasts, Nuclear

The First Nuclear Chain Reaction – Enrico Fermi and Henry Moore – ARCHIVE
The Italian physicist Enrico Fermi set off the first nuclear chain reaction in an underground tennis-court at the University of Chicago in 1942. His experiment led directly to the building of the plutonium bomb that destroyed the city of Nagasaki.
Exactly 25 years after that experiment, with Fermi already dead of radiation induced leukemia, a statue by Henry Moore was unveiled on December 2, 1967, at that location, to commemorate the first self sustained nuclear chain reaction.
Boal describes the fascinating clash of ideas, from the early anti nuclear resistance by SDS students in the US and the British CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament), to the visual impression of Moore’s [ . . . ]

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The First Nuclear Chain Reaction – Enrico Fermi and Henry Moore (ONE of TWO) – ARCHIVE

By MariaNovember 11, 2025Catalog, Newest Podcasts, Nuclear

Historian Iain Boal tells the story of The Beginning of the Nuclear Age (ONE of TWO) The Italian physicist Enrico Fermi set off the first nuclear chain reaction in an underground tennis-court at the University of Chicago in December 1942. His experiment led directly to the building of the plutonium bomb that destroyed the city of Nagasaki.
There are competing claims as to the beginning of the nuclear age. Was it the day of Trinity, was it Hiroshima, or was it Fermi with his willingness to risk a nuclear explosion in the middle of a crowded city.
But more important than the date is the need to comprehend the fundamental change that the beginning of the nuclear age has brought about. Albert [ . . . ]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:01 — 39.8MB)

Michael Parenti: Capitalism’s Apocalypse – ARCHIVE

By MariaOctober 21, 2025Newest Catalog Items, Newest Podcasts

Why the rich can’t save anybody – not even themselves 
2024 Tribute – Updated Archive: Parenti predicted the financial crisis and said that giant corporate capitalism – by it’s very nature – is an apocalyptic system. When unregulated the built in elements of ever increased growth may well bring the whole system down. And he described the growing national debt not as a tragic mistake but as a means to shift ever more money from the tax payers to the financial institutions in the form of interest payments.
This speech is an analysis of the many structural flaws of a capitalist system that puts it on a permanent collision course with democracy. Recorded on August 23, 2008 at the closing reception [ . . . ]

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Fred Gray – Civil Rights Attorney for Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Black History Month 2025

By MariaOctober 14, 2025Newest Catalog Items, Newest Podcasts

TUC Archive: Fred Gray, just out of law school, made a commitment to destroy everything segregated in his home state of Alabama Rosa Parks was only Fred Gray’s second case. Gray represented Claudette Colvin, a teenager, who nine months earlier had been the first to refuse to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus – and in turn inspired Rosa Parks.
When Rosa Parks was arrested in 1955 for violating the segregated seating ordinance, 26-year-old Martin Luther King was chosen to lead the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and 24-year-old Fred Gray became his and the movement’s lawyer. Gray’s legal victory in the federal courts ended the boycott 381 days later.
Fred Gray won scores of civil rights cases in education, voting rights, [ . . . ]

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In Memory of Bertolt Brecht (Archive)

By MariaOctober 7, 2025Newest Catalog Items, Newest Podcasts

For Brecht’s 100th birthday in 1998 the Royal National Theatre from London gave a performance in his honor at Theater Artaud in San Francisco
Bertolt Brecht and many other artists in post WWI Germany were courageously and proudly democrats, socialists or communists. They had experienced the horror of the first World War and were determined to prevent a second one. So when Hitler and the Nazi party actually assumed state power in 1933 they were all marked and most of them left the country immediately. Their exodus destroyed much of the cultural/political rebellion of the 1920s.
Even though Brecht, the playwright, poet, director and theoretician of the stage, was persecuted by the Nazi’s, he was forced to leave his home in exile [ . . . ]

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Alex Carey: Corporations and Propaganda, Part TWO of TWO

By MariaSeptember 30, 2025Newest Podcasts

Archive: Journalist John Pilger has called Alex Carey “a second Orwell in his prophesies” This segment covers the little known role of the US Chamber of Commerce in the McCarthy witch hunts of post WWII. Carey also shows how the continued campaign against “Big Government” plays an important role in bringing Reagan to power. Also mentioned the famous secret memo by Lewis Powell, later Supreme Court Justice, that set in motion what Bill Moyers today calls “the revolt of the rich.”
Alex Carey said that the people of the US have been subjected to an unparalleled, expensive, 3/4 century long propaganda effort designed to expand corporate rights by undermining democracy and destroying the unions. Carey’s unique view of US history goes back [ . . . ]

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