2015

Thermonuclear Monarchy – Prof. Elaine Scarry ONE of TWO

Choosing Between Democracy and Doom
Noam Chomsky said about the book Thermonuclear Monarchy:
“That we have escaped disaster so far is a near miracle. (Elaine) Scarry’s remarkable contribution should inspire us to abolish this colossal folly.”
Elaine Scarry is Professor of Aesthetics and General Theory of Value at Harvard. Her most recent book: Thermonuclear Monarchy, reminds us that one man, the President of the United States, has the power to end life for every one else by setting off nuclear weapons. Richard Nixon told reporters in 1974, “I can go into my office and pick up the telephone, and in 25 minutes 70 million people will be dead.”
Professor Scarry says that this violates our constitutional rights, undermines the social contract, and is fundamentally [ . . . ]

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:00 — 19.9MB)

3 Minutes to Midnight on the Doomsday Clock

On January 22, 2015, the Doomsday Clock was moved from 5 to only 3 minutes to midnight
The Doomsday Clock was created in 1947 by atomic scientists who had participated in the Manhattan Project. They were in shock by the impact of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In 1945 they founded the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in order to alert people to the dangers of nuclear weapons and the need to abolish them. Over the 70 years since then the Bulletin has published without interruption and has welcomed other scientists who are working on nuclear power and climate change to join them and more precisely describe the existential risk humanity is facing.
The decision to move the hand of the [ . . . ]

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

How the West Caused the Crisis in Ukraine – Part THREE: John Mearsheimer Q&A

This is an urgent appeal to pay attention to the crisis in Ukraine where the two largest nuclear powers, the US and Russia are in direct and escalating confrontation.
John Mearsheimer is Professor of Political Science and the co-director of the Program on International Security Policy at the University of Chicago.
Mearsheimer states emphatically that in the prevailing wisdom in the West, the Ukraine crisis is blamed almost entirely on Russian aggression. But this account is wrong says Mearsheimer: The United States and its European allies share most of the responsibility for the crisis.
Questions in this Q & A period range from who engineered the February 2014 Coup in Ukraine, to what role the Neo-Nazis play.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:55 — 19.9MB)

How the West Caused the Crisis in Ukraine – Part TWO: Rick Rozoff

On The Role of NATO
It is widely acknowledged that the expansion eastward of NATO – the North Atlantic Treaty Organization – is a major provocation of Russia and a huge and under-reported factor in the origins and the conduct of the war in Ukraine.
Few investigative journalists follow the day to day politics of NATO – that are directed largely by the US – as closely as Rick Rozoff. He is the manager of the organization Stop NATO International and has been an active opponent of war, militarism and intervention for over 40 years. He writes on the threat of international militarization, especially on the globalization of NATO. Rozoff blogs at https://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/
Rick Rozoff spoke on January 10, 2015, along with Professor [ . . . ]

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:00 — 19.9MB)

How the West Caused the Crisis in Ukraine – Part ONE: John Mearsheimer

In January 2015 Evanston Neighbors for Peace organized an event with two eminent speakers, John Mearsheimer, Professor at the University of Chicago and Rick Rozoff the foremost investigator of NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Here is part one of a set of four programs that include two lectures and a long questions and answer period. Prof. Mearsheimer spoke about the origins of the crisis and how to avert the ever heightening risk of war between the United States and Russia. He gave an update of his acclaimed article in the magazine Foreign Affairs: How the West Caused the Ukraine Crisis.
John Mearsheimer is Professor of Political Science and co-director of the Program on International Security Policy at the University of [ . . . ]

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:00 — 19.9MB)

The Story of Aaron Swartz – Film on Radio (ONE of ONE) Archive

Please remember Aaron today for his co-founding of Demand Progress and defense of internet freedom on occasion of the impending Feb., 2015, FCC vote on Net Neutrality, and the needed reform of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act under which he was prosecuted.
This program is based on the soundtrack of the 2014 movie: The Internet’s Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz. His death at age 26 in 2013 made the internet light up with grief and also anger at a judicial system that haunted and hunted him. He was facing 35 years in prison and $1 million in fines for bulk-downloading from a site, JSTOR, that was freely available to Massachusetts Institute of Technology students.
“Aaron’s story touched a nerve [ . . . ]

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:00 — 19.9MB)

Peter Dale Scott: The American Deep State (TWO of TWO)

Wall Street, Big Oil and the Attack on U.S. Democracy
There was a heavy rainstorm and flooding in the forecast for November 9 but a group of friends and colleagues were undaunted and came to the opening party for Peter Dale Scott’s 2014 book on the Deep State, published by Rowman & Littlefield. We met in the poetry room of the historic City Lights bookstore and publishing house in San Francisco’s North Beach.
Professor Peter Dale Scott is a Canadian-born former diplomat, and retired Professor of Literature at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of many books and articles on state terrorism, surveillance, drug-dealing by the CIA, and political assassinations.
In Part ONE Professor Scott spoke about the hidden [ . . . ]

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:02 — 19.9MB)