Podcasts

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Joan Mellen – A Farewell to Justice (ONE of TWO)

By MariaNovember 27, 20132013

Jim Garrison, John F. Kennedy’s Assassination, and the Case That Should Have Changed History
The re-broadcast of this program with Temple University Professor Joan Mellen is timed to coincide with the immediate aftermath of the 50th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination. Now we know that even in November 2013 the vast majority of mainstream media still name Oswald the lone assassin and still discredit Oliver Stone, whose 1991 Movie JFK features Garrison’s investigation of the assassination.
Oliver Stone, in November 2013, defended his film, JFK. He said to his attackers on CNN: “There’s nothing in the movie that I would go back on,” and: “even more evidence supports my case now.” Joan Mellen agrees with Oliver Stone and supports the film. But [ . . . ]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:01 — 19.9MB)

FAMILY OF SECRETS  (TWO of TWO) An interview with the author, Russ Baker

By MariaNovember 6, 20132013

Best of TUC: In remembrance of the JKF assassination
Dan Rather, whose career ending expose, in 2004, of G.W. Bush’s failed National Guard service is described in Russ Baker’s Family of Secrets, said about the book: “It made me rethink even those events I witnessed with my own eyes.”
In this 2010 interview Baker gives his interpretation of the source and purpose of the National Guard documents. He also presents more information on the connections of George Herbert Walker Bush to the Kennedy assassination, including the briefing that Father Bush received right after the murder, as well as the long time friendship between Bush and George de Mohrenschildt who became the handler of Lee Harvey Oswald.
This is a Best of TUC Radio [ . . . ]

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

FAMILY OF SECRETS  (ONE of TWO) An interview with the author, Russ Baker

By MariaOctober 29, 20132013

Best of TUC: In remembrance of the JKF assassination 
Gore Vidal called Baker’s book about the Bush Dynasty and America’s invisible government one of the most important books of the past ten years. In Family of Secrets Baker asks the obvious, but unanswered question, how can “such a clan occupy the presidency or vice presidency of the US for 20 of the past 28 years” with yet another Bush, Jeb Bush waiting in the wings.
Family of Secrets reads and was conceived as a detective story, based on more than 500 interviews and thousands of documents, backed up by more than a 1000 footnotes. And even though the book uncovers a secret political life for all Bushes it is much more than [ . . . ]

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

Global Seed Companies: Who Owns What – Professor Philip Howard

By MariaOctober 23, 20132013

And why are multinational chemical companies in control?
According to Philip Howard there were over 10,000 seed companies in the US in the 1970s, by 1998 there were only 1,500 left. This is a fascinating, fact filled report of how an ever smaller group of chemical companies, foremost Monsanto, DuPont and Syngenta have taken over a majority share of the world seed supply in a very short period of time. And they are not only dealing in basic grains and genetic engineering of corn and soy, but have already successfully acquired fruits and vegetables seed companies and hybrid seed stock.
Genetic engineering, the patenting of seeds, sanctioned by Supreme Court and global trade jurisdiction now make the saving of an increasingly larger [ . . . ]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:01 — 19.9MB)

Edward Said: Palestine and the Universality of Human Rights (Part TWO of TWO)

By MariaOctober 15, 20132013

Best Of TUC: Tribute in remembrance of his death, Sept. 25, 2003
This is Prof. Edward Said’s last major speech on Palestine given at UC Berkeley seven months before his death on September 25, 2003. He was born in Jerusalem in 1935, lived in exile in the US and was professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University.
Edward Said gave a report on GAZA, still under military occupation. He also referred to the first and second Intifada, the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation, and the beginning of the building of the separation wall.
The building of Israeli settlements, the major cause of conflict and suffering, continues to this day. By the end of 2012 settlers in the West Bank numbered [ . . . ]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:01 — 19.9MB)

Edward Said: Palestine and the Universality of Human Rights (Part ONE of TWO)

By MariaOctober 8, 20132013

Best Of TUC: Tribute in remembrance of his death, Sept. 25, 2003
This is Edward Said’s last major speech on Palestine, the war on Iraq and the Bush administration. On September 25, 2003, a message made its way around the world. Edward Said, Palestinian American, world famous professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, and fearless defender of the Palestinian cause had died of leukemia in New York City, far from the city of Jerusalem where he was born in 1935.
In 1948 Said and his family were forced to leave Palestine for Cairo when the newly founded state of Israel took their ancestral home. Later Said came to the US, studied at Princeton and Harvard and went on to [ . . . ]

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

Vandana Shiva: Genetically Engineered Food and the Militarization of Agriculture (TWO of TWO)

By MariaOctober 2, 20132013GMOs, Organic Farming

We owe Vandana Shiva a huge debt of gratitude for having been one of the first to explain that modern trade agreements are no longer just about setting tariffs at the borders but rather increasingly global bills of rights that give corporations power over national laws and regulations, all in the name of maximizing their profits.
In this wide ranging Question and Answer exchange she explains the so-called investor – state suits before unaccountable trade tribunals where corporations can sue governments when they feel that their profits are being curtailed by state laws to protect health, safety, labor, the environment or other so-called obstacles to trade.
Shiva gives an update on the status of a global effort to label GMO food and [ . . . ]

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

Vandana Shiva: Genetically Engineered Food and the Militarization of Agriculture (ONE of TWO)

By MariaSeptember 24, 20132013GMOs, Organic Farming

Dr. Vandana Shiva, trained in Physics with a dissertation on Quantum Theory; born in Dehradun, India, the daughter of a forest conservator and a farmer, is one of the great ecologists of our time. She has written over 20 books, including Water Wars: Pollution, Profits, and Privatization; Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge; Monocultures of the Mind; and The Violence of the Green Revolution.
Vandana Shiva has challenged for decades GMO corporations such as Monsanto, large hydro dam builders, and governments, including her own, on issues of agriculture, genetic engineering, deforestation, abuses of science and technology, and globalization. She has started a movement from her birthplace in the foothills of the Himalayas and is dedicating her life and creative energy [ . . . ]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:01 — 19.9MB)

A $300 Million Freeway Bypass Built on Wetlands – and on a Lie

By MariaSeptember 18, 20132013

From TUC Radio’s Going Home series A freeway bypass is being built around the small Northern California town of Willits. Even network TV is recognizing that it will destroy precious wetlands and is grossly expensive and overbuilt with a capacity for 5,000 vehicles per hour while top traffic around Willits is only 8,000 a day. The breaking news around which this story is built is the discovery that the California Department of Transportation, Caltrans, lied in their permit application to inflate the need for four instead of two lanes.
An effort is currently under way to halt construction and bring back a two lane design for the Northern Interchange, where the bypass meets up with the old two lane highway 101. [ . . . ]

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

How Many Reasons for an Attack on Syria?

By MariaSeptember 10, 20132013

An interview with Middle East analyst Jeffrey Blankfort recorded on September 8, 2013, before the, then planned, congressional votes.
This interview covers the vote in the UK Parliament, the critics of the preparation for war at home and abroad, Israel’s position, the role of the Saudis in fomenting military actions at a time when demonstrations in Syria were still peaceful, and the role of Hezbollah.
Blankfort refers to the long list of incidents where the US used chemical weapons in Vietnam and Iraq and supplied them or condoned their use. He also comments on constitutional issues around the War Powers Act which limits the President’s discretion to launch a war.
Jeff Blankfort is a journalist, photographer and radio host of Takes on [ . . . ]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:01 — 19.9MB)

Alex Carey: Corporations and Propaganda – The Attack on Democracy Part TWO of TWO

By MariaSeptember 3, 20132013

Journalist John Pilger has called 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.”
Noam Chomsky dedicated his book “Manufacturing Consent” to the memory of Alex Carey. Chomsky says that the Australian sociologist would have written the definitive history of propaganda in the US, had he lived to complete his work. This is a fairly complex production [ . . . ]

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

James McGreen: THE FUTURE OF ELECTRIC CARS?

By MariaAugust 21, 20132013

From TUC Radio’s Going Home series
McGreen and friends built a prototype for an electric vehicle that is not a car, that is not yet in mass production, that is assembled from parts used by early VW, electronics from Silicon Valley, lithium batteries from China, and a motor invented by Nicola Tesla in the 1890s. A vehicle design that raises an important question about the future of electric transport. Is the automobile as we know it really the only model for personal electric vehicles? Are there lighter, simpler solutions that use less power but might remain impossible if traffic is dominated by cars that weigh 3,000 lbs and more and shoot along at murderous speeds?
McGreen, is the principal inventor of the [ . . . ]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:01 — 19.9MB)

Helen Caldicott: Nuclear Power, Radiation & Our Health Part TWO of TWO

By MariaAugust 11, 20132013

This is the conclusion of Helen Caldicott’s keynote presentation at a public forum in Taipei, Taiwan, on July 7, 2013. Caldicott covers essential knowledge: How do radioactive iodine, strontium and plutonium affect the body? Why do the body and placenta mistake plutonium for iron and strontium for calcium and embed them in our organs and the fetus? Caldicott also covers the latest studies on birds in the Chernobyl and Fukushima exclusion zones by biologist Timothy Mousseau and she ends with a personal account of how she, as young med-student, was moved by the novel On The Beach. The author, Nevil Shute, describes how a nuclear world war III can poison the earth with radiation.
The organizer of the Taipei forum was [ . . . ]

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

Helen Caldicott: Nuclear Power, Radiation & Our Health, Part ONE of TWO

By MariaAugust 6, 20132013

This is the keynote presentation at a public forum in Taipei, Taiwan, on July 7, 2013. The organizer was an antinuclear alliance of mothers called Mom Loves Taiwan. They are campaigning to prevent the opening of yet another nuclear power plant on that small island and invited Dr. Helen Caldicott to help inform the public and the media.
This is a brief and concise talk covering the nature of power plants accidents, the different forms of radiation released, and how exactly radiation acts on the human cells and causes cancer.
There are very few people currently alive who have given as much time and effort to the whole complex of the nuclear nightmare, as Helen Caldicott. Beginning in 1971 with atmospheric [ . . . ]

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

Alfred W. McCoy: The Making of the US Surveillance State

By MariaJuly 31, 20132013

In July 2013 an article appeared on line in TomDispatch that gave an up to date and chilling analysis of the unprecedented powers of the US Surveillance state. It’s author, University of Madison, Wisconsin, professor of history Alfred McCoy, credits Edward Snowden for having revealed today’s reality. And McCoy adds his perspective of the intriguing history that led up to this point – and he makes a few predictions as to what to expect in the near future. That article in TomDispatch caught the attention of radio host, writer and Middle East expert Jeff Blankfort who allows me to broadcast the highlights of his interview with Professor McCoy.
McCoy studied Southeast Asian history at Yale University before coming to Madison. In [ . . . ]

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