podcasts

Expand your mind and your ass will follow. 

Greedle's Hot Brain Injections

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democracynow.org - Libya is experiencing its most intense fighting since the 2011 NATO-backed campaign to remove Muammar Gaddafi. On Monday, the Libyan parliament that was replaced in an election in June reconvened and chose an Islamist-backed deputy as the new prime minister. This now leaves Libya with two rival leaders and assemblies, each backed by armed factions. Meanwhile the New York Times has revealed Egypt and the United Arab Emirates launched airstrikes twice in the last week against Islamist-allied militias battling for control of Tripoli. Despite the strikes, the Islamist militants managed to solidify control of the capital of Tripoli by taking over the main airport. “[The U.S. and NATO] bombed the country and opened the door for the different militias to now compete against each other,” says Vijay Prashad, professor of international studies at Trinity College. “So the day Gaddafi was killed, from then onwards, the militias have basically been at each other’s throats.”

Vijay Prashad: 2011 NATO Bombing of Libya Led to Rise of Militias Now Fighting for Oil-Rich Land

Vijay Prashad speaks on the United States economic system to Occupy Boston on October 23, 2011.

Vijay Prashad at Occupy Boston

In the aftermath of the EU referendum in the UK, in which the British population voted to leave, we discuss the prominence of immigration in the debate with Robert Ford, Professor in Political Science at the University of Manchester, and Kenan Malik, writer, lecturer and broadcaster. We also talk to Nando Sigona, Senior Lecturer at the University of Birmingham, about the situation for unaccompanied migrant children arriving in Euro

7. Was Brexit all about immigration and who are the children migrating unaccompanied to Europe?

The popular idea out there is that women are more social than men and men are more competitive than women. What’s more, these tendencies are socially conditioned rather than biologically innate. 

But what if it’s the other way around?

My guest today is a psychologist who has spent thirty years researching the differences between how boys and girls socialize, and she’s discovered that many ideas that people have on the subject are completely wrong. Her name is Joyce Benenson and she’s the author of the book Warriors and Worriers: The Survival of the Sexes. Today on the show Joyce and I discuss the biological origins of male and female socialization, why men prefer all-male groups, and why women can be just as, if not more competitive, as men. We also discuss how men compete to cooperate and why men can make up much faster with an enemy than women can. 

#229: How Men and Women Socialize Differently

The first episode of Nima Shirazi and Adam Johnson's podcast, Citations Needed, tackles media hype surrounding the privatization of education.

Show notes can be found here:

2010 tax form for Participant Foundation used to fund Waiting for Superman (note: four donors-- Waltons, Eli Broad, Donald Fisher, Dave Einhorn): http://990s.foundationcenter.org/990pf_pdf_archive/261/261292762/261292762_201106_990PF.pdf
Gates $2 million contribution to film https://web.archive.org/web/20101016004049/https://www.gatesfoundation.org/Grants-2010/Pages/Participant-Media-LLC-OPP1019819.aspx

The economic, pro-Wall Street origins of charter schools: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2014/06/04/why-hedge-funds-love-charter-schools/

Guest Jennifer Berkshire’s blog: 
http://haveyouheardblog.com/
Guest Jennifer berkshire’s articles: 
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/tips-391 
http://www.salon.com/writer/jennifer_berkshire/ 

Books mentioned by Berkshire: The One Percent Solution https://www.amazon.com/One-Percent-Solution-Corporations-Remaking/dp/1501703064

New Orleans graduation rate stats article from 2014 by Adam http://citationsneeded.com/2014/05/24/charter-schools-katrina-memory-hole/

Harlem Children Zone original board: 
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cq8wM7cWgAAUfHN.jpg

Further reading:


http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/turnover-charter-school-plague-article-1.3272954

https://newrepublic.com/article/140319/charter-schools-good-bad-black-students

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2010/11/11/myth-charter-schools/

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/11/01/vote-no-charter-schools

https://www.counterpunch.org/2009/08/25/the-charter-school-hype-and-how-it-s-managed/
https://www.counterpunch.org/2009/08/26/the-future-of-charter-schools/

http://www.alternet.org/education/how-charter-schools-are-undermining-future-public-education

https://www.counterpunch.org/2010/03/10/i-was-a-charter-school-teacher/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdPACwRgw04

Episode 01 : The Charter School Scam

In the second episode of Citations Needed, Nima and Adam breakdown the history and present "crisis" on the Korean peninsula.

Episode 02: The North Korea Memory Hole

Episode 03: The Rise of Superpredator 2.0

Episode 3 is about the media narrative surrounding the rise of so-called “gang raids” that have exploded over the past three years. These high-stakes, headline-grabbing spectacles target, almost exclusively, black and brown people and are carried out by hundreds of local, state, and federal officials with little scrutiny from the media. 

Our guest: Josmar Trujillo, a Harlem-based organizer, writer, trainer, and agitator.

See show notes here: https://goo.gl/JeXczy

Episode 03: The Rise of Superpredator 2.0

Iran, Iraq, and the New York Times’ Master Class in Reality Inversion.

In this episode we dissect the true history of what caused chaos in Iraq, who’s to blame and what the real motives were behind the Bush, Obama and Trump administrations designs for the country. All this in the context of a battle for control over remaining ISIS territory in Syria and Washington, Riyadh, and Tel Aviv’s desire to stop the dreaded “Shia crescent”.

Show notes: https://goo.gl/zcGHvd

Episode 04: Iran - The Root of All Evil

On Episode 5, we explore the history of the media erasing socialists of color from the history books and present day discourse––a tactic that serves to both commodity and water-down black radicalism and pawn off leftwing politics as a uniquely white or middle class enterprise.

Our guests: Robert Greene II and Roqayah Chamseddine.

Show notes: https://goo.gl/QPYT7C

Episode 05: Purging Socialists of Color From History

In Episode 7 we explore how the media discusses the issue of BDS and the broader topic of Palestinian liberation.

Show notes: https://goo.gl/U4rCac

Episode 07: BDS & the Moral Narratives of Colonization

We discuss the cynical use of Human Rights to advance US interests with guest Glenn Greenwald. 

The conceit that the U.S. has been a dedicated and earnest promoter of “freedom”, “democracy,” and “human rights” throughout the world — even if, at times, a “flawed” one — is a defining narrative, largely taken for granted by major media. But how accurate is this assumption? What do we mean when we talk about human rights? What abuses are highlighted and which aren’t? Where do labor rights fit into the broader discussion of human rights?

On this episode of Citations Needed, we attempt to parse some of these complex questions and how they fit into a broader discussions of soft power and war.

Episode 08: The Human Rights Concern Troll Industrial Complex

The idea that we’re “running out of money” and have to “tighten our belts" is a common trope in US media; the premise that the US government is like a household that must balance its books, largely taken for granted by liberal and right-wing outlets alike.

But is this premise correct? Is it true that the United States is over-budget and ready to explode with insolvency? Where does this conventional wisdom come from and whom does it benefit? 

On this and next week's show we seek to answer some of the questions. In Part I: Single Payer Propaganda War, we examine the primary talking points against Single Payer and other big government programs and how to combat them with guest Stephanie Kelton.

Ep 11, Part I: The Deficits Racket -- Single-Payer Propaganda War

If broad government programs are so popular why don’t we just vote them into existence? 

One of the primary barriers to democratic socialism--or spending in general--is racist media coverage and racist attitudes about how government programs are administered. In this episode we explore how media-fueled racism and means-tested nickel-and-diming makes radical change that much more difficult. With guests Sean McElwee and Noel Cazenave.

Ep 11, Part II: The Deficits Racket -- Racist Media as Barrier to Gov't Spending

Joining me for a special segment of the Very Bad Leftists Club is Irish author Frankie Gaffney. We talk about MMA superstar Connor Mcgregor, identity politics and socialist strategy, and Frankie’s education in the school of hard knocks. 

Check out Frankie’s latest work of fiction, DUBLIN SEVEN, which is receiving rave reviews from the critics: https://www.amazon.com/Dublin-Seven-Frankie-Gaffney/dp/1910742112

  Read some of Gaffney’s political writings here:  -https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/identity-politics-is-utterly-ineffective-at-anything-other-than-dividing-people-1.3087639
-http://www.thejournal.ie/readme/known-to-gardai-2716572-Dec2016/  

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Ep. 36: The Very Bad Leftists Club w/ Frankie Gaffney

The term "welfare" is thrown around so casually in political speeches and media coverage we hardly notice it anymore. CNN reports that “GOP will tackle Medicare, Medicaid, welfare in 2018," while The Washington Post insists that “Trump recently called on Congress to move to cut welfare spending after the tax bill.” CBS News tells viewers that “Washington eyes welfare reform."

But what do these outlets and the Republican Party actually mean when they talk about "welfare"? What programs are they referring to? The exact definition of "welfare" – which supposedly ended over 20 years ago – remains unclear. 

While the word "welfare" and the welfare state has a positive connotation in Europe, in the United States it's more often than not a malleable propaganda term meant to dog whistle programs for African-Americans and Latinos while signaling to whites that their checks and corporate handouts will remain untouched.

In this episode, we dig into the racist history of anti-welfare crusades, the political purpose of pathologizing poverty, and the meaninglessness of phrases like "welfare reform," with guest Sarah Jaffe.

Episode 26: The 'Welfare' Dog-Whistle

If one were to approach New York Times-reading liberals circa 1990 and tell them about a crime-fighting policy that arbitrarily harassed black and Latino youths who had committed no crime and threw the book at low-level nonviolent offenses, they would be rightfully outraged at the idea. But, if one were to couch this exact policy in pseudoscience promoted by mercenary sociologists and glowingly written up in The Atlantic, these same liberals would not only accept it, they'd be its primary advocates. 

This is that story. This is the story of how the racist pseudoscience of Broken Windows and Stop-and-Frisk that started on the rightwing fringes  slowly seeped into the centrist and liberal media and how two new racist pseudosciences, predictive policing and high profile "gang raids", are – again, with the help of liberals - taking their place. 

We are joined this week by Josmar Trujillo.

CN27_20180214_broken_windows_trujillo

Episode 27: How the Media Mainstreamed Racist Pseudoscience

1968 was one of the most seismic years in recent history -- Vietnam, the Prague spring, Black Power at the Olympics and protests on the streets of Paris and London. This interview is part commemoration, part reassessment. What remains of that turbulent time and where can we discern its features in our political landscape today?

Tariq Ali discusses May '68 on BBC Radio 3 Free Thinking, February 2018

The unlikely rise of Trump in the past three years has created a chasm in the Republican party: those who embrace the President’s wild, unorthodox, nativist style and those who––with much posturing and self congratulation––reject his brand of conservatism. The latter group, generally called “NeverTrump” Republicans, occupies a special, protected status in Serious Centrist media––despite representing only 5% of the population. 

Major outlets like The Washington Post, The Atlantic and the New York Times employ roughly 20 #NeverTrump conservatives between them; there is no greater affirmative action policy in U.S. media than for anti-Trump conservatives. So long as they reject Trump, #NeverTrump pundits can get away with the most odious points of view – anti-Arab racism, climate change denial, literally suggesting women be hanged en masse for having abortions. 

What accounts for this? Where does the institutional obsession with finding a Reasonable Republican come from and why is there such a widespread denial that Donald Trump does, in fact, actually and accurately represent the GOP as it exists today?

We are joined by Slate's Osita Nwanevu.

Episode 33: Liberals' Obsession with the Phantom Reasonable Republican

Vijay Prashad-The Karma of Uncle Swami

Citations Needed is a podcast about the media, power, PR, and the history of bullshit. It is hosted by Nima Shirazi and Adam Johnson, and produced by Florence Barrau-Adams.

Ep 11, Part II: The Deficits Racket -- Racist Media as Barrier to Gov't Spending

Citations Needed Podcast