Episodes
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Iraq Body Count is a website that has maintained the most thorough list of civilian casualties from the Iraq War. According to Jonathan Steele, writing in The Guardian, IBC "is widely considered as the most reliable database of Iraqi civilian deaths.” It has been featured in the Chilcot report, and other official government websites. But, there is much to the war that most people don’t know about:
* The US began softening-up strikes in 2002, well before the official entry into the war.
* A chilling story of how the US attacked a hospital in 2004 for reporting Morgue Deaths
* The Al-Jazeera bombings and the US bombing of a Reuter’s desk in Baghdad
* Within the first few weeks, they had recorded over 7,500 civilian deaths with more devastation coming
Violence as Communication - Fallujah
Perhaps no city has been hit as hard as Fallujah, Iraq. After the shock and awe campaign that led to the capture of Baghdad, the city of Fallujah had already established its own local government and security forces. There was no need for US forces to be there because they had not met with resistance at all. But, on April 23, 2003, the 82nd Airborne Division occupied the city.
As a result, on April 28 2003, children and parents were marching in protests towards a school. US troops indiscriminately shot them. With that memory still present in amongst the people of Fallujah, on March 31, 2004, four Blackwater mercenaries were killed on a bridge with their bodies mutilated in brutal way. Unfortunately, most of the western media chose to portray them as innocent victims, instead victims of revenge.
The US authorities took this as a challenge to their dominance. Then in late 2004, they began a campaign to conquer Fallujah which was filled with unbelievable atrocities.
According to the Boston Globe:
Under the plans, troops would funnel Fallujans to so-called citizen processing centers on the outskirts of the city to compile a database of their identities through DNA testing and retina scans. Residents would receive badges displaying their home addresses that they must wear at all times. Buses would ferry them into the city, where cars, the deadliest tool of suicide bombers, would be banned.
As well as being conscripted for forced labor:
One idea that has stirred debate among Marine officers would require all men to work, for pay, in military-style battalions. Depending on their skills, they would be assigned jobs in construction, waterworks, or rubble-clearing platoon
Later on, white phosphorous would be used in Fallujah.
In part 1 of our series, we discuss the Iraq war, the implications of the casualties and also we try to form a memorial for the people who lost their lives. We also talk about the digital memory project for the Iraq war.
Iraq Body Count is available on Twitter.
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Perhaps no country has been subjected to the whims of US imperialism as much as Nicaragua. In the 1800s, it was seen a new breeding ground for the Monroe Doctrine, and sent mercenaries over there to fight wars. In the early 1900s, during the quest for colonies, the US marines invaded again, and through the efforts of Agosto Sandino, they were pushed out, not before establishing a foothold in the form of Anastasio Somoza and his sons who ruled the country with an iron fist. Somoza and his allies grew wealthy while most of the peasants starved and impoverished. Somoza, even took blood from the Nicaraguans and sold it to the US.
However, the Sandinistas began their resistance in 1961 to the Somoza dictatorship. It was a David vs Goliath fight. Somoza had bombers from the US, while Sandinistas merely had their guns. Through their determination, the successfully defeated the Somoza dictatorship not before Somoza absconded with over $3 billion of aid.
However, even victory was bittersweet as the US decided to train one of the most horrific militias known to man: the Contras.
No action was deemed off-limits for the Contras. They beheaded children, they gouged out eyes of peasants. As one activist puts it, “The contras don’t win the hearts and minds of the people. They take the arms and limbs”
However, the Sandinista Revolution improved the lives of the Nicaraguan people in unprecedented ways. Within just 5 short months, the literacy rate rose up from the 50s to the 80s. But, they were fighting a brutal civil war with the Contras for the next decade, while under US sanctions.
Being under the axe of imperial sanctions, and tired from the constant civil war, and under the pressure from the US, the Nicaraguan people voted out the Sandinistas for a US-backed leader: Violeta Chamorro.
Once again, the gains from the revolution were rolled back. Literacy went down, many essential services were privatized. But, the Sandinistas did not give up. They continued to organize for the next 16 years and finally, their efforts paid off. Daniel Ortega and the Sandinistas came back to power in 2006.
However, they Sandinistas have been under attack by the US through organizations like the NED that fund the violent opposition including the coup attempt in 2018 where 100s of innocent civilians in Nicaragua were killed. The US put Nicaragua under economic sanctions.
The Sandinistas and Ortega skillfully navigated through this minefield using caution. For example, they did not immediately recognize the one-china policy because of all the factories Taiwan had put in. Only when the opportunity came forward did they do that.
Finally, we walk about Ben and Dan’s experience in the latest Nicaraguan elections and compare it with the US elections. We also discuss the US propaganda campaign against Nicaragua. In the end, Dan says “ God Bless the Sandinistas”
Follow Ben on Twitter
Follow Dan on Twitter
Other Episodes with Dan Kovalik
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Today, we have the lovely Carl Zha join us again to tell us about the history of Bruce Lee, whose family story is the story of Hong Kong itself!
Show Notes:
3:17 - The Coolie Trade - “Coolie” is a transliteration from a Chinese (and Indian) word. Coolie, in Chinese, means “bitter labor.” In the mid-to-late 1800s the slave trade was abolished in many So…
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On Part 2 of Blindingly Unjust, we look at the way the law, public relations, the media interact with each other in order to manufacture consent. We start by examining the kid-gloves in which Sam-Bankman Fried is treated with and then we move on to examine the larger power structures that allows impunity for some and imprisonment for others.
Show Notes
0:50 - Sam Bankman-Fried Scandal
1:30 - Elizabeth Holmes
2:00 - Sam Bankman-Fried admits to running a Ponzi Scheme
10:36 - Coordinated Pump and Dump
12:42 - FTX’s backdoor: The exchange is supposed to be a safe that cannot cracked, but FTX figured out how to “crack” the safe.
14:19 - FTX being embedded with politicians and appearing with Zelensky
15:13 - Old lady being in jail over Christmas
16:38 - Prosecutorial power
17:30 - Arrested over “a 1000-yard stare”: Racial discrimination where a black person was sitting outside.
19:15 - Prosecutor’s office and Police are extremely comingled which is why we cannot get a single conviction
20:50 - The limits of Law - it is an expression of societal power.
23:12 - Bush Vs Gore and Legal fiction
25:42 - The same power circle within the USA
27:38 - China’s meritocracy
30:22 - The way China works vs the Way the USA works
32:50 - Who owns BMW
36:15 - Media driven blood-lust
38:15 - Korean War Posters
43:17 - Who the us fights a war with..
Christopher Dilworth can be found on Twitter
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Justice is often depicted as a blind woman who holds an evenly balanced scale as it is meant to reflect that justice is supposed to be dispensed impartially and to all members of society. Of course, within American hegemony is a popular myth that judiciaries are impartial arbiters of constitution and constitutionality. Today, attorney Christopher Dilworth joins us in a two-part episode to debunk this myth while explaining the history of the US judiciary.
Show Notes
2:10: What do Lawyers do? Nuance-Cuck
3:20 - Law is not a vehicle to change the world.
4:04 - Supreme Court, a bullwark against change
5:30 - Streamlining straight to the Supreme Court
6:54 - Hammer v. Dagenhart
10:56 - IG Farben and Zyklon B with Neal Kayal
13:34 - Atkins v Children’s Hospital: Minimum wage conflicts with Due Process
15:22 - Scalia’s anti-intellectualness
17:17 - “Originalism”
18:15 - Qualified Immunity
20:18 - Civil Asset Forfeiture
22:30 - Police have no constitutional duty to protect and serve
24:14 - Christopher Dilworth’s personal experience with the police
28:20 - Esha’s Experience with the Russian Police
29:24 - Janet’s Story with the Police
37:02 - Legalized Sadism
44:53 - Government’s involvement in bringing drugs - Gary Webb
48:04 - Three Strikes
Christopher Dilworth can be found on Twitter
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The world has a lot of borders, but very few people understand what it means for the ordinary citizen and how it affects their lives. The problem this century is that these borders are not decided by people, in order to best serve them. Instead, there is a multi-tiered system that gives some humans some rights and many corporations a free-for all. Today, journalist Todd Miller, and author of Empire of Borders and Build Bridges and Not Walls, joins us to discuss the meaning of the borders and why we may need a world without borders.
Show Notes
0:43 - The Crisis at the Kenya-Tanzania borders: Tanzanian police are attempting to evict a big swath of the Massai people at the behest of a trophy hunting company.
2:15 - Ending the cliche that the immigration system is broken but working as intended.
4:15 - Orwellian technology at the border
5:50 - Border Patrol Memo from 1994 - “The border was created for mortal danger”
The preknowledge that people would die is built into the system.
7:40 - The border budget exceeded $25 billion in 2020.
10:41 - “ There were a 105,000 contracts given to private companies just by CPB and ice which was $55 billion. The $55 billion given to companies over the 12 year old span was more than the amount given between 1975-2023”
12:25 - The logistics and services by private companies. “In 2022, there were drones, unmanned aerial drones. The CPB has a contractor for predator B drones”
15:30 - Request for proposals for a small drone system equipped with a facial recognition system
16:50 - Does the US government conduct surveillance on people who have never set foot inside the US because of the border technology?
19:00 - The border patrol shot into Mexico and killed someone
23:10 - “The nothing that happens in the other 97 case (where the US border patrol shot into Mexico and killed someone), makes me think that there is impunity”
24:22 - The similarities between the US military installation and border control.
24:52 - There are no borders for corporations: The Guatemala - United Fruit Situation
25:54 - There is already an open border system for certain people, by the accident of where you are born. If you have a US passport, that opens doors for many places that if you are born in other places that is not.
30:08 - El Salvador’s iron fist and an example of the open border system for corporations with the heavy hand of brutality that ensures the corporations always get what they want!
31:20 - The Gadsen Purchase which was a gun-totting push
34:26 - Treaty of Versailles and Sikes-Picot agreement and how they randomly drew borders around the world. “I can’t even see my grandmother”
36:01 - The “border zone” where the constitutional rights are exempt
39:34 - DHS in Portland disappearing people from Bortac
42:22 - A culture of Cruelty with Border Patrol
44:39 - Facade of the enemy
46:30 - An agent with his finger on the holster
46:50 - The “hazing” of the border patrol agents where they get beaten and pepper-sprayed
A CBP trainee dies of a stroke
50:12 - A world without borders
51:13 - 77 Borders around the world since 1989
53:04 - A different world
56:15 - “Open Borders” vs “No Borders”
57:50 - The border between Kenya and Tanzania was not drawn by a single African
1:00:10 - Concerns about the Border
1:03:51 - Impact of Borders on the Environment - The DHS action plan
Check out Todd Miller’s blog “The Border Chronicles”
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It started with protests that was dubbed the Arab Spring, but western sources wants us to believe that protests over housing prices spontaneously erupted into a full-blown civil war. But, this is not the case. In fact, the so-called “moderate rebels” of Syria were armed, trained and funded by the west in a grandmaster plan to destabilize Syria in order to access its natural resources. Today, veteran journalist Vanessa Beeley, who has spent the better part of the last 8 years in Syria, tells us the story that they won’t tell you.
Show Notes:
2:24 - Syria Solidarity Network
3:43 - Wikipedia Vandalism
5:15 - The Syrian Regime Change Coalition
6:15 - Propaganda War in Syria
7:57 - Accusation of Crimes against White Helmets
11:00 - Syrian Pipeline propositions that was rejected
17:01 - A big red flag - No Christmas in areas controlled by “Moderate Rebels”
22:13 - Early Protests with Hate
24:21 - “Smuggle Hope” in Syria
31:02 - Rebranding “rebel groups”
37: 00 - White Helmets
KLA Organ Trafficking
40:00 - Crimes by Moderate Rebels
* Burning Civilians alive
* Civilians held captive in Rebel jails
* Atrocities in Rebel-held jails
45:45 - Western Media narratives turned upside down
48:00 - White Helmets and organ trafficking
UN panel on White Helmets
58:21 - Al Qaeda oil Monopoly
1:15:21 - Amnesty in Syria
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Today, we have Carl Zha from the Silk and Steel Podcast joining us to discuss the Opium wars.
Show Notes
0:00:00 - 0:03:12 - Introductions
0:03:14- 0:05:20 - Opium Beginnings
Originally, opium was ingested orally. However, ingesting it in large quantities lead to death because it stopped breathing. However, after Europeans colonized the New World, they brought back tobacco from the Americas. Particularly, the Spanish and the Portuguese, who brought it to the Philippines and Malaysia, both countries had a significant Chinese diaspora. Later, when the Dutch colonized Indonesia, they, too, brought tobacco. Now, Opium was mixed with tobacco and it could be smoked allowing for consumption in larger amounts without death.
0:05:21- 0:07:08 - Damn British and Opium
Opium, itself, is not grown in china. It is grown outside of China and had to be imported. India grew Opium. In the Late 18th century when the British Colonized India, they forced the farmers in India to grow opium. Their policy of making Indian farmers grow Opium was responsible for many famines.
The British East India Company (BEIC) would license the opium through their opium monopoly. They would sell the opium to individual traders who would carry them into China, because the British want plausible deniability. If someone every questioned them, they would say, “Oh, we are the venerable British East India company. We don't we don't actually believe in the opium trade.”
0:07:08- 0:08:01 - Smoke and Mirrors
The BEIC ships the opium, but the individual parcels will be parceled out and sold to employees of BEIC. A famous opium smuggler is William Jardine, who started as a sergeant under the BEIC. As an employee of the BEIC, he got his own cargo space on their shops which was used to ship opium that he sold to China.
0:08:02- 0:09:48 - China’s Opium Epidemic
Opium was illegal in China and soon the Chinese government realized they had a crisis. Initially, opium was a luxury good because it was not grown in China. However, the innovation of the BEIC flooded the market with cheap opium. Now, laborers could afford it. It blossomed into a full-blown opium crisis.
0:09:49- 0:13:42 - Limits on Foreign Trade
Originally, foreign presence in China was curtailed. It was limited to a few port ciites and the British could only stay for 6 months before having to go to the island of Macau. The British weren’t happy that they could only conduct trade in the city of Canton. The British had to resort to selling opium because originally their product was not competitive.
British had developed a taste for Chinese tea, and they needed silver to trade because China had gone into the Silver standard.
0:13:43 - 0:14:48 - The Magic Formula
Soon, the British hit the magic formula of selling drugs to the Chinese to drain China of it’s silver. The British ran a trade deficit with China prior to the massive operation of opium smuggling. According to some estimates, 50% of the silver mined in the South America is from the 18th and 19th century, ended up in China. The British just decided to sell drugs to drain the silver.
0:14:48 - 0:18:28 Enter Americans
During the founding of the United States, most of the New England old money was made in the opium fortune. There was Astor who has an area in Queens named after him: Astoria. Other families who made their fortune through the Opium Trade:
* The Forbes Family whose descendant John Forbes Kerry was Secretary of State under Obama.
* The Delano Family - FDR’s Grandfather.
* HSBC bank
During a famine in Guangzhau, American traders hid opium under bags of rice. All the Ivy league universities were also heavily invested in the opium trade. That’s how America was founded on: Drugs and Slaves.
0:19:24 - 0:25:47 China Fights Back
Chinese officials tried to tackle the problem by banning opium. The first few bans were ineffective because the British had paid off many officials. In the 1830s, the sends his minister Lin Tse-Hsu’, who is known to be a very honest, upright official to Guangzhou, specifically put a stop to the opium trade.
The British gave up the opium, but they were very indignant. William Jardine returns to London and buys up many newspapers and starts to agitate a media campaign against China in order to start a war. He hobnobs with UK politicians, especially Lord Palmerston, to urge for war with China. There was a lively debate in the British Parliament about morality of going to war with China over opium. But, in the end, they decide to wage war against China for Opium.
0:25:47-0:32:12 The First Opium War
The British sent their troops from India and landed in the port city of Guanzhou. The British had obtained Mysore rockets and their arsenal was significantly better than China’s. While Britain had industrialized, they did so by destroying more advanced industries in India. Britain decided to bombard the Chinese coast and went up to the mouth of the Yangzi river. they decided they're going to apply pressure by raiding other Chinese coastal towns. So the sale of the salt from the South China Sea and bombarding the Chinese coast totally. And if they go that went up to the mouth of Yangzi River near Shanghai. They took over some islands to create big their headquarter for opium smuggling.
And more importantly, they threatened to cut off the north-south traffic at the Grand Canal. At that time, most of the Chinese shipping was along the coast under the Grand Canal to sail from Nanjing to Beijing. Beijing, in 1839, had a population of more than a billion. The plains around Beijing was dry and couldn’t feed the population. The British Navy blockaded the area around Nanjing, threatened to cut off the the rice shipment from from the south to Beijing to basically to starve the population. At this point, China capitulated. They paid large indemnity for the pleasure of being invaded and also recognized Hong Kong as a port.
0:32:12 - 0:36:16 Treaty of Nanking
* China Ceded Hong Kong in Perpetuity
* Indemnity was paid to British ships
* Opening up China for foreign exploitation.
* Chinese law did not apply to British missionaries
Soon, the french began negotiating with the British to allow a little colony in these areas. The city of Shanghai, British, France and even the US got their own concessions. The British and American concession eventually merged into the international Settlement of Shanghai. The colonialism was so bad that there needed to be a Chinatown in Shanghai. The Chinese were restricted to the Chinese city, where the Chinese law would continue to apply. But for the rest of European concessions, British, French, and American laws were applied. British imported Sikh police from British India to police the Shanghai concessions.
0:36:16 -0:38:20 Modern Day Colony in Okinawa
This is eerily similar to Okinawa in modern day Japan. American soldiers can rape people in Okinawa. There is nothing that the Japanese government can do to them. The Japanese government is also a culprit because they don't want American soldiers on the Japanese mainland. So they stick them in Okinawa because, they never treated Okinawans at the same level as the Japanese citizens in Japan. Essentially Okinawa status is like it's a double colony of Japan and United States.
0:38:20 Century of Humiliation
A Chinese person at this time was a second-class citizen in your own country. A very famous scene in a Bruce Lee film illustrates this:
Some Western historians tried to disprove this as an urban myth. But, what they discovered was that there was that the sign actually said “This park is reserved for Europeans only, dogs not allowed.
0:42:00 - 0:45:16 - Second Opium War
The British were not very happy with the settlement for only $21 million. The opium was not fully legalized. So they waited for another opportunity to start another war. This opportunity came during the “Arrow Incident”. British authority had granted all the vessels registered in Hong Kong, British registration. So there was a cargo ship called Arrow. It was used by Chinese smugglers to smuggling opium again, which was captured by the Chinese authorities. The Chinese authorities arrested the crew and executed them for drug smuggling. Because the ship was flying a British flag, the British used this as an excuse to start another war.
In another incident, proselytizing was illegal. A French priest decided to ignore this regulation and went to the interior. He got in trouble with the locals who killed him. The French used this as an excuse to align with the British to form the Anglo-French consortium. Now, the French-Anglo forces used Hong Kong as a launchpad to start another attack on China.
The British just had finished fighting a war in India against the Great Sepoy Mutiny. They had shipped off mutineers to Trinidad, Guyana and other British colonies to work in bonded labor.
0:45:16 -0:49:29 Chinese Coolie Trade
Around the time slavery was formally abolished in many Latin American countries, but there was still a demand for the docile labor force. British and Dutch traders set up shop in Hong Kong. They recruited Chinese peasants They will have these the British and Dutch traders, they will set up shop in Hong Kong and they will Chinese peasants with the promise of jobs overseas. When they went abroad, there conditions were terrible and slave-like. Bruce Lee’s dutch great-grandfather was part of this.
0:50:13 - 0:59:07 The British Loot Beijing
After Britain captured Guangzhou in 1856, they decided it was not enough, so they decided to bring in more pressure. They sailed up to the port of Tianjin, just outside of Beijing where they defeated the Chinese coastal defense. They send in their last remnant force led by the Mongol Prince Sengge Rinchen because they were poorly equipped. At this time, the British decided to send an envoy to negotiate with the Chinese side. But the Mongol Prince, Sengge Rinchen, was so mad at the defeat that he had the British envoy put to death. And now the British were out for revenge. They decided to sack Beijing and the Chines emperor fled the palace.
The British commander Lord Elgin (the son of the famed Elgin marbles) decided to loot the Beijing summer palace and ordered the complete destruction of it. Today, the ruins stands. Everything within the summer palaces was shipped to Britain.
A clause was inserted so that foreign priests could go anywhere in China to proselytize anywhere in China and British ships were allowed to carry indentured Chinese servants to the USA to work.
0:59:07 - 1:05:19 - Opium and the devastation on the Population
* Foreign missionaries said nearly 40% of the adult male population were addicted to opium.
* One doctor said, “There is no slavery to that compared to opium”
Carl Zha tells us a personal anecdote about how opium ruined his grandfather’s family.
1:05:19 -1:14:12 KMT, Opium, CIA and the Cold War
After the communists seized power in China, the United States was sponsoring the remnant KMT troops who escape from southwestern China to northern Myanmar into this place now with nice golden triangle to start opium and heroin production over there.
When the communists took power, opium was outlawed. They burned all the crops and now food such as size could be grown.
Around this time, western pharmaceuticals started to develop more potent forms of opium to market it to the masses such as Heroin and Morphine which was treated as a cough remedy for Children.
1:14:12-1:17:21 Heroin Crisis hits home
Soldiers who were in Vietnam became addicted to opium and it was shipped back home.
1:17:21 -1:23:20 -Getting back Hong Kong
While Hong Kong was leased in perpetuity, areas around Hong Kong was given a 100 year lease which would expire in 1997. At that time, Margaret Thatcher ran many scenarios to see if they could defend Hong Kong against Chinese forces. When she went to negotiate for Hong Kong, the Chinese government cut her off and flatly said no. They ran many scenarios and they realized they could not defend against an actual Chinese military.
In the 1980s, a lot of fear was whipped up by the capitalist class. So, to assuage them, China did One Country Two Policies
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Today, anthropology scholar Elijah Fanan joins us to discuss the rich history of Morocco. A very special episode where we go through over 3000 years of history of a beautiful country.
Show Notes
0:01:11 - The Geography of Morocco
0:02:00 - First Recorded Human life - 300,000 years ago.
0:04:11 - Mitochondrial Eve
0:04:38 - First Sign of Civilization in Morocco
0:05:21 - Amazigh Kingdom of Mauretania - During the Roman Times
0:07:15 - When did Islam Come to Morocco?
0:10:31 - Ibn Khaldoun
0:16:00 - The Fall of the Umayyad Empire
0:17:59:00 - Almoravid Empire
0:20:20- The Red City of Morocco
0:23:48 - Almohad Caliphate: The first non-Arab Caliphate
0:26:10 - The Islamic Golden Age
0:26:29 - The First University - Fatima Al Fihri
0:28:15 - The Koran and the Scientific Method
0:29:00 - The Alaween Dynasty in Morocco and how they kept power for over 500+ years
0:32:00 - The Ottoman Empire
0:34:10 - Sayyida al-Hurra - The Female Pirate of North Africa
0:36:10 - Esha approve of Robbing of Colonizers.
0:36:53 - Pirates and the Slavetrade
0:38:46 - The First Friendship Treaty with the USA
0:41:49 - World War 1 and Morocco
0:46:17 - Rebellion in Fez
0:47:10 - Rif and the Independence Movement
0:48:11 - The Istiqlal Party
0:50:56 - From Black to Gray
0:55:23 - How the King of Morocco Protected all the Jews During Vichy France
0:57:42 - The Birth of the Marxist Leninist Movement in Morocco
1:00:10 - Operation Gladio (Morocco Edition)
1:06:27 - The Arab Spring in Morocco
1:07:04 -Belt and Road Initiative and China in Morocco
1:10:54 - Western Sahara
Other Announcements
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With the release of a new cache of documents, there has been a renewed interest amongst the American Public on the truth behind the JFK assassination. Today, we interview film director JFK Assassination and Mrs. Paine, where he painstakingly, over a few years interviews a key witness in the Kennedy Assassination Ruth Paine.
0:00:45 - Introductions and how Max Good funded his film
0:02:55 - Michael Parenti’s Lecture Gangster Nature of our State
0:03:26 - Who is Ruth Paine?
0:04:55 - Lee Harvey Oswald and the Single Bullet Theory
0:07:10 - How Ruth Paine Become Acquainted from Marina Oswald?
0:07:46 - White Russians and White Terror
0:10:02 - George DeMohrenSchildt
0:11:10 - Fairplay for Cuba and Lee Harvey Oswald
0:14:24 - DeMohrenSchildt’s Mysterious suicide
0:15:00 - Oswald’s Weapon and Ruth Paine’s house
0:20:37 - Ruth Paine and the Warren Commission
0:22:12 - Jack Ruby and the Oswald Murder
0:26:26 - Ruth Paine’s Connection with Allen Dulles
0:28:29 - JFK, Bay of Pigs and the CIA
0:30:30 - The Role of the Secret Service during the Kennedy Assasination
0:31:33 - Vincent Salandria and the JFK Investigation
40:00 - The Gangster Nature of our State
44:12 - Conspiracy Theory and Class Power
46:34 - Fidel Castro’s Speech on the Kennedy Assassination
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Today, we have Author Aaron Good, join us to talk about the driving force behind the US foreign policy for the past 100 years. He talks about who the actors are, what actually occurs and what the end result is, in this extremely informative interview.
0:00:49 - Aaron Good’s transition from working on the Obama Campaign to writing the book “American Exception”
0:03:36 - The impact of JFK and the unspeakable
0:04:41 - The US Empire being a mass criminal enterprise
0:05:31 - Political Scientist with a skewed “Democracy Scale”
0:05:59 - Hegemony
0:06:29 - US Hegemony
07:26:15 - Deep Politics
09:36:01 - Parapolitics
10:56:31 - Management of Savagery
11:23:23 - Putin’s Observation about lack of change in US policy across Presidents
15:04 - Pax American Speech
17:42 - The Nixon Ouster in a Different Light
18:32 - “Every President since Reagan has basically been Reagan”
19:27 - National Security State operates on a permanent state of exception
21:11 - “Rules-Based International Order”
22:19 - Propaganda and the National Security State
26:03 - What is the “East India Company Point of View”?
30:50- What is Higher Immorality?
31:55 - Conundrum of Human Civilization
The State Department Leak on Afghanistan
Thread on Morales
39:56 - Concept of Permanent War
42:12 - Aerospace crisis
45:00 - The Dollar Gap
47:37 - Who Killed JFK?
51:00 - A Brief History of Every US War Since then
59:00 - the Trump Card for the Dollar Hegemony
You can find Aaron Good on Twitter
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Last month, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni drew some waves when she (rightfully) criticized French Colonialism in Africa. She drew particular attention to the CFA Franc Zone.
While her critique was rightful, there is much to be said about her motivations.
Today, we are joined by Ndongo Samba Sylla, author of “Africa’s Last Colonial Currency” to talk to us about the brutal history of the CFA Franc and how it purposefully impoverishes Africa.
Show Notes
0:41 - Colony within a nation:
“Neoliberalism is another iteration of colonial logic, at least economically speaking”
5:14 - President Mitterand in 1957, “Without Africa, France would have no history in the 21st century”
6:48 - CFA Frank with two monetary zones
9:11 - Who liberated France?
10:11 - CFA Franc was born out of the devaluation of the French Franc
12:12 - Sham Decolonialisation
13:40 - Guinea
15:45 - Sekou Toure
17:34 - Fundamental Principles of the CFA system
21:06 - The third pillar “Guarantee of convertability”
* Central banks are obliged to deposit with the central bank 50% of their exchange reserves.
30:00 - Military Agreement with Relation to the CFA Frank
32:15 - Thomas Sankara Example
36:28 - French Interventions of Africa
38:53 - What is going on in Mali?
44:51 - Struggle against Monetary Repression
“Instant Misery Fund” = IMF
47:03 - Secrecy behind the CFA institutions
50:20 - France is a “Guaranteer”! What does it mean?
* Africans provided loans to the French Government.
56:03 - Myths surrounding the CFA Franc
What do you think about the CFA Franc Zone?
You can follow Ndongo Samba Sylla on Twitter
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In today’s episode we have Alexander Buzgalin from the Moscow State University to talk to us about the history of Russia, Ukraine and the economic implications of this war.
We apologize for the delay, I am currently in Russia reporting about the war in Donbass, and our internet connection has been spotty. We have worked out the kinks, and we will be back to our regular schedule. We apologize for the delay.
Show notes:
1:22 - Poland-Russian War from 1650
6:58 - The Russian Revolution
10:58 - Donbass, the heart of Russia
14:05 - The Truth about World War 2 - Europe vs Soviet Union
18:02 - General Plan Ost
23:02. - The Break up of the Soviet Union
27:02 - Rehabilitation of Banderites
31:20 - Two stages of Reform in Ukraine
39:20 - 2008 and Ukraine
46:50 - Maidan
55:56 - Punishing Russia for…
"Of course for United States and NATO, this is terrible challenge and they must punish or so-called punish Russia. And to show to everybody, you must be our slaves or you will be punished or you are punished with Russi
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We have come a full circle. When we first started our podcast back in 2018, Lula was in prison because of a judicial coup called “Lavajato.” Bolsonaro was the leading candidate. We were trying to understand the coup effort sponsored by the US state department against Lula De Silva.
Before he went to prison, Lula gave a very inspiring speech, where he said “ The elites can kill one rose, two roses, or a hundred roses, but they cannot stop the arrival of spring and ours is a fight for spring.”
Four years later, it looks like spring is in the air and to understand what happened, we are doing a special super episode, where we go through all our interviews with Brian Mier from BrasilWire where we talk about the judicial coup from start to finish.
This super episode is based on three earlier episodes:
To support Brian Mier and independent journalism, please visit his patreon.
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Sorry for the delay in posting. Esha is in Russia and is just getting settled. We will resume our scheduled posting next week.
Today, we have Booker Omole, the head of the Communist Party of Kenya to discuss with us everything related to theory: Dialectical & Historical Materialism, Hegels, Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Gramsci. We also learn about why we need to have a party that has an educated citizenry that is capable of fighting for its rights, and how to turn your citizenry with the stellar secondary education program.
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At the turn of the 19th century and early 20th century, people all over the world were demanding the rights given to them in theory on old documents, be put into practice. There was unprecedented activity in unions, unemployment collectives, and civil rights organizations. All of them demanding a voice in the government. Edward Bernays realized the “problem of Democracy” early on:
The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organised habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.
And we have been under this type of conscious manipulation of society since the time of Edward Bernays. Today, Fran from Mango Press joins us to discuss propaganda and Democracy.
Show Notes
:00 - Intro
3:43 - When a non-war is a war for PR purpose
8:20 - Edward Bernays and WW1 propaganda
11:34 - Bernays creating first PR firm
13:34 - Cleaning up the politicians
17:09 - Big Tobacco and Psychoanalysis
22:26 - Controlling with PR
24:23 - Birth of the Department Store
25:31 - PR in WW2
26:30 - PRing Guatemala into a Coup
45:16 - The Regime Change Playbook
48:09 - Protecting the Order of Things
50:53 - Inventing Reality
53:15 - Inventing Reality in Ukraine
1:02:00 - Goodbyes
Extras:
Watch my lecture on Real Progressives about our responsibility on Propaganda
Check out Mangopress on their telegram and their website
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Critical theory as it's been canonized within the Western Academy, is a tradition that comes out of a group of thinkers affiliated with what's called the Frankfurt School. It purported to offer a kind of radical critique of capitalism, consumer society and issues of contemporary society and how they are controlled. However, once again proving Gramsci true, instead, the Frankfurt School has been blunted by its funding sources, used by the CIA and in the end, while prevasive in Western academia, offers no real study on “how the world works” and of course, it critiques Actually Existing Socialism (AES) more than it critiques capitalist or even fascist regimes. On top of it, it has a very reactionary bend to it. Today, Gabrielle Rockhill, philosopher and critique of critical Theory joins us to talk to us about what’s wrong with Western Academia.
Gabrielle’s Writings
* The CIA & The Frankfurt's School of Anti-Communism
* CIA reads French Theory: Intellectual Disarming of the Left
* Foucault - Faux Radical
* Foucault, the Anti-Communism, the Global Theory Industry
Show Notes
1:38 - What is critical theory?
3:55 - Critical and revolutionary for the reinvention of the critique in the age of idealogical realignment
4:15 - Theory in the Marxist Sense vs Theory in the Liberal Sense
7:45 - Divorcing Critical Theory from Political Action
9:49 - Tiktok
11:42 - Political Science for Imperialism
13:51 - The Parcelization of Academia in the West
15:00 - Common sense assumptions without Proofs
22:13 - Frankfurt School at Inception
27:44 - The Foundations, Corporations and the Institute for Social Research
34:55 - Infiltration of Unions
41:47: Anything But Socialism
43:00 - Esha uses the opening to rail on Timothy Snyder and Anne Applebaum
54:23 - The War Propaganda and Academia
1:02:00 - Marxism in the West
Gabrielle Rockhill can be found on twitter.
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We have studied many events in human history, we have delved a little bit into humanity before history, but today, we decided to learn more about time and space itself. Sean Johnson, a professor of Astronomy from the University of Michigan joins us to talk to us about the history of the universe. We answer questions like “How did our solar system form?” and “What is a galaxy?” and how big is the universe? It is the episode that answers questions about Life, Universe and Everything and we end with pet irritants on science fiction movies.
Historic.ly is an entirely listener supported publication. This means we can talk about anything without worrying about offending our corporate overlords. But, we need your help! Please become a paid subscriber!
Show Notes
2:47 - Sean Johnson explains why Astronomy
4:03- What is a Solar System?
5:06 - What came first? Solar System or Galaxy?
7:04 - What is dark matter?
11:07 - The Sun fuses Hydrogen
13:00 - How are exo-planets and how are they discovered?
15:37 - Nasa’s Next Generation Telescope and what can be seen
21:00 - Galaxies and spiral arms.
23:00 - Quasars and Pulsars
28:00 - How do we know the universe is so big?
31:00 - Seeing into the center of the Galaxy
34:00 - Is the universe quiet?
35:00 - Gravitational Waves - Ripples in space-time
43:00 - Neutrinos
49:00 - What do we know what we need for life?
50:00 - Pet Sci-Fi movie fails
Check out Astrobites
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Today, on our podcast, The Rising Sons of Japan with Tim Shorrock.
Summary of Podcast Episode
Since the murder of former prime minister Shinzo Abe, there has been many hagiographies that distort his historical role and his rise to power, in the process of doing so, they also end up distorting the history of post war Japan.
Today, we have Tim Shorrock, self described “Writer, guitar player, author (SPIES FOR HIRE). Working on investigative memoir of US intervention in Korea & Japan after WWII.”
Tim Shorrock has previously published article in He has written articles for several magazines, including Harper's, Mother Jones, The Nation, and Salon. He also appeared on a previous episode of historicly to talk about COIN
Show Notes for the Podcast Episode -
0:45 - Unconditional Surrender
2:23 - US had complete control of the occupation. For the first few years, they forbade fascists and the working class flourished.
6:09 - The Corporate Empire strikes back
10:09 - Start of US Military Buildup in Japan
13:00 - Korean War as a boon for industrialists in both US and Japan
19:19 - Shinzo Abe’s Grandfather, class A War Criminal
21:00 - Japan’s One Party rule The Liberal Democratic Party
22:17 - Secret Treaties with US
23:24 - Protest so Massive, they could not guarantee Eisenhower’s Safety
26:00 - Article 9, why Neocons and Class A War Criminals Hate it.
34:00 - Japanese investments in Occupied Korea
35:00 - Power of US military in Japan
40:51 - Okinawa
48:00 - Nixon, Japan, Taiwan and China.
You can find Tim Shorrock on twitter.
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Most of us have heard about the great heroic Salt March of Mahatma Gandhiji, and the boycott of British fabrics, but very few of us have heard of the Great Indian Naval Mutiny, an event which gave a great scare to the British colonial powers and helped chart the course for Independence. Today, we have Pramod Kapoor, author of 1946 Royal Indian Navy Mutiny; Last War of Independence to talk to us about this revolutionary event.
Show Notes
1:19 - “In popular history, it became almost a footnote.”
1:47 - The 1965 play in Bengal and example of how it has been edited out of history
4:32 - The Sailors who Mutineed
5:49 - The Racism, and the terrible conditions.
8:57: Who is Subash Chandra Bose? How did his strategy differ from Gandhi?
10:57 - Subash Chandra Bose’s influence upon the Soldiers
15:00 - Bombay Jewels and ‘Seditious Slogans’ and Agitation by Communist Party of India
19:00 - The news spreading and other ships joining the Mutiny
21:00 - Why didn’t the spark flame?
24:00 - The Trial after the Mutiny: A Muslim, A Sikh and a Hindu
26:00 - The negotiations
32:00 - How the ratings were betrayed
36:00 - Esha and Mr. Pramod Kapoor discuss “what might have been?” and come up with vastly different conclusions
40:00 - Mr. Pramod Kapoor’s upcoming projects - Indians in the Western Front in WW1.
If you want to learn more about Mr. Pramod Kapoor, please follow him on twitter.
To obtain a copy of this book click here
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