Alternative Radio

Trauma & Politics: Germany, Israel & Palestine The word trauma comes from ancient Greek and means wound or hurt. The American Psychological Association Dictionary defines trauma as “any disturbing experience that results in significant fear, helplessness, dissociation, confusion, or other disruptive feelings intense enough to have a long-lasting negative effect on a person’s attitudes, behavior, a...

Trauma & Politics: Germany, Israel & Palestine The word trauma comes from ancient Greek and means wound or hurt. The American Psychological Association Dictionary defines trauma as “any disturbing experience that results in significant fear, helplessness, dissociation, confusion, or other disruptive feelings intense enough to have a long-lasting negative effect on a person’s attitudes, behavior, a...

Government Repression of the American Indian Movement The reality of what occurred on the Pine Ridge Sioux Reservation in the 1970s is not reflected in most contemporary histories of the United States. Scores of indigenous people were killed and many more were wounded. Ward Churchill, an activist with the American Indian Movement, draws lessons and inspiration from the events at Pine Ridge as Nati...

Government Repression of the American Indian Movement The reality of what occurred on the Pine Ridge Sioux Reservation in the 1970s is not reflected in most contemporary histories of the United States. Scores of indigenous people were killed and many more were wounded. Ward Churchill, an activist with the American Indian Movement, draws lessons and inspiration from the events at Pine Ridge as Nati...

Freedom & Equality Freedom and equality are foundations of democratic societies. Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, passed by the United Nations in 1948, is a milestone document that establishes that “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” Yet despite the lofty aims of the UN Declaration, much of the world is not achieving those goals. Just look aroun...

Hannah Arendt on Totalitarianism Hannah Arendt says lying aids the powerful and leads to public cynicism. She warned that lying by leaders undermines democracy. Truth is an uncontestable fact. Lies are not. Calling things you don’t like a hoax makes it difficult for citizens to cut through the lies, particularly when there is no evidence to support them. To deceive people, lies are wrapped in flag...

Hannah Arendt on Totalitarianism Hannah Arendt is one of the most original and influential political thinkers and scholars of this epoch. Her work and her ideas today are as relevant as ever. She wrote about ideology, racism, totalitarianism, imperialism, terror, propaganda, and antisemitism. She is best known for concepts such as the human condition, the banality of evil, and the origins of total...

Israel, Genocide & Palestine Genocide has been called “the crime of crimes.” Alas, mass murder is nothing new, but the term genocide is of relatively recent origin. It was coined by Raphael Lemkin, a Polish-Jewish lawyer, to describe the Holocaust and the Genocide of the Armenians. The UN passed the Genocide Convention in 1948, and it went into effect in 1951. “Never again” became an empty slogan;...

Christian Zionism In 1878, William Blackstone published a book titled Jesus Is Coming. The best-selling work popularized the idea held by some Christians that God had given the land of Israel to the Jewish people. In the late 19th and 20th centuries in the U.S., Britain and elsewhere, Christian Zionism was gaining followers. This conviction, often taken from an evangelical perspective, draws on th...

International Law & the Case of Gaza The International Criminal Court is an independent judicial body that hears cases on individuals charged with crimes against humanity, starvation, war crimes and genocide. The Genocide Convention, which the U.S. has ratified, defines genocide as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” In Nov...

Antisemitism & the Rise of Fascism Antisemitism, hatred of Jews, is centuries old. It exists today. It’s a blight on humankind and must be resisted. However, criticism of Israeli state policies should not be conflated with antisemitism. One should also point out that Islamophobia, hatred of Muslims, is on the rise. Fascism is a political term. It should not be used promiscuously. In the 20th centu...

A World of Empire From the ancient world to modern times, tyrants had dreams of empire and they would realize those dreams through conquest. The purpose of empire is to expropriate the land, labor, raw materials and markets for the imperial hegemon. Language is a factor. Euphemisms like freedom, democracy, and liberation are deployed to cover the nefarious activities of the dominant power, in this...

The Nuclear Legacy of Artificial Intelligence We hear from many quarters that “AI will destroy the world,” but everyone’s got a different scenario for what that means. The most sensational perspectives come from theorists like Geoffrey Hinton, the so-called “godfather of AI” or industrialists like Elon Musk. They warn us that one day, a superintelligent AI could replace human beings in controlling...

Targeting Venezuela For sheer brazenness, the January 2026 kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, First Lady Cilia Flores, ranks near the top in the long history of U.S. interventions in Latin America. They were taken to New York and jailed to await trial in June 2027. Trump’s policies aside, U.S. sanctions on Venezuela were imposed under President Obama, who declared that...

Militarism, Empire & the Decline of Democracy In ruling circles and in the media, it’s all fine and dandy to talk about Rome and British, French and Soviet empires, but it’s impolite to talk about the United States as an empire. If you do, you’ll be ridiculed and labeled a loony Marxist. But it’s there with its hubris and arrogance and colossal military bases straddling the globe, and its wars and...

International Law & the Case of Gaza The International Criminal Court is an independent judicial body that hears cases on individuals charged with crimes against humanity, starvation, war crimes and genocide. The Genocide Convention, which the U.S. has ratified, defines genocide as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” In Nov...

Propaganda: Laundering Narratives Many people, when they hear the word propaganda, immediately associate it with Nazi Germany and torchlight parades or Putin reviewing the troops in Red Square. But propaganda has Roman Catholic church origins going as far back as 1622, when Pope Gregory issued a proclamation using the term to exhort the faithful to propagate the faith. Today, propaganda is dissemi...

Propaganda: Laundering Narratives Many people, when they hear the word propaganda, immediately associate it with Nazi Germany and torchlight parades or Putin reviewing the troops in Red Square. But propaganda has Roman Catholic church origins going as far back as 1622, when Pope Gregory issued a proclamation using the term to exhort the faithful to propagate the faith. Today, propaganda is dissemi...

Origins of U.S. Imperialism One way to understand how the U.S. operates around the world is the Godfather model. Obey the Don and you’ll be well rewarded. Cross him up and it’s lights out. The U.S. maintains its global power out of the barrel of a gun. Of course, for rhetorical purposes Washington is dedicated to human rights, freedom and democracy. In practice it implements mafia-type rules. In i...

A People’s History of the American Revolution On July 4th, 1776, fifty-six men in Philadelphia signed the Declaration of Independence. Today, the day is marked by store sales, fireworks, and parades. The much-revered Founding Fathers were mostly wealthy merchants and large land and slave owners. One of them was John Adams, who was not so well off. He predicted: “The History of our Revolution will...

The International Criminal Court The International Criminal Court, the ICC, is based in The Hague, Netherlands. Established in 2002 under the Rome Statute, the ICC is the first and only permanent international court with jurisdiction to prosecute individuals for the crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression. The ICC is intended to complement, not replace,...

Taimur Rahman – Antonio Gramsci: The Imprisoned Philosopher Antonio Gramsci of Italy was one of the most important and original political and philosophical figures of the 20th century. He was a staunch antifascist and was jailed for years in Mussolini’s prisons. He wrote with great insight about class, culture, and the state. He said that once the state establishes ideological authority, its use o...

Deep Caring for the Earth The challenges humankind faces from the climate emergency to species extinction to terminal war may be difficult to comprehend, but we ignore them at our peril. Looking away is a lot easier than facing reality. Viewing the Earth as a giant shopping mall to be exploited is leading us to a literal dead end. The capitalist system solely cares about making money. Can a deep c...

Learning from China The geopolitical checkerboard has seen, in recent years, a major shift. China, once a poor and ravaged country, is now challenging the U.S. for supremacy, and Washington doesn’t like it. The Pentagon is flexing its muscle. The U.S. military budget is over a trillion dollars and climbing. It’s triple what China spends. The Pentagon is planning for war. U.S. military bases surrou...

Just & Unjust Wars From ancient Athens to 21st-century America, the rhetoric is the same. When “the dogs of war” are set loose, there is a cascade of jingoistic platitudes and cliches. We want peace. When we fight a war, it is just. We are good. The enemy is evil. We are victims seeking justice. We are making the world safe for democracy. And if they were honest, they’d add, We are making the worl...