Mike Ferner, journalist, author of "Inside the Red Zone: A Veteran For Peace Reports from Iraq"

[Frederick Nagel]

Activist Radio has the following guest on this week:

GUEST: Mike Ferner, journalist, author of "Inside the Red Zone: A Veteran For Peace Reports from Iraq," and former president of Veterans For Peace, talks about the identity crisis facing the American Empire.
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/08/08/culture-violence-you-betcha-mr-trump-its-not-video-games

Activist Radio is broadcast: Thursdays 5-6 pm from WVKR 91.3 FM at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, NY; Sundays 4-5 pm from WIOF 104.1 FM in Woodstock, NY; and Sundays 5-6 pm from the Progressive Radio Network at PRN.FM. It will also be posted on the ClassWars website for the next ten weeks. Simply click on the date to hear it.

Thanks,

Fred
Activist Radio
https://www.classwars.org

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NYT Book Review:
In an article entitled "Daniel Patrick Moynihan Was Often Right. Joe Klein on Why It Still Matters," our newspaper of record extolls that combination of wealth, Ivy League schools, and statesmanship that makes a true American hero. Moynihan had it all, a tall, aristocratic demeanor as well as a celebrated career in public service. And not just any public service. According to Joe Klein, Moynihan was a moral and ethical force for good in the world, using his impressive intellectual and persuasive gifts to better his fellow human beings.

Such is America's commitment to the propaganda of empire. One detail left out of this star struck and adoring depiction of Moynihan was his career at the UN, where he was single handedly responsible for covering up the Indonesian invasion and genocide against East Timor in 1977-78.

The US armed, funded and protected the Indonesian invasion and subsequent mass killings, and Moynihan was the empire's go to man. In his own words. "The United States wished things to turn out as they did, and worked to bring this about. The Department of State desired that the United Nations prove utterly ineffective in whatever measures it undertook. This task was given to me, and I carried it forward with no inconsiderable success.”

Moynihan even took credit for the size of the genocide [10% of the population] and the fact that it was not reported in the US media, noting that because of his efforts "the subject disappeared from the press.” So here is the hero of American righteousness that the NYT Book Review asks readers to glorify. Our "newspaper of record" hiding the empire's genocide from the American people.
https://chomsky.info/199910

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The Guardian UK:
"The toxic atmosphere on some US campuses has been long in gestation. Last year Palestine Legal took on 213 cases involving attempts to quash pro-Palestinian advocacy. Some 80% of the reported cases related to US campuses, with students or faculty targeted at 68 different academic institutions. ...

Though excesses have been committed on both sides, the record is by no means evenly weighted. Much like the Middle East discord itself, the balance of forces lies overwhelmingly in favor of supporters of Israel, with pro-Palestinian groups vastly outgunned.
Students protesting against Israeli occupation frequently find themselves accosted by a powerful array of well-funded adversaries – some backed by the Israeli government itself – armed with a battery of cyber tools. 'There has been an increase this year in blacklisting website activity that encourages doxing online of Palestinians and their allies,' [Palestine Legal attorney Amira] Mattar said.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/may/21/us-campuses-sraeli-palestinian-conflict-universities

-->While the NYT has made some astonishing breakthroughs in the coverage of Palestine (imagine front page stories about the siege of Gaza), its reporting on campus intimidation and coercion is still lagging far behind. We must go to a British newspaper to find out about free speech battles on US campuses.

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Common Dreams:
"The Campaign Legal Center on Wednesday filed suit against the Federal Election Commission, charging that the regulatory agency has failed to enforce the law against a group that spent millions of dollars on advertisements targeting key voters and opposing 2020 Democratic presidential primary candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Though Sanders ultimately suspended his second presidential campaign and endorsed President Joe Biden, the Vermont Independent's impressive finish in the Iowa caucuses and victory in the New Hampshire Democratic primary were immediately followed by the formation of the Big Tent Project in mid-February 2020. ...

'Even if Big Tent Project were not a political committee,' the 2020 complaint says, 'it violated FECA by failing to disclose contributors who gave for political purposes and to fund its independent expenditures, and additionally failed to report tens of thousand s of dollars of independent expenditures.' "
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/05/19/fec-sued-not-cracking-down-dark-money-group-opposed-sanders-presidential-run

-->Yes, the Democratic Party spent millions to stop Sander's run for the nomination. No, the NYT, didn't report the story. In fact the news blackout of Sander's candidacy has yet to be fully explored by any US mainstream media.