Shows Available from Pirate Television

Pirate Television is a weekly 58 min Public Access Television program broadcast in Seattle Washington USA.  Pirate TV challenges the Media Blockade by bringing you alternative information and independent programming that is unavailable on the Corporate Sponsor-Ship.  The show features talks, interviews and documentaries.

Some of the material seen on Pirate TV is obtained from other sources but most of it is locally produced and owned by us.  We are offering to sell copies of this material to support the operation.  If you would like to support the Pirate Television project you can obtain a copy of any of these tapes for a $20 donation (includes postage).  To obtain videotapes or DVDs, contact us first by email:

PirateTV(at)clearwire.net

We like to expand Pirate Television to other broadcast venues.  If you would like to get on the Pirate Television schedule notification list-serve, or if you have questions, drop us a line.

DVDs of most of the recent Pirate TV shows are available.

This is a list of the material that was produced by us and does not include all the fantastic documentaries and other materials that we have broadcast.  Tapes of the actual event footage not edited are also available in most cases but not in DVD format.  If you are interested in a complete list of the actual shows for purposes of broadcast on other television stations, please contact us.  This material is also available in audio form for broadcast on the radio. 

Eric Alterman- Why We’re Liberals, Monday 7/14/08 8-9pm PST

Journalism professor, media columnist for The Nation, and unabashed liberal Eric Alterman tackles the question of why the right wing PR machine has zeroed in on the word liberal in the language battle and successfully turned it into an embarrassment.  Could it have something to do with the fact that on the issues the vast majority of Americans are liberal?  What does it mean to be liberal and how do we reclaim our moniker?   Hear him address these issues and much more and have a good time while you are at it.  Eric is hilariously funny!  Other books by Eric Alterman include: The Book on Bush, with Mark Greene, What Liberal Media?, When Presidents Lie, Who Speaks for America?, and It Ain't No Sin to be Glad You're Alive.

Polk Award-winning journalist Jeremy Scahill, a frequent contributor to "The Nation" magazine and "Democracy Now!" talks about his book, Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army.  “Blackwater is the utterly gripping and explosive story of how the Bush administration has spent hundreds of millions of public dollars building a parallel corporate army, an army so loyal to far right causes it constitutes nothing less than a Republican Guard. The most important and chilling book about the death throes of U.S. democracy you will read in years and a triumph of investigate reporting.” – Naomi Klein. “This engrossing investigative piece exposing, in shocking detail, a U.S. government-outsourced Frankenstein replete with helicopter gunships may leave you incredulous. But you better believe it, for it poses a grave and gathering danger to the future of our Republic.” – Ray McGovern.

part1 & 2 1:26

Jim Douglass puts together shocking new evidence with a new analysis of the sequence of events from the Bay of Pigs Invasion to the Cuban Missile Crisis that transformed Kennedy from a conventional Cold Warrior to someone determined to pull the world back from the edge of apocalypse and unknown until now initiated a secret back-channel dialogue with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev thus causing members of his own U.S. Military-intelligence establishment to regard him as a dangerous traitor who had to be eliminated. Jim Douglass is the author of JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters. 

NW Winter Soldier Hearings pt. 1- 4, Monday 6/9-30/08 12-12:30 pm PST

GI Testimony            GI Testimony 2         Solidarity Panel       Future of GI Resistance

This are the historic NW Winter Soldier hearings organized by the Iraq Veterans Against the War in four installments.  Recorded at Seattle Town Hall 5/31/08

Dr. Norman Finkelstein- The Fake Controversy, Monday 6/30/08 12:30-1 pm PST

Steven T. Wax- Kafka Comes to America, Monday 6/30/08 8-9pm PST

Synopsis from Random House

“OUR GOVERNMENT CAN MAKE YOU DISAPPEAR.”

Those were words Steven T. Wax never imagined he would hear himself say. In his thirty-four years as a lawyer, Wax didn’t have to warn a client that he or she might be taken away to a military brig, or worse, a “black site,” one of our country’s dreaded secret prisons. So how had we come to this? The disappearance of people happens in places ruled by tyrants, military juntas, fascist strongmen–governments with such contempt for the rule of law that they strip their citizens of all rights. But in America?

Under the Bush administration, not only have the civil rights of foreigners been in jeopardy, but also those of U.S. citizens. In Kafka Comes to America, Wax interweaves the stories of two men he represented who were caught up in our government’s post-9/11 counterterrorism measures. Brandon Mayfield, an American-born, small-town lawyer and family man, was arrested as a terrorist suspect in the Madrid train station bombings after a fingerprint was mistakenly traced back to him by the FBI. Adel Hamad, a Sudanese hospital administrator working in Pakistan, was taken from his apartment and flown in chains to the United States military prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, for no substantiated reason. Kafka Comes to America reveals where and how our civil liberties have been eroded in favor of a false security, and how each of us can make a difference. If these events could happen to Brandon Mayfield and Adel Hamad, they could happen to anyone. They could happen to you.

Steven T. Wax is in his seventh term as the Federal Public Defender for the District of Oregon. A cum laude graduate of Colgate University and Harvard Law School, he was a key part of the Brooklyn, N.Y. District Attorney’s prosecution of David Berkowitz, a.k.a. “Son of Sam.” Wax and his team are representing seven men held as “enemy combatants” in Guantánamo. He has taught at the Northwestern School of Law of Lewis & Clark College, serves as an ethics prosecutor for the Oregon State Bar, and lectures throughout the country.

David Sirota- The Uprising, Monday 6/23/08 8-9pm PST

Activist David Sirota is back on Pirate TV.  He says he is traveling the country to get the message out about the populist uprisings that are occurring coast to coast both within the right and the left.  What is the message?  He says that these uprisings are taking the shape of progressive electoral victories in what have been considered red states such as Montana and the rise of the Minutemen militia in California.  He points out that the population has risen up in many instances in the past resulting in progressive change in the Prairie Populist and New Deal eras but he warns that these uprisings are a double edged sword and don’t always turn out as we may expect.   Frustration with the Viet Nam War, the scandals of the Nixon era, and the failure of the Carter Administration to bring about the needed changes resulted in the Reagan “revolution” whereby the corporatist reactionaries were able use their propaganda machine to channel that energy towards revulsion with government ushering in the current decent into Fascism.  Let’s hope that doesn’t happen again but it’s almost certain that it will if we don’t force the Democratic Party to deal with the serious problems that we face.  That’s going to be a tall order.  The full title of Dave’s new book is: The Uprising: An All-Access Pass to the Populist Insurrection Brewing Across the Country.

Cindy Sheehan, Moving Toward a Peace Economy, Monday 6/16/08 8-9pm PST
 

I think I agree with Mike Malloy.  I hate back stabbing, cowardly, corporatist sellouts like Norm Dicks and Nancy Pelosi more than goose stepping Republicans.  Why?  At least with the Republicans, you know what you are getting.  That’s not to say that I would ever recommend voting for one or at this point even voting for a third party candidate when there was a chance that it could throw the election to a Republican.  But if current trends continue, there’s a good chance that in spite of all their election rigging shenanigans and the naked Republican bias in the corporate media, the next election could be as close to a complete shutout as ever in US history.  It was Gore Vidal who remarked, “The people are coming”.  They are turning out in numbers that I have never seen and when that happens, the “minority party” doesn’t stand a chance.  With a little luck we will be spared the scourge of Republican influence for at least a generation if not for good.

But let us not be fooled again.  If current trends continue, once we are safely ensconced under Democratic rule those of us who have forgotten are going to be reminded once again what the phrase “worthless Democrat” means.  My good friend Geov Parrish once quipped that politicians almost never do the right thing unless you force them to.  That’s because doing the right thing almost always involves going up against the “owners” to borrow another word from Mr. Vidal.  And no politician is going to risk that unless they are forced to –even if they want to.  So don’t get any ideas about slinging your butt back on the couch and fading back into your trance anytime soon.  We have a war to stop, some war criminals in serious need of prosecution, a constitution to be restored, and a planet to be saved and you are delusional if you are holding your breath for the “good cops” of the corporate empire who were complicit in getting us into this mess.

Why do Dennis Kucinich’s 35 articles of impeachment send Democrats in Congress scurrying for cover like so many cockroaches running from the light?  The simple reason is because the Democratic leadership of the House and Senate signed on to almost all of the crimes committed by the “Bush Crime Family”.  Don’t forget they are almost all on board for attacking Iran.  An indictment of the Bush administration for any of these 35 articles is also an indictment of themselves.

I say that while we are about the business of taking out the Republican scum bags that we should take out a few Dem scum bags while we are at it.  If there is one thing that the Obama campaign has proven for once and for all, it’s that we don’t have to wait around for the Democratic Party to get behind campaign finance reform.  When the people are mobilized, the people’s money is stronger than corporate money.  The people’s money streaming in from all over the country stopped a heavily funded attempt to unseat Dennis Kucinich.  We have an excellent opportunity to drive this point home once again by supporting Cindy Sheehan in her attempt to unseat the Speaker of the House and my friend Paul Richmond in his attempt to unseat Norm Dicks.  And it’s safe because neither one has any real Republican opposition.  I don’t know about you, but I’ve had about all I’m going to take from the war mongering blue dogs and phony progressives and if we want real change then it’s about time we start putting our money where our mouth is and support real progressive candidates for office.  And there is no more effective way to invest your money because even if they loose it sends a strong message to sellouts like Pelosi and Dicks that they had better mind their Ps and Qs.  Their days are numbered lest they forget who pays their salary.

And lest any of us forget why Cindy Sheehan deserves our support, I’m broadcasting this extraordinary speech given last week at Seattle Town Hall.  And lest any of us needs to know why we should be supporting my friend Paul Richmond’s campaign for Norm Dicks’ seat in Congress, I am posting his excellent talk from the same event on the Pirate TV website.

Paul Richmond
for Congress

Invest in the future here:

Loretta Napoleoni- Rogue Economics, Monday 6/9/08 8-9pm PST

The Italian economist, journalist, banker, Fulbright scholar, and author of Terror Inc: Tracing the Money Behind Global Terrorism, Loretta Napoleoni has demonstrated that she is not only a brilliant economist but a magnificent iconoclast because she is willing to look in places no one else does to reveal that economic and political realities aren’t at all as they seem.  Last time she was on Pirate TV she was talking about her book Modern Jihad which extended her investigation of the terrorist financial networks.  As I stated at that time: “Loretta Napoleoni says that the underground economy of which a third comprises the “new economy of Terror” is a huge chunk of the world financial system and because this money is laundered in the US and Europe, our economy is dependent on it.  [She] estimates through 10 years of careful research that this economy amounts to 1.5 trillion dollars, twice the GDP of the United Kingdom.”   Indeed, things are not as they seem.

Now in Rogue Economics: Capitalism's New Reality she turns her “deep economic” gaze to the big picture and offers an analysis of the state of capitalist globalization gone wild, free of constraints as the power of nation states collapses and the terrible and entirely predictable consequences that we are witnessing from the reemergence of slavery to the sub-prime mortgage crisis. What prompted a huge and fascinating debate is that she seems to be saying, ‘never fear’, bad as it is, this has happened time and again throughout history and marks the birthing pains of a new political/economic paradigm and that this new order may not take the shape of representative “democracy” which as she points out historically has not actually been all that democratic.

 Nobody in the audience including me agreed with her.  This doesn’t necessarily mean that she is wrong or that anybody actually grasped what she was talking about.  But as I see it, although her analysis of the situation may be extraordinary in its depth in cataloguing the problems of runaway capitalism, I don’t think she has the slightest idea about runaway global warming.  She refuses to concede the possibility that it all could end -that this may not be just another cycle of filthy rich run amuck followed by a period of social evolution.  This may be something totally different.  We may not have 20-50 years to get capitalism under control.  This is the problem with economists in general; they rarely take the realities {and limits} of nature into account.  She also says that globalization is here to stay.  I seriously doubt the corporate globalization model can survive the onset of peak oil let alone the return to localism and the deconstruction of centralized power and production structures that will be necessary to survive the climate emergency.  But she’s right, if by some miracle we are able to adapt fast enough to survive the looming crises, it definitely will be a new paradigm.

I wish that I could have broadcast this whole fascinating discussion but I had to edit the broadcast version down to 58 minutes.  It is indicative of the caliber of people who read Loretta’s work.  I have posted the entire 1hr and 20 minutes on the Pirate TV website.

Thanks to Elliott Bay Books

Daoud Hari- The Translator, Monday 6/2/08 12-1 and 8-9 PM PST

Daoud Hari gives the inside story of the horrors of Darfur.  A tribesman and refugee of the Darfur region, he received international attention for his work as guide and translator for U.S. journalists.  Captured in 2006 with Pulitzer Prize-winning Chicago Tribune journalist Paul Salopek he was imprisoned for over a month. Daoud, who was tortured by his Sudanese captors, was released after a campaign of international pressure.   His new book: The Translator: A Tribesman’s Memoir of Darfur was co-written by aid worker Megan McKenna who also participated in this talk.

Thanks to Elliott Bay Books

Co-presented with VOICES OF CONSCIENCE. After 29 years in the U.S. military and sixteen years as a State Department diplomat, Col. Ann Wright resigned her post as deputy ambassador in 2003 to protest the then-coming war in Iraq – and the curtailment of rights in the U.S. In Dissent: Voices of Conscience (Koa), Ann Wright and Susan Dixon tell the stories of dozens of other government insiders and active-duty military who spoke out, resigned, leaked documents, or refused to deploy in protest of the war in Iraq. Dissent was just named the February 2008 American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression ‘Book of the Month.’

Raj Patel- The Hidden Battle for the World Food System, Monday 5/26/08 8-9pm PST

Educated at Oxford, the London School of Economics and Cornell University, currently a fellow at the Institute for Food and Development Policy in Oakland, California, a visiting researcher at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa and a visiting scholar at the Center for African Studies at the University of California at Berkeley, Raj Patel has worked for the World Bank, the WTO, consulted for the UN and been involved in international campaigns against his former employers ever since.   Tear-gassed on four continents he takes a close look at what’s happened to the world food system- the result of corporate globalization, industrialized agriculture and the consolidation of the food commodity markets controlled by five global monopolies.   His new book- Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System has received international acclaim and examines the root causes of hunger and obesity and how people are fighting back.  This talk given May 10th is also timely in light of the current food crisis.

Thanks to Elliott Bay Bookstore

See also www.stuffandstarved.org

Father Roy Bourgeois- School of the Americas and American Foreign Policy, Monday 5/19/08 12-1pm PST

Meet the Supremes, no, not the vocal group that sang “Where Did Our Love Go” but that group of august jurists who have many of us singing “Where Did Our Constitution Go?”  The author of the NYT best seller, The Nine gives us an inside look at the inner workings of the US Supreme Court and the personalities involved.  The full title of his book is: The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court.

West Coast Shut Down!  Monday 5/12/08 12-1pm PST

May 1st on international workers day the International Longshoremen’s Union (ILWU) called for a one day general strike to protest the war which shut down the entire West Coast.   Since May 1st is my birthday, I couldn’t ask for a better birthday present.  This show is video of the rally after the protest march.  We are broadcasting these speeches to commemorate this historic event.

Maude Barlow: Blue Covenant, Monday 5/12/08 8-9pm PST

Fair Trade activists will remember Maude Barlow’s talk the last time she was here at the Benaroya Hall anti-globalization teach-in that preceded the Seattle WTO rebellion.  In addition to being one of the visionaries who first alerted the world to the dangers of corporate globalization with her book about the MAI: MAI: The Multilateral Agreement on Investment and the Threat to Canadian Sovereignty, she is an internationally-renowned environmental activist known for her work in the water justice movement.  With this book, she brings us another warning.  In addition to the climate change crisis, the peak oil crisis, and now the food crisis, the world is about to run out of fresh water.  It may not be surprising that all of these crises are closely related.  The same runaway transnational corporate structure that is rapidly depleting everything else is also privatizing and monopolizing the water commons in order to profit off of the crises that they themselves have created.  As Bill McKibben put it, “we’re about to go H2O broke”.  It’s not something a lot of people realize.

Maude Barlow is the National Chairperson of The Council of Canadians, Canada’s largest public advocacy organization, and the co-founder of the Blue Planet Project, working internationally for the right to water. She serves on the boards of the International Forum on Globalization and Food and Water Watch, as well as being a Councillor with the Hamburg-based World Future Council.

Maude is the recipient of six honorary doctorates, the 2005/2006 Lannan Cultural Freedom Fellowship Award, and the 2005 Right Livelihood Award (known as the “Alternative Nobel”) for her global water justice work. She is also the best-selling author or co-author of sixteen books, including Blue Gold: The Fight to Stop Corporate Theft of the World’s Water and the recently released Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water.

Thanks to Elliott Bay Books

E.J. Dionne, Jr.: Souled Out, Monday 5/5/08 8-9pm and 12- 1pm PST

E.J. Dionne, syndicated columnist from the Washington Post and NPR correspondent talks about the declining influence of the religious right in US politics.  In his new book- Souled Out: Reclaiming Faith & Politics After the Religious Right, he makes the case that they have once again shot their wad and they are retreating from political activism.  Good evidence of this can be seen in their low primary turnouts.  I asked him after the show why he thought this was happening. He said that the Bush Administration was a failed presidency and that failed presidents tend to take their political ideology with them.  He compared it to Carter who perceived as a liberal [although he wasn’t] went out as a failed president and thus ended the liberal ‘experiment’ and ushered in the new neo-con paradigm.  Large numbers of evangelicals are disillusioned and aren’t showing up to vote.   I feel like I have to broadcast something positive every now and then.

Paul Wright and Silja Talvi: Who Makes Money from Mass Incarceration? Monday 4/28/08 8-9pm PST

Getting back to our series on the “War at Home”, this week’s show features Paul Wright founder and editor of Prison Legal News who breaks new ground by exposing the various corporate scams involved in the warehousing of 2.3 million, mostly poor people in the US.  This is not only a vestige of a brutal class war but in itself represents a huge transfer of wealth- $80B per year in operating costs and almost a trillion dollars since 1980 for prison construction that could just as easily be spent on education, the single most important factor in keeping people out of prison.  One aspect that people rarely think about is how prisons are financed by massive bond issues which in themselves represent a direct transfer of wealth from taxpayers to wealthy bond owners and Wall Street bankers and traders.  A robbery of limited credit resources needed for other infrastructure.  A 200M dollar prison will cost upwards of 260M over the life of the bonds.

This is just the beginning of a long list of scams and rip-offs of the public treasury outlined in his exposé of the Prison Industrial Complex: Prison Profiteers: Who Makes Money from Mass Incarceration.   There is the private prison industry itself, one of the fastest growing and most profitable sectors on Wall Street as well as corporations that profit from prison slave labor.  Like the ‘Masters of War’ these industries profit directly off of human misery and therefore have a direct vested interest in lobbying for stiffer sentences, maintaining the phony drug war, and against sentencing reform.

Joining Paul Wright in this program is award winning investigative journalist Silja Talvi, senior editor at In These Times and author of the recent book Women Behind Bars: The Crisis of Women in the U.S. Prison System who talks about the unprecedented growth of women in prison [mostly for nonviolent drug related crimes] and the scandelous conditions they have to endure.

Arjun Makhijani- Roadmap to the Future: Carbon and Nuclear Free in 30 years!  Monday 4/21/08 8-9 PM PST

Regular viewers of Pirate TV will recall the program I did with the climate scientist David Wasdell who is one of the world’s leading experts on feedback dynamics in global climate change.  It is now apparent that Mr. Wasdell’s research was closer to the mark than most of the climate models.  Climate change is now accelerating far faster than even the direst forecasters were predicting even a year ago.  That’s because climate models have heretofore failed to take feedback dynamics fully into account.  Even the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report dubbed the most comprehensive compilation of knowledge by the world’s leading climate scientists -horrific as it is, falls far short as Mr. Wasdell has documented because it refuses to address this most crucial issue.  Mr. Wasdell asserts that this was deliberate.  That’s because the IPCC report is not a scientific document representing the consensus of the world’s scientists but a political document chartered by the UN which in fact represents the consensus of the world’s governments.  These governments include for instance ours and that of China and Saudi Arabia which exerted their influence to “repress” the science as much as they could.  The alarming data is piling up so fast that even Mr. Wasdell has had to recalculate his assessment twice that I know of since that show was originally broadcast almost two years ago.  At the time I predicted that a massive last ditch effort to save the planet would be inevitable at some point or other.  It is becoming more and more obvious that the last ditch is now.

A Nastier NAFTA: The Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America, Monday 4/14/08 8-9pm PST

Welcome to the SuperSecretNeo-LiberalNeo-ConservativeAutocraticFullyPrivatizedFullyIntegratedTrilateralMilitaryCorporateFreeTradeMachiladoraNarcoSecurityState.  Where is it?  You’re there. But you say, you thought you were safe from further free trade deals for the time being?  After the nasty stink left by the NAFTA and WTO ruses, public opinion has so soured on “free-trade” that even that fully owned corporate subsidiary (Congress) knows better than to attempt to pass any more, especially in an election year.  After all didn’t Nancy Pelosi just quash the Colombia Free Trade Agreement?  That’s right.  That’s exactly why the corporatocracy decided to take Congress out of the loop and implement this super expansion of NAFTA in secret and solely by executive fiat.  –Hopefully without debate, scrutiny, or public awareness.

Thanks to Interfaith Network of Concern for the Iraqi People, Western Washington Fellowship of Reconciliation, and Seattle Public Library

Money for Nothing, Monday 3/31/08 8-9pm PST

Now that we understand a little more about the importance of music and how it affects the brain, as promised, we now take a look at how music is controlled.  -Specifically, the political economy of the music industry and how media consolidation has changed it for the worse.  This week’s extraordinary documentary comes courtesy of the Media Education Foundation.

Of all mass cultural forms, popular music has historically been characterized by the greatest independence for artists and allowing access to a broader diversity of voices. However, in the contemporary period, this independence is being threatened by a shrinking number of record companies, the centralization of radio ownership and playlists, and the increasing integration of popular music into the broader advertising and commercial aspects of the market.

Narrated by Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth, Money for Nothing features interviews with hip-hop legend and pioneer Chuck D, respected independent artist Ani DiFranco, Michael Franti of Spearhead, and Riot Grrrl co-founder Kathleen Hanna (of Bikini Kill and Le Tigre). It also includes interviews with popular music historian Professor Reebee Garafolo, ex-Rolling Stone editor Dave Marsh, political economist Robert W. McChesney, and Shirley Halperin, editor of BOP magazine.

Money for Nothing succinctly explains how popular music is produced and marketed, and offers an accessible critique of the current state of popular music.

SECTIONS: The Music Industry / The Gatekeepers: Radio, MTV, Touring, Retail / Music, Advertising, Marketing / Alternatives

Dr. Oliver Sacks- Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain, Monday 3/24/08 8-9 PM PST

What is music?  Music is something that is so essential to the human experience that it is no exaggeration to say that it is one of the elements that define us as human.  Most of us couldn’t make it through the day without it yet could anyone define precisely what it is?  Many have tried- something about a universal language of structured sound- the language of the soul, etc. but that doesn’t quite get it.  You could break it down and try to define it by its components; the scales, cord structures, intervals, rhythm, harmony, etc. but that doesn’t come anywhere near explaining why it affects us so.  What makes it do what it does?  Why does one collection of organized sounds [piece of music] make us feel one way and other one another?  Minor chords make you feel sad.  Major chords make you feel glad.  Groovin’ music makes you want to dance.  Deep music makes you feel deep.  Dissonant music makes you feel distressed.  These are just some of the most basic ways music physically affects the human brain that scientists with modern instruments can now quantify in real time, but none can explain why.

It’s been there since the beginning.  It probably predates language but like most things musical, as Charlie Mingus pointed out, it’s hard to talk about.  Words are inadequate tools for the job yet every one of us not only recognizes music when we hear it, it’s almost impossible to escape its powerful effects.  For instance, how many of us have had the experience of being suddenly and inexplicably overcome by melancholy only to realize that it is some music in the background on the TV perhaps in another room or some other sound source that we may not have even been consciously aware of?

So what is it?  Unfortunately not even an esteemed neurologist like Oliver Sacks can answer that question.  –But you need a neurologist because the answer is intrinsic to the very structure of the brain.  So this week Pirate TV explores the nature of music with Oliver Sacks and his new book Musicophilia.  Sacks became world famous when his remarkable book Awakenings was adapted to a feature length film in 1990 starring Robert DeNiro and Robin Williams.  The film was nominated for three achademy awards.   Best known as an author of such books as The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, A Leg to Stand On, An Anthropologist on Mars, Seeing Voices, and more, he is most importantly a practicing doctor who teaches us about the brain by writing about his patients.

Some of you may be wondering what this all has to do with politics.  After all Pirate TV is a political show.  Is this just an indulgence?  In truth, yes, I reserve the right to indulge from time to time.  However, everything is political.  Music is a powerful tool for many purposes.  One issue is the issue of control and manipulation.  We’re going to delve into the political economy of the music industry and the media consolidation angle next week.  But as a music educator, I can tell you that the subject of how music enhances brain development and function is widely discussed not only amongst band directors but other teachers, administrators, parents, and even school board members.  It’s a subject that I’m keenly interested in.  The reason is, while I may strive to develop my students into first rate musicians, I recognize that very few of them will actually become world class.  I can take heart in the knowledge that all of their lives will be enhanced in ways too numerous to know by the study of music.  That is one reason why music study has been considered for centuries to be an essential element of a liberal education.

Herein lies another important political aspect.  Our city schools are under funded.  Every time they try to cut back on music and arts programs the parents raise hell and force them to reconsider.  They seem instinctively to understand that the notion in the conservative world view that education should only be about reading, writing and arithmetic is a lie.  It goes right along with the notion that the purpose of your life is for their enrichment rather than yours.  I.e. they only want to educate you enough to be a good slave.  It was Jonathan Kozol who best illuminated on this show the harm done by incessant testing regimes which force teachers to spend up to half their curriculum sometimes prepping their students for pointless tests which introduce fear and loathing, especially in young children in a place where it does not belong.  Excessive forced memorization kills children’s natural joy for learning, turns them into robots, and stifles their chances of learning to think for themselves.  It could also have something to do with why most new teachers quit within three years.  Jonathan Kozol pointed out that the “No Child Left Behind Act” was crafted in right wing think tanks for the purpose of undermining public education in this country, furthering the goal of privatization and then foisted on foolish Democrats in Congress who thought that it had something to do with education funding.  [Not!]  Cutting out the music and art seems to go right along with this agenda -the dumbing down agenda.
 
We can take heart in the fact that the Pacific Northwest is noted for having the best public school music programs in the world.  Our music magnet middle schools and high schools, Eckstein, Washington, Roosevelt, and Garfield regularly sweep the national contests but our music programs are outstanding throughout the entire area.  Last year the Roosevelt HS Jazz Band swept the Essentially Ellington contest in New York not only winning first place but almost all the categories as well.  It’s because parents and educators alike understand that music and its study is powerful medicine.  -So here’s to you Seattle.  When it’s all said and done, let it be known that I was proud to say I was from here.  The city that kicked the WTO’s ass and loved their children enough to give them the gift of music!

Thanks to Elliott Bay Books and Seattle Public Library

Michael Weinstein- With God on Our Side, Monday 3/17/08 8-9 PM PST

Michael Weinstein talks about the stealth takeover of the US military by “Premillenial Dispensational Reconstructionist Domionist Evangelical Fundamentalist Christians”.  A graduate of the US Air Force academy, Weinstein is an attorney and former JAG officer.  He is the founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation which defends victims of wide spread religious persecution within the military.  His book, With God on Our Side: One Man's War Against an Evangelical Coup in America's Military is an exposé of the systematic program of indoctrination sanctioned, coordinated, and carried out by fundamentalist Christians within the U.S. military with support of the Bush Administration.  Be prepared for a shock.  Few Americans are aware of the extent to which this take-over is a fait accompli.

Thanks to the Seattle Chapter of Americans United for Separation of Church and State [http://www.auseattle.org]

Seattle Town Hall and Elliott Bay Book Company

Alice Rothchild: Broken Promises, Broken Dreams, Monday 3/10/08 8-9pm PST

As we saw pictures of the brutal violence waged on the defenseless civilians -mostly women and children of occupied Gaza by the Israeli Defense Forces this past weekend, it’s important to remember that viciousness of this magnitude occurs in Iraq as a result of the US invasion and occupation daily.  One can only hope that the rest of the world doesn’t hate us for the crimes committed by our out-of-control government.  After all, close to 80% of the US public want us out of Iraq now.  Surprisingly, the numbers are similar in Israel.  68% of Israelis now want a cease-fire with Hamas and peace talks toward ending the occupation.  I must point out that this observation is living proof that the highly touted notion that these two countries are ‘democracies’ is at best overrated.  –But I digress.

It’s also important to remember that peace and justice activists of outstanding skill, courage, heart, and good will can be found everywhere whether it is in Israel, Palestine, or here in the US.  One of the most extraordinary of these that I have come across lately is Alice Rothchild.   I struggled for quite a while with the task of making subtitles for this show because her accomplishments are so numerous that to list them all would have taken up the entire screen several times.  Sheesh –and I thought I was busy!  The best I can do is point you to her website where you can read her bio.  Suffice it to say, Alice is a physician who currently teaches Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Biology at Harvard Medical School.  Raised in an Orthodox Jewish family, she became a political activist in the 60s.  This eventually led her to examine her beliefs regarding the Israeli occupation of Palestine and to become a champion of Palestinian rights.

A staunch feminist and health care advocate, she helped create and ran several organizations to provide health care for low income women and families and advocate for health care reform.  So it is not surprising that she was also instrumental in creating several Jewish peace groups to advocate for human rights and an end to the occupation.  Among these are Jewish Voice for Peace, Boston and the Jewish American Medical Project, now the JVP Health and Human Rights Project.  Her new book- Broken Promises, Broken Dreams: Stories of Jewish and Palestinian Trauma and Resilience is the story of her journey from Zionist to advocate for Palestinian rights as well as her many journeys [most recently in November] to Israel and Palestine and the stories of the people she encountered along the way.  She says that she wrote this book as a means to open a conversation for people who are “struggling and uncomfortable with this topic and don’t know where to begin”.   Yes, someone needs to do that. 

Join us for an inside look at the peace movement within Israel and the Jewish community and an expert analysis of the current situation.

Thanks to Elliott Bay Bookstore

Norman Solomon- Made Love, Got War, Monday 3/3/08 8-9pm PST

They say the more things change, the more they stay the same.  As we approach the back end of middle age, those of us who came up in the 60s may be wondering what the hell happened.  We thought we had changed the world or at least stopped the war.  But it seems that although we may have stopped a war we didn’t stop the war machine so the war just migrated to a hundred other places.  Maybe we brought down a President or two but in exchange we got a succession of ones that were unbelievably worse.  In fact, it’s hard to comprehend how things could have turned out more radically different than we had imagined.  So what the hell did happen?

Here with us to ponder this is none other than Norman Solomon, the Founder and Executive Director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, Co/founder of FAIR [Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting] and a prolific author.  His latest book is Made Love, Got War: Close Encounters with America's Warfare State.   Join us for a stroll down memory lane –back to the 50’s and 60’s.  It still is the 60’s, only 50 years later.

Thanks to Elliott Bay Bookstore

Aidan Delgado talks about his tour in Iraq and what he witnessed there stationed at Abu Ghraib prison during the period of the worst atrocities.  This experience drove him to apply for conscientious objector status which further complicated matters.  Aidan was in town reading from his new book: The Sutras of Abu Ghraib: Notes from a Conscientious Objector in Iraq and in conjunction with the opening of a documentary at the Seattle Film Festival about what he and three other soldiers experienced when they became conscientious objectors.   The film, Soldiers of Conscience won several awards.  [See: www.socfilm.com]  Aidan, now an active member of Iraq Veterans Against the War and the Buddhist Peace Fellowship has an interesting perspective.  As a Buddhist, the least violent of all religions, one wonders why he would join the military in the first place –which is exactly what I asked him.  His practice may not have made him enlightened enough to prevent him from falling victim to propaganda and faux patriotism but it definitely appears to have helped him to deal with the wounds to his psyche that resulted from his mistake and come out fighting as an activist.

Thanks to Elliott Bay Bookstore

Cathy Wilkerson- Flying Close to the Sun: My Life and Times as a Weatherman, Monday 2/18/08 8-9pm PST

This week Pirate Television delves deeper into our series on the war at home as we examine how the violent attacks on the black liberation and antiwar struggles of the 60s led to open and violent rebellion.  Like the shut down of the Viet Nam war by the massive rebellion within the military, this is a history that is little known and not widely understood.  It has been largely erased from the consciousness of a population naive enough to think that an election dog and pony show could actually get us out of what they don’t realize we are in.

Consider this, while “murder incorporated” was busily slaughtering 3 or 4 million South East Asians as well as another million of their opposition in Indonesia, brutally installing fascist torture regimes all over South and Central America and everywhere they could get away with it, they were systematically wiping out their opposition in this country.  Much of this was accomplished by less than lethal violence of the sort we see in PATRIOT Act America today with the secret police tactics of the FBI’s Cointelpro operation, but in large part this was carried out by assassinating the best and the brightest of the peace and justice struggle.  -Those whom they couldn’t railroad into prison or beat into submission, they simply took out.  As time goes on and more information comes out about our forbidden history, the more we learn what we already knew back then.  What happened to Martin and Malcolm was in no way different than what happened to Fred Hampton.  -And almost certainly authored by the same powers that did in John and Bobby as well as countless others we will never know about, heads crushed and disappeared by Daley’s pigs at the Chicago convention for instance.         

As Cathy Wilkerson tells it, it was this realization, brought home by the brazen state murder of Fred Hampton and many others that convinced her and thousands of her compatriots that it was time to shoot back and that the war machine had to be forced to pay a price for its crimes.  Contrary to popular myth, this idea did not originate with the Weathermen.   There were already fire bombings of recruiting stations, Bank of Americas, and other symbols of corporate war profit going on at a rate of two or three a day.  The Weathermen simply decided that they were going to take it to the next level and that they could do it bigger and better.   The plan was to attack the military directly; not the hapless draftees, but the officer corps.  There were loosely affiliated Weathermen cells springing up all over the country.  Unfortunately, her small group only succeeded in blowing up themselves.  The incident which destroyed her father’s townhouse won her a seat on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List in 1970.  The law, they never got her.  She hid out underground until she turned herself in a decade later.  She served 11 months hard time of a 3 year sentence and spent the next 20 years teaching math in NY City public schools.  She spent the last 7 years working on her memoir which is no doubt the definitive history of the Weathermen.  She has appeared in many documentaries.  You need to hear what she has to say.  We can’t understand our times without understanding hers.

Thanks to Elliott Bay Books

Edwidge Danticat- Brother, I'm Dying, Monday 2/11/07 8-9pm PST

Pirate TV returns to our series on the war at home with the story told by Haitian-born author Edwidge Danticat of her beloved uncle who died in the hands of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).  He had been coming to the US for 30 years and had a valid visa but victimized by militias in Haiti, it seems he made the mistake of applying for temporary political asylum and was tossed into immigrant prison.  Deprived of his medicine, he was soon dead.

Wall of Shame and Azmi Bashira, Monday, 2/4/08 8-9pm PST

A few years back I had a roommate of Jewish ancestry who told me the story of a very old man he saw at a demonstration.   The old man clearly had a number tattooed on his arm and was carrying a sign that proclaimed that he had not survived the Holocaust in order to do the same thing to Palestinians that the Germans had done to him.

When I see the starving residents of Gaza streaming into Egypt by the thousands through a hole blown in the wall only for a fleeting moment before they are once again sealed up in their apartheid prison, securing desperately needed food, fuel and medical supplies blockaded by the Israeli occupation state, I cannot escape the unmistakable spectre of the Warsaw Ghetto.

So this week we take a short break from our series on the war at home to examine the Ghetto that is Palestine by showing two films from Alternative Focus.  The Alternative Focus production company was founded by three film makers, a Jew, a Christian and a Muslim who are working together for peace and justice by offering media to the American public which shows another side of Middle Eastern issues.  Wall of Shame examines the implications of the Israeli attempt to fence in the entirety of Palestine with the construction of the “apartheid wall”.   Then, an interview with Azmi Bishara who represents Israel’s Palestinian minority in the Knesset exposes the institutional inequality and racism that forms the basis of the Jewish state.

See: www.alternatefocus.org

Above the Law part 1, Monday 1/21/08 8-9PM PST

Above the Law part 2, Monday 1/28/08 8-9PM PST

This week and next Pirate Television continues our look at the war at home with an examination of police brutality and murder.  Juanita Young a black mother from New York who was recently awarded a $10 million judgment (still under appeal) in her wrongful death lawsuit over the NYPD killing of her son Malcolm Ferguson was recently in Seattle.  We will hear the story of how an NYPD officer executed her son in cold blood and got away with it and how the police beat her close to death when she took legal action against the NYPD for which she was recently awarded another million dollar judgment.  Nicholas Heyward Sr., whose son Nicholas Jr. was killed by NYC Housing Police in 1994, will tell us about his case as well as two others: Ophelia Randall Ealy, and Ivan Morgan who’s children were brutally murdered by Seattle and King County Police.

What struck me about this is that it is almost impossible to win justice in these types of cases.  The cop who killed Juanita Young’s son virtually admitted that he executed Malcolm Ferguson for no good reason yet to this day he has never been charged with a crime.  If Juanita is successful in collecting the judgment that the jury awarded her it will not bring back her son and it will be us, the taxpayers who will pay.   All of these people suffered harassment and several of them were brutally beaten when they refused to shut up and quietly accept the murder of their children.

The October 22nd Coalition to Stop Police Brutality is a national support group organized by and for the victims of police violence.  They keep statistics on police murder and produce a booklet called “Stolen Lives” which matches faces with these numbers.

Contact the October 22nd Coalition:

National: 1-888-662-7782 info@october22.org

Dr. Helen Caldicott- Nuclear Power is Not the Answer, Monday 1/7/08 8-9 PM PST

Helen Caldicott, Co-founder of the Physicians for Social Responsibility, world's leading spokesperson for the antinuclear movement, Nobel Peace Prize nominee, and bestselling author, dispenses with the notion that nuclear power is an option to replace fossil fuels for solving the climate crisis.  Assessing the risks and benefits of nuclear power, she concludes that nuclear power is not sustainable, creates more greenhouse gas than it offsets and that the risk of catastrophic accident or attack far outweighs any benefits.

Thanks to: Town Hall Future of Public Health Series, Antioch University, Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility, and Ken Slusher for filming the event. See: www.openmondays.com

Carl Bernstein- A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton, Monday 12/24/07 8-9 PM PST

Amrit Singh- Administration of Torture, Monday 12/17/07 8-9 PM PST

Administration of Torture is the most detailed account thus far of what took place in America's overseas detention centers and why. Jameel Jaffer and Amrit Singh draw the connection between the policies adopted by senior civilian and military officials and the torture and abuse that took place on the ground. They also collect and reproduce hundreds of government documents—including interrogation directives, FBI e-mails, autopsy reports, and investigative files—obtained by the ACLU and its partners through the Freedom of Information Act. The documents show that abuse of prisoners was not limited to Abu Ghraib but was pervasive in U.S. detention facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan and at Guantánamo Bay. Even more disturbing, the documents reveal that senior officials endorsed the abuse of prisoners as a matter of policy-sometimes by tolerating it, sometimes by encouraging it, and sometimes by expressly authorizing it. The documents constitute both an important historical record and a profound indictment of the Bush administration's policies with respect to the treatment of prisoners in U.S. custody abroad.

Thanks to Seattle Town Hall, Elliott Bay Books and the ACLU of Washington

Special Broadcast: David Barsamian- What We Say Goes, Monday 12/10/07 3-5 pm PST

I think I first met David Barsamian in 1999.  We were building the Independent Media Center in preparation for the WTO and Dave was there, encouraging us, telling his story.  With his weekly Alternative Radio show, [starting in 1986] he was one of the first to provide a platform for the most essential but censored voices of our times.  Pushing onto the mainstream airwaves, voices like those of Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Michael Parenti, and thousands of others almost never heard on Corporate TV or radio and rarely even on PBS or NPR.  Dave did this by coming up with the brilliant idea of giving it to them free.  It was an offer they couldn’t refuse.  He supports his whole operation by selling his recordings to listeners.  He is an unstoppable bundle of energy.  It seems nobody was able to stop him when he was here this time either.  The Town Hall talk that I taped on October 28th went on for two hours.  Fortunately, the people at SCAN have been co/sponsoring some of these extra long programs and providing me with special slots.  If you have found these valuable, an email or call to SCAN to show your appreciation could go a long way.

See www.alternativeradio.org

Frances Moore Lappé- Getting a Grip, Monday 12/10/07 8-9 PM PST

Of coarse Frances Moore Lappé is not the type of person who would leave it there.  Her endeavor to figure out a fix to these problems has led to the publishing of many important books such as the hugely popular- Diet for a Small Planet as well as Food First, World Hunger, Hope's Edge, and Democracy's Edge.  In her latest book- Getting a Grip: Clarity, Creativity, and Courage in a World Gone Mad, she tackles what we might call the politics of despair.  As she points out, it is not the fact that we are powerless that is the ultimate enemy of social progress but the fact that we think we are.  This mindset is not only counterproductive, but also dangerous.  However, people everywhere are starting to shed this frame and there are abundant examples of hope everywhere.  In spite of the corporatist aim to convince us that “there is no alternative”; in reality, the economy and the political system are not all “sewn up” even here in the belly of the beast.  The problem is, that’s not anything like what your TV is telling you.  This is why we need independent media and writers like Frances Moore Lappé, so that we can know that there are alternatives and things that we can do.

"You say you want a revolution... Well you know, you better free your mind instead”, said John Lennon.  People like Frances Moore Lappé are the mind liberation experts.  She says: “It’s not possible to know what’s possible.”  So what are we afraid of?

See also: www.gettingagrip.net

and: Small Planet Institute- www.smallplanet.org

David Suzuki- Sustainability within a Generation Monday, 12/3/07 2pm – 3:30 PST

Cynthia McKinney- Free the Jena 6! Monday, 12/3/07 8-9 PM PST

Former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney spoke at New Hope Baptist Church on the case of the Jena 6.  The November 10th speech comes on heels of pre-trial hearings for four of the Six Theodore Shaw, Robert Bailey, Bryan Purvis, and Mychal Bell.  The speech covered both the injustice of the case itself and whatever happens at the pre-trial hearing on the 7th. The case of the Jena 6 has garnered international attention shining a spotlight on the nature of this country's criminal justice system, and the continuing Jim Crow-type atmosphere in the South and other places. Nooses have been hung in several places recently, including Columbia University in New York City, sparking outrage

Jena itself has been the focus of protest, and on Sept. 20, tens of thousands of people demonstrated there and in other cities around the country to demand complete freedom for the Jena 6, and the release of Mychal Bell. A week later, after 10 months in prison, his conviction was overturned and he was granted bail. Shortly afterwards, the Louisiana judge that originally tried Bell ordered him back into custody, and is sending him back to jail for 18 months for "violating probation" from an earlier conviction. Ironically, the precise violation was his arrest in the Jena 6 incident. While the white students who started this cycle of events continue to walk free, the rest of the Jena 6 still face the prospect of long prison sentences.

Federal statistics show that many states continue to fail to report hate crimes. Congresswoman McKinney is a prominent African-American who represented Georgia 4th District from 1993 to 2003. She has spoken on both national and international justice issues, and is a firm opponent of the war in Iraq. She was defeated by the combined efforts of an unsupportive Democratic Party and Republican voters who crossed over in the Democratic Primary and voted for her opponent. She is the only member of Congress to offer Articles of Impeachment against President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and Secretary of State Rice. Recent press reports say that McKinney enrolled in the Green Party earlier this month in California, where she is a Ph.D. candidate in African-American studies at the University of California at Berkeley. A draft McKinney movement is petitioning to place her on the Green Party's 2008 presidential primary ballots. -Text by KL Shannon

Trita Parsi- Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the U.S., Monday, 11/26/07 8-9 PM PST

This surprisingly frank and revealing look at secret history of Middle Eastern politics and the machinations of Iran, Israel and the US comes at a crucial time.  With the US threatening an attack on Iran any day now, Trita Parsi cuts through the propaganda and non stop drum beating to lay out the real issues at stake in a way rarely discussed in US media.   That’s because Dr. Parsi possesses rare credentials that give him a keen perspective on the situation.  An Iranian reared in Sweden, he has worked for the Swedish Permanent Mission to the UN where he served in the Security Council, as well as an advisor to Congressman Bob Ney (R-OH) on Middle East issues.  He is co-founder and current President of the National Iranian American Council.

Dahr Jamail- Beyond the Green Zone, Monday 11/19/07 8-9 PM PST

Republicans and their war profiteering cronies loot the treasury to murder an entire country and Democrats play politics while the corporate media refuse to mention the Cheney impeachment resolution sent to John Conyers’ Judicial Committee yesterday who says he is too busy to consider it.  Somebody is obviously being threatened with something, but it’s not news.  This is the way democracy ends, not with a bang but a whimper.   Stay tuned for the news.  This is where it is.

FCC Seattle hearing on media-ownership rules- Round 3, Monday 11/12/07 8-9 PM PST

It is obvious that if relaxation of ownership restrictions are allowed to go through, the only ones who will benefit are the corporate media owners themselves.  That’s why, just like the last two times, the only people who testified in favor of further consolidation were representatives of big media conglomerates.  One need look no farther than the testimony of one of these, Pamela Pearson, VP and Gen. Mgr. of KCPQ channel 13 and KMYQ channel 22 the local Fox affiliates owned by the Tribune Broadcasting national media conglomerate.  Ms. Pearson waxed on about the benefits accrued by owning two stations in one market including the financial resources that enable them to build a state of the art Doppler radar on the coast which can see weather coming 24 hours in advance.   I found myself wondering, if their radar is so good, why couldn’t they see Global Warming coming when every climate scientist in the world except those employed by the petroleum industry or their minions were sounding the alarm for the past 20 years?   That’s all you need to realize that corporate monopoly control of the mass media was a foolish notion from the onset.  To believe that you could ever trust them to "serve the public interest" when it conflicts with their interest is silly.

See also: FCC Democrats Rally Consolidation Foes in Seattle http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/11/10/5146/

Because Jonathan’s talk went on for more than an hour, I have convinced SCAN to cosponsor this show and give me a special time slot in the afternoon.  The show contains the entire talk, Q&A, and a brief interview.   For those without high speed internet access, I have tacked on Part 2 of Naomi Klein which is  the Q&A left over from her “Shock Doctrine” talk at Town Hall.  The entire program is 1:38 in length.  Set your VCRs.

Thanks to Elliott Bay Books and the Washington Center for the Book at the Seattle Public Library

Thom Hartmann- Cracking the Code, Monday Nov. 5th 2007 9-9 PM PST

Thanks to Elliott Bay Books

Dr. Hans Blix: From a Cold War to a Cold Peace. Time for a Revival of Disarmament?  Monday October 29, 8-9 PM PST
 

Dr. Hans Blix discusses the impact of our current political climate on world affairs and shares his insight and expertise regarding instituting change via weapons control.

About Dr. Blix
Born in 1928 in Uppsala, Sweden, Dr. Blix has spent most of his career in politics and public service. Dr. Blix was appointed Executive Chairman of the United Nations Mentoring, Verification and Inspection Commission for Iraq by the UN Secretary-General from January 2000 until June 2003. In January 2004 Dr. Blix chaired the independent international Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission. He has received several honorary doctorates, is the recipient of many decorations and awards, and has written numerous books on international and constitutional law and articles relating to energy and the problematic spread of nuclear weapons.

Thanks to the UW Alumni Association

Chris Finan- From the Palmer Raids to the Patriot Act: A History of the Fight for Free Speech in America, Monday, 10/22/07 8-9 PM PST

Those Goose Stepping Brown Shirts who rode the stocking horse of disaster to trash the Constitution and ram the [Un]PATRIOT Act through the cowardly Congress with an agenda to spy on their political enemies and everyone else may have found it a ‘piece of cake’ to get your private records without a warrant from Verizon but they met their match when they came up against the librarians.   It seems that unlike our Senators whom we were all calling but somehow never got the message, the librarians immediately knew what was at stake and never had to be called once, refusing to open library records to the FBI.

Chris Finan, president of the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, gave this talk to the Seattle Central Library in honor of Banned Books Week.  The point of this history lesson is to remind us that the free speech and privacy rights that we take for granted even as they are being systematically stripped away weren’t always what they are cracked up to be.  As he illuminates in this discourse, the meaning of free speech was scarcely understood even by the founding fathers because: “Only a few years after the passage of the first amendment one half of the founding fathers was trying to throw the other half in jail for criticizing the government.”   The free speech rights we enjoy today are the result of 200 years of struggle by civil rights activists and most of them were won in the last 50 years.  And although “W” may be too young to remember the ‘good old days’ of the McCarthy era, most certainly Dick Cheney does.  So before we allow them to turn back the clock too far it may be useful to take a look back at the long struggle to get where we are.

Thanks to Ken Slusher of Open Mondays Productions for videotaping the event, the Seattle Public Library, and the ACLU of Washington.

Christine Harold- OurSpace: Resisting the Corporate Control of Culture, Monday October 15th 8-9 PM PST


Christine Harold talks about the role of 'culture jammers' and other strategies of resistance to “brand creep” and the corporate media takeover of culture and our minds.  Her book has been called a follow-up to Naomi Klein's No Logo.  She takes a look at parodies and shucks generated by “saboteurs and appropriators” like Adbusters, the Barbie Liberation Organization, and the Yes Men who try to “monkey wrench” the system by infiltrating the commercial media with phony ads and news stories or headline grabbing pranks replete with their own VNR’s [video news releases] and PR spokespersons as well as activists who create alternatives to the consumerist monopoly such as the Creative Commons movement, copyleft, open source technology and let’s not forget alternative media.

Thanks to Elliott Bay Books 

Naomi Klein: The Shock Doctrine, Monday, 10/8/07 8-9 PM PST

Naomi Klein hit the nail on the head the last time she was here when she said that the Iraq invasion was Corporate Globalization with bombs.  Catapulted to the center of attention in the anti-globalization movement with her book: No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies, her next book, Fences and Windows: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Globalization Debate went on to further dissect and illuminate the corporatist master plan for world domination.  In 2004, she released The Take, a feature documentary about Argentina’s occupied factories.  Now, with her new book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism which very well could be the most important book of the year, she manages to tie all the ends together from the CIA’s MK-Ultra mind control research, to Bush Administration torture strategy, to Shock and Awe and the deconstruction of Iraq, to the rise of Milton Friedman and the Chicago School of Economics, to the installation of Pinochet in Chile, to the economic meltdown in Argentina, to the IMF and the World Bank, to the exploitation of the 9/11 attacks, to the privatization of schools in post Katrina New Orleans.  It was the horse’s mouth himself Milton Friedman who said it: “Only a crisis, actual or perceived produces real change” and we all know what sort of change will be manufactured.  In today’s world tragedy rarely results by chance, but even chance will be milked to the fullest extent to instigate the Neo Liberal/ Neo Con economic agenda. The Bush gang is not incompetent -that’s the cover story.  Everything is proceeding as planned.

No doubt many of us have been hearing snippets in other alternative media, now get the full meal deal- a full hour with Naomi Klein recorded last week at Town Hall Seattle.  Then buy the book and feast on clarity for a week!

Naomi Klein writes for The Nation, Harper’s Magazine, The Guardian, The New York Times, In These Times, The Globe and Mail, and many others.  Other books by Naomi Klein include: Everything You Know Is Wrong: The Disinformation Guide to Secrets and Lies.

Thanks to Town Hall and Elliott Bay Books 

Pirate TV Special: Julian Darley- Responses to Energy Descent, Tuesday Oct. 2, 2007, 9- 10:30 PM PST


Many of us have heard the dire predictions of the “end of suburbia” and the “the party’s over” brought on by the compound crisis of peak oil and i