The Gopal/1st segment is excellent. The 2nd/Ojeda segment is more ranty, but still worth listening.
A media consensus has quickly emerged around the Biden administration’s Afghanistan withdrawal, and it goes like this: whatever its merits in the abstract, in its execution the whole thing has been a chaotic debacle. On this week’s Deconstructed, Ryan Grim talks to journalist and author Anand Gopal and to politician and former US army major Richard Ojeda. They discuss what the media are missing, and why the Afghanistan exit is long overdue.
In 1946, U.S. diplomat George F. Kennan authored a secret document about Russia that would cool international relations and help launch the Cold War. Seventy five years later, Kennan's Long Telegram still echoes in Washington and in Putin's Russia.
They discuss how global value chains have been reshaped under monopsony capitalism, how these changes have affected the power of workers all over the world, and how the Covid-19 pandemic will impact these trends.
You can support our work on the show by becoming a Patron. Thanks to our producer Conor Gillies and the Lipman-Miliband Trust for making this episode possible.
EXCELLENT: begins with long but classic-CTH rant against the (about to end?) US occupation of Afghanistan as a brutal stupid 20-year failure. Gets better with the "Chapo Reading List" hate-read of recent Tom Nichols and David Frum pieces (both 16 Aug 2021 in The Atlantic), where N&F claim the US occupation of Afghanistan was a failure not of them (the US foreign-military elite aka US deepstate and its corporate-funded media wing) but of the American people.
We look at the brutal, stupid, and embarrassing end of our brutal, stupid, and embarrassing twenty year occupation of Afghanistan.
Kenyon is a journalist formerly posted to Romania, now married to a Romanian. His missions here seem to be to convince everyone that Romania is great (in both senses), Russia is bad, and communism is very very bad. (The fascists also get criticized, but much less then the communists esp the Ceaușescus.) The history is quite schematic and personality-oriented (the term 'character study' comes to mind). Not totally bad but definitely not a must-listen.
Paul Kenyon discusses his book Children of the Night, which charts the story of modern Romania, and its colourful, chaotic and often corrupt leaders – from unstable playboy King Carol II, to communist dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu.
(Ad) Paul Kenyon is the author of Children of the Night: The Strange and Epic Story of Modern Romania (Head of Zeus, 2021). Buy it now from Waterstones: https://go.skimresources.com?id=71026X1535947&xcust=historyextra-social-hexpod&xs=1&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.waterstones.com%2Fbook%2Fchildren-of-the-night%2Fpaul-kenyon%2F9781789543162
Rising temperatures are producing some very predictable effects: gradually worsening droughts, a steady rise in sea levels, and so on. But we also risk crossing thresholds in which aspects of the climate suddenly shift to new behaviors. That process seems to have happened in part of the Arctic Ocean, and there are indications that the main circulating current in the Atlantic Ocean may be approaching a shutdown.
A lot of effort has gone into modeling the economic cost of climate change in general, but we haven't figured out what crossing a tipping point might do to the world economy. This week, three researchers attempted to explore the subject, integrating estimates of the cost of tipping points with combined economics/climate models. The results suggest that we may be under-valuing the current cost of our carbon emissions and accepting a much higher level of financial risk than we might think.
What percent do you tip?
Climate tipping points are easy to understand on a conceptual level. At some poorly defined point in the future's warming, some natural systems will shift to a different type of behavior. That behavior will make it unlikely that the system will return to its initial state.
Anders Lee is excellent as usual ... on 'Redacted Tonight', but not on MaU (this being his 1st appearance). Will suggests he'll be back soon, which should be good.
In 1994, the most vilified member of the Reagan administration tried to stage a political comeback, and it almost worked. The documentary A PERFECT CANDIDATE (1996) follows Oliver North's attempt to unseat Democrat Chuck Robb as a Virginia senator, and captures the political currents in both Virginia and the United States as a whole. Pod Damn America and Redacted Tonight's Anders Lee fills in for Luke to discuss.
Michael and Us is a podcast about political cinema and our crumbling world hosted by Will Sloan and Luke Savage. To hear weekly bonus episodes, subscribe to the Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/michaelandus/
Lancelot seems smart enough, but is just *not* a coherent speaker--often quite difficult to discern what is his point. (Joanne Leon is also less articulate than usual (which is not saying much) in this episode, and cohost Kelley Lane just gets in the way.) Though unenlightening on cybersecurity or 'cyberdiplomacy' (he seems quite concerned to emphasize the importance especially of the latter), Lancelot and Leon makes some good points towards the end about the importance not only of open-source election technology (i.e. OSET) but of need for understandability and public buy-in of whatever ET a polity wants to implement.
Guest: Jon Lancelot. Hosts: Joanne Leon, Kelley Lane. A wide ranging discussion on hybrid warfare, cybersecurity, cyberdiplomacy, democracy, technocracy and more. In a bonus segment we talk about creeping fascism and what went wrong with the progressive movement.
Jonathan Lancelot is a cybersecurity analyst at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, and principal policy analyst for the OSET Institute focused on election cybersecurity in the context of national security. He has a Master of Diplomacy with a focus on cyber-diplomacy and has been published in several journals. He also has an extensive technical background in computer science and has worked for Apple, the U.S. Senate and the US Department of Defense.
This week, hosts Jim DeRogatis and Greg Kot dissect Yes’ 1977 masterpiece album Going For the One. They talk about the progressive rock band’s history, the rich music and interview lead singer Jon Anderson about the making of the record. They also review the latest album from rapper Tyler, the Creator.
Behind the News, hosted by Doug Henwood, covers the worlds of economics and politics and their complex interactions, from the local to the global. Find the archive here: https://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Radio.html
Very much a waste of time. Rooks especially, but also Black and even the hosts, go on long identitarian rants that miss important empirical points, such as (though Schneider tiptoes up to this) the economic and class interest in privatizing public education.
In state after state, GOP lawmakers are privatizing education and curbing democracy by changing the rules about how votes are cast and counted. Which raises an urgent question. Why are the same states that are rolling back democracy also intent on dismantling public education? We assembled an all-star cast to get some answers. Special guests: Derek Black, author of Schoolhouse Burning: Public Education and the Assault on American Democracy; and Noliwe Rooks, author of Cutting School: Privatization, Segregation, and the End of Public Education.
The financial support of listeners like you keeps this podcast going. Subscribe on Patreon or donate on PayPal.
Following her two critically-acclaimed stand up shows, Tessa brings her debut radio special to Radio 4 and combines her love of anthropology with her love of witchcraft. This year, all things occult are definitely on the rise. Tarot card sales are the highest they've been for 50 years, books on witchcraft have topped the best-seller list, and on TikTok the hashtag #WitchTok has 13.9 BILLION views. Through history, in times of political unrest we turn to the occult, and the last few years have been nothing but political unrest. Add into that a story about a ghost, a poltergeist, and an exploration of the human imagination. Plus a tarot card reading, finish on a coven initiation spell and you've got Resting Witch Face!
The show was recorded in front of a live audience at the Pleasance in London.
Written by Tessa Coates
Starring Tessa Coates
Additional Material: Amy Annette
Executive Producer: Simon Nicholls
Studio Engineer Jerry Peal
Editor: Chris Maclean
Production Manager: Georgina Brett
Production Co-ordinator: Tamara Shilham
Production Assistant: Emma Tremewan
Production Runners: George Hehir & Tehillah Hinds
Would not have been possible without Katie Churchill
Recorded Live at Pleasance London
A Tiger Aspect production for BBC Radio 4
"Tale of 2 episodes": Stoller is great on US economics, stays good on globalization and deindustrialization, then (~36 min into the audio) rest of episode is a massive rant on how PRC is 'fascist', 'like Nazi Germany', an expanding empire that must be stopped militarily, hates democracy, then ends by saying (approx) "we must find ways to coexist." Very odd.
Matt Stoller, Director of Research at the American Economic Liberties Project and author of Goliath: The 100-Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy, talks about the many ways in which the US economic system has become rigged to favor the richest.
In the latest episode in our series tackling history’s biggest topics, Dr Rory Naismith, author of Early Medieval Britain, c500–1000, responds to listener questions and popular internet search queries on Britain in the early Middle Ages.
76 years ago, the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima. Historian Lesley M.M. Blume's book, 'Fallout,' tells the story of John Hersey, the young journalist whose on-the-ground reporting in Hiroshima exposed the world to the devastation of nuclear weapons. "Hersey had seen everything from that point, from combat to concentration camps," Blume says. "But he later said that nothing prepared him for what he saw in Hiroshima."
Also, we remember Ron Popeil, the inventor and TV pitchman whose products included the Veg-O-Matic, Mr. Microphone, and the smokeless ashtray.
The historian Antoni Kapcia joins Long Reads for a conversation about Cuban politics since the revolution of 1959. Antoni is the author of several books on Cuban history, including A Short History of Revolutionary Cuba and Leadership in the Cuban Revolution. Long Reads is a Jacobin podcast looking in-depth at political topics and thinkers, both contemporary and historical, with the magazine’s longform writers. Hosted by Features Editor Daniel Finn.
This week's banter is listenable (better than last few weeks) ... but the interview is very skippable. I get the impression that all the good bits are behind the paywall, but am not willing to pay to find out.
Lesley Blume is a journalist. She married a journalist. Her father wrote for Walter Cronkite. Her whole community is journalists.
So, in 2016, when Trump rose to power, her community was suddenly under attack.
“All of a sudden to see your entire community be under assault like that and be designated as enemies of the people was so shocking and demoralizing, and it felt like an all hands on deck moment.”
The best way to fight back, she decided, was to write a book that proved to America just how crucial reporters are in democracy, to “reinstate this idea that journalism at its best serves the common good.”
“And so,” she explains, “when I came across Hersey’s story, which had been shockingly untold, I knew that I had my story.”
John Hersey, a Pulitzer-prize-winning pioneer reporter who saw combat to cover World War II, wrote what some consider the most important work of journalism of the 20th century: Hiroshima.
In her book, Fallout: The Hiroshima Cover-up and the Reporter Who Revealed It to the World, Blume uses painstaking research to document how the US government obfuscated its role in the deadliest attack in history and comes to the realization that dropping the bomb was not justified, despite what we’re taught in school.
Plus, future-ex-Governor Cuomo couldn’t take the heat from last week’s Useful Idiots review, how Trump’s big beautiful tax cut actually (surprise) helped the rich, and the world burns from climate change.
It’s all this, and more, on this week’s (gloomy) episode of Useful Idiots. Check it out.
VERY EXCELLENT! again, the banter segments (before 55:44 in the audio) are very skippable, but the Kirn interview (mostly Taibbi-Kirn--Halper not much involved) is one of the better ones done by UI.
“America finally had enough media awareness after being taught in high school to look for bias that they suddenly were able to see, with new eyes, just how slanted and silly and contradictory and boring [corporate media is.]”
Thus spoke Walter Kirn, writer for Time magazine and author of eight novels including Up in the Air (which was turned into a George Clooney movie), on this week’s Useful Idiots. And, like Matt and Katie, Kirn ditched the mainstream and made the move to Substack. where you can check him out.
Years ago, Walter tells us, he would complain that every Time article ended the same way: “Some experts believe this while others believe that, but one thing is for sure, the issue is not settled and only time will tell."
But now he yearns for the days of yore when the media would take the burden off of itself and leave readers with vague cliches. But at least the readers were left with a chance to think for themselves.
Today there is no two sides. There is no debate. They tell you what to think. And at that point, can it still really be called journalism?
The answer to that question is hard to say. Some experts believe it can, others believe it can’t, but one thing is for sure, it’s all a lot of bullshit.
Plus, after reading 165 pages of the attorney general’s report on Andrew Cuomo, Katie and Matt come to the (hot take) conclusion that the Governor is, indeed, a sexual harasser and dick. And we mourn the loss of Nina Turner’s congressional campaign. Oh yeah, and a bunch of penis stuff.
It’s all this, and more, on this week’s episode of Useful Idiots. Check it out now and stand by for the Substack-only portion where Kirn talks about the novel he’s working on, his parents’ divorce, and the fall of Stephen Colbert.
excellent and important. notable pullquote: > Two 1970s amendments to the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act [[https://www.corporatecrimereporter.com/news/200/lawsuit-claims-aid-to-nuclear-israel-illegal-under-symington-glenn-amendments/][appear to bar U.S. aid to any country with nuclear weapons that is not a signatory to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons]] — at least without a formal presidential waiver. [...] It has also long been the belief of the U.S. foreign policy establishment that an open Israeli acknowledgement that it possesses nuclear weapons would incentivize other countries in the Middle East to develop such weapons themselves.
On Wednesday, a quiet but notable event occurred on Twitter. First, Robert Satloff, head of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, posted the below tweet approvingly referring to “Israel’s nuclear deterrent.” Then the tweet was liked by Gilad Erdan, the Israeli ambassador to the U.S. and the United Nations.
It’s difficult to interpret this in any other way than Erdan confirming that Israel possesses nuclear weapons:
By blurring the distinction between #Israel’s nuclear deterrent and #Iran’s exterminationist nuclear project, I don’t think I’m alone in wondering whether ?@PeterBeinart? prefers a nuclear-free #MiddleEast or an Israel-free MiddleEast. https://t.co/3iz05Px76V
The significance of Erdan’s show of approval is that while Israel first built nuclear weapons in the 1960s, the Israeli and U.S. governments both refuse to explicitly acknowledge this. There have long been secret, formal agreements between the two countries to maintain this pose, starting with one codified by President Richard Nixon and Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir in 1969.
Then came the Gulf War in 1991. U.N. Security Council Resolution 687 famously required Iraq to surrender and eliminate all nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. But it also mentioned “the objective of the establishment of a nuclear-weapons-free zone in the region of the Middle East” and the “importance” of achieving this objective “using all available means.” This made Israel nervous. President Bill Clinton would eventually send Israel a secret letter stating that any American attempts at arms control would not involve Israeli nuclear weapons. Similar letters were signed by Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump.
The behavior of both countries would appear, on its face, silly and childish. After all, everyone on Earth who cares to know understands that Israel is a nuclear power. The denial of this leads to absurd behavior by U.S. officials, as documented by Sam Husseini of the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Public Accuracy. A video compilation by Husseini features the 2004 Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards; the late Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich.; George W. Bush’s Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte; former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; and many, many others providing nonsensical answers to Husseini’s simple question “Does Israel have nuclear weapons?”
However, there are rational reasons for the behavior of both countries. Two 1970s amendments to the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act appear to bar U.S. aid to any country with nuclear weapons that is not a signatory to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons — at least without a formal presidential waiver. Sen. Stuart Symington, D.-Mo., author of one of the amendments, said at the time that “if you wish to take the dangerous and costly steps necessary to achieve a nuclear weapons option, you cannot expect the United States to help underwrite that effort indirectly or directly.” Thus all U.S. military and economic assistance to Israel may be illegal.
It has also long been the belief of the U.S. foreign policy establishment that an open Israeli acknowledgement that it possesses nuclear weapons would incentivize other countries in the Middle East to develop such weapons themselves.
In any case, the New York Times op-ed by Peter Beinart, a columnist and journalism professor, makes the case that this continued denial of reality is untenable. In particular, he writes, “the American government’s deceptive silence prevents a more honest debate at home about the dangers an Iranian nuclear weapon would pose.” While U.S. officials are well aware of who in the region has nuclear weapons and who doesn’t, regular Americans are not. A recent poll found that just 52 percent of respondents correctly said that Israel has nukes, while 61 percent incorrectly said that Iran does.
It’s unclear whether Satloff’s criticism of Beinart is that no one should acknowledge reality or that Beinart does not believe that the U.S. should straightforwardly endorse different international rules for Israel and Iran. Satloff’s organization, the Washington Institute, was founded by a former employee of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and received funding from many of AIPAC’s top supporters.
Neither Erdan nor Satloff responded to a request for comment. Erban’s Twitter behavior was first cited by the writer Abe Silberstein.
Scott Horton of Antiwar.com joins me to discuss Scott's new book "Enough Already: Time to End the War on Terror."
We touch on many topics from the Carter administration forward, understanding that what transpired on September 11, 2001 was only the latest blowback from American foreign policy in the Middle East, how every president from Carter to Biden has shared in the irresponsibility of American "counter-terrorism" missions, and even how torture encouraged and in some cases helped create major al Qaeda leaders.
Scott Horton is director of the Libertarian Institute, editorial director of Antiwar.com, host of Antiwar Radio on Pacifica, 90.7 FM KPFK in Los Angeles, California and podcasts the Scott Horton Show from ScottHorton.org. He’s the author of the 2021 book Enough Already: Time to End the War on Terrorism, the 2017 book, Fool’s Errand:Time to End the War in Afghanistan and editor of the 2019 book The Great Ron Paul: The Scott Horton Show Interviews 2004–2019. He’s conducted more than 5,500 interviews since 2003.
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A quick scan of leading philosophy journals reveals that what passes for "philosophy" is selectively screened, with analytic philosophy clearly the dominant style. We look at the history of this phenomenon, some of the likely consequences, and how might it be addressed.
With an election looming in Canada, we decided to look back on a time when Justin Trudeau's father received his punishment at the hands of the Canadian media. The National Film Board of Canada documentary HISTORY ON THE RUN: THE MEDIA AND THE '79 ELECTION (1979) chronicles the unusual media landscape that led to a nine-month interruption in Pierre Trudeau's long tenure as Prime Minister. We discuss how media shapes and responds to election narratives, how things have changed since 1979, and the unusual Trudeau/Joe Clark/Ed Broadbent election. PLUS: rank punditry about Justin Trudeau's chances.
Michael and Us is a podcast about political cinema and our crumbling world hosted by Will Sloan and Luke Savage. To hear weekly bonus episodes, subscribe to the Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/michaelandus/
Enlarge / Cover art of the new report. (credit: IPCC)
It has been eight years since the last major report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), though it has produced smaller reports since then. But today, the first piece of the 6th Assessment Report is out. Most of it should not surprise you—the basics of climate science have been known for decades. And the general outlines were already obvious: almost all of the warming is due to human activities, and, without immediate action, we're poised to blow past 1.5º C of warming.
Still, each report is a little more useful than the last, and we're going to go over what has changed in terms of the science and what has changed in how that information is being shared with the public.
The IPCC is the product of a United Nations organization that coordinates—but does not write—these reports. The writing is done by scientists from around the world who volunteer their time to create these daunting tomes that seek to summarize the entire state of scientific knowledge for all kinds of decision-makers. Each major report is split into three working groups. The first focuses on the physical science of the climate system, the second on the impacts of climate change on humans and other species, and the third on methods for mitigating climate change.
see esp https://m-x-research.github.io/ : > a community of Researchers and Research Software Engineers, first conceived in the UK Research Software Engineering Society Slack channels has some very interesting-looking talks
M-x Research (contact them for password): TBA https://m-x-research.github.io/ Fri Aug 20 0700 Vancouver / 0900 Chicago / 1000 Toronto / 1400 GMT / 1600 Berlin / 1930 Kolkata / 2200 Singapore
