SHOWS 176-200

SHOW #200 - Sun. 4/18/04
Now Or Never: Fighting the Corporate War Machine in Your Own Backyard
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The trial of four peace activists from the Ithaca Catholic Worker community who engaged in civil resistance at a miitary recruiting center ended with the jury deadlocked 9-3 for acquittal, much to the chagrin of the pro-Bush district attorney, Damacio Lopez from the International Depleted Uranium Study Team (IDUST) talks about how he became an activist, and was beaten almost to death for his efforts, after he learned that depleted urnium was being tested near his family home in New Mexico.

And we continue our reading from Disciplined Minds by Jeff Schmidt, on how to be a radical professional and subvert the system from inside mainstream instutions.

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SHOW #199 - Sun. 4/11/04
War, Class Interest, and American Law
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This week was the start of the felony trial of the St Patricks day four , pacifists of the Ithaca Catholic Worker community who poured blood at the military recruiting center in Lansing, NY on March 17, 2003, as part of nationwide efforts by americans to prevent the invasion of iraq by the US government. As we reported last week, Tompkins County judge John Sherman barred the defense from bringing expert witnesses to testify on international law . One of the witnesses who was barred from testifying was historian Howard Zinn, but you'll hear him on the program tonight discussing how a knowledge of history is essential if citizens want to get to the truth behind the patriotic rhetoric of presidents bent on war .

And we continue our reading from Disciplined Minds by Jeff Schmidt, concluding chapter 15, Surviving Professional Training With Your Values Intact

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SHOW #198 - Sun. 4/4/04
Know Where You Stand and Stand There!: The St. Patrick's Day Four and Civil Resistance
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On April 6, the trial of 4 peace activists from the Ithaca Catholic Worker community begins at the Tompkins County Courthouse. The activists, known as the Saint Patrick's Day Four are facing felony charges which carry a maximum four year sentence.

In March 27th, the defendants learned that their chance to defend themselves has been curtailed. Judge M. John Sherman ruled in a written decision that the four will be limited in their assertion of the defenses of necessity and international law. In his ruling, Judge Sherman prohibited any expert witnesses or documentary evidence relating to necessity or international law, but said that the defendants could speak to these matters in their personal testimony. He found that there was "no applicability of [international law] in the present case" and that "the proffered proof does not demonstrate the type of true emergency envisioned by the [necessity] statute."

Tonight on the program, you will hear the voices of the activists, speakers on international law, documentaty of evidence of the criminality of the war on Iraq, the choice that citizens must make between law and conscience and the duty of citizens to engage in civil resistance.

And we continue with chapter 15 from our reading from Disciplined Minds by Jeff Schmidt

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SHOW #197 - Sun. 3/28/04
A Feast for the Insubordinate: Dissecting and Resisting the Ideologies of Domination
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Noam Chomsky on war and the corporate media, and evolutionary biologist Richard Lewontin on the the use of science to bolster reactionary ideologies

And we begin chapter 15 Surviving Professional Training With Your Values Intact, of our reading from Disciplined Minds by Jeff Schmidt

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SHOW #196 - Sun. 3/21/04
Deja Vu All Over Again: Reclaimng Histories of Resistance
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A conversation with Dr.Michael Parenti on The Assasination of Julius Caesar and what a people's history of the Roman Empire/Republic has to teach us about the motives and machinations of republics for the few in the 21st century, Stan Goff on the soldiers' resistance to the Viet Nam war, how the US manipulates elections in El Salvador, and a Nevada rancher taking a stand against the police state.

And we continue our reading from Disciplined Minds by Jeff Schmidt, concluding chapter 14, Resisting Indoctrination.

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SHOW #195 - Sun. 3/14/04
The Cult of Militarism
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Featuring: Chalmers Johnson, on The Sorrows of Emprire, Robert Jay Lifton on Superpower Syndrome and apocalyptic violence, and readings from Disciplined Minds by Jeff Schmidt as we continue on the eight characteristics of the totalist organization.

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SHOW #194 - Sun. 3/7/04
The Importance of Resistance
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Tariq Ali, author Bush In Babylon and The Clash of Fundamentalisms, speaks on the meaning of the Iraqui resistance and the importance of the American peace movement to the rest of the world.

And we continue our reading from Disciplined Minds by Jeff Schmidt, with chapter 14, Resisting Indoctrination.

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SHOW #193 - Sun. 2/29/04
Subordinating Minds: Academia, Media, Ideology and the Corporate State
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Another perspective on the removal of Howard Stern: Bush, Clear Channel and the FCC, then, a class on anarchism fights the administration of the University of Colorado, and a analysis of what's left out of Henry Louis Gates PBS documentary on the status of Black people in America.

And we continue our reading from Disciplined Minds by Jeff Schmidt, which will examine subordination and professionalism.

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SHOW #192 - Sun. 2/22/04
Beyond the Shell Game to Real Choices
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It's election season again and politicians are promising good jobs for all and that no child will be left behind. Even if these candidates are sincere, which can not be assumed, what people hear being promised can't be delivered, because the very structure of this society is designed to leave most everyone behind, and to relegate us to lives in which we have no real say about how society will operate.

We are forced to perform a lifetime of tedious work for somebody else's benefit and accept limited choices, mostly in the realm of consumption options. Even the consumer with the much vaunted 500 tv channels has had no say in what those 500 channels broadcast, but may only choose from what someone else has decided to make available. The role laid out for most people is to follow orders and not cause trouble.

Tonight, we resume our reading from Disciplined Minds by Jeff Schmidt, which will exmine the techniques the educational system uses to quietly reconcile people with their limited opportunity for a fullfilling life while perpetuating the myth of endless possibility.

But we'll begin the program from the opposite direction, how to approach the creation of a society where everyone really does get to make the decisions that effect our lives, instead of living as factotums in a hierarchy that serves the agenda of a few at the top. Mark Lance, an anarchist philospher and activist spoke at the National Conference of Organized Resistance on the need to recreate our interactions as well as, in the here and now, not only protest what is oppressive, but strive to create institutions fit for free people.

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SHOW #191 - Sun. 2/15/04
The Occupation of Iraq: Present and Future
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On 2/5/04 author and activist Rahul Mahajan and former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter spoke on the Iraq occupation at a Town Hall in West Hartford, Conn. Mahajan, who recently returned from Iraq, reported that no reconstruction is actually occurring and how the governmental structures set up there are mere window dressing for an American occupation force that is, and intends to continue, running the show for the benefit of US multinational corporate interests.

Ritter traces the lies regarding WMD in Iraq by the Bush gang and calls on the American people to seize the democracy.

PLEASE DOWNLOAD THIS TALK AND GET OTHERS TO HEAR IT!

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SHOW #190 - Sun. 2/1/04
The New Robber Barons and the American Future
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Steven Brower is the author of many books on political economy. His latest is Robbing Us Blind that deals with the age of the new robber barons, the Bush gang and the roll-back of the advancements of the working class in the 20th century in America. We begin the show with a presentation he gave at the kick-off of Bush Must Go! in Ithaca. Then an excerpt from a debate on the question of whether the Green party should run a presidential candidate in 2004 between Peter Camejo, Green party gubernatorial candidate for governor of California and columnist Norman Solomon...and then, another installment from Disciplined Minds by Jeff Schmidt

Contact BUSH MUST GO! in Ithaca to get your lawn sign

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SHOW #189 - Sun. 2/1/04
Evil, Inc.: Percy Schmeiser v. Monsanto
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This week a true story about a corporation so mad for power that it threatens and harasses people who stand up to it with lawsuits and a private police force, so unethical that it deliberately contaminates the environment to force its products on unwilling customers, so pernicious that it's able to protray its victims as perpetrators, turn neighbor against neighbor and establish a climate of fear, so greedy that it aims to control the world food supply by using intellectual property laws to enforce its extortionate demands. Facing down this behemoth is a an elderly farm couple from the prairies of Saskachewan. Tonight Percy Schmieser versus the Monsanto corporation.

For more info and to get involved:

and then, another installment from Disciplined Minds by Jeff Schmidt

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SHOW #188 - Sun. 1/25/04
The Power to Interpret: The Velvet Glove in the Iron Fist
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Last week on the program we played a talk by Stan Goff in which he spoke about social struggles as issues of power, and he defined power as both the power to interpret and the power to master. This power to interpret, define what is normal, what is good, what is legitimate -- to set the standards agsint wihich ideas and actions are referenced, is also the terrain of communications media and education.

Disciplined Minds by Jeff Schmidt, the book that I've been reading weekly imstallments from from since last october, also deals with process of setting standards that determine which people will be credentialed as professionals, and thus play leading roles in society.

The type of people granted these influential roles what values they hold and to what ends and for whose benefit their work is performed, has an impact on everyone in society. This week we're going to delve more deeply into these parallels, with an in-depth imterview with Stan Goff that amplifies on the issues raised in his talk, and another reading from Discplined Minds that examines in detail how the tests that gatekeep entry into professions are structured to pass through aspirants whose values and future conduct in the field are unlikely to question the domination of society by corporate hierarchies, and the maintance of those hierarchies by militarism and imperialism.

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SHOW #187 - Sun. 1/18/04
Seeing What's Rendered Invisible: Breaking out of the ideological cattle chute
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Stan Goff is a former career soldier from US Army Special Forces who has become an incisive social critic and passionate opponent of imperialism and militarism. In this talk, he lays out the role of what he calls the global energy war in the larger picture of global industrial capitalism, and he suggests what tasks lie ahead for anti-imperialists in the peace movement.

In our second hour, chapter 9 from Disciplined Minds by Jeff Schmidt on the primacy of attitude, the ritualistic and coercive processes by recruits are tested for loyalty to the social status quo.

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SHOW #186 - Sun. 1/11/04
Narrowing the Spectrum: the manufacture of the corporate drone
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Ignacio Chapela, an ecologist critical of the biotech industry has been denied tenure at UC Berkeley even though his discovery of the contamination of native corn in Mexico shook the world, David Rees speaks on his satirical cartoon "Get Your War On" and we continue with readings from Disciplined Minds by Jeff Schmidt on how idealistic young people are broken to the yoke of corporate service.

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SHOW #185 - Sun. 1/4/04
Even a Monkey Can Wave a Flag: Cannibalizing America to Boost the Bottom Line
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How corporations are paying scholars to undermine the power of juries in punitive damage awards, a call to action against oligarchy from Scott Ritter, the death of Horatio Alger and readings from Disciplined Minds by Jeff Schmidt on the how idealistic young people are broken to the yolk of corporate service.

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SHOW #184 - Sun. 12/28/03
Spells, Counterspells and Viruses of the Mind : Perception and the Social Consensus
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Social systems are maintained by a social consensus, the stories that people believe to be true about the society, its leaders, and themseles as members of the society. Even the most repressive government must have the willing cooperation of enough of the people to wield the guns and clubs and man the prisons and torture chambers on behalf of the state against the others in the society

Nazi propagandists deliberately employed a technique they called The Big Lie. They said, the bigger the lie the easier it is to pesent it repetitively, and have it be widely believed. Central to most religion is submission to the will of an omnipotent god whose ways must not questioned. Tyrannical government follows a similar paradigm. There is an ancient relationship between religion and monarchy in fact - kings were said to hold their power by divine right, and in some cases claimed they themselves were gods.

Are those struggling for a truly free and democratic society battling some human predisposition to subordination?

FEATURING: Starhawk, Professor Richad Dawkins, Readings from Disciplined Minds by Jeff Schmidt

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SHOW #183 - Sun. 12/21/03
Twelve Shovels: The Fascist Heart of Capitalism
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Those who seek to rule us, distract us with consumerism, control us by promoting mindless fear , divide by causing us to compete in a structure designed to create scarcity, barrage us with meaningless spectacles to give us the illusion of living or pretend that we share some common bond of American -ness with those who would use us up and throw us away to make a buck...united we stand??? Not hardly.

Where are we, what must we do and what might victory look like?

FEATURING:

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SHOW #182 - Sun. 12/14/03
Enforcing the Hierarchy By Every Means Available: Media, Militarism and the Myth of Opportunity
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There is struggle taking placing everywhere on this planet to maintain a social hierarchy that gives some everything they desire by robbing from others the chance live dignified and fullfilling lives, or even to live at all. This battle has many fronts and its outcome touches all our lives. Yet it is taboo to examine its workings, and illegimate to question its rightness. Lack of scrutiny helps perpetuate the social myths and disinformation that keep this arbitrary and ugly system in place.

FEATURING:

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SHOW #181 - Sun. 12/7/03
Potemkin Nation
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The American HeritageŽ Dictionary: Fourth Edition. 2000. defines the term Potemkin village as:

NOUN: Something that appears elaborate and impressive but in actual fact lacks substance:

In 1787, when Catherine the Great visited the Ukraine and the Crimea, Prince Grigori Aleksandrovich Potemkin , a Russian army officer, statesman, and her lover, decided to put up elaborate cardboard houses apparently full of splendor in the villages Catherine was shown. While this setup depicted an illusion of prosperity, the real condition of the village was hidden behind this facade.

Tonight, travels in a Potemkin nation . Some of the sights on our tour: deadly zombie shoppers, the prospects for suburbia when the oil runs out, uncovering the truth about 911, and ending with another reading from "Disciplined Minds"

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:

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SHOW #180 - Sun. 11/30/03
Commerce and The Subjugation of Thought in America - part 2: Systemic corruption in this society where profit is paramount
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Tonight we're going to explore the failure of American journalism in greater depth, with a full length speech by media scholar Robert McChesney who will lay out the structural forces that are responsible and that indicate the level of fundamental change needed to transform the role of the press to one useful to a democratic society.

Get involved in the media reform movement!

And, we'll continue reading from Discplined Minds by Jeff Schmidt about the social role of professionals' work - this week taking at look at how funding overtly and covertly directs and limits scientific research, Much like journalists - what is studied, explored or spoken about has much to do with the interests of those who have the money, rather than the needs of society as a whole or the personal interests of scientists themselves.

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SHOW #179 - Sun. 11/23/03
Commerce and The Subjugation of Thought in America - part 1 : Systemic corruption in this society where profit is paramount
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In our first hour of the program, media scholar Robert McChesney and PBS journalist BIll Moyers speaking at the national conference on media reform. In hour 2, more readings from "Disciplined Minds" by Jeff Schmidt, on the politcs of professional work.

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SHOW #178 - Sun. 11/16/03
Work and Ideology
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Work is the area where where most of us have our greatest impact on society, and where society has its greatest impact on us. Mostly, the world of work has been structured so that most of the people who do it have little to say about what gets done or why. Yet, everything about work, the distrubution of the wealth that the work generates, who has work and who doesn't, the whole framework of what is called "the economy" - all of this exists as a result of human decisions. The system of labor and management, production and consumption, money and investment and markets are a human creation and are enforced and perpetuated by people, whether willlingly or at the direction of others.

The world of work we experience is a political creation and an ideology underlies, and is expressed through, even in the most menial labor. In our second hour , we'll focus on the ideological disclpine inherent in professional work and how that perpetuates the present system, as our series of readings from Jeff Scmidt's book "Disciplined Minds" continues. In our first hour, we'll hear about working people in Iraq fighting to form unions in their allegedly liberated country, growing poverty in America, and from a former Pentagon worker who is speaking out about the administrations' series of lies about Iraq, who is behind them, and what purpose they serve.

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SHOW #177 - Sun. 11/9/03
When Freedom Means Slavery : Maintaining the system by any means necessary
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In our second hour of the program we continue with the reading ftom "Disciplined Minds" by Jeff Schmidt, on the unacknowledged political nature of professional work and the training process that leads to a professioanl class accepting of ideological subordination to ruling elites.

In the first hour Canadian author and journalist Naomi Klein will illuminate George Bush's statement that resisting Iraquis "don't want freedom", by drawing parallels between the looting of Argentina under a " free market" regime that led to its collpase and the corporate fire sale that is behind the war and so-called reconstruction in Iraq .

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SHOW #176 - Sun. 11/2/03
Undisciplining Minds - Part 2: the roots and ramifications of our culture of hierachy and control
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Tonight we continue our series into the mental conditioning that underlies and perpetuates the type of society we have, one in whih most people are frustrated and depressed- in spite of being repreatedly told that this is the best of all possible worlds.

In a speech given by Professor Noam Chomsky at the University of Illinois in September, he noted the extent to which absurd statements and transparent lies uttered by George Bush and other top officials went largely unchallenged by intellectuals, as well as the media. This highly educated class of people were somehow able to repeat, as well as discuss these farcically false offical claims without even a snicker.

This ability to subordinate one's intelligence and creativity to reflect the values and serve the needs of the small group at the top of the social pyramid is the special skill that marks the professional in our society, according to Jeff Schmidt, who has written an amazing book "Discplined Minds. a critical lok at salaried professionals and the soul battering system that shapes their lives." In our second hour, we begin a series of readings from the book which w'll illuminates the indoctrination that shapes the class of people who are the lynch pin of this society We'll begin the program, though with a look at another vector of social control directed at those at the bottom of the pyramid - the criminal justice system - and the mindset that has made the United States number one in jailing its citizens.

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