Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Gaza, genocide, Human Rights, U.S. Militarism, Violations of U.S. and International Law, War Resister
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A Genocide Foretold: Reporting on Survival and Resistance in Occupied Palestine.
The world looks on in horror as Israel continues its genocidal assault on the Palestinian people. According to Benjamin Netanyahu, “the only inevitable outcome will be the wish of Gazans to emigrate outside of the Gaza Strip,” he told this to lawmakers at a leaked closed-door meeting. “But our main problem is finding countries to take them in.” According to our guest today, Chris Hedges, the Israeli war in Gaza “marks the end of a world where humanitarian law, conventions that protect civilians…matter.”
In a recent piece, Hedges claims that “the genocide in Gaza is part of a pattern. It is the harbinger of genocides to come. It puts to rest the lie of human progress, the myth that we are evolving morally. Only the tools change. Where once we clubbed victims to death, or chopped them to pieces with broadswords, today we drop 2,000-pound bombs on refugee camps, spray families with bullets from militarized drones or pulverize them with tank shells, heavy artillery and missiles.”
Guest – Chris Hedges, the journalist and author spent two decades as a foreign correspondent serving as the Middle East Bureau Chief and Balkan Bureau Chief for The New York Times where he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. He is the author of 14 books including War is a Force That Gives us Meaning, Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt, which he co-wrote with the cartoonist Joe Sacco, and The Death of the Liberal Class. His recent book is A Genocide Foretold: Reporting on Survival and Resistance in Occupied Palestine.
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The MAGA Ideology and the Trump Regime
As V.I. Lenin observed, “There are times in history when nothing happens for decades and other times when decades happen within days” He should know. He was the leader of the Russian revolution which overthrew the feudal Tsar and changed the history of the 20th century. We are living in a time when history is unfolding very rapidly. Trump and his coterie of the upper 1/10 of 1 percent aligned with the mostly lower middle class MAGA movement have taken huge steps upending and overturning the kind of democracy, however, limited by race and class, that we have lived with since gaining independence from England 250 years ago.
We are experiencing the transition to a new absolutist executive. Trump and the ideologues who have shaped his MAGA movement is a president who acts on the premise that whatever he does is lawful. He claimed full power to close down departments like the Department of Education, impound congressionally authorized spending, deport people without due process, while ignoring the courts. This is what he calls “a unitary executive.”
The classic definition of fascism is that it is one of the political forms that capitalism may assume in its monopoly imperial phase. It has a material foundation in a tenuous alliance between sectors of the extremely rich monopoly capitalists and a mobilized lower middle class. The key to fascist rule is the privatization of large parts of the government on behalf of the monopoly class. This ideology now in ensconced in the White House.
The right wing is opposed to environmental governance, they don’t believe in climate change. They are against open borders, universal healthcare, and green energy. Those who advocate for these beneficial movements are called “cultural Marxists.”They refer in a derogatory way to all contemporary progressive political causes. They call it “woke.” They use the term as it means to belittle all social justice struggles against racism and inequality, Its most common usage is as a racist dog whistle.
These fascists want to secure their rule by getting control of the entire cultural apparatus of society, a process that the Nazis, the German fascists of their time,called “bringing it into line.” The current attack on universities is the most recent example.
Guest – John Bellamy Foster is professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Oregon. He is a prominent scholar on ecology and the author of many books, including “Trump in the White House: Tragedy and Farce”. Professor Foster is the editor of the venerable socialist magazine “Monthly Review“ and the author of the article The MAGA Ideology and the Trump Regime in its recent May 2025 issue.
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Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Gaza, genocide, Human Rights, Targeting Muslims, U.S. Militarism, Violations of U.S. and International Law
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Placeless: Homelessness in the New Gilded Age
Homelessness in the USA has reached catastrophic proportions. In New York City alone 125,000 people are homeless. One out of eight children in public school are homeless. Shelters for homeless people are overflowing. Many sleep outside or in the subway system. Their conditions of life have driven many of these people over the edge.The problem is long-standing and quite evident.
There’s a lack of affordable housing. Why? Because building affordable housing is not as profitable as building luxury housing. How realistic is it to get money for affordable housing when the oligarchy in power lacks empathy and only seeks to enrich itself, shift money from the bottom to the top, and poor people have very little political clout in the two party system.
Guest – Patrick Markee is a prominent advocate and policy analyst known for his extensive work on homelessness in New York City. He worked at the Coalition for the Homeless for several decades. Markee’s forthcoming book Placeless: Homelessness in the New Gilded Age pinpoints systemic factors such as economic and equality, housing affordability, and policy decisions that have perpetuated homelessness since the regular administration 40 some years ago.
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Silencing Those Speaking Out Against The US-Israel War In Palestine
All across this country, academic freedom is under severe attack. Why? Well, at colleges and universities, professors and students who dare to speak out in defense of the Palestinian people and condemn Israel’s genocidal war against the Palestinian people, have been censored, disciplined, fired, deported, and arrested. Universities are told who they can hire and what they can teach under the threat of the cut-off of grant money. This is so that, in our ever more authoritarian country, centers of opposition can be brought into line, as they were in Germany. And these attacks on academic freedom are not limited to actions by university administrators, but include those by the federal government, as well.
Visiting scholars, adjuncts and lecturers without tenure have had their contracts terminated, or haven’t been renewed. Some had their classes suddenly cancelled. Faculty members who espouse views contrary to official U.S. policy vis-a-vis the Israeli-U.S. war in Palestine have been criticized in ways that have trampled on their reputations and hurt their careers. As an excuse for this present-day McCarthyism, college and university administrators, and President Trump, often claim their censorious actions are undertaken only on behalf of ensuring their Jewish students feel “safe” on campus and to fight so-called “anti-Semitic speech and actions” on campus. But there is a distinct lack of evidence to support their claimed motivation. In fact, the largest pro-Palestinian actions on campuses are often organized by Jewish groups, such as Jewish Voice for Peace.
We ask our guest Professor Alan Wald about McCarthy-styled witch hunts against academic personnel, and learn how federal law is being misused as a mechanism of political repression against academia. We’ll also discuss the role that controversy over slogans such as those condemning Zionism play in this new attack on academic freedom, and what strategies are best employed today by the opponents of Israel’s war in Gaza against these attacks, as the ever more deadly Israeli-U.S. war in Palestine continues.
Guest – Professor Alan Wald, the H. Chandler Davis Collegiate Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan…which, I might add, is my alma mater. Professor Wald has authored nine books related to today’s topic. He has been a socialist scholar since the 1960’s, and is currently an editor of the journal Against the Current, as well as a member of the editorial board of Science and Society. Professor Wald is also a founder of the University of Michigan’s Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine committee.
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Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Gaza, genocide, Human Rights, War Resister, worker's rights
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Jewish Voice For Peace
As Israel’s expanding genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank continue, with more than 47,000 confirmed deaths and many more unconfirmed killed, the Trump administration continues its unconditional military support of Israel, while waging its own war at home against the movement for Palestinian rights. Trump has intensified his attacks by labeling pro-Palestinian protests as “antisemitic” and using that excuse to cancel student visas, deport pro-Palestinian activists, and revoke federal grants to major universities.
Guest – Professor Barry Trachtenberg serves on the Academic Board of Jewish Voice for Peace and the Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism. He holds the Rubin Presidential Chair of Jewish History at Wake Forest University in North Carolina. He is a historian of modern European and American Jewry, and the author of three books on the Holocaust and the revolutionary roots of modern Yiddish.
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DOGE: Targeted Purge And Deferred Resignation
A growing coalition of lawmakers, labor unions, and community advocates is rallying against what they call an “illegal and anti-democratic” takeover of the federal workforce. Members of the American Federation of Government Employees recently joined Senators and Representatives on the steps of the Office of Personnel Management in Washington. They demanded the removal of Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency—known as DOGE—from federal authority. Their message was clear: DOGE is dismantling merit-based civil service protections under the guise of “efficiency,” threatening thousands of federal workers in the process.
The rally spotlighted the damage already done—more than 175,000 federal workers have been laid off or pressured into “deferred resignation.” Most of those affected, including more than 50,000 veterans, are victims of targeted purges that circumvent due process. Courts have already ruled against DOGE in over 25 cases, though legal battles continue as DOGE seeks expanded access to agency data and systems.
AFGE and its allies argue that DOGE’s agenda is not rooted in actual reform, but in political cronyism. Musk’s directives, which include replacing experienced civil servants with political loyalists and eliminating oversight roles like inspectors general. AFGE President Everett Kelley called DOGE a symbol of “blatant disdain” for the federal workforce in his four decades of union service.
Baltimore People Power Assembly and The Harriet Tubman Center For Social Justice
Guest – Alec Summerfield, is staff counsel of the National VA Council at the American Federation of Government Employees, AFL-CIO. He is also an anti-Zionist Jewish advocate for Palestinian rights. We’ll hear how his background informs his activism and why AFGE’s resistance to DOGE is part of a broader movement to defend democracy and protect public service from authoritarian erosion.
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Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Gaza, genocide, Human Rights, Illegal Immigration, Supreme Court, Targeting Muslims, Violations of U.S. and International Law, War Resister
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Chris Hedges: Trump 2.0
Trump 2.0 is qualitatively different from his first term in office. This time Trump and his allies have brought down a tsunami on us, creating fear and chaos. Tens of thousands of government workers have been fired. Thousands have been deported, some to a torture prison in El Salvador. Due process was ignored. The court orders challenging this have been ignored, as well.
With his extreme tariff measures, Trump has damaged our economy, and it looks like there may be a recession down the road. Trump has promised to use the Army and National Guard to suppress protests. Should there be an act of violence committed by a lone wolf, Trump could use it as an excuse to invoke the Insurrection Act and call out the troops. This is all too reminiscent of what happened in Germany when a lone wolf set fire to the German parliament building. Hitler used this as a pretext for suspending civil rights and civil liberties and outlawing the communist and socialist parties, which were huge at the time.
Moreover, and most importantly, not only politics, but the culture of our country is being changed, as well. The Department of Education has been disbanded. Books are banned. Certain words are forbidden. Universities have come under Trump’s control, starting with Columbia University in New York City The great Kennedy Center, a mecca for U.S. culture, has been taken over by Trump and his Philistine allies.
Chris Hedges, the journalist and author spent two decades as a foreign correspondent serving as the Middle East Bureau Chief and Balkan Bureau Chief for The New York Times where he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. He is the author of 14 books including War is a Force That Gives us Meaning, Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt, which he co-wrote with the cartoonist Joe Sacco, and The Death of the Liberal Class. Chris’ forthcoming book is titled A Genocide Foretold.
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The Great Moral Crime Of Our Time
Israeli -American killing of the Palestinian people living in Gaza is the great moral crime of our time. Gaza is a strip of land 25 miles long and 5 miles wide situated on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea immediately South of Israel. It used to have a population of 2.3 million people and was one of the most densely populated areas on the planet.
The Palestinian people have been murdered by American made bombs dropped on them from American planes and American drones for the last year and a half. A short cease-fire, was recently unilaterally broken by Israel, which resumed the killing in preparation for the removal of the entire population to the Sudan or the Sinai desert in Egypt.
Guest – Philip Weiss is the founder of Mondoweiss, a news and opinion website known for its critical perspective on Zionism and Israeli government policies as well as his support for Palestinian rights. Weiss, a former mainstream journalist, launched Mondoweiss in the mid 2000s as a personal blog before it evolved into a larger platform. His background includes work with publications such as the New York Observer and Esquire magazine. Overtime, Mondoweiss has built a team of contributors and has become a significant voice in progressive circles when it comes to Middle Eastern policies.
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Civil Liberties, genocide, Human Rights
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Radio Documentary – It Was Genocide: Armenian Survivor Stories
Around the world, April 24 marks the observance of the Armenian Genocide. On that day in 1915 the Interior Minister of the Ottoman Empire ordered the arrest and hangings of Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople. It was the beginning of a systematic and well-documented plan to eliminate the Armenians, who were Christian, and who had been under Ottoman rule and treated as second class citizens since the 15th century.
The unspeakable and gruesome nature of the killings—beheadings of groups of babies, dismemberments, mass burnings, mass drownings, use of toxic gas, lethal injections of morphine or injections with the blood of typhoid fever patients—render oral histories particularly difficult for survivors of the victims.
Why did this happen? Despite being deemed inferior to Turkish Muslims, the Armenian community had attained a prestigious position in the Ottoman Empire and the central authorities there grew apprehensive of their power and longing for a homeland. The concerted plan of deportation and extermination was effected, in large part, because World War I demanded the involvement and concern of potential allied countries. As the writer Grigoris Balakian wrote, the war provided the Turkish government “their sole opportunity, one unprecedented” to exploit the chaos of war in order to carry out their extermination plan.
As Armenians escaped to several countries, including the United States, a number came to New Britain, Connecticut in 1892 to work in the factories of what was then known as the hardware capital of the world. By 1940 nearly 3,000 Armenians lived there in a tight-knit community.
Pope Frances calls it a duty not to forget “the senseless slaughter” of an estimated one and a half million Armenians by the Ottoman Turks from 1915 to 1923. “Concealing or denying evil is like allowing a wound to keep bleeding without bandaging it,” the Pope said just two weeks before the 100th anniversary of the systematic implementation of a plan to exterminate the Armenian race.
Special thanks to Jennie Garabedian, Arthur Sheverdian, Ruth Swisher, Harry Mazadoorian, and Roxie Maljanian. Produced and written by Heidi Boghosian and Geoff Brady.
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Investigating Armenian-American Debanking Trend
The greater Los Angeles area is home to the largest Armenian population outside of Armenia—estimated at over 200,000 people. For years, that community has faced instances of racism and discrimination, including a rise in anti-Armenian racism, known as “Armenophobia.”
In 2022, leaked audio recordings revealed derogatory remarks by Los Angeles City Council members about Armenians, reflecting underlying biases within political institutions.
Recently, the Armenian Bar Association has launched an investigation into alleged discriminatory practices by banks in the Los Angeles area, where Armenian-American individuals and businesses have reported abrupt and unexplained closures of their bank accounts. These closures raise alarms about potential ethnic or national origin-based profiling, particularly considering ongoing geopolitical tensions in the South Caucasus.
This troubling trend comes at a time when the U.S. government is considering a major financial arrangement with Azerbaijan. The Armenian Bar Association has issued a formal objection to a proposed $100 million loan or financial guarantee to Azerbaijan under the authority of the Export-Import Bank Act of 1945. The Bar Association argues that such financial support would not only contradict U.S. human rights values but could also embolden a regime with a well-documented history of aggression against Armenia and the indigenous Armenians of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh), many of whom have recently been displaced.
The Bar Association’s efforts reflect broader concerns about the security and civil rights of Armenian-Americans at home, as well as U.S. foreign policy decisions that may have far-reaching consequences abroad. [email protected]
Guest – Alex Hrag Bastian, a member of the ABA’s Board of Governors and Chair of its Armenian Rights Watch Committee.
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Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Gaza, genocide, Human Rights, Right To Dissent, Targeting Muslims, U.S. Militarism, War Resister, worker's rights
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Oligarchs and Billionaires Reshape Economic-Political Landscape
We’re living at a time of profound changes in the institutions that previously governed our society. One hundred years ago V.I Lenin, the leader of the Russian Revolution, observed that sometimes nothing changes for decades and at other times decades-long changes occur within several days.
This is what is happening now in America as the old institutions, the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, the universities, the media, the government, including Congress, governmental agencies, the elite law firms, educational institutions and most recently long-standing tariff policy are being reconfigured as instruments of authoritarian rule.
More than 800 billionaires form the upper crust in America. Three people alone own as much as the entire bottom, half of the population. Democracy, the rule of the people, however aspirational, no longer prevails. We have become an oligarchy, a majority of our people ruled by a relative handful. Our institutions have rapidly changed to reflect this new reality.
We are governed by an amoral man who’s only interest is in power and money, which is another form of power.
Guest – Professor Henry A. Giroux, author of many books and articles, including most recently a piece in Counterpunch titled Abducting Bodies, Silencing Dissent : Mamoud Kailil and the Rise of State Terrorism. Professor Giroux currently holds the McMaster University Chair for Scholarship in the Public Interest in the English and Cultural Studies department and is the Pablo Frère, Distinguished Scholar in Creative Pedagogy. Henry Giroux has authored many books, most recently with Anthony DiMaggio, titled, Fascism on Trial: Education, and the Possibility of Democracy.
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Critical Media Update: War Made Invisible
With respect to the Israeli/U.S. war in Gaza, peace talks limp along; Israel has accelerated its war in Gaza and the West Bank; and recent remarks by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and president Donald Trump, make it clear that both countries intend, if they can do it, to ethnically cleanse all of the Palestinian people from Palestine, thereby bringing about the expected end result of their genocidal war on the Palestinian people.
Meanwhile here in the United States, President Trump has seized upon the claim of rampant anti-Semitism on our nation’s college and university campuses to deport non-U.S. citizen leaders in the movement on the campuses in support of the Palestinian side in the war, and to withhold tens of millions of dollars from the campuses until they eliminate the “anti-Semitic atmosphere on our campuses.” And, according to our guest today, press reporting in the mainstream media on the war has been less than clear and balanced.
Guest – Norman Solomon is the co-founder of RootsAction.org and Executive Director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, and is, in fact, the author or co-author, of 12 books, most touching on today’s topic in either close or tangential ways. His books include War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death. The paperback edition of his latest book, “War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine,” includes an afterword about the Gaza war.
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