Greatest Hits Archives — Page 28 of 160 — Alternative Radio

History & Politics: Zigs & Zags
Vijay Prashad
History and politics are replete with zigs and zags into all kinds of unexpected directions. Take for example, the Shah of Iran. He looked impregnable on his throne until he was toppled by massive street demonstrations. Who could have predicted that the suicide of a street vendor in a small town in Tunisia would lead […]
Intellectuals, Ideology & the State
Eqbal Ahmad
What role do intellectuals play in society? Are they apparatchiks, yes men and women or do they challenge the half-truths, mendacities and fabrications of the rich and powerful? Noam Chomsky explored these themes in his famous essay, “The Responsibility of Intellectuals.” published in The New York Review of Books during the height of U.S. aggression in Indochina. […]
History Textbooks: Facts or Fiction?
James Loewen
There’s a famous quote in George Orwell’s 1984: “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” Orwell understood how important knowledge of history is and how it can be manipulated by the powerful to serve their interests. If the past disappears down the memory hole society is at risk. […]
A Global Warning
Tom Hayden
The winds of political change blow from all directions. For many decades they’ve blown hardest from the Right – a corporate-friendly, conservative agenda involving endless war and military spending and an evisceration of the public sector regardless of its impact on civil society and the environment. But some radical voices are saying, “Something is in […]
Social Murder & Covid-19
Stephen Bezruchka
The concept of social murder was introduced in the mid-19th century. The German philosopher Friedrich Engels coined the phrase in describing the political and social power held by ruling elites over laborers in England. Engels wrote about poor workers dying prematurely. Today, during the current pandemic, the term has been revived. The British Medical Journal […]
Capitalism, the Pandemic & the Two-Party Monopoly
Kali Akuno, Richard Wolff
The pandemic has revealed a huge systemic failure in the ability of the U.S. to effectively attend to the well-being of millions of its citizens. World-class inequality has exacerbated the situation. You don’t need a degree from MIT to figure out the score. The rich get the gold and most of the rest of us […]
Palestine: The Pendulum Is Shifting
Ilan Pappé
For decades in political discourse and popular culture, Palestinians were often typecast as bloodthirsty killers. As the great Palestinian-American scholar Edward Said once ruefully observed, “Palestine is a thankless cause, one in which if you truly serve, you get nothing back but opprobrium, abuse, and ostracism. How many friends avoid the subject? How many colleagues […]
The Armenian Holocaust
Araxie Barsamian, Robert Fisk
In 1915, the Turkish government launched a premeditated organized campaign to eliminate the millennia-old Armenian people from their traditional homeland in what is now southeastern Turkey. The Turkish officials responsible for the genocide were never brought to account. This was not lost on Adolf Hitler. Just days before launching World War Two he told his […]
Genocide & Settler Colonialism
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortíz
Genocide is the most heinous of crimes and it connects to settler colonialism. Historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz says, “Settler colonialism requires genocidal violence to attain its goal” of acquiring land. In North America and elsewhere this meant the Indigenous population was targeted for mass murder. North America’s huge landmass and resources drove the policy. In Germany, […]
Is War Ever Justifiable?
David Swanson, Pete Kilner
In 1970, at the height of the U.S. wars in Indochina Edwin Starr came out with his classic song: “War.” In it he asks, “War, what is good for?” And he answers: “Absolutely nothing.” Well, for the giant weapons manufacturing corporations, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, General Dynamics and all the rest, war pays […]
Resisting Fascism
Jason Stanley, Andy Zee
As a political ideology, fascism developed in Mussolini’s Italy, a century ago. At its core, fascism conjures up a mythic past. There is nostalgia for a so-called purer time. Its advocates deploy a raw appeal to nationalism. Opponents are demonized. Politicians spew racist dog whistles. Minorities are scapegoated. Fascists use fear, one of the most […]
Afghanistan, China & the Decline of U.S. Power
Tariq Ali
The ignominious debacle in Afghanistan was predictable and predicted. Afghans, like most people, don’t appreciate foreign invaders occupying their country. Just ask the British and the Russians. But the U.S., in its imperial hubris, thought it was different. It would nation-build in Afghanistan and bring democracy to that land. Meanwhile, China is watching the U.S. […]

x

Top