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AlternativeRadio

David Barsamian

Alternative Radio is an "unembedded" weekly one-hour public affairs program offered free to all public radio stations in the US, Canada, Europe, South Africa, Australia, and on short-wave on Radio for Peace International. AR provides information, analyses and views that are frequently ignored or distorted in other media. Visit alternativeradio.org for the complete catalog.

news & politics non-profit

All Episodes

56:59

[Brian Toon] Dinosaurs, Extinctions & Nuclear War

AlternativeRadio ·

2025/10/16

Millions of years ago, a huge asteroid hit what is now the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. The global forests and grasslands burned. The smoke from the resulting fires marks one of the greatest extinctions in Earth’s history, including not just dinosaurs but also fish, plankton, ammonites, and plants. A decade-long Ice Age ensued. A war with just a few of the world’s thousands of nuclear weapons targeted on densely populated cities could plunge Earth into the same types of conditions that the dinosaurs

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57:01

[Robin D. G. Kelley] Colonialism, Capitalism & Fascism

AlternativeRadio ·

2025/10/09

The era of traditional colonialism, with a few exceptions, is over. But it continues in new shapes and forms to have a profound influence on former colonies all over the world. We are in the age of what may be called neo-colonialism, where former colonies are simultaneously independent and dependent. Neocolonialism is a more insidious form of imperialism in which more powerful countries keep developing nations in a state of economic dependence. This dependent relationship is seen primarily in

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57:01

[Richard Seymour] Resentment Politics

AlternativeRadio ·

2025/09/25

There is a class in this country that reeks of obscene wealth. From mansions in Beverly Hills and the Hamptons, they fly around in their private jets and sail the seas in their luxury yachts. Left behind are countless millions who are subjected to austerity programs and lectures about hard work. The rise, not just in the U.S., but globally, of right-wing politics is fueled by economic inequality. Goebbels was Hitler’s minister of propaganda. He always insisted that it was a mistake to rely on logic

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57:01

[Jesse Hagopian] The War on Education

AlternativeRadio ·

2025/09/18

The right-wing war on education is well-documented. The battleground extends from elementary and middle school all the way up to Harvard and Columbia. Books have been cut from curricula and pulled from school library shelves. Teachers have been fired. Schools that teach critical race theory and diversity, equity, and inclusion are being threatened with defunding. The radical right wants to control what is being taught. They want to turn the educational system into an indoctrination machine. Their

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57:02

[Robert Buzzanco] Vietnam Then, Palestine Now

AlternativeRadio ·

2025/09/11

Separated by decades, the U.S. war in Vietnam and the Israeli war in Gaza are very different. Vietnam had support from China and the Soviet Union. The Palestinians have no allies. The sheer scale of the U.S. assault on not only Vietnam but Cambodia and Laos as well immeasurably dwarfs the death toll Israel is exacting in Gaza. In both wars, there was massive use of airpower. It didn’t work in Vietnam, and it’s not working in Gaza. On the home front, it took years for people to protest the U.S. war

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57:01

[Bill Moyers] In Defense of Public Broadcasting

AlternativeRadio ·

2025/08/28

The founding principles of public broadcasting urged that programming serve as “a forum for debate and controversy” and “provide a voice for groups that may otherwise be unheard.” Ever since its inception, public broadcasting in the U.S. has been a lightning rod for political attack. The Nixon administration was the first to launch the canard that the system was biased in favor of liberals. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, CPB, partially funds public TV and radio stations. In mid-July 2025,

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57:01

[Azad Essa] India-Israel Alliance

AlternativeRadio ·

2025/08/21

Today, India and Israel have forged an alliance. It wasn’t always that way. India became independent in 1947. Its first prime minister, Nehru, positioned his country as a champion of the Palestinian cause. As the leader of the non-aligned movement, India’s stance on Palestine had great influence among other post-colonial nations. In the 1990s, that shifted. India moved into the U.S. orbit and embraced neoliberalism. And at the same time, it moved closer to Israel. It was said if India wanted to be

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57:01

[Amy Goodman] The Power of Community Media

AlternativeRadio ·

2025/08/14

In a time of polarized politics, independent community media plays an increasingly important role. Big media are owned and controlled by large corporations. Their salient interest? To make as much profit as possible for their shareholders. That is its political economy. Given that acute limitation, it makes it difficult for most people to get information that challenges mainstream perspectives. By featuring diverse voices and views that are largely excluded, community-based media provide an

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57:00

[Bill Moyers] Media Reform

AlternativeRadio ·

2025/07/31

A vibrant media is the oxygen of a living democracy. When the media are dominated by a handful of big corporations, citizens of a democracy are on a respirator gasping for air. James Madison, founding father, understood this well when he said, "A popular government without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but the prologue to a farce or a tragedy or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the

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57:01

[Stephen Kinzer] Iran: The 1953 American Coup

AlternativeRadio ·

2025/07/17

Regime change started long ago. The new version is just a change of clothes. Dwight Eisenhower was president when the U.S. overthrew the popular democratic government of Mohammad Mossadegh in Iran in 1953. What was Mossadegh’s transgression? He wanted Iran’s oil to benefit the Iranian people. The coup brought the Shah back from exile and installed him in power. What ensued was 25 years of tyranny and repression culminating in Ayatollah Khomeini’s Islamic Revolution. The Iran coup was a pivotal event

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57:01

[Nubar Hovsepian] Edward Said: An Oppositional...

AlternativeRadio ·

2025/06/26

From on high, establishment intellectuals replicate dominant societal narratives, power structures, and established norms. And as long as they perform that task, they are honored, and celebrated and are invited to all the talk shows, and attend dinner parties of the rich and powerful, and get to play golf with them and they are, of course, well rewarded financially. In sharp contrast are intellectuals who go against the grain, who rock the boat, who challenge the existing order, who contest the

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57:02

[Vijay Prashad] Is the Nakba Permanent?

AlternativeRadio ·

2025/06/19

Nakba is Arabic for the 1948 catastrophe. where 750,000 Palestinians were forcibly expelled and driven from their ancestral homes and lands. Today, 77 years later, the Nakba continues. This time, aided and abetted by the U.S., Israel declares it has "the most moral army in the world, which does everything to avoid harming non-combatants.” Watch Al Jazeera or read the reports from Amnesty International, B’Tselem or Gush Shalom and other human rights organizations to verify the Israeli claim.

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57:01

[Claudia de la Cruz] Imagining a New World

AlternativeRadio ·

2025/06/12

Authoritarianism can't happen here, you say. Look around. Open your eyes. No one is safe. Dissent is being criminalized. People are being arrested without due process. When Trump was asked if it was his job to uphold the Constitution, he said, "I don't know." Claudia de la Cruz says, “Trump and his cabinet full of billionaires are waging an all-out war on our communities. From slashing thousands of jobs to massively defunding critical programs that many working-class people rely on to survive. At

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57:00

[Winona LaDuke] Rights of Nature: An Indigenous View

AlternativeRadio ·

2025/06/05

Indigenous peoples often see themselves as an integral part of nature, not separate from it, and recognize the interconnectedness of all living beings and nature. Indigenous perspectives on the rights of nature emphasize a deep spiritual bond with the natural world, viewing it as a sacred entity and an essential part of their cultural and social fabric. Many Indigenous cultures believe that nature has inherent rights and that humans have responsibilities to respect, protect and maintain the health

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57:01

[Robin D. G. Kelley] Solidarity & Black Resistance to...

AlternativeRadio ·

2025/05/29

Langston Hughes, the great African American poet, said decades ago, “Fascism is a new name for that kind of terror the Negro has always faced in America.” Fascism can and has led to genocide. Progressive African American intellectuals, writers, poets, and musicians have had a long tradition and history of solidarity and resisting fascism and genocide, from Frederick Douglass to Gil Scott-Heron, from Sojourner Truth to Angela Davis, from W.E.B. Du Bois to John Lewis, from Paul Robeson to Amiri

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57:00

[Heather Cox Richardson] Cowboy Authoritarianism in...

AlternativeRadio ·

2025/05/22

We are at an inflection point. A chill is sweeping the country. We ignore it at our peril. The warning signs are everywhere. Alaska GOP Senator Lisa Murkowski says, “We are all afraid.” Massachusetts Democratic Governor Maura Healey says, “The fear is real.” New York Times columnist Masha Gessen writes, “America’s Police State Has Arrived.” A Columbia University dean told students, “Nobody can protect you. These are dangerous times.” Conservative PBS commentator David Brooks calls for “a civic

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57:02

[Khatchig Mouradian] Houshamadyan: Armenian Memory Books

AlternativeRadio ·

2025/05/15

April 24th marks the 110th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. I grew up in the 1950s in New York in the shadow of that tragedy. I was surrounded by survivors named Garabedian, Giragosian, Hagopian and others who always spoke fondly of “yergeer,” the country they were forced to abandon. My mother, Araxie, was from Dubneh, a village near Diyarbakir, and my father, Bedros, was from Nbishi, a village near Palu in what is now Eastern Turkey. Their memories, and those of others from the “old” country,

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57:01

[Robert McChesney] Capitalism in the Age of Digital...

AlternativeRadio ·

2025/05/08

Monopoly isn’t just a board game it is the animating dynamic of our economic system. Really existing capitalism, which relies heavily on taxpayer support, embodies a near genetic drive to consolidate, to dominate and ultimately to eliminate competition. This leaves people with fewer choices and higher prices, exactly the outcome desired by the monopolists. Democracy, particularly in the U.S., has largely morphed into an oligarchy run by and for plutocrats. As corporate control of media increases and

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57:00

[Richard Forer] Israel, the U.S. & Palestine

AlternativeRadio ·

2025/05/01

Noam Chomsky calls the Israel, U.S., and Palestine relationship a “Fateful Triangle.” He says,“ In no other region of the world are the problems so likely to lead to devastating regional conflict.” He adds, those problems “have only been aggravated by the irrationality and intolerance that has dominated discussion in the U.S. It will be unfortunate if this state of affairs persists,” he warns. Alas, Chomsky wrote those words more than 50 years ago. The U.S. has given Israel hundreds of billions in

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57:00

[Maria López-Nuñez] Environmental Justice

AlternativeRadio ·

2025/04/24

Parts of the U.S. are an eco-disaster, a sacrifice zone. Take Newark, NJ. If you travel down a one-mile stretch of Doremus Avenue in Newark you pass a natural gas plant next to a sewage treatment facility next to an animal fat rendering plant next to a series of ominous-looking chemical storage containers behind acres of fencing. Airplanes pass overhead every two minutes, their engines rattling windows, while a putrid smell wafts from the open pools at the sewage treatment plant. Nationally, where

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66 results

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