Background Briefing has a new home at BackgroundBriefing.org.
Please visit and bookmark the new site. You can search show archives here.
2013 Program Archive
April 14 - "Accompanying", not Observing the Venezuelan Elections; Antonio Gonzales Reports From Venezuela; Is Diplomacy Replacing Bluster in the Korea Crisis?
|
|
LISTEN TO FULL PROGRAM | |
|
|
We begin and go to Caracas, Venezuela for an overview of today’s presidential election from Jennifer McCoy, the Director of the Carter Center’s Americas Program, who previously monitored and observed elections in Venezuela, but under the new rules for this election, is “accompanying” the election. With Hugo Chavez’s hand-picked successor Nicholas Maduro comfortably ahead of Henrique Capriles in the polls, we get a sense of how the election, described by many as “free but unfair”, is proceeding. |
 |
|
|
Then we get a political analysis from the ground in Venezuela from Antonio Gonzales the President of the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project who hosts a weekly radio show here at KPFK, the “Strategy Session”. We discuss today’s voting and its likely outcome and get a flavor of the politics in this highly polarized country that recently experienced the death of its popular leader after 14 years of his Bolivarian Revolutionary rule. |
 |
|
|
Then finally we look into the latest developments in the Korean crisis that many expect will be inflamed further on the 101st anniversary the birth of the founder of North Korea Kim Il Song which falls on Monday April 15th, which is Sunday April 14 in the U.S. Paul Carrol, the Program Director at the Ploughshares Fund, which is dedicated to reducing the risk of nuclear conflict, joins us. We discuss Secretary of State John Kerry’s call for dialogue with the North while warning Pyongyang it risks further isolation if threats continue. |
 |
Tags:
April 11 - How Dictators Co-Opt Democracy; What the Saudis Want in Syria After Assad; “How the 99 Percent Live in the Great Recession”
|
|
LISTEN TO FULL PROGRAM | |
|
|
With the Venezuelan elections underway this Sunday, we begin with an analysis of how elected autocrats like Hugo Chavez and Vladimir Putin are able to use the tools and outward appearance of Democracy to install permanent power and rule. William Dobson, the politics and foreign affairs editor of Slate and the former editor of Foreign Policy joins us to discuss his latest book “The Dictator’s Learning Curve: Inside the Global Battle for Democracy”. |
 |
|
|
Then we examine the duplicity of our Saudi allies who are sending Salfist jihadists to Syria with the intention of toppling the Assad dictatorship and replacing it with a reactionary Islamic theocracy. Dr. Ali Alyami, the founder and director of the Center for Democracy and Human Rights in Saudi Arabia joins us to discuss the divergent interests of Saudi Arabia and the U.S. in supporting the Syrian rebels and how our foreign policy establishment have not seemed to notice that the Saudis nurtured the Taliban and Al Qaeda and are radicalizing Pakistan, to the detriment of the United States. |
 |
|
|
Then finally we speak with Barbara Garson, the author of a new book “Down the Up Escalator: How the 99 Percent Live in the Great Recession”. We discuss the resilience of the American people in the face of the shameful fact that in America the rich are getting richer and the poor, poorer, and assess the state of economic justice and social responsibility as more of our citizens lose their homes and jobs to predatory banks and vulture capitalism. |
 |
Tags:
April 10 - An FCC Commissioner Speaks Out; Holding on to What has Not Been Corporatized and Commodified; Monsanto’s War Against Research into the Effects of GMOs
|
|
LISTEN TO FULL PROGRAM | |
|
|
With the criminally disgraced media baron Rupert Murdoch threatening to buy the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune, we begin with an analysis of the media landscape from former FCC commissioner Michael Copps, the only dissenting voice on the FCC who opposed recent media mega-mergers. We discuss his article at The Nation “The New Telecom Oligarchs” and what citizens can do to hold onto the electronic commons and the free flow of information on the Internet. |
 |
|
|
Then we speak with Peter Barnes an entrepreneur and writer who started several successful businesses, including Working Assets, now Credo. He is the editor of a new book which the late Jonathan Rowe wrote, “Our Common Wealth: The Hidden Economy that Makes Everything Else Work” and we discuss the endangered commons; the air, water, wildlife and wilderness that are being increasingly corporatized and commodified and explore ways citizens can hold onto what we have left and create a balance between the commons and profit-driven capitalism. |
 |
|
|
Then finally we look further into the so-called “Monsanto Protection Act”, a rider in a must-pass continuing resolution that exempted the agricultural giant and manufacturer of “Agent Orange” from liability and lawsuits. Stephan Schwartz, a Senior Fellow at the Samueli Institute joins us. He as an article at Explore: The Journal of Science and Healing “The Great Experiment: Genetically Modified Organisms, Scientific Integrity, and National Wellness” and we discuss the suppression of research on lab rats fed with GMO grain that has resulted in tumors and infertility. |
 |
Tags:
April 9 - North Korea Ratchets Up Threats of War; Will the Congress Act on Gun Safety?; Progressive Backlash to the Chained CPI
|
|
LISTEN TO FULL PROGRAM | |
|
|
We begin with what could be bluster or a real threat from North Korea who warned today that foreigners should evacuate the South for their own security. Kyung Moon Hwang, a professor of history at the University of Southern California and author of “A History of Korea” joins us to discuss whether bellicose rhetoric could be matched by belligerent acts as the threats of war coming from the North continue to escalate. |
 |
|
|
Then we examine what gun control bill before the Senate is likely to proceed to a vote as both President Obama and Majority Leader Harry Reid made impassioned pleas to Republican to allow for a vote and give up on their filibuster threats. Joshua Horwitz, the Executive Director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence and the author of “Guns, Democracy and the Insurrectionist Idea” joins us to discuss whether s omething positive will happen in this critical week for gun safety. |
 |
|
|
Then finally we speak with Eric Kingson, the founding co-director of Social Security Works and the co-chair of the Strengthen Social Security Coalition, about the petition of 2.3 million signatures that his organization and Democracy for America handed over to the White House today. We discuss the objections progressives have to the chained CPI adjustment to Social Security payments that the president is apparently offering up in his budget, even though the Republicans seem prepared to dismiss it out of hand. |
 |
Tags:
April 8 - Margaret Thatcher's Ideology Lives on; The Hapless American Jihadist Duped by the FBI; "How Conservatives Still Run America, Despite Losing Elections"
|
|
LISTEN TO FULL PROGRAM | |
|
|
We begin with the death today of former British Prime Minister Margret Thatcher and analyze her influence in championing an ideology based on individual liberty and market-based reforms that has come to dominate Anglo-American policy debates today. Historian Daniel Stedman Jones, the author of “Masters of the Universe: Hayek, Friedman, and the Birth of Neoliberal Politics” joins us. |
 |
|
|
Then we examine the case of the American jihadist who fought with the Syrian rebels, Eric Harroun, who today appeared in Federal Court charged with conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction outside the United States. Robert Young Pelton, the publisher of Dangerous Magazine, who interviewed Harroun before his arrest by the FBI, joins us to discuss the strange story of a hard-drinking, womanizing American Army vet accused of consorting with Islamic fundamentalist Al Qaeda terrorists. Pelton has an article at Foreign Policy “A Weapon of Minor Destruction: How Eric Harroun, the American jihadist in Syria, was duped by the FBI into incriminating himself”. |
 |
|
|
Then finally we speak with Amatai Etzioni, the Director of the Institute for Communitarian Policy Studies at George Washington University about his article at Salon.com “How Conservatives Still Run America, Despite Losing Elections”. We explore why the majority Democrats allow themselves to be bullied by the minority Republicans into compromising or caving. And the key role that conservative Democrats play in more often than not, joining Republicans in a majority conservative coalition. |
 |
Tags:
RSS Latest Radio Programs
Pacifica App