Background Briefing has a new home at BackgroundBriefing.org.
Please visit and bookmark the new site. You can search show archives here.
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:
April 7 - North Korea has Learned from what Happened to Qaddafi and Saddam; Is Obama Well-Served by the "Liberal Hawks" who Surround Him?; Plan B and the Renewed War on Abortion
|
|
LISTEN TO FULL PROGRAM | |
|
|
We begin with the looming crisis in Korea between the world’s overwhelmingly nuclear-armed military superpower, the United States, and a delusional failed state that may or may not have a few deployable nuclear weapons, North Korea. With Secretary of State John Kerry’s warning to Pyongyang that the U.S. will not accept North Korea as a nuclear state, a veteran CIA operation officer Robert Baer joins us to look into the minds of North Korea’s leaders who have seen Qaddafi give up his nukes and loose his life and Saddam gave up his WMD only to have his country invaded in search of them. Robert Baer has an article at Time.com “North Korea’s Qaddafi Nightmare”. |
 |
|
|
Then we assess what kind of advice the President is getting from his National Security and Foreign Policy team that is largely comprised of Democratic “liberal hawks” all of whom, except Obama, supported the Iraq war. Roger Morris, who served on the senior staff of the National Security Council under both Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, joins us to discuss the imperial preening as the White House appears to be overcompensating in their reaction to the saber-rattling of a boy tyrant they refuse to speak with. |
 |
|
|
Then finally we examine Friday’s Federal Court ruling allowing greater access to the Plan B so-called morning-after pill, while moving in the opposite direction, there appears to be a renewed war on abortion across the country as North Dakota, Arkansas, Mississippi and Kansas pass laws banning and restricting abortions in defiance of Roe v Wade. Sharon Levin, the Director of Federal Reproductive Health Policy at the National Women’s Law Center joins us to discuss the state of reproductive freedom in America. |
 |
Tags:
April 4 - Exposing the Owners of Fortunes Hidden Offshore; China's Stupendously Corrupt Communist Party; Germany's Economy Slows to "Near Stagnation"
|
|
LISTEN TO FULL PROGRAM | |
|
|
We begin with the expose of a cache, 160 times larger than the Wikileaks State Department document dump, of 2.5 million files that were cracked open by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, exposing the secrets behind more than 120,000 off-shore companies and trusts that hide the fortunes and identities of politicians, ruling families, Wall Street swindlers, arms dealers and the global mega-rich. Gerald Ryle, the lead author of the ICIJ’s report “Secrecy for Sale: Inside the Global Offshore Money Maze”, joins us.
|
 |
|
|
Then we look into the staggering corruption inside and at the top of the Chinese Communist Party which exercises one-party absolute rule over a country in which less than half of one percent of Chinese families own 70% of the wealth and where the top seventy members of the National People’s Congress are worth $89.8 billion. Peter Kwong, Professor of Asian American Studies at Hunter College, who studies modern Chinese politics, joins us. He has an article at The Nation “Why China’s Corruption Won’t Stop”. |
 |
|
|
Then finally, with a report out today showing Germany’s economy has slowed to “near stagnation”, we assess the implications of the Eurozone’s deepening recession on the engine of the Euro, Germany. Thomas Kleine-Brockoff, a senior Transatlantic Fellow at the German Marshall Fund and a member of the German Council on Foreign Relations joins us to discuss Europe’s growing North/South - creditor/debtor split and increasing concerns over the region’s debt crisis and political instability. |
 |
Tags:
RSS Latest Radio Programs
Pacifica App