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Barry C. Lynn of New America Foundation talks about his cover story in February Harper’s; Prof. Hagopian offers detailed hystory of Syria and her views on the civil war.  Lynn’s article is Killing the Competition: How the New Monopolies Are Destroying Open Markets.  From Silicon Valley to West Virginia poultry farmers to micro-brewers, Lynn sees the impact of consolidation–monopolies that dominate workers and consumers in ways that exceed the level of control the “robber barons” had a century ago.

At 35:30, Hagopian talks about the recent history of Syria, its strategic value, and how the US isolated Syria during the Bush years, while it served as a torture destination for rendition victims.  She talks about the different religious factions, and how they interact in the current challenge to the Bashir Assad government.  We also talk about US policy, and how the humanitarian hawks in the Obama administration called for intervention in Lybia, but not Syria.  Lots of helpful background information and analysis you won’t find in the corporate media, or FCM (Fawning Corporate Media), as Ray McGovern calls it.

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Here’s a fascinating look at the changes in the middle east with Dr. James Petra, a Boiling Frogs interview co-hosted with Sibel Edmonds 

Dr. James Petras joins us to discuss the changing contemporary context of imperial domination, the demise of longstanding client regimes, and the previous significant ties between western imperial powers and Islamist movements and regimes, and how, faced with the ouster of Mubarak, in Egypt, Ali in Tunisia and Saleh in Yemen, mass protests in Morocco and Algeria, the US-EU have now turned to conservative Muslim leaders who are willing to work within the existing state institutional framework, uphold the capitalist order and align with the empire against anti-imperial movements and states. He shares with us his evaluation of the ‘Moderately Islamic’ Government of Turkey as an example of Israel-approved US-EU alignment against democratic and anti-imperial movements. Dr. Petras talks about the western-led operations and regime change in Libya, Syria as a collateral damage and more!

Professor James Petras is the author of more than 62 books published in 29 languages, and over 600 articles in professional journals, including the American Sociological Review, British Journal of Sociology, Social Research, and Journal of Peasant Studies. He has a long history of commitment to social justice, working in particular with the Brazilian Landless Workers Movement for 11 years. He writes a monthly column for the Mexican newspaper, La Jornada, and previously, for the Spanish daily, El Mundo. Dr. Petras received his B.A. from Boston University and Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley. You can visit his website here.

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Heather Estes, CEO of Planned Parenthood Shasta/Pacific, talks about Komen Foundation’s move to cut off grant money; Richard Forer, an American Jew, talks about Breakthrough: Transforming Fear Into Compassion.  Susan G. Komen Foundation announces cutoff of $700,000 annual grant to Planned Parenthood, which PBC sees as part of an orchestrated assault on abortion rights , contraception and other women’s health services.  Estes comments on the news, as some local Komen affiliates say they will continue to partner with Planned Parenthood and many Komen donors say they will donate to Planned Parenthood instead.  We talk about Indiana, which has cut off all funding to Planned Parenthood, including birth control, STD prevention and cancer screening–the Right is punishing all women as it uses underhanded tactics to try to ban abortion.  As Estes points out, only 2% of Planned Parenthood’s work is abortion-related.

At 20:20, Forer joins us to talk about Israel, Palestine, and US policy.  He was an AIPAC member and staunch supporter of Israel who re-thought after the Israeli assault on Lebanon in 2006 and the attack on Gaza in 2008.  Forer clearly loves Israel, and is pained by its hard-line policies toward the Palestinians.  He is trying to open the minds of other Jews, but notes how implacable many are–and quick to label critics of Israel’s policies as anti-Semitic.  We talk about a range of issues, like settlements and the Gaza blockade, and the recent claim by Israel that all settlements are off the negotiating table.

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In a wide ranging conversation co-hosted with Sibel Edmonds, reporter Rick Rozoff informs us about NATO, its “mission” and alliance with the US.  Investigative journalist and NATO expert Rick Rozoff joins us to discuss the eighteen-year-old project of Zbigniew Brzezinski, Paul Wolfowitz and their cabal to destroy the post-Soviet Commonwealth of Independent States and create a chain of buffer states around Russia, enclosing it with NATO member states and partners. He provides us with analyses and implications of the invasion of Afghanistan by the U.S. and NATO, and the duo’s expansion into Central Asia where Russian, Chinese and Iranian interests converge.  Rozoff talks about the Central Asia chessboard and how the region may be transformed into a battleground of conflicting 21st century geopolitical interests, the role of Islamic extremism and how it is used by the West on this grand chess board, Mujahideen and Al Qaeda’s partnership with US-NATO in the Balkans, Caucasus and Central Asia operations, the real mission of Afghanistan’s NATO-trained 7,000 troops as guardians of the oil and gas pipeline connecting Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India- the TAPI pipeline & more!

Rick Rozoff is an investigative journalist based in Chicago and has been an active opponent of war, militarism and intervention for over 40 years. He manages the Stop NATO e-mail list , and is the editor of Stop NATO, a website on the threat of international militarization, especially on the globalization of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Mr. Rozoff has a graduate degree in European literature.

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Ray McGovern, 27-year intelligence veteran, slams New York Times for its coverage of Iran;  Nancy Talanian, founder of No More Guantanamos, talks about Obama’s failed promise to close Gitmo.   McGovern, who has a new website, talks about his article at ConsortiumNews regarding the clear contradiction between the US/Israeli intelligence estimates about Iran’s nuclear program, and the hysterical coverage of the New York Times.  McGovern compares it to the pre-2003 coverage of Iraq and its mythical WMD.  He dismisses the meme that “we cannot allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon”, and details the Times’ faulty reporting.  He has some great stories about  a recent Times event in honor of the Pentagon Papers, and how he taught basic journalism to Anderson Cooper after his Q and A with Rumsfeld in Atlanta.  He also comments on the prosecution of former CIA officer John Kiriakou and offers strong criticism of the new NDAA, which could be used against him or your humble host.

At 45:46, Nancy Talanian joins us.  She’s the founder of No More Guantanamos, and is working to close the camp and end rendition and torture.  We talk about Obama’s failure to close Gitmo (and, as predicted, he made no mention of it in the State of the Union speech) and the general denial and passivity on the part of most Americans.  We also talk about the prison at Bagram in Afghanistan, and the call of the Karzai government to turn the prison to local control and release those who have not been charged or convicted.  We talk about the British citizen still held, Shaaker Amer and the “dryboarding” that may have caused the unexplained deaths of 3 prisoners in 2006.  Her website is here.

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Richard Moore offers a reality check in this Boiling Frogs interview, co-hosted with Sibel Edmonds.  Inspect the expanded coverage at Boiling Frogs Post.Moore shares with us his unique perspective on the working of the political world at the highest levels, the matrix of a fabricated collective illusion, how this matrix of unreality is formed for us, and his proposals for escaping it. He discusses consensus reality, as generated by official rhetoric and amplified by mass media, and how this perspective on the political process, and on the roles of left and right, bears very little relationship to actual reality, and remain as a fabricated collective illusion.   Moore further discusses the new post World War II paradigm which was designed and planned in a series of meetings, by a handful of people selected from the Council on Foreign Relations, to specifically serve the interests of central bankers. He talks about the recent rise in collective activism energy such as the Arab Spring uprisings, the Occupy Movement, and various protests in Europe, the left and right as illusions foisted on us to keep us divided, the importance of localism and inclusiveness in pursuit of real changes, and more!

Richard K Moore, an expatriate from Silicon Valley, retired and moved to Ireland in 1994 to begin his ‘real work’ – trying to understand how the world works, and how we can make it better. Many years of researching and writing culminated in his widely acclaimed book Escaping the Matrix: How We the People Can Change the World (The Cyberjournal Project, 2005). His Cyberjournal email list has been going since 1994 (cyberjournal.org). The book’s website is http://escapingthematrix.org, and his website is http://cyberjournal.org. He can be contacted via email at rkm@quaylargo.com.

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Attorney Carl J. Mayer talks about the suit he filed against President Obama for journalist/activist Chris Hedges; Truthout investigative reporter Jason Leopold has proof that the FBI “blackballs” some FOIA requests.  Mayer, who also represents PBC in a class action suit challenging the illegal domestic wiretapping, returns to talk about his new suit that calls the “Homeland Battlefield Act” embedded in the NDAA that Obama signed 12/31/11 unconstitutional.  The plaintiff is Chris Hedges, former Mideast bureau chief for the New York Times; he has been a strong supporter of the Occupy movement and provides some of its intellectual affirmation.  Mayer calls the NDAA “the most cynical act” of the Obama term, deploring Obama’s signing statement and various efforts to confuse and mislead us about the true impact of the bill.  Mayer details the potential for Hedges, who has been in contact with groups tagged as terrorists, to be held indefinitely without charge in military custody, renditioned to another country, or sent to Guantanamo.  This is a very important case, and Mayer may seek an injunction to prevent the new law from taking effect in March.

At 41:19, Leopold joins us to describe how he learned of the FBI’s secret “blackballing” policies–he filed a FOIA request for FBI documents on the Occupy movement, and was contacted by history professor Trevor Griffey, who had been sent an FBI powerpoint file that details the secret policy–which appears to violate the FOIA law.  Read the article here.

This interview podcast is free to all, courtesy of a generous subscriber who wants to be anonymous.  Tom Frank recaps the amazing double-down GOP strategy since 2008; Gar Alperovitz has some great ideas for a more democratic economy.Frank’s new book really nails it–Pity the Billionaire looks at the remarkable moves by right wing strategists to use hard times to transfer even more wealth to the ultra rich.  Frank is the author of What’s the Matter with Kansas and The Wrecking Crew, and is the lead essayist for Harper’s magazine.  He talks about the Right’s reaction to the election loss in 2008, fueled by the rants of Glenn Beck on Fox and Rick Santini on CNBC, big money from the Koch brothers, and aggressive chearleading for the Tea Party from Fox News and other corporate media.  Speaking from a snowed-in hotel room in Seattle, Frank talks about the bizarre positions of GOP candidates, and has plenty of criticism for the Dems, too.  We also talk about his February column in Harper’s, about Jack Abramoff’s forgiveness tour.

At 39:00 we are joined by Prof. Alperovitz, who has a strong background in advocating for workers and a fair division of wealth and income.  We talk about the fight over the payroll tax extension, the free market fantasies of the Republican candidates, and how tone-deaf they are to Occupy and the real suffering of Americans, especially the unemployed. He has some great ideas for realignment of wealth and income gaps, and defines his vision of the pluralist commonwealth.  Near the end, we get his comments on the tensions with Iran, as he has written two books on nuclear policies.

Journalists Elizabeth Gould and Paul Fitzgerald return to discuss their views of the New World Order in this Boiling Frogs interview, co-hosted with Sibel Edmonds.Note:  due to the website construction, we have a few Boiling Frogs interviews in the pipeline that will be released to subscribers in the next week or so.

Authors and investigative journalists Elizabeth Gould and Paul Fitzgerald join us to discuss their ground-breaking exclusive series ‘House of Mirrors’ on how America’s full blown surge into personal and private holy war caused the U.S. to slip into a crisis of identity. They explore the little-analyzed facts and mystical covert agendas that the United States continues to press on with into the 21st century, what those agendas may mean to America’s new role as the dark force that orders the universe, the prevailing motives that drive American national security policy today, and its de-evolution of rational defense policy and its immersion into the mystical. Gould-Fitzgerald talk about the top secret military operation known as the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) which views itself as a ‘dark force,’ Mystical Imperialism traced to both Britain and Russia’s 19th century efforts to establish dominion through a mix of imperialism and Christian zeal, and more!

Paul Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Gould, a husband and wife team, began their experience in Afghanistan when they were the first American journalists to acquire permission to enter behind Soviet lines in 1981 for CBS News and produced a documentary, Afghanistan Between Three Worlds, for PBS. In 1983 they returned to Kabul with Harvard Negotiation project director Roger Fisher for ABC Nightline and contributed to the MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour. They continued to research, write and lecture about the long-term run-up that led to the US invasion of Afghanistan. They are the authors of Invisible History: Afghanistan’s Untold Story , Crossing Zero The AfPak War at the Turning Point of American Empire and The Voice. Visit their website here.

Inspired by the revealing new book, The Journals of Spalding Gray, we talk with Nell Casey, the book’s editor, and Bill Talen, the producer who introduced your humble host to Gray and who is also known as “Reverend Billy.”Spalding Gray developed the confessional monologue for contemporary theater and film; following a traumatic auto accident, he took his life on January 10, 2004.  Nell Casey has done a magnificent job assembling his journals, production notes and other materials into a book that is touching and intimate.  In this conversation, Bill Talen offers his own stories about Gray, starting in the 1980′s in San Francisco, where Talen produced the Solo Mio Festival at Life on the Water.  In this conversation, we cover a number of anecdotes from Gray’s life, and examine how his public performances based on his private, inner life were compelling for the audiences and sometimes troubling for Gray and his lovers and friends.  The diaries show a man deeply troubled by his mother’s suicide, and incredibly indecisive about relationships with three strong women in his life.  Talen shares his own connections with Gray, who mentored him the the development of the Rev. Billy persona.  If you ever saw Spalding Gray perform, you will be touched by the diaries and this conversation.