From hanging chads in Florida, to purged voter rolls in Ohio to the Iowa caucus debacle, democracy is in trouble.  The venerable system is in the ICU. There is still a pulse but the long term prognosis is not good. There are serious structural problems. Can anyone say electoral college or why elections are held on a workday? And then of course there is money. And the media. The experts sit around tables opining on who is surging and who is fading. It’s more like horseracing trying to handicap the steeds. Citizens. This is no time for apathy or complacency. Get off of your phone. Find kindred spirits. Get engaged in what is probably the most important election in U.S. history. Jim Hightower says, It’s a struggle between the powers that be and the powers that ought to be.

Alternative Radio is usually heard on the 3^rd, 4^th, and 5^th Sunday mornings at 10:00 am on KRCB-FM Radio 91 / streaming @ norcalpublicmedia.org / Comcast channel 961 throughout the Bay Area / Download the FREE KRCB App @ iTunes & Google Play!

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The U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 is one of the great crimes in modern history. No one has been held to account. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have died, many more wounded and millions became refugees. Washington’s insane action unleashed a cascade of disasters across the Middle East from Syria to Libya and sparked the rise of jihadi groups. But Western intervention in the region has a long history. One can mention the 1916 Sykes-Picot agreement or the Balfour Declaration the following year and right down to the inheritor of European imperialism: the United States. Any country that says no to Washington’s diktats is threatened with “obliteration” as the current occupant of the White House warned Iran. The Empire’s subjects at home, the American people, are largely kept in the dark about what their country is doing abroad.

Robert Fisk, based in Beirut, is the Middle East correspondent for The Independent. He is winner of the Amnesty International UK Press Award and the Lannan Prize for Cultural Freedom. The Financial Times calls him “one of the outstanding reporters of his generation. As a war correspondent he is unrivalled.” He is the author of Pity the Nation: The Abduction of Lebanon, The Great War for Civilization, and The Age of the Warrior.

Alternative Radio airs the 3^rd, 4^th, and 5^th Sunday mornings at 10:00 am on KRCB-FM Radio 91 / streaming @ norcalpublicmedia.org / Comcast channel 961 throughout the Bay Area / Download the FREE KRCB App @ iTunes & Google Play!

(Photo: via Alternative Radio)

Rape. From Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein to Wall Street financier Jeffrey Epstein to NFL star Antonio Brown, this ancient crime is in the news. The #MeToo movement has enabled many women to tell their stories for the first time. Who can forget Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony under oath at the Brett Kavanaugh hearings? Forever, women who have been raped have not been believed. That seems to be changing. In one case, which did attract some media attention, a California judge sentenced a Stanford University student found guilty of rape, for which the maximum sentence was 14 years, to six months. The student only served 3 months. An uproar ensued and the judge was recalled. The governor of the state signed a bill imposing mandatory minimum sentences in sexual assault cases. Much is to be done but the silence is broken. The conversations are happening.

Sohaila Abdulali is a writer and an activist. Her articles appear in The Guardian and other newspapers and journals. Her New York Times op-ed “I Was Wounded: My Honor Wasn’t” broke readership records. She is the author of What We Talk About When We Talk About Rape.

Alternative Radio airs the 3^rd, 4^th, and 5^th Sunday mornings at 10:00 am on KRCB-FM Radio 91 / streaming @ norcalpublicmedia.org / Comcast channel 961 throughout the Bay Area / Download the FREE KRCB App @ iTunes & Google Play!

(Photo: Courtesy of Alternative Radio)

The current period could be dubbed The Age of Anger. To drive ratings up and along with them ad revenue there’s nothing like rage. People go to their favorite media outlet as if it were comfort food. Where their views are validated and reinforced. And their anger finds a home. Argu-tainment is the order of the day and boy does it pay off. Corporate profits soar. Witness the comments of Leslie Moonves, former head of CBS, who cynically said, Donald Trump and his campaign “may not be good for America but it’s damn good for CBS. Man, who would have expected the ride we’re all having now? The money’s rolling in. I’ve never seen anything like this. Bring it on, Donald.”

Matt Taibbi is an award-winning journalist and a contributing editor for Rolling Stone. He is the author of Griftopia and Hate, Inc.

(Photo: via Alternative Radio)