CIVILIANISM PODCAST

Obama is being influenced by his bad angels, listening to the wrong people, and doing the wrong things in Afghanistan and in Pakistan. Giving him the Nobel Peace Prize for this was a mistake.

The drone attacks he orders are horrifying and illegal, killing innocent people even as they execute a few “real” targets.   The escalation of his war will not bring peace. Unfortunately, this war will drag on and on and on without the American people protesting it. There might not be a draft, but there are 56,000 contractors headed for Afghanistan too. . . . privatizing our military force in the Middle East even further, even as our peace/war president plans a “surge”.

Not only are another 30,000 troops being deployed to Afghanistan, “but also 56,000 military contractors will join them.”

Militarism grows and grows, even as we let other things go, like real health care reform, serious climate change work and the smart grid, etc.

An analysis of Obama’s Nobel speech and the “Just War”  and “Just Peace” theories is here.  I don’t buy it. I think no war that kills civilians, and keeps on killing civilians, can be anything but just another war.  Unless this war is solving some serious problem or threat, (and it’s not) we need to leave.

A good angel would know this.

This episode contains part of a protest rally including speakers Dennis Kucinich, Ralph Nader and Cynthia McKinney, and it also contains bits of President Obama’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech.

Get involved, contact your President and your Congressmen and tell them to stop this stupid war.  It might be the end of us if we don’t. War is still a racket.

Download this episode here, or subscribe on the right.
Artwork by Jay Long.

Respected journalist Amy Goodman was finally able to give her talk in Vancouver, Canada, in late November, 2009, after and despite serious harassment by Canadian police. She discussed this on her show Democracy Now in late November, but this is the actual talk. She discussed health care, her mother’s health care before death, media, Obama, Afghanistan, our military, feminism, and more. It’s often funny too.

She also talks about how she feels getting involved and dissent are very important. It’s an incredible talk, very revealing as she talks about her mother, and completely unedited.

Great line (among many): “What do I think of the mainstream media? I think it would be a good idea.”

“Information is power”, she said, something any student of journalism could tell you instinctively, but something many people don’t usually think about.

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Credit for the original recording: Radio4all.net

Music: (I Wish I Had a) Wooden Heart, by David Holmes

Sami Rasouli

Sami Rasouli, a well known Iraqi-American peace activist, traveled to central Minnesota last week and gave us an update on Iraq.   Iraqis need our help, and a lot of things need a lot of work in Iraq. They also need peace building and better relations with American citizens. He drops a couple of mostly unknown bits of info too, like that most of the scientists in Iraq were deliberately killed by Israeli intelligence (Mossad) during the war.

Shockingly, he said that Iraqis learned from John Wayne movies, not George Bush Sr., that America is a culture of force and violence. We have to reverse this perception. Learn more in this episode of Civilianism, which you can download here or subscribe to on the right.

There are two articles related to the topics in this podcast. One is “Oil Billions and Weapons of Mass Deception in Iraq” which you can read here, and the other is “Huge Rise in Birth Defects in Falluja” which you can read here.

The organizations that Sami Rasouli hopes you will check out and become involved in are found here:

The Iraq and American Reconciliation Project (IARP)  and the Muslim Peacemaker Team.

You can get involved as easily as helping to buy water sanitation equipment in Iraq, which is very much needed.

Besides devastating climate change, my 3 everyday concerns are: Health care reform, which we badly need, the Palestine-Israel conflict and when will it be over, and when will the wars the U.S. is in finally end? We need these things resolved. Obama has been President 9 months now, it’s time he fixed some of these monumental problems. That’s what he was elected to do! This podcast contains recordings about these 3 issues.

Hear Greg Palast, and Judge Goldstone on his Report about war crimes, and a very special “guest”.

For more information about all of the topics covered in this episode, see Civilianism News.

Of course, my biggest concern is still climate change. See Futurism Now Radio and Futurism Now for more information on that.

On September 8th I attended a presentation about occupied Palestine, given by a Christian Peacemakers team. These teams go in and accomplish some job or task while they live with the Palestinians. This team’s job was to escort Palestinian children to school so they would not get beaten up by Israeli settlers, whose settlement homes separated the Palestinian children’s homes from their school.

On Sept 9th, Israeli human rights group B’Tselem published its findings on the number of Palestinians and Israelis killed in Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip.

According to B’Tselem’s research, Israeli security forces killed 1,387 Palestinians during the course of the three-week operation. Of these, 773 did not take part in the hostilities, including 320 minors and 109 women over the age of 18. Of those killed, 330 took part in the hostilities, and 248 were Palestinian police officers, most of whom were killed in aerial bombings of police stations on the first day of the operation. . . . .

B’Tselem’s figures, the result of months of meticulous investigation and cross-checks with numerous sources, sharply contradict those published by the Israeli military. However, B’Tselem visited homes and gathered death certificates, photos, and testimonies relating to all 252 children under 16, and has the details of 111 women over 16 killed.

The purpose of the presentation was to educate the public, but unfortunately the public does not attend these events; the people who already know what is going on do. Here are some recent facts they presented:

• The U.S. donates $23,000+ to every Israeli citizen in Israel, every year.
• In 2006, the Jewish settlement in Palestine total was 40 million, and the U.S. paid for it.
• In 2006 the total U.S. allocation to Israel from the U.S. was $4.36 billion, which we paid for.
• Israel took 95,989 acres of Palestinian land in 2006. We pay for this. We also pay for the wall, which snakes around strategically to cut off families and towns.
• The Berlin wall was only 96 miles long. The Israeli wall is planned to be 403 miles long, and it has nothing to do with preventing terrorists from entering Israel.
• Palestinians cannot even use Israeli roads, and their license plates mark them as Palestinians, which is a racist mark. These facts are just a few of many this CP team presented. At the end of the recording is an interesting Q & A also.

You can listen to this presentation of their experiences in Palestine last year by clicking here (opens a podcast file in a new window).

Highlights from Powershift09 sending a message to end the use of coal — and as speaker Robert Kennedy put it, coal is a criminal enterprise. What they are doing to mountains and our air is nothing short of criminal. It’s time to take action to stop coal. It’s time for a citizens arrest of coal. Speakers from Powershift09 include RFK Jr., Van Jones and Lisa Jackson; also Bill McKibben and Jimmy Carter in the second half.

The Age of Stupid movie trailer can be seen here.

Interested in the Clean Energy Corp — story link about green jobs from the Environment News Service:
“Clean Energy Corps Proposed to Create Jobs, Fight Global Warming”

In the 2nd half, you’ll hear about why natural gas isn’t such a great fuel, why it’s not “clean” like Pelosi is claiming, and whatever happened to Jimmy Carter’s solar panels, and his dream of clean energy. It’s not a happy story, but 30 years later, we have another realistic chance at it. And at the end, bits of a speech from 32 years ago, much of which President Obama could be saying today.

Nancy Pelosi’s conflict of interest is her financial interest in T. Boone Picken’s natural gas venture.
From the Wall Street Journal.

WASHINGTON — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her husband invested between $50,000 and $100,000 in T. Boone Pickens’s Clean Energy Fuels Corp., which could benefit from legislation the California Democrat favors to boost U.S. use of natural gas.

Nancy Pelosi’s letter about switching the CPP to natural gas: Read the whole thing here.

Pelosi has a conflict of interest with natural gas, being an investor in T. Boone Pickens natural gas company. She’s an investor in natural gas, so she is pushing the use of natural gas on the nation’s capitol, insinuating that it’s “clean” and renewable, which it most certainly is not. She should be installing solar panels instead. — like our president did 30 years ago. The drilling process for natural gas contains the use of toxic chemicals, including Benzene which causes cancer. And get this — the company who perfected this deadly technique was Halliburton. Here more about this in part 2 of this episode.

From Scientific America.

“Sublette County is the home of one of the nation’s largest natural gas fields, and many of its 6,000 wells have undergone a process pioneered by Halliburton called hydraulic fracturing, which shoots vast amounts of water, sand and chemicals several miles underground to break apart rock and release the gas. The process has been considered safe since a 2004 study by the Environmental Protection Agency found that it posed no risk to drinking water. After that study, Congress even exempted hydraulic fracturing from the Safe Drinking Water Act. Today fracturing is used in 9 out of 10 natural gas wells in the United States.”

As for Jimmy Carter’s solar panels–they were removed by the Reaganites, and now you can hear why.
I read much of the story, but you can read the rest of it here.

You can download this episode here.

Related articles:

• Sen. Reid has plan to reform energy infrastructure (news.cnet.com)
• As Oil and Gas Prices Plunge, a Frenzy of Drilling Ends (nytimes.com)

This is a presentation of the latest science on climate change, as presented before the U.S. Senate Environmental and Public Works committee, one of our new “Burn Units”. The planet is burning up and our government is ready to get to work.

This is part one, and part two will only be on Futurism Now Radio.com.
This episode starts with a message about PowerShift09 from scientist James Hansen.

Here are the facts: this is the only planet any of us have, so let’s all work together to solve this climate problem. It truly is a crisis–more so than the banking crisis, but the government keeps bailing out banks while keeping action on global warming a lower priority. If there is any fire to put out, it’s climate change.

On February 4, 2009 Energy Secretary Stephen Chu told the Los Angeles Times:
“I don’t think the American public has gripped in its gut what could happen,” he said. “We’re looking at a scenario where there’s no more agriculture in California,” He sees education as a means to combat this threat.

Much of the Senate hearing is played in this episode, but it was very long so I’m splitting it in two. The Full Committee was titled, “Update on the Latest Global Warming Science.” I didn’t see any major American media cover this, and it should have been big news. After all, this is the latest science on climate change, straight from the scientists. More of the scientists will appear in part II — Part I contains the Senate panel’s member comments and the statements of two of the scientists, Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Nobel Prize-winning IPCC, PhD, and Christopher Field PhD, Director, Department of Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution for Science, Stanford University, Co-chair of Working Group II (continued in part II)

Climate change is the biggest threat to life on this planet, and we can’t stand by and watch it happen while our mainstream media treats it like no big deal–certainly less of a big deal than banks collapsing, so I’m asking people to spread the word. Our media is once again letting us down and even worse, treating this like a debatable political issue, which it absolutely is not.

The testimony Hansen gave to the House Ways & Means Committee is available at
this site (pdf)

Download this episode here.

What’s coming in the future and will capitalism play a part? Soon people will be concerned with bigger problems than economic models, such as environmental migration and shortages, but money will play a part. The survival of civilization depends on our imagination, creativity, on our sense of identity and community and how willing we are to share and live together. Some great thinkers and futurists gather in this audio to think of how we can survive for the sake of all humanity.

This was originally titled A Possibility of Hope, from the makers of the movie, Children of Men.

Humans have an instinct not just for survival, but of realizing all humans should benefit from the attempts at our survival in the future.

These are ideas on the future from philosophers, historians, cultural critics, futurists, a sociologist, a human geographer, and an economy expert.

The broad topics covered in this episode are Reality, Fear, Walls, Fever, (global warming) and Hope. . . .
You can download this episode here.

Speakers: Naomi Klein, James Lovelock, John Gray, Saskia Sassen, Tzvetan Todorov, Slavoj Zizek, Fabrizio Eva

Today’s episode covers U.S. news, news about Karl Rove, news about diplomatic efforts, climate change, and the $ 819 billion dollar stimulus package that Obama wants passed. No Republicans voted to pass it in the House on Wednesday night and it passed anyway. That’s because President Obama has a mandate and intelligence on his side. Yes, dear Republicans, the Democrats won. Anyway, I defend the spending bill and one reason is the money for transportation and energy and the new electric grid, all of which we need badly.

See this train? Other countries have super-fast commuter trains and we don’t — yet. Why is that? Could it be due to Exxon or BP? We need super-fast, super-efficient transit in the U.S. and it’s ridiculous that we don’t have any. Something or someone must be obstructing their development. There are even solar-powered bullet trains in development, but I bet the U.S. will be one of the last countries to get one, thanks to the obstructionist Republicans.

I play a short clip of Al Gore’s very long testimony in front of Congress on Wednesday. I will have the entire recording (3 hours) shortly, and it will be available on Podcast Liberally only.

You can download this episode here or subscribe on the right.

Music clip: Runaway Train by Eliza Gilkyson

Wondering what President Obama is busy doing to promote peace in the Middle East? He started with returning the US to the “moral high ground” by ending torture and signing an executive order to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay. He then continued on Thursday at the State Department with Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, and George Mitchell as special envoy to the Middle East.

But, why are we still bombing Pakistan? These and other mysteries will be covered in episodes to come.

Played: Clips from Obama at the State Department and former senator, now Middle East special envoy, George Mitchell from last October.

Something on your mind? Send me news, tips, and music for the podcast by using the form here (Contact tab on the top), or email me with news and comments.

You can also call my Skype comment line 24/7 at : 320-300-4273.

The shorter episodes will continue for now, but Civilianism in its more in-depth format (i.e., really long form) will return at some point later on.

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This episode is mostly about the inauguration and what the new Secretary of State may work on in the next few weeks. Israel’s war with Palestine is finally over. Also, hear Obama take the oath of office a SECOND time.
If you have news to share, send it to me! Email me at news@civilianism.com.
Or use the form at the top of the page at Podcast Liberally, the official website.

This is the first episode of my shorter news broadcasts, called Podcast Liberally News and Commentary, or PLNC for short. I will be including them in my Civilianism RSS feed for a while, and then you will have to get them by subscribing or visiting the website for them, at Podcast Liberally. That used to be a review podcast that I did last year, but my own enthusiasm for it evaporated, so for now I’m back to news and opinion in a form short enough that I can do them more often. Shorter PLNC episodes will be far less draining on my time. And shorter to listen to!

You can subscribe to them at Podcast Liberally.com. I’m keeping this website for Civilianism news and podcasts.

You can download this episode here or subscribe at the PL website.

Song at end: My Country ‘Tis of Thee Pt. 1 by Learning Music from Yes We Puede!
(more free downloads there for everyone)

Bush is gone! This is the full inauguration address of President Barack Obama, January 20, 2009.

Imagine this: We not only have “hope” back but we have a president who respects science and the law again. What a relief!

Download or listen here.
A new episode of PLNC is coming soon. PLNC is new: Podcast Liberally News and Commentary and will be a new podcast under 20 minutes: news and commentary and music. You can see the website here, but I will also be putting it into the Civilianism podcast feed for a while. The Civilianism podcast will also continue but on bi-monthly basis instead of weekly.
Speech recording courtesy of ABC News.

It’s a New Year with all of the Old Problems, and then some.

The slaughter of innocent people in the Gaza strip continues with the blessing of the United States, while Dick Cheney and George Bush go on their media Fairy Tale Hour speaking tours. Both have admitted torture and are trying to avoid being prosecuted for war crimes by kissing up to the Obama administration and the media.

We get 30 seconds of news given to the war in Gaza, which we are helping to fund and supply with weapons, in our mainstream media’s nightly news. No wonder Americans are in favor of whatever it is that Israel is doing.

There were no Hamas rockets during the ceasefire of mid-June through November 4th, when Israel broke the ceasefire by attacking and kiling 6 Palestinians. Now, the propaganda wars are waging as fiercely as the bombing and shooting war in Gaza. As the death toll has gone over 1,000 with most of the dead being civilians, it’s hard to imagine why our Congress has endorsed this brutality, unless you reach the conclusion that the U.S. government is somewhat, ah, . . . . . . corrupt.

Pardon me, did I say that out loud?

Join me in my search for Happiness. I think I have found it.

Here is Froomkin’s little summary of the Bush legacy, ‘The Bush Verdict is In”. World Freedom ‘Retreats for Third Year‘

Livestation TV – watch foreign media in good quality. This episode contains news from Wednesday night from Al Jazeera. Max Blumenthal’s video about the pro-Israel rally he did for Alternet.org is here.

I wish everyone a happy and peaceful 2009.

Podcast artwork by Rami Abbas, for Palestine.

DOWNLOAD THIS EPISODE HERE or subscribe on the right.

End Song: Michael Heart, We will not go down (Song for Gaza)
Middle song: Tom Chartier, Death Don’t Have No Mercy

Details of the auto bailout are coming to light. GM might even dump the Cadillac! Cars really do need to evolve, for the good of the economy, the climate, the end of resource wars, and jobs. The auto industry is tied to all of these things, so solving its problems, not just putting a little bandage on it, would help everything.

Why does the U.S. need so much energy? Part of it is our temperature-moderated and leaky buildings, but even more of it is our cars. So along comes the $15 billion auto bailout, promises from the remaining auto makers to modernize, and 3 million jobs are saved. Or are they? It remains to be seen. What we do know is that this is NOT the fault of unions. The auto makers’ failures are the results of their own short-sightedness and lack of vision. We should have 75 mpg cars by now and millions of electric cars on the roads! That last part is exactly the vision of Shai Agassi, the founder and CEO of Better Place.

Better Place is an electric car and electric car powering station plan that is already in development. Cars are being designed, power stations are being put in place, and countries and states are being signed up to get on board. Already signed up are Israel, Japan, Denmark, parts of California, and the state of Hawaii. That means they are going totally green and emissions free with their transportation in these areas. You can read about this great plan here. My podcast includes a good audio recording of Shai Agassi describing his vision of our car future.

The Better Place car

This episode also includes the peak oil/economic collapse story of Dmitri Orlov. He witnessed the transformation of the former Soviet Union to current day Russia through economic collapse, and he describes what he thinks will happen here in the U.S.A. the reasons why. His blog Club Orlov, contains links to his famous “Five Steps to Collapse” presentation.
The Five Steps of collapse, explained in detail. And Introducing the Light-hearted Moment!

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Here are the links to things I read and mentioned in this episode: The Short History of the Electric Car

Thomas Friedman: While Detroit Slept

Saving US Autos the American Way by Brent Budowsky

The Encyclopedia of Country Living
How to live if the bottom falls out! Practical, not violent, survival guide.

Music: Japanese Car by Gideon Freudmann and Unsustainable by Eliza Gilkyson
(and she’s actually from TX)

Baby it’s cold outside! But that doesn’t mean it’s not warming up out there. Heat shock is hitting the public consciousness. Can we do what’s necessary for climate change, and is there time? This episode explores that very serious question. Our hope is that Obama will take action in time to prevent runaway climate change. His new national security team, including Hillary, might help out with that.

Terrorism and wars continue to rage overseas. Bush continues to try to push through last-minute anti-environmental laws that our next president won’t be able to change. Examples are discussed in this episode.

But In America, with new leadership, we hope there is a brighter day coming.
Civilianism will be talking about these changes and asks for your help in letting our politicians know they have to act, and that we are behind them. There have been conferences going on in several locations lately, in preparation for Copenhagen in December 2009, a long 12 months away. The main conference going on at the moment is called the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP-14).
You can read about it here and here at Climatechange.org.

You can also read about the Interfaith Climate Summit in Sweden. You can follow the Poznan Twitter feed for constant updates here — #Poznan UN Climate Summit tweets

It’s time for action, not talk, but the politicians have to get their cooperation hats on. This is the beginning of a new era of cooperation for the world.

This episode contains an interesting story connected to climate change as an introduction to the 2007 documentary “Life At the End of Empire” which you can find on a site full of information, including where to buy the movie at Whatawaytogomovie.com

The latest science suggests that preventing runaway climate change means complete decarbonization. I read most of George Monbiot’s recent article, One Shot Left

Edited testimony of James Hansen, and Tom Helweg-Larson of the Public Interest Research Centre in front of parliament on November 26 is in here too. You can download the whole 68 minute testimony from the Climate Page at ecoshock.org

Song at end: Here’s Your Future by The Thermals

I’m not sure, but I think it’s a song about global warming.

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Which direction will the U.S. take in the next four years? Will we do the right thing and leave these wars behind and do what’s good for America, or continue to sink money and blood into foolish military campaigns?
This podcast discusses Iraq, Afghanistan, militarism, climate, congressman Waxman’s new job, and more. Audio clips of Cindy Sheehan, mystic Caroline Myss, Michael T. Klare and even Jerry Springer are played.

The U.S. obsession with tasers is spreading to England, which is a terrible idea!
Antiwar.com has Iraq war news.
Read about H.Res. 1531 here, introduced by Congressman Nadler:

Introduced on 11/20/08 — This is the first resolution urging President Bush not to pardon senior administration officials for crimes the President authorized. It urges Congress to investigate those crimes and any pardons relating to those crimes, and urges the Attorney General (current or future) to appoint an Independent Counsel to prosecute those crimes.

The Interview with American author and mystic, Caroline Myss, from New Dimensions, which has podcasts here.
Cindy Sheehan’s interview is from the Jeff Farias show.
Safe Climate or Endless War? It’s a choice we will have to make soon, because we can’t fight climate change smartly and terrorism militarily at the same time.

The Radio Ecoshock show with the Michael T. Klare (author of new book “Rising Powers, Shrinking World”) can be found here.
For a very irritating pro-war attitude, see James Cartwright: Perpetual war speech last week at the MOAA

The AccoLade, a Saudi “girl band” website is a on Myspace here.

Download this episode here or subscribe on the right.

Music played: In this Moment: Beautiful Tragedy (from the Podsafe Music Network) and Hero’s Song by Brendan James from the music of Body of War.

Finally a third party debate, but only two people show up. In fairness, Cynthia McKinney showed up last week, alone, and for this debate in Washington, Ralph Nader and Chuck Baldwin show up. You can download this episode here or subscribe on the right.

I recorded the Third Party debate that took place last night. Independent candidate Ralph Nader and Chuck Baldwin showed up, but sadly, no one else did. Cynthia McKinney showed up last week. These people really need some calendars. This debate was good, so have a listen to the debate here.

You can also find it on CSPAN.org in video form.

This debate is also half-played and discussed in my latest podcast in the post above this.

Lets get UNserious today for a change. I play the Al Smith Dinner comedy show, starring John McCain and Barack Obama, almost in its entirety. Join me for political hilarity.

Also, an announcement of the 3rd party debates on C-SPAN on Sunday night! See ThirdPartyTicket for more information.

I don’t say much about the debates because what’s to say? You’ve heard most of the analysis already. But Jon Stewart helps with a few comments on Joe the Plumber. Here is the full story on the Joe the Plumber myth.
It’s a hit or myth podcast!

UPDATE: Regarding the remarks I made about Canada’s election, here is some clarification that was sent by a listener in Canada.

Download this one directly here or subscribe on the right.

Voter and nonvoter ignorance is so prevalent and accepted, from our politicians, to our media, to people we know. Yes, it’s everywhere. Help me fight it. John McCain is a Neocon and thanks to a listener, I have proof: he signed a PNAC document regarding Russia that is on their site.

You can download this episode here or subscribe on the right.

I discuss a maddening email from a John McCain supporter who also denies science and climate change, and my response to it. Climate change is real, and I have started a new information center on my website, under the “climate” tab at civilianism.com/gate. Please visit it and add comments and links to new sites if you are aware of any. Help me fight the ignorance of those who have a “religious” belief system that doesn’t accept scientific evidence.

If I hear one more person tell me that global warming is a myth I will turn into a solar flare myself. Shine some light in the darkness! And no, I do not want my country to go down in flames. Stop–don’t vote for John McCain!

ACORN: John McCain once loved them. Might have just been a sordid affair, like so many of his others. But Republicans everywhere are lying to Americans and telling them this is voter fraud, when any irregularities are actually just registration fraud. No one has voted yet using these registrations. I find out this morning my state’s ACORN is also being sued. Squirrels everywhere are very upset. And, more ignorance to fight: McCain Volunteers Taught to Accuse Obama of Terrorism from Feldman’s Frameshop.

The Rolling Stone article about John McCain: Make Believe Maverick. Related articles on the same page, all worth reading.

I also play a mysterious voicemail and I need help in deciphering its meaning.

The new 501 Lobby group against a nuclear Iran — for what purpose? — is here: United Against Iran

Juan Cole spoke on September 29th at St. John’s University in MN, on the subject of Iraq, and I play part of his talk in the 2nd half. (It’s a little bit hard to hear, sorry about that). Here is his website, Informed Comment.

First song: MidLife Crisis, by Faith No More

Middle Song: The Man, The Myth, The McCain by Roy Zimmerman

Final song: This World is Too Crowded by The Rotters