Common Interests on the Left & Right - Part III

• Left & Right Populists:  The American Populist movement of the 1800s with Jim Hightower (Bill Moyer's Journal).
• Left & Right United:  The Tenth Amendment with Michael Boldin (Mother Jones Magazine).
• Green Economy:  Energy efficiency and jobs (Demand Side Podcast).
• MUSIC:  Brazilita, a sweet little version of the song Brazil.
  

Download | Duration: 00:33:34

        

  Common Interests on the Left & Right - Part II

• Left & Right Populists Working Together: to fix our flawed democracy
• What is a "principled" conservative: Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone magazine has some thoughts
• Audit the Fed:  Bernie Sanders leads the Left & Right to push for Senate Unanimous vote on Amendment to "audit the Fed."
• Bush war-crimes-Prosecution: Law Professor Francis Boyle describes the complaint he filed in January 2010 with the International Criminal Court
• MUSIC: Yankee Network, out of Baltimore, "6 at 65".
  

Download | Duration: 00:36:23

        

  Right & Left United: The Power of Ordinary People

This is an abridged version of Episode 30, which cuts out all the fun stuff: music, humor, book review, etc.  It gets right to the meat of the podcast....

• Computer Whiz Jarid Lanier: Implores the left & right to communicate across their bubbles
• Shared Interests: A tally of shared interests on the Left & Right
• Success Stories: Beyond theory to how the left & right have united on issues.
• Feedback: Thoughts from other people on the thesis of the left & right joining forces.

Download | Duration: 00:24:23

        

Happy Mother's Day

I’ve been waiting so long to kiss you
I’ve been waiting so long to say to you that you’re really jolly good and I think you rule everything
so I have no doubt in saying happy mother’s day to you.

I’ve been waiting so long to kiss you
I’ve been waiting so long to say to you that you’re really jolly grand and I think you rule everything
so I have no doubt in saying happy mother’s day to you.

 

Download | Duration: 00:00:42

        

  Common Interests on the far Left & Right; A Potential Power Block?

• Bill Clinton mea culpa: On corporate globalization & Haiti
• Humor: Pope's visit to Britain from "Falling on a Bruise" blog
• Bush war-crimes-Prosecution Theater: A Play called "In the Loop", by Armando Iannucci
• MUSIC: "Meet me in the Hills" by Baltimore's Dirty Mothers
• Right & Left: "Power in numbers" through coordination on advocacy for common goals
• Taxes: The Pros and Cons
• Book review: Shari S. Tepper's "The Gate to Women's Country"
• The Mail Bag: Comments on Episode 28
• MUSIC: Jeb Loy Nichols: "Dark Hollow."

Download | Duration: 01:16:01

        

Given my proclivity for post-apocalytic literature, I was pleased and surprised to find Sheri S. Tepper’s The Gate to Women’s Country recently.  First published in 1988, Tepper’s novel continues to have relevance to the contemporary (and perennial) issues of war, religion and environmental sustainability. It also touches on a nascent form of genetic manipulation.

My foray into the post-apocalyptic began when I was 12 and picked up Nevil Shute’s On the Beach. I loved the beach and had not expected to be reading about nuclear annihilation,  but the book captivated me and rendered me forever vigilant of the earth’s destruction by man.  Since then I’ve read many books charting the events that may follow the world’s devastation.  I’ve found most present a brutal world where women are especially vulnerable.  In Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, a young mother ends her life with a sliver of obsidian rather than confront the vicious world that remains.

In The Gate to Women’s Country, women and men live in separate spheres. Behind walled towns women work, study, and produce children.  Food, medicines, textiles and even ale are fruit of women’s labor.  Outside the walls men live in armed garrisons which will defend the town if necessary.  Not falling conveniently into these worlds are the servitors, the Gypsies, the Holylanders, and traveling marauders.  

In Marthatown the women strive for a sustainable living which requires constant work.  So much of the world has suffered from the “convulsions” that even seeds and tillable land are in short supply. If women bear sons, they care for them for only five years; then, they relinquish them to their “fathers” in the garrison.  At age 15 the young men decide whether to remain warriors outside the walls or to return to Women’s Country to become “servitors.”  The role of the servitors is conveyed slowly, although readers quickly learn that warriors do not respect servitors.

Stavia is in her 30’s when the novel opens and tells her story in flashbacks.  She relates the pain of having to give up a son when he turns five; the second  round of pain if he remains a warrior instead returning to Women’s Country; and the final pain if, as a warrior, he dies in battle.   Throughout the plot is woven the reenactment of Iphigenia  at Ilium, a  play based on “The Trojan Women” by Euripides.  Iphigenia is celebrated yearly in Marthatown.  The women identify with the play’s characters: they’ve lost brothers and sons.  War is hell.

Stavia wonders why, at age 15, a brother or friend would choose to be a warrior instead of returning to Women’s Country.  Warriors cannot study books, and they return to their families only at carnival time.  Carnival, a bacchanalian fest, is held twice a year when warriors re-enter the gate to share in “assignations” with the women which presumably beget their children.

As a young girl, Stavia finds  some of the “ordinances” of the Marthatown council unacceptable.  She defies them by giving books to Chernon, a warrior living outside the gate.  As punishment, Stavia is sent away to study medicine.

Stavia returns from her studies and is chosen to go on an exploration of lands south of Marthatown.  Chernon’s commanding officer, Michael, encourages Chernon to accompany her.  Michael has heard  that the women in Marthatown’s council have a secret weapon, and Chernon is to find out about the weapon from Stavia.

The journey south results in Stavia’s capture by the Holylanders, a polygamous sect embodying all the negative connotations conjured by that term.  Although she is traveling with Chernon, a warrior who is to protect her, she is brutalized by some of the Holylanders.  Who rescues her? Surprisingly, not any warriors.

Now, for a bit of a spoiler:  

In Teppers’ postapocalytic world , women are slowly but surely wrestling the reins of power from men in order to create a more peaceful world; but, in so doing, they also commit or cause acts of violence resulting in many deaths.  I had hoped that the women of Womens’ Country would find a way to avoid being victims of the violence that seems endemic to the postapocalyptic world.  Happily, they accomplish this.  Unfortunately they must also resort to violence to achieve this.  The reader is left to ponder:  do the ends justify the means?   Perhaps Tepper needs to write a sequel to answer this question!

Source: 

        

  Can Left & Right Unite?

• Today's Question: Would it be possible for principled people on the left and right join forces to take on the corruption in Washington, DC?
• Relfecting on the rising right wing populist movement that gravitated to McCain/Palin rallies in 2008, held tea bag rallies, and disrupted town hall meetings on healthcare.
• Home grown Music: Voice of a nine-year-old and rough rendition of "Sliding Down"... 
• Prosecute Bush: "Arrest Blair dot Com"... as in British prime minister Tony Blair?
• Hope: A key ingredient in a person's decision to join a cause.

Download | Duration: 00:34:18

        

A short song entitled "The Apple Tree" written and sung by a nine year old.

Download | Duration: 00:00:49

        

  What Motivates Political Action?

• Corporate Power: Supreme Court sides with Coal Mine Profits over People.
• Prosecute Bush: The Chilcot Inquiry into Britain's role in the Iraq war, a window into a US inquiry.
• MUSIC: Francisco Herrera mixed with poetry, "Casas de Carton"... 
• The Psychology of Motivating Action: Is "more" always better? Research suggests that isn't the case. 
• Experimental psychology: The Gaza Strip test case.
• Hope: A key ingredient in a person's decision to join a cause.

Download | Duration: 00:30:38

        

  Populist Movements

• Bankruptcy: Punished by 2005 Law.
• Worse than Apartheid: Israel's Roads and Weapons.
• Prosecution of Bush era Officials: More than a pipe dream... Israeli Officials Feel the Heat.
• Media-Criticism: Falsehoods on Bush Vs Obama's policies to keep us Safe.
• MUSIC:  Gypsy Jazz.
• Banksters in Obama Administration:  Former New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. 
• Rise of the Right Wing: Prelude to Howard Zinn on American Populist movement. 

Download | Duration: 00:33:58