UK

This week we learn how much effort has been put to making people assume that the virtues of capitalism are beyond question. We hear three Marxian commentators offering their own angles on the development of capitalism in USA, interspersed with a reprise of Noam Chomsky from episode 29 on the elite's determination to control the public mind lest the democratic state serve the wishes of the majority rather than the privilege of the few.

As we approach the climax of David Graeber's Debt, The First 5000 Years, we begin a series of talks by Economics Professor Richard Wolff introducing Marxian class analysis.

This week is something of a continuation of episode #624, featuring the second part of economics professor Richard Wolff on Marxian class analysis, and we approach the end of David Graeber's Debt, The First 5000 Years. I hope it works as an aid to help to rethink what you think you know about economics and politics and to jettison any categories of thought which you find unhelpful.

This episode we note some similarities between the so called extreme 'left' and 'right' ends of the political spectrum - when the government claims the ability to unilaterally decide how to run things, the stated ideology often goes by the board anyway. Bryan Gould discusses the confidential 'trade agreement' TPP, noting that it is less about free trade and more about subduing national sovereignty to the multinational corporations who devised it. In our second hour, we continue with Richard Wolff's Marxian class analysis, looking specifically at the 1917 Russian revolution.

This week, two Marxist professors speak on the social impact of capitalism and especially in USA. First, Silvia Federici speaks on 'The Progressive Process of Desocialization', how capitalism breaks down communities and people's human relationships of care. Next it is the turn of Richard Wolff who applies his Marxian class analysis to the US household, noting that more and more adults are rejecting the traditional (feudal) model of domestic exploitation and either living alone or in more egalitarian patterns.

We accompany our continued reading of David Graeber with Richard Peet on the Rise of Finance Capital. In our second hour, an outspoken Chris Hedges gives his own account of the rise of neoliberalism and reports on the America you won't have heard about on Commercially Controlled media, which he researched for 2 years to write his latest book.

Our first hour is a presentation by Noam Chomsky on the emerging world order in which USA is dominating the world's remaining energy resources in the Middle East and in which this same militancy is being aggressively visited on resistance at home. In our second hour, we look at the anniversary of the occupy movement and the efforts underway to build grassroots resistance to the stranglehold of the predatory elite financiers.

As we return to reading David Graeber this, we look at the origins of capitalism in USA - how the system of self-sufficient slave estates and family farms gave way to one of wage labor. Then we ask, were the events of 11 years ago the cover for a massive financial fraud? We conclude by reflecting on what these angles contribute to our understanding of 'capitalism' and the importance of personally, consciously stepping away from it.

We hear three different perspectives on the Mental Health of the US population - and indeed upon the American concept of 'mental health. Is it a matter of fixing broken brains with carefully targeted drugs? Our speakers agree that the US public have been profitably misinformed by professional experts full of ideas about how they should and shouldn't behave.

He held a gun to the commander's head and said "we do not shoot civilians". Portugal's forgotten 1974 Carnation Revolution, could it happen here in the UK?
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A range of material for you this time as we return to our continuing reading of David Graeber's Debt, The First 5000 Years: Joan Baxter on land grabbing in Africa, William Black on financial control fraud and the soundtrack of a short video on the Financialization of Nature.

A 'bigger picture' show this time, with two hour long pieces which outline the stark contours of the rapidly emerging police state that is the modern USA. Our main speakers are Peter Dale Scott, Peter Phillips and Frank Morales.

BBC NUJ members have a proud record of defending their colleagues against compulsory redundancies. They have held to their policy through thick and thin and against all the odds. Their struggle is an example to this government that it cannot expect working people to accept cuts which effect working people lives, careers and the quality of the services they provide without making their voice and actions felt. The strike today must make the BBC think their through their decisions again - stop recruiting while others are being shown the door. Today makes me proud to be a NUJ member all over again. Unity is our strength.
John Fray retired DGS and Broadcsting Organiser 1990 - 2000

We start the final chapter of David Graeber's Debt, The First 5000 Years this week by going beyond the 'bad apples' line at the deeper, systemic truths which underlie the rottenness of finance capital and indeed of the idolization of competition. Gary Weiss speaks on his book, Ayn Rand Nation and entrepreneur and journalist Margaret Heffernan speaks on Money, Power and Competition.

We hear how not only the Japanese but also the Marshall Islanders continue to suffer as a result of the US military's determination to assert its nuclear superiority, whatever the cost to human life. Complementing out main focus on Nuclear Weapons, we hear from Chris Busby that the safety of Nuclear Power may be overestimated by a factor of 400.

We left off our reading of David Graeber with the statement that "The logic of money was granted autonomy. Political and military power were then gradually reorganized around it". This week we look in more detail at what that meant, focusing mainly on the USA in the 19th and 20th centuries. As well as reading more from Debt, The First 5000 Years we hear a few words from Ivan Illich and the first half of a radio adaptation of a video on the Banking Cartels and the US Federal Reserve.

This week is a sequel to last week's episode, again combining some hidden history of the bankers in USA with our continued reading of David Graeber's Debt, The First 5000 Years. We conclude with the audio of an introductory presentation on Altruistic Economics which Robin Upton gave at the Chaos Computer Congress in Berlin in December 2009.

This show examines the history of eugenics in USA. Robert Whitaker tells how WASPish business magnates took up the idea of racial purity and aggressively promoted eugenics, leading directly to forced sterilizations and lobotomies across USA, and indirectly to Nazi Germany's Final Solution.

This time we look at the grim consequences of the logic of imperialist exploitation for profit since the Middle Ages. As a specific example of the general principles we read about in Debt, The First 5000 Years we hear Frank Sanello on the Opium Wars between Britain and China.

Journalist and scientist Andrew Freedman: what new science is saying about freaky 2013 weather. Plus Dr. Kathy McMahon "the Peak Oil Shrink" Kathy tells us about Nicole Foss, "sucky collapse", and a surprising turn in her own life.