Left Out is a public affairs program produced by WRCT 88.3FM that discusses the news from a perspective left out of the mainstream media. Left Out is co-hosted by Bob Harper and Danny Sleator. Today's program is produced by Matt Toups. Listeners are welcome to call us at (412) 268-WRCT (9728), or send us email.
Be sure to listen to Democracy Now every weekday morning at 8am on WRCT.
On Monday March 14, 2005 Norman Finkelstein will speak at Carnegie Mellon University at 4:45PM in McConomy Auditorium in the University Center on "Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History".
Il Manifesto journalist Giuliana Sgrena, who we reported to have been murdered after her kidnapping in Iraq, was released earlier this week, after having nearly been killed by American soldiers firing on her car. Luckily she survived the incident, but an Italian intelligence offer died protecting her from the fire.
Listen to the broadcast (requires MP3 player).
Track 1, Announcements: (Streaming, Download)
Track 2, Peduto Interview: (Streaming, Download)
Track 3, Tearing Down the Press: (Streaming, Download)
Pittsburgh City Councilman Bill Peduto (of Shadyside) is with us in the studio today to discuss his bid to become the next mayor of the city of Pittsburgh. Some questions for Councilman Peduto:
This article in last Sunday's Post-Gazette summarizes some of Councilman Peduto's positions.
See billpeduto.com for more information about Councilman Peduto's campaign.
This Salon Article by Eric Boehlert describes the Bush administration's shockingly successful efforts to undermine the press as a check against governmental power.
On March 1, Robert Byrd delivered another brilliant speech entitled Stopping a Strike at the Heart of the Senate. The speech is about proposed changes to the way the US Senate operates, specifically the proposal to eliminate the fillibuster. Here's a quote:
Many times in our history we have taken up arms to protect a minority against the tyrannical majority in other lands. We, unlike Nazi Germany or Mussolini's Italy, have never stopped being a nation of laws, not of men.
But witness how men with motives and a majority can manipulate law to cruel and unjust ends. Historian Alan Bullock writes that Hitler's dictatorship rested on the constitutional foundation of a single law, the Enabling Law. Hitler needed a two-thirds vote to pass that law, and he cajoled his opposition in the Reichstag to support it. Bullock writes that "Hitler was prepared to promise anything to get his bill through, with the appearances of legality preserved intact.. And he succeeded."
Hitler's originality lay in his realization that effective revolutions, in modern conditions, are carried out with, and not against, the power of the State: the correct order of events was first to secure access to that power and then begin his revolution. Hitler never abandoned the cloak of legality; he recognized the enormous psychological value of having the law on his side. Instead, he turned the law inside out and made illegality legal.
And that is what the nuclear option seeks to do to Rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate.
Senator Santorum and other republicans (as well as the Anti-Defamation League) have demanded that he retract his remarks. He clearly has no intention of doing this.
Paul Krugman has written an excellent article in the New York Review of Books entitled "America's Senior Moment". Ostensibly a review of The Coming Generational Storm: What You Need to Know About America's Future by Laurence J. Kotlikoff and Scott Burns. Krugman presents a scatheing analysis of the nonsense being promulgated by the Bush administration in its drive to eliminate the Social Security System.
Here at Left Out we've spoken often of the fascistic elements of the Bush administration's policies, David Neiwert has written an excellent series of articles on the topic called "The Rise of Pseudo Fascism: An Essay" that summarizes the case very well. We recommend Neiwert's writing, and intend to discuss this further in a future edition of Left Out.
Truth Out
Common Dreams
Information Clearinghouse
Cursor
Tom Paine
The Independent
The Guardian
Consortium News