WZBC 90.3 FM Newton

Scott Desnoyers: Struck by Unjust Personal Tragedy, Activist Responds to Manchin’s Attempt to Kill Build Back Better Bill; Adele Shraiman: New Report Finds U.S. Financial Sector the 5th Biggest Emitter of CO2 in the World; Andrew Perez: Investigation Reveals How Dark Money Bought a Supreme Court Seat; Bob Nixon: This Week’s Under-reported News Summary.

This annual round-up reflects all the conversations we hope have offered a voice that might help you interpret the news you read.

This is TUC Radio’s all time most popular program Alex Carey wrote that the people of the US have been subjected to an unparalleled, expensive, 3/4 century long propaganda effort designed to expand corporate rights by undermining democracy and destroying the unions. The 20th century, he wrote, is marked by three historic developments: the growth of democracy via the expansion of the franchise, the growth of corporations, and the growth of propaganda to protect corporations from democracy. Carey’s unique view of US history goes back to World War I and ends with the Reagan era. Noam Chomsky dedicated his book “Manufacturing Consent” to the memory of Alex Carey. Chomsky says that the Australian sociologist would have written the definitive history of propaganda in the US, had he lived to complete his work. ...

Former diplomat Jerome Bicamumpaka was acquitted by a UN court in 2011. But he has not been restored to his family. He remains in a legal-political limbo in Tanzania. Mr. Bicamumpaka's family is in Canada, ready to receive him. Fate has been cruel to Bicamumpaka, who is now battling cancer. Canadians should speak up. All people who care about justice should speak up. All members of the United Nations should repair this travesty of justice. Return Jerome Bicamumpaka to his family. He is an acquitted man. His son, Cedric Bicamumpaka Ngenzi, provides all the details of this tragic miscarriage of justice. (Does any of this remind you of how the USA treats its never-tried prisoners in Guantanamo?)

The culture of lies and deceit runs so deep in our society that truth is losing its cleansing qualities. If lying suits the narrative to move your agenda, that is just fine, in America and Israel. So now, Israel claims that despite the fact that they have infiltrated six of Palestine’s human rights organizations with sophisticated surveillance equipment and therefore know exactly what is going on within these agencies, Israel claims they are terrorist organizations. The evidence they offer to substantiate their claim is bogus and has been discredited in both Europe and the US. Today we dissect Israel's attack on one of these major Palestinian human rights giants, Al Haq.

We speak with Cynthia Ong, founder and Chief Executive Facilitator of Land Empowerment Animals People (LEAP), an NGO based in the state of Sabah in Malaysian Borneo, who tells us about the fallout from a story broken by Mongabay about a carbon deal signed by government officials in Sabah without consulting local communities. The deal covers more than 2 million hectares or 4.9 million acres of the state’s forests for at least the next 100 years. Our second guest is Gerry Flynn, a Mongabay contributor based in Cambodia who has been covering a recent government decree that made 127,000 hectares or nearly 314,000 acres of protected areas available for sale or rent. Flynn tells us why there are fears that it will amount to nothing more than a land grab by powerful interests, though the decree is ostensibly intended to make land titles available to landless families.