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Welcome to ClassWars, the home of Activist Radio, a weekly program for all Americans who are not in the wealthiest one percent of the US population.

Class wars have been going on since the beginning of recorded history. As societies become more powerful and wealthy, they often become more corrupt. Towards the end of each cycle, a few rich families own practically everything and rule with an iron fist. Imperial wars for empire and military over-expansion are other trademarks of a debased and undemocratic society. Empire often brings about great poverty and suffering not only in the occupied and exploited lands, but at home as well.

Class wars is a dirty term in our media, which always implies that America is above such crudeness. But the very rich are not above that at all. They have been waging an especially intense attack on working people since the 1970's, and have accumulated immense wealth and power at the expense of the rest of us.

Of course, America's class wars are not fought with tanks and bombs, but with crooked politicians, right wing think tanks and corporate owned media. For the very rich to maintain and increase their share of the national wealth, they have to fool you. How else could one percent of our population call the shots for the other ninety-nine percent?

Well, there is another way. The very rich can bankroll a fascist demagogue who then uses racial fears and hatreds to overcome any form of worker resistance. Mussolini and Hitler are examples of how this was done in the 1930s. Trump is, of course, the most dangerous demagogue of the 21st century. To understand how he has gotten this far, check out: "The Unspoken Spread of Fascism."

Activist Radio will attempt to show you how the few richest of our citizens lie to the rest of us to expand their power and wealth. They are sick with greed, of course. But so far, the rest of us are what might be worse, and that is stupid. None of the information presented is particularly new or really very hard to find, although you won't read it in the mainstream press or see it on TV. If that is what you are relying on for news, you are being suckered, my friend. I don't know how to put it any nicer.

So sit back, relax, and listen to Activist Radio streamed live:

Thursdays from 5 - 6 pm ET
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Sundays from 5 - 6 pm ET
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Activist Radio can also be heard: Thursdays 8-9 am on KBOO 90.7 FM in Portland, OR; Thursdays 11-12 noon on WRFA 107.9 FM in Jamestown, NY; Thursdays 5-6 pm on WVKR 91.3 FM at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, NY; Thursdays from 7-8 pm on WBDY 99.5 fm at The Bundy in Binghamton, NY; Sundays 1:30-2:30 pm on WESU 88.1 FM at Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT; Sundays 4-5 pm from WIOF 104.1 FM in Woodstock, NY; and Sundays 5-6 pm from the Progressive Radio Network at PRN.LIVE. Past programs are available as a podcast; search for Activist Radio on iTunes, Google Play, Digital Podcast, Stitcher. or Spotify. You can also listen to us anytime on the web at ClassWars.org. Our last ten programs can also be heard by clicking on the dates to the right.

Recent stories on Activist Radio may have you thinking about some important issues. Put another way, you could be wondering if most of what we say is totally made up, since you probably haven't seen it on TV. But here are some links to stories we have done recently.

News fashioned by the people in charge, the corporations and your government. Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine.





Fred Nagel is a Vietnam Era veteran and political activist whose articles have appeared in CounterPunch, Global Exchange, LA Progressive, Mondoweiss, Peace & Planet News, Popular Resistance, and Z Magazine. He also hosts a show on Vassar College Radio, WVKR (classwars.org).



#Candles4Assange



Eli wishing Assange a Happy Birthday



Eli and Fred "take a knee" for racial justice
while Jimi Hendrix goes out over the airwaves.




Reporting from the veteran's
encampment at Standing Rock




Fred at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London,
standing with a vigil for Julian Assange




Dave, Heather, Fred and DJ James Poe
at WABG - AM 960 in Columbus, MS

Dahr Jamail and Gary

Fred and Gary with Pete Seeger


Kathy Kelly and Gary


Thanks to Martha for this time
on the set of Democracy Now.


Fred and Gary on the air

In memory of Jordan Taylor,
Black Lives Matter organizer
and former Activist Radio co-host




The late 19 Century had its very own Gilded Age.






Milton Friedman, guru of deregulation and
self interest, made millionaires into billionaires
by robbing everyone else.






Feeding the Empire's war machine.

Listen to recent shows

You can also right click on the date to read your browser's other options. Listening in iTunes works nicely if that is available.




November 23

GUESTS: Two Palestinian women ask their House Representative Pat Ryan to call for an immediate ceasefire, and to oppose the Israeli genocide in Gaza and the West Bank.

Democratic Socialists of America key player.
President Biden, call a ceasefire now
Middle East Crisis Response

SONG: Bob Dylan and Pete Seeger, Let Freedom Sing ... Playboys and Playgirls
SONG: Country Joe McDonald ... Vietnam Never Again

November 16

GUESTS: Alexandria Shaner, from Extinction Rebellion and Matic Primca, Slovenian activist and journalist, talk about what the Z Network is and how it relates to the Influential radical publication, Z Magazine, that featured the writings of Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn.

Extinction Rebellion
Z Network
Z Magazine
Long Term Assault on Civil Liberties

SONG: Joan Baez and Jackson Browne ... El Salvador
SONG: The Marsh Family ... If That Day Comes Round

November 9

GUEST: Talal Jabari, Palestinian journalist, award winning documentary filmmaker and managing director of Radio Alam, an Arabic-language talk radio station, talks about the current uprising against Israel's genocide of the Palestinian people.

Award winning filmmaker
Victors of the Gaza war also the losers
Hundreds rally in Kingston, NY

SONG: Bob Franke ... Kristallnacht Is Coming
SONG: Given Wongkar ... We Will Not Go Down

November 2

GUEST: Mark Hammel, PhD, psychologist, Israeli citizen and veteran of the IDF during the Yom Kippur War, talks about his ideological journey to being a post Zionist, and a therapist for disabled veterans.

Explaining the Yom Kippur War
I Fought for the I.D.F. in Gaza
I know force alone won’t bring peace

SONG: Cisco Houston, The Very Best of Cisco Houston ... Passing Through
SONG: Tom Neilson ... Everything's a Target in Gaza

October 26

GUEST: John Pottinger, long time peace activist and investigative reporter for the Socialist Action Newsletter, talks about Niger and Northern Africa being caught in the crosshairs of US and French imperialism.

Niger in imperialist crosshairs
Full-scale war threatens Niger and West Africa
Socialist Action Newsletter

SONG: Pete Seeger and Steve Earle, A More Perfect Union ... This Old Man
SONG: Pete Seeger, A More Perfect Union ... Fields of Harmony

October 19

GUEST: Ray Acheson, Director of Reaching Critical Will, the disarmament program of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, and steering committee member of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) talks about Cop City and ending state violence.

Racketeering of state violence
Reaching Critical Will
Fight to Stop Cop City Won’t Stop

SONG: Garth Hewitt, Easter Revolution ... In the City of Jerusalem

October 12

GUEST: Sara Flounders, co-director of the International Action Center, writer for the "Workers World" newspaper, and organizer of mass rallies against imperialism, talks about the US "Pivot to Asia" and the threat of endless wars.

Camp David alliance against China
Stop U.S. global aggression!
International Action Center

SONG: Todd Snider, Peace Queer ... Fortunate Son
SONG: Jim Page, Getting Squeezed ... This Land

October 5

GUEST: Neil Seldman, professor of political science at George Washington University and co-founder of five notable organizations promoting  zero waste and economic justice, talks about helping communities transition from incineration to promoting locally owned businesses.

The Second Recycling Revolution
The case for a moratorium on incineration
Facebook event link for Monday forum

SONG: Gil Scott Heron ... We almost Lost Detroit
SONG: Otis Gibbs, Mount Renraw ... Bison

September 28

GUEST: Chelsea Villalba, community organizer, interpreter, and licensed social worker, talks about her life's mission to serve the needs of marginalized and systematically oppressed communities, including LGBTQ citizens.

Lavender Graduation Ceremony at SUNY Stonybrook
Legislative Report Examines Food Insecurity
I have never, in my adult life, felt less safe

SONG: Hal Ketchum ... Trail Of Tears
SONG: Diana Ross ... I'm Coming Out

September 21

Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh, previous faculty member at Duke and Yale Universities, now teaches and does research at Bethlehem and Birzeit Universities. He is the founder and director of the Palestine Museum of Natural History and Institute for Biodiversity Research in occupied Palestine. [This interview lasts the whole hour.]

Amid Environmental Destruction, Qumsiyeh Sees Hope
Global Earth Repair Foundation
Hope in the Midst of Calamity: A View from Palestine



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We often use Peacebutton's calendar

to do our History of Social Struggle each week.
Check them out at www.peacebuttons.info



Some Favorite Lies
of the Very Rich

  1. Class wars don't exist in America, the land of the free. (The very rich have taken the rest of us to the cleaners, especially since the mid 1970's. Democracy in America has become little more than a useful fiction.)
  2. The two party system promotes the will of the people. (Both parties are paid for by the major corporations, leaving the people with very little power to change domestic or foreign policy.)
  3. Multinational corporations encourage free enterprise. (They spend most of their time getting handouts from governments while trying to eliminate workers' rights and environmental regulations through "free" trade.)
  4. The billions spent on defense contracts make Americans safer. (Most defense contracts are no-bid, billion dollar scams. Of the first world countries, only America spends so much on weaponry that there is nothing left over for the poor and middle class: no education, no health care, and no housing.)
  5. High drug costs are necessary to pay for research. (Most drug profits go towards advertising and CEO stock options. Other first world countries, like Canada, control drug prices.)
  6. Charter schools increase the quality of the nation's education. (Charter schools allow corporations to control what students learn, while draining dollars from public schools.)
  7. US foreign policy is used to spread democracy and to make the world a safer place. (Most US policy is military action aimed at countries that threaten corporate profits. In America, the poor fight the wars, the middle class pays for them, and the very rich make out like the bandits they are.)
  8. Free health care, daycare, and college tuition for all are simply unaffordable. (The most successful capitalist countries provide their citizens with all these benefits and much more.)
  9. Social Security needs reform to save it. (Social Security is good for another 40 years, and with a little more paid by top earners, good forever. That is if we can keep Wall Street thieves from getting their hands on it.)
  10. It's all Trump's fault! Vote for the Democrats to change the system. (If you believe that whopper, you are part of the problem.)

The Hidden Verses
to This Land Is Your Land

Was a high wall there that tried to stop me
A sign was painted said: Private Property,
But on the back side it didn't say nothing --
This land was made for you and me.

One bright sunny morning in the shadow of the steeple
By the Relief Office I saw my people --
As they stood hungry, I stood there wondering if
This land was made for you and me.

WOODY G. (Feb. 23, 1940)





Workers of the world, awaken!
Beak our chains, demand your rights.
All the wealth you make is taken
By exploiting parasites.

Shall you kneel in deep submission
From your cradles to your graves?
Is the height of your ambition
To be good and willing slaves?

JOE HILL (1910)




One blue sky above us
One ocean lapping all our shore
One earth so green and round
Who could ask for more
And because I love you
I'll give it one more try
To show my rainbow race
It's too soon to die.

-Pete Seeger





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and can be heard every Sunday from 5 - 6 pm ET on
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Listen as a podcast on Spotify





Crony capitalists have always been with us.
Here is Boss Tweed of New York's Tammany
Hall sometime in the 1860's.









The policy of the American Empire since World War II.


<
I see in the future a crisis approaching that fills me with anxiety. As a result of the war, corporations have become enthroned, and an era of corruption in high places will follow. The money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its rule by preying upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is concentrated in a few hands and the Republic destroyed.
Abraham Lincoln
And above all Fascism denies that class-war can be the preponderant force in the transformation of society.
Benito Mussolini
The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism - ownership of Government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
A revolution is a class struggle. It was one class - the oppressed, and that other class - the oppressor.
Fred Hampton
Surely, in the history of lies told to the population, this is the biggest lie. In the history of secrets, withheld from the American people, this is the biggest secret: that there are classes with different interests in this country. To ignore that--not to know that the history of our country is a history of slaveowner against slave, landlord against tenant, corporation against worker, rich against poor--is to render us helpless before all the lesser lies told to us by people in power.
Howard Zinn
The clinical definition of "fascism' is when private concentrated economic power takes government away from the people, turns government into a guarantor, a subsidizer, a covering of corporate power.
Ralph Nader
There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning.
Warren Buffet
This [$700 billion bailout] was the largest single act of class warfare in the modern history of this country.
Dennis Kucinich
I think this has been a class war waged by the rich against the poor, and I think that they won. And I think the poor are fighting back.
Naomi Klein
The solution is revolution, first in the spirit of the gospel; Jesus could not accept people going hungry. It is a conflict between classes, rich and poor. My role is to preach and organize.
Jean-Bertrand Aristide
The effect of the [European Central Bank] policies is to weaken the welfare state measures and to reduce the power of labor. That's class war. It's fine for the banks, for financial institutions, but terrible for the population.
Noam Chomsky
The US has a highly class-conscious business class. If you read the business literature, it's like reading Mao's "Red Book." The values may be inverted, but the terminology is the same. They're fighting a bitter class war constantly. They never relax for a minute.

Noam Chomsky
The breakdown [of American society] is not caused by economic laws. They are policies, a kind of class war initiated by the rich and powerful against the working population and the poor. This is what defines the neoliberalism period, not only in the United States but in Europe and elsewhere.

Noam Chomsky
For 45 years there has been a war in this country waged by the corporate elite against the working class of America.

Bernie Sanders
If there is going to be class warfare in this country, it's about time the working class won that war.

Bernie Sanders
The theft of public resources for the military and militarism domestically and abroad represent a one-sided class war waged on the working class in the U.S. The 6 trillion dollars spent on U.S. wars since 2003 are resources that could have been directed to address the increasing desperate plight of workers and poor people in the U.S.

Ajamu Baraka
You look at the reality, neoliberalism translates as bitter class war. That?s the meaning of it, everywhere you look, every component of it.
Noam Chomsky
Now I'm finding out there's just one kind of war.
It's the one going on 'tween the rich and the poor.
I guess that I don't know a lot about class,
But the upper and middle can all kiss my ass.
Utah Phillips