Fight the Empire

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Every first and third Wednesday from 9:00 AM to 9:30 AM. 

 

 

Connecting history with the latest world events

We live in an empire that began 500 years ago with the European conquest of the Americas. This program looks at how the empire permeates our lives.

 

What are we doing in the world? What are we doing to the world?

George Kennan was an influential US diplomat during the Cold War years. It was he who devised the containment strategy against the Soviet Union (as opposed to a more aggressive rollback policy). In February 1948 Kennan presented a document to President Truman, Presidential Policy Statement #23, which includes the following:

"The US has  50 percent of the world's wealth, but only 6.3 percent of its population. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which permits us to maintain this position of disparity...To do so we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming, and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives.

"We should cease to talk about vague and unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are hampered by idealistic slogans the better."

Some have claimed that Kennan was speaking as a foreign policy "realist," and arguing against an ideological anti-Communist crusade. That may be so, but his words are clear, as Noam Chomsky has pointed out. The US intends to keep for itself an unfair share of the world's resources. The main difference between the realists and the ideologues is one of tactics in pursuing this ignoble goal.

 

 

 

 

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Fight the Empire on 12/06/12

Airs at: Thu, 12/06/2012 at 9:30am - 10:00am
Produced for Fight the Empire
 Host Per Fagereng speaks with writer Tamim Ansary about his new book Games Without Rules: The Often Interrupted History of Afghanistan. In GAMES WITHOUT RULES Tamim Ansary draws on his Afghan background, Muslim roots, and Western and Afghan sources to explain history from t... Read more

Fight the Empire on 11/15/12

Airs at: Thu, 11/15/2012 at 9:30am - 10:00am
Produced for Fight the Empire
Host Per Fagereng speaks with historian and author Alfred McCoy, about his recent piece on TomDispatch.com about the Pentagon’s dreams and plans for maintaining U.S. preeminence on planet Earth from the ground to outer space via an array of new robotic weaponry now in dev... Read more

Fight the Empire on 11/01/12

Airs at: Thu, 11/01/2012 at 9:00am - 10:00am
Produced for Fight the Empire
Per Fagereng hosts a special hour-long edition of Fight the Empire on Hurricane Sandy, climate change, unusual weather patterns, energy and more. Guests include Daniel Kessler, Media Campaigner for 350.org and 350 Action Fund and Joseph Nevins, who teaches geography at Vassa... Read more

Fight the Empire on 10/18/12

Airs at: Thu, 10/18/2012 at 9:30am - 10:00am
Produced for Fight the Empire

Fight the Empire on 10/04/12

Airs at: Thu, 10/04/2012 at 9:30am - 10:00am
Produced for Fight the Empire
Host Per Fagereng speaks with Mattea Kramer, senior research analyst at the National Priorities Project and lead author of the new book A People’s Guide to the Federal Budget. She just wrote the piece “Tough Talk for America, A Guide to the Presidential Debates You Won’... Read more

Fight the Empire on 09/20/12

Airs at: Thu, 09/20/2012 at 9:30am - 10:00am
Produced for Fight the Empire
Host Per Fagereng speaks with Hedrick Smith, Pulitzer Prize-winning former New York Times reporter and editor and Emmy award-winning producer/correspondent whose career spans fifty years. His new book Who Stole The American Dream? is an account of how, over the past four de... Read more

Fight the Empire on 09/06/12

Airs at: Thu, 09/06/2012 at 9:30am - 10:00am
Produced for Fight the Empire
Host Per Fagereng speaks with Gareth Porter, investigative historian and journalist specialising in U.S. national security policy, about his recent article on the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report called "IAEA Report Shows Iran Reduced Its Breakout Capacity.... Read more

Fight the Empire on 08/16/12

Airs at: Thu, 08/16/2012 at 9:30am - 10:00am
Produced for Fight the Empire
Host Per Fagereng speaks with  James Henry, lead researcher for a new report by the Tax Justice Network that finds that the super-rich are hiding at least $21 trillion in accounts outside their home countries. The wealth hidden in these tax shelters is the equivalent of the... Read more

Fight the Empire on 08/02/12

Airs at: Thu, 08/02/2012 at 9:30am - 10:00am
Produced for Fight the Empire

Syria

Airs at: Thu, 08/02/2012 at 12:00am
Produced for Fight the Empire
Host Per Fagereng talks about Syria and takes listener calls Read more