In Episode 73 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg interviews Thomas Moore, anthropologist, advocate for indigenous cultural survival, and author of the newly released book, Madre de Dios: Refugio de Pueblos Originarios. The remote rainforest region of Madre de Dios in Peru’s southern… Read morePodcast: indigenous survival and the crisis in Peru
In Episode 72 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg repudiates the propaganda line that “Israel has a right to defend itself,” exposing this as justification of war crimes, and obfuscation of the reality of apartheid both sides of the Green Line…. Read morePodcast: Gaza and genocide
The US Department of Defense announced the transfer of Mohammed Farik bin Amin and Mohammed Nazir bin Lep from the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. Bin Amin and bin Lep arrived at Guantanamo in September 2006. The US accused the men of planning attacks in California and facilitating terrorist operations in Indonesia. Both men pled guilty to several offenses, and are to serve the remainder of their terms in Malaysia. Days earlier, Mohammed Abdul Malik Bajabu, accused in a 2007 attack in Mombasa, was turned over to Kenya. With the transfer of the three men, 27 detainees remain at Guantanamo Bay—down from a maximum of 780. However, President Biden has failed to live up to his pledge to close the facility by the end of his term. (Photo: Pixabay via Jurist)
In Episode 70 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg interviews Daniel Woldu, US representative of Omna Tigray, an international network calling for action to halt the genocide in the Tigray region of Ethiopia. Woldu discusses the abrogation of Tigray’s self-rule under the… Read morePodcast: solidarity with Tigray
The International Criminal Court (ICC) chief prosecutor said that a preliminary examination has found that there is a reasonable basis to believe crimes against humanity and war crimes have been committed in Ukraine, justifying the opening of an investigation. The preliminary examination was opened in 2014 when Ukraine, not formally a member of the ICC, lodged a declaration under Article 12(3) of the Rome Statute, accepting the jurisdiction of the court over possible crimes committed on its territory. Some of the war crimes allegations concern Crimea, a Ukrainian territory that was unilaterally occupied and annexed by Russia in March 2014. Ukraine is accepting the court's jurisdiction while Russia does not, which could open a dilemma for the ICC. (Map via Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection)
In Episode 68 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg offers a meditation on the final demise of the millennia-old Jewish community in Yemen, as the last families of Yemeni Jews are deported by the Houthi rebels that hold the capital… Read morePodcast: requiem for the Yemeni Jews
In Episode 67 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg continues the Spring ritual from his old WBAI program, the Moorish Orthodox Radio Crusade (which he lost due to his political dissent exactly 10 years ago), of reading the George Orwell essay… Read morePodcast: Thoughts on the Common Toad
In Episode 66 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg interviews Alexander Reid Ross, author of Against the Fascist Creep and a fellow at the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI), who has faced threats of litigation as well as relentless online harassment… Read morePodcast interview: Alexander Reid Ross
In Episode 65 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg offers his presentation on the panel “Kronstadt 1921 and the Social Crises of 2021,” part of the online conference Kronstadt as Revolutionary Utopia, 1921-2021 and Beyond, marking the centenary of the… Read moreSyria: Lessons from Kronstadt 1921
In Episode 64 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg notes the maddening and telling irony that while we’re all supposed to be ga-ga with triumphalism over NASA’s latest Mars probe, it has received practicailly no attention that Afro-Brazilian peasant communities are… Read morePodcast: US robo-imperialism hands off Mars!
In Episode 63 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg draws a parallel between the self-determination struggles in Taiwan and Puerto Rico. Each is an island nation in the “backyard” of a great imperial power, struggling for its independence. Taiwan is… Read moreTaiwan & Puerto Rico: forbidden symmetry
In Episode 62 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg grimly notes that, even with 400,000 Americans dead to COVID-19, the worst potentialities of the Trump presidency were not realized. Trump never (quite) established a dictatorship, and we didn’t (quite) go… Read morePodcast: for total de-Trumpification
