In the first sement, we speak with researcher and author, Larry Hancock, about his very timely book, CREATING CHAOS: COVERT POLITICAL WARFARE FROM TRUMAN TO PUTIN.
Listen to the full interview here.
Latest News: Author Archive
LARRY HANCOCK on CREATING CHAOS at Forthright Radio
Monday, August 20th, 2018JAMIE STERN-WEINER discusses Israel-Palestine and Labour’s alleged antisemitism crisis at Media Democracy
Monday, August 20th, 2018James Stern-Weiner returns to the show to discuss the structure of the debates about Israel-Palestine and Labour’s alleged antisemitism crisis.
Listen to the full interview here.
“The editors should be very proud. They’ve ignited women to fight for their bodies, their agency, and their lives.” – WOMEN OF RESISTANCE reviewed in the Women’s Review of Books
Tuesday, August 14th, 2018The editors of Women of Resistance should be very proud. They brought hope and community to their contributors, and the book that resulted will surely do the same for its readers. They’ve ignited women to fight for their bodies, their agency, and their lives—and they inspired me to write, too.
Read the full review in the latest print edition of the Women’s Review of Books here.
“With the Saudis bombing markets, schools, hospitals, residential areas… it’s time that we just say ‘enough is enough’.” – MEDEA BENJAMIN interviewed at Loud & Clear
Monday, August 13th, 2018A Saudi-led coalition airstrike reportedly struck a school bus transporting dozens of children, taking 50 lives and injuring 77 other people, according to a US NGO. The US, which supports the coalition, and the UN, called on Saudi Arabia to conduct an investigation.
Read the full interview here.
“An excellent cross-section of work by and about the intersectional experience of contemporary womanhood.” – WOMEN OF RESISTANCE reviewed at Hyperallergic
Monday, August 13th, 2018When I picked up Women of Resistance: Poems for a New Feminism, a collection of poems by 49 female-identified poets published by OR Books, I hoped to report that feminist poetry — and the new feminism that it represents — would not be a tragic, polemic trudge through the trash-pile that patriarchy has made of the world and women’s lives. .
Read the full review here.
JAMIE STERN-WEINER and NORMAN FINKELSTEIN debunk the accusations of anti-semitism against Jeremy Corbyn at The Real News
Monday, August 13th, 2018UK Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn is accused of presiding over a surge of anti-Semitism inside the Labour Party. Author Norman Finkelstein and British scholar Jamie Stern-Weiner say that Corbyn’s foes have cynically concocted a fake scandal to sabotage his progressive agenda and support for Palestinian rights.
Watch the full interview here.
Read an excerpt from FOR THE MANY: PREPARING LABOUR FOR POWER in Ceasefire
Monday, August 6th, 2018While some general election results, like 1970 and 1992, are surprising, 2017 was genuinely astonishing. Labour’s result did not just defy all media expectations and assumptions, it reduced Theresa May’s Conservative Government to a minority administration. Labour won over 12 million votes, a 40% share of the vote — 10% up on Ed Miliband’s score in 2015 and higher than any in the last forty years, except Blair’s two landslide victories.
Jon Snow confessed live on Channel 4 News: “I know nothing. We, the media, the pundits, the experts know nothing. We simply didn’t spot it.” This was perhaps the starkest, although by no means last, admission of failure from commentators and politicians alike.
Read the full article here.
“An easily readable and balanced survey of what is generally believed to be the most alluring metropolis in the Caribbean Basin.” – THE HISTORY OF HAVANA reviewed at Our Man in Boston
Monday, August 6th, 2018Founded early (1519) in the Age of Imperial Conquest (commonly known as the Age of Exploration), Havana was one of the three largest cities in the Hemisphere until the late 18th century
(with Mexico City and Lima) and a magnet for all manner of peoples.
Read the full review here.
“Finley’s words have a sharp, rhythmic pulse that sparks off the page.” – GRABBING PUSSY reviewed in Broadway World
Monday, August 6th, 2018One of the most exciting and important voices to emerge from the 1980s-90s American performance art movement, Karen Finley might be regarded as one of the country’s most noted censored artists.
As one of the four 1990 NEA grant recipients whose funding was revoked at the insistence of a faction led by North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms – whose description of her performance piece “We Keep Our Victims Ready” reduced it to the action of a naked Finley smearing chocolate sauce over her body, ignoring the literary content of her monologue about smothering patriarchy the symbolic gesture was a part of – Finley’s name will forever be associated with a United States Supreme Court case that not only prompted discussions of the definition of art, but of the definition of decency.
Read the full review here.
JAMIE STERN-WEINER on tackling Israel-Palestine’s toughest questions at Warscapes
Friday, August 3rd, 2018As Jamie Stern-Weiner notes in his introduction to Moment of Truth, a new collection of essays on Israel-Palestine from OR Books, the conflict “has endured so long that it has acquired about it an air of timelessness, and normalized into background noise,” a situation that carries with it “the twin risks of complacency and despair.” To be sure, following the Arab Spring, spiralling crises in Libya, Syria and Yemen, and renewed confrontations with Iran over the past year, the Palestinian struggle has been firmly placed on the backburner by many throughout the region and the West.
Moment of Truth seeks to re-start serious deliberations on the main issues frustrating a proper resolution to the conflict without falling into the trap of rehashing shop-worn positions that have come to characterize the debate. In service to this goal, the book features an impressive line-up of contributors addressing a full-spectrum of issues: As’ad Abukhalil, Mkhaimar Abusada, Shaul Arieli, Shlomo Ben-Ami, Diana Buttu, Richard Falk, Gideon Levy, John Mearsheimer, Norman Finkelstein, Nathan Thrall, and Ahmed Youseff, among many other.
Read the full interview here.
HOW TO READ DONALD DUCK reviewed in The Rumpus
Friday, August 3rd, 2018See the full review here.
KAREN FINLEY on her new book, GRABBING PUSSY at Cat Radio Cafe
Thursday, August 2nd, 2018Listen to the full interview here.
“An important book… penetrates the haze of political bombast and corporate bullshit.” – THE WRONG STORY reviewed in ColdType
Thursday, August 2nd, 2018We’ve been swamped by dire warnings about fake news and its threat to democracy over the past couple of years, the phenomenon being variously attributed to alternative web sites, Twitter feeds, and Facebook postings made by dastardly agents employed by Vladimir Putin…
Read the full review here.
“The writings gathered here are a testament to the vigour, virtuosity and range of their late author’s intellect.” – DEFINABLE TRACES IN THE ATMOSPHERE reviewed in The National
Tuesday, July 31st, 2018Mike Marqusee was an anti-Zionist Jewish American socialist activist, poet, journalist, pamphleteer, novelist and author who wrote about cricket with more grace and insight than just about anyone in his adopted country of England. When he died of bone cancer in 2015 memorial meetings were held in Islington and India, where Marquesee’s columns in The Hindu had gained him a devoted readership.
Read the full review here.
“The keynote guest, a “professor of neuroesthetics”, had his scientific theory shredded with exhilarating force by a speaker from the floor. That heckler was Riccardo Manzotti.” – THE SPREAD MIND in The Irish Times
Tuesday, July 31st, 2018Parks, a successful author in fiction and nonfiction, is understandably drawn to the philosophers’ side. He describes an influential moment almost a decade ago when attending a conference on art and neuroscience at the university where he teaches in Milan. The keynote guest, a “professor of neuroesthetics”, had his scientific theory shredded with exhilarating force by a speaker from the floor. That heckler was Riccardo Manzotti, a specialist in robotics and psychology with “a rather wild look” and “the most intense blue eyes”, and Parks has since fallen under his spell.
Read the full article here.
MEDEA BENJAMIN on stopping America’s coming war on Iran at KPFA
Tuesday, July 31st, 2018In the second hour “Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran” by Medea Benjamin, co-founder Global Exchange and Code Pink.
Listen to the full segment here.
JAMIE STERN-WEINER discusses MOMENT OF TRUTH: TACKLING ISRAEL-PALESTINE’S TOUGHEST QUESTIONS at The Real News
Monday, July 30th, 2018We speak to Jamie Stern-Weiner, editor of Moment of Truth: Tackling Israel-Palestine’s Toughest Questions, which brings together dozens of prominent experts to discuss how peace can be achieved
Watch the full interview here.
“Throws some of the spotlight back onto the women who have had an active and prominent role in the unfolding of events that have changed national security discourse.” – WOMEN, WHISTLEBLOWING, WIKILEAKS reviewed in the Fair Observer
Monday, July 30th, 2018Information, as powerful as it is, belongs to everyone and can help in individual self-determination.
At the center of any WikiLeaks discussion lies Julian Assange, the platform’s founder who has been embroiled in scandals and accusations of misogyny, amongst all else. Lesser known is the story of the women involved in the WikiLeaks phenomenon, as whistleblowing is an area of activity that, as Renata Avila, Sarah Harrison and Angela Richter write in Women, Whistleblowing, WikiLeaks: A Conversation, is “widely perceived as heavily male dominated.”
Read the full review here.
“An incisive and in many ways groundbreaking critique of the dominant media narrative.” – THE WRONG STORY reviewed in The Electronic Intifada
Monday, July 30th, 2018Why is it that the mainstream media in the US and other Western countries consistently frame the Palestinian liberation struggle as a “conflict” in which “both sides” share the blame, particularly because “extremists” undermine “moderates”? Why does this media unfailingly assert Israel’s “right to self-defense” even in the face of unarmed protests such as the recent Great March of Return in Gaza that in some instances pitted rocks and burning kites against modern weaponry?
Read the full article here.
“Israeli “self-defense” against Palestinians is logically impossible.” – read an excerpt from THE WRONG STORY at The Electronic Intifada
Thursday, July 26th, 2018News media outlets frequently present outbreaks of large-scale violence in Palestine-Israel in terms of “Israel’s right to defend itself.” This narrative says that whatever Israel may be guilty of, the state is justified in using military force to respond to Palestinian attacks.
But such media narratives about Israel’s “right to defend itself” mislead readers by ignoring the permanent violence of Israel’s colonization of Palestine and the aggressive pursuit of ethnic supremacy that this colonization entails.
Read the full article here.
MEDEA BENJAMIN on Trump’s escalating war of words with Iran at KPFA Flashpoints
Thursday, July 26th, 2018Today on Flashpoints, the war of words continues to escalate between the Trump administration and Iran in the aftermath of the US decision to abandon the Iran nuclear deal. We’ll be joined by Medea Benjamin of Codepink and author of book Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Listen to the full interview here.
“Always thought provoking… She makes connections and observations that are truly astounding.” Star Maker Machine on KAREN FINLEY
Wednesday, July 25th, 2018A couple of weeks ago, my wife and I went to see Karen Finley’s show, Grabbing Pussy (based on her new book, coincidentally published by a company partially owned by a friend). If you have never seen Karen, one of the most famous performance artists ever, you really should. Her shows, which focus on political and social issues, are always thought provoking. She makes connections and observations that are truly astounding. Watching her shows is like trying to drink from a fire hose–her words and ideas come at you in torrents, you can’t take it all in, but what you are able to digest is pretty incredible.
Read the full article here.
“To Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s critics: This is no time for sloganeering.” JAMIE STERN-WEINER writing for Mondoweiss
Wednesday, July 25th, 2018Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s announced support for a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict has drawn fire from elements of her base. Many activists believe that the two-state solution is dead, and view support for it as a betrayal of Palestinian rights. They would prefer that Ocasio-Cortez advocate a one-state solution to the conflict instead. But this would position her at the fringes of political discourse, beyond the horizon of even progressive public opinion.
Read the full article here.
“Tony Blair has made himself into a real mercenary out for hire.” MEDEA BENJAMIN on Tony Blair’s links with the brutal Saudi regime at The Real News
Wednesday, July 25th, 2018Tony Blair, fmr Prime Minister of the UK and an architect of the Iraq War, is a mercenary that Saudi Arabia hired to present themselves as modernizers and cover for their invasion of Yemen, says Medea Benjamin, the author of Kingdom of the Unjust: Behind the U.S.-Saudi Connection.
Watch the full interview here.
LIZA FEATHERSTONE on Hillary Clinton’s faux feminism and the rise of the focus group at Bloggingheads
Tuesday, July 24th, 2018Watch the full interview here.
“Grabbing Pussy delivers on its promise, as both incisive political commentary and explosive, emotional, acerbic, gymnastic prose poetry.” GRABBING PUSSY reviewed in LA Weekly
Tuesday, July 24th, 2018This may sound weird but you kind of need to read this book out loud.
Karen Finley, its author, is of course most famous as a mesmerizingly boundary-smashing performance artist; throughout her written body of work, the purring and percussive performative voice remains very much in evidence even on the page. All the more so in this case because the contents of Grabbing Pussy are essentially the libretto from Finley’s 2017 stage work, the multi-act one-woman political mad scene Unicorn Gratitude Mystery.
Read the full review here.
JAMIE STERN-WEINER discusses MOMENT OF TRUTH: TACKLING ISRAEL-PALESTINE’S TOUGHEST QUESTIONS at the New Books Network Podcast
Monday, July 23rd, 2018Jamie Stern-Weiner’s new edited volume, Moment of Truth: Tackling Israel-Palestine’s Toughest Questions (OR Books, 2018) seeks to clarify what it would take to resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict, to assess the prospects of doing so, and to illuminate the future possibilities for the region..
Listen to the full interview here.
“Alex Nunn’s engaging style makes Corbyn’s journey from jam-making backbencher to leader of the opposition seem both exciting and totally rational.” THE CANDIDATE reviewed in Peace News
Monday, July 23rd, 2018Alex Nunn’s engaging style makes Corbyn’s journey from jam-making backbencher to leader of the opposition seem both exciting and totally rational.
Last year, The Candidate won the Bread and Roses award for radical publishing. That first edition traced Corbyn’s rise up to the attempted coup by right-wing Labour MPs in mid-2016.
This new edition includes a 100-page(!) chapter covering last June’s snap general election and the incredible surge of support for Labour despite vitriolic attacks on Corbyn from the right-wing media.
Read the full review here.
