Day: June 20, 2019

The Deadly Symbiosis of the Apocalyptic Beliefs of Iran’s Leader and Our Secretary of State’s Belief in the Rapture

We begin with the escalation of tension in the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman following the shoot-down of a $100 million American Global Hawk Drone by the Iranians which has President Trump saying “Iran made a very big mistake” then backtracking furiously to caution “I find it hard to believe it was intentional”. Clearly our-art-of-the-deal President does not want a war which we hope does not happen, but he is also signaling to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps that they can get away with taunting the “Great Satan”. A specialist of U.S.-Iran relations, Hussein Banai, an Iranian American scholar and Professor of International Studies at Indiana University and author of the forthcoming book, “Hidden Liberalism in Modern Iran”, joins us to discuss the incoherence of Trump’s foreign policy in handling a burgeoning crisis of his own making which is the result of his obsession with tearing up anything Obama achieved. Furthermore there is a deadly symbiosis between the hawks on our side and on theirs made much more dangerous by the messianic religious subtext of the Supreme Leader’s apocalyptic belief in their messiah the “Hidden Imam” returning and the equally incendiary spiritual pornography of so-called Christians invested in the “End Times” and Armageddon who like Secretary of State Pompeo, believe in the “rapture”.

The Feckless Display of Hand-Wringing by Democrats in Congress

Then with the feckless display of a lack of strategy on the part of the Democrats who held a closed-door hearing with Hope Hicks at which the White House lawyer prevented her from saying anything, which had it been televised would have at least shown the extent of obstruction by the White House but instead showed a bunch of hand-wringing from frustrated Democratic members of Congress, we will speak with Mike Lux the co-founder and CEO of Progressive Strategies. The author of “How to Democrat in an Age of Trump”, he joins us to discuss how focus groups have shown that once average Americans learn what is actually in the Mueller Report they want to impeach Trump.

Where Is I.F.Stone Now That We Need Him?

Then finally we look into the need for a revival of the journalism of I.F. Stone in the age of Trump and speak with Peter Dreier, Professor of Politics at Occidental College and author of “The 100 Greatest Americans: A Social Justice Hall of Fame” who has an article at Common Dreams, “In Praise of I. F. ‘Izzy’ Stone.”  With an onslaught of corruption and the looting of our government underway by Trump and his cronies, the need for an indefatigable researcher and an uncompromising critic of political oligarchy, crony capitalism, racism and American militarism could not be critical today.