Episode 80: Textbook Examples

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(This episode is part of the series The Powell Movement.)

I have to keep reminding myself that, when I start a task of reading and dissecting, I should read and dissect ALL of it, not just the parts I think would be most interesting. Why? There's interesting stuff in those boring parts, if only I considered them enough. As it was with college speakers, so too is it the case with textbooks. Hence, Episode 80: Textbook Examples.

In this episode, I play excerpts from former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan giving testimony to Congress from October 23, 2008, and from President Franklin Roosevelt's first inaugural address from March 4, 1933. I read from Steve Keen's excellent book Debunking Economics, and shared a couple of very similar quotes from Nathan Meyer Rothschild and Paul Samuelson. As usual, D. L. Myers opened the show reading from The Memo.

Through the show today I weave a Pietnastka tune appropriately called "School Boy". KMFDM backs Henry Giroux near the start, and I close with Mistle Thrush.

I'm releasing this and all my episodes under a Creative Commons 4.0 attribution, share-alike and non-commercial license. I don't say that every time. I should.

Episode 79: Provocateurs

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(This episode is part of the series The Powell Movement.)

Lewis Powell suggested that colleges and universities were too liberal for their own good, and that people, good people who believed in the enterprise system, should be brought to campus to speak. Today, the college speakers we hear about we hear about because of protests sometimes too violent to allow the speakers to speak safely.

In this Episode 79: Provocateurs, I suggest that inciting protests against the wing nut, wackaloon, cray cray, Holy Shit You've Got To Be Fucking Kidding Me, Nazi, Klan, Liberals Baaaaad brand of What the Fuck Was That?! speech might be the real reason speakers are chosen, rather than their simple support of the enterprise system.

I read from a few internet memes, summarize Upton Sinclair's 1923 book The Goose-Step, and quote a bit of David Brock's Blinded By The Right.

D. L. Myers intones Mr. Powell's memo excerpts at the opening, and Henry Giroux gives a few words with KMFDM's able "Attack" backing. I play a bit of the kerfuffle from a Middlebury College student protest over a speaking engagement by Charles Murray. Full Load of King plays "Envelope Infrared Part 3", and I close with Mistle Thrush.

Episode 78: A Quickie After Courting

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(This episode is part of the series The Powell Movement.)

Sometimes, reality can bitch-slap us right upside our heads with its patented Clue-By-Four™. Reality did that to me, but this time, it only showed how generous I was to the Powell Movementeers when I described their activities in my last Episode 77: Courting Disaster. This is a follow-up to that episode, wherein I let other voices tell you how bad things have gotten. And since it follows 77, and since it is quick, as in short in length of time, this is Episode 78: A Quickie After Courting.

The music of Ga'an, a five-minute piece called "I Of Infinite Forms Part I," backs the voices I've culled from the intertoobs. We hear (not necessarily in order of appearance): Bob Garfield, from an On The Media podcast extra, "Better Know a Justice" (dated March 25, 2017); Jeffrey Toobin, interviewed by Terry Gross on Fresh Air's episode "How One Man Brought Justices Roberts, Alito And Gorsuch To The Supreme Court" (dated April 12, 2017); David Greene from NPR's Morning Edition interviewing Leonard Leo* ("What Comes Next for Neil Gorsuch," released April 5, 2017); Bob Garfield (again, I know) as heard in On The Media's episode "Highly Irregular"** (podcast dated March 25, 2017); Dan Goldberg, from his Counterspin interview (podcast dated March 25, 2017); NBC News, "Neil Gorsuch Confirmed Supreme Court After Senate Uses Nuclear Option;" a Wall St. Journal video, "Gorsuch Gets Campaign-Like Ad Push" (dated February 21, 2017); a US News video, "Judicial Crisis Network Releases Ad Supporting Neil Gorsuch for Supreme Court" (dated February 3, 2017); and a CNN piece, "Making America Great Neil Gorsuch" (dated April 4, 2017).

(As to the asterisks, I would encourage everyone to listen to the source material so marked, both the David Greene interview with, let's remember, THE key player in this drama, Leonard Leo, the man who vetted and listed Gorsuch and two other Supreme Court justices for Republican presidents. For David Greene to *NOT* acknowledge Leo's prominent role in Gorsuch's selection, and treat him just as an "advisor" to President Trump, is to take away for a good long time any claim he—or NPR—has as a "liberal" position or even liberal leaning. That was hiding the bias to the highest degree possible. And Bob Garfield's interview with director Carrie Severino of the Judicial Crisis Network should be heard to be properly hated. The snark, the smug, the "screw you, poor people" coming from her mug was almost as condescending Leo's supercilious and disingenuous tone.

(Y'know, fuck them both. I planned to put that tone in the quickie mash-up, but felt I would have to back pedal constantly to correct the taint of lies spewing from both their pie holes too much to keep the episode quick. Go. Have a listen for yourself. These bastards are outright bragging about their Destruction of Democracy.)