Parallax Views w/ J.G. Michael

On this edition of Parallax Views, Project Censored's Mickey Huff and Nolan Higdon return to the program to discuss their new book, available now from Routledge, Let’s Agree to Disagree A Critical Thinking Guide to Communication, Conflict Management, and Critical Media Literacy. This was recorded around the time that Mia Janowicz and the Department of Homeland Security's Disinformation Governance Board was in the news so we also delve into issues related to censorship and corporate media bias. In the course of our conversation we also touch upon critical theory and Frankfurt School thinkers like Herbert Marcuse, the abortion debate, and much, much more! In the second segment of the show, a previously unpublished conversation from early 2022 in which J.G. spoke with friend of the show and returning guest John Duffy (co-author with Ray Nowosielski of The Watchdogs Didn't Bark: The CIA, NSA, and the Crimes of the War on Terror and the investigative documentary podcast After The Uprising: The Death Of Danyé Dion Jones) to discuss Duffy's latest docu-podcast Origins: Birth of a Pandemic, which investigates the issue of COVID and the lab leak hypothesis. In the conversation we discuss a number of topics including biolabs and biodefense, Anthony Fauci, Peter Daszak and the EcoHealth Alliance, biosafety, and much, much more!

On this edition of Parallax Views, sociologist William I. Robinson returns to the program to discuss his new book Global Civil War: Capitalism Post-Pandemic. Picking up where his last book, Global Police State, left off, Global Civil War explores the growing global discontent in the age of transnational capitalism and the 21st century's emergent, high-tech surveillance society in the aftermath of the COVID pandemic. Among the topics discussed on this edition of the show. - The digital revolution, the biopolitical regime, and the transformation of global capitalism - The transnational capitalist class and the Davos-based World Economic Forum - Social control, surveillance, and the disciplining of the global working class - The digital revolution and the exacerbation of global inequality and the rapid expansion of the ultra-wealthy's fortunes since the pandemic - The new, dramatic crisis of global capitalism and the history of crises within the capitalist system - The emergence of a biopolitical regime - The political crisis of state legitimacy and the global revolt - The 1800s and the explosion of imperialism and colonialism in response to crisis - Fordism-Keynesianism, redistributive capitalism, and welfare states in the 20th century - The crisis of 1970s, the neoliberal counterrevolution, the redisciplining of the global working class by the global ruling class or transnational elite - Divisions within the transnational capitalist class over how to resolve the current crisis and the right-wing authoritarian turn amongst major sectors of global capital - The massive new round of restructuring of global capitalism based on digitalization - The lack of national solution to the global crisis - The role of artificial intelligence, machine learning, big data, the internet of things, nanotechnology, 5G, facial-recognition technology, 3D printing, and other technologies in the current global transformation and social control - Big tech and the biomedical-industrial complex, global financial conglomerates, and the military-industrial complex - On-demand and remote work, automation, robotization, the threat of displacement and degradation of labor, precarious employment, and "surplus humanity" - The automation and robotization of agriculture - China's 996 work regime, Taylorism, and scientific management - The restructuring of time and place to exercise greater control over the global working class - New technologies and the fragmentation of labor - The need for a digital proletariat to organize in new ways and examples of global revolt occurring and the transnational capitalist class responding to it - Emergency mobilization after the pandemic, states of exception, and the history war game-style pandemic response scenarios such as the "Lockstep Scenario" - The problem with right-wing conspiracy theories about the transnational capitalist class, the pandemic, and other issues - The problem of disinformation - And much, much more!

This is a preview for the latest Failed State Update, a podcast I co-host with Joseph Flatley. LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE AT: https://roundtable.io/failed-state-update/podcasts/operation-northwoods-false-flags-in-the-pentagon-transcript SYNOPSIS BELOW: Douglas Horne on the JFK assassination and the planned invasion of Cuba     This is what happened when I Googled 'Bay of Pigs' Douglas P. Horne is a former staffer for the Assassination Records Review Board and the author of several books, including Inside the Assassination Records Review Board. In this episode of Failed State Update, J.G. Michael and Horne discuss Operation Northwoods, the Pentagon's (very real) plan to down aircraft, blow up ships, or possibly kill American civilians as a pretext for an invasion of Cuba. President Kennedy, wisely, thought the whole thing was nuts and prevented it from happening. Northwoods is a bit of a history lesson, but it's an important one. It exemplifies the lengths that the military may go in order to get its way. And as conspiracies go, it's as bizarre as anything Alex Jones has cooked up. And it's all real.

On this edition of Parallax Views, the SRB Podcast's Sean Guillory returns to discuss his new documentary podcast series Teddy Goes to the USSR. This new series chronicles American tourism to the USSR during the Cold War through the story of Teddy Roe's visit to the Soviet Union. In doing so the series offers a window into how people from different cultures view each other in light of Otherizing and getting a better understanding of the lived experiences of everyday people in the USSR. Among the topics we cover in this conversation: - Who Teddy Roe is, how he ended up visiting the USSR in 1968, and his connection to U.S. politics and Congress - Racism and the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S. during the Cold War and the Soviet response to it; Soviet anti-racist ideology - Consumerism in the Soviet Union and the misunderstandings about it based on American metrics; the Soviet Dream and the American Dream - KGB surveillance of American tourists - Why American wanted to visit the Soviet Union during the Cold War and why Soviets welcomed tourism; American soft power and U.S. tourists in the USSR - How different were everyday people in both the U.S. and the Soviet Union from each other (or how similar were they to each other)? - Soviet humor, comedy, and satire - The burden of the Cold War and the shadow it casts over the U.S. and Russia today - How the Teddy Goes to the USSR series came about; how Sean ended up finding out about Roe's story and contacting him - The taboo allure of the Soviet Union to Americans during the Cold War - And much, much more!

On this edition of Parallax Views, Nick Marx returns to the program to discuss his new book, co-authored with Matt Sienkiewicz, entitled That's Not Funny: How the Right Makes Comedy Work for Them about what could be called the emerging right-wing comedy complex. Marx and Sienkiewicz argue that a niche has emerged for right-wing comedy that's proving useful for the pursuing the political agenda of the American right. In this conversation we discuss: - The "paleo-comedy" of figures like Tim Allen and his sitcom Last Man Standing, the reboot Rosanne, the shades of paleo-conservatism within "paleo-comedy", and how it targets a "boomer" demographic - The rise of Greg Gutfeld from the ostensibly surrealist, even countercultural Red Eye to his latest Fox News show Gutfeld!; how Gutfeld's show is less about policy than "owning the libs" with a carnival-esque aesthetic - Steven Crowder of Louder With Crowder and right-wing comedy as a niche market that can also be used recruit young people to the American right-wing - The far-right of the right-wing comedy complex: Sam Hyde, Million Dollar Extreme, and Bronze Age Pervert; trolling in right-wing comedy - Is Joe Rogan and the Joe Rogan Experience part of the right-wing comedy complex? - Thoughts on Dave Chappelle - Right-wing comedy branding itself as countercultural, edgy, and "cool" - How the book is not an endorsement of the humor of the right-wing comedy complex, but rather addressing how the complex works politically; the punching up vs. punching down humor debate - Right-wing comedy and manufactured outrage - The era of liberal/left-wing comedy with Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart and how the right-wing comedy complex became a niche - And much, much more!

On this edition of Parallax Views, journalist Jefferson Morley returns to the show to discuss his new book Scorpion's Dance: The President, the Spymaster, and Watergate, which details the dual lives and "clandestine collaborative relationship" between CIA director Richard Helms and President Richard Nixon culminating in the Watergate break-in. Among the topics discussed: - The contrasting backgrounds of Richard Nixon, a man from a humble background who hated the Eastern Establishment, and Richard Helms, an Ivy League-educated man who came to head the CIA during the Cold War - The role of secrecy and power in the lives of Nixon and Helms - Cuba, AMLASH, covert assassination programs, organized crime, the military dictatorship of General Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar, Fidel Castro, the Bay of Pigs, and America's Cold War ideology - Examples of the Central Intelligence agency finding ways to set policy and go over the head of President John F. Kennedy and President Lyndon Baines Johnson - The CIA and the press - Nixon's national security policy, the Vietnam War, the antiwar movement, and CIA spying on antiwar activists - CIA officer and infamous Watergate burglar E. Howard Hunt, his relationship with Helms, and Hunt's James Bond-like pulp spy fiction - Watergate, Daniel Ellsberg, and dirty tricks like blackmail operations - Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein's All the President's Men - National security legislation and Presidential abuse of unchecked power - The cultural revolution of the 60s/70s and Watergate as a crisis of the national security state - The assassination of JFK, the CIA, pre-assassination knowledge of Lee Harvey Oswald, Richard Helms and the Warren Commission, and James Jesus Angleton - President Harry Truman's "abolish the CIA" op ed - 

On this edition of Parallax Views, Ira Shapiro, former Ambassador and author of such books as The Last Great Senate: Courage and Statesmanship in Times of Crisis and Broken: Can the Senate Save Itself and the Country?, joins the show to discuss his book The Betrayal: How Mitch McConnell and the Senate Republicans Abandoned America. We begin by discussing Newt Gingrinch and his "politics of destruction", the declining faith in the Senate as an instituinon, and the polarization of the United States of America. We then turn our attention to Mitch McConnell and how he went from a "moderate Republican" to moving, alongside the GOP, further to the Right. McConnell, Shapiro argues, has broke from his responsibility to serve the national interest in favor of partisanship that serves the interest of the GOP. In this regard we delve into McConnell's "Bitter Harvest" in the Obama years and the broken politics and government dysfunction that plagued America even before the Presidency of Donald J. Trump. From there we move onto the relationship between Donald Trump and McConnell; the Supreme Court, tax cuts for the rich, and anti-Affordable Care Act priorities of McConnell; McConnell and the donor base of the Republican Party; the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court; beating the Democratic Party at all costs; the 2020 Presidential Election and the Jan. 6th Insurrection; Under Secretary of State George Ball's quote from the Vietnam War era "He who rides the tiger cannot chose where he dismounts"; the Senate going forward; thoughts on diplomacy; and much, much more! In the second segment of the show, true crime author Lis Wiehl, whose previous books include Hunting the Unabomber and The Hunting Charles Manson, joins the show for a conversation about her new book A Spy in Plain Sight: The Inside Story of the FBI and Robert Hanssen—America's Most Damaging Russian Spy. Rober Hanssen is perhaps one of the most notorious spies in modern American history. While working for the FBI he decided to start working with the Soviet Union and the Russians. After all was said and done, he became the most damaging spy in American history whose actions had massive ramifications for national security. We discuss who Hanssen was; Hanssen's association with the conservative Catholic organization known as Opus Dei; Hanssen as a disgruntled employee of the FBI; his nickname at the FBI: "The Mortician"; Hanssen's anti-communism; how Robert's wife Bonnie Hanssen and a priest found out about Hanssen spying for the Russians; Hanssen's psychiatrist David Charney and Hanssen's penchant for compartmentalization and warped thinking; how the intelligence community became aware of a spy in their midst and the wrongful finger pointed at CIA agent Brian Kelley being the spy; the Webster Commission Report and why it took so long for suspicion to fall on Hanssen; the contradictions of Robert Hanssen; intel figures' belief that there will be another Robert Hanssen and that there's likely already one today; cybersecurity today; Wiehl's thoughts on the dangers of politicization of intelligence; and much, much more!

On this edition of Parallax Views, freelance journalist Albert Lanier makes his long-awaited return to Parallax Views to discuss a scandal known as the Inslaw Affair involving the Department of Justice, a software known as PROMIS, a conspiracy dubbed "The Octopus by the late journalist Danny Casolaro, spying and espionage, and media mogul Robert Maxwell (yes, the father of Jeffrey Epstein's partner-in-crime Ghislaine Maxwell). It takes us into the world of the "Catacombs", as Lanier refers to it, where politics meets sub rosa activities. Among the topics discussed: - What the PROMIS software was, Bill Hamilton Vs. the Department of Justice, claims of the PROMIS software's modification, and the potential use of the software for spycraft - The strange, sketchy characters around the Inslaw/PROMIS scandal such as Michael Riconsciuto and alleged Israeli spy/arms dealer Ari Ben-Menashe - "The Octopus", the death of journalist Danny Casolaro, and the triple murders related to the Cabazon Indian Reservation - Robert Maxwell's alleged ties to Israeli intelligence like Mossad - And much, much more A NOTE FROM BILL HAMILTON: I had never even heard of Albert Lanier prior to his recent reporting on the INSLAW Affair. He never contacted me prior to publishing his report which incorrectly states that I had worked on developing PROMIS while an NSA employee. I worked at NSA HQ as an intelligence analyst and Vietnamese linguist for seven years in the 1960s after graduating from the University of Notre Dame as an English Major. I left NSA because I had become interested in working on urban problems and joined the management consulting component of Peat Marwick & Mitchell, a major public accounting firm. While there, I responded to a Request for Proposals to develop a case management software system for the local street crime prosecution component of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia, won the competitive procurement, and served as the project manager on what I named PROMIS.

On this edition of Parallax Views, longtime community and union organizer Daisy Pitkin, who is now playing a role Starbucks Union wave as part an offshoot of the union UNITE, joins the program to discuss her new memoir On the Line: A Story of Class, Solidarity, and Two Women's Epic Fight to Build a Union. She tells the story of her attempts to help organize for workers at industrial laundry factories with dangerous working conditions in Phoenix, Arizona. In doing so she shows that labor organizing requires not only righteous anger but solidarity between workers and touches upon the ways in which labor organizing must democratize knowledge of organizing. Organizers, in other words, must share their knowledge with workers themselves so that the workers can organize themselves. We cover these topics as well as the role of metaphorical role of moths in her memoir, getting to know workers on a personal, the rise of a youth that is calling itself "Generation U" o "Generation Union", the history of labor law in the U.S. and how workers face an uphill battle legally, how the the labor struggle cannot simply be one through hoping for legislation but creating an organic movement that will apply external pressure to those in power, and much, much more! Then, in the latter half of the program, women's liberation movement organizer Jenny Brown joins the program to discuss the issue of abortion rights and Roe V. Wade with a focus on how these matters relate to class struggle. In particular, Jenny explains how the ruling class has thought about abortion from the past to the present and addresses the powerful, monied forces that are in favor of restricting abortions and overturning Roe V. Wade. All that and more in this fascinating discussion that touches upon a number of of seemingly disparate but related topics such as economic growth in capitalism, immigration, labor, the overpopulation theory popularized in the late 1960s by Paul Erlich's The Population Bomb, declining birthrates, and more!

On this edition of Parallax Views, Dan Christensen of the Florida Bulldog returns to the show to discuss the latest on the recently declassified FBI report on Saudi Arabia and the support networks for the perpetators of the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks. Dan has been covering this issue alongside Anthony Summers and Robynn Swan, authors of The Eleventh Day: The Full Story of 9/11 and Osama Bin Laden, for a number of years now and his latest Florida Bulldog piece on the subject is entitled "A ‘state secret’ no more: New FBI report says Saudi government officials provided support network for 9/11 hijackers". Among the subjects discussed in relation to the report are: Saudi charities; Prince Bandar Bin Salman (nicknamed Bandar Bush for his association with George W. Bush); the Muslim World League; Operation Encore; the figures of Fahad al Thumairy , Omar al Bayoumi, and the now unredacted Musaed al Jarrah; 9/11 hijackers al Hazmi and al Mihdhar; and much, much more! In the second segment of the show, Mitchell Plitnick of ReThinking Foreign Policy joins me to discuss his Responsible Statecraft piece "Biden’s trip to Israel is getting trickier by the day". In June, President Joe Biden will visit Israel. The death of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in Jenin, the police attacks during her funeral, and the upcoming Jerusalem Day "Flag March" of Israeli far-right nationalists which will go through Damascus Gate and the Old City's Muslim Quarter has already put tensions at an all time high. Meanwhile, the Biden administration is seeking to pivot U.S. foreign policy out of the Middle East to focus on Russia and China. Mitchell explains how he believes this has led to a circumstance where the Biden administration is not addressing issues like Abu Akleh's death or the large expansion of settlements in the West Bank. In addition to this we discuss Israel's current Prime Minister Naftali Bennet, the figure of Knesset member and far-right provocateur Itamar Ben-Gvir, Secretary of State Antony Blinken's encounter with a pro-Palestinian activist, and much, much more.