A Critical Ear

This week the focus of our show was the DNC, with Bob reporting live from Denver. However, we managed to fit in reports from Gaza and a world news bulletin, before connecting up with Bob.

With Bob, we started by talking about how the DNC compared to other protest events, then talked about Kucinich’s speech and the importance of international law. I mentioned a new Pew survey (showing that people feel they know more about Obama’s personal story than his policies) as a segue into a discussion of where Obama stands on foreign policy. We then discussed the IVAW rally at the DNC, and closed our DNC focus by talking about a rumoured raid on Indymedia space in Denver. To finish, I asked Bob about significant events in the world this week, and he gave some context on the Gaza convoy, pointed to the continued discussions on a ‘Status of Forces’ agreement (SOFA) in Iraq, as well as to new signs that the Afghan government is interested in having a SOFA to govern US forces in Afghanistan.

During our discussion, Bob mentioned a video he produced of a Code Pink rally, which was included in his blog post on Common Dreams. I promised a link (there’s also a link to Kucinich’s speech in there).

There was also mention of the Blue Dog party hosted by AT&T (to thank them for the gift of retroactive immunity). More from Glenn Greenwald of Salon here. Further DNC coverage from the Colorado IMC.

Next week we’ll be at the RNC.

Audio now up at Radio.Indymedia (mp3), Audioport (mp3), Radio4All

Those are among the most significant developments we discuss in our latest show (for June 19, 2008). Also available on Audioport.

We’ve fallen a little behind in posting shows to the site (I’ve concentrated on getting them onto Audioport during some recent travels). I plan to clear the backlog and get them up soon, probably as a combined post.

• Full show audio
  Contents:
  • Interworld Radio news headlines (3-4 min)
  • Interworld Radio feature about healthcare services in Zambia (6 min)
  • Discussion of Iran and US foreign policy regarding Iran (30-40 min)
  • Gaza - recent developments and context
  • Jose Padilla (5-10 min)
  • Economic developments in the US - recession or not, policy reactions (interest rates, economic stimulus packages) (10-15 min)
  • Kucinich dropping out of presidential race, impact of media (5-10 min)
  • notices and events (5 min)
• Edited audio of international affairs discussion

Notes and resources:On last night’s show I made mention of an online graphic demonstrating the relative wealth of US presidential candidates. That graphic is available at this post with the large version here showing just what the disparities are. While I’m at it, I misremembered some of the details - Obama is ‘only’ at between $2 and $3 million, while Clinton is up over $34 million and Edwards is over $50 million. Richardson is over $6m while Kucinich is somewhere around $200k. On the Republican side, Huckabee’s personal worth is something under $1m, while all the other contenders listed are over $1m - Thompson at $8m, McCain at $40m, Giuliani at over $50m, and Romney at $350m, though this is believed to be a significant under-estimate.As is noted in the accompanying article, Kucinich is the one with a worth closest to the ‘average’ American, though $200k still puts him well above the median - in 2004 US households had a net worth of just over $100k. I’m not one to attack candidates purely on account of their wealth - as we pointed on during the show, it’s the policies that matter, and criticisms of, for example, Edwards for raising issues of poverty, are cynical and ill-founded. It’s significant, though to note the correlation between wealth and being perceived as a ‘viable’ candidate. Note too that the 2004 CNN figures I reference above show just 6.4m US households with net worth over $1m (excluding primary residence) and around 500k households with net worth over $5m. There are around 100m households in the US (the census’s 2004 estimate was around 107m) which puts Obama firmly in the top 6% of households by wealth (assuming his reported wealth is his household wealth - if not, he’s even more firmly up there). All of the other remaining candidates (now that Kucinich is out) with the exception of Huckabee are firmly in the top half-percent of households by wealth.Bob also referenced a San Francisco Chronicle article criticizing the court decision allowing the exclusion of Kucinich from the Nevada debate.