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Welcome to our first show of the new year. Beginnings, even arbitrarily designated calendrical ones, offer opportunities for self-reflection and change-making both in our personal lives and in the life of the greater society.
And, looking back at the year just past, it’s easy to see there’s plenty of change needed in not only the way the World is run, but also in the way we great primates think about our place in it. But what are we to do?
A good start, my first guest suggests, is becoming a little more conscious of the preconceptions and biases limiting our understanding.
Derrick Broze is a freelance journalist, community activist, gardener, promoter from Houston, Texas, and co-author of the book, ‘The Conscious Resistance: Reflections on Anarchy and Spirituality.’ He’s founder of both the Houston Free Thinkers, and The Conscious Resistance Network, and hosts the weekly podcast, The Conscious Resistance Live.
According to Broze, consciously resisting means, “being willing to engage in self reflection, and pursuing knowledge of the self.” The goal is freedom; freedom from the linear patterns of thought and action taught and reinforced by a society with an apparent death wish; or, as Derrick puts it, “Without knowing our own doubts, hopes, fears, dreams, insecurities and strengths we can not truly know what freedom means to us as an individual.”
Derrick Broze in the first half.
And; there’s no doubt, who informs us about the world effects how we live in it. Currently, Big M media within the Anglo-American power configuration is struggling to maintain the structural integrity of its narrative surrounding the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, and the great refugee exodus that conflict has created. Crucial to any good yarn of course is the villain; in this case the Black Hats are IS. Known variously as ISIS, ISIL, Daesh, and the Islamic State, these are the actors whose dastardliness makes anything done by us, naturally the heroes of this epic, just OK, (if not actually justified).
But what if ISIL, ISIS, Daesh, and/or the Islamic State is not who, or what the storytellers say it is? What if the story is just that, a story invented to cover the real motives behind the nightmare unleashed on Syria, and the whole of the middle east?
Tim Anderson is an Australian solidarity activist and academic at the University of Sydney. He has degrees in economics and international politics, and a doctorate in the political economy of economic liberalization in Australia. While his scholarly studies focus on economic development, human rights and self-determination within the Asia-Pacific region and Latin America, his latest articles, published at Global Research, explore the complex web of local and international interests at play in Syria and Iraq conflict. His latest is, ‘The Dirty War in Syria: Washington Supports Islamic State -The Evidence’.
Tim Anderson and the role frenemies play in Washington’s great Middle East game in the second half.
And; Victoria Street Newz publisher emertius and CFUV Radio broadcaster, Janine Bandcroft will join us at the bottom of the hour to bring us news of the coming week from our city’s streets, and beyond there too. But first, Derrick Broze, actively raising the consciousness level of alternative journalism.
