Kathleen Belew A Field Guide to White Supremacy

Kathleen Belew is an international authority on the White-Power Movement and Assistant Professor of History at the university of Chicago.

Her 2018 book, BRING THE WAR HOME: THE WHITE POWER MOVEMENT AND PARAMILITARY AMERICA, published by The Harvard University Press, was a hugely important work toward our understanding of the international white supremacy movement.

She now has a compilation of essays, A FIELD GUIDE TO WHITE SUPREMACY, which she co-edited with her colleague at the University of Chicago, History Professor, Ramón A. Gutiérrez. It contains the writings of a diverse group of writers, among them Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Jamelle Bouie, Judith Butler, Rebecca Solnit, just to name a few.

In September of 2019, Professor Belew was a witness at a congressional hearing on confronting white nationalism. In her witness statement, she described the white power movement as a threat to our democracy and that that is was transnational. Her research and writings decry the notion that attacks such as the massacres at the Christchurch Mosque, the Tree of Life Synagogue, or the El Paso walmart are the work of lone wolves. We spoke with Kathleen Belew on October 28, 2021.

Articles referred or pertinent to this interview can be found here:

A historian of white power reacts to the Rittenhouse verdict: ‘a bonanza for the far-right’ https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/24/historian-white-power-reacts-kyle-rittenhouse-verdict-far-right

Three Trials in America – The conversations playing out in courtrooms in Kenosha, Charlottesville, and Georgia are revealing https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/10/kenosha-charlottesville-georgia-trials-justice-system-race.html

Neo-Nazi duo handed nine-year US prison terms over apparent attack plot https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/28/neo-nazi-the-base-far-right-us-prison-terms

Victims of Charlottesville Rally Argue the Violence Was Planned https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/24/us/charlottesville-rally-trial.html

U.S. Border Agency Settles With 2 Americans Detained for Speaking Spanish https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/26/us/montana-spanish-border-patrol.html?searchResultPosition=1

A 19th-Century Law Dismantled The KKK. Now It Could Bring Down A New Generation Of Extremists https://www.huffpost.com/entry/charlotesville-spencer-kessler-trial-spitalnik_n_61730a2ee4b09314320ae288

How higher education can win the war against neoliberalism and white supremacy https://www.salon.com/2021/10/24/how-higher-education-can-win-the-against-neoliberalism-and-supremacy/

2020 Had The Most Reported Hate Crimes Since 2001: FBI Data https://www.huffpost.com/entry/fbi-2020-hate-crimes-asian-americans_n_6176fd81e4b010d933148e55

“Diversity,” “White Supremacist” Among Terms WI GOP Seeks to Ban in Schools https://truthout.org/articles/diversity-white-supremacist-among-terms-wi-gop-seeks-to-ban-in-schools/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=1e0e4c93-75bb-4f98-941f-8f5c9ca0dbce

California synagogue killer not allowed to speak as he gets life without parole https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/oct/01/california-synagogue-killer-not-allowed-speak-life-without-parole

Abortion Has Just Never Been About Abortion https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/15/opinion/abortion-evangelicals-conservatives.html

White supremacists declare war on democracy and walk away unscathedhttps://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/nov/10/white-supremacists-war-on-democracy-unscathed

Ecotones: Angella Ahn

Angella Ahn is the virtuoso violinist in the Ahn Trio, MSU Bozeman School of Music Faculty member, Artistic Director of Montana Chamber Music Society, Member of the Montana Arts Council and much more.

We spoke with her on October 21, 2021 about her life, her career, her many contributions to Bozeman and Montana culture – and for that matter the world’s. She has performed in all 50 states and at least 30 countries.

From appearing on the cover of Time magazine as a child in 1987, or performing at the White House in 2011, she graces us with her joie de vivre, love of music and embodiment of how to live in a state of gratitude and giving.

You may wish to learn more about the Montana Chamber Music Society: http://montanachambermusicsociety.org

This Season 11 Episode 1101 of 11th & Grant features Angella Ahn & Friends: https://www.pbs.org/video/11th-and-grant-angella-ahn-friends/

Education: The New Whiz Kids – Why Asian Americans are doing so well, and what it costs them http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,965326,00.html

You can hear this very first edition of Ecotones with Sada Schumann and view her award winning History Day documentary, “Defining Korea: How Conflict and Compromise Shaped a Nation” here: http://kgvm.org/show/sada-schumann/

Giulio Boccaletti WATER: A Biography

In addition to having been a lead author of the fifth Assessment Report to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Giulio Boccaletti was Chief Strategy Officer and Global Managing Director for Water at The Nature Conservancy, where he led a team of over 200 freshwater scientists, policy experts, economists and on-the-ground conservation practitioners, promoting action on water issues by governments and businesses.

Earlier in his career, he was a partner of consulting firm McKinsey & Company, where he co-founded the water practice and worked with businesses and governments around the world. He trained at MIT, Princeton and Bologna University in Physics and Atmospheric Science. His book, WATER: A Biography, was published in Sept. 2021 by Pantheon Books. We spoke with him in England on October 15.

Articles referenced or pertinent to this interview:

Flooding could shut down a quarter of all critical infrastructure in the U.S. https://www.axios.com/flood-risk-united-states-critical-infrastructure-a8703d5b-8d95-4584-8bc3-4ea086b83cfa.html

China floods: Nearly 2 million displaced in Shanxi province https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-58866854

Joe Manchin’s Climate Objections Opposed by BP and Shell https://www.newsweek.com/joe-manchin-build-back-better-clean-energy-joe-biden-bp-shell-1640230

As Manchin Blocks Climate Plan, His State Can’t Hold Back Floods https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/17/climate/manchin-west-virginia-flooding.html

It’s easy to feel pessimistic about the climate. But we’ve got two big things on our side https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/oct/15/climate-crisis-cop26-bill-mckibben

The Climate Disaster Is Here https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2021/oct/14/climate-change-happening-now-stats-graphs-maps-cop26

Corporations are pledging to be ‘water positive’. What does that mean? https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/14/water-positive-pledge-corporations

The Lost Canyon Under Lake Powell https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/08/16/the-lost-canyon-under-lake-powell

Andrew Cockburn The Spoils of War: Power, Profit and the American War Machine

Award winning journalist, documentary film producer and Harper’s Washington, DC editor, Andrew Cockburn, comes from an illustrious family of British journalists. In addition, he has been married to American journalist and documentarian, Leslie Cockburn, since 1977.

For more than four decades, he has focused on national security not just of the United States, but of the Soviet Union as well. Beginning with his Peabody Award winning 1981 PBS film, THE RED ARMY, which was the first in-depth study of deficiencies in the Soviet military, he has covered the wars in Afghanistan since the 1980s with his wife, Leslie Cockburn. In 2009, they produced the film AMERICAN CASINO on the financial collapse of 2007. His 8th book, THE SPOILS OF WAR: POWER, PROFIT and the AMERICAN WAR MACHINE, has just been published by Verso.

In it he asserts that “The record shows America’s Afghan War was nothing other than a prolonged and entirely successful operation – to loot the US Taxpayer. At least a quarter of a million Afghans, not to mention 3,500 US & allied troops paid a heavier price.”

He is proud to be descended from Sir George Cockburn, 10th Baronet, who ordered the burning of Washington in 1814, as he recounts in this interview.

We spoke with Andrew Cockburn on Sept. 29, 2021, as the Senate Armed Services Committee was grilling Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, about the US military withdrawal from Afghanistan after 20 years and trillions of dollars spent, which they characterized as “a logistical success but a strategic failure.”

Articles referred to or pertinent to this interview:

War in Afghanistan Isn’t Over — It’s Taking the Form of Illegal Drone Strikes https://truthout.org/articles/war-in-afghanistan-isnt-over-its-taking-the-form-of-illegal-drone-strikes/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=85e66ca2-fcf5-49a4-a3d3-bbcfa2db97a9

IN RE TERRORIST ATTACKS ON SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 https://www.leagle.com/decision/infdco20210920a80

Second Circuit Reinstates Insurers’ Suit Against Saudi Bank Stemming from 9/11 Terrorist Attacks https://www.law.com/insurance-coverage-law-center/2020/09/11/second-circuit-reinstates-insurers-suit-against-saudi-bank-stemming-from-911-terrorist-attacks/?slreturn=20210826182432

My father was brutally killed by the Taliban. The US ignored his pleas for help https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/27/father-killed-taliban-us-ignored-pleas-daughter-afghan-president

Support for Nuclear Ban Treaty Is Rising. Nuclear Nations Are on the Defensive. https://truthout.org/articles/support-for-nuclear-ban-treaty-is-rising-nuclear-nations-are-on-the-defensive/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=4ed37bf3-fa8f-40c4-94b4-932aea3990de

Stop Calling the Military Budget a ‘Defense’ Budget https://www.commondreams.org/views/2021/10/05/stop-calling-military-budget-defense-budget?utm_term=AO&utm_campaign=Daily%20Newsletter&utm_content=email&utm_source=Daily%20Newsletter&utm_medium=Email

Fewer Democrats This Year Supported a 10 Percent Cut to the Defense Budget https://truthout.org/articles/fewer-democrats-this-year-supported-a-10-percent-cut-to-the-defense-budget/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=85e66ca2-fcf5-49a4-a3d3-bbcfa2db97a9

Are the Motives of War Profiteers Driving Us to the Brink of a New Cold War? https://truthout.org/articles/are-the-motives-of-war-profiteers-driving-us-to-the-brink-of-a-new-cold-war/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=4ed37bf3-fa8f-40c4-94b4-932aea3990de

Why are Americans paying $32m every hour for wars since 9/11? https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/09/afghanistan-us-foreign-wars-congresswoman-barbara-lee

Barbara Lee Offers Amendment to Reduce Pentagon Budget by $25 Billion https://truthout.org/articles/barbara-lee-offers-amendment-to-reduce-pentagon-budget-by-25-billion/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=9dd7dc3c-f6d6-4669-87fd-a5b2f6b00948

Nearly 50 Groups Demand Passage of Amendments to Cut Pentagon Budget https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/09/22/nearly-50-groups-demand-passage-amendments-cut-pentagon-budget?utm_term=AO&utm_campaign=Daily%20Newsletter&utm_content=email&utm_source=Daily%20Newsletter&utm_medium=Email

Carrie Krause – Baroque Music Montana

Carrie Krause is the Bozeman Symphony Orchestra’s Concert Master, as well as the Founder/Director of Baroque Music Montana.

She founded The Second String Orchestra in 2010 for amateur musicians.

She teaches young people in her studio of about 25 students.

We spoke with Carrie on September 30, 2021 about Baroque Music Montana’s historic performance at Gallatin High School’s Auditorium on October 9, 2021, which is the first public performance there. This event, “Amadeus: The Concert,” also features our wonderful high school chamber ensemble, Kamarata.

Ecotones: The Bozeman Symphony – Norman Huynh & Emily Paris-Martin

After an hiatus due to the Sars CoV2 pandemic in the Spring of 2021, next Saturday on September 25, 2021, the Bozeman Symphony resumes its concerts with a live performance in The Wilson Auditorium, featuring the world premiere of the piece they commissioned by composer in residence, Scott Lee, THE LAST BEST PLACE. In addition, internationally acclaimed Cellist Julian Schwarz, will be the soloist performing Samuel Barber’s Concerto for Cello and Orchestra.

Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4 provides a profound and portentous finale for this first concert of the new season, and provides a perfect platform for new music director, Norman Huynh, to share his gifts as an interpreter of music ranging here from the 19th to 21st centuries.

We spoke with Norman Huynh, music director, and Emily Paris-Martin, Executive Director, of the Bozeman Symphony on September 14, 2021 about the current realities of the symphony, as well as their visions for its future.

Henry Giroux

Returning to Forthright Radio is internationally renowned writer and cultural critic, Professor Henry Giroux. He is the McMaster University Chair for Scholarship in the Public Interest & The Paulo Freire Distinguished Scholar in Critical Pedagogy.

Henry Giroux has authored, or co-authored over 65 books, written several hundred scholarly articles, delivered more than 250 public lectures, been a regular contributor to print, television, and radio news media outlets, and is one of the most cited Canadian academics working in any area of Humanities research. He is on the editorial and advisory boards of numerous national and international scholarly journals, and he has served as the editor or co-editor of four scholarly book series. He is on the Board of Directors for Truthout.

He is particularly interested in what he calls the war on youth, the corporatization of higher education, the politics of neoliberalism, the assault on civic literacy and the collapse of public memory, public pedagogy, the educative nature of politics, and the rise of various youth movements across the globe. His working class roots inform his scholarship, writings and lectures, which clearly and consistently articulate the predicament of the average person overwhelmed by the forces of global capitalism, and critiquing the cultural forces supporting its destructive power.

We spoke with Henry Giroux on September 11, 2021. Of course, that was the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the United States, and Henry notes that it was the anniversary of the US backed military coup d’état in Chile, in which the democratically elected President Salvador Allende was overthrown, but it was also the 80th anniversary of the beginning of construction of the Pentagon on September 11, 1941.

Articles referenced or pertinent to this interview:

Attacks on Critical Race Theory Seek to Insert Fascist Politics Into Education https://truthout.org/audio/attacks-on-critical-race-theory-seek-to-insert-fascist-politics-into-education

Stanley Aronowitz, Who Taught Us Teaching Must Be Political, Has Passed https://truthout.org/articles/stanley-aronowitz-who-taught-us-teaching-must-be-political-has-passed/

9/11 and the Crisis of Memory https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/when-the-towers-fell/

The Right Wing Wants Misinformation and Manufactured Ignorance, Not Democracy https://truthout.org/articles/the-right-wing-wants-misinformation-and-manufactured-ignorance-not-democracy/

Fighting back against the age of manufactured ignorance: Resistance is still possible https://www.salon.com/2021/07/03/fighting-back-against-the-age-of-manufactured-ignorance-resistance-is-still-possible/

To End Racial Capitalism, We Will Need to Take On the Institution of Policing https://truthout.org/articles/to-end-racial-capitalism-we-will-need-to-take-on-the-institution-of-policing/

Tucker Carlson Is Just the Tip of the Iceberg in Right-Wing Media’s War on Truth https://truthout.org/articles/tucker-carlson-is-just-the-tip-of-the-iceberg-in-right-wing-medias-war-on-truth/

Three Fundamentalisms Are Driving the Resurgence of Fascist Politics in the US https://truthout.org/video/three-fundamentalisms-are-driving-the-resurgence-of-fascist-politics-in-the-us/

Threat of Authoritarianism Is No Longer on the Horizon: It’s Arrived in the GOP https://truthout.org/articles/threat-of-authoritarianism-is-no-longer-on-the-horizon-its-arrived-in-the-gop/

Downplaying Trumpism Is Dangerous https://truthout.org/articles/downplaying-trumpism-is-dangerous/

Attack on Capitol Affirms Trumpism Will Live On After Trump Leaves White House https://truthout.org/articles/attack-on-capitol-affirms-trumpism-will-live-on-after-trump-leaves-white-house/

Racist Violence Can’t Be Separated From the Violence of Neoliberal Capitalism https://truthout.org/articles/racist-violence-cant-be-separated-from-the-violence-of-neoliberal-capitalism/

Why are Americans paying $32m every hour for wars since 9/11? https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/09/afghanistan-us-foreign-wars-congresswoman-barbara-lee

Todd Miller Build Bridges, Not Walls: A Journey to a World Without Borders

Returning to Forthright Radio is Izzy Award winning Todd Miller. He was our guest in 2017, when the book that won the Izzy Award, STORMING THE WALL: CLIMATE CHANGE, MIGRATION, AND HOMELAND SECURITY, came out. Last Spring of 2021, City Lights published his latest book, BUILD BRIDGES, NOT WALLS: A Journey to a World Without Borders. We spoke with him on August 30, 2021.

Building Bridges his his fourth book on border issues.

“As a woman I have no country. As a woman I want no country. As a woman, my country is the whole world.” – Virginia Woolf

Articles pertinent to this interview:

The broadcast ended with this piece by David Shuster, Trump’s Border Wall WRECKED By Storms https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F81SPqWNO0c

Supreme court orders Biden to revive Trump’s ‘remain in Mexico’ policy https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/aug/24/supreme-court-biden-trump-remain-in-mexico-migrant-policy

Federal Judge Debunks Greg Abbott’s COVID-Fighting Rationale, Blocks Texas Governor’s Ban on Transporting Migrants https://lawandcrime.com/covid-19-pandemic/federal-judge-debunks-greg-abbotts-covid-fighting-rationale-blocks-texas-governors-ban-on-transporting-migrants/

The wall Trump built for a fake crisis just got washed away by floods from a real crisis https://www.mic.com/p/the-wall-trump-built-for-a-fake-crisis-just-got-washed-away-by-floods-from-a-real-crisis-84116464

Repression Without Borders https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/28/opinion/sunday/repression-human-rights-china-turkey-russia.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=Editorials

The Housing First Village in Bozeman https://forthright.media/2021/08/26/housing-first-village/

Housing First Village

What do you call it when a deacon from a local church gets to thinking about how to solve a problem, in this case, chronic homelessness, learns of other communities building tiny houses, goes to the Bozeman city offices to find out about building code requirements, and meets an Architecture Professor, who just happens to direct the MSU Community Design Center? Coincidence? Synchronicity? Serendipity? A God Moment? Whatever you call it, that meeting in the Fall of 2016 led to a collaboration involving local churches, Montana State University’s School of Architecture, the non-profit, HRDC, local businesses and individuals culminating in the creation of The Housing First Village, which is being built on the north 7th area of Bozeman. It is part of an innovative plan to centralize services for those chronically challenged with issues such as homelessness, food insecurity, etc.

We spoke with three members of the Gallatin Valley Interfaith Association, Rev. Connie Campbell-Pearson, who was the St. James Episcopal Church deacon who went to the city offices on that fateful day in 2016, along with Rev. Jody McDevitt of First Presbyterian Church and Amanda Cater of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Bozeman. They organized other local religious groups to raise $139,000 to build tiny homes in the Housing First Village.

In part two, we spoke with the head of the MSU School of Architecture, Ralph Johnson, about how graduate and undergraduate students in their Community Design Center contributed to the project.

It has now grown under the aegis of HRDC, which is working to build the Food and Resource Center, a nearly 32,000-square-foot building that will become the new home of the Gallatin Valley Food Bank and Fork and Spoon restaurant, along with other HRDC programs. Of the planned 19 tiny homes to be constructed, 12 are nearing completion with occupancy hoped to begin in the Fall of 2021.

You can view this short video produced by HRDC “The Making of Housing First Village” here: https://vimeo.com/583977147

More details can be found in Professor Johnson’s paper, HOMELESSNESS: A Critical Approach to Architecture and Planning, here: https://www.witpress.com/Secure/elibrary/papers/SDP18/SDP18057FU1.pdf

Articles pertinent to this program:

HRDC plans to combat growing food insecurity with new project https://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/news/city/hrdc-plans-to-combat-growing-food-insecurity-with-new-project/article_e3eafff9-268e-5d9b-9187-4a57bc37d996.html

MSU architecture students debut tiny shelter prototype for community’s homeless https://www.montana.edu/news/17716/

Rezoning In Livingston As Cities Consider Tiny Homes As Solution To Housing Shortage https://www.mtpr.org/montana-news/2021-08-19/rezoning-in-livingston-as-cities-consider-tiny-homes-as-solution-to-housing-shortage

Nearly half of American workers don’t earn enough to afford a one-bedroom rental https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/aug/12/housing-renter-affordable-data-map

Technology services company commonFont makes $500,000 donation to HRDC’s Griffin Place https://www.montanarightnow.com/bozeman/technology-services-company-commonfont-makes-500-000-donation-to-hrdc-s-griffin-place/article_6ff5f74c-d24c-11ea-8b93-5b34465df46e.html

Police, organizations help with homelessness outreach in Bozeman https://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/news/city/police-organizations-help-with-homelessness-outreach-in-bozeman/article_4ae1c7b1-628b-534d-9c6a-76a3303d3503.html

The Great Eliminator: How Ronald Reagan Made Homelessness Permanent https://www.sfweekly.com/news/the-great-eliminator-how-ronald-reagan-made-homelessness-permanent/