TUC Radio
Thursday, 3:00pm to 3:30pm
Maria Gilardin learned radio in the KPFA news department in 1980 and was one of the founders of the women's department. She co-wrote the GATT Guide for the Earth Summit in Rio, was founding producer of the national weekly public-affairs show Making Contact, and is a member of the International Forum on Globalization. Since 1993, Maria has written and produced radio on global trade and great ideas of local resistance to globalization.
As the San FRancisco Bay Guardian wrote in 1996, "Gilardin's TUC Radio continues to report on the untold story: the impact of the big corporations on society. And despite the massive and growing barriers preventing her type of public-affairs programming from getting on the air, TUC is reaching thousands of listeners around the world. Many of those listeners catch TUC Radio on KZYX, Wednesdays at 3:00pm.
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The First Nuclear Chain Reaction – Enrico Fermi and Henry Moore – ARCHIVE The Italian physicist Enrico Fermi set off the first nuclear chain reaction in an underground tennis-court at the University of Chicago in 1942. His experiment led directly to the building of the plutonium bomb that destroyed the city of Nagasaki. Exactly 25 years after that experiment, with Fermi already dead of radiation induced leukemia, a statue by Henry Moore was unveiled on December 2, 1967, at that location, to commemorate the first self sustained nuclear chain reaction. Boal describes the fascinating clash of ideas, from the early anti nuclear resistance by SDS students in the US and the British CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament), to the visual impression of Moore’s [ . . . ] Read More
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Historian Iain Boal tells the story of The Beginning of the Nuclear Age (ONE of TWO) The Italian physicist Enrico Fermi set off the first nuclear chain reaction in an underground tennis-court at the University of Chicago in December 1942. His experiment led directly to the building of the plutonium bomb that destroyed the city of Nagasaki. There are competing claims as to the beginning of the nuclear age. Was it the day of Trinity, was it Hiroshima, or was it Fermi with his willingness to risk a nuclear explosion in the middle of a crowded city. But more important than the date is the need to comprehend the fundamental change that the beginning of the nuclear age has brought about. Albert [ . . . ] Read More
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By Dr. Gray Brechin: Imperial San Francisco This is Part TWO of the history of San Francisco. The town that grew from 16 houses on sand dunes in 1850 to the largest city on the West Coast in only 30 years. Gray Brechin explains in the first chapter of his book Imperial San Francisco how the gold rush connected two major factors for city building: A swelling of the population and the growth of investment capital. But the mix of people and money was lacking another major ingredient: water. As the first wave of destruction of California was brought about by gold mining, the second wave was caused by the damming of rivers, and the flooding of land for reservoirs, even eventually inside [ . . . ] Read More
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This is part of the history of a city, grown from 16 houses on sand dunes in 1850 to the largest city on the Pacific Coast in only 30 years. The book, Imperial San Francisco by Dr. Gray Brechin, is one of the few examples of a scholarly dissertation that becomes a very popular book. Imperial San Francisco brings to light the huge sacrifices extracted from the surrounding land by large cities, from Babylon to the Italian city states to the instant cities of North America. This program focuses on the Gold Rush and the early conflicts between mining and farming. Next week we’ll talk about the valleys flooded and the rivers diverted to bring water to SF. Was it worth [ . . . ] Read More
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Why the rich can’t save anybody – not even themselves 2024 Tribute – Updated Archive: Parenti predicted the financial crisis and said that giant corporate capitalism – by it’s very nature – is an apocalyptic system. When unregulated the built in elements of ever increased growth may well bring the whole system down. And he described the growing national debt not as a tragic mistake but as a means to shift ever more money from the tax payers to the financial institutions in the form of interest payments. This speech is an analysis of the many structural flaws of a capitalist system that puts it on a permanent collision course with democracy. Recorded on August 23, 2008 at the closing reception [ . . . ] Read More
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TUC Archive: Fred Gray, just out of law school, made a commitment to destroy everything segregated in his home state of Alabama Rosa Parks was only Fred Gray’s second case. Gray represented Claudette Colvin, a teenager, who nine months earlier had been the first to refuse to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus – and in turn inspired Rosa Parks. When Rosa Parks was arrested in 1955 for violating the segregated seating ordinance, 26-year-old Martin Luther King was chosen to lead the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and 24-year-old Fred Gray became his and the movement’s lawyer. Gray’s legal victory in the federal courts ended the boycott 381 days later. Fred Gray won scores of civil rights cases in education, voting rights, [ . . . ] Read More
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For Brecht’s 100th birthday in 1998 the Royal National Theatre from London gave a performance in his honor at Theater Artaud in San Francisco Bertolt Brecht and many other artists in post WWI Germany were courageously and proudly democrats, socialists or communists. They had experienced the horror of the first World War and were determined to prevent a second one. So when Hitler and the Nazi party actually assumed state power in 1933 they were all marked and most of them left the country immediately. Their exodus destroyed much of the cultural/political rebellion of the 1920s. Even though Brecht, the playwright, poet, director and theoretician of the stage, was persecuted by the Nazi’s, he was forced to leave his home in exile [ . . . ] Read More
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Archive: Journalist John Pilger has called Alex Carey “a second Orwell in his prophesies” This segment covers the little known role of the US Chamber of Commerce in the McCarthy witch hunts of post WWII. Carey also shows how the continued campaign against “Big Government” plays an important role in bringing Reagan to power. Also mentioned the famous secret memo by Lewis Powell, later Supreme Court Justice, that set in motion what Bill Moyers today calls “the revolt of the rich.” Alex Carey said that the people of the US have been subjected to an unparalleled, expensive, 3/4 century long propaganda effort designed to expand corporate rights by undermining democracy and destroying the unions. Carey’s unique view of US history goes back [ . . . ] Read More
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Archive: This is TUC Radio’s all time most popular program Alex Carey wrote that the people of the US have been subjected to an unparalleled, expensive, 3/4 century long propaganda effort designed to expand corporate rights by undermining democracy and destroying the unions. The 20th century, he wrote, is marked by three historic developments: the growth of democracy via the expansion of the franchise, the growth of corporations, and the growth of propaganda to protect corporations from democracy. Carey’s unique view of US history goes back to World War I and ends with the Reagan era. Noam Chomsky dedicated his book “Manufacturing Consent” to the memory of Alex Carey. Chomsky says that the Australian sociologist would have written the definitive history [ . . . ] Read More
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Who was Julius Caesar, a dictator or a populist? And who really was Brutus, who murdered him on the Ides of March? A young hero or a participant in a deep seated conspiracy? This intriguing lecture by the noted author, speaker, activist and scholar Michael Parenti provides surprising new insights and parallels to today that are both shocking and amusing. This rebroadcast is part of the very popular and ever expanding series on what Parenti called Real History, a different and intriguing reading of a surprisingly large number all too familiar stories. Parenti spoke about his Pulitzer Price nominated book: The Assassination of Julius Caesar, a people’s history of ancient Rome. He was recorded in the summer of 2003 in San Francisco [ . . . ] Read More