Jon Nelson hosts this episode of the Old Mole, which includes the following segments:
Zionist Israel: Israel, which Human Rights Watch and many others have designated as an “Apartheid state”, has "elected" (only one in five Palestinian adults allowed to vote) a religious Zionist nationalist right wing government. This religious Zionism is openly racist and considers Palestinians as intruders in their vision of a Greater Israel given by God as their homeland. Some of the leaders in the new government openly proclaim reverence for mass murders of Palestinians. Bill Resnick interviews David Finkle about whether international pressure can be escalated to stop the intensified oppression and slow-motion ethnic cleansing. David Finkle is the editor of the journal Against the Current and writes on the Middle East, particularly Israel/Palestine.
Zenith Action: On December 14, 2022 activists gathered at Portland City Hall to educate City Council members about the dangers of Zenith Energy, and the gross betrayal of trust by Commissioner Ryan when he granted Zenith a new LUCS (Land Use Compatibility Statement). Jan Haaken talks with Diana Meisenhelter, Portland Extinction Rebellion (XR) activist and climate coalition member, about ongoing pressures on City Commissioners to rescind this permit, They also talk about a coordinated action at City Hall planned for Wednesday February 8th.
The Near Suicide of Public Health: When the covid pandemic broke out in 2020 the public health system in the US was at a low point: underfunded, fragmented, and politically weak, kicked to the curb by its overbearing cousin, clinical medicine. It was not always so, notes Ed Yong in a commentary from October of 2021 in the Atlantic. As Yong argues, the slow demise of public health in this country was in part a suicide, a near fatal striving to wrap itself in the mantle of laboratory science as the answer to disease, as opposed to agitating for the reforms needed to create healthy living conditions. Patricia Kullberg reads an excerpt from the article entitled: “How Public Health Took Part in its Own Downfall.”
- KBOO