Encore Episode: Tin Soldiers and Nixon’s Coming . . . 52 Years After the Kent State Killings

Posted inPeoples' History
It’s the 52nd anniversary of the killings at Kent State University. In a special encore episode, we’re reposting our Kent State episode from 2020.
In this episode, we commemorate the anniversary of the tragic events of May 4th, 1970 at Kent State University, where agents of the state murdered 4 students and shot 9 others. Students, who’d been told the war was winding down in Vietnam, erupted in protest at campuses all over  America when Richard Nixon  announced the U.S. invasion of Cambodia on April 30th. 

Best of G&R: May Day vs Labor Day. How the ruling class stops radical organizing.

Posted inLabor, Peoples' History
Happy May Day tender comrades!  
Here is a repost of our May Day episode from 2021. In it, Bob and Scott talk about the history of May Day from pagan rituals to the Haymarket Affair to International Workers’ Day to Labor Day and Loyalty Day.  And we discuss how the ruling class’s “war on the left” fits into the politics of May Day vs. Labor Day.
Spend an hour of your International Workers’ Day weekend hearing about the history of May Day. You won’t regret it. 

Earth Day Special: The Fossil Fuel Resistance is Fertile.

Posted inClimate, Direct Action, Peoples' History
The first Earth Day was in 1970 after decades of conservation and environmental advocacy from Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” to real life monkey wrenchers in the deserts of the American West. Since then, like so many other things, it has become by co-opted by corporations, politicians and non-profits looking to do well with environmentally minded consumers, voters and donors. In reality, change always comes from below. 
Listen in here: https://apple.co/3k4qDTT
Or watch is on YouTube
In our Earth Day special episode, Bob interviews Scott about four moments in environmental history where communities led struggles against fossil fuel companies and governments. They dive into struggles against mountaintop removal coal mining in Appalachia, the southern leg of the Keystone XL pipeline, the Dakota Access Pipeline at Standing Rock and the community and grassroots led disaster relief after Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. 

Ukraine and A Brief History of Atrocities in Warfare and Empire

Posted inForeign Policy, Peoples' History

Websters defines atrocity as “a shockingly bad or atrocious act, object, or situation.”

Russian atrocities on Ukrainian civilians have been the top of the 24 second news cycle since the invasion began. Since the advent of industrial warfare at the end of 19th century, war has been waged increasingly on civilian populations than opposing military forces. Wars of attrition have had the goal of subjecting the populace to “shockingly bad” actions to force the downfall of its ruling regime or submission of a resisting insurgency. The 20th century is full of examples of this by the British, the Germans, the Japanese, the Russians, and of course, the Americans.

Listen in: https://apple.co/3vt9eth

As the stories emerge from the war between Ukraine and Russia, detailing atrocities committed on civilian populations, we thought it was a good moment to talk about some of this history. We start with the Civil War and World War One (early industrial wars), the advent of air power, brutal occupations in Nanking, Korea and Vietnam, bombings of Dresden, Tokyo and Hiroshima, U.S. wars in Korea and Vietnam, Central American death squads and the forever wars in the Middle East.

Oliver Stone’s JFK Conspiracy: The Buzzanco-DiEugenio Debate

Posted inChomsky, Foreign Policy, Peoples' History, pop culture

Recently G&R co-host and award-winning historian Bob Buzzanco debated Oliver Stone’s writer on his documentary “JFK Revisited,” James DiEugenio, about Stone’s theory that the “deep state” had JFK killed because he was going to withdraw from Vietnam, thaw relations with Castro, and end the Cold War.

Listen in: https://apple.co/3DRb37h

They discussed Kennedy’s actual policies as president, his aggressive actions in Vietnam and Cuba, his continued imperial approach to Latin America, his tough approach to the Soviet Union.  They also discussed the minutae of Oswald and the Warren Report, the “scenery” and “parlor games,” in Stone’s own words, of the JFK assassination.

In this debate, Buzzanco makes the important points that people need to look at the evidence, the documents and archives of what Kennedy actually did, rather than anecdotes and stories told long after the fact.

Noam Chomsky on JFK and Vietnam, contra Oliver Stone (transcribed interview with Chomsky)

Posted inChomsky, Foreign Policy, Peoples' History

Cross-posted from Medium

by Bob Buzzanco

I recently debated Oliver Stone’s writer James DiEugenio about the JFK Conspiracy theory and that will soon be up on Green & Red Podcast. Meantime, we just had my interview with Noam Chomsky about Stone’s movie and documentary alleging that the “Deep State” — the Military-Industrial Complex, the Intelligence Community, even perhaps Vice-President Lyndon Johnson — had JFK killed because he was going to end the Cold War and withdraw from Vietnam — transcribed, and here it is below.

In addition, see my interview with Noam Chomsky.

Scott and I also had a show going into more detail on JFK’s real policies, which were aggressive and hawkish.

I’ve also written a 3-part article on this topic on this Medium page, “John F. Kennedy Goes Hollywood: Oliver Stone’s Fantastic History,” part 1 at, part 2 at and part 3.

From Environmentalist to “Domestic Terrorist” with former Earth Liberation member Daniel McGowan

Posted inanti-capitalism, Climate, Direct Action, Peoples' History

In the past ten years, we’ve also seen state repression of movements coming out of Occupy Wall Street, the Ferguson uprising, Standing Rock, Line 3 and various anti-Trump movements. Green and Red has had numerous episodes on radical movements and state repression of political movements from antifascists in Portland and Austin to water protectors at Line 3 to DAPL saboteur Jessica Reznicek.

Listen to our latest episode: apple.co/3nvkrqk

But, before that, we had the era known as the “Green Scare,” where radical environmental and animal rights activists were targeted by the “state” (corporations, politicians, law enforcement) for its anti-capitalist politics and escalating tactics that included sabotage, animal liberation, property destruction and arson. The FBI called their operation to stop these radical movements “Operation Backfire.” After 911, they labeled people taking action “domestic terrorists.” Congress passed corporate lobbyist written legislation, such as the Animal Enterprise Terror Act and the Patriot Act, to stop them.

Flying into the Danger Zone: Ukraine and the History of No-Fly Zones

Posted inForeign Policy, Peoples' History

A new Reuters poll shows that 74% of Americans, with strong majorities from both parties, support a NATO no-fly zone over Ukraine as Russia continues to shell civilian areas and populations. The Biden Administration, Chair of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Mark Milley, the head of NATO Jens Stoltenberg and politicians from across the political spectrum are opposed to any sort of intervention over the skies of Ukraine. The argument is that it’d lead to a wider war, and Russian leader Vladimir Putin has warned against it.

Listen in: https://apple.co/3sMCk6S

No-fly zones are only a recent historical development. Green and Red gets into that recent history starting with the aftermath of the first Gulf War when George H.W. Bush called on the Kurds in northern Iraq and the Shiites in southern Iraq to rise up and depose Saddam Hussein. Their subsequent slaughter by Saddam’s helicopter gunships led to the no-fly zones. We also discuss no-fly zones in the Balkan wars and the 2016 debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump over a no-fly zone in Syria.

War Pigs: Ukraine and the History of the Military-Industrial Complex

Posted inForeign Policy, Peoples' History

Recently, Raytheon CEO Greg Hayes reported to his shareholders, “[W]e are seeing, I would say, opportunities for international sales. We just have to look to last week where we saw the drone attack in the UAE, which have attacked some of their other facilities. And of course, the tensions in Eastern Europe, the tensions in the South China Sea, all of those things are putting pressure on some of the defense spending over there. So I fully expect we’re going to see some benefit from it.”  While lauded in the press for his comments, Hayes’ thinking embodies structures established by government and private industry for over a hundred years.

Listen in: https://apple.co/34cn5KZ