Shows
The Deep Dive with Andy HeintzVeteran Journalist Bill Weinberg discusses Trump, Gaza, and the potential of ProtestsThis is an interview I conducted with veteran journalist Bill Weinberg on April 23, 2025. Bill is an author, journalist and blogger. He is the author of Homage to Chiapas: The New Indigenous Struggles in Mexico and War on the Land: Ecology and Politics in Central America. His work has been published in the The Progressive, In These Times, Al Jazeera, NACLA Report on the Americas, Miami Herald and Indian Country Today. Bill is the host of the CounterVortex podcast and he runs the CounterVortex blog and news service. CounterVortex is one of my favorite podcasts and it has often been...2025-04-281h 03
WINNING AT SELLINGApr 2025 - Special Guest Mike Weinberg - 5-year Anniversary ShowThank you for joining us on this SPECIAL 5th ANNIVERSARY EPISODE of the Winning at Selling Podcast. I’m Professor Scott Plum of the Minnesota Sales Institute and with me is Bill Hellkamp of REACH Development Systems Sales managers have a tough job. Pressure from upper management to increase sales. Handling customer problems that have escalated. And most importantly, getting their sales team to get out of the office and do some real selling. It’s not easy and there are plenty of frustrating issues to overcome. So put on your Big Boy pants as Scot...2025-03-2748 min
CounterVortex PodcastTim Walz and the struggle in MinnesotaIn Episode 238 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg takes stock of the Democratic ticket's new vice presidential candidate Tim Walz and the role he played as Minnesota governor in two of the major activist struggles in the North Star State over the past years—the 2020 Black Lives Matter uprising, which began in Minneapolis; and the fight against Line 3, which delivers Canadian shale oil to US markets, and imperils the ancestral lands of the Anishinaabe indigenous people.
MAGA excoriates Walz for his supposed coddling of the "rioters" in 2020, when in fact the National Guard troops he mobilized committed human rights abuses. On...2024-08-1132 min
Free City Radio224, Activist historian Bill Weinberg on the activist history of NY's lower east sideOn this edition of Free City Radio we hear from activist historian Bill Weinberg who speaks about a project to hold weekly walking tours at the Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space (MoRUS) in the East Village, NY. Bill speaks about the radical history of claiming urban space collectively against all odds and the construction of collective squats and community gardens.
The accompanying poster was taken in the archives at MoRUS (https://www.morusnyc.org). Accompanying music is by Anarchist Mountains. Thanks to the Social Justice Centre for supporting my work on this weekly program.
Free City Radio is hosted and...2024-07-2130 minCounterVortex PodcastFour dead in Ohio. And two in Mississippi.As the police crackdown on the Gaza protests continues coast-to-coast—drawing concern from Amnesty International—Bill Weinberg notes that this repression comes in the month marking the 54th anniversary of slayings of student protesters at Kent State University in Ohio and Jackson State University in Mississippi. With police now unleashing violence on student protesters in Paris, Amsterdam and elsewhere in Europe, as well as in Jordan and Lebanon, there is an unsettling sense of deja vu. In Episode 225 of the CounterVortex podcast, Weinberg warns that the world could be headed toward an historical moment that rhymes with May 1970.
Listen on Soun...2024-05-1225 minCounterVortex PodcastAgainst Zionism, toward pro-SemitismIn Episode 220 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg discusses two new books on the related themes of the Jewish Question and the Question of Palestine. One, The New American Anti-Semitism: The Left, the Right, and the Jews by Benjamin Ginsberg, is dangerously deluded. The other, The No-State Solution: A Jewish Manifesto by Daniel Boyarin, begins to move the discussion in the right direction. Weinberg goes further, calling for pan-Semitic unity between Jews and Arabs in repudiation of racism, imperialism and colonialism in all forms—including both Zionism and anti-Semitism.
Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon.
https://www.patreon.com/countervortex
Pr...2024-04-0745 minCounterVortex PodcastFree speech and the Facebook dilemmaThis week's Meta outage plunged millions around the world into panic. No sooner did Bill Weinberg get back on Facebook than its robots slapped restrictions on his account for supposedly promoting "dangerous organizations"—precisely in response to his protests against online stanning for extremist groups! Apart from subjection to such Orwellian diktats from Meta's robotocracy, Facebook has tweaked its algorithm to sideline links to news articles and instead boost "reels" and "memes," with high entertainment value but little informational content. This has tanked SEO for news outlets and resulted in ominous layoffs across the news industry. In Episode 216 of the Co...2024-03-0921 min
Grief and Rebirth: Finding the Joy in LifeBill Murphy: Is It Possible to Overcome Devastating Trauma from an Over-the-Top Abusive Childhood and Thrive?Bill Murphy is a multi-faceted business and life coach, a highly regarded entrepreneur in real estate, a successful author who is dedicated to helping others heal, and a dedicated advocate for mental health and wellness. With a passion for fitness and a commitment to giving back, Bill has completed multiple marathons, ultramarathons, and Ironman competitions; he holds a second-degree black belt in the self-defense technique called Krav Maga, and he has raised over $525,000 for various charities. And if Bill's accomplishments weren’t impressive enough, add having overcome much devastating trauma from an over-the-top abusive childhood, mental health challenges, and PT...2024-01-3152 minCounterVortex PodcastLiberatory legacy of heresyRaoul Vaneigem, famous as a key figure in the Situationist International and author of The Revolution of Everyday Life, a tract associated with the May 1968 uprising in Paris, traces Gnostic and millenarian movements of ancient and medieval times as critical precursors of the revolutions of the modern age. In Episode 208 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg discusses his book Resistance to Christianity: A Chronological Encyclopaedia of Heresy from the Beginning to the Eighteenth Century, newly translated from the French by Bill Brown and released by Eris imprint of Columbia University Press.
Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon.
https://www.patreon...2024-01-1429 min
WINNING AT SELLINGOct 2023 - Special Guest - Mike Weinberg Do you remember your first sales manager? What did they do that worked and what lessons did you learn from their mistakes. Too often sales managers are created for the wrong reasons and lead the sales teams into unsuccessful territory. But that won’t happen to you because you are listening and learning. So, get out your talking pad as Bill, and I welcome author and selling expert Mike Weinberg to discuss The Key to Success as a First Time Sales Manager on episode 587 of the Winning at Selling Podcast.2023-10-2639 minCounterVortex PodcastArtificial Intelligence and the abolition of truthIn Episode 182 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg takes heart in SAG-AFTRA joining the Hollywood writers' strike, demanding limits on the use of artificial intelligence by the industry. This is a sign of human resistance to robot rule and the growing hegemony of silicon-based "intelligence" over carbon-based intelligent life-forms. Although journalists are not yet at risk of being rendered redundant as script and copy writers are, Weinberg's own trade of journalism is already being impacted by AI. The post-truth zeitgeist and online cognitive environment of total propaganda is set to become exponentially worse, both quantitatively and qualitatively, through the advent...2023-07-1625 min
CounterVortex PodcastPropaganda and the de-Finlandization of FinlandIn Episode 170 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg predicts that Russian propaganda weaponization of World War II history, now being employed against Ukraine, will next be used to target Finland. Now that Finland has been "de-Finlandized," abandoning its Cold War neutrality to join NATO, its de facto wartime alliance with Nazi Germany is likely to be exploited by the Kremlin media machine—exactly as Israel exploits the wartime pact between Hitler and the Mufti of Jerusalem. In a pre-emptive strike against such propaganda, Weinberg breaks down the history of Russian conquest and colonization of Finland, the heroic resistance of the Fi...2023-04-2333 minCounterVortex PodcastMexico and the struggle for the genetic commonsIn Episode 166 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg discusses how a little-noted US-Mexico dispute on trade and agricultural policy has serious implications for the survival of the human race. Washington is preparing to file a complaint under terms of the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement over Mexico's decree banning imports of GMO corn, slated to take effect in January 2024. Concerns about the (unproven) health effects of consuming GMO foods miss the real critique—which is ecological, social and political. GMO seeds are explicitly designed as part of an "input package" intended to get farmers hooked on pesticides and petrochemical fertilizers, and protect the "in...2023-03-2726 minCounterVortex PodcastAgainst tankie MLK-exploitationIn Episode 158 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg notes that the Russian Socialist Movement has issued a call for solidarity actions with anti‑war activists in Russia on Jan. 19. This is the date when left activists Stanislav Markelov and Anastasia Baburova were gunned down by far-right militants in Moscow in 2009. Today, the Vladimir Putin regime is persecuting activists such as Alexandra Skochilenko—who faces a long prison term for producing public art on an anti-war theme. Instead of responding to this call for solidarity, the ANSWER Coalition and other exponents of the "tankie" pseudo-left have called a rally against aid to U...2023-01-1356 minCounterVortex PodcastParadoxes of Moorish American identityIn Episode 157 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg discusses the seemingly obscure subculture of Moorish Science, which has had a greater influence than is generally recognized today, as an important precursor to the Black Muslim movement. The doctrine, first propagated over a century ago by the Prophet Noble Drew Ali, holds that there was in ancient times a great Moorish civilization that prospered on both sides of the Atlantic, in North Africa but also in North America, and that Black Americans are in fact Moors and the inheritors of this legacy. Contrary to official histories, Moorish Science holds that not...2023-01-0935 minCounterVortex PodcastThe Yazidis, ‘esotericism’ and the global struggleIn Episode 156 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg discusses Peter Lamborn Wilson's last book, Peacock Angel: The Esoteric Tradition of the Yezidis. One of the persecuted minorities of Iraq, the Yezidis are related to the indigenous Gnostics of the Middle East such as the Mandeans. But Wilson interprets the "esoteric" tradition of the Yezidis as an antinomian form of Adawiyya sufism with roots in pre-Islamic "paganism." Melek Taus, the Peacock Angel, the divine being revered by the Yezidis as Lord of This World, is foremost among a pantheon that ultimately traces back to the Indo-European gods. Wilson conceives this as...2023-01-0141 min
CounterVortex PodcastPolitical geography of the Lower East SideIn Episode 141 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg defends the notion that he lives on New York's Lower East Side, repudiating those who would insist that his neighborhood is actually the East Village or (worse) NoHo. Weinberg traces the nomenclature controversies going all the way back to the Lenape indigenous villages of the area, Dutch and English colonial settlement, the riots and uprisings of the "Gangs of New York" era, the neighborhood's Puerto Rican identity as Loisaida, the origin of the name "East Village" in the hippie explosion of the 1960s, its cooptation by the real estate industry in the...2022-09-1827 minCounterVortex PodcastAgainst pseudo-left disinformation on Ukraine and SyriaIn Episode 138 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg is outraged that The Nation magazine marks the ninth anniversary of the Ghouta chemical massacre by engaging in glib "false flag" theorizing—the predictable response of the post-truth pseudo-left. This sinister spewing from writer David Bromwich is but the latest entry in a long and shameful litany of pro-Assad and pro-Putin propaganda to appear in The Nation. Similar chemical denialism has been dished out by James Cardenn, and loaned credence by Phyllis Bennis—despite the findings of bona fide human rights groups. The Nation's Bob Dreyfuss has expressed open support for the geno...2022-08-2950 min
Radio Free Humanity: The Marxist-Humanist PodcastRFH Ep. 68 Chomsky on Ukraine, and the Universal Grammar of Whataboutism (with Bill Weinberg)The co-hosts and Bill Weinberg, noted journalist and anarchist podcaster, discuss Noam Chomsky’s statements about Putin’s war against Ukraine, as well as his ideology and other political activity. They take up Weinberg’s “Against Chomsky” podcast, interviews of Chomsky about the war, and the open letter to Chomsky from his Ukrainian translator. Weinberg provides a synopsis of Chomsky’s political interventions during the last 45 years. He and the co-hosts also discuss whether Chomsky’s top-down orientation to world affairs has anything in common with anarchism or Marxism. Finally, they discuss logic and ethics of the so-called “Chomsky rule,” and the sources of...2022-05-131h 13CounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 117: Is 'Neither East Nor West' still possible?In Episode 117 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg recalls the history of the Neither East Nor West position taken by anarchists and anti-authoritarians in the Cold War—seeking to build solidarity between anti-war and left-libertarian forces on either side of the East-West divide. With the world now arguably closer to military confrontation between nuclear-armed powers than it ever was in the (first) Cold War, is such a position still possible? The recent controversy surrounding a planned art show in New York City featuring the work of Russian anti-war artists crystalizes the dilemma. Weinberg also explores the paradoxically parallel thoughts of de...2022-04-0348 minCounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 101: R2P in the 21st CenturyIn Episode 101 of the CounterVortex podcast, we present the audio from a panel at the Ninth Biennial International Conference of the Herbert Marcuse Society, held in October at Arizona State University in Tempe. The panel, "The Responsibility to Protect in the Twenty-First Century," features two presentations. Javier Sethness speaks on "Realism, Egalitarianism, and Internationalism," providing a theoretical and historical framework for the question, including a discussion of Herbert Marcuse's work with US intelligence in World War II. Bill Weinberg, speaking via Zoom from New York, follows with "For Solidarity; Against Dictators and Campism," discussing contemporary examples, including Syria, Libya, Burma...2021-12-111h 30
CounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 93: For Pragmatic AnarchismIn Episode 93 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg responds to the request from Patreon subscriber and legendary folksinger Dave Lippman to discuss the contemporary significance of anarchism. Weinberg cites recent examples of an "anarcho-pragmatism" that aspires to libertarian socialism but also works toward concrete victories in the here-and-now: the Zapatistas in Mexico, piqueteros in Argentina, the Rojava Kurds and other liberatory elements of the Syrian Revolution, and Occupy Wall Street in New York. Since last year's Black Lives Matter uprising, anarchist ideas have started to enter mainstream discourse—such as calls for "decarceration" and to abolish the police. Weinberg also ma...2021-10-1749 minCounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 90: Anti-Semitism and propaganda -- againIn Episode 90 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg examines claims from New York's Gov. Kathy Hochul and local politicians of "anti-Semitic graffiti" spray-painted along Manhattan's Harlem River Drive on the eve of Yom Kippur. The governor's press release did not tell us what the graffiti actually said. This is rather critical information, given the contemporary controversies about what constitutes an anti-Semitic slur, and the confusion between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. Yet most media coverage uncritically accepted Hochul's claims. Weinberg parses the facts in the case, and (as usual) finds plenty to criticize on both sides: the spray-painters and the politicians.
Listen...2021-09-2513 minCounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 87: Against Afghanistan revisionismIn Episode 87 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg calls out revisionist online propaganda telling us (for instance) that Ronald Reagan in 1985 called the Taliban the "equivalent of America's Founding Fathers"—when the Taliban actually didn't even exist back then, and he actually said that about the Nicaraguan Contras. Meanwhile, the more idiotic sectors of the "anti-imperialist" left, which proclaimed "Hail Red Army in Afghanistan" during the Soviet intervention 40 years ago, are now taking unabashed glee at the Taliban takeover. Rather than viewing the Afghan people as pawns on the geopolitical chessboard or fodder for cheap propaganda, Weinberg calls for active so...2021-09-0526 min
CounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 84: CounterVortex on CounterVortexIn Episode 84 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg unveils a special offer for new Patreon subscribers. Become a Supporter for two dollars per weekly podcast, and you get to choose a topic for Bill to rant about for an episode. Any conflict anywhere on the planet, any hot political issue, any aspect of Bill's far-ranging interests and work: human rights, indigenous peoples, drug policy, ecology, pro-autonomy and anti-militarist movements worldwide. Choose a book to review, ask Bill any question about his life, research, activism and analysis. We want to make CounterVortex a more interactive and participatory project, and we need...2021-08-1528 minCounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 82: Afghanistan and the politics of withdrawalIn Episode 82 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg calls out the Orwellian pronouncements from media and politicians that Biden is "ending the war" in Afghanistan—as the war is actually escalating. This is the same imperial narcissism we heard with the much-hyped US "withdrawal" from Afghanistan in 2014, and the US "withdrawal" from Iraq in 2011. In both cases, the war went on—and actually got worse, with the emergence of ISIS and the genocide of the Yazidis. Weinberg recalls with grim vindication that he similarly called out the glib optimism about a US withdrawal from Iraq in CounterVortex commentaries during the occu...2021-07-3020 min
CounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 75: Lessons of the Colonial Pipeline disasterIn Episode 75 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg examines distorted reportage on the shutdown of the Colonial Pipeline by Russian hackers. The disaster illustrates the urgent need for a crash conversion from fossil fuels—but also from digital technology. Signs of hope are seen in the cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline, the recent indigenous-led protests against the Line 3 Pipeline in Minnesota, and the gas bill strike launched by Brooklyn residents to oppose the North Brooklyn Pipeline that would cut through their neighborhoods.
Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon.
https://www.patreon.com/countervortex
Production by Chris Rywalt
We ask li...2021-06-1227 minCounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 71: Bill Weinberg's oral historyIn Episode 71 of the CounterVortex podcast, host Bill Weinberg is himself interviewed by Kimberly Springer, curator of the Oral History Archives at Columbia University. Weinberg traces his life trajectory, from his early radicalization as a teenage anarchist, through the Tompkins Square uprising on the Lower East Side in the 1980s, his 20 years as co-producer of the Moorish Orthodox Radio Crusade on WBAI, his purge from the airwaves for his political dissent, and finally his contemporary work as an organic historian with the Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon.
https://www.patreon.com/countervortex
Production by...2021-05-102h 01CounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 67: Some Thoughts on the Common ToadIn Episode 67 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg continues the Spring ritual from his old WBAI program, the Moorish Orthodox Radio Crusade (which he lost due to his political dissent exactly 10 years ago), of reading the George Orwell essay "Some Thoughts on the Common Toad," which brilliantly predicted ecological politics when it was published way back in April 1946. Among other reasons for hope this season, Bill notes passage of New York state's extremely progressive cannabis legalization act. Shout-out to Bill's old co-host Ann-Marie Hendrickson, who is still carrying on the Common Toad tradition on her own WBAI program, Mansion for...2021-04-0930 minCounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 65: Syria: Lessons from Kronstadt 1921In Episode 65 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg offers his presentation on the panel "Kronstadt 1921 and the Social Crises of 2021," part of the online conference Kronstadt as Revolutionary Utopia, 1921-2021 and Beyond, marking the centenary of the Kronstadt uprising in revolutionary Russia. In March 1919, Russian naval troops mutinied and took over their island garrison as an autonomous zone, in solidarity with striking workers in Petrograd, and to demand greater freedom and power for democratic soviets (worker councils) against the consolidating one-party state of the Bolsheviks. When the uprising was brutally put down, this marked the first time that international leftist...2021-03-2419 minCounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 64: US robo-imperialism hands off Mars!In Episode 64 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg notes the maddening and telling irony that while we're all supposed to be ga-ga with triumphalism over NASA's latest Mars probe, it has received practicailly no attention that Afro-Brazilian peasant communities are being forcibly removed from their traditional lands to make way for a US-backed expansion of the Alcântara Satellite Launch Center in impoverished Maranhão state. This juxtaposition of news stories is paradigmatic of the whole global struggle—sustainable, Earth-rooted cultures against a hypertrophing technosphere that is now colonizing the very heavens. Meanwhile, there are already so many satellites in orbi...2021-02-2326 minCounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 63: Taiwan and Puerto Rico: Forbidden SymmetryIn Episode 63 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg draws a parallel between the self-determination struggles in Taiwan and Puerto Rico. Each is an island nation in the “backyard” of a great imperial power, struggling for its independence. Taiwan is de facto independent from China, with a movement to make it official. Puerto Rico is a de facto colony (officially an “unincorporated territory”) of the United States, with a movement for independence. Taiwan is being particularly threatened at this moment by the imperial power that covets it; Puerto Rico is being particularly fucked over at this moment by the imperial power that con...2021-02-0948 minCounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 62: For Total De-TrumpificationIn Episode 62 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg grimly notes that, even with 400,000 Americans dead to COVID-19, the worst potentialities of the Trump presidency were not realized. Trump never (quite) established a dictatorship, and we didn’t (quite) go over the edge into civil war. The critical task now for the country’s progressive forces is to push for a maximal and thoroughgoing detrumpification—akin to the denazification of Germany after World War II. We may truly hope that the Capitol insurrection will prove to have been the last gasp of Trumpism. However, it may have been his Beerhall Putsch—and, as...2021-01-2325 minCounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 61: Stop the Coup! 2In Episode 61 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg warns that following Trump's instrumented right-wing insurrection at the Capitol building, violence in the final lead-up to Inauguration Day could provide the expedient for execution of his long-planned coup d'etat—precisely as had been foreseen in the novel It Can't Happen Here. Despite fascist-abetting denialism from elements of the "left," even members of Congress are now asserting that the ransacking of the Capitol was carried out with complicity of elements of the security forces. Republicans meanwhile engage in despicable propaganda that equates the insufficient Democratic support for the Black Lives Matter uprising or...2021-01-1539 min
The Interview PodcastBill Bader Jr.Summit Motorsports Park President and Owner Bill Bader Jr. joins the show to talk about leadership, customer relations, 2020, government, and ice cream among other things. Enjoy!summitmotorsportspark.com2021-01-131h 28CounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 60: Stop the Coup!In Episode 60 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg takes stock of Trump's instrumented right-wing insurrection at the Capitol building, which should be properly viewed as the first step in the actual execution of his long-planned coup d'etat. It is now imperative that Congress launch new impeachment proceedings and that the Cabinet invoke the 25th Amendment. Even if there is not time for these processes to play themselves out before the scheduled inauguration on Jan. 20, they are still critical—they will provide another cloud on Trump's presidential authority, which could give leaders in the Pentagon the courage to refuse his orders. An...2021-01-0717 minCounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 59: Rule of the StrongmenIn Episode 59 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg takes stock of Trump's evident preparation for a coup d'etat and what could be a culminating moment for the current crisis of American democracy. In the context of this dilemma, he discusses two very timely new books with similar titles that both examine the mechanics by which dictators seize and maintain power: Strongman: The Rise of Five Dictators and the Fall of Democracy by Kenneth C. Davis and Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present by Ruth Ben-Ghiat.
Listen on SoundCloud, and support our podcast via Patreon.
Production by Chris Rywalt
We ask listeners...2020-12-3036 min
My KvetchEpisode 48: The Doo Doo Bill and Trump's Dragon LairThe Doo Doo Bill and Trump's Dragon Lair2020-12-2625 minCounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 58: What will it take to stop Trump? IVIn Episode 58 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg takes stock of pro-Trump rabble threatening insurrection from Michigan to Idaho (where overt neo-Nazism is in evidence) as explicit calls are being raised from the far right for "martial law" and nullification of Biden's election. In this light, the petition to the Supreme Court by "red state" attorneys general was not significant because of its odds for success but as an indication of how the political lines are drawn at this moment. With the attempted "judicial coup" now failing, Trump and his partisans are preparing for Plan B—an actual military coup. Th...2020-12-1224 minCounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 57: What will it take to stop Trump? IIIIn Episode 57 of the CounterVortex podcast Bill Weinberg makes the odious but essential case for a tactical vote to defeat Trumpism—a political phenomenon that represents an updated variant of fascism This alone will not be sufficient, as Trump will almost certainly not leave office willingly, but attempt to cling to power by any means. If he succeeds, we could be at the moment Italy experienced in 1922, and Germany in 1933. Biden is a domesticated Beltway mediocrity, and even if he wins the country is still going to be in deep crisis. A mass movement strong enough to defeat Trump's power-grab co...2020-09-1612 minCounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 56: What will it take to stop Trump? IIIn Episode 56 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg takes stock of the evident reality that Trump is getting ready to steal the November election—whether by undermining the Postal Service, suspending the election entirely under pretext of the pandemic, or simply refusing to recognize the result and sparking a constitutional crisis that could potentially involve the military. The Transition Integrity Project, created to assess the impending dilemma, warns: "A show of numbers in the streets—and actions in the streets—may be decisive factors in determining what the public perceives as a just and legitimate outcome." As the RNC delegates openly...2020-08-2620 minCounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 55: Verizon delenda est IIIn Episode 55 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg exposes the hidden agenda behind Verizon's abandonment of landline service. Far from being driven by public demand, the ubiquity of wireless has been instrumented by Verizon and imposed on the populace as a design to finally extinguish the public entitlement of telephone service. Verizon is the most recent inheritor of this public trust responsibility that goes back to the establishment of the New York Telephone Company as a state utility in 1896. But trust responsibilities go with the old copper wires—once they are gone, Verizon no longer has legal obligations as a "ca...2020-08-1338 minCounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 54: Two faces of fascismIn Episode 54 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg explores the twin threats of a totalitarian order that the United States faces at this history-making moment: Trump-fascism, perhaps to be lubricated by a "Reichstag Fire" scenario ahead of the November election, and a post-pandemic "new normality" of complete surveillance and social control. Eerily predictive of these twin dystopias are two works of "future fiction" from the 20th century—It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis and The Machine Stops by EM Forster. With the Black Lives Matter uprising deepening the ugly backlash from the Trump camp and a COVID-19 "second wave" lo...2020-06-2036 minCounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 53: For Minneapolis-Hong Kong solidarityIn Episode 53 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg discusses the pathological propaganda game in which Donald Trump exploits the pro-democracy uprising in Hong Kong and Xi Jinping exploits the uprising that has exploded across the US since the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. With Trump scolding China over the Hong Kong repression even as he threatens to unleash military troops on protesters in the US, the contradictions could not be more evident. Weinberg urges the Hong Kong protesters to put down their American flags, and stateside protesters not to be fooled by Chinese Foreign Ministry statements in support...2020-06-0319 minCounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 52: Eros and Psyche revisitedIn Episode 52 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg discusses CS Lewis' last novel, Till We Have Faces, a reworking of the myth of Eros and Psyche, comparing it to its ancient source material, The Golden Ass of Apuleius. The pagan roots of the novel, as well the influence of Lewis' first real love interest, Joy Davidman, make the work his most richly layered with meaning—and perhaps even unintentionally feminist. Weinberg also decries that the current edition does not include the original engravings by artist Fritz Eichenberg, a radical pacifist associated with the Catholic Worker movement. Listen on SoundCloud.
Music: Ba...2020-05-091h 09CounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 51: COVID-19 and conspiracy theoryIn Episode 51 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg rants against the dangerous, irresponsible and politically weaponized claims being avidly propagated about COVID-19. In addition to paving the way for Facebook and other platforms being given greater power to censor content, these claims serve to delegitimize any critique of actual abuses of power by the medical establishment, government and corporations. Worse, claims originating from social-media trolls and the yellow press are being weaponized by the US State Department and Chinese Foreign Ministry as propaganda in their New Cold War. Whether the virus originated in a Chinese government lab in Wuhan or...2020-05-0127 minCounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 50: COVID-19 and impending bio-fascism IIIn Episode 50 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg notes frightening advances toward a fascist world order amid the COVID-19 crisis. With police-state measures being imposed worldwide, Donald Trump is claiming "total" executive power and threatening to "adjourn" Congress. That he is doing so in the name of lifting rather than enforcing the lockdown is certainly an irony, but either way it represents exploitation of the crisis for a power-grab. Even under a best-case scenario of a post-pandemic return to "normality," it will be in the context of an unprecedented totaling surveillance state. Yet at this grim moment for humanity, there...2020-04-1835 minCounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 49: COVID-19 and impending bio-fascismIn Episode 49 of the CounterVortex podcast Bill Weinberg discusses the grim political implications of the COVID-19 outbreak and resultant hysteria. Even before the outbreak, China had detained perhaps upwards of a million ethnic Uighurs in concentration camps as a "counter-terrorist" measure. Under emergency measures imposed in response to the outbreak, a staggering half-billion people have been placed under lockdown in Hubei and surrounding provinces. Italy has now just imposed a similar lock-down, affecting 16 million people in the country's north. Here in the United States, where Trump is building an incipient concentration camp system for detained migrants, the White House has...2020-03-0830 minCounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 48: The Yip Harburg LegacyIn Episode 48 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg speaks with Ernie Harburg, co-author of Who Put the Rainbow in The Wizard of Oz? Yip Harburg, Lyricist, and Deena Rosenberg, author of Fascinating Rhythm: The Collaboration of George and Ira Gershwin. Ernie and Deena are, repsectively, son and daughter-in-law of the legendary Yip Harburg, who penned the lyrics to the beloved songs of The Wizard of Oz movie. Born to poverty on the Lower East Side, Yip's breakthrough song was the Depression-era populist anthem "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" Known as the social conscience of Broadway and Hollywood, he would...2020-02-251h 37
CounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 47: BorderTalk with Tej HazarikaIn Episode 47 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg speaks with Punnag Tej Hazarika of the Brooklyn-based small-press imprint Coolgrove and affiliated BorderTalk blog, which explores questions of cultural intersection. Among Coolgrove's recent titles is Winged Horse: 76 Assamese Songs, a collection of translated lyrics by Tej's father, Bhupen Hazarika, the "Bard of Brahmaputra," who campaigned through his music for a dignified place in India for the peoples of Assam and other minority ethnicities. Last year, Tej traveled to New Delhi to receive the Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian award, on behalf of his late father. But the honor came with India...2020-02-021h 38
CounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 46: solidarity with Iran — the people, not the stateIn Episode 46 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg calls out the racist imperial narcissism in coverage of the assassination of Qassem Soleimani—all of which (left, right and center) is solely concerned with whether he was responsible for the deaths of "hundreds of Americans." Safely invisible is the reality that Soleimani and his militia networks were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Syrians. Iranian forces in Syria have been carrying out a campaign of sectarian cleansing, with Shi'ite militia leaders usurping the lands of displaced Sunnis. Soleimani's militias in Iraq have meanwhile been serially massacring pr...2020-01-1228 min
CounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 45: against the global detention stateIn Episode 45 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg notes with alarm the rapid consolidation of a global detention state, extending across borders and rival power blocs. In the United States, Trump moves toward indefinite detention of undocumented migrants, with horrific rights abuses widespread in the fast-expanding camp system. In China, up to a million Uighurs have been detained in "re-education camps," and are facing such abuses as forced sterilization. As India hypocritically protests China's treatment of the Uighurs, it is also preparing mass detention of its own Muslim population. Russia's Vladimir Putin is similarly preparing mass detention of the Crimean...2019-12-2239 min
Helping Sells Radio160 Mike Weinberg Create Opportunities Don’t Chase ThemYou know that stat…..that 57% of the buying decision is made before a buyer calls you? Well guess what…it’s baloney. That stat is made for sales people who want to sit around waiting for the emails to come in. Professional sales people don’t wait around for the phone to ring. No professional, in any career or job type, wait around for something to happen. They make things happen. Mike Weinberg, author of #SalesTruth: Debunking the Myths. Apply Powerful Principles. Win More New Sales, reminds us that professional sales people proactively work into accounts before buyers are shopping, seek to tr...2019-12-1338 min
CounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 44: the struggle for James Bay"Who is James Bay?" That's the frequent reaction from New Yorkers when it is brought up—despite the fact that James Bay is not a "who" but a "where," and a large portion of New York City's electricity comes from there. In Episode 44 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg takes on Mayor Bill de Blasio's so-called "Green New Deal," and how maybe it isn't so green after all. The mayor's plan is centered on new purchases of what is billed as "zero-emission Canadian hydro-electricity." But supplying this power is predicated on expansion of the massive James Bay hydro-electric complex in Qu...2019-12-1047 min
CounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 43: world revolution in 2020?In Episode 43 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg takes stock of the current wave of popular protest and uprisings around the world, and asks if the planet is approaching another moment of revolutionary possibilities, such as was seen in 2011. He examines the prospects for these disparate movements to build solidarity across borders, repudiate ethnic and national divide-and-rule stratagems, and recognzie the enemy as transnational capital and the authoritarian states that serve it. With discussions of Hong Kong, manland China, Indonesia, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Peru, Uruguay, Honduras, Costa Rica, Haiti, Puerto Rico, Iraq, Lebanon, Turkey Iran, Egypt, Algeria, Sudan, Uganda, Ethiopia...2019-11-1740 min
Evolvers04: Lessons Learned Scaling A Value Selling Program - With Bill WeinbergYou have to get over a thousand sellers and partners to evolve from pitching products to selling with value, all with a three person team. This was the challenge facing Bill Weinberg at MicroFocus. Find out how he and his team took the value selling challenge head on, the value messaging and ROI tools he used to scale the program, and the valuable lessons he learned along the way.
#evolvedselling #ROIselling #Microfocus #ITvalue #salesenablement #salestech #bestpractices #contentmarketing #valuemarketing #valueselling #valuestory #realizedvalue #assessments #interactivecontent #productmarketing #sellingtools #salestools #storytelling #ROI #TCO #theROIguy #frugalnomics #thevaluegap #businesscase #financialjustification #valuestory2019-11-1122 min
CounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 42 Interview: Yoseph Needelman-RuizIn Episode 42 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg interviews Yoseph Leib Needelman-Ruiz (Ibn Mardachya), author of Cannabis Chassidis: The Ancient and Emerging Torah of Drugs. In this far-ranging meeting of the minds, the pair explore contemporary dilemmas of Jewish identity in both Israel and the diaspora, Zionism and gentrification (drawing parallels from the West Bank to Williamsburg), nationalism and anarchism, and such strange contradictions as the embrace of cannabis by Israel's right-wing political establishment. Listen on SoundCloud, and support our podcast via Patreon.
Production by Chris Rywalt
We ask listeners to donate just $1 per episode via Patreon. A total of $30...2019-11-052h 51
CounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 41: Against Arab-Kurdish ethnic war in SyriaIn Episode 41 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg warns that the Turkish aggression in northern Syria holds the risk of an Arab-Kurdish ethnic war. But he recalls the inspiring moment in 2014 when the Kurds and Free Syrian Army were united in a common front against Assad and ISIS. This alliance was exploded by imperial intrigues. The FSA, under military pressure from Assad, accepted Turkish patronage—and Turkey is bent on destruction of the Kurdish autonomous zone. Now, under pressure from Turkey, the Kurds have made an alliance with Assad—who the Arab-led opposition have been fighting for eight brutal years. In t...2019-10-2031 min
CounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 40: Against Narendra Modi's Gandhi-exploitationAmid moves toward mass detention of Muslims in Kashmir and Assam, a growing atmosphere of terror, and persecution of government critics, India's arch-reactionary Prime Minister Narendra Modi cynically places an op-ed in the New York Times extolling Mohandas Gandhi on his 150th birthday. In Episode 40 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg calls this out as Orwellian propaganda, and documents the historical reality: Modi is not the inheritor of the tradition of Gandhi, but that of his assassin. Those who assert that Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party has fascist roots are factually correct. Progressives in recent years have been rethinking the sanctification...2019-10-0637 min
CounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 39: the politics of separatism in ChinaIn Episode 39 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg explores the politics of the Hong Kong protests—and especially how they have been playing out in New York's Chinatown. It is natural that the Hong Kong protesters have made common cause with the Tibetans, Uighurs and Mongols also struggling for their rights and dignity against China's ruling party-state. But some supporters of these movements have come to embrace a separatist position, actually seeking independent states in Hong Kong, Tibet, East Turkistan and South Mongolia. Will self-determination for these regions and peoples be possible without active solidarity with the struggles for democracy an...2019-09-0247 min
CounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 38: Tulsi Gabbard and the paradox of hippie fascismIn Episode 38 of the CounterVortex podcast: Is Democratic presidential hopeful Tulsi Gabbard a pseudo-peacenik fraud who supports US military adventures as long as they target Islamist terrorists but not the bloody dictators she is enamored of? Actually, yes. In Episode 38 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg traces Gabbard's trajectory, from a youthful devotee of a Hare Krishna schism to her current embrace of the Hindu fascism of Narendra Modi and political love affair with the genocidal Bashar Assad. Based on Weinberg's profile of Gabbard's strange politics on Freedom Leaf website. Listen on SoundCloud, and support our podcast via Patreon.
Production...2019-08-1142 min
CounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 37: Spain 1939 = Syria 2019In Episode 37 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg explores the politics of the Spanish Civil War—how leftists around the world mobilized to support the anti-fascist struggle, despite contradictions and complexities within the anti-fascist ranks; how this heroic resistance was betrayed by the world; and how this betrayal presaged a greater and far more destructive war. Today in Syria, a similar struggle is being waged against a fascistic regime—similarly heroic, despite inevitable contradictions and complexities within the anti-fascist ranks. Yet this time, leftists around the world are deeply complicit in the world's betrayal of the Syrian resistance. Weinberg asks: Why...2019-07-2946 min
CounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 36: Against the Left-Fascist ConvergenceIn Episode 36 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg reads the full text of his presentation at the Left Forum, on the panel "Confronting the Resurgence of Authoritarianism, Right and 'Left'," held by the Marxist-Humanist Initiative. Weinberg argues the intentionally provocative but nonetheless entirely accurate thesis that the consensus position of the contemporary "left" is now pro-fascist. Sounds illogical? That's because you haven't thought it through. Listen before you judge. Some choice words for Amy Goodman, Noam Chomsky, Sy Hersh, Stephen Cohen, Jill Stein, Tulsi Gabbard, ANSWER, etc. Listen on SoundCloud, and support our podcast via Patreon.
Production by Chris Rywalt
...2019-07-1648 min
CounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 35: Voices of High Mi MadreIn Episode 35 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg interviews Emily
Ramos, Pilar DeJesus and Kara Bhatti, members of the worker-owned marijuana
consumer cooperative High Mi Madre, on their lobbying and activist efforts in
support of the Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act, still pending in the
final countdown to the close of the current New York State legislative
session. They especially emphasize the demand for "Day One Equity" with
cannabis legalization in the Empire State -- measures for reparative justice and reinvestment in the communities that had for generations been criminalized and oppressed by cannabis prohibition. Listen on SoundCloud, and support...2019-06-171h 45
CounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 34: Memories of Tiananmen SquareIn Episode 34 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg interviews Rose Tang, veteran journalist, activist, artist, musician, and survivor of the Tiananmen Square massacre. In an in-depth oral history, Tang recounts her experiences as a student leader in Beijing in the spring of 1989, her witness to the June 4 repression, and her work as a public voice for Tiananmen Square survivors. Books and works discussed include: Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang (Simon & Schuster 2009); The People's Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited by Louisa Lim (Oxford 2014); "Tiananmen Massacre," Tang's contribution to The Princeton Reader: Contemporary Essays by Writers...2019-05-302h 14
CounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 33: Genocide, propaganda and the Idlib offensiveIn Episode 33 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg compares coverage of the Idlib offensive from CNN and its Turkish counterpart TRT World, illustrating how the US corporate media uncritically echo the propaganda of the Assad regime. While TRT emphasizes civilian casualties, the CNN headline says "terrorists" are being killed—the propaganda technique of dehumanization and objectification of victims. Shamefully, "progressives" in the West are far more complicit with Assad's genocide. The deplorable Amy Goodman has now repeatedly allowed voices such as Phyllis Bennis and the inevitable Noam Chomsky to spew genocide-abetting propaganda on Democracy Now. Weinberg also discusses the contradictions fa...2019-05-1346 min
CounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 32: Paradoxes of anarchism and nationalismIn Episode 32 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg reads from George
Orwell's 1945 essay "Notes on Nationalism," and explains why despite his
anarchist politics he is willing to march under the Mexican flag but not "Old
Glory," under the Palestinian flag but not the Israeli, under the Tibetan flag
but not that of the People's Republic of China -- and under the Free Syrian flag but not that of the Assad dictatorship. The Free Syrian flag flown by the rebels and opposition is the original flag of an independent Syria, and now represents the struggle to free the country from a...2019-04-2847 min
CounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 31: Julian Assange: agent of fascismIn Episode 31 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg documents the ugly
far-right politics of Julian Assange of WikiLeaks, and how the 2010 document
dump risked the lives dissidents under authoritarian regimes in places like
Zimbabwe -- and may have constituted outright collaboration with the
repressive dictatorship of Alexander Lukashenko in Belarus. An objective
reading of the circumstances around the 2016 Wikileaks dump of Democratic
Party e-mails reveals Assange as a Kremlin asset and Trump collaborator, an
active agent in a Russian-lubricated effort to throw the US elections -- part
of Putin's grander design to impose a fascist world order. Weinberg also notes
...2019-04-1432 min
CounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 30: The Mueller Report and impending fascismIn Episode 30 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg decries the unseemly gloating from the (totally predictable) Glen Greenwald, Matt Taibbi and their ilk over the Mueller Report's supposed (not actual) exoneration of Donald Trump. The report actually backs up the 2016 findings of the intelligence community that there was Russian meddling in the election. There have been over 100 indictments issued by Mueller's team, including for lying to Congress about meetings between Trump representatives and Russians. Meanwhile, the results of several other investigations and legal cases against Trump and his team remain pending. Yet paradoxical pro-Trump "leftists" ignore all this and echo...2019-03-3129 min
CounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 29: Ilhan Omar, anti-Semitism and propagandaIn Episode 28 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg advances a progressive and anti-Zionist critique of Rep Ilhan Omar's controversial comments, which have posed the problem of US support for Israel in terms of "allegiance to a foreign country" -- the nationalist and xenophobic language of our enemies. As a Somali-American woman in a hijab, Omar is ultimately legitimizing reactionary forces that threaten her with the use of such nationalist rhetoric. As the massacres of Christchurch and Pittsburgh all too clearly demonstrate, Islamophobia and anti-Semitism are fundamentally unified concerns -- and the way Jews and Muslims have been pitted against each...2019-03-1743 min
CounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 28: Tibet and the struggle for cyberspaceIn Episode 28 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg notes with trepidation Google’s plans to develop a censored search engine for China, and thereby be allowed back through the Great Firewall to access the world's largest market. But the next and more sinister step is imposing China's draconian standards for control of information on all Internet users, worldwide. Harbingers of this are already seen in Facebook's censorship of the Tibetan struggle, and of the Kurdish struggle in Turkey, as well as initiatives to suppress footage of Israeli war crimes. While protesting these moves is imperative, the potential for such abuses in...2019-03-0343 min
CounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 27: Independence for AmbazoniaIn Episode 27 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg interviews Eben Egbe and Amy Dalton of the Global Initiative to end the Cameroons Colonial Conflict (Gi3C), who discuss the independence struggle in Ambazonia—a territory that was illegally annexed by Cameroon following the end of colonial rule in 1960. The past year has seen a terrible increase in state terror in Ambazonia from the French-backed neo-colonial Cameroon authorities, with protesters fired upon by helicopter gunships, and finally villages burned by military forces, sending the residents fleeing into the bush. Some 246,000 people have been internally displaced, with a further 20,000 having crossed the bo...2019-02-171h 52
CounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 26: Strange bedfellows from Crimea to VenezuelaIn Episode 26 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg notes contradictions and complexities in two world crises depicted in polarized terms by left, right and center alike. The indigenous Tatar people of Crimea, their autonomy and rights abrogated by the illegal Russian occupation, have been drawn into an alliance with Ukraine's ultra-nationalist Right Sector based on their mutual opposition to Putin's annexation of the peninsula. Ukrainian anarchists are meanwhile facing repression for their opposition to Right Sector. Putin, who is cracking down on Russian anarchists who oppose his own ultra-nationalist imperial agenda, has just sent a detachment of Cossack mercenaries to...2019-02-0342 min
CounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 25: Fascism and the digital dystopia IIIn Episode 25 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg protests that he has now been deprived of phone and Internet access by Verizon for more than two months, and discusses the greater social implications of this dilemma. Donald Trump, who is a fascist by any reasonable definition, has now shut down the federal government and is threatening to declare a national emergency in order to build his border wall. Not only has lack of other net access at this critical moment forced Weinberg to use a cell phone in order to have any effectiveness as a writer and activist, but cellular...2019-01-2043 min
CounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 24: The Dialectics of Cannabis LiberationIn Episode 24 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg notes the historic strides toward liberation of the cannabis plant in 2018, from the fabled four corners of the Earth. Yet under the capitalist system, every advance also opens new contradictions. With the rise of "corporate cannabis," traditional small growers in places like California's Emerald Triangle stand to be pushed off the market as Central Valley agribusiness gets in on the act. Burdensome regulations and heavy taxation have kept some growers on the black market—and big police raids in the Emerald Triangle have continued even after "legalization." High taxes on cannabis have al...2019-01-071h 24
CounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 23: Solidarity with Idlib and RojavaIn Episode 23 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg notes the assassination of Raed Fares, a courageous voice of the civil resistance in besieged Idlib province, last remaining stronghold of the Syrian Revolution. The resistance in Idlib, which liberated the territory from the Bashar Assad regime in popular uprisings seven years ago, is now also resisting the jihadist forces in the province, expelling them from their self-governing towns and villages. Their hard-won zones of popular democracy face extermination if this last stronghold is invaded by Assad and his Russian backers. As Assad and Putin threaten Idlib, Trump's announced withdrawal of the 2,000...2018-12-2344 min
CounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 22: Verizon delenda estIn Episode 22 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg rants in anguish about how he has been deprived of phone and Internet access by Verizon's cynical design to let its copper network deteriorate and impose the transition to cellular, fiber and wireless on consumers against their will. There is no reason to believe this outage will be temporary. The illusions of freedom of choice and communications convenience has left the CounterVortex editor and main ranter with no choice and no ability to communicate -- or to produce the journalism he needs to daily produce to make a living. Weinberg contends that...2018-11-1122 min
CounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 21: Looming fascism and the digital dystopiaIn Episode 21 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg rants in anguish about how he has been forced by market and technological forces beyond his control into the same matrix of digital media that is fast eroding the very concept of truth and lubricating the consolidation of a fascist order in the United States and the world. In the aftermath of the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre, Weinberg documents Trump's complicity and virtual green-lighting of the attack, and calls out his rote condemnation as rank hypocrisy. From the wave of hate unleashed immediately upon his inauguration through the "false flag" theory he floated...2018-10-2837 min
CounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 20: Libertarian Socialism: not an oxymoronIn Episode 20 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg discusses the
forgotten legacy of libertarian socialism -- considered by many today a
contradiction in terms. While the word "socialism" is suddenly viewed as
legitimate in American political discourse again for the first time in
generations, the word "libertarian" continues to be associated with the
free-market right -- despite its origins on the anarchist left. Weinberg
discusses his own involvement in New York's Libertarian Book Club -- founded
by anarchist exiles from Europe in the 1940s, to keep alive their ideals and
pass the torch to a new generation. Libertarian socialists seek...2018-10-161h 11
CounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 19: Standing for IdlibIn Episode 19 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg discusses the urgent
need for solidarity with Idlib, the last remaining stronghold of the Syrian
Revolution, and looks at heroic examples of the civil resustance there, which
is standing up the Assad regime and jihadists alike -- such as Rania Kisar,
who has been running schools and other civil institutions; and Radio Fresh,
which is continuing to broadcast in defiance of threats and censorship from
the jihadists. The weekly Friday demonstrations in Idlib continue to keep
alive the spirit of the 2011 Arab Revolution, demanding a democratic future
for Syria. In a victory...2018-09-3046 min
CounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 18: Legacy of Kazakh-Shoshone solidarityIn Episode 18 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg looks back at the
Nevada-Semipalatinsk movement of the closing years of the Cold War, when the
Western Shoshone people, whose traditional lands were being contaminated by
the nuclear blasts at the US government's Nevada Test Site, made common cause
with the Kazakh people of Central Asia who opposed Soviet nuclear testing at
the Semipalatinsk site. Kazakh activists travelled to Nevada to join protests
at the Test Site, while Western Shoshone leaders travelled to Kazakhstan to
join protests at Semipalatinsk. This initiative eventually evolved into the
Abolition 2000 Global Network to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons...2018-09-1650 min
CounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 17: Toward Lakota-Tatar solidarityIn Episode 17 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg discusses the growing repression against the Tatar people of the Crimea, and the abrogation of their autonomous government by the Russian authorities since Moscow's illegal annexation of the peninsula. This is a clear parallel to violation of the territorial rights of the Lakota people in the United States through construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the legal persecution of indigenous leaders who stood against it. The parallel is even clearer in the cases of the Evenks and Telengit, indigenous peoples of Siberia, resisting Russian construction of pipelines through their traditional lands...2018-09-0336 min
CounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 16: Toward Berber-Palestinian solidarityIn Episode 16 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg discusses how Berbers, Palestinians, Sahrawi Arabs and other subjugated peoples of the Middle East and North Africa are pitted against each other by the Great Game of nation-states. Berbers in Morocco and Palestinians in the Occupied Territories face identical issues of cultural erasure, yet Moroccan support for the Palestinians and retaliatory Israeli support for the Berbers constitute an obstacle to solidarity. The Sahrawi Arabs are meanwhile fighting for their independence from Morocco in their occupied territory of Western Sahara. But the Arab-nationalist ideology of their leadership is viewed with suspicion by the...2018-08-2032 min
CounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 15: The Tibetan uprising 10 years laterIn Episode 15 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg reports on the 10-year commemoration of the 2008 Tibetan uprising held by Students for a Free Tibet in Astoria, Queens, New York City. A decade after the uprising was put down, struggles for land recovery and language preservation continue in Tibet, as well as among the Mongols, Uighurs and other indigenous peoples of the territory that constitutes the People's Republic of China. Weinberg provides an overview of these ongoing struggles, and draws parallels to related struggles in Peru, Ecuador, Colombia and elsewhere in the Americas—including the movement against the Dakota Access pipeline. Th...2018-08-0747 min
CounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 14: What will it take to stop Trump?In Episode 14 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg notes the national
protest wave that brought down president Park Geun-Hye in South Korea last
December, and asks why Americans can't similarly rise to the occasion and
launch a mass militant movement to remove Donald Trump. Given this extreme emergency—the detention gulag now coming into place, with undocumented migrants the "test population" for domestic fascism—we should be mobilizing in our millions. Apart from the broad masses being simply too distracted by gizmos and consumerism to see the walls closing in (a problem to be discussed elsewhere), Weinberg identifies two significant obst...2018-07-2232 min
CounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 13: First they came for the immigrants....In Episode 13 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg deconstructs Trump's executive order ostensibly ending the policy of family separation on the southern border, and demonstrates how it actually lays the groundwork for indefinite detention of migrants on military bases. The Central American peasantry, expropriated of its lands by state terror, CAFTA and narco-violence, are forced to flee north—now into the arms of Trump's new gulag. The judiciary may yet pose an obstacle to enforcement of Trump's order, but this brings us to the Supreme Court's upholding of Trump's Muslim travel ban grim implications of Justices Anthony Kennedy's imminent resigantion. Wi...2018-07-0837 min
CounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 12: Homage to Lounès MatoubIn Episode 12 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg pays homage to the martyred Algerian Berber singer and songrwiter Lounes Matoub on the 20th anniversary of his assassination. It remains unclear to this day if Matoub was killed by agents of the Algerian state or militants of the Islamist opposition -- as both were equally opposed to the Berber cultural renaissance that he represented. The Berbers, or Imazighen (singular: Amazigh), are the indigenous people of North Africa, whose language and culture have been suppressed to varying degrees by Arab-dominated regimes from Morocco to Libya. The 1980 "Berber Spring" in the Kabylia region...2018-06-2454 min
CounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 11: Syria and Nicaragua, Revolutionary ParallelsIn Episode 11 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg compares the legacies of revolutionary struggle in Nicaragua and Syria. The Somoza and Assad regimes were both hereditary family dictatorships. The Sandinistas and Syrian revolutionaries alike have roots in anarchism. Yet Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega, again Nicaragua's president, is today himself facing a militant opposition movement, and has betrayed the Syrian revolutionaries in the interests of playing for Russian support in the Great Power game. His regime has employed state terror against peasant communities and campesino opponents of his inter-oceanic canal mega-scheme. In Syria, meanwhile, the secular, pro-democratic civil resistance continues to...2018-06-121h 00
CounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 10: Nicaragua and political deja vuIn Episode 10 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg notes the re-emergence in the news of three figures associated with the drama that played out over revolutionary Nicaragua in the 1980s. Daniel Ortega, president of Nicaragua then, is again today, and just faced massive protests calling for his ouster. Oliver North, who headed the Reagan White House covert operation to destabilize Nicaragua's Sandinista regime back then, was just named as head of the National Rifle Association. And Luis Posada Carriles, the right-wing Cuban terrorist who was part of North's private spy network back then, just died. Historical ironies abound. North, who...2018-05-2942 min
CounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 9: Against Red-Brown politicsIn Episode NIne of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg rants against "Red-Brown Politics," dangerous notion of an alliance between the left and fascist right against liberalism and the West—now seen in the growing support for the genocidal dictatorship of Bashar Assad on both the "anti-war" (sic) "left" (sic) and the "alt-right." Leading lights of the American "left" have joined pro-Assad delegations to Syria, as have figures on the fascist right. Emerging as the global representative for this sinister trend is Russo-nationalist ideologue Alexander Dugin, who is bringing together supposed peaceniks and neo-fascists around supporting despots like Putin and Assad in...2018-05-1539 min
CounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 8: From Guernica to SyriaIn Episode Eight of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg notes the bitter historical irony: In April of 1937, the aerial bombardment of the Spanish town of Guernica by the Nazi Luftwaffe shocked the world. Today, what happened there is a near-daily occurance in Syria (as well as Yemen and elsewhere around the world), and we are so inured to it that the "anti-war" people are actually on the side of the authors of aerial terror. During the Spanish Civil War, the left heroically opposed Generalissimo Francisco Franco's drive to establish a fascist dictatorship with the aid of German military intervention. Today...2018-05-0138 min
CounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 7: Against Pro-War 'Anti-War' JiveIn Episode Seven of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg rants against the sinister development of pro-war propaganda masked as "anti-war" propaganda. The overwhelming response of the "anti-war" left to the Douma chemical attack and Trump's retaliatory air-strikes is to baselessly deny that Bashar Assad was behind the attack, to portray the victims as CIA-jihadists, and to change the subject ("What about Gaza, Yemen, etc?") These are all propaganda tactics lifted directly from the Assad regime's playbook. While some now openly support Assad, other "anti-war" hypocrites protest that they do not support Assad, they just oppose US air-strikes. But when you...2018-04-1732 min
CounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 6: The Abolition of (Hu)man(ity)In Episode Six of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg reads and discusses selections from CS Lewis' classic work The Abolition of Man, and explores its relevance in light of the contemporary dilemmas posed by biotech and artificial intelligence. Conservative Christian moralist Lewis paradoxically developed a quasi-anarchist critique of technological society, with ideas closely mirroring those of his contemporary George Orwell—despite the fact that the two were on opposite sides of the political divide. But Lewis went beyond even Orwell's dark vision in foreseeing an actual end to humanity itself, as it has been understood for millennia, and its replacement by...2018-04-0356 min
CounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 5: Xi Jinping's Totalitarian CapitalismIn Episode Five of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg makes the case that despite the official ideology of "socialism with Chinese characteristics" and the revival of rhetoric and imagery from the Mao era, media commentators are off base in their comparison of Xi Jinping and Mao Zedong. The new personalistic dictatorship of Xi is appropriating the outward forms of Maoism, but whereas the Great Helmsman used totalitarian methods to advance socialism (at least in terms of his own intentions) Xi is doing so to further entrench China's savage capitalist system. As a part of the same constitutional changes that have...2018-03-2040 min
CounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 4: Politics of the Second AmendmentIn Episode Four of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg makes the case that the Second Amendment is a non-grammatical muddle of obfuscation—because the issue was just as contentious in 1789 as it is today, and the Framers fudged it. That's why both the "gun control" and "gun rights" advocates can claim they have the correct interpretation—as they each advocate solutions that, in their own way, escalate the police state. In the wake of the latest school massacre, youth activists are pressing the issue, and this is long overdue. But the discussion that needs to be had would explore the soci...2018-03-0733 min
CounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 3: Socialism or BarbarismIn Episode Three of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg expounds on the concept of the countervortex. Making note of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists' decision to advance the minute hand of its Doomsday Clock to two minutes of midnight, he discusses the current global dilemma in light of EP Thompson's 1980 essay Notes on Exterminism, the Last Stage of Civilization, and Rosa Luxemburg's positing of humanity's imminent future as either "socialism or barbarism." What are the prospects for resisting the global vortex of ecological collapse, totalitarianism and permanent war in the age of Trump and Putin? This is a question...2018-02-2042 min
KNYO-LP 107.7 FM Fort Bragg, CAINTERVIEW: Bill Weinberg on the countervortex of global resistanceIn this January 30, 2018 interview Dan Young speaks with Manhattan-based journalist and activist Bill Weinberg about his history of resisting the global vortex of ecological collapse, totalitarianism and war, while supporting indigenous struggles and grassroots democracy. Weinberg’s global political reporting can be found online at his website Countervortex, and also in his Countervortex podcast. Weinberg’s reporting on cannabis issues is available at his website Global Ganja Report, and also at High Times. Weinberg is also the author of the 1991 book War On The Land: Ecology and Politics in Central America and the 2002 book Homage to Chiapas: The New Indigneous...2018-02-061h 28
CounterVortex PodcastCounterVortex Episode 2: Solidarity with Afrin and IdlibAs Turkey invades Syrian territory to attack the Kurdish-controlled enclave of Afrin, the Assad regime and its Russian sponsors are bombarding the rebel-held province of Idlib. Civilian populations in each are facing military attack. And the Rojava Kurds as well as the autonomous municipalities of Idlib are animated by an ethic of popular council-based democracy. But while Noam Chomsky and David Graeber issued a statement in support of Afrin, they—like most of the Western left—are silent about the aggression against Idlib. The destructive meddling of the Great Powers could unleash an Arab-Kurdish ethnic war in Syria—a potentially disast...2018-01-2832 min
'80s All OverPatreon Bonus #19 - Bill HaderCan you believe Bill Hader agreed to sit (and hit it and quit it) with Drew to talk about all his favorite '80s films? We couldn't either. But he did, and if you thought "I bet Bill Hader likes some pretty weird and obscure '80s flicks," guess what - YOU'RE RIGHT! If you were also thinking "I bet this bonus is full of joyful Bill Hader-y goodness..." RIGHT AGAIN. Get listening already!2017-12-1900 min'80s All OverPatreon Bonus #18 - Bill RosemannIn this special Patreon Bonus, Drew goes one-on-one with a childhood friend with whom he shared many a formative filmgoing experience... a friend who just so happened to grow up and become the Executive Creative Director for Marvel Games, a guy named Bill Rosemann. You could only imagine the sort of '80s-era movie adventures they had, but that's the whole point of this bonus episode - you don't have to imagine. You can hear them!2017-12-0500 min