Antiwar.com Blog

Roy Eidelson sends along this sober and useful video on countering the War Party’s psychological appeals.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81UKnb5zJbM[/youtube]

Behzad Yaghmaian, discusses the history of American regime change in Iran, the tyranny of the American puppet, the Shah Pahlavi and his brutal SAVAK, the tyranny of the Ayatollahs who took his place, why American “help” hurts reformers and fears that if Bush bombs them the repercussions for millions of people all over the world will be disastrous.

MP3 here. (35:19)

Behzad Yaghmaian is the author of Embracing the Infidel: Stories of Muslim Migrants on the Journey West and Social Change in Iran: An Eyewitness Account of Dissent, Defiance, and New Movements for Rights. He is a professor of political economy at Ramapo College of New Jersey.

Professor Butler Shaffer says government is an unnecessary evil.

MP3 here.

From the view of a “modern social historian and philosopher,” Professor Shaffer has written numerous books and articles on social theory, business and labor law, and has spoken on these topics before a variety of academic and special interest forums. In his book, Calculated chaos: Institutional threats to peace and human survival, he explores the theory that “institutions are the principle means by which conflict is produced and managed in society.” He considers how leaders of industry influenced the creation of the New Deal’s National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 in his book, In Restraint of Trade: The Business Campaign Against Competition: 1918-1938. Professor Shaffer has also been interviewed on these subjects on network television, cable and radio.

Following graduation from law school, Professor Shaffer was a labor relations consultant to the Midwest Employees Council in Lincoln, Nebraska, and went on to establish a private law practice in Omaha. He subsequently joined the firm of Nelson, Harding, Marchetti, Leonard & Tate, and then began a career in academia at the University of Nebraska College of Business Administration where he taught courses in business and law. Professor Shaffer has been a member of the Southwestern faculty since 1977. In 2002, he was named as the Irwin R. Buchalter Professor of Law in recognition of his outstanding contributions to legal education and scholarship.

Brian Doherty is out hawking his new book Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the American Libertarian Movement. He’ll be reading from it, talking about it, signing it etc. at Cody’s in Berkeley this Sunday, April 15, at 4 pm. That’s 4 in the afternoon, at 1730 Fourth Street, Berkeley, CA. that’s the one on 4th street. Whole show should take at most an hour and a half—30 min talking, 30 min questions, typical.

Brian will also be on KGO-810 AM Monday from 3-4 in the afternoon.

Here‘s my review of the book, and more coverage of the discussion.

Update: Here is the mp3 audio (32:02) of his appearance on the Pete Wilson show on KGO.

Writing on the Reason magazine website, neocon Michael Young bemoans the lack of an American equivalent of Le Canard Enchaine:

“You have to wonder why a similar national publication doesn’t exist in the U.S. The popularity of The Onion, or the fact that a magazine like Spy managed to have considerable influence during the 1980s, suggest that Americans aren’t all that satire-resistant.”

That’s strange: I thought Reason was a satirical magazine. After all, here is a “libertarian” periodical that publishes Young’s warmongering screeds, takes a “neutral” position on Iraq — and George W. Bush’s project of world conquest“liberation” — while contenting itself with calls for the legalization of methamphetamine and an unabashedly nerdy obsession with “The Simpsons.” Mass murder is “debatable,” from this “libertarian” viewpoint: what isn’t debatable is putting heroin in school vending machines to let the free market work its magic. Now, that’s got to be satire. But not in a good way …

What a great headline!