“If freedom of speech is taken away, then, dumb and silent, we may be led like sheep to the slaughter” – George Washington

PShift (4zzz fm 102.1 fridays at noon 31 Jan 2020) looks at various citizen journalists helped by John Jiggens (Bay FM) and Andy Paine (Paradigm Shift).

This show is about citizen journalism. Professors of International Relations are writing books about the “End of History.” This has been going on ever since Fikuyama article of the same name appeared in the National Interest just months before the Berlin Wall came down.

Now it is Clinton Fernandes “What Uncle Sam Wants.” Articles about whether the United States can have a cogent foreign policy. And more about what we can learn from the American New Left of the 1960s.

At least one of these books is based on 700,000 pages of Wikileakes downloads supplied gratis to the professors of International Relations by their greatest ever research assistant, Chelsea Manning. Her work was supplemented by Edward Snowden. These are the endowments to modern scholarship provided by citizen journalists like Julian Assange.

For the past ten years Paradigm Shift has reported on the exploits and subsequent persecution of Assange, Manning and Snowden. These were three of the best citizen journalists and anti-war research assistants of those years.

Now another investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald is facing jail time. Dr John Jiggens looks at another disturbing case of the global attack on a free media.

There is also Andy’s interview with Charlie Massey ‘Call of the Reed Warbler’ and various songs, poems, and skits.

Thanks to ‘Bring Julian Home’, ‘Waging Peace’, Andy and the various artists & activists who provided relevant material for this show.

Western Window
Trains go south with guns
And bats hang on fruit trees
While hills roll in slumber
Pinkish in sunset mist
Green and blue
No war here
As bellbirds sing

Ian Curr
31 Jan 2020

Playlist
Nina Simone-Backlash Blues
Phil Monsour and the Crisis Actors-Our House is on fire
Happytown-Ballad of an Outlaw
Billy Bragg-Between the Wars
Lionel Fogarty-My Cry is Lost in a Name
George Telek-West Papua
Midnight Oil-Blue Sky Mine
Ruth Mundy-Adani Song