Since there's been America, there have been American war crimes, and since there have been American war crimes, there's been a parallel cottage industry of hacks, shills and propagandists willing to not only apologize for, deny and downplay these crimes, but actually spin them as benevolent charity. While Karl Rove mastered the art of taking a politician's weakness and projecting it onto one’s opponent, the American political and media class has mastered the art of taking the most blatant crimes...
Aug 08, 2018•49 min•Transcript available on Metacast Russia, as we all know, has sinister “oligarchs” whereas in the United States, we are told, we have “philanthropists,” “job creators,” and “titans of industry” who earn their wealth through hard work, moxie, and guile. Aside from a few cartoonishly evil billionaires – like the Walton family, Peter Thiel, and the Koch brothers – the average American has a warm and fuzzy feeling about the super wealthy. The most notable of these Benevolent Billionaires is Bill Gates, whose foundation, The Bill and...
Aug 01, 2018•55 min•Transcript available on Metacast Russia, as we all know, has sinister “oligarchs” whereas in the United States, we are told, we have “philanthropists,” “job creators,” and “titans of industry” who earn their wealth through hard work, moxie, and guile. Aside from a few cartoonishly evil billionaires – like the Walton family, Peter Thiel, and the Koch brothers – the average American has a warm and fuzzy feeling about the super wealthy. The most notable of these Benevolent Billionaires is Bill Gates, whose foundation, The Bill and...
Jul 25, 2018•1 hr 9 min•Transcript available on Metacast For over two years, the U.S. government has been investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election - interference broadly considered to be in favor of candidate Donald Trump. As a result, a bizarre flip has occurred with the Right and Left: Polls show liberals now trust the FBI and CIA, while many right-wingers – though by no means all – suddenly act concerned about the so-called “deep state.” Liberals have been turned into even more extreme hawks, not just on the issue of Russia, but anyt...
Jul 18, 2018•52 min•Transcript available on Metacast For over two years, the U.S. government has been investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election - interference broadly considered to be in favor of candidate Donald Trump. As a result, a bizarre flip has occurred with the Right and Left: Polls show liberals now trust the FBI and CIA, while many right-wingers – though by no means all – suddenly act concerned about the so-called “deep state.” Liberals have been turned into even more extreme hawks, not just on the issue of Russia, but anyt...
Jul 11, 2018•49 min•Transcript available on Metacast With the rise of Trump, Sanders, Corbyn and Brexit, hundreds of pundits, reporters, and talking heads have been warning about the problems of "populism" and its alleged attack on democracy over the past three years. “ Populism and immigration pose major threat to global democracy ,” the Gates Foundation insists. “ The Dangerous Rise of Populism - Global Attacks on Human Rights Values ,“ wrote Human Rights Watch in 2017. “ Trump's Rise Proves How Dangerous Populism Is for Democracy ” NBC says. “ ...
Jun 27, 2018•1 hr•Transcript available on Metacast Healthcare marketplaces,” “private insurers competing for your business” “insurance subsidies,” For years, Democrats bet big on framing the healthcare debate using technocratic, capitalist terms––they weren’t going to radically change the system of healthcare, simply accent the existing private insurance-based model making things “smarter,” “easier,” more “tech-driven.” As the Affordable Care Act faces continued right-wing attacks and liberal-leaning activists increasingly look to single-payer, ...
Jun 20, 2018•58 min•Transcript available on Metacast They’re not lies, they’re “falsehoods”; it’s not racism, it’s “racially charged comments”; it’s not torture, it’s “enhanced interrogation.” For years, U.S. media has prioritized, above all else, norms and civility. Mean words or questioning motives are signs of declining civility and the subject of much lament from our media class. However, op-eds explicitly advocating war, invasion, sanctions, sabotage, bombing and occupation or cutting vital programs and lifelines for the poor are just the cos...
Jun 13, 2018•53 min•Transcript available on Metacast The United States, far and away, has the largest prison population in the world. It also has one of the greatest disparities in their prison population of ethnic minorities in the world. How does a country that prides itself on being a “beacon of freedom” and whose leaders travel the world scolding other countries on “human rights” find itself to be the largest carceral state of the 21st century? What are the cultural forces that reinforce racist attitudes, deference to the police and prosecutor...
Jun 06, 2018•1 hr 19 min•Transcript available on Metacast “Baby Boomers are bloating the social safety net!” “GenXers are changing the nature of work!” “Millennials are killing the housing market!". The media endlessly feeds us stories about how one generation or another is engaging in some collective act of moral failing that, either explicitly or by implication, harms another generation. It’s a widely-mocked cliché at this point, namely the near-constant analyses detailing what Millennials have “killed” or “ruined” lately - everything from Applebee's...
May 23, 2018•44 min•Transcript available on Metacast "A pillar of the community"." A straight-A student who dreamed of becoming a doctor". "A loving father"."Here through no fault of their own". "She was hysterical and out of control." "He was no angel." The press, both local and national, humanizes some victims of state or corporate violence, while demonizing others. Despite good intentions and seemingly without noticing, the media all too often create tiered systems of moral worth by trying to find “the perfect victim.” The media’s search for th...
May 16, 2018•1 hr 9 min•Transcript available on Metacast For decades, Canada has been a go-to point of reference for American progressives as a country the United States can and should strive to be. And while there are many parts about Canadian society that are measurably preferable, leftists in Canada find their country's glossy, socialist paradise image to be overblown and often a barrier to meaningful change. This episode examines this tension, the reality versus perception, what we can learn from each other, and the common and existential thread w...
May 09, 2018•1 hr 11 min•Transcript available on Metacast When Americans read about the Korean "conflict" in the Western press, the articles are populated almost entirely with Serious Western Talking Heads, weapons contractor-funded think tank "fellows," and former and current U.S. military brass. Who's never consulted, much less heeded, are peace and left activists from the Korean peninsula. The notion that perma-hostility from the U.S. and arming the South to the teeth is in Korea's best interest -- and is assumed to be popular -- is simply taken for...
Apr 25, 2018•1 hr 3 min•Transcript available on Metacast MSNBC is by far the most influential mainstream media outlet on the American Left. It sets the tone and defines the boundary for what is acceptable discourse among American liberals. But major issues the Left is generally thought to care about - imperial war, worker strikes, Palestine, climate change - are almost entirely absent from coverage, as the network increasingly looks like a 24-hour Trump-Russia infomercial. What is the point of having a liberal cable news network when it ignores so man...
Apr 18, 2018•55 min•Transcript available on Metacast The unlikely rise of Trump in the past three years has created a chasm in the Republican party: those who embrace the President’s wild, unorthodox, nativist style and those who––with much posturing and self congratulation––reject his brand of conservatism. The latter group, generally called “NeverTrump” Republicans, occupies a special, protected status in Serious Centrist media––despite representing only 5% of the population. Major outlets like The Washington Post, The Atlantic and the New York ...
Apr 11, 2018•45 min•Transcript available on Metacast We’ve heard this scare story a million times: A theater group at Wesleyan won’t perform The Vagina Monologues because it’s offensive to trans women! Oberlin is banning classes featuring white authorsI Rich, sheltered college students, increasingly indoctrinated by radical Marxist professors, are asking for safe spaces! But how much merit is there to the popular trope that college kids are hypersensitive and coddled? Is there really a free speech crisis America’s campuses? What are the origins of...
Mar 28, 2018•1 hr 6 min•Transcript available on Metacast We’ve seen the headlines hundreds of times: “ISIS plot foiled”, “ISIS in Brooklyn", “Woman Stopped At Airport on way to join ISIS”. These stories strike fear into the hearts of Americans everywhere, especially in the build up to the war effort against ISIS in Summer 2014. The terror group was everywhere, recruiting our teenagers and attempting to strike in every major city––seemingly all at once. But what do these headlines mean exact? What is an “ISIS plot”? What is the gap between the image th...
Mar 21, 2018•1 hr 18 min•Transcript available on Metacast Fighting against the far right forces of the Republican Party and their auxiliary white supremacist media makes attempts to appropriate notions of nationalism into a liberal mold a compelling short cut for Democrats looking for easy clapbacks and viral RT’s. The temptation to promote a kinder, gentler, "woke" patriotism is understandable. But what is the collateral damage of this approach? From the justifiably horrified response to mass shootings to the jingoistic worship of all things military,...
Mar 14, 2018•1 hr 2 min•Transcript available on Metacast The idea that there exists an ongoing effort to achieve a “two-state solution” in Israel and Palestine - often referred to as The Middle East Peace Process™ - is uniformly taken for granted by American media. This "two-state solution" is always at different stages of viability, yet never quite works out. Presidents fail to achieve it; Palestinian violence makes it "more difficult"; Israeli settlements are "unhelpful" to it. But how honest is this effort? How are nonstop obituaries for a phantom ...
Mar 07, 2018•49 min•Transcript available on Metacast The idea that there exists an ongoing effort to achieve a “two-state solution” in Israel and Palestine - often referred to as The Middle East Peace Process™ - is uniformly taken for granted by American media. This "two-state solution" is always at different stages of viability, yet never quite works out. Presidents fail to achieve it; Palestinian violence makes it "more difficult"; Israeli settlements are "unhelpful" to it. But how honest is this effort? How are nonstop obituaries for a phantom ...
Feb 28, 2018•1 hr 14 min•Transcript available on Metacast Citations Needed is off this week, but we do have a fascinating interview with Hoda Katebi on her now-infamous WGN television segment. In this News Brief, we explore what it means to "sound American," the politics of women's clothing, and why everyone with even a single drop of Iranian blood is expected to be an expert on nuclear energy and international affairs.
Feb 21, 2018•27 min•Transcript available on Metacast If one were to approach New York Times- reading liberals circa 1990 and tell them about a crime-fighting policy that arbitrarily harassed black and Latino youths who had committed no crime and threw the book at low-level nonviolent offenses, they would be rightfully outraged at the idea. But, if one were to couch this exact policy in pseudoscience promoted by mercenary sociologists and glowingly written up in The Atlantic , these same liberals would not only accept it, they'd be its primary advo...
Feb 14, 2018•1 hr 1 min•Transcript available on Metacast The term "welfare" is thrown around so casually in political speeches and media coverage we hardly notice it anymore. CNN reports that “GOP will tackle Medicare, Medicaid, welfare in 2018," while The Washington Post insists that “Trump recently called on Congress to move to cut welfare spending after the tax bill.” CBS News tells viewers that “Washington eyes welfare reform." But what do these outlets and the Republican Party actually mean when they talk about "welfare"? What programs are they r...
Feb 07, 2018•52 min•Transcript available on Metacast Few words elicit such warm feelings as the term "Democracy." Wars are supposedly fought for it, foreign policies are built around it, protecting and advancing it is considered the United States' highest moral order. Democracy's alleged opposite - broadly called "authoritarianism," "autocracy" or "tyranny” - is cast as the ultimate evil. The stifling, oppressive boot of the state that curtails liberties and must be fought at all costs. This is the world in which we operate and the one where the U...
Jan 31, 2018•54 min•Transcript available on Metacast Here at Citations Needed we enjoy nothing more than ragging on corporate media - indeed, it’s our primary job. But can constant snark and negativity breed cynicism? Recent feedback from some of our listeners has us wondering if the act of media criticism need also make room for some media complimenting, lest we succumb to the forces of defeatism. In this episode, rather than critiquing the myriad problems with the corporate press, we decided to highlight two smaller media organizations fighting ...
Jan 24, 2018•58 min•Transcript available on Metacast It's not a "government shutdown", it's a liberal government shutdown––or, more precisely, a backdoor rightwing coup. Our words should reflect that. Relevant article: It’s Not a Government Shutdown. It’s a Right-Wing Coup www.thenation.com/article/its-not-…right-wing-coup/...
Jan 24, 2018•13 min•Transcript available on Metacast We’ve all seen these feel good segments on the local news. The adorable and resourceful seven-year-old in California who's been recycling cans since he was three and now has $10,000 saved up for college. The Oklahoma community that chipped in to buy a car for a beloved Walmart greeter so she wouldn't have to walk to work in the bitter cold anymore. The “inspiring teen” who returned to his fast food job soon after being injured in a car accident. No doubt, these are all heartwarming tales of pers...
Jan 17, 2018•51 min•Transcript available on Metacast The unique threat and vileness of Donald Trump’s presidency can’t be overstated. Since he took office a year ago, he’s increased civilian deaths in Afghanistan by 50%, increased civilian deaths in Syria and Iraq (surpassing Obama’s death toll in just under 7 months), issued dozens of nuclear threats against North Korea, unraveled the Iran deal, bombed Hezbollah, Iranian and SAA positions in Syria, signed a smash and grab tax bill for billionaires, and issued order after order making life hell fo...
Jan 10, 2018•58 min•Ep 22•Transcript available on Metacast According to one 2014 study, 75% of white Americans don’t have any non-white friends. Put another way, white people’s perception of African Americans and other people of color comes primarily from media representations rather than actual interactions. As such, how communities of color are portrayed in the media – from news and opinion pages to movie and TV screens – is tremendously important. Two newly-published reports reveal how these perceptions are consistently distorted to over-emphasize Bl...
Jan 03, 2018•1 hr 5 min•Ep 21•Transcript available on Metacast Previously on Citations Needed , we discussed the notion of "Lotteryism," that is, the use of the media by large corporations to obscure solidarity in favor of morality tales of "making it." It's a scam to extract resources from local governments in hopes they can "win" corporate cash, headquarters, facilities, and, of course, the promise of "jobs". Cities around the US and the world debase themselves to compete for the "honor" of hosting the Olympic Games, the World Cup, or just a new sports te...
Dec 20, 2017•52 min•Ep 20•Transcript available on Metacast 
