PODCAST #127

Participants: John Steppling, Max Parry, Hiroyuki Hamada, Dennis Riches, and Shaenah Batterson. Topics discussed: increasing numbers of activists and journalists being arrested, violation of basic free speech rights, the CIA budget: look around at social media and traditional media—how big is the budget and what is it being spent on? Anti-communist “left” media. Tucker Carlson and Russell Brand put a prayer performance into the political discourse, increasing and worsening degrees of anti-communist historical revisionism, the “simplification” of the US presidential election cycle: is this one sign of the end of electoral democracies? Artistic freedom in mid-century film and television. Directors mentioned: John Boorman (Zardoz, 1974), Val Lewton (Cat People, 1942), Abraham Polonski (Force of Evil, 1948). Music track “Big Plans” by Jack Littman, used with permission.