Old Mole Variety Hour May 10th 2021

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Hosted by: 
Produced by: 
KBOO
Air date: 
Mon, 05/10/2021 - 9:00am to 10:00am
News, Views and Interviews from a Socialist, Feminist, Anti-Racist Perspective

 

Denise Morris Hosts this Episode of the Old Mole which includes

 

  • Community Energy Part 2. Bill Resnick interviews Paul Fenn in the second part of a 2 part interview on Community Energy. In the part 1 last week they discussed the origins of the Community Energy movement and why it is so popular in the cities and counties that have established them. In the coming second part they discuss: (1) Why and how the corporate Investor Owned Utilities tried to destroy community energy and how the many community energy cities fought back, and (2) The Biden Administration’s Infrastructure and Jobs Plan that in first draft funnels most of its monies to corporate America, but has some provisions supporting Community Energy, and the dollar amounts can be changed as the specifics are negotiated and regulations developed.  
  • Heterodox Economics. In the first of a three-part interview, Luisa Martinez speaks with Mitch Green, PhD. Dr. Green is a heterodox economist who explains the differences between mainstream economics and the heterodox school of economic thought. In the former the economy is fundamentally scarce and finite, and possibilities are constrained. With the latter, our economy is socially constructed, resources are produced, and possibilities are open. 
  • Left and Law, child sex trafficking conspiracies. In recent years, far right platforms such as QAnan have garnered followers by promoting child sex trafficking conspiracies and advancing their rightwing agenda under the banner of rescuing children from perverse evil-doers. In their Left and the Law segment, Jan Haaken and Mike Snedeker talk about how these conspiracy theories take hold, and how the current forms are both similar to and different from the wave of Satanic ritual abuse claims of the 1980s and 1990s

 

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Comments

ulpanaylaylo's picture

Dear Jan Haaken and Mike Snedeker, Thank you for producing this timely and useful angle of inquiry into the QAnon phenomenon. I' ve been rather surprised at how few in the mighty wurlitzer of journalistic coverage (see from the national think pieces in ATLANTIC and long form radio journalism on NPR to regional coverage here in PoTown covering Kaiser, Ore QAnon political constituency by Tess Riski at Willamette Week and High Country News feature on the Tucson, AZ child sex trafficking allegations) on the last 4 years of Trumpism and regional political candidates campaigning on QAnon platforms that there has been no referencing of Richard Ofshe's social psychological work with his mentor at U.C.-Berkeley the late Margaret Singer on cult formation and dynamics. I studied under Ofshe as an undergrad at U.C.-Berkeley in the early 1980's and did some journalistic research independently myself on local Bay Area Moonie and Scientology pop-up businesses.

As you would know perhaps better than I, there has been much controversy about the positions taken by Ofshe in his work as a contracting expert witness in some of the criminal cases involving the allegations of criminal conspiracy. I don't get the sense having not steeped myself in Jan Haaken's work whether she is among those who feel Ofshe is belittling and outright mocking this field of recovered memory in both the psychological profession and also the inroads it made into influencing guilty verdicts in the 1980's wave of criminal cases against alleged Satanic\Sexual\Child abuse.

Can you direct me to any lit you've published that sources Ofshe or Singer's work in the context of your own published work and positions on those issues pertaining to the credibility of recovered memory? My online search didn't turn up specific references only bibliographical reference citations among some published academics sourcing both your work, Dr Haaken and Ofshe's.

Thanks much. My email address is ulpanaylaylo@yahoo.com. Home phone is (503) 645-6374 and my name is Mitch Ritter. I also curate an email Media Discussion List called the Lay-Low Studios, Ore-Wa Media Discussion List that does not have a web page. I also have de-registered decades ago from Facebook and so have no access to anything referenced there.

Thanks again for your work!
All 3 of these segments yesterday have been well worth citing in sending out my media discussion list, although given the drastic turn of global news events attention is elsewhere. I also wonder whether, despite electoral gains made by the QAnon constituency this phenomenon really needs any professional help in becoming immaterial. Your emphasis and attack on purely evidentiary grounds is already way more accessible and parsimonious a dismissal than much of the intrigue generated by the long-form news coverage, entertaining as they've been.

Health and balance
Mitch Ritter
Lay-Low Studios, Ore-Wa
Media Discussion List and Looksee

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