For many of us, our country is walking a tightrope between democracy and autocracy.

I am a US American civilian. I avoided serving in the US military during the Vietnam War. My father and son were in the military – one in WWII – the other a never-deployed Marine. Despite these secondary contact with our armed forces, I do not understand the US military mind and culture. I do know it is the most lethal force in human history.

For this BCR series -- "Nature of the U.S. Military" -- I ask US Veterans to help me understand the nature of our armed forces.

And ask them -- if push comes to shove -- will our military uphold this republic of and by the people – or follow the orders of a corrupt Commander-in-Chief

Captain Matthew Hoh helped get me starte. Matthew Hoh is a Senior Fellow with the Center for International Policy and a member of the Eisenhower Media Network.

Matthew Hoh served nearly a dozen years as a US Marine with experiences in overseas wars in the American occupation of Iraq between 2004 and 2007 -- and Captain Hoh contributed to US policy and operations at the Pentagon and State Department. In 2009, Matthew Hoh resigned his position with the State Department in Afghanistan in protest of the escalation of that war.

Alan Winson

barcrawlradio@gmail.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I spoke with Steven Fechter about his newest novel -- "The Big Breeze" -- the story of Joseph Bye a phenom baseball pitcher who at the peak of his career was hit by a car and crippled. Eventually, he became a painter of baseball pitchers. Many years after the accident, he learned that he was run-over intentionally. In part this is the story of what Breeze will he do about it. But I did not want to ask Mr. Fechter about attempted murder but about baseball -- and an American culture obsessed with its heroes. “The Big Breeze” is a primer on the mind and spirit of the baseball pitcher – and how fame is treated in this country.

Mr. Fechter also wrote the play «The Woodsman» which he adapted for the film starring Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick.

Fechter’s reputation was established when he won first prize in the 2001 Slamdance Screenwriting Competition for “The Woodsman.”

His website states his goal is to “write daring stories that take audiences into unfamiliar emotional spaces.”

Recorded at 5Napkins Burger on Broadway and W. 84th Street in Manhattan.

Alan Winson

barcrawlradio@gmail.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rebecca McKean and I started this program asking why so many U.S. Americans call Mayor Mamdani a "communist" and then explore the humanist idea that we all live in individual "landscapes" that form our perspectives and emotions -- and that those landscapes can be re-considered. We recorded at 5 Napkin Burger on Broadway and 84th Street in Manhattan -- speaking with David Andersson, the English-language editor of the Pressenza International Press Agency . We had talked with David in BCR #230 in June 2024 at the West Side Community Garden. And we invited N.J. high school honors student, Jeremy Maletzky -- who I had met at a talk at the Rosa Luxemburg Institute on ending the conflict in the Middle East a few weeks earlier -- to talk about "humanism" and the ideas of Mario Rodriguez Cobos -- an Argentinian, otherwise known as "Silo".

Alan Winson

barcrawlradio@gmail.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.