This BCR conversation with Carl Dix was recorded at Gebhards Beer Culture Bar on the UWS. Mr. Dix is a leader of the Revolutionary Communist Party of the United States. We focused on conversation on his his experiences with the U.S. military when our country was at war North Vietnam.

In a recent email, Mr. Dix wrote me:

“My experience with the US military was an important part of what formed my political perspectives … [It] is relevant to what is happening today given that people in the military are being ordered to carry out war crimes and crimes against humanity”

Carl Dix is a co-founder of the Revolutionary Communist Party of the USA. He has worked against police brutality and was part of the campaign to end “Stop and Frisk” in NYC and has protested the Trump administration as a member of Refuse Fascism which works against authoritarianism through mass demonstrations.

I asked Mr. Dix about the link between his work now and his experiences of the U.S. military during the war in Vietnam which included a 2-year imprisonment in Leavenworth Penitentiary for registering as a conscientious objector.

Alan Winson

BCR Producer and Co-Host

barcrawlradio@gmailo.com

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

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.