Alright y'all welcome back to the show It's anti-war radio Well, we've talked to our senior editor Jeremy Sapienza earlier and now on to our editor editor Matt bargain here of Anti-war calm welcome to show Matt.
How's things?
I'm doing well.
How are you Scott?
I'm doing great man.
Appreciate you joining us on the show today No problem.
Alright, so I want to give people kind of a clue into how we operate a little bit here Um, maybe there's people in the audience.
I guess probably there's people in the audience not familiar with anti-war calm I figured talking with you about it About the kinds of things we do here You know might be a little bit of good advertising get our numbers up and get some people's heads full of some better context As compared to what they see on TV all day So, um, I guess you know Maybe tell us about which articles you've been working on this week, which articles you've chosen to run in the viewpoints at anti-war calm Okay well today I Guess it's a good place to start and for the spotlight.
We have a piece by David Thoreau of the Independent Institute Which I titled which government benefit am I most willing to give up?
That was not the original title, but he did give it's a speech that he gave at a symposium Which was called what governmental services and benefits are you personally willing to give up?
What I liked about this piece was It gives a very libertarian answer to the question.
He says it's hard to choose There are so many things that the government especially the federal government does that it shouldn't do But He decides to prioritize which I think is sometimes a problem with libertarians you know, even ones who are who are sound on foreign policy ask act as if you know every bad government program is equivalent to every other bad government program and and one of the things that we do at anti-war calm is We try to get people to prioritize, you know to say, you know Even if you're against Social Security or you're against some other welfare programs or or whatnot You should care more about Those policies that kill people that Erode our civil liberties at home And I think that the road does a great job of explaining that in this piece Yeah, you know, that's what I loved about anti-war calm back in the day I remember like yesterday the first time I saw it my friend Shauna from chaos radio said to me Hey, you ever seen this site anti-war calm and I immediately said what's that?
Some granola eaten whatever way and she goes no look and click click and a couple links away was a Piece called Lincoln the American Lenin.
Oh, wow Hey, that doesn't sound like something some granola munching hippies would write.
What is this?and so and you know, we went through the site a little bit and Come to find out the URL Anti-war calm was grabbed by some libertarians whoever these people are back must have been within days of URLs being invented or something and and isn't this Beautiful that the site anti-war calm is made by libertarians for everyone Putting foreign policy first for everyone, you know Right, and then the for everyone part is important.
I mean, you know, I I'm Always a sucker for a good hardcore Libertarian East but it's even better if it can explain the libertarian perspective on War and civil liberties in a way that appeals to people who are not libertarians who are not going to Run out and convert the libertarianism.
That's okay.
You know, we're saying let's let's narrow it down to the things that we agree on But you know, it may also have the the side benefit of getting Non-libertarians more interested in and libertarianism.
Yeah.
Well and you know, of course in terms of priorities I can't help but admit that we're right that including David Thoreau and his great piece there in the spotlight today that Foreign policy must come first because it's you know As James Madison says the germ of every other thing wrong pretty much in this society From the boom and the bust and all the way through it's all about foreign policy and the way our government Treats the rest of the world our our country's relationship with the other countries in the world determines how we live here more than any other thing True and and and I think that that's something that the libertarians and can be really good on when they when they are willing to prioritize when they don't just treat every Bad government program as if they're equal You Know and and so I think that that's that's probably a very good way of reaching out to the left and to the right All right.
Now I got to ask you about Jeff Huber.
What do you think of Jeff Huber?
He's about my favorite That reminds me of you actually his writing Well, yeah, it's hard to summarize his pieces because he's such a He's such a stylist, you know, there's there's so much humor going on in them It's To summarize this because I'll just give the quick summary.
It's called Iran ate my homework again, and he's talking about this recurrent Tendency of u.s.
Officials to blame Iran for everything that goes wrong and Iraq Um, but I I would do a disservice to it To just summarize it not not have people read it.
By the way, I plan to Post something on the blog later in which I include links to some of the pieces that I mentioned here.
Oh Great, and you know what that gives me a good opportunity to talk about the blog and he'll give you an opportunity to talk about The blog which used to be back in the days you and texts primarily would just tear that thing up all day long Tearing the war party apart and it's starting to get that way again in an antiwar.com/blog Yes, it's been really active Over the last several weeks.
It's not a month So that's that's always a good Resource and you know, that's the layout of the page goes from the top news stories down to the viewpoints the opinion pieces Right down to the blog and you know, that's that's probably a good way to approach it When you log into the site, you know, check out the top news and look at what the you know analysts are saying about these things and and then of course the blog is Allows for instantaneous Opinion pieces and analysis Yep.
Well and you know credit has to go to John Glazer and Brian Byer who I don't believe I've spoken with him yet But he's the new intern and John Glazer's the new assistant editor at anti-war comm and both of them have been writing a lot of Great pieces and looks like they've been kind of lighting the fire under Jeremy yourself and myself I kind of feeling the pressure like I better put something up there Of course, David Sanger and and George John gave me the opportunity over the weekend Although both of those pieces could have used a heavy Matt Bargainier edit on Some of the some of the other pieces from today one of the people I almost always run is is if his topic is Jermaine is Gene Haley of the Cato Institute and I think that today's article Titled lessons from Norway's horror is probably it's probably one that all that some readers will disagree with but I think people should read Anyway, I think you make some Some sound points that even if you ultimately disagree with them You should take into consideration Yeah, it is a good post.
I wrote last night actually Yeah All right.
Well, I'm sorry.
I'm gonna have to interrupt you here and and hold you through the break Everybody, it's Matt Bargainier He's the editor of anti-war calm the best website that was ever invented by Eric Garris or anybody else Won't be right back All right, y'all welcome back to the show Wrapping up anti-war radio for the day I'm Scott Horton, and I'm on the line with Matt Bargainier our editor at anti-war Calm we're talking about some of the viewpoints that have been running on the site this week, and I'm sorry I don't think you were quite done with Gene Haley's piece in the Washington Examiner lessons from Norway running in the viewpoint section on the site today Yeah, well, you know, I I certainly don't want to give the whole thing away because I think people should read it And like I said, I think that it will be somewhat controversial among our readers because he he does urge people not to fall into this sort of easy trap of blaming overheated rhetoric for the attack which is which is my view to but I'm the I Am going to post that at the blog along with some of the other ones that I mentioned So that people can read it and they want to disagree with it they can put it in comments there, but I mentioned that Gene Haley is someone that we run frequently, but You know, they're not that many people who we just repeatedly You know run their stuff on a weekly basis Which is good.
I mean we try to spread it around Even though for instance someone like Glenn Greenwald some weeks, you know, we could run him four or five times I try to avoid doing that because if you just run the same person every day You know the question arises.
Well, why don't I just read that guy's blog and forget about you know Checking in with your viewpoint section.
I also try to have some topical diversity.
So in today's Seven viewpoints including a spotlight There's not one that repeats the topic of any other one There's one on the defense spending.
There's one on Norway There's a general Piece on the effectiveness or lack thereof of sanctions by Daniel Larrison There's one about the war powers act controversy regarding our war in Libya and What happened to that controversy how it just went away There's another one on the counter-terrorism attack on humanitarian aid agencies specifically related to Somalia at the work of NGOs in Somalia There's the aforementioned Huber piece on Supposed to Iranian intervention and a lock and there's the thorough piece, of course on prioritizing military spending as the worst abuse of government power Well, and yesterday you got wiki leaks the cyber security industrial complex Norway Anthony Gregory with a great libertarian theory Libertarian theory piece illusions of security and danger the oppression by America's King in Bahrain A poll about an article about Poles and Palestinians by Pilar I didn't read And a great band out piece about NATO.
I mean, yeah, you really do a good job And you know, I think I told you this before you're basically some kind of associate producer of this show Cuz all I do is plagiarize off you I read great stuff here And I call these people up and say you want to do the radio show as I'm sure you know The the radio highlights at the top of the page is you know, the guys that you ran two days ago Hey, that's great.
I mean, it's good to have that kind of symbiosis and for you to be able to you know, they'll further into the minds of the writers and their their Restrictions that their publications allow Right, we had it yesterday.
I think that's true too that we there were no two pieces on the same topic And as I look back at Monday there were a couple of there were two pieces on Norway one piece on Israel and the gods of Godzilla Which brings up another topic.
I Wrote down all of the pieces from the last few days Just so I would know which ones to touch on and I actually just counted it up 21 Opinion pieces in the last three days Two of which are on Israel.
I Sometimes get that we sometimes get that question about why are you guys so obsessed with Israel and make such a big deal out of it?
Well, that's that's two out of twenty one So, I don't think you can barely say that we're obsessed with much of anything other than American foreign policy and Civil liberties.
Yeah, hey after all Israel's in the news a lot, you know But yeah, it's certainly not all Israel or all anything else all the time Well, you know when I first started reading anti-war calm I remember thinking man This Armando guys really got a chip on his shoulder about Israel and then didn't take me too long to realize like wow You know, I kind of knew that there was this weird kind of Republican that they were sort of weird and different And I wasn't sure what and Bill Kristol was one of them But Justin explained about the neocons and you know Their role as Israel's fifth column in American foreign policy and you know, that was right especially in the run-up to the Iraq War and I came to pretty much the odd eye with him about just how important Israel is to American foreign policy in ways I didn't understand before at all, you know I'm sure and the focus of the Viewpoint section will will change sometimes.
I mean there are going to based on Whatever is happening in the world there.
There may be some reason to really focus on one country or one aspect of US foreign policy, but Generally speaking.
I try to mix it up.
So it's not just grabbing the first You know seven things that I see that I agree with our original submissions, you know not just editing the original submissions the Agree with what I already believe it's about putting in things that I think are provocative sometimes that I don't entirely agree with but I think will help people think more clearly if they If they read it and they try to grapple with the argument being made It's about not running the same writers all the time Well, and you know part of being plumb line libertarians pretty much the whole mess of us here You know, whatever half dozen or dozen of us there are at anti-war comm That makes us one percenters That means if we want if we really believe that foreign policy comes first and we have got to knock off this imperialism immediately before you know, our society falls dead of a suicide here then We have to be ecumenical we have to find the best of the left and the right and everybody from the north and east and the Southwest and the whoever they are wherever they are if they're writing what's right about foreign policy We got to put them up there.
We got to bring their people to us.
We got to get our priority straight in our act in line, you know Right.
Yeah, I agree Completely.
Hey, what do you think of this come home America project?
I think it's great and people Definitely check out the book check out the website.
I Mean that seems to me to be anti-war comm in practice right there.
You know, that's our Broad based support approach that we've taken this whole time You know finally actually organizing itself.
That's the way I look at it.
I Think it could be the new anti-imperialist League, you know get a big Mark Twain poster and rally around that thing Yeah, that's a come home America dot us everybody it's a book and a website and it's a letter to the Congress and the president United States Which you are welcome to sign a lot of others Already have very prominent people from all over the place.
I mean, it's already working It really is a cool project already and you can all check that out But yeah, so what about tomorrow Matt?
Anti-war dot-com We're going to try to keep it up mix things up.
Not just focus on any one particular country or topic And so many viewpoint spaces Right, yeah, that's the that's an issue But you know it is also I try not to run things that are going to appal more people than and they appeal to and so some of the things That I may like don't end up on the front page for that very reason So It's about achieving some topical balance Ideological balance and And and not just preaching to the choir.
Although sometimes you have to do that, too Yeah Well and bring more people into it seems like we do a pretty good job of that Just by example for being anti-war calm all this time in a row and not changing our position every time a politician wins something You know, right we eventually win out on the who's good on these issues question, you know, it's Being here.
All right.
Well, listen, we're all time is what that music plan means So I want to thank you very much for your time today on the show Matt.
All right.
Thanks Everybody that's Matt bargain here.
He's our editor at anti-war calm picking the very best writings for you out there That's original that anti-war calm and the viewpoint section there
