Mitchel Cohen hosts this weekly internet radio hour. Tune in to TribecaRadio.net
This week's guest: H. Bruce Franklin, who discusses his extraordinary new book, "The most important fish in the sea," published by Island Press. [Mitchel rates it a 10 out of a possible 10!]
When the pilgrims were strugling to scratch food from the ground, Native Americans taught them to plant this fish -- Menhaden -- with their corn, to provide nutrients to the soil. As agriculture and manufacture boomed in the nineteenth century, converting menhaden into fertilizer and oil became a major industry, hundreds of menhaden ships and dozens of factories began stripmining the Oceans of these crucial fish, and the Menhaden nets soon began taking in more tonnage of Menhaden than all the other fish caught, put together.
Today, Omega Protein -- a Houston based offshoot of Zapata Oil (established by George H.W. Bush) -- has a monopoly on the menhaden industry, "wringing oil out of fish" and destroying all life in the oceans ....
H. Bruce Franklin's book is a devastating look at an ecological nightmare unfolding before our eyes, and how it got to be that way. It is the history of capitalist industrialization of America via this tiny fish, which is essential for all other fish life, and for filtering the water (along with oysters -- also virtually wiped out) ....
This interview with H. Bruce Franklin presents the main themes of the book, and opportunities for unexpected strategic alliances. Read the book to find an excellent introduction to "Moby Dick", among other things of especial interest to NY Greens and Long Islanders in particular. Here's a sample of the terrific writing:
"Moby-Dick is, among many other things, the first great American novel set largely inside a factory and describing in precise detail the tools, machinery, and methods of industrial labor. ....
".... The night after killing a sperm whale, cutting into the body, and hauling the huge strips of blubber aboard, the crew fires the Pequod's furnaces. As the harpooners feed the blubber into the try-pots, the ship, plunging into "the wild ocean darkness," belching smoke and stench, lit by the red fires of its furnaces, and sloshing with boiling whale oil, becomes at once an inferno, a hallucinogenic vision of hell, a symbol of its mad captain's quest for revenge against nature, and a realistic representation of the factories converting the bodies of animals and the labor of people into dollars.
"The very year that Moby-Dick was published, industrial methods were being developed simultaneously in Maine, Connecticut, and New York for trying out oil from menhaden. In the prominent whaling port of Greenport on the eastern end of Long Island, whalers' try-pots were actually the vessels being used to separate the oil from menhade bodies, and a successful factory was just beginning operation. By 1867, the menhaden fishery had entirely eclipsed the whale fishery in Greenport, around which clustered twenty menhaden factories processing the teeming bunkers of Peconic Bay and Gardiner's Bay. THE LONG ISLAND RAILROAD, WHICH HAD PREVIOUSLY BEEN EXTENDED TO GREENPORT IN ORDER TO TRANSPORT WHALE PRODUCTS, NOW FLLED ITS TRAINS WITH MENHADEN PRODUCTS INSTEAD.
Don't miss it this broadcast!
Songs: Patti Smith, "Dead City" And featuring a brand new song sent in by the writer via email: Brent McMullen, "Desert Soldier"
Opening theme: Mario Savio, speaking in Berkeley, 1964 Theme Song: Dave Rovics, "Jenin"
on Thursday, May 10th, at 11 a.m. (repeats the following Tuesday at 6 pm) -- just go to TribecaRadio.net and click on "Listen Live". Podcast after that 24/7 (that means the show is archived after Tuesday and you can listen whenever you like)
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------------------------------------------------------------------------ SHOW #4 In the 5/3 edition, Harry Bubbins, environmental activist and educator in South Bronx and Harlem speaks about the "enclosure" of public space on Randall's Island; AND Paul Gilman provides us with a movie review. This week: Jet Li's "Fearless", a Marial Arts movie Greens should Love. Mitchel Cohen talks about Kurt Vonnegut, and reads from a wonderful tribute by Harvey Wasserman.
Songs: "My Bed is Genocide"; Bev Grant & the Dissident Daughers: "Tired of Bastards" (lead vocal: Valerie Andrewievich); Joan Baez: "Waltzing Matilda"
------------------------------------------------------------------------ SHOW #3 In the 4/19 edition, Jennifer Jager of the No Spray Coalition joins Mitchel Cohen in the studio, and talks about spraying and "development" in Suffolk County, NY.
Songs: Lena Horne, "Stormy Weather" Ralph Litwin & Al Podber -- "Blues in the Bottle" Jolie Rickman: "Beholden (Peace Loving Nation)" (from "Hail to the Thieves, Vol. III")
------------------------------------------------------------------------ SHOW #2 In the 4/12 edition, we talk about BioFuels & Deforestation, and critique this attempt by the U.S. to get around genetically engineered corn prohibitions in many countries and control the world's ethanol supply. In-Studio guest: Paul Gilman of the NY Greens/Green Party.
Songs: from the 1940s -- Spike Jones: "In Der Feuhrer's Face" Colleen Kattau: "The Royally OilyGarchy" (from "Hail to the Thieves, Vol. III") Phil Ochs: "I Ain't A-Marchin' Anymore" Bev Grant & Bruce Markow: "In America" Jolie Rickman: "Beholden (Peace Loving Nation)" (from "Hail to the Thieves, Vol. III")
------------------------------------------------------------------------ SHOW #1 In the 4/05 edition, we discuss the forthcoming bombardment of Iran and the lies in 1990 behind the Gulf War. Also, an interview concerning New York City's garbage with Cathryn Swan, organizer with "Recycle This!" and "Freecycle" in New York City.
Songs: Jolie Rickman: "Beholden (Peace Loving Nation)" (from "Hail to the Thieves, Vol. III") Bev Grant & the Dissident Daughers: Enna Goldman (by Jolie Rickman)
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Feel free to send verbal or written commentaries, music (on cd, please, or email via MP3), sound from protests and interesting talks, and ideas for future shows, to mitchelcohen at mindspring.com!
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All Power to the Imagination! TribecaRadio.net
----------------------------------------------- Mitchel Cohen was a member of the Students for a Democratic Society and co-founded the Red Balloon Collective at SUNY Stony Brook in 1969, under whose imprint he continues to publish a variety of political pamphlets and poetry books. He is a member of the Brooklyn Greens / Green Party.