Wednesday Night

Prog Notes S H 11-30-23



12 AM

For the Record – David Emory

“Injun Country” – The Mohawk Mothers’ Trail of Tears

Introduction: Detailing a case unfolding in Canada, these programs analyze the heroic efforts of “The Mohawk Mothers” to archive the remains of Native Americans who were the victims of behavior modification programs.



Furthermore, the behavior modification programs overlap the MKULTRA operations in the United States.



A fundamental thematic element in this discussion is the Rockefeller family, Nelson Rockefeller in particular.



Key Points of Discussion and Analysis Include: The United States’ claim of legal immunity from the process underway in Canada; Harassment of the Mohawk Mothers by security personnel appointed to secure the grounds being examined; Cadaver dogs’ discovery of apparent human remains in the soil being exhumed; Apparent mishandling of some of the soil samples and other pieces of evidence that could fundamentally compromise the integrity of the investigation; The genesis of the behavior modification programs in 1943; Operational overlap between the Canadian programs directed toward indigenous people and programs at Attica and Dannemora prisons in upper New York State directed at African American prisoners; Discussion of Nelson Rockefeller’s tortuous history with Native Americans, from failing to acknowledge life-saving activity from Native American guides in Alaska to brutally exploiting indigenous people in Latin America for profit; Review of the role of the Rockefeller funding of the Allan Memorial Institute in Canada.



1.“New Docs Link CIA to Medical Torture of Indigenous Children and Black Prisoners” By Orisanmi Burton; Truthout; 06/22/2023



The documentary record of “mind control” experiments conducted by the United States and other governments during the Cold War is just the tip of the iceberg, and our collective ignorance is by design. In early 1973, as the fallout from the Watergate scandal exposed the need for greater congressional oversight of U.S. intelligence agencies, the head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) ordered the destruction of all documents related to MK Ultra.



MK Ultra involved a range of grotesque experiments on unwitting test subjects within and beyond U.S. borders. Newly revealed evidence exposes previously hidden links between MK Ultra experiments on Indigenous children in Canada and imprisoned Black people in the U.S.



On April 20, 2023, a group of Indigenous women known as the Kanien’kehà:ka Kahnistensera (Mohawk Mothers) achieved a milestone in their ongoing lawsuit against several entities, including McGill University, the Canadian government and the Royal Victoria Hospital in Quebec. The parties reached an agreement whereby archeologists and cultural monitors would begin the process of searching for unmarked graves, which the Mohawk Mothers believe are buried on the grounds of the hospital.



Over the preceding two years, approximately 1,300 unmarked graves, most of them containing the remains of Indigenous children, have been discovered on the grounds of five of Canada’s former residential schools. Throughout the 20th century, the residential school system — like the Indian Boarding School system, its U.S. counterpart — separated thousands of Indigenous children from their families, stripped them of their language and subjected them to various forms of abuse amounting to what a truth and reconciliation commission called “cultural genocide.” But as these horrific revelations demonstrate, the harm wasn’t only cultural — a 1907 investigation found that nearly one-fourth of school attendees did not survive graduation.



In October of 2021, new evidence surfaced linking disappeared Indigenous children to MK Ultra experiments conducted by CIA-sponsored researchers. A white Winnipeg resident named Lana Ponting testified in Quebec’s Superior Court that in 1958, when she was 16 years old, doctors from the Allan Memorial Institute, a former psychiatric hospital affiliated with McGill and the Royal Victoria Hospital, held her against her will, drugged her with LSD and other substances, subjected her to electroshock treatments, and exposed her to auditory indoctrination: playing a recording telling Ponting over and over again, that she was either “a bad girl” or “a good girl.”



Ponting also testified that “some of the children I saw there were Indigenous,” and that she befriended an Indigenous girl named Morningstar, who endured many of the same abuses, with the added indignity of being harassed because of her race. During a reprieve from her drug-induced haze, Ponting recalls sneaking out at night and happening upon “people standing over by the cement wall” with shovels and flashlights. She and other children had heard rumors that bodies were buried on the property. “I believe that some of them would be Indigenous people,” Ponting told the court.



Not only does her testimony corroborate what another Allan Memorial Institute survivor told historian Donovan King a decade earlier, but in 2008, the Squamish Nation included the psychiatric hospital in a list of potential sites containing unmarked graves.



The CIA, along with the U.S. and Canadian military and powerful U.S. charitable foundations, are directly implicated in this ordeal. According to John Mark’s 1991 book The Search for the Manchurian Candidate and Steven Kinzer’s 2019 book Poisoner in Chief, in 1977, in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, CIA archivists uncovered a previously hidden box of MK Ultra financial records revealing, among other things, that the Memorial Institute was home to MK Ultra “Subproject 68.” Under the leadership of psychiatrist Ewen Cameron, whom Ponting accused of raping her, experiments in this subproject sought to “depattern” people’s minds using violent methods Cameron termed “psychic driving.”



Although Cameron is among the most infamous MK Ultra doctors, he was not alone at McGill. As historian Alfred McCoy has shown in his 2006 book A Question of Torture, the sensory deprivation research of Donald Hebb, a McGill psychologist, was also covertly sponsored by the CIA.





1 AM

Grayzone Radio with Max Blumenthal, Aaron Mate

Max Blumenthal and Aaron Mate return to cover the latest grisly and absurd developments in Israel's assault on Gaza, and the dramatic political fallout at home.

Grayzone Radio is a production of The Grayzone, an independent news website dedicated to original investigative journalism and analysis on politics and empire. Washington DC-based independent journalist and author, Max Blumenthal, founded The Grayzone and is your host on Grayzone Radio.

For more info on The Grayzone and their reporting, please go to https://thegrayzone.com





2 AM

The Final Straw Radio

This week on the show, we’ll be sharing a presentation by Dr. Modibo Kadalie recorded at the 2023 Another Carolina Anarchist Bookfair in so-called Asheville. Modibo is joined by his friend Andrew Zonneveld of On Our Own Authority Books, and they share a new bookstore and community space in Stone Mountain, Georgia, known as Community Books.

From the presentation description:

"A scholar-activist with over 60 years of experience in the Civil Rights, Black Power, Pan-African, and Social Ecology movements will discuss the role of critical historiography in the study and documentation of directly democratic communities across human history. Modibo Kadalie’s presentation will touch on ideas discussed in his two most recent books, Pan-African Social Ecology and Intimate Direct Democracy. Dr. Kadalie will also discuss his upcoming book, tentatively titled State Creep: A Critical Historiography.

If you care to hear a longer version including a segment by Sean Swain and an interview with Josh Davidson and Sara Falconer of Certain Days: Freedom for Political Prisoners Calendar, check out the podcast at our website.



3 AM

The Sound of History – Pacifica Radio Archives

June Jordan

This week Pacifica Radio Archives celebrates the birthday of poet and activist June Jordan with a rare interview conducted by author Julius Lester in 1968. They discuss the black experience and Jordan reads her poetry. All CD purchase / premium inquiries must be referred to the Pacifica Radio Archives

Call: 800 735-0230 ext. 261 or write shawn@pacificaradioarchives.org



3:15 AM

Covert Action Bulletin with Rachel Hu & Chris Garaffa

On November 26, three young Palestinian men were shot in Burlington, Vermont. Hisham Awartani, a junior at Brown University, released a statement that was read at a campus vigil saying, “This hideous crime did not happen in a vacuum. As much as I appreciate the love of every single one of you here today, I am but one casualty in a much wider conflict.”



Awartani’s friends Kinnan Abdalhamaid, a student at Haverford College and Tahseen Ahmad , a student at Trinity College, also remain in the hospital as of this recording and a suspect has been arrested and charged. Awartani went on to write,



“Had I been shot in the West Bank, where I grew up, the medical services which saved my life here would have likely been withheld by the Israeli army. The soldier who would have shot me would go home and never be convicted. I understand that the pain is so much more real and immediate because many of you know me, but any attack like this is horrific, be it here or in Palestine. This is why when you say your wishes and light your candles today, your mind should not just be focused on me as an individual, but as a proud member of a people being oppressed.”



On this episode, we’re focusing on students - the attacks on the young Palestinians in Burlington, threats and harassment campaigns against college organizers, and the role that students have played in ending apartheid and war historically and today. Joining us is Roua Daas of the Palestinian Youth Movement.



Learn more about the Shut It Down for Palestine movement at ShutItDown4Palestine.org




4 AM

The Thom Hartmann Program
Final two hours from his earlier broadcast, on 11/29/23