Rag Radio : We Interview Nonviolent Activist Val Liveoak and Author Robert H. Frank
on Rag Radio with Thorne Dreyer. Listen to it here:
Author of The Darwin Economy, on Rag Radio, here:
(Texas Music Hall of Fame Singer/Songwriter Eliza Gilkyson will be Thorne Dreyer's guest on Rag Radio, Friday, December 16, 2011, from 2-3 p.m. CST on KOOP 91.7-FM in Austin and streamed live to the world.)
Val Liveoak, who was Thorne Dreyer's guest on Rag Radio Friday, December 9, 2011, is the coordinator and co-founder of Peacebuilding en Las Américas with the Friends Peace Teams. The program promotes peace and healing in countries where the violent legacy of civil war has added to the continued poverty and injustice that sparked the conflicts.
The programs of the Friends Peace Teams build on the Quaker experience, combining practical and spiritual aspects of conflict resolution. Peacebuilding en las Américas currently works in El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Colombia. Val has also done volunteer work with the Alternatives to Violence Project in Bolivia, Cuba, Mexico, Burundi, Rwanda, Canada, and Kenya.
Val Liveoak, who became a nonviolent activist in Austin in the early '70s, has been named a “Woman of Peace” by Womens’ Peacepower Foundation (2009) and Peacemaker of the Year by the Austin Peace and Justice Center (1986). She has chosen to live below the poverty line and work as a volunteer since the early '90s and currently lives in an "intentional neighborhood" in San Antonio, when she's in the United States.
Robert H. Frank, who was Thorne Dreyer's guest on Rag Radio, Friday, December 2, 2011, is an economics professor at Cornell's Johnson Graduate School of Management, a regular "Economic View" columnist for The New York Times, and a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Demos.
Robert Frank's latest book is The Darwin Economy: Liberty, Competition, and the Common Good, in which he contends that naturalist Charles Darwin was a greater economist than Adam Smith. In The Darwin Economy, Frank argues against Adam Smith's theory of the "invisible hand" which says that competition channels self-interest for the common good.
"The uncritical celebration of the invisible hand," writes Frank, "has undermined regulatory efforts to reconcile conflicts between individual and collective interests..., causing considerable harm to all of us."
Roger Baker, who writes about economics and transportation for The Rag Blog, also participated in this interview.
Rag Radio -- hosted and produced by Rag Blog editor Thorne Dreyer -- is broadcast every Friday from 2-3 p.m. (CST) on KOOP 91.7-FM in Austin, and streamed live on the web. KOOP is an all-volunteer cooperatively-run community radio station in Austin, Texas.
Rag Radio, which has been aired since September 2009, features hour-long in-depth interviews and discussion about issues of progressive politics, culture, and history. After broadcast, all episodes are posted as podcasts and can be downloaded at the Internet Archive. Tracey Schulz is the show's engineer and co-producer.
Rag Radio is also rebroadcast on Sundays at 10 a.m. (Eastern) on WFTE, 90.3-FM in Mt. Cobb, PA, and 105.7-FM in Scranton, PA. Rag Radio is produced in the KOOP studios, in association with The Rag Blog, a progressive internet newsmagazine, and the New Journalism Project, a Texas 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation.
Coming up on Rag Radio:
- Dec. 16, 2011: Texas Music Hall of Fame singer/songwriter & activist Eliza Gilkyson.
- Dec. 30, 2011: Environmentalist and global warming activist Bruce Melton.
- Jan. 6, 2012: New Years Special with SDS founder and political activist Tom Hayden.
