Latitude Adjustment Podcast

16/12/2023

If you are looking to donate to support people in Ghaza and want to be sure that your support reaches people on the ground, Shahd Safi was the most recent guest on my podcast and a graduate of our Palestine Podcast Academy. She is currently living under Isr8el's genocidal assault on Ghaza with her family. I personally vouch for this campaign and just contributed myself. Please give what you can.

To everyone who has seen the atrocities happening daily in Gaza and hasn… Kari Ayoob needs your support for Lilnaazihin Fi Gaza - To Displaced People of Gaza

12/11/2023

We have been wanting to bring you voices from inside Gaza since the very start of the current atrocities, but for what are obvious reasons this has proven to be extremely difficult, especially after Israel cut all communication lines and mobile phone networks in Gaza, in the prelude to their ground invasion. However, a student from our Palestine Podcast Academy, Shahid Saffi, has managed to send me a series of daily audio diary entries detailing her experiences and her feelings in recent days. Shahid is from al Nuseirat Refugee camp in Central Gaza, a camp that has been subjected to repeated bombardments by Israel over the past few weeks. A Palestinian friend of mine, who invited me to his home in Nuseirat camp during my stay in Gaza, has lost nine family members to the airstrikes on the refugee camp in recent weeks. Shahid joins us from Rafah, in the South of Gaza, where she moved two years ago. However, the situation in Rafah is far from safe.

Please visit the post for this episode at LatitudeAdjustmentPod.com for links to Shahd's recent articles documenting her experiences, links to organizations (whom we personally recommend) who working to provide relief to Palestinians, and to supplemental resources for continuing your education on this subject and to aid you in your efforts to educate your communities.

We have been wanting to bring you voices from inside Gaza since the very start of the current atrocities, but for what are obvious reasons this has proven to be extremely difficult, especially after Israel cut all communication lines and mobile phone networks in Gaza, in the prelude to their ground

09/11/2023

09/10/2023

Some harsh truths concerning the current violence in Israel Palestine:

Israel has never been a democracy for non-Jews. Never.

Forty percent of Palestinian men spend time in Israeli jails, often without charge. Palestinian men, women, and children are murdered by Israeli settlers and soldiers on a daily basis, with total impunity. Israeli politicians, from the founding of Israel right up to today, have openly called for the genocide of Palestinians, and are carrying it out in slow motion.

We are hearing a lot about the Hamas forces kids snapping Israelis, so let's look at both sides of that topic. Palestinian children are kidnapped regularly by Israeli forces and imprisoned, often for months or years, for nothing. The press just doesn't call it "kidnapping" because the Israeli terrorists wear uniforms and hide behind a complete sham of a legal system.

Let's talk about "barbarity" and what goes beyond the Palestine in armed conflict. Every single day for the past 56 years Palestinians have been the victims of a nonstops war crime in the form of Israel's settlements and occupation. For the past 16 years Israel has held 2 million Palestinians under a siege in Gaza, making it the largest concentration camp in history. Israel has been called out for Apartheid by both Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and Israel's own human rights groups. These are all egregious violations of the 4th Geneva Convention... and just the tip of the iceberg for Israel's war crimes, which include collective punishment, lack of due process, extrajudicial killing, disproportionate force, torture, etc.

Those who are horrified by the sight of Israeli being attacked in their own communities? This is a daily occurrence for Palestinians. Also note that Israelis in the towns and settlements bordering Gaza have set up lawn chairs and hosted BBQs, watching and cheering as Israeli fighter jets bomb civilians in Gaza in massacre after massacre going back more than a decade. They live in the shadow of this massive concentration camp, like the Germans who lived next to the extermination camps and who later tried to pretend they knew nothing about what was happening to the Jews inside. They didn't want to know. They had the privilege of ignoring it.

Never forget that it is the occupier who is responsible for the nature of the resistance to their occupation. If Palestinians had access to guided "surgical" munitions, an air force, and a navy, they would surely use them. As it is, they are left to build rockets out of plumbing parts and quite literally out of the scraps of the very Israeli bombs that are dropped on them.

We hear constantly that Israel has the right to exist and to defend itself? Is any of this actually self defense, or is it simply fighting for the right to keep acting like a criminal? Do Palestinians have these rights? As Israel is constituted they certainly do not have the right to exist and all self defense is labeled "terrorism".

So no, in it's current form Israel does not have the right to exist. No fascistic, terror state built on a direct link to white supremacy has such a right. Many criminal states did not have the right to exist. The Third Reich did not have the right to exist. The Khmer Rouge did not have the right to exist. Apartheid South Africa did not have the right to exist.

What's more, many groups have suffered and don't have a nation state. Jewish suffering does not come with unique entitlements. Suffering does not entitle anyone to a state if it comes at the cost of inflicting suffering and terror on others.

And finally, Israel's disingenuous misuse and abuse of the Holocaust and Antisemitism makes Jews less safe by cheapening the weight of those terms. Misusing those terms makes it more likely that people will ignore legitimate cases of Antisemitism.

End the illegal occupation. That's the root of it all. Everything we are seeing is rooted in that original sin. If you care about the Jewish people then boycott Israel and hold it to account until it stops conflating and distorting Jewish identity with Zionism, settler colonialism, and Apartheid.

Free Palestine , and free the Israelis from the burden of maintaining their hateful and unjust system. There can and truly should be one state for all. Far crazier aspirations have been realized in the pursuit of a just peace.

28/08/2023

Why don’t we see more African researchers presenting at global Public Health conferences and in US and European research journals? Who determines which public health issues are prioritized in Africa? What is Public Health and “Vaccine Apartheid”? What do these insights reveal about the current state of our Public Health discourse on the global scale?

It’s impossible to isolate the conversation around public health in the Global South from the topic of colonialism more generally. What’s more, while Africa and Africans continue to be presented with unique challenges and forms of discrimination, it would be a tragic oversight to assume that the factors contributing to global health disparities are limited to the African context. Insights that are applicable to Africa, are not only applicable to the Global South, and to minority populations in the Global North more generally, but these insights frequently map out the grounds and the various avenues for solidarity amongst similarly impacted populations and all people looking to dismantle oppressive structures.

Dr. Catherine Kyobutungi is the Executive Director of the African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC).

She holds a Ph.D. in Epidemiology and a Master of Science in Community Health and Health Management from the University of Heidelberg. Prior to her graduate studies, Catherine studied medicine at Makerere University, Kampala, after which she worked as a medical officer in Western Uganda for three years.

In 2018, Catherine was elected as a Fellow of the African Academy of Sciences and in 2019, she was selected as a Joep Lange Chair at the University of Amsterdam; a position in which she investigates chronic disease management in African countries. She is the co-director of the Consortium for Advanced Research Training in Africa (CARTA), a program that seeks to build and strengthen the capacity of African research leaders and has trained more than 230 PhD fellows in eight African universities.

Why don’t we see more African researchers presenting at global Public Health conferences and in US and European research journals? Who determines which public health issues are prioritized in Africa? What is Public Health and “Vaccine Apartheid”? What do these insights reveal about the current...

03/08/2023

Be sure to check out this journalistic collaboration between my good friend Paul Cochrane and myself. Thank you again to the brilliant scholar, investigative journalist, and activist, Andrew Feinstein for making time to be interviewed about the global arms trade.

Paul deserves full credit for the text for this CounterPunch article. You can catch the podcast version of our interview on my show: Latitude Adjustment Podcast

Paul Cochrane and Eric Maddox interviewed Andrew Feinstein about the devastating impact of the global arms trade, how militarism feeds corruption and

01/08/2023

While the global arms industry may only account for about one percent of global trade, it’s important to note what that one percent actually buys. Beyond the price tags on the weapons themselves, arms and arms sales have a tremendous impact on all other aspects of global trade, and on relations between trade partners and competitors.

This week's episode is a collaboration between journalist Paul Cochrane and Latitude Adjustment Podcast.

Our guest, Andrew Feinstein, is the author of the best-selling book, "The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade", published in 2011. In his review Noam Chomsky writes, "This shocking expose unveils a shadow world of corruption, greed, slaughter, and other horrors, ta**ry and gruesome in its criminality. It must be brought to a quick and final end".


Shadow World was turned into an award winning documentary film, premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2016.

Andrew currently resides in the UK with his wife and children, and much of his current work is focused on Shadow World Investigations, an investigative news website focused on global corruption, often involving, but not limited to, the global arms trade.

While the global arms industry may only account for about one percent of global trade, it’s important to note what that one percent actually buys. Beyond the price tags on the weapons themselves, arms and arms sales have a tremendous impact on all other aspects of global trade, and on relations be...

20/07/2023

Where is Western Sahara? What is Western Sahara? Is it a country? Who lives there? If you find yourself unable to answer any of these questions, or if you want a resource that will help you to quickly explain the history and the current political realities around Africa's last colony to your friends and to your community, this short episode was created for you!

Latitude Adjustment Podcast is also working on plans to complete a multimedia documentary series, working on the ground with Sahrawi refugees in Western Algeria, and in collaboration two former guests of the show. You can find more information on that developing project on our website, at LastAfricanColony.com

Be sure to check the episode following this one for our interview with Solidarity Rising, a Swedish couple currently riding their bicycles around the world to raise awareness about the independence struggle of the Sahrawi people.

Where is Western Sahara? What is Western Sahara? Is it a country? Who lives there? If you find yourself unable to answer any of these questions, or if you want a resource that will help you to quickly explain the history and the current political realities around Africa's last colony to your friends

10/07/2023

Hey everyone! We're teaching a one-day podcasting crash course! Please share with your friends!

Been dreaming of starting your own podcast but you’re unsure about how to take that first step?

Join our two-hour workshop on either July 15th or 22nd, where you'll learn everything you need to know before starting your own show.

In this workshop, Eric Maddox, host of the human rights podcast Latitude Adjustment, and creator of the Palestine Podcast Academy, will share his expertise and years of experience from producing over 120 podcast episodes. Beyond producing his own show, Eric has also trained students held in migrant detention in Greece, and students living under military occupation in Palestine, to create their very first podcast productions.

During the workshop, you'll gain practical insights that will save you countless hours and unnecessary expenses. Whether you're struggling to decide on your show's theme, intimidated by the equipment and technical aspects of production, or simply too overwhelmed by life's demands to figure out where to start, Eric will help you to create a blueprint to launch your show.

All you need is a reliable Internet connection, two hours of your time, a cup of coffee, and some enthusiasm!

Here's a glimpse of what you'll learn:

Identifying your niche audience

Formulating the mission and vision for your show

Understanding journalistic ethics

Mastering the art of interviewing and building trust with guests and your audience

Booking guests effectively

Researching and preparing for each episode

The importance of scripting your episodes

Essential equipment (and what you don't need)

Editing basics and best practices

Podcast hosting and distribution

Podcast marketing essentials

Budgeting for your podcast

Instead of spending months scouring YouTube and online communities, you'll gain all the necessary preliminary knowledge in this workshop.

Podcasting has a learning curve, but with the information shared in this crash course, you'll have the confidence and expertise to hit the ground running.

The first 5 people to register also get a free 20-minute one-to-one consultation call with me after attending the course. This free consultation must be redeemed by August 15th.

We’ll be offering a free 30-minute introductory webinar at 6pm PDT/9pm EDT this Wednesday, July 12th, and at 12pm PDT/3pm EDT this Sunday July, 16th.

So take action and secure your spot now for $120. Or jump fast to get the early bird rate of $90.

Don't miss this opportunity to transform your podcasting aspirations into a reality.

Register by July 12th for the early bird rate for July 15th
Register by July 19th for the early bird rate for July 22nd

Follow the link to the sign-up form:

https://forms.gle/E9wARkwJr2GCLUyT7

02/07/2023

My thoughts on the state of freedom and independence as US Independence Day approaches. I would be honored if you'd read and share it.

Palestine, Perception, and the Limits of American Compassion (Part 1 of 2)

01/07/2023

The very same week that a massive multi-million dollar, multinational rescue operation was launched to rescue 5 of the wealthiest people on earth from a elite and ill-advised sight-seeing tour, European rescue vessels literally floated and watch for hours as a ship carrying hundreds of refugees slowly faltered and sank, offering no help, as hundreds of desperate people drowned. More than any other demographic, the wealth of those five people places them in the class of individuals most responsible for the the circumstances of those refugees.

To those who feel inclined to respond to the disparity with "all lives matter", we say, act like it.

Satellite imagery, sealed court documents and interviews with survivors suggest that hundreds of deaths were preventable.

27/06/2023

What we are seeing now in the US, with the rollback of so many progressive victories, and with the passage of bigoted legislation towards sexual minorities, is in many ways the final stage of a decades-long strategy by violent strains of American Christian Evangelism. That strategy has seen Africa used as a testing ground in an ideological war against sexual minorities. And that war has returned home with a vengeance; newly emboldened, with more support, and with a more focused strategic vision.

Reverend Doctor Kapya Kaoma is an Anglican priest from Zambia, a human rights activist, and one of the central figures in the documentary film, “God Loves Uganda”.

Kapya is also a researcher, and the author of several books, including “American Culture Warriors in Africa”, “Christianity, Globalization, and Protective Homophobia.” He has testified before the US Congress, US State Department, and the United Nations. Though he has also focused on Environmental Ethics, much of his research and advocacy work focuses on the targeting of the LGBTQIA community in Africa and the Christian Evangelical and Catholic roots of this persecution.

See show notes at this link for organizations in Africa that are in need of your support for their work on the front lines.

What we are seeing now in the US, with the rollback of so many progressive victories, and with the passage of bigoted legislation towards sexual minorities, is in many ways the final stage of a decades-long strategy by violent strains of American Christian Evangelism. That strategy has seen Africa u