Progressive Commentary Hour

Progressive Commentary Hour – 01.26.16 (PART 2)

Neville Hodgkinson is a British journalist who started reporting on the AIDS epidemic in the mid 1980s who has been a medical and science correspondent for the London Sunday Times, Sunday Express and Daily Mail. His many investigations and subsequent articles questioned the mainstream views about HIV and AIDS, including reporting from Africa, Australia and Europe.  His book Will To be Well: The Real Alternative Medicine was one of the first to describe wellness and happiness based upon scientific findings. In 1996 he published his scientific critique of the HIV theory in “AIDS: The Failure of Contemporary Science” and continued to write articles for publications such as Continuum, New African, Journal of Scientific Exploration and Business Online.  Neville was connected with the creation of the AIDS Advisory Panel of South African President Thabo Mbeki.

Progressive Commentary Hour – 01.26.16

John Lauritsen is a retired market research analyst, author and gay liberationist and activist and currently the founder and head of Pagan Press, which publishes books that reach the gay community.  Earlier John wrote for the New York Native where he argued against the science behind HIV and AIDS and raised questions concerning the safety of AZT.  More recently he is best known for his theoretical book, The Man Who Wrote Frankenstein which explores whether the real author of the novel by that name was written by Percy Bysshe Shelley and not his wife Mary.

John’s website is PaganPressBooks.com/ JPL where you can find a collection of his essays on AIDS, gay liberation and other subjects.

Progressive Commentary Hour – 01.19.16

Michael Ellner is an internationally respected scholar in mind-body medicine, an expert in hypnosis, and a leader in warning people about the destructive consequences of unrecognized suggestion and self-hypnosis, especially when confronting medical choices.  He is the president of HEAL – the Health Education AIDS Liaison in New York City, the world’s oldest and largest all volunteer Alternative AIDS Information network started in 1982.  HEAL was the first AIDS organization to challenge the automatic death sentence embedded in a positive AIDS diagnosis and was a pioneer in offering alternative challenges to the official AIDS establishment. Michael has received honors as Educator of the Year by the International Medical and Dental Hypnotherapy Association, the National Guild of Hypnotists and the National Federation of NLP. More about Michael and his work can be found at his websites:  NYCAnxietyHypnosis.com  and  QuantumFocusing.com 

Tom DiFerdinando is a pain, injury and trauma therapist with nearly thirty years of experience. He was the Executive Director of HEAL NY (Health, Education, AIDS Liaison) from 1992 to 2013, working as an international speaker, HIV counselor, writer and editor, and director of HEAL's popular weekly cable TV program HEAL This Week. Tom has been a leader in the AIDS dissident movement that perceives AIDS is a social problem and not a medical problem. He has also developed a counseling technique that centers on "crisis mentality" - an anxiety-regulating mechanism where, in the face of a crisis, preexisting and unresolved emotional tensions and conflicts in one's life drive one not to solve the crisis but to perpetuate and escalate it. Along with HEAL’s president Michael Ellner, Tom's mission has been to demystify health and illness, advocate for non-toxic, alternative approaches to health and healing, and help people with fears, concerns and conditions about AIDS.

Progressive Commentary Hour – 01.19.16 (PART 2)

Prof. Peter Duesberg is professor of Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of California at Berkeley.  He was the first to isolate a cancer gene through his work with retroviruses back in 1970 and mapped the genetic structure of this class of viruses. His work in retrovirus research awarded him an election to the National Academy of Sciences and Outstanding Investigator Grants from the National Institutes of Health.  Based upon his knowledge of retroviruses, he has been at the forefront in challenging the virus-AIDS hypothesis and has published in the world’s leading medical journals.  As a consequence, Dr. Duesberg’s hypothesis has won support from many scientists who have been outcast from publishing their views, including Nobel laureates such Kary Mullis, inventor of PCR technology.

Progressive Commentary Hour – 01.12.16

Prof. Omid Safi has rapidly become one of the most important, postmodern Islamic thinkers in America today. From an Iranian heritage, he is Professor of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at Duke University where he is the Director of Duke’s Islamic Studies Center. He specializes in Islamic social and intellectual history, Islamic mysticism or Sufism, and the tradition of prophetic social activism.  Prof. Safee received his doctorate from Duke University, he is the co-chair for the Study of Islam and Islamic Mysticism Group at the American Academy of Religion, a has served on the board of the Pluralism Project at Harvard University, and an original co-founder of the Progressive Muslim Union. Omeed has written for Tikkun magazine, the Huffington Post, and BeliefNet and writes a weekly column for On Being.org.  He is the author of several books including “Memories of Mohammad: Why the Prophet Matters” and “Progressive Muslisms: On Justice, Gender and Pluralism.” His website is OmidSafi.com

Progressive Commentary Hour – 01.05.16

Professor Peter Dale Scott is a former professor of English at the University of California at Berkeley (where he was also the co-founder of the Peace and Conflict Studies Program), a recognized national poet, a former Canadian diplomat and a scholar and author on the domestic and international political issues including taxation, war and conflict, the war on drugs, the politics of oil and the assassination of JFK. His life’s work has focused on his theory of “deep politics” -- a descriptive, realistic way to objectively understand the evidence of coercive, unelected government, not accountable to the American public, which would otherwise be characterized as “conspiratorial” in the main stream media.

He is the author of many books including “The American Deep State: Wall Street, Big Oil and the Attack on US Democracy” and more recently last autumn “Dallas 63: The First Deep State Revolt Against the White House” that looks at the activities of the CIA, FBI, and other entities behind the JFK assassination, and how this trend has continued through the Iran Contra scandal, 911 and beyond. His website is PeterDaleScott.net