Welcome to Law and Disorder Radio
Law and Disorder is a weekly independent civil liberties radio program airing on more than 100 stations across the United States and podcasting on the web. Law and Disorder provides timely legal perspectives on issues concerning civil liberties, privacy, right to dissent and practices of torture exercised by the US government and private corporations.
Law and Disorder October 14, 2024
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Fascism on Trial: Education, and the Possibility of Democracy
Fascist Germany’s industrial murder of Jews in Europe 80 years ago has been seared into the consciousness of humankind. Today its a great irony of history that the Israeli government, which claims to be the moral legatee of the holocaust, is carrying out a genocide against millions of Palestinians in Gaza.
This is being done with the full support of the American government which supplies political, diplomatic, and propaganda cover for what Israel is doing. It supplies the bombs, planes, artillery shells, tanks and bulldozers to physically destroy the buildings and infrastructure of the Gaza strip. The people who live there have been systematically starved, as the Nazis starved the Jews of the Warsaw ghetto.
The response of American students and college campuses across the country was magnificent. Tent encampments sprung up in several hundred places. They became the focal point for a full-throated discussion of the realities in Gaza and American complicity in the ongoing genocide. Demands for cease-fire were raised. Demands that the universities divest themselves of investments in Israel and American arms manufactures were put forward.
Sadly, this manifestation of critical thinking came to a crashing end. The wealthy and their servants in Congress, and in the mass media, accused the students of being antisemitic and of supporting terrorism. Congressional hearings were held. University presidents were fired. Professors lost their jobs. Students were expelled from schools. The great campus uprising was closed down. And new and much more restrictive rules for protest have been imposed in campuses all across the United States.
Guest – Professor Henry A. Giroux currently holds the McMaster University Chair for Scholarship in the Public Interest in the English and Cultural Studies department and is the Pablo Frère, Distinguished Scholar in Creative Pedagogy. Henry Giroux has authored many books, most recently with Anthony DiMaggio, titled, Fascism on Trial: Education, and the Possibility of Democracy.
Sending a another big thank you to a generous donor from Wisconsin bringing us closer to our fundraiser goal. Please consider helping us reach our fundraiser goal by sending us a donation of any amount.
—-
War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of its Military Machine
The United States is engaged in constant, if often invisible, wars. Or, if not invisible, at least not accurately and fully reported on in the corporate media. Thereby leaving the people of the United States far from fully informed as to what and where U.S. military troops are stationed or engaged in military action. For example, while there has been a great deal of media coverage of the U.S. supported Israeli war in Palestine, one would have needed to pay extra close attention to that coverage to know that the U.S., even before that war began, had 40,000 U.S. troops stationed in the area. Or that the Biden Administration has just recently sent at least 1,500 more to join them. And how many of us know that late last year retired Israeli Major General Yitzhak Brick, said that, and I quote: “All of our missiles, the ammunition, the precision-guided bombs, all the airplanes and bombs, it’s all from the U.S. Everyone understands that we (Israel) can’t fight this war without the United States.
So last year, Norman Solomon, our guest today, wrote a much noted and much-admired book titled, War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of its Military Machine. And that book has just been reissued with an up-dated afterword about the Gaza War, by the author. Naomi Klein, best-selling author of The Shock Doctrine, says the book is “A Staggeringly Important Intervention”. Noam Chomsky, says Solomon’s book is a “gripping and painful study of the mechanisms behind our invisible, but perpetual, national state of war.”
Guest – Norman Solomon is the co-founder of RootsAction.org and Executive Director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, and is, in fact, the author or co-author, of 12 books, most touching on today’s topic in either close or tangential ways. His books include War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.
————————-
Law and Disorder October 7, 2024
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
USPS: Concerns With Louis Dejoy And Election Integrity
Free elections can too easily turn into hollow formalities when coercion, manipulation, or biased governance replace voter choice and participation. The United States Postal Service has historically been one of the most trusted government institutions in the United States, with a strong reputation for reliability and nonpartisanship. Until now.
Louis DeJoy, a prominent Trump donor and former logistics executive, was appointed as Postmaster General in May 2020, just months before the 2020 presidential election. His tenure has been marked by a series of controversial reforms, including slowing mail delivery, removing mail sorting machines, reducing post office operating hours, and limiting overtime for postal workers. These changes have triggered widespread alarm, given the heightened dependence on mail-in voting during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Despite public outcry and congressional investigations, DeJoy continues to oversee an agency crucial to the functioning of our democracy. With the 2024 election on the horizon and the ongoing reliance on mail-in ballots—particularly in swing states—the stakes are high. Voters in rural areas, the elderly, and people with disabilities, often rely on it to cast their ballots. Any disruptions could disproportionately impact these communities and undermine public confidence in the electoral process.
We examine the potential impacts of delayed ballots, changes in USPS service standards, and the wider implications for voter turnout and trust in the system.
Guest – Chuck Zlatkin, legislative director of the New York Metro Area Postal Union.
—-
Sending a big thank you to station KKFI for their generous donation bringing us closer to our fundraiser goal. Please consider helping us reach our fundraiser goal. We’re getting close.
—-
Abolition Labor: The Fight To End Prison Slavery
Operating in the secrecy of the nation’s more than 1,800 prisons, a kind of shadow slave culture is being fostered. Few Americans are aware of the exploitative and pervasive practice of forced prison labor. The 13th amendment to the US Constitution abolished slavery, but it made one exception: prison labor.
Prisoners are forced to work with minimal or non-existent wages, and often with no labor protections. Understanding the scope and implications of forced prison labor is crucial for anyone concerned with social justice and equity. It calls for a re-examination of our treatment of incarcerated persons and for alternatives that promote fairness for everyone, regardless of their legal status. By shining a light on this issue, we can advocate for reforms that prioritize rehabilitation over punishment and strive towards a more just and humane criminal justice system. A new book, Abolition Labor: The Fight To End Prison Slavery, provides an eye-opening overview of the extent of this problem.
Guest – Andrew Ross is a renowned social activist, author, and Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University, where he also directs the Prison Research Lab. Andrew has contributed to prominent publications like The Guardian, The New York Times, and The Nation. He has authored or edited over twenty-five books, with the recent work, Abolition Labor, co-authored with Aiyuba Thomas and Tommaso Bardelli.
Guest – Aiyuba Thomas recently earned his M.A. from NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study and is an affiliate of the NYU Prison Research Lab. He currently serves as project manager for the Movements Against Mass Incarceration’s archival oral history project at Columbia University. There, he documents the experiences and challenges faced by those affected by the criminal justice system. His firsthand perspective and his extensive knowledge on the subject makes him a powerful voice in the conversation of abolishing forced prison labor.
——————–
Law and Disorder September 30, 2024
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
The Power Of Labor And A Workers’ Party
The forces of the gathering authoritarian storm in our country are evident in many ways. It is manifesting itself in powerful and continuing nationalism, in disdain for human rights, in the entwinement of government and religion, in a controlled mass media, in the protection of corporate power and the suppression of labor power and in the encouragement of violence.
The power of labor has been channeled into the Democratic and Republican Party, the twin parties of capitalism. We need a workers ‘ party, but we don’t even have the nucleus of one. Race and gender are formative in the building of authoritarian regimes. We see this in the United States. Haitians, who are Black, have been accused of eating cats and dogs. Women’s right to control their own bodies is under attack from the Supreme Court on down and women are marked as “childless cat ladies” and told to stay home and bear children.
Guest – Dianne Feeley is an editor of the magazine Against the Current. She is a leader of Solidarity, a socialist feminist organization. Dianne lives in Detroit where she has been an activist for many years in the United Automobile Workers union.
—-
Complicity In Genocide: CCR Case Against The Biden Administration Update
Last fall, the internationally acclaimed Center for Constitutional Rights in New York City filed a lawsuit in federal court on behalf of several Palestinian groups and individuals against President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, alleging that Israel’s actions in Gaza have amounted to genocide and that Biden, Austin, and Blinken have failed their obligation under international law to prevent Israel from committing genocide in Gaza.
The lawsuit claimed that the 1948 International Convention Against Genocide requires the US and other countries to use their power and influence to stop the killing. and the lawsuit asked the court to bar the US from providing weapons, money, and support to Israel. At the time of the filing of that lawsuit here on Law and Disorder, we spoke with an attorney from CCR about the case. Since that time there have been a number of developments in the case.
Guest – Attorney Maria LaHood, the Deputy Legal Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, or CCR, to join us to bring us up to date on where the lawsuit now stands. Much of Maria LaHood’s own work at CCR is on behalf of defending the constitutional rights of Palestinian advocates in the United States, such as in the case of Davis v. Cox. She was involved in defending the Olympia Food Co-op board members for deciding to boycott Israeli goods and the case of Awad v. Fordham, compelling the university to recognize Students for Justice in Palestine as a student club.
—————————-