Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, genocide, Human Rights
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Tens of Thousands Of Armenians Forced To Flee Their Homes
Two weeks ago, the small mountainous Republic of Artsakh was vanquished by Azeri military forces. It happened with such haste that thousands of its predominantly ethnic Armenian population had just minutes to abandon their homes.. This followed on the heels of an Azerbaijani blockade that left Armenians without food, fuel, and medicine. Artsakh has been the site of a decades-long protracted battle between Muslim and Turkish Azerbaijanis and Christian Armenians. The conflict began when Armenia and Azerbaijan were under Soviet rule. After both nations gained independence, the conflict escalated into full scale war. That war ended in 1994, with an independent Artsakh, the Armenian name for Nagorno-Karabakh, and Armenia in control of a wide swath of Azerbaijan.
Unverified reports of mass killings and rape roused fears of a repeat of the 1915 Armenian genocide by the Ottoman Empire. The first genocide of the 20th century, it was the systematic destruction of the Armenian people and identity during World War I. The genocide ended more than 2,000 years of Armenian civilization in eastern Anatolia. Along with the mass murder of Assyrian/Syriac and Greek Orthodox Christians, it enabled the creation of the Republic of Turkey. While the Turkish government denies the slaughter of Armenians was genocide, as of 2023, 34 countries have recognized the events as such.
Guest – Alex Galitsky is the Programs Director at the Armenian National Committee of America. Alex’s opinions and analysis have been published in major media outlets, including Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, Foreign Policy, and The Hill. He has worked at the local, state, and federal levels to advance policy and legislation to protect the rights of the Armenian people nationally and internationally. ANCA Action Center
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National Museum of the American Latino Controversy
In 2020, Congress appropriated funding to create a National Museum of the American Latino. Last year, the Smithsonian Institution opened a temporary preview exhibition inside the National Museum of American History. The show was slated to be the largest federally funded Smithsonian exhibit on Latino civil rights history. The nation’s top Latino historians and veterans of the movement gave input. It was to feature student walkouts, school integration initiatives, and environmental and immigration activism.
Instead, it has become the focus of controversy within the Latino community over how Latinos in the United States should be portrayed. The Smithsonian has nixed the show; in its place will be an exhibit on salsa and Latin music.
That’s because Republican lawmakers and others challenge what one conservative writer described last year in The Hill as an “unabashedly Marxist portrayal of history.” Right-wing Latino political activists and Cuban-American politicians like Florida Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart voted to defund the museum.
The controversy comes as the Smithsonian is trying to raise funds to build the museum at estimated $800 million. Of this, $58 million has been raised to date.
Two historians were hired to develop the exhibit on the Latino civil rights movement of the 1960s for the museum. Felipe Hinojosa a history professor at Baylor University in Texas and Johanna Fernández, the associate professor of history at the City University of New York’s Baruch College.
Guest – Professor Felipe Hinojosa is the author of Apostles of Change: Latino Radical Politics, Church Occupations, and the Fight to Save the Barrio. His research areas include Chicana/o and Latina/o Studies, American Religion, Race and Ethnicity, and Social Movements. Prof. Hinojosa serves on the Advisory Board for the interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed, and online moderated forum Latinx Talk.
Hosted by attorney Heidi Boghosian
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CIA Sponsored Terror, Human Rights, Torture, Violations of U.S. and International Law, War Resister, Whistleblowers, worker's rights
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Assange: Journalism Is Not A Crime
Julian Assange is the greatest journalist of our time. By publishing the truth about secret government surveillance of American citizens and American war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan and other places the American government and the CIA have plotted to kidnap and kill him.
They initially smeared his name falsely, accusing him of being a rapist, forced him to get political asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London where they videotaped conversations with his lawyers and stole the contents of their phones and computers. At his extradition hearing in London, where the British government did the bidding of the US, they kept him incommunicado in a glass box and the judge made her decisions before she heard the evidence.
They have had him imprisoned in torturous solitary in the notorious Belmarsh prison in London for four years. He could be extradited to the United States any minute from now to stand trial on the false accusation of espionage to which he answers “journalism is not a crime.“ He will certainly be convicted and entombed in what amounts to a death sentence.
The rule of law is crashing in our country. What is being done to Julian Assange is being done in the name of the law.
Guest – Craig Murray has written the most penetrating and eloquent accounts of Julian Assange’s predicament. Murray was the former British ambassador to Uzbekistan. He was fired for blowing the whistle on his country’s practice of torture. He himself has recently served four months of solitary confinement in prison, where he was put, he believes, to prevent him from testifying at the trial of David Morales – whose company contracted with the CIA to spy on Julian and his attorneys. This alone should’ve caused the case against Julian to be dismissed.
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UAW Organized Labor Strike 2023
It’s no secret that the size and strength of the union movement is not, today, what it has been in the past. Where once more than 30% of the U.S. private workforce was unionized, today it’s only about 5 or 6 percent, with another 33% of workers in unionized government jobs. Harsh, pro-employer labor laws are a big reason for the decline in unionized jobs, as is the change in the percentage of manufacturing jobs in the U.S.
But in the last few years, despite the harsh laws governing union organizing, we’ve witnessed a surge in militant and successful strikes by workers. Nurses, schoolteachers, more recently the UPS workers, and now the strike by the United Auto Workers. Today we examine the UAW strike, the new way it is being conducted, and to learn what it can tell us about this increased union militancy, why it’s happening now, and what it portends for the future.
And our guest for this topic could not be a better person to help us understand the UAW strike, and the increased militancy of workers and union actions across the United States, in general.
Guest – Dianne Feeley, a 60’s radical who started off working with the Catholic Worker movement in New York City. Ms. Feeley is, herself, a retired auto worker, and former member of the UAW Local 22 in Detroit, Michigan. She is currently a leader in the socialist, feminist organization Solidarity, and writes regularly for both the Jacobin Magazine and the magazine, Against the Current.
Hosted by attorney Jim Lafferty
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CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, U.S. Militarism, Violations of U.S. and International Law, War Resister
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Editorial By Attorney Heidi Boghosian: Facebook’s Duty to Protect WhatsApp
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FBI Evidence Demonstrates Saudi Arabia’s Involvement in September 11 Attacks
The events on September 11, 2001 were a crushing blow to democracy and the rule of law in our country. The attacks paved the way for two illegal wars, first the American war against Afghanistan and then Iraq. It open the way for the national security state to develop expansively and implement a vast surveillance program on American citizens.
The attack on the World Trade Center and on the Pentagon happened 20 years ago and in retrospect was a turning point in American history. Law And Disorder Radio was launched three years after that event. Our mission was to defend both democracy and the rule of law.
The attacks were a crime against humanity. But instead of treating them as a crime it was turned into an occasion to launch aggressive and illegal wars. The Nuremberg trials against the Nazis who started World War II defined aggressive war as the ultimate crime because it held within it all lesser crimes.
In our show today we examine the new evidence on who was responsible for the attacks on September 11, 2001. The new evidence is a six year old FBI report released on President Biden’s order last month. Biden was told by the families of the victims of 9/11 that unless this report was released he was not welcome at any of the memorial services.
The FBI report demonstrates the complicity of the government of Saudi Arabia in the attacks. It was two Saudi Arabian government officials that helped the first two hijackers when they came to America. They were given money and help to get into flight school. They then hijacked American Airlines plane and flew it into. Senator Bob Graham was the head of the Intelligence Committee that investigated what happened on September 11th, 2001. Whistle blower Thomas Drake was a top official at the National Security Agency.
Guest – Paul Jay is the editor of the blog the theanalysis.news. We will discuss with him the kind of movement that is needed to reverse the nuclear arms race as well as to bring about a democratic organization of the economy.
Hosted by attorneys Heidi Boghosian and Marjorie Cohn
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Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Human Rights
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Can President Donald Trump Be President Again?
Last year the U.S. Supreme Court became the most conservative it has been in 90 years, with conservative justices controlling decisions with a comfortable 6-3 majority. We can no longer take any Constitutional “rights” or “liberties” we thought we had for granted. Prior Supreme Court rulings that aimed at ensuring fairness, equal opportunity, reproductive freedom, and a participatory government—including for those who were not born into the favored, elite classes—are now at great risk.
Today, with the help of Stephen Rohde, our favorite constitutional scholar as our guest, we examine two very important constitutional issues: first, the question of: “How safe is freedom of the press in our country today?” We do this by looking at the new challenges being leveled at the landmark 1964 case, New York Times v. Sullivan, a case granting protection to a newspaper when it prints a libelous story about a public official or public figure but does so without actual malice. Is that press protection about to disappear? Then, we change gears a bit and ask our guest about the currently much-discussed question flowing from the fact that former President Donald Trump, now faces criminal charges for seeking to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
The question stemming from this is: “Does Sec. Three of the 14th Amendment to our Constitution stating that any American official who takes an oath to uphold the Constitution is disqualified from holding any future office if they, and I quote, “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” or provided “aid and comfort to our enemies” mean that Trump is now disqualified from becoming president again? The Constitution does not spell out how to enforce this ban, It was applied twice in the late 1800’s, when it was used against former members of the Confederacy. Today, a number of State Attorneys Generals, and others, are contemplating this question and, in a few cases, preparing to take the matter to court, given their belief that Trump should now, because of his actions on and around the January 6th insurrection, be disqualified from holding any future federal office.
Guest – Stephen Rohde recently published a fabulous review of a new book by Samantha Barbas, titled Actual Malice: Civil Rights and Freedom of the Press in New York v. Sullivan. Steve Rohde is a writer, lecturer, and political activist who practiced civil rights, civil liberties, and intellectual property law for almost 50 years. He is past Chair of the ACLU Foundation of Southern California and a co-founder and current chair of Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace, while also playing a leadership role in many other organizations. He writes book reviews for the Los Angeles Review of Books, Ms. Magazine, and Truthdig.org. And his articles appear regularly in many online publications.
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A Sleeping Giant In American Politics
We are in the midst of a labor upsurge. One with the promise of delivering not only better wages, and working conditions, but the prospects of wider positive social change. There is a new fighting spirit in the land, expressed by this rise in labor militancy.
We can look back five years ago to the beginning of the upsurge in teacher militancy in red states such as West Virginia, Kentucky, Wyoming, and Arizona, where teachers struck, often illegally, to better not only their situation, but that of the communities they lived in. This upsurge has continued.
Recently, we have seen the great success of the Amazon warehouse workers in Staten Island, coming together to form a union and Starbucks workers across the country have also unionized. Meanwhile, the writers and actors in the Hollywood movie and television industry have been on strike for several months. The Democratic party, which get a lot of money from the entertainment industry, has not lifted a finger to help them.
The unemployment rates for actors is 90% and only 2% of them can make a living out of acting.“Euphoria“ star Sydney Sweeney said “They no longer pay actors what they used to and with streamers you no longer get substantial residuals.” Eighty percent of the union makes less than $26,000 a year, not enough to qualify for union health insurance.
The captains of finance and industry run and control the Democratic Party. They made sure that Bernie Sanders did not get the nomination in 2016 and 2020. The leadership of the labor movement most often supports the Democratic party, explaining that they are the lesser of two evils. The late great journalist, Glen Ford called the Democratic Party, “the more effective of two evils“. He would have cited as proof of this the Biden administration’s recent intervention which prevented the powerful railroad workers union from going on strike this summer.
Guest – Al Bradbury is the editor of Labor Notes and an advocate and practitioner of labor militancy. Labor Notes is a media and organizational project since 1978 that has been the voice of union activists who want to put the movement back into the labor movement. Editor, Al Bradbury join the staff of Labor Notes in 2012 after working with hospital workers as a researcher and organizer for the Service Employees local 49 in Oregon.
Hosted by Attorneys Michael Smith, Jim Lafferty and Maria Hall
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Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Criminalizing Dissent, Human Rights, Truth to Power
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Tompkins Square Park Police Riot 35th Anniversary Special
Thirty five years ago, a singular event occurred in Manhattan’s East Village that would prove transformative to many lives for years to come. Today on Law and Disorder we bring you a special program on the August 1988 Tompkins Square Park Police Riot as recounted by several individuals who were there for the entire event. We share firsthand observations of unbridled police violence, talk about how we came to be there, and discuss how the riot marked the lynchpin to transform an entire neighborhood from a mecca of creativity and political activism, to the new home of TARGET, Starbucks and other hallmarks of American gentrification.
Tompkins Square Park is bounded on the West and East by Avenues A and B, and on the North and South by 10th Street and 7th Streets. It falls in the part of that neighborhood often referred to as Alphabet City, named for its 4 Alphabet numbered avenues, that in the 1960’s and 1970’s were a haven for drug sellers and squatters and a large Puerto Rican community. The park had a history of activism as it was the site of a riot in 1874 on behalf of the city’s labor movement.
In 1988, a homeless encampment was erected in the park, attracting a wide range of activists, squatters, and homeless persons. Several local residents complained and in a controversial move, the local governing body, Community Board 3, on June 28, approved a 1 AM curfew from what had long been a 24-hour open park. The Avenue A Block Association supported the curfew as it represented the few local businesses that existed then. Many residents opposed the curfew, including those who would have to take a longer walk around the park to get home.
The New York City City Parks Department agreed to enforce the curfew, and on July 31, 1998 protesters gathered at a rally there. Police, responding to alleged noise complaints, entered the park. A skirmish ensued, and several civilians and six officers were treated for injuries. Four men were arrested on charges of reckless endangerment and inciting to riot.
Guests – Susan Howard, East Village Community Activist, John McBride, Photographer and Arthur Nersesian, East Village Writer.
Written by Attorney Heidi Boghosian and produced by Geoff Brady.
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