Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Crony Capitalism, Human Rights, Prison Industry, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Truth to Power, War Resister
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Chris Hedges – America: the Farewell Tour
We are living in terrible times. Novelist Barbara Kingsolver has said that “it feels like the end of the world.” Last week hurricane Michael destroyed much of the Florida Panhandle. Before that hurricanes decimated Puerto Rico and before that Houston and before that New Orleans. Climate scientists predict it will only get worse and that we are rapidly running out of time to hold the disaster.
Many people have observed that Trump is a symptom, not the disease. The insurgency in the Republican Party has installed a purposeful, strategic and successful ultra right into power in all three branches of the Federal government and in the legislatures of half the states.
The war in Afghanistan has been pursued for 17 years. Iraq and Libya have been destroyed. The military budget was increased by 10% and is now some $700 billion a year, half of what the government spends all together. Are we on the verge of climate catastrophe, a great economic crash, or the end of the American empire?
Guest – Chris Hedges has written 11 books including the recently published America: the Farewell Tour. Although he is a recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for journalism, Chris Hedges was pushed out of the New York times where he was reporter for publicly criticizing the Iraq war. Pulitzer-Prize winning author and journalist. He was also a war correspondent, specializing in American and Middle Eastern politics and societies. His most recent book is ‘Death of the Liberal Class (2010). Hedges is also known as the best-selling author of War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning (2002), which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction.
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CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Crony Capitalism, Human Rights, Surveillance, Truth to Power
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Regulation Designed to Tax Protesters For First Amendment Activity
The Trump administration has another first for America. It wants demonstrators to pay to use public parks, sidewalks and streets to engage in free speech. The effect of taxing protesters in the nation’s capital will be to restrict access for First Amendment activities to the very few who can afford it. Participatory democracy will be no more.
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke in August announced the White House’s rewriting of regulations governing free speech and assembly on public lands under federal jurisdiction.
The National Park Service will charge protesters for so-called event management expenses. Barricades and fencing that police may erect, trash removal, sanitation charges, permit application charges, salaries of personnel deployed to monitor protests, as well as cost deemed harmful to turf. The Park Service claims protest-related costs are burdensome, and said that last year’s Women’s March imposed “a pretty heavy cost” on the government.
Guest – Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, co-chair of the Guild’s National Mass Defense Committee. co-founder of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund in Washington, DC, she secured $13.7 million for about 700 of the 2000 IMF/World Bank protesters in Becker, et al. v. District of Columbia, et al., while also winning pledges from the District to improve police training about First Amendment issues. She won $8.25 million for approximately 400 class members in Barham, et al. v. Ramsey, et al. (alleging false arrest at the 2002 IMF/World Bank protests). She served as lead counsel in Mills, et al v. District of Columbia (obtaining a ruling that D.C.’s seizure and interrogation police checkpoint program was unconstitutional); in Bolger, et al. v. District of Columbia (involving targeting of political activists and false arrest by law enforcement based on political affiliation); and in National Council of Arab Americans, et al. v. City of New York, et al. (successfully challenging the city’s efforts to discriminatorily restrict mass assembly in Central Park’s Great Lawn stemming from the 2004 RNC protests.)
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U.S. Plans To Overthrow Venezuelan President?
Recently people in the Trump administration held secret meetings with certain military leaders of Venezuela to discuss plans to overthrow Venezuelan elected President Nicolas Maduro.
The White House said in a statement that it was important to engage in “dialogue with all Venezuelans who demonstrate a desire for democracy“ in order to “bring positive change to a country that has suffered so much under Maduro.” The economic situation in Venezuela has been dire. This has been exacerbated by a US financial embargo. It is estimated that 1,600,000 people have left Venezuela since 2015.
Guest – William Camacaro is a Venezuelan living in New York City and a senior research fellow at the Consul of Hemispheric Affairs, Washington DC best non-governmental organization founded in 1975. Camacaro is a cofounder of the Alberto Lovers Bolivarian Circle of New York, an organization founded in solidarity with Venezuela.
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CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Crony Capitalism, Human Rights, Political Prisoner, Prison Industry, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Truth to Power, War Resister
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Attorney Michael Tigar: The Mythologies of State and Monopoly Power
The American criminal justice system is buttressed, sustained and perpetuated by various myths. These myths dominate legal ideology. The most important of these myths concern racism, criminal justice, free expression, workers’ rights, and international human rights. “Ordinary private law categories of property, contract, and tort perform the same social function,” Michael Tigar writes in his important new book “Mythologies of State and Monopoly Power.“
Michael Tigar has worked for more than 50 years with movements for social change as a human rights lawyer, law professor, and writer. He believes that busting these myths is the work of movement lawyers.
Noam Chomsky has written that “for anyone concerned with the rule of law, or more generally with the real significance of freedom and justice, Michael Tigar’s book is “a highly informed and carefully argued study that should be essential reading.”
The book is beautifully written, learned, and profoundly insightful. In a better world Michael Tigar would be a justice of the United States Supreme Court.
The Michael Tigar Papers Launch University of Texas
Tigarbytes.blogspot.com
Guest – Michael Tigar, emeritus professor of law at Duke University and at Washington College of Law. He has been a lawyer working on social change issues since the 1960s. He has argued numerous cases in United States Supreme Court and many Circuit Courts of Appeal. His books include “Law and the Rise of Capitalism”, “ Fighting Injustice ”, and the forthcoming Mythologist of State and Monopoly Power.“
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Academic Freedom, CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Climate Change, Crony Capitalism, Cuba, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, NSA Spying, Truth to Power, War Resister
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Cuban US Embassy Sonic Weapons Scare
The Trump administration is considering closing the recently reopened US Embassy in Havana after several unexplained incidents that allegedly hurt American diplomats in Cuba. Some lawmakers are calling for the ouster of all Cuban diplomats from the US in addition to the 15 they’ve kicked out of the country. Its a move that would have significant diplomatic implications.
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson made these suggestions recently. His comments were the strongest indication yet that the US might mount a major diplomatic response, potentially jeopardizing the historic restart of relations between the Cuba and US governments. The two reopened embassies in Washington and Havana in 2015 after roughly a half-century of estrangement.
Of the 21 medically confirmed US victims, some have permanent hearing loss or concussions while others have suffered nausea, headaches and ear-ringing. Some are having problems with concentration or common word recall.
Some victims felt vibrations or heard loud sounds mysteriously audible in only parts of rooms, leading investigators to consider the possibility of a sonic attack. Others heard nothing but later developed symptoms.
The US State Department has emphasized that the US still does not know what has occurred. Cuba has denied any involvement and has said that it wants to help the US resolve the matter.
Investigators have explored the possibility of an electromagnetic weapon, or an advanced spying operation gone awry. The US has not ruled out that a third country or even a rogue faction of Cuba’s national security services may be involved.
Guest – Sandra Levinson, President and Executive Director of the Center for Cuban Studies. She was one of the Center’s founders in 1972. In 1991 Levinson spearheaded a lawsuit against the U.S. Treasury Department which resulted in legalizing the importation of original Cuban art. She is currently directing works at the Cuban Art Space, which she founded in 1999, to properly house and archive the thousands of posters, photographs and artworks which the Center has collected in the past 42 years.
Contact the Center for Cuban Studies at 212.242.0559.
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Trump in the White House: Tragedy and Farce
The great issues of our times are the return of fascism to the United States and Europe, climate change, and the stagnation of the world capitalist economy. These great issues are pressing and interconnected.
We used to think that the experience of World War II guaranteed that no politician would ever advocate the ideas of fascism.
But the election of Donald Trump a year ago has caused a serious reconsideration of fascism and it’s relationship to capitalism and to democracy.
The neoliberals paved the way for Trump. Now he and the forces aligned with him have put our democratic institutions under attack in order to protect the rule of the wealthy. The attacks include the right to vote, labor unions, public education, an independent news media, independent public universities, the privatization of much of traditional governmental functions and making it almost impossible to launch a new political party.
The election of Trump is a political development that for concrete sociological reasons allows us to see it for what it is, as a type of neo-fascism. Only by identifying the phenomena correctly can we effectively fight it.
Jack London wrote a century ago in his famous book The Iron Heel that “There is a shadow of something colossal and menacing that even now is beginning to fall across the land. Call it the shadow of an oligarchy, if you will; it is the nearest I dare approximate it. What is nature may be I refuse to imagine. But what I want to say was this: You are in a perilous position.”
Guest – John Bellamy Foster is editor of Monthly Review and professor of sociology at the University of Oregon. He has written widely on political economy and has established a reputation as a major environmental sociologist. He is the author of Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature (2000), The Great Financial Crisis: Causes and Consequences (with Fred Magdoff, 2009), The Ecological Rift: Capitalism’s War on the Earth (with Brett Clark and Richard York, 2010), and The Theory of Monopoly Capitalism: An Elaboration of Marxian Political Economy (New Edition, 2014), among many others.
CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Crony Capitalism, Human Rights, Prison Industry, Surveillance, Truth to Power
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U.S. Antiwar Leaders Call for Actions to Oppose the Escalation of the Afghanistan War During the Week of the 16th Anniversary of the Invasion, October 2 – 8.
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Confederate Monuments and The Meaning of the Civil War
The American Civil War fought from 1861 to 1865 killed more Americans than all other wars combined. 600,000 Americans died in a war that was fought over whether slavery was to be abolished in the United States. The Confederate General, Robert E Lee, had only an 1100 acre plantation in Virginia and 60 slaves. The value of a slave was about $30,000 in today’s dollar. Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy, owned a 1400 acre cotton plantation in Mississippi.
The institution of slavery was enormously profitable and led to the establishment of America as a leading capitalist power in the world. Slavery was supported in the south not just by the slave owners themselves but by many white persons who by virtue of their skin color saw themselves as superior to blacks. It was widely believed that black people were inferior to white people, both intellectually and morally. Lincoln issued the revolutionary Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, freeing southern slaves. They began taking up arms and fighting against the slaveowners. In the wake of the Civil War biracial democratic institutions were established in the south. This was overthrown shortly thereafter when the Northern capitalists and politician made a deal with the ex-slave owners in the south. Union troops which were supporting the black population were withdrawn.
Thereafter a system of Jim Crowe segregation was instituted and blacks were nearly reenslaved and used as landless sharecroppers or prison laborers. Segregation was reestablished and enforced by massive terror by whites against blacks. The Ku Klux Klan was founded and thousands of lynchings were undertaken, carried out before the white public who assembled in crowds for the event.
Statues of southern generals like Robert E Lee and monuments to the confederacy were erected, not after the Civil War, but many years later to reinforce Jim Crowe and combat the civil rights movement.
Guest – Bruce Carlin Levine – Civil War historian and University of Illinois Professor Emeritus. His latest book titled “Fall of the House of Dixie” is widely appreciated as one of the best books on the Civil war. “Bruce Levine has taught history at the University of California and the University of Illinois. He has written four books on the Civil War, including The Fall of the House of Dixie (Random House, 2005). He’s now writing a book for Simon & Schuster about the radical Republican leader during the Civil War era, Thaddeus Stevens.”
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Joe Aripao, Sheriff of Maricopa County Pardoned By President Trump
Last week President Trump pardoned, without him even requesting it, the infamous Joe Aripao, Sheriff of Maricopa County, which includes the heavily Latino community of Phoenix. Arizona. Sheriff Joe was in office for 26 years. Observers have called it a “reign of terror.”
He himself called his jail a “concentration camp.” He kept prisoners outside in tents with temperatures ranging from 40° to over 100°. Prisoners died at an alarming rate, often without explanation. He paraded hundreds of Hispanic prisoners in chains dressed in black and white stripes through the streets of Phoenix. Another time he force them to wear pink underwear.
He was pardoned by President Trump, who praised him lavishly, after a federal judge found him in contempt of court for ordering his department to arrest people soley because they looked Latino and ignoring a court order to stop. Arpaio was about to be sentenced when Trump stepped in and overrode the judge.
Guest – Professor Ellen Yaroshefsky, she teaches ethics at the law school at Hofstra University. She is a former staff attorney and later board member at the Center for Constitution Rights and a leader of the National Lawyers Guild.
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CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Crony Capitalism, NSA Spying, Supreme Court, Targeting Muslims, Torture
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Law and Disorder Outtakes: Disorderly Bloopers
We first began recording Law and Disorder in 2004, the same year the Republican National Convention—and large protests—were held in New York City. When we started, we had four hosts—Dalia Hashad and Michael Ratner along with Michael Smith and Heidi Boghosian.
After a few years, Dalia moved to California, leaving us with three hosts. In late spring 2016 we lost Michael Ratner to cancer. Now there are just two of us.
It is our special pleasure to share with listeners our first segment of The Disorderly Bloopers, behind-the-scenes audio outtakes from the first years we were on the air.
Law and Disorder was created during the George W. Bush administration to cover what we thought would be some of the darkest days in the nation’s history. As part of our special summer episode we thought these studio snippets might provide a few minutes of much-needed levity.
It’s important to take a few minutes to laugh at ourselves, and to look back at the hundreds of fun days that we here at Law and Disorder have had over the years.This has also been a trip down memory lane for Heidi and Michael as we hear hilarious interchanges with Dalia and Michael Ratner.
As we covered some of the most serious topics in the news, and amidst the enormous respect we had for all of our guests, the four of us wholeheartedly enjoyed a special relationship, along with our longstanding producer Geoff Brady. It’s a relationship that comes from working closely together and respecting each other as colleagues and friends.
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Hosts Read Some of the Best Courtroom Transcripts
Q: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?
A: No.
Q: Did you check for blood pressure?
A: No.
Q: Did you check for breathing?
A: No.
Q: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?
A: No.
Q: How can you be so sure, Doctor?
A: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
Q: But could the patient have still been alive nevertheless?
A: It is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law somewhere.
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The Relevant Lawyer: Reimagining the Future of the Legal Profession
Hosts alternate in reading part of a chapter on Attorney Charles Garry in the book The Relevant Lawyer: Reimagining the Future of the Legal Profession by Paul A. Haskins. Haskins is senior counsel in the American Bar Association Center for Professional Responsibility and lead counsel for the Standing Committee on Professionalism.
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