Civil Rights, genocide, Human Rights, Targeting Muslims, U.S. Militarism, Violations of U.S. and International Law
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Deluge: Gaza and Israel from Crisis to Cataclysm
In the last six months of the war by Israel against the Palestinian population of Gaza, a truth has become quite clear: The war is not one of self-defense. And moreover, the October 7 attack by Hamas in southern Israel is being used by the Netanyahu government as a pretext for ethnically cleansing the 2.2 million Palestinians who live there, and get them out of the Gaza Strip.
Israel, like America, is a colonial settlers state. It was built on top of an indigenous population whose removal was necessary to establish the new state of Israel. The Palestinians, who were the majority, never got their own state. Three quarters of 1 million of them were driven out, many ended up as refugees in the Gaza Strip.
The Palestinians in Gaza are now being systematically slaughtered by Israel and United States, which is a full partner in the whole operation, supplying weapons, money, and diplomatic cover.
The Israeli military is the fourth most powerful military in the world. Most of the native population has been driven into a tiny corner in the southern village of Rafa where Israel and America plan an imminent invasion. This, despite the story, spun by the Biden administration, they are trying to “moderate“ Israel. This is perception management. Israel is using starvation as a weapon. The Palestinian people are plagued by famine and disease. Israel is allowing food in at an inadequate trickle.
The United States ended its funding of the main United Nations support organization even as it continues, contrary to American law, to ship weapons to Israel, including 2000 pound bombs, 500 pound bombs, and jet fighters to deliver them.
Israel and the United States have crippled the United Nations and undermined international law. The International Court of Justice , the highest court in the world,ruled that Israel was “plausibly committing” a genocide. This ruling has been ignored by Israel and the United States.
Guest – OR Books associate editor Jamie Stern Weiner author of the recently published book Deluge: Gaza and Israel from Crisis to Cataclysm. His previous books include Moment of Truth: Tackling Israel-Palestine’s Toughest Questions and Antisemitism and the Labour Party.
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Pro-Palestine Protestors Target of Covert Israel Campaign
Well, the cat is now definitely “out of the bag”. What many of us have long suspected, our guest today has now documented. It is that the Israeli government created a task force to plan and carry out a covert campaign to disrupt and punish pro-Palestinian protesters on the college and university campuses of the United States. And the plan is in full operation. It was first reported in the Israeli website Ynetnews, one of the largest and greatly respected media outlets in Israel.
So far, the western media has largely ignored this shocking news. The task force is chaired by Foreign Minister Eli Cohen and led by various senior government officials. The task force has been in operation for some years and has already achieved some success in its efforts to stifle the growing anti-Israeli, pro-Palestinian movement in the United States.
Guest – Professor William Robinson is the Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Global and International Studies, and Latin American and Iberian Studies. He is also a member of the Affiliated Faculty, Chicana and Chicano Studies, all at the University of California, at Santa Barbara. Prof. Robinson’s most recent books are: The Global Police State, the book Global Civil War, and the book Can Global Capitalism Endure? And in 2017 he and Maryam Griffin together published: We Will Not Be Silenced: The Academic Repression of Israel’s Critics.
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Civil Liberties, genocide, Human Rights, Targeting Muslims, Violations of U.S. and International Law
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Sexting Among Teens, A Felony
Because teenagers spend a good deal of their time online and on social media platforms, awareness has risen about related risks such as cyberbullying, shaming, and online predation. But then there’s sexting, the sharing between teens of explicit images. A study in the Journal of American Medical Association revealed that sexting is common among adolescents, with at least 1 in 4 teens receiving explicit texts and emails.
What we don’t hear much about are the legal consequences of such communications. In half of the states in this country, criminal laws classify the act of “sexting” among minors as a felony. New York, California, New Jersey, and Michigan are among those states. Their laws consider the exchange, possession, distribution, or production of explicit images of minors through sexting as felony offenses under certain circumstances. The specific criteria and penalties vary from state to state.
Teenagers who engage in sexting rarely realize the consequences of their actions. Since teens are minors, sharing nude or explicit or suggestive photos of themselves or their friends is considered child pornography. That means that possessing or sending the photos may amount to criminal possession or distribution of child pornography. If convicted for one of these offenses, young people may face severe penalties and life-long consequences.
Guest – Attorney Andy Stengel is a criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office who has also worked in the executive and legislative branches of New York State government and for the Brennan Center for Justice.
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No Business With Genocide
April is Earth Month, a time to think twice about our relationship with — and responsibility to — our planet and the ecosystem we rely on, and of course, our fellow living beings. With technology and social media, we have unprecedented access to information and images from all over the world. But witnessing natural disasters, wars and other untold suffering can be debilitating. Thankfully, there are people like today’s guest, to remind us that we, individually and collectively, have so much power to change the course of history and create a healthier world for future generations.
Guest – Simon Billenness, an advocate for environmental sustainability, human rights, corporate governance, and social justice. Described by the New York Times as “a super-specialist” in human rights advocacy, Simon has, for more than two decades, advised investors, non-profits, universities, communities, and unions in holding corporations accountable. He is currently the Executive Director of the International Campaign for the Rohingya and for the coalition-led campaign, No Business With Genocide. He also serves on the Business and Human Rights Co-group of Amnesty International USA.
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Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Gaza, genocide, Human Rights, Targeting Muslims, U.S. Militarism, Uncategorized, Violations of U.S. and International Law
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Chris Hedges: Israel’s Trojan Horse
The Israeli military is the fourth most powerful military in the world. In the last six months it has turned the Gaza Strip into a howling wilderness. Most of us 2.2 million inhabitants have been driven into a tiny corner in the south in the city of Rafa where they face an invasion planned by Israel with American support. Israel sent a delegation to Washington last week. The story spun by the Biden administration is that they are working with Israel to try to “moderate” Israel. This is perception management.
Meanwhile, in another PR move, the United States, announced that it is building a temporary pier on the Mediterranean shore of Gaza to facilitate the importation of food stuffs. But it doesn’t say that the pier will facilitate the export of Palestinians in to permanent exile.
Israel is using starvation as a weapon of war. The United States is not serious about getting food for Palestinians. It continues to supply the Israelis with weapons, including opening up its weapons storage facility in Israel for the Israelis to freely use.
Contrary to American law, the Biden administration, has circumvented Congress 100 times to send even more weapons and bombs which have killed more than 32,000 people and injured another 70,000 while destroying most of the homes in Gaza, their hospitals, schools, mosques , water and sanitation plants, and electrical infrastructure.
Israel’s reaction to the judgment of International Court Of Justice, the highest court in the world, was to ignore their founding of “plausible, genocide“ and to ignore their decisions – taken together amount to a cease-fire. Israel’s goal is to ethnically cleanse Gaza and resettle it with their own people. Last week Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner gave his opinion on the subject calling the western shore of Gaza “good beachfront property“ most suitable for development now that the Palestinians have been driven out of their homes.
Defenders of Israel say that Israel is acting in self-defense, that Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon are behind Hamas, and that in any case the figures of death and injury of Palestinians are lies perpetrated by the Gaza Ministry of Health, which is controlled by Hamas.
Guest – Chris Hedges, award-winning journalist and political writer. Chris Hedges reported for The New York Times from 1990 to 2005 and served as the Times’ Middle East Bureau Chief and Balkan Bureau Chief during the wars in the former Yugoslavia. In 2001 Hedges was one of the Times’ writers on an entry that received the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting. Prior to his work for the Times, he worked as a freelance war correspondent in Central America for the Christian Science Monitor, NPR and the Dallas Morning News. His books include “Death of the Liberal Class”, “War on America”, “Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt”, and his book “War Is a Force That Gives US Meaning”, which was a finalist for the national Book Critics Circle Award for Non-Fiction.
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Billionaires, Economies And Elections
There were 614 billionaires in America four years ago before the pandemic. Now there are 737. Their total wealth is more than $5 trillion. In the last four years they went from having 2,947,000,000,000 to having 5,529,000,000,000. The golden rule in the United States is that he who has the gold makes the rules. A corollary to this rule is – follow the money.
The immense concentration of wealth among a handful of billionaires in America has destroyed every institution in our country from education to politics. What effect does it have on elections? We have two parties. Both support capitalism which has resulted in having two parties of big money. They make it nearly impossible to challenge their hegemony by forming a third party.
The Supreme Court decision in Citizens United ruled that corporations are people. Thus, they can exercise their free speech rights and donate an unlimited amount of money to preserve and advance their perceived interests. In 1937 the great political journalist Ferdinand Lundburg analyzed wealth and class in the USA in his book America’s 60 Families. He wrote about how they functioned for the purpose of gaining and keeping political and economic power.
In 1968 Lundburg published The Rich and the Super Rich. It shows how the ruling elite controls the mainstream media and the US economy and have virtually uncontested influence over American political institutions. The infamous names of the ruling class back then were Rockefeller, Ford, Vanderbilt, Melon, Dupont, Guggenheim, Whitney, and Astor. They made their money in oil, steel, chemicals, that is to say, basic industry. But their wealth was relatively small compared to today’s economic titans who have made their money in tech industries and speculation.
Guest – Patrick Martin, senior editor at the world socialist web site where he covers a range of political issues in the United States.
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Gaza, genocide, Human Rights, Targeting Muslims, Violations of U.S. and International Law, War Resister
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SCOTUS Oral Arguments Social Media Platforms
Earlier this month, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments about two different state laws that would regulate how large tech companies control what content can appear on their sites. The laws would compel companies to carry all users’ viewpoints and would preclude them from de-platforming political candidates. The Florida law at issue in Moody v. NetChoice and its Texas counterpart in NetChoice v. Paxton represent challenges by tech lobbying groups, NetChoice and the Computer and Communications Information Association. The plaintiffs claim the laws violate their First Amendment rights to make editorial choices about what content to permit or prohibit.
Most members of the Supreme Court seemed to indicate that, in some contexts, the Florida and Texas laws likely violate the First Amendment rights of the social media firms. They also expressed concern that blocking the laws entirely might go too far.
Republican legislators in the two states passed the laws aimed at what they say are efforts to stifle conservative voices on platforms like Facebook and YouTube. In part, the laws came about after platforms banned Donald Trump for violating their rules against inciting violence in his posts related to the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol insurrection.
The plaintiffs assert that it will be virtually impossible for platforms to monitor and prevent hate speech, pro-terrorism advocacy and content that could harm children.
Potentially pivotal members of the court included conservative Amy Coney Barrett and her liberal counterpart Ketanji Brown Jackson. They said the correct course for the court was murky because large social media platforms play many different roles. While the platforms primarily curate speech crafted by users and enjoy broad First Amendment protection for doing so, the sites also provide services, like private messaging, that don’t involve much, if any, editorial supervision by the sites. Barrett and Jackson suggested that such services are similar to telephone or internet providers and can be subject to more government regulation.
Guest – Attorney and Professor Zachary Wolfe at George Washington University in Washington D.C.
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Robin Anderson on US-Israel Media Genocide Complicity
International humanitarian aid organizations have been documenting and warning that Israel was committing crimes of war after bombing Gaza after the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks. Yet major media outlets and social media platforms have consistently ignored their on-the-ground reports.
As Israel’s attacks escalated into acts of genocide, corporate media coverage has largely framed such violence as defensive and justified. Glaringly absent has been reporting on Israel’s long-established use of violence and deprivation against Palestinians in Gaza, the West Back and Occupied East Jerusalem. As we’ve been covering on Law and Disorder, 50 years after Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip, it has systematically repressed and abused the rights of the Palestinian population. It is long recognized by most state and international bodies have long recognized that Israeli settlements are illegal under international law. Israeli violence has long been aggressive, a fact well documented but rarely discussed is establishment media.
What factors have contributed to Israel avoiding moral and legal culpability for its acts of genocide? As it turns out, there are many, from Israel employing propaganda, falsifying evidence, to the censorship and silencing of US journalists and commentators as well as repression of dissident voices online and off. And powerful Israeli lobbying forces have effectively silenced any criticism of Israel.
Guest – Robin Andersen is Professor Emerita of Media Studies at Fordham University. She writes media criticism for Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), and other outlets, and works with Project Censored as a contributor to the annual State of the Free Press book. Her work 0n the current Israeli bombing of Gaza has appeared in numerous publications. She is a guest columnist for Al Jazeera Arabic. Her book, A Century of Media, A Century of War, won the Alpha Sigma Nu book award in 2007. Robin’s Substack Page
Hosted by attorneys Michael Smith and Heidi Boghosian
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Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Gaza, genocide, Human Rights, Supreme Court, Targeting Muslims, War Resister
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Legal Analysis Of Recent Supreme Court Decisions
The U.S. Supreme Court, securely under the control of a Super Majority of 6 conservative Republican justices, three of whom were appointed by Donald Trump, continues to play a decisive role in undermining our constitutional democracy. This ominous trend continues based on three recent key cases, which we’ll be talking about today.
In one, the Court on March 4 rejected a lower court ruling that Trump was ineligible to run for president; in April the court will hear oral arguments on Trump’s claim of absolute immunity from criminal liability; and recently the Justices heard argument over whether social media sites had a right to ban Trump and others under their content moderation standards.
All of these cases arise from the insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob of thousands stormed the US Capitol to prevent Joe Biden from being certified as President. That day, and for many months before and after, Donald Trump attempted to interfere with the constitutionally mandated process for the election of the President of the United States. Hanging in the balance of these three cases are some of the most momentous issues facing our democracy.
Guest – Stephen Rohde is a noted constitutional scholar and activist. He is the past Chair of the ACLU Foundation of Southern California; one of the founders and current Chair of Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace; and the author of American Words of Freedom and of Freedom of Assembly. Steve Rohde is also a regular contributor to the Los Angeles Review of Books, and to TruthDig, and a leader in the national campaign to free the imprisoned investigative journalist, Julian Assange.
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The Right To Boycott Israel
The First Amendment gives citizens the right to boycott, as well as the right to free speech and assembly and the separation of church and state. The right to boycott is under attack by right wing anti-democratic forces. Anti-boycott bills have been passed in 37 states so far. The main organization behind canceling our constitutional right to boycott Israel for its horrific crimes against Palestinians is the American Legislative Exchange Committee (ALEC). Its a well-funded right wing outfit with considerable power.
Today we speak with leading Palestine solidarity activist Felice Gelman. She helped produce and direct the five minute video called the Right to Boycott. It is a strategic tactic to oppose Israeli crimes against Palestinians.
The boycott started with the Boston Tea Party. The Montgomery Bus Boycott set off the civil rights movement in the south. The Grape Boycott supported Cesar Chavez and the farmworkers in California. The necessity of pushing back against Israel’s genocidal practices has never been more evident.
Guest – Felice Gelman is a coordinator of the Freedom2Boycott NYS Coalition, which has worked for a decade to defeat legislation penalizing boycotts in New York State and recently released a short film The Right to Boycott. She is a board member of the Friends of the Jenin Freedom Theatre, supporting The Freedom Theatre in the West Bank of Occupied Palestine. She was the co-producer of the first full length documentary filmed and directed by Palestinian filmmakers in Gaza, Where Should the Birds Fly?
Hosted by attorneys Michael Smith and Maria Hall
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Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Criminalizing Dissent, Human Rights, U.S. Militarism, Violations of U.S. and International Law, War Resister
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The Trillion Dollar Silencer: Why There Is So Little Anti-War Protest in the United States
As the notion of perpetual war and a militarized society are normalized, notably absent are antiwar protests by faith-based organizations, civil rights groups, academics, and others. The Trillion Dollar Silencer details this absence while laying bare the devastation wrought in the United States and abroad by the military industrial complex.
Author Joan Roelofs delves into the pervasive role of military contractors and bases that have come to be economic hubs of their regions. She discusses how state and local governments are intertwined with the Department of Defense (DoD), including economic development commissions at all levels. Contracts and grants to universities, colleges, and faculty come from the DoD and its agencies, such as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The Minerva Initiative funds social scientists for military research. Civilian jobs in the DoD provide opportunities for scientists, engineers, policy analysts, and others. The Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) programs are subsidized by the DoD.
In addition to businesses large and small, nonprofits receive DoD contracts and grants, including environmental and charitable organizations such as The Nature Conservancy and Goodwill Industries. Individuals, arts institutions, charities, churches, and universities share in the profitability of military-related investments. Pension funds for public and private employees and unions are replete with military stocks. In other words, the military industrial complex is so embedded in our political economy that it has become virtually impossible to find any sector of our society that is not intertwined with militarism.
Guest – Joan Roelofs, Professor Emerita of Political Science at Keene State College. She teaches in the Cheshire Academy for Lifelong Learning and writes for scholarly and political publications. Joan is the author of “Foundations and Public Policy: The Mask of Pluralism,” and “Greening Cities: Building Just and Sustainable Communities.” She has been an anti-war activist ever since she protested the Korean War.
Hosted by attorneys Heidi Boghosian and Julie Hurwitz
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