Civil Rights, Human Rights, Human Trafficking, Immigration
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Attacking Those In Academia Who Condemn The Israel-Gaza War
All across this country, academic freedom is once again under severe attack. Why?…because at colleges and universities, professors who dare to speak out in defense of the Palestinian people and condemn Israel’s genocidal war against the Palestinian people, are being censored, disciplined and fired. These attacks on academic freedom are not limited to actions by university administrators, but include those by the federal government, as well. Visiting scholars, adjuncts and lecturers without tenure have also had their contracts terminated, or not renewed. Some had their classes suddenly cancelled. Faculty members who espouse views contrary to official U.S. policy vis-a-vis the Israeli/U.S. war in Palestine have been criticized in ways that have trampled on their reputations and hurt their careers. As an excuse for this present-day McCarthyism, college and university administrators often claim their censorious actions are undertaken only on behalf of ensuring their Jewish students feel “safe” on campus. But there is a distinct lack of evidence to support their claimed motivation. And, in fact, the largest pro-Palestinian actions on campuses are generally organized by Jewish groups, such as Jewish Voice for Peace.
So today we’ve invited a professor from the University of Michigan to join us. We’ll ask him about McCarthy-styled witch hunts against academic personnel, both in the past and again today. Learn how federal law is being misused as a mechanism of political repression against academia. And discuss the role that controversy over slogans condemning Zionism play in this new attack on academic freedom, and what strategies are best employed today by the anti-war movement in its fight back against these attacks, as the ever more deadly Israeli/U.S. war in Palestine continues.
Guest – Professor Alan Wald, the H. Chandler Davis Collegiate Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan. Prof. Wald has authored eight books related to today’s topic. He has been a socialist scholar since the 1960’s, and is currently an editor of the journal Against the Current, as well as a member of the editorial board of Science and Society. And Prof. Wald was a founder of the University of Michigan’s Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine committee.
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New Leadership Within The Department of Homeland Security
The Department of Homeland Security was created in 2002. Trump has nominated Kristi Neer, the Governor of South Dakota, to be its new head. The DHS has consolidated previous separate departments and brought into a single sprawling entity 22 pre-existing agencies. It became the nation’s third largest government department. Today it has a budget of over $100 billion and employs a quarter of a million people. Every danger is now conceived as a threat to homeland security.
As governor, Neer sent South Dakota National Guard troops to Texas eight times to fight what she called “the Biden border crisis”.
Trump said, “she will work closely with “Border Tsar” Tom Holman to secure the border and will guarantee that our American homeland is secure from our adversaries.”
Neer said, “I look forward to working with Border Tsar Tom Homan to make America safe again. With Donald Trump, we will secure the border, and restore safety to American communities, so that families will again have an opportunity to pursue the American dream”.
In 2017 she supported the Trump Muslim travel ban. In 2021 she opposed Afghan refugees coming into South Dakota.
In her memoir, she wrote about how she shot and killed her fourteen month old dog “Cricket” because he was not a good hunter.
Guest – Arun Kundnani, a Philadelphia based writer who moved from London to the U.S. in 2010. He has recently co-authored the pamphlet, Homeland Security: Myths and Monsters. His books include What is Anti-racism? And Why it Means Anti-capitalism, The Muslims Are Coming, and The End of Tolerance. A former editor of the journal Race and Class, Kundnani has been described by the Guardian newspaper as “one of Britain’s best political writers.“
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genocide, Human Rights, Human Trafficking, Truth to Power, War Resister
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It Was Genocide: Armenian Survivor Stories
Around the world, April 24 marks the observance of the Armenian Genocide. On that day in 1915 the Interior Minister of the Ottoman Empire ordered the arrest and hangings of Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople. It was the beginning of a systematic and well-documented plan to eliminate the Armenians, who were Christian, and who had been under Ottoman rule and treated as second class citizens since the 15th century.
The unspeakable and gruesome nature of the killings—beheadings of groups of babies, dismemberments, mass burnings, mass drownings, use of toxic gas, lethal injections of morphine or injections with the blood of typhoid fever patients—render oral histories particularly difficult for survivors of the victims.
Why did this happen? Despite being deemed inferior to Turkish Muslims, the Armenian community had attained a prestigious position in the Ottoman Empire and the central authorities there grew apprehensive of their power and longing for a homeland. The concerted plan of deportation and extermination was effected, in large part, because World War I demanded the involvement and concern of potential allied countries. As the writer Grigoris Balakian wrote, the war provided the Turkish government “their sole opportunity, one unprecedented” to exploit the chaos of war in order to carry out their extermination plan.
As Armenians escaped to several countries, including the United States, a number came to New Britain, Connecticut in 1892 to work in the factories of what was then known as the hardware capital of the world. By 1940 nearly 3,000 Armenians lived there in a tight-knit community.
Pope Frances calls it a duty not to forget “the senseless slaughter” of an estimated one and a half million Armenians by the Ottoman Turks from 1915 to 1923. “Concealing or denying evil is like allowing a wound to keep bleeding without bandaging it,” the Pope said just two weeks before the 100th anniversary of the systematic implementation of a plan to exterminate the Armenian race.
Special thanks to Jennie Garabedian, Arthur Sheverdian, Ruth Swisher, Harry Mazadoorian, and Roxie Maljanian. Produced and written by Heidi Boghosian and Geoff Brady.
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Civil Liberties, Human Rights, Human Trafficking, Political Prisoner, Prison Industry
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Joanne Page: The Fortune Society
Each year in the United States, more than 600,000 individuals are released from state and federal prisons. A staggering 6.9 million people are on probation, in jail, in prison, or on parole. On top of that, an additional nine million persons cycle through local jails.
As grim as these numbers are, more sobering is the fact that more than two-thirds of prisoners are rearrested within 3 years of their release. Half of those are reincarcerated.
Why is this recidivism rate so high? It has much to do with the failure of re-entry support programs. We have the world’s largest carceral state but no effective support system for people finishing their sentences and re-entering society. Consequently, crime rates soar, more individuals are victims of crime, families and communities suffer when we fail to deal with the consequences of over-incarceration. When reentry fails, the costs are high — more crime, more victims, and more pressure on already-strained state and municipal budgets. There is also more family distress and community instability. Community reintegration impacts several larger areas such as community health, education, employment, family relationships and housing.
In every aspect, failure to support recently released individuals is costly to society.
Guest – JoAnne Page is the President and CEO of the NY-based Fortune Society. Policymakers and researchers frequently cite the organization for its pioneering work. A graduate of Yale Law School, Page cultivated and created many of Fortune’s signature programs including substance abuse treatment, counseling, family services, HIV/AIDS health services, mental health programs, job training and employment services, parenting initiatives, and supportive and permanent housing. Page is a leading authority on issues including prison reform, solitary confinement, wrongful convictions, the over-incarceration of young men of color, sentencing reform, violence prevention, homeless housing, effective policing strategies, legislation, sex offender registries, and more.
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Alison Cornyn: The Incorrigibles
People in America are currently living through multiple crises. The economy is in tatters with unemployment very high. The health situation is a disaster with over a third of 1 million people dead from Covid and tens of millions uninsured.
The educational system has been ravaged, underfunded, inflicted with charter schools. Billionaire right-wing secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has only recently resigned. Almost half of the population is living in poverty. Families are in bad shape with suicides, drug addiction, and divorces soaring. Many don’t have enough food and homelessness is rapidly increasing. All this within the framework of a divided society, deeply impacted by racism.
How does this affect young people? And especially rebellious teenage girls? What laws apply to young people? How are they treated in a criminal justice system, historically and currently? What do we know about the level of abuse and neglect including sexual abuse?
Guest – Alison Cornyn, is a Brooklyn-based interdisciplinary artist, activist, and educator. She has focused her career on social justice issues. A special interest of Allison Cornyn’s has been the criminal justice system treatment of “wayward” teenage girls. She has focused her career on social justice issues and teaches in New York at the School of Visual Art’s Design for Social Innovation Program.
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Human Rights, Human Trafficking, Political Prisoner, Truth to Power
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Speaking In Turkish: Denying the Armenian Genocide
Around the world, April 24 marks the observance of the Armenian Genocide. On that day in 1915 the Interior Minister of the Ottoman Empire ordered the arrest and hangings of Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople. It was the beginning of a systematic and well-documented plan to eliminate the Armenians, who were Christian, and who had been under Ottoman rule and treated as second class citizens since the 15th century.
The unspeakable and gruesome nature of the killings—beheadings of groups of babies, dismemberments, mass burnings, mass drownings, use of toxic gas, lethal injections of morphine or injections with the blood of typhoid fever patients—render oral histories particularly difficult for survivors of the victims.
Why did this happen? Despite being deemed inferior to Turkish Muslims, the Armenian community had attained a prestigious position in the Ottoman Empire and the central authorities there grew apprehensive of their power and longing for a homeland. The concerted plan of deportation and extermination was effected, in large part, because World War I demanded the involvement and concern of potential allied countries. As the writer Grigoris Balakian wrote, the war provided the Turkish government “their sole opportunity, one unprecedented” to exploit the chaos of war in order to carry out their extermination plan.
As Armenians escaped to several countries, including the United States, a number came to New Britain, Connecticut in 1892 to work in the factories of what was then known as the hardware capital of the world. By 1940 nearly 3,000 Armenians lived there in a tight-knit community.
Pope Frances calls it a duty not to forget “the senseless slaughter” of an estimated one and a half million Armenians by the Ottoman Turks from 1915 to 1923. “Concealing or denying evil is like allowing a wound to keep bleeding without bandaging it,” the Pope said just two weeks before the 100th anniversary of the systematic implementation of a plan to exterminate the Armenian race.
Special thanks to Jennie Garabedian, Arthur Sheverdian, Ruth Swisher, Harry Mazadoorian, and Roxie Maljanian. Produced and written by Heidi Boghosian and Geoff Brady.
Civil Liberties, Human Rights, Human Trafficking
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Prejudential: Black America and the Presidents
America was settled and set up as a slave owning country. When it broke free of England it was finally able to expand westward, across the Appalachian mountains, committing genocide against the native Indian population. This is the sordid and hidden root history that truth telling historians have revealed to us.
In her new book Prejudential: Black America and the Presidents, author Margaret Kimberley explores America’s relationship with race through the lens of the presidents who have been chosen to represent all the people.
Ten of the 12 initial presidents of the USA were slave owners. Andrew Jackson, whose picture graces our twenty dollar bill, was an Indian killer. Lincoln was never an abolitionist. He wanted America for white people only and had a plan to send the formerly enslaved out of the country. One such plan briefly came to fruition in Haiti.
What about Presidents Roosevelt, Johnson, Clinton and Obama? Were they more sympathetic to the interest of black Americans?
Guest – Margaret Kimberley, a New York-based writer and activist. She has been an editor and senior columnist for Black Agenda Report since it’s inception in 2006. She is a contributor to the anthology In Defense of Julian Assange.
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Unchained At Last: Unarrange A Marriage; Rearrange A Life
Worldwide, increasing numbers of women and men are putting off marriage until they are older. Many are forgoing it altogether. In Denmark, for example, among women in their late 30s or early 40s, 29 percent are unmarried. That’s true for 18 percent in Italy, 22 percent in Lebanon; and 32 percent in Libya.
That’s why the following statistic is so shocking: Each year, before they reach the age of 18, 12 million girls will marry. It happens in every country, and cuts across religions, ethnic, and cultural divides. Over 650 million women alive today were married as girls.
Child marriage is a human rights violation. It places girls’ well-being and personal development at risk. Child brides are often isolated and feel disempowered. They are deprived of their fundamental rights to health, education and safety. Children aren’t physically or emotionally ready to become wives and mothers.
They have heightened health risks, from life-threatening complications in pregnancy and childbirth, to being victims of domestic violence or of contracting HIV/AIDS. They have limited access to education and economic opportunities, and a higher chance of living in poverty.
Guest – Fraidy Reiss, the founder and executive director of Unchained at Last. The nonprofit helps girls and women plan escapes from forced marriages and then rebuild their lives.
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Civil Liberties, Human Rights, Human Trafficking, Political Prisoner
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Labor Party’s Jeremy Corbyn For British Prime Minister: Analysis
Next month and December 12 Great Britain will hold national elections. Jeremy Corbyn, a social Democrat similar in some respects to Bernie Sanders heads the British Labor Party. He has said “I will be a very different kind of Prime Minister, not the kind of Prime Minister who believes he was born to rule.“
Working people in Great Britain are struggling like they are in the United States. The Labor Party has addressed what to do about their situation. It has grown qualitatively in recent years and has a chance of winning the election. What the Labor Party stand for and what has their leader Jeremy Corbyn done to prepare for taking power is what will be discussed.
Guest – Colin Robinson, longtime member of the Labor Party. Originally from Liverpool, he was educated in London where he was an active socialist. He moved to New York 30 years ago to work as a publisher. He splits his time between New York City and London. Robinson has written for The Guardian newspaper and the London review of books. He is the co-owner of OR Books with offices in New York City, London, and Calcutta.
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Harriet Tubman And The History Of Women Slavery
In the recently-released film “Harriet,” an active and young gun-toting Harriet Tubman jumps off bridges and faces down slaver owners. Directed by Kasi Lemmons, who calls Tubman a “completely bad ass woman,” the new film shows sides of the legendary Tubman that contrast with how she is remembered. This is the first feature film focusing on the legendary Underground Railroad leader.
The filmmakers made an effort to ensure accuracy given that many myths about Tubman have circulated over the years. The first biography about her, “Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman,” by Sarah Hopkins Bradford included many inaccuracies such as the number and nature of her rescues. That set the stage for inaccurate accounts to come.
One myth was that there was a $40,000 bounty on her head, an extremely high figure amount. As well, the number of enslaved persons she rescued through the Underground Railroad was more likely around 70 in contrast to the 300 reported in the Bradford biography.
Guest – Professor Jessica Millward, Associate Professor in the Department of History at UC Irvine. Her research focuses on slavery in early America, African American history as well as women and gender. Her first book, Finding Charity’s Folk: Enslaved and Free Black Women In Maryland was published in 2015 by the University of Georgia Press.
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