CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Political Prisoner, Prison Industry, Surveillance, Torture, Truth to Power, War Resister
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The Sickness is the System: When Capitalism Fails To Save Us From Pandemics or Itself
COVID-19 did not cause the current economic devastation to billions of people around the world. It triggered the crisis. It illuminated the inherent instability in the capitalist system itself. Capitalism exacerbates unemployment, inequality, racism, and patriarchy and threatens the health and safety of workers and our communities.
We are in the worst economic crisis since the great depression of 90 years ago. Half of the American population is poor or near poor. Twenty million people are unemployed. It is estimated that 400,000 Americans will die from COVID-19 by the end of the year. Most of these people will be Black, Latino, the poor and the elderly.
The large corporations have bought out both the Republican and Democratic parties. Neither one of these parties has put forward an effective plan on what to do to get us out of this catastrophic situation.
Guest – Professor Richard Wolff, author of The Sickness is the System: When Capitalism Fails To Save Us From Pandemics or Itself. Richard D. Wolff is Professor of Economics Emeritus, University of Massachusetts, Amherst where he taught economics from 1973 to 2008. He is currently a Visiting Professor in the Graduate Program of International Affairs of the New School University, New York City. His previous books are Understanding Socialism and Understanding Marxism.
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Julian Assange Extradition Case Update
The decline of democracy and the rule of law, already advanced under Obama , has accelerated under Trump. By his own admission it is widely known that President Trump will not consent to leaving office if he loses the election. What is not so widely known is the case that he caused to be prosecuted against journalist and whistleblower Julian Assange.
Assange is being railroaded in the Old Bailey courthouse in London in an effort by US government, in collaboration with its British ally, to extradite Assange and send him to the federal court in the Eastern District of Virginia to be tried under the 1917 Espionage Act.
Assange told the truth about American war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan back in 2010. He is 49 years old and in terrible mental and physical health. If he loses and is sent to the Eastern District of Virginia for trial and successfully prosecuted, which is a given, it will be the death of free journalism and a blow to the first amendment which is a keystone of our democracy because it involves the right to learn.
Assange Defense
@defenseassange – Nathan Fuller twitter
Defend.wikileaks.org
Guest – Attorney Nathan Fuller who has been attending Julian Assange’s extradition hearing in London. He leads the London-based Courage Foundation and the director of the newly formed Committee to Defend Julian Assange and Civil Liberties.
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CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Human Rights, Political Prisoner, Prison Industry, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Torture, Truth to Power
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Attorney Marjorie Cohn: Trump, Assange, Democracy And Rule of Law
Without democracy and the rule of law there can be no significant social change. However, much democracy was constricted by race and class before the attacks on September 11, 2001 and before Trump, democracy and the rule of law are now facing lethal attacks on many fronts.
Trump has successfully put 198 young, reactionary, and some ignorant judges on the federal bench. He has illegally called out troops to violently disperse peaceful protesters in the park in front of the White House. Trump has threatened the personnel of the International Criminal Court who are attempting to investigate US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. These include the crime of torture. These crimes, perpetrated under the Bush administration, went unprosecuted by President Obama who infamously said “we must look forward not backward.”
Trump’s Justice Department is pursuing and attempting to extradite truth telling whistle blowing journalist Julian Assange who 10 years ago released the “collateral murder” video showing the commission of American war crimes in Iraq, among other embarrassing information. Assange is confined in London’s Belmarsh prison. He is sick, in solitary, and has been psychologically tortured. He faces 175 years in prison in the United States if convicted under the old Espionage Act for activities protected by the first amendment.
Guest – Attorney Marjorie Cohn, professor emerita at the Thomas Jefferson School of Law where she taught for 25 years. She is a former president of the National Lawyers Guild, a criminal defense attorney, a legal scholar, and a political analyst. She writes books and articles and lectures throughout the world about human rights, US foreign policy, and the contradiction between the two. She has testified before Congress and debated at the prestigious Oxford Union.
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CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Human Rights, Prison Industry, Surveillance, Torture
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Cobalt Mining Case Update
Tech titans Apple, Google, Microsoft, Tesla and Dell aided and abetted in the death and serious injury of child laborers working in African cobalt mines. That’s the claim put forth in a class action lawsuit filed in Washington, D.C. by International Rights Advocates.
Cobalt is used in the lithium-ion batteries that run smartphones, laptop computers, and electric cars. For the past several years, production has increased three-fold. The Democratic Republic of Congo produces over 60% of the world’s cobalt. It’s a nation that has been torn apart by civil war and is one of the poorest countries on the planet. Young children there are forced to work full time in highly dangerous mining jobs for less than $1 a day, often because their parents were killed or incapacitated by cobalt mining. These minors are regularly maimed and killed by tunnel collapses and other known hazards common to cobalt mining.
Guest – Attorney Terry Collingsworth, on behalf of Burmese victims of forced labor, Terry initiated the landmark case under the Alien Tort Statute, seeking to hold Unocal liable for human rights violations occurring during the construction of its gas pipeline in Burma. He filed similar cases against Coca-Cola, for allowing the murder and torture of trade union leaders at its bottling plants in Colombia; Exxon Mobil, for human rights violations of its military security forces in Indonesia; Drummond Company, for collaborating with paramilitary groups in Colombia which murdered of hundreds of innocent civilians living in the areas around Drummond’s operations and executing Drummond’s union leaders; and Del Monte, for using paramilitary thugs to torture leaders of the banana workers union in Guatemala. Terry was also instrumental in establishing the RUGMARK program, a unique system of certifying that hand-knotted carpets are not made with child labor that also sponsors education programs for former child workers.
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American Spring: Unfolding Crisis
The Chinese word for crisis consists of two characters. One means danger, the other means opportunity. We currently are in an historically unprecedented situation fraught with both danger and possibilities. Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin once remarked that sometimes nothing happens in decades and other times decades happen in a few weeks. This is our situation now. We see an American spring unfolding.
The public lynching of George Floyd has triggered massive outpourings in several thousands of American cities, both large and small. Black Lives Matter is supported by a majority of Americans including a majority of whites. This kind of broad solidarity was absent during the time of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
The demonstrations are in large part led by people of color, mostly young people. Elected officials and traditional civil rights leaders are not leading the current uprising. As the L.A. Progressive has written, “The gross underlying inequality, racially and more broadly economically, affects every aspect of life in the US. and is the root cause of the volcanic anger irruption against the veneer of obsolete institutions.“
Guest – Glen Ford, editor of the Black Agenda Report. Ford founded the Black Agenda Report and has edited it since 2006. He was a founding member of the Washington chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists and he has delivered presentations at many colleges and universities.
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CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Human Rights, Prison Industry, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Torture, Truth to Power
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Basic Legal Rights For Animals: Activists and Advocates
Discussions over whether animals are sentient beings, capable of feeling pain, pleasure or suffering, date back as far as ancient thinkers such as Plutarch, Hippocrates and Pythagoras. They all advocated for the fair treatment of animals. The term animal rights stands for the proposition that non-human animals have the right to be treated, not as property, but rather as the individuals they are, with their own desires and needs.
Animal law is now widely taught in law schools across North America. There are 167 law schools in the U.S. and Canada, and 11 in Australia and New Zealand, teaching courses in animal law. Several legal scholars support extending basic legal rights and to personhood to non-human animals.
Critics of animal rights argue that nonhuman animals are unable to enter into a social contract, and thus cannot have rights. Another argument is that animals may be used as resources as long as they don’t undergo unnecessary suffering.
Certain forms of animal rights activism, such as the destruction of fur farms and animal labs by the ALF or Animal Liberation Front, have also attracted criticism, and prompted Congressional reaction by enacting of harsh laws allowing these activities to be prosecuted as terrorism. These laws include the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act.
Guest – Attorney Tamara Bedic, chairperson of the National Lawyers Guild Animal Rights Project. She is a graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law and a masters degree from Columbia University-NY University. Tamara practices employment law with a focus on women and harassment in the workplace.
Guest – Phillip Murphy, Philip Murphy is a writer and social justice activist based in the Greater New York City area. He is a co-founder of the Buddhist Action Coalition NYC, a pan-Buddhist social justice organization, and is also a co-founder of the New York chapter of UK-based Animal Rebellion, a global climate and animal justice movement. His recent article, Why Animal Justice is Crucial in Addressing the Climate Emergency was published at the independent global media platform openDemocracy.net. SHAC 7 Documentary
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CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Human Rights, Impeachment, Prison Industry, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Torture, Truth to Power, War Resister
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Impeachment Inquiry With Constitutional Law Professor Marjorie Cohn
Nearly 300 former U.S. national security and foreign policy officials signed an open letter on October 6, calling for an impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump’s dealings with Ukraine.
The signatures were gathered by National Security Action, an organization that former Obama administration officials formed out of concern for Trump’s “reckless leadership.” The list includes many others who served as career officials in Republican and Democratic administrations.
The former national security professionals said they had largely avoided politics during their public service, but said allegations revealed in the recent whistleblower complaints warranted an additional investigation.
“The revelations of recent days, however, demand a response,” the statement says. “President Trump appears to have leveraged the authority and resources of the highest office in the land to invite additional foreign interference into our democratic processes.”
Guest – Attorney Marjorie Cohn, professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law where she taught for 25 years. The former president of the National Lawyers Guild and criminal defense attorney is a legal scholar and political analyst who writes books and articles, and lectures throughout the world about human rights, US foreign policy, and the contradiction between the two. She has testified before Congress and debated the legality of the war in Afghanistan at the prestigious Oxford Union. MarjorieCohn
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Trump Impeachment Inquiry
Like President Richard Nixon before him President Donald Trump made the mistake of using his power as president to go after the wrong target.
Nixon had his people burglarize the Democratic Party’s headquarters in the Watergate complex in Washington DC. President Trump himself used his power to try to get the president of the Ukraine to investigate his, Trump’s, main Democratic Party rival, Joe Biden.
This transgression, not Trump’s caging of children, violating the separation of powers, or violating the emoluments clause of the Constitution, was viewed by the mainstream of the Democratic Party and their leader Nancy Pelosi as a “high crime and misdemeanor” violative of the constitution and worthy of an impeachment inquiry. Joe Biden is the preferred candidate of the Democratic establishment.
By impeaching Trump they want to preempt any possible attack on Biden, or on themselves, that could emerge from the Ukraine. It is to be remembered that the Obama Biden Clinton administration orchestrated and overthrew the democratically elected government of Ukraine in 2014, replacing it with the current government, which, for the first time since World War II has actual fascists in the Ukrainian government.
The impeachment process as it gains momentum could spread to other figures in the Trump administration. Trump’s personal attorney Rudolph Giuliani seems likely to get indicted for violating election finance laws.
The impeachment inquiry could also expose the reality of the democratic party itself which under Obama, Biden, and Hillary Clinton organized the overthrow in 2014 of the democratically elected government of Ukraine and opened the door to American investment in the country, especially in natural gas. Hunter Biden, Joe’s son, as is now widely known, got a seat on the board of Berksems, the largest natural gas company in the Ukraine. This evident sinecure netted him $50,000 a month for a period of several years.
Guest – Ron Jacobs, author of Daydream Sunset: Sixties Counterculture in the Seventies published by CounterPunch Books. His latest offering is a pamphlet titled Capitalism: Is the Problem.
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CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Crony Capitalism, Human Rights, Surveillance, Torture, Truth to Power
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Amazon Ring Of Surveillance
When it comes to e-commerce, the multinational tech company Amazon.com has laid claim to a huge corner on the market. Now, it’s venturing into the business of surveillance.
Amazon is aggressively pursuing law enforcement partnerships. More than 400 police departments across the nation have already joined forces with the tech giant’s so-called smart doorbell program, called Ring. Part of Amazon’s outreach strategy in gaining new police partners is to play on fears of increasing property crime.
Ring doesn’t just show you who is at your door. It films and records any interaction or movement at owners’ doors, then alerts users’ phones. With partnerships between mega corporations and law enforcement to use new surveillance systems in the public–leaving out community input–come a host of civil liberties concerns, including racial profiling.
Guest – Matthew Guariglia of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Matthew is a policy analyst working on issues of surveillance and privacy at the local, state, and federal level. He is a frequent contributor to the Freedom of Information-centered outlet Muckrock and his bylines have appeared in the Washington Post and Motherboard.
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North of Havana: The Untold Story of Dirty Politics, Secret Diplomacy, and the Trial of the Cuban Five
North of Havana: The Untold Story of Dirty Politics, Secret Diplomacy, and the Trial of the Cuban Five is the recent publication by our guest attorney Martin Garbus.
This case was one of the most significant ones in recent times. Attorney Len Weinglass had originally taken the case to appeal the matter for already convicted Cuban Five. The appeal was ultimately lost. Weinglass died and his dear friend our guest Martin Garbus stepped in to what looked like a lost cause. Four of the five men were in prison serving long sentences.
Cuba had been an American colony up until 1959 when the widely popular Cuban revolution succeeded in gaining the country’s independence from the USA.
To reverse this has been American policy ever since. The Helms-Burton Act was a counter- revolution as an American government policy written into American law.
Martin Garbus started representing Cuban Five member Gerardo Hernandez who at the time had then been found guilty of conspiracy to commit espionage against United States sometime in the future as well as murder.
Hernandez and his four comrades had been sent from Cuba to Miami by the government of Cuba to spy, not on the United States, but on the counter-revolutionary Cubans in Miami who were launching terrorist activities from Florida directed at persons and property in Cuba, attempting to sabotage the Cuban tourist economy which was in bad shape when a new Russian government cut them off.
The Cubans gathered information on the Miami-based terrorists, compiling a lengthy dossier on their murders activities, and turned it over to the FBI. They asked the US government to stop the terrorists, who were targeting the Cuban tourist industry by planting bombs at the Havana Airport, on buses, and in a hotel, killing an Italian vacationer. But instead of stopping the terrorists the US government used the dossier to figure out the identities of the Cuban five. They were arrested, prosecuted, convicted, and sentenced long prison terms.
While the Cubans were in Miami, a group of counter-revolutionary Cubans calling themselves “Brothers to the Rescue” were provocatively flying small planes over Havana dropping anti-Castro leaflets. They were warned by the Cuban government that if they persisted the planes will be shot down. They persisted. The planes were shot down. Hernandez was convicted of murder although he had no prior knowledge about the shoot down.
Guest – Martin Garbus is one of our great trial lawyers. He has appeared before the United States Supreme Court on leading First Amendment and constitutional law cases.
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