Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Human Rights, Targeting Muslims, U.S. Militarism, Violations of U.S. and International Law, War Resister
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War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of its Military Machine
From Afghanistan to Iraq and Syria and on to little known deployments in a range of countries worldwide, the United States has been at perpetual war for at least the past two decades. Yet many of these foreign wars remain off the radar of average Americans.
We speak today with author and political analyst Norman Solomon about his new book War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of its Military Machine.
Solomon writes that since the attacks on 9/11, more than 20 years ago, first in the war in Afghanistan, and then Iraq, a hugely consequential shift in (United States) American foreign-policy was set in motion: a perpetual state of war that is almost entirely invisible to the public. Solomon exposes how this happened and what the consequences are, for military and civilian casualties, and the draining of resources at home.
Compliant journalist add to the smokescreen by providing narrow coverage of military engagements, and by repeating the military’s talking points. Meanwhile, the increased use of high technology, air power, and remote drones has put distance between soldiers and the civilians killed in action. Back home, Solomon shows, the cloak of invisibility masks massive Pentagon budgets and receive bi-partisan support even as housing, medical care, education, and infrastructure goes abegging.
Guest – Norman Solomon is cofounder of RootsAction.org executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. He’s written many books, but “ War Made Invisible“, is his first one in 15 years. Solomon founded the Institute for Public Accuracy in 1997 and is its executive director. Immersed in anti-war, social justice and environmental movements since the late 1960s, he is the author of a dozen books including “War Made Easy” and “Made Love, Got War.”
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Israel Attacks West Bank City of Jenin
On fourth of July, as we in the US heard fireworks, people in the Palestinian city of Jenin heard real gunfire and fled from real explosions. On July 3, a thousand Israeli Defense Force soldiers descended on the city, with helicopters, drones and bulldozers, to execute a two day bombardment that leveled the city, reduced its buildings to rubble, damaged hospitals, knocked out utilities, and left at least 13 people dead: 12 Palestinians and 1 Israeli soldier. At least 100 were wounded, and now thousands – about 80% of those living in the camp – are without shelter, water or electricity.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres immediately condemned Israel for using excessive force and harming civilians. He’s refused to retract his statement even under enormous pressure from Israel’s UN Ambassador, who called Mr. Guterres’ criticism, “shameful, far-fetched and completely detached from reality.”
A handful of Arab countries and a European Union envoy have also criticized Israel. But others… like the US? Well…. its silence speaks volumes.
Guest – Sandra Tamari is a Palestinian organizer and the Executive Director of Adalah Justice Project, a Palestinian advocacy organization that builds toward collective liberation through labor, cultural, and legislative campaigns. She holds a Master’s degree in Arab Studies from Georgetown University. In May 2012, she was jailed and denied entry into Palestine by Israel because of her work to encourage U.S. churches to divest from the occupation.
Hosted by attorneys Michael Smith and Maria Hall
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Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Human Rights, U.S. Militarism, Violations of U.S. and International Law, War Resister
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Peace Plan? Biden Administration Continues Full Support Of Escalation In Ukraine War
Sixteen months ago, Russia launched an illegal invasion of Ukraine, albeit in the context of a history of threats to its security by NATO countries. It is estimated that as of February, Russia has suffered 189,500 to 223,000 casualties and Ukraine has suffered 124,500 to 131,000 casualties.
Meanwhile, the United States and its allies continue to provide Ukraine with all the weapons it requests and impose increasingly harsh sanctions on Russia. But there appears to be little appetite in the U.S. for a ceasefire and negotiations to end the bloodshed.
Guest – Phyllis Bennis is a fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies, where she is the director of the New Internationalism Project and works on anti-war, US foreign policy and Palestinian rights issues. She has worked as an informal adviser to several key UN officials on Palestinian issues. Her books including Calling the Shots: How Washington Dominates Today’s UN, and Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict.
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Peace In Ukraine: Peace Groups Convene In Vienna Austria To End Ukraine War
For the first time since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, peace groups from around the world convened — on June 10 and 11 in Vienna, Austria. Their mission was to discuss creative solutions and to promote negotiations to the Russia-Ukraine war. Groups included the International Peace Bureau, CODEPINK, Europe for Peace, International Fellowship of Reconciliation, Peace in Ukraine Coalition, Campaign for Peace Disarmament and Common Security, and several Austrian peace groups. Conference attendees grappled with controversial issues related to Russia’s aggressive invasion of Ukraine.
Representatives discussed the devastating consequences of this war on their countries. The conference concluded with an urgent global appeal, the “Vienna Declaration for Peace,” calling on all sides to work toward a ceasefire and negotiations. Retired U.S. Army Colonel Ann Wright noted, “For those of us in the U.S., it is important to remind our elected leaders that we want peace in our world, not war, and for them to get moving on peace talks.” The former U.S. diplomat added, “The U.S. is a belligerent in this war, just like Russia and Ukraine, and our taxes are funding the deaths of Ukrainians and Russians.”
Guest – Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the international antiwar organization CODEPINK. She is the author of several books, including, with Nicholas J.S. Davies, War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict. She has been an advocate for social justice for more than 40 years. Described as “one of America’s most committed — and most effective — fighters for human rights” by New York Newsday, and “one of the high profile leaders of the peace movement” by the Los Angeles Times, she was one of 1,000 exemplary women from 140 countries nominated to receive the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the millions of women who do the essential work of peace worldwide.
Hosted by Attorneys Heidi Boghosian and Marjorie Cohn
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Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Human Rights, U.S. Militarism, Violations of U.S. and International Law, War Resister
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American Crusade: How the Supreme Court is Weaponizing Religious Freedom
America was not founded as a Christian nation. Church and state were separated. The founding fathers were mostly deists, not Christians. They did not believe in a personal all powerful God that knew everything and intervened in human affairs
They separated church and state because they understood from European history that bad and bloody results resulted when the government acted in the name of God.
All this is changing in America now under the thumb of a right wing activist politicized majority on our Supreme Court. They were put there by an extremely well funded well organized conglomeration of ultra right wing figures and organizations. They have an agenda and they are carrying it out.
The newest Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett had a message for new lawyers. She said being a lawyer “is but it means to an end. … and the end is building the kingdom of God.“ This ascendant ultra-right wing can best be described as white Christian nationalists. These white Christian nationalists have won significant victories and are on roll. Taking away a woman’s right to control their own bodies in the recent overturn of Roe versus Wade is just the latest example. They have stacked the federal courts and particularly the Supreme Court where they have a 6 to 3 majority.
Guest – Andrew Seidel, author of American Crusade: How the Supreme Court is Weaponizing Religious Freedom. He is a constitutional attorney with more than a decade of experience arguing about religion and law as a vice president at Americans United for Separation of Church and State and a director at the Freedom From Religion Foundation He is the author of “The Founding Myth” the definitive book which demonstrates that America’s not founded by Christians as a Christian country.
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John Pilger: The Coming War With China
Is China a threat to (the United States)? Is the fear being stirred up about China legitimate? We speak with 83-year-old renowned journalist, author, and documentary filmmaker John Pilger from his home in Australia about his most recent article The Coming War With China.
China has the second largest economy in the world. It will soon be the first. In response to China’s commercial threat the United States of America has responded militarily by surrounding the Chinese industrial heartland with 400 bases in what has been called “a noose“. The USA has some 1100 bases around the world, China has six.
President Obama initiated a multi trillion dollar vast nuclear buildup. This was coordinated with what he termed “a pivot towards Asia.” Most of the U.S. Navy now patrols the waters off of China. Tensions have been exacerbated with respect to who governs Taiwan.
The US Government has shored up it’s military alliances with the surrounding countries around China of South Korea, Japan the Philippines, and Australia, The USA is selling billions of dollars worth of nuclear submarines to Australia.
We live in a country whose government has been in a perpetual war the last 3/4 of a century, except with a brief interlude after its 20 year old war Vietnam ended in defeat. 3 million Vietnamese died in the American war.
Guest – John Pilger covered that war as a young reporter and understood that it was based on the lie that Lyndon Johnson told falsely stating that the North Vietnamese had attacked an American ship in the Gulf of Tonkin. Another 1 million people died in the Iraq war That war was based on the now well known lie that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction that he was going to use against us and that he was responsible for 911. A similar campaign of fear mongering is going on now about China. The major news media parrot the government’s fact free line that China is our enemy. In his article “The Coming War With China” John Pilger wrote “a US war against China beckons and we have a responsibility to speak out. We know what is coming. Silence must be broken.”
Hosted by attorneys Michael Smith and Maria Hall
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Academic Freedom, Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Political Prisoner, Prison Industry, Violations of U.S. and International Law, Whistleblowers
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Guilty of Journalism
The pending criminal case against journalist Julian Assange is the most significant far reaching First Amendment matter in our lifetime. It will have, in fact it already has had, an impact on publishing and journalism. This is so because it constricts our freedom to know as well as journalists and publishers freedom to publish.
Our government functions as the executive committee of the ruling rich. It intends to keep it this way, in the words of the great civil rights attorney William Kunstler, “by any means necessary and for as long as possible.”
If as is likely the imprisoned journalist Julian Assange is extradited at America’s request from his solitary prison cell in London’s Belmarsh prison where he has been kept for four years and sent to Virginia to be tried for espionage he will be certainly be convicted and sentenced to life in prison.
His victimization is being accomplished under the 1917 Espionage Act, a law originally put into place during World War I to imprison spies. It is now used to get truth tellers like Julian Assange silenced.
Julian Assange Fact Sheet: Why Julian Must Be Freed
Guest – Kevin Gosztola who more than anyone has covered the whistleblower situation since he attended the court martial trial of Sergeant Chelsea Manning. Manning was convicted of giving government secrets to Julian Assange. Kevin Gosztola‘s book “Guilty of Journalism “was published by Seven Stories Press and Censored Press last month.
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Attorney Stephen Rohde: A Set Of Ideas Under Threat
American history has been marked by ongoing conflicts between those who are seeking an open, equal and inclusive society and those who cling to the racist origins of the United States and seek to literally whitewash that history and perpetuate white privilege.
We find ourselves in the midst of one of those conflicts today. The right of Black people to learn their own history is being denied them. The same is true of anyone who is not heterosexual.
The teaching of critical race theory is increasingly disallowed. The study of human sexuality in schools is being obliterated. Books are being banned in record numbers, and curricula is being rewritten to conform to a sanitized version of American history. Seven states, including Florida, Tennessee, Oklahoma and Utah, have already passed laws limiting materials in libraries…and at least 113 bills are pending across the country that would negatively impact libraries or curtail peoples’ freedom to read.
As Jonathan Friedman, the Director of free expression and education at PEN America, a free speech organization said, “People need to understand that it’s not a single book being removed in a single school district, it’s a set of ideas that are under threat just about everywhere.”
Guest – Stephen Rohde is a noted constitutional scholar and activist. He is the past Chair of the ACLU Foundation of Southern California; the founder and current Chair of Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace; the author of American Words of Freedom, and of Freedom of Assembly. Steve Rohde is a regular contributor to TruthDig as well as the Los Angeles Review of Books.
Hosted by attorneys Michael Smith and Jim Lafferty
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Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Human Rights, NSA Spying, Surveillance, Violations of U.S. and International Law, Whistleblowers
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Biden Hypocritically Slams Arrest of US Journalist in Russia But Pursues Assange
May 3rd marks the 30th anniversary of World Press Freedom Day, established by the UN to remind governments about the necessity to respect their commitment to freedom of the press.
The Biden administration touts press freedom but continues the Trump administration’s efforts to extradite Julian Assange from the UK to the United States for trial on Espionage Act charges that could lead to 175 years in prison. Assange is being prosecuted for obtaining and publishing classified military and diplomatic documents evidencing US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. He is the first publisher to be charged under the Espionage Act for revealing state secrets.
The Biden administration hypocritically criticizes Russia for arresting Evan Gershkovich, a US journalist, for espionage while trying to extradite and try Assange, who is an Australian citizen. Both men are journalists detained in a foreign country on espionage charges for doing what journalists do.
Julian Assange Fact Sheet: Why Julian Must Be Freed
Guest – Marjorie Cohn is a member of the national advisory board of Assange Defense. She is professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and former president of the National Lawyers Guild. Her new article about Assange and Gershkovich was just published by Truthout.
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Citizen Spies: The Long Rise of America’s Surveillance Society
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s program “If You See Something, Say Something,” launched in 2010, urges citizens to be aware of and to report, potential threats. Examples of suspicious activity include unattended packages or baggage; circumstances that appear out of the ordinary, like an open door that is usually closed; a person asking for detailed information about a building’s layout or purpose, and changes in security protocol or shifts. Also of concern is any person seen loitering around a building, writing notes, sketches, and taking photographs or measurements.
The DHS website is careful to note that, “Factors such as race, ethnicity, and/or religious affiliation are not suspicious.” Yet as listeners know, incidents of ethnic profiling are many, including one in which a Southwest Airlines passenger was taken off a flight for speaking Arabic.
The history of citizen spying and reporting on others is not new in this country. And the “See Something” campaign isn’t the only civilian spying program around. Many jurisdictions have Neighborhood Watch programs. The U.S. Department of Justice’s National Neighborhood Watch initiative enlists community members to assist crime prevention and to prepare neighborhoods for disasters and emergency response.
Guest – Joshua Reeves author of Citizen Spies, The Long Rise of America’s Surveillance Society . He is associate professor of New Media Communications and Speech Communication at Oregon State University, where he’s also a fellow in their Center for the Humanities. An associate editor of the journal Surveillance and Society, he’s also written the just-released book, Killer Apps: War, Media, Machine.
Hosted by attorneys Heidi Boghosian, Marjorie Cohn and Julie Hurwitz
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Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Human Rights, Truth to Power, Violations of U.S. and International Law
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UN Report Sounds Alarm On Climate Change
A new flagship United Nations report on climate change shows that harmful carbon emissions have never been higher in human history. And that this is proof that the world is on a fast track to disaster, with scientists arguing that it’s now or never to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees. Indeed, the report’s scientists claim that at the dismal rate matters to address climate change are now going, the world has but ten years—ten years–until catastrophic climate change is irreversible.
Or as the UN’s General Secretary Gutierrez puts it, the planet is now “nearing the point of no return.” In a Washington Post op-ed article, Gutierrez described the latest IPCC report as a “litany of broken promises,” which revealed a “yawning gap between climate pledges, and reality.” Indeed, the reality is that despite ever-increasing awareness of the consequences of climate change and the central role humans play–given our continuing use of fossil fuels, in bringing the change about–the amount of greenhouse gas emissions released into the atmosphere every year continue to rise every year and are each year greater than the prior year. For as Gutierrez wrote, corporations and high-emitting governments have not just turned a blind eye to the problem, “they are adding fuel to the flames by continuing to invest in climate-choking industries.”
Already millions of the world’s people have been displaced by climate change, and the world now experiences a greater and greater increase in severe storms, unprecedented heat waves, widespread water shortages, and the extinction of millions of species of plants and animals.
Guest – Eleanor Stein, professor of law at Albany Law School, where she teaches Transnational Environmental Law is the author of Ecological Sensitivity and Global Warming: An International Human Rights Violation? For ten years Eleanor Stein served as an Administrative Law Judge at the New York State Public Service Commission in Albany, New York, where she presided over and mediated New York’s Renewable Portfolio Standard proceeding, a collaboration and litigation of over 150 parties, authoring in June 2004 a comprehensive decision recommending a landmark state environmental initiative to combat global warming with incentives for renewable resource-fueled power generation.
NY Times ON CLIMATE newsletter with Somini Sengupta, climate writings in NYT by David Wallace-Wells; NOT TOO LATE by Solnit and Lutunatabua; FALTER by Bill McKibben and all his current writings (and his breakthrough 1989 book on climate, The End of Nature and its sequel, EAARTH); Elizabeth Kolbert in The New Yorker; Websites of WEACT (We Act for Environmental Justice), www.weact.org; UPROSE (United Puerto Ricans of Sunset Park), www.UPROSE.org, NYC-EJA, NYC Environmental Justice Alliance, www.nyceja.org.
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CCR Lawsuit: Louisiana’s Cancer Alley
The call it “cancer alley.” It is the 135 mile long strip along both sides the Mississippi river between Baton Rouge, Louisiana south down to New Orleans
In an environmental racism case, three Louisiana organizations sued on March 21 in Federal District court in New Orleans against the Parish Council of St. Jame’s Parish. A Parish is a county in New Orleans and the Parish Council is their government.
The predominantly white Parish Council granted a permit for a company to build $9 billion petrochemical plant to make plastics. The plant is expected to spew 6000 tons a year of cancer-causing chemicals into the atmosphere.
The lawsuit seeks to protect Black neighborhoods and is asking for a moratorium on the building of more hazardous petrochemical plants where people live and breathe and where Black people are getting sick and dying in disproportionate numbers.
Guest – Attorney Astha Sharma Pokharel of the Center or Constitutional Right where she specializes in international human rights law and in challenging racial and environmental injustice. In the “cancer rally“ lawsuit she represents the Mount Trump Baptist Church and inclusive Louisiana. A project at the Tulane law school represents RISE St. James. These are the three Black neighborhood organizations that are plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
Hosted by attorneys Michael Smith and Jim Lafferty
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