Civil Liberties, Human Rights, Right To Dissent, U.S. Militarism, War Resister
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Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy
The United States of America was the first, and has since been the only, country to use nuclear weapons. In 1945, at the end of World War II, the US bombed Hiroshima and days later bombed Nagasaki, exterminating several hundred thousand people. The bomb was used twice to intimidate the Russians even as the United States knew that Japan wanted peace.
The United States has embarked on a one and a half trillion-dollar project to upgrade its nuclear arsenal. It has developed the capacity to fire these weapons so that they are delivered across oceans in a matter of minutes with all of the frightening implications. The prestigious Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has a “Doomsday Clock.” The minute hand on the clock has been steadily advancing and is now only 100 seconds to midnight.
Because of their devastating civilian killing capacity, the use of or threat to use these weapons is unlawful.
Unlike the Paris climate agreement, which set goals for the reduction of fossil fuels, there are no targets for the express reduction of nuclear weapons. Nor have countries’ efforts to reach such targets been assessed. We have no global process for the elimination of nuclear weapons.
Guest – Attorney John Burroughs, is the former Executive Director, now Senior Analyst, of the Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy. LCNP was founded in 1981 as an association of lawyers and legal scholars who engage in research and advocacy in support of the elimination of nuclear weapons. The Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy serves as the United Nations office of the International Association of Lawyers against Nuclear Arms. John has represented LCNP in Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review proceedings and in negotiations on the Treaty to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons.
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Ukraine Crisis and Parallels To The Cuban Missile Crisis
As tensions between Russia, Ukraine, the United States and other NATO countries escalate, the corporate media is portraying the conflict as aggression by Russia and US-NATO’s position as purely defensive. But even though the Biden administration is rattling its economic, political and military sabers at Russia, Ukrainian President Zelensky says a Russian invasion of Ukraine is not imminent and warns that “panic” by U.S. and other NATO leaders is causing economic destabilization in Ukraine. Meanwhile, the U.S. is sending massive amounts of weapons to Ukraine, boosting the profits of military contractors.
In 1990, as the Soviet Union was disbanding, then US Secretary of State James Baker assured the Soviets that NATO would not expand “one inch to the East.” Nevertheless, since the late 1990s, NATO has expanded to include many countries including some that border Russia, which Russia sees as a real threat. If Ukraine joins NATO, Russia considers that an “existential threat.”
Since the US-supported 2014 coup in Ukraine that led to the ouster of President Viktor Yanukovich, the US has delivered $2 billion in military aid to Ukraine.
Although Ukraine and Russian-backed separatists signed a 12-point ceasefire deal in 2014, known as the Minsk agreements, Ukraine has not implemented the constitutional changes required by the Minsk agreements. The unconditional US military assistance to Ukraine has encouraged the Ukrainian government to ignore the Minsk agreements and reassert sovereignty over Russian Crimea.
In October, Ukraine launched attacks in Donbass, Russia, and Russia responded with troop movements and military exercises. The US is framing Russia’s troop movements as a threat to invade Ukraine without provocation.
Professor H. Bruce Franklin, author of the 2018 book, Crash Course: From the Good War to the Forever War, has drawn parallels between today’s standoff at Ukraine’s border and the Cuban missile crisis, although the great power roles were reversed.
Guest – Bruce Franklin is a former Air Force navigator and intelligence officer, a progressive activist, and the John Cotton Dana Professor of English and American Studies, emeritus at Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey. He has authored or edited 19 books and has received lifetime achievement awards from the American Studies Association and other major academic organizations.
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CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Human Rights, U.S. Militarism, Violations of U.S. and International Law, War Resister
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Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America
Americans have very little understanding of their own history and the Right wants to make sure they never will. Laws are now being passed in a number of states forbidding educators from presenting an accurate portrayal of the racist past of the United States. Critical Race Theory, which is nothing more than a truthful accounting of U.S. history, is under attack.
The documentary, “Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America,” has just been released in New York City and Los Angeles and will soon be available at theaters around the country. It has been featured at several film festivals and won many awards.
This film is an important contribution to U.S. history. People will be enlightened about their roots. They will gain a deeper understanding of what was done to them and how they survived. “Who We Are” arms us with knowledge which is crucial for human progress because it informs and encourages struggle.
When people understand their own history, they are empowered. That is what accounts for the tremendous popularity of Howard Zinn‘s book, “A People’s History of United States.“ “Who We Are” interweaves lectures, personal anecdotes, interviews, and shocking revelations. Like the Zinn book, it is also empowering.
Guest – Attorney Jeffery Robinson, is the central figure, writer, and narrator of Who We Are. Jeffery Robinson was a criminal defense lawyer in Seattle for decades before becoming a Deputy Legal Director at the ACLU National Office in New York. In 2021, he left the ACLU, completed the documentary, and launched “The Who We Are Project” to widely disseminate the true history of African-Americans and anti-Black racism in the United States.
As Jeffery Robinson observes, his documentary was made with the goal which was underscored by George Orwell, that “Those who control the present control the past, those who control the past control the future.” We talk with Jeffery about the movie and his collaboration with directors Sarah Kunstler and Emily Kunstler. They previously made the widely-acclaimed documentary about their father, the great civil rights attorney William Kunstler. That film is called “William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe.”
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The Escalating Crisis in Ukraine Poses an Imminent Threat to World Peace
By way of introducing our discussion on the escalating crisis in Ukraine, and the imminent threat to world peace that it poses, I can think of no better way to do so than to read the short, opening two paragraphs of the January 2nd statement on the crisis issued by
The U.S. Peace Council. It reads, in part, as follows: “ For weeks, the US corporate media have been shrill in declaring that Russia, having positioned tens of thousands of Russian troops on the border, may be about to invade Ukraine. US State Department spokesmen have been threatening Russia with punishing economic sanctions if there is an invasion.” And a bit later it goes on to say: “The cold war with Russia, festering since 2014 and the US backed coup in Ukraine, may be potentially even more menacing than the new cold war with China. If the armed standoff between the Ukrainian military and the Russian supported separatist forces in eastern Ukraine, becomes—by miscalculation or design—a conventional war between Russia and NATO, it could escalate into nuclear war.”
This week the two sides have been meeting to see if a peaceful resolution can be found. But this Thursday morning, as our show is being recorded, both Russia and the US announced the talks were at an impasse. What is causing this impasse? What are Russia’s key demands and what are those of the United States. And what is the likelihood of war breaking out?
Well, I can think of no one any better to discuss this topic with than our guest today, who is one of the authors of the US Peace Council’s statement.
Guest – Joseph Jamison is a long-time peace activist and a member of the Executive Committee of the U.S. Peace Council. He is also the Coordinator of the Peace Council’s Move the Money to Human Needs Campaign, and very active in his local Move the Money Campaign in New York City.
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Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Human Rights, Iraq War, Truth to Power, Violations of U.S. and International Law, War Resister, Whistleblowers
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Recalling San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin
Chesa Boudin has been serving San Franciscans as their district attorney for nearly 2 years. He is a leading progressive in what has been called the progressive prosecutors’ movement. Other progressive district attorneys in that small cohort are George Gascon in Los Angeles and Larry Krasner in Philadelphia.
In Berger v. United States, the Supreme Court said that the duty of a prosecutor “in a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done.” Yet all too many prosecutors are more concerned with winning cases than doing justice, which includes the protection of constitutional rights.
Chesa campaigned by proposing solutions to the disaster of mass incarceration, the civil rights issue of our time. He introduced policies of diversion and no cash bail. He put fewer juveniles behind bars. He opposed the death penalty and focused his efforts on helping victims of crimes. Chesa Boudin said that the recall effort is about criminal justice reform, that it is “a question of whether we are going to go forward and continue to implement data driven policies that center on crime victims, that invest in communities impacted by crime, and that use empirical evidence to address root causes of crime in our communities or if we are going to go back to the failed policies of Reagan and Trump.”
Chesa’s efforts are now being challenged. A claimed 83,000 signatures were gathered in San Francisco by paid workers to put a recall Boudin question on the San Francisco county ballot in June. Even Donald Trump has injected himself into the campaign in what has become a national well-funded Republican putsch.
ChesaBoudin.org
Fear mongering is employed to create a false conception that crime in San Francisco is rising. Today, my co-host Marjorie Cohn, a former criminal defense attorney and law professor, and I talk with Chesa Boudin about his philosophy and successful efforts as a progressive prosecutor.
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Decision To Not Extradite Julian Assange To U.S. Reversed
A devastating decision, the worst decision against free journalism in modern U.S. history came down on December 10th from a British appellate court against Julian Assange. It will abolish “National security“ journalism everywhere giving United States the power to reach across oceans and indict journalists and publishers who publish stories exposing and embarrassing the U.S. government. This is what Julian did.
The horrible but not unexpected decision reversed the decision of Vanessa Baraitser, the lower court judge who had refused a U.S. Government request to extradite Julian and send him to the Eastern District of Virginia where he will be put on trial for 17 counts under the 1917 Espionage Act. The charges stem from WikiLeaks’ 2010 revelations of U.S. war crimes. It is unlikely he could receive a fair trial in that most conservative district where most of the so-called War on Terror cases have been tried.
The lower court judge had ruled that the conditions of imprisonment in a U.S. prison are so egregious that Assange, who is in very frail mental health, would likely take his own life. He had already tried to do so in the wretched London Belmarsh prison where he is now being held in torturous solitary confinement.
When Baraitser’s decision came down, the United States was quick to offer so-called “assurances“ to the appellate court that Assange would not be sent to the maximum security prison in Florence, Colorado and would not be subjected to special administrative measures which would cut him off from human contact. It was these assurances on which the appellate court relied in overturning the lower court’s decision.
Julian Assange was a young computer genius, an Australian citizen, who figured out a way to receive information from whistle blowers and publish that truth telling material anonymously in order to protect them.
When he began publishing WikiLeaks, Assange won awards for his journalism. He exposed U.S. war crimes in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Guantánamo. He embarrassed the Democratic Party by showing how Hillary Clinton stole the nomination from Bernie Sanders.
When Mike Pompeo was Trump’s CIA director, he called WikiLeaks “a hostile non-state intelligence agency” and CIA officials suggested that Assange be kidnapped from the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he had received political asylum, and assassinated.
It was to the United States that the British High Court had no hesitation in sending Julian. So can the U.S. government’s assurances be trusted? Probably not, as they have reneged on nearly identical assurances in the past.
Meanwhile Julian Assange sits in isolation in Belmarsh prison in failing physical and mental health. His lawyers will appeal the decision to the British Supreme Court. But in the meantime, the United States has Julian exactly where they want him in the upcoming months or years that an appeal would take.
U.S. smearing, persecution, and isolation of Julian Assange has been going on now for 10 years. The sordid story began a decade ago when the US Department of Defense took the position that Julian should be discredited and slandered. He was falsely blamed for sexual misconduct in Sweden involving two women who never wanted Julian targeted. But the United States was able to get a prosecutor who did. A warrant was sent from Sweden to England requesting that Julian be sent to Sweden for questioning.
Our own Michael Ratner was representing Julian at the time. In an attempt to avoid being sent to Sweden, which would have extradited Julian to the United States for trial under the Espionage Act, Julian was granted political asylum in the tiny apartment that serves as the Ecuadorian embassy in London. He remained there for seven years under the direct video surveillance 24 hours a day by the CIA
Then the U.S. bribed and bullied its way to reverse the grant of asylum after a U.S.-friendly president assumed the helm of the Ecuadorian government. The British police brutally extracted him from the embassy and put him in solitary confinement in the notorious London Belmarsh prison, where he has remained for nearly 3 years.
Then the Trump administration brought the Espionage Act charges against him. Biden had referred to Julian as “a high-tech terrorist,” and his administration continued Trump’s historically unprecedented pursuit of Assange.
AssangeDefense.org
Guest – Chris Hedges whose many books and brilliant journalism have caused him to be respected as a moral philosopher. He is a regular columnist for Scheerpost” and is host of the show On Contact. Chris’ most recent article on the decision to extradite Julian Assange.
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Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Human Rights, Truth to Power, U.S. Militarism, War Resister, Whistleblowers
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Attorney Jim Lafferty Commentary On Rittenhouse Case
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Victims of Agent Orange Relief Act of 2021
The Vietnam War ended in 1975, but Vietnamese people today continue to suffer the effects of Agent Orange, the deadly dioxin-containing chemical weapon that the U.S. sprayed over 12 percent of South Vietnam from 1961-1971, poisoning both the people and the land. The defoliant was used to more effectively prosecute the war against the Vietnamese people, exposing their hideouts, destroying their crops and food.
Descendants of approximately 2 to 4 million Vietnamese people, hundreds of thousands of U.S. Vietnam veterans, and Vietnamese-Americans who were exposed to the toxin continue to record disproportionate rates of congenital disabilities and higher rates of many diseases.
U.S. veterans receive some compensation from the U.S. government, but very little assistance has been given to the Vietnamese people, who were the intended victims of the defoliant Agent Orange. Thus, on May 25, Rep. Barbara Lee (D-California) introduced H.R. 3518, the Victims of Agent Orange Relief Act of 2021, in the House of Representatives. The Vietnam Agent Orange Relief & Responsibility Campaign (for which I serve as co-coordinator) assisted Lee in drafting the bill.
Lee said, “The United States has a moral responsibility to compensate the victims of the Agent Orange campaign. In the same way we are focused on beginning to repair the damage of systemic racism in the form of reparations, and the war on drugs with restorative justice, it is also our responsibility to try and atone for this disgraceful campaign during the Vietnam War.”
Susan Schnall is co-coordinator of the Vietnam Agent Orange Relief and Responsibility Campaign. She was an active duty Navy nurse during the conflict in Vietnam and in 1969, she was tried and found guilty by general court martial of conduct unbecoming an officer for dropping anti-war flyers over military bases in the San Francisco Bay area and an aircraft, and wearing her uniform in the GI and Veterans March for Peace demonstration in San Francisco.
Guest – Susan Schnall is a member of Vietnam Veterans Against the War and the American Public Health Association. She is also President of the New York City Veterans for Peace chapter and a board member of national Veterans For Peace. Susan organized and led a delegation of Science/Public Health professionals to Vietnam in 2013 to survey the land that had been contaminated by the US use of Agent Orange/dioxin and visit the people who had been harmed by the chemicals. In 2006, Susan was awarded the medal for peace and friendship between peoples by the Vietnam Union of Friendship Organizations.
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The U.S. Role In Cuba Destabilization
First the Trump and now the Biden administration have accelerated their efforts to destabilize and overthrow the Cuban socialist government with the aim of reestablishing capitalism on the island.
This effort is 62 years old going back to 1959 when a popular revolution lead by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara succeeded in getting rid of the U. S. imposed dictator Batista. The still popular revolution has improved the lives of the Cuban people. Back in 1959 Cuba was a U S. colony. Its resources were owned by US corporations, its dictatorial government was a puppet of the United States.
The population, both urban and rural, was desperately poor. These were the people who made the revolution. The new government instituted land reform. They offered to pay the US corporations for the value of the land. The corporations refused so the Cuban government nationalized the land and re-distributed it to the peasantry, as was their legal right.
In retaliation, the US-owned oil refinery was shut down, crippling the Cuban economy. So the Cubans nationalized the oil refinery, the telephone company, the nickel mines and so on. This all came under control of the Cuban people. This is the essence of the Cuban revolution. The US Government immediately instituted its policy, which continues to this day, of isolation and aggression. It started in 1960, a year after revolution. President Dwight D Eisenhower, pursuant to a 1960 memo written by a senior state department official, the US Government instituted a financial, economic, and commercial blockade of Cuba which is enshrined in our law and continues to this day.
Trump introduced some 200 new measures to overthrow the Cuban revolution. Biden continued this effort with even more measures. The US government and its counter-revolutionary supporters in South Florida promoted the recent July 11 demonstrations in cities throughout the island. These demonstrations were joined by many Cubans who have valid criticisms about bureaucracy, mismanagement, and corruption in the Cuban government. For example, there are long lines people have to wait in to buy food and a lot of items are unavailable.
The situation of the Cuban people is one of hardship brought about by the 60 year old commercial and economic blockade set up at United States. Their suffering has been further exacerbated of course by the pandemic. Cubans suffer a shortage of food and medicine and a blow to the economy which was largely based on tourism. The US counter-revolutionary efforts involve a massive spending of money on social media and a direct role in organizing opponents of the Cuban government. After the July demonstrations a new one was planned for November 15. It was a total flop.
Guest – Attorney Art Heitzer, author and head of the Cuba subcommittee of the National Lawyers Guild.
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CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Human Rights, Targeting Muslims, U.S. Militarism, Violations of U.S. and International Law, War Resister
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Public Hostage, Public Ransom:, Ending Institutionalization in America
In the 1970s the shocking horrors of Willowbrook State School on Staten Island in New York City were exposed to the entire world. Some 30,000 disabled people lived in an isolated place segregated from the rest of society and horribly abused and neglected daily.
Dr. William Branston worked there and blew the whistle, telling the truth about this horrific place, the Willowbrook hell hole.
The mistreatment of disabled people and elderly persons’ mistreatment is facilitated because the institutions that has them get Medicaid funding. It is a national scandal. Willowbrook is seen as a turning point in the beginning of the disability rights movement in the United States.
The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle said “life in the community is a necessary condition for a persons complete flourishing as a human being.“ This Is what needs to be done. Re-integrating these people into the community is the goal today across the USA.
We are joined in this interview by my friend and colleague attorney Richard Levy. It was Richard‘s law firm, Eisner and Levy represented Dr. Branston in a class action lawsuit against the state of New York.
Guest – Dr. William Bronston, author of Public Hostage, Public Ransom:, Ending Institutionalization in America. Dr. Bronston is an advocate for deinstitutionalization. He was a physician at Willowbrook State School in New York; medical director and consultant for the California Department of Developmental Services.
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The Movement To Ban Killer Drones
On October 29, as Joe Biden pulled U.S. forces out of Afghanistan, his administration launched a hellfire missile from an MQ-9 Reaper drone in Kabul that killed 10 civilians, including seven children, and then lied about it. They called it a “righteous strike” conducted in self-defense.
Nearly three weeks later, an extensive investigation by The New York Times revealed that the target of the drone strike, Zemari Ahmadi, was a U.S. aid worker, not an ISIS operative, and the “explosives” in the Toyota that the drone targeted were most likely water bottles.
Now an “independent Pentagon review” has concluded that no crimes were committed by U.S. forces, even though footage showed a child present minutes before the drone attack. The Air Force Inspector General admitted that 9 seconds before the strike, the surveillance video showed the presence of 4 children in the strike zone. But under international law, a targeted killing is only legal if it’s necessary to protect life, and no other means — including capture or nonlethal incapacitation — is available to protect life.
Nick Mottern is co-coordinator of Ban Killer Drones.org. He said, “The Pentagon’s assertion that no one did anything illegal to cause the drone deaths of the Ahmadi family members is a shameful side-stepping and a further cover-up of who made what decisions and why in this horrible slaughter. We need to see all the records surrounding this incident, including those that may help us to know the role of President Biden, if any.”
Ban Killer Drones.org is calling for reparation payments of at least $3 million for each of the 10 members of the Ahmadi family.
Meanwhile, although Biden withdrew the troops from Afghanistan, he has pledged to continue “over-the-horizon” operations from afar. Biden is following in the footsteps of his predecessors who all used drone strikes which killed untold numbers of civilians.
The drone that killed the Ahmadi family was operating out of Creech Air Base in Nevada. Ban Killer Drones helped organize the annual Shut Down Creech Week from Sep. 26 through Oct. 2.
Guest – Nick Mottern. Nick has been an tireless organizer of the movement to ban armed drones.
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Censorship, Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Gaza, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Impeachment, Political Prisoner, Prison Industry, Prosecution of the Bush Administration, Racist Police Violence, Right To Dissent, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power, U.S. Militarism, Violations of U.S. and International Law, War Resister, Whistleblowers
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Moving The Bar: My Life As A Radical Lawyer
Hosts Heidi Boghosian and Michael Smith interviewed some of Michael Ratner’s closest friends and colleagues as part of a special broadcast highlighting Michael Ratner’s legal work and mentorship. The special also marked the upcoming release of Michael Ratner’s autobiography Moving The Bar: My Life As A Radical Lawyer published by OR Books. In this one hour taken from the two hour fundraiser broadcast, we hear from attorneys including Eleanor Stein, Richard Levy, Ray Brescia, David Cole and Baher Azmy.
Michael Ratner’s pathbreaking legal and political work is unmatched. He provided crucial support for the Cuban Revolution and won the seminal case in the Supreme Court guaranteeing the right of habeas corpus to Guantanamo detainees. Michael also challenged U.S. policy in Iraq, Haiti, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Puerto Rico and Israel-Palestine. This book is a testament to his unflagging efforts on behalf of the poor and oppressed around the world.
– Marjorie Cohn, Professor Emerita, Thomas Jefferson School of Law
Michael Ratner personified lawyering that brought both radical and human values into challenges to the use of governmental power to violate the essence of the Bill of Rights. From the torture of prisoners after 911 to the massive racial profiling by the New York Police Department, Michael’s voice and vision continue to resonate. This book provides a powerful testament to the spirit of this extraordinary man.
– Attorney Bill Goodman
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