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Law and Disorder is a weekly independent civil liberties radio program airing on more than 100 stations across the United States and podcasting on the web. Law and Disorder provides timely legal perspectives on issues concerning civil liberties, privacy, right to dissent and practices of torture exercised by the US government and private corporations.
Law and Disorder June 3, 2024
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Counter Protest Tactics Attempt To Plague University Anti-Genocide Encampments
As the Israel-Gaza War rages on, protests have spread throughout American campuses as students oppose Israeli’s military onslaught and the tragic humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Student have demanded a ceasefire, an end to US military support for Israel and that universities divest from Israel. In response, University officials have suspended and expelled students, banned pro-Palestinian student groups, called in the police and sent mixed messages on students’ right to free speech. At UCLA, a group of counterprotesters launched a violent attack on pro-Palestinian protesters.
Guest – Salam Al-Marayati, president and co-founder of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, where he oversees MPAC’s groundbreaking civic engagement, public policy, and advocacy work. Salam Al-Marayati is an expert on Islam in the West, Muslim reform movements, human rights, democracy, national security, and Middle East politics. He has spoken at the White House and on Capitol Hill and has represented the U.S. at international human rights and religious freedom conferences. He is very active in interfaith dialogue, which is where I first met him in the wake of 9/11 in my capacity as a leader of Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace.
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NYU Encampment and Arrests
In early May, New York Police Department officers demolished pro-Palestinian encampments, and arrested 56 student protesters, at New York University and the New School. Officials at both universities enlisted the police their assistance in tearing down the tents.
The NYU encampment was at the John A. Paulson Center on Bleecker Street. Professors there released a statement condemning the decision to call in the municipal police, calling it “another shameful moment in NYU history” that had put students at risk. NYU’s Palestine Solidarity Coalition posted on social media: “We have seen seven months of targeting pro-Palestinian speech on this campus, and thus cannot agree with the admin’s claims of acting in good faith.”
Supporting student protesters at several NYC campuses has been Mumia Abu-Jamal, who has called in to address them from Mahanoy state prison in Pennsylvania. Mumia has told students that they are on the right side of history by electing “not to be silent and to speak out.”
Guest – Xavier Fitzsimmons-Cruz, Xavier recently earned his master’s degree at NYU; this fall he will begin working toward his PhD in history at the City University of New York.
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Law and Disorder May 27, 2024
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Crash Course : From the Good War to the Forever War
US Army Ranger turned conscientious objector Rory Fanning recently wrote in this in The Guardian newspaper: “Last week Sunday ,November 11, we celebrated Veterans Day. It used to be called Armistice Day and was a celebration of peace after the slaughter of World War One. Now it is called Veterans Day. The United States has 668 military bases around the globe. The United States has conducted military operations in 2/3 of the world’s countries since September 11, 2001. It has spent 3/4 of $1 trillion each year on it’s military – more than the next 13 countries combined. The US has taken hundreds of thousands of lives around the world these past 14 years and shows no signs of slowing down.“
Guest – H. Bruce Franklin, is one of America’s leading cultural historians, H. Bruce Franklin is the author or editor of nineteen books and more than 300 articles on culture and history published in more than a hundred major magazines and newspapers, academic journals, and reference works. He has given over five hundred addresses on college campuses, on radio and TV shows, and at academic conferences, museums, and libraries, and he has participated in making four films. He has taught at Stanford University, Johns Hopkins, Wesleyan, and Yale and currently is the John Cotton Dana Professor of English and American Studies at Rutgers University in Newark. Before becoming an academic, Franklin worked in factories, was a tugboat mate and deckhand, and flew for three years in the United States Air Force as a Strategic Air Command navigator and intelligence officer. Professor Franklin is touring the country to speak about his just publish book Crash Course : From the Good War to the Forever War.
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Law and Disorder May 20, 2024
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The More Effective Of Two Evils
The extensive growing repression and censorship in our country is manifest daily. Already some 3000 students have been arrested and many of their encampments on college campuses have been violently closed down. The leading newspaper, the New York Times, has instructed reporters not to use the words “genocide” or “ethnic cleansing.” Journalist Chris Hedges has been removed from The Real News Network for interviewing, Dennis Kucinich, the independent candidate for Congress in Ohio and for not supporting the presidential candidacy of Joe Biden.
The necessity for independent political action, independent of both the Republican and the Democratic parties, is the lesson many social activists are drawing. The journalist, Glen Ford, of the Black Agenda Report , coined the phrase “the more effective of two evils” in describing the Democratic Party.
The Democrats are trying to beat people into their camp by haranguing about how horrible Trump is. That’s true. But look at how effective Biden has been in supporting the Israeli genocide. It has only been the independent action of the courageous students that may succeed in tempering the onslaught. It has already had some effect. Activist are now focusing on the fact that it was the Democratic Party on a national and local scale that coordinated attacks on the Palestine solidarity encampments. Just as they did under Obama in closing down Occupy.
The Democrats prevented Bernie Sanders from getting the nomination. Had he not supported the Democrats and became an independent our movement would’ve been much more effective than his lobbing Biden. He has been reduced to the edge of relevance. Significant social change comes from organizing people independently. The rise of the CIO, the civil rights movement and the movement to end the war in Vietnam are illustrations of this truth.
In appreciating the role of the Democratic Party, social activists are increasingly concluding that independent, political action now will help us against Trump should he get elected. Conversely herding people in to supporting the Democratic Party will disarm us.
Guest – Chris Hedges, the journalist and author discusses the collapsing media landscape, what happened to him at The Real News Network and how we preserve journalism. He spent two decades as a foreign correspondent serving as the Middle East Bureau Chief and Balkan Bureau Chief for The New York Times where he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. He is the author of 14 books including War is a Force That Gives us Meaning, Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt, which he co-wrote with the cartoonist Joe Sacco, and The Death of the Liberal Class.
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Early Detection: Catching Cancer When Its Curable
The “war on cancer“ declared by President Richard Nixon over 50 years ago has been a failure. Mortality rates for victims of cancer have not decreased, except for the successful campaign against smoking.
Attorney Michael Ratner, when he was the President of the Center for Constitutional Rights, helped found Law And Disorder radio 20 years ago. We lost him to cancer eight years ago.
Michael’s younger brother Bruce Ratner has co-authored the book Early Detection: Catching Cancer When It’s Curable. It Is dedicated to the memory of Michael Ratner. Bruce and Michael shared similar values. Over the years, cancer rates have pretty much remained the same. Very high. Particularly affected are poor people, rural people, and people of color.
Most money spent on fighting cancer by big pharmaceutical companies goes into researching and developing medicines for late-stage cancers. These medicines have proven to only prolong life for several months. So, what is the answer to truly combating cancer? Early detection. And it must be quite early on.
Funds currently misdirected could be used in this effort. Prostate, breast, colo-rectal, and lung cancers can be detected early. But too often they are not. Even when they are, many people don’t follow up with treatment. A blood test has been developed to identify 50 different cancers. But what’s missing is a massive program of education and organization to catch cancer in its early stages.
Guest – Bruce Ratner studied science at Harvard, graduated from Columbia law school and then taught at NYU Law School. New York City Mayor John Lindsay appointed Bruce to be the Commissioner of Consumer Affairs. Bruce went on to develop real estate in Manhattan and Brooklyn and brought the first professional athletic team, the Brooklyn Nets, to Brooklyn, where he developed the Barclay Center. He also sits on the boards of Weil Cornell Hospital in Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital. He has initiated the Michael D. Ratner Center for Early Detection of Cancer.
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