CIA Sponsored Terror, Criminalizing Dissent, Gaza, Human Rights, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power
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US Boat To Gaza Violence November 2011
Earlier this month, two civilian boats destined for the Gaza Strip and carrying medical cargo set sail from Fethiye, Turkey. As many listeners may know, the boats, one Canadian (“Tahrir”) and one Irish (“Saoirse”), carried 27 people–including journalists and crew—from nine different countries were met with a violent take over by Israeli military. The crew of both boats were attacked by high pressure hoses, there was heavy damage. The crew of the Canadian boat were beaten and tasered. Passengers remain in the Givon detention center. President Obama says the passengers are defying Israeli and American law. Past Law and Disorder shows last year’s flotilla. June 7, 2010 / June 21, 2010 / October 2010 / June 13, 2011
Felice Gelman:
- Some are still in prison, the process of getting people out is very opaque. The Israeli courts told them if they wouldn’t sign a false confession, to confess they had entered Israel illegally that they could be held for 2 months in jail. There were 18 people still left in Israeli jail.
- I would like to point out that this is exactly what happens to Palestinians every day.
- There are more than 6 thousand Palestinian political prisoners who go through this same opaque legal process, tortured. 90 percent of the people who have been arrested by the Israelis, Palestinians, have been tortured.
- Forty percent of the male population at one time has been held by the Palestinians for more than a week. We’re talking about a little over 3 million people.
- It’s endemic process its happening to foreigners at this point. The little kids are hit and shouted at and hooded. I think the Israelis taught the Americans.
- The Israelis are regarded as experts in with what they call terrorists.
- These boats were eagerly anticipated in Gaza. Thousands of people came down to the Gaza harbor and hundreds went out on boats hoping to greet the boats.
- Since 2006 Gaza has been under complete siege and blockade, everything that is allowed in is under Israeli control, almost nothing is allowed out.
- There is no economy, without exports, you really can’t have much of an economy. You’ve got 40 percent unemployment. 90 percent of the population is drinking polluted water because the crucial parts of the water treatment plants have not been allowed in by Israel.
- There’s only one reason Israel has been able to maintain this occupation, and that is because the United States abets it.
- There are no consequences for expanding settlements (from the Obama Administration)
- Right now the Israeli government is trying to get the US to attack Iran.
- Instead of Israel being regarded as an out of control, militarized bully is regarded as a close US ally who should determine our foreign policy.
- Endtheoccupation
Guest – Felice Gelman is with the Steering Committee that organized The Gaza Freedom March and has traveled to Gaza twice since the Israeli invasion.
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Who Killed Che? How The CIA Got Away With Murder
Co-hosts Michael Smith and Michael Ratner discuss their upcoming book Who Killed Che? A groundbreaking examination based on documents obtained from a Freedom of Information Act requests filed in 1995. This new information helps dispel the stories that the US was not involved with the murder of Che Guevara. Morning Star Review
“Ratner and Smith cut through the lies and distortions to provide a riveting and thoroughly documented history of the murder of Che Guevara. In an era when ‘targeted assassinations’ and ‘capture and kill operations’ have become routine, and are routinely glorified by the mainstream U.S. press, their examination of the U.S. role in Che Guevara’s death could not be more timely.” —Amy Goodman, host and executive producer, Democracy Now.
Michael Ratner / Michael Smith:
- One day when I was a baby I filed a Freedom of Information Act request for all the documents the FBI and the CIA had about Che Guevara.
- You and I had received the first documents 15 years ago and we wrote the first book Che Guevara and the FBI
- Ten or twelve years later I get another document drop from the CIA and these are the documents that are the most important in my view, relating to Che’s killing in Bolivia.
- The government had changed in Bolivia since 1819, 189 times.
- The book tells his story in Bolivia, and what the US did starting the counter intelligence process against him and supported the Bolivian government.
- Michael and I enjoyed working on it because we got to really know Che in a way we haven’t before.
- This book had its origin first in a document drop that was about Che’s murder and Che’s time in Bolivia. There are maps we put in the book of the last battles, where he was captured.
- The idea of the book really came from Michael Smith.
- A lot of people bought the story that was put out by the CIA agent on the ground.
- We demonstrate that the US was deeply involved in his murder.
- Ricardo Alarcon who is the president of the Cuban National Assembly, wrote the introduction to our book.
- During the Cuban Revolution, it was the Bastista troops that killed tens of thousand of revolutionaries.
- The book follows Che when he’s in Africa and various places, but then we have him going to Bolivia on November 5, 1966.
- There was a split between Che and Fidel. Fidel was worried about Che every single day.
- The first half of the book is a 25 thousand word essay by Michael Smith and Michael Ratner. It links together what happened with Che once he left Cuba.
- It’s also a biography of the US counterinsurgency program and the characters in that program that tried to make sure they would stop the Cuban revolution from spreading to other countries.
- We dedicated this book to our friend, the great movement attorney Len Weinglass. Len was the attorney for the Cuban Five.
- The Cuban Five are an important part of this story, 44 years after Che’s death.
- The US has attempted to completely destroy Cuba, and squeeze it so it could not carry out the social and economic reforms that really would’ve made it a shining example for the world.
Hosts – Michael Steven Smith is the author, editor, and co-editor of six books, mostly recently “The Emerging Police State,” by William M. Kunstler. He has testified before committees of the United States Congress and the United Nations on human rights issues. Mr. Smith lives and practices law in New York City with his wife Debby, where on behalf of seriously injured persons he sues insurance companies and occasionally the New York City Police Department. Michael Smith also organizes and chairs the Left Forum. Check out Michael’s blog here.
Host- Michael Ratner NewYork civil-rights lawyer Michael Ratner was in the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday,flanked by the mother of one of the Guantánamo detainees he has represented for the past two years, unsure what to expect. After an hour, he was pleasantly surprised. First, Sandra Day O’Connor, and then Justices Souter, Breyer, Kennedy and even Scalia, indicated through their questions that they were skeptical of the government’s argument that the men Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld calls “the worst of the worst” have no legal right to file habeas corpus petitions in U.S. courts.
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Gaza, Human Rights, Targeting Muslims, Truth to Power
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Inside the Lawfare Project: Netanyahu’s Attack on Human Rights NGO’s Hits the States
Earlier this month, the Lawfare Project, a not-for-profit organization described as dedicated to raising awareness about the abuse of the law and legal systems, held an event at the New York Lawyers Association. The project’s goals state: to facilitate a response to the perversion and misapplication of human rights law, mobilize resources and bring interested parties together in a common forum.
Max Blumenthal, award-winning journalist, was there, and reports back in his recent article, Inside the Lawfare Project: Netanyahu’s Attack on Human Rights NGO’s Hits the States. Our own Michael Ratner and the Center for Constitutional Rights was also a target. Blumenthal writes, The Center for Constitutional Rights was singled out because its founder, Michael Ratner, went on the recent Gaza Freedom March with Code Pink. None of the factual documentation these groups released was challenged by the NGO Monitor report or in Herzberg’s presentation. Instead, the groups and their leadership are being targeted with a scattershot of accusations that recall McCarthyism in its crudest form.
Max Blumenthal:
- This conference was convened at the New York Lawyers Association, with the Dean of the Columbia University Law School presiding over it.
- Politicians, neo-conservative think tank heads, and Israeli high officials, convening basically to bash the Goldstone Report which they consider to be the zenith of law fare against Israel.
- To bash the human rights groups that contributed data to the Goldstone Report.
- Law fare: Using law as a means to conduct foreign policy. Past manifestations of law fare, used by British to legitimatize laws to break up their colonies.
- Law fare Project, singled out human rights groups such as the Center for Constitutional Rights and Michael Ratner
- Israel is going further and further outside of the scope of international law. Instead of Israel having to deny charges of war crimes in a public forum they attack Judge Goldstone.
- PR firms associated with the Lawfare Project. 5wPR, which used to represent birth right of Israel. The firm is run by Ronn Torossian, who has been involved with settler attacks on Palestinians.
- They’re being funded by the law firm of Pat Robertson. The American Center for Law and Justice.
- This is I think really an effort of public diplomacy by the Israeli government funded by right wing Jewish and Christian Zionists interests.
- The NGO monitor headed by Gerald Steinberg, who is notorious in helping to de-fund, and de-legitimatize all Israel human rights groups. Israel had its first human rights march this year.
- Human rights group members in Israel, have their homes graffit’d with “price tag”, settler slang for you’ll be assassinated.
- In addition, you Michael Ratner were singled out as a traitor to the United States of America, openly and you’re in this NGO monitor black list. Put together by NGO monitor legal advisor, Ann Herzberg, you are accused of NGO lawfare. You and Human Rights Watch.
- We heard David Matas who is a Canadian lawyer, says this is equivalent to anti-Semitic gangs beating up Jews in the street, – – because International law is the legacy of the holocaust, it should always side with Israel.
- Michael Ratner: Israel wants an exemption. I’ve gone after human rights violaters in nearly every country in the world. We do a little bit of work on human rights violations in Gaza and the West Bank and all of a sudden I’m an enemy of United States, I’m anti-Semitic.
- They’re seeking emotional and subtle ethnic justification for their defense without debating the Goldstone Report.
- I think it puts Jews in danger, when they claim the Gaza assault which killed more than 700 civilians is somehow a reflection of the Jewish ethos.
- The image of it is intended to intimidate those who want to speak out, especially in the Jewish community but haven’t done so yet. We sound hopeful on this show, but this is a time for deep, deep concern.
- People are wondering, where’s the Palestinian Ghandi? My father was a White House advisor, my mother worked in the White House, my father worked in the Washington Press Corp Israel is in the grip of a mass psychosis.
- In the youth of Israel, we’re seeing a trend in favoring apartheid.
Guest – Max Blumenthal, award-winning journalist and bestselling author whose articles and video documentaries have appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Daily Beast, The Nation, The Huffington Post, Salon.com, Al Jazeera English and many other publications. He is a writing fellow for the Nation Institute. His book, Republican Gomorrah: Inside The Movement That Shattered The Party, is a New York Times and Los Angeles Times bestseller.
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Khalil Gibran International Academy Principal Discriminated Against.
Last week the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission found that the Department of Education discriminated against interim principal Debbie Almontaser in 2007 when they forced her to resign from Khalil Gibran International Academy. The school was envisioned to provide knowledge and understanding of Arab language and culture and controversy arose before its doors opened. As we covered in November of 2007, Almontaser was forced to resign after she was quoted explaining in the New York Post that the word “intifada” literally means “shaking off” in Arabic. This was in reference to a controversy stirring over a t-shirt that read “Intifada NYC” created and worn by a group called Arab Women Active in the Arts and Media. Almontaser came under criticism by the community for not denouncing it. The EEOC ruling calls on the Department of Education to reach a “just resolution” as well as meet Almontaser’s demand, of a reinstatement, back pay, damages and legal costs. Communities In Support of KGIA
Alan Levine / Mona Eldahry:
- DOE had capitulated to mob pressure, to community prejudice, when the firestorm erupted after the New York Post article, August 2007.
- DOE, instead of quelling the fire, days went by and the fire grew. Debbie Almontaser’s qualifications were questioned, she was told if she didn’t resign the school would be closed.
- Debbie was out of central casting for the position, she couldn’t have been more perfect for it. The DOE knew about that record, that’s why they selected Debbie as principal for Khalil Gibran International Academy.
- The EEOC found that because the DOE capitulated, they became the discriminator.
- Mona : The t-shirts in question, had nothing to do with Debbie, but somehow she was associated with them. The DOE required Debbie to do this interview with the New York Post, not with the Times.
- The Post misquoted and misrepresented her as the EEOC found.
- Alan: The DOE had succumbed to the kind of prejudice that the Khalil Gibran International Academy was intended to dispel.
- The claim is based on that Debbie Almontaser was attacked by a bigoted community based on being an American Muslim and a government agency to its great shame capitulated to that prejudice.
- Certainly the DOE could have expected a strong reaction from the Arab-American community.
- Alan: The DOE investigation is accessible to us, what people said in this investigation will be part of the record in this case (federal) The EEOC is the premier agency in the country for evaluating employment discrimination claims.
Guests, attorney Alan Levine and Mona Eldahry, co-founder of Arab Women Active In the Arts.
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Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power
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Segments This Week
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Charges Dismissed Against March of the Dead Activists: Laurie Arbeiter
On January 6, 2009, artist and activist Laurie Arbeiter joined seventy others from around the country for the March of the Dead. Participants assembled in Washington and began to read the names of those killed in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine before the Capitol Police interrupted the event and arrested seventeen people. Four of them, including Laurie, appeared in court last week on charges of unlawful assembly and disorderly conduct, where the judge nullified their case. Robbie Diesu, Michelle Grise, and Pete Perry also appeared in court with Laurie. In the event that Laurie and others would be convicted, she prepared a statement to read outside of the courthouse. Click here to read that statement.
Laurie is a member of The Critical Voice, which started the We Will Not Be Silent T-shirt campaign.
Laurie Arbeiter:
- Four of us were put on trial for an action that we did Jan 6, 2009. The first day of 111th Congress.
- People came from all over the country to circle the Capitol in death masks carrying the names of the dead from Iraq, Afghanistan and Gaza.
- On that day, 17 of us were arrested and some of us were brought all the way to trial.
- Last week, we went into court for disorderly conduct and unlawful assembly.
- We didn’t get to mount our case because of the gross misconduct of the government, including tampering with evidence, they destroyed evidence.
- We were followed by police both on bicycles and motorcycles, throughout the day. But then we decided to go into the Senate Hart Building, in the atrium. We continued with the March of the Dead. Another group hung billboard sized banners.
- When we did the solemn procession before we got to the Capitol, the police on bikes were waiting for us. I was in the lead, wearing a death mask and police officers started taunting me, pointing at me saying, “we know who you are.” It makes me feel more defiant.
- As Barack Obama said, “those who stand up for justice are always on the right side of history.”
- I am one of many that stand proud in solidarity with all the other people that came from around the country.
- During the court case, the police officer kept saying how loud we were, but we are all quiet, and read the names of the dead reverently.
- The police asked the court to see a youtube video, edited, sound enhanced, the judge allowed it. They had problems projecting the video in court.
- So, they used the judge’s laptop. My lawyer cross-examined the police officer, where are your notes, the log of the event. The cop answered they went away. At that point the case was dismissed.
- This case was about what is allowed of a free people who feel an urgency because war crimes are being committed in their time. What are we as a free people allowed to do? Where do we go to seek justice?
- I would have asked the court – if crimes are being committed why wouldn’t decent people speak up so their voices could be heard? Why is that a crime? While the people who committed the most heinous acts against human beings are set free. Why are we being prosecuted?
Guest – Laurie Arbeiter, artist, prominent activist, and designer of “We Will Not Be Silent” T-shirt series. To order T-shirts, email Laurie at – Arrestbush(at)gmail.com. Her website (currently being built) is wewillnotbesilent.net.
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Supreme Court Denies Certiorari In the Cuban Five Case
As listeners may already know, the Supreme Court recently declined to hear the case of the Cuban Five. The request for review, which included a record-setting 12 amicus briefs and received widespread international attention, was the Cuban Five’s last chance for a new trial.
The Five’s defense attorneys argued it was impossible for the men to get fair trials in Miami, where anti -Castro sentiment runs high, and that the convictions should be overturned.
Last year, the 11th U.S. District Court of Appeals in Atlanta upheld the convictions of the Cuban Five who are serving long prison sentences charged with spying and conspiracy to commit murder. Joining us again to discuss the case is noted criminal defense attorney Leonard Weinglass, who represented the Cuban Five. Len, welcome back to the show. Demonstration video link
Len Weinglass:
- 98 Percent of all petitions for Cert are denied. We were optimistic because our position was so strongly stated and unprecedently joined by 11 briefs and friends of the court including 10 Nobel Prize winners.
- Then June 15, the news came down. The court rejected out of hand without a single dissenting opinion.
- We were hoping against experience that teaches otherwise, that the Obama Administration would lighten up on this case and acknowledge some of the undisputed facts.
- Timing: June 5, 2009 Kendall and Gwendolyn Meyers arrested for passing classified information to Cuban handlers.
- Batson Case – The government permitted several minorities on the jury who were elderly and less well educated as a shield against challenges of racial bias. The record shows the government removed seven younger well educated minority jurors. We brought this to the court’s attention, because this is happening throughout the country (Mumia Abu Jamal case – instruction film to purge minority jurors)
- Community prejudice issue: Trying the Cuban Five case in Miami.
- This is the first “conspiracy to commit espionage” case in which there was not a single classified document.
- The options have become narrower, three of the five are up for re-sentencing. I’m hopeful my client Antonio Guerrero will not get a life sentence but will get a set term of years.The Cuban Five have served 10 years.
- Analagous cases – Ben-Ami Kadish – recently (Dec 2008) received a suspended sentence and 50 thousand dollar fine ( which he responded, no problem judge.) for taking classified documents to his handler’s home in Riverdale, Bronx several times (including information about nuclear weapons, a modified F-15 fighter, and the Patriot missiles) and let an unnamed Israeli government worker take photographs of them.
- Posada Carriles, has a long standing association with the CIA, which his attorney acknowledged in court papers. Carriles was charged with the murder of 73 people, he escaped prison, (with help of unknown persons) He was then hired by the CIA, paid by the US tax payer to help in the war against the elected government of Nicarargua.
- Carriles was involved in bringing down the first commercial plane in mid-flight. Cubana airline, the bomb exploded (C4) that was placed in a toothpaste tube left in the mens room. The tail assembly was damaged, then pilots lost control and plane plummeted into ocean. Carriles was named by the person who he paid them to do it. That person is a cab driver in Caracas, Venezuela and is available to the media.
- Going forward with the Cuban Five cases, there are legal options, specifically 18 US C2255 – Federal Habeas. We could raise constitutional issues that haven’t previous been raised and litigated, we have one year in which to file. We’re not completely out of court, but what’s called the “direct appeals” are over. We now have collateral appeals.
- It’s up to the Obama Administration to recognize the reality here of what happened and begin the process of returning the Five home.
Guest – criminal defense attorney Leonard Weinglass, who represented the Cuban Five, as William Kunstler’s younger partner, Len Weinglass was considered the work horse of the defense team. He’s worked on a number of political cases including the Pentagon Papers trial and the Angela Davis case. He’s a Yale Law School graduate and former U.S. Air Force Captain.
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Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Extraordinary Rendition, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power
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- Dick Cheney, Stalin and Hitler Torture Guidelines Traced Back to Chicago.
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Naomi Wolf – Give Me Liberty: A Handbook for American Revolutionaries
Law and Disorder hosts welcome back Naomi Wolf to the studio. Naomi is the author of seven books, and the groundbreaking book The End of America: A Letter of Warning To A Young Patriot, which was also turned into a feature documentary now playing in theaters. In the book, Naomi addresses ten steps that societies, dictators, and sometimes democracies use to close an open society to move it toward facsism. Her new book is titled Give Me Liberty: A Handbook for American Revolutionaries which is a call to action for every person, activist or not. When you ask that question “What Can I Do?” The answers are outlined in Give Me Liberty.
Naomi Wolf:
- A small group of people used the law to subvert the law. Reichstag Fire, then disembowel their own Constitution.
- Initial thinking inspired from my friend who is the daughter of holocaust survivors, she said the Bush strategies echo early 1930s Germany.
- Enabling Acts in Germany gave the power to the state to read a person’s mail, listen to their phone calls and read their telegrams. This, in the alleged interest of national security and the fight against terrorism.
- Nazis used to unload the coffins of the war dead at night.
- A would-be dictator sought to close an open society or crush a democracy movement. Mussolini in 1920, the great evil pioneer. Hitler studied Mussolini, Stalin studied Hitler.
- I looked at Russia, studied Czechoslovakia in the 60’s, Pinochet’s coup in 1973, the Chinese crackdown on democracy in the 80s.
- What I saw was there was a blueprint. The blueprint has 10 steps. The 10 steps have been codified, they teach them at the School of the Americas.
- To help would be Latin-American dictators to overthrow their own governments. What terrified me is that those ten steps are being put in place by the Bush Administration.
- Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy
- Create a gulag
- Develop a thug caste
- Set up an internal surveillance system
- Harass citizens’ groups
- Engage in arbitrary detention and release
- Target key individuals
- Control the press
- Dissent equals treason
- Suspend the rule of law
Give Me Liberty: A Handbook For American Revolutionaries
Naomi Wolf:
- I like most Americans felt frustrated, helpless and powerless, I saw that they felt depressed and as if they had no authority. More depressed than in baby democracies like Sierra Leone
- I went back, just as I studied closing societies, I looked at how people dismantled tyranny and win back a republic.
- I drew on some remarkable historians who have established that this idea of liberty were brought forth by ordinary people. They meant to bequeath us with these core American values.
- What I’ve learned is that we’ve (U.S) been brainwashed for the last 30 years, as part of a systematic effort from a vested interested to get us to forget our leadership role as citizens.
- We’re really expected to lead the nation and have a whole arsenal of tools at our disposal.
- There’s a section called fake patriotism, where I talk about the false ideology that leads you away from core texts such as the Bill of Rights that tells you how to overthrow the government to dismantle tyranny.
- The message I categorically got from the founders was . . we were expected to totally take over the power and not leave it to the pundits to have the debates, not leave it to constitutional scholars, or politicians.
- Just calling your congressperson isn’t enough, you conform yourself into democracy commando teams of 20 to 30 people.
- Strategically intervene into the election cycle so you have more power, than lobbyists and special interests.
- You can stop complaining about the media and become the media, write your own op eds.
- Tools and information are deliberately kept out of people’s hands.
- People think there’s a brick wall whenever they pick up these tools, but its a Potemkin village.
- They don’t want us to engage.
- A Constitutional amendment that would drive a national referendum to bypass corrupt Congress to make law such as capping Campaign Finance
- Direct Action Activism. It always works to have thousands of people in the streets.
- But the kind of protest that always works is illegal. The thing that broke up the Soviet Union, we’re not allowed to do in the United States.
- Political Marches Today: I went from point A to point B but I feel like I didn’t do anything. You didn’t. The only protest that’s effective is protest that stops traffic. By definition, you can’t get a permit for stopping traffic.
- These horrible laws in the ten steps are still on the books and its going to take a mass movement to reverse them because Obama is not powerful enough to dismantle them.
- We need to legislate on the city council level and on the federal level, that our police can’t accept Homeland Security money, tasers, microwave technology and rubber bullets.
- All the cold war weapons manufacturers have shifted into building surveillance and security technologies. Their lobbyists sit down with Homeland Security and write the laws. That pressure is not going away.
- Barack Obama does not have the power to stop Boeing, Raytheon and AT&T. The population is the back bone for what the next president can do.
Guest – Naomi Wolf, American author, political consultant and intellectual. She is the author of The End of America: A Letter of Warning To A Young Patriot. It’s an impassioned call to return to the beliefs of the Founding Fathers. In the book, Wolf shows how events in the last six years echo those taken throughout history to build some of the worst dictatorships. A documentary film titled End of America was released this fall along with her follow up book Give Me Liberty: A Handbook For American Revolutionaries.
Naomi Wolf is the co-founder of the Woodhull Institute for Ethical Leadership.
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Related News Stories:
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Civil Liberties, Death Penalty, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Impeachment, Supreme Court, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power
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Sit In Victory at Chicago’s Republic Windows and Doors Plant
Last wee, angry laid off workers from Republic Windows and Doors agreed to leave the closed Illinois plant they’ve occupied in protest for six days. The workers accepted a deal that will give each of them about 6 thousand dollars, accrued vacation time and two months of helathcare coverage. About 1.75 million will be put into an escrow account to be supervised by the worker’s union.
Paul Buhle:
- Why stand outside where you slug it out with cops and scabs while you can be inside defending your job.
- The sit down strike goes all the way back to the Wobblies in 1907
- We have entered a new era, the nation has acquired more political oxygen than it has in a long time.
- There’s a spirit of empowerment that people feel they have to change the situation immediately around them.
- In the way of occupying universities, we can move things much better than those in charge with their foot upon us.
- Now is the time to develop those abandoned factories into living spaces, so they don’t become targets of firebugs.
Guest- Paul Buhle, senior lecturer at Brown University, a historian of American radicalims., a former member of Students for a Democratic Society and author of many books including images of American Radicalism. Also, Che, A Graphic Biography, and Isordore Duncan, a graphic biography by Sabrina Jones.
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Verdict Against Holy Land Charity Could Have a Chilling Effect on the Muslim Community
Last month, a jury in Dallas, Texas found five Palestinian men guilty of more than 100 charges in the nation’s largest terrorism financing trial since 9/11. We talk with Laila Al-Arian, a Washington based journalist, who recently wrote a powerful Alternet article about this case and its impact on Muslim charities.
As many listeners may know, Holy Land was the largest Muslim charity in the United States, the the Bush administration shut it down after the September 11th attacks, and arrested five officials from the charity. In her article Al-Arian describes how the prosecution use unrelated video of suicide bombers to emotionally sway the jury. We’re later joined by Linda Moreno, a defense attorney in the case.
Laila Al-Arian:
- One of the witnesses (in this recent case) was an expert witness, he was a Shin Bet agent.
- The way the US government is trying to prove that these Zakaat Committees are funding Hamas is through the testimony of this Israeli witness. The testimony can’t be authenticated.
- The first time in a US court room that an expert witness, not a fact witness, testified under a pseudonym.
- How do you detect perjury, or how does the defense cross-examine without background.
- Expert witness lied to the jury about the Zakat committees being tied to Hamas
- What you’re really doing is prosecuting an Israeli Palestinian conflict in an American courtroom.
- For Muslims giving charity is a religious obligation.
- There will be an appeal on the grounds of the expert witness Shin Bet agent.
- Joe Lieberman and George Bush commented on the verdict of this case.
- All this does is punish people who are suffering, and punishing those who want to help them.
Linda Moreno:
- The government began its exhibit with a photograph of a bombed out bus, which had nothing to do with the accused in the Holy Land case.
- They also showed video of children doing skits, an art form that is a result of culture under occupation.
- Children in the US get to play violent video games, but they get to turn that off and go back to the safety of their home, go into your bedroom and shut the door. When you’re a Palestinian child, you don’t have that luxury.
- We know because we proved in both trials, that the US Government through USAID and other organizations was giving to the exact same Zakat Committees that were at issue in the indictment of this case.
- And the notion that you have to vet the recipient of charitiable donations, I believe is un-American.
- There’s just something wrong about criminalizing humanitarian aid. Charities under fire.
Guests – Laila Al-Arian, a Washington DC based journalist. Linda Moreno, high profile defense attorney.
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Harpers Magazine Panel: Justice After Bush: Prosecuting an Outlaw Administration
We hear from our own Michael Ratner President, Center for Constitutional Rights. The event discussed methods available to a democracy to prosecute high officials in the Bush Administration and responded to Scott Horton’s Harper’s Magazine cover story called “Justice After Bush: Prosecuting an Outlaw Administration.” We will hear more from the other speakers in the coming weeks.
- Elizabeth Holtzman, Author, The Impeachment of George W. Bush
- Scott Horton, Contributing Editor, Harper’s Magazine
- Jerrold Nadler, Chairman, House Subcommittee on the Constitution
- Antonio Taguba, Major General (U.S. Army Ret.)
