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Law and Disorder is a weekly independent civil liberties radio program airing on more than 150 stations and on Apple podcast. 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 March 4, 2024
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The Trillion Dollar Silencer: Why There Is So Little Anti-War Protest in the United States
As the notion of perpetual war and a militarized society are normalized, notably absent are antiwar protests by faith-based organizations, civil rights groups, academics, and others. The Trillion Dollar Silencer details this absence while laying bare the devastation wrought in the United States and abroad by the military industrial complex.
Author Joan Roelofs delves into the pervasive role of military contractors and bases that have come to be economic hubs of their regions. She discusses how state and local governments are intertwined with the Department of Defense (DoD), including economic development commissions at all levels. Contracts and grants to universities, colleges, and faculty come from the DoD and its agencies, such as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The Minerva Initiative funds social scientists for military research. Civilian jobs in the DoD provide opportunities for scientists, engineers, policy analysts, and others. The Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) programs are subsidized by the DoD.
In addition to businesses large and small, nonprofits receive DoD contracts and grants, including environmental and charitable organizations such as The Nature Conservancy and Goodwill Industries. Individuals, arts institutions, charities, churches, and universities share in the profitability of military-related investments. Pension funds for public and private employees and unions are replete with military stocks. In other words, the military industrial complex is so embedded in our political economy that it has become virtually impossible to find any sector of our society that is not intertwined with militarism.
Guest – Joan Roelofs, Professor Emerita of Political Science at Keene State College. She teaches in the Cheshire Academy for Lifelong Learning and writes for scholarly and political publications. Joan is the author of “Foundations and Public Policy: The Mask of Pluralism,” and “Greening Cities: Building Just and Sustainable Communities.” She has been an anti-war activist ever since she protested the Korean War.
Hosted by attorneys Heidi Boghosian and Julie Hurwitz
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Law and Disorder February 26, 2024
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The World Supports Julian Assange
In the past few days, the case of imprisoned journalist Julian Assange, the co-founder of WikiLeaks, who published the truth about the multitude of war crimes committed by United States and its allies, in the course of their wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, was back in court in London, where Assange is fighting extradition back to the United States. He is charged in the U.S. under an obscure section of the 1917 U.S. Espionage Act. As Megan Specia, writing in the New York Times put it, the two-day hearing “will determine whether he has exhausted his right to appeal within the U.K. and whether he could be one step closer to being sent back to the United States.” And she added, “and whether or not the people of the United States are one step closer to losing what is left of a free press in America, and with it what is left of our democracy.”
Assange has been effectively incarcerated for years now, the last five of which in solitary confinement in a notoriously horrid British prison in London, where both his physical and mental health have been steadily deteriorating. Indeed, a lower court judge in his extradition case had ruled against extraditing him because of the strong likelihood he would die in an equally horrid U.S. prison.
A nationwide and world-wide movement to free Julian Assange has been fighting for Assange’s freedom for years now. Virtually all of the world’s leading associations of journalists, and human rights organizations have called for an end to the U.S. government’s prosecution and persecution of Assange. As have major U.S. and foreign newspapers. Assange is an Australian citizen, and the Australian government has called for his release; Australian Prime minister Albanese says he did so when he recently met with President Biden.
Well, why did the Trump Administration decide to prosecute Assange in the first place, and as we now know, at one point plot to murder him? Why did the Obama Administration decide not to continue with the prosecution, and why has the Biden Administration nevertheless continued to do so?
And if Julian Assange loses this his last appeal within the British courts, does he have any remaining legal remedy?
Guest – Chris Hedges, award-winning journalist and political writer. Chris Hedges reported for The New York Times from 1990 to 2005 and served as the Times’ Middle East Bureau Chief and Balkan Bureau Chief during the wars in the former Yugoslavia. In 2001 Hedges was one of the Times’ writers on an entry that received the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting. Prior to his work for the Times, he worked as a freelance war correspondent in Central America for the Christian Science Monitor, NPR and the Dallas Morning News. His books include “Death of the Liberal Class”, “War on America”, “Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt”, and his book “War Is a Force That Gives US Meaning”, which was a finalist for the national Book Critics Circle Award for Non-Fiction.
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Flint Taylor Representing Malcom X’s Family In Reinvestigation Case
An assassination is a political murder. Malcolm X was assassinated on February 22, 1965 when he was speaking in the afternoon at the Audubon Ballroom in New York City. The New York Police Department and the FBI were involved. J. Edgar Hoover, the Director of the FBI, said “. . . we must stop the rise of a new black messiah.”
Days before the murder the NYPD arrested two of Malcolm’s bodyguards who would’ve protected him that afternoon. Two of the men who were convicted of the murder and who each served over 20 years in prison have been exonerated and released. One person, the trigger man, was convicted and served 45 years. But others involved have gone free as a result of withholding information by the police and the FBI.
Civil rights lawyer Ben Crump, who represented the family of George Floyd, has been retained by Malcolm X’s daughters to pursue the matter. On his team are attorneys Flint Taylor, Ben Elson, and Roy Hamlin. The function of the FBI and police departments nationwide is to protect the status quo. Hoover and the NYPD recognized the threat Malcolm posed with his newly formed Organization of African -American Unity.
Malcolm X was rapidly evolving into a socialist revolutionary. He had said with respect to the capitalist order that it could not produce social justice, that a chicken cannot lay a duck egg and if it ever did, it would be a pretty revolutionary chicken. Malcolm was killed on February 22, 1965. The FBI had opened a file on him in 1953. Thereafter he was under constant surveillance. In 1964 the head of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, commanded “do something about Malcolm X.“ Malcolm was assassinated the next year.
Malcolm X stood for Black consciousness, unity in action, solidarity with those struggling against imperialism worldwide, independence from the two capitalist political parties, and a deep sense of love for people.
Guest – Flint Taylor of the Peoples Law Office. Taylor is a nationally recognized civil rights attorney. He represented the family of Fred Hampton demonstrating that the Chicago Police Department and the FBI were responsible for the assassination of the young Black Panther leader. He’s written the book “The Killing Machine: Racism and Police Violence in Chicago”. He is one of the editors of the “Police Misconduct Law Reporter. He’s the author of The Torture Machine: Racism And Police Violence In Chicago.
Hosted by attorneys Michael Smith, Maria Hall and Jim Lafferty
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Law and Disorder February 19, 2024
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Disqualification Clause In Trump v. Anderson
On February 8, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Trump v. Anderson. The Colorado Supreme Court had held that Donald Trump’s participation in the January 6 insurrection makes him ineligible to be president, under the Disqualification Clause in Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. At issue is whether the Colorado court erred in holding that Donald Trump is disqualified from the office of the presidency.
During the arguments, with the exception of Sonia Sotomayor, all of the members of the Supreme Court – many of whom identify as originalists — signaled that they are prepared to ignore the command of the Disqualification Clause and refuse to allow Colorado to exclude Trump from the ballot.
Section 3 was enacted by Congress in the wake of the Civil War to disqualify people from holding office who had served in government prior to the war, but then supported the Confederacy. Nevertheless, during the Trump v. Anderson oral arguments, the Supreme Court members all but ignored the January 6 insurrection, the greatest threat to the survival of the Republic since the Civil War.
Guest – Marjorie Cohn is Professor of Law Emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and former president of the National Lawyers Guild. Marjorie is also Dean of the People’s Academy of International Law and a member of the Bureau of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers. She writes frequent articles about the Supreme Court for Truthout.
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Pro-Israel Media Bias in US Newspapers
Analysis of the coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza by three major newspapers—The New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times—reveals consistent bias against Palestinians, according to a recent report by the Intercept. The analysis, which examined more than 1,000 articles from these publications during the first six weeks of Israel’s assault, focused on usage of key terms and their contextual framing.
The study uncovered significant disparities in the reporting of casualties and the emotional language used. Terms like “slaughter” and “massacre” were disproportionately applied when describing the killing of Israelis compared to Palestinians. For instance, editors and reporters used the word “slaughter” 60 times to describe the killing of Israelis, but only used it once when referring to Palestinians. The word “massacre” was used 125 times to describe the killing of Israelis but only used twice for Palestinians. The term “horrific” was used 36 times in the context of Israeli casualties compared to just 4 times for Palestinians.
Despite the fact that Israel’s genocide in Gaza has caused an unprecedented loss of life among children—with more than 10,000 reported fatalities as of the present—only two headlines out of more than 1,100 news articles in the study mentioned the word “children” in connection with Gazan victims. Similarly, the plight of journalists, with more than 100 Palestinian reporters killed due to the Israeli bombardment, received scant attention. The word “journalists” and its iterations, such as “reporters” and “photojournalists,” appeared in only 9 headlines in over 1,100 articles.
Guest – Mischa Geracoulis is a journalist and critical media literacy expert. Mischa is the Curriculum Development Coordinator at Project Censored, and serves on the editorial board of the Censored Press and The Markaz Review. She writes about journalistic ethics and standards, press and academic freedoms, identity and culture, and the protracted disinformation campaign against the Armenian Genocide.
Hosted by attorneys Heidi Boghosian and Marjorie Cohn.
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