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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 September 12, 2022
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Mass Rally Mumia, Assange and Palestine in Berkeley, California September 17, 2022
Veteran socialist and organizer Jeff Mackler initiated a call for a mass rally on September 17, 2022 in Berkeley, California in support of Mumia Abu-Jamal, Julian Assange, and Palestinians. In 1982 radio journalist and Black Panther Mumia Abu -Jamal was wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death for murdering police officer Daniel Faulkner on a Philadelphia Street. He served 28 1/2 years on death row before his sentence was reduced to life in prison. Still in prison, he has served 40 years. An International movement has developed demanding “Free Mumia.”
Award winning Australian journalist and publisher Julian Assange sits in Belmarsh. a maximum security prison in London. In declining mental and physical health,he has been incarcerated for over 1000 days while he awaits extradition to the Northern District federal court in Virginia where he will be tried and certainly convicted of violating the espionage act of 1917. His crime: embarrassing United States by publishing true information about US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and spying on the American public.
The Gaza Strip imprisons 1 million Palestinians. It is largest open air prison in the world. A month ago the Israeli military killed 49 people, 17 of them children, in military attacks. The weapons were made and supplied by America. North of the Gaza Strip in June in the Israeli militarily occupied territory of the West Bank an Israeli sniper assassinated the beloved veteran Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh who was covering an Israeli army incursion. She had been reporting on the situation of Palestinians In the West Bank for many years.
American ideology has it that our country is a force for good in the world. That it is a democratic society, that it promotes freedom and democracy abroad, and that at home it is a place where hard work leads to success. But the truth is quite different. These myths are increasingly being exposed for what they are.
Recognizing that free journalism is at stake a diverse group of organizations are sponsoring the September 17th mass rally In Berkeley. Mumia will speak via phone. Vincent de Stefano of the Assange Defense Committee will speak. So will Daniel Ellsberg, famous for his release of the Pentagon papers, Susan Schnall, President of Vets for Peace, Mama Pam of Friends of Mumia’s International Family, the great journalist Chris Hedges, Pulitzer Prize winning author Alice walker, and Jeff Mackler among others.
The slogan of the rally is Free Mumia! Free Julian! Free Palestine!
Guest – Jeff Mackler is a founder and leader of the United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC), hey founder of the Northern California Climate Mobilization, and the national secretary of Socialist Action and it’s two time candidate for the US presidency.
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Analysis: The Taiwan-US Relationship And China
Trips to Taiwan, by Congressional leaders like Nancy Pelosi, followed up by trips to Taiwan by other members of Congress, has served to push the United States and China closer to a catastrophic conflict. Richard Becker, our guest for this topic today has written, “Pelosi’s decision raises the specter of all-out war between the two world powers. and the consequences of her actions remain to be seen.”
The Biden Administration, which obviously approved of Pelosi’s Taiwan visit, added fuel to the fire by deploying an aircraft carrier off the coast of Taiwan along with accompanying warships.
Pelosi’s argument that the U.S.-Taiwan relationship was based on a shared belief in “self-determination and self-government, democracy and freedom” is ridiculous. The U.S. and other colonial efforts to dismember Taiwan from the rest of China goes back to at least the 19th century. And at the end of World War Two, the U.S. government supported the Nationalist Party of dictator Chiang Kai-Shek in the civil war between his party and the ruling communist party of China; a war that Chiang lost. After Chiang lost that civil war he retreated to the Chinese island of Taiwan, where he ruled as a vicious dictator. Of course, he continued to receive with massive military and diplomatic support from the United States. And even after it was forced to abandon its absurd policy that Taiwan represented the legitimate government of China, the U.S. has maintained its de facto alliance with the regime in Taiwan. And China, which still claims Taiwan as a part of China, has not ruled out eventually bringing Taiwan back under mainland China’s governance, including with the use of force if need be.
Guest – Richard Becker a leader in the Party for Socialism and Liberation. He’s also the Western Regional Coordinator of the ANSWER Coalition, the coalition to end war and end racism; and Mr. Becker is the author of a number of books, including, Storming the Gates: How the Russian Revolution Changed the World, the book, Palestine: Israel and the U.S. Empire; and the book, The Myth of Democracy and the Rule of the Banks.
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Law and Disorder September 5, 2022
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Trump Affidavit Contains Broad-Based Probable Cause of Three Federal Crimes
On August 8, FBI agents seized 33 boxes, containers or items of evidence with more than 100 classified records from Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago compound. They included information classified at the highest levels. The Department of Justice had applied for the search warrant after Trump stonewalled them for seven months.
A federal judge found probable cause to believe that agents would find evidence of three federal crimes at Mar-a-Lago. They include a violation of the Espionage Act, which has recently been used to prosecute whistleblowers, publishers and journalists who publicize evidence of government wrongdoing.
Trump claims that the documents are his but in fact they belong to the National Archives. He is seeking the appointment a special master to review the documents for possibly privileged material. Attorney General Merrick Garland will use the seized documents to inform his decision about whether to indict Trump and/or his associates.
Guest – Law and Disorder co-host Marjorie Cohn, A former criminal defense attorney and professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, Marjorie does frequent written and broadcast commentary about these and other legal and political issues.
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Nationalizing The Fossil Fuel Industry
Thomas Hanna has been Research Director for the Democracy Collaborative since 2015, after working for five years as a research assistant to Gar Alperovitz, co-founder of the Democracy Collaborative and well-known historian and political economist. The Democracy Collaborative was founded in 2000 as a research center at the University of Maryland, to develop a theoretical and historical framework for building a truly democratic society, based on the principles of democratic economy, community wealth building and the democratization of ownership.
Hanna’s areas of expertise include public ownership, privatization, local government, democratic ownership and banking. He is the author and editor of a number of books, articles and reports, including Our Common Wealth: The Return of Public Ownership in the United States which was published by Manchester University Press in 2018.
Hanna’s recent article, The Supreme Court is Gutting the Regulatory State. Let’s Look at our Other Options, published in In These Times, provides a fascinating analysis of the historical evolution of the regulatory system in the United States. Since the New Deal and the end of World War II, the use of regulatory legislation has been used to protect capitalism, based on the notion that “the excesses and injustices of capitalism can be ameliorated primarily through state regulation of private enterprise, rather than large-order shifts in the ownerships of these enterprises.” In his article, Hanna articulately explains how these historical attempts to regulate capitalist power within the context of capitalism is destined to fail because of its own structural limitations.
In the wake of the “existential threat of catastrophic climate change and rising tide of right-wing extremism,” we are seeing – predictably – the explicit dismantling of that regulatory system. Hanna explores the recent rulings from the new right-wing majority on the US Supreme Court, particularly the case of West Virginia v. EPA, in which the court literally kneecapped the agency’s ability reduce the devastating effects of corporate pollution in order to protect private profit and “free enterprise.” Hanna explores an alternative vision of creating a system of economic and political democracy based on public and collective ownership of important assets, enterprises and services, including the fossil fuel industry.
Today’s show is hosted by Heidi Boghosian, Marjorie Cohn, and Julie Hurwitz
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Law and Disorder August 29, 2022
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Israeli Forces Raid and Shutter Seven Palestinian Human Rights Organizations
On August 18, the Israeli military raided the offices of seven leading Palestinian human rights and civil society organizations, ransacking and shuttering them. Three days later, the Israeli Occupying Forces summoned the directors of two of the groups for interrogation.
Last October, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz reported that Israel had designated six of the groups as “terrorist organizations” because they had links to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a leftist political party with a military wing. In November, the Israeli military commander in the occupied West Bank declared the six to be “unlawful associations.” But in the ensuing months, Israel has failed to come forward with competent evidence that links the six groups to the PFLP. A new classified report from the CIA says it could find no evidence to support the terrorist designations.
Progressive organizations in Israel and the United States condemned the raids. But the Biden administration has refused to denounce them, stating that it is awaiting further information from Israel.
Guest – Law and Disorder co-host Marjorie Cohn is interviewed about the ramifications of the terrorist designations and recent raids on the organizations. She is professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, former president of the National Lawyers Guild, and a member of Jewish Voice for Peace and the bureau of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers.
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A New Wave Of Book Banning
Book banning is the most widespread form of censorship in the United States. It’s when government officials, private individuals, or organizations remove books from libraries, school reading lists, or bookstores because they object to the content or themes contained therein. Children’s books are the main targets.
Often, complaints are that the book contains is sexually explicit, contains graphic violence, has offensive language, or shows disrespect for parents and family. Censors claim they’re afraid the contents are dangerous for kids, or that they’ll cause young people to raise questions, and incite critical inquiry among children that parents, political groups, or religious organizations deem inappropriate or aren’t ready to address.
Before the 1970s book bans typically focused on obscenity. Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence and Ulysses by James Joyce were often banned. From the late 1970s on, attacks focused on ideologies. To Kill A Mockingbird, The Color Purple, The Catcher in the Rye, and Harry Potter are among the 50 of the top banned books in this country.
A new wave of book banning in public and school libraries is sweeping the nation in 2022. It’s been under way since debates have percolated over critical race theory and what students should learn in the classroom. Several states are cutting funding for books written by authors in specific communities.
Guest – Christopher Finan, executive director of the National Coalition Against Censorship. He previously served as president of the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, the bookseller’s voice in the fight against censorship. Before that, he was executive director of Media Coalition, a trade association that defends the First Amendment rights of producers and distributors of media. Christopher is the author of From the Palmer Raids to the Patriot Act: A History of the Fight for Free Speech in America by Beacon Press, which won the 2008 Eli Oboler Award of the American Library Association. His forthcoming book is How Free Speech Saved Democracy.
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