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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 May 31, 2021
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Palestine Legal Director Speaks On Recent Israel-Palestine Conflict
Zionism, the idea of creating a Jewish homeland in Palestine, was and is a settler colonial project that started 100 years ago. But Zionism had a problem. It’s illustrated by the story of an early Zionist Congress in Vienna sending three rabbis to Palestine to report on what they saw. The rabbis went and reported back that “the bride is beautiful but she’s married to another man.” Palestine was densely populated and had been for thousands of years. It was not, as Zionist propaganda would have it, a land without a people for a people without a land.
The Zionist goal then and now was to get rid of the Arabs. In this they have almost succeeded. But not quite.
The recent 11 day horrific slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza, approved in advance by the Biden administration and conducted by Israel with American supplied weapons started when Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in an effort to consolidate right wing support evicted Palestinians from their homes in a Palestinian neighborhood in Jerusalem. The Prime Minister also had his military invade and shoot up the Al-Asqua mosque in Jerusalem while 300 Palestinians were there praying on the last day of Ramadan. In response on May 18th the Palestinians staged a general strike in Israel proper, the West Bank, and Gaza. This was the first time a general strike had been conducted by the Palestinians against their Zionist and British oppressors since 1936 which which was broken by the British and the Zionists.
The Zionist apparatus in the United States is extremely strong. Through lawsuits and political pressure they have carved out what Michael Ratner called – the Palestine exception to the First Amendment. Telling the Palestine story is quite difficult. To counter this Michael Ratner set up the organization Palestine Legal in Chicago. It is headed by Palestinian American attorney Dima Khalidi. Before the cease-fire, 1700 people in Gaza were injured and 210 killed, including 65 children.
Guest – Dima Khalidi, founder and Director of Palestine Legal. Her work includes providing legal advice to activists, engaging in advocacy to protect their rights to speak out for Palestinian rights, and educating activists and the public about the repression of Palestine advocates. She most recently has an article published online in Truthout.
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The Dallas 6: Andre Jacobs
In 2014 and 2016, Law and Disorder covered the case of the Dallas 6. They’re a group of prisoners who in 2010 protested the ongoing abuse from prison guards while locked in solitary confinement at the SCI Dallas prison in Pennsylvania. Abuse there included tasering genitals, being hog tied, cutting off of clothes and leaving the men in cages for hours at a time.
They witnessed another prisoner, Isaac Sanchez, being strapped into a restraint chair for hours even overnight. When guards threatened to do the same to them, the men tried to cover their cell doors with their bedding and refused to leave their cell in an effort to protect themselves and gain the attention of authorities. Prison guards stormed the six cells, armed with batons and electrified equipment. They left the men beaten, bloody, naked, eyes burning, their flesh scorched with pepper spray.
The Dallas 6 are Andre Jacobs, Anthony Kelly, Anthony Locke, Dwayne Peters, Derek Stanley, and Carrington Keys. The six men were forced to remain in the Restrictive Housing Unit, or solitary confinement for up to ten years.
Guest – Andre Jacobs, Andre served more than two decades in prison, was the victim of prolonged and tortuous prison guard abuse, became a successful jailhouse lawyer, and has been released from prison. He started the business Supreme Network Global to help and guide young men and women who have been in similar circumstances.
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Law and Disorder May 24, 2021
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- Commentary: Jim Lafferty On Israeli – Palestinian Conflict
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Steven Donziger Trial: Continuing Coverage Part 2
After five days in court and 650 days on house arrest, environmental lawyer Steven Donziger chose not to take the stand and testify in his own defense. As listeners will recall, Steven was on trial for criminal contempt of court charges. In August 2019, he refused to turn over his computer, cellphone and other electronic devices and he has been detained pretrial for a misdemeanor offense. If convicted, he faces six months in prison.
The attorney who won a multi-billion-dollar settlement against Chevron oil for polluting an area Ecuador the size of Rhode Island and causing the indigenous people thousands of injuries and deaths by cancer and other illnesses, told The Intercept about the decision: “My lawyers said you’d be crazy to testify, so we decided to cut the case short. No need to continue to legitimize what’s essentially a charade.”
Judge Loretta Preska denied Steven a trial by jury, and many contend that a jury of his own peers might have acquitted the human rights defender of all six counts. Attorney and Harvard Law School professor Charles Nesson agrees. “This is a story of the denial of jury trial,” Nesson said. “He’s been effectively convicted and disbarred and more or less bankrupted without any jury. And now he’s about to be convicted. And all of this without a jury.”
Guest – Attorney Martin Garbus, one of three pro bono lawyers representing Donziger in an attempt to get his law license restored. Garbus has a long and distinguished career as a civil rights and first amendment litigator. Attorney Martin Garbus has represented Nelson Mandela, Daniel Ellsberg, and Cesar Chavez and worked in Rwanda, China, and the Soviet Union, among other countries.
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Take Me To Your Leader: The Rot of the American Ruling Class
We need to know our enemy because the task of changing society begins with understanding who holds power. In 1915 the great Irish socialist James Connolly said, “O, yes! The ruling class are worthy of study. The natural history of the ruling class is a fascinating interest. You begin with interest, you proceed with awe and admiration, you deepen into hatred, and you wind up with contempt for the nature of the beast. You realize that – the capitalist class is the meanest class that ever grasped the reins of power”. Jacobin magazine’s Spring 2021 issue is devoted entirely to an examination of the ruling class.
Guest – Doug Henwood who has an article in Jacobin titled Take Me To Your Leader: The Rot of the American Ruling Class. Doug Henwood is the editor of Left Business Review and the host of the radio program Behind the News.
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Law and Disorder May 17, 2021
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Steven Donziger Trial: Continued Coverage
As we continue our coverage of human rights lawyer Steve Donziger’s criminal contempt trial, we look back to the origins of case he brought against Chevron Oil. They go back to the late 1960s when Texaco first discovered oil in part of an Amazon rainforest in northeastern Ecuador. The US oil company went on to lord over decades of environmental destruction on a monolithic scale, dumping two or three Exxon Valdez’s worth of oil and toxic byproducts and despoiling an area the size of Rhode Island. Since then, the indigenous tribes in the area have been victims of by cancer and other illnesses caused by the pollution, they say. In 1993, two years after graduating from Harvard Law School, Donziger joined a lawsuit seeking to force Texaco to clean up the mess. In 2000 Chevron purchased Texaco. They spent upward of $1 billion in legal fees defending this case.
Donziger has broad support from celebrities, including Alec Baldwin and Susan Sarandon; dozens of Nobel laureates; and thousands of lawyers and law students globally. A handful of sympathetic Democratic lawmakers, including U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have written a letter to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, asking him to look into the case. More than 200 attorneys with the International Association of Democratic Lawyers have filed a judicial complaint asking for Judge Kaplan to be taken off the bench.
Conversely, Chevron claims Donziger’s supporters are being duped by a con man. A few conservative outlets have reiterated that narrative. One National Review headline criticized the “Lefty Media” for championing the cause of “History’s Champion Scammer.”
Guest – Attorney Martin Garbus, one of three pro bono lawyers representing Donziger in an attempt to get his law license restored. Garbus has a long and distinguished career as a civil rights and first amendment litigator.
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Above The Law: How Qualified Immunity Protects Violent Police
The 1967 judicially created doctrine of qualified immunity has been so broadly interpreted that it acts as a shield for policeman in all but the rarest of circumstances. Only when the exact same abusive behavior of a cop has already been deemed unconstitutional by a court in the exact same jurisdiction can a victim succeed in a civil lawsuit against an abusive police officer. A plantiff must show that government officials violated clearly established law to receive damages for harm.
The plaintiff wins only if a prior court found an official liable under a nearly identical fact pattern. This standard is virtually impossible to meet and the protections promised under section 1983 civil rights act are therefore largely symbolic.
Guest – Ben Cohen – cofounder and former CEO of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream. He is the founder of a variety of advocacy organizations and the author of several books including his latest titled Above The Law: How Qualified Immunity Protects Violent Police. Ben and his partner Jerry Greenfield are currently helping to lead the campaign to end qualified immunity.
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USPS Announces Closing Of 19 Mail Processing Plants
The US Postal Service advertises the official standard of delivering first-class mail — a typical letter with a 55-cent stamp—within “1-3 business days.” The News Department at WGBH Radio in Boston conducted its own test to see if this still holds true. News reporters and producers sent nearly 100 letters from different places in the metro area at various hours on the same day to their pick of correspondents in 38 states, creating a random sample. The letters were addressed to residents of large cities, suburbs and small towns. The Postal Service flunked the test. A little more than half of the letters arrived within the three-day window.
Slower delivery is just the tip of the Post Office’s problems. Things are going from bad to worse. The Postal Service issued a report titled Delivering for America calling for a reorganization that highlights something called shared sacrifice.
Many consider it an austerity plan to cover for de facto privatization. Critics say the plan will slow the mail, raise prices, and cut services. Since the report was published, the Postal Service announced the closing of 18 mail processing plants that will take place before November. Based on recent history, closing these plants will slow the mail and guarantee there will be problems with mail delivery during the peak season.
Guest – Chuck Zlatkin, legislative director of the New York Metro Area Postal Union.
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