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The ruling FOG (Forces of Greed) spin news stories in their favor and keep the masses distracted with celebrity gossip and reality shows. Each week on Clearing The Fog, host Margaret Flowers* features guests who are working to expose the truth and offer real solutions to the current crises faced by our nation and the world. Knowledge is power, and with this knowledge you will be empowered to act to shift power to the people and weaken the corporate stranglehold on our lives. This podcast is brought to you each week without advertising.

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*Clearing the FOG was founded by Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese in 2012 on We Act Radio. Kevin died in 2020.

United States’ Role In The Coup Attempt And Effort To Reignite The Korean War

On December 3, President Yoon Suk-Yeol attempted to impose martial law in South Korea as part of an effort to take more power and reignite the Korean War. Social movements took to the streets en masse and stopped the coup. Legislators then successfully voted to impeach President Yoon, who is refusing to resign. Clearing the FOG speaks with Ju-Hyun Park of the Korean diaspora organization Nodutdol about long-term US intervention in South Korea, how the coup attempt was thwarted, alleged plans to create a false flag event implicating the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and what happens next.

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Guest:

Ju-Hyun Park is the engagement editor at The Real News and an organizer with Nodutdol.

Ajamu Baraka On The US-Backed Coup In Syria And Anti-Anti-Imperialism

On December 8, the United States and Israel, with support from Turkey, succeeded in overthrowing the Syrian government using Islamic jihadist militants as proxies. Some people in the United States are claiming this as a victory for the Syrian people even though the proxies are Al Qaeda terrorists. Clearing the FOG speaks with Ajamu Baraka about the coup, the history of resistance in Syria and in the region, and what this means for the Syrian people. Baraka discusses Israel’s immediate expansion of its occupation in Syria and its quest for a ‘Greater Israel.’ He also discusses a tendency for some Left forces in the United States to side with US imperialism and why it is important to have ideological clarity about what is happening.

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Guest:

Ajamu Baraka is Chairman of the Coordinating Committee of the Black Alliance for Peace and an editor and contributing columnist for the Black Agenda Report. Baraka serves on the Executive Committee of the U.S. Peace Council and leadership body of the U.S. based United National Anti-War Coalition (UNAC) and the Steering Committee of the Black is Back Coalition.

Failing In Its Case Against The Uhuru Three, The US Manufactures ‘Thought Crimes’

The Uhuru 3 – Chairman Omali Yeshitela, Penny Hess and Jesse Nevel – will have a sentencing hearing on December 16 in Florida. Failing to find evidence to convict them of violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), the US Government manufactured a charge of conspiring to violate the law by thinking about it. There is no evidence to support this. This conviction creates a new level of state repression. Clearing the FOG speaks with Chairman Yeshitela about the case, the current political environment in the United States, including his opinions on the recent presidential election, and the recent events in the Sahel Region of Africa to decolonize the area.

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Guest:

Chairman Omali Yeshitela has never stopped fighting for freedom for African people everywhere. Mobilized in his youth by anti-colonial movements around the world and the struggle for black liberation inside the U.S., Yeshitela dedicated his life to uniting and liberating Africa and African people everywhere.In the heat of revolutionary struggle and during his early years as a political prisoner, Yeshitela was driven to discover the reasons why black people all over the world are impoverished and oppressed. Yeshitela developed the political theory of African Internationalism that understands the world through the eyes of the African working class.

Through African Internationalism the Chairman exposes the significance of Marx’s concept of the “primitive accumulation of capital,” the starting point of capitalist wealth accumulation, playing in “political economy about the same part as original sin in theology.”Breathing life into Marx’s analysis, Yeshitela noted that “African Internationalism recognizes that the process of slavery and brigandage that consolidated the political economy, national identity and general well-being of what came to be known as Europe is the same process that results in the wretched, divided, impoverished and exploited lot of Africans and much of the world.”

Yeshitela contends that the leading force of struggle is the African and oppressed working class throughout the world against “parasitic capitalism,” embodied in U.S. and Western imperialism built on enslavement, genocide and colonialism.In 1968 Chairman Yeshitela founded The Burning Spear newspaper that continues to be published today. Throughout the years Yeshitela has authored numerous books, pamphlets and articles, including his latest book, An Uneasy Equilibrium: The African Revolution versus Parasitic Capitalism.

In 1972, Yeshitela formed the African People’s Socialist Party which he chairs. He built the worldwide Uhuru Movement and the African Socialist International with branches now active in the U.S., Europe, the Caribbean and on the continent of Africa.Many of the most critical and legendary campaigns of the African community over the past 40 years have been led by Chairman Omali and the Uhuru Movement.The campaign to free Dessie Woods, an African woman sentenced to 22 years for killing a white attempted rapist with his own gun in the 1970s, reverberated throughout the world with its slogan, “Free Dessie Woods, Smash Colonial Violence!”The historic Measure O, the Community Control of Housing Initiative placed on the ballot in Oakland, CA as a land and housing reform measure in 1984, won 22,000 votes and raised forever the struggle for African community control of housing.In 1996, the Chairman united and mobilized the African community following the rebellions sparked by the police murder of 17-year-old TyRon Lewis just four blocks from the Uhuru House in St Petersburg, FL. The Chairman launched the demand for “economic development, not police containment,” forcing the U.S. government to send in the Civil Rights Commission for hearings. Read more.

From Venezuela To Palestine, US-Imposed Sanctions Are A Crime

December 10 is the anniversary of the signing of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration on Human Rights. Organizers with the Americas Without Sanctions campaign are holding an event (in-person and virtual) in Washington, DC to raise awareness of the US’s illegal economic war on one-third of the world’s population on Human Rights Day. See SanctionsKill.org for details. Clearing the FOG speaks with Barbara Larcom of the International Nicaragua Solidarity Coalition and Cheryl LaBash of the National Network on Cuba about the event and the current crises facing Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela as a result of US sanctions on them and how these are connected to the liberation of Palestine.

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Guests: 

Barbara Larcom is the current chair of the international Nicaragua Solidarity Coalition, which supports Nicaragua’s sovereignty and celebrates its many achievements.  She also coordinates Casa Baltimore/Limay, a 39-year friendship project linking Baltimore, MD, with the town of San Juan de Limay, Nicaragua.

Cheryl LaBash, one of 5 co-chairs of the National Network on Cuba, the U.S. umbrella organization for Cuba solidarity.

People Are Creating The Green New Deal At The Grassroots Level

The federal government, whether under Democratic or Republican leadership, has failed to address the climate crisis, instead investing in greater production of and dependency on fossil fuels. Those who are impacted by the consequences, from wildfires to droughts to record-breaking storms, have been left to fend for themselves. In response, people are taking action at every level of society from students and workers to tribes to cities and states to create the transformation we need. Clearing the FOG speaks with Jeremy Brecher, author of The Green New Deal from Below: How Ordinary People Are Building a Just and Climate-Safe Economy, about the myriad ways people are organizing to protect themselves and the planet.

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Guest:

Jeremy Brecher is a historian, documentary filmmaker, activist, and author of books on labor and social movements. His work has centered on understanding and nurturing the process he characterizes as “common preservation,” in which individuals and group shift from futile and/or self-destructive efforts at self-preservation to strategies of collective action to promote their mutual wellbeing. Read more here.

The 2024 Election Was The Final Nail In The US Climate Movement’s Coffin

The newest Global Carbon Budget Report found that carbon emissions were at a record high in 2024, despite the strong evidence that emissions must be cut drastically to mitigate the climate crisis. The United States, the largest producer of fossil fuels and responsible for 13% of global carbon emissions (with only 4% of the world’s population), is largely responsible for the crisis. Clearing the FOG speaks with Anthony Rogers-Wright, a national racial and climate justice advocate, about the failures of the US climate movement and its fatal flaw of being loyal to the Democratic Party. That loyalty profoundly undermined the credibility of the big environmental groups in this election cycle. Rogers-Wright discusses the COP29 and where we go from here to build an independent and more strategic climate movement in the United States.

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Guest:

Anthony Rogers-Wright is a national racial and climate justice advocate, and host of the WPFW Network program, “Full Spectrum with Anthony Rogers-Wright,” which airs Tuesdays at 6:00 PM EST. He is a proud member of the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) and is blessed to be the father of his nine-year-old son, Zahir Cielo. You can find his writing in Black Agenda Report.

Post-Election Report And Next Steps For Transformational Change

As we enter another four years of oligarchic rule, Clearing the FOG speaks with activist and host of Breakthrough News Eugene Puryear about what he heard from voters as he supported the Claudia de la Cruz and Karina Garcia presidential campaign. Puryear explains the need to build a working class, socialist political movement, what issues will be first and foremost in the struggle to protect our rights and the organizing work that is being done around these issues. Puryear describes both the dire crises that exist and the hope inherent in building toward a better future.

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Guest:

Eugene Puryear is a longtime journalist and community organizer currently-based in New York City. Eugene helped to organize a number of the large-scale demonstrations that took place against the continuing U.S. war and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, he was a key leader In the struggle to free the Jena Six in 2007, and a founder of the anti-gentrification group Justice First, the Jobs Not Jails coalition, DC Ferguson Movement and Stop Police Terror Project-D.C. Puryear is the author of the book Shackled and Chained: Mass Incarceration in Capitalist America, and spent five years in radio prior to helping found BT News.

There’s An Abundance Of Housing; Let’s Organize To Take It Over

The Poor People’s Army, formerly the Poor People’s Economic and Human Rights Campaign, has been leading efforts across the country to place individuals and families who need them into federally-owned housing for a long time. Their position is that housing is a human right and that people in need should not be forced to wait for shelter. They recently published “Takeover: A Human Rights Approach to Housing” on Poor People’s Press, a step-by-step guide to occupying empty houses. Clearing the FOG speaks with Cheri Honkala, the lead author, and Galen Tyler, a lead organizer with the Poor People’s Army, about the current housing crisis and how people can use the new book to end the crisis of homelessness.

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Guests:

Cheri Honkala

Galen Tyler

There’s A Severe Housing Crisis In The US: The Work To Make Housing A Right

A new report, Billionaire Blowback on Housing: How concentrated wealth disrupts housing markets and worsens the housing affordability crisis, explains how the United States has entered a state of hyper-gentrification in which the average person has to compete with a large corporation when it comes to buying or renting a home. There are currently 28 vacant homes for every homeless person. Clearing the FOG speaks with Chuck Collins, a co-author of the report, and Mehrdad Azemun of Peoples Action, about the housing crisis, the vision for a homes guarantee and how people are working to make housing a human right.

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Guests:

Chuck Collins is the Director of the Program on Inequality and the Common Good at the Institute for Policy Studies, where he co-edits Inequality.org. He is an expert on U.S. inequality and the racial wealth divide and author of over ten books and dozens of reports about inequality, climate disruption, philanthropy, the racial wealth divide, affordable housing, and billionaire wealth dynasties.

His 2023 book is a novel, Altar to an Erupting Sun (Green Writers Press), a near-future story of one community facing climate disruption in the critical decade ahead. See more at www.chuckcollinswrites.com.

His 2021 book, The Wealth Hoarders: How Billionaires Spend Millions to Hide Trillions (Polity Books), unmasks the industry of professional enablers that assist the ultra-wealthy to hide wealth and dodge taxes.

He is author of the popular book, Born on Third Base: A One Percenter Makes the Case for Tackling Inequality, Bringing Wealth Home, and Committing to the Common Good (Chelsea Green); He is co-author, with the late Bill Gates Sr. of Wealth and Our Commonwealth, (Beacon Press, 2003), a case for taxing inherited fortunes. He is co-author with Mary Wright of The Moral Measure of the Economy, a book about Christian ethics and economic life. He was featured in this interview in Sun Magazine and with Terry Gross on NPR’s Fresh Air.

He is a founding member of the Patriotic Millionaires. In 1995, he co-founded United for a Fair Economy (UFE) to raise the profile of the inequality issue and support popular education and organizing efforts to address inequality. He was Executive Director of UFE from 1995-2001 and Program Director until 2005.

Mehrdad Azemun is Senior Strategist at People’s Action. He has been organizing for over 20 years, with deep experience in community organizing, electoral politics and the immigrants rights movement. 

The West Would Rather Burn The Planet Than Let China Shine

October 1 marked the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Since its founding, China has made remarkable accomplishments in public health by addressing opium addiction, in the elimination of poverty and in the building of an eco-socialist society. Clearing the FOG speaks with K J Noh, an activist, author and political analyst specializing in Asia. Noh recently wrote “Your Mind Is A Battlefield: Decolonize It To Prevent Global Catastrophe!,” which was published in Popular Resistance. Noh describes the Chinese approach of designing policies that benefit everyone, why the West, especially the United States, views China as a threat rather than a partner, and what people in the US can do to counter anti-China propaganda and prevent a global war with China.

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Guest:

K. J. Noh is a peace activist and journalist and scholar specializing in the geopolitics of the Asian continent. He writes for Counterpunch and Dissident Voice. He is special correspondent for KPFA Flashpoints on the Pivot to Asia, the Koreas, and the Pacific. He is a member of Veterans for Peace and Pivot to Peace.

A Free State Of Palestine Is Inevitable; How Many Must Die First?

October 7, 2024 marks the first anniversary of the launch of Operation Al Aqsa Flood when members of the Palestinian resistance movement broke out of Gaza, known as the world’s largest open air prison. The occupying state of Israel responded with a genocidal attack on Gaza that has since spread to the West Bank, Lebanon and other countries in the region that are acting in solidarity with Palestine. Clearing the FOG speaks with activist and author Miko Peled about the goals of Israel, what is happening in Palestine and West Asia and his new project, the Palestine House of Freedom, in Washington, DC. Visit DarAlhurriya.org.

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Miko Peled is an author, writer, speaker, and human rights activist living in the United States. He is considered by many to be one of the clearest voices calling for justice in Palestine, support of the Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) and the creation of a single democracy with equal rights in all of historic Palestine. Educated in Jerusalem, Japan and the United States, Peled is also an accomplished professional martial artist. For 23 years, Peled ran a martial arts school that was dedicated to teaching leadership skills and non-violent conflict resolution through martial arts. 

Miko is also a contributor to several online publications (Mint Press, The Electronic Intifada, Democracy Now, Mondoweiss), authors this blog (mikopeled.com), and produces The Miko Peled Podcast, all of which he dedicated to advocating for the creation of one democratic state with equal rights for Israelis and Palestinians. He travels regularly to Palestine where he speaks and works with the popular resistance, the BDS movement, and other justice groups. As a result, he has been arrested several times by the Israeli authorities for his activism.

His blog is dedicated to tearing down the separation wall and transforming the Israeli apartheid system into a democratic state with equal rights. This is an idea that may be a bitter pill to swallow for Jews and Palestinians who will have to let go of the dream of having a state that is exclusively Jewish or Arab.  The articles, the stories, and the pictures in this blog are meant to make a single point: For the good of both nations, the Israeli apartheid system must be defied and Boycott Divestment & Sanctions (BDS) must be adopted fully so that the Separation Wall will come down, and a democracy with equal rights can be established in Palestine.

The Law Has Failed Palestinians, It’s Time For A Protection Force

It has been nearly a year since Hamas and other Palestinian resistance fighters broke out of Gaza and the illegal Israeli occupation launched a devastating and genocidal war on Gaza, which has now expanded to all of the Occupied Palestinian Territory and other countries in the region. Many attempts within the United Nations to stop the war and to hold Israel accountable have failed to protect Palestinians, as have other international bodies. Clearing the FOG speaks with human rights lawyer Ousman Noor, who started a petition demanding that an international protection force be established urgently to protect Palestinians. Noor explains how people can use the petition to pressure nations to take action.

Petition: Urgent International Military Protection for Palestinians

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Guest:

Ousman Noor studied law at SOAS: University of London, and social anthropology at the University of Oxford. I worked as a human rights barrister (lawyer) in London for 9 years, specialising in refugee and detention law, and taught as a Senior Teaching Fellow at SOAS. For 3+ years, I was Government Relations Manager at Stop Killer Robots, a coalition of 250+ NGOs from 70+ countries. Following a personal Tweet calling for an end to occupation, apartheid and ethnic cleansing in Palestine, my employment was terminated.

Ajamu Baraka On Global Conflicts And Social Transformation

In addition to risking a nuclear war with Russia, the United States is stoking greater conflicts in West Asia and China. Ajamu Baraka speaks with Clearing the FOG about his recent tour in Iran where he spoke to a cross-section of people about their concerns and the need for greater international solidarity. Baraka also discusses the responsibility of people, particularly in the collective West, to organize in order to change course away from militarism. He provides an analysis of the upcoming presidential election, the verdict in the case of the Uhuru 3 and why people must avoid aligning themselves with the ruling class, which will stop at nothing to hang onto power.

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Guest:

Ajamu Baraka

Russia Is Not Bluffing: To Avoid WWIII, The US Must Find A Diplomatic Offramp

Last week, the United States was considering Ukraine’s request for long-range missiles that could strike more deeply into Russian territory. The Russian government made it clear that this would be viewed as a declaration of war and that it would respond with attacks on NATO countries, including the United States. Clearing the FOG speaks with Scott Ritter about the current state of the Ukraine proxy war against Russia. Ritter explained that had the United States not backed down, World War III could have started. Ritter also discusses the escalating attack on free speech and his new campaign, Operation Dawn, which will launch on September 28 in Kingston, New York.

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Scott Ritter is a former Marine intelligence officer who served in the former Soviet Union, implementing arms control agreements, and on the staff of General Norman Schwartzkopf during the Gulf War, where he played a critical role in the hunt for Iraqi SCUD missiles. From 1991 until 1998, Mr. Ritter served as a Chief Inspector for the United Nations in Iraq, leading the search for Iraq’s proscribed weapons of mass destruction. Mr. Ritter was a vocal critic of the American decision to go to war with Iraq. He resides in Upstate New York, where he writes on issues pertaining to arms control, the Middle East and national security. Disarmament in the Time of Perestroika is Mr. Ritter’s tenth book.

Scott Ritter has testified before a combined Armed Services/Foreign Affairs hearing of the US Senate, and before the House Foreign Relations and National Security committees. He has testified before a combined Armed Services/ Foreign Affairs hearing of the US Senate, and before the House Foreign Relations and National Security committees. He has spoken to NATO, the United Nations, the British, Canadian, Italian, French, Iraqi, Japanese and European Parliaments. He has done public speaking engagements at Harvard, MIT, Brown, Dartmouth, Cornell, Yale and Columbia, and dozens of other public and private universities and colleges across the country. He has spoken before the Council on Foreign Affairs, Chatham House and RUSI (in London), and various World Affairs Councils. His articles and podcasts can be found at ScottRitter.com.

Retaliation And Repression Of Palestine Solidarity Activism

In the United States and the United Kingdom, employer retaliation and state repression against people who show solidarity with the Palestinian liberation movement and who oppose genocide is escalating. Professor Danny Shaw describes his nearly lifelong solidarity with Palestine and the personal price he has paid for it particularly since last October. Shaw has been doxed, arrested, fired and detained by the FBI and Homeland Security. His phone and electronic devices have been confiscated as well as his passport although he has not committed any crimes. He discusses how he and others are fighting back and why we must defend our rights to free speech and to know what is happening.

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Guest:

Danny Shaw taught Latin American and Caribbean Studies and Race, Ethnicity, Class and Gender at the City University of New York. He holds a Masters in International Affairs from the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. He was born and raised by a single mother in Brockton, Massachusetts and has lived in the Bronx for the past 18 years. He is fluent in Spanish, Haitian Kreyol, Portuguese, Cape Verdean Kreolu and has a fair command of French. He has worked and organized in forty different countries, opening his spirit to countless testimonies about the inhumanity of the international economic system. He is a Golden Gloves boxer, fighting twice in Madison Square Garden for the NYC heavyweight championship. He teaches boxing, yoga and nutrition. He works in the national leadership of the ANSWER Coalition (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) to keep young people out of the military and prison industrial complex. He is a mentor to many guiding them through the nutritional, ideological, social and emotional landmines that surround us. He is the father of two young Life Warriors, Ernesto Rafael and Caũa Amaru. He is the author of five books: 365 Days of Resistance, Shedding that which is Not Us: A Working-Class Guide to Life Foods Training and Healing, ­The Saints of Santo Domingo: Dominican Resistance in the Age of Neocolonialism, My Son Blazes within Me: Reflections on a Poor “white” Family’s Survival, and Diving over Infinite Horizons: Journal Entries of an Internationalist. He has also authored blogs and articles on Latin American history, boxing and nutrition, among other topics. He can be contacted at DRS33@Columbia.edu.

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Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

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