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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.

Chicagoland Under Attack, Residents Fight Back With Rapid Response Teams

September 29, 2025

On September 8, the Trump Administration launched ‘Operation Midway Blitz to increase the number ICE raids on immigrant communities in Chicagoland. As director of the Casa DuPage Workers Center, Cristobal Cavazos, explains to Clearing the FOG, this initially led to widespread feelings of fear by residents, but organizers turned that into power by creating rapid response teams throughout the region to alert people when ICE comes to their neighborhoods and confront the ICE agents. The teams also do outreach and hand out Know Your Rights information to community members. A growing coalition of immigrants’ rights, faith, and other groups is holding protests daily, including at the Broadview detention center, despite the officers attacking demonstrators with tear gas and rubber bullets. Cavazos describes how activists throughout the country are sharing information and resources and why it is critical to be in the streets right now.

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Guest:

Cristobal Cavazos is the director of Casa DuPage Workers Center. After studying Spanish and international studies at North Central College in Naperville, Cavazos completed his masters in political science at Northern Illinois University in Dekalb and became active in the DuPage Peace Through Justice Coalition. Spurred by the proposal of the Border Protection, Anti-terrorism and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005 (aka the Sensenbrenner Bill) and the immigration reform protests that followed in 2006, Cavazos cofounded Immigrant Solidarity DuPage, a community-funded activism group, in 2007 with Rafael Vieyra.

Global Days Of Action To Build A Culture Of Peace In The Midst Of Violence

September 15, 2025

From September 21 (International Peace Day) to October 2 (International Day of Nonviolence), there will be more than five thousand nonviolent actions happening around the world coordinated by Campaign Nonviolence. The focus this year is promoting nonviolence toward self, others, world and earth. Clearing the FOG speaks with author and activist Rivera Sun, who assists in organizing the actions, about the many types of violence people experience every day and how to move from a culture steeped in war to one of peace. Sun discusses the power of nonviolence, the growing interest in how to practice it and the global shift that is occurring to build a more peaceful society.

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Guest:

Rivera Sun is a visionary writer whose work aims to awaken and empower readers of all ages. For nearly a decade, her popular Dandelion Trilogy has sold thousands of copies annually. Her acclaimed Ari Ara Series has been enjoyed by readers of all ages, taught in classrooms, and read by peace groups. Her high-quality literature captures the imagination with a blend of utterly compelling stories and social justice themes.

Rivera is the founding editor of the prize-winning Nonviolence News. Over 5 years, she co-hosted two radio shows broadcast nationwide on Pacifica Network stations. Rivera is a frequent guest presenter at universities, libraries and schools, and peace and justice organizations. Her syndicated articles have been published in hundreds of journals nationwide. As a trainer and educator, Rivera has facilitated sold-out workshops in writing, peace studies, and nonviolent action. She also hosts popular book discussion groups for readers of all ages and has run successful community publishing campaigns for 8 novels. She regularly posts literary and social justice-themed content to her 5,000 Facebook friends/followers and 24,500 Twitter followers, as well as maintaining a personal newsletter to 1500+ readers and fans.

In 2020, her novel The Lost Heir was nominated for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, the nation’s most prestigious peace literature prize. In 2015, she conducted a 50-city, grassroots-organized speaking tour for The Dandelion Insurrection. Rivera Sun attended Bennington College on full scholarship, including a major scholarship from the Harcourt Foundation. Rivera Sun currently serves on the Advisory Board of World BEYOND War and the board of Backbone Campaign, and works with Pace e Bene’s Campaign Nonviolence with tens of thousands of people across the country and globe. www.riverasun.com

Fundamental Change In The Climate: ‘The World Is Coming Apart Before Our Eyes’

September 9, 2025

The situation with respect to the climate crisis is developing rapidly. Each new study seems to bring worse news. In addition, the media is rife with climate denial and misinformation. To help us understand what is happening on this planet, Clearing the FOG speaks with environmental journalist Robert Hunziker. Hunziker follows climate studies published in scientific journals and translates them into a language the average person can understand. He reports that top scientists are saying there has been a fundamental shift in the climate. Rainforests and tundras are now spewing carbon instead of sequestering it, and the oceans have reached their capacity for storing the planet’s heat. Cascading weather events are making areas of the world uninhabitable.

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Guest:

Robert Hunziker (MA, economic history, DePaul University) is a freelance writer and environmental journalist whose articles have been translated into foreign languages and appeared in over 50 journals, magazines, and sites worldwide, including ZNetwork, European Project on Ocean Acidification, Ecosocialism Canada, Climate Himalaya, Counterpunch, Dissident Voice, Comite Valmy, and UK Progressive. He has been interviewed about climate change on Pacifica Radio, KPFK, FM90.7, Indymedia On Air and World View Show/UK.

The Labor Movement Today: Building Power Across All Our Issues

September 1, 2025

For Labor Day, Clearing the FOG speaks with labor organizer Jaz Brisack. Jaz was on the frontlines of organizing the first labor union in a Starbuck’s shop and creating the Inside Organizer School in 2018. They are the author of Get on the Job and Organize published by Atria/One Signal Publishers in April of this year. Jaz speaks about their experiences growing up in the South, discovering the history of the labor movement in the United States and getting involved in labor campaigns during college. They also speak about the tactics used and challenges overcome in building Starbucks Workers United, as well as the youth contingent of the labor movement today and the importance of unifying the labor movement across types of work and around broader social demands.

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Guest:

Jaz Brisack (they/them) is a union organizer and cofounder of the Inside Organizer School, which trains workers to unionize. After spending one year at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, they got a job as a barista at the Elmwood Starbucks in Buffalo, New York, becoming a founding member of Starbucks Workers United and helping organize the first unionized Starbucks in the United States. Jaz currently works as a union organizer in California.

Mass Mobilizations Needed To Protect Bolivian And Venezuelan Revolutions

August 25, 2025

On August 17, in the Bolivian presidential elections, the leftwing candidates lost for the first time in twenty years. Some are calling this a continuation of the US-backed coup there. Just days before the election, the Trump administration announced that it was sending naval destroyers and 4,000 troops to Latin America that could be used in ‘targeted strikes’ against Venezuela. Clearing the FOG speaks with William Camacaro, a senior analyst for the Council on Hemospheric Affairs and a co-founder of the Venezuela Solidarity Network, about divisions within the left in Bolivia that led to their current demise and how Venezuela is mobilizing millions of civilians to defend their sovereignty against US aggression.

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Guest:

William Camacaro is a  Senior Analyst for the Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA). He is a co-founder of  the Venezuela solidarity network and holds a Master’s Degree of Fine Arts and a Master’s Degree in Latin American Literature from City University of New York.

Community Defense Against The Military Occupation Of Our Cities

August 18, 2025

On August 11, the Trump administration announced the deployment of national guard troops and the federal takeover of the police department in Washington, DC. This follows military troops being deployed to Los Angeles and ICE agents snatching people throughout the country. Last week, the Pentagon also announced the creation of a 600-member national guard unit ready to deploy to cities within an hour when there are protests. Clearing the FOG speaks with Erica Caines of the Black Alliance for Peace about the checkpoints and patrols in DC, how this fits into the long history of policing mainly black and brown communities and how people are organizing community self-defense and mutual aid. She also discusses the demand to disqualify the United States and Israel from FIFA and the Olympic games.

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Guest:

Erica Caines is the national co-coordinator of the Black Alliance for Peace. She is an editor of and contributor to Hood Communist and the founder of #LiberationThroughReading, which provides African children with books that represent them.

Military Veteran Speaks Out On Nuclear War And GI Resistance

August 12, 2025

This past week marked the 80th anniversary of the US bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Clearing the FOG speaks with Gerry Condon, a past president of Veterans for Peace and a lifelong GI resister, about the myths of the US atomic bombing of Japan and the costs of nuclear weapons, including the environmental contamination from the nuclear chain and testing. Condon warns that the risk of nuclear war is higher than ever. He also speaks about resistance to nuclear weapons and his current work on the anti-nuclear boat, The Golden Rule. And Condon discusses the surge in active duty members who are joining Veterans for Peace in opposition to the genocide in Palestine and the domestic deployment of the military to assist ICE in the detention of immigrants and US citizens.

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Guest:

Gerry Condon is a Vietnam-era veteran and war resister, a former president and current national board member of Veterans For Peace (VFP), president of the Golden Rule Committee, and a member of the crew that sailed the Golden Rule to Cuba. He represents VFP on the steering committee of the Peace In Ukraine Coalition. He can be reached by email at gerrycondon@veteransforpeace.org. Condon refused Army orders to deploy to Vietnam in 1968. He was court-martialed and sentenced to ten years in prison, but escaped to Sweden, where he worked with the American Deserters Committee, and then to Canada, where he worked with the AMEX-Canada war resister collective. 

New Report: US Economic Wars Kill Over 560,000 People Every Year

August 4, 2025

The Lancet, a renowned medical journal, recently published a groundbreaking report on the number of people who die each year as a result of economic sanctions primarily imposed by the United States. US economic wars have killed more than 560,000 people each year for the past ten years, over half of those killed are children five years of age and younger. This number is higher than the number of people who die in military conflicts. Clearing the FOG speaks with Sara Flounders, a co-founder of the Sanctions Kill campaign, about what sanctions are, how they kill, and why the United States wages economic warfare.

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Guest:

Sara Flounders is an organizer and the author of ten books. She is a Contributing Editor of Workers World Newspaper, Co-Director of International Action Center, helps coordinate the UNAC – United National Antiwar Coalition and the Sanctions Kill Campaign. She is Editor and a co-author of the book SANCTIONS – A Wrecking Ball in a Global Economy. 

Information Rights Project Launched To Share Lessons From Assange Victory

July 28, 2025

Julian Assange, a founder of Wikileaks, endured nearly 15 years of persecution for daring to provide an information platform that opened access to leaked documents exposing the rich and powerful. One year after Assange’s release from Belmarsh Prison, his brother, Gabriel Shipton, launched The Information Rights Project to share the lessons he and his family learned as they mounted a global movement in defense of Assange. Clearing the FOG speaks with Shipton about what Assange endured, why information access is a critical right, and what people around the world can do to protect this right as attacks on those who speak out and report the truth grow.

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Guest:

Gabriel Shipton is an Australian film producer, human rights advocate, and founder of The Information Rights Project. As the brother of WikiLeaks’ founder Julian Assange, Gabriel played a pivotal role in the global campaign for his brother’s release, building bipartisan coalitions across Australia and the United States, mobilising grassroots support, and leading innovative fundraising efforts, including in the cryptocurrency space. He produced the 2021 documentary Ithaka, which chronicles the Assange family’s fight for justice. Visit The Information Rights Project.

Friends Of The Hague Group Challenges Governments To End Genocide

July 21, 2025

On July 17, as The Hague Group, a coalition of nations committed to diplomatic and legal actions to end the genocide in Palestine, held an emergency summit in Bogota, Colombia, civil society groups also met to launch the Friends of The Hague Group (FoTHG). The FoTHG was convened by Palestinian organizations and joined by major international movements to support and expand The Hague Group, but also to challenge it to place Palestinian demands at the forefront and to take strong actions. Clearing the FOG speaks with Jacqueline Luqman of the Black Alliance for Peace, a member of the FoTHG, about the launch, what US activists can learn from collaborating with other social movements, and why it is a critical time to organize new multilateral anti-imperialist and anti-colonialist structures.

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Guest:

Jacqueline Luqman is chair of the coordinating committee of the Black Alliance for Peace and a longtime activist, journalist and radio host. You can find her work on Substack and Patreon under Luqman Nation. She is also a contributor to Black Liberation Media.

Unpacking The Localism Manifesto: Solving Our Crises From The Bottom Up

July 14, 2025

The United States is a failing country. Political leaders at all levels have failed to effectively solve the many crises we face such as the climate crisis, economic insecurity and growing inequality, and the need for affordable housing, education, and health care, and more. Action at the local level, where people have the most control, offers a pathway forward. Clearing the FOG speaks with Michael Shuman, author of A Localism Manifesto, which can be found at The Main Street Journal. Shuman explains how decentralized action works, the principles involved, and how it offers a radical new politics that can heal the current polarization of our society.

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Guest:

Michael Shuman is an economist, attorney, author, entrepreneur, and a leading visionary in community economics. He is an Adjunct Professor at Bard Business School in New York City and a Senior Researcher for Council Fire, where he performs economic development analyses for states, local governments, and businesses around North America. He also publishes a weekly newsletter on local investment called The Main Street Journal.

Workers’ Rights Are Under Attack, Here’s How We Fight Back

July 7, 2025

July 5 marked the 90th anniversary of the Wagner Act, also known as the National Labor Relations Act, which created the National Labor Relations Board and created mechanisms for workers to expand their rights and protections. Clearing the FOG speaks with longtime labor activist Steve Early about how worker militancy led to the Wagner Act, which was successful in increasing the percentage of unionized workers. Early explains how attacks on workers have weakened the Wagner Act, leading to a sharp decline in unionization. He states that now, “corporate America is moving in for the kill.” Early provides insight into ways workers can fight back in the current system.

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Guest:

Steve Early was involved in organizing, bargaining, and strikes at AT&T and Verizon for 27 years, while serving as a Boston-based CWA International representative and, later, administrative assistant to the vice-president of CWA District 1, the union’s largest. He is an active member of the NewsGuild/​CWA Freelancers Unit in the Bay Area.

The US-Israeli War On Iran Undergirds The Need For A Multipolar World

June 23, 2025

On June 12, just days before a scheduled negotiations session, the illegal state of Israel attacked Iran, killing top military leaders and scientists. Iran responded the next day by returning the attack on Israel, and there have been daily attacks between the two countries since then. On June 21, the United States, which had been providing support to Israel, attacked three nuclear facilities in Iran. Clearing the FOG speaks with Dr. Foad Izadi from the University of Tehran about the long history of US and Israeli aggression on Iran, how the current war is impacting the country and why this conflict is pivotal to the end of US/Western hegemony and the rise of a multipolar world.

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Guest:

Dr. Foad Izadi

US Military Members Have The Right To Refuse Illegal Orders

June 16, 2025

On June 7, 2025, the Trump administration overstepped the state government and federalized the national guard in California. They were deployed to Los Angeles to suppress protests against the rampant raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. In an unprecedented move, the administration also ordered marines to Los Angeles to join the guard. Clearing the FOG speaks with attorney James Branum of the Military Law Task Force, a branch of the National Lawyers Guild, about the history and legality of domestic troop deployments, the dangers of escalation and violations of civil rights, and what rights members of the military have to refuse to participate. Branum outlines the resources available to military members who want more information or need legal support.

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Guest:

James M. Branum is an Oklahoma-based solo practice attorney and activist. He is a former chair of the National Lawyers Guild Military Law Task Force.

St. Louis Using Tornado Destruction To Displace Black Community

June 9, 2025

On May 16, 2025, an EF3 tornado tore through the city of St. Louis causing massive destruction. Instead of responding with aid to those who were impacted, the city deployed police to black communities and condemned 5,000 homes and buildings without fully reviewing if these designations were warranted. Some homes were condemned even though repairs were made. Clearing the FOG speaks with President Westbrook of the St. Louis branch of the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement and Jesse Nevel, chair of the Uhuru Solidarity Movement, about what the city is currently doing to force Black residents from their homes, how this is part of a longer-term effort and why it is necessary to support residents there.

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Guests:

President Westbrook is the St. Louis branch President of the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement (INPDUM).  He personally experienced the tornado and is an organizer on the ground in St. Louis.

Jesse Nevel is the National Chair of the Uhuru Solidarity Movement, the mass organization of the African People’s Solidarity Committee.

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Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

Online donations are back! 

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.

Donate Here
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