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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.

How To Stop To Israel’s Genocidal Starvation Of Palestinians

April 8, 2024

Gaza has been under a blockade for over 15 years that created bare subsistence conditions for Palestinians, but since October 7, 2023, the noose has been tightened. Palestinians are dying of starvation and dehydration in addition to the massacres committed by Israeli soldiers. In Palestine, the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC-Pal) has been struggling to provide water and materials to Palestinians to grow food and has been purchasing produce to provide to families in need. Clearing the FOG speaks with Fuad Abu Saif, director of UAWC-Pal, about their work and the global days of fasting in solidarity with Palestine. The next one is April 13. Click here to donate to the UAWC-Pal. Clearing the FOG also speaks with USAF Airman Larry Hebert, an active duty member of the military who began an open-ended hunger strike on March 31 to press the Biden administration for a ceasefire and an end to the starvation of Palestinians.

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Guests:

Fuad Abu Saif is the director general of the Union of Agricultural Work Committees.

Larry Hebert is an active duty airman with the United States Air Force.

International Coalition To Stop Genocide In Palestine Global Action

April 1, 2024

On March 17, the International Coalition to Stop Genocide in Palestine (ICSGP) held its first Global Call to Action as a webinar moderated by Ajamu Baraka of The Black Alliance for Peace and featuring Azhar Sakoor, a lawyer and executive with the Palestine Solidarity Alliance Youth League in South Africa, Marcy Winograd with CODEPINK, Pavel Wargan, the Coordinator of the Secretariat at the Progressive International, Lamis Deek, a Palestinian born and internationally practicing attorney based in New York, and Fuad Abu Saif, Director of the Union of Agricultural Work Committees – Palestine. Listen to some of their presentations edited here for the program. You can watch the full webinar here: https://popularresistance.org/international-coalition-to-stop-genocide-in-palestine-global-call-for-action/.

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Guests:

Ajamu Baraka of Black Alliance for Peace moderated the meeting.

Azhar Sakoor is an attorney and serves as Executive with the Palestine Solidarity Alliance Youth League in South Africa.

Marcy Winograd co-hosts with Medea BenjamIn CODEPINK Congress, a bimonthly program on  US foreign policy. In addition, she co-produces CODEPINK Radio, a podcast aired on most Pacifica stations, and oversees CODEPINK’s campaign to support South Africa’s case at the World Court.

Pawel Wargan is a researcher and organizer. He serves as the Coordinator of the Secretariat at the Progressive International. (preferred)

Lamis Deek is a Palestinian born and internationally practicing attorney based in New York whose work includes, civil, commercial, sanctions, compliance, national security, political, private and human rights law on the trials, appeals and transactional levels. In her advocacy she co-convened the Global Legal Alliance for Palestine, and founded the the Palestinian Assembly for Liberation Law Commission: On War crimes, justice, reparations and return.

The Haitian People Have Created A Revolutionary Moment

March 18, 2024

On March 11, de facto Haitian President Ariel Henry resigned after being unable to return from a trip to Kenya where he attempted to sign an agreement for military intervention in his country. Social movements shut down the airport in Port-au-Prince and neither the Dominican Republic nor the United States were willing to assist his return. Clearing the FOG speaks with journalist and filmmaker Kim Ives of Haiti Liberte, who has covered events in Haiti for decades. Ives says the current revolutionary moment is unprecedented and describes how the popular movement is organizing to wrest control from Western imperialists that have been occupying Haiti since the coup against President Aristide in 2004.

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Guest:

Kim Ives

Ukraine Conflict At Two Years: Weapons Expert Warns Of Nuclear War

March 11, 2024

“Nobody thought the conflict in Ukraine would last this long,” states Scott Ritter, a former Marine intelligence officer and weapons inspector, as the second anniversary of Russia’s special military operation is reached. Ritter predicts that the conflict will end within the year, but there are no positive outcomes. He warns that Ukraine will cease to exist, NATO will disband or alter fundamentally and the risk of nuclear war is high. Ritter also discusses the resignation of Victoria Nuland, revelations from the leaked conversation by German military officers and how the façade of US military dominance has been shattered by events in Ukraine and Western Asia.

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Guest:

Scott Ritter is a former U.S. Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the former Soviet Union implementing arms control treaties, in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm and in Iraq overseeing the disarmament of WMD. His most recent book isDisarmament in the Time of Perestroika, published by Clarity Press.

Julian Assange’s Final Appeal: US Withdraws Promises To Protect Him

March 4, 2024

On February 20 and 21, the High Court in the United Kingdom heard Julian Assange’s case for the right to appeal his extradition to the United States. Clearing the FOG speaks with Chip Gibbons, a lawyer and journalist with Defending Rights and Dissent, who attended the hearing. Gibbons describes the intentional efforts by the UK court to prevent media from covering the hearing, which is ironic as the hearing was fundamentally about the attack on press freedom, and what Julian Assange’s options are depending on what the court decides. Gibbons makes the point that the United States has given up all pretense of protecting Assange’s health and life if he is extradited, even though that admission would be enough to block his extradition, revealing the lack of regard for the law and Assange’s human rights that has been evident throughout this prosecution.

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Guest:

Chip Gibbons is policy director of Defending Rights & DIssent, where he has advised multiple congressional offices on reforming the Espionage Act. He traveled to London to cover the Julian Assange extradition as an accredited reporter for Jacobin. He is currently working on a book on the history of the FBI for Verso.

Former Honduran President On Trial; US, Canada Are Complicit In His Crimes

February 26, 2024

The former president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernandez (JOH), is currently being tried in New York City for narco-trafficking during his presidency. Activists from the United States and Canada have launched a new campaign to raise awareness of both the US and Canadian governments’ complicity in the crimes committed by the JOH administration. Clearing the FOG speaks with Karen Spring, co-coordinator of HondurasNow.org, which is hosting the campaign, about the US-backed coup in Honduras in 2009, the damage done by subsequent administrations that has driven migration of Hondurans north, the efforts of the current Castro government to reverse those damaging policies and ongoing efforts by the US to undermine the Castro government.

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Guest:

Karen Spring

 

Corporate Media Is An Arm Of Power; We Must Build An Alternative

February 20, 2024

In his new book, ¨Journalists and Their Shadows,¨ Patrick Lawrence describes his experience over decades as an editor and foreign correspondent of watching the media rise and fall in its ability to serve as a force to hold power accountable. Lawrence writes about the shadows, or authentic selves, that most journalists currently sacrifice in order to maintain employment in mainstream media outlets and the detrimental impact this has on public discourse. He also describes the antidote – an independent alternative media – and the current obstacles to creating a much-needed vibrant democratized media system.

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Guest:

Patrick Lawrence is a writer and columnist. He has published five books and is now at work on his sixth. He served as a correspondent abroad for many years and is also an essayist, editor, and critic. Lawrence has taught at universities in the U.S. and abroad and lectures widely. He currently produces two commentaries (weekly and bi-weekly), primarily on foreign affairs and the media.

Lawrence was a correspondent and subsequently a columnist overseas for nearly thirty years, chiefly for the honorable and now defunct Far Eastern Economic Review, the (also honorable, also defunct) International Herald Tribune, and The New Yorker. He covered nearly every country in the region, a number of them extensively over many years. He won an Overseas Press Club Award for his reportage from Korea during the last years of the dictatorships. Lawrence served as News Editor of the Herald Tribune’s Asian edition before returning to the United States, in 2010.

Apart from his staff work, Lawrence’s reportage, commentary, essays, criticism, and reviews have appeared in The New York Times, Business Week, TIME, The Washington Quarterly, World Policy Journal, The Globalist, The Nation, Asian Art News,and numerous other publications. He is now foreign affairs columnist at The Nation. He makes frequent television and radio appearances.

Massive Farmers Protests In The EU Pit Social Justice Against Neoliberalism

February 12, 2024

Farmers throughout the European Union, from Ireland and France to Poland, Greece and Portugal, are in the streets protesting unsustainable working conditions, namely higher costs of production while the prices for their goods remain stagnant and new environmental regulations are being brutally imposed on them without state support to realize them. Right wing neo-Nazi groups are using the farming crisis to empower themselves, as they were successful in doing in the Netherlands. Clearing the FOG speaks with Morgan Ody, the general coordinator of La Via Campesina – International, about their efforts to resist this rightward turn, struggle to protect small and medium farmers from neoliberal policies, including new corporate trade agreements, and build a just transition to a more resilient, ecological and localized food system.

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Guest:

Morgan Ody

25 Years Into The Revolution, Venezuela Resists US Interference

February 5, 2024

February 2 marked the 25th anniversary of the inauguration of President Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, which was the beginning of the Bolivarian Revolution. Over the past 25 years, Venezuela has made remarkable gains in reducing poverty, ending illiteracy and building social infrastructure such as housing, health care, education, transportation and more, despite persistent interference by the United States to impose an economic blockade, fund an opposition, attempt coups and assassinations, delegitimize the elections and threaten military attacks. Clearing the FOG speaks with Leo Flores, a Venezuelan activist, about the progress of the revolution, Venezuela’s deep democracy and current efforts by the US to stop it. There is much to learn from Venezuelan’s struggle for a better life.

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Guest:

Leonardo Flores

Neoliberalism Plunges Ecuador Into A State Of Crisis; US Escalates Militarism

January 29, 2024

On January 7, Adolfo Macias, known as “Fito”, a leader of an Ecuadorian drug cartel, escaped from prison, which sparked uprisings across the country. In response, President Daniel Noboa declared a national state of emergency and decreed that the country is in a state of internal conflict, listing 20 gangs as terrorist groups. Clearing the FOG spoke with Alex Main of the Center for Economic Policy and Research about the conditions that have led to growing poverty, insecurity and violence in Ecuador. Main explains how the United States is exploiting the current situation to justify sending US weapons and military personnel to to the country, which has raised concerns about violations of Ecuador’s sovereignty and human rights abuses. He also discusses the upcoming elections in Venezuela and the devastating impact of US economic blockades.

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Guest:

Alexander Main is Director of International Policy at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, DC. In his work at CEPR, Alex monitors economic and political developments in Latin America and the Caribbean and regularly engages with policy makers and civil society groups from around the region.

His areas of expertise include Latin American integration and regionalism, US security and counternarcotics policy in Central America, US development assistance to Haiti, and US relations with Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Honduras and Venezuela. He is regularly interviewed by national and international media and his analyses have been published in a variety of outlets including The New York Times, Foreign Policy, the Los Angeles Times, The Hill, NACLA, Dissent, Pagina/12, and the Monde diplomatique.

Prior to CEPR, Alex spent more than six years in South America working as a foreign policy analyst and an international cooperation consultant. He holds degrees in history and political science from the Sorbonne University in Paris, France and is fluent in Spanish and French.

South Africa’s Case Against Israel Is ‘Make Or Break’ For International Bodies

January 22, 2024

Beginning on January 11, the International Court of Justice held two days of testimony regarding the case brought by South Africa against the state of Israel calling on The Court to impose provisional measures to stop Israel from committing acts of genocide against Palestinian people. Clearing the FOG speaks with South African lawyer and activist, Azhar Sakoor, about the significance of the case and other legal efforts aiming to hold all who are complicit with genocide in Palestine accountable. Sakoor also describes the current legal efforts as a ‘make or break’ moment for international institutions such as the United Nations that will determine whether they continue to exist or are replaced by other institutions and methods of upholding international law.

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Guest:

Azhar Sakoor is a lawyer from Johannesburg, South Africa and an executive member of the Palestine Solidarity Alliance – Youth League of South Africa.

How Neoliberalism Weakens Economies And Fuels Alternative Systems

January 15, 2024

Major economic shifts are occurring in the world, in part driven by a response to Western imperialist nations’ long history of attempting to impose their will through economic and military coercive measures. To understand the current state of globalization and where it is headed, Clearing the FOG speaks with Radhika Desai, the director of the Geopolitical Economy Research Group at the University of Manitoba. Desai discusses neoliberalism and how it weakens first world economies as well as alternatives such as the BRICS formation that are starting to have a significant impact in challenging Western hegemony. She also describes the current events in Western Asia as another turning point in the decline of Western power.

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Guest:

Dr. Radhika Desai is Professor at the Department of Political Studies, and Director, Geopolitical Economy Research Group, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada. She is the author of Geopolitical Economy: After US Hegemony, Globalization and Empire (2013), Slouching Towards Ayodhya: From Congress to Hindutva in Indian Politics (2nd rev ed, 2004) and Intellectuals and Socialism: ‘Social Democrats’ and the Labour Party (1994), a New Statesman and Society Book of the Month, and editor or co-editor of Russia, Ukraine and Contemporary Imperialism, a special issue of International Critical Thought (2016), Theoretical Engagements in Geopolitical Economy (2015), Analytical Gains from Geopolitical Economy (2015), Revitalizing Marxist Theory for Today’s Capitalism (2010) and Developmental and Cultural Nationalisms (2009).

She is also the author of numerous articles in Economic and Political Weekly, International Critical Thought, New Left Review, Third World Quarterly, World Review of Political Economy and other journals and in edited collections on parties, political economy, culture and nationalism.

With Alan Freeman, she co-edits the Geopolitical Economy book series with Manchester University Press and the Future of Capitalism book series with Pluto Press.

She serves on the Editorial Boards of many journals including Canadian Political Science Review, Critique of Political Economy, E-Social Sciences, Pacific Affairs, Global Faultlines, Research in Political Economy, Revista de Economía Crítica, World Review of Political Economy and International Critical Thought.

Piercing The Veil Of Impunity That Allows Israel To Commit Genocide

January 9, 2024

On January 11 and 12, the International Court of Justice, also called the World Court, will hear testimony in South Africa’s case charging the state of Israel with genocide. Organizations around the world are mobilizing to press their governments to support South Africa publicly and through Declarations of Intervention in the hope that Israel will be held accountable and that effective actions will be taken to protect the rights and lives of people in Palestine. Clearing the FOG speaks with Suzanne Adely, president of the National Lawyers Guild, about the Genocide Convention, the new International Coalition to Stop Genocide in Palestine and the risk of a broader war in Western Asia.

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Guest:

Suzanne Adely is the first Arab-American president of the National Lawyers Guild, co-chair of the International Committee and member of the bureau of the IADL. She has worked as an organizer and human rights and labor advocate in New York, Chicago, Egypt, India and elsewhere.

Western Imperialist Nations As The Greatest Enemy Of Humanity

January 1, 2024

In November, 2023, a delegation from the US Peace Council traveled to China for meetings at the invitation of the Chinese People’s Association for Peace and Disarmament. Ajamu Baraka, who participated in that delegation, speaks with Clearing the FOG about what he witnessed and the contrasts between US/Western and Chinese approaches to development, diplomacy and global security. He also discusses the broader conflicts in the world, particularly in Western Asia, the fall of US hegemony, the black radical tradition’s definition of peace and the Peoples-Centered Human Rights Framework. Baraka advises us to understand the gravity of the many crises we face and to take action to build a peaceful and dignified society.

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Guest:

Ajamu Baraka was the Founding Executive Director of the US Human Rights Network (USHRN) from July 2004 until June 2011. The USHRN became the first domestic human rights formation in the United States explicitly committed to the application of international human rights standards to the U.S. Under Baraka, the Network grew exponentially from a core membership base of 60 organizations to more than 300 U.S. – based member organizations and 1,500 individual members who work on the full spectrum of human rights issues in the United States.

Baraka has also served on the boards of various national and international human rights organizations, including Amnesty International (USA) and the National Center for Human Rights Education. He is currently on the boards of the Center for Constitutional Rights; Africa Action; Latin American Caribbean Community Center; Diaspora Afrique; and the Mississippi Workers’ Center for Human Rights.

Baraka currently serves as the chair of the Coordinating Committee for the Black Alliance for Peace and is on the executive committee of the US Peace Council. Read his recent report back on the delegation to China here.

Baraka has taught political science at various universities, including Clark Atlanta University and Spelman College. He has been a guest lecturer at academic institutions throughout the U.S., and has authored several articles on international human rights.

The Deadly Influence Of The Military Industrial Complex At COP28

December 18, 2023

We hear about the growing influence of fossil fuel, nuclear and Big Agriculture corporations over the United Nations’ Conference of Parties (COP) meetings, but hardly anything about the presence of weapons makers and NATO leaders. Clearing the FOG speaks with Canadian environmental lawyer and peace activist Tamara Lorincz, who reports about the meetings and outcomes of the recently-concluded COP28. She is part of an organizing effort to highlight the carbon footprint of Western militaries and the significant contributions of NATO countries to the climate crisis. Lorincz points out the great discrepancies between what Western countries spend each year on their militaries (hundreds of billions of dollars) and what they are willing to contribute to the climate change fund (tens of millions of dollars) for reparations and relief in impacted nations.

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Guest:

Tamara Lorincz is a PhD candidate in Global Governance at the Balsillie School for International Affairs (Wilfrid Laurier University). Tamara graduated with an MA in International Politics & Security Studies from the University of Bradford in the United Kingdom in 2015. She was awarded the Rotary International World Peace Fellowship and was a senior researcher for the International Peace Bureau in Switzerland. Tamara is a member of the Canadian Pugwash Group, the Canadian Voice of Women for Peace and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. She is currently on the international board of Global Network Against Nuclear Power and Weapons in Space. Tamara was a co-founding member of the Vancouver Island Peace and Disarmament Network (now World Beyond War-Victoria). Tamara has an LLB/JD and MBA specializing in environmental law and management from Dalhousie University. She is the former Executive Director of the Nova Scotia Environmental Network and co-founder of the East Coast Environmental Law Association. For several years she was on the national board of Ecojustice Canada and the Nova Scotia Minister’s Round Table on Environment and Sustainable Prosperity.

Her research interests are the military’s impacts on the environment and climate change, the intersection of security and peace, gender and international relations, Canadian defence and foreign policy, feminist foreign policy, disarmament, resistance to NATO, and military sexual violence.

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