Still Fighting for a Healthcare System

We are now 5 years into the national healthcare law, the Affordable Care Act. The deadline for purchasing insurance this year is Feb. 15. Although more people have health insurance, we have not changed the healthcare system in the United States. The same problems of lack of access to care because of cost, medical debt and bankruptcy  and poor health outcomes continue. Dr. Robert Zarr, the new president of Physicians for a National Health Program, joins us to talk about the current healthcare system and the newly introduced HR 676 Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act in Congress that would create a single payer health system. We also speak with Ellen Schwartz of the Vermont Workers Center about their work to push for a universal healthcare system at the state level.

Listen live at 11 am:

Still Fighting for Health Care as a Human Right with Ellen Schwartz and Dr. Robert Zarr by Clearingthefog on Mixcloud

Relevant articles and websites:

Doctors’ Group Hails Reintroduction of Medicare for All Bill

Dr. Robert Zarr on “The Big Picture”

Building a Grassroots Movement for the Human Right to Health Care

Physicians for a National Health Program

Vermont Workers Center – Healthcare is a Human Right Campaign

Guests:

Dr. Robert Zarr is a board-certified pediatrician at Unity Health Care in Washington, DC, where he cares for a low-income and immigrant population. He is president of Physicians for a National Health Program.

Dr. Zarr is a past president of the DC Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, and he holds adjunct professorships at Children’s National Medical Center, George Washington University and Georgetown University. He also co-directs the Washington, DC chapter of PNHP. He is “physician champion” of DC Park Rx, a community health initiative to prescribe nature to patients and families and encourage time in one of 350 parks and green spaces in Washington, DC.

Dr. Zarr is fluent and literate in Spanish and has worked in the U.S. and abroad with Spanish-speaking populations. He is active in Washington, DC, in a variety of quality improvement initiatives including asthma management, injury prevention, literacy promotion, breastfeeding awareness, youth advocacy, tuberculosis prevention, and compliance with early and periodic screening, diagnostic and treatment standards.

Dr. Zarr received his medical degree from Baylor College of Medicine and completed his pediatric residency at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston. He also has a master’s degree in public health, specializing in international health, from the University of Texas School of Public Health.

Ellen Schwartz  is a recently retired teacher, who worked for 30 years in the public schools of Vermont and Massachusetts. She is co-editor of a book called Making Space for Active Learning: The Art and Practice of Teaching (Teachers College Press, 2014). She does occasional consulting with teachers and works as a mentor to Practitioner Fellows working with the Prospect School and Center Archives, housed at the University of Vermont.

Reclaiming the Radical Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Coast to coast communities are celebrating Martin Luther King, Jr. Day this year by rejecting the watered-down version of Dr. King and lifting up the Dr. King who questioned capitalism, who saw the connections between racism, militarism and economic injustice and who promoted independent politics. We will speak about Dr. King’s politics and how they relate to the current economic and political environment. We will also talk about the current protests. Kymone Freeman who is co-founder of We Act Radio and also a leading organizer of DC Ferguson and other local groups demanding police reform will be our guest. He will also speak about his new play, “Whites Only.” We will also be joined by Jasiri X and Cat Brooks.

Listen here:

Reclaiming the Radical Dr. King with Kymone Freeman, Jasiri X and Cat Brooks by Clearingthefog on Mixcloud

Relevant articles, videos and websites:

A New Generation Reclaims MLK Day by Ms. Bullhorn

#ReclaimMLK Protests Begin on Rev. King’s Real Birthday by Popular Resistance

Obama’s Police Task Force: A police love fest by Kymone Freeman

KymoneFreeman.com

Guest:

Papi Kymone Freeman (guerrilla artist) is the director of the National Black LUV Festival recognized as a Washington, D.C. Mayor’s Art Award Finalist for Excellence in Service to the Arts in 2006 and received a Mayoral Proclamation in 2007. est. 1997 NBLF has since become the largest annual AIDS mobilization in WDC. Freeman has appeared along side Mark Twain and Harriet Tubman in newspapers and subway cars throughout WDC metro area as a Clinical AIDS Vaccine Trial Participant and NIH “Everyday Heroes” Ad Campaign Model to bring attention to this pandemic. Freeman is a founding board member for Words Beats & Life, a Hip Hop Non-Profit and co-founder of Bum Rush the Boards the largest annual youth chess competition in WDC. He is the subject of one chapter of the book Beat of A Different Drum: The Untold Stories of African Americans Forging Their Own Paths in Work and Life (Hyperion). He has authored a collection of poetry entitled Blood.Sweat.Tears.

His dedication to art and activism lead him to accept the position of NYC spokesperson and official poet of the anti-war independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader during his campaign in ’04. A scholarship received from American Friends Service Committee to spend the summer in Nairobi, Kenya for an international leadership conference resulted in him returning to the states as a playwright. He received the 22nd Annual Larry Neal Award for Drama for the successful play Prison Poetry that has appeared at the Historic Lincoln Theatre and Source Theatre during the Hip Hop Theatre Festival, THEARC Theatre, Oak Hill Juvenile Detention Facility and several college campuses where his work has been included in the Black History curriculum of Maryland’s Easternshore. He has conducted production workshops at the National Black Theatre Festival and Institute of Policy Studies.

His second stageplay was commissioned by Jive Recording Artist Raheem DeVaughn entitled the Love Experience. He has studied under the legendary independent filmmakers Haile Gerima, Raoul Peck and Sam Greenlee. Freeman’s second screenplay Nineveh: a conflict over water a futuristic drama that paints a post-oil depleted world has been produced as a short film and is pursuing a feature length release.

He is currently Program Director of We ACT Radio 1480 AM DC’s new progressive radio station.

Jasiri X: Emcee and community activist Jasiri X is the creative force and artist behind the ground breaking internet news series, This Week with Jasiri X, which has garnered critical acclaim, thousands of subscribers, and millions of internet views. From the controversial viral video What if the Tea Party was Black?, to the hard hitting hilarity of Republican Woman…stay away from me, Jasiri X cleverly uses Hip-Hop to provide social commentary on a variety of issues. His videos have been featured on websites as diverse as Allhiphop.com and The Huffington Post and Jasiri has been a guest on BET Rap City, The Michael Baisden Show, Free Speech TV, Left of Black, and Russia Today.

Jasiri X first burst on the National and International Hip-Hop scene with the powerful hit song Free The Jena 6 which was played on more than 100 radio stations and was named Hip-hop Political Song of the Year. His debut album, American History X, was named Album of the Year at the Pittsburgh Hip-Hop Awards. A six time Pittsburgh Hip-Hop Award winner, Jasiri recently became the first Hip-Hop artist to received the coveted August Wilson Center for African American Culture Fellowship. A founding member of the anti-violence group One Hood, Jasiri started the 1Hood Media Academy to teach young African-American boys how to analyze and create media for themselves.

Jasiri has performed from New York City to Berlin, Germany and various cities in between, including recently in front of 30,000 at the Our Communities Our Jobs Rally in Los Angeles. He has toured colleges and universities across the country presenting his innovative workshop, How to Succeed in Hip-Hop Without Selling Your Soul, and is working on a book of the same name. He also blogs for Jack and Jill Politics, Daveyd.com, and The Black Youth Project. Jasiri X signed a record deal with Wandering Worx Entertainment and has recently released his album, Ascension with acclaimed producer Rel!g!on.

Cat Brooks is an organizer with the ONYX Organizing Committee. With other groups, they are launching “96 hours of action as part of national call to ‘Reclaim King’s Legacy.'” They are based in Oakland and San Francisco.

Similar protests are planned in other cities. See from The Real News: “Baltimore Activists Participate in National Day of Action Against Police Brutality.”
The group states: “We will join thousands around the country responding to a call from Ferguson Action to reclaim Dr. King’s legacy of militant direct action in opposition to economic violence as well as police violence and discrimination. This weekend’s events culminate in a Jobs and Economy March for the People on Monday, Jan. 19, beginning at 11 a.m. at Oscar Grant Plaza.

“Monday, we will connect the dots between police violence and economic violence with a march at 11 a.m. from Fruitvale Station, where Oscar Grant III was murdered by BART police, in solidarity with Ferguson, New York, Cleveland, Sanford, Salt Lake City, and countless others who too have lost young black men to police terror. …

“The upcoming 96 hours of direct action across the Bay Area will highlight the unjust economic and political structures that King fought fiercely to defeat. Thousands will unify, regardless of skin color, religion, or creed, as we reclaim King’s legacy and act, in tandem, against police and economic violence; two primary tools of white supremacy. Actions will take place throughout the city, at BART stations, community meetings and street corners and come in the form of shut downs, guerrilla theater, teach-ins and concerts. Monday, we march through the neighborhoods where systematic and state sanctioned murder of black, brown, and poor people occur most.”

An Hour With Climate Justice Activist Tim DeChristopher

We spend the hour with Tim DeChristopher who is most known for his action as “Bidder 70” to stop the illegal sale of public lands for oil and gas. For that act he served 21 months in prison. DeChristopher continues to work on climate justice with front line groups and youth. He also works to support those who are preparing for nonviolent civil resistance and those who are going to trial or their actions. He is currently studying at Harvard Divinity School. We talk about climate justice, how to shift power, electoral politics and more.

Listen live at 11 am Eastern here:

An Hour with Tim DeChristopher, Climate Justice Activist by Clearingthefog on Mixcloud

Relevant articles and websites:

Why Tim Dechristopher went to Prison for His Protest by Bill Moyers

Bidder70.org

Guest:

Tim DeChristopher is a climate justice activist and co-founder of the environmental group Peaceful Uprising. Tim was born in West Virginia and grew up in Pittsburgh. He moved to Utah in 2005 where he worked as a wilderness guide for troubled and at-risk youth. His involvement in this program strengthened his already strong respect for the natural world, and led him to question a political and economic system that concentrates wealth and power in the hands of a privileged few, ostracizing the rest of society. This led Tim to pursue obtaining a Bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Utah in 2009.

On December 19, 2008, Tim disrupted a highly disputed oil and gas lease auction of 116 parcels of public land in Southern Utah’s red rock country. Invited to register as a bidder up on his entry, Tim became Bidder 70, pushing prices from $2/acre up to $240/acre and ultimately winning over $1.8 million in land parcels. Upon review of the parcels in question, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar dismissed the auction, declaring that the BLM had cut corners and broken many of its own rules. But DeChristopher was still indicted on two charges of felony, and after 3 years of delayed trial dates, was found guilty on both counts and sentenced to serve two years in Federal Prison. Tim’s action garnered a great deal of media and public attention, and catalyzed an overwhelming influx of support and applause for his creative, effective, and nonviolent act of civil disobedience, which ultimately safeguarded thousands of acres of Utah public lands.

Tim’s bold act, coupled with his personal charisma and the gravity of his motivation, brought enthusiastic activists out of the Utah woodwork who began the climate justice organization Peaceful Uprising; a group dedicated to defending a livable future through non-violent, direct action. While Tim awaited trial, he ran a candidate for Utah’s 2nd Congressional district by posting a Craigslist ad that garnered national attention and challenged Utah’s “blue-dog” incumbent, Jim Matheson. As a keynote at Powershift 2011, Tim called on 10,000 students to take action, and led the march on the occupation of the Washington DC’s Department of the Interior the following day. Released on April 21, 2013 after serving 21 months in Federal Prison, Tim does not regret his action, and is currently attending Harvard Divinity School to pursue a degree in Unitarian ministry.

Building the Culture of Resistance in 2015

We bring together several activists to speak about the new year in resistance. We’ll discuss the top issues of 2015 and what we can expect as the movement of movements for social, economic and environmental justice continues to grow. Joining us are Kathy Kelly of Voices for Creative Nonviolence who has been focused on building peace and stopping US drone attacks and Evan Greer of Fight for the Future who has been focused on issues of Internet privacy and net neutrality. Bill Ragen of Rising Tide North America, a coalition of groups and people fighting for climate justice will also be a guest.

Listen here on Monday, January 5 at 11 am Eastern:

A Look Ahead to 2015: The Year We Build Power Together by Clearingthefog on Mixcloud

Relevant articles and websites:

Peace Activists Sentenced on Human Rights Day by Buddy Bell

Voices for Creative Nonviolence

Fight for the Future

Rising Tide North America

Guests:

Kathy Kelly, co-coordinates Voices for Creative Nonviolence, (www.vcnv.org) a campaign to end U.S. military and economic warfare.

During each of nine recent trips to Afghanistan, Kathy Kelly, as an invited guest of the Afghan Peace Volunteers, has lived alongside ordinary Afghan people in a working class neighborhood in Kabul. She and her companions in Voices for Creative Nonviolence believe that “where you stand determines what you see.”

They are resolved not to let war sever the bonds of friendship between them and Afghan people whom they’ve grown to know through successive delegations. Kelly and her companions insist that the U.S. is not waging a “humanitarian war” in Afghanistan.

Kelly has also joined with activists in various regions of the country to protest drone warfare by holding demonstrations outside of U.S. military bases in Nevada, upstate New York, and, most recently, at Whiteman Air Force base in Missouri.

During late June and early July of 2011, Kelly, was a passenger on the “Audacity to Hope” as part of the US Boat to Gaza project. She also attempted to reach Gaza by flying from Athens to Tel Aviv, as part of the Welcome to Palestine effort, but the Israeli government deported her back to Greece.

In 2009, she lived in Gaza during the final days of the Operation Cast Lead bombing; later that year, Voices formed another small delegation to visit Pakistan, aiming to learn more about the effects of U.S. drone warfare on the civilian population and to better understand consequences of U.S. foreign policy in Pakistan.

From 1996 – 2003, Voices activists formed 70 delegations that openly defied economic sanctions by bringing medicines to children and families in Iraq. Kathy and her companions lived in Baghdad throughout the 2003 “Shock and Awe” bombing.

She was sentenced to one year in federal prison for planting corn on nuclear missile silo sites (1988-89) and spent three months in prison, in 2004, for crossing the line at Fort Benning’s military training school. As a war tax refuser, she has refused payment of all forms of federal income tax since 1980.

She and her companions at the Voices home/office in Chicago believe that non-violence necessarily involves simplicity, service, sharing of resources and non-violent direct action in resistance to war and oppression.

Other Lands Have Dreams: from Baghdad to Pekin Prison (2005) by Kathy Kelly is available through Counterpunch (www.counterpunch.org) or Voices for Creative Nonviolence, 1249 West Argyle, Chicago, IL 60640 773-878-3815

“In a Time of Siege,” a Peace Productions DVD about Voices in the Wilderness, narrated by Studs Terkel, is available from the Voices for Creative Nonviolence office, 1249 West Argyle, Chicago, IL 60640 773-878-3815.

Evan Greer has been organizing hard-hitting campaigns for over a decade, online and in the streets. She’s currently the campaign manager at Fight for the Future, the viral digital rights organization that was one of the main forces behind the infamous SOPA blackout. Her day job is using the web to get millions to take action and dismantle the NSA’s blanket spying programs. Previously, Evan relentlessly toured the U.S. and Europe for years as a professional musician and workshop facilitator. She’s is now the parent of a 3 year old who has been to more than a dozen countries and countless activist events, protests, and punk shows. Renowned historian Howard Zinn called Greer “an eloquent and energetic writer,” and Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello calls her “a heck of a guitarist.” She works to educate and inspire groups to use cutting edge technology, creative tactics, and radical ideas, to effectively agitate for lofty things like justice and liberation.

 Bill Ragen “I’ve been a union organizer for 30 years, mostly with SEIU.  When the KXL blockade was happening in TX two years ago, I thought it was time to get more involved in climate change organizing and got involved in Rising Tide. “

2014, Year of Resistance in Review

Above photo by Robert van Waarden of Survival Media Agency.

At the beginning of the year, 2014 was called “the year that everything changed,” and indeed it has been a turning point for a number of resistance movements in the United States. We look back over the past 12 months and discuss some of the highlights and ways that movements made connections and worked together towards building the necessary ‘movement of movements’. We use a roundtable format for the hour. Our guests are Sandy Nurse, an activist in New York City who runs the composting business called BK ROT; Cassidy Regan, an activist in Baltimore who works on a number of fronts including militarism and trade agreements; and Tarak Kauff, an activist from Woodstock, NY who is on the board of Veterans for Peace and is active on environmental issues, militarism, racial justice and incarceration.

Listen live at 11 am Eastern here:

2014: Year of Resistance in Review with Sandy Nurse, Cassidy Regan and Tarak Kauff by Clearingthefog on Mixcloud

Relevant articles and websites:

Popular Resistance Newsletter – 2014 in Review by Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese

A World Where Many Fit: Reflecting on Zapatista Resistance and the TPP by Cassidy Regan

Civilian Soldier Alliance

FlushtheTPP.org

MayDaySpace

StopTheseWars.org

Veterans for Peace

PopularResistance.org

BK Rot

Guests:

Sandy Nurse is a community organizer focused primarily on improving community ecological practices in Bushwick, Brooklyn, but also in movement direct action organizing. She currently runs a youth composting project called BK ROT and is part of the Mayday Space, a new social justice organizing space in Brooklyn.  She was very active in the Occupy Wall Street movement, was a core organizer for Flood Wall Street, helped coordinate the Millions March NYC along with other smaller actions here and there.

Cassidy Regan is a Baltimore-based organizer with PopularResistance.org who focuses on international trade and its connections to militarization and immigrant rights. She also serves on the steering committee of the Civilian Soldier Alliance and is active with the Student Farmworker Alliance.

Tarak Kauff – Since the Vietnam War to today’s occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, Tarak has opposed U.S. wars and invasions and the materialist, consumer oriented American way of life which precipitates wars and needs an ever expanding empire to continue.

Tarak served in the U.S. Army as a paratrooper from early 1959 to the middle of 1962. He did not serve in Vietnam or see combat. Having however, experienced the military culture and having many friends who did experience combat, from WW II through Afghanistan, he appreciates and understands the long-lasting trauma those veterans carry.

He currently serves on the Veterans For Peace Board of Directors and is a strong proponent of VFP’s Peace at Home, Peace Abroad orientation and activities. 

He has held a lead role in VFP’s Direct Action Team including actions at the National Archives, the White House on December 16, 2010, and March 19, 2011 and at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, he took part in the 2009-10 Gaza Freedom March in Cairo. He was one of the original crew of organizers of the Freedom Plaza Occupy in 2011.  In 2013 he went on a 58 day, 300 calorie liquid only hunger strike in solidarity with prisoners in Guantanamo, Palestinians in Israeli prisons, and those 80,000 souls here in long=term solitary confinement the US. He was arrested on the 47th day of that hunger strike in the Hart Senate Office building while chained to a 2nd floor railing, speaking out about torture and Guantanamo.

He has been to Ferguson, MO three times since the murder of MIchael Brown to stand as a veteran in solidarity with those demanding justice. He works with as he is able and is in support of the Native American led Clean Up the MInes Campaign.

Tarak believes that creating and nurturing a culture of sustained resistance and sustainable communities is our only hope for stopping the war machine and saving the planet from destruction by the profit-driven system of corporate control now in power.

The United States is Getting Away with Torture

The Senate Intelligence Committee report on the CIA’s torture program was released last week and it demonstrates both that the US used torture methods during interrogation which led to deaths in some cases and that torture was ineffective in obtaining necessary information. The Obama administration worked to suppress and censor the report; and following its release Obama announced that there will be no investigation of those involved in the program. The United Nations disagrees and UN Rapporteur Ben Emmerson is calling for prosecution up to the highest level of office. In addition, the UN has criticized the use of solitary confinement in the US as a domestic form of torture and suggests that it be banned. To discuss the report and the implications of this lack of accountability, we will speak with Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights and Jeremy Varon of Witness Against Torture.

Listen live at 11 am Eastern here:

The United States is getting away with Torture with Michael Ratner and Jeremy Varon by Clearingthefog on Mixcloud

Relevant Articles and Websites:

White House Delaying Torture Report, Waiting for Republican Chair by Ali Watkins, Ryan Grim, Sabrina Siddiqui and Michael McAuliff

Obama Urges No Further Investigations or Prosecutions over Torture by Jon Queally

United Nations Condemns US over Torture and Injustice by Ed Pilkington

Torture Turned US Government into a Criminal Enterprise by Rebecca Gordon

Torture Report: UN Official Calls for Prosecution of US Officials by Kevin Zeese

The US has still not admitted the Historic Truth of Torture by Henry Giroux

The Center for Constitutional Rights

Witness Against Torture

Guests:

Michael Ratner was born in Ohio in 1943. He received his law degree from Columbia Law School. He is an attorney and the President of the Center for Constitutional Rights, a non-profit human rights litigation organization based in New York. He has represented Guantanamo detainees in front of the United States Supreme Court. Ratner is a past president of the National Lawyers Guild and the author of numerous books and articles including “The Trial of Donald Rumsfeld: A Prosecution by Book,” “Against War with Iraq,” and “Guantanamo: What the World Should Know,” as well as a textbook on international human rights. Ratner is the co-host of the radio show, “Law and Disorder,” and joins three other lawyers on a radio show that reports legal developments related to civil liberties, civil rights, and human rights. He currently lectures on international human rights litigation at Columbia Law School.

Jeremy Varon is an Associate Professor of History at the New School for Social Research and Eugene Lang College, specializing in modern US history, European and American intellectual history, and German history. He is also an organizer for Witness Against Torture. In 2004 he published Bringing the War Home: The Weather Underground, the Red Army Faction, and Revolutionary Violence in the Sixties and Seventies (University of California Press). He co-edits The Sixties: A Journal of History, Politics and Culture (Routeledge; www.informaworld.com/thesixties), a new academic journal that features interdisciplinary and international research on the “long Sixties” (1954-1975). He has written articles and given numerous talks on the social movements of the 1960s and the politics and ethics of violence. His work in intellectual history concerns the relationships between modernity, knowledge, representation, and power. He is currently working on a book about Holocaust survivors who studied in German universities in the American Zone of occupied Germany just after World War Two. He is involved in various social justice causes and groups, which inform his scholarship and teaching.

Lima to Paris – Will the UN Solve the Climate Crisis?

The COP 20 talks have just concluded in Lima, Peru and now eyes are turning to the next treaty expected to be signed in Paris in December, 2015. So far, the United Nations’ COP process has failed to produce a meaningful agreement to address the climate crisis and to achieve climate justice. The United States has been a great obstacle to progress. And the UN talks have essentially devolved into another tool for commodifying the Earth and pushing a neo-liberal economic agenda. We speak with Brian Tokar, author of the newly-revised “Toward Climate Justice: Perspectives on the Climate Crisis and Social Change” about new organizing and a new framework that are pushing for real solutions to the climate crisis. We also speak with Karen Orenstein of Friends of the Earth about the Lima talks and how the Paris Treaty is shaping up.

Listen here at 11 am Eastern:

Lima to Paris – Will the UN Solve the Climate Crisis? with Brian Tokar and Karen Orenstein by Clearingthefog on Mixcloud

Relevant articles and websites:

Essential Reading for Clarity on Climate Action by Margaret Flowers

Institute for Social Ecology

350VT.org

Friends of the Earth response to Sec. Kerry’s speech at Lima COP

Friends of the Earth

Guests:

Brian Tokar has been an activist, author and a well-known critical voice for ecological activism since the 1980s. He is currently the director of the Institute for Social Ecology and Lecturer II in Environmental Studies at UVM. Brian’s books include The Green Alternative  (1987, revised 1992), Earth for Sale  (1997), and Toward Climate Justice: Perspectives on the Climate Crisis and Social Change, which was reissued in an expanded and revised edition by the New Compass Press in 2014. He edited two books on the politics of biotechnology, Redesigning Life? and Gene Traders, and co-edited a recent collection, Agriculture and Food in Crisis: Conflict, Resistance and Renewal (with UVM Professor Emeritus, Fred Magdoff). His articles on environmental issues and popular movements appear in Z Magazine and Green Social Thought, and on popular websites such as Counterpunch, ZNet, Alternet, and Toward Freedom.

Brian has lectured throughout the U.S., as well as internationally, received a Project Censored award for his investigative history of Monsanto (originally published in The Ecologist), and was an organizer of the annual “Biojustice” protests focused on the biotechnology industry from 2000 – 2007. He is a board member of 350Vermont, as well as a contributor to the Routledge Handbook of the Climate Change Movement, A Line in the Tar Sands, and other recent books. Brian also represents UVM’s part-time faculty on the Executive Council of our faculty union, United Academics.

Karen Orenstein’s work at Friends of the Earth U.S. focuses on international climate finance. In other words, she campaigns to get the U.S. and other rich countries to provide and effectively deliver — in line with what climate science and justice demand — funds to ordinary people living in developing countries to adapt to the unavoidable impacts of climate change, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and develop along ecologically sound pathways. Karen came to Friends of the Earth with more than a decade of grassroots advocacy experience in environmental and international human rights campaigns. This included seven years at the East Timor and Indonesia Action Network, where she led Washington efforts to support genuine self-determination and justice for the people of East Timor and human rights protections for the peoples of Indonesia and West Papua; she continues to serve on ETAN’s board. Karen has done research and volunteer work for the Maasai Environmental Resource Coalition and PETS DC, and lived in Tanzania. Not unimportantly, she has two cute cats.

– See more at: http://www.foe.org/about-us/our-team#sthash.uDdvR3vQ.dpuf

An Hour with Larry Hamm, Relentless Human Rights Defender

We spend the hour speaking with Larry Hamm who is described as “a relentless advocate for African-American people and the cause of human rights for more than 30 years.” Larry is chair of the People’s Organization for Progress in Newark, NJ which he helped to found in 1983. His work focuses on education, jobs, health care, police brutality and issues that arise in the Black community. He is quoted saying, “But there’s a certain realization you come to about the tempo of social change. It’s not the same as the tempo in an individual life. It’s a much longer beat. And we just have to keep doing what we can to keep pushing the struggle forward.” He is a leading voice in the growing national movement to end racially-biased and violent policing which has been inspired most recently by the events in Ferguson. We talk about his life’s work, where he sees the movement and the work ahead of us.

Listen here:

An Hour with Larry Hamm, Relentless Human Rights Defender by Clearingthefog on Mixcloud

Relevant articles and websites:

Newark Activists Start 381-Day Protest Calling on US Government to Institute Jobs Program by David Giambusso

Larry Hamm, Powerhouse to the People by Donna Gialanella

Rebellion in Ferguson: A Rising Heat in the Suburbs by Chris Hedges

The Day After the Ferguson Grand Jury, Fill the Streets by Larry Hamm

New Jersey Peoples Organization for Progress

Guest:

Larry Hamm is a Civil Rights Activist, Humanitarian, and Lecturer. Lawrence Hamm has been a relentless advocate for African-American people and the cause of human rights for more than 30 years. Raised in Newark New Jersey, he attended public schools and emerged at age 17 as a forceful and articulate spokesperson for the educational needs and aspirations of Newark students and the community. He was appointed to the Newark Board of Education, making him the youngest school board member in the United States. While at Princeton University (Larry received his Bachelor’s degree there in 1978) Larry distinguished himself during the anti-apartheid movement by organizing student protests and calling attention to Princeton’s financial investment in apartheid South Africa. These protests, and the rising tide of public indignation, resulted in Princeton University’s divestment in the apartheid South African economy. Larry Hamm’s impact as a student activist at Princeton is chronicled in the documentary film, “Blacks at Princeton.” After graduation, Hamm returned to Newark and became active in local politics. He served as district leader and president of the 24th District Assembly. Larry was the founder and director of the People’s Energy Cooperative, a community fuel oil cooperative. He served as the Director of the Community Organization Program for the United Church of Christ Commission For Racial Justice. During 1986, Larry traveled with the Reverend Ben Chavis throughout the deep south to retrace the route of the 1960’s Freedom Rides. Chavis, Hamm and busloads of activists conducted voter registration drives in Alabama. Larry helped organize the People’s Organization For Progress (POP), an independent, grass roots, political organization that is active in the Newark and northern New Jersey area. As chairman, Larry has consistently worked toward building unity among community organizations. The struggle for quality education, employment opportunities, access to health care and against racial profiling, and police brutality continues through the efforts of its Chairman, Larry Hamm, and the activism of the organization’s members. Larry was received many awards, among them are “One Of The Most Influential Blacks in New Jersey Award” (City News) and “The Hope Shapiro Bread and Roses Peace Award” (New Jersey Peace Action). 
Lawrence Hamm (Adhimu) 

Contact Information: 
People’s Organization For Progress 
P.O. Box 22505, Newark, New Jersey 07101 
 www.njpop.org

Escalating Actions to Retire Fossil Fuels

This past week, as part of the Beyond Extreme Energy campaign to retire fossil fuels there were daily actions to shut down the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission every morning and actions at other locations in the afternoon. These took place simultaneously with direct action at two FERC-approved gas infrastructure projects in Seneca Lake, NY and Cove Point, MD. And the week of actions at FERC followed the conclusion of an 8 month 3,000 mile 7 million step Great March for Climate Action from Los Angeles to Washington, DC. The Beyond Extreme Energy actions focused on retiring fossil fuels and calling for investment in clean renewable energy instead. Similar struggles are occurring in a number of states where residents are using every tool at their disposal including creative nonviolent direct action to stop the construction of fossil fuel infrastructure. We spoke with Faith Meckley of the Great March for Climate Action and We Are Seneca Lake and Will Bennington of Rising Tide Vermont.

Listen here:

Escalating Actions to Retire Fossil Fuels with Faith Meckley and Will Bennington by Clearingthefog on Mixcloud

Relevant articles and websites:

FERC Approves Methane Storage in Finger Lakes Area by Peter Mantius

15 Arrested Protesting Seneca Lake Fracking Project by We Are Seneca Lake

Vermont Communities Organize Against Pipeline Plans by Keith Brunner

Residents Stage Fish-In, Demand Halt to Pipeline by Rising Tide Vermont

Pipeline Protesters Arrested in Governor’s Office by Sally Pollak and Joel Baird

Great March for Climate Action

WeAreSenecaLake

RisingTideVermont

Guests:

Faith Meckley is an environmentalist and a student at Ithaca College in New York who walked with the Great March for Climate Action from Taos, NM to Washington, DC. She is a writer who has an environmental blog and who is also published regularly in The Ithacan. She lives in Seneca Lake where she is actively fighting the Crestwood Salt Cavern methane storage with WeAreSenecaLake. Follow her Youtube channel Bluegirl3666.

Will Bennington is an organizer with and spokesperson for Rising Tide Vermont, a local chapter of Rising Tide North America. He lives in Plainfield, VT.

Ferguson and Beyond – Next Steps to End Police Brutality

The month of October has been dedicated to the issues of mass incarceration, racially-biased policing, militarized policing and the abusive behavior and extrajudicial murders being carried out by police. Over the weekend of October 10, thousands of people converged in St. Louis, MO to demonstrate for justice in the murders of Michael Brown and other Black men killed by police. On October 22, thousands of people marched and protested in 80 cities from coast to coast. There is tremendous momentum right now to change policing in the United States. On this program, our guests talk about what is happening in Ferguson, MO and other areas of the country and about next steps in this struggle. Especially we discuss what response would be constructive in the high likelihood that the officer who shot Michael Brown is not indicted by the Grand Jury.

Listen here:

Ferguson:Ending Police Brutality with Montague Simmons, Kambale Musavuli, Glen Ford & Kymone Freeman by Clearingthefog on Mixcloud

Relevant articles and websites:

The New York Times Assassinates Michael Brown by Margaret Kimberley

Code Black Alert: Slave Patrols Alive and Well Across America, Killing of Vonderrit Myers, Part I by Marsha Coleman-Adebayo

Code Black Alert: Slave Patrols Alive and Well Across America, Killing of Vonderrit Myers, Part II by Marsha Coleman-Adebayo

Uniting to Transform US Policing by Kevin Zeese

Organization for Black Struggle

Ferguson October

Hands Up United

Black Agenda Report

Guests:

Montague Simmons is chair of the St. Louis-based Organization for Black Struggle.

Kambale Musavuli is a communications volunteer with Hands Up United. A native of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kambale is a human rights activist, Student Coordinator and National Spokesperson with the Friends of the Congo (FOTC). He has written for The Washington Post, Foreign Policy in Focus, The Huffington Post and numerous other academic and news publications. He has been interviewed on National Public Radio, Democracy Now, ABC News, Al Jazeera English Television, Radio France International and a myriad of radio and television programs. He has been featured in documentaries such as Iara Lee’s “Cultures of Resistance,” Martin Scorsese’s “Surviving Progress,” and the film “Crisis in the Congo: Uncovering the Truth.”

Glen Ford is the Executive Editor of Black Agenda Report.

Kymone Freeman is co-founder of WeActRadio and a coordinator of #DCFerguson.

On ISIS, Syria and Iraq, US on the Wrong Path

David Swanson writes that war is always based on lies and that is obvious as the US becomes more committed to greater military involvement in Iraq and Syria each day. In this episode we will look at the roots of the crises in Iraq and Syria. Where did ISIS come from? What are the options in intervening and should we intervene at all? We speak with Matthew Hoh, Senior Fellow at the Center for International Policy who worked on US policy on Iraq for the Pentagon and State Department and is now a strong critic of US foreign policy.

Listen here:

On ISIS, Syria and Iraq, US’ Actions are Making a Bad Situation Worse with Matthew Hoh by Clearingthefog on Mixcloud

Relevant articles and websites:

The Beheadings are Bait by Matthew Hoh

Perpetual War, and Shame, is Our Policy by Matthew Hoh 

MatthewHoh.com

Center for International Policy 

Guest:

Matthew Hoh is a Senior Fellow at the Center for International Policy and is the former Director of the Afghanistan Study Group, a network of foreign and public policy experts and professionals advocating for a change in US strategy in Afghanistan. A former State Department official, Matthew resigned in protest from his post in Afghanistan over US strategic policy and goals in Afghanistan in September 2009. Prior to his assignment in Afghanistan, Matthew served in Iraq; first in 2004-5 in Salah ad Din Province with a State Department reconstruction and governance team and then in 2006-7 in Anbar Province as a Marine Corps company commander. When not deployed, Matthew worked on Afghanistan and Iraq policy and operations issues at the Pentagon and State Department from 2002-8. Matthew’s writings have appeared in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Defense News, the Guardian, the Huffington Post, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post. The Council on Foreign Relations has cited Matthew’s resignation letter from his post in Afghanistan as an Essential Document. In 2010, Matthew was named the Ridenhour Prize Recipient for Truth Telling. Matthew is a member of the Board of Directors for Council for a Livable World and is an Advisory Board Member for Expose Facts (exposefacts.org). He writes on issues of war, peace and post-traumatic stress disorder recovery at matthewhoh.com.