Taking Corporate Power Out of Our Trade Agreements

We spoke about the current trade agreement, the TransPacific Partnership (TPP), being negotiated by the White House, and its more than 600 corporate advisers, and countries in the Pacific Rim. Rather than a trade agreement, the TPP is a backdoor for corporations to receive laws to their benefit that would not pass in the open. Coalitions of groups from around the Continent and around the world are working together to stop the TPP and offer in its place a trade policy based on justice, fairness and sustainability. We speak with Kristen Beifus, executive director of the Washington Fair Trade Coalition and Richard McIntyre, professor of economics at the University of Rhode Island and US Trade Representative for the Green Shadow Cabinet.

Listen here: 

The TPP, a Global Corporate Power Grab, and How to Stop It with Richard McIntyre and Kristen Beifus by Clearingthefog on Mixcloud

Watch here:

Video streaming by Ustream

Relevant articles and websites:

Stopping the Trans-Pacific Partnership: Global Revolt Against Corporate Domination by Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese

With TPP, Obama has moved from transparency to secrecy, from human rights to corporate rights by Richard McIntyre

Why the TransPacific Partnership is a Scary Big (Trade) Deal by Kristen Beifus

TPPXBorder

Flush the TPP

Guests:

Richard McIntyre – received his PhD in Economics in 1989 from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. McIntyre is currently Professor of Economics at the University of Rhode Island where he also directs the University’s Honors Program and teaches in the graduate program in Labor Relations. He is the author of Are Worker Rights Human Rights? (University of Michigan Press, 2008) and many articles on global labor issues. With his long time writing partner, Michael Hillard of the University of Southern Maine, he is also working on a series of essays on the recent history of labor relations in the USA. They are currently writing about financialization and its impacts on paper mill workers. McIntyre edits the Routledge Press book series New Political Economy. At URI he teaches courses in political economy, global finance, and international and comparative labor relations. US Trade Representative for the GreenShadowCabinet.us.

Kristen Beifus – Executive Director of the Washington Fair Trade Coalition consisting of 66 diverse organizations across the state of Washington working for trade policy that benefits people and the planet. On the board of the Backbone Campaign as well as SweatFree Communities/International Labor Rights Forum.

 

 

NSA Leaks, Spying and the Myth of National Security

We explore the extent of surveillance by the United States. Why is there so much surveillance and is the increasing surveillance of people in the United States justified? We discuss which is more harmful to our society, leaks or the policies that are leaked. Our first guest is Thomas Drake who was prosecuted for allegedly disclosing National Security Agency secrets years before Edward Snowden surfaced. Drake says the U.S. government has an “industrial-scale” surveillance system that “the Stasi in East Germany would have drooled over.” Then Fred Branfman, who recently wrote “America’s Most Anti-Democratic Institution: How the Imperial Presidency Threatens U.S. National Security,” is our guest. He argues,  “And today’s U.S. executive branch policies pose an even greater long-term threat to U.S. strategic interests, not only abroad but at home. The evidence is overwhelming, including the statements by several dozen U.S. national security experts cited at the end of my recent piece, that U.S. leaders are not protecting national security but rather weakening it as never before.”

Listen here:

NSA, Spying and the Myth of National Security with Thomas Drake and Fred Branfman by Clearingthefog on Mixcloud

Watch here:

Video streaming by Ustream

Relevant articles, books and websites:

Confronting the Growing National (In)Security State by Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese

NSA Spying: Whistleblowers Claim Vindication on Surveillance State Warning by Gerry Smith and Ryan J. Reilly

Three NSA Veterans Speak Out on Whistleblower: We Told You So by USA Today

GAP Statement on Edward Snowden and NSA Domestic Surveillance 

America’s Most Anti-Democratic Institution: How the Imperial Presidency Threatens U.S. National Security by Fred Branfman

Mass Assassinations Lie at the Heart of America’s Military Strategy in the Muslim World by Fred Branfman

Voices From the Plain of Jars by Fred Branfman

Government Accountability Project

 

Guests:

Thomas Drake – is a former senior executive of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) and a decorated United States Air Force and United States Navy veteran. He has experience with computer software, linguistics, management, and leadership. He is also a whistleblower. In 2010 the government alleged that Drake ‘mishandled’ documents, one of the few such Espionage Act cases in U.S. history. Drake’s defenders claim that he was instead being persecuted for challenging the Trailblazer Project.^{[4][5][6][7][8][9]} He is the 2011 recipient of the Ridenhour Prize for Truth-Telling and co-recipient of the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence (SAAII) award.

On June 9, 2011, all 10 original charges against him were dropped. Drake rejected several deals because he refused to “plea bargain with the truth”. He eventually pled to one misdemeanor count for exceeding authorized use of a computer; Jesselyn Radack of the Government Accountability Project, who helped represent him, called it an act of “civil disobedience.”

In 2000 he was hired as a software systems quality specialist and management and information technology consultant for Columbia, Maryland, based Costal Research & Technology Inc. (CRTI), a wholly owned subsidiary of Alexandria, Virginia, based Computer Systems Management, Inc. (CSMI). In late 2001 he went to work at the NSA as a full-time employee at the Signals Intelligence Directorate at Fort Meade, Maryland, with his actual first day on the job as an NSA employee being September 11, 2001. In 2002, he became a Technical Director for Software Engineering Implementation within the Cryptologic Systems and Professional Health Office. In 2003, Drake became a Process Portfolio Manager within NSA’s newly formed Directorate of Engineering. He held a Top Secret security clearance. During the congressional investigations into 9/11, he testified about NSA failures. In 2006 he was reassigned to the National Defense University,^[15] where he became the NSA Chair and an Assistant Professor of Behavioral Sciences within the Industrial College of the Armed Forces (ICAF). Drake was forced to leave the NDU in 2007 when his security clearance was suspended, and he resigned from the NSA the next year. Drake then went to work at Strayer University but was forced from that job after his indictment of April 2010. He found work at an Apple store. He then founded Knowpari Systems, a consulting firm.

In 2011, Drake was awarded the Ridenhour Prize for Truth Telling and was co-recipient of the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence (SAAII) award. Accepting the SAAII award he said, with references to an 1857 speech of Frederick Douglass:

“Power and those in control concede nothing … without a demand. They never have and they never will. …each and every one of us must keep demanding, must keep fighting, must keep thundering, must keep plowing, must keep on keeping things struggling, must speak out and must speak up until justice is served because where there is no justice there can be no peace.”

Fred Branfman – has been studying U.S. Secret War since he brought the secret U.S. bombing of Laos to world attention in 1969. He has also published over a dozen articles on present U.S. secret warmaking in the Muslim World, calling it “the greatest strategic catastrophe in American history, one  that is not only immoral but endangering us all.” His book Voices From The Plain of Jars, the only book of the Indochina war written by the peasants who suffered most and were heard from least, has just been republished by the University of Wisconsin Press.

Lives in Santa Barbara, California and Budapest, Hungary; Developing the www.trulyalive.org website, and writing a book entitled Facing Death At Any Age: The Most Important Decision You Will Ever Make.

How We Create the New Economy with Gar Alperovitz

Gar Alperovitz, author of “America Beyond Capitalism” and “What Then Must We Do” speaks about the growing economic democracy movement in the US and how that is bringing evolutionary reconstruction to transition to the new economy.

Listen to the show:

Transitioning to the New Economy with Gar Alperovitz by Clearingthefog on Mixcloud

Watch the show:

Video streaming by Ustream

Relevant books, articles and websites:

What Then Must We Do: Straight Talk About the Next American Revolution by Gar Alperovitz

The Approaching Great Transformation: Toward a Livable Post-Carbon Economy by Joel Magnuson

The Democracy Collaborative

 

Guest:

Gar Alperovitz has had a distinguished career as a historian, political economist, activist, writer, and government official. He is currently the Lionel R. Bauman Professor of Political Economy at the University of Maryland and Cofounder of theDemocracy Collaborative. He is also a former Fellow of Kings College, Cambridge University; Harvard’s Institute of Politics; the Institute for Policy Studies; and a Guest Scholar at the Brookings Institution.

The Toxic Effects of Uranium Mining on Tribal Lands with Don Yellowman and Charmaine White Face

Don Yellowman of the Forgotten Navajo People and Charmaine White Face of the Great Sioux Nation describe the effects of abandoned uranium mines on tribal land. Uranium mining by private corporations for purchase by the US Atomic Energy Commission started in earnest after WWII. The miners, many of them Indians, and their families were not protected and they were not informed of the hazards of radiation exposure. Thousands of open mines now sit on land in the Navajo and Great Sioux Nations. They continue to poison the water, land and air causing devastating health effects such as respiratory illnesses, cancers and birth defects. Although the Church Rock uranium spill released a much higher amount of radiation in 1979 than the accident  at Three Mile Island, it received little attention and resources. White Face also describes the radiation released in the Great Sioux Nation from the 2,885 uranium mines as four times greater than the radiation released by Fukushima. However, no member of Congress is willing to sponsor legislation to study the ongoing radiation release and clean it up. The radiation released from these pits do not respect borders and affect all of us. It is a secret that we are not supposed to know about. Learn more in this episode of Clearing the FOG.

Listen here:

The Toxic Effects of Uranium Mining on Tribal Lands with Don Yellowman and Charmaine White Face by Clearingthefog on Mixcloud

Relevant articles, websites and videos:

America’s Secret Fukushima Poisoning the Breadbasket of the World by Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese

Are you Oglala or Wasicu? By Charmaine White Face

Uranium Exploration and Mining Accountability Act

Forgotten People Resolution

Forgotten Navajo People

Defenders of the Black Hills

Don Yellowman speaking at Peabody Coal Protest in St. Louis: VIDEO

Charmaine White Face speaking about Uranium: VIDEO

America’s Chernobyl – Uranium Mining: The Beginning of the Nuclear Chain: VIDEO

 

Guests:

Raymond D. Yellowman (Don) serves as President of Forgotten People in the western portion of the Navajo Nation that borders the Grand Canyon. In this standing, he is committed to the tenets of environmental justice, creating awareness of environmental racism in its applications in tribal natural resource extraction and management. And within this, as a traditional Dine’ peacemaker, he advocates the protection of Dine’ cultural/religious liveways, human rights while giving voice to traditional grassroots Navajo people that have been adversely impacted by unsustainable uranium, coal mining practices while actively addressing health disparities in this avenue. Framed within the Bennett Freeze paradigm – a 43 year U. S. government imposed construction hold that encompasses 2 million acres in the Western Agency and Former Joint Use Area (Navajo and Hopi Partition Lands) – this congressional act denied 9 impacted chapters infrastructure, the ability to fix their homes, build new homes, to have access to safe drinking water and a humane quality of life. A peacebuilder and community activist, Don is active in the political arena in terms of balanced and positive community reconstruction grounded in just peace. For example, Don was elected on the Western Navajo District 3 Farm Board for 6 years and as an elected Grazing Official for Bodaway/Gap Chapter for 4 years. Don is a rancher, has livestock and practices traditional Navajo Ways and Ceremonies. Don lives in Tohnaneesdizí (Tuba City, AZ) in the Navajo reservation; he is one of the Sleeping Rock clan, born for the Manygoats clan. Don was born in San Francisco, CA and moved back to the Navajo Nation when he was 4 years old. Don attended Scottsdale Community College (Scottsdale, AZ) and Lubbock Christian College (Lubbock, TX) majoring in Animal Science.

Charmaine White Face or Zumila Wobaga, is an Oglala Tetuwan (Lakota language speaker) from the Oceti Sakowin (Great Sioux Nation) in North America. She is known for her work in support of Native American rights, in particular as coordinator of the Defenders of the Black Hills, a volunteer organization centered around efforts to encourage the United States government to honor the Fort Laramie Treaties of 1851 and 1868. She also works at the international level in support of recognition of human rights of indigenous peoples all over the world. She is the spokesperson for the Teton Sioux Nation Treaty Council. She was a participant in the prayer fast/hunger strike held in December 2004 in Geneva, Switzerland at the final meeting of the Intersessional Working Group on the Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (WGDD). She has worked to preserve Bear Butte, on monitoring of abandoned uranium mines, on “environmental remediation of hazardous waste ponds,”and in the anti-nuclear power movement. In Jan. 2013, she raised concerns about radiation exposure of South Dakota Army National Guard soldiers in the Buffalo Gap National Grassland. Charmaine White Face is also a columnist and freelance writer who has written for Indian Country Today, the Rapid City Journal, the Sioux Falls Argus Leader, and The Lakota Journal, and a grandmother

Fighting Fraudulent Foreclosure with Steve Bailey, David Petrovich, Debra Castilo and Kevin Whelan

We discussed what the big banks are doing to rip off homeowners in honor of the JusticetoJustice week of actions in DC organized by the Home Defender’s League. Anti-foreclosure activists are in Washington, DC this week to demand that Attorney General Eric Holder hold the big banks accountable for fraudulent foreclosures. The banks use a variety of tools to profit from illegal foreclosures that displace millions of people each year from their homes even when they can make their mortgage payments. Our guests were Steve Bailey, an anti-foreclosure activist in Denver, CO,  David Petrovich of the NJ Society for the Preservation of Continued Homeownership and author of Fighting Foreclosure. We were also joined by Debra Castilo and Kevin Whelan of the Home Defender’s League.

Listen Here:

Fighting Fraudulent Foreclosures with Steve Bailey, David Petrovich, Debra Castilo and Kevin Whelan by Clearingthefog on Mixcloud

Watch Here:

Video streaming by Ustream

Relevant Articles, Books and Websites:

For Real Economic Recovery, Government Must Stop Favoring Banks Over Homeowners by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers

Wasted Wealth: How the Wall Street Crash Continues to Stall Economic Recovery and Deepen Racial Inequity in America by Home Defenders League

Fight Foreclosure by David Petrovich

New Jersey Society for the Preservation of Continued Homeownership

Colorado Foreclosure Resistance Coalition

Home Defenders League

Guests:

Steve Bailey – is a professional land surveyor in Denver Co. In 2010 my family lost our home to a fraudulent foreclosure without missing any payments. As a result of losing our home, my reputation and credit were destroyed which cost me my business and nearly left my family in homelessness. After working for 20 years to achieve the American Dream I found out that legal, business, and political interests have become so corrupt that they have stripped from us many of the rights we have come to take for granted. I have now become an activist dedicated to fighting unjust foreclosures with the Colorado Foreclosure Resistance Coalition and the Home Defenders League. Visit http://colorado-frc.us/.

 

David Petrovich – is a consumer advocate whose career in the foreclosure realm spans 30 years.  In the early 1990’s right around the time the diabolical MERS was devised, he worked  for GE Capital’s prototype loss mitigation division based in St. Louis,  and served as mortgage loan servicing expert in Federal Courts in NJ, NY, and Pennsylvania.   He has investigated allegations of predatory lending, predatory mortgage loan servicing, and fraud for the Mortgage Bankers Association of America.

He has been Executive Director for Society for Preservation of Continued Homeownership a national 501c3 organization since 1998, helping empower financially distressed homeowners Fight Foreclosure.  He has worked with thousands of families in various stages of mortgage and tax foreclosure.  If you call NJ’s crises hotline with a tax foreclosure problem, you’ll probably end up speaking with Dave.  His wife, Lynn, a forensic CPA and freelance journalist who advocates for a universal single payer healthcare delivery system, and their daughter, Katrina, an attorney and animal rights activist, help out whenever possible.

Formerly a frequent contributor to the New York Times, CNN, San Francisco Chronicle, and the Chicago Tribune, Dave has written numerous essays and several books on mortgage foreclosure including Foreclosure: Facts and Falsehoods, Ethical Short Sales and  Fight Foreclosure. Since no publisher is willing to touch his shocking new book,  Foreclose This! it is to be self published and made available on line.

For a confidential review and recommendation, Dave can be reached by email:  fightingforeclosure101@gmail.com or call 732.571.9464.

Debra Castilo – a homeowner from St. Louis Missouri who is here the the Justice to Justice Rally will be able to join you in the studio. She is a member of MORE and the Home Defenders League.

Kevin Whelan – is Home Defenders League campaign director. The Home Defenders League is a national organization fighting against foreclosures and for a just resolution to the mortgage crisis including the mass principal reduction for underwater homeowners. The League includes 24 community-based affiliates, Occupy Homes groups, and organizing networks including the Alliance for a Just Society and Right to the City Alliance and thousands of member families across the country.

Reasons to Protest Monsanto with Ronnie Cummins, Patty Lovera and Adam Eidinger

On May 25, protests against Monsanto will take place all over the world. Ronnie Cummins of Organic Consumers Association which runs the Millions Against Monsanto Campaign and Patty Lovera of Food and Water Watch tell us about Monsanto’s long history in the chemical business, poisoning and polluting our communities and Monsanto’s mission to own access to our food through ownership of seeds and use of genetically engineered seeds which contaminate organic seeds. Adam Eidinger of Occupy Monsanto tells us about the May 25 International Day of Protest against Monsanto. Visit Occupy Monsanto to find a protest near you or to plan one. You will also find links below to places in the US where Monsanto has offices so you can let them know how you feel about them and a list of seed companies that are not owned by Monsanto.

Listen Here:

Reasons to Protest Monsanto with Ronnie Cummins, Patty Lovera and Adam Eidinger by Clearingthefog on Mixcloud

Watch here:

Video streaming by Ustream

Relevant articles and websites:

The Growing Global Challenge to Monsanto’s Monopolistic Greed by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers

Why Monsanto Won the Angry Mermaid Award by Alexis Baden-Mayer and Ronnie Cummins

Monsanto’s Permit to Poison Us by Ronnie Cummins

Monsanto’s Patents on Life by Katherine Paul and Ronnie Cummins

Monsanto: A Corporate Profile by Food and Water Watch

Monsanto Returns to the Scene of the Crime by Scott Edwards

Millions Against Monsanto

Organic Consumer’s Association

Food and Water Watch

Occupy Monsanto

Where to Occupy Monsanto in the United States

Monsanto-Free Seed Companies

 

Guests:

Ronnie Cummins is founder and Director of the Organic Consumers Association (OCA), a non-profit, U.S. based network of 850,000 consumers, dedicated to safeguarding organic standards and promoting a healthy, just, and sustainable system of agriculture and commerce. The OCA’s primary strategy is to work on national and global campaigns promoting health, justice, and sustainability that integrate public education, marketplace pressure, media work, litigation, and grassroots lobbying. Cummins is also editor of OCA’s website www.organicconsumers.org(30,000 visitors a day) and newsletters, Organic Bytes (270,000 subscribers), and Organic View.

Cummins has been active as a writer and activist since the 1960s, with extensive experience in human rights, anti-war, anti-nuclear, labor, consumer, environmental, and sustainable agriculture campaigns. Over the past decades he has served as director of US and international efforts such as the Pure Food Campaign, and the Global Days of Action Against GMOs. From 1992-98 Cummins served as a campaign director for the Foundation on Economic Trends in Washington, D.C. In 1998, Cummins organized the SOS (Save Organic Standards) Campaign, spearheading the largest consumer grassroots backlash against the US Department of Agriculture in recent history. He is also a frequent lecturer, both in the US and abroad. Cummins has published numerous articles and authored a series of children’s books called Children of the World. Cummins’ most recent book is Genetically Engineered Food: A Self-Defense Guide for Consumers (Second Revised Edition Marlowe & Company 2004). He lives with his wife and 12 year-old son in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, headquarters of the OCA in Mexico, as well as in Finland, Minnesota on the north shore of Lake Superior.

Patty Lovera is the Assistant Director of Food & Water Watch. She coordinates the food team. Patty has a bachelor’s degree in environmental science from Lehigh University and a master’s degree in environmental policy from the University of Michigan. Before joining Food & Water Watch, Patty was the deputy director of the energy and environment program at Public Citizen and a researcher at the Center for Health, Environment and Justice.

 

 

 

Adam Eidinger initiated the Mintwood Media Collective after leaving Rabinowitz Media Strategies in April 2000. Before his tenure with Rabinowitz, he worked in Israel as Director of Middle East Affairs for Halo Technologies where he established a regional marketing office. While at Rabinowitz, Adam promoted media events for the Dalai Lama; Ibrahim Rugova, President of Independent Kosovo; Ehud Barak, Israeli Labor Party Leader; Yasser Arafat; Justice Richard Goldstone, former Chief Prosecutor at the Hague; and various Israeli political leaders. He played a central role in promoting press coverage of the Tibetan Freedom Rally outside the U.S. Capitol, the largest rally for human rights in China and Tibet ever held on American soil. He also made three trips to Croatia, where he organized non-governmental organizations in support of local newspaper editors on trial by the Tudjman government for criminal libel. Adam was lead media coordinator for the World Bank and IMF protests in April 2000 which were featured in every American news magazine and newspaper as well on national and local television.

Since forming the Mintwood Media Collective in May of 2000, Adam has worked for dozens of groups and businesses to generate media coverage and train communication staff. Mintwood was responsible for publicizing the story of military mother Cindy Sheehan in 2005. He initiated and was co-producer of Operation Ceasefire, a day long concert attended by 100,000 people at the Washington Monument to bring the troops home from Iraq. Adam is currently working on behalf of Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps facilitating public relations for various initiatives the 64 year old company supports. In this capacity Adam created Hemp History Week on 2010 which is now a major annual marketing event for the Hemp Industries Association. Past and present Mintwood clients include: Dr. Bronner’s;Vote Hemp; Organic Consumers Association; Fair World Project; Galludet University Faculty Staff Student Alumni Coalition; Military Families Speak Out; Gold Star Families for Peace; Bring Them Home Now Tour; Camp Casey; Operation: Cease Fire; Justice Policy Institute; American Friends Service Committee; Iraq Veterans Against the War; Veterans For Peace; September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows; March for Women’s Lives; Peace Action; Code Pink; Hemp Industries Association; Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies; Drug Policy Alliance; Service Employees International Union.

For more information, visit Mintwood.com.

Racism in Government/NGOs and Environmental Injustice with Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, Lawrence Lucas, Norris McDonald and Rue

We explore racism inside governmental and nongovernmental institutions and how their policies affect minority communities. Co-host is Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, EPA whistleblower and director of the Government Transparency and Accountability in the Green Shadow Cabinet. Lawrence Lucas is President of the USDA Coalition of Minority Employees and advocates on behalf of black farmers. Norris McDonald was the first black environmentalist and is president of the African American Environmentalist Association. Rue is an environmental activist who organizes with the community of Manchester in Houston, TX.

Listen Here:

Racism’s Effect on Public Policy: Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, Lawrence Lucas, Norris McDonald and Rue by Clearingthefog on Mixcloud.

Watch Here:

Video streaming by Ustream

Relevant articles, books and websites:

Manchester, Texas: Tip of the Environmental Nightmare by Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo

No FEAR: A Whistleblower’s Triumph Over Corruption and Retaliation at the EPA by Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo

NAACP Officials: USDA discriminates against black farmers despite previous agreements (updated) by Kent Falk

USDA Coalition of Minority Employees

Diary of an Environmentalist by Norris McDonald

African American Environmentalist Association

Manchester Voices

 

Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo received her BA degree from Barnard College/Columbia University and her doctorate degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She is the author of No FEAR: A Whistleblower’s Triumph over Corruption and Retaliation at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA.) She is currently serving as the Chairperson of the No FEAR Institute and No FEAR Coalition.

Dr. Coleman-Adebayo was a Senior Policy Analyst in the Office of the Administrator at the US Environmental Protection Agency. She has held various academic positions as Adjunct Professor, Georgetown University – School of Foreign Studies, Visiting Scholar, George Mason University- Department of African-American Studies and Assistant Professor, The American University.

On August 18, 2000, Dr. Coleman-Adebayo won an historic lawsuit against the EPA on the basis of race, sex, color discrimination, and a hostile work environment. She subsequently testified before Congress on two occasions. As a result, the Notification of Federal Employees Anti-discrimination and Retaliation Act [No FEAR] was introduced by Congressman F. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI), Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee ( D-TX) and Senator John Warner (R- VA). Along with the No FEAR Coalition, she ushered the No FEAR Bill through Congress. President George W. Bush signed the No FEAR Act into law. Thousands of federal workers and their families have directly benefited from this law.

Dr. Coleman-Adebayo is the founder of the No FEAR Institute (a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization). The No FEAR Institute is devoted to educating the American public about federal sector discrimination and the implementation of the No FEAR Act. The No FEAR Institute co-sponsored two symposiums on vanadium poisoning in South Africa and New York.

Good Housekeeping Magazine in 2003 selected her as their “Woman of the Year.”
The National Whistleblower Center has characterized her as one of the most influential “truth-tellers” in the country. She was recently inducted into the Hall of Fame by the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) in June 2007. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) recognized Dr. Coleman-Adebayo’s leadership in the civil rights movement at its 50th anniversary gala in Atlanta, Ga. Time Magazine compared her to civil rights hero Rosa Parks and she is called the Mother of the first civil rights act of the 21st century.

Dr. Coleman-Adebayo’s troubles at EPA were most intense when she served as the liaison to the White House on the Gore-Mbeki Commission, a Clinton administration foreign policy program with South Africa. After she reported that an American company exposed its African miners and their families to vanadium dust, a deadly substance, she was relieved of her responsibilities on the Commission. Her efforts to conduct an investigation were stifled and she was made a target of personal abuse. Workers in vanadium mines develop life threatening diseases, such as asthma, bronchitis, liver and kidney disorders, and cancers. Their tongues turn green and black, and they bleed. Racial epithets were hurled at her by senior officials and she received threatening phone calls at home.

Despite government efforts to restrain her investigation, as a private citizen, she led an independent team of doctors to investigate the deaths in Brits. In May 2003, she led another team of students and faculty to South Africa from Barnard and Smith Colleges to investigate the crisis of vanadium workers. Coleman-Adebayo received an award for Outstanding Commitment to Global Health and Development from Harvard University.

She Chaired the Sustainable Development and Environment Expert Group for the National Summit on Africa and was the Executive Secretary for the US/South Africa Bi National Commission (Gore-Mbeki Commission). In addition to her work in South Africa, Dr.Coleman-Adebayo was selected as the chief environmental negotiator for the US Delegation to the UN Conference on Women, held in Beijing, China. She represented the EPA to UN technical agencies, such as UNDP, United Nations Industrial Organization and UNEP. She was awarded a Vice Presidential Award for her leadership in designing a cooperative relationship with the American Hospital Association to reduce mercury emissions from hospitals and clinics.

As a result of her academic and practical knowledge of how the US Congress functions, she was recruited by the United Nations Development Program’s United Nations Sudano Sahelian Office (UNSO). Dr. Coleman-Adebayo provided leadership for this office in the area of US Congressional relations, in which she was able to successfully achieve an earmark of funds as well as Congressional recognition of UNSO’s work. In addition,
she managed a portfolio of over $20 million dollars, negotiated with donor countries and organizations to provide financial, personnel and material support to programs under her management. She directly managed three fuelwood projects, in war-time Ethiopia. She negotiated with rebel leaders to ensure the safety of her Ethiopian and international staff. She briefly volunteered in a refugee camp during a famine.

Dr. Coleman-Adebayo worked at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation as its Senior Research Analyst and Director of the CBCF Fellows Program. She provided research for Members of Congress in the areas of Africa/ Caribbean policies. She also directed the CBCF Fellows Program, A program created to increase the number of African Americans working as professional staff in the U.S. Congress.

Dr. Coleman-Adebayo has been featured in a host of newspapers, such as, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Government Executive and Federal Times. She is a wife and mother of two children.

Lawrence Lucas came to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in 1977 as a political appointee during President Jimmy Carter’s Administration; after spending five years in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, as a photogrammetric instructor, representing the U.S, Agency for International Development and the Department of Defense.  He holds the distinction of being the first African American Instructor at the Ethiopian Mapping and Geography Institute.  A native Washingtonian, he earned both a Masters of Science Degree in Adult Education, (Administration) from the University of the District of Columbia, and a Masters Degree in Public Administration, University of Southern California, Los Angeles.

During his tenure at USDA, Lucas served as speech writer for former Secretary of Agriculture Bob Bergland and other members of the Subcabinet.  He retired from USDA in 1996, after 37 years of service and became a staunch civil rights advocate.  Lucas has served as president of The U.S. Department of Agriculture Coalition of Minority Employees (The Coalition) since 1994, transforming it into one of the most provocative, creative, and diverse civil rights employee organizations in the history of USDA.  Lucas pioneered a communication program that has benefitted minority farmers and USDA employees and lectured at numerous prestigious institutions (i.e., Tuskegee University, Iowa State University, California Poly Technical University, Pomona, and others), regarding government accountability, civil and human rights, workforce diversity and recruitment and outreach to under served minority communities.  His outspoken support of federal civil rights enforcement has captured the attention of the White House, Members of Congress, and the Media.

During the Clinton Administration Lucas partnered with other USDA employee and minority farm organizations to create one of the most powerful alliances ever established in USDA history (to date has not been replicated).  Together with the National Black Farmer Association and other farm advocacy groups, Lucas negotiated with former Secretary of Agriculture, Dan Glickman, for the establishment of the historical USDA Civil Rights Action Team, that found gross civil rights violations in USDA implementation of its programs to minority farmers, especially, Black farmers and discrimination against USDA employees.

Mr. Lucas has been invited to testify before the Congressional Black Caucus, the U.S. House and Senate Agriculture Committee (Senator Lugar Chair) as well as other key Committees.   His most recent testimony presented to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, May 14, 2008, (Aldophus Towns, Chair) pushed for the passage of legislation that gave approximately 73,000 Black farmers an opportunity to collect damages resulting from the settlement of the Pigford vs. Glickman Class Action lawsuit.

Lucas, one of the many leaders advocating early complaint resolution and processing of minority farmers and USDA employee cases, is the recipient of numerous civil rights and workforce diversity awards.  He has been critical of USDA leadership with respect to their turning a blind eye to the widespread discrimination, sexual abuse and attacks, reprisal and retaliation, hostile work environment and intimidation of USDA employees and minority farmers by USDA management officials.  Over the past years, he has been crusading for improving civil rights administrative and program activities for all federal employees and customers and is a key partner of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Federal Sector Taskforce, Leroy Warren, Chair, Environmental Organizations and others.  Lucas’ wide range of activities has resulted in increasing the Coalition’s visibility and credibility has put civil rights on the radar screen at the USDA, Congress and the Nation.

As a leader working in cooperation and partnership with the USDA Office of the Secretary, to resolve issues regarding civil rights, workforce diversity and outreach to employees and underserved communities, his resolve has never waivered. He has remained independent … never controlled by those with agendas counter to the purpose and mission of the Coalition.  As a result of his dynamic leadership, “The Coalition” has gained national recognition. Its unique structure…multicultural, multiracial and multiethnic, has precipitated its being designated one of the Federal government’s premier civil rights organizations. Lucas has revitalized and mobilized the group…building it into the highly respected and effective organization it is today.

Advocates attribute Lucas’ tireless efforts to reinvent USDA’s discriminatory culture of abuse, retaliation, racism and sexism into one where employees and minority farmers are treated with dignity and respect to his “Tenacity” and “Solution-driven Actions.”  Bringing viable solutions to the table have earned him the respect of civil rights leaders and federal managers and have saved millions of taxpayer dollars.

Norris McDonald is the founder and president of the Center for Environment, Commerce and Energy and its outreach arm, the African American Environmentalist Association. He has been a career environmentalist for 34 years. Formerly with the Environmental Policy Center (now Friends of the Earth), as Director of the Energy Conservation and Transportation Project, he is an energy and environmental specialist and has served as an advisor to industry and local neighborhood community groups. McDonald was president of the Washington, D.C. Chapter of the American Association of Blacks in Energy (AABE) from 1982 to 1984. He organized the first Energy Braintrust for the late Congressman Mickey Leland. He has authored and successfully worked for the passage of national energy legislation before the U.S. Congress. He has presented testimony before federal, state and local regulatory agencies, U.S. House and Senate Energy and Environmental Committees. He was a participant in the original meetings with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to adopt environmental justice policies.

McDonald led the fight in Congress in the early 1980s to maintain Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFÉ) Standards. He presented testimony before the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee at the confirmation hearing of John Herrington as Secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy in 1985. McDonald drafted and led the lobbying campaign in the U.S. Congress to pass the Federal Shared Energy Savings Act, signed by President Ronald Reagan in 1986. He served as a

National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) instructor in 1997 for the U.S. Department of Agriculture Graduate School. He recently assisted in the passage of the first civil rights legislation of the 21st Century, the No Fear Act, signed by President Bush on May 15, 2002.

He was the author of the first comprehensive studies of pollution in Washington, D.C. He is a recognized national speaker on energy and environmental issues and has appeared in numerous print and electronic media. He has received special recognition from the U.S. Congress, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Interior. He has served on several federal, state and local environmental advisory committees. He served as a consultant for the East Bay Conversion and Reinvestment Commission, Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) Pilot Project Report for the Alameda Naval Air Station, Oakland, CA, 1996. McDonald was the first environmentalist in the U.S. to publicly support nuclear power and the Center was the first environmental organization to publicly support nuclear power. The Center remains the only environmental group that supports nuclear power. The Center was the only environmental group in the U.S. to support the National Harbor Project and the Woodrow Wilson Bridge replacement.

Norris McDonald, a 1977 graduate of Wake Forest University, is a divorced, single parent raising a 20 year old son and enjoys boating, golf, tennis, fishing, skiing, swimming, chess, helicopters, guitar and website design.

Rue hails from the finger lakes region of New York in occupied Haudenosaunee (Hoh-den-o-show-knee) territories Rue is an organizer with both Earth First! & Shaleshock, board member at the Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services, and a spokesperson for the Tar Sands Blockade- a full time direct action campaign to stop the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. Rue is dedicated solidarity organizer with the community of Manchester in Houston’s toxic East End, a writer, independent film maker and co-founder of the Wildseed Collective.

Alternative Currencies and Economies with Jeff Dicken, Paul Glover and Edgar Cahn

Today we focus on using local currencies and economies to opt out of Wall Street and build resilient and sustainable communities. Alternative currencies are founded on principles that value all types of work, reciprocity, interconnection and building community. Our guests are Jeff Dicken of Baltimore Green Currency, Paul Glover who started Ithaca Hours and Edgar Cahn, author of “No More Throw Away People.”

ALERT: 31 Activists were arrested yesterday at Fort Hancock in Syracuse, NY for protesting drones. This is part of ongoing actions that they have been doing. The court is imposing more sever consequences. This time, the protesters are being held on bail and need to raise $34,000. For more information, visit Syracuse Peace Council.

Donations may be sent to the Syracuse Peace Council, with checks made out to Syracuse Peace Council,note : Upstate Drone Action Bail Fund.  2013 E. Genessee St., Syracuse, NY 13210.

Listen:

Alternative Currencies and Economies with Jeff Dicken, Paul Glover and Edgar Cahn by Clearingthefog on Mixcloud

Watch:

Video streaming by Ustream

Relevant Articles, Books and Websites:

Opting Out of Wall Street and Building Sustainable, Resilient Communities: Remaking Finance, Part III by Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese

Local Works! Examining the Impact of Local Business on the West Michigan Economy

Hometown Money: How to Enrich Your Community with Local Currency by Paul Glover

No More Throw-Away People: The Co-Production Imperative by Edgar Cahn

Baltimore Green Currency Association

PaulGlover.com

TimeBanks.org

Guests:

Jeff Dicken – is a Baltimore native and a graduate of City College and Northwestern University. A big-picture idealist with a background in film production and IT systems development, he has always been interested in the dynamics of economic systems.

 

 

 

 

Paul Glover – is founder of Ithaca HOURS local currency, the Ithaca Health Alliance, Philadelphia Orchard Project, Citizen Planners of Los Angeles, and a dozen more organizations. I’m author of several books and urban histories. I have degrees in Marketing and in City Management. After 35 years of community organizing on behalf of grassroots economic development and ecological repair, I started a consultancy called GreenPlanners.

 

 

 

Edgar Cahn – is the creator of Time Dollars and the founder of TimeBanks USA, as well as the co-founder of the National Legal Services Program and the Antioch School of Law (now the David A. Clarke School of Law). He is the author of “No More Throw Away People: The Co-Production Imperative,” “Time Dollars” (co-author Jonathan Rowe, Rodale Press, 1992), “Our Brother’s Keeper: The Indian in White America,” (1972) and “Hunger USA.” The development of Time Dollars is just one achievement in a career that, since the early 1960′s, has been dedicated to achieving social justice for the disenfranchised. His own life is an example of dedication to strongly held principles and ideals, and he brings to audiences a powerful vision, sincere compassion, spontaneous humor, and the ability to inspire others.

Edgar Cahn is the originator of Time Dollars, the creator of the Co-Production principle, and the President and Founder of the Time Dollar USA. A compelling speaker, Edgar possesses the eloquence, passion, and sense of humor to inspire in his audiences a sense not only that social justice matters, but that it calls for immediate action. For over four decades, his own life has stood as a model for action and as a testament to his abiding concern for the rights, welfare, and dignity of the disenfranchised.

A graduate of the Yale law school, Edgar entered the legal profession determined to use the law to achieve social justice. He started his career in government as special counsel and speechwriter for Attorney General Robert Kennedy under President John Kennedy. As part of that role, he was assigned by Kennedy to the Solicitor General’s office for the government’s amicus brief in civil rights sit-in cases. Edgar also worked to spearhead the first national campaign against hunger and malnutrition in the US, and in doing so, he authored an influential report entitled Hunger USA, which led to legislation enforcing shipments of food to severely malnourished communities on Indian reservations and in the southern United States. His work to fight hunger also involved initiating the earliest litigation to challenge the administration of the food stamp and commodities program, establishing the standing for potential recipients, and assisting in the preparation and defense of controversial documentary, “Hunger in America.”

In 1963, Edgar’s life and work seeking social justice first became known at a larger scale when the article he co-authored with his late wife, Jean Camper Cahn, titled “The War on Poverty: A Civilian Perspective” was published in the Yale Law Journal and became the blueprint for the National Legal Services program. Using their model and working closely with Sargent Shriver and the War on Poverty, Edgar and Jean co-created the National Legal Services program under the Office of Economic Opportunity in the Johnson administration.
Having left the government for work with the Field Foundation in 1968, Edgar founded the Citizens Advocate Center as watchdog on government whose primary purpose was to challenge the colonialism of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. That same year, he authored “Our Brother’s Keeper, the Indian in White America.” Leading American Indian activists did the research for the book, which was intended as a catalyst for change in national policy and which helped to spearhead the official adoption of Indian self-determination as national policy.

In 1972, Edgar and his late wife created and founded the Antioch School of Law, which later became the UDC David A. Clarke School of Law and continues the tradition established in the Antioch days to emphasize social justice as a critical role for the law. As law-school deans, Edgar and Jean were the first pioneers of clinical legal education in the US, an approach which is now to be found in law schools throughout the nation.

In 1980 after a massive heart attack that nearly claimed his life, Cahn stepped outside of the law to create yet another social invention, a local, tax-exempt currency called Time Dollars, which are designed to validate and reward the work of the disenfranchised in rebuilding their communities and fighting for social justice. As a distinguished fellow at the London School of Economics, Edgar completed the work on Time Dollars that has led to Time Dollar initiatives being funded by government and major philanthropic foundations in the United States in areas as widespread as juvenile justice, community health, education, public housing, community building, wraparound services for children with emotional disorders, immigrant workers’ rights, and elder care.

As the president and founder of the Time Dollar USA, Cahn’s experience with Time Dollars led him in 1995 to develop a radical new framework for social welfare and social justice that turns recipients of service into co-producers of change. He called this new approach “Co-Production.” An example of Co-Production principles at work can be seen in Washington, DC, his home city, where in 1996 he founded the Time Dollar Youth Court, whose mission is to enlist youth in changing the shape of juvenile justice in DC. Sanctioned by the DC Superior Court, the Time Dollar Youth Court is now among the largest youth courts in the nation. Its innovative design enlists more than 400 youth each year, the majority of them former delinquents, as active shapers of a new form of justice for DC youth.

Besides creating the National Legal Services program, pioneering clinical legal education, and enjoying a long and distinguished career as an advocate for the nation’s disenfranchised, Edgar has held positions at the University of Miami School of Law, Florida International University, the London School of Economics, Center for the Study of Human Rights, Columbia University and the UDC David A. Clarke School of Law.

Cahn’s educational background includes a B.A. magna cum laude from Swarthmore College, an M.A. and Ph.D. from Yale University, and a J.D. from Yale Law School. Honors include: Phi Beta Kappa, Magna Cum Laude, Fulbright Scholar (Cambridge University), Order of the Coif, Articles & Book Review Editor, Yale Law Journal; Jefferson Award for Outstanding Public Service Benefiting Local Communities; Founder’s Award, National Council on Aging; American Association of Law Schools William Pincus Award for Outstanding Contribution to Clinical Legal Education; Point of Light 1997; Co-op Quarterly 1998 Building Economic Alternatives Award for Outstanding Work in Fostering a Sustainable Economy; Medal of Distinction, D.C. Superior Court 2000.

Drone Warfare and Growing Resistance to it with Noor Mir and Judy Bello

This week we discuss the use of drones for surveillance and warfare around the world, but particularly in Pakistan. April is a month of actions in the US to protest the use of drones. It culminates with a weekend conference and action in Syracuse, NY, home of Fort Hancock Air Force Base where drones are piloted. There is growing resistance in both the US and globally. Our guests are Noor Mir, a citizen of Pakistan and graduate of Vassar who is focusing her research on targeted killings and works with CODE PINK, and Judy Bello of the Upstate Coalition to Ground the Drones and End the Wars and other peace organizations who traveled to Pakistan to meet with families who are affected by drones. Medea Benjamin, author of “Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control,” was scheduled to be on the show but had to cancel at the last moment. We included an interview with her.

Listen here:

Drone Warfare and Growing US Resistance with Noor Mir and Judy Bello by Clearingthefog on Mixcloud

Relevant articles and websites:

Anti-Drone Movement Grows: Ethics, Legality and Effectiveness of Drone Killings Doubted  By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers  

Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control by Medea Benjamin

Code Pink

Drones Watch

Know Drones

Towards a Global Perspective Blog by Judy Bello

Fellowship of Reconciliation

Upstate Drone Action

 

Guests:

Noor Mir – Noor is the anti-drone campaign coordinator for CODEPINK and is based in the Washington, D.C. office, although she calls Islamabad, Pakistan her home. She graduated from Vassar College in 2012 with a major in Political Science and minors in French and English. While studying abroad at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, she took courses on international law and targeted killings and was driven by what she learnt to turn it into a year-long research thesis on drone warfare in Pakistan. Noor is passionate about killer drones, humanitarian law and race relations.

 

Judy Bello –  is active with The Upstate Coalition to Ground the Drones and End the Wars, and with Fellowship of Reconciliation Middle East Task Force, as well as with local peace and justice organizations in her home town of Rochester, NY and is on the Administrative Committee of the United National Antiwar Coalition. Judy loves to travel and experience different cultures. She has been to Iran twice with Fellowship of Reconciliation Peace Delegations, and spent a month in the Kurdish city of Suleimaniya in 2009 prior to traveling to Pakistan with the CodePink Peace Delegation in fall of 2012.

Judy believes that justice and respect for the sovereignty of all nations is critical to building world peace. She also believes that the way to build and more just and peaceful society is for people to reach across international, interethnic, interracial, and intercultural boundaries to get to know one another, thereby forming a global grassroots network of individuals working towards peace and justice, through love and understanding.

Her personal blog, Towards a Global Perspective, is at http://blog.papillonweb.net, with a list of films from Iran, India, and the Near East, a list of some of her favorite Iranian books, and a picture gallery from her travels linked into the sidebar. She also administers the Upstate anti-Drone Coalition website at http://upstatedroneaction.org, and has a blog on the Fellowship of Reconciliation Website at http://forusa.org.

 

 

 

Big Finance Fraud and Public Banks with Bill Black and Ellen Brown

Bill Black, associate professor of economics and law and leading investigator of financial fraud, discusses the rampant fraud and corruption in the financial system, the misguided response to the financial crisis by the government and solutions that would bring greater accountability and stability to the economy. Then Ellen Brown, chair and president of the Public Banking Institute, joins us to talk about the new Cypriot model of seizing depositor’s funds to bail out banks, whether that could happen in the US and the advantages of public banking.

Listen here:

Bill Black and Ellen Brown on Big Finance Fraud and Public Banking by Clearingthefog on Mixcloud

Watch here:

Video streaming by Ustream

Relevant Articles and Websites:

Before Next Crash, Create Finance System that Serves Public, Part I: Shrink, Regulate Banks and Enforce Law by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers

Creating a Finance System that Serves the People, Part II: Remaking the Federal Reserve, Building Public Banks and Opting Out of Wall Street by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers 

The SEC Embraces Irony — its Enforcement “Inflection” “Point” by Bill Black

It Can Happen Here: The Confiscation Scheme Planned for US and UK Depositors by Ellen Brown

How the Fed Could Fix the Economy and Why It Hasn’t by Ellen Brown 

Michael Hudson: Public Banking Needed to Stop “Cannibalization” of the Economy on The Real News

New Economic Perspectives

Web of Debt

 

Guests:

Bill Black is an associate professor of economics and law. He was the executive director of the Institute for Fraud Prevention from 2005-2007. He previously taught at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin and at Santa Clara University, where he was also the distinguished scholar in residence for insurance law and a visiting scholar at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics.

Professor Black was litigation director of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, deputy director of the FSLIC, SVP and general counsel of the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco, and senior deputy chief counsel, Office of Thrift Supervision. He was deputy director of the National Commission on Financial Institution Reform, Recovery and Enforcement.

His book, The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One (University of Texas Press 2005), has been called “a classic.” Professor Black recently helped the World Bank develop anti-corruption initiatives and served as an expert for OFHEO in its enforcement action against Fannie Mae’s former senior management.

He teaches white-collar crime, public finance, antitrust, law and economics, and Latin American development.

Ellen Brown developed her research skills as an attorney practicing civil litigation in Los Angeles. In Web of Debt, her latest book, she turns those skills to an analysis of the Federal Reserve and “the money trust.” She shows how this private cartel has usurped the power to create money from the people themselves, and how we the people can get it back. Brown developed an interest in the developing world and its problems while living abroad for eleven years in Kenya, Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua. She returned to practicing law when she was asked to join the legal team of a popular Tijuana healer with an innovative cancer therapy, who was targeted by the chemotherapy industry in the 1990s. That experience produced her book Forbidden Medicine, which traces the suppression of natural health treatments to the same corrupting influences that have captured the money system. Brown’s eleven books include the bestselling Nature’s Pharmacy, co-authored with Dr. Lynne Walker, which has sold 285,000 copies.

King Downing and Jean Casella on Racism, Incarceration and Guantanamo

King Downing joins Clearing the FOG for the full hour to discuss the criminal justice system, from police encounters with citizens through mass incarceration. Jean Casella of Solitary Watch joins the program to discuss the extreme form of incarceration, solitary confinement, which is very common in the Untied States, Anywhere from 80,000 to 100,000 people are held in solitary confinement on any given day in the US. Downing and Zeese discuss the Stop and Frisk program in New York which is a form of racial profiling.  There is a trial challenging the practice currently underway. Last week, two police officers described how they were ordered to target young black men ages 14 to 21. We also discuss police encounters that have resulted in the killings of young black men by undercover police.  We end the show discussing the 166 people remaining at Guantanamo Bay, 86 of whom have been cleared for release three years ago but remain incarcerated.  At least two dozen inmates at the prison are in the seventh week of a hunger strike to protest prison conditions. Witness Against Torture is holding emergency actions this week in solidarity with the Guantanamo prisoners.

Listen here:

King Downing and Jean Casella on Racism, Incarceration and the Hunger Strike at Guantanamo by Clearingthefog on Mixcloud

Watch here: We apologize for the overlap with the previous show. If you go to roughly the 4 minute mark, you will find the start of Clearing the FOG.

Video streaming by Ustream

Articles and websites:

A Forest of poisonous Trees: The US Criminal (In)Justice System by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers

New York Subjects Prisoners to Solitary as a Disciplinary Tool of First Resort by Elena Landriscina

US Holds Hundreds of Detained Immigrants in Solitary Confinement by Lisa Dawson

More Join Hunger Strike at Guantanamo Prison by Charlie Savage

 

King Downing is an attorney and founder of the Human Rights-Racial Justice Center, which advocates and organizes on criminal and economic injustice, including mass incarceration, police abuse and racial profiling. H2RJ projects include tribal border sovereignty and youth-criminal justice advocacy for the organization of Nicole Bell, whose fiancé Sean Bell was killed by the NYPD. H2RJ is a member of the Campaign to End the New Jim Crow. Most recently, he directed the Healing Justice Program of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), where he worked on mass incarceration, including solitary confinement, prisoner advocacy and conflict resolution. He is also former national coordinator of the ACLU’s Campaign Against Racial Profiling, which worked to identify and end “stop and frisk,” including the school-to-prison pipeline and other police abuse. He has appeared in the The New York Times, Newsweek, Court TV, CNN, NPR, HBO, The Daily Beast, Pacifica Radio Network, Investigation Discovery Channel and YouTube, and the following documentaries: Freedom Files—Racial Profiling (Court TV); Black and Blue: Legend of the Hip-Hop Cop (HBO); Injustice Files (Discovery Channel); The Jena 6; and Free Your Hood. He is a contributor to the following books: Twelve Angry Men, (New Press) and Torture in the U.S., 2nd Edition, (AFSC). King received his B.A. from Harvard University and is a graduate of Rutgers School

Jean Casella is co-founder and co-director of Solitary Watch, a web-based project aimed at exposing the widespread practice of solitary confinement in U.S. prisons and jails. Her work has appeared in The Nation, The Guardian, Mother Jones, and other publications. In 2012 she was awarded a Soros Justice Fellowship for her work on solitary confinement.

 

 

 

Photos of solitary confinement cells provided by Jean Casella:

 

Cell at ADX, the federal supermax prison in Florence, Colorado.

 

Cell at Pelican Bay state supermax in California.

 

Drawing of an isolation cell by Herman Wallace, who has been in solitary confinement in Louisiana for 41 years.

Arthur Stamoulis and Ben Beachy on the TransPacific Partnership versus Democracy

In this episode we expose the TransPacific Partnership, an agreement that has been negotiated in secret over the past 3 years by the Obama Administration. Our guests are Arthur Stamoulis of Citizen’s Trade Campaign and Ben Beachy of Global Trade Watch from Public Citizen. The US is using the TPP to bully smaller Pacific Rim nations into accepting an agreement that goes beyond trade to put provisions in place that give transnational corporations greater power than sovereign nations. It creates a path to go around regulations that have been put in place to protect the environment, labor rights, consumer rights, internet privacy and economic stability. The Obama Administration is hinting that it will push for Fast Track, now referred to as Trade Promotion Authority, in Congress which would subvert a democratic process to review and pass the TPP. There are numerous opportunities to expose and oppose the TPP and prevent it from becoming law. Visit FlushtheTPP.org.

Listen to the Show:

Arthur Stamoulis and Ben Beachy on the TransPacific Partnership versus Democracy by Clearingthefog on Mixcloud

Watch the Show:

Video streaming by Ustream

Articles:

TransPacific Partnership Will Undermine Democracy, Empower Transnational Corporations by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers

As Clock Ticks Toward Trans-Pacific Trade Pact Deadline, U.S. Must End Stall Tactics on Access to Medicines by Doctors Without Borders

The Rise and Fall of Fast Track by Lori Wallach and Todd Tucker

Hundreds of U.S. Organizations Urge Congress to Replace Fast Track by Citizens Trade Campaign

The Obama Administration Wants to Sell You a Used Trade Policy by Eyes on Trade

Guests:

Arthur Stamoulis: is Executive Director of Citizens Trade Campaign which was founded in 1992 as a national coalition of organizations to oppose NAFTA. CTC is one of the organizations leading the fight to expose and oppose the TPP. They recently sent a letter to Congress opposing Fast Track that was signed by 400 organizations. Visit CitizensTrade.org

 

 

 

Ben Beachy: is Research Director with Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch. He investigates the impacts and implications of U.S. trade policy on jobs, public interest regulation, financial stability and democratic policymaking. Before joining Global Trade Watch, Beachy analyzed the impacts of U.S. trade, aid, and lending policies in Latin America for six years as a Nicaragua-based policy analyst and as a D.C.-based National Organizer for Witness for Peace. He has also worked as a visiting research fellow with Tufts University’s Global Development and Environment Institute, investment analyst for the Tellus Institute in Boston, agriculture researcher for ActionAid in India and labor rights investigator for the Worker Rights Consortium in Central America. Beachy’s published articles have focused on post-food crisis trade policy, the impacts of U.S. and IMF policies in Latin America and new economic indicators to supplement GDP. Beachy received a B.A. from Goshen College and a Master in Public Policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Visit Global Trade Watch and the Eyes on Trade Blog.

Thomas Gokey of Strike Debt and Dr. Steffie Woolhandler of PNHP.org on Medical Debt and Bankruptcy

The US is the only wealthy nation in which people go bankrupt because of illness and medical costs. More than 62% of personal bankruptcies are due to medical debt and nearly 80% of those who went bankrupt had health insurance. But people are working to change that. Thomas Gokey is a member of Strike Debt Rolling Jubilee that is raising funds to erase debt. More than that, they provide tools so that people can understand how debt works in their communities and how to resist it. Dr. Steffie Woolhandler is a co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program and is author of several leading studies on medical bankruptcy. She explains why medical debt occurs, the impact of medical costs on health and how the national health law will affect medical debt and bankruptcy. She advocates for a national single payer health program.

Listen here:

Thomas Gokey of Strike Debt and Dr. Steffie Woolhandler of PNHP.org on Medical Debt and Bankruptcy by Clearingthefog on Mixcloud

Watch here:

Video streaming by Ustream

Articles and websites:

Access to Health Care, Basic Necessities, a Matter of Life or Debt by Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese

The Debt Resistor’s Operations Manual by Strike Debt

Medical Debt Report by Strike Debt

StrikeDebt.org

PNHP.org

Healthcare-Now.org

 

Guests:

Thomas Gokey is a visual artist and an adjunct professor at Syracuse University. He is currently a PhD candidate at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee Switzerland. He has a Masters of Fine Arts in sculpture from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Recent projects include transforming his debt from art school into a work of art made out of the exact same amount of real money which he is selling for the price of his tuition debt; a collective farm on public land in upstate New York, “Gutenbaaaaarg” a pirate printing press, and the Rolling Jubilee, a collective project with Strike Debt. Visit StrikeDebt.org.

 

Dr. Steffie Woolhandler is a primary care physician and professor of public health and medicine at CUNY School of Public Health at Hunter College. She is a co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program and author of several leading academic studies on medical bankruptcy. Visit PNHP.org.