Dr. Tony Ingraffea and Sandra Steingraber Bust the Myths Around Fracking

Dr. Tony Ingraffea, the foremost engineering authority on fractures, and biologist/author Sandra Steingraber bust the industry myths around the hydrofracking of natural gas. Dr. Ingraffea states that the risks are not acceptable and lists a number of problems that can occur from water and air pollution to worsening climate change. Steingraber, who founded the growing New Yorkers Against Fracking and helped to delay fracking in New York, explains the health risks. A mother of two, she states that fracking and climate change constitute the most serious risks to children’s health. Find out what you can do to stop it.

Listen to the show here:

Dr. Tony Ingraffea and Sandra Steingraber Bust the Myths Around Fracking by Clearingthefog on Mixcloud

Watch the show here:

Streaming Live by Ustream

Articles: 

US Climate Bomb is Ticking: What the gas industry doesn’t want you to know by Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese

The Right Climate for a Time Out by Sandra Steingraber

Report: Shale Gas Bubble Looms, Aided by Wall Street by Steve Horn

Horizontal Fracking – Unacceptable Risks compiled by Anne Zukowski

The Most Influential Climate Science Paper Today Remains Unknown to Most People by Katherine Bagley

Drill Baby Drill by J. David Hughes

Our guests:

Dr. Anthony Ingraffea is the Dwight C. Baum Professor of Engineering and Weiss Presidential Teaching Fellow at Cornell University where he has been since 1977. He holds a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Notre Dame, an M.S. in Civil Engineering from Polytechnic Institute of New York, and a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from the University of Colorado. Dr. Ingraffea’s research concentrates on computer simulation and physical testing of complex fracturing processes.  He and his students performed pioneering research in the use of interactive computer graphics and realistic representational methods in computational fracture mechanics.  He has authored with his students and research associates over 250 papers in these areas, and is Director of the Cornell Fracture Group (www.cfg.cornell.edu). Since 1977, Dr. Ingraffea’s research has been supported by grants from both government agencies and private companies, with core grant research support primarily being from the federal government (National Science Foundation; National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA); U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research; U.S. Army Engineer Waterways Experiment Station; U.S. Department of Transportation; Sandia National Laboratories;) and from private industry (Schlumberger, Gas Research Institute, IBM; Caterpillar Tractor).  Professor Ingraffea was a member of the first group of Presidential Young Investigators named by the National Science Foundation in 1984. For his research achievements in hydraulic fracturing he has won the International Association for Computer Methods and Advances in Geomechanics “1994 Significant Paper Award”, and he has twice won the National Research Council/U.S. National Committee for Rock Mechanics Award for Research in Rock Mechanics (1978, 1991). He became a Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers in 1991, and named the Dwight C. Baum Professor of Engineering at Cornell in 1992.   His group won a NASA Group Achievement Award in 1996, and a NASA Aviation Safety /Turning Goals into Reality Award in 1999 for its work on the aging aircraft problem. He became Co-Editor-in-Chief of Engineering Fracture Mechanics in2005. In 2006, he won American Society for Testing and Materials’ George Irwin Award for outstanding research in fracture mechanics, and in 2009 was named a Fellow of the International Congress on Fracture. For his work on public education on shale gas issues,  TIME Magazine named him one of its “People Who Mattered” in 2011. His website is PSEHealthyEnergy.org.

Sandra Steingraber is a recipient of the Rachel Carson Leadership Award, has lectured before the parliament of the European Union, at various medical conferences, and on college campuses. A visiting scholar at New York’s Ithaca College, her previous books include Living Downstream: An Ecologist’s Personal Investigation of Cancer and the Environment and Having Faith: An Ecologist’s Journey to Motherhood. She and her husband, Jeff, have two children—Elijah and Faith, ages nine and twelve. Visit New Yorkers Against Fracking, Concerned Health Professionals of New York and Americans Against Fracking.

Bruce Gagnon and Elliott Adams on North Korea, Nuclear Weapons and US Expansion into Asia and Space

Following the most recent nuclear weapon test by North Korea, US media has mainly focused on giving the impression that North Korea is a nuclear threat. In this show, we place the events in North Korea in context of the long history of US interference there, the ongoing Korean War and the current US objective to circle China with military bases. We are joined by Bruce Gagnon of the Global Network Against Nuclear Power and Weapons in Space and Elliott Adams of Veterans for Peace. Both are veterans who are dedicating their lives to organize and take action for peace. We also discuss the new US Naval Base on Jeju Island in South Korea which is being protested by the inhabitants of the island and the Obama Administration’s investment in nuclear weapons. We scratched the surface of these important topics and will provide resources so that our audience can get more information that is not being presented.

Listen to the show:

Veterans Bruce Gagnon and Elliott Adams on North Korea, Nuclear Weapons and US Expansion into Asia by Clearingthefog on Mixcloud

Articles:

North Korea or the United States: Will the Real Aggressor Please Stand Down? by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers

Washington’s Asia-Pacific Pivot and Common Security Alternatives by Joseph Gerson

American Exceptionalism to the Rescue by Bruce Gagnon

China: Rise, Fall and Re-emergence as a Global Power by James Petras

Putting the Squeeze on North Korea by Gregory Elich

U.S. Working Group for Peace & Demilitarization in Asia and the Pacific Statement in Response to Third DPRK Nuclear Explosive Test

Korea and the “Axis of Evil” by S. Brian Willson

More on Korea by S. Brian Willson (scroll down to the section on Korea)

Veterans Among Those Arrested Thursday Protesting Drones at Hancock Air Field

Guests:

Bruce Gagnon serves as Secretary/Coordinator of the Global Network Against Nuclear Power and Weapons in Space (GN). He has been working on space issues for the past 25 years and helped create the GN in 1992. His book, called “Come Together Right Now: Organizing Stories from a Fading Empire”, was republished in 2008. For 15 years he coordinated the Florida Coalition for Peace & Justice. He was trained as an organizer by the United Farmworkers Union and is also a member of Veterans for Peace. In 2003 Bruce co-produced a popular documentary video entitled Arsenal of Hypocrisy that spelled out U.S. plans for space domination.  Another of his videos, shot in 2009, was entitled Review of Obama’s Foreign Policy.  Both videos have been widely shown on Free Speech TV.    In 2010 Bruce was extensively featured in the award-winning documentary called Pax Americana and the Weaponization of Space. Full bio here. And visit SaveJejuNow.org.

Elliott Adams is past national President of Veterans for Peace and was a paratrooper in the infantry serving in Viet Nam, Japan, Korea, and Alaska. He has served his local community in a variety of capacities such as: President of the School Board, Mayor, Committee Chair of BSA Explorer Post 17, President of Rotary, Chamber of Commerce, and Master of the Masonic Lodge. He left politics to become an activist which included organizing work for United For Peace and Justice, War Resisters League, School Of Americas Watch, Peace Has No Borders, Veterans For Peace and many other organizations, at events across the country. He has also done nonviolence and social movement trainings for Fellowship Of Reconciliation, School Of Americas Watch, Peacemakers of Schoharie, Student Environmental Action Coalition, War Resistors League, Veterans for Peace and, other groups. He is currently Nonviolent Training Coordinator of Veterans for Peace. Full bio here.

Mike Fox and Maria Hadden on Participatory Democracy in Venezuela and the US

Last week, we spoke about ‘managed democracy’ in the US. In this show, we bust the myths about the democracy movement in Venezuela. The US media routinely misreports on Venezuela because its success threatens US Empire. Mike Fox, a journalist and documentarian, has covered the rise of participatory democracy in Venezuela and other Latin American countries over the past ten years. Following the election of Hugo Chavez, the people of Venezuela rewrote the Constitution granting rights to education, health care, land for growing food and more. They have worked to build new institutions to meet their needs and are creating a democratic structure of governance through community councils. The results are that they have the lowest index of inequality in all of South America and are ranked fifth in the world in happiness. We then speak with Maria Hadden of the Participatory Budgeting Project in the US. Participatory budgeting gives decision-making power over public funds to the people. In the US, it started in Chicago and is growing coast to coast.

Listen to the show:

Mike Fox and Maria Hadden on Participatory Democracy in Venezuela and the US by Clearingthefog on Mixcloud

 

Watch the show:

Video streaming by Ustream

Articles:

 

Guests:

Mike Fox has worked for many years as a freelance journalist, radio reporter, and documentary film-maker covering Latin America. He is the co-author of Venezuela Speaks!: Voices from the Grassroots (2010) and the co-director of the documentary films Beyond Elections: Redefining Democracy in the Americas and Crossing the American Crises: From Collapse to Actions. All are available on PM Press. He is on the board of Venezuelanalysis.com. His work can be found at blendingthelines.org. His new book, Latin America’s Turbulent Transitions, is available through Zed Books.

 

Maria Hadden is a resident of Chicago’s 49th Ward. Maria first became involved with deliberative processes as a mediator and mediation trainer in Columbus, Ohio working with the Interfaith Center for Peace.  She is an AmeriCorps*VISTA alum and earned her M.S. in Public Service Management from DePaul University.  She became involved with Participatory Budgeting as a volunteer community representative during the first PB process in the U.S. in Chicago’s 49th ward in 2009. She now works for The Participatory Budgeting Project providing assistance to communities working to design their own process.

Chris Hedges and Cliff DuRand: What Kind of Democracy Exists in the US?

Chris Hedges, author of “Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt,” speaks about Managed Democracy in the US, or what he calls “political theater.” He also discusses “Inverted Totalitarianism,” a term first used by Sheldon Wolin who wrote “Democracy, Inc.” Hedges describes the “Sacrifice Zones” that he visited as he wrote his most recent book. Hedges writes a weekly column for Truthdig. We then speak with Cliff DuRand, author of “Recreating Democracy in a Globalized State.” DuRand explains capitalism as a Monopoly game that always ends up with gross inequality and collapse of the game. He also explains our current political environment as a polyarchy that suppresses real democracy in order to maintain control. DuRand’s writing can be found at the Global Justice Center.

Listen to the show here:

Chris Hedges and Cliff DuRand on Challenges to Democracy in a Globalized Corporate State by Clearingthefog on Mixcloud

Watch the show here:

Video streaming by Ustream

Articles:

Lifting the Veil on Mirage Democracy in the United States by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers

How Do You Take Your Poison? by Chris Hedges

The End of the American Dream by Cliff DuRand

 

Guests:

Chris Hedges’ column is published Mondays on Truthdig. He spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. He has reported from more than 50 countries and has worked for The Christian Science Monitor, National Public Radio, The Dallas Morning News and The New York Times, for which he was a foreign correspondent for 15 years. He has won numerous awards, including a Pulitzer Prize and has published 12 books. His most recent is “Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt.”

 

 

 Cliff DuRand is a retired philosophy professor who taught for 40 years in Baltimore at Morgan State University. He lives now in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico where he is a founder of and Research Associate with the Center for Global Justice. He writes and speaks extensively on such topics as globalization, democracy, Mexico, Cuba and various social issues. Many of his essays can be found at www.globaljusticecenter.org.

Steven Hill and Dr. Andy Coates on Deficit: Don’t Cut Social Security and Medicare, Expand Them!

While corporate media talks about the deficit and cutting Social Security and Medicare, we turn the argument for cuts on its head. We focus on growing poverty among seniors and popular solutions. Instead of cutting social insurances, our guests call for expanding and improving them. Steven Hill (Steven-Hill.com) wrote in The Atlantic that Social Security is the most stable pension plan in today’s economy and that there are ways to double Social Security benefits. This would bring more seniors to a comfortable level of retirement and would stabilize our economy through increased spending. Dr. Andy Coates, the current president of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP.org), discusses improving and expanding Medicare to everyone as a way to address both the health care and economic crises.

Listen on MixCloud:

Steven Hill and Dr. Andy Coates on Deficit: Don’t Cut Social Security and Medicare, Expand Them! by Clearingthefog on Mixcloud

Watch on UStream TV:

 

Video streaming by Ustream

Articles:

Solve the Real Problems – Poverty Retirement and Health Insecurity – and the Economy Will Recover by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers

Don’t Cut Social Security,  Double It by Steven Hill

Dr. Sees Shift to Single Payer Care

Dr. Andy Coates: Health Care is a Social Responsibility

 

Guests:

Steven Hill: Steven Hill is a political writer and author of several books including “Europe’s Promise: Why the European Way Is the Best Hope for an Insecure Age (www.EuropesPromise.org)” and “10 Steps to Repair American Democracy, 2012 Election Edition” (www.10Steps.net). His articles and interviews have appeared in media around the world. His website is www.Steven-Hill.com.

 

 

 

 

Dr. Andy Coates: Practicing physician in upstate NY, co-founder of Single Payer NY and new president of Physicians for a National Health Program. Featured in recent article in The Buffalo News: “Doctor sees shift to single payer health care.” See PNHP.org

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cheri Honkala and Robert Pollin on Martin Luther King, the Poor Peoples Campaign and Green Jobs

On Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and President Obama’s second inauguration, we speak with Cheri Honkala of the Poor Peoples Economic and Human Rights Campaign and Robert Pollin of the Political Economy Research Institute at U Mass-Amherst about Dr. King’s Poor Peoples Campaign, the current state of the economy, the direction the economy is expected to go during Obama’s second term and what people are doing to shift the economy and meet human needs. We listen to excerpts from Dr. King’s speech before the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Atlanta, GA in August, 1967 called “Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community.”

Listen on MixCloud:

Cheri Honkala and Robert Pollin on Martin Luther King, the Poor People’s Campaign and Green Jobs by Clearingthefog on Mixcloud

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s speech, “Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community,” given on August, 1967 to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Atlanta, GA.

Martin Luther King – Where Do We Go From Here? (Conclusion) from MLK Speeches on Vimeo.

Guests:

Cheri Honkala:

Cheri Honkala was born into poverty in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She grew up watching her mother suffer from domestic violence that she quietly endured for fear of losing her kids. At the age of 17 her 19 year old brother Mark, who suffered from mental health issues committed suicide. He was uninsured and could not afford to get the help he needed. At the time of Mark’s suicide Cheri was a teenage mother living out of her car and going to high school. Despite her difficult upbringing she graduated high school.

Cheri and her son Mark (named after her brother) lived in and out of places eventually becoming homeless after the car they had been living in at the time was demolished by a drunk driver. Mark was 9 years old and Cheri could not find a shelter that would allow them to remain together that winter so in order to keep from freezing Cheri decided to move into an abandoned HUD home. She then began working to help other poor families and became a pioneer in the modern housing takeover movement. For the past 25 years Cheri Honkala has been a leading advocate for poor and homeless in America. She co-founded the Kensington Welfare Rights Union and the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign. She has organized tens of thousands holding marches, demonstrations and setting up tent cities. Read more at Jill Stein.org. And follow her work at EconomicHumanRights.org.

Robert Pollin: 

Professor of Economics and Co-Director of the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. His books include Contours of Descent: U.S. Economic Fractures and the Landscape of Global Austerity (2003), An Employment-Targeted Economic Program for South Africa (co-authored 2007); A Measure of Fairness: The Economics of Living Wages and Minimum Wages in the United States (co- authored 2008), and Back to Full Employment (2012). He has worked recently as a consultant for the U.S. Department of Energy, the International Labour Organization and numerous non- governmental organizations on various aspects of building high-employment green economies, and is currently directing a project with the United Nations Industrial Development Organization on this topic.  Follow Robert’s work on Back to Full Employment and Political Economy Research Institute.

 

 

 

Relevant Articles:

Green New Deal

The Agenda for Obama-2: Full Employment and Fighting Poverty

 

Benefits of a Slimmer Pentagon

 

The American Economic Empire

 

Glen Ford: Don’t You Dare Conflate MLK and Obama

 

Cornel West Explains Why It Bothers Him that Obama will be taking the Oath with MLK’s Bible

 

Ray McGovern and Bill Blum on Obama’s Second Term, his Appointments and US Empire

Ray McGovern and Bill Blum discuss President Obama’s second term and his appointments to Secretaries of State and Defense and head of the CIA in the broader context of US foreign policy and imperialism. We speak about John Brennan’s involvement in extraordinary rendition, torture and drone attacks as well as the weekly Tuesday ‘Kill List” that he presents to President Obama. We speak about the influence of the military-industrial complex on US expansion into Asia and Africa and the influence of AIPAC on policies on the Middle East.

Important Events:

Celebrating the Life of David Cline and Confronting the Legacies of War event is Saturday, February 16, 2013, 1:30 pm, at Connolly’s Pub & Restaurant in NYC. Please RSVP on Facebook http://on.fb.me/W2hE1F.

Inaugural Rallies and Marches:  Arc of Justice – to protest drones and other injustices. The event will begin at Meridian Hill Park (Malcolm X Park) with a rally at 9 am. At 10 am we will proceed down 16th Street NW to K Street NW where we will disband. More iinformation at Stop These Wars and Arc of Justice Coalition. GMO-Free Inauguration – As the world comes to Washington, DC to celebrate the inauguration of President Barack Obama, safe food activists will be gathering to demand the President follow up with his campaign promise to label genetically engineered foods. For more information, visit Occupy Monsanto.

 

Listen on MixCloud!

 

Ray McGovern and Bill Blum on Obama’s Second Term, his Appointments and US Empire by Clearingthefog on Mixcloud

Watch us on UStream!

Video streaming by Ustream

Article:

Guests:

Ray McGovern – works with Tell the Word, a publication arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. He served at CIA from the administrations of John F. Kennedy to that of George H. W. Bush, and was one of five CIA “alumni” who created Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) in January 2003. His articles can also be found in Consortium News and Truthout.

 

 

 

 

 

Bill Blum – is an American author, historian and critic of US foreign policy. He was founder and editor of the Washington Free Press in 1969. He has written 5 books, his most recent in 2004 titled “Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire” and he publishes the monthly Anti-Empire Report.

 

 

 

 

 

Relevant Articles:

The Grilling that Brennan Deserves

Excusing Torture, Again

Essays and the Anti-Empire Report by Bill Blum at Killing Hope

John Curl on the History of Cooperatives and Communalism in the US

We interview John Curl, author of “For All the People: Uncovering the Hidden History of Cooperation, Cooperative Movements and Communalism in America.” John discusses the efforts to create real democracy in the US pre-dating the Revolution and obstacles to their success. His book results from a lifetime of research and experience in cooperatives.

Article: Cooperatives and Community Work are Part of American DNA

Show #41 on History of Cooperatives in the US with John Curl, author “For All the People.” by Clearingthefog on Mixcloud

John Curl has been a member of Heartwood Cooperative Woodshop in Berkeley for over thirty years, and has belonged to numerous other cooperatives and collectives. His historical writings includes History of Work Cooperation in America (1980). Memories of Drop City(2007) is his memoir of the 1960s commune movement. He is a translator and biographer of Inca, Maya and Aztec poets in Ancient American Poets (2006). His seven books of poetry include Scorched Birth, Columbus in the Bay of Pigs, and Decade: the 1990s. He is a longtime boardmember of PEN, chair of West Berkeley Artisans and Industrial Companies, a social activist, and has served as a city planning commissioner. He is a professional woodworker, and resides in Berkeley, CA.

 

 

For All the People: Uncovering the Hidden History of Cooperation, Cooperative Movements, and Communalism in America, 2nd ed. 

Author: John Curl
Introduction by: Ishmael Reed
Publisher: PM Press
ISBN: 978-1-60486-582-0
Published July 2012
Format: Paperback
Page Count: 608 Pages
Size: 9 by 6
Subjects: History, Political Science

$29.95

It is the cooperation of working people that has brought the best of the United States to life. Cooperatives have played a vital role throughout the American saga, starting in its formative years. A staggering 120 million Americans belong to cooperatives today–yet the existence of such a movement, and its dramatic and stirring story, remain all but ignored by most historians.

For All the People seeks to reclaim this history.

The very survival of indigenous communities and the first European settlers alike depended on a deeply cooperative style of living and working, based around common lands, shared food and labor. Cooperative movements proved integral to the grassroots organizations and struggles challenging the domination
of unbridled capitalism in America’s formative years. Holding aloft the vision for an alternative economic system based on cooperative industry, they have played a vital, and dynamic role in the struggle to create a better world.

In this groundbreaking, scholarly, yet eminently readable study, Curl surveys the vast range of cooperatives that have shaped America’s past and continue to inform, and transform, our present. With an expansive sweep, and breathtaking detail, For All the People examines each of the definitive cooperative movements for social change—farmer, union, consumer, and communalist—that have been all but erased from our collective memory.

John Curl, with over forty years of experience as both an active member and scholar of cooperatives, masterfully melds theory, practice, knowledge and analysis, to present the definitive history from below of cooperative America.

The Buzz

“It is indeed inspiring, in the face of all the misguided praise of ‘the market’, to be reminded by John Curl’s new book of the noble history of cooperative work in the United States.”
–Howard Zinn, author of A People’s History of the United States.

“This new edition is greatly welcome, because we need a cooperative movement and spirit more than ever before. Curl surveys all, and explains much. New generations of readers will find this a fascinating account, and aging co-opers like myself will understand better what we did, what we tried to do, where we succeeded and where we failed. Get this book and read it, Curl will do you good.”
–Paul Buhle, coeditor of the Encyclopedia of the American Left, founding editor of Radical America (SDS).

Richard Wolff on Democratizing the Economy and Robert Naiman on Julian Assange

Economist Richard Wolff speaks about his new project to build a movement for Worker Self Directed Enterprises called Democracy at Work. And Robert Naiman of Just Foreign Policy speaks about Julian Assange’s request for asylum from the Ecuadorian government.

Article about this show:

The Foundation of a New Democratic Economy is Worker Self-Directed Enterprises

 

Show #25 with economist Richard Wolff of DemocracyatWork.info & Robert Naiman of Just Foreign Policy by Clearingthefog on Mixcloud

Guests:

Richard Wolff –  Professor of Economics Emeritus, University of Massachusetts, Amherst where he taught economics from 1973 to 2008. He is currently a Visiting Professor in the Graduate Program in International Affairs of the New School University, New York City. He has a new book to be released Sept 1 “Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism” and he launched a new website Democracyatwork.info.

Democracy at Work is a project, begun in 2010, that aims to build a social movement. The movement’s goal is transition to a new society whose productive enterprises (offices, factories, and stores) will mostly be WSDE’s, a true economic democracy. The WSDEs would partner equally with similarly organized residential communities they interact with at the local, regional, and national levels (and hopefully international as well). That partnership would form the basis of genuine participatory democracy.

Utilizing media, from short video clips that go viral to our already well-established weekly and increasingly syndicated “Economic Update” radio program (WBAI, 99.5 FM, New York) and from podcasts to articles to blogs, this interactive website reaches and engages a fast growing audience.

Robert Naiman – is Policy Director at Just Foreign Policy. Mr. Naiman edits the Just Foreign Policy daily news summary and writes on U.S. foreign policy at Huffington Post. He is president of the board of Truthout. Naiman has worked as a policy analyst and researcher at the Center for Economic and Policy Research and Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch.

Naiman delivered a letter to Ecuadorean Embassy urging Ecuador to grant asylum for Julian Assange on June 25^th.

Naiman said today: “As Americans who appealed to Ecuador to grant Julian Assange’s request for political asylum from the threat of U.S. persecution, we are delighted with the decision by Ecuador to grant Assange asylum.  But there are three questions the media should be asking.

“The UK is now saying that it does not respect diplomatic asylum and has threatened to raid Ecuador’s embassy, which would be a grave breach of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. The UK threat to violate international law is particularly extreme when one considers that these three basic questions have never been answered: 1) why Sweden won’t agree to question Assange in the UK; 2) why Sweden won’t promise not to extradite Assange to the United States if he voluntarily goes to Sweden; 3) why the UK won’t promise to oppose an extradition request from the U.S. to Sweden if Assange voluntarily goes to Sweden.”

 

 

Climate Change Justice and Resistance from Doha to East Texas

Anne Petermann of the Global Justice Ecology Project discusses the recent climate conference in Doha, Qatar which is characterized more as a trade show for corporations looking to profit from climate change than a conference about solutions, and the increasing exclusion of non-corporate voices. She says solutions to the climate crisis are coming from the bottom up.   Ramsey Sprague of the Tar Sands Blockade describes the growing resistance to the Keystone XL Pipeline and the upcoming direct action training camp and action Jan. 3 to 8. Co-hosts Margaret and Kevin will participate in that action and urge you to support it or participate as well. And ecology activist Diane Wilson who is on her 19th day of a hunger strike describes why she is risking her life to hold Valero Oil accountable to her community.

Guests

Anne Petermann  is the Executive Director of Global Justice Ecology Project. She is also the Coordinator of the STOP GE Trees Campaign; the North American Focal Point for the Global Forest Coalition; and a member of the Board of Directors of the Will Miller Social Justice Lecture Series.

She has been involved in movements for forest protection and Indigenous rights since 1991; and the international and national climate justice movements since 2004. She co-founded the Eastern North American Resource Center of the Native Forest Network in 1993, and the STOP GE Trees Campaign in 2004. She also participated in the founding of the Durban Group for Climate Justice in 2004, and Climate Justice Now! in 2007 at the Bali UN Climate Conference. In 2008, Global Justice Ecology Project spearheaded the founding of the North American Mobilization for Climate Justice.

She is the author of several reports detailing the dangers of genetically engineered trees, and second generation cellulosic biofuels agrofuels, including their impacts on forests and forest dependent peoples.  She is also a frequent contributor to Z Magazine. She was banned from the Doha international climate meeting in 2012 because of her participation in “un-permitted” protests at previous meetings.

Letter telling Petermann she is not welcome at the Doha climate talks:

Anne Petermann today (21 October), speaks on behalf of Global Justice Ecology Project, in an intervention on Biofuels and Biodiversity at the UN CBD in Nagoya, Japan. Photo: Simone Lovera/GFC

Ramsey Sprague is an activist and spokesperson with the Tar Sands Blockade. The Blockade is a coalition of Texas and Oklahoma landowners and climate justice organizers using peaceful and sustained civil disobedience to stop the construction of TransCanada’s Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. They intend to force the termination of this dangerous pipeline to create a more clean and livable world that works for everyone.

From January 3rd to 8th the Tar Sands Blockade will be holding a mass action and training.  Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, co-hosts of Clearing the FOG will be participating in this action. They seeks to create a massive and overwhelming disruption of TransCanada’s ability to steal our land, poison our water, and destabilize our climate.

Diane Wilson is a fourth-generation shrimper, who began fishing the bays off the Gulf Coast of Texas at the age of eight. By 24 she was a boat captain. In 1989, while running her brother’s fish house at the docks and mending nets, she read a newspaper article that listed her home of Calhoun County as the number one toxic polluter in the country. She set up a meeting in the town hall to discuss what the chemical plants were doing to the bays and thus began her life as an environmental activist. Threatened by thugs and despised by her neighbors, Diane insisted the truth be told and that Formosa Plastics stop dumping toxins into the bay.

Her work on behalf of the people and aquatic life of Seadrift, Texas, has won her a number of awards including: National Fisherman Magazine Award, Mother Jones’s Hell Raiser of the Month, Louis Gibbs’ Environmental Lifetime Award, Louisiana Environmental Action (LEAN) Environmental Award, Giraffe Project, Jenifer Altman Award, and the Bioneers Award. She is co-founder of Code Pink and continues to lead the fight for social justice.

Diane is the author of “An Unreasonable Woman: A True Story of Shrimpers, Politicos, Polluters, And the Fight for Seadrift, Texas.”

Diane Wilson and Bob Lindsey are undertaking a sustained hunger strike which began on November, 29th when they locked their necks to tanker trucks attempting to enter the Valero refinery in Manchester. They refuse to eat until the following demands are met:
1. Valero completely divest from Keystone XL and all forms of tar sands exploitation
2. Valero invest in the health and well being of the Manchester community
3. Valero refinery shut down and vacate the Manchester community

Article about this show:

The People Must Lead the Way to Save the Planet

Other articles

By Anne Petermann, On Not Attending the UN Climate Conference in Doha, Climate Connections, December 11, 2012.

UPDATE: Exclusive: Billionaires secretly fund attacks on climate science

Crises in Tuition & Predatory Student Lending

On International Human Rights Day we look at the right to education. Tyler Paige is one of 11 students occupying a building at Cooper Union demanding that the college continue to offer free education. Students, faculty and alumni are united in this effort which is part of the global movement for the right to education. You can follow them on Cooper Union Student Action to Save Our School and Free Cooper Union Facebook page.   Lynn Petrovich, CPA and author of “Sticker Shock,” exposes the fraudulent practices of Sallie Mae and other corporate student lenders. And Danny Weil, author of over 7 books that exposes the financialization of education, the monetization of students, the collusion between government and corporations, Obama’s neo-liberal education agenda and what we can do about it.

Guests

Tyler Paige joined with ten other students to take over the Peter Cooper Suite at Cooper Union.  They occupied the suite for one week as part of a campaign to ensure future students get free tuition as has always been the tradition at Cooper Union. As they say on their website: “The Board of Trustees and the Administration at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art are considering charging tuition at the school for the first time in 110 years. This website serves to document the actions and events current students have organized in response to this unfolding tuition crisis. We are organizing to make this issue as public as possible in order to not only bring attention to our own situation but also to the crisis of student debt in the U.S.”

Tyler Page is second from the left in the top row, with the other take-over students.

Lynn Petrovich is a CPA/MBA calls herself “The Green CPA”. She spends a lot of time volunteering her services in disadvantaged communities during tax time. She is the author of Sticker Shocl: On the illusions of hospital costs and accounting, which exposes the rip-offs of non-profit hospital accounting practices.

Danny Weil is a writer for Project Censored and Daily Censored. He received the Project Censored “Most Censored” News Stories of 2009-10 award for his article: “Neoliberalism, Charter Schools and the Chicago Model / Obama and Duncan’s Education Policy: Like Bush’s, Only Worse,” published by Counterpunch, August 24, 2009. He writes columns regularly for the Public Intellectual at Truthout.  Dr. Weil has published more than seven books on education in the past 20 years. You can also read much more about the for-profit, predatory colleges in his writings found at Counterpunch.com, Dailycensored.com, dissidentvoice.com and Project Censored.com where he has covered the issue of the privatization of education for years. He can be reached at weilunion@aol.com. His new book, an encyclopedia on charter schools, entitled: “Charter School Movement: History, Politics, Policies, Economics and Effectiveness,” 641 pages, was published in August of 2009 by Grey House Publishing, New York, and provides a scathing look at the privatization of education through charter schools.

Article about the show:

Is Education a Human Right or a Privilege for the Wealthy?

Israel, Gaza and Egypt

In this show we talk with Sydney Levy of Jewish Voice for Peace about the recent Israeli attack on Gaza, the UN vote to give Palestinians UN state observer status and the work of JVP for human rights for all people. JVP promotes the Boycott/Divestment/Sanctions campaign to pressure Israel to give Palestinians freedom and equal rights and is calling on President Obama to require that US aid to Israel is not used to violate human rights. Then we speak with Mokhtar Kamel, president of the Alliance of Egyptian Americans in North America, about the ongoing struggle in Egypt for real democracy. He speaks about the new constitution being drafted, the efforts to undermine the revolutionaries, lessons they are learning and how we can support them.

Guests:

Sydney Levy  has worked for over 15 years in nonprofits advocating for LGBT human rights organizing for media justice, and assisting in the preparation of death row appeals. He is the son of Egyptian Jews who immigrated to Venezuela, where he was born. Sydney lived in Jerusalem for seven years, where he received his Masters degree in Jewish History from the Hebrew University. Sydney has been working with JVP–first as a volunteer, then as a staff member–since 2000.

Mokhtar Kamel has been a political activist for about 9 years and is presently the president of the Alliance of Egyptian Americans, an NGO working on the democratization in Egypt and the empowering of Egyptians in the US.  Kamel graduated from the School of Economics and Political Science in Cairo University. While in Egypt in the seventies, he worked as a journalist and an editor in the Egyptian TV and Broadcasting Corporation in Cairo. He later joined the IMF from 1980 to 2001, after which he focused on voluntary work with Egyptian American NGOs.

Article about the show:
Clearing the FOG on Palestine, Israel and Egypt

 

Archive of Clearing the FOG Shows

Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese speaking in Ashland, OR in 2012.

The Clearing the FOG website went public at the end of 2012. All shows that were produced prior to that time can be listened to at the archive here. We have had a lot of great guests covering a wide range of important issues, among them are:

– Steve Early and Shamus Cook discussing the state of the U.S. labor movement.

 

– Pulitzer Prize winning writer, Chris Hedges, who has covered revolutions around the world on what we can learn from revolts in other parts of the world.

– Cindy Sheehan, activist and writer, on war tax resistance.

– Glen Ford of Black Agenda Report discussing U.S. imperialism and the threat of war in Syria and Iran.

– Larry Pinkney of Black Commentator discussing what fascism means in 21st Century America.

– Jill Stein of the Green Party discussing what it is like to run as a third party candidate in the United States and the illegitimacy of the presidential debate commission.

– Ralph Nader discussing fair wages and the need to increase the minimum wage.

These are just a handful of examples of great shows on the economy, politics and culture, with a special emphasis on progressive activism, the occupy movement and the developing culture or resistance in the United States. You can find them all here.

Show on Global Agriculture and Trade Policy

This show featured noted Indian Journalist P. Sainath and International Program Director of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, Karen Hansen-Kuhn. We speak about rural agriculture and poverty and the real effects of globalization and neo-liberal policies. Subsidies and trade policies have led to failing farms around the world and farmers committing suicide in India at alarming rates, over 275,000 suicides so far. Karen speaks about efforts to include the views and needs of farmers in trade negotiations and what fair trade looks like.

Guests:

Palagummi Sainath:

Palagummi Sainath is the 2007 winner of the Ramon Magsaysay award for journalism, literature, and creative communication arts, is an award winning Indian development journalist – a term he himself avoids, instead preferring to call himself a ‘rural reporter’, or simply a ‘reporter’ – and photojournalist focusing on social problems, rural affairs, poverty and the aftermaths of globalization in India. He spends between 270 and 300 days a year in the rural interior (in 2006, over 300 days) and has done so for the past 14 years. He is the Rural Affairs Editor for The Hindu, and the website India Together has been archiving some of his work in The Hindu daily for the past six years. Amartya Sen has called him “one of the world’s great experts on famine and hunger”. He is also published in Counter Punch. He is the author of “Everybody Loves a Good Drought.”

 

 

 

 

Karen Hansen-Kuhn:

Karen Hansen-Kuhn joined IATP in September 2009. She has been working on trade and economic justice since the beginning of the NAFTA debate, focusing especially on bringing developing countries’ perspectives into public debates on trade, food security and economic policy. She has published articles on U.S. trade and agriculture policies, the impacts of U.S. biofuels policies on food security, and women and food crises. She writes for the Think Forward Blog. She was the international coordinator of the Alliance for Responsible Trade (ART), a U.S. multisectoral coalition promoting just and sustainable trade, until 2005. After that, she was policy director at the U.S. office of ActionAid, an international development organization. She holds a B.S. in international business from the University of Colorado and a master’s degree in International Development from The American University.

 

 

Relevant Articles:

See, Neoliberalism Really Works! by P. Sainath Nov. 26, 2005

India’s Farm Suicides: A 12-year saga by P. Sainath Feb. 4, 2010

World Food Day: Keep farmers on the land by Karen Hansen-Kuhn, Oct. 16, 2012

 

Listen to the show:

Show #36 in Agriculture and Trade with P. Sainath and Karen Hansen-Kuhn by Clearingthefog on Mixcloud