Controlling the discourse in the Land of the Free

April 27

 

GUEST: Ona Zene Yeshitela, President of African People's Education and Defense Fund, and Deputy Chair of the African People's Socialist Party, talks about FBI terrorism and repression directed at the Uhuru movement.

Hands Off Uhuru, Hands Off Africa

There is no doubt that the US is back into Africa. There is too much money to be made by stripping African countries of their natural resources for the benefit of huge multinational corporations. And since this is now a multi-polar world, major corporations from other countries are doing similar things. The Chinese and Russian interests seem to be less imperialist than our very aggressive militarization of the continent, but it remains to be seen how less damaging such interventions will be. The Chinese are building infrastructure that benefits African countries, while the US is doing what it knows best: overthrowing elected governments, training paramilitaries, and acting like it still rules the world.

It doesn't take much investigative journalism to predict which approach to Africa is most welcome. It is just possible that in a new world of competing superpowers, Africa might be able to actually choose the approach that best meets the needs of its people.

That is where the African People's Socialist Party and Omali Yeshitela come in. Chairman Yeshitela spends his time exposing the US role in exploiting Africa, and comparing it to the treatment of Blacks in the United States. There have been other Black leaders with similar messages, like Dr. Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, and Fred Hampton. All these leaders were surveilled, harassed and in all likelihood murdered by the empire's thought police, the FBI.

COINTELPRO, the secret terrorist organization run by the FBI, is long gone, exposed by the Church Committee in 1975. But the "Bureau" is still around snooping, arresting, and planting false evidence. Last summer, the FBI raided the African Peoples Socialist Party at gunpoint in the middle of the night, taking all their computers and party records. Just this month, Yeshitela and three others were arrested and charged with conspiracy to spread false information and anti US propaganda. We know why these arrests have been made. The empire will stop at nothing to control the discourse in the "Land of the Free."

Waving goodby

April 20

 

GUEST: Michael Klare, professor emeritus of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College, founder of the Committee for a Sane U.S.-China Policy, and frequent writer on TomDispatch, talks about the hidden reasons behind US militarism in Asia.

Pentagon's Version of the World Is Not the World

Sometimes the world seems out of control. Our progress towards controlling global warming is going badly. There are too many corporations whose profits depend on fossil fuels. It is sort of like an AI program called neoliberalism is purposely destroying all hope of life on earth. 

And then there is the danger of a nuclear war between the superpowers. We are the closest we have ever been to Armageddon, with hot wars being waged in many parts of our fragile plant. When will one such war spin out of control, and take down the rest of civilization?

But what is most out of control is the United States Government. We have two war parties, and an ever louder media drumbeat for taking military risks. How could this country's leaders be so obtuse? And how in the world do we change their direction? With a United States so out of control, what hope do we really have that we will all see tomorrow?

Perhaps the blame can be laid to that AI program neoliberalism, which makes decisions only based on profit. Or maybe the blame will be put on our doorsteps for not resisting enough. If there are any doorsteps left by the time we have to wave goodby. 

 

Blood on all our hands

April 13

 

GUEST: Cassandra Dixon, long time peace and justice activist who spends a month each year in occupied Palestine, protecting school children from settler violence, talks about the physical attack and hospitalization that she endured recently.

Expert condemn Israeli violence in occupied West Bank

Ms. Dixon has had a long career of being a human rights advocate. She knew that her work was dangerous, especially in the hyper racist state that Israel has become. Still she was shocked when a settler attacked her from behind, sending her to the hospital with a dangerous head wound. 

She had been attacked before, and hit by rocks as she walked Palestinian children to school. The settlers are the very dregs of society, much like the early followers of the Nazi Party in the 1930s. Many of the settlers are not even religious. Their righteous anger is all about taking more land from the indigenous Palestinians. It is greed combined with self interest, a powerful mix that challenges the very concept of what human beings can be. 

When will Americans heed Cassandra Dixon's message? The billions we send to this apartheid state puts blood on all our hands. 

 

Representative Shrestha is democracy's best chance

April 6

GUEST: Sarahana Shrestha, first generation immigrant from Nepal, surprise winner of a race for NY state Assembly, and committed social justice reformer, talks about how the very rich and their corporations try to roll back any progress in meeting social needs.

Tax the rich, says freshman assembly member

Assembly Member Sarahana Shrestha is not giving up on her government or her new country. She ran as a progressive who refused to be bribed by the very rich and their corporations. Where did she get the courage to do that? And moreover, how in the world did she win her seat in the Assembly, when so many others run for office already compromised by dark money? How did she think she could make a difference in a  democracy so dependent on cash from the filthy rich?

What would a government look like that was not swamped by the influence of the few? When that neoliberal con artist, Michael Bloomberg, spent some of his billions on attack ads, she just kept working: for the environment, for criminal justice reform, and for campaign finance limits. Representative Shrestha is democracy's best chance. And if she fails, who but the very rich will stand by our hopelessly corrupted system in its hour of crisis?

How human rights abusers are "shielded"

March 30

 

GUEST: Joanna Schwartz, Professor of Law at UCLA and one of the country's leading experts on police misconduct litigation, whose writing has appeared in The New York Times and The Washington Post, talks about the difficulty of holding police accountable. Her new book is Shielded, How the Police Became Untouchable.
 
Police are 'shielded' from repercussions of their abuse

Joanna Schwartz's book is a fascinating look at how the police and the criminal justice systems have stacked the deck when it comes to accountability. It has taken decades to achieve this level of lawlessness, but the results were worth it for the human rights violators and abusers who now petrol our streets. 

Was no one pushing back? Since most of the beatings and killings were done to Black people, the white majority tended to look the other way. And the national media played its part, showing video after video of Blacks stealing cars, breaking into stores, and committing other crimes. Cop shows became even more effective than right wing hate groups in churning racist hatreds. 

To be fair, our politicians are equally as good at engendering racism. As a result of this constant drumbeat, white people have been trained to fear Blacks. In a society built on racism, from slavery through Jim Crow, there will always be official violence based on race. Just look at one of the most egregious of apartheid societies, the nation of Israel. Jewish settlers, police, and soldiers all reinforce the ethnic cleansing of Gaza and the West Bank. That is what full spectrum oppression looks like, and the US supports this racist assault every step of the way. 

That would be my suggestion, that there be a chapter in Ms. Schwartz's book on how human rights abusers are "shielded" in other countries. It is the same process, and our tax dollars support Israel to the tune of four billion dollars a year.    
 

A gift for stirring racial and ethnic fears

March 23

GUEST: Dr. Sarah Rogerson, Director of the Justice Center at Albany Law School, as well as its Immigration Law Clinic, talks about law and policy regarding victims of  child abuse and neglect, persecution, domestic violence and sexual assault.

Undocumented doesn't mean illegal

Sarah Rogerson offers Activist Radio listeners a lot of history. We do learn the traditional stories, from elementary school on. Ellis Island and America, offering hope to those oppressed in their own countries. It is a stars and stripes account, one that omits so very much.

But lets face it, the hidden history of our country is much more interesting than the textbooks make out. I have tutored junior high students, so I know how stultifying the approved version really is. There are no bumps, no scrapes, and no hidden secrets that make any real account of our history so much more entertaining.   

The history of immigration is all the more whitewashed. We are a nation of immigrants, and yet know little or nothing of the systems and laws that have shaped our ethnicities and racial compositions. A look at the history of immigration helps us understand the highly charged discrimination that still plagues our society. 

Yet coming to terms with the racism that has guided our immigration policies for the last two centuries can also be liberating. Can one understand Trump without considering how he manipulates immigration for political gains? He, like most effective demagogues of the past, has a gift for stirring racial and ethnic fears. The US border is the perfect symbol of the US under attack. And attacked by immigrants, the very people who now make up 98% of our population.  

Isn't it time we learned the real story of immigration? Without it we are vulnerable to the worst type of racist provocateurs.