The story of the the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is a troubling one. Our guest, Brendan Fischer, walked us through the process corporations use in buying influence and writing legislation.

But is it ALEC and the Republican Party that is to blame for our loss of representational democracy? Where is the media when it comes to legislation written by ALEC? Is one to believe that only one party is in on the take? There must be many organizations like ALEC; it is just a piece of the puzzle.

Our current president is one of the most corrupted politicians that has ever held that office. No organization like ALEC is behind his cynical betrayal of the American worker to Wall Street interests. Exposing Obama as a sham is the only way to liberate ourselves from the two party, corporate grip on our democracy. How the corporations manipulate politicians is interesting enough. However, we need a way to finally free ourselves from this corrupt system.
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Listening to Jo Salas describe the playback requests made by the Palestinian children of Jenin was itself a moving experience. I could see the children in the audience. I could imagine their lives being played out before them by the actors. Their suffering was suddenly real to me, and I could see that the telling of the story was affecting Jo as well.

It is hard to open yourself up to the suffering that you read about in occupied Palestine. So many robbed of their homes, so many waiting in the checkpoint lines, so many young people in prison. But understanding them through their stories somehow restores one's faith in all humanity. Palestine will one day be free.
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We interviewed Laurie Arbeiter this week and had a little difficulty describing all the aspects of the  May 26 event. It is certainly an ambitious walk, twenty two miles. I would have liked to get into the use of the term human rights. Are they legal rights that have been fought over and won in the past? Are they rights that each one of us can demand that others recognize? Too bad we only had about 15 minutes.

Here is the event description:

WALL STREET TO MAIN STREET - WE WILL NOT BE SILENT
Saturday, May 26 from 8:00 am to 11 pm
The Village Green
12 Tinker Street, Woodstock, NY 12498
Twenty two mile walk for Human Rights and Social & Economic Justice. Wall Street to Occupy Main Street in Catskill, NY. A collaboration between Masters on Main Street and Occupy With Art. The Walk will raise money for the WGXC Community Radio & Greene County Council on the Arts. Participants will gather pledges for every mile they walk. See us off in Woodstock at 8:00 am, meet us in Saugerties, greet us at the finish, or join us for a Community Dinner in Catskill, NY at 7:00 pm. Walk or Pledge...every step we take together counts.


Facebook event page: OCCUPY THE LANDSCAPE
917 915-6115
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Max Fraad Wolff swears like a trooper, which involves a lot of work on my part cutting out those little expletives. Too bad, because there is real obscenity in the robbery of the middle class and the destruction of the American Dream. 

I liked the cartoon because it implies the possibility of righteous  anger. Where is the outrage in real life? Thirty years of being screwed and the American worker still can't come to grips with what has happened. 

It is easy to become contemptuous of class war's victims, the huge underclass with its foolish dreams of success. But cynicism is the enemy of social movements. We must learn from each other how to resist the current institutional plutocracy.
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Harold Miller and Protecting Communities


GUEST: Harold Miller, community organizer and Upstate Director of New York Communities for Change, talks about his divestment campaign aimed at JP Morgan Chase

In talking to Harold, I realized that New York Communities for Change was more interested in protecting communities than going after the big banks for criminal behavior. Divestment is being used to force the banks to do the right thing, help homeowners restructure their debts and stay in their homes.

And it seems to be working. By going to local town boards and county legislatures to divest from JP Morgan Chase, Communities for Change is putting the pressure on. Why can't we do that locally? We have a responsive and hard working county legislator named Joel Tyner. It seems like more people should be calling Joel and volunteering to make the big banks accountable. Have you seen the city of Poughkeepsie foreclosure map? Hundreds of families are in danger.
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Predatory Capitalism


GUEST: Danny Schechter, television producer, independent filmmaker, blogger, and media critic, talks about his role in dissecting the news.
Those who listen to the show know that Danny Schechter did not make an appearance. We will try to reschedule. I thought we would play a recent Chomsky interview, but Gary and I got so wound up about local issues, we didn't have time.

I listened to Gary on the way home (he took the next hour because the original DJ was not available), and he was still going strong about wage inequities since the late 1970's. That is when the America we had such high hopes for took a wrong tern. From then on, it was empire abroad and growing social injustice at home.

Makes one wonder what the 1950's and 1960's had that protected workers from the type of predatory capitalism that we suffer from today.

Fred
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A community to turn the tide...

Listening to the interview with William Parry that I had recorded when he was in the Hudson Valley recently, I was struck by how deeply committed some writers and artists are to the cause of Palestinian rights. William Parry's book comes out of his determination to make a difference in the Middle East. And just as he reenforces our hopes for Palestinian freedom, we reenforce his.

Maybe that is what book tours are all about. There will always be some people who have never given the plight of the Palestinians a second thought. But then there are the groups of committed activists who work very hard, year after year, to end apartheid. Maybe this community will eventually turn the tide of public opinion in the United States.
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