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We’re just days out from the US presidential elections. With many polls putting Trump and Harris within just a few points of each other, it’s easy to get caught up in the fear and uncertainty of the race as we continue to see horror after horror unfolding in Gaza and Lebanon as well as critical domestic crises like housing and infrastructure going unaddressed.
On this show, we’re focusing on the work of activists looking past the mainstream. They’ve been in the streets, they’ve pushed local resolutions, called for ceasefires and weapons embargoes, they’ve voted Uncommitted and called to abandon Biden and Harris and any candidate who won’t speak out against genocide. We talk with some organizers who have been building peoples’ movements for power and solidarity about how they view the elections, what they’ve been doing in the lead-up, and most importantly, we’ll hear what they’ll be doing on November 6 after all the ballots have been counted.We’re joined by Dr. Hassan Abdel Salam - co-founder of Abandon Biden, which is now Abandon Harris.
Later in the show, we discuss the No Votes for Genocide campaign with Francesca Maria, an organizer with the CT Palestine Solidarity Coalition and co-chair of Connecticut DSA.
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The devastation of Hurricane Oscar, which hit Cuba on October 18th, has significantly worsened the deep crisis of the island’s electric grid. The U.S. government and its media lackeys are trying to blame the socialist government for supposed mismanagement of the country’s power system, but the reality is that the biggest contributor to the situation is the US blockade of Cuba.
On October 22nd, The People’s Forum published an open letter in the New York Times calling on President Biden to overturn the Trump administration’s anti-Cuba policies. Biden has 90 days left in his term to restore the Obama-era reforms and steps towards normalization that are desperately needed.
We talk more about the history of the criminal blockade and its impact on Cuba.
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Hurricane Milton approached the physical limits of what a hurricane can be before it made landfall, and this was driven in part by the fact that 13 major Western corporations are responsible for the deforestation of 17% of the Amazon rainforest over the last few decades.
The drastic effects of climate change are causing havoc across the globe. In the southeastern US and into Appalachia, hurricanes Helene and Milton have killed hundreds, left thousands without shelter and caused untold billions in damage. On the other side of the planet, parts of the Sahara desert flooded for the first time in nearly 50 years after intense rainstorms dropped 8 inches of rain in 2 days on parts of Morocco that don’t get more than an inch or so yearly. These storms and many other examples are showing that no one is safe from so-called storms of the century that seem to be happening weekly.
Meanwhile, insurance companies in Florida have been denying claims even from people who have been paying for hurricane-specific policies, and big landlords and investors are looking to profit from these disasters by buying up more land - all while doing nothing to address the climate crisis.
We’re joined today Ali by Abdel-Qader, a Palestinian organizer and Tampa-based activist who’s involved in relief efforts on the ground, and Tina Landis, author of Climate Solutions Beyond Capitalism.
Support the relief work in Florida by clicking here.
Find Tina’s book at 1804 books here.Support the show
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As the U.S. & Israeli war in the Middle East continues to expand with new threats of a significant Israeli attack on Iran, the Pentagon last week sent thousands of additional troops to the region. The USS Harry S Truman has been preparing for much of 2024 for a deployment to the Mediterranean Sea and departed on September 20th. Squadrons of F-15E, F-16 and F-22 fighter jets, along with A-10 attack aircraft, will not replace the American troops and equipment already in the region, but instead will now supplement them.
The history of resistance and refusal within the ranks of active-duty servicemembers is usually hidden or when it is mentioned, it’s maligned by the mainstream media and politicians. To dig into some of that history, the lessons for the anti-war movement, and what you should know if you yourself are going to be deployed or know someone who’s going to be deployed, we’re joined today by Mike Prysner. He’s an Iraq war veteran turned anti-war organizer, a producer of The Empire Files, co-host of the podcast Eyes Left and much more.
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On Monday, September 30th, an Israeli airstrike in Deir al-Balah killed Wafa al-Udaini, her husband and two of her children. Wafa was a founder of the October 16 group, a mentor to young journalists and media professionals in Gaza and especially worked to highlight the voices of women impacted by the Israeli occupation. Wafa was the 174th journalist to be killed by Israel in Gaza since Israel began its bombardment of Gaza just under a year ago.
Romana Rubeo wrote at the Palestine Chronicle, “Wafa’s writing captured the essence of why we do what we do on a daily basis for years: amplifying Palestinian voices, and not any voices, but those that reflect the spirit of the Palestinian people, their defiance of injustice, their quest for freedom, and their courage in word and action.”
Long-time listeners of this show may remember that we had Wafa on twice. First, in April 2023, she joined us to explain how the mass protests happening in Israel against Benjamin Netanyahu were about internal Israeli matters, and not concerned with the liberation of Palestinians. “So for us as Palestinians, we see that the occupation has one face, they are all the same, even if it is a far right government or a left-right government or any, it is occupation at the end.” she told us.
She then came on the show a few months later for our October 11th 2023 episode, immediately after the resistance movement launched Al Aqsa Flood, to give an on-the-ground report on the Israeli bombardment, its use of white phosphorus and how people viewed the resistance.
For today’s episode, we’ll be revisiting our past conversations with Wafa as we discuss the current and rapidly-escalating situation. We dedicate this episode to Wafa al-Udaini and her family.
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As the United Nations General Assembly meets this week, world leaders have adopted a Pact for the Future to build towards a multilateral world. But the meeting is happening as regional conflicts could flare up and ignite across many parts of the globe. The US & NATO’s proxy war in Ukraine rages on with few serious efforts being made towards a peaceful resolution. And it comes just days after Israel killed dozens and injured thousands in Lebanon with a long-term coordinated plan to explode pagers and handheld radios, following up with a devastating bombing campaign. The U.S. is now sending more troops, an aircraft carrier, two destroyers and a cruiser to the Middle East. The attacks have caused Lebanese acting Prime Minister Najib Mikati to skip his own scheduled trip to the UN this week.
To help us wade through the various threads of the growing threat of all-out war around the globe, we’re joined today by Ben Norton. Ben is the founder and editor of Geopolitical Economy Report, which you can find at geopoliticaleconomy.com.
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The first and maybe only debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris happened just after we recorded our last show on Tuesday, September 10th. Over nearly two hours, the candidates attempted to talk over and through each other, regurgitating some of the same old talking points of each of their campaigns. It was light on policy and heavy on racism, bigotry and threats of war. Ultimately, what the debate showed us is that this contest is not about actually improving the lives of working-class people, but who will be better for the American empire and police state.
We’re joined today by Jacquie Luqman, host of Darker than Blue, as we take apart some of the key moments from the debate.Support the show
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Fifty-one years ago, a bloody coup in Chile overthrew the democratically-elected president Salvadore Allende, leaving him dead. Sometimes now called “the other 9/11,” it ushered in the brutal dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, which lasted for 17 years. Over 3,000 people were killed or disappeared in that period, and nearly 40,000 people were targeted for political repression and tortured because they were leftists or suspected of being leftists.
The US government played a significant role in both creating the destabilizing conditions for the coup and in its support for Pinochet. We’re joined now by Abraham Márquez of Kawsachun News to discuss the legacy of the coup, the CIA’s involvement, and what lessons we can learn today.
Then, Rachel and Chris discuss the disastrous War on Terror that was launched in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, and the rehabilitation of George W Bush, Dick Cheney and others in the current political climate.
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John Stockwell is a former CIA officer who became a whistleblower and outspoken critic of the Agency, the US intelligence community and the imperialist policies of the US government. He left the CIA in 1976 after serving there for 12 years following service in the US Marine Corps. During that time, he was told to fabricate intelligence reports on the situations in Vietnam and Angola, and eventually exposed a significant amount of information through his books and public talks. He was an early supporter and contributor to what was then Covert Action Information Bulletin, now CovertAction Magazine.
In an interview with the Burton Michigan Voice in 1985, he said “I went into the CIA thinking I was doing the best thing I could with my life, the contradiction being that I was a humanist at heart. But of course, their propaganda line is that you’re serving humanity by struggling to keep the world free from communism. It ook a lot of years making my way up the chain of command until I became convinced just the opposite was true. I saw it in Africa, but in Africa I was working out of embassies. I did not have Phil Agee’s experience from Latin America where there was more bombing and torture and terrorism, and the issues were clearer. The inhumanity was clearer. Then I saw it in Vietnam, there was no doubt.”
CovertAction Magazine has recently republished a three-hour video of Stockwell speaking in 1989 at American University, starting with an hour lecture and then answering student questions for the remainder of the time.
Watch the video on our YouTube channel by clicking here.
Though the names of politicians and places have changed, the things he brings up hit at the heart of issues we are still fighting against, and exposing some 35 years later.
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The founder and CEO of social media and communications app Telegram, Pavel Durov was arrested in France on August 24th. The country, one of the Nine Eyes intelligence partners along with the US, UK, Australia and others, claims that the social media app is a hotbed for illegal activity, and Western media coverage blasts it as a tool of the Russian government. But the attack on Telegram is actually a testing ground for future attacks on encrypted messaging platforms and alternative news sources.
Then later in the show, we discuss the invasion by Ukrainian forces funded with US dollars and using British tanks into the Russian territory of Kursk. The incursion marked the first significant breach of the Russian border by Ukrainian ground forces in the nearly two-and-a-half years since the immediate conflict began and follows a pattern of missile strikes and minor raids into Kursk and neighboring Belgorod since February 2022. Is this the sequel to the Ukrainian counteroffensive of 2023 that was hyped up by Western media and governments but ultimately failed to make a significant difference? How do these developments figure into the longer history of the conflict, going back to 2014 and even further into history? And what prospects are there for peace rather than further escalation into a global conflict?
We’re joined by investigative journalist Kit Klarenberg to talk about all that and more.
Read Kit’s article Britain’s Kursk Invasion Backfires?Support the show
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The Democratic National Convention is taking place in Chicago this week. Amidst the fanfare and extravagance, there’s very little actual democracy inside as big-name politicians and those trying to make a name for themselves attempt to make the case for Kamala Harris to be the next president. Hillary Clinton, AOC, Jill and Joe Biden and Barack Obama have taken the stage among others. But with Joe Biden out of the race, the DNC has made it a foregone conclusion that Kamala Harris will be the next Democratic nominee, preventing a floor fight or nominations.
Meanwhile, mass protests began over the weekend and will continue throughout the week, demanding a ceasefire and arms embargo against Israel, healthcare for all, and much more. As Joe Biden was speaking, activists unrolled a giant banner inside the convention center that said “Stop Arming Israel.” In response to this demand for an end to genocide, the crowd started chanting “We love Joe” and the lights were dimmed. On Tuesday, activists with CODEPINK interrupted Tim Walz, chanting “Stop killing women in Gaza” and they were immediately met with a response of “USA, USA.”
We’re joined by Saja Bilasan, founder of Falasteen Favorites and organizer of Chicago Artists Against Apartheid to discuss what’s happening both inside and outside the United Center in Chicago.
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Venezuela’s elections took place on July 28th. Nicolás Maudro defeated the right-wing candidate Edmundo González Urrutia by over a million votes. The imperialist machine immediately jumped into action to denounce the elections, condemning Maduro as a dictator and calling the results undemocratic. Over 1,000 international observers from 100 countries were in Venezuela for the election, and with few exceptions of those who are against the Bolivarian Revolution, they’ve stated that the electoral process was fair and free. That hasn’t stopped the US government, its media mouthpieces, regional allies and even Elon Musk from calling for the overthrow of the Maduro government.
Following the election, waves of fascist violence took the streets of Caracas and other cities, but supporters of the Bolivarian Revolution have themselves mobilized in its defense. We’re joined today by Gloria La Riva of the Cuba and Venezuela Solidarity Committee.
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In a ruling on July 19, the International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion that confirmed what Palestinians have been saying for over 7 decades: That the Israeli occupation is illegal, that the way Palestinians are treated by Israel is a form of apartheid, and that the occupation must end.
This ruling includes the Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which have grown especially since the Israeli military withdrew from Gaza in 2005.
As we are approaching 300 days of the genocide in Gaza and over 40,000 deaths at the hands of the US-funded and armed Israeli military, we wanted to talk more about the ICJ and this ruling. An ICJ advisory opinion cannot force a country to act, but can have a real impact on how the rest of the world approaches policy towards Israel.
We’re joined by Laith Aqel, human rights lawyer, a lecturer in the Human Rights Clinic at Yale and an organizer with the CT Palestine Solidarity Coalition.
And later in the show, just days after the ICJ ruling Benjamin Netanyahu spoke in front of the US Congress as over 10,000 people rallied outside the Capitol. We’ll bring you some of the speeches from that rally as well.Support the show
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Just over 100 days away from the 2024 election, Joe Biden has dropped out of the race and endorsed Kamala Harris, signaling to the Democratic Party that there should be no debate, no other nominations and certainly no floor fight over delegates at the upcoming Democratic National Convention next month. This of course comes after a period where there were no real primaries for the Democratic Party. That’s not unusual when a sitting President is running for reelection, but questions about Biden’s ability to beat Donald Trump this year have lingered for quite some time.
Today, we want to get into who Kamala Harris is, what interests she represents and what the absolute lack of democracy in the so-called Democratic Party means for social movements and real change through November and beyond.
We’re joined by activist, author and journalist Eugene Puryear, host of The Freedom Side Live on Breakthrough News.
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The attempted assassination of Donald Trump on July 13th changed the political situation in the United States and especially surrounding the 2024 election in an instant. The Biden campaign canceled events and advertisements, while the Trump campaign began preparing for the Republican National Convention happening this week.
Within minutes of the shooting, the chorus from mainstream commentators and politicians effectively had one voice. Republicans and Democrats alike condemned “political violence” in the United States and for Americans to come together despite our political differences. But who is their solidarity with? Political violence continues in this country and across the world in the forms of hunger, homelessness, skyrocketing medical debt, famine, sanctions and war waged from what MLK called the “greatest purveyor of violence in the world today”
To help us make sense of this quickly shifting situation, a review of the history of political violence in the United States and how the ruling class is attempting to take advantage of it, we’re joined today by Brian Becker, host of The Socialist Program.
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Project 2025 bills itself as a comprehensive plan to undo decades of social progress - in its own words, to “dismantle the administrative state” and “return self-governance to the American people.” Democrats have jumped into using it and its connections to the Trump agenda and former staff as a reason to rally behind Joe Biden.
Among its 922-page Mandate for Leadership, Project 2025 suggests eliminating the Department of Education, increasing the US nuclear weapon arsenal, harshly limiting access to reproductive care, rolling back LGBTQ rights and much more.
We’re joined by political strategist and movement journalist Anoa Changa to understand who’s behind Project 2025 and where it comes from.
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The U.S. government is spying on you through your mail. The little-known program called mail covers lets law enforcement request that an investigative bureau inside the Postal Service track and report on all the mail you’re getting. And it’s done without a warrant, without any real oversight or transparency, and at the request of agencies like the IRS, FBI, Department of Homeland Security and ICE. While the USPS Office of the Inspector General hasn’t provided updates on the program in a decade, recent reporting in The Washington Post exposed more about the mail covers program.
We’re joined for this show by John Kiriakou. He’s a former CIA counterterrorism officer, a whistleblower who exposed the CIA’s torture program, and a member of the Editorial Board of CovertAction Magazine. He also has personal experience with mail covers.
Read John's article on the mail covers program and his experience at Consortium News.
Read Chris' article on the mail covers program at Liberation News.
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After 1,901 days in Belmarsh Prison, and many more years fighting for his freedom, Julian Assange has agreed to a plea deal with the United States and is back in Australia. There, he’ll reunite with his wife, Stella, and his children who have only seen him in jail.
The official Wikileaks account on Twitter posted: “Julian's freedom is our freedom.”
The struggle for Julian Assange’s freedom has been a global one, involving many sectors of society - advocates, activists, whistleblowers, artists, human rights workers, doctors and so many more, and of course a brilliant team of lawyers, all working tirelessly for him.
To discuss, we’re joined by Kevin Gosztola, the editor of The Dissenter, the author of the book Guilty of Journalism: The Political Case Against Julian Assange, co-host of the podcast Unauthorized Disclosure and more.
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In 2020 and 2021, a secret Pentagon program deployed fake social media accounts to sow distrust among people in Southeast Asian countries, particularly the Philippines, around China’s Sinovac vaccination for COVID-19. Clusters of accounts identified as having ties to US Central Command (CENTCOM) made posts with the hashtag #ChinaAngVirus - or “China is the virus” in Tagalog suggested that the coronavirus is real, but China’s vaccinations were not to be trusted.
Posts in Arabic and Russian also targeted audiences in the Middle East and Central Asia.
In an article published on June 14 by Reuters, an infectious disease specialist at Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine said of the propaganda campaign, “I don’t think it’s defensible.”
Dr. Nina Castillo-Carandang, a former adviser to the World Health Organization and Philippines government said “Why did you do it when people were dying? We were desperate”
We’re joined by Chris Bing, an investigative reporter with Reuters who worked on the June 14th article.
Read the full article here: https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-covid-propaganda/
Read the Stanford Internet Observatory’s “Unheard Voice” report mentioned in our conversation: https://cyber.fsi.stanford.edu/io/news/sio-aug-22-takedowns
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Over 100,000 people surrounded the White House on Saturday, June 8th, wearing red and carrying a 2-mile long banner with the names of the tens of thousands of Palestinians who have died since the renewed Israeli assault began eight months to the day before. Through a rally, march and followed by a People’s Court of Justice on the Ellipse, the message was clear: the People’s Red Line rejected Biden’s lie that an Israeli attack on Rafah would be a so-called “red line” for him.
Though most mainstream media represented it with fearmongering reporting, both Rachel and Chris were there to bring you real on-the-ground info about what it was actually like and what June 8th means for the movement. We also discuss some of the latest developments in the situation, including June 11th’s ceasefire resolution in the United Nations Security Council, details of what actually happened during the Israeli assault on the Nuseirat refugee camp, and more.
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