Clearing The Fog With Co-hosts Margaret Flowers And Kevin Zeese

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 prot

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

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 s

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. For more information, visit ClearingtheFOGRadio.org. 

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. Visit ClearingtheFOGRadio.org for more information and resources related to this podcast.

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. For more information, visit ClearingtheFOGRadio.org.  

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.” For more information, visit ClearingtheFOGRadio.org.

Today we mark International Mother Earth Day with the announcement of the new alternative government in the US, the Green Shadow Cabinet. The Cabinet was appointed by the Jill Stein and Cheri Honkala campaign for President and Vice President. They ran on the Green Party ticket and on a platform of the Green New Deal. Kevin Zeese serves as US Attorney General and Margaret Flowers serves as Secretary of Health. Joining us for the announcement to to discuss the urgent need to create an alternative political structure that serves people and the planet are Vice President Cheri Honkala, Political Ecology Advisor to the President Christopher Cox and Climate Change Advisor to the President Sean Sweeney. Cox and Sweeney spoke about what they would advise the President to do and the new green economy. To learn more about the alternative government which has so far brought together more than 80 prominent scientists, lawyers, health professionals, economists, labor leaders and advocates, visit GreenShadowCabinet.us. Visi

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 by Robert Brune. For more information, visit ClearingtheFOGRadio.org.

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. For more information, visit ClearingtheFOGRadio.org.

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 h

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. Visit ClearingtheFOGRadio.org for more information

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. See ClearingtheFOGRadio.org for more information.

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. For more information, visit ClearingtheFOGRadio.org.

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.

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.

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

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, "Day of Destruction, Days of Revolt." 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 (globaljusticecenter.org). For more information, visit ClearingtheFOGRadio.org.

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.

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." VisitClearingtheFOGRadio.org.