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

This past week, as part of the Beyond Extreme Energy campaign to retire fossil fuels there were daily actions to shut down the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission every morning and actions at other locations in the afternoon. These took place simultaneously with direct action at two FERC-approved gas infrastructure projects in Seneca Lake, NY and Cove Point, MD. And the week of actions at FERC followed the conclusion of an 8 month 3,000 mile 7 million step Great March for Climate Action from Los Angeles to Washington, DC. The Beyond Extreme Energy actions focused on retiring fossil fuels and calling for investment in clean renewable energy instead. Similar struggles are occurring in a number of states where residents are using every tool at their disposal including creative nonviolent direct action to stop the construction of fossil fuel infrastructure. We spoke with Faith Meckley of the Great March for Climate Action and We Are Seneca Lake and Will Bennington of Rising Tide Vermont. For more information, vi

The month of October has been dedicated to the issues of mass incarceration, racially-biased policing, militarized policing and the abusive behavior and extrajudicial murders being carried out by police. Over the weekend of October 10, thousands of people converged in St. Louis, MO to demonstrate for justice in the murders of Michael Brown and other Black men killed by police. On October 22, thousands of people marched and protested in 80 cities from coast to coast. There is tremendous momentum right now to change policing in the United States. On this program, our guests talk about what is happening in Ferguson, MO and other areas of the country and about next steps in this struggle. Especially we discuss what response would be constructive in the high likelihood that the officer who shot Michael Brown is not indicted by the Grand Jury. For more information, visit www.ClearingtheFOGRadio.org.

David Hartsough has dedicated his life to working for peace and justice and continues now with one of his greatest endeavors, the abolition of war. His story, “Waging Peace: Global Adventures of a Lifelong Activist,” has just been released. David writes, “The book shares personal stories about my experiences in nonviolent movements over the past sixty years. My goal is to inspire and empower readers to realize that they do have the power to help make history and help build a more peaceful and just world.” David joins us for a full hour to discuss the work he has done and continues to do. For more information, visit www.ClearingtheFOGRadio.org.

Monday, October 13, is celebrated in many places around the United States as Columbus Day after Christopher Columbus. In school, most American students are taught that Columbus discovered the ‘New World’ and are not taught that not only is this false but also aren’t taught about the horrors that he and others during that time inflicted on the Indigenous population. This is starting to change as awareness grows about the United States’ true history. Seattle recently voted to celebrate Indigenous Peoples on Oct. 13 and Bellingham, WA is planning a similar vote. We will speak about the true legacy of Columbus and the movement for a national day to celebrate our Indigenous Heritage. Our guest will be Matt Remle who has been engaged in community organizing for two decades around environmental and economic justice, Indigenous sovereignty and Tribal Rights. For morer information, visit www.ClearingtheFOGRadio.org.

Following the events around the UN climate summit including the People's Climate March and #Flood Wall Street, we discuss what needs to be done next to solve the climate crisis. We speak with John Farrell of the Institute for Local Self Reliance about the work that is being done across the country to build the renewable energy economy that is carbon free and nuclear free and based on distributed and democratized systems. We also speak with Rae Braeux from Rising Tide North America about their plans for resistance to the extreme energy extraction economy. Rising Tide NA is a network of climate justice activists who take strategic direct action to stop dangerous extraction and transport of fuels. For more information, visit www.clearingthefogradio.org.

David Swanson writes that war is always based on lies and that is obvious as the US becomes more committed to greater military involvement in Iraq and Syria each day. In this episode we will look at the roots of the crises in Iraq and Syria. Where did ISIS come from? What are the options in intervening and should we intervene at all? We speak with Matthew Hoh, Senior Fellow at the Center for International Policy who worked on US policy on Iraq for the Pentagon and State Department and is now a strong critic of US foreign policy. For more information, visit www.ClearingtheFOGRadio.org.

We spoke with organizers of the New York Climate Convergence, a two day conference just before the People’s Climate March that will focus on discussion of the roots of the climate crisis, obstacles to addressing it and how to build a united movement to put real solutions in place while stopping false and harmful solutions. Jacqui Patterson works with frontline communities that are impacted by dirty energy sources such as coal burning power plants and the effects of climate change. She writes that climate change is a civil rights issue because people of color are disproportionately affected. Dr. Jill Stein is a long time environmental advocate who ran for President in 2012 as the Green Party candidate. She is a co-founder of the Global Climate Convergence which started in April of this year. The convergence brings advocates on a wide range of issues together to see that our work is connected and that climate change is the ticking clock which drives the urgency of our work. For more information, visit www.Clear

We spend the hour with Dr. Nafeez Ahmed who is a bestselling author, investigative journalist and international security scholar. He is executive director of the Institute for Policy Research & Development. His newest book is “Zero Point,” a science fiction thriller that “explore[s] the self-defeating hubris of an all-powerful national security state in an era of converging environmental, energy and economic crises.” His novel predicted current events in the Middle East, particularly the recent US airstrikes in Iraq. We’ll explore the climate crisis, resource wars (particularly for energy), the growing surveillance state and more. (We apologize - there were some technical problems with the sound early on that were resolved.) For more information, visit www.ClearingtheFOGRadio.org.

We speak about the increasing militarization of police forces throughout the US. Armed with military equipment including assault rifles and tanks and trained by the military, the police force is treating our streets like a war zone and responding with excessive force to events, particularly when people of color are involved. Our guests, Carl Williams and Kade Crockford, from the Massachusetts American Civil Liberties Union have been studying this trend and the lack of transparency and accountability around it. We will talk about the problems and also what we can do in our communities to de-escalate the situation. For more information, visit ClearingtheFOGRadio.org.

We examine the true costs of nuclear energy and whether it is truly necessary as we transition to a sustainable energy economy. Starting in the 1950's there was a Uranium Rush in the US that dwarfed the Gold Rush and left behind more than ten thousand abandoned uranium mines that continue to pollute the air, land and water today and cause serious public health problems. This is the dirty beginning of nuclear energy. Klee Benally of Clean Up The Mines! speaks about the impacts of uranium mining and the national campaign to clean up the abandoned uranium mines. Leona Morgan of Diné No Nukes speaks about the impacts of these mines and her community's work to stop mining and restore health. Then Tim Judson of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service will describe how the nuclear industry is prohibiting sustainable energy and positioning itself to be the solution to the climate crisis. For more information, visitwww.ClearingtheFOGRadio.org.

We speak about the expanding US Empire. The United States is the largest empire in the history of the world with over 1,000 bases and outposts around the world compared to the 37 bases of the British Empire at its peak. Despite our military being stretched thin and the military budget causing austerity to social programs and infrastructure at home, the US continues to expand. Our guests will be Coleen Rowley, retired FBI whistleblower who teaches constitutional law and ethics and who follows Empire closely, and David Swanson, author of several books on war and empire and co-coordinator of the movement to abolish war called World Beyond War. For more information, visit www.ClearingtheFOGRadio.org.

We speak with Courtney White, author of “Grass, Soil, Hope” who has traveled the world and experimented on his own ranch to find ways to sequester carbon that are sustainable and also solve other problems related to the climate crisis, water management and food security. Though the evidence for these solutions is very strong, they are not widely known yet. And we speak with Dr. Sean Sweeeney, director and founder of the Global Labor Institute, about the new international coalition Trade Unions for Energy Democracy. This coalition of unions is turning the decades-long narrative of market-based extreme energy extraction on its head. For more information, visit www.ClearingtheFOGRadio.org.

As the failings of the capitalist economy become more evident, people recognize that there are alternatives. The cooperative economy though largely hidden is growing and is outperforming the capitalist economy when it comes to job and economic stability. The cooperative economy places capital in service of jobs instead of the other way around. To discuss this in more depth we spoke with Janelle Cornwell, lead author of a new book called Building Cooperative Power! Stories and Strategies from Worker Co-Operatives in the Connecticut River Valley, and Ajowa Nzinga Ifateyo who has extensive experience studying and creating cooperatives. For more information, v isit www.ClearingtheFOGRadio.org.

We take a look at the disturbing trends in Michigan. Emergency Financial Managers are being appointed by the governor to run cities and school boards, particularly in black majority communities, in a dictatorial fashion. As our guest Tom Stephens writes,”The Emergency Financial Manager regime imposed on Detroit is ‘an entirely new and unprecedented form of antidemocratic local government directly controlled by the corporate agents of ‘the 1%’ that is designed to steal everything: land, water, air, lives, and every right not associated with capital.” The first Emergency Financial Managers were appointed to run cities in 2000, but a significant change occurred in 2011 with the passage of Public Act 4, the Local Government and School District Fiscal Accountability Act. This state law gave EFM’s unprecedented power to “exercise any power or authority of any officer, employee, department, board, commission or other similar entity of the local government whether elected or appointed.” Our guests will discuss how th

A sister trade agreement to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is being negotiated in secret with the European Union. It’s called the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership but is known as TAFTA. Last month, a leaked memo showed that negotiators are pushing for the US to produce more oil and gas through extreme measures such as fracking and export it to the EU. Already the US is making preparations. In Maryland, the Governor is pushing to build a liquefied methane gas terminal at Cove Point for export. A coalition of groups that includes environmentalists, Native Americans and other residents is fighting the terminal at Cove Point. We speak with Shilpa Joshi of Chesapeake Climate Action Network about the Cove Point terminal and with Mitch Jones of Food and Water watch about TAFTA. For more information, visit www.ClearingtheFOGRadio.org.

In this time of oligarchy and corruption, it is necessary for democracy that people who serve in the government step forward and tell the truth. However, the Obama administration through its attacks on whistleblowers and use of the Espionage Act more times than all other presidents combined has intimidated workers from speaking out. In the past two weeks, new tools and organizations were launched to assist and support whistleblowers. We speak with Matthew Hoh of ExposeFacts.org on the urgent need for whistleblowers and Sarah Harrison of the new Courage Foundation on her work to support Edward Snowden and the future Snowdens. For more information, visit www.ClearingtheFOGRadio.org.

Now that it has been proven that we live in a plutocracy, what are we going to do about it? PopularResistance.org is joining with the Backbone Campaign to launch the Rolling Rebellion for Real Democracy. The first step is a week of actions across the country from July 5 to 12.  Bill Moyer from Backbone Campaign joins us to speak about the campaign and what we hope to achieve. In the second half of the show, we speak with Jessica Lee of Peaceful Uprising who is an organizer of the permanent protest set up in PR Springs, UT to stop the land from being mined for tar sands. For more information, visit ClearingtheFOGRadio.org.

Unions in the US which were a driving force for social change in the early 20th century have been in decline for decades. Recently however union and non-union workers have been fighting for better working conditions and wages and the right to organize. Steve Early has been present for the past 40 years of labor’s struggles. His new book is titled “Save Our Unions: Dispatches from a Movement in Distress.” He joins us to talk about the current state of labor. We also speak with Traven Leyshon of the Vermont AFL CIO, Vermont Workers Center and Vermont Progressive Party. For more information, visit ClearingtheFOGRadio.org.

This month, economic democracy conferences were held in both Jackson, MS and Baltimore, MD. The conferences focused on the structural causes of poverty, the failures of the current economic system and new systems that can be put in place to build wealth in communities. Th Baltimore conference, which we helped to organize, focused on building cooperatives, complementary currencies and alternative finance, participatory budgeting, land trusts, renewable energy and food security. Our guest Dorcas Gilmore attended both conferences and the other guest Lasana Mack is working on new systems in African-American communities of Washington, DC. For more information, visit www.ClearingtheFOGRadio.org.

We discuss the FCC’s plan to eliminate net neutrality on May 15. FCC chair Tom Wheeler will be deciding on new rules regarding the internet that will allow those who have wealth to have faster service and will leave the rest of us behind with internet service that ranks us between 35th and 40th in the world. The internet will become a pay-to-play entity rather than being treated as a public good – something to which all people should have the same standard of access. We will discuss the upcoming decision at length and what people are doing to stop it. And we will discuss the growing movement to municipalize internet service. For more information, v isit ClearingtheFOGRadio.org.