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

Indigenous Nations all over the world have been occupied for centuries by settlers who push them off of their land and take resources without permission or respect for the land, water and air. After trying to use domestic and international approaches, including the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, to regain legal sovereignty and failing, Indigenous Nations are rising up. We speak with Clayton Thomas Muller, Sylvia Mcadam and SuZanne MoniQue Patels of Idle No More about the movement, steps they are taking to protect the Earth and the October 7 Day to Proclaim Sovereignty. Today is the 250th anniversary of the Royal Proclamation, also known as the Indian's Magna Carta. For more information, see ClearingtheFOGRadio.org.

We began a two-part series on the sovereignty of Indigenous Nations. This week we spoke with Charmaine White Face, Zumila Wobaga, who participated in the process to develop the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Charmaine recently published a book titled “Indigenous Nations’ Rights in the Balance” in which she describes the difficult process of achieving recognition of rights agreed upon by the majority of indigenous peoples and how the process of creating the declaration was full of obstacles. She analyzes the text of the final declaration and what it means for indigenous nations. For more information, visit ClearingtheFOGRadio.org.

Two years ago hundreds of people began to occupy Zuccotti Park in New York City in the heart of Wall Street. That occupation, Occupy Wall Street (OWS), exploded into hundreds of occupations around the country within a matter of weeks. We'll speak to three people who were part of OWS. Laura Gottesdiener who recently published" A Dream Foreclosed" will speak about Occupy Our Homes. Goldi Guerra will speak about the ongoing Occupy Sandy efforts including organizing for long term recovery in the affected areas. And Justin Wedes will announce a new financial service for the unbanked and underbanked, the Occupy Money cooperative. For more information, visit ClearingtheFOGRadio.org.

Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers broadcast from Colorado where they spoke at the “What Does Democracy Look Like? Conference.” The conference was sponsored by the It’s Our Economy chapter in Denver and included a number of groups who are working on issues of food security, housing and alternative currencies. We spoke about the widespread opposition to an attack on Syria by the US including a broad spectrum of the public, members of Congress, the military and intelligence analysts. And we closed with an update on the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the campaign to demand democracy and transparency in trade negotiation. For more information, see ClearingtheFOGRadio.org.

Economist Jim Sauber who serves as Chief of Staff to the President of the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) joins us to explain the attack on the USPS, the reasons for the sale of local post offices, what communities are doing to save the postal service and the vision to expand the services provided at local post offices to include voting, finances and a US Postal Savings Bank to finance infrastructure programs and create jobs. For more information, visit www.ClearingtheFOGRadio.org.

David Bollier, co-author of The Wealth of the Commons: A World Beyond Market and State, talks about the Commons, which can be almost anything as long as there is public action and governance around it. Bollier explains the myth of the ‘tragedy of the commons’ which is widely taught as truth . We talk about the benefits of reclaiming public space and institutions and the growing sharing economy. For more information, visit www.ClearingtheFOGRadio.org.

The artificial inflation of the housing market, predatory lending practices and fraudulent behavior by Big Finance which created the collapse of the housing market and epidemic of evictions, calls into question whether housing is a commodity that should be subject to the whims of the market or a human right that is not commodified. We explore ways that people are creating permanently affordable housing in their communities and taking on the Big Banks to hold them accountable, prevent foreclosure and strengthen their local economies. Our guests are Michael Carlson, former director of the Madison Area Community Land Trust and now the maintenance director for the Madison Cooperative Community, and Nancie Koerber of Project REconomy in Oregon. For more information, visit ClearingtheFOGRadio.org.

Jacqui Dunne, co-author of “Rethinking Money : How New Currencies Turn Scarcity into Prosperity,” joins us for the hour to discuss the concept of money, why the current dominant monetary system is failing and new systems that are being created to solve problems such as the need for credit and to support localism. Thousands of complementary currencies and monetary systems are in existence. The WIR system in Switzerland has been around for almost 80 years. Dunne describes how unmet needs and unused resources can be connected through complementary currency systems that reflect the values of a community and encourage positive human interactions. A diverse, flexible and resilient monetary system is developing around the world. For more information, visit ClearingtheFOGRadio.org.

We spoke about the current trade agreement, the TransPacific Partnership (TPP), being negotiated by the White House, and its more than 600 corporate advisers, and countries in the Pacific Rim. Rather than a trade agreement, the TPP is a backdoor for corporations to receive laws to their benefit that would not pass in the open. Coalitions of groups from around the Continent and around the world are working together to stop the TPP and offer in its place a trade policy based on justice, fairness and sustainability. We speak with Kristen Beifus, executive director of the Washington Fair Trade Coalition and Richard McIntyre, professor of economics at the University of Rhode Island and US Trade Representative for the Green Shadow Cabinet. For more information, see ClearingtheFOGRadio.org. 

On International Human Rights Day we look at the right to education. Tyler Paige is one of 11 students occupying a building at Cooper Union demanding that the college continue to offer free education. Students, faculty and alumni are united in this effort which is part of the global movement for the right to education. You can follow them onhttp://www.cusos.org/ and http://www.facebook.com/FreeCooperUni.... Lynn Petrovich, CPA and author of "Sticker Shock," exposes the fraudulent practices of Sallie Mae and other corporate student lenders. And Danny Weil, author of over 7 books who also writes on http://truth-out.org/, http://www.dailycensored.com/ and other outlets exposes the financialization of education, the monetization of students, the collusion between government and corporations, Obama's neo-liberal education agenda and what we can do about it. 

We explore restrictions on the rights of people to assemble and express dissent in the United States. The First Amendment gives us the right to peaceably assemble and redress our government for our grievances. Instead of protecting that right, the government, local police and private companies are acting to prevent and stop actions of dissent. The First Amendment also gives the right to freedom of the press, but today’s press are mouthpieces for the corporate state. What is being done to preserve our rights? We speak with Kevin Gosztola who has been covering this issue for FireDogLake as the Dissenter,  and Tarak Kauff, a veteran arrested at the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial last Oct for protesting the war in Afghanistan. For more information, visit ClearingtheFOGRadio.org.

We interview John Curl, author of "For All the People: Uncovering the Hidden History of Cooperation, Cooperative Movements and Communalism in America." John discusses the efforts to create real democracy in the US pre-dating the Revolution and obstacles to their success as well as the way these efforts have paralleled social transformation. His book results from a lifetime of research and experience in cooperatives. See our follow-up article: Cooperatives and Community Work are Part of American DNA.

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