Journalist, Best Selling Author
Previously Aired On: April 17, 2007 – Archive Not Currently Availible
Previously Aired On: May 31, 2007 – Listen to this Show!
Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller, “Armed Madhouse” (Penguin Paperback 2007). When Palast, an investigator of corporate fraud and racketeering, turned his skills to journalism, he was quickly recognized as, “The most important investigative reporter of our time” [Tribune Magazine] in Britain, where his first reports appeared on BBC television and in the Guardian newspapers.
Author of another New York Times bestseller, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, Palast is best known in his native USA as the journalist who, for the Observer (UK), broke the story of how Jeb Bush purged thousands of Black Florida citizens from voter rolls before the 2000 election, thereby handing the White House to his brother George. His reports on the theft of election 2004, the spike of the FBI investigations of the bin Ladens before September 11, the secret State Department documents planning the seizure of Iraq’s oil fields have won him a record six “Project Censored” for reporting the news American media doesn’t want you to hear. “The top investigative journalist in the United States is persona non grata in his own country’s media.” [Asia Times.] He returned to America to report for Harper’s Magazine.
Palast’s Sam Spade style television and print expos’es about elections manipulations, War on Terror and globalization, as seen on BBC ‘s Newsnight and Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now!
Palast, who has led investigations for government on three continents, has an academic side: the author of Democracy and Regulation, a seminal treatise on energy corporations and government control commissioned by the United Nations based on his lectures at Cambridge University and the University of Sao Paulo.
Beginning in the 1970s, having earned his degree in finance studying under Milton Friedman and free-trade luminaries, Palast went on to challenge their vision of a New Global Order, working for the United Steelworkers of America, the Enron workers’ coalition in Latin America and consumer and environmental groups worldwide. As an investigator for the Chugach Natives of Alaska, he uncovered the oil company frauds which led to the grounding of the Exxon Valdez. His racketeering probe of a nuclear plant operator led to one of the largest jury judgments in US history
In 1998 Palast went undercover for Britain’s Observer, worked his way inside the prime minister’s inner circle and busted open Tony Blair’s biggest scandal, “Lobbygate,” chosen by Palast’s press colleagues in the UK as “Story of the Year.” As the Chicago Tribune said, became a “fanatic about documents-especially those marked “secret and confidential” from the locked file cabinets of the FBI, the World Bank, the US State Department and other closed-door operations of government and industry-which regularly find their way into Palast’s hands. The inside information he obtained on Rev. Pat Robertson won him a nomination as Britain’s top business journalist.
Palast, Guerrilla News Network’s Guerrilla of the Year, is Patron of the Trinity College Philosophical Society, an honor previously held by Jonathan Swift and Oscar Wilde. His writings have won the Financial Times David Thomas Prize-and inspired the Eminem video, Mosh. “An American hero,” said Martin Luther King III. In the BBC documentary, Bush Family Fortunes, Palast exposed George Bush Jr.’s dodging the Vietnam War draft. Greg Palast, says Noam Chomsky, “Upsets all the right people.”
Palast won the George Orwell Courage in Journalism Award for his BBC documentary, Bush Family Fortunes.
www.gregpalast.com
May 31st, 2007
--Previous Guests--, Greg Palast |
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Former Defense Attorney for Leonard Peltier
Previously Aired On: May 30, 2007 – Listen to this Show!
Mr. Kuzma, a Buffalo, New York attorney, has for several years spearheaded the efforts to obtain the release of government documents on the Peltier case. Mr. Kuzma discovered that the government continues to withhold over 140,000 documents & he currently concentrates his efforts on securing the release of these additional documents concerning Mr. Peltier.
Leonard Peltier is a Native American activist and member of the American Indian Movement. In 1977 he was convicted and sentenced to two consecutive terms of life imprisonment for murdering two FBI Agents who died during a 1975 shoot-out on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. There has been considerable debate over Peltier’s guilt and the fairness of his trial. Some supporters and organizations, including Amnesty International, consider him to be a political prisoner. Numerous appeals have been filed on his behalf; however, none has been ruled in his favor. Peltier is currently incarcerated at the United States Penitentiary in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.
To the international community, the case of Leonard Peltier is a stain on America’s Human Rights record. Nelson Mandela, Rigoberta Menchu, the U.N. High Commissioner on Human Rights, the Dalai Lama, the European Parliament, the Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights, and Rev. Jesse Jackson are only a few who have called for his freedom. To many Indigenous Peoples, Leonard Peltier is a symbol of the long history of abuse and repression they have endured. The National Congress of American Indians and the Assembly of First Nations, representing the majority of First Nations in the U.S. and Canada, have repeatedly called for Leonard Peltier’s freedom.
May 30th, 2007
--Previous Guests--, Michael Kuzma |
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Journalist, Author, Film Producer, Director
Previously Aired On: May 29, 2007 – Listen to this Show!
Schechter’s media experience in the major U.S. corporate media is considerable. His career began as the “News Dissector” at Boston radio station WBCN. Later, Schechter was a producer for the ABC newsmagazine 20/20. He produced 50 segments for ABC and won two national Emmy Awards and was nominated for two others. His work has also been honored with the IRIS award, the George Polk Award, the Major Armstrong Award, and honors from the National Association of Black Journalists. Schechter joined the start-up staff at CNN as a producer based in Atlanta. In all, Schechter has reported from 49 countries.
Schechter helped found, and serve as the executive producer of, Globalvision, a New York-based television and film production company. He founded and executive-produced the series “South Africa Now” and co-produced “Rights & Wrongs: Human Rights Television”. His work specializes in investigative journalism and producing programming about the interface between human rights, journalism, popular music and society.
Schechter is also the executive editor of MediaChannel.org, for which he is the “blogger-in-chief” and writes a nearly-3000-word daily blog entry on media and society. He is the author of several books, the most recent of which is “Embedded: Weapons of Mass Deception” (Prometheus).
May 29th, 2007
--Previous Guests--, Danny Schechter |
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Activist/Author
Previously Aired On: May 27, 2007 – Listen to this Show!
Anthony Arnove is an brilliant writer, editor and activist. He is the editor, with Howard Zinn, of Voices of a People’s History of the United States, a critically acclaimed primary-source companion to Zinn’s best-selling A People’s History of the United States that features the words of rebels, dissenters, and visionaries from our past and present.
Arnove is also well-known for his books on the Iraq war and occupation of Iraq. He is author of the new book Iraq: The Logic of Withdrawal, now available in an updated paperback, with a foreword by Howard Zinn (Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt). Arnove is also the editor of Iraq Under Siege: The Deadly Impact of Sanctions and War (South End Press) and Terrorism and War, a collection of post-9/11 interviews with Howard Zinn (Seven Stories Press).
Arnove’s writings has appeared in The Financial Times, The Nation, Mother Jones, Left Business Observer, Monthly Review, In These Times, International Socialist Review, Red Pepper, Socialist Worker, L’Humanite, Le Nouvel Observateur, Z Magazine, Cineaste, New Politics, and other publications.
An activist based in Brooklyn, New York, he is a member of the International Socialist Organization and the National Writers Union, and writes regularly for ZNet. He has appeared on BBC, Sky News, Alternative Radio, Democracy Now!, CounterSpin, Air America, and public radio programs across the country, and was featured in the documentary “Preventive Warriors.” He has traveled to Iraq, Palestine and Israel and toured the USA, France and the United Kingdom as an antiwar speaker.
May 27th, 2007
--Previous Guests--, Anthony Arnove |
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Attorney for Mumia Abu-Jamal
Part 1 Previously Aired On: May 23, 2007 – Listen to this Show!
Part 2 Previously Aired On: May 25, 2007 – Listen to this Show!
Attorney Robert Bryan, who is on the legal team of Mumia Abu-Jamal, is a member of the California and New York bars, served as Chair of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (Washington, DC), has specialized in death penalty litigation since the return of capital punish in the 1970s, has handled numerous murder cases (including over 100 trials). Since 1994 he has been the legal commentator for ABC in San Francisco, and has spoken at various universities on human rights abuses and the death penalty, etc.
Mumia Abu-Jamal is an award-winning Pennsylvania journalist who exposed police violence against minority communities. On death row since 1982, he was wrongfully sentenced for the shooting of a police officer. New evidence, including the recantation of a key eyewitness, new ballistic and forensic evidence and a confession from Arnold Beverly (one of the two killers of Officer Faulkner) points to his innocence! Mumia had no criminal record.
For the last 25 years, Abu-Jamal has been locked up 23 hours a day, denied contact visits with his family, had his confidential legal mail illegally opened by prison authorities, and put into punitive detention for writing his first of three books while in prison, Live From Death Row.
“I remain innocent. A court cannot make an innocent man guilty. Any ruling founded on injustice is not justice. The righteous fight for life, liberty, and for justice can only continue.” Mumia Abu-Jamal , Oct. 31, 1998.
His case is currently on appeal before the Federal District Court in Philadelphia. Mumia’s fight for a new trial has won the support of tens of thousands around the world, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela, The European Parliament, Alice Walker, Paul Newman, Maya Angelou, Sister Helen Prejean, Danny Glover, Rage Against The Machine, the Detroit and San Francisco City Councils, Amnesty International, and many others. Mumia Abu-Jamal’s fate rests with all those people who believe in every person’s right to justice and a fair trial.
FreeMumia.org
May 25th, 2007
--Previous Guests--, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Robert Bryan |
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Presidential Candidate
Previously Aired On: May 16, 2007 – Listen to this Show!
Dennis Kucinich was born in Cleveland, Ohio on October 8, 1946. He is the eldest of 7 children of Frank and Virginia Kucinich. He and his family lived in twenty-one places, including a couple of cars, by the time Kucinich was 17 years old. “I live each day with a grateful heart and a desire to be of service to humanity,” he says.
He currently represents the 10th District of Ohio in the United States House of Representatives. He ran for President of the United States in 2004 and has announced his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for President in 2008. He is currently the chairman of the Domestic Policy Subcommittee of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.In his fifth term in the United States House, Kucinich has been a leader for Universal Health Care, a full employment economy, fully-paid tuition at public colleges and universities, repeal of the Patriot Act, the development of bio-fuels as alternative energy and restoration of America’s basic manufacturing and infrastructure.
Dennis is also leading an effort to support the role of NASA in the development of basic research for civil aeronautics. Congressman Kucinich’s presidential platform has a comprehensive plan for universal healthcare, withdrawal from Iraq, free primary, secondary and college education, abolishing the death penalty and repealing the Patriot Act. In addition, he has plans for clean energy, social security plan for those at 65, banning handguns, women’s right to choose abortion and ratifying the ABM Treaty and the Kyoto Protocol.
May 16th, 2007
--Previous Guests--, Dennis Kucinich |
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AfterDowningStreet.org
Previously Aired On: April 26, 2006 – Listen to this Show!
Also our Guest On: February 20, 2007 – Listen to this Show!
Also our Guest On: May 15, 2007 – Listen to this Show!
David Swanson is the Washington Director of Democrats.com and of ImpeachPAC.org. He is co-founder of the AfterDowningStreet.org, CensureBush.org coalition, creator of MeetWithCindy.org and KatrinaMarch.org, and a board member of Progressive Democrats of America.
He has worked as a newspaper reporter and as a communications director, with jobs including Press Secretary for Dennis Kucinich’s 2004 presidential campaign, Media Coordinator for the International Labor Communications Association, and three years as Communications Coordinator for ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.
Swanson serves on the Executive Council of the Washington Baltimore Newspaper Guild. He obtained a Master’s degree in philosophy from the University of Virginia in 1997. His website is www.davidswanson.org. in writing to your school districts superintendent.
May 15th, 2007
--Previous Guests--, David Swanson |
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Nobel Peace Laureate
Previously Aired On: May 14, 2007 – Listen to this Show!
Desmond Mpilo Tutu (born 7 October 1931) is a South African cleric and activist who rose to worldwide fame during the 1980s as an opponent of apartheid. Tutu was elected and ordained the first African South African Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, South Africa, and primate of the Church of the Province of Southern Africa (now the Anglican Church of Southern Africa).
He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984. He is also a recipient of the Albert Schweitzer Prize for Humanitarianism and was also rewarded with the Magubela prize for liberty in 1986. Desmond Tutu is committed to stopping global AIDS, and has served as the honorary chairman for the Global AIDS Alliance. In February 2007 he was awarded Gandhi Peace Prize 2005 by Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, president of India.
He was generally credited with coining the term Rainbow Nation as a metaphor to describe post-apartheid South Africa after 1994 under ANC rule. The expression has since entered mainstream consciousness to describe South Africa’s ethnic diversity.
May 14th, 2007
--Previous Guests--, Desmond Tutu |
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Pres. Candidate Ron Paul’s Press Sec.
Previously Aired On: May 12, 2007 – Listen to this Show!
Congressman Ron Paul (R-Texas) is a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, who works for limited constitutional government, low taxes, free markets, and a return to sound monetary policies. He is known among his congressional colleagues and his constituents for his consistent voting record. Dr. Paul never votes for legislation unless the proposed measure is expressly authorized by the Constitution. In the words of former Treasury Secretary William Simon, Dr. Paul is the “one exception to the Gang of 535″ on Capitol Hill.
While serving in Congress during the late 1970s and early 1980s, Dr. Paul’s limited-government ideals were not popular in Washington. In 1976, he was one of only four Republican congressmen to endorse Ronald Reagan for president.
Congressman Paul’s consistent voting record prompted one of his congressional colleagues to say, “Ron Paul personifies the Founding Fathers’ ideal of the citizen-statesman. He makes it clear that his principles will never be compromised, and they never are.” Another colleague observed, “There are few people in public life who, through thick and thin, rain or shine, stick to their principles. Ron Paul is one of those few.”
May 12th, 2007
--Previous Guests--, Jesse Benton |
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Gold Star Mother For Peace
Previously Aired On: May 9, 2007 – Listen to this Show!
Cindy Sheehan, is the internationally known anti-war activist whose son Casey died in Iraq. Sheehan gained national attention in early August 2005 when she traveled to President Bush’s Prairie Chapel Ranch just outside Crawford, Texas, during his five-week vacation retreat there. Demanding a meeting with the President and an explanation of the “noble cause” for which her son died, she created a peace camp called Camp Casey by pitching a tent by the side of the road and announced her intention to stay, day and night, for the full five weeks, or until such a meeting was granted. She has also promised that, if she was not granted a second meeting, she will return to Crawford each time Bush visits there in the future.
Since the first Camp Casey, Cindy has established or inspired similar camps and protests all over the USA. Her journeys on behalf of the Peace Movement have taken her all over the world – Australia, South America, Europe. In all her travels and talks, she touches on how the president has betrayed the American people and exploited the brave men and women in uniform to bring more profit to his friends. “My goal is to bring our troops home to try and save another mother from going through what I am going through.”
Cindy’s latest book is Peace Mom: A Mother’s Journey Through Heartache To Activism. Visit Gold Star Families For Peace to learn of Cindy and her organization’s efforts.
May 9th, 2007
--Previous Guests--, Cindy Sheehan |
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Democratic Presidential Candidate
Previously Aired On: May 6, 2007 – Listen to this Show!
Senator Mike Gravel enlisted in the U.S. Army (1951-54) and served as special adjutant in the Communication Intelligence Services and as a Special Agent in the Counter Intelligence Corps. He received a B.S. in Economics from Columbia University, New York City, and holds four honorary degrees in law and public affairs.
Mike Gravel served in the Alaska House of Representatives from 1963-66, and as Speaker from 1965-66. He then represented Alaska in the U.S. Senate from 1969-81. He served on the Finance, Interior, and Environmental and Public Works committees, chairing the Energy, Water Resources, Buildings and Grounds, and Environmental Pollution subcommittees.
In 1971, he waged a successful one-man filibuster for five months that forced the Nixon administration to cut a deal, effectively ending the draft in the United States. He is most prominently known for his release of the Pentagon Papers, the secret official study that revealed the lies and manipulations of successive U.S. administrations that misled the country into the Vietnam War. After the New York Times published portions of the leaked study, the Nixon administration moved to block any further publication of information and to punish any newspaper publisher who revealed the contents.
From the floor of the senate, Gravel (a junior senator at the time) insisted that his constituents had a right to know the truth behind the war and proceeded to read 4,100 pages of the 7,000 page document into the senate record. The Supreme Court ultimately ruled that Senator Gravel did not have the right and responsibility to share official documents with his constituents.
He founded and served as president of The Democracy Foundation, Philadelphia II, and Direct Democracy, nonprofit corporations dedicated to the establishment of direct democracy in the United States through the enactment of the National Initiative for Democracy by American voters.
Books authored by Senator Gravel are Jobs and More Jobs, and Citizen Power. He lectures and writes about governance, foreign affairs, economics, Social Security, tax reform, energy, environmental issues and democracy.
May 6th, 2007
--Previous Guests--, Mike Gravel |
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Nobel Peace Prize Nominee
Previously Aired On: May 1, 2007 – Listen to this Show!
The single most articulate and passionate advocate of citizen action to remedy the nuclear and environmental and nuclear crises, Dr. Helen Caldicott has devoted the last 25 years to an international campaign to educate the public about the medical hazards of the nuclear age, and the necessary changes in human behavior to stop environmental destruction.
She has received many prizes and awards for her work, including 19 honorary doctoral degrees, and was personally nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Linus Pauling–himself a Nobel Laureate. Ladies Home Journal, named Dr. Caldicott as one of the “100 Most Important Women of the 20th Century” (May 1999).
Dr Caldicott was an instructor in pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, specializing in cystic fibrosis, and on the staff of the Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Boston, Mass., until 1980 when she resigned to work full time on the prevention of nuclear war. She founded the Cystic Fibrosis Clinic at the Adelaide Children’s Hospital in 1975. She moved back to the United States in 1995. She lectured at the New School for Social Research on the Media, Global Politics and the Environment, and she hosted a weekly radio talk show on WBAI (Pacifica). Returning to Australia in 1998 she resumed the practice of medicine at the Sydney Childrens Hospital but in 1999 Dr. Caldicott she resigned to return to her responsibilities of global preventive medicine. She currently divides her time between the US and Australia where she lectures widely. She is also the Founder and President of the recently established Nuclear Policy Research Institute soon to be headquartered in Washington D.C.
May 1st, 2007
--Previous Guests--, Helen Caldicott |
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