UK Media Crackdown: Greenwald’s Partner Detained, Guardian Forced to Destroy Snowden Files
Democracy Now
The Obama administration has acknowledged it had advance notice British officials were going to detain David Miranda, the partner of Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, who has revealed the National Security Agency’s massive spy practices. Miranda was held Sunday at London’s Heathrow Airport under Section 7 of the British Terrorism Act for nine hours — the maximum time he could be detained without charge. Miranda has just announced legal action against the British Home Office for his detention. Meanwhile, The Guardian has revealed the British government threatened legal action against the newspaper unless it either destroyed Snowden’s classified documents or handed them to British authorities. "At its core, what is at stake is the ability for a human being to have dignity and for journalists to have integrity with their sources, [threatening] the whole concept of a free democracy," says computer security researcher Jacob Appelbaum, who has been detained and questioned numerous times at airports. "And I don’t mean that as hyperbole, but if everything is under surveillance, how is that you can have a democracy? How is it that you can organize a political function, or have confidentiality with a constituent, or a source, or with a friend or a lover? That’s an erasure of fundamental things that we have had for quite some time." We’re also joined by longtime British attorney Gareth Peirce.
To Watch the Episode
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
Monday, August 19, 2013
Sara Vizcarrondo - The Art of 'Killing': How Much Truth Comes from the Lie that Tells the Truth?; Errol Morris and Werner Herzog on The Act of Killing
The Art of 'Killing': How Much Truth Comes from the Lie that Tells the Truth?
By Sara Vizcarrondo
Documentary
Before he made his film The Act of Killing, Joshua Oppenheimer interviewed survivors of Indonesia's bloody "Transition"—the failed military coup of 1965 and the brutal anti-Communist purges that followed—for an exposé on their culture of fear. Police shut down each meeting.
With fear of reprisals, Oppenheimer asked the survivors if they should stop filming. The survivors opposed unanimously, but volunteered a solution: Film the killers, and the police won't stop you. "Begin with my next-door neighbor, the man who killed my aunt," one survivor suggested. "He will appear to be proud. Film that and the audience will see why we are afraid."
After the failed coup, the Indonesian Army began a campaign of political apartheid. They paid street thugs and gangsters to rid the country of the National Communist Party (PKI), whom they blamed for the coup. There were no official trials to prove political affiliations, just semi-private assassinations.
The men who carried out the killings have been glorified in national media as heroes. Even today, they appear on talk shows, have political influence, and boast loudly about their murders to anyone who'll hear—including the families of the nameless victims they left on riverbanks and in ditches five decades ago. The most commonly cited death toll is 500,000, but accurate numbers are hard to tally. It's impossible to say the campaign has ended, since the political class that sanctioned it did so to gain power. And both power and its attainment are limitless things. Corruption persists in Indonesia.
In February 2004, Oppenheimer filmed two killers who took him to a river. During the Transition, these two men would drive a busload of internees from the military concentration camp to a riverbank every night, behead the passengers and throw the bodies in the water. "After they showed us how they'd done it, one of them took a small camera out of his pocket and asked my sound man, ‘Would you mind taking a picture of us to remember this day?' and the two posed, giving the thumbs up and "V" for victory. I went home with that material thinking, I have to make a film that adequately attempts to understand this."
Errol Morris, an executive producer on The Act of Killing, made his 2008 documentary Standard Operating Procedure in response to the photos depicting the torture and humiliation of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison. He viewed those images with an exposé quality. "Standard Operating Procedure evidences a moment in which people want to remember themselves while torturing someone," says Oppenheimer. "Errol saw the pictures as confessions of a whistleblower. The Act of Killing is an attempt to understand an entire regime that did something similar; it wasn't just one person."
Oppenheimer spoke to 41 perpetrators and took each of them to the scene of their murders to act out what they'd done. With cameras rolling, they'd lament, "Oh, I should have brought a machete, and friends to play victims." But Anwar, one of the subjects in The Act of Killing, was the only man who returned to the roof where he'd killed hundreds, and neither lamented nor wished for co-conspirators. Instead, he danced. "Unlike the other 40 perpetrators, his pain was somehow close to the surface," Oppenheimer observes. "When he goes out on the roof, he sighs; it's like there's a stone in his shoe. He says, ‘I dance to forget these horrors, and so I'm a good dancer.' And I'm wondering how this must look to him."
To Read the Rest
By Sara Vizcarrondo
Documentary
Before he made his film The Act of Killing, Joshua Oppenheimer interviewed survivors of Indonesia's bloody "Transition"—the failed military coup of 1965 and the brutal anti-Communist purges that followed—for an exposé on their culture of fear. Police shut down each meeting.
With fear of reprisals, Oppenheimer asked the survivors if they should stop filming. The survivors opposed unanimously, but volunteered a solution: Film the killers, and the police won't stop you. "Begin with my next-door neighbor, the man who killed my aunt," one survivor suggested. "He will appear to be proud. Film that and the audience will see why we are afraid."
After the failed coup, the Indonesian Army began a campaign of political apartheid. They paid street thugs and gangsters to rid the country of the National Communist Party (PKI), whom they blamed for the coup. There were no official trials to prove political affiliations, just semi-private assassinations.
The men who carried out the killings have been glorified in national media as heroes. Even today, they appear on talk shows, have political influence, and boast loudly about their murders to anyone who'll hear—including the families of the nameless victims they left on riverbanks and in ditches five decades ago. The most commonly cited death toll is 500,000, but accurate numbers are hard to tally. It's impossible to say the campaign has ended, since the political class that sanctioned it did so to gain power. And both power and its attainment are limitless things. Corruption persists in Indonesia.
In February 2004, Oppenheimer filmed two killers who took him to a river. During the Transition, these two men would drive a busload of internees from the military concentration camp to a riverbank every night, behead the passengers and throw the bodies in the water. "After they showed us how they'd done it, one of them took a small camera out of his pocket and asked my sound man, ‘Would you mind taking a picture of us to remember this day?' and the two posed, giving the thumbs up and "V" for victory. I went home with that material thinking, I have to make a film that adequately attempts to understand this."
Errol Morris, an executive producer on The Act of Killing, made his 2008 documentary Standard Operating Procedure in response to the photos depicting the torture and humiliation of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison. He viewed those images with an exposé quality. "Standard Operating Procedure evidences a moment in which people want to remember themselves while torturing someone," says Oppenheimer. "Errol saw the pictures as confessions of a whistleblower. The Act of Killing is an attempt to understand an entire regime that did something similar; it wasn't just one person."
Oppenheimer spoke to 41 perpetrators and took each of them to the scene of their murders to act out what they'd done. With cameras rolling, they'd lament, "Oh, I should have brought a machete, and friends to play victims." But Anwar, one of the subjects in The Act of Killing, was the only man who returned to the roof where he'd killed hundreds, and neither lamented nor wished for co-conspirators. Instead, he danced. "Unlike the other 40 perpetrators, his pain was somehow close to the surface," Oppenheimer observes. "When he goes out on the roof, he sighs; it's like there's a stone in his shoe. He says, ‘I dance to forget these horrors, and so I'm a good dancer.' And I'm wondering how this must look to him."
To Read the Rest
Lannan Podcasts: Eduardo Galeano with Marie Arana
Eduardo Galeano with Marie Arana
Lannan Podcasts
Eduardo Galeano, born in Montevideo, Uruguay, in 1940 is an essayist, journalist, historian, and activist, as well as one of Latin America’s most beloved literary figures. Galeano’s books include the trilogy Memory of Fire; The Book of Embraces; We Say No; Walking Words; and Mirrors: Stories of Almost Everyone. His newest book, Children of the Days (Los híjos de los días), is forthcoming in English in April 2013. An outspoken critic of the increasingly dehumanizing effects of globalization on modern society, Galeano has remained a passionate advocate for human rights and justice.
Galeano, who received the first Lannan Prize for Cultural Freedom in 1999, has said, “I’m trying to create a synthesis of all different ways of expressing life and reality…I tried to find a way of recounting history so that the reader would feel that it was happening right now, just around the corner—this immediacy, this intensity, which is the beauty and the reality of history.”
In this episode he is introduced by Marie Arana and then gives a talk.
To Watch the Episode
Lannan Podcasts
Eduardo Galeano, born in Montevideo, Uruguay, in 1940 is an essayist, journalist, historian, and activist, as well as one of Latin America’s most beloved literary figures. Galeano’s books include the trilogy Memory of Fire; The Book of Embraces; We Say No; Walking Words; and Mirrors: Stories of Almost Everyone. His newest book, Children of the Days (Los híjos de los días), is forthcoming in English in April 2013. An outspoken critic of the increasingly dehumanizing effects of globalization on modern society, Galeano has remained a passionate advocate for human rights and justice.
Galeano, who received the first Lannan Prize for Cultural Freedom in 1999, has said, “I’m trying to create a synthesis of all different ways of expressing life and reality…I tried to find a way of recounting history so that the reader would feel that it was happening right now, just around the corner—this immediacy, this intensity, which is the beauty and the reality of history.”
In this episode he is introduced by Marie Arana and then gives a talk.
To Watch the Episode
Friday, August 16, 2013
Thursday, August 15, 2013
Harvard University Press Blog: Catherine MacKinnon on Lovelace
Catharine MacKinnon on Lovelace
Harvard University Press
The pornographic film Deep Throat, released in 1972, was a cultural sensation whose star, “Linda Lovelace,” was said to put a girl-next-door face on the sexual revolution. But the actual life of Linda Boreman, as depicted in the new biopic Lovelace, was one of beatings, rape, and terror. Feminist legal scholar Catharine MacKinnon, author of such works as Toward a Feminist Theory of the State and Only Words, represented Boreman after she came forward with her story, and later, with Andrea Dworkin, pursued civil rights litigation as a means to fight pornography. We asked MacKinnon about Boreman, Lovelace, and the potential impact of the film.
To Read the Interview
Harvard University Press
The pornographic film Deep Throat, released in 1972, was a cultural sensation whose star, “Linda Lovelace,” was said to put a girl-next-door face on the sexual revolution. But the actual life of Linda Boreman, as depicted in the new biopic Lovelace, was one of beatings, rape, and terror. Feminist legal scholar Catharine MacKinnon, author of such works as Toward a Feminist Theory of the State and Only Words, represented Boreman after she came forward with her story, and later, with Andrea Dworkin, pursued civil rights litigation as a means to fight pornography. We asked MacKinnon about Boreman, Lovelace, and the potential impact of the film.
To Read the Interview
The Colbert Report -- People Who Are Destroying America: Johnny Cummings
A nod to Vicco, KY! Kickass Kentuckians!
Democracy Now -- Massacre in Cairo: Egypt on Brink After Worst Violence Since 2011 Revolution
Massacre in Cairo: Egypt on Brink After Worst Violence Since 2011 Revolution
Democracy Now
At least 525 people were killed in Egypt on Wednesday when security forces cracked down on two protest camps filled with supporters of ousted President Mohamed Morsi. The Muslim Brotherhood says the actual death toll tops 2,000, and has called new rallies for today. The Egyptian military has defended the crackdown and declared a state of emergency. We’re joined by three guests: in Cairo, Democracy Now! correspondent Sharif Abdel Kouddous, who covered Wednesday’s violence and visited the makeshift field clinics overrun with the dead and wounded, and Lina Attalah, chief editor and co-founder of the Cairo-based news website, Mada Masr; and in Washington, D.C., we’re joined by Chris Toensing, executive director of the Middle East Research and Information Project and co-editor of the book, "The Journey to Tahrir: Revolution, Protest, and Social Change in Egypt."
To Watch the Episode
Democracy Now
At least 525 people were killed in Egypt on Wednesday when security forces cracked down on two protest camps filled with supporters of ousted President Mohamed Morsi. The Muslim Brotherhood says the actual death toll tops 2,000, and has called new rallies for today. The Egyptian military has defended the crackdown and declared a state of emergency. We’re joined by three guests: in Cairo, Democracy Now! correspondent Sharif Abdel Kouddous, who covered Wednesday’s violence and visited the makeshift field clinics overrun with the dead and wounded, and Lina Attalah, chief editor and co-founder of the Cairo-based news website, Mada Masr; and in Washington, D.C., we’re joined by Chris Toensing, executive director of the Middle East Research and Information Project and co-editor of the book, "The Journey to Tahrir: Revolution, Protest, and Social Change in Egypt."
To Watch the Episode
Metaphilm -- Monsters Inc., Moslems, Inc.: The Uses of Disenchantment in the film that is set after but made before Monsters University
Monsters Inc., Moslems, Inc.: The Uses of Disenchantment in the film that is set after but made before Monsters University.
by Snodgrass
Metaphilm
We know that children’s films can be tools for introducing the unpleasant realities of the adult world. Witness Chicken Run, a claymation film from the creators of Wallace and Gromit, in which the World War Two story of the Jews’ imprisonment, forced labor, and then systematic destruction is told through a parallel tale of chickens’ forced imprisonment, mandatory egg laying, and then systematic destruction when the egg farm converts to a chicken pot-pie factory. It is all right there, right down to the propagandistic American hero, whose heroics are in fact very chicken-hawkish, much the way the reality of Nazi Germany’s defeat was thanks more to the Russians than the good ole U.S. of A. So if children’s cinema can be used to explain harsh political realities from a past that the children are currently unaware of but which still retains currency in living cultural memory, how far-fetched is it to imagine that a film could describe harsh political realities while they were happening, so as to soothe the psychic feathers of children as they are experiencing them? Especially if those children are, in fact, the necessary voters and taxpayers your system is going to need to sustain the fictional fantasy by which you run global politics.
To Read the Rest
by Snodgrass
Metaphilm
We know that children’s films can be tools for introducing the unpleasant realities of the adult world. Witness Chicken Run, a claymation film from the creators of Wallace and Gromit, in which the World War Two story of the Jews’ imprisonment, forced labor, and then systematic destruction is told through a parallel tale of chickens’ forced imprisonment, mandatory egg laying, and then systematic destruction when the egg farm converts to a chicken pot-pie factory. It is all right there, right down to the propagandistic American hero, whose heroics are in fact very chicken-hawkish, much the way the reality of Nazi Germany’s defeat was thanks more to the Russians than the good ole U.S. of A. So if children’s cinema can be used to explain harsh political realities from a past that the children are currently unaware of but which still retains currency in living cultural memory, how far-fetched is it to imagine that a film could describe harsh political realities while they were happening, so as to soothe the psychic feathers of children as they are experiencing them? Especially if those children are, in fact, the necessary voters and taxpayers your system is going to need to sustain the fictional fantasy by which you run global politics.
To Read the Rest
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
Monday, August 12, 2013
Law and Disorder Radio: Phyllis Bennis on the Israeli/Palestinian Peace Talks; Peter Werbe: Green Scare Crackdown and Monsanto Political Prisoner Marie Mason; Harriet Fraad at the Left Forum 2013
Law and Disorder Radio
Law and Disorder Co-host and Executive Director of the National Lawyers Guild, Heidi Boghosian Recently Published “Spying on Democracy: Government Surveillance, Corporate Power and Public Resistance.”
Israel-Palestine Peace Talks
Could the timing of the recent Israel-Palestine peace talks be related to the crisis erupting across the Middle East region? The escalating war in Syria and the massive coup in Egypt have reflected US strategic failures. Now, the U.S. led effort to re-start 22 year old peace talks with Israel and Palestine has again raised suspicion of again benefiting the side of Israel.
Interestingly, former U.S. ambassador to Israel and former deputy research director of AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby, Martin Indyk will be acting as the U.S. envoy in the negotiations. The stated goals of these new peace talks according to our guest Phyllis Bennis, director at the Project Institute for Policy Studies will not end the occupation, or the siege of Gaza, or the decades of dispossession and exile of Palestinian refugees but only current tension and dispute.
Guest – Phyllis Bennis, directs the New Internationalism Project at IPS. She is also a fellow of the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam. She has been a writer, analyst, and activist on Middle East and UN issues for many years. In 2001 she helped found and remains on the steering committee of the U.S. Campaign to End Israeli Occupation. She works closely with the United for Peace and Justice anti-war coalition, co-chairs the UN-based International Coordinating Network on Palestine, and since 2002 has played an active role in the growing global peace movement. She continues to serve as an adviser to several top UN officials on Middle East and UN democratization issues.
Green Scare Crackdown and Monsanto Political Prisoner Marie Mason
Long time activist in environmental and labor movements Marie Mason continues to serve out a harsh 22 year prison sentence based on her involvement in two attacks of property damage and arson. Marie Mason is considered an eco-terrorist and is serving the longest sentence of any convicted animal rights or environmental militant. In one of the attacks, Mason and her husband Ambrose set fire to a Michigan State University building, targeting a Monsanto funded office in charge of a genetically modified crop research program to create moth resistant crops for Africa. Marie Mason was later set up by her husband who recorded their conversation that led to her conviction. As we continue to report, since 9/11, environmental radicals have been labeled terrorists, and charged with overly long sentences. This is part of what’s known as the “Green Scare” campaigns that seek to put a chill on dissent.
Guest - Peter Alexander Werbe, American radio talk show host and a progressive political activist. His home is Detroit, where he has become a fixture spinning discs and hosting Nightcall Sunday nights on Detroit’s WRIF 101.1 FM. Peter Werbe’s tenure, having commenced in 1970 has resulted in 2 popular radio programs: Nightcall and The Peter Werbe Show. He currently hosts a Mon-Fri classic (webstream) rock show Deep Trax on WCSX. He is also a staff member of Fifth Estate magazine.
Left Forum 2013: Dr. Harriet Fraad
We hear an excerpt of a presentation from Harriet Fraad is a hypnotherapist & psychotherapist in Manhattan. She writes regularly for Truthout, Tikkun and The Journal of Psychohistory. Her blog with Richard D. Wolff, Economy and Psychology appears at HarrietFraad.com and RDWolff.com. Her latest book is Bringing It All Back Home ed. Graham Cussano. Her article on Emotional and Sexual Life in a Socialist America written with Tess Fraad Wolff will appear in the book Imagine A Socialist America- (Harper Collins 2013). This panel explores what Socialism could look like in the United States.
To Listen to the Episode
Law and Disorder Co-host and Executive Director of the National Lawyers Guild, Heidi Boghosian Recently Published “Spying on Democracy: Government Surveillance, Corporate Power and Public Resistance.”
Israel-Palestine Peace Talks
Could the timing of the recent Israel-Palestine peace talks be related to the crisis erupting across the Middle East region? The escalating war in Syria and the massive coup in Egypt have reflected US strategic failures. Now, the U.S. led effort to re-start 22 year old peace talks with Israel and Palestine has again raised suspicion of again benefiting the side of Israel.
Interestingly, former U.S. ambassador to Israel and former deputy research director of AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby, Martin Indyk will be acting as the U.S. envoy in the negotiations. The stated goals of these new peace talks according to our guest Phyllis Bennis, director at the Project Institute for Policy Studies will not end the occupation, or the siege of Gaza, or the decades of dispossession and exile of Palestinian refugees but only current tension and dispute.
Guest – Phyllis Bennis, directs the New Internationalism Project at IPS. She is also a fellow of the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam. She has been a writer, analyst, and activist on Middle East and UN issues for many years. In 2001 she helped found and remains on the steering committee of the U.S. Campaign to End Israeli Occupation. She works closely with the United for Peace and Justice anti-war coalition, co-chairs the UN-based International Coordinating Network on Palestine, and since 2002 has played an active role in the growing global peace movement. She continues to serve as an adviser to several top UN officials on Middle East and UN democratization issues.
Green Scare Crackdown and Monsanto Political Prisoner Marie Mason
Long time activist in environmental and labor movements Marie Mason continues to serve out a harsh 22 year prison sentence based on her involvement in two attacks of property damage and arson. Marie Mason is considered an eco-terrorist and is serving the longest sentence of any convicted animal rights or environmental militant. In one of the attacks, Mason and her husband Ambrose set fire to a Michigan State University building, targeting a Monsanto funded office in charge of a genetically modified crop research program to create moth resistant crops for Africa. Marie Mason was later set up by her husband who recorded their conversation that led to her conviction. As we continue to report, since 9/11, environmental radicals have been labeled terrorists, and charged with overly long sentences. This is part of what’s known as the “Green Scare” campaigns that seek to put a chill on dissent.
Guest - Peter Alexander Werbe, American radio talk show host and a progressive political activist. His home is Detroit, where he has become a fixture spinning discs and hosting Nightcall Sunday nights on Detroit’s WRIF 101.1 FM. Peter Werbe’s tenure, having commenced in 1970 has resulted in 2 popular radio programs: Nightcall and The Peter Werbe Show. He currently hosts a Mon-Fri classic (webstream) rock show Deep Trax on WCSX. He is also a staff member of Fifth Estate magazine.
Left Forum 2013: Dr. Harriet Fraad
We hear an excerpt of a presentation from Harriet Fraad is a hypnotherapist & psychotherapist in Manhattan. She writes regularly for Truthout, Tikkun and The Journal of Psychohistory. Her blog with Richard D. Wolff, Economy and Psychology appears at HarrietFraad.com and RDWolff.com. Her latest book is Bringing It All Back Home ed. Graham Cussano. Her article on Emotional and Sexual Life in a Socialist America written with Tess Fraad Wolff will appear in the book Imagine A Socialist America- (Harper Collins 2013). This panel explores what Socialism could look like in the United States.
To Listen to the Episode
Lannan Podcast: David Suzuki on the environment with a focus on climate change
David Suzuki spoke about the environment with a focus on climate change, followed by a conversation with Clayton Thomas-Müller.
Lannan Podcast
This event was part of the Lannan In Pursuit of Cultural Freedom series.
David Suzuki, is a scientist, author, broadcaster, and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation, established in 1990 to “work with government, business and individuals to conserve our environment by providing science-based education, advocacy and policy work for social change that today’s situation demands.” Dr. Suzuki was born in 1936 in Vancouver, British Columbia, and was interned at a Japanese relocation camp during the war years. He attended Amherst College in Massachusetts and received his Ph.D. in zoology from the University of Chicago. The recipient of numerous awards including the 2009 Right Livelihood Award and UNESCO's Kalinga Prize for the Popularization of Science, Dr. Suzuki is Professor Emeritus at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. His newest book is Everything Under the Sun: Toward a Brighter Future on a Small Blue Planet. He has written, "Each of us is quite literally air, water, soil, and sunlight, and what cleanses and renews these fundamental elements of life is the web of living things on the planet."
To Listen to the Episode
Lannan Podcast
This event was part of the Lannan In Pursuit of Cultural Freedom series.
David Suzuki, is a scientist, author, broadcaster, and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation, established in 1990 to “work with government, business and individuals to conserve our environment by providing science-based education, advocacy and policy work for social change that today’s situation demands.” Dr. Suzuki was born in 1936 in Vancouver, British Columbia, and was interned at a Japanese relocation camp during the war years. He attended Amherst College in Massachusetts and received his Ph.D. in zoology from the University of Chicago. The recipient of numerous awards including the 2009 Right Livelihood Award and UNESCO's Kalinga Prize for the Popularization of Science, Dr. Suzuki is Professor Emeritus at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. His newest book is Everything Under the Sun: Toward a Brighter Future on a Small Blue Planet. He has written, "Each of us is quite literally air, water, soil, and sunlight, and what cleanses and renews these fundamental elements of life is the web of living things on the planet."
To Listen to the Episode
Making Contact: The Mission to End Prohibition
The Mission to End Prohibition
Making Contact
Polls showing increased support for marijuana decriminalization are just one sign that there’s a cultural shift taking place.
Politicians, media pundits, even law enforcement agents are increasingly conceding that the so-called ‘war on drugs’ has been an abysmal failure.
On this edition, we hear from a former narcotics officer and a leading drug reform activist about the roots of America’s current drug policy. They tell the story of how we got to this point and suggest how we might move forward with more humane and effective laws.
Featuring:
Jack Cole, former New Jersey State Undercover Narcotics Officer and Law Enforcement Against Prohibition Co-founder; Ethan Nadelmann, Drug Policy Alliance Founder and Executive Director, recorded at the Tides Momentum Leadership Conference.
To Listen to the Episode
Making Contact
Polls showing increased support for marijuana decriminalization are just one sign that there’s a cultural shift taking place.
Politicians, media pundits, even law enforcement agents are increasingly conceding that the so-called ‘war on drugs’ has been an abysmal failure.
On this edition, we hear from a former narcotics officer and a leading drug reform activist about the roots of America’s current drug policy. They tell the story of how we got to this point and suggest how we might move forward with more humane and effective laws.
Featuring:
Jack Cole, former New Jersey State Undercover Narcotics Officer and Law Enforcement Against Prohibition Co-founder; Ethan Nadelmann, Drug Policy Alliance Founder and Executive Director, recorded at the Tides Momentum Leadership Conference.
To Listen to the Episode
Wednesday, August 07, 2013
Thursday, July 18, 2013
David Bromwich -- Diary: The Snowden Case
Diary: The Snowden Case
by David Bromwich
The London Review of Books
Most Americans who know anything about the National Security Agency probably got their mental picture of it from a 1998 thriller called Enemy of the State. A lawyer (Will Smith), swept up by mistake into the system of total surveillance, suddenly finds his life turned upside down, his family watched and harassed, his livelihood taken from him and the records of his conduct altered and criminalised. He is saved by a retired NSA analyst (Gene Hackman) who knows the organisation from innards to brains and hates every cog and gear that drives it. This ally is a loner. He has pulled back his way of life and associations to a minimum, and lives now in a desolate building called The Jar, which he has proofed against spying and tricked out with anti-listening armour, decoy-signal devices and advanced encryption-ware. From his one-man fortress, he leads the hero to turn the tables on the agency and to expose one of its larger malignant operations. Michael Hayden, who became the director of the NSA in 1999, saw the movie and told his workers they had an image problem: the agency had to change its ways and inspire the trust of citizens. But in 2001 Hayden, like many other Americans, underwent a galvanic change of consciousness and broke through to the other side. In the new era, in order to fight a new enemy, he saw that the United States must be equipped with a secret police as inquisitive and capable as the police of a totalitarian state, though of course more scrupulous. Gripped by the same fever and an appetite for power all his own, Dick Cheney floated the idea of Total Information Awareness (soliciting Americans to spy on their neighbours to fight terrorism), but found the country not yet ready for it. So he took the project underground and executed it in secret. Cheney issued the orders, his lawyer David Addington drew up the rationale, and Hayden at NSA made the practical arrangements. Eventually Cheney would appoint Hayden director of the CIA.
Americans caught our first glimpse of the possible scope of NSA operations in December 2005 when the New York Times ran a story by James Risen and Eric Lichtblau on massive warrantless surveillance: ‘Bush Lets US Spy on Callers without Courts’. The government was demanding and getting from the telecoms all the records it wanted of calls both to and from their customers. But the feed had been deliberately routed around the court set up by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to issue warrants for searches of this kind. The Times, at the urging of the Bush White House, had held back the story for a year, across the significant divide of the 2004 presidential election. Even so, James Risen, who protected the source for his leak, was threatened with prosecution by the Bush justice department, and under Obama that threat has not been lifted. As a candidate in 2007 and early 2008, Obama took an unconditional stand against data mining and warrantless spying, which he softened, well before the election, into a broad commitment to oversight of the existing programmes by the inspectors general of the relevant departments and agencies. Over the past five years, Obama’s reduction of the pledge to a practice had largely been taken on trust.
Such was the background of almost forgotten anxiety and suspended expectation when, on 6 and 7 June, the Guardian struck with its stories on US data mining and internet surveillance. The collection of ‘to’ and ‘from’ numbers and the duration of phone calls had, it turned out, not only continued but expanded under Obama. The government reserves in storage and taps (on occasion) the emails and internet activity of the customers of nine major companies including Google, Apple and Microsoft. The major difference from the Cheney machinery seems to be that general warrants are now dealt out, rather than no warrants at all, but general warrants don’t meet the requirement of ‘probable cause’ and the specification of the place to be searched and items to be seized. The Bill of Rights wanted not to make things too easy for the police. Now, on the contrary, the government gets the data wholesale, secure in the knowledge that a gag order prevents the corporate channels from speaking about the encroachment, and individual targets are sealed off from any knowledge of how they are watched. A lawlike complexion is given to the enterprise by the fact that the government doesn’t itself go into personal records without the consent of the citizenry; the records, instead, are held by private companies and then siphoned off by the government under legal compulsion.
Our communicative doings may be likened to a fishpond stocked with both actual and conjectural fish. The new protocol allows the government to vacuum up the entire pond, while preserving a posture quite innocent of trespass, since it means to do nothing with the contents just then. The test comes when a discovery elsewhere calls up an answering glimmer of terror or a terror-link from somewhere in your pond; at which point the already indexed contents may be legally poured out, dissected and analysed, with effects on the owner to be determined.
Edward Snowden made these discoveries, among others, while working as an analyst for the CIA, the NSA and the security outfit Booz Allen Hamilton (whose present vice chairman, Mike McConnell, is a former director of the NSA). Imperialism has been defined as doing abroad what you would like to do at home but can’t. Snowden, from the nature of his work, was made to recognise with growing dismay that what American intelligence was doing to terrorist suspects abroad it was also doing to 280 million unsuspecting Americans. The surveillance-industrial complex has brought home the intrusive techniques of a militarised empire, with its thousand bases and special-ops forces garrisoned in scores of countries. It has enlarged itself at home, obedient to the controlling appetite of an organism that believes it must keep growing or die. Of course, the US government cannot do to Americans what it does routinely to non-Americans. The key word in that proposition, however, is government. In fact, the same government can do all it likes with the data on American citizens, so long as it obtains a follow-up warrant from the FISA court. This court is always in session but its proceedings are secret; and qualified observers say it grants well over 99 per cent of the warrants requested. There is therefore no point at which the move by government from data collection to actual spying on citizens can come under genuine oversight or be held accountable.
To Read the Rest
by David Bromwich
The London Review of Books
Most Americans who know anything about the National Security Agency probably got their mental picture of it from a 1998 thriller called Enemy of the State. A lawyer (Will Smith), swept up by mistake into the system of total surveillance, suddenly finds his life turned upside down, his family watched and harassed, his livelihood taken from him and the records of his conduct altered and criminalised. He is saved by a retired NSA analyst (Gene Hackman) who knows the organisation from innards to brains and hates every cog and gear that drives it. This ally is a loner. He has pulled back his way of life and associations to a minimum, and lives now in a desolate building called The Jar, which he has proofed against spying and tricked out with anti-listening armour, decoy-signal devices and advanced encryption-ware. From his one-man fortress, he leads the hero to turn the tables on the agency and to expose one of its larger malignant operations. Michael Hayden, who became the director of the NSA in 1999, saw the movie and told his workers they had an image problem: the agency had to change its ways and inspire the trust of citizens. But in 2001 Hayden, like many other Americans, underwent a galvanic change of consciousness and broke through to the other side. In the new era, in order to fight a new enemy, he saw that the United States must be equipped with a secret police as inquisitive and capable as the police of a totalitarian state, though of course more scrupulous. Gripped by the same fever and an appetite for power all his own, Dick Cheney floated the idea of Total Information Awareness (soliciting Americans to spy on their neighbours to fight terrorism), but found the country not yet ready for it. So he took the project underground and executed it in secret. Cheney issued the orders, his lawyer David Addington drew up the rationale, and Hayden at NSA made the practical arrangements. Eventually Cheney would appoint Hayden director of the CIA.
Americans caught our first glimpse of the possible scope of NSA operations in December 2005 when the New York Times ran a story by James Risen and Eric Lichtblau on massive warrantless surveillance: ‘Bush Lets US Spy on Callers without Courts’. The government was demanding and getting from the telecoms all the records it wanted of calls both to and from their customers. But the feed had been deliberately routed around the court set up by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to issue warrants for searches of this kind. The Times, at the urging of the Bush White House, had held back the story for a year, across the significant divide of the 2004 presidential election. Even so, James Risen, who protected the source for his leak, was threatened with prosecution by the Bush justice department, and under Obama that threat has not been lifted. As a candidate in 2007 and early 2008, Obama took an unconditional stand against data mining and warrantless spying, which he softened, well before the election, into a broad commitment to oversight of the existing programmes by the inspectors general of the relevant departments and agencies. Over the past five years, Obama’s reduction of the pledge to a practice had largely been taken on trust.
Such was the background of almost forgotten anxiety and suspended expectation when, on 6 and 7 June, the Guardian struck with its stories on US data mining and internet surveillance. The collection of ‘to’ and ‘from’ numbers and the duration of phone calls had, it turned out, not only continued but expanded under Obama. The government reserves in storage and taps (on occasion) the emails and internet activity of the customers of nine major companies including Google, Apple and Microsoft. The major difference from the Cheney machinery seems to be that general warrants are now dealt out, rather than no warrants at all, but general warrants don’t meet the requirement of ‘probable cause’ and the specification of the place to be searched and items to be seized. The Bill of Rights wanted not to make things too easy for the police. Now, on the contrary, the government gets the data wholesale, secure in the knowledge that a gag order prevents the corporate channels from speaking about the encroachment, and individual targets are sealed off from any knowledge of how they are watched. A lawlike complexion is given to the enterprise by the fact that the government doesn’t itself go into personal records without the consent of the citizenry; the records, instead, are held by private companies and then siphoned off by the government under legal compulsion.
Our communicative doings may be likened to a fishpond stocked with both actual and conjectural fish. The new protocol allows the government to vacuum up the entire pond, while preserving a posture quite innocent of trespass, since it means to do nothing with the contents just then. The test comes when a discovery elsewhere calls up an answering glimmer of terror or a terror-link from somewhere in your pond; at which point the already indexed contents may be legally poured out, dissected and analysed, with effects on the owner to be determined.
Edward Snowden made these discoveries, among others, while working as an analyst for the CIA, the NSA and the security outfit Booz Allen Hamilton (whose present vice chairman, Mike McConnell, is a former director of the NSA). Imperialism has been defined as doing abroad what you would like to do at home but can’t. Snowden, from the nature of his work, was made to recognise with growing dismay that what American intelligence was doing to terrorist suspects abroad it was also doing to 280 million unsuspecting Americans. The surveillance-industrial complex has brought home the intrusive techniques of a militarised empire, with its thousand bases and special-ops forces garrisoned in scores of countries. It has enlarged itself at home, obedient to the controlling appetite of an organism that believes it must keep growing or die. Of course, the US government cannot do to Americans what it does routinely to non-Americans. The key word in that proposition, however, is government. In fact, the same government can do all it likes with the data on American citizens, so long as it obtains a follow-up warrant from the FISA court. This court is always in session but its proceedings are secret; and qualified observers say it grants well over 99 per cent of the warrants requested. There is therefore no point at which the move by government from data collection to actual spying on citizens can come under genuine oversight or be held accountable.
To Read the Rest
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
Joseph E. Stiglitz: How Intellectual Property Reinforces Inequality
How Intellectual Property Reinforces Inequality
By Joseph E. Stiglitz
Opinionator
...
The Myriad case was an embodiment of three key messages in my book “The Price of Inequality.” First, I argued that societal inequality was a result not just of the laws of economics, but also of how we shape the economy — through politics, including through almost every aspect of our legal system. Here, it’s our intellectual property regime that contributes needlessly to the gravest form of inequality. The right to life should not be contingent on the ability to pay.
The second is that some of the most iniquitous aspects of inequality creation within our economic system are a result of “rent-seeking”: profits, and inequality, generated by manipulating social or political conditions to get a larger share of the economic pie, rather than increasing the size of that pie. And the most iniquitous aspect of this wealth appropriation arises when the wealth that goes to the top comes at the expense of the bottom. Myriad’s efforts satisfied both these conditions: the profits the company gained from charging for its test added nothing to the size and dynamism of the economy, and simultaneously decreased the welfare of those who could not afford it.
While all of the insured contributed to Myriad’s profits — premiums had to go up to offset its fees, and millions of uninsured middle-income Americans who had to pay Myriad’s monopoly prices were on the hook for even more if they chose to get the test — it was the uninsured at the bottom who paid the highest price. With the test unaffordable, they faced a higher risk of early death.
Advocates of tough intellectual property rights say that this is simply the price we have to pay to get the innovation that, in the long run, will save lives. It’s a trade-off: the lives of a relatively few poor women today, versus the lives of many more women sometime in the future. But this claim is wrong in many ways. In this particular case, it is especially wrong, because the two genes would likely have been isolated (“discovered,” in Myriad’s terminology) soon anyway, as part of the global Human Genome Project. But it is wrong on other counts, as well. Genetic researchers have argued that the patent actually prevented the development of better tests, and so interfered with the advancement of science. All knowledge is based on prior knowledge, and by making prior knowledge less available, innovation is impeded. Myriad’s own discovery — like any in science — used technologies and ideas that were developed by others. Had that prior knowledge not been publicly available, Myriad could not have done what it did.
And that’s the third major theme. I titled my book to emphasize that inequality is not just morally repugnant but also has material costs. When the legal regime governing intellectual property rights is designed poorly, it facilitates rent-seeking — and ours is poorly designed, though this and other recent Supreme Court decisions have led to one that is better than it otherwise would have been. And the result is that there is actually less innovation and more inequality.
Indeed, one of the important insights of Robert W. Fogel, a Nobel Prize-winning economic historian who died last month, was that a synergy between improved health and technology accounts for a good part of the explosive economic growth since the 19th century. So it stands to reason that intellectual property regimes that create monopoly rents that impede access to health both create inequality and hamper growth more generally.
There are alternatives. Advocates of intellectual property rights have overemphasized their role in promoting innovation. Most of the key innovations — from the basic ideas underlying the computer, to transistors, to lasers, to the discovery of DNA — were not motivated by pecuniary gain. They were motivated by the quest for knowledge. Of course, resources have to be made available. But the patent system is only one way, and often not the best way, of providing these resources. Government-financed research, foundations, and the prize system (which offers a prize to whoever makes a discovery, and then makes the knowledge widely available, using the power of the market to reap the benefits) are alternatives, with major advantages, and without the inequality-increasing disadvantages of the current intellectual property rights system.
Myriad’s effort to patent human DNA was one of the worst manifestations of the inequality in access to health, which in turn is one of the worst manifestations of the country’s economic inequality. That the court decision has upheld our cherished rights and values is a cause for a sigh of relief. But it is only one victory in the bigger struggle for a more egalitarian society and economy.
To Read the Rest
By Joseph E. Stiglitz
Opinionator
...
The Myriad case was an embodiment of three key messages in my book “The Price of Inequality.” First, I argued that societal inequality was a result not just of the laws of economics, but also of how we shape the economy — through politics, including through almost every aspect of our legal system. Here, it’s our intellectual property regime that contributes needlessly to the gravest form of inequality. The right to life should not be contingent on the ability to pay.
The second is that some of the most iniquitous aspects of inequality creation within our economic system are a result of “rent-seeking”: profits, and inequality, generated by manipulating social or political conditions to get a larger share of the economic pie, rather than increasing the size of that pie. And the most iniquitous aspect of this wealth appropriation arises when the wealth that goes to the top comes at the expense of the bottom. Myriad’s efforts satisfied both these conditions: the profits the company gained from charging for its test added nothing to the size and dynamism of the economy, and simultaneously decreased the welfare of those who could not afford it.
While all of the insured contributed to Myriad’s profits — premiums had to go up to offset its fees, and millions of uninsured middle-income Americans who had to pay Myriad’s monopoly prices were on the hook for even more if they chose to get the test — it was the uninsured at the bottom who paid the highest price. With the test unaffordable, they faced a higher risk of early death.
Advocates of tough intellectual property rights say that this is simply the price we have to pay to get the innovation that, in the long run, will save lives. It’s a trade-off: the lives of a relatively few poor women today, versus the lives of many more women sometime in the future. But this claim is wrong in many ways. In this particular case, it is especially wrong, because the two genes would likely have been isolated (“discovered,” in Myriad’s terminology) soon anyway, as part of the global Human Genome Project. But it is wrong on other counts, as well. Genetic researchers have argued that the patent actually prevented the development of better tests, and so interfered with the advancement of science. All knowledge is based on prior knowledge, and by making prior knowledge less available, innovation is impeded. Myriad’s own discovery — like any in science — used technologies and ideas that were developed by others. Had that prior knowledge not been publicly available, Myriad could not have done what it did.
And that’s the third major theme. I titled my book to emphasize that inequality is not just morally repugnant but also has material costs. When the legal regime governing intellectual property rights is designed poorly, it facilitates rent-seeking — and ours is poorly designed, though this and other recent Supreme Court decisions have led to one that is better than it otherwise would have been. And the result is that there is actually less innovation and more inequality.
Indeed, one of the important insights of Robert W. Fogel, a Nobel Prize-winning economic historian who died last month, was that a synergy between improved health and technology accounts for a good part of the explosive economic growth since the 19th century. So it stands to reason that intellectual property regimes that create monopoly rents that impede access to health both create inequality and hamper growth more generally.
There are alternatives. Advocates of intellectual property rights have overemphasized their role in promoting innovation. Most of the key innovations — from the basic ideas underlying the computer, to transistors, to lasers, to the discovery of DNA — were not motivated by pecuniary gain. They were motivated by the quest for knowledge. Of course, resources have to be made available. But the patent system is only one way, and often not the best way, of providing these resources. Government-financed research, foundations, and the prize system (which offers a prize to whoever makes a discovery, and then makes the knowledge widely available, using the power of the market to reap the benefits) are alternatives, with major advantages, and without the inequality-increasing disadvantages of the current intellectual property rights system.
Myriad’s effort to patent human DNA was one of the worst manifestations of the inequality in access to health, which in turn is one of the worst manifestations of the country’s economic inequality. That the court decision has upheld our cherished rights and values is a cause for a sigh of relief. But it is only one victory in the bigger struggle for a more egalitarian society and economy.
To Read the Rest
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
Initial Thoughts on the Aftermath of the Verdict in the Trial of George Zimmerman
I have been avoiding discussing the verdict in the George Zimmerman case because of the explosion of inflammatory commentary throughout the mainstream corporate media and in the various social media forums. I felt we needed some time to reflect and think about the case.
I'm currently writing a newspaper article on the verdict, my community's responses, and race in America. So I just want to compile a few reflections right now and I will return with a more complete written response in the near future.
1)I'm tired of people trying to defend Zimmerman as some kind of benign "neighborhood watch" citizen who was frightened by a young boy. This does not seem to match up with his prior public written statements: Zimmerman’s Old Myspace Account Reveals Racist, Sexist, Violent Behavior
2) I am extremely frustrated that Americans are unable or unwilling to recognize "institutional racism" in America. Any person who is not mentally disabled, who believes that institutional racism is not real is either: (a) trapped in a highly selective solipsistic media feedback loop that keeps them directed/distracted away from reality or (b) they are intentionally trying to inflame racial tensions by denying the racist realities of our society.
I think Martin Bashir provides us with a clear, relelvant example of 2a:
I think this short video refers to some important questions in regards to 2b:
3) This all led me to revisiting/rethinking earlier studies/research into how the fantasies of racial difference are used to divide working people in the interest of a dominant elite: Theodore W. Allen: The Invention of the White Race
4) This led me back to a powerful California Newsreel documentary called Race: The Power of an Illusion
5) and my attempt to understand the manipulation of racialized fears (of the other) through globalized conceptions of "terror" (through Linebaugh and Rediker's "The Many Headed Hydra" as a lense for the present) Michael Benton on the The Many-Headed Hydra
6) and Spike Lee's important film Bamboozled, what is the role of our corporate media in these problems: Spike Lee's Bamboozled and the Representation(s) of Race
7) Essentializing, blanket claims about any group of people, that are used to minimalize, discriminate and demonize are dangerous and irresponsible (because they incite fear, distrust, hatred and violence): this includes ones based on skin tone/color (dark/light, black, brown, red, yellow and, yes, white), age (young/old), gender, sexuality, class, region, profession, faith/non-faith, politics, nationalism, etc..... These type of statements/claims are a sure sign that the speaker/writer is not seeking discourse or understanding, rather, they are being dismissive and seek to divide people/communities.
8) Just a lighthearted video (although some will no doubt be offended by the position) attempting to poke fun at our investment in notions of superiority over other beings.
[note on this last video, LW would like to make the objection that we are not monkeys, we are apes -- duly noted]
Michael Benton: Reflections on the Lexington Town Hall Meeting (North of Center)
I'm currently writing a newspaper article on the verdict, my community's responses, and race in America. So I just want to compile a few reflections right now and I will return with a more complete written response in the near future.
1)I'm tired of people trying to defend Zimmerman as some kind of benign "neighborhood watch" citizen who was frightened by a young boy. This does not seem to match up with his prior public written statements: Zimmerman’s Old Myspace Account Reveals Racist, Sexist, Violent Behavior
2) I am extremely frustrated that Americans are unable or unwilling to recognize "institutional racism" in America. Any person who is not mentally disabled, who believes that institutional racism is not real is either: (a) trapped in a highly selective solipsistic media feedback loop that keeps them directed/distracted away from reality or (b) they are intentionally trying to inflame racial tensions by denying the racist realities of our society.
I think Martin Bashir provides us with a clear, relelvant example of 2a:
I think this short video refers to some important questions in regards to 2b:
3) This all led me to revisiting/rethinking earlier studies/research into how the fantasies of racial difference are used to divide working people in the interest of a dominant elite: Theodore W. Allen: The Invention of the White Race
4) This led me back to a powerful California Newsreel documentary called Race: The Power of an Illusion
5) and my attempt to understand the manipulation of racialized fears (of the other) through globalized conceptions of "terror" (through Linebaugh and Rediker's "The Many Headed Hydra" as a lense for the present) Michael Benton on the The Many-Headed Hydra
6) and Spike Lee's important film Bamboozled, what is the role of our corporate media in these problems: Spike Lee's Bamboozled and the Representation(s) of Race
7) Essentializing, blanket claims about any group of people, that are used to minimalize, discriminate and demonize are dangerous and irresponsible (because they incite fear, distrust, hatred and violence): this includes ones based on skin tone/color (dark/light, black, brown, red, yellow and, yes, white), age (young/old), gender, sexuality, class, region, profession, faith/non-faith, politics, nationalism, etc..... These type of statements/claims are a sure sign that the speaker/writer is not seeking discourse or understanding, rather, they are being dismissive and seek to divide people/communities.
8) Just a lighthearted video (although some will no doubt be offended by the position) attempting to poke fun at our investment in notions of superiority over other beings.
[note on this last video, LW would like to make the objection that we are not monkeys, we are apes -- duly noted]
Michael Benton: Reflections on the Lexington Town Hall Meeting (North of Center)
Monday, July 15, 2013
Law and Disorder Radio -- Scott Horton: Secret Federal FISA Court Advocate of National Security State; Left Forum 2013: Ron Reosti
Law and Disorder Radio
Secret Federal FISA Court Advocate of National Security State
Here on Law and Disorder we’ve discussed the process of the US government expanding its power to get wiretapping permission from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court or FISA court. This is under a provision called section 215 of the Patriot Act which if listeners might recall was set to expire in 2009. It did not. We discussed how the FISA court will be accessed by what’s called Lone Wolf Authority or National Security Letter Authority whereby the FBI can write a letter to the court without suspicion of terrorism and get bank, telephone and internet records.
The 11-member FISA Court has been central to allowing a massive surveillance state to exist by granting US agencies such as the NSA access to private telecommunication data. Today, the FISA court essentially operates as an advocate for the national security state. It’s judicial oversight now parallels the Supreme Court. But more troubling, these FISA Court Justices operate in complete secrecy and base their decisions from hearing only one side the argument, the US government’s.
Guest – Scott Horton, human rights lawyer and contributing editor to Harper’s Magazine. Scott’s column – No Comment. He graduated Texas Law School in Austin with a JD and was a partner in a large New York law firm, Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler.
Left Forum 2013: Ron Reosti
Capitalists are not necessary to run firms, nor to run macro-economies and investment says Ron Reosti in his presentation at the Left Forum Panel titled Imagine Living In A Socialist USA, Part 2: Making The American Socialist Revolution.
Speaker – Ron Reosti, his Italian parents imparted to him a working-class identity, a sense of social justice, a belief in the possibility of social change, a commitment to democracy, and a hatred of the undemocratic ruling class. He embraced socialism in his early teens, during the McCarthy era, and has remained committed to that vision. He practices law and is part of the radical community in Detroit.
To Listen to the Episode
Secret Federal FISA Court Advocate of National Security State
Here on Law and Disorder we’ve discussed the process of the US government expanding its power to get wiretapping permission from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court or FISA court. This is under a provision called section 215 of the Patriot Act which if listeners might recall was set to expire in 2009. It did not. We discussed how the FISA court will be accessed by what’s called Lone Wolf Authority or National Security Letter Authority whereby the FBI can write a letter to the court without suspicion of terrorism and get bank, telephone and internet records.
The 11-member FISA Court has been central to allowing a massive surveillance state to exist by granting US agencies such as the NSA access to private telecommunication data. Today, the FISA court essentially operates as an advocate for the national security state. It’s judicial oversight now parallels the Supreme Court. But more troubling, these FISA Court Justices operate in complete secrecy and base their decisions from hearing only one side the argument, the US government’s.
Guest – Scott Horton, human rights lawyer and contributing editor to Harper’s Magazine. Scott’s column – No Comment. He graduated Texas Law School in Austin with a JD and was a partner in a large New York law firm, Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler.
Left Forum 2013: Ron Reosti
Capitalists are not necessary to run firms, nor to run macro-economies and investment says Ron Reosti in his presentation at the Left Forum Panel titled Imagine Living In A Socialist USA, Part 2: Making The American Socialist Revolution.
Speaker – Ron Reosti, his Italian parents imparted to him a working-class identity, a sense of social justice, a belief in the possibility of social change, a commitment to democracy, and a hatred of the undemocratic ruling class. He embraced socialism in his early teens, during the McCarthy era, and has remained committed to that vision. He practices law and is part of the radical community in Detroit.
To Listen to the Episode
Lannan Podcasts: Eduardo Galeano with Marie Arana
Eduardo Galeano with Marie Arana
Lannan Podcasts
Eduardo Galeano, born in Montevideo, Uruguay, in 1940 is an essayist, journalist, historian, and activist, as well as one of Latin America’s most beloved literary figures. Galeano's books include the trilogy Memory of Fire; The Book of Embraces; We Say No; Walking Words; and Mirrors: Stories of Almost Everyone. His newest book, Children of the Days (Los híjos de los días), is forthcoming in English in April 2013. An outspoken critic of the increasingly dehumanizing effects of globalization on modern society, Galeano has remained a passionate advocate for human rights and justice.
Galeano, who received the first Lannan Prize for Cultural Freedom in 1999, has said, "I'm trying to create a synthesis of all different ways of expressing life and reality…I tried to find a way of recounting history so that the reader would feel that it was happening right now, just around the corner—this immediacy, this intensity, which is the beauty and the reality of history."
To Watch the Conversation
Lannan Podcasts
Eduardo Galeano, born in Montevideo, Uruguay, in 1940 is an essayist, journalist, historian, and activist, as well as one of Latin America’s most beloved literary figures. Galeano's books include the trilogy Memory of Fire; The Book of Embraces; We Say No; Walking Words; and Mirrors: Stories of Almost Everyone. His newest book, Children of the Days (Los híjos de los días), is forthcoming in English in April 2013. An outspoken critic of the increasingly dehumanizing effects of globalization on modern society, Galeano has remained a passionate advocate for human rights and justice.
Galeano, who received the first Lannan Prize for Cultural Freedom in 1999, has said, "I'm trying to create a synthesis of all different ways of expressing life and reality…I tried to find a way of recounting history so that the reader would feel that it was happening right now, just around the corner—this immediacy, this intensity, which is the beauty and the reality of history."
To Watch the Conversation
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