Show Details for April 27th, 2008

This week’s guests:

– NORMAN FINKELSTEIN on Israel and the “anti-Semite” label

— ROBERT MEEROPOL, son of Julius & Ethel Rosenberg, talks about political dissent, during the McCarthy era and now

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- NORMAN FINKELSTEIN on Israel and the “anti-Semite” label

Author NORMAN FINKELSTEIN is our first guest tonight. He will be talking with Monitor co-host Mark Bebawi.

He will discuss some little-known aspects of Israel, and the Holocaust Industry (title of one of his five books). He will also discuss how he has been called an anti-Semite because of his views, and how that label is used to intimidate and to end dialogs.

Dr. Finkelstein’s parents survived the Warsaw Ghetto, Maidanek concentration camp and Warsaw Ghetto, Auschwitz concentration camp.

In 2005, Finkelstein was the presenter for an hour-long documentary (“The Final Insult”) based on The Holocaust Industry, to be broadcast in the United Kingdom. He is also the subject of several independent film documentaries currently in production. In 2003 he was the keynote speaker on the main panel at the Rome Historical Book Fair and was a guest on Europe’s main television news hour, the Sabine Christiansen show.

Norman G. Finkelstein received his doctorate in 1988 from the Department of Politics, Princeton University. He was born in Brooklyn, N.Y. in 1953.

BOOKS:

Beyond Chutzpah: On the misuse of anti-Semitism and the abuse of history (University of California Press, 2005)

The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the exploitation of Jewish suffering (Verso, second edition, 2003)

WEBSITE:
http://www.normanfinkelstein.com

ROBERT MEEROPOL, son of Julius & Ethel Rosenberg, talks about political dissent, during the McCarthy era and now

In 1953, the U.S. government issued one of the most controversial death sentences in history when it sent Julius & Ethel Rosenberg to the electric chair for conspiracy to commit espionage (under suspicion of being KGB spies.)

Tonight’s Monitor guest host, Dr. Seema Jilani, will be interviewing ROBERT MEEROPOL, the younger son of the Rosenbergs. He lived in anonymity for years, but has now founded The Rosenberg Fund for Children, which supports targeted activists & their children. With the climate of McCarthyism rearing its ugly head again, and in a climate of fear of political dissent, the Rosenberg case has never been so relevant, with respect to the preservation of our civil rights. I’ll also be interviewing the Rosenbergs’ grandchildren, who remain civil rights advocates.

In 1953, when he was six years old, the United States Government executed Robert Meeropol’s parents for “conspiring to steal the secret of the atomic bomb.” In the 1970’s he and his brother, Michael successfully sued the FBI and CIA to force the release of 300,000 previously secret documents about their parents. He earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in anthropology from the University of Michigan, graduated law school in 1985. In 1990 he left private law practice to found the Rosenberg Fund for Children and now serves as its Executive Director. The Fund provides for the educational and emotional needs of both targeted activist youth and children in this country whose parents have been harassed, injured, jailed, lost jobs or died in the course of their progressive activities. In its 18-year history, the Fund has awarded $3 million in grants to benefit hundreds of children.

Robert Meeropol’s memoir, “An Execution in the Family,” was published on the 50th anniversary of his parents’ executions. The book details his odyssey from Rosenberg son to political activist and leader of the Rosenberg Fund for Children.

Currently, Rachel Meeropol, the granddaughter of the Rosenbergs, is lead counsel in the case of Turkmen v. Ashcroft, filed on behalf of a class of Muslim, South Asian, and Arab non-citizens who were swept up by the INS and FBI in a racial profiling dragnet following 9/11. She is working with the Center for Constitutional Rights.

WEBSITES:

Rosenberg Fund for Children — www.rfc.org

Center for Constitutional Rights — http://www.ccrjustice.org/

TONIGHT’S MONITOR GUEST HOST, Dr. Seema Jilani:

Dr. Seema Jilani earned her medical degree from Baylor College of Medicine in 2006 and is currently pursuing a residency in Pediatrics. She has been a reporter for Pacifica radio and KPFT in Houston for seven years. She traveled to Israel and the Occupied Territories in 2005 with the Jewish American Medical Project, which is an organization that aims to promote peace in the Middle East through healthcare and counseling. Dr. Jilani’s radio documentary on her trip to the Middle East, “Israel and Palestine: The Human Cost of the Occupation,” was nominated for the prestigious George Foster Peabody Award in 2007. Dr. Jilani has consistently concentrated on health and human rights issues around the world and has also traveled to Sudan with a medical relief team.

Dr. Jilani has also reported on Gulf War Syndrome in returning US Veterans, the humanitarian crisis in Iraq, the Republican National Convention Protests in NYC and the government-mandated closure of ethnic charitable organizations after 9/11. Her next project will be in November 2008, when she will be working in a hospital in Cairo, Egypt and traveling to Beirut, where she will also be reporting for Pacifica Radio. Following this endeavor, she will travel to Bosnia, Croatia and Montenegro in June 2009, where she will produce a radio documentary of the state of post-conflict Balkans and its healthcare repercussions. Also in 2009, she will be reporting from, and working at a Pediatric HIV/AIDS clinic in Lesotho, South Africa funded by Baylor College of Medicine.

The New York Times exposes manipulative DoD propaganda racket

It is not often the corporate media does good work. Here is a rare example…

From Crooks and Liars – If you don’t already visit that site a lot you should make it a regular part of your online diet!

By: SilentPatriot on Sunday, April 20th, 2008 at 6:30 AM

Through newly obtained internal documents, The New York Times has uncovered an elaborate PR campaign run by the Pentagon that coached former military officials — or as they’re known on television, Serious Independent Military Experts — on how best to shill for Donald Rumsfeld during the fallout from the “General’s Revolt,” when numerous high-ranking retired Generals broke long standing tradition and began speaking out harshly against the former Secretary and his prosecution of the War in Iraq.

Download | Play Download | Play YouTube (h/t Bill W)

The full article is lengthy at 11 pages, but it’s a stellar exposé of how politicized, coordinated and deceitful the media campaign is under Bush. With the assistance of Peter Pace, Rumsfeld would literally convene meetings with former military brass — who, according to the article, consisted of “more than 150 military contractors either as lobbyists, senior executives, board members or consultants” — and conspire on how best to manage the press. Worse still, these compromised soldiers would then manipulatively go on television as Serious Independent Experts to parrot administration talking points and secure lucrative defense contracts. The Military-Industrial Complex is not alive and well, but thriving under the auspices of the Bush administration.

Kenneth Allard, a former NBC military analyst who has taught information warfare at the National Defense University, said the campaign amounted to a sophisticated information operation. “This was a coherent, active policy,” he said. […] It was, he said, “psyops on steroids”

And it wasn’t limited to the mainstream media alone. Bloggers were also hired and paid to shape opinions at home. But don’t be surprised Sunday when this story is neglected in favor of endless discussions about bowling scores and various other “distractions.”

After all, the media would much rather focus on what makes a candidate an elitist than note that the Bush administration, — with their complicity — enthusiastically engaged in a psyops campaign against the American people.

And this excerpt about Bill O’Reilly that really caught my eye:

It’s official. Bill O’Reilly is a tool.

Show Details for April 20th, 2008

This week’s Guests:

– SAM PIZZIGATI on inequality — is it enough to make us sick?

— Law Professor MARJORIE COHN– who said what on torture policy?

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- SAM PIZZIGATI on inequality — is it enough to make us sick?

Monitor co-host Pokey Anderson’s guest tonight is SAM PIZZIGATI.  We’ll talk about economic inequality and its unexpected effects on the health of rich, poor and in-between in an inequal society.  Studies across developed countries, US states, and US cities are showing that areas with smaller gaps between rich and poor have better health than areas where the gap is larger.  In fact, even if the absolute economic standard of living is higher in an area, it may fare worse than an area with less overall wealth but more equality.

“By all rights, the United States ought to be the healthiest place in the world.  The United States spends more money to keep people healthy — over $1 trillion annually — than any other nation on the face of the globe.  Americans make up less than 5 percent of the world’s population, yet our medical bills add up to 42 percent of what the world spends on health care…. In 2001, Americans occupied the 25th rung in the world’s health ratings.” — Sam Pizzigati writes in Greed and Good, pp. 316

As economic inequality grows worse in this country, and access to health care becomes increasingly tenuous for people without means, Sam points us to studies that show the inequality hurts everyone’s health.

We’ll also discuss what the presidential campaigns SHOULD be talking about regarding the economy, and examine who the economic advisors are for John McCain, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

Sam Pizzigati is editor of an online weekly,”Too Much: A Commentary on Excess and Inequality.” A labor journalist for over two decades, he is currently Associate Fellow, Institute for Policy Studies, in Washington, D.C.

His most recent book, Greed and Good: Understanding and Overcoming the Inequality that Limits Our Lives, was an American Library Association “outstanding title” of the year (Choice, January 2006).  He has served on the boards of directors of Progressive Maryland, the state’s most respected voice for working families, and United for a Fair Economy, the Boston-based national economic justice advocacy group.

ARTICLE:
“John McCain’s New Economic Advisor Is an ‘Innovator’ at Hurting Workers”
By Sam Pizzigati
April 10, 2008
AlterNet
http://www.alternet.org/election08/81927

RELATED ARTICLE:
“Inequality: Bad for Your Health”
An interview with social epidemiologist Ichiro Kawachi
Dollars & Sense magazine
January/February 2008

BLOG:
“Too Much: A Commentary on Excess and Inequality” –http://www.toomuchonline.org
“Dedicated to the notion that our world would be considerably more
caring, prosperous, and democratic if we narrowed the vast gap
that divides our wealthy from everyone else.”

QUOTE:

“British epidemiologist Richard Wilkinson, in a powerful 1996 book, ‘Unhealthy Societies: The Afflictions of Inequality,’ would collect this mounting international evidence for ‘a strong relationship’ between income distribution and mortality.  ‘In the developed world,’ he would conclude, ‘it is not the richest countries which have the best health, but the most egalitarian.’  This conclusion, noted Wilkinson, rested on a wide and deep pool of research data.

Some ‘eight different groups of researchers,’ working on ‘ten separate sets of data,’ had clearly demonstrated linkages between national mortality rates and income inequality. Investigators would find the same relationships between inequality and death rates when they compared states within the United States. …

In states with greater inequality, all people, from a health standpoint, appeared worse off.” Researchers also examined 282 official metro areas in the U.S.  “Their finding: The more unequal a metropolitan area, the higher the area’s death rate is likely to be.” — Greed and Good, by Sam Pizzigati, pp. 314-315

BOOK by Sam Pizzigati:
Greed and Good: Understanding and Overcoming the Inequality that Limits Our Lives

– Law Professor MARJORIE COHN — who said what on torture policy?

Law professor MARJORIE COHN is a frequent legal analyst on The Monitor. She and Monitor co-host Mark Bebawi will discuss the US policy of torture — who discussed it, who approved it? What laws apply? And, they’ll look at central figure John Yoo.  The National Lawyers Guild and the Center for Constitutional Rights have called for Yoo to be fired from his job teaching law at the prestigious University of California law school in Berkeley.

Professor Cohn is the President of the National Lawyers Guild, and is a professor of law at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, where she teaches criminal law and procedure, evidence, and international human rights law.

Her recent book is entitled “Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law.”
She lectures throughout the world on international human rights and US foreign policy. Professor Cohn has written columns for the Los Angeles Daily Journal and the San Francisco Daily Journal, is a news consultant for CBS News, and a legal analyst for Court TV. She has provided legal and political commentary on BBC, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, NPR, Truthout, and Pacifica Radio.

ARTICLES:
Top Bush Aides Pushed for Guantánamo Torture
By Richard Norton-Taylor
The Guardian UK
Saturday 19 April 2008
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/041908Z.shtml

NATIONAL LAWYERS GUILD CALLS ON BOALT HALL
TO DISMISS LAW PROFESSOR JOHN YOO,
WHOSE TORTURE MEMOS LED TO COMMISSION OF WAR CRIMES
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
http://nlg.org/news/index.php?entry=entry080409-083133

Center for Constitutional Rights Supports
National Lawyers Guild Call for
Dismissal and Prosecution of John Yoo
by Marjorie Cohn
April 17, 2008
CommonDreams.org
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/17/8342/

QUOTE from Marjorie’s above article:

ABC News reported last week that Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, George Tenet, and John Ashcroft met in the White House and micromanaged the torture of terrorism suspects by approving specific torture techniques such as waterboarding. George W. Bush, the decider-in-chief, admitted, “yes, I’m aware our national security team met on this issue. And I approved.”

These top U.S. officials are liable for war crimes under the U.S. War Crimes Act, and for violation of the Convention Against Torture and the Geneva Conventions, which are all part of U.S. law. They ordered the torture which was carried out by the interrogators.

But John Yoo and the other Justice Department lawyers, including David Addington, Jay Bybee, William Haynes and Alberto Gonzales, are also liable for the same offenses.

WEBSITE:
http://marjoriecohn.com

BOOK:
“Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law”
The six ways: illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq; the policy of
torture; war crimes; Guantanamo’s kangaroo courts; unconstitutional laws; and the
unlawful surveillance of American citizens.

Minority Report – coming to a town near you!

I mentioned on the air this week a couple of articles on a new program to read minds and arrest “criminals” before they commit a crime. The 1st article is from the Guardian about a year ago: here

Now the Bush admin’s plan to use the technology in the Washington Post:

Show Details for April 13th, 2008

This week’s Guests:

– Historian GARETH PORTER on Iran, Iraq and US policy

— BRAD FRIEDMAN with breaking news in vote-counting machinery

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- Historian GARETH PORTER on Iran, Iraq and US policy

Our first guest tonight is Gareth Porter, an investigative historian and journalist who writes on U.S. national security policy. Mark Bebawi will talk with him about Iran, Iraq, US policy and the idea of a proxy war.

Dr. Porter has written regularly for Inter Press Service on U.S. policy toward Iraq and Iran since 2005. He was the first journalist to provide a detailed account of the alleged secret Iranian diplomatic proposal to the United States in 2003 and debunked the Bush administration’s claim that Iran has been providing explosively formed penetrators to Iraqi militiamen.

He taught international studies at City College of New York and American University. He holds a master’s degree in international politics from the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. in Southeast Asian politics from Cornell University. During the Vietnam War, he served as Saigon Bureau Chief for Dispatch News Service International.

The paperback edition of Dr. Porter’s latest book, “Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam”, was published in 2006.

Articles:
“Petraeus Testimony to Defend False ‘Proxy War’ Line”
by Gareth Porter
IPS
April 7, 2008
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=41886

“Dissenting Views Made Fallon’s Fall Inevitable”
by Gareth Porter
IPS
March 11, 2008
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=41559

Quote:
“Based on preliminary indications of his spin on the surprisingly effective armed resistance to the joint U.S.-Iraqi ‘Operation Knights Assault’ in Basra, Petraeus will testify that it was caused by Iran through a group of rogue militiamen who had split off from Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army and came under Iranian control. …Iran has no reason to look for a small splinter group to advance its interests when it already enjoys a relationship of strategic cooperation with the [Iraqi] government itself. …The interest of [the] Bush administration in keeping the ‘proxy war’ line alive has nothing to do with Iraqi realities. … As a strategic weapon for justifying the administration’s policies toward both Iraq and Iran, the theme of Iranian interference through ‘Special Groups’ is bound to be a central thread in the testimony [by Petreaus].”

BOOK:
“Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam”

– BRAD FRIEDMAN with breaking news in vote-counting machinery

BRAD FRIEDMAN is a frequent guest of The Monitor. He has staked out his own unique niche in the blogosphere, providing a potent mix of investigative journalism and biting humor. He is one of the leading sources of news on election reform issues at his blog, Bradblog.com

Monitor co-host Pokey Anderson will catch up with Brad about some of his recent top stories, including his exclusive story on a possible hostile takeover of one of the nation’s top 4 voting machine vendors, by one of the others. Specifically, this involves Sequoia as the target, with Hart InterCivic seeking to take it over.

Hart InterCivic is based in Austin and provides electronic voting machines for Houston, Austin, and many other areas in Texas and around the country. Hart is the subject of a new whistleblower lawsuit, which we’ll also discuss.

We’ll also look at the allegations of election theft put forth by former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman, who wrote that not only did it happen, but major media have avoided revealing his allegations:
“I mention the vote stealing in every interview. 60 Minutes cut it out. Don Abrams didn’t want to go there either. I have told the story to the Washington Post and LA Times.”

WEBSITE:
Brad Blog — www.bradblog.com

ARTICLES:
“EXCLUSIVE: Hart InterCivic Attempts Hostile Takeover of Sequoia Voting Systems”
By Brad Friedman
Thursday, April 10, 2008
BRAD BLOG:
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5885

“EXCLUSIVE: Federal Fraud Complaint Against Voting Machine Company Unsealed”
After Two Years, the Qui Tam Suit Against Hart InterCivic, Brought by Whistleblower William Singer May Proceed After DoJ Declines to Join Case
By Brad Friedman
March 27, 2008
BRAD BLOG
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5847

Show Details for April 6th, 2008

This week’s Guests:

– Journalist LOU DUBOSE on his book with Molly Ivins on the Bill of Rights

— Musician HANK WOJI live in the studio, with new music

(Three ways to listen — see below)

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Journalist LOU DUBOSE on his book with Molly Ivins on the Bill of Rights

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Photo by Jana Birchum

LOU DUBOSE is a veteran Texas journalist. Monitor co-host Pokey Anderson will talk with him about the book he co-wrote with Molly Ivins about a subject she was passionate on, the Bill of Rights.

And, because we miss Molly, we’ll play a couple of short clips of Molly as well.

Ann Richards and Molly Ivins

Bill of Wrongs: The Executive Branch’s Assault Against America’s Fundamental Rights is an unblinking look at the dangers to the Constitution, but at the same time is a celebration of the lengths ordinary Americans will go to, to protect their rights under the Constitution.

Lou Dubose is a former Texas Observer editor, and former politics editor of the Austin Chronicle. He has also written books on George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, and Tom DeLay. Based in Austin, he has written about Texas and national politics for thirty years.

BOOKS by LOU DUBOSE:

Bill of Wrongs: The Executive Branch’s Assault Against America’s Fundamental Rights (co-written with Molly Ivins)

Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency (co-written with Jake Bernstein)

The Hammer Comes Down: The Nasty, Brutish, and Shortened Political Life of Tom DeLay (co-written with Jan Reid)

Shrub : The Short but Happy Political Life of George W. Bush (co-written with Molly Ivins)
Bushwhacked (co-written with Molly Ivins)

Boy Genius: Karl Rove, The Architect Of George W. Bush’s Remarkable Political Triumphs (co-written with Jan Reid and Carl M. Cannon)

– Musician HANK WOJI live in the studio, with new music

Monitor co-host Mark Bebawi’s guest tonight is musician HANK WOJI, live in the studio with us. He takes time out from recording his new album to share with us his new song, “Because We Spent Our Money on the War.”

Drawing comparisons to Arlo Guthrie and Cat Stevens, Hank was one of six Texas Regional Songwriters picked for recognition in the 2002 Kerrville Folk Festival New Folk Competition. He has received Honorable Mentions in the 2006 Woody Guthrie Folk Festival Songwriting Contest and the 2006 SongDoor International Songwriting Contest and in 2007 was chosen as a Finalist in both the South Florida Folk Festival Singer-Songwriter Competition and the Suwannee Springfest Songwriting Contest

An experienced musician, Hank now lives in Houston after many years playing in the NY/NJ metro area. His music combines elements of Folk, Blues, and Rock with Brasilian, Cuban, African and Indian rhythms.

HANK WOJI’S WEBSITES:
http://www.hankwoji.com
My Space: http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=210216542