Clearing the FOG with co-hosts Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese

At the beginning of the year, 2014 was called “the year that everything changed,” and indeed it has been a turning point for a number of resistance movements in the United States. We look back over the past 12 months and discuss some of the highlights and ways that movements made connections and worked together towards building the necessary ‘movement of movements’. We use a roundtable format for the hour. Our guests are Sandy Nurse, an activist in New York City who runs the composting business called BK ROT; Cassidy Regan, an activist in Baltimore who works on a number of fronts including militarism and trade agreements; and Tarak Kauff, an activist from Woodstock, NY who is on the board of Veterans for Peace and is active on environmental issues, militarism, racial justice and incarceration. For more information, visit www.ClearingtheFOGRadio.org.

Direct download: CtF_Show_119_Year_Review.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 6:28pm EDT

The Senate Intelligence Committee report on the CIA's torture program was released last week and it demonstrates both that the US used torture methods during interrogation which led to deaths in some cases and that torture was ineffective in obtaining necessary information. The Obama administration worked to suppress and censor the report; and following its release Obama announced that there will be no investigation of those involved in the program. The United Nations disagrees and UN Rapporteur Ben Emmerson is calling for prosecution up to the highest level of office. In addition, the UN has criticized the use of solitary confinement in the US as a domestic form of torture and suggests that it be banned. To discuss the report and the implications of this lack of accountability, we speak with Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights and Jeremy Varon of Witness Against Torture. For more information, visitwww.ClearingtheFOGRadio.org.

Direct download: CtF_Show_118_Torture_Report.mp3
Category:News Commentary -- posted at: 3:26pm EDT

The COP 20 talks have just concluded in Lima, Peru and now eyes are turning to the next treaty expected to be signed in Paris in December, 2015. So far, the United Nations’ COP process has failed to produce a meaningful agreement to address the climate crisis and to achieve climate justice. The United States has been a great obstacle to progress. And the UN talks have essentially devolved into another tool for commodifying the Earth and pushing a neo-liberal economic agenda. We speak with Brian Tokar, author of the newly-revised “Toward Climate Justice: Perspectives on the Climate Crisis and Social Change” about new organizing and a new framework that are pushing for real solutions to the climate crisis. We also speak with Karen Orenstein of Friends of the Earth about the Lima talks and how the Paris Treaty is shaping up. For more information, visit www.ClearingtheFOGRadio.org.

Direct download: CtF_Show_117_Climate_talks.mp3
Category:News Commentary -- posted at: 3:02pm EDT

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