Between The Lines

Announcements

Award-winning Investigative Journalist Robert Parry (1949-2018)

Award-winning investigative journalist and founder/editor of ConsortiumNews.com, Robert Parry has passed away. His ground-breaking work uncovering Reagan-era dirty wars in Central America and many other illegal and immoral policies conducted by successive administrations and U.S. intelligence agencies, stands as an inspiration to all in journalists working in the public interest.

Robert had been a regular guest on our Between The Lines and Counterpoint radio shows -- and many other progressive outlets across the U.S. over four decades.

His penetrating analysis of U.S. foreign policy and international conflicts will be sorely missed, and not easily replaced. His son Nat Parry writes a tribute to his father: Robert Parry’s Legacy and the Future of Consortiumnews.

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The Resistance Starts Now!

Between The Lines' coverage and resource compilation of the Resistance Movement

"The man who predicted Trump presidential win now says Trump impeachment could happen," AM Joy with Joy Reid, MSNBC, Jan. 21, 2018
"Sketchy Kazakh money finds its way into Trump dealings," The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC, Jan. 15, 2018
"Red flags seen in many Trump real estate deals," The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC, Jan. 15, 2018
"Secret Money: How Trump Made Millions Selling Condos To Unknown Buyers," BuzzFeed, Jan. 12, 2018
"The Scandals of Donald Trump: Presidential Edition," The Atlantic, May 15, 2017
"Here's what we know so far about Team Trump's ties to Russian interests," Washington Post's ongoing compilation
"What Comey Was Investigating, Explained," The Moscow Project, Center for American Progress

"Donald Trump's Financial Ties to Russian Oligarchs and Mobsters Detailed In Explosive New Documentary from the Netherlands," Dutch TV documentary, Alternet.org, May 12, 2017
Ongoing compilation of Trump's creeping authoritarianism," MotherJones.com
Full resource list ...

SPECIAL REPORT: "The Resistance - Women's March 2018 - Hartford, Connecticut" Jan. 20, 2018

Selected speeches from the Women's March in Hartford, Connecticut 2018, recorded and produced by Scott Harris

SPECIAL REPORT: "No Fracking Waste in CT!" Jan. 14, 2018

Jen Siskind Jennifer Siskind, local coordinator for Food and Water Watch, describes the campaign to stop fracking waste in Connecticut, which so far has led to fracking waste bans in 34 towns around the state. Interviewed by Richard Hill on Mic Check, WPKN Radio, Bridgeport, CT

SPECIAL REPORT: "Resistance Round Table: The Unraveling Continues..." Jan. 13, 2018

Lindsay Kanaly The panel discusses Trump's long history of racism and the Republican voter suppression juggernaut confronting Democrats leading up to the 2018 elections. Special guest: Lindsay Kanaly, a lead organizer of the Women's Marches planned for Jan. 20, 2018. Panel: Scott Harris, Ruthanne Baumgartner and Richard Hill on Resistance Roundtable, WPKN Radio, Bridgeport, CT.

SPECIAL REPORT: "Capitalism to the ash heap?" Richard Wolff, Jan. 2, 2018

Richard Wolff, Economics professor Richard Wolff declares U.S. capitalism to be beyond repair and suggests the need for a radical alternative. Interviewed by Richard Hill

SPECIAL REPORT: Maryn McKenna, author of "Big Chicken", Dec. 7, 2017

Maryn McKenna, investigative journalist and author of Big Chicken, talks about the widespread use and dangers of antibiotics in commercial poultry, beef and fruit production. Interview by Bill Duesing, Richard Hill and Guy Beardsly on WPKN's Organic Farm Stand.

SPECIAL REPORT: Nina Turner's address, Working Families Party Awards Banquet, Dec. 14, 2017

Nina Turner, president of Our Revolution, talks about the fight ahead for progressives as she receives the Working Families Organization Award for Exceptional Leadership Towards Advancing Progress. The event was held in Meriden, CT. Produced by Richard Hill.

SPECIAL REPORT: Mic Check, Dec. 12, 2017

Working Families Party of CT talks strategy and issues for 2018.
Lindsay Farrell, executive director of the Working Families Party of Connecticut, discusses the state's electoral landscape and lays out the issues and strategies that could lead to progressive victories in 2018. Interviewed by Richard Hill.

SPECIAL REPORT: Resistance Roundtable, Dec. 9, 2017

Disturbing developments in the Trump/Republican Agenda
Focus on the tax bill, destruction of our public lands, North Korea and Trump's private CIA. Panel: Scott Harris, Ruthanne Baumgartner and Richard Hill. Special guest: Jo Macallero of Rise and Resist.

SPECIAL REPORT: On Tyranny - one year later, Nov. 28, 2017

Professor Timothy Snyder, author of the highly acclaimed resistance manual On Tyranny, discusses his book and offers a fresh assessment of the state of our beleaguered republic. Timothy Snyder, history professor at Yale, is introduced by Stanley Heller, administrator of Promoting Enduring Peace, a Connecticut-based organization that sponsored this event at the United Church Parish House in New Haven on Nov. 28. A brief interview with Snyder conducted by WPKN radio producer, Richard Hill, follows his talk.

SPECIAL REPORT: Mic Check, Nov. 12, 2017

Lynne Ide, director of program and policy with the Universal Health Care Foundation of Connecticut, talks about the current state of health care coverage in Connecticut. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Resistance Roundtable, Nov. 11, 2017

Focus on the Republican tax plan, the just-released autopsy on the Democratic Party, and Internet censorship by Google, Facebook and Youtube. Including an interview with Hilary Grant, a lead organizer with Action Together Connecticut, who discusses the local results of the recent election, with hosts Richard Hill, Scott Harris and Ruth Baumgartner WPKN producers

SPECIAL REPORT: Rainy Day Radio, Nov. 7, 2017

Two leaders from Redneck Revolt, an anti-racist, anti-capitalist movement, talk about their work organizing with white working class people in Suffolk County, New York. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Rainy Day Radio, Nov. 7, 2017

Bruce Gagnon, coordinator for the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, describes the extent of -- and motives underlying -- the vast US network of military bases around the globe. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Resisting U.S. JeJu Island military base in South Korea, Oct. 24, 2017

Joyakol, South Korean peace activist and singer, discusses the crisis on the Korean peninsula and focuses on the resistance to the U.S. huge military base being constructed on Jeju Island. The event was sponsored by the Greater New Haven Peace Council and this audio was recorded by Richard Hill, WPKN producer.
Joyakol discusses Americans' biggest misconceptions about the conflict between North and South Korea and the U.S., Interview by Richard Hill, WPKN producer.

SPECIAL REPORT: John Allen, Out in New Haven

John Allen, founding director of the New Haven Pride Center, Connecticut, talks about his new LGBTQ television show, Out in New Haven, which presents a range of political and cultural issues to the community. Interviewed by Richard Hill on WPKN's Rainy Day Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2018.

2017 Gandhi Peace Awards

Promoting Enduring Peace presented its Gandhi Peace Award jointly to renowned consumer advocate Ralph Nader and BDS founder Omar Barghouti on April 23, 2017.

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THANK YOU TO EVERYONE...

who helped make our 25th anniversary with Jeremy Scahill a success!

For those who missed the event, or were there and really wanted to fully absorb its import, here it is in video

Jeremy Scahill keynote speech, part 1 from PROUDEYEMEDIA on Vimeo.

Jeremy Scahill keynote speech, part 2 from PROUDEYEMEDIA on Vimeo.

Between The Lines on Stitcher

Between The Lines Presentation at the Left Forum 2016

"How Do We Build A Mass Movement to Reverse Runaway Inequality?" with Les Leopold, author of "Runaway Inequality: An Activist's Guide to Economic Justice,"May 22, 2016, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, The City University of New York, 860 11th Ave. (Between 58th and 59th), New York City. Between The Lines' Scott Harris and Richard Hill moderated this workshop. Listen to the audio/slideshows and more from this workshop.

Listen to audio of the plenary sessions from the weekend.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker "Dirty Wars"

Listen to the full interview (30:33) with Jeremy Scahill, an award-winning investigative journalist with the Nation Magazine, correspondent for Democracy Now! and author of the bestselling book, "Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army," about America's outsourcing of its military. In an exclusive interview with Counterpoint's Scott Harris on Sept. 16, 2013, Scahill talks about his latest book, "Dirty Wars, The World is a Battlefield," also made into a documentary film under the same title, and was nominated Dec. 5, 2013 for an Academy Award in the Best Documentary Feature category.

Listen to Scott Harris Live on WPKN Radio

Between The Lines' Executive Producer Scott Harris hosts a live, weekly talk show, Counterpoint, from which some of Between The Lines' interviews are excerpted. Listen every Monday evening from 8 to 10 p.m. EDT at www.WPKN.org (Follows the 5-7 minute White Rose Calendar.)

Counterpoint in its entirety is archived after midnight ET Monday nights, and is available for at least a year following broadcast in WPKN Radio's Archives.

You can also listen to full unedited interview segments from Counterpoint, which are generally available some time the day following broadcast.

Subscribe to Counterpoint bulletins via our subscriptions page.

BTL Blog

"The Rogue World Order: Connecting the Dots Between Trump, Flynn, Bannon, Spencer, Dugin Putin," by Anna Manzo (GlobalHealing), Daily Kos, Feb. 13, 2017

"Widespread Resistance Begins to Trump's Muslim Travel Ban at U.S. Airports," by Anna Manzo (GlobalHealing), Daily Kos, Jan. 28, 2017

"MSNBC Editor: Women's March is a Revival of the Progressive Movement," by Anna Manzo (GlobalHealing), Daily Kos, Jan. 24, 2017

"Cornering Trump," by Reginald Johnson, Jan. 19, 2017

"Free Leonard Peltier," by Reginald Johnson, Jan. 6, 2016

"For Natives, a "Day of Mourning"by Reginald Johnson, November 23, 2016

"A Bitter Harvest" by Reginald Johnson, Nov. 15, 2016

Special Programming

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Progressive Resources

A compilation of activist and news sites with a progressive point of view

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Groups Raise Funds to Launch U.S.-Gaza Aid Ship

Real Audio MP3

Interview with Nada Khader, executive director of WESPAC, conducted by Melinda Tuhus

gazaboat Across the U.S., funds are now being raised for a group calling itself "U.S. Boat to Gaza," which is seeking $370,000 over the next month to purchase a ship that will challenge the Israeli blockade and bring material aid -- including construction supplies -- to Palestinians living in the besieged Gaza Strip. Although Israel has eased its blockade of Gaza in recent months, there are still severe limits on construction and raw materials allowed into the territory governed by the militant Hamas party.

The U.S. vessel is set to join a flotilla of other ships from Europe, Canada, India, South Africa and parts of the Middle East, and is due to set sail for Gaza this fall. U.S. organizers say their Gaza-bound ship will be named after President Obama's best-selling book, "The Audacity of Hope." This flotilla will sail the same route as the group of ships boarded and seized by Israeli commandos at the end of May, during which eight Turkish solidarity activists and one Turkish-American youth were killed.

In mid-September, southern New England activists sponsored a cruise on the Connecticut River to raise money for the "U.S. Boat to Gaza." as participants onboard the sunset cruise enjoyed a Middle Eastern buffet, Palestinian music and heard from three speakers. One was Nada Khader, a Palestinian-American who is the executive director of the WESPAC Foundation, a peace and justice action and educational network in New York. Khadar previously served as a consultant for the United Nations Development Program in the Gaza Strip. In her comments, she addressed the suffering of the people in Gaza and urged Americans to support the U.S. boat to Gaza.

NADA KHADER: Even in 1988, before the Second Intifada, before the election of Hamas into government, conditions were bad. I remember being invited to the Jabalya refugee camp and I was invited by the family to have some tea. And the tea in the Middle East is heavily sweetened, they like their sugar in their tea, and even with the sweetened tea, I could taste the salt in the tea, so the people are drinking salt water in Gaza, and the children's kidneys are damaged, and the elderly are damaged.

I was staying in an apartment in the nicest part of the Gaza Strip, in Gaza City. I was paying $500 a month to stay there. I had a view of the Mediterranean. I was on the fifth floor. The apartment was gorgeous, three bedrooms. I didn't need all that space, but when I would take my daily shower in the nicest residential area of Gaza, there was just a trickle of water coming out, and by the end of my five-week stay there, my hair was coming out in clumps and my face had all broken out. Even the local vendors and grocers were telling me -- even back in '98, going back 12 years -- certain items were not available. I could notice the people are not healthy; they're not eating the traditional Palestinian foods, which, a lot of it is plant-based. So when Israel and the U.S. and Egypt and the international community punish the people living in Gaza, they're mainly punishing children under 16, because the majority of the 1.5 million people who live there are children. So you see stunted children; you see very high rates of anemia. It's a very disturbing experience.

Also, the poverty -- poverty imposed not just by capitalism, but compounded by a brutal occupation and siege -- sights you wouldn't see in Palestine before...children who are left to their own means in the streets; poverty making people behave in ways they wouldn't ordinarily; Saudi money trying to come in and influence internal Palestinian politics; men who are deprived of their livelihoods and some of whom cannot navigate the brutality of occupation, so they take it out in the domestic zone -- higher rates of domestic violence. All these issues compounded; so it was a very, very difficult experience for me. And that was back in '98, before the Second Intifada, before the election of Hamas. After the election of Hamas, really the Gaza Strip was hermetically sealed. Even in '98, I remember crossing the Eretz Crossing, and what the Israelis have done is they've built a passageway with barbed wire. It was sort of what you see with cattle to walk through to get to their pasture. It looked like it was built for cattle, for cows, and that's where all these thousands of men had to wait every morning to see if they could get into Israel to get a job to feed their families.

So those are the memories I have, and now, as we all know, the situation is even worse. So that's why it's the responsibility of international civil society, since our governments are not doing the right thing, the onus is on ordinary people like you and me to do the right thing. I did speak with Laurie Arbeiter this morning, who is one of the main organizers of the U.S. Boat to Gaza. And I had some questions for her that I wanted to share with you. She said they are working closely with the Free Gaza Movement, with Adam Shapiro and Huwaida Arraf, who have been the ones organizing these boats to Gaza in the past. What makes this extra tricky is, they hope to be part of a flotilla with boats from other countries, so that means it's even more difficult to know when the exact timing of when this boat to Gaza will be, because these other countries have to raise the funds as well. The total amount of money needed is $370,000 to buy this boat. And this boat will carry 60 people, and space has to be reserved for the crew and for media, and, of course, for high-profile people, which is very crucial for this kind of organizing. So that means there might be anywhere from 25 to 40 slots remaining for ordinary people like you and me. The application will be going online in three or four weeks, but right now the push is for fundraising.

Visit the "U.S. Boat To Gaza" project's website at http://ustogaza.org This segment was recorded and produced by Between The Lines' Melinda Tuhus.