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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Israel's Expansion of West Bank Settlements Dooms Current Peace Talks

Real Audio MP3

Interview with Chris Toensing, editor of the Middle East Report, conducted by Melinda Tuhus

israel

The latest round of direct peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians began just a month ago and are now on hold because Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu let a partial one-time nine-month building freeze in the occupied West Bank expire. The Palestinians stated at the outset they would not continue negotiations unless the freeze is extended.

President Obama has promised millions of dollars in additional aid and more security guarantees for Israel if it extends the freeze for just one month, but as yet that has not happened. Netanyahu's latest ploy is to demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state -- something their negotiators have always refused to do -- possibly hoping to pin the blame on them for the failure of the talks. He has also thrown his support behind a demand by his right-wing coalition partners to require non-Jews wishing to become Israeli citizens to sign a loyalty oath to Israel as a "Jewish, democratic state."

Between The Lines' Melinda Tuhus spoke with Chris Toensing, editor of Middle East Report, about the current state of negotiations, the role of the U.S., and what may offer hope for a just solution to the long term conflict.

CHRIS TOENSING: You know, unfortunately, probably, people who look back on this experiment will see it as a replay of the Clinton-sponsored peace process of the 1990s, just telescoped into a much shorter time. And the core reason for what I expect to be the failure of this exercise will be the same, which is that the U.S. was unable/unwillling to act as a genuinely honest broker and caved in to Israel's negotiating position its own, and made Israel's negotiating position its own, and as a result made the entire process a non-starter. I agree with you about what Netanyahu has done; it's being portrayed as a sop to the right flank in his Cabinet as a way of getting his cabinet to endorse an extension of the moratorium on settlement building that was honored in the breach this past year. It may be that, but it's also a hurdle that he knows the Palestinians cannot jump over, and thus a way to shift the blame onto the Palestinians if, as seems to be the case, these talks collapse, and leaves the Obama administration holding the bag and looking pretty silly, since they came into office saying a freeze on settlement building in the West Bank was an absolute pre-condition of getting meaningful peace talks started, and they caved in, and now they can't even get a partial temporary freeze on settlement building even while the talks are ongoing.

BETWEEN THE LINES: Chris Toensing, I'm sure you're aware that George W. Bush was probably the most popular US president ever in Israel, and Obama is the most unpopular. Israelis feel like he's demanding all these things, but in reality the package he offered Netanyahu to get him to extend the partial freeze for 30 days was extremely generous. What did he offer the Palestinians?

CHRIS TOENSING: Well, they reportedly offered the Palestinians a pledge to endorse the idea of a Palestinian state on all the lands occupied by Israel in 1967. That would have been a significant statement on the part of the US, since in recent years the US has shown considerable ambiguity on that point. They have ceased mentioning the idea that Israel needs to withdraw from all the territories occupied in 1967.

BETWEEN THE LINES: Does it include East Jerusalem?

CHRIS TOENSING: Jerusalem was not specified in the reports I saw, but that would seem to be included in a Palestinian state based on the '67 lines.

BETWEEN THE LINES: Hasn't that been proposed for years?

CHRIS TOENSING: Well, it's totally new that that would be tied with a Palestinian state in explicit terms. These are only press reports; we don't know what the actual wording would have been; there was no public wording. But if you remember that UN resolution 242 was not just voted for but drafted by the US, the UN ambassador at the time of the Lyndon B. Johnson administration. This was a US position that Israel needed to withdraw from all of the territories occupied in '67 as a precondition of a just and comprehensive peace in the Arab/Israeli situation. In theory, yes, it would be a fairly significant restatement of a historical US position from which the Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Bush administrations dramatically retreated.

BETWEEN THE LINES: Do you think the BDS Movement -- boycott, divestment and sanctions -- holds any hope for influencing the peace process? It seems to be growing, however slowly.

CHRIS TOENSING: It is gaining traction, yes, among activist communities, who, it must be stated, are small -- tiny in many places. But that's where the energy is, that's for sure. There's more energy there than there is in the peace process industry trying to promote a two-state solution as classically envisioned, so it does seem to be the wave of the future in those terms. I think the more thoughtful proponents of BDS are quite honest and clear-headed about the fact that BDS is a very long-term strategy. The wallop that that strategy would pack -- w hich I think Israel understands very well -- is it would not be the sort of thing where boycotts would economically cripple the occupation or economically cripple Israel -- certainly not. But the idea would be to delegitimize what Israel is doing in policies toward the Palestinians to the extent that other countries would think twice about doing business with Israel, so in other words, the idea would be to have this secondary effect, that you would isolate Israel economically, diplomatically, culturally, etc. But for that process to take place would take a long time.

And it's very important to remember, I think, that the comparison with apartheid in South Africa is tempting, and there are many parallels that are accurate, but there are also many things that are very different, and one thing that is crucially different is that you did not have in Europe and the US in the 1980s a vocal, Afrikaaner, pro-apartheid lobby which was fighting back against the BDS movement trying to get rid of apartheid in South Africa, whereas you do have -- in the US in particular -- a very vocal, well organized pro-Israel lobby.

And another crucial difference, which should not be minimized, is that there was no ambient demonization in political culture of South African blacks like there is ambient demonization of Arabs and Muslims in western culture because of the image of Arabs and Muslims as terrorists who hate the West, and so on.

Contact the Middle East Report, a publication of the Middle East Research and Information Project at their Washington, D.C. office at (202) 223-3677 or visit their website at www.merip.org