Between The Lines - Terry O'Neill: GOP-led Economic Assault on the Middle Class is Really "A War on Women" (Week Ending May 13, 2011)

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.

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NOW: GOP Assault on Middle Class is a 'War on Women'

RealAudio MP3

Posted May 4, 2011

Interview with Terry O'Neill, president of the National Organization for Women, conducted by Melinda Tuhus

With Republicans in leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives and a majority of states in the hands of Republican governors and legislatures, budget cuts and policy changes are being proposed -- and in many cases, passed -- that disproportionately impact women, especially women of color. At the federal level, U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., won passage in the House of his 2012 budget proposal that would convert Medicare from a program in which the government pays medical bills of senior citizens over 65 years of age --- into a voucher system that provides inadequate subsidies to purchase private insurance coverage. The GOP budget would also make major cuts to social safety net programs, such as food stamps, and impose a 35 percent cut on Medicaid and turn the program into state-administered block grants. In contrast to the deep cuts, Ryan’s budget reduces the tax burden on the nation’s wealthiest citizens and big corporations.

On April 28, activists organized by the National Organization for Women, or NOW staged a dozen protest actions around the country sending a message to politicians that women do not want to work until they die. NOW opposes Ryan’s budget that would dismantle Medicare and turn Medicaid into block-grants and other proposals that would increase the Social Security retirement age to 69 years.

Terry O'Neill, the president of NOW -- the National Organization for Women -- says while the media and Democratic politicians refer to these actions as "a war on the middle class," she says it's more accurate to call it "a war on women." Between The Lines’ Melinda Tuhus spoke with O'Neill about the different elements of the GOP-led economic assault, and what NOW is doing to challenge these policies.

TERRY O'NEILL: The budget is part and parcel, in my view, of this war on women, because other people have called it a war on the middle class, but to be very clear, middle-class women work a lifetime at unequal pay and they are the ones that are most vulnerable in any attack on middle-class programs, so it is a war on women to attack the middle class. On ideological grounds, right-wingers and Congress are attacking women's ability to get not just abortion care, but an entire range of reproductive health care services. That's on ideological grounds. On budget grounds, just on pure allocation of resources around the country, conservatives in Congress are slashing programs that disproportionately serve women, and a lot of people don't understand this, but those programs that are being slashed disproportionately employ women, as well as disproportionately serve women. So, Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, Women, Infant and Children's Nutrition Program, food stamps, Pell grants, other training programs, pre-natal programs, family planning clinics -- all disproportionately employ women as well as as serving women. So we really are facing a situation where women are getting slammed first and foremost by these men who are, at the same time, increasing expenditures for the military, which disproportionately employs men; they are talking about entrenching tax breaks for the wealthiest billionaires who are not women -- they are very disproportionately men -- so it's very much, in my view, a gender-based war on the middle class.

BETWEEN THE LINES: Although women make more than the 59 cents to every dollar earned by men in the 1960s, women now make only 77 cents for every dollar earned by men. What's the impact of that over time?

TERRY O'NEILL: The reason women are so vulnerable to these cuts -- it goes right back to unequal pay. So workplaces in this country are severely sex-segregated and women cluster in jobs that don't have pensions and they're not represented by unions. So after a lifetime of working at unequal pay, women head into their retirement years with very little in the way of savings. Single women of color -- about half head into their retirement years with zero to negative net worth, and white women who are single head into their retirement years with a net worth of only $41,000. It's estimated that because of unequal pay, a woman loses -- depending on her level of education and what industry she works in -- that she will lose between $400,000 and $2 million in her lifetime. Now, how many kids could you put through college, without debt, with that million dollars you didn't get because people are not obeying the law?

BETWEEN THE LINES: Terry O'Neill, NOW is famous for organizing some of the biggest mass protests in American history. How are you responding to the current crisis?

TERRY O'NEILL: Yeah, we've been very aggressive at organizing at the community level. We just had an incredibly successful series of demonstrations around the country. We're working in coalition and the theme of the past two weeks of demonstrations is "Don't make us work 'til we die." This is a protest against the proposal to increase the retirement age to 69. You know, the average nurse lifts over one ton per day, and the average nurse cannot work to the age of 69, which means when she has to take "early retirement" at the age of 63 of 64 or 65 -- anyone who takes early retirement, their benefits are cut for the rest of their lives. That's their Social Security benefits as well as their pension, if they're lucky enough to have a pension. So, we've been engaged in the "Don't make us work 'til we die" protests around the country. We are currently engaged in a massive Contact your senator, contact your Representative effort to stop the outrageous cuts to all of these programs. Frankly, the Ryan budget -- Rep. Paul Ryan, who produced the House leadership 2012 budget plan, with their proposal to voucherize Medicare -- which simply means that Grandma gets a voucher, and Grandma's told, It doesn't matter how sick you get, Grandma. Once you use up your vouchers, you don't have any more health care. We're sorry, you're done.

To learn more about NOW’s campaign, call (202) 628-8669 or visit their website at now.org.