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.



Thank you for donating

If you've made a donation and wish to receive thank you gifts for your donation, be sure to send us your mailing address via our Contact form.

See our thank you gifts for your donation.




The Resistance Starts Now!

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



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



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





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




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






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



SPECIAL REPORT: Mic Check, Dec. 12, 2017



SPECIAL REPORT: Resistance Roundtable, Dec. 9, 2017




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



SPECIAL REPORT: Mic Check, Nov. 12, 2017



SPECIAL REPORT: Resistance Roundtable, Nov. 11, 2017



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



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




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




SPECIAL REPORT: John Allen, Out in New Haven




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.



Subscribe to our Weekly Summary & receive our FREE Resist Trump window cling


resist (Car window cling)

Email us with your mailing address at contact@btlonline.org to receive our "Resist Trump/Resist Hate" car window cling!


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

stitcher

Between The Lines Presentation at the Left Forum 2016

inequality
"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.


Between The Lines Blog  BTL Blog

[an error occurred while processing this directive]

Special Programming Special Programming

[an error occurred while processing this directive]

Between The Lines Progressive Resources

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

Share this content:

|


Podcasts Subscribe to BTL

Podcasts:  direct  or  via iTunes

Subscribe to Program Summaries, Interview Transcripts or Counterpoint via email or RSS feed

If you have other questions regarding subscriptions, feeds or podcasts/mp3s go to our Audio Help page.

Between The Lines Blog


Stay connected to BTL

RSS feed  twitter  facebook

donate  Learn how to support our efforts!


Health Hazards Fuel Opposition Against Wisconsin Taconite Mine

Real Audio  RealAudio MP3  MP3

Posted Oct. 16, 2013

Interview with Frank Koehn, president of the Penokee Hills Education Project, conducted by Melinda Tuhus

mining

The largest proposed mine in the history of the state of Wisconsin has generated opposition across a broad spectrum of the state’s citizens. If given the green light, the iron ore mine in the Penokee Hills near Lake Superior would produce taconite, a mineral used in the steel-making industry. The project is being promoted by Gogebic Taconite, or G-TAC, a company whose owners made large campaign contributions to influential Wisconsin state legislators in their successful effort to change state law to allow the mine to proceed. These regulatory changes were made despite the fact that independent scientific analyses have shown the ore to be mined contains high levels of asbestos, a substance that when inhaled increases the risk of lung cancer, mesothelioma and other respiratory diseases including asbestosis.

The company projects $1.5 billion in taxable revenue and 700 jobs. Republican supporters include Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. While a broad coalition of opponents include most Democratic state legislators, environmentalists, city and county governments from the area surrounding the mine site, and all of Wisconsin’s 11 sovereign Tribal Nations, including the local Bad River Band of the Lake Superior Ojibway. Tribal activists are skeptical of the rosy income and job predictions and are concerned about asbestos health hazards and acidification of area waters.

Between The Lines’ Melinda Tuhus spoke with Frank Koehn, president of the Penokee Hills Education Project, a grassroots group organizing on the environmental, health, social, and economic issues of mining that disproportionately affect Native and rural populations. Here, Koehn describes the impact the proposed mine on the local ecosystem and residents of the area, and what people are doing to oppose the mining project.

FRANK KOEHN: Here are the issues. The Bad River flows through the homeland of the Ojibway people, and it flows into the largest wild rice beds probably in North America, but certainly located around Lake Superior. How will the mine affect those wild rice beds? Just this week, the amount of asbestos that's been found in the rock in the Penokey Hills is overwhelming. Now, there is no safe level of asbestos in the air. That's deadly. We believe that U.S. Steel and others have not mined in the Penokeys because of the asbestos. And right now our experts, our geochemists, that have worked with the Penokey Hills Education Project, have worked with the Bad River tribe, have worked with the community groups, have gone in and said some of those rocks contain up to 50 percent asbestos. And when they do any mining, this is going to get into the air. One of the reasons this is so significant is not only will this be an open pit taconite mine, they're also going to build a complete taconite manufacturing facility on the site, which means they take the rock, they grind it up. First they have to blast it, then they have to mill it, grind it up, and the iron ore is separated from the waste material, and the ore is mixed with clay and it comes out as little round balls about the size of marbles, and that is then shipped to foundries and turned into steel. However, in the process of making this, about 70 percent of the rock is waste rock, and it will be almost a fine dust that has to be stored in piles, kept out of the water system, kept out of the air. We contend it is impossible to do that.

Now, the other problems we have are the acid in the rocks and in the background in the soil. When that's disturbed, that acid drainage gets into the rivers and starts affecting the pH of the water, and that's a concern for the Bad River watershed, which they tell us has about 40 percent of the wetlands that are left on Lake Superior.

The laws were changed in Wisconsin to allow for a mine to go in and degrade the water. It was the first legislation that was passed this year under the current administration in Wisconsin; they had to change the wetland laws. And of course, our governor made promises of creating some 250,000 jobs, which certainly hasn't happened. And it was decided that this mine was going to be the anchor of this great economic revival of the North Country. In actual fact, the mine will not be an economic revival.

BETWEEN THE LINES: What's the next step toward approval of the mine?

FRANK KOEHN: The company would have to negotiate with the local counties to come in and do any mining, Ashland and Iron counties.

BETWEEN THE LINES: What's the role of the camp that people have been occupying near the site for the past several months?

FRANK KOEHN: The camp is actually not so much a camp as it is a gathering and educational research station which people are setting up a traditional village; they're camping there. Primarily, it is Native Americans that camp there; there are others who go up and spend a day or two to do some research like cataloging the plants, the medicines, following the animals, the birds and things like that. They're hoping we can use this as a place to teach people how to harvest wild rice, to make maple syrup, mushroom identification – all kinds of things that go on in the woods. It's just so bountiful up there. We've had 3,500 people travel through that camp this summer, and we've traveled all over the state of Wisconsin, putting on presentations. We've been in the universities, the high schools, the coffee shops, the community centers, the libraries. And when we started out, there would be 10 or 12 people who showed up. And now when we go, there are literally hundreds that show up to hear our presentations.

Find more information on the Penokee Hills Education Project of Northern Wisconsin by visiting www.miningimpactcoalition.org.

Related Links: