Between The Lines - Jill Guidera: Transportation Alternatives (Week Ending Feb. 28, 2014)

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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Transportation Alternatives Campaign: Reclaim New York City Streets with Bicycling, Walking and Public Transit

Posted Feb. 19, 2014

Interview with Jill Guidera, field organizing coordinator with Transportation Alternatives, conducted by Melinda Tuhus

The annual national Youth Bike Summit took place at the New School University in New York City Feb. 14-16. There, hundreds of teens, young adults and older supporters came together to hear a keynote speaker, an African American bike racer describe his adventures; to attend workshops; create bike-themed clothing and jewelry; and more importantly, to network and learn from each other.

One of the activities at the Summit was a Political Action Center, which guided participants through the steps necessary to organize their own campaign for better transportation. The Political Action workshop was sponsored by Transportation Alternatives, one of the most active transportation organizations in New York City, whose mission is "to reclaim New York City’s streets from the automobile, and to advocate for bicycling, walking and public transit as the best transportation alternatives."

Between the Lines’ Melinda Tuhus spoke with Jill Guidera, field organizing coordinator with Transportation Alternatives, or TA. Here she describes some of the campaigns her group work on, and how they build alliances to reach out to new communities and become more effective advocates.

JILL GUIDERA: We organize around 14 campaigns every year – between two and four in each borough of NYC. These campaigns are based on needs assessment and community demand from our borough-based activist committees. We then look at what their ideas are and help them formulate short-term and long-term campaigns to transform their boroughs. I work very closely to help facilitate the Bronx activists committee, where we are looking to see car-free Sundays reinstated on the Grand Concourse, a redesign of the Concourse, as well as bike-friendly Belmont and improvements on Westchester Avenue. I also work at TA to organize our field staff, who are NYC bike ambassadors, who are hourly field organizers who pound the pavement to make sure we have the critical support needed to make all these campaigns happen.

BETWEEN THE LINES: And could you tell me what the opportunity is at this workshop for people at this Youth Bike Summit to do some kind of political campaigns?

JILL GUIDERA: Yes. So, this is our second year running our political action center at the Youth Bike Summit, and we absolutely love doing it. A lot of what I do as an organizer is talk to people around NYC about what they want to see and finding concrete ways to actually voice that to their decisionmakers – their local politicians, their community boards – to make sure those things happen. Doing this at the Youth Bike Summit is kind of instilling that idea, that you can be the one to instigate political change in your own neighborhoods. So at the Political Action Center, we're inviting youth to write down what their big ideas are; if they could change anything in their neighborhood, what would they change? It can be as big and out there or as concrete and simple as they like, and from there we can offer very clear tactics that we can walk them through right here on the spot about how they would organize their community to make that happen. We actually look up their decisionmakers, help them formulate language to create a petition, write a letter, or create a photo petition.

BETWEEN THE LINES: And have these been successful, have you had successes around bike-related issues in the city?

JILL GUIDERA: From the Youth Bike Summit or our work...?

BETWEEN THE LINES: Well, all your work, but if there's anything to say about the Bike Summit, too.

JILL GUIDERA: I will say about the Bike Summit is that we make connections with people that have lasted. I don't know if you talked to my intern, Alisha Bunting, but I actually met her last year at the Youth Bike Summit, talked to her about ideas that she wanted to see in her neighborhood in Canarsie, and she had some great ones. We exchanged information and then she joined more formally our internship program. She did a really outstanding job there and then became a part-time staffer at our organization and continues to do really great work. So it's these relationships that are built here are able to become more long-term and lasting, and then are able to open up ideas about how to be involved at a professional level on these issues.

BETWEEN THE LINES: And what about more broadly, the things that TA has worked on?

JILL GUIDERA: TA has worked on a lot! As I mentioned, we have 14 campaigns running across NYC. In the past year, we have won a great handful of campaigns. We saw better infrastructure on the approach to the 59th or Queensboro Bridge and that was bike and pedestrian infrastructure actually installed.

BETWEEN THE LINES: Let me just interrupt you for a second to say that the one and only time I did the 5 Borough Bike ride, it was the year that somebody was coming off that bridge and smashed into a jersey barrier and died. So I think you need better infrastructure.

JILL GUIDERA: Yes, it's critical, and often it's great tragedies like that that can often point where we want to do our work. For example, we're doing a lot of work this year on Vision Zero, which is looking at zero traffic deaths across the city, and are organizing forums in every borough around that. And there's been a ton of momentum around that. In South Brooklyn, we have community leaders on every level who are looking to host that forum in the next couple of months, and that was a campaign we worked very hard on, and are seeing that success translate across the city.

BETWEEN THE LINES: And wasn't one of the first things the new mayor, Bill DeBlasio, took a stand on was Vision Zero, wasn't it?

JILL GUIDERA: Yeah, that was a really great moment for us to see the work we've been doing on the ground translate into his campaign, but then also into his statements as our new mayor, so I think we're kind of in this big watershed moment to see these things happen.

BETWEEN THE LINES: And since I interrupted you, if there's any other different kinds of successes you want to talk about, that would be great too.

JILL GUIDERA: Yeah, we saw the northernmost bike infrastructure installed in NYC this past year. That's in the Bronx running east-west across 222nd Street and into Coop City, so several communities that had been isolated from the rest of the city who didn't have calm streets and sidewalks or bike lanes to get around their neighborhoods and connect to the rest of the city now had this connection. That was a big win for us in the past year. Also seeing plans for a separate bike lane on the Pulaski Bridge, which connects Queens and Brooklyn, was another big win we saw this year, and helped us grow our committees and then build that momentum towards next year.

For more information about Transportation Alternatives, visit transalt.org.