Between The Lines - Micah Uetricht: Progressive Movement Poised to Defeat Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel (Week Ending March 20, 2015)

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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Chicago's Progressive Movement Rallies to Defeat Mayor Rahm Emanuel's Re-Election

Posted March 11, 2015

Interview with Micah Uetricht, web editor with In These Times, conducted by Melinda Tuhus

The surprisingly strong showing of Cook County Commissioner Jesus "Chuy" Garcia in the Chicago mayoral election Feb. 24 deprived incumbent Democratic Mayor Rahm Emanuel of an outright victory and forced him into a runoff on April 7. Garcia came late into the race after Chicago Federation of Teachers President Karen Lewis had to drop out due to illness.

In the first round of the election, Democrat Garcia had very little campaign funds compared to Emanuel’s large war chest, who some call Mayor One Percent, charging that he supports the agenda of the city's elite and focuses on downtown development, while neglecting the neighborhoods. Garcia won 34 percent of the vote compared to Emanuel's 45 percent. Garcia has a long history of progressive activism in Chicago and was an ally of Harold Washington, the city's first black mayor, who served from 1983 until he died in office in 1987.

Between The Lines’ Melinda Tuhus spoke with Micah Uetricht, web editor with Chicago-based In These Times magazine and author of “Strike for America,” a book about the historic 2012 Chicago teachers' strike. He says Garcia's strong showing was a surprise to just about everyone, but now money is flowing into his runoff election campaign from unions and national groups such as Democracy for America, as well as attracting campaign volunteers from the American Federation of Teachers. Many Chicagoans now believe that in the April 7 election, they can make Rahm Emanuel a one-term mayor.

MICAH UETRICHT: The biggest factor, which has not been discussed a great deal in the aftermath of the election, is the strength of the city's grassroots social movements in producing this victory. People talk about this race sort of like they talk about Bill DeBlasio's win for mayor in New York City, or maybe the fight in the Democratic Party about whether we'll have Hillary Clinton or Elizabeth Warren running for president, as this sort of fight for the soul of the Democratic Party, and there's a sizable and growing number of people who are opting for a much more progressive wing of the Democratic party. And that's certainly true, but the bigger story is not just that they're opting for this more progressive version, but that social movements in this city like the Chicago Teachers Union and the movement they have helped anchor around educational justice in the city – the neighborhood level community groups in the city – they are the ones who made this runoff happen over the course of several years. This runoff never would have happened if the Chicago Teachers Union hadn't gone on strike in 2012, for example. That's really a pivotal moment in this city, where people moved from being sort of incoherently angry about some of these policies like school closures and defunding of public schools and closing of mental health clinics and all these things intro having a clear enemy, being able to say "Rahm Emanuel is responsible for these closures and defunding and all these things, and he needs to go."

BETWEEN THE LINES: I just read an article that said some independent body found that 90 percent of the kids whose schools were closed ended up in better schools, even though some were only very marginally better. That was Rahm's rationale all along, that he made a tough decision that was better for the kids. What do you think of that?

MICAH UETRICHT: I think to answer that question, it's useful to look at the data about what happened in the election in those areas were schools were closed. Wenton Moser, who writes for Chicago magazine, had an interesting blog post where he overlaid where the school closures in the city happened over voting data, who voted for Rahm versus Chuy or other candidates. And he found pretty much across the board that in the areas that were immediately surrounding these 49 schools that were closed – and presumably these are voters whose kids were attending these schools that were closed – Rahm Emanuel lost votes almost across the board in every single one of those areas immediately surrounding those schools. If the school closures have produced better results for their children, I assume these parents would be showing their gratitude to Rahm Emanuel by voting for him. But instead, the closures and the other educational cuts that haves happened in the city became a central issue in the mayoral race.

I should also mention that one of the measures that was on the ballot in addition to who was going to be mayor of Chicago was in almost 40 wards the question of whether the city should have an elected representative school board – a school board that's chosen by the people of Chicago. And overwhelmingly, by 89 percent, it was a non-binding referendum so they were just indicating they want a representative school board. And the reason they want that and the reason the Chicago Teachers Union and other organizations in the city have pushed for this is because the school closures happened despite community groups moved heaven and earth to try to stop them from happening, from nearly unanimous participation in public meetings, saying "We don't want these closures to happen; they are really pillars of our communities." And they were all closed anyway; 49 of them were closed anyway.

BETWEEN THE LINES: What about going forward? What do you see happening over the next year or so?

MICAH UETRICHT: The big story in Chicago is this election between Rahm Emanuel and Chuy Garcia. But the story that's flying under the radar is sort of the different way that these elections have been done, both at the mayoral level and the city council level. Chuy Garcia is very open about the fact that he only ran for mayor because he was asked to by Karen Lewis, the president of the Chicago Teachers' Union. He all but admits that he wouldn't even be a candidate if it weren't for the city's social movements pushing him to do it. And likewise at the city council level, the races were extremely interesting in that it was not just a number of progressive candidates that sprung up and were trying to seize the momentum from a mayoral ally or right-wing city council members. What set the election apart is that there were grassroots activists – rank and file teachers, community organizers or community activists – who actually ran for city council seats and in a number of cases forced runoffs, and in addition to the city's progressive caucus, which is extremely small, about half a dozen people out of the 50 council members – almost all of them won re-election. But a number of these political nobodies, who were, like I said, high school teachers or teacher's aides, ran and actually forced runoffs. So I think it'll be interesting to see what happens in Chicago over the next couple years and if there's a continued growth of this kind of bottom-up politics where you have rank and file teachers running for office.

For more information about In These Times, visit InTheseTimes.com. For Micah Uetricht's blog, visit micahu.wordpress.com or his bio, visit inthesetimes.com/community/profile/9514.