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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



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.



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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

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Between The Lines Presentation at the Left Forum 2016

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"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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Greeks Say No to More EU Austerity, Yes to Dignity

Posted July 8, 2015

MP3 Interview with James S. Henry, senior fellow at Columbia University's Center for Sustainable International Investment, conducted by Scott Harris

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In the face of imminent default on its $320 billion debt and enormous pressure to reach an agreement with its European Union creditors, the Greek people overwhelmingly rejected the imposition of new austerity measures in a historic July 5 referendum. The 61.3 percent of Greeks who cast ballots for a 'No' vote confirmed majority national support for the governing Syriza party's pledge to challenge harsh Eurozone austerity measures when it won power in last January.

Eurozone leaders warned that the results of the referendum had not changed the EU's insistence that Greece adopt tough structural economic reforms in exchange for a third bailout package. But Syriza party leader and Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras believes the referendum victory, along with support from most opposition parties, strengthens his negotiating position in a new round of talks.

There's much at stake in upcoming negotiations as Greek banks teeter on the brink of insolvency and unknown consequences for the European Union if Greece is forced to leave the Euro and return to its old currency, the Drachma. While there's disagreement on what the outcome may be, there's no doubt there's more pain ahead for the Greek people who have already suffered through five years of a severe depression that has brought 25 percent unemployment and a 23 percent reduction in the national budget. Between The Lines' Scott Harris spoke with James S. Henry, an economist, lawyer and investigative journalist. Henry, former chief economist at the international consultancy firm McKinsey & Co., who is now a senior fellow at Columbia University's Center for Sustainable International Investment, discusses the significance of the outcome of the Greek referendum and the major issues in the difficult negotiations ahead.

JAMES S. HENRY: Well I think Greece's people have had six years of austerity through the EU, the ECB – European Central Bank – the IMF, the debt ratio has actually increased to more than 180 percent of GDP and they've seen dramatic reductions in income per capita. Twenty-five percent unemployment. Pensions down 44 percent and 20 percent of the population requiring food aid. They've said "Enough is enough! We tried the bloodletting approach to cutting spending and raising sales taxes, VAT taxes, under the latest proposal from the EU, the Eurogroup, would go to 23 percent. And they resoundingly said, 61.3 percent said "No!" to the latest term sheet from the Eurogroup – saying no more austerity.

So this is on top of a new IMF (International Monetary Fund) report, about 10 days ago, which basically threw in the towel and said, "Yeah, austerity has not worked. Maybe it's your fault, maybe it's ours. But basically what the Greek people is much more substantial debt relief. Better terms and some new concessions."

So, in fact, most of the major economists around the planet are agreeing that the EU – Germany, in particular which is kind of behind this whole scene – is acting in a kind of stubborn and intransigent way that the European Central Bank does not behave like a central bank. They haven't stood behind the banks here. They've basically put a cap on how much lending they would do for the banking system there. So there's a short-term currency crisis in the country I think independent of objective observers who say, "You know, look, Greece is effectively bankrupt. And if you were a private company, like General Motors in 2010, we basically allowed them to go Chapter 11, and shared the burden of restructuring their debt, creditors had to take a substantial debt reduction. Unfortunately, we don't have any international bankruptcy courts for governments. And that's been a major problem for the international system for the last 30 years. Greece is just the latest example of that. If you compare the United States which has an unemployment rate now of below 5.5 percent, with the EU, which is still above 10 and the southern European countries' unemployment north of 20 to 25 percent rate in Italy and Greece and Spain, it's clear that the hyper-austerity program pushed basically by the German's finance minister has been a failure.

BETWEEN THE LINES: James, here's a question. By withdrawing support for Greek banks in advance of the referendum vote, were the leaders of the European Commission – the European Central Bank and the IMF – attempting to intimidate Greek voters into casting ballots undermining Alexis Tsipras of the Syriza party and thereby aiding in the removal of his party from power in Greece?

JAMES S. HENRY: I think this was simply about politics. It's not about economics. Essentially, they were hoping that the Greek population would vote "Yes" in favor of retaining the euro. Most Greeks want to retain the euro. They've had terrible experiences with hyper-inflation when the Germans occupied the country in the forties. And they don't want to go back to the drachma. But what they do want is debt relief. So yes, it was a blatant attempt to unseat the left-wing government that came in in January because the Eurogroup has its eyes not on Greece, they have their eyes on Spain, which has a 1.1 trillion euro debt; on Italy, which has a 2.1 trillion euro debt and on Portugal and in all of these governments, all these situations, the left is on the rise simply because Europe lied. Even countries like have suffered from this hyper-austerity program that the EU has been pushing.

BETWEEN THE LINES: James Henry, what do you believe the effect of this "no vote" in Greece will have across Europe? Especially for supporters of left anti-austerity parties like Podemos in Spain, which has been garnering a lot of support these days and in other countries such as Italy, Portugal and Ireland. What's the message that comes out of Greece for these folks?

JAMES S. HENRY: Well, that's part of the issue here. We're really waiting to see what impact this "no" vote has on the European system. The statistics today were interesting. If you look at middle- and lower-income voters in Greece, the statistics are that 70 percent of lower-income Greeks voted against austerity. So this is becoming a bit of a class war. And I think each one of these economies is in a slightly different position. We've seen some return to economic growth in Spain this year, as well as in Italy. So it's not quite as dire a situation in those cases. But there's no question that Podemos and the left in Italy are taking a sort of, seeing this as a positive sign for their anti-austerity programs. And so I think if the EU wants to be short-sighted about this, they'll reject any compromises. But what's really needed to depolarize the situation is to have some debt relief for the Greeks.

For more information, visit Columbia University's Center for Sustainable International Investment at ccsi.columbia.edu.

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