Josh Fox, Larry Sheehan and Will Elwell: New Documentary Film on Climate Change Supports Communities Combating Fossil Fuel Infrastructure

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.

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Subscribe to Counterpoint bulletins via our subscriptions page.

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New Documentary Film on Climate Change Supports Communities Combatting Fossil Fuel Expansion

Posted March 23, 2016

Interview with Josh Fox, Oscar-nominated filmmaker, conducted by Melinda Tuhus

A coalition of groups called the Sugarshack Alliance, which opposes construction of a fracked gas pipeline through western Massachusetts, held a four-day, 53-mile protest walk, March 17 through 20, through several of the small towns that would be in the pipeline's path. The pipeline, called the Northeast Energy Direct, is being proposed by the Tennessee Gas Pipeline Company, whose parent company is Kinder Morgan. Its application must be approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, by granting a so-called certificate of public convenience and necessity.

On the first night of the walk, 400 people attended the screening of documentary filmmaker Josh Fox's new film, "How to Let Go of the World and Love All the Things Climate Can't Change." The event was part of Fox’s "Let Go and Love" tour in which the filmmaker brings his documentary to communities fighting their own battles against fossil fuel companies that exacerbate climate change. Between The Lines’ Melinda Tuhus spoke with Fox about his new film before the screening.

JOSH FOX: This is a movie about climate change. It’s really the third and final chapter of the trilogy of environmental films that starts with "Gasland I" and "Gasland II." But this film is much broader and bigger focus than just fracking. It started out being about climate change and the climate crisis, because when you’re working on fossil fuels this is what happens – you end with the climate over and over again, because it is the greatest problem the world has ever known, and it’s primarily fossil fuels that are responsible for it. So this movie, "How to Let Go of the World and Love All the Things Climate Can’t Change," is really sort of in two halves – the How to Let Go of the World half and the Love All the Things Climate Can’t Change half. I acknowledges how late we are to act right now. James Hansen went in front of the Congress, as a representative of NASA and told us all in 1988 that we were warming the earth. That would have been the moment to start working on this in a huge way. We are now 28 years later and we are in deep, deep trouble with respect to the climate, and many of the things that we acknowledge as some of the worst aspects of climate change, we’re too late to stop.

When we talk about how much we’ve already warmed the earth, when we talk about how all the things that are frozen on earth right now that we need to stay frozen are melting, that the sea levels will rise, that extreme weather gets worse and worse as the atmosphere warms, we’re talking about letting go of the world that we live in now, which is a world based on greed and competition and violence. Climate is going to rewrite the coastal maps; we’re going to lose a lot of our coastal cities. We’re going to lose 30-50 percent of the species on the planet. These are incredibly difficult things to encounter. What we need going forward are the things climate can’t change. Those are our civic values; those are human rights, democracy, community, love, generosity, respect, creativity, innovation – these are things that climate can’t change.

So I think when you see the film, you’ll understand the pit of despair that I went through in making the first part of the film, and then the heights of inspiration that come from meeting all these amazing people all across the earth – the film travels to six continents, 12 different countries – and to meet just absolutely extraordinary people who embody those values and those virtues that are the things climate can’t change that we need to start to base the next phase of civilization on.

BETWEEN THE LINES: You’re doing this tour and going to places; like you’re in Ashfield, Massachusetts right now, where there’s a walk going on to protest a [proposed] fracked gas pipeline here, and I know you’re doing that in a lot of other places. Say a little about your tour.

JOSH FOX: Yeah. We’re in the middle of the Let Go and Love Tour, for "How to Let Go of the World and Love All the Things Climate Can’t Change;" that is a fundamental part of our distribution model. Yes, the film will be on HBO at the end of June; yes it will go into theaters for Earth Week around Earth Day in New York and L.A. and other places. But the hallmark of our strategy is to work directly with communities that are on the ground that are fighting fossil fuel infrastructure. For "Gasland" and "Gasland II" that was the fracking fight; for the climate movie that’s every fight – that’s pipelines, compressor stations, power plants, LNG terminals, coal, tar sands, fracked gas, fracked oil, offshore drilling, onshore drilling – all these ways in which the fossil fuel industry is actually expanding at a time when we know we have to move away from fossil fuels. So something like the NED pipeline, which you all are marching against – this is unacceptable. And so is the Constitution pipeline, and the AIM pipeline and the Pilgrim pipelines and the bomb trains. We have to start to wean ourselves off fossil fuels and we have to do it immediately. We can’t use natural gas as a bridge; we know that will bring us way past where we need to be in this worsening climate crisis. So when we’re talking about the tour, it’s going directly to communities that are fighting fossil fuels. So we’re premiering this movie literally in the middle of a protest. This is Day 1 of your 50-mile march over four days. We couldn’t be happier to be doing the movie in this context. Hopefully people are not too tired from marching all day to stay awake during the movie. But if a few of you guys nod off, just wake people back up again. But it’s a two-hour movie; we hope people enjoy it.

BETWEEN THE LINES: The day after Josh Fox’s film screening, 100 walkers arrived at the spot where pipeline opponent and landowner Larry Sheehan encouraged his friend, Will Elwell, to build a full-size replica of Henry David Thoreau's Walden Pond cabin, right in the path of the pipeline. Sheehan briefly spoke to the protest walkers at the site of the Thoreau cabin. Will Ellwell, who built the cabin.

LARRY SHEEHAN: When my wife Carol and I bought this old farm over 20 years ago, we were asked to sign a covenant to the title that forbade us from building anything new on these 11 or so acres that we have. The idea was to preserve open space and the rural character of the neighborhood, and we were happy to agree. So then a couple years ago, Tennessee Pipeline came calling with their own plans for our back yard. And we were shocked, of course. It felt like we were betrayed. We were heartbroken, really, and I’m sure many, many others have felt the same way. So when my friend Will Elwell came over and said can he build a replica of the Thoreau cabin here, I said sure. And here we have it. It’s a small, but sturdy little edifice (laughter). It’s strong because it’s more than the sum of its posts and beams. It really represents the will of the people.

WILL ELLWELL: When we build something, we don’t also give the owner risks that they have to deal with. We give them something that’s going to last. With a pipeline, there are so many risks, and the risks are what we have to deal with if this ever goes through. Who gets the rewards? We don’t get the rewards. I don’t see any rewards in it anyway. But we as a community, as a town, as landowners, don’t get the rewards, and the risks are endangerment of the environment, the animals, everything, the whole planet. And I don’t want to get into the common good of the gas pipeline, but it definitely is not a common good for us.

For more information, see "How to Let Go of the World, and Love All The Things Climate Can’t Change" documentary website at howtoletgomovie.com, Facebook.com/NoFrackGasAshfield at SugarShackAlliance.org.