renowned consumer rights advocate and four-time presidential candidate Ralph Nader Sponsors "Breaking Through Power Conference: A Historic Civic Mobilization"

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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Ralph Nader Sponsors Four Days of Civic Mobilization at "Breaking Through Power Conference"

Posted May 18, 2016

Interview with Ralph Nader, consumer advocate, author and four-time independent presidential candidate, conducted by Scott Harris

Citizen activist & four-time independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader's latest book is titled, "Breaking Through Power: It's Easier Than We Think," which is also the name given to a very special four-day event sponsored by Nader's group, the Center for the Study of Responsive Law, that will take place in Washington, D.C., May 23 through 26. The event, which commemorates the 50-year anniversary of the publication of Nader's first book, "Unsafe at Any Speed," is dedicated to exploring ways to mobilize the public to break through the structures of power holding back democratic solutions to our nation's and world's many crises and conflicts.

Each day of the conference that will be held in the capital's historic Constitution Hall is focused on one of four topics: How It's Done, The Media, War and Congress. Speakers engaging on these topics include activists, academics and authors from a wide variety of disciplines and political perspectives. On the final day of the conference a new Civic Agenda will be unveiled to be advanced by citizens in each congressional district across the U.S.

Between The Lines' Scott Harris spoke with Ralph Nader, who talks about the objectives of his Breaking Through Power conference and offers some observations on some of the major issues that have emerged in the 2016 election campaign. [Rush transcript]

RALPH NADER: The four days are broken down into four categories and the theme is, it's a lot easier to make change than most people think. And some people may say, "Oh yeah? Prove it." Alright, well Day One is "Breaking Through Power: How It's Done." And there are 17 groups who've been doing it on small budgets and great stamina, by a few people, for years. I think the total years' work by these greats is about 800 years. Don't say you can't make change in this country with a small group, especially if it reflects what Abraham Lincoln called the "public sentiment" and what we call today "public opinion." No one in history has brought together more groups on more redirections and reforms for our country under one roof and it wasn't that hard because most conventions as you know and conferences are single-issue. People have conferences on health care. They have conferences on zoning issues. They have conferences on taxes. Well this tries to get over the silo effect and show that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

BETWEEN THE LINES: What is your hope for any concrete goal to come out off all these luminaries of activism on the whole range of issues as you just said, breaking the silo. What would you like to see come out of this four-day conference?

RALPH NADER: One, I'd like these groups to get more visibility and support from around the country. They don't brag very much. Number two, I'd like in an election year, to have this be a re-assertion of the civil society without which we don't get good politics. We get terrible politics. And if we're all going to just focus on the candidates until November, and not support public movements, public demonstrations, then we're not going to be able to nourish the election campaign with all subjects and issues that are being ignored and taken off the table by both the Republican and Democratic parties. The third thing we want accomplish is to form two groups: one, voices which will go and challenge the commercial media and cable monopolies for not allowing enough serious content. Just look at Saturday morning NBC, CBS, Fox, ABC and look at the cable stations on Saturday morning and afternoon and you'll say, Why are they using our property this way? We own the public airwaves. We're the landlord, the TV, radio stations are the tenants. Nothing else going in America? There's no labor channel? No consumer channel? No consumer channel? No student channel?

I think our expectation levels have been too low, Scott. You have to raise them because if we don't raise the expectation levels, we don't heed was said so many years ago by the great abolitionist when he said, "Power concedes nothing without a demand."

BETWEEN THE LINES: Ralph, you've long railed against the disservice of our corporate media system especially when it comes to politics and economic issues. Maybe you could name for us what we're seeing unfold here, especially the Trump where he's gotten billions of dollars of free airtime because it boosts their ratings and it seems quite clearly profit-driven in terms of how much attention Donald Trump is getting. But how do we fix the media system so they are more driven by issues in the public interest that their short-term next quarter profit statement.

RALPH NADER: Well, there are some easy ways. One is to intelligently demonstrate right around a TV station. Usually they have a big parking lot and they have their own building and when they go on the evening news at 5 o'clock or whatever, they got 300-400 people outside basically saying let us in, it's our property, you're not covering the local community, you're not covering the state. You're not adhering to the 1934 Communications Act which requires you to recognize the public interest, necessity and convenience, and can you imagine yourself, Scott. You're about to deliver the 5 o'clock news, and all of a sudden 300, 400 people are surrounding your two-story building. (Chuckles.) What are you going to do? Are you going to ignore it?

And that's a good educational technique to show people. A lot of people don't realize that the public airwaves belong to us. And we're giving it away free, 24x7, to very profitable commercial radio and TV stations, unregulated by a supine Federal Communications Commission, battered by a supine Congress greased by campaign funds from the communication, broadcast and cable industry, and fearful of their coverage back home if they take them on.

For information about Nader's Breaking Through Power Conference, visit breakingthroughpower.org; Breaking Through Power: A Historic Civic Mobilization at breakingthroughpower.org/a-pioneering-civic-marathon; Breaking Through Power program at breakingthroughpower.org/#program; Breaking Through Power speakers at breakingthroughpower.org/#speakers.