Possibly the only movement to force a response from presidential candidates in the election is Black Lives Matter. Activists pushed Bernie Sanders to develop a racial justice platform after disrupting his speeches. Activists in South Carolina and Philadelphia have challenged Hillary Clinton over her support for policies of mass incarceration and her “superpredator” comment in the 1990s.
Along with Latino and American Muslims, Black activists have been at the forefront of protests against Donald Trump when he holds rallies. They have challenged his racism often facing the threat of brutality from Trump supporters. Media pundits have lectured activists on whether it is effective to protest Trump, even as they suggest Trump’s spreading of bigotry has crossed a line.
For this week’s episode of the “Unauthorized Disclosure” podcast, hosts Rania Khalek and Kevin Gosztola interview, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, the author of “From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation.” She provides a historical context and sharp insights on what has unfolded. She talks with us about the Congressional Black Caucus, solidarity in the Black Lives Matter movement, and poverty among Black Americans. She addresses the issue of the Democratic Party and what kind of obstacle it presents to Black liberation—and much more from her book.
In the discussion segment, Khalek and Gosztola highlight the U.S. military’s decision to charge no officers with crimes for the bombing of a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz. They briefly talk about the storming of parliament by Iraqis. Then, the hosts discuss Donald Trump’s foreign policy speech, and the next phase of Bernie Sanders’ campaign for president.
The interview is available for download on iTunes. For a link to the interview (and also to download the interview), go here. A page will load with the audio file of the interview. The file will automatically start playing so you can listen to the interview.
To listen to this week’s discussion (and also to download the discussion), go here. A page will load with the audio file of the discussion. It will automatically start playing for you to hopefully enjoy.
The US military has adopted an Israeli procedure known as “roof-knocking” in its war on Islamic State, also known as ISIS or Daesh, adding yet another failed Israeli tactic to its counterterrorism toolkit.
Roof-knocking entails striking the roof or upper story of a home or building with a mortar shell or missile prior to bombing it with even bigger munitions, in a supposed effort to warn civilians inside that they should evacuate.
Israel used this tactic to absolve itself of liability for killing civilians in Gaza. But human rights investigators found the tactic to be ineffective and at times deadly to the very civilians it was allegedly supposed to protect.
During Thursday night’s Democratic presidential debate, Vermont senator Bernie Sanders did something that no major candidate in recent memory has dared to do.
Defying the bipartisan pro-Israel consensus that dominates American politics, Sanders forcefully defended the humanity of Palestinians and delivered perhaps the most blistering indictment against Israel’s right-wing government ever uttered by a US senator.
And he did so in front of a New York audience, with millions more watching on CNN, just days ahead of a heated primary race in a state where Jewish voters are expected to make up 16 to 19 percent of the electorate.
It was a stunning response from a candidate who just two summers ago had angrily shouted down his constituents who supported Palestinian rights at a Vermont town hall, where he defended Israel’s 2014 military assault on the besieged Gaza Strip.
And it was a huge risk. Though Sanders is the first Jewish candidate in US history to win a single primary state, Jewish voters aren’t feeling the bern.
According to an NBC 4 New York/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll, Clinton is leading among Jews in New York with 65 percent support to Sanders’ 32 percent.
While the relative lack of Jewish enthusiasm for Sanders isn’t necessarily related to his position on Israel, his performance last night likely alienated some in this crucial voting bloc even more. In other words, Sanders had little to gain from saying what he said when he said it.
If anything, it was a demonstration of his more principled commitment to equality, a trait his opponent, notorious for shifting her positions with the political winds, clearly lacks. Read More
Actor Susan Sarandon recently caused a panic when she revealed her potential unwillingness to vote for Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton in a general election matchup with likely Republican nominee Donald Trump.
Sarandon was echoing an attitude shared by many supporters of Clinton’s Democratic opponent, Bernie Sanders, who say they will not vote for Clinton even if it means Trump becoming president of the United States.
In response, the establishment lost its collective mind.
New York Times columnist Charles Blow blasted “Bernie or Bust” voters for engaging in “scorched-earth electoral portentousness” mired in “petulance and privilege” and “filled with lust for doom.”
The Forward’s JJ Goldberg, in an article headlined “ ‘Bernie or Bust’ is Self-indulgent, Stubborn – and Dangerous,” warned that “[w]hining about [Clinton’s] weaknesses can only depress November turnout and hand Washington to the GOP, lock, stock and barrel.”
And Michael Tomasky of The Daily Beastlamented that these anti-Clinton refuseniks are mostly privileged white people with no skin in the game.
Even Hillary Clinton chimed in, tweeting: “Some folks may have the luxury to hold out for ‘the perfect.’ But a lot of Americans are hurting right now and they can’t wait for that.”
It has become accepted orthodoxy in establishment circles to view Trump as an authoritarian race-baiter who would present a major threat to the world if elected in November.
While this characterization is certainly well founded, it ignores the fact that Clinton is also dangerous to world stability. And unlike Trump, she has the blood on her hands to prove it.
If lesser evilism is the goal, as establishment pundits insist, it remains unclear who the lesser evil is – if the choice is limited to Trump or Clinton. Read More
With the presidential race heating up ahead of the New York primary, Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton has joined right-wing proponents of Israeli violence in attacking Bernie Sanders for his criticism of Israel’s 2014 military assault on Gaza.
In an interview with the New York Daily News editorial board last week, Sanders qualified Israel’s attack on Gaza as “indiscriminate” and emphasized that “a lot of innocent people were killed who should not have been killed,” prompting feverish denunciations from Israeli government officials and their supporters.
Sanders was right. According to the UN, 2,251 Palestinians were killed in Gaza, 1,462 of whom were civilians. Another 11,000 Palestinians, including 3,436 children, were injured, nearly 10 percent of them suffering permanent disabilities.
But he went on to confuse the number of civilian deaths in Gaza with the number of wounded, saying, “I happen to believe … anybody help me out here, because I don’t remember the figures, but my recollection is over 10,000 innocent people were killed in Gaza. Does that sound right?”
The Daily News corrected Sanders, who accepted the casualty figures and everyone moved on. Well, everyone except for hardline Zionists. And Hillary Clinton.
Hillary attacks the dead
According to Clinton insiders, the former secretary of state had planned to go after Sanders’ Israel-related remarks to court New York’s Jewish voters, who make up a significant 16 to 19 percent of New York’s Democratic primary electorate.
On Sunday morning, Clinton did just that.
Speaking to CNN’s Jake Tapper, Clinton disputed Sanders’ description of Israel’s assault on Gaza as “disproportionate.” Clinton argued that “Hamas provokes Israel.”
On top of blaming Palestinians for Israel’s deadly violence, Clinton called into question the innocence of dead Palestinian civilians, arguing, “They often pretend to have people in civilian garb, acting as though they are civilians, who are Hamas fighters.”
Maybe Clinton was referring to the 551 children Israel killed in Gaza, 68 percent of whom were under the age of 12. Or maybe she was talking about the 844 Palestinians that the Associated Press determined were killed in Israeli airstrikes on residential homes, including 19 babies and 108 preschoolers between the ages of 1 and 5.
Or perhaps she meant the 140 Palestinian families that had three or more members killed by Israel that summer.
This isn’t the first time Clinton has shamelessly attacked dead Palestinians for political gain.
In the midst of Israel’s 51-day assault, Clinton accused Hamas of “stage-managing” media coverage of the slaughter by inviting Western journalists to Gaza. She also recycled Israel’s excuses for its attacks on UN schools by alleging – without providing evidence – that Hamas was firing rockets from their grounds.
In an earlier interview with Sanders, Tapper expressed bewilderment “that the first Jew in American history to win a delegate, much less a primary” had openly criticized Israel.
“Usually in American politics, everyone just supports Israel whatever Israel wants to do, but you are taking a more critical position,” said Tapper.
Sanders interjected, “I’m taking a more balanced position.”
“Whether you’re Jewish or not Jewish, I would hope that every person in this country wants to see the misery of never-ending war and conflict ended in the Middle East,” said Sanders. “Of course the United States supports Israel, but you cannot ignore the needs of the Palestinian people in Gaza right now: poverty, unemployment, their community has been decimated.”
“Blood libel”
Clinton was capitalizing on the chorus of Zionist outrage provoked by the Daily News interview.
American-born Israeli lawmaker Michael Oren accused Sanders of advancing a “blood libel” against Israel and called on American Jews to demand an apology. Read More
Former President Bill Clinton went off on a rant against Black Lives Matter protesters in the audience at a campaign event for his wife, Hillary Clinton. There was focus on the spectacle itself. Some attention was paid to the substance of Clinton’s remarks, but for the most part, it was presumed that Clinton became worked up and agitated by the protesters.
Did Bill Clinton really lose his cool at a campaign event in Philadelphia or was this calculated? Was this another Sister Souljah moment, like what happened to Lisa Williamson during Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign?
On CNN, commentator Van Jones said Bill Clinton destroyed Williamson’s career, as she was sitting in the audience, in order to show white voters he could stand up to Jesse Jackson and to black activists.
This week Douglas Williams, a writer for “The South Lawn,” joins the “Unauthorized Disclosure” podcast to discuss Bill Clinton’s attacks on Black Lives Matter and more. We discuss the crime bill in the 1990s. We talk about how the Clinton campaign has used African Americans against each other and how the Democratic primary race has perverted the concept of diversity. Williams calls this the “cognitive dissonance election,” and we explore this idea during the interview.
In a separately posted Part II of the episode, hosts Rania Khalek and Kevin Gosztola discuss the Panama Papers, a class action lawsuit by American Muslims against the No Fly List, a human rights hearing on water crises in the United States, and some more of the latest developments in the 2016 presidential election.
The podcast episode is available for download on iTunes. For a link to the interview with Douglas Williams (and also to download the episode as well), go here. A page will load with the audio file of the podcast. The file will automatically start playing so you can listen to the episode.
For a link to the discussion portion of the episode with Khalek and Gosztola, go here.
My apologies for the delay in posting our show from April 3rd. Better late than never. If you want to stay up to date on Unauthorized Disclosure, Kevin posts all our episodes with partial transcripts here. You can also subscribe on iTunes here.
Drew Franklin is an activist and a 28-year resident of the District of Columbia. He is running as an independent At-Large candidate for the D.C. City Council.
His candidacy is a direct challenge to the gentrification, displacement, and development of D.C. at the expense of poor and working class Americans, who often are from predominantly black or brown communities. These communities often lose homes, jobs, and schools, as the city clears land for shopping centers, parks, and other structures to supposedly spur growth.
Franklin was a part of Occupy Wall Street. He has been labeled the “Bernie Sanders of D.C.” He embraces that label, as he supports the opening for social justice movements which has been created by the grassroots mobilization around the Sanders campaign.
On the “Unauthorized Disclosure” podcast this week, Franklin joins the show as our guest. Franklin is also a writer and journalist, whose work has appeared at Orchestrated Pulseand AlterNet.
Hosts Rania Khalek and Kevin Gosztola talk to Franklin about his candidacy for the D.C. City Council, D.C. statehood and how the issue is intertwined with numerous issues, Deray McKesson’s campaign for Baltimore mayor and Teach for America, which Franklin has written about, and why he chose to run as an independent instead of a Democrat.
In a separately posted Part II of the episode, Khalek and Gosztola address how a black student group at York University in Toronto attempted to have Khalek’s speaking event canceled because they claimed she was “anti-black.” Khalek provides an update on some Israel and Palestine news, and Gosztola provides a report from Chicago on the Chicago Teachers Union strike on April 1.
The podcast episode is available for download on iTunes. For a link to the interview with Drew Franklin (and also to download the episode as well), go here. A page will load with the audio file of the podcast. The file will automatically start playing so you can listen to the episode.
For a link to the discussion portion of the episode with Khalek and Gosztola, go here.
Below is a partial transcript of the interview with Drew Franklin.
On Monday, thousands of supporters of Israel filed into the Verizon Center in Washington, DC, to watch the Republican presidential candidates address the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the most influential arm of the Israel lobby.
The line to get in spanned an entire block and wrapped around the corner, and was the scene of confrontations between conference attendees and an assortment of protesters, some chanting against Israel, others against AIPAC and almost everyone against Donald Trump, the Republican frontrunner whose big speech was just hours away.
It was the perfect opportunity to engage with Israel’s most politically active supporters, so I pulled out my camera phone and began asking what they thought of Trump.
Most respondents expressed extremely negative views about the candidate, slamming his racism, xenophobia and incitement to violence.
So I decided to conduct an experiment to test for consistency by attributing racist statements made by Israeli leaders to Trump and asking respondents what they thought of such language.
Most people I spoke with energetically condemned racist statements attributed to Trump. However, when I revealed the statements had actually been made by Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, respondents immediately excused, justified or supported the rhetoric they had just condemned.
Migrants compared to cancer
One young woman said of Trump, “He’s terrible. He incites racist attitudes.” When asked, “What do you think about Trump’s comments comparing migrants to cancer?” she responded with disgust, “He’s awful. I hate Trump.”
But it was Israeli culture minister Miri Regev, not Trump, who compared African refugees to “a cancer,” a statement that 52 percent of Israeli Jews agreed with in one survey.
Regev later apologized, not to Africans but to cancer survivors for likening them to Black people.
I revealed to the young woman that Regev was the source of that statement and added that Netanyahu had recently called for surrounding all of Israel with walls “to protect ourselves from wild beasts.”
“I think you have to step back for a second,” the young woman snapped. “Israel is next to Syria, which is, as you know, going through a civil war. So when [Netanyahu] says ‘wild beasts’ he means jihadis who can potentially be coming into Israel. So I think you need to be very distinctive about that.”
The cognitive dissonance on display was startling as one anti-Trump liberal after another transformed into a defender of hate-speech uttered by Israelis, reflecting the alarming degree to which Arabs have been dehumanized in the minds of many of Israel’s North American supporters.
A woman from Montgomery, Maryland, stood outside the Verizon Center holding a sign that read, “Jews against Trump because we’ve seen this before.”
Though outraged by Trump’s anti-Muslim rhetoric and his pledge to build a wall along the US-Mexico border, she seemed to keep her distance from the larger protests against both Trump and Israel. It was soon clear why.
Asked if she was similarly disturbed by Netanyahu’s “wild beasts” comment, her tone changed and she became defensive.
“I didn’t hear the context,” she said.
“Is there a context where that comment would be okay?” I asked.
She insisted she couldn’t respond without hearing the statement in full and verifying it for herself.
Ironically, her response was not unlike Trump’s answer to a CNN interviewer last month when the billionaire was asked to repudiate the support of former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke.
Trump refused to disavow Duke or his white supremacy.
Trump later tried to blame his response on a “bad earpiece.”
“Abusive and negative”
A man waiting in line to get inside the stadium told me Trump is “psychotic” and accused him of pandering to bigots. But he rolled his eyes and walked away when confronted with Regev’s cancer analogy.
Another man standing in line said he was “afraid” of Trump and called the “wild beasts” comment “abusive and negative.”
As I tried to explain that Netanyahu was the source of the “wild beasts” comment, the man raised his voice, “What does Donald Trump have to do with Netanyahu?”
He went on to blurt out standard pro-Israel talking points.
“Buses were exploding in Israel. Buses exploded! There were bombs exploding,” he argued. “Walls went up to keep Palestinian terrorists out because they’re killing people.”
While Israel insists that its apartheid wall, declared illegal by the International Court of Justice in the Hague in 2004, is vital to keep suicide bombers out, even Netanyahu has confessed that the true purpose of the “separation fence” is to protect Israel’s Jewish majority from “demographic spillover” of Palestinians from the West Bank.
And contrary to oft-repeated Israeli government claims, the wall was not responsiblefor a reduction in bomb attacks carried out by Palestinians.
Israel is “a light unto nations” with “the most moral army in the world,” the man insisted, ignoring decades of Israeli occupation and its attendant brutal violence against millions of Palestinians who remain without rights.
The lesson of the day, if there was one, seemed to be that violent demagoguery, no matter how reprehensible, is perfectly justified when it comes from the mouths of Israeli leaders.
Bernie Sanders won a huge upset in Michigan last week. It helped position him to potentially win some of the states with primaries this week, particularly Ohio, Missouri, and even Illinois. Results also showed that he had convinced a higher percentage of black voters to vote for him than in previous states. It showed the multi-racial coalition of people, who are supporting his campaign.
All too often, the establishment media, especially those with open bias toward supporting Hillary Clinton, promote the idea that the Sanders campaign is just a campaign for angry white men. The establishment media position it as a left-wing polar opposite of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. This terrible equivalency is not only misguided and flawed, but it outright erases the extent to which the campaign has been able to make inroads with black millennials, black labor, black intellectuals, black cultural producers, and other parts of the black left.
What the Sanders campaign has been building is a powerful campaign for economic justice and human rights for poor and lower class Americans, which crosses all demographics particularly among young people. The mobilization of people around his campaign has the potential to be one of the greatest forces for countering the racist presidential campaign of Trump, as it interlocks with grassroots organizations which plan protests at his campaign rally, like what happened in Chicago.
Donna Murch, an associate professor at Rutgers University, is our guest on the “Unauthorized Disclosure” weekly podcast radio show this week. She reacts to activists who shut down Donald Trump’s rally in Chicago. She responds to Hillary Clinton’s statement on what happened, and how it relied upon coded language. We highlight the Clintons’ records with African Americans.
The discussion expands into a full assessment of the successes and struggles, which Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign has had with black voters. Particular attention is paid to the patronage networks, which greatly benefit the Clintons. Also, we talk about the oft-raised question of whether Sanders knows how to talk to black voters as well as what it means to be mounting an insurgent campaign from within the Democratic Party.
The podcast episode is available for download on iTunes. For a link to the episode (and also to download the episode as well), go here. A page will load with the audio file of the podcast. The file will automatically start playing so you can listen to the episode.
We also recorded a bonus discussion in the morning on March 12. Much happened between then and now, but we think you’ll still appreciate much of what we recorded. Listen here.
Below is a partial transcript of the hour-long interview with Donna Murch.
Bernie Sanders won a huge upset in Michigan last week. It helped position him to potentially win some of the states with primaries this week, particularly Ohio, Missouri, and even Illinois. Results also showed that he had convinced a higher percentage of black voters to vote for him than in previous states. It showed the multi-racial coalition of people, who are supporting his campaign.
All too often, the establishment media, especially those with open bias toward supporting Hillary Clinton, promote the idea that the Sanders campaign is just a campaign for angry white men. The establishment media position it as a left-wing polar opposite of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. This terrible equivalency is not only misguided and flawed, but it outright erases the extent to which the campaign has been able to make inroads with black millennials, black labor, black intellectuals, black cultural producers, and other parts of the black left.
What the Sanders campaign has been building is a powerful campaign for economic justice and human rights for poor and lower class Americans, which crosses all demographics particularly among young people. The mobilization of people around his campaign has the potential to be one of the greatest forces for countering the racist presidential campaign of Trump, as it interlocks with grassroots organizations which plan protests at his campaign rally, like what happened in Chicago.
Donna Murch, an associate professor at Rutgers University, is our guest on the “Unauthorized Disclosure” weekly podcast radio show this week. She reacts to activists who shut down Donald Trump’s rally in Chicago. She responds to Hillary Clinton’s statement on what happened, and how it relied upon coded language. We highlight the Clintons’ records with African Americans.
The discussion expands into a full assessment of the successes and struggles, which Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign has had with black voters. Particular attention is paid to the patronage networks, which greatly benefit the Clintons. Also, we talk about the oft-raised question of whether Sanders knows how to talk to black voters as well as what it means to be mounting an insurgent campaign from within the Democratic Party.
The podcast episode is available for download on iTunes. For a link to the episode (and also to download the episode as well), go here. A page will load with the audio file of the podcast. The file will automatically start playing so you can listen to the episode.
We also recorded a bonus discussion in the morning on March 12. Much happened between then and now, but we think you’ll still appreciate much of what we recorded. Listen here.
Below is a partial transcript of the hour-long interview with Donna Murch.
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