Emergency Forum to Stop Government Surveillance, with Michael Slate and Prof. Dennis Loo

Stop Government Surveillance!

Emergency Forum

with Prof. Dennis Loo* and Michael Slate**

 

Sunday, June 23rd, 3 PM

Revolution Books

5726 Hollywood Blvd

Los Angeles 90028

“Day after day new revelations about the surveillance by the U.S. government of the phone and Internet use of billions of people around the world, including every phone call made in the U.S. itself, come to the surface. And those in power, from Barack Obama on down, defend this illegitimate, immoral-and unlawful-shredding of basic rights that people are supposed to have. Daily, there is discussion and debate on TV and in print of what has been exposed and what stand people should take.

“And let’s be clear… this massive spying on the phone calls and Internet activity of billions of people around the world is being carried out by a ruling class in this country that sees the vast majority of humanity as a potential threat to their system of exploitation and oppression, and has proven over and over that it uses this kind of data to carry out terrible crimes. They collected data on Black Panther Party leader Fred Hampton’s living situation to assassinate him in 1968. They used their data mining to target a remote, barren, mountainous village in Yemen for missile attacks on December 16, 2009, murdering dozens of innocent civilians, many of them children.

“The more data these monsters have about people’s personal lives, medical records, political activity and networks of friends and associates, the more horrific the crimes they can commit. They need to be stopped now through determined political protest and resistance, including by having the backs of heroes like Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden (see “Five Points of Orientation on the Revelations of Government Surveillance“), and journalists who have the courage and honesty to make sure the crimes that are being exposed are not covered over or whitewashed.”

Read more.

Join us to learn more and then act together.  Spread the word far & wide!

*Dennis Loo is a professor of sociology at Cal Poly Pomona, and on the National Advisory Board of The World Can’t Wait.  (He is co-hosting tonite’s emergency forum in New York City.  Watch livestream. Tweet #J19 #NSA – 4 PM PST)  Read his latest articles here.

** Michael Slate is a correspondent for Revolution newspaper and the host of The Michael Slate Show on KPFK, 90.7 FM.

The Michael Slate Show, June 14, 2013: Marjorie Cohn on NSA spying, Morgan Neville, Director, “20 Feet from Stardom”

To Listen to or download, or to get the podcast link, click here.

NSA Utah facility

Marjorie Cohn talks with Michael about whistleblowers Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden, what they reveal, and the vicious campaign of the Obama administration against them. Marjorie Cohn is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, former president of the National Lawyers Guild and deputy secretary general of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers. Her most recent book is The United States and Torture: Interrogation, Incarceration, and Abuse. She is working on a book about drones and targeted killing.

To find out more or get involved:

Marjorie Cohn’s website.

I Am Bradley Manning

For news and analysis, check out revcom.us.

     Morgan Neville, Director of “20 Feet from Stardom,” discusses his documentary on the lives and art of back-up singers. These are stars whose voices many are familiar with, but whose names are mainly unknown, who helped shape rock ‘n’ roll from its origins in the 1950s through the British Invasion to today. The film opens in theaters June 14.

The Michael Slate Show, June 7, 2013: Carl Dix on Trayvon Martin; Rick Rowley, Director, “Dirty Wars”

Listen/download the show from the KFPK  archives

Get the Podcast

As the trial of George Zimmerman, the vigilante would-be cop who murdered Trayvon Martin is set to begin, Carl Dix, Revolutionary Communist Party and Stop Mass Incarceration Network, talks about the importance of people standing up and demanding justice, including how this is related to mass incarceration and the whole issue of the slow genocide of Black people.

June 10 is National Hoodie Day! Join the protests. Check out local times and places on Facebook.

Rick Rowley, Director of “Dirty Wars,” stops by to talk about the film, which is opening in Los Angeles this weekend. The film follows investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill, into the heart of America’s covert wars, from Afghanistan to Yemen, Somalia and beyond. At this year’s Sundance Film Festival, Rick Rowley was awarded best cinematography in a U.S. documentary.

Sal Silva, Father of David Silva, Murdered by Cops in Bakersfield, on the Michael Slate Show

To listen to or download the show, click here.

At the beginning of the show, we hear from Sal Silva, the father of David Silva, a 33-year-old living in Bakersfield who was brutally beaten to death by police on May 8. He’ll talk about the murder of his son and the struggle many have been waging for Justice for David Silva.

To find out more, and get involved, check out Justice for David Sal Silva on Facebook.

KPFK is in its Spring Fund Drive, so the rest of the hour, we hear clips from “American Radical: The Trials of Norman Finkelstein,” a probing documentary about American academic Norman Finkelstein. A son of holocaust survivors, ardent critic of Israel and US Middle-East policy, and author of five provocative books, Finkelstein was driven from his professorship at DePaul University for telling the truth.

New Edition of the Michael Slate Show, 5/22/2013. Sunsara Taylor and Jordan Davis: Cops Called to Evict StopPatriarchy.org from A Reproductive Freedom Conference; Filmmaker Bryan D. Hopkins, “Dirty Energy: The Deepwater Horizon Disaster”

A new edition of the Michael Slate Show is available online. Click here.

Marking the 3rd anniversary of the BP Oil Spill, Bryan D. Hopkins, director of “Dirty Energy: The Deepwater Horizon Disaster” discusses the major environmental and human crisis that continues to develop and unfold in the as a result of the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history. On April 20th, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded off the Gulf of Mexico, killing eleven BP workers and spewing 200 million barrels of oil into the ocean. Hopkins not only brings to light the personal stories of the Louisiana fishermen and local residents whose lives have been devastated by this criminal disaster but also reveals the rapidly developing ecological crisis the Gulf of Mexico and the birds, fish, shrimp and plant life in the area. And most of all, Hopkins lays bare the continuing cover-up.

Sunsara Taylor, writer, Revolution Newspaper and one of the founders of StopPatriarchy.org, and Jordan Davis, Revolution Club New York City, discuss the eviction of StopPatriarchy.org from a conference titled, “From Abortion Rights to Social Justice, Building the Movement for Reproductive Freedom.” Organizers of the conference held at Hampshire College called the police to surround and remove the anti-patriarchy and anti-pornography activists from the conference. Taylor and Davis expose the politics behind this move and the danger it poses for the movement, insisting that higher standards need to be in place.

Debra Sweet, Ngugi wa Thiong’o on the Michael Slate Show

To download this show, go here.

The national version of the Michael Slate Show is online, featuring an interview with Debra Sweet not previously broadcast.

Debra Sweet, the National Director of the World Can’t Wait organization, talks about the campaign to place a full page ad in the NY Times  — “Stop the Torture! Close Guantanamo! End the War Crimes and Violations of Fundamental Rights” — and a weekend of actions against the Guantanamo torture chamber as part of breaking the silence around Guantanamo and standing up for the hunger striking detainees. To contribute to getting the ad published, click here.

Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Professor of Comparative Literature at UC Irvine and a world renowned novelist, playwright and cultural theorist, talks about the second volume of his memoirs, In the House of the Interpreter. Ngugi tells a gripping story of an African teenager trying to make his way through a Kenya under the boot of British colonialism. It’s a coming of age story that makes its way through the contradictions involved in a young man being trained to be part of the colonial “cooperative” African leadership while fiercely aware of the suffering of his people and the importance of the liberation movement of the Kenyan Land and Freedom Movement — the Mau Mau.

Michael Slate Show 5/10/2013: David St. Louis, The Royale; Author Ngugi wa Thiong’o

To listen to or download the show, click here.

David St. Louis, lead actor in The Royale, currently playing at the Kirk Douglas Theatre. Jay “The Sport” Jackson wants a shot at the world title in a time when black and white boxers did not face off. And he’s out to win at ANY cost. He comes out swinging and slinging words in a spectacular barrage of rhythm and heat, language and adrenaline, sinew and cocksure swagger. But in fighting for the recognition he deserves, will he – and those he loves – be strong enough for the responsibility that comes with this unprecedented undertaking?

Kenyan author Ngugi wa Thiong’o, someone who has spent his life writing for and about liberation, will join us to talk about In the House of the Interpreter, the second volume of the memoir which began with Dreams in a Time of War, a Childhood Memoir. In the House of the Interpreter takes us to the author’s life and times at boarding school — the first secondary educational institution in British-ruled Kenya — in the 1950s, against the backdrop of the brutality of British colonialism, and the tumultuous Mau Mau Uprising for independence and Kenyan sovereignty.

Ngugi w Thiong’o will be reading from and signing In the House of the Interpreter, May 19, 2:00 PM, at Revolution Books, 5726 Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles 90028. Call 323-463-3500, or email RevolutionBooksLA@gmail.com.

The Michael Slate Show, 5/3/2013: Larry Everest on Syria, Wayne Kramer on The Other Death Penalty, Robert Parry on It’s the Media, Stupid!

Listen or download the Michael Slate Show here.

Larry Everest on what’s going on in Syria: who’s involved in the fighting against the Assad regime, the role of the US and other imperialist powers, and the recent moves by the US and Israel. Larry Everest is a writer for Revolution newspaper and author of Oil, Power and Empire: Iraq and the US Global Agenda.

Wayne Kramer, guitarist and co-founder of Jail Guitar Doors, on The Other Death Penalty: “A sentence of life without the possibility of parole (LWOP) is a death sentence.  Worse, it is a long, slow, dissipating death sentence without any of the legal or administrative safeguards rightly awarded to those condemned to traditional forms of execution.” The Other Death Penalty Project (TODPP) is a grassroots organizing campaign to end this practice. You can give your support on Indie Go Go.

Robert Parry, investigative journalist and editor of Consortiumnews.com, on the media, and the history behind recent right-wing attempts to create an even more-monopolized press. Read his article, “It’s the Media, Stupid.”

The Michael Slate Show 4/26/2013: Pelican Bay Lawsuit; Carl Dix, A Proposal to Fight Mass Incarceration; “Herman’s House”

Listen or download — or subscribe to the podcast — here.

Jules Lobel, President of the Center for Constitutional Rights, joins us to talk about a class action lawsuit on behalf of prisoners at the Pelican Bay Security Housing Unit (SHU) who have spent between 10 and 28 years in solitary confinement. A hunger strike in 2011 helped spark a movement to end this inhumane practice; several plaintiffs in the lawsuit were participants in the hunger strike. A judge recently rejected a government motion to dismiss the lawsuit.

We talk to Carl Dix about a proposal he recently made to the Stop Mass Incarceration Network, including plans to support a new hunger strike called by people in prisons in California for this summer — and how you can contribute your thoughts on this proposal.

We talk with Angad Bhalla, writer and director of “Herman’s House.” Herman Wallace, Albert Woodfox, and Robert King are the Angola 3, charged with murder while in prison, in retaliation for starting one of the first prison chapters of the Black Panther Party and exposing conditions at Louisiana’s Angola Prison. Herman Wallace has spent more than 40 years in a 6-by-9-foot cell, more time in solitary confinement than any other prisoner.

“Herman’s House” is a moving account of the remarkable expression of his struggle found in a project with artist Jackie Sumell. Imagining Wallace’s “dream home” began as a game and became an interrogation of justice and punishment in America. It premieres on PBS in July.

The Michael Slate Show, April 19, 2013: Guantanamo Hunger Strike with Omar Farah of CCR & Andy Worthington; Mr. Fish and Political Cartooning

The Michael Slate Show, April 19, 2013, on KPFK 90.7 FM. Click to listen or download.

Prisoners at the US torture camp at Guantanamo continue their hunger strike against their inhumane conditions, an action which began February 6. Last weekend, the world heard the news of a brutal attack on the frail hunger strikers, with US soldiers firing rubber bullets as part of forcing prisoners into solitary confinement cells. Omar Farah of the Center for Constitutional Rights will join us to give an update on the strike, the attack on the prisoners and efforts to spread solidarity. Omar Farah is a staff attorney for the Guantanamo Global Justice Initiative, and has represented prisoners in numerous court cases since 2008.

Also joining us will be Andy Worthington, journalist and author of The Guantanamo Files. He recently published a description of the conditions of the hunger strikers at Guantanamo that Shaker Aamer gave to his attorney, Clive Stafford Smith, in a phone conversation on March 29. In 2007 and again in 2009, Shaker Aamer was cleared for release by the US government, like most of those imprisoned. Yet they are still being held.
Plus, Mr. Fish, aka Dwayne Booth, talking about political cartooning and cartoonists, their work, and the suppression and censorship that they have to go up against, including his own experience. Mr. Fish’s cartoons appear on Truthdig and other blogs. He is also the author of Go Fish: How to Win Contempt and Influence People.