Clearing the FOG with co-hosts Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese

The new book, "Killing Democracy: Western Imperialism's Legacy of Regime Change and Media Manipulation," is a timely account of the West's efforts to control countries around the world through soft power and, when necessary, military power, and the critical role the media plays in forming popular opinion to support these efforts and view them as legitimate. Clearing the FOG speaks with two of the...

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is a country in central Africa the size of Western Europe and rich in arable land and minerals, including those critical to the military industrial complex, such as cobalt and coltan. Since the CIA-backed assassination of Patrice Lumumba in 1961, the DRC has been ruled by puppets who answer to the United States and its allies. 2025 has been a devastating...

David Rovics is an activist musician who composes songs that educate about historical events, provide political analysis about current events, and raise up people from social movements. His solidarity with Palestinian liberation is deep, spanning his entire musical career. Recently, his entire 50-album catalog on YouTube Music was deleted. Clearing the FOG speaks with Rovics about the retaliation...

On November 30, six million Hondurans voted in their presidential election. One week later, the outcome of the election has not yet been announced due to credible allegations of fraud and illegal interference by the Trump administration, which includes threats of ending remittances from the United States that account for 25% of Hondura's GDP. Clearing the FOG speaks with Camila Escalante of Press...

A right-wing, billionaire-backed and violent demonstration was held in Mexico City on November 15 against President Claudia Sheinbaum. Corporate media in the United States portrayed the protests as Gen Z taking a stand against corruption, but the march had all the makings of a US-backed destabilization effort. Clearing the FOG speaks with Jose Luis Granados Ceja and Kurt Hackbarth, co-hosts of the...

The United States was scheduled for its regular review of its human rights violations by the United Nations Human Rights Council on November 7, but it refused to cooperate. As part of the process, activists in the US submitted a shadow report last April called "The Rights to Life and Health: How financing affects the right to health care in the US." Clearing the FOG speaks with Martha "Marti" Schm...

The United Nations Conference of Parties (COP) is holding its annual meeting in Brazil this year for the 30th time. Despite the creation of the Paris Climate Agreement nearly ten years ago, carbon emissions continue to rise, and the world is now experiencing the impacts of the 1.5° Celsius rise in temperature we sought to avoid. The time has come to shift our thinking and actions to what we can do...

The Syrian government under Bashar Al-Assad was so successfully demonized by Western imperialist media and governments that many celebrated when Assad was overthrown last December, even though the new puppet government was led by the extremist Al Nusra Front, an Al Qaeda terrorist group. Now, Syria is balkanized and the government is implementing forced displacement and ethnic cleansing. Clearing...

The US military is the greatest threat to the planet, not just for the violence that it commits but also for its carbon emissions and environmental destruction. Clearing the FOG speaks with Abby Martin about her new documentary, Earth's Greatest Enemy, which exposes the harm caused by the military. Martin and her spouse, Mike Prysner, traveled around the world to cover the damage caused by the mil...

There are more than 5,400 data centers in the United States, which is almost half of the number of data centers worldwide. In the past four years, there has been a surge in data center construction, particularly in poor communities in the South. Clearing the FOG speaks with Jai Dulani of Media Justice, who authored a new report: The People Say No: Resisting Data Centers in the South , and Kali Aku...

The United States has been escalating its attacks on Venezuela and has been positioning itself this year for a military invasion. The Venezuelan government recently requested action by the United Nations because it has good reason to believe that an attack is imminent. To understand the current threats and how Venezuela is preparing to defend itself, Clearing the FOG speaks with Roger Harris, a co...

This week marks two years since the launch of Al Aqsa Flood and the beginning of the Israeli Occupying Forces' escalated genocide of Palestinians and forced displacement throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Clearing the FOG speaks with former senior United Nations official, human rights lawyer Craig Mokhiber, about the United Nations leadership's recent efforts to suppress criticism of...

On September 8, the Trump Administration launched 'Operation Midway Blitz to increase the number ICE raids on immigrant communities in Chicagoland. As director of the Casa DuPage Workers Center, Cristobal Cavazos, explains to Clearing the FOG, this initially led to widespread feelings of fear by residents, but organizers turned that into power by creating rapid response teams throughout the region...

From September 21 (International Peace Day) to October 2 (International Day of Nonviolence), there will be more than five thousand nonviolent actions happening around the world coordinated by Campaign Nonviolence. The focus this year is promoting nonviolence toward self, others, world and earth. Clearing the FOG speaks with author and activist Rivera Sun, who assists in organizing the actions, abo...

The situation with respect to the climate crisis is developing rapidly. Each new study seems to bring worse news. In addition, the media is rife with climate denial and misinformation. To help us understand what is happening on this planet, Clearing the FOG speaks with environmental journalist Robert Hunziker. Hunziker follows climate studies published in scientific journals and translates them in...

For Labor Day, Clearing the FOG speaks with labor organizer Jaz Brisack. Jaz was on the frontlines of organizing the first labor union in a Starbuck's shop and creating the Inside Organizer School in 2018. They are the author of Get on the Job and Organize published by Atria/One Signal Publishers in April of this year. Jaz speaks about their experiences growing up in the South, discovering the his...

On August 17, in the Bolivian presidential elections, the leftwing candidates lost for the first time in twenty years. Some are calling this a continuation of the US-backed coup there. Just days before the election, the Trump administration announced that it was sending naval destroyers and 4,000 troops to Latin America that could be used in 'targeted strikes' against Venezuela. Clearing the FOG s...

On August 11, the Trump administration announced the deployment of national guard troops and the federal takeover of the police department in Washington, DC. This follows military troops being deployed to Los Angeles and ICE agents snatching people throughout the country. Last week, the Pentagon also announced the creation of a 600-member national guard unit ready to deploy to cities within an hou...

This past week marked the 80th anniversary of the US bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Clearing the FOG speaks with Gerry Condon, a past president of Veterans for Peace and a lifelong GI resister, about the myths of the US atomic bombing of Japan and the costs of nuclear weapons, including the environmental contamination from the nuclear chain and testing. Condon warns that the risk of nuclear wa...

The Lancet, a renowned medical journal, recently published a groundbreaking report on the number of people who die each year as a result of economic sanctions primarily imposed by the United States. US economic wars have killed more than 560,000 people each year for the past ten years, over half of those killed are children five years of age and younger. This number is higher than the number of pe...

Julian Assange, a founder of Wikileaks, endured nearly 15 years of persecution for daring to provide an information platform that opened access to leaked documents exposing the rich and powerful. One year after Assange's release from Belmarsh Prison, his brother, Gabriel Shipton, launched The Information Rights Project to share the lessons he and his family learned as they mounted a global movemen...

On July 17, as The Hague Group, a coalition of nations committed to diplomatic and legal actions to end the genocide in Palestine, held an emergency summit in Bogota, Colombia, civil society groups also met to launch the Friends of The Hague Group (FoTHG). The FoTHG was convened by Palestinian organizations and joined by major international movements to support and expand The Hague Group, but also...

The United States is a failing country. Political leaders at all levels have failed to effectively solve the many crises we face such as the climate crisis, economic insecurity and growing inequality, and the need for affordable housing, education, and health care, and more. Action at the local level, where people have the most control, offers a pathway forward. Clearing the FOG speaks with Michae...

July 5 marked the 90th anniversary of the Wagner Act, also known as the National Labor Relations Act, which created the National Labor Relations Board and created mechanisms for workers to expand their rights and protections. Clearing the FOG speaks with longtime labor activist Steve Early about how worker militancy led to the Wagner Act, which was successful in increasing the percentage of unioni...

On June 12, just days before a scheduled negotiations session, the illegal state of Israel attacked Iran, killing top military leaders and scientists. Iran responded the next day by returning the attack on Israel, and there have been daily attacks between the two countries since then. On June 21, the United States, which had been providing support to Israel, attacked three nuclear facilities in Ir...