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

We spend the hour speaking with Larry Hamm who is described as “ a relentless advocate for African-American people and the cause of human rights for more than 30 years.” Larry is chair of the People’s Organization for Progress in Newark, NJ which he helped to found in 1983. His work focuses on education, jobs, health care, police brutality and issues that arise in the Black community. He is quoted...

This past week, as part of the Beyond Extreme Energy campaign to retire fossil fuels there were daily actions to shut down the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission every morning and actions at other locations in the afternoon. These took place simultaneously with direct action at two FERC-approved gas infrastructure projects in Seneca Lake, NY and Cove Point, MD. And the week of actions at FERC fo...

The month of October has been dedicated to the issues of mass incarceration, racially-biased policing, militarized policing and the abusive behavior and extrajudicial murders being carried out by police. Over the weekend of October 10, thousands of people converged in St. Louis, MO to demonstrate for justice in the murders of Michael Brown and other Black men killed by police. On October 22, thous...

David Hartsough has dedicated his life to working for peace and justice and continues now with one of his greatest endeavors, the abolition of war. His story, “ Waging Peace: Global Adventures of a Lifelong Activist ,” has just been released. David writes, “ The book shares personal stories about my experiences in nonviolent movements over the past sixty years. My goal is to inspire and empower re...

Monday, October 13, is celebrated in many places around the United States as Columbus Day after Christopher Columbus. In school, most American students are taught that Columbus discovered the ‘New World’ and are not taught that not only is this false but also aren’t taught about the horrors that he and others during that time inflicted on the Indigenous population. This is starting to change as aw...

Following the events around the UN climate summit including the People's Climate March and #Flood Wall Street , we discuss what needs to be done next to solve the climate crisis. We speak with John Farrell of the Institute for Local Self Reliance about the work that is being done across the country to build the renewable energy economy that is carbon free and nuclear free and based on distributed...

David Swanson writes that war is always based on lies and that is obvious as the US becomes more committed to greater military involvement in Iraq and Syria each day. In this episode we will look at the roots of the crises in Iraq and Syria. Where did ISIS come from? What are the options in intervening and should we intervene at all? We speak with Matthew Hoh, Senior Fellow at the Center for Inter...

We spoke with organizers of the New York Climate Convergence, a two day conference just before the People’s Climate March that will focus on discussion of the roots of the climate crisis, obstacles to addressing it and how to build a united movement to put real solutions in place while stopping false and harmful solutions. Jacqui Patterson works with frontline communities that are impacted by dirt...

We spend the hour with Dr. Nafeez Ahmed who is a b estselling author, investigative journalist and international security scholar. He is executive director of the Institute for Policy Research & Development . His newest book is “Zero Point,” a science fiction thriller that “explore[s] the self-defeating hubris of an all-powerful national security state in an era of converging environmental, energy...

We speak about the increasing militarization of police forces throughout the US. Armed with military equipment including assault rifles and tanks and trained by the military, the police force is treating our streets like a war zone and responding with excessive force to events, particularly when people of color are involved. Our guests, Carl Williams and Kade Crockford, from the Massachusetts Amer...

We examine the true costs of nuclear energy and whether it is truly necessary as we transition to a sustainable energy economy. Starting in the 1950's there was a Uranium Rush in the US that dwarfed the Gold Rush and left behind more than ten thousand abandoned uranium mines that continue to pollute the air, land and water today and cause serious public health problems. This is the dirty beginning...

We speak about the expanding US Empire. The United States is the largest empire in the history of the world with over 1,000 bases and outposts around the world compared to the 37 bases of the British Empire at its peak. Despite our military being stretched thin and the military budget causing austerity to social programs and infrastructure at home, the US continues to expand. Our guests will be Co...

We speak with Courtney White, author of “Grass, Soil, Hope” who has traveled the world and experimented on his own ranch to find ways to sequester carbon that are sustainable and also solve other problems related to the climate crisis, water management and food security. Though the evidence for these solutions is very strong, they are not widely known yet. And we speak with Dr. Sean Sweeeney, dire...

As the failings of the capitalist economy become more evident, people recognize that there are alternatives. The cooperative economy though largely hidden is growing and is outperforming the capitalist economy when it comes to job and economic stability. The cooperative economy places capital in service of jobs instead of the other way around. To discuss this in more depth we spoke with Janelle Co...

We take a look at the disturbing trends in Michigan. Emergency Financial Managers are being appointed by the governor to run cities and school boards, particularly in black majority communities, in a dictatorial fashion. As our guest Tom Stephens writes,”The Emergency Financial Manager regime imposed on Detroit is ‘an entirely new and unprecedented form of antidemocratic local government directly...

A sister trade agreement to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is being negotiated in secret with the European Union. It’s called the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership but is known as TAFTA. Last month, a leaked memo showed that negotiators are pushing for the US to produce more oil and gas through extreme measures such as fracking and export it to the EU. Already the US is making p...

In this time of oligarchy and corruption, it is necessary for democracy that people who serve in the government step forward and tell the truth. However, the Obama administration through its attacks on whistleblowers and use of the Espionage Act more times than all other presidents combined has intimidated workers from speaking out. In the past two weeks, new tools and organizations were launched...

Now that it has been proven that we live in a plutocracy, what are we going to do about it? PopularResistance.org is joining with the Backbone Campaign to launch the Rolling Rebellion for Real Democracy. The first step is a week of actions across the country from July 5 to 12.  Bill Moyer from Backbone Campaign joins us to speak about the campaign and what we hope to achieve. In the second half of...

Unions in the US which were a driving force for social change in the early 20th century have been in decline for decades. Recently however union and non-union workers have been fighting for better working conditions and wages and the right to organize. Steve Early has been present for the past 40 years of labor’s struggles. His new book is titled “Save Our Unions: Dispatches from a Movement in Dis...

This month, economic democracy conferences were held in both Jackson, MS and Baltimore, MD. The conferences focused on the structural causes of poverty, the failures of the current economic system and new systems that can be put in place to build wealth in communities. Th Baltimore conference, which we helped to organize, focused on building cooperatives, complementary currencies and alternative f...

We discuss the FCC’s plan to eliminate net neutrality on May 15. FCC chair Tom Wheeler will be deciding on new rules regarding the internet that will allow those who have wealth to have faster service and will leave the rest of us behind with internet service that ranks us between 35th and 40th in the world. The internet will become a pay-to-play entity rather than being treated as a public good –...

The focus of today’s show is President Obama’s trip to Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and the Philippines to build support for escalation of the US’ military presence and for the TransPacific Partnership (TPP). We are joined by Bernadette Ellorin of BAYAN USA which helped to coordinate protests to US military and economic domination in the region. Protests occurred in the US and in each of the count...

We spoke with Martin Kirk and Anuradha Mittal about the World Bank's "Doing Business" ranking which encourages countries to lower protections for workers, public health and the environment in order to attract businesses. It allows businesses to move factories and capital to countries with the lowest standards and fuels the race to the bottom. Of particular concern is the rising number of acres bei...

We speak with two guests who are working to transform their cities into places that support their populations rather than exploiting them and pushing them to the edges. Andy Shallal, artist, activist and owner of the Bus Boys and Poets bookstore restaurants is running for mayor in Washington, DC. He advocates for policies that bring greater community engagement and empower communities through educ...

We talk about the efforts in Vermont to create a new economy which includes a public bank that is designed to serve the needs of the public and protects public dollars from the risks of too big to fail banks with Gwendolyn Hallsmith, the new Executive Director of the Public Banking Institute. We also speak with Ellen Brown who has written numerous books and articles on public and postal banking an...