On the Ground w Esther Iverem

At the Rage Against the War Machine March, peace activists stop at The Washington Post to speak out against corporate medias complicity in warmongering. The march and die-in provides the perfect opportunity to remember the real costs of war. Headlines: Biden’s Syria Lie; Sanders Makes Comeback; Update on Chicago Teachers and UAW Strikes; Elijah Cummings; DC Continues Plan to Destroy McMillan...

From housing displacement, to police abuse, to raging against the war machine, people are raising their voices and fists against the forces of exploitation. And scientists make a shocking discovery in the Arctic ocean. Where before the ocean floor was solid ice, it is now giving way to methane boiling up from the deep.  If you enjoy our grassroots news show, which we provide free online, on podcas...

ON THE GROUND FOR OCTOBER 4, 2019 On this show, calls for justice for Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was murdered one year ago in Saudi Arabia’s embassy in Turkey. And this week also marks the 70th anniversary of the founding of the Peoples Republic of China. What is the impact of China’s revolution today? We speak to Brian Becker of the ANSWER Coalition. Headlines on...

ON THE GROUND FOR SEPTEMBER 27, 2019 While the media swarm focuses on Trump’s telephone conversation with Ukraine’s president, why is it ignoring a bigger Ukraine story involving U.S. military support for neo-Nazis? We speak to journalist Ben Norton. And those impacted by Trump’s Muslim ban finally get their day in Congress to speak out! Headlines on Trump at the U.N., impeachmen...

For young people on the front lines of climate change, the crisis is not a future reality, but, rather, a clear and present danger that fills them with anxiety, depression and uncertainty about what is permanent. DC activists march and rally in the Global Climate Strike demanding that U.S. lawmakers treat the climate crisis like the emergency that it is. If you enjoy our grassroots news show, whic...

Family Members of Those Killed on Boeing 737 Max Speak Out in DC…John Bolton is OUT…Headlines on No Asylum for Bahamians, Voter Suppression, Trump Appoints Lifetime Arch Conservative Judges and More… If you enjoy our grassroots news show, which we provide free online, on podcast and on Pacifica stations and affiliates, please click here or click on the Support-Donate tab on this website to subscri...

On this show, writers speak out at the Poets for Puerto Rico fundraiser held at the American Poetry Museum in Northeast DC on September 22nd 2018, one year after Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico, killing 3,000 TO 8,000 people as the island languished in neglect from the U.S. federal government. With Tony Medina, Seve Torres, Ana Portnoy Brimmer, Evelyn Mejil, C. Thomas, Anthony Morales, Noel...

ON THE GROUND FOR AUGUST 30, 2019 With a combination of anger and mourning at the intentional burning of the Amazon Rainforest, activists from Extinction Rebellion and other groups rally outside the Brazilian Embassy, demanding an end to the destruction. And hundreds rallied in Northwest DC to protest the leasing of a building to serve as a detention center for immigrant children. Plus headlines....

ON THE GROUND AUGUST 23, 2019 Israel’s banning of two Congresswomen, two Muslim women of color, because of their support for the Boycott, Divestment Sanctions movement, was just the latest in an ongoing series of political firestorms involving the relationship between Israel and the United States, and the power that Israel and the Israeli lobby exert on U.S. laws, including free speech. Earlier th...

Late August 2019 is the actual time period marking the 400th anniversary of the arrival of Africans in the English colony of Jamestown in 1619. So we have a rebroadcast of our interview with historian Gerald Horne about this international commemoration and opportunity to reexamine the world-altering impact of the enslavement of African people. And August has many anniversaries. From Mike Brown bei...

ON THE GROUND AUGUST 9, 2019 From DC, to Mississippi, to Venezuela, to Mozambique, people all over the globe are fighting back against white supremacy and U.S. imperialist violence. And with accused mass murderers echoing the racist rhetoric of Donald J. Trump, a reprise of our conversation with author Henry Giroux, about the rise of neoliberal fascism in the United States and how fascism starts w...

ON THE GROUND AUGUST 2, 2019 On the Ground was in Cuba in April and May 2019 as part of the 14th Annual May Day International Brigade of Voluntary Work and Solidarity with Cuba, during which we traveled to throughout Western and Central Cuba, hearing from Cubans about their lives and views about what is happening internationally. As is happening in Venezuela, the stepped up imperialist attack in C...

ON THE GROUND JULY 26, 2019 On this month’s F-Word segment on fascism, author and cultural critic Henry A. Giroux, says that fascism starts with words. His new book is The Terror of the Unforeseen , in which he describes the rise of neoliberal fascism in the United States. Gerald Horne on the latest U.S obsession with Russia… Headlines on Mueller, Tulsi Gabbard and more.. Mueller Testimony i...

After announced immigrant raids all but fizzled, this week, the Trump administration turned to attack four progressive members of Congress, all women of color, who fought back. And as the politics of distraction heats up before the 2020 election, progressive activism keeps the focus on policy and human needs. Plus headlines: Rep. Ilhan Omar introduced a resolution Wednesday affirming the use of bo...

Days before the Trump administration is set to begin raids on immigrant families around the country, Yazmin Juarez, who came to the U.S. seeking asylum, offers heart-wrenching testimony to Congress about the death of her daughter just after she was released from a U.S. border detention facility. And as British commandos still hold a seized oil tanker belonging to Iran, Gerald Horne weighs the impl...

‘ON THE GROUND’ FOR JULY 5, 2019 As Donald Trump spends millions to promote U.S. militarism on Independence Day, anti-war activists gather on the national mall to denounce tanks and war planes used as political props. And as outrage grows over increased abuse of asylum seekers by the U.S. federal government,  human rights defenders mark the tenth anniversary of the U.S.-backed cou...

From U.S. warmongering, to the imprisonment of Julian Assange, to the stories that movies tell us. We have an in-depth conversation about corporate media and national and international news with journalist Jon Jeter. And after three years of delay by Mayor Bowser and DC police, a Superior Court judge orders Washington, DC to begin collecting information about the race of those they stop and frisk....

‘On the Ground’ for June 21, 2019 At a Congressional hearing this week, witnesses offered expert testimony about the need for reparations for the descendants of enslaved Africans living in the United States. And on this month’s episode of the F-Word on fascism, an activist says that Americans need to wake up and confront the reality of what this country is becoming.  Plus headlin...

‘On the Ground’ Show for June 14, 2019 Rallying in front of the White House this week, faith leaders from around the country handed down what they called a moral indictment against the Trump administration, for a range of wrongs, from denying health care to millions, to ripping migrant children from their parents. And in what some analysts are calling a suspicious provocation for war,...

‘ON THE GROUND’ FOR JUNE 7, 2019 PART TWO OF THOM HARTMAN ON THE U.S. AND GUNS At the second in a series of congressional hearings on white supremacist violence in the United States, lawmakers questioned this week the priorities and placement of resources by the FBI and other federal agencies. And as the United States faces the horror of the latest mass shooting in Virginia Beach, a ne...

‘ON THE GROUND’ SHOW FOR MAY 31, 2019 Marchers rallied at the White House on May 25th for African Liberation Day and called on the Trump administration to end crippling sanctions against the Southern African country of Zimbabwe. And in DC, advocates for quality health care vow to continue the fight for DC’s only full service hospital east of the Anacostia River. Plus headlines on...

With the deaths of six migrant children in U.S. custody–and hundreds more children still separated from their parents–when will cruel immigration policies bear any responsibility for cruel outcomes? And as DC and cities around the United States launch celebrations of the poet of democracy, Walt Whitman, we speak to one historian about new bodies of scholarship on Whitman’s real l...

The U.S. breaks Into Venezuela embassy and arrests activists…Part 2 Interview with Gerald Horne on New S. Africa Book, ‘White Supremacy Confronted’…Plus Headlines: Fourth Migrant Child Dies in Feds Custody, Green New Deal Tour and More…  If you enjoy our grassroots news show, which we provide free online, on podcast and on Pacifica stations and affiliates, please...

As South African voters went to the polls this week, marking 25 years since the end of the racist apartheid system, we spend the hour with the author and activist Professor Gerald Horne and his new book, White Supremacy Confronted: U.S. Imperialism and Anti-Communism vs. the Liberation of Southern Africa, from Rhodes to Mandela. Plus headlines on the occupation of the Venezuela embassy by peace ac...

For this show, we are in Havana, Cuba, where millions of Cubans celebrated May Day in support of workers and against the expanded United States economic blockade and sanctions. The May 1 celebration occurred as representatives meeting here from around the world stood in solidarity with the government of Venezuela as it defeated an attempted coup and they denounced the U.S. for military, economic a...