On the Ground w Esther Iverem

It is one year after Russia invaded Ukraine and most people in the United States and Europe still think that is when the war started. I speak to Consortium News editor Joe Lauria and our geopolitical analyst Professor Gerald Horne. And we take another look at the Oliver Stone-produced documentary, “Ukraine on Fire,” which tells the truth about how this war really started eight years ag...

For this episode of “The F-Word,” we hear from world renown Palestinian activist Issa Amro, awarded by the United Nations for his non-violent resistance to the Israeli government, which he says is an openly fascist regime. He spoke recently at Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ in Northeast DC and was introduced by the Israeli American author and activist Miko Peled. With...

What do the people have to say about the State of the Union? A rebroadcast of Esther Iverem’s interviews with a panel of people working around social justice and human rights for the national Pacifica broadcast of the 2023 State of the Union address. With Professor Gerald Horne, Code Pink co-founder Jodie Evans, police accountability advocate Ron Hampton, immigration attorney Heather Be...

As Tyre Nichols, the most recent high-profile target of police terror is laid to rest, we speak to historian Gerald Horne about the links between violence inside and outside the United States. The brutal beating of Nichols by Memphis police, captured on surveillance camera, reinforces the systemic nature of police abuse and offers more proof that the system cannot be reformed. We will go to the st...

At least nine Palestinians were killed and dozens more wounded by Israeli troops in the Jenin refugee camp on Thursday. On this show, we hear voices of Palestinians, including Electronic Intifada editor Ali Abunimah, speaking out against the apartheid regime and the billions in U.S. support that allows Israel to kill with impunity. Also on the show, a conversation between members of Black Alliance...

For supporters of imprisoned journalist Julian Assange, all eyes are on DC for the January 20, 2023 Belmarsh Tribunal at the National Press Club, where experts will present evidence of the current attack on journalism and publishers. For this hour, voices from a large rally for Assange, held outside the Department of Justice on October 8, 2022. The tribunal and rally are part of a renewed effort a...

With U.S.-backed wars and violence spreading abroad, and more senseless violence here are home, activists remember the radical legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Fifty-five years after King’s assassination, today’s organizers say that while King is best known for having dream of racial harmony, they lean more on his analysis of the triple evils of U.S. empire: racism, war, and poverty.  Wit...

Voices from the DC Emergency Rally for Returning Citizens, held December 19, 2022. Here in the expensive capital, where the first Gen Z member of Congress, Maxwell Frost of Florida, struggles to rent an apartment, the formerly incarcerated are in worse shape, with limited possibility of housing or employment.  Including Roach Brown, Rev. Graylan Hagler, Rev. Willie Wilson, DC Council Member Robert...

The show is made possible only by our volunteer energy, our resolve to keep the people’s voices on the air, and by support from our listeners. In this new era of fake corporate news, we have to be and support our own media! Please click here or click on the Support-Donate tab on this website to subscribe for as little as $3 a month. We are so grateful for this small but growing amount of mon...

The journalist. author and social justice activist Ambrose I. Lane Sr. hosted shows, including We Ourselves for decades on WPFW and other Pacifica stations before his death in 2010. And for our year-end drive we are celebrating the 30th anniversary of his 1992 opus series Never Again For White Men Only. The series includes eight shows and nearly eight hours of Ambrose documenting how chattel slave...

Two weeks after Congress disgraced itself by denying freight railroad workers seven days of sick leave, workers and their supporters rallied on Capitol Hill and across the country for what they said is a basic human right. The denial of these rights to workers was made by rich, corporate lawmakers who have unlimited sick days and platinum health care plans paid for by the tax dollars of the Americ...

The Moore v. Harper case before the Supreme Court could give the far right in the United States what they cannot get through free and fair elections–and that is permanent rule. We speak to veteran activist Brian Becker. And, as the oligarchy in Peru has succeeded in their year-long effort to oust leftist president Pedro Castillo, we go our archives to hear voices of Castillo supporters rally...

For this hour,  part two of our coverage of the conference,  “The Real Path to Peace in Ukraine,” held November 19, 2022 at the People’s Forum in New York City.  On this show, three more well-known authors and activists:  Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin, professor Noam Chomsky, and director of the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research, Vijay Prashad.  The emcee for the program was resea...

The Real Path to Peace in Ukraine, a conference sponsored this month by the People’s Forum and the ANSWER Coalition in New York City, was the kickoff of a new antiwar movement in the United States. People from all walks of life are opposing the U.S.-NATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, especially as the Zelenksy regime shows again its dangerous desperation. We feature for the hour journ...

Unlike in the U.S., Canadians are confronting the fact that their government is supporting Nazis in the war in Ukraine ” supporting far right Ukrainian nationals with the same ideology that Canadians fought against in World War II. Dozens of organizations and people all over Canada have also signed onto a petition demanding that the Canadian government stop funding Ukrainian groups and monum...

In the midterm election and in the upcoming U.S. Senate runoff in Georgia, the real story is racist voter suppression. We speak to Atlanta-based journalist Anoa Changa. And activists stage a people’s tribunal, charging U.S. weapons makers, also known as the merchants of death, with war crimes. Plus headlines on Ukraine, COP27, police brutality, and more.   The show is made possible only by o...

An agreement is reached to end the two-year brutal conflict in Ethiopia that may have claimed up to a half million lives. And as, for the 30th time, the United Nations votes to condemn the U.S. blockade of Cuba, protesters rally outside the White House to urge Joe Biden to end the strangulation of our island neighbor. Plus Headlines on affirmative action and more…  With Gerald Horne. The sho...

As we continue to mark 60 years since the Cuban Missile Crisis, we speak to historian and author Gerald Horne about the loose talk versus reality of nuclear weapons. And whether it is economic Jeffrey Sachs being silenced, Kanye West being cancelled, or the retracted letter from hell, journalist Jon Jeter is in the house to discuss culture and media.   The show is made possible only by our vo...

As regions that recently voted to join Russia come under fresh attacks from Kiev, we air two more excerpts from ‘Ukraine on Fire,” the Oliver Stone-produced movie about the 2014 U.S.-backed coup in Ukraine. And for this month’s episode of the F-Word on fascism, I ask journalist Jacquie L’uqman if Americans would recognize if the United States is devolving into a fascist sta...

As there is an escalation in violence in the current conflict in Ukraine, we present excerpts from “Ukraine on Fire,” the Oliver Stone-produced movie about the 2014 U.S.-backed coup in Ukraine. And Brian Becker, activist and host of “The Socialist Program” podcast talks about the new book,  Socialist Reconstruction: A Better Future for the United States . Plus headlines on the January 6 Commi...

As an early winter is predicted for Europe, the U.S. proxy war against Russia continues to impact energy, economics, food and the threat of nuclear war. Gerald Horne is in the house. And we go outside the Supreme Court where during the first days of the new term, justices heard cases that will determine whether there are actually voting rights in the United States and whether water in the U.S. wil...

The Supreme Court is set to hear a case that might allow the far-right majority further attacks on the democratic rights of Americans. Esther speaks with anti-war activist and host of the Socialist Program, Brian Becker. Professor Gerald Horne on who bombed Russia’s gas pipelines and why fascists are on the move in Europe. And author and editor Vijay Prashad brings down the house in New York...

As the U.S. and NATO proxy war against Russia reaches a new stage of escalation, corporate media’s information war leads the world to the precipice. We speak to journalist Jon Jeter for this month’s extended look at news and culture. And on the one-year anniversary of Haitian asylum seekers being violently attacked and dispersed from Del Rio, Texas, Haitian and immigrant advocates spea...

Residents of Jackson Mississippi spoke out this week at a national town hall sponsored by the Poor Peoples campaign. The failed infrastructure of the capital of Mississippi is a long-standing problem rooted in the history of racism in the state, and in the lack of national investment in infrastructure for water as a human right. With the Rev. William Barber, Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba, Rukia Lumum...

Hundreds of environmental and climate justice advocates rally on Capitol Hill to oppose a deal secured by Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia to complete the controversial Mountain Valley Pipeline. The deal, to transport fracked natural gas 300 miles in Virginia, West Virginia and across the Appalachian trail, was reportedly secured in exchange for Manchin’s support for the Inflation Reduct...