FLASHPOINTS

[podcast]http://aud1.kpfa.org/data/20100630-Wed1700.mp3[/podcast]

Oil being pushed ashore by Hurricane Alex off the Texas coastline

Hurricane Alex hovers off the coast of Texas and threatens to escalate and spread the oil from the BP underground volcano; we’ll have reports from Venice, Louisiana at the coast, and from the Florida panhandle, where a number of beaches have already been closed down; also, we’ll have a report back from the International Indigenous Women’s Symposium on Reproductive Health; and we’ll have our regular weekly segment of Community Business with Catherine Austin-Fitts.

----------------------

LISTEN ONLINE:
Download this clip
Play this clip in your Computer’s media player

Guests:

Kindra Arnesson, fleeing shrimper and mother in Venice, Louisiana

Cindy Lapori, environmentalist and concerned citizen in Florida’s panhandle

Dominic Mogavero, environmentalist and concerned citizen in Florida’s panhandle

Hinewirangi Kohu-Morgan, poet, activist, and indigenous rights organizer from Aotearoa (New Zealand). Speaking tonight in Oakland.

Catherine Austin-Fitts, regular contributor for Community Business and editor of Solari

La Mission

We’ll continue our frontline reporting on one of the worst environmental disasters in modern history, we’ll hear from our reporters who were out on the water, around the marsh and the bay where the oil is spilling into now by the millions of gallons; also, we’ll have in-depth analysis on the state visit by Mexican president Felipe Calderon; we’ll talk about San Francisco’s decision to kill the “secure communities” program that condones racial profiling and the arrest of migrant workers on mere suspicion; Miguel Molina interviews Benjamin Bratt and Peter Bratt about their new film, La Mission, filmed in San Francisco’s Mission District; and we’ll feature sounds from Crossing Arizona, the film that documents the negative impacts of current racist laws against migrant workers, their families and supporters.

————————-

LISTEN ONLINE:
Download this clip
Play this clip in your Computer’s media player

Guests:

Larry Everest, historian and author

Francisco Herrera, internationally known troubadour and founder of Caminante

Arnoldo Garcia, Program Director, National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights

Evelina Molina, Flashpoints Correspondent

Tona Tierra

We’ll focus on the first racist murder after the passage of Arizona’s anti-immigrant legislation, we’ll speak with Tupac Enrique Acosta; also, we’ll speak to Mapa President Nativo Lopez about Los Angeles’ action to restrain Arizona but fails to clean up its own anti-immigrant house; and, we welcome back advocate, author and marijuana guru Ed Rosenthal.

————

LISTEN ONLINE:
Download this clip
Play this clip in your Computer’s media player

Guests:

Tupac Enrique Acosta

Nativo Lopez

Ed Rosenthal

This is what "Negev Development" funded by the JNF looks like in Khashm Zanna, an unrecognized Bedouin village in the Negev. (International Jewish Anti-zionist Network)

We speak to UC Berkeley student activists after the hunger strike officially ended last night as the administration agreed to negotiate towards their demands, we’ll talk to them about what happens next and why one of the students remains on a hunger strike on his way to Arizona; plus, JR and the Block Report speak with Ramona Africa, the lone adult survivor of the MOVE headquarters bombing by police 25 years ago in Philadelphia; and Bedouin Palestinian attorney Rawia Abu Rabia of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel discusses the entrenched institutionalized racism and discrimination inside the state against its indigenous citizens, as home demolitions and attacks on civil rights leaders continue apace.

————–

LISTEN ONLINE:
Download this clip
Play this clip in your Computer’s media player

Guests:

Alejandro Lara Briseño and Ricardo Gomez, UC Berkeley student hunger strikers

Ramona Africa, MOVE

Rawia Abu Rabia,  social justice activist and attorney,  Association for Civil Rights in Israel

Norman Finkelstein and Lowkey

Norman Finkelstein talks about his new book, This Time, We Went Too Far: Truth and Consequences of the Gaza Invasion, in which he documents the 2008-2009 massacres by the Israeli military and sets forth possibilities for redemption as the world’s conscience galvanized in outrage; also, British-Iraqi hip hop artist Lowkey, who joins Finkelstein in his speaking event this week in Berkeley, discusses the powerful blending of hip hop and activism, we’ll also hear some of his music; and a look back at the Kent State massacre forty years later as new testimonies reveal shocking details.

————–

LISTEN ONLINE:
Download this clip
Play this clip in your Computer’s media player

Guests:

Norman Finkelstein, author, scholar and historian

Lowkey, British-Iraqi hip hop artist

EVENT:

Thursday, May 13^th, 7:30pm, Norman Finkelstein and Lowkey; King Middle

School, Rose st. in North Berkeley. More information: www.mecaforpeace.org or 510-548- 0542

Olympia-Rafah Mural Project

The Rachel Corrie foundation joins dozens of other activist organizations fighting against Israeli apartheid through the arts and self-expression, Cindy Corrie joins Susan Greene of the Break the Silence Mural Project and Barbara Lubin of the Middle East Children’s Alliance in the Flashpoints studio to talk about a massive mural in downtown Olympia, Washington; also, we’ll have special coverage of the Poor People’s March to Fulfill the Dream, the march that started in Louisiana is heading for New Orleans, we pick up the story in Memphis, Tennessee; JR and the Block Report speak to Holly Works, a protester still facing trumped-up felony charges around the Oscar Grant rebellions in Oakland last year; and a new commentary on Arizona’s racist anti-immigrant legislation by political prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal.

————

LISTEN ONLINE:
Download this clip
Play this clip in your Computer’s media player

Guests:

Susan Greene, Breaking the Silence and Olympia-Rafah Mural Project

Cindy Corrie, Rachel Corrie Foundation

Barbara Lubin, Middle East Children’s Alliance

Cheri Honkala, National Organizer for Poor People’s Economic and Human Rights Campaign

Abel Francisco, marcher

JR with Holly Works

Mumia Abu Jamal, Prison Radio

Blackhawk helicopters at Wounded Knee

Blackhawk helicopters descend on Wounded Knee for May Day, we’ll talk to American Indian Movement founder Bill Means about the helicopters, the racist Arizona law, the Gulf spill and the arrest in New York; also, we’ll have our regular weekly visit with Catherine Austin Fitts on Community Business; and Olympia, Washington activists win a lawsuit against law enforcement for illegally spying on their anti-war activities.

————

LISTEN ONLINE:
Download this clip
Play this clip in your Computer’s media player

Guests:

Bill Means, American Indian Movement

Catherine Austin Fitts, Solari Network

Philip Chin and Brendan Maslauskas Dunn, activists in Olympia

BP Oil Slick Disaster

The massive BP oil disaster is moving quickly into the Florida Keys, we’ll speak to a shrimp fisherwoman and an indigenous activist whose ecosystems were destroyed in Alaska during the Exxon Valdez spill; also, we’ll have a report-back from Arizona, on the enormous protests that took place over the weekend in opposition of the anti-immigrant laws, as Sheriff Joe Arpaio considers a run for the governor of that state; and we’ll have a special report on a successful lawsuit brought by radical education activist Bill Ayers against the University of Wyoming for an attempt to ban him from speaking on campus.

————-

LISTEN ONLINE:
Download this clip
Play this clip in your Computer’s media player

Guests:

Diane Wilson, shrimp fisherwoman and environmental justice activist

Lucy Beach, Executive Director of Gwich’in Steering Committee

Tupac Enrique Acosta, Tona Tierra

Bill Ayers, former member of the Weather Underground

Gulf Coast BP Oil Spill

Please note: Due to technical difficulties, the Best of Flashpoints this week is not available for download.

Tens of thousands of gallons of oil continue to spill into the Gulf of Mexico, endangering the lives and the livelihoods of thousands of Gulf Coast residents and the already-fragile eco-systems; also, Mexican paramilitaries ambush and kill members of a human rights convoy in Oaxaca; we’ll continue our reporting on the crackdown on the entire immigrant community and their supporters; we’ll update our reports on the protests against school budget cuts; and Flashpoints en Espanol.

———-

LISTEN ONLINE:
Download this clip
Play this clip in your Computer’s media player

Guests:

Tyson Slocum, Public Citizen

John Gibler, FP Special Correspondent and author

Rene Saucedo

Evelina Molina

Cesar Cruz

cartoon by Khalil Bendib

Ali Abunimah and university student organizers talk about last night’s vote at UC Berkeley to uphold the veto on divestment, we’ll discuss the technical defeat but the moral victory of the vote and the growing boycott, divestment and sanctions movement across the country and across the world; also, thousands of Oakland teachers go on strike to defend public education, we’ll hear voices from educators and students demanding fair contracts and salaries.

———–

LISTEN ONLINE:
Download this clip
Play this clip in your Computer’s media player

Guests:

Ali Abunimah, Electronic Intifada

Shoaib Kamil, UC Berkeley Task Force on Divestment

Loubna Qatami, Palestinian Youth Network

Jesse Strauss on assignment in Oakland