Global

We begin GREE-GREE #113 with a celebration of Indigenous People’s Day led by TATANKA BRICCA and the reminder that whatever democracy and freedom we enjoy in America is rooted with our native peoples---especially with the Hodenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy.

JOEL SEGAL fills us in on the fight of Puerto Rico to rise again from yet another horrific storm, one that’s also brought terrifying death and destruction to much of Florida.

We then hear from CHRISTIAN NUNES, President of the National Organization for Women, as she and WENDI LEDERMAN take us on a deep dive into the core of women’s issues in the world today.  Roe v. Wade is “on the ballot” and, as Christian tells us, the issues cut far deeper than abortion.

What we're seeing, we hear, is about men trying to deepen their control over women, creating more slavery, autocracy and privilege among the rich.

The attack on a woman’s right to control her own body is inseparable from the fight for democracy and the desperate need to save our planetary ecology.

Children of my Gaza refugee camp were rarely afraid of monsters but of Israeli soldiers. This is all that we talked about before going to bed. Unlike imaginary monsters in the closet or under the bed, Israeli soldiers are real, and they could show up any minute - at the door, on the roof or, as was often the case, right in the middle of the house.  

This month marks the 75th anniversary of the start of the Hollywood Blacklist. On October 27, 1947, screenwriter John Howard Lawson, the first member of what came to be known as the “Hollywood Ten,” testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee. (See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7W3XbDZqO4.) The contentious, testy testimony before a gavel-banging Congressman in Washington launched the Hollywood Blacklist, wherein members of the motion picture industry who refused to “cooperate” with HUAC by informing on themselves and others about their leftist politics were forbidden from working in the movies until roughly 1960, when the Hollywood Ten’s Dalton Trumbo received screen credits under his real name (instead of a pseudonym) for writing Spartacus and Exodus.

BANGKOK, Thailand -- Mass cremations lit up the night sky on Tuesday (October 11) in northeast Thailand during Buddhist funerals for 36 people, including 24 children, massacred by a ranting x-cop.

Dead children were dressed in newly-tailored clothes of their fantasy careers, including tiny white coats and uniforms for those who hoped to be doctors or nurses, military uniforms for would-be soldiers, or civilian outfits if they fancied becoming teachers or other work.

Local Buddhist temples refused to cremate the killer's corpse, so it was secretly burned at a temple elsewhere in a ceremony attended by a handful of his relatives.

The king arranged "royally-sponsored cremations" at three main Buddhist temples in and around Uthai Sawan town where the slaughter took place.

Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha flew to the small town to meet relatives and survivors, and led the main cremation ceremony.

Smaller cremations were being held at other nearby Buddhist temples where relatives also brought corpses in coffins.

Mourners suffered remembering the horror.

One of the most conspiracy-minded “con artists” who sought to elevate and enrich himself by posing as a technical expert during the Arizona Senate GOP’s flawed review of the 2020 presidential election is returning to Maricopa County on October 1, where he is pushing a new – and easily-debunked – conspiracy theory about how 2020 votes were forged.

I’ve been haunted by a phrase for almost a month now: “morality police.”

The news has been global. A 22-year-old woman, Mahsa Amini, was arrested as she was leaving a subway station in Tehran on September 13 by an Iranian police unit known as the Islamic guidance patrol, a.k.a., the morality police, because she was an inappropriately dressed female. Maybe her hair was showing. Who knows?

Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid threw a wrench into the works when he declared from the United Nations General Assembly podium: “An agreement with the Palestinians, based on two states for two peoples, is the right thing for Israel’s security, for Israel’s economy and for the future of our children.”

 The statement took many by surprise, including the Palestinian leadership. 

 Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has been addressing the UNGA every September, every year, recycling the same speech about how he has fulfilled his commitments to peace and that it is Israel that needs to engage in serious negotiations toward a two-state solution. 

We start GREE-GREE #112 with BARBARA HAYS of the Maryland National Organization for Women.  Barbara gives us a brilliant overview of the impact of Roe v. Wade on the mid-term elections and the role we can expect women to play.

We are then honored with TATANKA BRICCA, DANNY SHEEHAN and SARA NELSON of the ROMERO INSTITUTE, who give us a unique look at the need to pull together a national progressive grassroots movement.

That movement needs to compile a clear and powerful progressive agenda spelling out for the American people exactly what needs to be done to save the nation.

From this “island of stability” must come a slate of candidates for the Presidency, Vice Presidency and a full cabinet, plus the Congress and a wide range of state and local offices…a “government in waiting” ready to run things once the fascists are defeated.

Sara also runs through “where the rubber meets the road” in critical energy issues in California and around the nation.

Her in-depth analysis of how to change the energy picture in California joins Danny’s brilliant, piercing critique of where we need to go to save what’s left of our democracy.

The arrest of a prominent Palestinian activist, Musab Shtayyeh, and another Palestinian activist, by Palestinian Authority police on September 20 was not the first time that the notorious PA’s Preventive Security Service (PSS) has arrested a Palestinian who is wanted by Israel.

 PSS is largely linked to the routine arrests and torture of anti-Israeli occupation activists. Several Palestinians have died in the past as a result of PSS violence, the latest being Nizar Banat who was tortured to death on June 24, 2021. The killing of Banat ignited a popular revolt against the PA throughout Palestine.

Thankfully, we’re joined by the uniquely powerful JUDITH WHITMER, rebel Chair of the Democratic Party of Nevada, where an uprising of grassroots activists has transformed the playing field. 

Judith has helped lead the charge to at last put the Democratic Party apparatus in reach of grassroots activists who actually support a progressive agenda….and who are willing to fight for a progressive agenda.

We learn from GREG COLERIDGE that the horrendous Citizen’s United does not protect dark money’s ability to buy primaries, as they’re themselves the bailiwick of private corporations, ie the political parties.  

Thus we realize the possibility of actually having fair and accessible systems to choose partisan candidates, a revolutionary development to say the least.

DOROTHY REIK, THERESA BONPANE, JUSTIN LEBLANC, MARY STONEWALL and others chime in with great questions.

We’re FURTHER joined by WENDI LEDERMAN, who has compiled a brilliant and extremely important roster of non-partisan grassroots organizations around the country.