Protest infront of the Syrian Embassy. Photo by Flickr (cc) user Maggie Osama.

As the Arab spring enters its second year, the popular uprising against the Syrian government continues. Scores are being killed by government forces, but international condemnation has not been enough to stop the violence.  Foreign correspondent Reese Erlich is one of the few foreign reporters who got into Syria to interview opposition demonstrators, Kurdish refugees, government officials and impassioned supporters of President Bashar al Assad. On this edition, An Inside look at the Syrian Uprising, produced by Reese Erlich.

The Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting provided a grant to Reese Erlich for his reporting from Syria.  Special thanks to Azad Diwani and Nabaz Shwani for translation and arranging interviews.

Featuring:

Leen, Ahmad, Taim, Mahmood, Syrian activists; Bouthaina Shaban, Syrian Presidential advisor; J. Toumajian, translator; Feras Dieb, Alawite businessman; Mohammad al Habash, Syrian Parliament member; Rana Issa, marketing and advertising business owner; Barkhodan Balo, Kurdish refugee; clothing store owner in Damascus souk.

For More Information:
Syrian American Council
Local Coordination Committees of Syria
Al-Jazeera spotlight on Syria
Free Syria
Razaniyyat
Syrian Arab News Agency
The Arab League
Syria Comment
Human Rights Watch
Pulitzer Center

Books/Articles:

Flash Mob For Syrian Freedom

Cornel West and Carl Dix in dialog (event poster)

With the world in transition, and the future so unclear, what kind of promises can we make to our children? What can we do to ensure a just world for them? And what are the youth doing now to make it happen for themselves?

On this edition, we hear a dialogue between Princeton University professor Cornel West, and Revolutionary Communist Party USA spokesman Carl Dix about the future of America’s youth in the age of Obama.

Featuring:

Cornel West, professor at the Center for African American Studies and Department of Religion at Princeton University; Carl Dix, co-founder of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA.

Special thanks to Alton Byrd and Revolution Books.

***WEB EXCLUSIVES***

Full speeches by Carl Dix and Cornel West, which took place at the University of California, Berkeley on Dec. 2, 2011

Dialogue between Cornel West and Carl Dix

Question and Answer session with Cornel West and Carl Dix

For More Information:

Cornel West
Carl Dix
Revolutionary Communist Party, USA
Revolution Books
Occupy Wall Street
Stop and Frisk policy
Sentencing Project
Critical Resistance

Books/Articles:

“The New Jim Crow, Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness” by Michelle Alexander

Music:

“Someday We’ll All be Free” by Donny Hathaway

“Sinnerman” by Felix da Housecat ft. Nina Simone

'Five Till Midnight or Almost Time for Lunch' by Flickr (cc) user bitzcelt.

From Egypt to Wisconsin, and from Wall Street to any town USA, 2011 was a year in which people raised their voices to call for justice. As we head into 2012, there’s optimism about the possibilities for change. On this edition, we look back at some the most important issues of 2011: attacks on organized labor, the Egyptian revolution, and the struggle to address climate change. We’ll hear highlights from some of the best programs we’ve brought you this year, and get some updates on where those stories stand now.

Shows featured in this program include:

Who Won the Egyptian Revolution?

The Wisconsin Workers Uprising   (Part 1)  (Part 2)

Battle for Workers Rights on the Ballot in Ohio

Climate Change Gridlock: Where Do We Go From Here? (Part 1)  (Part 2)

Featuring:

Shimaa Helmy, Egyptian human rights activist; Pedro De Sa, ILWU local 6 Rank and File organizer; Kris Hirsh, Stand up For Ohio spokesman; Melissa Fezekas, We Are Ohio spokesperson; Larry Cohen, Communications Workers of America President; Rich Trumka, AFL-CIO President; Fred Risser, Wisconsin State Senator; Khalid Shalid, Tahrir square protestor; Salma Shukrallah, Al Ahram Online journalist; Tarek Shalaby, Tahrir Square leader; James Inhofe, US Senator from Oklahoma; Bernaditas Mueller, South Centre climate change special advisor; Patrick Bond, Center for Civil Society Director at the University of Kwazulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa; Mike Ludwig, Truthout reporter; Brian Edwards-Tiekert, journalist.

***WEB EXCLUSIVES***

What Happened in Durban?

Interview with reporter Brian Edwards Tiekert about the 2011 climate negotiations in Durban, South Africa.

How are Occupy and organized labor Working together?

Interview With ILWU Local 6 rank and file organizer Pedro De Sa about the state of labor in the U.S., and how the Occupy movement is working with unions.

1 year later—what has the Egyptian revolution achieved?

An interview with Egyptian human rights activist Shimaa Helmy.

For More Information:

No Military Trials For Civilians
Shimaa Tahrir
Al-Ahram Online
Muslim Brotherhood
Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting
ILWU
Occupy Wall Street
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker
Workers Independent News
WORT Community Radio-Madison, WI
Wisconsin AFL-CIO
Communications Workers of America
We the People Campaign
Campaign Cash
Stand Up For Ohio
We Are Ohio
ALEC exposed
Truthout
The Media Consortium
Durban Platform
Climate Signals-An Inventory of Climate Change Impact Reports
Skeptical Science
Mobilization for Climate Justice
Center for Civil Society, University of Kwazulu-Natal
Indigenous Environmental Network
The South Centre
COP17 in Durban, South Africa

Books/Articles:

Tina Gerhardt: Get It Done! Youth to UN on Internationally Binding Climate Treaty
Scenes From a Revolution

Music:

“Hurt Me Soul” by Lupe Fiasco
“The Coolest” by Lupe Fiasco

Students listen to Angela Davis during a rally against gang Injunctions. Photo by Eric K Arnold courtesy of (cc) Flickr user OaklandLocal.

It’s called a gang injunction.  A controversial crime tool strategy that some people say should be illegal, and others say is a necessary last resort for communities plagued by violence.

On this edition, we go from the birthplace of gang injunctions in Los Angeles, to their newest use in London, England.  Almost 30 years later, communities remain divided about the best way to address youth violence and crime.

This program was crowd-funded on spot.us, a community supported journalism project. 89 individuals contributed micro-donations. At the over $10 level we thank: Annuana Smith, Amy Read, Lyn Headley, Patricia-Anne WinterSun, Maralyn Fisher, Sally Sommer, Renee Feltz, Molly Mitoma, Lauren Cohn, and Panafricanist Sound System. Special thanks to Omnia Foundation, stalwart supporters of our Prison Desk.

Featuring:

Angela Davis, Critical resistance founder; Freddie Hamilton, Oakland police lieutenant; Michael Muscadine, man named in Fruitvale Gang Injunction; Scott Peterson, Oakland Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce public policy director; Danielle Rocha, Youth Empowerment School senior; K.E.V., Oakland-based MC; Sagnicthe Salazar, Youth Together organizer; Cesar Cruz, Homies Empowerment program co-founder; Kim McGill, Youth Justice Coalition organizer; Rocio Fierro, attorney for the City of Oakland; Kwame Nitoto, Oakland Parents Together parent education project director; Meriea Jones, Cory Jenkins, Destiny McNeil, Mohammad El-Zafri, Santa Fe Elementary School students; Jonathan Toy, Southwark Council head of community safety; Emeka Egbuonu, youth worker at The Crib; Michael Bailey, young person at The Crib; Russell Higgs, Pembury Estate resident.

*** Segments ***

Gang Injunctions in London 

As part of our investigation into how and whether gang injunctions effectively fight crime, we looked to one of the newest places where the crime fighting strategy is being rolled out: London, England Making Contact reporter Daniel Gordon filed this report from London, where the first gang injunctions went into effect earlier this year. The story explores how economics and race are major factors in how society treats crime in England, just as in the US. And just as in Oakland, CA, many advocates and young people themselves say there are better solutions to be found.

This program is reader supported, thanks to spot.us

The History of Gang Injunction in Los Angeles

Interview with The Youth Justice Coalition’s Kim McGill, about the history of gang injunctions in Los Angeles, and the effect they’ve had on low income neighborhoods and communities of color.

The Battle over Gang Injunctions in Oakland

The city of Oakland is divided over whether gang injunctions will help reduce a long-standing problem of street violence.  Making Contact’s Andrew Stelzer reports on a grassroots campaign, aiming to stop what many activists say is a problematic policy of racial profiling, that won’t help make the community any safer.

For More Information:

Youth Justice Coalition
Critical Resistance
Stop the Injunctions Coalition
Homies Empowerment Program-Oakland, CA
All of Us or None
Youth Together
Homies Unidos
Oakland Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce
Southwark Council
Spot.us crowd-funded journalism

Articles, Blogs, Reports and Videos:

Map of North Oakland gang Injunction
LAPD map of Gang Injunctions
North Side Oakland injunction report November 2011

Music:

“Colors” by Ice-T

Oakland General Strike via Flickr (cc) user ireneflorez

Since the first US encampment on Wall Street, hundreds of others have emerged outside of banks and city halls across the nation. The Occupy movement has called on millions of Americans to take to the streets and call for change, but what exactly is this movement about?

This round-table discussion featuring Maria Poblet, executive director of Just Cause/Justa Causa; Steve Williams, co-executive director/co-founder of POWER; and Needa B, participant of Occupy Oakland, takes a closer look at Occupy from the perspectives of community organizing. It explores the meaning and tactics of the movement, and asks whether Occupy is the seed to long-term systemic change.

The program starts with an excerpt from a speech by Robert Reich.
See below for the full script. 

Featuring:

Maria Poblet, executive director of Just Cause/Justa Causa; Steve Williams, co-executive director/co-founder of POWER; Needa B., participant of Occupy Oakland and member of People of Color Committee; Lisa Gray-Garcia, co-editor of Poor Magazine and author of Criminal of Poverty: Growing up Homeless in America. Robert Reich, Public Policy Professor at University of California Berkeley, and former Labor Secretary.

For More Information:

POWER
Just Cause/Causa Justa
Occupy Oakland
POOR Magazine
Oakland Local
Occupy Wall Street

Articles, Blogs, Reports and Videos:

Race and Occupy Wall Street
Occupying, Organizing and Movements that Demand Both by Rinku Sen
Stir It Up
Why OWS Should Matter to POC
There Is Diversity at Occupy Wall Street
Queers and Occupy
Applying the Successful Strategy of the Civil Rights Movement to a National “We are the 99%” Movement
10 Ways the Occupy Movement Changes Everything (new book from YES!)
NY Times Occupy Wall Street Slideshow
Occupy is Here to Stay
America Is Not Broke, Foreign Policy in Focus / Institute for Policy Studies
WBAI programs from Occupy Wall Street
KBOO programs from Occupy Portland
video: Why Occupy Wall Street? 4 Reasons

Organzing Upgrade -Occupy Strategy Lab
Women’s Magazine KPFA on Occupy and Patriarchy
Feminists Occupy Occupy

And, listen to more of our Occupy shows

Music:

“We Are the Many” by Makana

FULL SCRIPT

Meaghan LaSala: This week on Making Contact:

BILLBOARD:  (Steve Williams) We’re really building on a level of organizing, a level of mobilization that puts us in a position to begin transforming what it is that we’ve previously thought of as a liberation movement in this country.

Meaghan LaSala: “We are the 99 percent” has become a rallying cry for people occupying their cities and towns across the United States… people uniting to change a system based on greed and exploitation. Many are now asking how to move towards a common vision that addresses the needs of everyone within the 99%. But especially of those who are who are hit hardest by the current economic system.

BILLBOARD (Maria Poblet) What if the 99% in the US called for no war, build the economy for people and the planet. What if we did that?

Meaghan LaSala: On this edition, we’ll look at what it’ll take to transform this movement moment to long term solidarity for systemic change.

I’m Meaghan LaSala, and this is Making Contact. A program connecting people, vital ideas and important information.

OCCUPY OAKLAND SOUND COLLAGE: (Music)

Voice 1: It’s woken up so many people. I mean, look at this crowd! Ages, races, colors, genders, you know, people are waking up together so I’m hopeful that we’re going to make a change. I know we are making it already.

Voice 2: You know, until about a week ago I also supported the occupy movement, but its just grown to be a bit unruly and at this point I don’t really understand what its standing for.

Voice 3: The first step to change is an awakening of awareness to the connections between problems and what the real problems are.

Voice 4: I think it’s in the beginning stages just like the civil rights was and its ok that we might not know the direction because I’m sure Martin Luther King and neither did Malcolm X or anybody else know within the first two months of the great civil rights movement know where they were going.

____

Meaghan LaSala: We’ll hear a round table discussion about the future of the occupy movement. But first, we bring you excerpts of an address given by former Secretary of Labor and professor of public policy, Robert Reich. On November 16th, the day of the UC Berkeley general strike, he spoke to a crowd of thousands on campus, just after an Occupy Cal encampment was forcibly removed.

Professor Robert Reich: Now the first amendments, right to speech, that is not always convenient, it is not always inexpensive, it is sometimes messy. And because it’s sometimes inconvenient and sometimes expensive and sometimes messy, just like democracy, there is a temptation sometimes to want to contain it, to limit it. But it is more important than it has ever been, that we all go out of our way, every one of us, leaders, politicians, those of us who have authority, and those of us that do not have authority, it becomes doubly important that we honor the first amendment and make ourselves willing to pay the price of freedom of speech and indirectly, and because freedom of speech is so related to democracy directly, the price of a democratic system of government. (Applause) Some of you are concerned also about the increasing concentration of wealth and income in our society. An increasing concentration that has meant that the top 400, the 400 richest Americans now own more of America than the bottom 150 million Americans. (Boos) Let me try to connect some of these dots.

Fundamentally, the problem with concentrated income and wealth, and fundamentally the problem with an educational system that is no longer available to some many young people and can, and even a K-12 system that is letting so many people down. The fundamental problem is that we are losing equal opportunity in America; we are losing the moral foundation stone on which this country and our democracy are built. (Applause) Now there are some people out there that say, “We cannot afford education any longer. We cannot afford as a nation to provide social services to the poor.” We cannot, some people say, any longer afford as a nation to provide the safety nets for the poor and the infirm or for people who fall down for no fault of their own. Well how can that be true if we are now richer than we have ever been before? How can that be true that we cannot afford what we need to do for our people when we are the richest nation, and continue to be, the richest nation in the world? And again let me connect the dots, because over the last three decades, this economy has doubled in size, but most Americans have not seen much gain, if you adjust for inflation, what you see is the median wage has barely risen. Where did all the money and resources go? They went to the top. And look it, let’s be clear about this, we are not vilifying people because they are rich. The problem here is that when so much income and wealth go to the top, political power also goes to the top. The problem has to do with what that does to our democracy—it undermines our democracy. When all that money can come down from the wealthy, the corporations, when there are no limits to the amount of money that can infect and undermine our democracy, then what do we have left? What do we have left?

The occupy movement, the Occupy Cal, the Occupy Oakland—occupations are going on all over this country—are ways in which people are beginning to respond to the crisis of our democracy. Ways in which… (Applause)…and I am so proud of you here today. Your dedication to these principals, your willingness to spend hours in general assemblies, your willingness to put up with what you’ve already put up with, is already making a huge difference. (Cheers) You’re already succeeding. Some of you may feel a little bit like, “What are we doing here? What exactly is our goal?” I urge you I urge you to be patient with yourselves. Because with regard to every major social movement of the last half century or more, it started with a sense of moral outrage. Things were wrong. And the actual coalescence of that moral outrage into specific demands for specific changes came later. The moral outrage was the beginning. The sense of things going wrong. (Cheers) The days of apathy are over folks! (Cheers) Once this has begun, it cannot be stopped and will not be stopped.

____

Meaghan LaSala: That was the voice of Robert Reich, speaking on the day of UC Berkeley’s general strike at an event to memorialize Mario Savio, a free speech movement organizer and UC Berkeley student of the 1960’s. Up next, a round table with three guests from the San Francisco bay area discussing how the movement of the 99% can move forward, toward long term solidarity.

Meaghan LaSala: Neeta Bee is one of the original participants at Occupy Oakland, and is a member of the People of Color Committee. Maria Poblet is the Executive Director of Causa Justa, Just Cause, a housing rights organization that’s working with the occupy movement to fight foreclosures. And Steve Williams is the co-founder and co-director of POWER also known as people organized to win employment rights.  Making Contact production intern Christopher Holmback moderated the discussion.

Christopher Holmback: I’d like to begin by asking you, Maria, what went through your head the first time you heard about OWS.

Maria Poblet: Well my very first thought was, “Yes! Yes. Finally the people of the US have taken issue with the corporations of the US that have done so much harm to our communities inside the US and also in other countries. I remember thinking, maybe not everybody is asleep. Maybe people have noticed what’s been happening over the last 10 yrs, 20 yrs, 30 yrs, maybe now the US people’s movements will actually show their face and show their allegiances, and their allegiances will their corps, but instead with regular everyday people. And it just seemed like such a timely critique. And the fact that it was just out in the streets where nobody could deny it, and where it was control of everyday people, it was inspiring.

Christopher Holmback: Do you have the same immediate sense of joy, Steve?

Steve Williams: Well, no. I think I was a little less optimistic and hopeful. I remember actually seeing the call that went out in Adbusters and I remember being like really? These are the people that are going to Occupy Wall Street? As somebody has spent more than a decade organizing in African American, working class and Latino communities, I know that our communities have been deeply impacted by financial institutions and by the system of capitalism. And I didn’t think that it was going to be the readers of Adbusters that were going to take the first step to begin confronting financial institutions in this country.

Christopher Holmback: And what about you Neeta?

Neeta Bee:  I first got involved because I was watching what was going on Wall Street and really was pleasantly surprised that white middle class America was standing up and kind of being disgruntled as many of And I kept my eye on it because I thought it was very powerful to be putting Wall Street on front and having the slogan of the 99 vs. the 1 percent. That whole slogan, 99 against 1. I think that was really powerful to me. And I kept my eye on it and I was really surprised to watch it spread like wildfire across the US. That got me really interested in like, wow, what’s going on. And really seeing this as an opportunity that people were linking not just on a national level but an international level. And when they did that, that was like the impetus for the entire nation to start social change. And that’s what I saw here which is why I got involved. If it was just an Oakland thing, I probably wouldn’t have gotten involved.

Christopher Holmback: …You’ve all mentioned or you’ve all been calling this movement middle class, or middle class and white so it seems like a good time to play a clip for you from a protest in the Bay Area Poor Peoples Decolonization March and Lisa Gray-Garcia, one of the organizers, had some things to say about the occupy movement.

Clip from Lisa Gray-Garcia: “We’re poor people. We’re occupied with things like budget cuts, and whether we’re going to feed our children tomorrow. I think a lot of the occupy movements are more focused on middle class folks. And that’s not a critique. It’s a beautiful thing. That isn’t where we’re coming from. I don’t actually feel part of the 99%. I think that the 99% are part of the people that oppress us. A lot of the movements are actually filled with a lot of racist and classist stereotypes and unfortunately don’t even know how to relate to folks in poverty. And there’s been a lot of racial tension. There is a lot of folks with race and class privilege who take part in the occupy movement. Again this is not to splinter or take down their movements, but to help them understand that they need to get race consciousness. They need to get consciousness about poverty. They need to recognize the connections”

Christopher Holmback: What’s your reaction to what Lisa Gray-Garcia says here?

Maria Poblet: I think a lot of us people of POC who’ve interacted with the occupy camps who’ve interacted with the camps can certainly identify with that feeling of the camps not having enough clarity about race and racism and what it does to communities. And gender inequality and poverty and issues of class. I think that critique is right on. I think the challenge before us is: can we lead from a place of unity? What is the unity that you can accomplish? A lot of people want to do something, but the idea that we should work together, choose a target, choose demands, is not an automatic thing. And so those of us who have been doing community organizing have that and can contribute that to the movement if the dynamics are such that there’s space for that.

Maria Poblet: So then there’s all these sort of political cultures intersecting. There’s the way that Unions do their work, think about their work, communicate their work. The way that community organizations like mine do it, and then this camp that has this own culture that also draws on some anti-hierarchical traditions, anti-authoritarian commitments—and then there’s everything else.

Steve Williams: …it is also important to acknowledge that in different encampments across the country, those political cultures are coming together and sort of innovating new models. In New York, and also in San Francisco, one of the things that the general assemblies have established are these action committees, where existing community organizations, trade unions, other affinity groups, are able to select a representative to come to a weekly meeting to then talk about how it is that those existing memberships can engage with the general assembly process and more broadly with the “we are the 99%” movement. I think that it is important to acknowledge that each of the particular encampments are just struggling to innovate new models that both ensure direct democracy but also connect with existing organizing efforts in the communities.

Maria Poblet: Some people have a critique of community organizing, or non profits or other forms of organization and that’s where they’re coming from and I think that’s a useful political dialogue to engage in. It’s not all about doing it the way we’ve been doing it so far because if everything we’ve been doing so far was perfect, we would have had this movement a long time ago, right? Community organizations and unions and the sort of more institutionalized progressive movement hasn’t been as nimble, or militant, or creative or committed to movement building as we’ve needed to be and we’re one of the organizations committed to changing that and that means taking risk and trying things you haven’t done before.

Christopher Holmback: So Neeta do you think that the model that Steve told about that is in New York and other places, could work in Oakland?

Neeta Bee: I think that kind of model can definitely work in Oakland… that move is definitely being made where organizations that have been in the trenches and doing the work for decades are coming together, and linking it to, to just this concept of the 99%. My thing is like, if you’re going to be talking about 99%, let’s really break that down, let’s make a pie chart and figure out what that really means. (Laughter) Who’s really the 99%? How this political and economic fiasco affects the different sectors in the 99% is very different. And I think that’s related to the class and the race analysis. When we start looking at each other’s experiences here, that broadens the potential of what we can be fighting for. So that everyone walks away from this winning.

Meaghan LaSala: We’ll be right back.

You’re listening to Making Contact, a production of the National Radio Project. If you’d like more information or for CD copies of this program please call 800-529-5736. Because of listeners like you, this show is distributed for free to radio stations in the US, Canada and South Africa. To find out how to support us, download shows or get our podcasts, go to radioproject.org.

(Music in Background)

We Are the Many by Makana

The time has come for us to voice our rage

Against the ones that trapped us in a cage

To steal from us the value of our wage

From underneath the vestiture of law

The lobbyists at Washington do nah

At liberty the bureaucrats guffaw

And until they are purged we won’t withdraw

We’ll occupy the streets

We’ll occupy the cause

We’ll occupy the offices of you till you do 

The bidding of the many not the few 

Meaghan LaSala: We now return to our round table with Maria Poblet, executive director of Causa Justa, Just Cause, Steve Williams, co-director of POWER—people organizing to win employment rights, and Neeta Bee an Occupy Oakland organizer… On building a long-term movement of the 99%. Moderated by Making Contact production intern, Christopher Holmback.

Christopher Holmback: Steve Williams, you have long experience organizing poor people and people of color. What’s your reaction to these problems?

Steve Williams: Well, I think the challenges that Anita and Maria are pointing to are exactly right. I mean, they’re at play in encampments all over the country. But it’s also a predictable challenge that the movement has to face. In a country with the history of white supremacy, colonialism, genocide, slavery, we know that we’re going to encounter some particular challenges around racial consciousness, around the leadership of women, around the role of young people. But what the “we are the 99%” movement has created is an opportunity for us to actually engage in those struggles from a progressive standpoint. And the movement is still very new, so the language is all coming together, but in my mind this movement is a movement of the 99%. The occupations are a particular tactic of that movement. So there are a lot of people participating in the movement to confront financial institutions and capitalism that aren’t sleeping out at the various parks across the country. And its critical for us to figure out ways for people to engage constructively because our organizations, organizations that are rooted in working class, communities of color has been doing the organizing around a particular strata of the 99%. It is important to acknowledge that the petty bourgeois and technocratic professionals who are now disaffected by the way that capitalism is operating– it’s important to acknowledge that those people should be mad. But we also have to then figure out the programs and solutions and demands that we are all going to fight for that doesn’t throw sections of the 99% under the bus.

Maria Poblet: On the national scale now white, working class communities who’ve been impacted by these measures of austerity and by this corporate takeover, they have a choice between the Tea Party and Occupy. And I want all of them to choose Occupy. It’s very needed in this country for people to have a choice that takes them to the left in the face of corporate domination, instead of basically everybody joining the Tea Party and moving to the right and blaming immigrants, blaming People of Color. And while these racial dynamics get handled in the camps, that’s where and how we’ll see if the movement will be able to proceed in a way that actually builds the capacity of the movement to build more unity and move towards a progressive outcome, actually. An outcome that benefits all communities.

Christopher Holmback: Since we’re leading up to the next presidential campaign, how should occupy movement engage with electoral politics? Steve.

Steve Williams: Well I think the critical thing is that the “we are the 99%” movement has to develop a vision of what our alternative is. The exciting innovation with the camps is that different groupings of people who have been disaffected and disenfranchised by this economic system have had a space to come together. So folks who have had their homes foreclosed upon, folks who are in debt and can’t find a job after graduating from elite universities are coming together with homeless people and are coming together with other folks who have just seen  public services cut and attacked over the last few years. And I think what’s happening with that is that people are beginning to develop more and more of a systematic analysis of what is wrong. But ultimately that means that we have to do more, way more, than elect a sympathetic person into elected office.

Maria Poblet: In the more institutional progressive sector, there’s the idea that you elect somebody who’s a democrat and then you look the other way and cross your fingers. And that has never worked for us. It’s never worked for people of color to do that. In fact in any time where people of color have won great demands in this country its by actually challenging the democratic party to represent its interests by all kinds of different tactics, including threatening to start another party, starting another party and it always has to go back to this platform, this list of what we want, this vision of where we’re headed and then we say to any elected official, get in or get out. Right? And this is where we’re headed. Come with us or don’t.

Christopher Holmback: Neeta, from being inside Occupy Oakland and working with the people there, do you think the time is right now for the occupy movement to move foreword and build a political platform together? And start making a list of demands?

Neeta Bee: I think one, It’s essential if this is going to move forward…Our focus can transition into something, into broadening the movement and its demographics. And to actually developing a platform and developing some demands. There are some demands. But they’re very broad and they’re not really asking for things. It’s very much we are against this. But it’s not saying what we want. If we’re against this, what do we want?

Steve Williams: The only way that any movement is able to defend its principled demands is to have clarity about what direction it’s moving in. So one of the things that we clearly saw for example in the south African anti-apartheid movement was that time and time again, the apartheid regime tried to figure out measures to be able to give concessions to some section of the community and at the same time sell out the larger majority of the population. it was only through the freedom charter and the clarity of the anti-apartheid movement in south Africa to a vision of what a truly democratic society would look like that they were able to hold on to that vision, fight for it through all the twists and turns and then ultimately able to establish at least politically a democratic system in that country. Now, I think that the challenge for us in the United States is that for too long we’ve been told that capitalism is the only way to operate an economy. And I think that that its one of the things that is important right now is for us to take lessons from the mass mobilizations that have been taking place around the globe, from Cairo, to Barcelona to Athens, to the successful movements in Latin American, Cochabamba, and other places, and so I think that in being able to sort of the lessons, insights, of those movements we, here, in the United states can begin developing a notion of a transformative vision and a new liberatory economy.

Christopher Holmback: How can we use this movement and moment to build long term solidarity and political education? Maria?
Maria Poblet: In addition to demands which we’ve talked about a fair amount here, I think we need to get clear about the role of the US in the international arena. Our government is the 1% to the rest of the world. I’ve had the opportunity to be part of the world social forum process and the US Social forum process. And there’s strengths and weaknesses to that that can be compared to Occupy movement, and existing organizations and that relationship because its space of convergence. And actually convergence is the first step to joint action which is what we need actually. Because then we can actually move towards something that would be much bigger like, what if the 99% in the US called for no war, no warming, build the economy for people and the planet. What if we did that? What would that look like? What would the details of that look like? That would then say, instead of there is no alternative, there is one… and we’re building it right here, right now, because another world is possible, but also it’s absolutely necessary. And in order for another world to be possible, another US has to come into being. and this occupy movement and the convergence between that and previous generations and community organizing and other sectors of progressives, that convergence is actually going to make that other world possible.

Neeta Bee: here on a local level what we should be thinking about is doing some kind of educational campaign both for our own communities that don’t connect the dots between our lives here and Wall Street… I think there’s a disconnect. Wall Street is something over there that rich people play with. It’s not something that actually trickles down. You talk about these trickle down economy. And it definitely trickles down. Not the money, but the problems. And I think that we on one level an educational campaign which is also like outreach into our own communities and helping connecting those dots. And I think within the existing occupy Oakland movement, and educational campaign around race and class and immigrant status so that we’re starting to kind of break these ideas that people have. That we’re not all this monolithic 99%.

Steve Williams: I think one thing that we’ve absolutely got to concentrate on is defending the encampments. Folks have created a space for various sections of society to come together and engage in a level of conversation dialogue and conspiring that hasn’t been possible because of the disenfranchisement and alienation that our society has promoted. And so I think that defending either the encampments or other spaces that allow all of these folks to come together is absolutely critical. I think that it’s important for us to understand that these movement moments happen at a time where things feel very fast. But things are actually happening at sort of different time periods. So in some ways like talking about New York as only having six weeks more than occupy San Francisco or occupy Oakland just shatters my mind… I mean it feels like they’ve been at it for two or three years… the lessons that we’ve been able to learn over the series of just a couple months are equivalent to what it is that we’ve learned over two or three decades previously. I think it’s critical for us to understand that at this particular moment because of the changing demographics, the changing economic system, the changing politics in the United States that this movement didn’t come out of nowhere. That we’re really building on a level of organizing, a level of mobilization that really puts us in a position to actually be able to begin transforming what it is that we’ve previously thought of as a liberation movement in this country

(Music in Background)

We Are the Many by Makana

The time has come for us to voice our rage

Against the ones that trapped us in a cage

To steal from us the value of our wage

From underneath the vestiture of law

The lobbyists at Washington do nah

At liberty the bureaucrats guffaw

And until they are purged we won’t withdraw

We’ll occupy the streets

We’ll occupy the cause

We’ll occupy the offices of you till you do 

The bidding of the many not the few 

Our nation was built upon the right

Of every person to improve their plight

The laws of this republic they rewrite

____

Meaghan LaSala: And that’s it for this edition of Making Contact. You have been listening to a round table discussion with Maria Poblet, Steve Williams and Neeta Bee, moderated by Making Contact Producer Christopher Holmback.

Special thanks to KALW and Julia Lundberg for sharing audio.

For a CD copy of this program, call the National Radio Project at 800 529-5736, or check out our website at radioproject.org to get a podcast, download past shows, or make a difference by supporting our work.

The co-producers of this show were Lisa Bartfai, Christopher Holmback, Steph St. Clair, Rachel Koslofsky and Esther Manilla.

I’m Meaghan LaSala, thanks for listening to Making Contact.

Palestinian child with flag. Image via Flickr (cc) user Rusty Stewart.

US government support for Israel has never been stronger.  But now a consumer boycott of Israel is gaining steam, and Israeli government officials are being openly confronted and denounced wherever they travel.

Author and activist Ali Abunimah says that this is evidence of a global movement against Israeli government policy breaking through. On this edition, Ali Abunimah explains why he thinks Israel has ‘lost the argument’ over who’s right and wrong…and where he thinks the movement to free Palestine is headed next.

Special thanks to the Middle East Children’s Alliance and KPFA radio.

This program was funded in part by Left Tilt.

Featuring:

Ali Abunimah, Electronic Intifada founder.

***WEB EXTRAS***

 Full length Speech by Ali Abunimah, with Introduction by Alice Walker

Question and Answer Session with Ali Abunimah and Alice Walker

For More Information:

Electronic Intifada
MECA – Middle East Children Alliance
Arab American Action Network
Reut Institute
Stand with the Irvine 11
Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice
Understanding the Goldstone Report
Left Tilt
KPFA Radio – Berkeley, CA

Articles/Blogs/Videos/Audio:

The Delegitimization Challenge: Creating a Political Firewall
Irvine 11 Verdict: Muslim Students Guilty Of Disrupting Speech
The Field Beyond Wrongdoing and Rightdoing:
A Study of Arab-Jewish Grassroots Dialogue Groups in the United States by Nurete L. Brenner

Music:

“Lamal Ftoor” by Ramallah Underground
“Beat” by 1criminale

Sign at NYC Occupy Wall Street Rally on October 8th, 2011, courtesy of (cc) Flickr user Downtown Traveler

Over two million Americans have fought in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They return to a nation in economic crisis. A third of those veterans come home to face serious medical conditions. Many veterans now consider themselves the 99 percent, and have joined a second Occupation, Occupy Wall Street. On this edition, a special report on veterans standing in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street movements and an encore presentation about veterans returning home from war and the struggles they endure produced by Aaron Glantz.

Featuring:

Sgt. Shamar Thomas, marine veteran; Kurt Biddle, army veteran; Jeff Paterson, Courage To Resist; Jason Matherne, Iraq Veterans Against War; Joshua Shepherd, navy veteran; Douglass Connor, army veteran; Andrew Berends, The Blood of My Brother filmmaker; Michael Hall, former US Army staff sergeant; Rachel Feldstein, New Directions associate director; Joshua Kors, The Nation magazine correspondent; Zollie Goodman, former naval petty officer; Barack Obama, United States president; Todd Stenhouse, National Veterans Foundation spokesperson; Terry “T.J.” Boyd, former Marine Corps sergeant; Ron Finch, National Business Group on Health; Catherine Morris, Sierra College veterans’ counselor; Paul Sullivan, Veterans for Common Sense executive director.

This documentary was produced with support to Aaron Glantz from the Hechinger Institute for Education and the Media at Columbia University Teachers College and the Rosalynn Carter Journalism Fellowship program at the Carter Center. Thanks also to Mike Siv of New America Media.

For More Information:

Iraq Veterans Against the War
National Veterans Foundation
National Coalition for Homeless Veterans
Swords to Plowshares
Veterans for Common Sense
Veterans for Peace
Occupy Wall Street
Occupy Oakland

Articles/Blogs/Videos/Audio:

Sgt. Shamar Thomas Defends Occupy Wall Street
The War Comes Home: Washington’s Battle Against America’s Veterans
Veterans More Likely to be Homeless
Cost of Treating Veterans Will Rise Long Past Wars
Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan Not Worth the Cost, many US Veterans Say
Report: Meeting the Needs of Veterans In Today’s Labor Force 

Music:

“Next Bold Move” – Ani DiFranco
“What’s Going On” – Marvin Gaye
“Hero’s Song” – Brendan James

Transcript:

What can be done about Corporate Personhood?  Well, it would take a constitutional Amendment to change federal law—and that has to be ratified by three quarters of the states.  It’s a tough hill to climb…but there’s a growing movement in local communities across the country.  In April, voters in Madison Wisconsin approved a city referendum calling for amending the U.S. Constitution to establish that “only human beings, not corporations, are entitled to constitutional rights”. This November, voters in Boulder Colorado will be asked to vote on the same question.  From Boulder, Maeve Conran has the story.

Ambient sound of a party… background chatter

Maeve Conran: On a late September evening, supporters of the 2H ballot measure gather at a Boulder restaurant to officially launch their campaign.

Spicer: “My name is Laura Spicer , and I’m the vice chair of the Boulder County Democratic Party and one of the campaign managers of  2 H. We can’t match corporate billionaire dominance when it comes to elections and governments.    It’s a government by for and of the people not by for and of corporations.” Conran:   This November, voters in Boulder will be asked to approve a measure that states that only human beings, not corporations, are entitled to constitutional rights, and that money is not speech, and therefore regulating political contributions and spending is not equivalent to limiting political speech.  Judy Lubow, one of the original organizers of the 2 H campaign, said she became alarmed at the state of the democracy following the Citizen’s United ruling – and that’s what prompted her to act locally. Lubow: “In my opinion, Congress is bought and the presidency is almost fatally compromised.  We can’t seem to get real change no matter who is elected.  And that being so, one of the few places where we can impact anything is locally.  Because in comparison there is a lot of us to local government, as opposed to so few of us in regard to the national government. So we can make an impact in local government and that is why Move to Amend is choosing to do local actions.”Conran: That group Lubow referred to, Move to Amend, is pushing similar measures across the country including one that passed in  Madison, Wisconsin this past April. These local measures like this are part of a national movement whose ultimate goal is to amend the U.S. constitution to state that corporations are not entitled to the same rights as people. Elena Nunez with Colorado Common Cause says that one of the local measures won’t actually change any laws, they’ll send a message to Congress that the people are demanding a change.Nunez: “Well, I think it’s important to realize that the Constitutional Amendment Strategy, it’s a long term movement. And the only way its going to happen is by having citizens in local communities, like Boulder, take a stand and say that it’s important. We’re not going to see the change trickle down from Washington DC. Anyone who’s watched any of the recent debates, whether it’s healthcare or the environment or climate change, knows that change isn’t going to happen in Washington DC.” Conran: In August, the Boulder City Council voted 6-3 to put the issue on November’s ballot. Council member Casey Becker and the other two dissenters cited unintended consequences of what they cited as “language that was too broad.” Becker: “Ninety-nine percent of corporations are less than 5 people. And corporations include non-profits and associations and labor unions and a lot of folks that do really good work.”

Conran:  The initiative supporters reject this criticism saying they are simply calling for an amendment and not articulating what the language of that amendment would be. Macon Cowles was the first Boulder council member to say yes to the ballot initiative.

Cowles:  “The thing that gives me hope with a measure like this is that shouting in the dark at first, but our voice will be joined with that of Madison and that of other people around the country.  It is a shout to our leaders at the state level and the federal level that we have to change the way in which we treat corporations in this country. They have so invaded the public space, they’ve so corrupted the political process, the body politic at the state and federal level that really our politics are in a shamble. I think of Wallace Stevens and what he said and that is ‘after the final no, there comes a yes, and on that yes the future of the world depends,’ that’s where we are now.” Applause… fades out…Mark Lowenstein: I don’t think it’s well thought out and I don’t think it’s a well considered amendment and I don’t think that reflects well on the city council.Conran:  Mark Lowenstein, is a Professor of Law at the University of Colorado in Boulder.

Lowenstein: I don’t think it reflects well on the city of Boulder and I don’t think it reflects well on the state of Colorado in terms of attracting businesses to make an investment if there’s hostility to corporations and I think this is what it’s all about – Hostility to corporations.

Conran: There’s one corporation in particular that Lowenstein feels is being singled out locally… Xcel energy.  Two other initiatives also on this year’s ballot will ask Boulder voters if they want to form a municipal utility company and break away from the energy giant.

Lowenstein: I think there’s a connection between this and the municipalization of Xcel energy… I think there too there is a great distrust of Xcel energy, in part because it is a corporation.  So I think if you want to have a vibrant economy the last thing you want to do is discourage people from investing in your economy, in a small part, that’s what this does as well.

Conran: The connection between the ballot issues is not lost on the 2 H supporters.  Judy Lubow says the example of Xcel energy make clear why corporate personhood is wrong.

Lubow: But we’re also seeing now in the city of Boulder itself, there’s this wonderful new issue that’s called municipalization, where the city is trying to and is asking citizens for the right to be able to create and sell its own electricity and to take that right away from the corporations, but to do it themselves.  And there’s a huge amount of money being spent against that campaign, much more than local citizens could raise.

Conran: In fact, Xcel has spent half a million dollars campaigning against municipalization, including a 250,000 donation to a citizen fronted campaign. This is ten times the amount that four groups campaigning against municipalization have spent. But law Professor Mark Lowenstein says critics of the Citizen’s United ruling, largely misunderstand the ruling by focusing on corporate spending in elections.  Rather he says it’s really about speech.  Lowenstein:   Interestingly, Citizens United itself involved a non-profit corporation that wanted to pay for the running of a film that they thought would influence voters.  So I suppose what people are saying who oppose citizens united is “we don’t want that information to get into the hands of voters, we don’t want people to see that film”.  Isn’t that a frightening thought? Conran:   But the Citizen’s United ruling has galvanized communities around the country.  And in Boulder, Move to Amend has chapters in at least 17 states and nearly 136,000 people have signed their online petition calling for a constitutional amendment eliminating corporate personhood.

Conran: Back in Boulder at the 2H launch party, people are confident of a win in November. The measure has been endorsed by 18 local organizations including local chapters of the Sierra Club and the AFL-CIO. Six council members have also officially endorsed the campaign, including Matt Applebaum who says he was initially skeptical.

Applebaum: We get asked to put a lot of things on the ballot and you have to do it very carefully, especially when it doesn’t seem to be a local issue and I had all the concerns other people did too about well… this isn’t going to change anything after all, you can’t expect to have a constitutional change at least not in my life time.  But the more I thought about it, what became obvious to me and what is obviously clear to all of you in this room, is that it’s really hard to think of a more important issue… this is kind of fundamental to democracy at all levels, so it is a local issue… and it’s a state issue and it’s a national issue…and when I realized that, it became obvious that the right thing to do was to put it on the ballot.  Conran: Colorado Common Cause’s Nunez, says she’s confident of a win this November because Colorado voters have already shown support forgetting money out of politics.

Nunez: ..in Colorado we have a strong history of fighting for strong campaign finance laws. Boulder has a strong public financing law. Statewide, we passed Amendment 27, which is the Campaign Finance Law, with 66% of the vote. So Colorado voters, both locally in Boulder and state-wide, have said time and again that they want to reduce the influence of money in politics. And what the Supreme Court has said is that those decisions that these communities have made no longer carry adequate weight, and they’ve overturned parts of the law, so now you can see corporations spending unlimited amounts on independent ads in support or opposition to a candidate. So even though Colorado voters have said we don’t want corporations and labor unions to make direct contributions or independent expenditures; the Supreme Court overruled their individual voice.
Conran:  Supporters of 2 H say they want the measure to pass by a huge margin, to send a strong message to other communities across the country that local action can make a difference nationally.

CHANTING: Yes on 2H…Ready people?…Yes on 2 H!

Conran: Along with Boulder, Missoula Montana will have an anti corporate personhood measure on this year’s ballot and citizens in Eugene, Oregon and Marina, California are in the early stages of a similar campaign. This comes on top of the 30 municipalities that have already passed resolutions and ordinances abolishing corporate personhood since the Citizens United decision.

For Making Contact, I’m Maeve Conran, in Boulder, Colorado.

This story was a special collaboration with Truthout.  To read the print version, click here.

STORY TRANSCRIPT:

This election day, voters in the state of Ohio will be deciding whether to veto a bill which could decimate workers in one of the strongest remaining union states.  In a special collaboration with Truthout, reporter Mike Ludwig went to Ohio, where he found a historic community organizing effort, facing off against record amounts of campaign contributions from increasingly faceless corporate donors.

SOUNDS OF PEOPLE IN OFFICE

Mike Ludwig:   It’s a sunny Friday evening in Columbus, Ohio.  About 60 people—mostly dressed in union t-shirts and jeans, are milling around the offices of the AFL-CIO.  Many of these folks came here after a long week on the job….but there’s more work to be done tonight…With only 5 weeks to go before election day, the order of the evening is phone banking, and door knocking—talking to as many potential voters as possible, to warn them about what’s being seen as a threat to the very existence of Ohio’ working class.

Gillis: “Nobody is fooled, everyone knows what this is, and it’s an attack on working people…”

Ludwig: Mike Gillis is communications officer for the Ohio AFL-CIO.  He says opposition to Senate Bill 5 has united private and public sector unions in a way never seen before.

Gillis:  “…it’s trying to limit their ability to collectively bargain and organize as working people. So it would diminish their ability to fight for their interests in the elections and elsewhere.”

Ludwig: The volunteers organized tonight will be asking Ohioans to vote “No” on issue 2; that’s the referendum in question which would veto Senate Bill 5.  SB5 would limit collective bargaining rights of more than 350,000 public workers, and force some to pay more in pension and healthcare costs. After Ohio’s Republican-controlled legislature passed SB 5 by a single vote in March, volunteers took to the streets and collected an unprecedented 1.3 million signatures to put a veto of the bill on the ballot—almost 5 times the number of signatures needed.

Fazekas: “As soon as this bill came out of the governor’s signature, people were already engaged in saying, “What can we do — how can we stop this?” And so we had more than 10,000 volunteers out on the ground with petition booklets and getting people to sign….”

Ludwig:   Melissa Fazekas is a spokesperson for We Are Ohio, the labor movement’s main group campaigning for a veto.

Fazekas: “We turned in all these signatures and literally the next day I started getting emails and phone calls, because of my information on the Internet, from people saying, “All right, I collected signatures. Now what do I do?” And it was July…people just couldn’t wait.”

Ludwig:   Senate Bill 5 proponents claim the law will help city governments use funds more efficiently, and put public worker’s healthcare and pension costs in line with private-sector workers.  If this sounds a lot like the battle that took place in Wisconsin earlier this year…that’s because it is.  The legislation would have similar ramifications. The ideology comes from a like-minded, conservative governor—in Wisconsin it was Scott Walker, in Ohio, it’s newly elected John Kasich.  And the money to fund the ‘yes on 5’ campaign itself is also coming from similar sources.

Fazekas: “Ohioans deserve to know who’s paying for these battles, and when they see a TV commercial they should know — OK, who’s behind this and what’s their agenda? …And they don’t.”

Ludwig:  Building a Better Ohio, a GOP-linked group spearheading the campaign in support of SB5, set itself up as a non-profit fundraising arm to avoid revealing its contributors and finances.   In one of their more controversial ads, they used video of Cincinnati resident Marlene Quinn talking about how fire fighters saved her granddaughter Zoey.

SOUND FROM AD: “If not for the firefighters, we wouldn’t have our Zoey today…NARRATOR: She’s right.  By voting no on issue 2, our safety will be threatened.  Without issue 2, communities will need to lay off hardworking firefighters, to pay for the excessive benefits of other government employees…”

Ludwig:  But that video of Grandmother Marlene Quinn had actually been taken from a “We are Ohio” ad opposing Senate Bill 2, and edited to make the opposite case.  Here’s the original.

SOUND  FROM AD “If not for the firefighters, we wouldn’t have our Zoey today.   That’s why it is so important to vote no on issue 2.”

Ludwig:  Another recent ad featuring Governor Kasich doesn’t specifically mention issue 2 in the ad,.  As a result, ‘Make Ohio Great’ the group funding the ad, doesn’t have to disclose information about their finances to the secretary of state’s office.  Turns out, ‘Make Ohio Great’ is a non-profit project of the Republican Governors Association, or RGA.
Neither Building a Better Ohio, or the RGA responded to several requests for comment.  But even with the numbers that are known, the intertwining paths of money and influence aren’t too hard to trace.
The RGA spent millions of dollars in 2010 on TV ads and mailers to help elect both Kasich in Ohio, and Governor Walker in Wisconsin. This came only months after the Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling in a case known as Citizens United, which opened the doors for corporations and unions to directly spend unlimited amounts both for and against political candidates.
Corporations have been able to use the RGA as a kind of campaign contribution proxy.  Consider Coca-Cola and Wal-Mart, both companies with a record of opposing unions. During the 2010 election, Coca-Cola donated seven thousand dollars directly to Kasich’s campaign and ten thousand to his transition fund, but gave seventy five thousand to the RGA.  Wal-Mart donated ninety thousand dollars to the RGA but nothing to Kasich directly. The RGA then used those contributions to pay for ads against Democratic incumbent Governor Ted Strickland, who Kasich defeated by a narrow margin.

Sound from anti-Strickland Attack Ad: “…seems like he pulled a Strickland and got busted. Newspapers said it was accounting errors, gimmicks. Hm, pulled a Strickland.”

Ludwig:  Private healthcare, pharmaceutical companies, and other corporations also contributed tens of thousands of dollars to support ads attacking Strickland.  Speaking at a rally in October Tim Burga with the Ohio AFL-CIO said the agenda is to eliminate the middle class.

Burga: “…this is an opportunity for the other side to completely cripple organized labor, so wall street the super wealthy, corporate CEOs, can have complete control of the public policy agenda, to create a permanent low wage work force,  That’s what’s at stake here,.”

Ludwig:  Coca-Cola and Wal-Mart are members of the American Legislative Exchange Council, abbreviated ALEC.  ALEC brings together state legislators and corporate leaders from companies like Bayer, Pfizer, and Exxon-Mobile to draft model bills for state legislators seeking to advance a conservative, pro-business agenda. Governor Kasich is an alumni of ALEC, and in 2010 ALEC companies donated more than half a million dollars to him and other Republican legislators that supported SB 5.  Mike Gillis from the AFL-CIO says legislation like SB5 is part of what the bang companies get for their campaign bucks.

Gillis : “It’s no coincidence that all these attacks come at exactly the same time and across a bunch of battleground states, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, and others.  They’re seeing the same types of laws being passed in the state legislatures and signed by their governors who are often in the pocket of the same people.”

Ludwig:  But the Ohio bill’s authors may have made a fatal misstep in their political calculus. While Wisconsin’s now infamous anti-union law exempted police and firefighters, those first responders are included in the Ohio bill—and they’re not happy about the idea of losing their right to negotiate on their own working conditions.  Cincinnati firefighter Doug Stern has been speaking at rallies across the state.
Doug Stern, Cincinnati firefighter: “Senate Bill 5, now Issue 2, is unfair, is an unsafe attack on Ohio’s first responders like myself, to put every man woman and child in this state at risk.  I’m a firefighter and let me tell you what I know:  I know how many fire fighters we need on the fire truck.  I know how many firefighters it takes to put out a fire, and to rescue someone when time is critical. Any law that takes away the professional voice of firefighters…it’s unsafe to the community, and we won’t stand by and let it happen.”

Hirsh: “There’s a traditional understanding of Ohio that there’s about eight or nine blue counties and about 80 red counties, but when the republican legislature passed Senate Bill 5, they really started cannibalizing their own base.”
Ludwig:  Kris Hirsh is with Stand Up For Ohio, a group leading the grassroots campaign to veto Senate Bill 5.

Hirsh: “They started going after the policemen and the firemen and the teachers in those rural areas that by traditional analysis had voted 1/3 republican. There’s always a strong sense that your corrections officers and your highway patrol’s and your police officers had a significant right-wing within their union, and when the Republican Party targeted them as the cause of our economic problems, they really stepped on their own foot.”

CHANTING:  “The people united will never be defeated.”

Ludwig:  Larry Cohen, president of the Communications Workers of America, told volunteers preparing to go knock on doors, that the grassroots movement in Ohio is part of something bigger.
Cohen“You’re leading a movement here! You’re not just fighting back; we’re building a movement.  Those students in Madison?  They’re building a movement, and we followed em.  Those young workers that are in the park on Wall Street, fighting Wall Street? Occupying Wall Street> They’re fighting back.”(Applause)

Ludwig:  Many Ohioans have clearly been energized, and the ‘no’ side has been ahead in the polls for months.  But money has also been a major factor.  With almost 4 million dollars coming from national union offices to We Are Ohio, as of mid-October, the pro-union campaign had actually spent more on TV ads than their corporate-funded opponents. But labor activists are expected to be outspent in the next 2 weeks. Experts estimate the total cost of the Issue 2 campaigns could total between $33 and $40 million dollars. Whichever side prevails, there are likely to be many more expensive campaign battles in Ohio and across the country in the years to come; meaning the ultimate loser will be democracy itself.For Making Contact, in partnership with Truthout, I’m Mike Ludwig in Columbus, Ohio.

Ludwig talks about newly released campaign finance reports related to Issue 2 on this November’s ballot in Ohio. Disclosure of donors and dollars was sparse by GOP-funded anti-union campaigns.  Union supporters, looking to repeal SB 5, are spending record amounts as well.