Journalist Mitch Perry speaks with KPFA during usual banter about the impact of hurricane Irma in Tampa, Florida. Afterwards, Salima Hamirani converses with a Rohingya human rights activist about the violent military crackdown in Burma targeting the Rohingya and the resulting refugee crisis. Jeanne Marie Hallacy, American director of the documentary film about the Rakhine state in Burma, Sittwe, expands upon the details of the crisis.

At the top of the second hour we begin a three part investigation into the conversation around Antifa. Aaron Sankin, a Reveal reporter, highlights the strategic efforts of the Alt-Right to leverage Antifa in an effort to make the Alt-Right appear reasonable. Laura Rosenberger, a fellow at the German Marshall Fund, points out instances of coordinated amplification networks on Twitter intended to promote Alt-Right viewpoints and disseminate disinformation. An extended version of this discussion is available on the second episode of our new podcast, UpFront Tech [1].

Then, we feature a debate between Chris Hedges, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author, and Michael McBride, pastor and anti-incarceration activist, debate whether the tactics deployed by Antifa are viable.

 

Mitch Perry, a reporter with Extensive Enterprises since November of 2014. Previously, he served as five years as the political editor of the alternative newsweekly Creative Loafing.

Jeanne Marie Hallacy, documentary filmmaker of several films on Burma and longtime Burma specialist

Aaron Sankin is a reporter for Reveal covering online privacy and cybersecurity with a focus on low socioeconomic-status communities. Before joining Reveal, he was a founding editor of The Huffington Post's San Francisco vertical and a senior staff writer on The Daily Dot's politics team.

Laura Rosenberger is director of the Alliance for Securing Democracy [2] and a senior fellow at The German Marshall Fund of the United States. Before she joined GMF, she was foreign policy advisor for Hillary for America.

Chris Hedges, journalist, social critic, and best-selling author. He was previously a foreign correspondent with the New York Times and part of the team that won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for coverage of global terrorism.

Michael McBride, pastor of the Way Christian Center in Berkeley and National Director of the LIVE FREE Campaign with the PICO National Network, a campaign led by faith congregations that addresses gun violence and mass incarceration of young people of color.

[1] https://kpfa.org/blog/upfront/

[2] http://securingdemocracy.gmfus.org/