Clearing the FOG with co-hosts Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese

In 2017, President Trump repealed Obama's executive order for young immigrants, Dreamers, called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), which allowed them temporary status in the United States. The repeal took effect in September and advocates have been fighting since then to restore DACA and pass the Dream Act, which would create a path to citizenship. We speak with two immigrant's rights advocates, Mani Martinez of Cosecha Movement and Juan Escalante of America's Voice, about the impacts of current immigration policies and what it would take to permanently protect immigrants in the United States. For more information, visit www.ClearingtheFOGRadio.org.

Jeff Sessions, head of the Department of Justice, reversed the "Cole Memo" that allowed states to pursue marijuana legalization without fear of the federal government stepping in and prosecuting the marijuana industry. Sessions is leaving it up to each state's federal prosecutor to decide on how to proceed. This happened just as California moved to implement legal marijuana and Vermont voted to legalize marijuana. We speak with Justin Strekal, policy director for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), and Doug McVay, a long time advocate for drug law reform at the state and national level and editor of Drug War Facts, about what lies ahead for the movement to end marijuana prohibition. For more information, visit www.ClearingtheFOGRadio.org.

In his latest book, "In the Shadow of the American Century: The rise and decline of US global power," Alfred McCoy writes about the tools used by the United States to maintain global domination and how its status is declining. McCoy predicts that China will replace the US as the dominant global power holder by 2030. We speak with him about US Empire, what the decline will look like and how it will impact people in the US and around the world. For more information, visit www.ClearingtheFOGRadio.org.

We talked to Mostafa Afzalzadeh from Tehran about what the current protests in Iran are about and where they are going. Mostafa has been an independent journalist in Iran for 15 years and a documentary filmmaker. One of his documentaries is Manufacturing Dissent, about the US, UK and their western and Gulf State allies that launched a covert war in Syria in early 2011, dressed up by the media as a "revolution," to remove Assad from power and the role of western media in creating support for the war. Mostafa said the US has been trying to change the Iranian government since the 1979 Iranian revolution. For more information, visit www.ClearingtheFOGRadio.org.

In 2017, more people became activated for social justice. At the same time, white supremacist groups became more visible, marching with torches and chanting words of hatred. There were conflicts between people who disagreed over what tactics would be most effective in stopping the rise of white supremacy and fascism and achieving greater equality and justice. We speak with Rivera Sun about her novels, which use fiction to teach lessons of movement strategy, and about organizing for social change in our times. Her newest book is "The Roots of Resistance: Book Two of the Dandelion Trilogy" and it will be available in February. For more information, visit www.ClearingtheFOGRadio.org.

The year 2017 has been another active year for people fighting on a wide range of fronts. The Trump administration has brought many issues that have existed for years out into the open where they are more difficult to deny – racism, colonialism, imperialism, capitalism and patriarchy and the crises they create. There will be a backlash against overreach by the power holders on a number of issues, including wealth inequality, health care, Internet freedom, militarization at home and abroad, mass incarceration, climate change and human rights abuses. This backlash provides an opportunity to organize a broader movement of movements and clarify our demands so that we are well-positioned to demand transformative policies. We discuss two of these areas today in greater depth: US imperialism and the fight against fossil fuel infrastructure. For more information, visit www.ClearingtheFOGRadio.org.

On December 14, 2017, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), lead by chairman Ajit Pai, voted to dismantle the hard-won net neutrality rules, going against widespread public support for those rules. The public organized in a massive effort to stop the vote, and now organizations, states and people are taking action to revoke and challenge the FCC's decision. This decision and the public activation around it provide an opportunity to build power not only to win net neutrality, but also to put laws and structures into place that go much farther to create the universal right to high quality, affordable Internet access and equality.

A new report released by Chuck Collins and Josh Hoxie of the Institute for Policy Studies, "Billionaire Bonanza 2017: The Forbes 400 and the Rest of Us," reveals that only 3 people in the US hold wealth equivalent to the bottom 50% of the population, about 160 million people. The wealth divide is getting more severe every year. Just 7 years ago it was 400 people who owned wealth equivalent to the bottom 50%, now they own wealth equal to the bottom 64%, 204 million people. The numbers of people with zero wealth or who are in debt is also growing and is worse for black and Latinos than whites. We discuss the current wealth divide, what's behind it, how the new tax proposal will affect it and how to resolve it. For more information, visit www.ClearingtheFOGRadio.org.

Two new divestment campaigns launched this year. One is the Divest from the War Machine campaign, led by CODEPINK and endorsed by more than 60 organizations, which is targeting weapons manufacturers. The other, Mazaska (Money) Talks, is an Indigenous-led campaign that began after Seattle divested from Wells Fargo for being a major investor in the Dakota Access Pipeline. Mazaska Talks is now a global campaign targeting Wall Street banks for the many harmful investments they make and promoting public banks as a positive alternative. For more information, visit www.ClearingtheFOGRadio.org.

We discuss two of the many assaults on our communities by corporations that put their profits above the health and safety of people. The first is the re-negotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) by the Trump administration. Bill Waren of Friends of the Earth explains how this process is more secretive than the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations. The corporations and Wall Street financiers are using the NAFTA negotiations to slip in the worst of the TPP and TTIP. Then Peggy Chase of the Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation describes how Nestle is taking public water in Michigan and other states and other efforts at water privatization. For more information, visit www.ClearingtheFOGRadio.org.