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

We discuss the FCC’s plan to eliminate net neutrality on May 15. FCC chair Tom Wheeler will be deciding on new rules regarding the internet that will allow those who have wealth to have faster service and will leave the rest of us behind with internet service that ranks us between 35th and 40th in the world. The internet will become a pay-to-play entity rather than being treated as a public good – something to which all people should have the same standard of access. We will discuss the upcoming decision at length and what people are doing to stop it. And we will discuss the growing movement to municipalize internet service. For more information, v isit ClearingtheFOGRadio.org.

The focus of today’s show is President Obama’s trip to Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and the Philippines to build support for escalation of the US’ military presence and for the TransPacific Partnership (TPP). We are joined by Bernadette Ellorin of BAYAN USA which helped to coordinate protests to US military and economic domination in the region. Protests occurred in the US and in each of the countries that Obama visited. We also discussed a new letter urging Obama to take meaningful action to end nuclear weapons, the launch of our new campaign to clean up abandoned uranium mines, the attack on internet neutrality and recent studies which document that the US is a plutocracy. For more information, visit ClearingtheFOGRadio.org.

We spoke with Martin Kirk and Anuradha Mittal about the World Bank's "Doing Business" ranking which encourages countries to lower protections for workers, public health and the environment in order to attract businesses. It allows businesses to move factories and capital to countries with the lowest standards and fuels the race to the bottom. Of particular concern is the rising number of acres being sold to Big Ag which is displacing millions and destroying local food protection. The Rules and Oakland Institute are partnering in a new campaign, "Our Land Our Business" to end land grabs. They seek one million signatures by October. Visit OurLandOurBusiness.org to learn more and take action. Visit ClearingtheFOGRadio.org for more information about the program.

We speak with two guests who are working to transform their cities into places that support their populations rather than exploiting them and pushing them to the edges. Andy Shallal, artist, activist and owner of the Bus Boys and Poets bookstore restaurants is running for mayor in Washington, DC. He advocates for policies that bring greater community engagement and empower communities through education, employment support and affordable housing. Dean John H. Morris, Jr is head of the Department of Urban Planning and Community Development at Sojourner-Douglass College in Baltimore, MD. He is working with the local community to recreate local neighborhoods so they are places that build and sustain homeownership and local businesses through a grass roots democratized economy. For more information, visit ClearingtheFOGRadio.org.

We talk about the efforts in Vermont to create a new economy which includes a public bank that is designed to serve the needs of the public and protects public dollars from the risks of too big to fail banks with Gwendolyn Hallsmith, the new Executive Director of the Public Banking Institute. We also speak with Ellen Brown who has written numerous books and articles on public and postal banking and the big banks. This topic is especially timely given the huge bubble that is inflating on Wall Street at the same time that the world's biggest economies are scaling back and there are numerous financial crises. Learn how to protect yourself and your community from the next crash. For more information, visithttp://www.ClearingtheFOGRadio.org.

The newest study published by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) shows that press freedom in the US is disappearing. The US fell 13 places to number 46 in the world, largely due to mass surveillance and aggressive attacks on whistleblowers and journalists. Delphine Halgand of RSF joins us to speak about the new report. Then Josh Stearns of Free Press who has written about specific attacks on journalists in the US tells us about the newest challenges to press freedom in the US and what we need to do to end them. For more information, visit ClearingtheFOGRadio.org.

On February 11, thousands of websites will display messages to expose and oppose the national security state in “The Day We Fight Back Against the NSA.” The day was chosen to remember Aaron Swartz who took his life one year ago and the massive day of online action that stopped SOPA and PIPA. Swartz was a pioneer at a very young age in developing systems to share information and demanding that people should have access to information, especially data that was created using public dollars. To get the facts behind the extent of the security state and what people are doing to fight back against it, our guests are Andrew Krieg, author of “Presidential Puppetry: Obama, Romney and their Masters,” and Evan Greer of Fight for the Future. For more information, visit ClearingtheFOGRadio.org.

In his State of the Union Speech, President Obama said, “Today, after four years of economic growth, corporate profits and stock prices have rarely been higher, and those at the top have never done better. But average wages have barely budged. Inequality has deepened. Upward mobility has stalled. The cold, hard fact is that even in the midst of recovery, too many Americans are working more than ever just to get by; let alone to get ahead. And too many still aren’t working at all.” Obama was forced to mention wealth inequality because the real disparity that has caused rising poverty and hunger, but his overall message was still one of “if you work hard enough, you can get ahead,” rather than an honest focus on the structural causes of the wealth divide and how to reduce it. To have this conversation, we’ve invited Glen Ford of Black Agenda Report and labor economist Jack Rasmus. We look at the state of the wealth divide, its causes and its remedies. For more information, see ClearingtheFOGRadio.org.

We discussed the conference about Syria that is taking place in Montreux, Switzerland. Although the stated goal is peace, the structure of the talks is designed around removal of Assad from power. We will discuss the politics behind the war in Syria with Ajamu Baraka. Baraka writes of the peace talks, “Its main purpose was always to affect their main strategic objective – the removal of President Bashir al-Assad from power and the disappearance of Syria as an independent state.” Baraka calls them “war talks” and states that they are laying the groundwork for an attack on Syria. Alli McCracken of CODEPINK joins us to speak about her recent trip to Geneva with a delegation of women to press for the inclusion of women in the talks. Visit ClearingtheFOGRadio.org for more information.

We continue our discussion of building a trans-formative social movement in the United States. On our last program, we looked back at the social movement over the past few years and analyzed it based on the Eight Stages of Successful Social Movements. On this program, speak about the tasks ahead to build consensus and an engaged movement of people pushing for peace, justice and a sustainable way of living. Our guest is David Solnit. For more information, visit ClearingtheFOGRadio.org.