THIS IS HELL - WNUR 89.3 Chicago

We opened the show with German reporter Andreas Zumach who gave us the skinny on his breaking story of the twenty-four U.S, corporations, and some eighty German corporations, that are listed in the Iraq weapons report to the UN as suppliers of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. The Bush administration attempted to censor this information from the rest of the world. Then we talked with Mother Jones writer Barry Lynn whose article in the January/February 2003 issue is called "Chaos and Constitution" which reveals why Venezuela's poor are standing up for Hugo Chavez. And Jackie Cabasso, executive director of the Western States Legal Foundation, a nuclear disarmament advocacy group in California; Jackie co-authored a series of papers on nuclear weapons and related high-tech weaponry; the most recent is "The End of Disarmament and the Arms Races to Come."

Kristin Dawkins, vice president for International Programs at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, told us about the "Three Mile Island" of biotech that recently occurred in Nebraska.

Mike Gray, editor of a new collection of essays called "Busted: Stone Cowboys, Narco-Lords and Washington's War on Drugs." Writers in the collection include past TiH guests Christopher Hitchens and Russ Kick. Mike is best known for being the author of the screenplay for "The China Syndrome" and he was on our show three years ago to talk about his book "Drug Crazy". And Todd Tucker, economic policy analyst at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, talked to us about the ongoing economic problems in Argentina and the World Bank bonds boycott. This Saturday was a Global Day of Action in solidarity with the Argentine rebellion against neoliberalism

14 December 2002

Anthony Arnove, author of "Iraq Under Siege: the Deadly Impact of Sanctions and War" (South End Press).

Rene Plaetvoet, live from Brussels, told us about his organization, "December 18", and the upcoming International Migrants' Rights Day, for which his group is named.

Steve Zeltzer, co-chair of the Port Workers Solidarity Committee told us about the Bush administration's attempts at union busting and the dreaded Taft-Hartley law. Last Saturday, they held a labor conference out in San Francisco, which you can watch by clicking here. Jerry Meade, CO-chair of the Chicago Jobs with Justice Global Justice Committee, filled us in on the great work being done by the Chicago chapter of this group. Last Saturday, they hosted a conference on the impact of the war on working people that featured Greg Palast as a speaker.

7 December 2002

Dan Kovalik, Assistant General Counsel of the United Steelworkers, who will be accompanying Luis Galvis to Chicago next week. Luis is a a member of the Santo Domingo community in Colombia who witnessed the 13 December 1998 massacre there. Dan will tell us about Luis's case and his group's ongoing work against the abuses by Coca-Cola in Central and South America.

Jim Naureckas, the editor of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting's magazine Extra!, will get us up-to-date on all things media including the myths perpetuated by the U.S. media about Iraq, the extremism at Fox, and the loosening of Federal laws concerning media conglomeration. We also spoke with Kurt Biddle, Coordinator of the Indonesia Human Rights Network, will get us up-to-date on the Human Rights situation in Indonesia and he'll tell us the story of two women, an American nurse and a British academic, who are on a hunger strike there to protest their mistreatment.

The return of one of our favorite guests, Greg Palast, author of "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy: An Investigative Reporter Exposes the Truth about Globalization, Corporate Cons, and High Finance Fraudsters " (Pluto Books). Greg is in town to address a Jobs with Justice conference on the impact on American workers of a war with Iraq. Also in this 'chapter', Danny Muller of Chicago's twice-Nobel Peace Prize nominated Voices in the Wilderness will tell us why his group refuses to pay a $20,000 fine levied against them by the U.S. State Department.

30 november 2002

Dave Lindorff, author of the just-released "Killing Time," the first independent book about the death-penalty case of Philadelphia journalist and former Black Panther activist Mumia Abu-Jamal (Common Courage Press).
Professor Georgi Derluguian, associate professor of sociology at Northwestern University, will fill us in on the ongoing troubles in Chechnya and central Asia.

23 November 2002

Chuck Michaels who has a two-part story on the USA Patriot Act at truthout. Chuck discussed our kooky new "national security state." Chuck is the author of the book "No Greater Threat"

16 November 2002

Paul Sanford of the Center for Responsive Politics who explained why the Federal Election Commission is so undemocratic.

Fran Sullivan of the International Organization on Migration who helped us figure out the difficult and often overlooked plight of the migrant.
the return of LaddieO.com and his live web and tech report from the hermetically sealed clean room at URLLabs.
author John Nichols of The Nation who returned to our show for the first time in over two years and will get us in touch with the view from America¹s Hinterland.

attorney Agnieszka Fryszman of Cohen, Milstein, Hausfeld and Toll who is bringing a lawsuit against IBM, Ford, Chrysler and Citigroup, to name a few, who allegedly enabled South Africa's apartheid
a live report from the School of the Americas protest at Fort Benning, Georgia with SOAWatch representative Gail Taylor, who was on the show several times in the past as a representative of the Committee to Free Lori Berensen.

9 November 2002

Chicago journalist Kari Lydersen, who writes for the Washington Post, the Chicago Reader, The Independent Media Center, Clamor and Lip magazines, told us about the fractures in the "left," and the demise this week of Chicago Media Watch. We also spoke with David Cline, national president of Vietnam Veterans for Peace, and a disabled combat veteran, who gave us the veteran's perspective on the ongoing Bush wars.

2 November 2002

author Immanuel Wallerstein. Immanuel is the Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the State University of New York in Binghamton. He is the founder and director of the Fernand Braudel Center for the Study of Economies, Historical Systems, and Civilizations. His "World-Systems Theory" is a poltico-economic and comparative macro-theory of social development, in particular capitalism. He is also a senior research scholar at Yale University and author of, most recently, "The End of the World As We Know It: Social Science for the Twenty-First Century" (University of Minnesota Press). His commentaries, lined here, are some of the best writing going on today. No wonder their not being run in your local paper.

26 october 2002

Stephen Zunes, associate professor of politics at the University of San Francisco. He is the Chair of the Peace and Justice Studies Program at USF and senior policy analyst and Middle East editor for Foreign Policy in Focus. He is also the author of the new book, "Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism" (Common Courage).Stephen explained his alternative to the sanctions and war against Iraq.
we also had a live report from the antiwar protests in Washington, D.C. from Hellion Lizzie Gore

19 October 2002

William Rivers Pitt, columnist at truthout and co-author of "War on Iraq", (Context Books) with former UN weapons inspector in Iraq Scott Ritter.

12 October 2002

The second half of that morning's show:

James Paul, executive director of Global Policy Forum outlined the difficulties the Bush administration's upcoming war in Iraq faces in the United Nations

Anas Shallal, an Iraqi dissident and Peace Fellow with Seeds of Peace. Mr. Shallal strongly supports change for Iraq, but believes it should be an internal catalyst, not an outside one.

5 October 2002

Ramzi Kysia of Voices in the Wilderness's Iraq Peace Team, live in Baghdad
Charles Sheehan-Miles of Veterans for Common Sense, a group of Gulf War veterans who oppose a renewed war with Iraq

Janna Astraya, of the Not in Our Name Coalition. told us about the National Days of Resistance to War and Repression that took place across the United States that weekend.

Joyce Appleby, a professor emerita of history at the University of California, who was one of more than 1,200 historians that signed a petition calling on Congress "to assume [its] Constitutional responsibility to debate and vote on whether or not to declare war on Iraq." She was part of a delegation of scholars who presented the petition to members of Congress last month.
Mark Goldstone, an attorney with the National Lawyers Guild who has represented thousands of protesters and who understands how to hold a legal demonstration, and all the legal aspects of civil disobedience. Mark is representing those that were arrested in last week's IMF/World Bank protest in D.C.

28 september 2002

Mike Marqusee who we talked with live from the Stop The War protest in London, England.

The rest of that day's broadcast:

Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. who dissected the issues being heard at the weekend protests in D.C. Check out Mark's latest article, "Paying the Bills in Brazil" which highlights the problems with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

21 September 2002

David Armstrong, author of "Dick Cheney's Song of America: Drafting a plan for global dominance," appearing in the October issue of Harper's Magazine.

14 September 2002

Sahar Saba of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan. She told us how her world - and the world of Afghan women - has changed in the last year.

The rest of that day's broadcast:

David Potorti of Peaceful Tomorrows who lost his brother James at the World Trade Center and now works with a peace group, rather than seeking violent vengeance.

7 September 2002

The second half of that morning's broadcast:

writer Ken Silverstein who discussed his American Prospect article, "No War For Oil: Is the United States Really After Afghanistan's Resources? Not A Chance."

Professor Sami Al-Arian who told us about being a target of President Bush's "war on terrorism;"

31 august 2002

historian and author Howard Zinn who writes for The Progressive and an amazing archive of his writings can be found by clicking here.

24 august 2002

a live interview from the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa, with David Waskow , senior policy analyst at Friends of the Earth
Christine Ahn, author of the new report "The Rich Get Richer, the Poor Go Hungry, Hunger: A Growing Epidemic in America" published by Food First!

Mark Crispin Miller, author of "The Bush Dyslexicon"
Alan Graf, the attorney representing demonstrators who were allegedly assaulted by Portland (Oregon) police The melee happened during an appearance in Portland by President Bus.h

columnist Norman Solomon whose newest column is entitled "'Wag the Puppy' -- New Twist in Media War"
Stephen Zunes, associate professor of politics at the University of San Francisco and senior policy analyst and Middle East editor for Foreign Policy in Focus

3 august 2002

Jim Jennings, president of Conscience International who has not only worked in Iraqi hospitals since 199 but has over forty years of experience in the Middle East, doing human rights work in Palestine, Iran, Iraq and most recently, in two trips to Afghanistan since 9-11.
Teresita Jacinto of the Committee of Indigenous Solidarity told us about the farmers' uprising at Atenco, where land was seized in order to build an airport.

Virginia Rasmussen of the Program on Corporations, Law an Democracy told us about President Bush's plan to punish corporate evil-doers and his new fast-track authority.

Live from Dublin, Ireland, we will speak with Roberta Bacic, the program and development officer for War Resisters' International. WRI kicked off their week-long conference on Saturday morning.

27 july 2002

Jess Hunter is a researcher for Witness for Peace on Columbia and an expert on the pipeline protection plan. Jess was involved with the just-released report outlining the potential impact of President Bush's attempts to protect the crude oil pipeline in Colombia.
Jeff Kessler of Wyoming¹s Biodiversity Conservation Alliance told us about his group¹s opposition to timber cutting as a form of fire prevention and the impact of logging activities on the environment, including the concept that timber cutting actually leads to forest fires.

The Hans von Sponek Interview:

Hans von Sponeck, the outspoken former United Nations Humanitarian Aid coordinator to Iraq who resigned over the sanctions. Hans' trip to Chicago was sponsored by the wonderful people at Voices in the Wilderness.
Craig Aaron, editor of "Appeal to Reason: 25 years of 'In These Times'

An abbreviated version of that day's broadcast:

Renee Boje is a refugee from America's War on Drugs. She is fighting extradition from Canada to the U.S. The Feds want to imprison her for medical marijuana charges stemming from a bust in California, where, Ms. Boje argues, medical marijuana is legal.

20 july 2002

Doug Henwood, editor and publisher of the Left Business Observer told us about all of today's business including Enron, the war, globalization, deregulation, the media, social security and god knows what else.
Investigative journalist and police accountbility activist Ritt Goldstein. Ritt is living underground in Sweden and is called "the world's only political refugee from the United States." Read his story on the Citizen Corps that will be watching you, that is, if you are an American citizen or just somebody who happens to be in the States. You can help Ritt's struggle for political asylum by clicking here.

13 july 2002

filmmaker Jamie Doran, whose film, titled "Massacre at Mazar", offered eyewitness testimony and film footage of human remains and mass graves of what could be damning evidence of mass killings at Sherberghan and Mazar-I-Sharif in Northern Afghanistan.

Tyson Slocum is research director for Public Citizen and co-author of the report "Blind Faith: How Deregulation and Enron's Influence Looted Billions from Americans."

Zackie Achmat is HIV-positive. He has refused to take anti-retroviral medicines until they are available to all South African HIV/AIDS patients through the public health system.
Kelly Gasink, chairperson of the Committee of Radical Attorneys who are circulating a petition to roll back the USA Patriot Act.

6 july 2002

Danny Schechter, executive producer at Globalvision and executive editor at the Media Channel.
Sam Zarifi of Human Rights Watch who specializes in Afghanistan

Bob Wing, editor of the new publication War Times

Edward Hammond of the Sunshine Product returns with a new report. This one is called "Pentagon Program Promotes Psychopharmacological Warfare ."
Carla Ferstman, the legal director at Redress, a London based, internationally focused, non-profit legal and human rights organisation that works to help torture survivors use every available legal remedy to obtain reparation. They also "campaign for effective remedies where they do not exist." Carla will discussed this week's news involving the International Criminal Court.

22 june 2002

Joshua Ruebner, an activist for Jews for Peace in Palestine and Israel a "Washington, D.C.-based group of American Jews who believe that a just, comprehensive, and lasting peace in Palestine and Israel is attainable through negotiations based on international law and the implementation of relevant United Nations resolutions."
Sarah Kerr, of Calgary's Bow Chinook Barter Community, has been leading participatory workshops and talks in 11 communities across Alberta to demystify the G8 and talk about alternatives that exist. She is doing this as a member of a citizen's action committee called the Calgary G8 Planning Group that have been working toward the protests at the G8 meetings in Calgary that started this Saturday morning..

Bert Sacks, a delegate with the Voices in the Wilderness' Pacific Northwest branch, who has been ordered to pay a $10,000 fine for bringing $40,000 worth of medicine to people in Iraq. Mr. Sacks has refused to pay the fine and will take the case to court.

Maria Luisa Mendonça, director of the Global Justice Center in Brazil, told us about her organization's new report called "Frontline Brazil: Murders, Death Threats and other forms of Intimidation of Human Rights Defenders, 1997-2001."

15 june 2002

columnist and cartoonist Ted Rall, author of the new book, "To Afghanistan and Back".
Institute for Food and Development Policy/Food First co-director Peter Rosset told us about the problems and myths revolving around world hunger and what happened at the previous week's World Hunger Summit in Rome.

Darryl Cherney, who along with fellow Earth Firster Judi Bari were injured in a 1990 car bomb explosion. Darryl and the late Ms. Bari, who died of unrelated causes since the explosion, have been exonerated of any wrongdoing, as they had been accused. However, six of the seven FBI and Oakland police involved were found to have violated the activists' First and Fourth Amendments Rights by arresting the activists, conducting searches of their homes, and carrying out a smear campaign in the press by calling Earth First! a terrorist organization and calling the activists 'bombers' in the aftermath of the explosion.

Russ Kick, author and editor of "Everything You Know is Wrong" talked about Columbine, the war on drugs and how much the Bush administration knew about the attacks before 9-11.
the San Francisco Chronicle's Seth Rosenfeld, author of the expose "Reagan, Hoover and the UC Red Scare" in which secret FBI files show how the bureau's covert campaign to disrupt the Free Speech Movement and topple University of California president Clark Kerr helped launch the political career of an actor named Ronald Reagan.

8 june 2002

Voices in the Wilderness co-coordinator Kathy Kelly who had just returned from Iraq. Kathy has been kind enough to appear on our program several times. To get to the most recent archived interview with Kathy prior to our 8 June 2002 broadcast, just click here.
author Noam Chomsky appeared on "This Is Hell!" for the thrid time in the last nine months and the first time since September 15th when we conducted one of the first interviews with Noam after 9-11 Hear the September 15th interview..

writer and reporter Kari Lyderson will tell us about the murdered campesinos, Coca-Cola and the problems with public access cable programming here in Chicago. Kari writes for the Chicago Independent Mediaa Center, Lip and Clamor as well as the Washington Post, the Reader, and Streetwise.

author and speaker Jim Hightower

1 june 2002

Diana Zuckerman, president of the National Center for Policy Research for Women and Families, told us how the new bioterrorism bill has little to do with bioterrorism.

Marjorie Cohn, associate professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego, talked with us about the nefarious way the FBI is reinventing itself.

Lucy Sharratt is a researcher at the Polaris Institute in Ottawa and a local campaigner on genetic engineering and she told us about next week's sixth annual BioDiversity/BioJustice conference in Toronto.
Mary Kay Devine, the field director out of the corporate and financial affairs office at UNITE, filled us in on the global solidarity campaign to end workers' rights abuses by the owners of Gucci.

25 may 2002

Robert Dreyfuss, author of the recent Nation article "The Cops Are Watching You". Robert is Washington editor of The American Prospect, is a contributing editor of The Nation
Joseph Gerson, director of the Peace and Economic Security Program at the American Friends Service Committee, discussed the potential World War III.

Edward Hammond, an activist at the Sunshine Project, an international organization that "work against the hostile use of biotechnology in the post-Cold War era." Edward talked about recent Sunshine reports on the U.S. military's proposals for offensive biological weapons, which may be illegal, and now are in the hands of U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft.

Zia Mian, a Pakistani Peace activist who is also an author and a researcher on South Asian security issues with the Program on Science and Global Security at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.
Fran Shor, author of the Counterpunch article "Follow the Money: Bush, 9/11 and Deep Threat." Fran teaches at Wayne State University in Detroit. He is an anti-war activist and member of the Michigan Coalition on Human Rights.

18 may 2002

Gush Shalom spokesperson Adam Keller. Gush Shalom "has played a leading role in determining the military and political agenda of the peace forces in Israel as well as breaking the so-called 'national consensus'." In other words, they're one of the many - often ignored - peace groups in Israel that is fighting for reconciliation with their Palestinian neighbors.
University of Chicago professor Bruce Cumings whose specialty is modern Korean History, East Asian political Economy; and international History. We talked about the history of U.S.-Korean relations, democracy and Hunan Rights on the twenty-second anniversary of the Kwangju people's uprising

Andrew Boyd, author of "Daily Afflictions: the Agony of being connected to Everything in the Universe."

Lora Lumpe, author of the recently released report "U.S. Foreign Military Training: Global Reach, Global Power"
Linda Melvern, author of "A People Betrayed: the role of the West in Rwanda's Genocide."

11 may 2002

Professor Richard Aldrich of England's Nottingham University told us how "America used Islamists to arm the Bosnian Muslims ." Professor Aldrich is the author of the upcoming book "The Hidden Hand: Britain, America and Cold War Secret Intelligence.".
Tim Wise, board member of Fisk University's Race Relations Institute. Tim is also a speaker and writer. His articles, "Israeli Repression and the Language of Liars" and "Anti-Semitism, Real and Imagined" were discussed.

Edwin Dobb, contributing editor at Harper's. Look for his eye-opening article "Should John Walker Lindh Go Free: on the rights of the detained" in tthe May 2002 issue.

We talked with Ghassan Andoni, director of the Palestinian Centre for Rapprochement between People, an organization that assisted the internationals who were standing with the besieged people at the Church of the Nativity. We will be talking with Mr. Andoni live from Palestine. And we also talked with one of the protesters at Uptowns' Wilson Yard. Activists are fighting for affordable housing to be built in this Chicago neighborhood that is the most economically and racially diverse in the country.

27 april 2002

Ken Silverstein, founder of the alternative newsletter Counterpunch, whose recent work includes "U.S. Oil Politics in the 'Kuwait of Africa'", the Harper's article, "Smitten with a Club: Your AAA dues fuel pollution and sprawl", and "Unjust Rewards" on how the U.S. Government awards companies that break the law.

Ibrihim Hooper of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Ibrihim was one of the students involved in the recent Mother Jones article "False Prophets: Inside the Evangelical Christian Movement that aims to eliminate Islam." Ibrihim dispelled many of the myths of Islam that are currently wallowing in the gutter of the American street.

And we spoke with Kim Alphandary, a freelance journalist whose work appears in Narco News, Columbia Report, and a reporter for Radio for Peace International in Costa Rica. Kim specializes in Latin America and U.S. foreign policy.

20 april 2002 - D.C. Protest Special!

We opened the show by hearing from Sean Reynolds, a member of the steering committee for Chicago Peace Response which helped organize Chicago area folks participating in that weekend's protest against "unprecedented policies of an illegitimate administration" that is fueling a "permanent war and permanent war economy with a wartime abrogation of basic American freedoms and of America's natural concern for the rights and well-being of innocent people worldwide."
Then we spoke with the Reverend Stephen Scott, the vice chair of the Coalition for a Just Cincinnati, who is fighting against "economic apartheid" in Cincy.

We continued our coverage of the Middle East by interviewing Peter Holland a spokesperson for OXFAM Quebec who was on the ground in Palestine.

We continued our celebration of the 25th anniversary of In These Times by talking with writer Susan Douglas.
Then we talked with Ishamel Khamal of Muslim Students Association of the US and Canada from the April 20th National March on Washington, DC
We wrapped up our on-the-scene reporting with Northwestern University student Sarah Harris, the sister of our own Frank Zappatista, producer Kevan Harris.

13 April 2002

We opened this week's show with Lucia Clark, the Research Coordinator of Europe and Canada for Cultural Survival. Lucia told us about the plight of Europe's Roma.

The final hour and thirty-five minutes:

Then spoke with Jim Naureckas, editor of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting's Extra! publication. Jim is on every six months or so to get us caught up on the media.

We continued our celebration of In These Times twenty-fifth anniversary by chatting with columnist Joel Bleifuss, who also happens to be the magazine's editor.
We wrapped up the show by hearing from Kathy Kelly of Chicago's Nobel Peace Prize nominated Voices in the Wilderness. Voices works to break the sanctions against the people of Iraq. Kathy actually stood between the American and Iraqi forces at the beginning of the Gulf War. This weekend Kathy was in Palestine doing everything she could to get the word out about what was happening on the ground there. Kathy has been kind enough to appear on our prgram several times. If you would like to hear her most recent interview with us, prior to this archived prgram, click here.

6 April 2002

Photojournalist Jim Harney who just returned from Colombia.

The final hour and thirty-five minutes:

We talked about the myths of gloablization with economist Dean Baker.

Guardian's Greg Palast, author of "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.".Greg's been on plenty of times. Go check out the last show he was on before this by clicking here.

23 March 2002

We started off the show with past "This Is Hell!" guest Ellen Miller of The American Prospect who dissected the sham that is campaign finance reform, and then we talked with Kevin Zeese of Common Sense for Drug Policy who took America's war on drugs to task

The final hour and thirty-five minutes:

We wrapped up our conversation with Kevin and then we talked with David Moberg of In These Times who told us about the disinformation economy that crreated Enron and 784 other scams that have been completley ignored by the mainstream media.

LaddieO.com came on an hour later than usual and gave us his web and tech report from the hermetically sealed clean room at URL Labs, and then we heard from Sean Reynolds, a member of the steering committee for Chicago Peace Response, which is helping organize Chicago area folks who want to participate in the April 20th National March on Washington, D.C.

16 March 2002

Larry Childs, Ethnosphere coordinator at Cultural Survival, an organization that informs people about the plight and rights of the indigenous cultures, and Syed Saleem Shahzad, columnist for the Asia Times who told us about the war on terrorism live from Pakistan

Lisa Ledwidge, outreach director for the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research which just released a report outlining the 1950's nuclear testing fallout and how it's effect on Americans was far worse than thought.

Richard Herz, litigation director at EarthRights International, told us about the ongoing battle between Shell and Chevron oil companies and the people of Nigeria, as well as UNOCAL and the people of Myanmar/Burma. Mr. Herz is representing the family of Ken Saro Wiwa in Wiwa v. Shell.

2 March 2002

Ram Rahat who works with Yesh Gvul, a support organization for Israeli soldiers who refuse to fight in the occupied territories or in support of any aggressive actions that the Israeli soldier deems immoral and unethical.

Sanho Tree, a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies who specializes in U.S.-Colombian relations tells a great story that epitomizes how the drug war in Colombia doesn't stop the production of drugs, and only fuels the violence there.

Dave Morris, one of the McLibel Two. Dave will be in Chicago to give a little talk on the ongoing McProtest. Find out about it by going to our Stuff to Do section and clicking on Friday. Guess which corporation he ain't none too happy with? We also talked with Guardian columnist Greg Palast joined us for the second time in four months. Check out his earlier interview by clicking here. Greg will be appearing in the Chicago area during the first weekend in April to promote his new book "The Best Democracy Can Buy" and he will be live in the studio with us on April 6th. The great thing about Greg, and it happens in this interview, is that he can talk about so many things - Enron, Venezuela, globalization, the Bushs, terrorism - that he freely jumps from one topic to another and really embodies the conversational style of interview that we strive for on "This Is Hell!"

23 february 2002

Jennifer Van Bergen, managing editor and contributing writer at truthout.com, talked to us about the conflict between corporations and democracy, the war in Afghanistan, the Bush administration, the new envoy to Afghanistan who used to work for UNOCAL - that's the company that has been cited as the pre-war investor in an oil pipeline through central Asia - and a woman who was found dead in a congressman's office. That'll wake you up.

The final hour and three-quarters:

LaddieO.com gave us his weekly web and tech report from URL Labs and we heard from Phil Radford of PowerShift. PowerShift is a group that wants to phase out fossil fuels and stop global warming. They might become players in this whole thing real fast. They have the heads of both Greenpeace and the Ruckus Society on their board.

Jan Lundberg runs the Sustainable Energy Institute out in Arcata. California. He has sworn off cars, dug up his driveway and argues that car culture is another added problem that is created by our dependence on fossil fuels and these fossil fuel-driven machines. His group is now fighting for a moratorium on road building. Jeff then delivered his Moment of Truth too - with this great line - "Eichmann just scheduled trains." Hear it here.

16 February 2002

This includes the first hour when we talked with Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist John Blair of Indiana's Valley Watch, John, you may remember, was arrested for carrying a sign critical of vice president Dick Cheney outside of a Republican fundraiser. Carrying a sign, you may remember, is not against the law. We also spoke with John Gershman of Foreign Policy in Focus who told us about the Philippines. Back in September we had Stephen Zunes from the same organization on the show and you can hear that interview in our Morgue where it is now archived and streaming online.

During the second hour we had the honor of talking with Kerim Yildiz, the executive director of the Kurdish Human Rights Project. Kerim fled Turkey as a Kurdish refugee in 1984 and has been fighting for his people ever since.

We talked with David Talbot, Salon.com's founder and editor in chief, told us about his article "Axis of Stupidity." Finally, we wrapped up the show with Michael Goode of Christian Peacemaker Teams, an organization that confronts Israelis and Palestinians on the frontlines to get them to talk peace. These are the kind of people that take the passivity out of pacifism.

9 February 2002

This includes the first hour when we talked with Eric Miller of the Project on Government Oversight who told us about his story that appeared in Counterpuch "Five Weapons that Bilk the Taxpayers."

During the second hour we spoke with Kevin Danaher of Global Exchange, Kevin is also the author of "Globalize This!" and the recently released "Ten Reasons to Abolish the IMF." He told us what happened at last week's World Social Forum in Porto Allegre, Brazil and the direction of the anti-globalization movement.

We wrapped up the show with three interviews including a live interview with Cheri Honkala of the Kensington Workers' Rights Union from their protest at the Olympics in Salt Lake City. The games displaced many poor people who couldn't afford the jacked-up rents being asked in the city due to the Olympics. We also had a live interview from another protest. Dan Kapov talked to us from the Critical Mass-sponsored protest of the Chicago Auto Show. Dan suggested we also check out the websites for Cars are Coffins and Steel Coffin. We were also joined by Neva Welton and Linda Wolf, co-authors of "Global Uprising: Stories from a New Generation of Activists." They told us about the passion that fuels the myriad of movements in this new era of protest.

2 February 2002