Category Archives: Social Justice

Karen Greenberg – SUBTLE TOOLS: The Dismantling of American Democracy from the War on Terror to Donald Trump

Karen Greenberg is the Director of The Center on National Security at Fordham University. Her 2016 book, ROGUE JUSTICE :The Making of the Security State, explores the War on Terror’s impact on justice and law in America.

Her latest book, SUBTLE TOOLS: The Dismantling of American Democracy from the War on Terror to Donald Trump, is published by Princeton University Press.

We spoke with Karen Greenberg on January 7, 2022, one year and a day after a momentarily united, bipartisan Congress fled in fear for their lives from a mob, who had violently invaded the capitol, preventing the fulfillment of their obligation under the Electoral Count Act of 1887 to meet on January 6 and count the electoral votes of the 2020 presidential election. They were unable to do so until January 7, 2021, one year to the day that Karen Greenberg and I spoke.

Articles pertinent to this interview:

The U.S. drops an average of 46 bombs a day: Why should the world see us as a force for peace? https://www.salon.com/2022/01/11/the-us-drops-an-average-of-46-bombs-a-day-why-should-the-world-see-us-as-a-force-for-peace/

The 20-Year War on Terror Was an Amazing Success—If You Were Terrorism https://www.commondreams.org/views/2022/01/04/20-year-war-terror-was-amazing-success-if-you-were-terrorism?vgo_ee=Y82RBGepzJGygaHT4lvL4KyPUFd7JHyq9acdSgULWaM%3D

Crisis of Command: The Pentagon, The President, and January 6 https://www.justsecurity.org/79623/crisis-of-command-the-pentagon-the-president-and-january-6/

Timeline for Anniversary of January 5: DOJ Election Fraud Investigations and GA Senate Runoff https://www.justsecurity.org/79743/timeline-for-anniversary-of-january-5-doj-election-fraud-investigations-and-ga-senate-runoff/

The American polity is cracked, and might collapse. Canada must prepare https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-the-american-polity-is-cracked-and-might-collapse-canada-must-prepare/

Links to audio additions to the broadcast version of this interview:

Tapping My Own Phone (Ron Whitehead) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Orrsv7kkxYo

Uncivil War (Shemekia Copeland) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtYnzXdhkm0

The Dance – Ron Whitehead & The Storm Generation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZLaNzQH6Dg

Kristen Iversen FULL BODY BURDEN:Growing Up in the Nuclear Shadow of Rocky Flats

In this interview with Kristen Iversen from June 27, 2012, we learn about the history and legacy of the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Site, located 15 miles northwest of Denver, CO. Iversen grew up in nearby Arvada, and worked at the plant.

The recent catastrophic fires in Superior and Louisville, CO, brought it to mind, since Superior butts right up against and downwind from the Rocky Flats site, and Louisville butts right up against Superior. On the day of the fire, December 30, 2021, winds were clocked at Rocky Flats at 115 miles per hour. But beyond that, as Kristen Iversen tells us, those winds had been blowing east from the plutonium contaminated site for 6 decades.

Local residents protested the moral and physical dangers at Rocky Flats, as well as proposed real estate developments along its borders, which were nonetheless built, in spite of the scientific findings of plutonium contamination and strong, local resistance, and which have now been utterly destroyed by the fires.

An aerial view of one of the Boulder County neighborhoods that burned to the ground on Thursday. Photo: Hart Van Denburg/AP/Shutterstock

It has been widely reported that abundant spring rains allowed the grasses to grow profusely, only to dry completely in the ensuing drought and unseasonably hot and dry Fall and early Winter. In the growing, those plants absorbed plutonium, known to have been blown there from the Rocky Flats Weapon Lab site during those six decades. The fire vaporized whatever plutonium had been taken up by that tinder dry plant material, blowing it in unknown amounts and unknown distances to the east. I have not found any reports mentioning this aspect of the fires, much less considering the fallout from it, in the most literal sense.

Perhaps this post can be a beginning of that consideration.

Articles referenced or pertinent to this story:

The Return of the Urban Firestorm https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/01/colorado-saw-the-return-of-the-urban-firestorm.html?utm_source=pocket-newtab

The Rocky Flats Grand Jury’s Files Have Gone Missing https://www.westword.com/news/rocky-flats-grand-jurors-were-silenced-and-now-files-are-gone-11430085

Update Regarding Rocky Flats Hot Particle Study https://www.rockyflatsnuclearguardianship.org/single-post/2020/04/09/Update-Regarding-Rocky-Flats-Hot-Particle-Study

Plutonium Inventory Differences at the Rocky Flats Plant & Their Relationship to Environmental Releases https://nuke.fas.org/cochran/nuc_11229601a_178.pdf

It’s alive: The groundbreaking research on the microbes in wildfire smoke https://grist.org/grist-video/its-alive-the-groundbreaking-research-on-the-microbes-in-wildfire-smoke/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=weekly

Alfred McCoy TO GOVERN THE GLOBE: World Orders & Catastrophic Change

Alfred McCoy is University of Wisconsin Harrington Professor of History. He was our guest in 2017, when his book, IN THE SHADOWS OF THE AMERICAN CENTURY: THE RISE AND DECLINE OF US GLOBAL POWER, was published by Haymarket Books. That archived interview can be heard on our website, forthright.media. https://forthright.media/2017/10/04/alfred-mccoy-in-the-shadows-of-the-american-century-the-rise-and-decline-of-us-global-power/

Fifty years ago, the publication of his book, THE POLITICS OF HEROIN IN SOUTH EAST ASIA, led to his testifying before the Senate Committee on Appropriations Foreign Operations Subcommittee in June 1972. His research, including traveling to Hmong villages in Laos, revealed that the Central Intelligence Agency was knowingly involved in the transportation of heroin in the Golden Triangle of Burma, Thailand, and Laos. The CIA tried to block its publication, but it has been translated into 9 foreign languages with three English editions and is regarded as the “classic” work on global drug traffic.

His new book, also published by Haymarket Books, is titled TO GOVERN THE GLOBE: WORLD ORDERS & CATASTROPHIC CHANGE.

In it, he explores the interplay of three factors—sovereignty, human rights, and energy—in shaping the succession of empires and their global systems from the Black Death of 1350 through the coming climate crisis of 2050.

It is packed with meticulously researched facts and analysis of world history of the last 600 years, examining the continuities and disruptions that create systems that rule international affairs.

He asserts that China will become the world hegemon by 2030, via initiatives such as the Belt & Road Initiative, which makes manifest Halford Mackinder’s thesis that who controls the World Island, controls the world.

Articles referenced or pertinent to this interview:

Moscow’s Man on the Spot in Africa https://tomdispatch.com/moscows-man-on-the-spot-in-africa/

As Tensions Rise over Taiwan, U.S. & China “Edging Ever Closer” to War https://www.democracynow.org/2023/3/10/xi_jinping_china

Russia & China: Together At Last https://www.democracynow.org/2022/3/21/ukraine_war_strengthens_china_russia_alliance

The Grand Theory Driving Putin to War https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/22/opinion/russia-ukraine-putin-eurasianism.html

On the Most Fundamental of All Human Rights: Survival https://tomdispatch.com/climate-crisis-at-the-top-of-the-world/

Climate Crisis at the Top of the World https://tomdispatch.com/climate-crisis-at-the-top-of-the-world/

Washington’s World Order and Catastrophic Climate Change https://tomdispatch.com/to-govern-the-globe/

In China’s new age of imperialism, Xi Jinping gives thumbs down to democracy https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/dec/12/xi-jinping-china-beijing-new-age-of-imperialism

China Biggest Winner in Afghanistan https://www.commondreams.org/views/2021/09/13/china-biggest-winner-afghanistan?utm_term=AO&utm_campaign=Daily%20Newsletter&utm_content=email&utm_source=Daily%20Newsletter&utm_medium=Emai

The US military trained him. Then he helped murder Berta Cáceres https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/dec/21/the-us-military-trained-him-then-he-helped-berta-caceres

Washington’s Great Game and Why It’s Failing https://www.greanvillepost.com/2015/06/11/tomgram-alfred-mccoy-washingtons-great-game-and-why-its-failing/

Julius S. Scottt, Groundbreaking Historian of the Caribbean, Dies at 66 https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/16/obituaries/julius-scott-dead-common-wind.html

How the heroin trade explains the US-UK failure in Afghanistan https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/jan/09/how-the-heroin-trade-explains-the-us-uk-failure-in-afghanistan

Here’s how to repay developing nations for colonialism – and fight the climate crisis https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/14/heres-how-to-repay-developing-nations-for-colonialism-and-fight-the-climate-crisis

Spencer Ackerman REIGN OF TERROR: How the 9/11 Era Destabilized America & Produced Trump

Spencer Ackerman had just graduated from Rutgers University, when the attacks on 9/11 occurred. He began his journalism career, focused on national security, with the New Republic in 2002, and then went on to write for Wired, The Guardian and The Daily Beast.

He won a 2012 National Magazine Award for his reporting on biased FBI training, and a 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service (with Glenn Greenwald, Ewen MacAskill, Laura Poitras, and others at the Guardian) for reporting on revelations of widespread secret surveillance by the National Security Agency based on the Edward Snowden revelations.

His recent book, REIGN OF TERROR: HOW THE 9/11 ERA DESTABILIZED AMERICA AND PRODUCED TRUMP, was published by Viking in August, 2021. We spoke with him on December 3, 2021.

Articles referenced or pertinent to this interview:

House Responds To GOP’s Lauren Boebert With Islamophobia Bill Sponsored By Ilhan Omar https://www.huffpost.com/entry/bc-us-congress-boebert-omar_n_61b9c78ae4b0317f6dcec77a

US rejects calls for regulating or banning ‘killer robots’ https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/02/us-rejects-calls-regulating-banning-killer-robots

The rise of the killer robots – and the two women fighting back https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/08/the-rise-of-the-killer-robots-jody-williams-mary-warehan-artificial-intelligence-autonomous-weapons

How Sept. 11Gave Us Jan. 6 https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/09/opinion/how-sept-11-gave-us-jan-6.html?searchResultPosition=4

McChrystal: ‘Impossible to Argue’ War on Terror Was Worth It https://www.thedailybeast.com/mcchrystal-impossible-to-argue-war-on-terror-was-worth-it?ref=author

Donald Rumsfeld, Killer of 400,000 People, Dies Peacefully https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-rumsfeld-killer-of-400000-people-dies-peacefully?ref=author

Secret Court Reveals: FBI Hunted for Domestic Terrorists Without a Warrant https://www.thedailybeast.com/secret-court-reveals-fbi-hunted-for-domestic-terrorists-without-a-warrant?ref=author

The Insurrection Isn’t Over https://www.huffpost.com/entry/insurrection-republican-party-trump_n_60b1217ae4b04ddf13edbe9d

Maj. Ian Fishback, Who Exposed Abuse of Detainees, Dies at 42 https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/23/us/ian-fishback-dead.html?surface=most-popular&fellback=false&req_id=485534344&algo=bandit-all-surfaces&variant=0_bandit-all-surfaces&pool=pool/91fcf81c-4fb0-49ff-bd57-a24647c85ea1&imp_id=505104580&action=click&module=Popular%20in%20The%20Times&pgtype=Homepage

Pentagon Chief Orders New Inquiry Into U.S. Airstrike That Killed Dozens in Syria https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/29/us/politics/pentagon-airstrike-syria.html

‘The goal was to silence people’: historian Joanne Freeman on congressional violence https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/28/historian-joanne-freeman-congressional-violence-paul-gosar

US added to list of ‘backsliding’ democracies for first time https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/22/us-list-backsliding-democracies-civil-liberties-international

Can American democracy escape the doom loop? So far, the signs are not promising https://www.salon.com/2021/12/10/democracy-doom-loop/

Kathleen Belew A Field Guide to White Supremacy

Kathleen Belew is an international authority on the White-Power Movement and Assistant Professor of History at the university of Chicago.

Her 2018 book, BRING THE WAR HOME: THE WHITE POWER MOVEMENT AND PARAMILITARY AMERICA, published by The Harvard University Press, was a hugely important work toward our understanding of the international white supremacy movement.

She now has a compilation of essays, A FIELD GUIDE TO WHITE SUPREMACY, which she co-edited with her colleague at the University of Chicago, History Professor, Ramón A. Gutiérrez. It contains the writings of a diverse group of writers, among them Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Jamelle Bouie, Judith Butler, Rebecca Solnit, just to name a few.

In September of 2019, Professor Belew was a witness at a congressional hearing on confronting white nationalism. In her witness statement, she described the white power movement as a threat to our democracy and that that is was transnational. Her research and writings decry the notion that attacks such as the massacres at the Christchurch Mosque, the Tree of Life Synagogue, or the El Paso walmart are the work of lone wolves. We spoke with Kathleen Belew on October 28, 2021.

Articles referred or pertinent to this interview can be found here:

A historian of white power reacts to the Rittenhouse verdict: ‘a bonanza for the far-right’ https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/24/historian-white-power-reacts-kyle-rittenhouse-verdict-far-right

Three Trials in America – The conversations playing out in courtrooms in Kenosha, Charlottesville, and Georgia are revealing https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/10/kenosha-charlottesville-georgia-trials-justice-system-race.html

Neo-Nazi duo handed nine-year US prison terms over apparent attack plot https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/28/neo-nazi-the-base-far-right-us-prison-terms

Victims of Charlottesville Rally Argue the Violence Was Planned https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/24/us/charlottesville-rally-trial.html

U.S. Border Agency Settles With 2 Americans Detained for Speaking Spanish https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/26/us/montana-spanish-border-patrol.html?searchResultPosition=1

A 19th-Century Law Dismantled The KKK. Now It Could Bring Down A New Generation Of Extremists https://www.huffpost.com/entry/charlotesville-spencer-kessler-trial-spitalnik_n_61730a2ee4b09314320ae288

How higher education can win the war against neoliberalism and white supremacy https://www.salon.com/2021/10/24/how-higher-education-can-win-the-against-neoliberalism-and-supremacy/

2020 Had The Most Reported Hate Crimes Since 2001: FBI Data https://www.huffpost.com/entry/fbi-2020-hate-crimes-asian-americans_n_6176fd81e4b010d933148e55

“Diversity,” “White Supremacist” Among Terms WI GOP Seeks to Ban in Schools https://truthout.org/articles/diversity-white-supremacist-among-terms-wi-gop-seeks-to-ban-in-schools/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=1e0e4c93-75bb-4f98-941f-8f5c9ca0dbce

California synagogue killer not allowed to speak as he gets life without parole https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/oct/01/california-synagogue-killer-not-allowed-speak-life-without-parole

Abortion Has Just Never Been About Abortion https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/15/opinion/abortion-evangelicals-conservatives.html

White supremacists declare war on democracy and walk away unscathedhttps://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/nov/10/white-supremacists-war-on-democracy-unscathed

Andrew Cockburn The Spoils of War: Power, Profit and the American War Machine

Award winning journalist, documentary film producer and Harper’s Washington, DC editor, Andrew Cockburn, comes from an illustrious family of British journalists. In addition, he has been married to American journalist and documentarian, Leslie Cockburn, since 1977.

For more than four decades, he has focused on national security not just of the United States, but of the Soviet Union as well. Beginning with his Peabody Award winning 1981 PBS film, THE RED ARMY, which was the first in-depth study of deficiencies in the Soviet military, he has covered the wars in Afghanistan since the 1980s with his wife, Leslie Cockburn. In 2009, they produced the film AMERICAN CASINO on the financial collapse of 2007. His 8th book, THE SPOILS OF WAR: POWER, PROFIT and the AMERICAN WAR MACHINE, has just been published by Verso.

In it he asserts that “The record shows America’s Afghan War was nothing other than a prolonged and entirely successful operation – to loot the US Taxpayer. At least a quarter of a million Afghans, not to mention 3,500 US & allied troops paid a heavier price.”

He is proud to be descended from Sir George Cockburn, 10th Baronet, who ordered the burning of Washington in 1814, as he recounts in this interview.

We spoke with Andrew Cockburn on Sept. 29, 2021, as the Senate Armed Services Committee was grilling Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, about the US military withdrawal from Afghanistan after 20 years and trillions of dollars spent, which they characterized as “a logistical success but a strategic failure.”

Articles referred to or pertinent to this interview:

Biden’s Top Middle East Adviser ‘Torched The House And Showed Up With A Firehose’ https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mcgurk-biden-middle-east-adviser_n_628f97a4e4b0933e73705793

THE UNSEEN SCARS OF THOSE WHO KILL VIA REMOTE CONTROL https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/15/us/drones-airstrikes-ptsd.html

War in Afghanistan Isn’t Over — It’s Taking the Form of Illegal Drone Strikes https://truthout.org/articles/war-in-afghanistan-isnt-over-its-taking-the-form-of-illegal-drone-strikes/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=85e66ca2-fcf5-49a4-a3d3-bbcfa2db97a9

A Dam in Syria Was on a ‘No-Strike’ List. The U.S. Bombed It Anyway. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/20/us/airstrike-us-isis-dam.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=US%20News

IN RE TERRORIST ATTACKS ON SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 https://www.leagle.com/decision/infdco20210920a80

Second Circuit Reinstates Insurers’ Suit Against Saudi Bank Stemming from 9/11 Terrorist Attacks https://www.law.com/insurance-coverage-law-center/2020/09/11/second-circuit-reinstates-insurers-suit-against-saudi-bank-stemming-from-911-terrorist-attacks/?slreturn=20210826182432

My father was brutally killed by the Taliban. The US ignored his pleas for help https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/27/father-killed-taliban-us-ignored-pleas-daughter-afghan-president

Support for Nuclear Ban Treaty Is Rising. Nuclear Nations Are on the Defensive. https://truthout.org/articles/support-for-nuclear-ban-treaty-is-rising-nuclear-nations-are-on-the-defensive/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=4ed37bf3-fa8f-40c4-94b4-932aea3990de

Stop Calling the Military Budget a ‘Defense’ Budget https://www.commondreams.org/views/2021/10/05/stop-calling-military-budget-defense-budget?utm_term=AO&utm_campaign=Daily%20Newsletter&utm_content=email&utm_source=Daily%20Newsletter&utm_medium=Email

Fewer Democrats This Year Supported a 10 Percent Cut to the Defense Budget https://truthout.org/articles/fewer-democrats-this-year-supported-a-10-percent-cut-to-the-defense-budget/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=85e66ca2-fcf5-49a4-a3d3-bbcfa2db97a9

Are the Motives of War Profiteers Driving Us to the Brink of a New Cold War? https://truthout.org/articles/are-the-motives-of-war-profiteers-driving-us-to-the-brink-of-a-new-cold-war/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=4ed37bf3-fa8f-40c4-94b4-932aea3990de

Why are Americans paying $32m every hour for wars since 9/11? https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/09/afghanistan-us-foreign-wars-congresswoman-barbara-lee

Barbara Lee Offers Amendment to Reduce Pentagon Budget by $25 Billion https://truthout.org/articles/barbara-lee-offers-amendment-to-reduce-pentagon-budget-by-25-billion/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=9dd7dc3c-f6d6-4669-87fd-a5b2f6b00948

Nearly 50 Groups Demand Passage of Amendments to Cut Pentagon Budget https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/09/22/nearly-50-groups-demand-passage-amendments-cut-pentagon-budget?utm_term=AO&utm_campaign=Daily%20Newsletter&utm_content=email&utm_source=Daily%20Newsletter&utm_medium=Email

Henry Giroux

Returning to Forthright Radio is internationally renowned writer and cultural critic, Professor Henry Giroux. He is the McMaster University Chair for Scholarship in the Public Interest & The Paulo Freire Distinguished Scholar in Critical Pedagogy.

Henry Giroux has authored, or co-authored over 65 books, written several hundred scholarly articles, delivered more than 250 public lectures, been a regular contributor to print, television, and radio news media outlets, and is one of the most cited Canadian academics working in any area of Humanities research. He is on the editorial and advisory boards of numerous national and international scholarly journals, and he has served as the editor or co-editor of four scholarly book series. He is on the Board of Directors for Truthout.

He is particularly interested in what he calls the war on youth, the corporatization of higher education, the politics of neoliberalism, the assault on civic literacy and the collapse of public memory, public pedagogy, the educative nature of politics, and the rise of various youth movements across the globe. His working class roots inform his scholarship, writings and lectures, which clearly and consistently articulate the predicament of the average person overwhelmed by the forces of global capitalism, and critiquing the cultural forces supporting its destructive power.

We spoke with Henry Giroux on September 11, 2021. Of course, that was the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the United States, and Henry notes that it was the anniversary of the US backed military coup d’état in Chile, in which the democratically elected President Salvador Allende was overthrown, but it was also the 80th anniversary of the beginning of construction of the Pentagon on September 11, 1941.

Articles referenced or pertinent to this interview:

Attacks on Critical Race Theory Seek to Insert Fascist Politics Into Education https://truthout.org/audio/attacks-on-critical-race-theory-seek-to-insert-fascist-politics-into-education

Stanley Aronowitz, Who Taught Us Teaching Must Be Political, Has Passed https://truthout.org/articles/stanley-aronowitz-who-taught-us-teaching-must-be-political-has-passed/

9/11 and the Crisis of Memory https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/when-the-towers-fell/

The Right Wing Wants Misinformation and Manufactured Ignorance, Not Democracy https://truthout.org/articles/the-right-wing-wants-misinformation-and-manufactured-ignorance-not-democracy/

Fighting back against the age of manufactured ignorance: Resistance is still possible https://www.salon.com/2021/07/03/fighting-back-against-the-age-of-manufactured-ignorance-resistance-is-still-possible/

To End Racial Capitalism, We Will Need to Take On the Institution of Policing https://truthout.org/articles/to-end-racial-capitalism-we-will-need-to-take-on-the-institution-of-policing/

Tucker Carlson Is Just the Tip of the Iceberg in Right-Wing Media’s War on Truth https://truthout.org/articles/tucker-carlson-is-just-the-tip-of-the-iceberg-in-right-wing-medias-war-on-truth/

Three Fundamentalisms Are Driving the Resurgence of Fascist Politics in the US https://truthout.org/video/three-fundamentalisms-are-driving-the-resurgence-of-fascist-politics-in-the-us/

Threat of Authoritarianism Is No Longer on the Horizon: It’s Arrived in the GOP https://truthout.org/articles/threat-of-authoritarianism-is-no-longer-on-the-horizon-its-arrived-in-the-gop/

Downplaying Trumpism Is Dangerous https://truthout.org/articles/downplaying-trumpism-is-dangerous/

Attack on Capitol Affirms Trumpism Will Live On After Trump Leaves White House https://truthout.org/articles/attack-on-capitol-affirms-trumpism-will-live-on-after-trump-leaves-white-house/

Racist Violence Can’t Be Separated From the Violence of Neoliberal Capitalism https://truthout.org/articles/racist-violence-cant-be-separated-from-the-violence-of-neoliberal-capitalism/

Why are Americans paying $32m every hour for wars since 9/11? https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/09/afghanistan-us-foreign-wars-congresswoman-barbara-lee

Todd Miller Build Bridges, Not Walls: A Journey to a World Without Borders

Returning to Forthright Radio is Izzy Award winning Todd Miller. He was our guest in 2017, when the book that won the Izzy Award, STORMING THE WALL: CLIMATE CHANGE, MIGRATION, AND HOMELAND SECURITY, came out. Last Spring of 2021, City Lights published his latest book, BUILD BRIDGES, NOT WALLS: A Journey to a World Without Borders. We spoke with him on August 30, 2021.

Building Bridges his his fourth book on border issues.

“As a woman I have no country. As a woman I want no country. As a woman, my country is the whole world.” – Virginia Woolf

Articles pertinent to this interview:

The broadcast ended with this piece by David Shuster, Trump’s Border Wall WRECKED By Storms https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F81SPqWNO0c

Supreme court orders Biden to revive Trump’s ‘remain in Mexico’ policy https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/aug/24/supreme-court-biden-trump-remain-in-mexico-migrant-policy

Federal Judge Debunks Greg Abbott’s COVID-Fighting Rationale, Blocks Texas Governor’s Ban on Transporting Migrants https://lawandcrime.com/covid-19-pandemic/federal-judge-debunks-greg-abbotts-covid-fighting-rationale-blocks-texas-governors-ban-on-transporting-migrants/

The wall Trump built for a fake crisis just got washed away by floods from a real crisis https://www.mic.com/p/the-wall-trump-built-for-a-fake-crisis-just-got-washed-away-by-floods-from-a-real-crisis-84116464

Repression Without Borders https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/28/opinion/sunday/repression-human-rights-china-turkey-russia.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=Editorials

The Housing First Village in Bozeman https://forthright.media/2021/08/26/housing-first-village/

Housing First Village

What do you call it when a deacon from a local church gets to thinking about how to solve a problem, in this case, chronic homelessness, learns of other communities building tiny houses, goes to the Bozeman city offices to find out about building code requirements, and meets an Architecture Professor, who just happens to direct the MSU Community Design Center? Coincidence? Synchronicity? Serendipity? A God Moment? Whatever you call it, that meeting in the Fall of 2016 led to a collaboration involving local churches, Montana State University’s School of Architecture, the non-profit, HRDC, local businesses and individuals culminating in the creation of The Housing First Village, which is being built on the north 7th area of Bozeman. It is part of an innovative plan to centralize services for those chronically challenged with issues such as homelessness, food insecurity, etc.

We spoke with three members of the Gallatin Valley Interfaith Association, Rev. Connie Campbell-Pearson, who was the St. James Episcopal Church deacon who went to the city offices on that fateful day in 2016, along with Rev. Jody McDevitt of First Presbyterian Church and Amanda Cater of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Bozeman. They organized other local religious groups to raise $139,000 to build tiny homes in the Housing First Village.

In part two, we spoke with the head of the MSU School of Architecture, Ralph Johnson, about how graduate and undergraduate students in their Community Design Center contributed to the project.

It has now grown under the aegis of HRDC, which is working to build the Food and Resource Center, a nearly 32,000-square-foot building that will become the new home of the Gallatin Valley Food Bank and Fork and Spoon restaurant, along with other HRDC programs. Of the planned 19 tiny homes to be constructed, 12 are nearing completion with occupancy hoped to begin in the Fall of 2021.

You can view this short video produced by HRDC “The Making of Housing First Village” here: https://vimeo.com/583977147

More details can be found in Professor Johnson’s paper, HOMELESSNESS: A Critical Approach to Architecture and Planning, here: https://www.witpress.com/Secure/elibrary/papers/SDP18/SDP18057FU1.pdf

Articles pertinent to this program:

HRDC plans to combat growing food insecurity with new project https://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/news/city/hrdc-plans-to-combat-growing-food-insecurity-with-new-project/article_e3eafff9-268e-5d9b-9187-4a57bc37d996.html

MSU architecture students debut tiny shelter prototype for community’s homeless https://www.montana.edu/news/17716/

Rezoning In Livingston As Cities Consider Tiny Homes As Solution To Housing Shortage https://www.mtpr.org/montana-news/2021-08-19/rezoning-in-livingston-as-cities-consider-tiny-homes-as-solution-to-housing-shortage

Nearly half of American workers don’t earn enough to afford a one-bedroom rental https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/aug/12/housing-renter-affordable-data-map

Technology services company commonFont makes $500,000 donation to HRDC’s Griffin Place https://www.montanarightnow.com/bozeman/technology-services-company-commonfont-makes-500-000-donation-to-hrdc-s-griffin-place/article_6ff5f74c-d24c-11ea-8b93-5b34465df46e.html

Police, organizations help with homelessness outreach in Bozeman https://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/news/city/police-organizations-help-with-homelessness-outreach-in-bozeman/article_4ae1c7b1-628b-534d-9c6a-76a3303d3503.html

The Great Eliminator: How Ronald Reagan Made Homelessness Permanent https://www.sfweekly.com/news/the-great-eliminator-how-ronald-reagan-made-homelessness-permanent/