Host Marianne Barisonek speaks with attorney James Otto, who has filed a lawsuit demanding that Americans have equal access to American jobs. He is co-author, (with Ilene Proctor), of the article "Where Have All The Jobs Gone?" They say that American corporations are betraying the American Dream by hiring 2,000,000 workers per year from foreign countries."

James Otto says that for the past 30 years, American firms have failed to adhere to civil rights laws. Otto declares corporations have installed surreptitious strategies to illegally discriminate against the entire American workforce.

 

TomDispatch regular and State Department Official Peter Van Buren, begins his article with the First Amendment, now endangered in Washington. “Those beautiful words,” he writes, “almost haiku-like, are the sparse poetry of the American democratic experiment.”

He urges its rereading “at this moment when the government seems to be carving out an exception to it large enough to drive a tank through. As the occupiers of Zuccotti Park, like those pepper-sprayed at UC Davis or the Marine veteran shot in Oakland, recently found out, the government’s ability to limit free speech, to stopper the First Amendment, to undercut the right to peaceable assemble and petition for redress of grievances, is perhaps the most critical issue our republic can face.”

Van Buren describes the dramatic case of Morris Davis, former Air Force colonel and chief military prosecutor at Guantanamo, who stated he would not use evidence obtained through torture and then resigned when a torture advocate was named his boss.

Davis was a researcher for the Library of Congress in 2009 when he was fired for writing an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal that had nothing to do with his work at the library, which was considered exemplary. Writes Van Buren: “The simple act of speaking out on a subject at odds with an official government position was the real grounds for his firing. That, and that alone, was enough for termination. As any devoted fan of George Orwell, Ray Bradbury, or Philip K. Dick would know, Davis committed a thought crime.”

Davis has taken the case to court where a loss would be a chilling precedent at a moment when secrecy is becoming the first principle of the American government.

Peter Van Buren spent a year in Iraq as a State Department Foreign Service Officer serving as Team Leader for two Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs). Now in Washington, he writes about Iraq and the Middle East at his blog, "We Meant Well." His new book is "We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People", (The American Empire Project, Metropolitan Books).

Host Cecil Prescod interviews Christopher Phillips, author of "Constitution Cafe: Jefferson's Brew for a True Revolution: Jefferson's Brew for a True Revolution."

A radical in his own day, Thomas Jefferson believed that the Constitution should be revised periodically to keep up with the changing times. Instead, it has become a sacred, immutable text-and in Phillips's opinion, it's in need of some shaking up.

For his book Phillips gathered together Americans from all walks of life, moderating dialogues inspired by Jefferson's own populist political philosophy, formulating new Constitutional articles.

Cecil Prescod hosts a show about the so-called Super Committee's possible proposals for cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and the effects the cuts might have on Americans. His guest are Nancy J. Altman, who has a thirty-five year background in the areas of Social Security and private pensions and Greg Margolis of Portland Jobs with Justice.  Nancy Altman is co-director of Social Security Works and co-chair of the Strengthen Social Security coalition and campaign.   She is the author of The Battle for Social Security:  From FDR’s Vision to Bush’s Gamble.

Local advocates in states represented by the 12-member “Super Committee” recently released new reports detailing the projected fall-out resulting from the committee’s proposed cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. In the eleven Super Committee states represented, 20.3 million Americans receive Social Security, 18.5 million Americans receive Medicare, and 21.4 million Americans receive Medicaid.

The so-called Congressional “Super Committee” is just 30 days from its deadline. As lobbyists attempt to save tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires, the new reports reveal a possible economic crisis for many Americans should the committee vote to cut benefits. The full reports are available at http://www.strengthensocialsecurity.org/super-committee/

Opinion poll after opinion poll show that the vast majority of Americans want no cuts to Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid.

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