Author Archives: Planet Waves

Trump Pledges to Withdraw U.S. Ground Troops from Syria—But Global Powers & Deadly Air Forces Remain

Links to today’s show transcripts:

Trump Pledges to Withdraw U.S. Ground Troops from Syria—But Global Powers & Deadly Air Forces Remain
President Trump has ordered the withdrawal of all 2,000 U.S. troops in Syria, shocking many in Washington and around the world. On Wednesday, Trump tweeted, “We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump Presidency.” He ordered the withdrawal despite opposition from within the White House. Yazan al-Saadi is interviewed, a Syrian-Canadian writer and researcher, who warns that U.S. military presence in the region will continue. “You might have a large chunk of the boots on the ground leaving, but it seems very clear that the American air power is going to remain,” al-Saadi says.

The Bombings Will Continue: Phyllis Bennis Warns U.S. Military Role in Syria Is Not Actually Ending
Facebook is under fire again, this time for new revelations that Russian trolls targeted African Americans on social media in an effort to influence the vote ahead of the 2016 election. A pair of bipartisan reports published by the Senate Intelligence Committee Monday claim the Russian government focused on African Americans in its effort to suppress the turnout of voters likely to cast ballots for Hillary Clinton, spreading fake news and sowing discord in the run-up to the election. The NAACP has launched a Facebook boycott in response, demanding the social media giant be held responsible. Derrick Johnson is president and CEO of the NAACP.

NAACP Launches Boycott of Facebook: Platform Is Unhealthy for African Americans & U.S. Democracy
President Trump has announced that the U.S. will withdraw troops from Syria, in a move that has been praised by some in the American peace movement and some progressive lawmakers, as well as anti-interventionist Republicans, including Senators Rand Paul and Mike Lee. Phyllis Bennis is a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, and warns that the U.S. warplanes and drones will continue to bomb the country. ”ISIS has not been ‘defeated,’ and the U.S. should not remain in Syria militarily,” Bennis says. “You cannot defeat terrorism militarily. Terrorism is a phenomenon that emerges out of social and economic and national and all kinds of crises, in all kinds of countries. And stopping it doesn’t mean playing whack-a-mole with your military.”

As we go deeper into this most unusual and challenging phase of history, intelligence is the thing we need the most. That is the theme of the 2019-2020 annual edition of Planet Waves, now available for pre-order. See more information here.

Planet Waves Daily Oracle for Thursday, Dec. 20, 2018

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Today’s Oracle takes us to the Leo weekly for January 28, 2005.

People treat you fairly but that’s partly because you stand up for yourself. It’s also because you’ve long ago figured out that this elusive little thing in the world called ‘ethics’ is alive and well in your mind. You live in a world where there is actual right and wrong. This week may present you with an ethical dilemma that comes in various shades of gray. At the time it may not seem like there is a correct answer or solution. You may in the end have to make a decision that’s based on your intuition or do what feels right. You can trust yourself. With you the chances are that if it feels right it is.

The Daily Oracle offers a horoscope selected randomly by our Intelligent Archive Oracle program, unique to Planet Waves. It’s also a database of my horoscopes going back to the late 1990s. You can use the Intelligent Archive Oracle to answer questions and give you ideas for how to handle problems and situations you cannot see through. This feature is available to our Galaxy, Backstage and Core Community members. See this link for more information.

Justice for Jakelin: Lawmakers Demand Answers in Death of 7-Year-Old Girl in Border Patrol Custody

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Links to today’s show transcripts:

Justice for Jakelin: Lawmakers Demand Answers in Death of 7-Year-Old Girl in Border Patrol Custody
Outrage is mounting over the death of a 7-year-old indigenous Guatemalan girl in Border Patrol custody, as lawmakers demand answers for the conditions that led Jakelin Caal Maquín to die after being detained at the U.S.-Mexico border. Maquin died on December 8, two days after she and her father presented themselves at the border alongside 161 other Central American asylum seekers. She had been held in detention for more than eight hours when she began to have seizures. Border Patrol agents brought the girl to the hospital after her body temperature spiked to 105.7 degrees. The 7-year-old died of dehydration, shock and liver failure at an El Paso hospital less than 24 hours later. Clara Long is a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch.

Greg Grandin: How U.S. Policies Punished Central Americans, Long Before Jakelin Caal Maquín’s Death
As public outrage grows over the death of Jakelin Caal Maquín, a 7-year-old indigenous Guatemalan girl who died in Border Patrol custody, DN discusses U.S. policy in Central America with Greg Grandin, prize-winning author and professor of Latin American history at New York University. Searching for answers after Jakelin’s death, Grandin points to border militarization policies dating back to the Clinton administration and the closure of safer urban routes to the U.S. border. He also links the displacement of Jakelin’s family to the U.S.-backed coup in Guatemala in 1954 and economic policies that destroyed subsistence agriculture in her region. Grandin’s latest piece in The Nation, co-authored with Elizabeth Oglesby, is titled “Who Killed Jakelin Caal Maquín at the US Border?”

Mental Health Experts & Rights Groups Call for Unceasing Media Coverage of Detained Migrant Children
It’s been more than four months since a judge ordered the Trump administration to reunite all families that were separated at the U.S.-Mexico border, but 140 children are still separated from their parents in U.S. custody. It is believed that 30 children will never be reunited. Despite this, family separation is no longer in the daily headlines. We speak with a Harvard psychologist who is trying to change this by calling on U.S. media outlets to highlight the growing number of days that migrant children have been forcibly separated from their parents. Dr. Paula J. Caplan is a clinical and research psychologist and associate at the DuBois Institute at Harvard University. She is leading a coalition of human rights groups and mental health professionals calling attention to the ongoing family separation crisis.

Planet Waves Daily Oracle for Wednesday, Dec. 19, 2018

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Today’s Oracle takes us to the Aquarius daily for March 23, 2017.

If something has been bothering you for a while, now might be the time to make a decision. You’ll know it’s a mature decision because, rather than feeling annoyed or upset, you can calmly admit this to yourself. That’s the correct state of mind to consider your options.

Mr. & Mrs. Perkins Go Gift Shopping

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By Jen Sorensen

Meet the Texas Speech Pathologist Who Lost School Job for Refusing to Sign Pro-Israel, Anti-BDS Oath

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Links to today’s show transcripts:

Meet the Texas Speech Pathologist Who Lost School Job for Refusing to Sign Pro-Israel, Anti-BDS Oath
A Palestinian-American speech pathologist in Austin, Texas, has filed a federal lawsuit for losing her job after refusing to sign a pro-Israel oath. Bahia Amawi is an Arabic-speaking child language specialist who had worked for nine years in the Pflugerville Independent School District. But she lost her job last year after she declined to sign a pledge that she would “not boycott Israel during the term of the contract” and that she would not take any action that is “intended to penalize, inflict economic harm on, or limit commercial relations with Israel.” Both Bahia Amawi and Gadeir Abbas, senior litigation attorney with the Council on American-Islamic Relations, are interviewed. He is representing Amawi in her lawsuit against the Pflugerville Independent School District and the state of Texas.

Glenn Greenwald: Congress Is Trying to Make It a Federal Crime to Participate in Boycott of Israel
Twenty-six states have laws preventing state agencies from contracting with companies or individuals aligned with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. BDS is an international campaign to pressure Israel to comply with international law and respect Palestinian rights. However, its opponents say BDS is a thinly disguised anti-Semitic attempt to debilitate or even destroy Israel. Glenn Greenwald is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and one of the founding editors of The Intercept. His latest piece is headlined “A Texas Elementary School Speech Pathologist Refused to Sign a Pro-Israel Oath, Now Mandatory in Many States—So She Lost Her Job.”

Marc Lamont Hill Speaks Out After CNN Fires Him for Pro-Palestine Speech at U.N.
Less than a month after CNN fired Temple University professor Marc Lamont Hill for giving a speech at the United Nations supporting Palestinian rights, we speak with him about the international attention his comments have received, academic freedom and why he feels it’s more important than ever to speak out about Israeli human rights abuses. Marc Lamont Hill is a professor of media studies and urban education at Temple University. He is the author of several books, including “Nobody: Casualties of America’s War on the Vulnerable, from Ferguson to Flint and Beyond.” We also speak with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald, whose recent piece is titled ”CNN Submits to Right-Wing Outrage Mob, Fires Marc Lamont Hill Due to His ‘Offensive’ Defense of Palestinians at the U.N.”

Planet Waves Daily Oracle for Tuesday, Dec. 18, 2018

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Today’s Oracle takes us to the Sagittarius weekly for December 17, 1999.

The insights you’re blessed with this week may seem ridiculous, impossible or too good to be true, but in fact they are an accurate picture of what is possible and what is so, even if there is no way you could imagine yourself being the beneficiary of such great good fortune. To the extent that what you’re coming up with seems impossible, it’s actually likely, though you must work on visioning or inventing the possibility that it can be true. This is not a Zen paradox, it is just one more use of consciously-applied imagination, faith and an understanding that, on some level, the only thing that ever can or does become real is someone’s vision. Why not yours?

Ralph Nader on Single Payer, Climate Devastation, Impeachment & Why Mulvaney Is a “Massive Outlaw”

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Links to today’s show transcripts:

Ralph Nader on Single Payer, Climate Devastation, Impeachment & Why Mulvaney Is a “Massive Outlaw”
As President Trump threatens to shut down the federal government over border wall funding, there have been some shake-ups in the White House. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke will resign as he faces at least 17 federal investigations into suspected ethics violations. A former fossil fuel industry lobbyist, David Bernhardt, will become the interim interior secretary. Meanwhile, Trump has tapped Mick Mulvaney to become acting chief of staff to replace Gen. John Kelly. Mulvaney already holds two posts in the administration: White House budget director and acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. And in Texas, a federal court has declared the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate unconstitutional, setting up a likely challenge at the Supreme Court. Democracy Now! is joined by longtime consumer advocate and former presidential candidate Ralph Nader. He is author of the new book “To the Ramparts: How Bush and Obama Paved the Way for the Trump Presidency, and Why It Isn’t Too Late to Reverse Course.”

“To the Ramparts”: Ralph Nader on How Bush & Obama Paved the Way for the Trump Presidency
A new book by longtime consumer advocate, corporate critic and former presidential hopeful Ralph Nader links the criminality of the Trump administration to the unchecked power of previous U.S. presidents, including Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama. In “To the Ramparts: How Bush and Obama Paved the Way for the Trump Presidency, and Why It Isn’t Too Late to Reverse Course,” Nader argues that the U.S. federal government is fundamentally corrupt, warmongering and owned by corporations—but he also issues a call for members of the public to hold their representatives and senators accountable, including by building local Congress watchdog groups across the country and utilizing “citizens summons” to force members of Congress to appear before residents of their districts.

From Arizona to Yemen: How Bombs Built by Raytheon in Tucson Killed 31 Civilians in Yemeni Village
In a historic vote, the U.S. Senate passed a resolution on Thursday calling for an end to U.S. military and financial support for the Saudi-led war on Yemen. This represents the first time in U.S. history the Senate has voted to withdraw military forces from an unauthorized war using the War Powers Resolution. The Saudi-led war in Yemen has created what the U.N. calls the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, with 14 million of Yemen’s 28 million people on the brink of famine. A remarkable piece in this week’s New York Times Magazine traces how bombs built by Raytheon in Tucson, Arizona, made its way into the Saudi arsenal and then were dropped on Yemeni villages. The article centers on what happened in the remote village of Arhab when U.S.-backed Saudi warplanes carried out a series of bombings on September 10, 2016. According to Human Rights Watch, at least 31 civilians were killed, three of them children; 42 people were injured. Journalist Jeffrey Stern is interviewed.