Episodes

https://onthegroundshow.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/OTG-JUNE24-2016.mp3 This week, a continued upswell of activism—and a challenge to business as usual in DC—in the aftermath of the massacre of 49 people inside a nightclub in Orlando, Florida. Early in the week, 18 people were arrested after staging a die-in at the headquarters of the powerful pro-gun lobby the National Rifle Association, the NRA, in Fairfax, Virginia. Democrats staged a 25-hour sit-in on the floor of the House of Representat...

https://onthegroundshow.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/OTG-JUNE17-2016.mp3 Here in DC this week, much of the activity in the streets, suites, halls and assemblies focused on last weekend’s massacre inside the gay nightclub, Pulse, in Orlando Florida and, unlike the simplistic narratives in the mainstream media, diverse populations in the DMV are exploring the intersection of anti-immigrant rhetoric, islamophobia and attacks on the LGBTQ COMMUNITY. Today we’ll hear some of THESE voices from a mas...

https://onthegroundshow.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/OTG-JUNE10-2016.mp3 Activists in the Brazilian community in the U.S. are fighting against the legislated coup against President Dilma Rousseff in their country. Also, the latest from those active in the Boycott Sanctions and Divestment Movement in the DMV. What’s happening in the capital region as a new effort from the corporate establishment and Israel lobby tries to squash the BDS Movement. Guests and Voices: Benjamin Douglass, Jewish Voi...

https://onthegroundshow.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/OTG-JUNE3-2016.mp3 Gerald Horne, just returned from London, gives an exclusive report on what’s happening there and on other current events. Then we present two more voices from the recent ‘Breaking Through Power’ mobilization in DC: Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, on how the TPP—or Trans Pacific Partnership-will give corporations more power than nation states. Then Medea Benjamin of Code Pink on fighting back...

https://onthegroundshow.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/OTG-MAY27-2016.mp3 The third day of the historic Breaking Though Power mobilization held in DC focused on war. The organizer, Ralph Nader, said that the day was dedicated to “enhancing the waging of peace over the waging of war…the horrors of war, its huge costs here and abroad to innocents and the weakening blow backs of Empire amidst a collapse of constitutional and international law.” We feature author and activist William Hartung. Also, ...

https://onthegroundshow.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/OTG-MAY20-2016.mp3 A National Youth Summit, sponsored by the Smithsonian Museum of American History, focused on the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. At that time, the United States government forcibly removed more than 120,000 Japanese Americans from the Pacific Coast. These individuals, two-thirds of them U.S. citizens, were sent to ten camps built throughout the western interior of the United States. Many would spe...

https://onthegroundshow.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/OTG-MAY13-2016.mp3 A MOTHER’S DAY PEACE FESTIVAL is held Saturday in front of the White House to mark the original meaning of Mother’s Day–for the world to disarm. Grassroots groups came together to reject war, violence, militarization of the police, mass incarceration and killing of black youth across the US. Guests and voices: Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, Kate Youngjoo Shim and Mary Ann Wright. The Rev. Graylan Hagler and Allison Timms also sp...

https://onthegroundshow.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/OTG-MAY6-2016.mp3 VOICES FROM MAY DAY, INTERNATIONAL WORKERS DAY IN DC, And in the second half, we hear from a local leader of Verizon Workers who are entering the fourth week of their strike. More than 39,000 Verizon workers are on strike from Massachusetts to Virginia. Guests and voices: Gerald Horne, Van Jones, Terry Richardson Headlines: -Dozens of DC Public Schools teachers were out protesting yesterday in upper Northwest. DCist repo...

https://onthegroundshow.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/OTG-APRIL29-2016.mp3 Economist and author Julianne Malveaux is here with her new book, Are We Better Off? Race, Obama and Public Policy that asks if African Americans are better off after the Obama presidency. And we hear from 86-year-old Mariam Fathallah, who was forced to flee her village in Palestine in 1948 when she was just 18 years old and has spent the past 48 years living in a crowded refugee camp in Lebanon. Now, she is traveling ar...

https://onthegroundshow.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/OTG-PARIS-TO-DC-RE-EDIT.mp3 This is a special presentation of On the Ground for Earth Day, April 22, 2016. From Paris to DC: Acting for Affordable Clean Energy, is a panel discussion that was held March 3, 2016 at the United Nations Association of the National Capital Area. The focus was 2015 Paris Climate Agreement and the next steps that local residents can take in the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Northern Virginia. Featured Speak...

https://onthegroundshow.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/OTG-APRIL22-2016-EARTH-DAY.mp3 We talk to people fighting for justice for the residents of Flint, Michigan, who have been poisoned by actions of the state. We also talk to environmentalists about what has happened since last November’s historic Paris Climate Agreement, and we’ll catch up with local activists in the DMV who are continuing to wage battle with energy regulators who continue to approve more drilling, fracking and mining, despit...

https://onthegroundshow.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/OTG-SPECIAL-DEMOCRACY-AWAKENING-BROADCAST-EDIT.mp3 After a week when hundreds were arrested at the U.S. Capitol in the Democracy Spring movement, thousands gathered at the Capitol for the Democracy Awakening rally on Sunday April 17, 2016. Featured speakers included the Rev. William Barber II of the Moral Monday Movement; Cornell William Brooks, president of the NAACP; David Goodman, brother of civil rights martyr Andrew Goodman; the Rev. E...

https://onthegroundshow.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/OTG-APRIL15-2016.mp3 On what is traditionally Tax Day, hundreds at the U.S. Capitol are arrested as a part of Democracy Spring to get money out of politics, to advocate for voting rights and for racial justice. We hear voices from the racial justice rally at Democracy Awakening. Also, Tony Medina, editor of the new poetry anthology, Resisting Arrest, joins us and reads from the book that includes more than 80 poets. Guests and voices: Tiffan...

https://onthegroundshow.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/OTG-APRIL8-2016.mp3 A new generation of civil rights advocates question whether the Black Congressional Caucus is working for Black people or for corporations. And while leaders of 50 nations gathered here last week to talk about the threat of nuclear terrorism, anti-nuclear forces said to U.S. leaders, well, WHY NOT start with the getting rid of the 15,000 nuclear existing nuclear weapons? Guests and Voices: Gerald Horne, Phil Mendelson, O...

https://onthegroundshow.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/OTG-MAR31-2016.mp3 Michele Roberts, national co-chair of the Environmental Justice Health Alliance, kicks off this show’s renewed commitment to cover issues of the environment and sustainability. We speak to her and Pam Nixon about one Black West Virginia community a fighting David-versus-Goliath battles against corporate pollution, about a recent big victory, and about how the lead poisoning water crisis in Flint Michigan is just the top o...

https://onthegroundshow.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/OTG-MAR24-2016.mp3 Voices of protest and civil disobedience at the large DUMP TRUMP AND DISARM AIPAC RALLY outside the Washington, DC gathering of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the pro-Israel lobby, as presidential Donald Trump was scheduled to speak. MUCH OF THE NEWS CYCLE this week was consumed with the bombings in Brussels and the meeting of AIPAC, and speeches before AIPAC by all the Republican presidential candidates an...

https://onthegroundshow.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/OTG-MAR17-2016.mp3 The U.S. presidential race continues to be the big story—with violence at Donald Trump rallies, the continued corporate media snub of Bernie Sanders, and a very superficial discussion about what is political freedom of speech and what is proto-fascism. We speak to prolific author and activist Gerald Horne and we honor Women’s History Month with two activists speaking on the particular plight and challenges of women in Saud...

https://onthegroundshow.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/OTG-MARCH10-2016SMALLERFILE.mp3 This show’s focus is on the wide-ranging keynote address by the activist and award-winning author Chris Hedges at the Summit on Saudi Arabia organized by Code Pink, March 5th and 6th 2016 in Washington, DC. Spanning from what Hedges referred to as the atrocity of the House of Saud, to the U.S. presidential race, to specter of American fascism, he pulled no punches in his opposition to the stranglehold of globa...

https://onthegroundshow.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/OTG-MAR3-2016F.mp3 More voices from the Maryland Coalition for Justice and Accountability speak out on police brutality and murders in the state. And, has the U.S. presidential race emboldened White supremacists? A discussion with Jon Jeter, journalist and author of “Flat Broke in the Free Market” and Andrew Batcher, an activist and organizer representing the Ad Hoc Anti Racist Coalition, which will be protesting on Saturday, March 5, begin...

https://onthegroundshow.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/OTG-FEB25-2016.mp3 Why are Black voters in South Carolina a firewall for Hillary Clinton? We get perspectives from James Early and hear from Danny Glover and Spike Lee. Also, activists for police reform in Maryland come out in full force in Annapolis. And ‘The Black Love Experience’ is a big hit in DC. Guests and voices: James Early, Anika Hobbs, Precious Joubert, Maiamona Youssef, Sound of the City band, Larry Stafford Jr. and other member...

https://onthegroundshow.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/OTG-FEB18-2016.mp3 MAKING THE LINKS FROM LIBYA, TO FLINT, TO DC, TO HAITI WITH AUTHOR AND ACTIVIST GERALD HORNE —PLUS SIDE-EYE AT THE 2016 Presidential ELECTION and an remarks by DC-based attorney Nkechi Taifa. Guests and voices: Gerald Horne, Nkechi Taifa, Alan Banks, Brianne Nadeau, Peggy Case, Beyonce supporters in NYC Headlines: -A 14-hour, national marathon broadcast on the crisis of homelessness. -DC residents were able to speak out...

https://onthegroundshow.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/OTG-FEB11-2016.mp3 We unpack this political moment—the presidential election, a democratic socialist winning a presidential primary, this collision between neoliberal and neoconservative politics of the last 40 years and a call for a political revolution by Bernie Sanders. We speak to Lester K. Spence, associate professor of political science and Africana Studies at Johns Hopkins University. His new book is Knocking the Hustle, Against the ...

https://onthegroundshow.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/FINAL-OTG-FEB4-2016.mp3 Launching Black History Month, what the U.N. Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent reported at the end of their recent visit to the United States, conversations with Gullah people of Hilton Head, S.C. and what Angela Davis had to say about the Black Lives Matter Movement during a recent visit to D.C. Plus Side-Eye on Election 2016 is all about the Iowa Caucuses. Guests and Voices: Dr. Margaret Flowers,...

The United Nations Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent end their U.S. visit by hearing testimony from residents in the DMV on issues of criminal justice, economic justice and cultural rights. Also, Side-Eye on Election 2016 with Amy Alexander and Jamila Bey. Then in the second half, it’s our week for arts and activism and we are in conversation with Mark Anthony Neal, professor at Duke University and host of the online hit show, “Left of Black.” Guests and Voices: Mark Anthony...