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Greg Palast: There’s a ‘Smoking Gun’ Connecting Trump to Capitol Insurrection; Aliya Hussain: Coalition Presses Biden to Make Good on Pledge to Close Guantanamo U.S. Military Prison; Jan Hasselman: Campaign to Shut Down the Dakota Access Pipeline Gains Momentum; Bob Nixon: This Week’s Under-reported News Summary.

We get some background on forced arbitration and why it matters from previous CounterSpin conversations–plus we talked about the Trump-era NLRB while it was happening.

If you missed Massachusetts Peace Action's virtual event last Wednesday Feb 17, in which Kevin Gosztola discussed and reported on the Julian Assange proceedings in England, there is another opportunity to see and hear it at your convenience via youtube. Don't wait! We are beginning to see the effects of the internet censorship campaign, and talking about Assange may not meet Youtube's newfound so-called "Community Standards." Even mainstream reporters are worried about the Assange case, because many of them make their livings gathering and reporting on leaked classified documents. Also: a face to face event is planned for tomorrow (Monday). Details are at masspeaceaction.org/events. That's a good site to go to for other local events too. Here is the Assange link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aFpm7b3V04

Why do Western countries think they have the moral authority to lecture China about human rights abuses? The last two hundred years of international relations between Europe/North America and China have been a one-way street of human rights and national abuses directed at China. Judging from the string of false accusations levelled against Beijing, it's clear that the white man's burden is still very much in vogue in Ottawa, Washington, London, and Paris. Another phrase describing western arrogance towards countries of the Global South is white supremacy, a feature at the core of the foreign policies of western countries. Phil reads Victor Hugo's moving description of the sacking of the Old Summer Palace in Beijing by a Anglo-French expedition during the Second Opium War in 1860.

This week on Talk Nation Radio, a successful recent campaign to prevent the construction of a new military base in the mountains in Europe. Our guest Pablo Domínguez is an eco-anthropologist of the commons, especially centered on pastoral commons of the Mediterranean mountains. He mostly focuses on the ecological and socio-cultural holistic understanding of their functioning, at the same time doing research ‘about’ and ‘for’ action in favor of the natural and cultural values of such systems.

This morning we explore the complexities of the governance of Palestine under Israeli occupation in a forum sponsored by the Foundation for Middle East Peace. It features Issa Amro, Youth Against Settlements in Hebron, Noura Erakat Palestinian activist and professor at Rutgers University, and Hagai El-Ad, Director of the Israeli Human Rights Organization, B’tselem. We begin with a question from Khalad Elgindy who moderates the session along with Lara Friedman.

The 2020–2021 Indian farmers’ protest is an ongoing campaign against three farm laws which were passed by the Parliament of India in September 2020. National and international media have been heavily censoring what is now known as the largest peaceful and enduring protest in the history of social movements. It all began on November 26, 2020 in India. 250 million people stood together in a united worker/farmer strike. Farmer unions and their representatives demanded that the laws be repealed and will not accept anything short of it. The laws, often called the Farm Bills, have been described as “anti-farmer laws”. They would leave farmers at the mercy of corporations with monopoly control over the purchase, pricing, and distribution of farm products. ...

We are joined by Matthew Lyons who has been studying and writing about right wing politics for over 25 years and focuses on and responses to these movements by leftists, liberals and the state.