WZBC 90.3 FM Newton

Thomas Homer-Dixon: Canadian Scholar Warns America is Moving Toward Democracy Collapse & Right-wing Dictatorship; Maha Hilal: After 20 Years, Human Rights Groups Continue to Demand Closure of U.S. Guantanamo Prison; Phil Smith: Mine Workers Union Splits with Manchin on His Opposition to Biden’s Build Back Better Bill; Bob Nixon: This Week’s Under-reported News Summary.

How do you square the politicians' “sorry but let’s move forward” line with the information that investigators looking into the crisis found that the cell phones of key health officials and other players, like then-Gov. Rick Snyder’s press secretary, had been wiped of messages for the key period? Also: if news media wanted to explore it, they had a great chance this past week, with the 60th anniversary of the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, the first elected prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Why was Lumumba killed? And what’s the living legacy of that undercovered murder? We’ll hear from Maurice Carney, co-founder and executive director of the group Friends of the Congo.

Miko Peled is not Palestinian; in fact, he is culturally Jewish. His family’s heritage is European, and includes a grandfather who was a signer of the Israeli Declaration of Independence in May 1948 and a father who was a prominent general in the Israeli Army in the 1960s-1970s. But Miko Peled has become a staunch advocate for Palestinian rights, and a fierce critic of apartheid Israel. Today we hear him speak in a broadcast sponsored by the Middle East Peace Now Forum which originated in Minnesota.

1-11-2022 was the 20th anniversary of the Guantanamo prison, designed by our "leaders" to be exempt from the U.S. Constitution. We review the dismal history of the lawless kidnapping of 900+ so-called terrorists, nonsensically gathered by paying $5000 bounties. We hear of the long-term repeated torture of them in this lawless prison. Now, 39 prisoners remain, most never charged with any crime, many "cleared for release" yet not released. Protesters gathered at Park Street T station and we hear some of what they have to say. We also hear a very special poem written by one of the prisoners, now dead.