Collected Poetry of Zora

Democracy Now!

Democracy Now!

A daily TV/radio news program, hosted by Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez, airing on over 1,000 stations, pioneering the largest community media collaboration in the United States.

Foreign Intervention in Syria? A Debate with Joshua Landis and Karam Nachar
With estimates of well over 5,000 deaths, the uprising in Syria is believed to be the Arab Spring's bloodiest conflict to date. As the toll mounts, calls are growing for the international community to intervene by arming rebels fighting the Assad regime and even direct military intervention. We host a debate on the merits and pitfalls of foreign intervention in Syria with two guests. "I'm not opposed to helping the opposition. The problem right now is that we are not sure who to arm," says Joshua Landis, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma and editor of "Syria Comment," a daily online newsletter on Syrian politics. We're also joined by Karam Nachar, a cyber-activist and Ph.D. candidate at Princeton University working with Syrian protesters via social media platforms. "There is a humanitarian disaster unfolding on the ground," Nachar says. "[The world has] a moral responsibility to protect the Syrian people." [includes rush transcript]
As Greece Erupts, BBC's Paul Mason on "The New Global Revolutions" over Austerity, Inequality
Greece is bracing for protests after eurozone finance ministers concluded a deal that will provide a $170 billion bailout in return for another round of deep austerity cuts. The bailout is opposed by several unions and left-wing groups in Greece over new cuts and layoffs imposed on public sector workers. We're joined by Paul Mason, economics editor at BBC Newsnight and author of the new book, "Why It's Kicking Off Everywhere: The New Global Revolutions." He has just returned from Greece. "What makes the headlines are, of course, the riots," Mason says. "What doesn't make so many headlines is what is happening to real people... We are living in a time where the world has, in the last couple of years, erupted in a way that many people thought they would never see again since the 1960s... The underpinnings of this new global unrest are that...people are sick of seeing the rich get richer during a crisis." [includes rush transcript]
Headlines for February 22, 2012
Foreign Journalists Among Dozens Killed in Syria Violence, U.S. Signals Potential Arming of Syrian Rebels, Afghanistan: 4 Killed as Koran Protests Grow, Supreme Court to Weight Affirmative Action Challenge, Supreme Court Limits Prisoners' Miranda Rights, Appeals Court Rejects Suit over Guantánamo Deaths, Reporter Anthony Shadid Honored at Beirut Memorial, Obama to Propose Cutting Corporate Tax Rate to 28 Percent, Judge Rules New York Towns Can Ban Fracking, Obama Hosts Blues Concert for Black History Month
As Calls for Intervention in Syria Grow, Vijay Prashad Urges Reevaluation of NATO Attack on Libya
Libya has just marked the first anniversary of the start of the uprising that toppled Col. Muammar Gaddafi's four-decade rule. But as Libya celebrates a new era free of the Gaddafi regime, there are growing concerns the country's lingering divisions will tear it apart. Libya remains deeply splintered by regions and factions. More than 500 militias exist throughout the country, leading to ongoing human rights abuses that resemble those under the Gaddafi regime. We speak to Trinity College Professor Vijay Prashad. "There is a serious need to evaluate what has happened in Libya as a result not only of the Gaddafi atrocities, of the rise of a rebellion, but also significantly of the nature of the NATO intervention. And that evaluation has not happened," Prashad said. "I'm afraid that is really calling into question the use of human rights as a lubricant for intervention. If we can't go back and evaluate what has happened, I think a lot of people around the world are afraid of going forward into another intervention, where the lessons of Libya have not been learned." [includes rush transcript]
Spying on Campus: New York Police Caught Monitoring Muslim Student Groups Throughout Northeast
The Associated Press has revealed the New York City Police Department monitored Muslim college students at schools throughout the Northeast, including Yale University and the University of Pennsylvania. In one case, the NYPD sent an undercover agent on a whitewater rafting trip in upstate New York, where he recorded students' names and noted in police intelligence files how many times they prayed. We speak to one of the students on the trip, Jawad Rasul. He is the only student who was under surveillance to now publicly speak out about his experience. "[This is] hurting NYPD's try and attempt at finding homegrown terrorism, because these kind of tactics actually create more hatred towards them and the other law-enforcement agencies and really destroys the trust that any youth might have developed with the government," Rasul said. We're also joined by Mongi Dhaouadi, executive director of the Connecticut chapter of Council on American-Islamic Relations, which is calling for a state probe into the spying on Muslims. [includes rush transcript]

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