Democracy Now! Wednesday, January 8, 2025
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Democracy Now! Wednesday, January 8, 2025
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! Audio and was authored by Democracy Now!.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! for Broadcasters – HD MP4 and was authored by Democracy Now! for Broadcasters – HD MP4.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
As the remains of Jimmy Carter arrive in Washington, D.C., as part of a weeklong state funeral, we speak with historian Greg Grandin about the former U.S. president’s legacy. Carter, who served a single term from 1977 to 1981, promised to restore faith in government after the twin traumas of Watergate and the Vietnam War and to reorient U.S. foreign policy toward upholding human rights. “He came to power promising … a new kind of doctrine, that the United States was moving away from both the ideological excess and the support for dictatorships that led to wars like Vietnam or coups in Chile,” says Grandin. “Pretty quickly, events got ahead of him.” Carter’s “mixed and confused” legacy was nowhere more apparent than in Latin America, where he moved to limit aid to some right-wing dictatorships while supporting others, especially in Central America. He also began funding the mujahideen rebels in Afghanistan, which ultimately led to the Taliban and the 9/11 terrorist attacks by al-Qaeda. “For all of his decency and humanity, especially compared to the … clown circus that we’re living under now, we have to look at the more unfortunate legacies of Carter’s administration,” says Grandin.
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Israeli forces are continuing their unrelenting attacks across the Gaza Strip, killing scores of Palestinians in the first week of 2025 even as Israeli and Hamas officials resume talks in Qatar aimed at reaching a ceasefire. The official death toll in Gaza is nearing 46,000, although experts say the true figure is likely much higher. The United Nations has warned its efforts to bring humanitarian aid into the besieged Gaza Strip are at a “breaking point” after Israeli forces opened fire on a World Food Programme convoy over the weekend, and healthcare facilities across much of the territory are destroyed, shuttered or barely functioning. For more on the deteriorating situation in Gaza, we’re joined by acclaimed Palestinian poet and author Mosab Abu Toha. His latest piece for The New Yorker is headlined “Requiem for a Refugee Camp,” examining Israel’s destruction of Jabaliya. He describes the double devastation of Palestinians who have not only been displaced during the 1948 Nakba but also during Israel’s current genocide of Gaza, placing refugees “farther and farther from [the] dream of return.”
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We speak with Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Joshua Kaplan about his latest blockbuster article for ProPublica chronicling the rise of a “freelance vigilante” through the ranks of the right-wing militia movement in an effort to surveil and disrupt their operations. Kaplan’s source, a wilderness survival trainer named John Williams, says he went undercover after being shocked by the January 6 insurrection, when members of the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and other armed right-wing groups led the riot at the U.S. Capitol. “He’s an extraordinarily talented liar,” Kaplan says of Williams. “These militia guys loved him.” Williams would eventually gain the trust of senior leaders in Utah and beyond, collecting information that revealed a sprawling extremist movement with connections to law enforcement, lawmakers and more. Kaplan says Williams’s infiltration revealed the militia movement is surging across the country, despite the failed 2021 insurrection. Now with Donald Trump promising to pardon many of the Capitol riot participants, this same movement appears set to expand even further over the next few years. “The ramifications could be massive,” says Kaplan. “They have the potential to trigger a renaissance for militant extremists.”
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
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This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! Audio and was authored by Democracy Now!.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! for Broadcasters – HD MP4 and was authored by Democracy Now! for Broadcasters – HD MP4.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
Billionaire Trump associate Elon Musk’s latest disinformation campaign is targeting the U.K. government, which Musk appears to believe is not sufficiently anti-immigrant. Musk, who has already shaped the incoming Trump administration’s economic policy by proposing cuts to government spending and tech-oriented privatization of services, signifies a “new era” in American politics, says our guest Quinn Slobodian, who is chronicling right-wing tech billionaires’ accelerating attempts to mold the world according to their “destructive” and “nihilist” beliefs. In a far-reaching conversation, Slobodian touches on Musk’s clear admiration of authoritarian strongmen, market deregulation and white supremacist rhetoric.
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The American Historical Association, the oldest learned society in the United States, has adopted the “Resolution to Oppose Scholasticide in Gaza,” condemning Israel’s “intentional effort to comprehensively destroy the Palestinian education system.” We speak to Sherene Seikaly and Barbara Weinstein, two scholars who supported the resolution and helped push for the groundbreaking vote. Seikaly, a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, says, “This moment was one I never thought I would experience,” hailing the resolution as an opportunity for historians to “narrate our past and imagine our future.” Weinstein, who teaches at New York University and previously served as the president of the American Historical Association, adds, “Over the years it has become increasingly clear that we can’t have a narrow definition of what our roles are as historians.”
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! Audio and was authored by Democracy Now!.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! for Broadcasters – HD MP4 and was authored by Democracy Now! for Broadcasters – HD MP4.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
The Pentagon announced this week it launched a wave of airstrikes on Sana’a and other parts of Yemen on Tuesday. U.S. Central Command said it targeted command and weapons production facilities of Ansarallah, the militant group also known as the Houthis that rules most of Yemen. The attacks came just after Israel bombed the Yemeni port city of Hodeidah and the main airport in Sana’a, killing at least six people. A Houthi spokesperson said Wednesday the movement would continue attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and against Israel aimed at ending that country’s war on Gaza. “These are strikes on Yemeni infrastructure. These are strikes on Yemeni civilians,” Yemeni American scholar Shireen Al-Adeimi says of the Israeli and U.S. strikes. “The only thing that will stop Ansarallah from rerouting ships in the Red Sea and stopping their attacks … is an end to the genocide in Gaza and an end to the starvation of the Palestinian people.”
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We look at what we know about two deadly incidents that unfolded in the United States on New Year’s Day: a truck attack in New Orleans in which a driver killed at least 14 people before being shot dead by police, and the explosion of a Tesla Cybertruck outside a Trump hotel in Las Vegas, part of an apparent suicide. The FBI has identified the New Orleans suspect as 42-year-old U.S. Army veteran Shamsud-Din Jabbar, who had posted videos to social media before the attack pledging allegiance to the Islamic State militant group. In the Las Vegas case, the driver was 37-year-old Matthew Livelsberger of Colorado, an active-duty Army Green Beret, who is believed to have shot himself before the blast. Investigators say they have not found a link between the two incidents despite both men being connected to the military, but Army veteran and antiwar organizer Mike Prysner says “military service is now the number one predictor of becoming what is called a mass casualty offender, surpassing even mental health issues.” Prysner says the U.S. military depends on social problems like alienation and inequality in order to gain new recruits, then “spits them back out” in often worse shape, with people exposed to violence sometimes turning to extremism. “We have these deep-rooted problems in our society that give rise to these incidents of mass violence. Service members and veterans … can actually be a part of changing society and getting to the root of those issues and moving society forward,” he says, citing uniformed resistance to the Vietnam and Iraq wars as examples.
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