Monday, March 29, 2010

Irvine 11 Speak-Out; Angela Davis; New Show Time

Angela Davis after March 8, 2010 talk at UCI. Photo © Daniel C. Tsang 2010. UPDATED: To listen to this edition of the Subversity show, click here: .

Kicking off a new spring quarter, Subversity now airs from 5-6 p.m. on Mondays instead of 9-10 a.m. The edition for 29 March 2010 features speakers from a 2 March 2010 Irvine 11 speak-out at UC Irvine's student center as well as the talk given by UC Santa Cruz Emeritus Prof. Angela Davis the day before on the prison industrial complex and privatization of the University of California, where she mentioned the Irvine 11. She also spoke the following week at UCI, when she noted that in 1970, when she was a graduate student activist at UC San Diego, the University did not arrest protesters for actions similar to those at UCI.

At the speak-out, organized by the Black Student Union, speakers include: Ryan Davis (MC), Abraham Medina (a rousing poetic rant on the rights of undocumented students), Russell Curry, Dennis Lopez, and KPFK show host and National Lawyers Guild-Los Angeles' Jim Lafferty, who argued that Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren was able to finish his speech: "Nobody pulled the plug on his microphone." Hence there was no "heckler's veto". The NLG is representing the Irvine 11.

The speak-out, two days before the March 4, 2010 rallies around the state and in the country against privatization, occurred in the wake of racist and homophjavascript:void(0)obic incidents at various UCs.

This edition of Subversity, a KUCI public affairs program, airs from 5-6 p.m. today on KUCI, 88.9 FM in Orange County, and is simulcast via kuci.org.

Monday, March 22, 2010

Hyde Amendment & Health Care; Immigration Reform

UPDATED: To listen to this edition of the Subversity show, click here: .


Last night the U.S. House of Representatives passed historic legislation to provide health-care coverage for millions of uninsured Americans. What's behind Obama's executive order enforcing the Hyde Amendment that barred federal funding of abortion?

And over the weekend, thousands rallied for immigration reform. What's the view on the ground about immigration reform and the legacy of Bush-era immigration raids?

For the next edition of Subversity, a KUCI public affairs program, we bring you two dispatches from Making Contact, the National Radio Project's program on topical issues.

1. ‘Hyde-ing’ the Right to Choose: While lawmakers in Washington mull over the nuts and bolts of health care reform, advocates are concerned that a woman’s fundamental right to reproductive health services is endangered. On this edition, Stupak, the Hyde Amendment, and religion. We take a look at some of the threats to abortion access, more than thirty-five years after Roe V. Wade legalized a woman’s right to have an abortion.

Featuring:

Stephanie Poggi, National Network of Abortion Funds Executive Director; Jenny, shares her story about having an abortion; Jon O’Brien, Catholics for Choice President; Guadalupe Rodriguez, ACCESS/Women’s Health Rights Coalition Program & Public Policy Director. This Making Contact program was funded in part by the Mary Wohlford Foundation.

URL: http://www.radioproject.org/2010/01/hyde-ing-the-right-to-choose/.

2. Immigration Reforms, How a Broken System Breaks Communities:
If there’s one thing to be said about the U.S. immigration system, it’s that there’s universal support for change. But when it comes to answers, the viewpoints are all over the map. Congress is planning to make some changes in 2010, but in the meantime, state and federal immigration laws remain confusing and are sporadically enforced. On this edition, we go to two communities sorting through the aftermath of Bush-era federal immigration raids, and to Los Angeles, where American Apparel became the first test case of the Obama administration’s new approach to workplace hiring violations. This Making Contact program was funded in part by spot.us, a community supported journalism project.

Featuring:

Andrea, Las Americas store manager; Angelica Olmedo & Eber Eleria, Howard Industries workers arrested in Laurel Raid; Bill Deutch, Catholic Charities & Hispanic ministries bi-lingual counselor; Meyer, kosher grocery store owner; Mark Grey, University of Iowa Anthropology professor and co-author of ‘Postville: Surviving Diversity in Small-town America’; Scott, Agriprocessors employee; Former Agriprocessors workers; Michelle Devlin, University of Iowa Public Health professor and co-author of ‘Postville: Surviving Diversity in Small-town America’; Maryn Olsen, Postville Response Coalition coordinator; Bill Chandler, Mississippi Immigrant’s Rights Alliance Executive Director; Noami Perez, Maricela Perez & Sergio, laid-off American Apparel workers; Roberto Suro, USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism Professor; Peter Schey, American Apparel attorney and Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law Foundation Executive Director; Natalia Garcia, UCLA Downtown Labor Center Administrative Assistant; Anonymous, unidentified Fake ID salesman in MacArthur Park.

URL: http://www.radioproject.org/2010/01/immigration-reforms/.

Subversity airs today (22 March 2010) from 9-10 a.m. on KUCI, 88.9 FM in Orange County, California, and is simulcast via kuci.org.

Monday, March 15, 2010

Suspicious Activity Reporting Goes National

PRA's Tom Cincotta speaks at CAIR forum on Suspicious Activity Reporting. Photograph © Daniel C. Tsang, 2010. UPDATED: To listen to this edition of the Subversity show, click here: .

Ratting on your neighbors or anyone looking "out of place" -- such as Middle Easterners taking photographs at Orange County Airport -- will be how John Q. Public will be able to help authorities spot "terrorists".

That is the chilling message given at a packed, evening forum in Anaheim last Wednesday at the offices of the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) of Los Angeles, the activist group, which heard from several Muslim young men reported for "suspicious" behavior -- including a then-UCI student who was dropping of British leftwing Member of Parliament George Galloway at SNA, after the MP spoke at UCI. The student was later contacted by authorities about why he was taking photographs at the Orange County Airport. Galloway had posed for the student's camera at SNA.

On KUCI's Subversity program this Monday morning, we air talks at the forum given by Tom Cincotta, who heads a project at the Political Research Associates (PRA), researching threats to privacy in the war on terrorism, and Peter Bibring, the expert on police practices at the ACLU of Southern California. Bibring has been researching the LAPD's protoype for citizen reporting -- iReport -- on the LAPD's I-Watch web site. PRA is issuing a research report, Platform for Prejudice(s), later this week tracing Suspicious Activities Reporting and its use in the various anti-terrorism centers set up across the United States.

Chairing the CAIR forum was Ameena Mirza Qazi, CAIR deputy executive director and its staff attorney.

The show airs from 9-10 a.m. on KUCI, 88.9 fm in Orange County and is simulcast via kuci.org.

Monday, March 8, 2010

March 4, 2010 Rally at UC Irvine

Russell Curry ("Sonny Boy") rallies crowd to "Put your fist in the sky" at March 4 rally at UC Irvine. Photograph © Daniel C. Tsang. UPDATED: To listen to this edition of the Subversity show, click here: .

On March 4, 2010, UC Irvine erupted in a day of lively protest actions as students, faculty and unionized staff joined their comrades across the state and the nation in protesting the privatization of education. At UCI a spirited group of speakers rallied hundreds at a rally at the flagpole, followed by crowds of protesters marching across campus, into Langson Library, and the Gateway Commonjavascript:void(0)s by mid afternoon, ending in a smaller crowd gathered on the lawn outside Aldrich Hall, the scene of a sit-in the previous week.

On today's edition of Subversity, a KUCI public affairs program, we air speeches from the March 4 rally at UC Irvine, as a document of UCI activism reaching a new scale.
The show airs 9-10 a.m. on KUCI, 88.9 fm in Orange County, California, and is simulcast via kuci.org.

See also: Democratize Education: Taking Control of Our Education blog.

Monday, March 1, 2010

A Look Back at a Tumultous Week (UCI Sit-in...); Iranian Women Agitate

After sit-in, UCI protesters outside Aldrich Hall with pink citations for "failure to disperse." Photo © Daniel C. Tsang 2010. UPDATED: To listen to audio of our interview with Irvine activists Ryan Davis (with citations in photo), Russell Curry and Samiyyah Tillman, click here: . To listen to audio of our interview with Iranian activist Sussan, click here: .

Irvine -- On the next edition of Subversity, a KUCI public affairs program, we look back at a tumultous week, not just at UC Irvine but also across the UCs. At UC Irvine, the arrest of 17 protesters sitting in at the administration building, seeking "in-sourcing" of service workers accompanied by a large action outside raised the stakes in advance of a state-wide March 4, 2010 movement against the privatization of education in California. A protest blog argues: "Yesterday the dumpsters, Tomorrow the World!".

We'll talk with UC Irvine protesters who give their take on what's happening and their long list of demands. Some protesters believe that with UC Regents and UC Student Association endorsing the March 4 actions, the struggle has been co-opted. We'll discuss that.

In part 2 of the show, we'll talk with an activist who has been trying to organize Iranian women in advance of International Women's Day in Iran. We talk with:

Sussan, who is is part of the March 8 Women’s Organization (Iran-Afghanistan), living in exile in Europe: In the late 1970s Sussan lived in the US and was part of the Iranian student movement against the brutal US-backed Shah of Iran. She returned to Iran after the Shah’s overthrow and took part in the struggle against the Khomeini regime. She and her family were imprisoned and tortured for their political activity and her husband was executed by the Islamic regime. See a recent statement by the March 8 Women's Organization (Iran-Afghanistan), March in Support of Women Warriors in Streets of Tehran. She was last on Subversity last year.

The International Women's Day Coalition is organizing a march and rally in Westwood on Saturday, March 6th, aiming to break open a spirit of resistance to the horrors committed against women throughout the world, and led by the slogan: Break the Chains! Unleash the Fury of Women as a Mighty Force for Revolution.

The shows airs Monday 1 March 2010 at 9 a.m. on KUCI, 88.9 FM in Orange County, Calif., and is simulcast via kuci.org. Show host is Daniel C. Tsang.