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Re: Rundown 9-22-03
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8:00-8:01 Billboard:
“The Position of the Bush Administration is Truly Criminal”
– Environmentalist Ross Gelbspan on George Bush, Oil
and Coal
Doing Justice: The Life and Trials of Arthur Kinoy
8:01-8:06 Headlines
8:06-8:07 One Minute Music Break
8:07-8:25 “The Position of the Bush Administration
is Truly Criminal” – Environmentalist Ross Gelbspan
on George Bush, Oil and Coal
INTRO: As reports emerge that the White House undermined
its own government scientists' research into climate change
to play down the impact of global warming we play a speech
by environmental writer Ross Gelbspan.
White House officials have undermined their own government
scientists' research into climate change to play down the
impact of global warming. This according to an investigation
by the London Observer.
Emails and internal government documents obtained by The
Observer show that White House officials sought to edit or
remove research warning that global warming is a serious problem.
Officials have also enlisted the help of conservative lobby
groups funded by the oil industry to attack government scientists
if they produce work that readily accepts pollution as an
issue.
The disclosure will anger environment campaigners who claim
that efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions are being sabotaged
because of the administration’s links to the oil industry.
Both Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney are former oil executives;
National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice was a director
of the oil firm Chevron, and Commerce Secretary Donald Evans
once headed an oil and gas exploration company.
The central piece of evidence is the discovery of an email
sent to chief of staff at the White House Council on Environmental
Quality by a director of the Competitive Enterprise Institute,
known a CEI. The CEI is an ultra-conservative lobby group
that has received more than $1 million in donations since
1998 from the oil giant Exxon.
The email, dated June 3 2002, reveals how White House officials
wanted the CEI's help to play down the impact of a report
last summer by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
In the report the US admitted for the first time that humans
are contributing to global warming. The email also discusses
possible tactics for playing down the report and getting rid
of EPA officials, including its then head Christine Todd Whitman.
The allegation was denied by White House officials and the
CEI.
In June, The New York Times reported that the White House
had rewritten the report.
Kert Davies of Greenpeace says, “It all fits together.
It shows that there is an effort to undermine good science.
It all just smells like the oil industry. They are doing everything
to allow the US to remain the world's biggest polluter.”
- Ross Gelbspan, speaking in Manchester, New Hampshire
on September 20, 2003. Ginsburg is the author of The Heat
is On. He has written for Harpers Atlantic, The American
Prospect, The Nation, Philadelphia Inquirer and the Washington
Post. His upcoming book is “Prescription For a Planetary
Fever.” His website is www.heatisonline.org.
8:20-8:21 One Minute Music Break
8:25-8:58 Doing Justice: The Life and Trials of Arthur
Kinoy
INTRO: Arthur Kinoy, prominent civil rights lawyer, a founder
of the Center for Constitutional Rights and a longtime member
of the National Lawyers Guild died Friday at his home in New
Jersey at the age of 82.
Arthur Kinoy, a founder of the Center for Constitutional
Rights and a longtime member of the National Lawyers Guild
died Friday at his home in New Jersey. He was 82 year old.
Kinoy was very active in the civil rights movement of the
50’s and 60’s and in representing witnesses called
before the House Un-American Activities Committee, ultimately
being called himself. He was also involved in some of the
country’s most celebrated cases.
He worked on the 1950s espionage trial of Julius and Ethel
Rosenberg, the only U.S. citizens to be executed for conspiracy
to commit espionage and probably the most controversial death
sentence in U.S. history.
Other high-profile cases included the trial of eight anti-war
activists charged with conspiring to incite riots at the 1968
Democratic Convention in Chicago known as the Chicago Seven.
He took on President Richard Nixon in 1972, arguing before
the U.S. Supreme Court that the use of the wiretaps was a
violation of constitutional protections against unreasonable
searches. He won that case and four others he argued before
the court.
For much of the 1950s and 1960s he worked on behalf of the
civil rights movement in the American South. In 1964, he joined
the faculty at Rutgers University Law School, where he taught
until his retirement in 1991.
In 1966, he helped found the Center for Constitutional Rights
in New York, which is still active.
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Ginsburg said he was an “inspiration”
to her.
In the National Lawyers Guild’s Disorientation Handbook
Kinoy writes, “The test for a people’s lawyer
is not always the technical winning or losing of the formal
proceedings. The real test is the impact of the legal activities
on the morale and understanding of the people involved in
the struggle.”
- “Doing Justice: The Life and Trials of Arthur Kinoy”,
courtesy of Abby Ginzberg.
To order a copy of the full documentary email the filmmaker
Abby Ginzberg at abbyginz@aol.com
.
8:58-8:59 Outro and Credits
For a copy of today’s program, call 1 (800) 881 2359.
Our website is www.democracynow.org.
Our email address is mail@democracynow.org.
Democracy Now! is produced by Jeremy Scahill, Mike Burke,
Angie Karran, Sharif Abdul Kouddous, Lenina Nadal, Ana Nogueira,
and Elizabeth Press. Mike Di Filippo is our music maestro
and engineer.
[Thanks also to Uri Galed, Angela Alston, Orlando Richards,
Simba Russeau, Rafael delaUz, Gabriel Weiss, Johnny Sender,
Rich Kim, Chris Zucker, Karen Ranucci, Denis Moynihan, Jenny
Filipazzo]
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