Today's Sunday Monitor - up at 6 pm CDT -- London. Mississippi.

[SophieZ]

It's your world. Understand it!
July 10, 2005: Sunday Monitor

KPFT - Pacifica Radio
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6 pm Central
. . . 7 pm Eastern
. . . . . 4 pm Pacific

ARCHIVES
If you miss a show, you can find it on KPFT's archives. See archives list at end of this message.

<> 6:00 pm CDT -- HEADLINES

<> ~6:15 pm CDT-- GUEST 1: TARIQ ALI



We will be speaking with Tariq Ali, based in London, to get his view of the blasts on mass transit there and the aftermath.

Writer, historian, journalist and film-maker Tariq Ali was born in Lahore in 1943. Lahore is now in Pakistan; then it was part of British-ruled India.

While a student there, Ali was elected President of the Young Students' Union. He organized public demonstrations against Pakistan's military dictatorship and was banned from participating in student politics.

After graduating, his uncle, then head of Pakistani Military Intelligence, told Tariq's parents to send him abroad: his radicalism was becoming dangerous and he risked imprisonment. He came to Britain and studied at Oxford University, where he became a firebrand in student politics, in particular with the movement against the war in Vietnam.

He was a committed member of its Socialist Group before becoming President of the Oxford Union in 1965. With the Vietnam war at its height, Tariq Ali earned a national reputation through debates with figures like Henry Kissinger and the then British Foreign Secretary.

He is now an editor of New Left Review, contributes articles to The Guardian and the London Review of Books and writes historical novels and essays. He regularly broadcasts on BBC radio. A few recent titles of his books include a book of essays, "The Clash of Fundamentalisms: Crusades, Jihads and Modernity," "Bush in Babylon: The Recolonization of Iraq," and "Speaking of Empire and Resistance: Conversations with Tariq Ali."

Tariq Ali has said, "The way capitalist politics is functioning is increasingly authoritarian, designed not to wipe out, perhaps, but completely to marginalise dissenting voices."

<> ~6:35 pm CDT-- GUEST 2: SUSAN KLOPFER



Journalist Susan Klopfer, based in the Mississippi Delta, has just released a book documenting its recent past in relation to the battle for civil rights. We spoke with her two weeks ago (see archives if you missed it), but we had much more to talk about, so invited her to join us again.

Since we last spoke with her, her husband was constructively fired from his job, the day after publication of her book. (We hope her phone lines are intact!)

It's been said that "If you understand Mississippi, you understand democracy."

Since her move two years ago to Parchman, Mississippi, Susan's energetic pursuit of the history of her new residence has resulted in a big new book, just released: "Where Rebels Roost: Mississippi Civil Rights Revisited." Her research includes interviews conducted by eyewitnesses and participants in the events, plus newspapers, books, journals and magazines, documents, letters, diaries, and oral histories from various libraries, archives and private collections.

Susan previously has written a book called The Emmett Till Book. She is a former editor for Simon & Schuster and is an award-winning journalist for her investigative reporting in Missouri. She also reported for the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal.

We will ask Susan about the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission, a publically-funded organization that used spying, dirty tricks, and media manipulation to prop up white supremacy in Mississippi. Arising after the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court desegregation decision, the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission played a significant yet little-understood role in Mississippi history, 1955 to 1972. To see a small sample of the 80,000 documents available on the Sovereignty Commission, go to http://themiddleoftheinternet.com/sovcomslideshow.html

We will also look at Wickliffe Draper, the Yankee heir to a textile fortune. He funded eugencs research, and secretly sent hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission in 1963 in order to fight against civil rights. In fact, his money funded over 70% of the entire Mississippi enterprise, even though Mississippi leaders repeatedly claimed that the campaign was being financed by broad grass-roots support. Draper's money financed the sending of ghost-written editorials to newspapers around the country and bought ads in 500 daily and weekly papers. By April 1964, the group had distributed 1.4 million pamphlets and mailings, Sovereignty Commission records indicate.

The introduction to the book can be read at:
Website: http://themiddleoftheinternet.com/

CO-HOSTS: Mark Bebawi and Pokey Anderson


ARCHIVES are at
http://www.kpftx.org/archives/kpftsignal/index.php
Just look for SUNDAY MONITOR and the date of the show.

Last week's show, July 3
--MARJORIE COHN, of the National Lawyers Guild, re Supreme Court confirmation battle to come.
--ELECTION PANELS AT ODDS. Excerpts. From ournalist Lynn Landes (www.ecotalk.org), Dr. Richard Hayes Phillips, Green Party presidential candidate in 2004 David Cobb, Rev. Bill Moss of Ohio, Bev Harris of Black Box Voting.org, and Bob Fitrakis, co-author of "Did George W. Bush Steal America's 2004 Election?" and editor of http://freepress.org.

June 26
--CHIP PITTS, of Amnesty International
--SUSAN KLOPFER, author of "Where Rebels Roost: Mississippi Civil Rights Revisited"

June 19
Election Investigations from Florida, California, and Ohio
--KATHLEEN WYNNE of Black Box Voting
and technical consultant HARRI HURSTI of Finland
--BOB FITRAKIS, co-author of Did George W. Bush Steal America's 2004 Election? Essential Documents
--Elections in Iran, with Kaveh Ehsani

June 12
--CHIP PITTS, of Amnesty International re Patriot Act, torture
--CLIFF ARNEBECK, public interest attorney of Ohio, updating the Ohio Coin Scandal plus the fight for transparent elections

June 5
-- ROBERT PARRY, author of Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq

May 29
-- THE BREAKING OHIO SCANDAL, with guests
Mike Wilkinson of the Toledo Blade and
Ohio State Senator Teresa Fedor
-- FORMER AMBASSADOR JOE WILSON, author of "The Politics of Truth"

May 22
-- veteran investigative journalist ROBERT PARRY. His website: Consortium News website: www.consortiumnews.com The hour includes the fiery testimony of George Galloway, Member of Parliament, before the US Senate, and a story by Renee Feltz about the local protests at the Halliburton shareholders meeting.

May 15
-- theologian DAVID RAY GRIFFIN, author of The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions About the Bush Administration and 9/11. It also includes the first of our two-week fund drive.