This past month there was a national conference in Portsmouth, in southern Ohio. Residents and workers there reported on the massive cancer epidemic and cover-up at the Piketon nuclear processing facility, where, according to the participants, tens of thousands of people have been contaminated and gotten cancer.
Vina Colley is a retired electrician, a former member of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union, and an activist with the Portsmouth/Piketon Residents for Environmental Safety and Security. She spoke with Pacifica’s Steve Zeltzer.
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This past weekend thousands of supporters of Palestine gathered in Detroit at the People’s Conference for Palestine. Palestine Youth Movement leader Aisha talked about the discovery of massive traffic of military parts from the Port of Oakland by air to Israel and the plan to stop it at other airports around the country. Also Moroccan Palestinian activist Ismail Lghazaoui was jailed after supporting mobilizations to stop the genocide. He reports on the effort to build a movement of dockers in Morocco to stop shipping military parts to Israel.
Labor leader Chris Smalls also spoke at the conference and called out the AFL-CIO and other union leadership over their silence and complicity in the Genocide in Gaza.
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At an August 28th rally called by the AFL-CIO DC Metropolitan Council dubbed “Free DC,” Laura Fuchs, the newly elected President of the Washington Teachers Union spoke about Trump’s attacks on DC education workers and the history of attacks on public education in the District of Columbia.
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We mark the passing of Nkenge Touré, a leader in the Reproductive Justice, Anti-Racism, and Black women’s health movements and former Black Panther. WPFW’s Fahima Seck remembers her.
We close with Nkenge Touré discussing her refusal to pledge allegiance to the American flag as a young student and the repercussions she faced for expressing her worldview.
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We thank all of Pacifica’s sister stations and affiliates who contribute to the production of this show. Today’s program was produced by the Capitalism, Race & Democracy collective, with contributions from Thomas O’Rourke, Fahima Seck, Steve Zeltzer and Polina Vasiliev.
You can find this and all previous episodes at our website “capitalism race and democracy dot ORG”. Make sure you click the subscribe button. Follow us on X, formerly Twitter, @PacificaCRD.
Thanks for listening!
Music:
Mohammad Assaf, “Dammi Falastini”
Michael Jackson, “They Don’t Care About US”
Sweet Honey in the Rock, “I remember, I believe”
