A day before the deadline to raise the debt ceiling, we’ll spend the hour examining the issue with two guest experts: Robert Scheer, editor-in-chief of Truthdig.com, and David Dayden of FireDogLake.com. How great is the danger of defaulting? How insecure are our social safety net programs? Who side are the major parties really on?…And more questions.

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This week on Uprising:

* Violence Peaks in Southern Afghanistan; U.S. Claims Taliban Weak
* Chris Hedges on the Norway Attacks: Fundamentalism Kills
* Black Agenda Report on the Wealth Gap Between Blacks and Whites
* Conservatives Target ATF Without Addressing Source of Mexico Arms Trafficking
* Pelican Bay Prisoners Suspend Hunger Strike, Call for Continued Solidarity

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At least 17 people were killed this morning in Afghanistan when a mini-bus drove over a roadside bomb in the southern Helmand province. Among them were women and children. The violence comes just a day after a triple suicide bombing and shooting in neighboring Uruzgan province claimed the lives of at least 19 people. Among them was a BBC reporter, Omid Khpulwak, and 12 children between the ages of 4 and 13 (according to Reuters). The Taliban took credit for the Uruzgan attacks, one of which was aimed at the security offices of Matiullah Khan, a prominent warlord and U.S. ally who provides protection for NATO convoys traveling from Uruzgan to Kandahar. Khan escaped harm however. The attacks come in the same week as the assassination of the mayor of Kandahar …

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Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian right wing terrorist, bombed government buildings in Oslo and carried out a mass shooting at a youth camp, killing more than 70 people, exactly one week ago on Friday. Breivik has been charged under the Terrorism Act which has a maximum prison term of 21 years. The rightwing Norwegian wrote his 1500 page manifesto outlining his beliefs online – he was motivated by a fundamentalist ideology, claiming to want to “save [Europe] against cultural Marxism and Islamization.” In an article posted on truthdig.com titled ‘Fundamentalism Kills’ author and analyst Chris Hedges explored the parallels between Breivik’s ideology and American Fundamentalism, which in his view is not a simple opposition between Western Civilization and Islam, rather “between those who embrace the rational and those who believe …

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At a time when California prisons and redistricting are much debated issues, a new state bill seeks to address a problem at the intersection of the two: prison-based gerrymandering. Described as “representation without population,” prison-based gerrymandering occurs when prisoners are counted, for census purposes, in the district their prison is located. Opponents say this artificially inflates the population of districts where prisons are built, and dilutes the numbers in prisoners’ hometowns. The Prison Policy Initiative, or PPI, estimates the 2010 Census counted 2 million Americans in the “wrong place” because of the practice, not just in California, but all over the nation. A stark example of the consequences can be found in Amorosa County, Iowa. The PPI reports one Amorosa district has an official population of about 1,374 residents. The prison within …

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Taking a deeper look at current and past films and how they relate to the world today.

Jonathan Kim is an independent film critic who writes and produces film reviews for Uprising and other outlets. He is a former co-producer at Brave New Films.

Read his reviews online at ReThinkReviews.net. Watch his videos at www.youtube.com/user/jsjkim, and follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/ReThinkReviews. ReThink Reviews’ theme song is by Restavrant.

Devil’s Double

Imagine if the cruelest, most psychotic gangster on earth chose YOU to be his body double and impersonator to fill in at public appearances and be a target for would-be assassins. Now imagine he also wanted to be your best friend, and that he’d kill your family if you refused. Now imagine this deadly mental …

“An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.” — Martin Luther King, Jr.

At a time when California prisons and redistricting are much debated issues, a new state bill seeks to address a problem at the intersection of the two: prison-based gerrymandering. Described as “representation without population,” prison-based gerrymandering occurs when prisoners are counted, for census purposes, in the district their prison is located. Opponents say this artificially inflates the population of districts where prisons are built, and dilutes the numbers in prisoners’ hometowns. The Prison Policy Initiative, or PPI, estimates the 2010 Census counted 2 million Americans in the “wrong place” because of the practice, not just in California, but all over the nation. In 2008, the US Department of Justice pegged the California prison population at 173,000 prisoners, many of them residing in facilities hundreds of miles from their last known address. California Assemblyman Mike Davis is the author of Assembly Bill 420, which would require the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to submit last known addresses of all inmates to the Redistricting Commission. AB420 has made it through the Assembly and will come before the state Senate when it reconvenes in August.

We’ll examine the latest shocking spate of violence in Afghanistan even as US officials try to portray the Taliban as losing power. Plus, Chris Hedges on fundamentalism in the US in the wake of the Norway shootings and bomb. And, California Assembly member Mike Davis joins us to discuss his bill AB 420 to end prison-based gerrymandering in the state. And this week’s Rethink Reviews.

“All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome.” — George Orwell