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This week on Uprising:

* Bloody Year Beginning Threatens Obama’s Afghanistan Policy
* Empire Notes: Summing Up Obama
* Group Calls on Congress to Reinstate the Estate Tax
* Black Agenda Report on Wells Fargo and the Black Community
* Rare Conversation with Iranian Labor Activist

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Bloody Year Beginning Threatens Obama’s Afghanistan Policy

With the new year barely begun, violence in Afghanistan has exploded. Just this week a blast in Nangahar province killed four Afghan children and 3 US soldiers, and wounded dozens. Earlier the US and NATO were accused by the Afghan government of killing 7 civilians including 3 children in an air strike in Helmand province. The accusation came on the heels of another charge made a week earlier in Kunar Province where, during a night time raid, US troops allegedly shot and killed ten civilians including 8 young boys. Hundreds of Afghans including university students protested against the US in Kabul and Jalalabad on Monday. And, as if this wasn’t enough bad news for the US war effort, on Sunday reports came in of 8 people being killed at a CIA base by a suicide bomber who infiltrated the camp. The new year was also marked with the deaths of four US soldiers from a roadside bomb, starting off the year’s bloody tally. What does the violence bode for President Obama’s recently announced strategy of troop escalation in Afghanistan?

GUEST: Reese Erlich, Freelance foreign correspondent, who has covered the Middle East for 23 years and is the author of three books. His fourth, “Conversations with Terrorists,” will be published in September 2010.

Empire Notes: Summing Up Obama

Empire Notes are weekly commentaries filed by author and analyst Rahul Mahajan. Today’s commentary is called “Summing Up Obama.”

GUEST: Rahul Mahajan, author of Full Spectrum Dominance and The New Crusade.

Visit www.empirenotes.org for more information.

Group Calls on Congress to Reinstate the Estate Tax

For nearly a hundred years, people who inherited a lot of money from their super-wealthy relatives, had to pay hefty taxes on their inheritance. The “Estate Tax,” or as Republicans like to call it the “Death Tax,” was supposed to have been extended into 2010 by Congress but as of now, until Congress reconvenes its session and takes up the issue, the US has no estate tax. Often considered the nation’s most progressive taxation law, and the only wealth tax, the end of the estate tax could mean the end of billions of dollars of federal revenue, and thus an increase in the federal deficit. It could also mean greater taxation for small businesses, and less wealthy individuals. Under George W Bush’s tenure, the estate tax was cut several times to where as of last month, only those with assets of more than $3.5 million per individual owed government revenue. Congressman Jim McDermott’s bill, called the Sensible Estate Tax Act, offers a compromise estate tax rate which the organization United for a Fair Economy is supporting.

GUEST: Lee Farris, Estate Tax Policy Coordinator with United for a Fair Economy

For more information, visit www.faireconomy.org.

Black Agenda Report on Wells Fargo and the Black Community

Glen Ford is a writer and radio commentator and the Executive Editor of The Black Agenda Report. This week’s commentary is on Wells Fargo and the Black Community.

Visit www.blackagendareport.com for more information.

Iranian Labor Activist Speaks Out

Iranians are continuing their uprising into the New Year with on-going street demonstrations. Last week at least 8 people were killed in clashes with government forces, and over a dozen people arrested. On Sunday, the Shi’ite sacred day of Ashura, thousands of people demonstrated. Among those killed in recent weeks is Seyed Ali, the nephew of opposition leader Mir Hussain Mousavi. The Iranian government has labeled dissenters “anti-revolutionary terrorists” and is resorting to severe crackdowns despite international condemnations by human rights groups and other governments. Many are characterizing the actions as a sign of the government’s weakness. One of President Ahmedinejad’s biggest fears is that the broad-based movement against him will use next month’s celebration of the anniversary of the 1979 fall of the Shah as an expression of their dissent. An anonymous member of President Obama’s administration told the New York Times that Iran’s internal turmoil may be an opportune window to slap new sanctions over Iran’s defiance on its nuclear program. But many social and political movements inside Iran, who are intimately involved in the uprising, are also wondering if the regime’s days are numbered. Among them is Iranian labor – a movement of underground labor organizers who have been strategizing underground for years, waiting for the right moment to demand workers rights in public.

GUESTS: Homayoun Poorzad, Iranian labor activist with the Network of Iranian Labor Unions

For more information, visit www.uslaboragainstwar.org and www.iranlaborreport.com.

Sonali’s Subversive Thought for the Day

“We don’t accomplish anything in this world alone … and whatever happens is the result of the whole tapestry of one’s life and all the weavings of individual threads from one to another that creates something.” — Sandra Day O’Connor