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This week on Uprising:

* Mercenaries Circle Haiti In the Wake of Earthquake
* Black Agenda Report on Public Education
* A Glimpse Into the Conservative Mind – a Special Report
* Sixteen Cities Sue Chemical Company Over Pesticide Use

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Mercenaries Salivate Over Haiti Contracts

Private military and security companies met this past week at a conference in Miami where they advertised their services to governments and NGOs working in the Haiti relief effort. The conference was led by Global Investment Summits and the International Peace Operations Association (IPOA), a trade group. The IPOA launched a web page for prospective clients only hours after the devastating earthquake struck Haiti on January 12th. On it they listed eleven companies marketing their expertise in construction, emergency relief, transportation and, most notably, security services. One of these security companies is Triple Canopy, the State-Department sponsored corporation that took up Blackwater’s mantle in Iraq. Mercenary tactics such as those being practiced in Iraq and being discussed at this week’s conference hardly signal a new approach to Haiti. The practice of hiring private companies to perform security services began in Haiti during the Clinton Administration, under a program called the Worldwide Personal Protection Program. This program led to a steady stream of private US security forces operating in Haiti after the CIA’s overthrow of then-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. All proceeds from the Miami conference will be donated to the Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund.

GUEST: Bill Quigley, Legal Director at the Center for Constitutional Rights.

Read Bill Quigley’s article here: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/03/03-4

Black Agenda Report on Public Education

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

Visit www.blackagendareport.com for more information.

A Glimpse Into the Conservative Mind – a Special Report

Exclusive Report by Uprising Correspondent Chris Bennett:

“This past weekend, I attended the California Republican Assembly’s 75th Anniversary Celebration & Endorsing Committee Convention at the Knott’s Berry Farm Hotel Resort in Buena Park. The California Republican Assembly, which regards itself as the conscience of the Republican Party, exists to provide a platform for congressional and gubernatorial candidates to garner support and endorsements from other Republicans. I went to the CRA to find out why there was so much political polarization and why conservatives think President Obama is a socialist. What I found was an overlap among liberals and conservatives in their thinking that the political system in Washington is broken and corrupt. What I did not find were any new accountability standards or ideas to prevent a possible conservative resurgence in November from descending into bigger, or more corrupt government– as the 1980 Reagan Revolution and the 1994 Contract With America movements did. Within the CRA I found elements of the Tea Party movement. While there is talk of whether the Tea Party is co-opting the Republican Party or vice versa, conservatives in both camps regard a splinter third party as political suicide for the gains they already expect to make in November.”

We start out hearing from Hannah Giles and James O’Keefe, the two young Conservatives turned superstars who proudly brought down the poor people’s organization ACORN through undercover videos. We also hear from conservative comedian Erik Golub, right wing activist Mark Harris, and Larry Neritelli, a candidate for governor in the Republican primary.

Sixteen Cities Sue Chemical Company Over Pesticide Use

A group of sixteen cities from six Midwestern states filed a federal lawsuit against Swiss corporation Syngenta this Monday. Syngenta is the producer of Atrazine, a chemical used to kill weeds in cornfields, golf courses, and domestic lawns. Atrazine often runs off into rivers and streams, contaminating groundwater and municipal water supplies. The plaintiffs in the Midwest case maintain that, while Syngenta has snatched up billions of dollars from its sale of Atrazine, it is local taxpayers who ultimately foot the bill for cleanup. The sixteen cities in question have already spent more than 350 million dollars in their attempts to remove Atrazine from drinking water. They and many other municipalities cannot afford to pay for the installation and upkeep of the carbon filters necessary to keep citizens safe. Syngenta officials, such as Tim Pastoor, the company’s lead scientist, insist that there is no need to filter the water, pointing out that “hundreds” of EPA findings (some dating back forty years) do not support these health concerns. However, the EPA itself has shifted its approach to Atrazine, and hopes to conclude a new study this September. Shedding new light on the controversy is a study led by UC Berkeley Professor Tyrone Hayes, published last week. The study’s findings point to Atrazine’s alarming effects on the sex traits of frogs that have obvious implications for human beings.

GUESTS: Tyrone Hayes, Professor in the Department of Integrative Biology at UC Berkeley, Danielle Ivory, Staff Reporter with the Huffington Post Investigative Fund

Find out more at www.atrazinelovers.com, and www.huffpostfund.org.

Sonali’s Subversive Thought for the Day

“We’ve poured our poisons into the world as though it were a bottomless pit.. and we go on gobbling them up. It’s hard to imagine how the world could survive another century of this abuse.” — Daniel Quinn