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This week on Uprising:

* GOP’s Pledge to America Reveals Deficit-Increasing, Healthcare-Cutting Policies
* Black Agenda Report on the Black Caucus’ Position on Net Neutrality
* Inspector General Whitewashes Bush-Era FBI Surveillance of Activists
* Activists Demand An End to Mountain Top Removal Mining

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GOP’s Pledge to America Reveals Deficit-Increasing, Healthcare-Cutting Policies

The Republican Party released a document on Thursday entitled “Pledge to America,” reminiscent of Newt Gingrich’s 1994 Contract for America. While a draft of the document was floating around for a few days online, House Minority leader John Boehner publicly unveiled the final version at a lumber company in Sterling, Virginia. The pre-election pledge was, according to the Christian Science Monitor, “laced with Tea Party slogans.” It describes the Obama administration as “an arrogant and out-of-touch government of self-appointed elites,” pledges to make permanent the Bush-era tax cuts, “repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act,” “roll back government spending to pre-stimulus, pre-bailout levels,” and try Guantanamo detainees outside the US in military courts. Some news outlets are reporting that one of the authors, Brian Wild, was a heavily paid lobbyist for AIG, the now-defunct insurance company whose fall signaled the Great Recession. Additionally, Wild has earned millions lobbying on behalf of Comcast, Exxon-Mobil, Pfizer Pharmaceutical, and the petroleum giant, Andarko. Not all Republicans are happy about the “Pledge to America.” RedState.com blogger and self-described Republican voter Erick Erickson called it “the most ridiculous thing to come out of Washington Since George McClellan.” Some Liberals and Democrats see the Pledge as a good thing – enabling the Democrats a set of formalized positions to rail against.

GUEST: Sam Stein, Political Reporter for the Huffington Post

Read Sam Stein’s article here: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/09/23-0

Read the Pledge to America here: http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/2010/09/gops-pledge-to-america-draft.html

Black Agenda Report on the Black Caucus’ Position on Net Neutrality

Glen Ford is a writer and radio commentator and the Executive Editor of The Black Agenda Report. This week’s commentary is on the Black Caucus’ Position on Net Neutrality.

Visit www.blackagendareport.com for more information.

Inspector General Whitewashes Bush-Era FBI Surveillance of Activists

On Monday the Justice Department’s Inspector General released a report finding that the FBI improperly conducted surveillance on activist groups between 2001 and 2006. The Inspector General wrote that extensive investigations into members of the environmental group Greenpeace had “little or no basis,” and he called the FBI’s actions under President Bush “troubling.” The Washington Post reports that the FBI was not found to be guilty of violating the first amendment rights of individuals, a serious charge. The Thomas Merton Center, an interfaith organization in Pittsburg, was also targeted. In 2006 FBI Director Robert Mueller was called before Congress and specifically asked about the motive for the FBI’s anti-terrorism investigation into the Merton Center. At the hearing Director Mueller said an FBI agent attended an anti-war rally connected to the Merton Center to identify a person with possible links to terrorism. The Inspector General determined that “this version of events was not true, and stated the Merton rally assignment was “an ill-conceived project on a slow work day”. The report stated that the inaccurate domestic terrorism classification put individuals at risk for placement on terrorism watchlists. In a separate case extensive FBI surveillance of activists in Iowa made news this week. The Des Moines Register reports that twenty-nine year old activist David Goodner received 300 pages of heavily redacted FBI records through a Freedom of Information Act request. Goodner discovered that he and other activists had been spied on for nine months prior to the Republican and Democratic national conventions in 2008. The Register reports that the FBI staked out activists’ homes and followed them as they traveled to the Iowa Public Library, a natural food store, and a United Methodist Church, among other places.

GUEST: Shahid Buttar, Executive Director Bill of Rights Defense Committee, Constitutional Lawyer, sued the FBI two years ago to for greater transparency

For more information on the Bill of Rights Defense Committee visit: www.bordc.org

Activists Demand An End to Mountain Top Removal Mining

On Monday September 27, over a thousand Appalachian residents, former coal miners and environmental activists will gather in Washington D.C. to call on the Obama administration to stop mountaintop removal mining. They will also gather to pressure the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to veto the authorization of the Spruce No. 1 mine, the largest surface mining operation ever authorized in Appalachia. The rally, called ‘Appalachia Rising,’ is anticipated to be the largest national demonstration against MTR to date. This type of mining removes millions of tons of rock to reach the thin seams of coal underneath and dumps the debris in nearby valleys—decimating ecosystems, watersheds and the health of those that depend on them. The destructive mining practices have obliterated over 500 mountains and 2,000 miles of streams in West Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky and Virginia, and put the residents of Appalachia at risk for displacement and increased rates of cancer. Despite being praised as a cost-efficient form of mining, five major American banks no longer finance companies practicing mountaintop removal coal mining, calling it a “bad investment” and “unprofitable”.

GUEST: Bo Webb, 6th generation resident of Coal River Valley in West Virginia, a Vietnam vet, and former board president of the Coal River Mountain Watch. He is one of the sponsors of Appalachia Rising.

Find out more at AppalachiaRising.org.

Sonali’s Subversive Thought for the Day

“Agitators are a set of interfering, meddling people, who come down to some perfectly contented class of the community and sow the seeds of discontent amongst them. That is the reason why agitators are so absolutely necessary. Without them, in our incomplete state, there would be no advance towards civilization.” — Oscar Wilde