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This week on Uprising:

* Is Obama Shaking Up His Cabinet?
* Black Agenda Report on the One Nation Unity Rally
* What’s Behind the Rash of Gay Teen Suicides?
* What Happened in Ecuador?

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Is Obama Shaking Up His Cabinet?

President Barack Obama’s notoriously caustic Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel resigned last Friday, receiving a dead-fish as a good-natured farewell gift. It is being reported that Emanuel left the White House to run for Mayor of Chicago, and that he will be succeeded by Peter Rouse, a long-time adviser to the President. Emanuel’s departure is only the latest in a string of resignations from the President’s cabinet. Peter Orszag was the first cabinet member to resign. Orszag left his post as head of the Office of Management and Budget in late July. In early September he wrote an op-ed in the New York Times in which he argued for a two-year extension of the Bush tax cuts on incomes over $250,000 a year, a position at odds with the White House. This set off a small political firestorm. To replace Orszag, Obama chose Jacob Lew, a former Citigroup executive who, during his Senate confirmation hearing, said he didn’t think deregulation of Wall Street was a primary cause of the economic crash. In August Christina Romer, chairwoman of Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers announced her resignation amid rumors that she was dissatisfied with the President’s strategy for economic recovery. Romer had been a proponent of a larger stimulus package than was ultimately pushed by Larry Summers, the Director of the White House National Economic Council. She was replaced by Austan Goolsbee, already a member of the economic advisory panel and described by the New York Times as a “left-of-center economist”. Last month Larry Summers announced that he will leave the White House at the end of the year. Obama’s pick to replace Summers’ could be the biggest indication yet of what direction the President’s economic agenda will take.

GUEST: Nomi Prins, Author of “It takes a Pillage”, and senior fellow at Demos; Robert Scheer, Editor of TruthDig.com, author of the new book “The Great American Stickup: How Reagan Republicans and Clinton Democrats Enriched Wall Street While Mugging Main Street.”

Read Nomi Prins’ work at www.nomiprins.com, and Robert Scheer’s work at www.truthdig.com.

Black Agenda Report on the One Nation Unity Rally

Glen Ford is a writer and radio commentator and the Executive Editor of The Black Agenda Report. This week’s commentary is on the One Nation Unity Rally.

Visit www.blackagendareport.com for more information.

What’s Behind the Rash of Gay Teen Suicides?

A recent spate of gay teen suicides has left many in the LGBT community and its allies reeling in shock. An 18 year old Rutgers University student named Tyler Clementi jumped off the George Washington bridge on September 22nd, ending his own life after learning that his roommate live-streamed a sexual encounter he had with another male in his dorm room. The roommate and another friend may face possible charges for their role in Clementi’s death. In Bakersfield, California, Seth Walsh a 13 year old boy hung himself from a tree on September 23rd after being bullied for being gay. He died in the hospital nine days later. No charges are being filed. In Houston, Texas, another 13 year old Asher Brown, shot himself in the head earlier in the month after being incessantly bullied at school. Brown’s parents complained to the school for over 18 months prior to his death and claim the school did nothing about it, failing even to return their phone calls. Fifteen year old Billy Lucas of Greensburg, Indiana also hung himself from a tree in mid-September and died after being bullied by students who thought he was gay. In April of this year, two eleven year old boys of color in separate incidents killed themselves because of homophobic bullying at school: Carl Joseph Walker Hoover, in Springfield, Massachusetts, and Jaheem Hererra in Georgia, Atlanta. Here in California, Governor Schwarzenegger just signed the Mental Health Services for At-Risk Youth Act, expanding services for children as young as 12. But will that be enough to stem the suicides?

GUESTS:Darrel Cummings, Chief of Staff for the L.A. Gay and Lesbian Center; Sue Rankin, Professor of Education at Pennsylvania State University and lead author of the report, the 2010 State of Higher Education for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender People.

Read the 2010 State of Higher Education report here: http://www.campuspride.org/Campus%20Pride%202010%20LGBT%20Report%20Summary.pdf

National and Local Resources to combat homophobia:
THE TREVOR PROJECT: A national 24-hour, toll free confidential suicide hotline for gay and questioning youth.www.thetrevorproject.org (hotline: 1-866-4-U-TREVOR)

STOMP OUT BULLYING: Working to reduce Bullying and Cyberbullying, school absenteeism and truancy, educate against homophobia and racism and end violence in schools. www.stompoutbullying.org.

THE MATTHEW SHEPHERD FOUNDATION: To support diversity programs in education and to help youth organizations establish environments where young people can feel safe and be themselves. www.matthewshepard.org.

GLSEN: Organization for students, parents, and teachers that tries to affect positive change in schools. www.glsen.org.

What Happened in Ecuador?

On Thursday September 30th, Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa was trapped in a hospital and held for at least 10 hours by police. The police were reported to be rebelling against austerity measures passed a day earlier by the nation’s Congress. Ecuador’s police forces stopped patrolling the streets, and instead coordinated controlled takeovers of their barracks across the country, as well as a shutdown of the airport. The capital Quito was engulfed in chaos; a firefight ensued, and in the end 8 people were killed. However, the country’s military, standing behind the President, managed to rescue him from the hospital and thwarted the rebellion. On Friday, Ecuador’s Commander of police, Freddy Martinez presented his resignation. After last year’s successful coup in Honduras, Correa had announced that he was privy to intelligence reports suggesting he was next in line to be ousted. President Correa has the right to dissolve the Congress in the wake of what is being considered an attempted coup. However, it is being reported this morning that Correa has decided to work with Congress rather than rule by decree. His government has also agreed to rewrite the austerity law for clarity, although without making major changes. In the past few days, there have been conflicting reports in the mainstream media whether or not a coup attempt actually took place in Ecuador. Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez wrote in his weekly column unequivocally that the US was behind a failed coup attempt, saying “[the U.S.] has revived the old measure of coup d’etats to spoil plans of governments that don’t subordinate to it.” The Wall Street Journal however, ran an op-ed on Monday saying there was no evidence of a coup at all.

GUESTS: Amalia Pallares, author of “From Peasant Struggles to Indian Resistance: The Ecuadorian Andes in the Late Twentieth Century,” and Marc Becker, a Latin American historian at Truman State University who specializes in Ecuador

Sonali’s Subversive Thought for the Day

“Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers.” — Aristotle