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This week on Uprising:

* Shahid Mahmood on U.S.-Pakistan Relations After bin Laden’s Death
* Jamie Court on The Politics of High Gas Prices
* Walter Mosley on 12 Steps to Political Revelation

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Shahid Mahmood on U.S.-Pakistan Relations After bin Laden’s Death

At least seventeen suspected militants were killed in a drone attack in Waziristan, on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, last week. The attack by four American unmanned aircraft was the first such operation in Pakistan since bin Laden’s capture and execution by US Special Forces on May 1st. The drone attacks have sparked severe anti-American sentiment against the Obama Administration. Meanwhile, the U.S. government has released home videos of bin Laden rehearsing for his video addresses. The material was obtained during the raid last week and was released in order to undermine bin Laden’s martydom. In the wake of the operation, Pakistanis have expressed concern that the US violated Pakistani sovereignty during its mission to capture bin Laden because it operated without the consent of the Pakistani government. Bin Laden was captured down the street from the country’s elite military academy, and the Pakistani military has already been ridiculed for being too inept to capture bin Laden. Pakistan, a growing nuclear power, has had a rocky relationship with the United States. Activist and professor Pervez Hoodbhoy wrote in the Pakistani newspaper, The Tribune, “Bin Laden was the ‘Golden Goose’ that the army had kept under its watch but which, to its chagrin, has now been stolen from under its nose. Until then, the thinking had been to trade in the Goose at the right time for the right price, either in the form of dollars or political concessions.” This year alone, Congress has appropriated $3 billion in non-military aid to Pakistan. However, a bill introduced to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs is calling for Pakistan to prove that it knew nothing about bin Laden’s whereabouts in order to continue receiving aid. Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers have criticized the co-sponsors of the bill of being too hasty to punish Pakistan. “I think people who have been married 30 years still have some problems, but they don’t get divorced,” says House Armed Services Chairman Buck McKeon about the bill.

GUEST: Shahid Mahmood, political analyst, former editorial cartoonist for Dawn, a national newspaper in Pakistan. He is now internationally syndicated with the New York Times Syndicate.

Jamie Court on The Politics of High Gas Prices

Flooding along the Mississippi River has added to already heightened fears of increasing oil prices. Refineries that operate along the river may be forced to shut down, further driving up gas prices during the worst oil price crisis in recent history. Even as per gallon prices at the pump had begun to fall earlier this week, AAA reported that it climbed back up to a national average of $3.96 a gallon by Wednesday. Before the killing of Osama bin Laden, President Obama’s ratings took a hit in the polls over gas prices. He responded by forming a federal commission to investigate whether speculation by oil companies on futures markets has led to the high prices. The blame game for high oil prices is fraught with misinformation, with media personalities, and even some law makers blaming oil producing countries in the Middle East for driving up the price and advocating increased off shore oil drilling in the U.S. to ease the soaring prices. Glenn Beck on his show on Fox News rejected the notion that oil companies are manipulating the price of oil. He said it “doesn’t make sense because the oil companies have to sell gas to people and if they can’t afford it, then they go out of business. So that doesn’t really work.” This logic is echoed in outlets like CBS, whose Wall Street analyst John Keefe wrote “Don’t blame speculators… what sets prices is the supply and demand for [oil].” This past Thursday the Senate Finance Committee held a hearing with the CEOs of the top 5 oil companies. The CEOs refused to admit their hand in the rising prices, and rejected the proposal to end their tax breaks. So what is really behind oil price increases?

GUEST: Jamie Court, President of Consumer Watchdog and author of The Progressive’s Guide To Raising Hell

Walter Mosley on 12 Steps to Political Revelation

Best selling author Walter Mosley has been enthralling readers of mystery fiction for decades now. The 59 year old African American writer from Watts, Southern California, has more than 30 books under his belt. He is perhaps best known for his series of mysteries featuring the black detective and World War II veteran Easy Rawlins. Most recently Walter Mosley’s work has hit the New York Times best seller list with the third in a mystery series called When the Thrill is Gone, featuring the character Leonid McGill, a New York based African American private eye. But aside from his popular fiction, Walter Mosley is an activist and social justice thinker. In 2003 he wrote “What Next: An African American Initiative Toward World Peace,” followed by his 2006 book “Life Out of Context: Which Includes a Proposal for the Non-violent Takeover of the House of Representatives.” Mosley’s latest non-fiction offering, just published by Nation Books, is called “Twelve Steps Toward Political Revelation.” In this short treatise, Mosley posits that most Americans accept the economic and social oppression they suffer as normal. Drawing from his own experiences struggling with alcohol and nicotine addictions, he suggests ways for Americans to recover from what he calls “Americanism,” through a twelve step program. The steps include democracy building through education and truth telling about oneself and society.

GUEST: Walter Mosley, popular crime fiction writer, and political activist, author of “Twelve Steps Toward Political Revelation.”

Sonali’s Subversive Thought for the Day:

“[M]any of us suffer from [a] form of dependence: Americanism. This is not a physical drug, rather a system of ideas, and even ideals, that we crave, feel we need to make us whole and healthy. In order to imbibe this drug on a regular basis we have acquired a great tolerance to lies, worldwide aggression, a completely integrated system of theft, and a monumental amount of pain and lifelong unhappiness.” — Walter Mosley