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This week on Uprising:

* Thirteen Bankers: The Wall Street Takeover and the Next Financial Meltdown
* Mumia Abu Jamal on the End of Empires
* Vijay Prashad on the Origins of India’s Maoist Rebellion
* Black Agenda Report on Somalia
* Activists on DHS’s 287 (g) Program: “End It, Don’t Mend It”

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Thirteen Bankers: The Wall Street Takeover and the Next Financial Meltdown

Financial giant JP Morgan Chase’s CEO Jamie Dimon recently wrote a lengthy letter to his company’s share holders. In it he asserted that the bank’s employees “have always been deeply committed to being good corporate citizens.” However, JP Morgan was just as deeply implicated in the sub-prime mortgage scandal as other big banks. But it was quicker to see the risks involved and sold off mortgage-backed securities soon after it bought them, leaving other banks with toxic assets. JP Morgan Chase was also instrumental in lobbying against financial regulation of the questionable practices. Now, the bank has been deeply implicated in paying middlemen to literally bribe county commissioners in Alabama to buy securities with rigged interest rates as exposed by Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibi. Simon Johnson, former chief economist at the IMF and co-author with James Kwak of the book, “Thirteen Bankers: The Wall Street Takeover and the Next Financial Meltdown” has called JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon, “The Most Dangerous Man in America.” Simon Johnson is a Professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He is a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington Dc. He blogs at baselinescenario.com, as well as on the New York Times’ Economix Blog, and is the business editor for the Huffington Post.

GUEST: Simon Johnson, co-author with James Kwak of the book, Thirteen Bankers: The Wall Street Takeover and the Next Financial Meltdown, Professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management

Mumia Abu Jamal on the End of Empires

Mumia Abu Jamal is an award winning journalist and political prisoner. He recently filed this commentary.

You can hear all of Mumia Abu Jamal’s commentaries online at www.prisonradio.org.

Origins of India’s Maoist Rebellion

An attack by Maoist rebels in the Eastern Indian state of Chhattisgarh resulted in the deaths of 76 policemen. According to officials more than 500 Maoist guerrillas, known as Naxalites, were involved in a carefully planned trap that involved sophisticated weapons, grenades, and improvised explosive devices (IEDs). The death toll from the incident was the largest in the 43 year history of the insurgency. Claiming to speak on behalf of India’s poor and exploited, the Naxalites derive their name from the West Bengal state of Naxalbari where they originated, and have a presence in at least 20 out of India’s 28 states. The Indian government has promised a strong response with Home Minister Gopal Pillai pledging to “hunt everyone down.” Last year the government launched an aggressive campaign dubbed Operation Green Hunt in the northern and eastern strongholds of the Naxalite rebels. Yesterday’s attack is speculated to be a response to that campaign. Thousands of people including rebels, law enforcement officials, and innocent civilians, have been killed over the years in clashes between the Indian government and the Maoist rebels.

GUEST: Vijay Prashad is the George and Martha Kellner Chair of South Asian History, Professor and Director of the International Studies Program at Trinity College, Hartford, CT. He is the author of a dozen books, including The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World

Vijay Prashad recommends the following sources of information:

• Red Sun: Travels in Naxalite Country by Sudeep Chakravarty
• Economic and Political Weekly, online at www.epw.in.

Black Agenda Report on Somalia

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

Visit www.blackagendareport.com for more information.

Activists on DHS’s 287 (g) Program: “End It, Don’t Mend It”

Recently the Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security released an extensive internal report on its 287 (g) immigration agreements. The agreement facilitates the deportation of undocumented immigrants who have committed serious crimes and grants federal immigration authority to state and local police enforcement officials. It gained national notoriety and spurred much controversy in Arizona when Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio began utilizing it to conduct immigration sweeps and roundups. Friday’s comprehensive review of all the 287 (g) agreements DHS has in place found that the federal-local partnerships lacked oversight and were inconsistent in their applications from agency to agency. In contrast with the policy’s officially stated aims, local police were found to have used their authorities in targeting undocumented immigrants arrested only for minor offenses. Inadequate safeguards on civil rights were also highlighted. Despite the internal report’s findings, Immigration and Customs Enforcement or ICE has said that it has been aware of such problems and has already taken measures to address them. Immigrant rights activists, on the other hand, have responded to the report by calling on the Obama administration to end, not mend the agreements.

GUEST: Chris Newman, Legal Director of National Day Laborer Organizing Network

Find out more at www.ndlon.org.

Sonali’s Subversive Thought for the Day

“Until the great mass of the people shall be filled with the sense of responsibility for each other’s welfare, social justice can never be attained.” — Helen Keller