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This week on Uprising:

* Arizona Reels in Wake of Anti-Immigrant Law, ICE Raids
* Green Gone Wrong: How Our Economy Is Undermining The Environmental Revolution
* Black Agenda Report about Wall Street Crimes
* Conversation with Dick Gregory, Civil Rights Activist, Comedian

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Arizona Reels in Wake of Anti-Immigrant Law, ICE Raids

A bill passed by the Arizona Senate, SB 1070, criminalizing undocumented immigrants is the most draconian of its kind in the nation and could be be signed into law by Republican Governor Jan Brewer by Saturday April 24th. As this show is being recorded, President Obama has just announced that the bill is “misguided” and has instructed the Justice Department to examine the bill to determine if it is legal. SB 1070 requires that any undocumented immigrant found in Arizona will be arrested for trespassing, jailed for up to six months and fined up to $2,500. Local law enforcement officers would have the authority to stop any vehicle that they suspect has an undocumented person, and demand identification. Additionally, anyone helping an undocumented person could be charged, which in the language of the bill means “transporting, harboring or concealing unlawful aliens.” Proponents of the bill say that it is necessary in the face of no immigration reform at the federal level, where immigration laws are usually passed and enforced. But opponents of the bill have likened it to tactics seen under Nazi Germany, Communist Russia, and the Jim Crow era in the US. They vow to defeat the law in court. Arizona has been on the fore-front of anti-immigrant laws in the nation. Meanwhile just days after SB 1070 passing, the federal immigration agency ICE, under the Department of Homeland Security, launched the largest raids targeting human smuggling in its 8 year history in the Arizona cities of Phoenix and Tuscon. The raid carried out by more than 800 federal and local agents, caused widespread panic among residents, particularly in Phoenix where Maricopa County’s notorious Sheriff Joe Arpaio announced just a day earlier that he would be launching a “crime suppression sweep.” I spoke recently with …

GUESTS: Kat Rodriguez, Coordinator of Derechos Humanos in Tucson, Arizona, Xiomara Corpeno, Director of Organizing and Membership with CHIRLA

For more information visit, http://www.derechoshumanosaz.net, http://www.altoarizona.com and http://www.ndlon.org
Contact Xiomara Corpeno at xcorpeno@chirla.org for information.

Read provisions of the bill here: http://www.azleg.gov/legtext/49leg/2r/summary/s.1070pshs.doc.htm

Green Gone Wrong: How Our Economy Is Undermining The Environmental Revolution

The 40th anniversary of Earth Day was celebrated all across the nation and world this past Thursday April 22nd, with independent and sponsored festivals wholeheartedly endorsed by local, and state governments, as well as by the White House. A corner-stone of the mainstream environmental movement is to encourage people to focus efforts on buying so-called green products, organic foods, and hybrid vehicles but there is increasing awareness of companies that attempt to “greenwash” their polluting records. My guest today says not only is “consumption as politics” ineffective, it can even be harmful. In her new book, “Green Gone Wrong”, Heather Rogers travels around the globe investigating the reality behind the green products, often finding dead-ends instead of flourishing industries and sustainable solutions. Rogers finds that truly earth-friendly technologies and farming techniques do exist and can be successful on a large scale, but only following a serious paradigm shift in how we think about our economy and our planet. She writes that, “Shopping green is alluring in part because it is simple… unlike the messy business of working toward systemic change. The market isn’t able to adequately value environmental health. We need to push the discussion further to include questioning of the limits of market mechanisms as tools for curing environmental ills.” I spoke with Heather Rogers on Earth Day.

GUEST: Heather Rogers, journalist and author, writing for the New York Times Magazine, Mother Jones, and the Nation. Her first book was Gone Tomorrow: The Hidden Life of Garbage. Her new book is Green Gone Wrong: How Our Economy Is Undermining The Environmental Revolution

Black Agenda Report on Wall Street Crimes

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

Visit www.blackagendareport.com for more information.

Conversation with Dick Gregory, Civil Rights Activist, Comedian

Americans lost two civil rights giants this month: Dorothy Height who worked tirelessly for the rights of African Americans especially Black women, was President of the National Council of Negro Women for 40 years, and attempted to bridge women’s rights and civil rights. She died this week at age 98. And the Reverend Benjamin Hooks, a trusted associate of Dr. Martin Luther King in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, former Executive Director and CEO of the NAACP, and an active member of the Republican Party. He died last week at the age of 85. Among the thousands who attended Hooks’ funeral was another major civil rights activist, Dick Gregory, entertainer, political comedian, writer, and even a spokesperson for health issues. Dick Gregory came to prominence in the 1960s after a profile in Time magazine and a television appearance on “The Jack Paar Show.” He then began regularly hitting the comedy circuit on television, in nightclubs, and in concerts, addressing issues of racism, poverty, and segregation. He marched often in civil rights demonstrations, and was arrested several times. Dick Gregory also ran for mayor of Chicago in 1966 and for president of the United States in 1968. He has written several books, the most controversial of which was his 1964 autobiography whose title he chose as the N-word. Dick Gregory’s latest project is a music CD called “21st Century State of the Union.” I spoke with Dick Gregory recently about his work and the legacy of the civil rights movement and began by asking him to comment on Dorothy Height and Benjamin Hooks.

Sonali’s Subversive Thought for the Day:

“Political promises are much like marriage vows. They are made at the beginning of the relationship between candidate and voter, but are quickly forgotten.” — Dick Gregory