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This week on Uprising:

* Fukushima, Chernobyl, Demonstrate that Nuclear Power is Never Safe
* Chris Hedges on the End of American Education
* Mumia Abu Jamal on the 150th Anniversary of the Start of the Civil War
* Marshall Law: The Life and Times of a Baltimore Black Panther

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Fukushima, Chernobyl Demonstrate that Nuclear Power is Never Safe

Japanese authorities reclassified the Fukushima nuclear emergency on Monday, raising it from a level five to a level seven on the UN International Nuclear Events scale. The scale only goes from 1 to 7. The reassessment, putting Fukushima on par with the Chernobyl disaster, has prompted two distinct reactions. Some, including Russia’s Nuclear Chief Sergei Kiriyenko, disagree with the comparison. Kiriyenko said on Wednesday, “[Fukushima] doesn’t reach the sixth level. I suspect this is more of a financial issue than a nuclear one.” However many are skeptical not of the change in status, but of the Japanese government’s reluctance to acknowledge the severity of the situation. According to Physicians for Social Responsibility, a level 7 rating reflects the reality that, “[t]his is a catastrophic accident with the potential to affect the health of hundreds of thousands of people.” The elevated level assigned to Fukushima comes within two weeks of the 25th anniversary of the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl, considered the worst nuclear crisis in history. On April 26, 1986 an explosion at the nuclear power plant sent a plume of radiation miles into the atmosphere, and a fire at the reactor core burned for 10 days.

GUEST: Dr. Jeff Patterson, the immediate past president of Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR), and a radioactive exposure expert

Find out more at www.psr.org.

Chris Hedges on the End of American Education

President Obama on Wednesday gave a major speech on deficit reduction in which he lambasted the GOP proposal to cut spending. The speech came days after members of Congress had agreed in principle to a federal budget for fiscal year 2011-2012. The draft of the federal budget includes significant cuts to education funding. In addition to restricting Pell Grant awardees to only one such grant a year, $20 million in funding was cut from the Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants. Both types of grants are geared toward helping low-income students pay for college. The bill also cut $23 million from AmeriCorps, which helps to fund the national Teach for America program. Across the board, cuts in education at the federal level, and at the state level are ensuring that already under funded school systems have to lay off teachers and reduce assistance to poor students. On Wednesday thousands of students and faculty at California State University campuses protested budget cuts. Combined with the political assault at the state and city level on teachers unions, and you have a nation where the right to a quality education seems to be a thing of the past. But this trend is part of a long-term one that began with a over-reliance of standardized testing, the imposition of charter schools, and a demonization of teachers. It was continued by President Bush’s No Child Left Behind Policy and, more recently, President Obama’s Race to the Top Initiative. According to journalist and author Chris Hedges, “A nation that destroys its systems of education, degrades its public information, guts its public libraries and turns its airwaves into vehicles for cheap, mindless amusement becomes deaf, dumb and blind.”

GUEST: Chris Hedges, regular columnist for Truthdig.com. He was for nearly two decades a foreign correspondent for The New York Times. He is the author of many books, including: War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning, What Every Person Should Know About War, and American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America. His most recent book is Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle.

Read Chris Hedges’ article here: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/why_the_united_states_is_destroying_her_education_system_20110410/

Mumia Abu Jamal on the 150th Anniversary of the State of the Civil War

Mumia Abu Jamal is an award winning journalist and political prisoner on death row. He recently filed this commentary about the 150th anniversary of the start of the American Civil War.

Listen to Mumia Abu Jamal’s commentaries at www.prisonradio.org.

Marshall Law: The Life and Times of a Baltimore Black Panther

In late April 1970 Marshall “Eddie” Conway was arrested in Baltimore, Maryland, for a murder he maintains he did not commit. Shortly before his arrest two Baltimore Police officers were shot while sitting in their patrol car. Officer Donald Sager was killed while Officer Stanley Sierakowski was critically wounded. Two suspects were arrested at the scene. A responding officer reported seeing a third man who got away. That officer identified Conway as the third man through a set of photos. Additionally a police informant testified that Conway made a jailhouse confession. At the time 24 year old Conway, a US postal service employee, belonged to the Baltimore chapter of the Black Panther Party. As with Panther chapters around the country, the FBI was conducting undercover surveillance of the Baltimore members’ activities as part of the controversial COINTEPRO operation. Due to his political activities Conway and his supporters believe that he was either framed, or that as a target of the FBI he was unable to receive a fair trial. No physical evidence linking Conway to the scene of the shooting was ever presented and Conway denies ever confessing to the killings. In the forty years since his incarceration, in addition to fighting for his freedom, Conway has become an activist within prison walls. He formed the Maryland chapter of the United Prisoners Labor Union and works with the ACLU to improve prison conditions. Marshall “Eddie” Conway also co-authored his just-released memoir, “Marshall Law: The Life and Times of a Baltimore Black Panther.”

GUEST: Dominque Stevenson, co-author of “Marshall Law: The Life and Times of a Baltimore Black Panther

Find out more at http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/group.php?gid=2209403226 and http://www.freeeddieconway.org/

Sonali’s Subversive Thought for the Day

“For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.” — Nelson Mandela