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This week on Uprising:

* Georgia Kills Troy Davis; Next Steps for the Movement
* After Fukushima, Japanese Activists Determined to Shut Down Japanese Nuclear Industry
* New Report Finds Waste Inherent in Government Contracts with Private Sector
* Norman Solomon Promises Progressives a True Voice in Congress

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Georgia Kills Troy Davis; Next Steps for the Movement

After 22 years on death row, and many years of appeals for justice, Troy Anthony Davis was executed by the state of Georgia at 11:08 pm Eastern time on Wednesday September 21st. The original time of the execution was set at 7 pm but a last-minute appeal to the US Supreme Court resulted in a temporary reprieve, bringing hope to the hundreds of supporters gathered outside the prison, and to the hundreds of thousands of supporters who were monitoring the situation around the nation and world. However, within 4 hours the Supreme Court issued a single sentence: “The application for stay of execution of death presented to Justice [Clarence] Thomas and by him referred to the Court is denied.” Before Davis was executed in front of the family members of Officer McPhail, who he was convicted of killing, and members of the media, he maintained his innocence one last time. The execution was a major blow to the massive movement that built up around the country and world, which included a significant section of the African American community in Georgia and the rest of the country, a number of high-profile celebrities, elected officials, and even some prominent supporters of the death penalty. Spearheaded by the NAACP and Amnesty International, the movement to save Troy Davis was seen as a test of the the justice system’s fairness toward people of color, as well as the institution of the death penalty itself.

GUEST: Roslyn M. Brock, Chairperson of the National Board of the NAACP

Find out more at www.naacp.org and www.justicefortroy.org.

After Fukushima, Japanese Activists Determined to Shut Down Japanese Nuclear Industry

Up to 60,000 Japanese protesters rallied on Monday in Tokyo to demand an end to the nuclear power industry in Japan. Recalling the events of the massive radiation fallout caused by the meltdown of the Fukushima Da-Ichi Nuclear Power Plant, protesters demanded that all 54 of Japan’s nuclear reactors be shut down. Despite the protests, the Japanese Government continues to advocate for nuclear energy in its meetings with the International Atomic Energy Commission, even while Germany, Switzerland and other European nations have decided to completely abandon their nuclear energy programs since the disaster. Over six months have passed since the 9.0 earthquake and subsequent tsunami that caused the collapse of the Fukushima plant’s cooling systems, yet radiation continues to spread. Cleanup workers at the power plant have recently discovered a radiation hot spot that is more lethal than anything previously recorded. Despite these alarming findings, the Japanese government is allowing 20,000 people living within a 12 mile radius, and evacuated, to return to the site for temporary visits. The Japanese government also faces criticism for raising the safety limits for acceptable radiation levels in children from 1 millisieverts per year to 20 millisieverts per year. Meanwhile, new reports are revealing that the plant’s owner, Tokyo Electric Power Company, severely underestimated the amount of radiation leaking from the plant at the onset of the disaster. Radiation from Fukushima continues to show up as far away as the Western Coast of the United States.

GUEST: Kaori Azumi, Director of Shut Tomari, an organziation working to close the first reactor to re-start since the Fukushima meltdowns, and Co-Director of Save Fukushima Children Hokaido

Read a transcript of our interview with Kaori Azumi here.

Find out more at www.beyondnuclear.org

New Report Finds Waste Inherent in Government Contracts with Private Sector

A group of defense contractors have begun a major lobbying effort to prevent cuts in military spending. Their campaign, titled “Second to None,” emphasizes jobs while conjuring images of American exceptionalism through public ads. The effort led by Lockheed, Boeing, Raytheon, and other defense firms, comes on the heels of a report released earlier in the month by the Commission on Wartime Contracting. That commission comprising 8 bipartisan current and former officials, found at least $31 billion of waste and fraud in private contracts during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The 240-page report found an “over-reliance” on defense contracting. Now, a new report bolsters the notion that outsourcing work to contractors actually wastes government money. The Project on Government Oversight (POGO) released a report, titled “Bad Business: Billions of Taxpayer Dollars Wasted on Hiring Contractors,” which examined 35 occupational classifications and compared the amount of money that the government pays contractors for tasks government workers could perform. It found, among other things, that private contractors are paid 1.83 times more than federal employees for the same task. Additionally, billing rates were 15% higher for work performed at contractor sites versus government sites, federal employees were cheaper than contractors, and the government was charged higher rates for the same tasks than other employers. POGO’s study was limited to one department, the General Services Administration, because that was the only one with publicly available information on salary and benefits. This study is especially significant in the current economic climate as approximately one-quarter of all discretionary spending now goes to service contractors –$320 billion dollar a year. POGO’s stated goal was to “get people to end the typically misleading and inaccurate comparisons that look at public vs. private sector compensation – and focus instead on what the government is actually paying when it outsources work.”

GUEST: Scott Amey, General Counsel with the Project on Government Oversight (POGO)

Read the POGO Report here: http://www.pogo.org/pogo-files/reports/contract-oversight/bad-business/co-gp-20110913.html

Norman Solomon Promises Progressives a True Voice in Congress

President Obama addressed the United Nations’ General Assembly on Wednesday making clear the US’s opposition to the Palestinian Authority’s bid for statehood. While hailing the pro-democracy movements in the Arab world, he asserted that Palestinians would have to make peace with Israel before pursuing statehood. He said, “[p]eace will not come through statements and resolutions at the U.N. If it were that easy, it would have been accomplished by now.” However, the alternative – that is, decades of US-sponsored peace talks have yet to produce results. Meanwhile, on the home-front, Obama is working hard to please progressives. The President unveiled a detailed plan to reduce the federal deficit and increase revenues on Monday, less than a week after he unveiled his American Jobs Act with great fanfare. The ‘President’s Plan for Economic Growth and Deficit Reduction will reduce the federal deficit by $3 trillion, while generating about $1.5 trillion in revenues over a decade. It assumes savings from the end of the Iraq and Afghanistan occupations, and an effective increase in tax rates for millionaires, dubbed the “Buffett Tax,” after progressive billionaire Warren Buffett. Obama’s plan also allows the Bush-era tax cuts to expire, restores the estate tax to 2009 levels, and eliminates subsidies for the oil and gas industry – all unfulfilled campaign-era promises. With his Monday speech, the President is hoping to influence the “super-committee” put in charge of reducing the nation’s debt. As the 2012 election season nears, the American Jobs Act, which this plan would pay for, could be just the right feather in Obama’s cap, designed to ride the wave of progressive populist support for taxing the rich. Only a month ago he had conceded to Republicans on raising taxes for the rich during the debt ceiling negotiations. Obama needs all the help he can get. The latest polls show a public approval rating of only 43% nationwide, which is shockingly less than the 52% approval that his predecessor G.W. Bush garnered in 2003, just before his re-election. Using the rare threat of a veto, Obama said “I will not support any plan that puts all of the burden for closing our deficit on ordinary Americans, and I will veto any bill that changes benefits for those who rely on Medicare but does not raise serious revenues by asking the wealthiest Americans and the biggest corporations to pay their fair share.” Still, Obama’s plan includes $580 billion of cuts in health and welfare programs, of which $248 billion will be from Medicare, and $72 billion from Medicaid.

GUEST: Norman Solomon, progressive author and activist running for the House of Representatives in California’s 6th Congressional district which runs from the Golden Gate Bridge to the Oregon border. He is campaigning for now retired Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey’s seat. Solomon describes his political platform as “The Green New Deal” and he advocates for, among other things, quality education, adequate health care, consumer protection and civil liberties.

Visit www.solomonforcongress.com for more information about Norman Solomon’s run for Congress.

Sonali’s Subversive Thought for the Day

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” — George Bernard Shaw