Our weekly edition is a nationally syndicated one-hour digest of the best of our daily coverage.

Audio Stream | Podcast | Mp3 Download

This week on Uprising:

* US and Israel Saber-Rattling Against Iran Reaches New Heights
* Dissecting Obama’s Budget Proposal
* Uprising: How Wisconsin Renewed the Politics of Protest, from Madison to Wall Street

* * *

US and Israel Saber-Rattling Against Iran Reaches New Heights

Rhetoric in Washington DC and Tel Aviv over possible war with Iran has heated up to such an extent, over past weeks that even US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has said he expects Israel to attack Iran within the next few months. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad’s every move is being interpreted in the American and Israeli media as provoking war. On Wednesday, his witnessing of the lowering of fuel rods into the core of a nuclear reactor contributed to the war hysteria. Also helping to ramp up speculation has been Ahmedinejad’s threat to shut down the Straits of Hormuz, through which a significant portion of Iranian oil is transported.

An international inquiry into several bomb blasts in Thailand, India, and Georgia, apparently targeting Israeli diplomats, has been linked to Iran, as well as the Lebanese group Hezbollah. Investigators are seeking several suspects in the various countries. Meanwhile, an on-going epidemic of murders of Iranian nuclear scientists has also added to the tensions, with the Iranian government accusing Western powers and Israel of orchestrating the murders. In fact, last week, senior US officials, speaking to NBC news on condition of anonymity, confirmed that a dissident Iranian group, trained and funded by Israel, has been carrying out the murders of nuclear scientists.

Here in the United States, President Obama has added Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security, to the US Treasury’s list of designated global terrorists, saying that it “supports global terrorism, commits human rights abuses against Iranians and participates in ongoing repression in Syria.”

And, a group of 32 senators from both major parties have backed legislation this week saying they would support President Obama in his attempt to stop Iran’s nuclear program, even if it meant going to war. Senator Lieberman, who introduced the bill said, it sends a message “clearly and resolutely to Iran, you have only two choices: peacefully negotiate to end your nuclear weapons program or expect a military strike to disable that program.” While Obama has said he does not prefer a military strike, he has said all options are on the table.

GUEST: Muhammad Sahimi, professor at the University of Southern California and lead political columnist for the website PBS/Frontline/Tehran Bureau

Dissecting Obama’s Budget Proposal

President Obama this week announced his budget proposal for the 2013 fiscal year, a plan that includes undoing the Bush-era tax cuts for individuals making over $250,000 a year and increasing capital gains taxes from 15% to 35%. Republicans and conservative pundits predictably rejected the President’s plan outright. A number of companies like AT&T and UPS, have banded together to lobby Congress to maintain the current tax rate for capital gains and dividends. Addressing a live audience in Virginia on Tuesday, Obama also reiterated his support for the Buffett Rule – a tax on millionaires, invoking an often-repeated fact: that billionaire Warren Buffett’s secretary pays a higher tax rate than he does. Overall, the budget projects increased revenues of $1.3 trillion.

Despite the rain of right wing criticism, Obama has also consistently picked up a standard conservative talking point, and this week was no exception – he asserted the importance of reducing the federal deficit by making what he called “difficult cuts,” and “tough choices.”

Media coverage of the budget proposal has skewed severely toward conservative values. A typical example is the Washington Post – generally thought of as a liberal newspaper. In the Post’s February 14th analysis of Obama’s budget, the report’s authors interviewed almost exclusively pro-business voices from such institutions as the US Chamber of Commerce, major corporations like Deloitte and KPMG, as well as Republican officials like former Louisiana Republican Congressman Jim McCreary, and current Michigan Republican Congressman Dave Camp.

GUEST: Joshua Holland is an editor and senior writer at AlterNet. He is the author of The 15 Biggest Lies About the Economy: And Everything else the Right Doesn’t Want You to Know About Taxes, Jobs and Corporate America

Read Holland’s work online here: www.alternet.org/authors/6645/

Uprising: How Wisconsin Renewed the Politics of Protest, from Madison to Wall Street

A year ago on Valentine’s Day 2011, unionized teaching assistants from the University of Wisconsin – Madison converged on their state capitol for a “Don’t Break My Heart” demonstration against Republican Governor Scott Walker. Walker, in office for less than 2 months at the time, outraged Wisconsinites by introducing so-called “budget repair” legislation that stripped public employees of many collective bargaining rights. He tried to fast-track approval, announcing on February 11th that he wanted it passed within the week. However the protest by the teaching assistants drew state-wide attention to the issue and sparked weeks of protests at the capitol with crowds topping 100,000 people on some days. The nation was riveted to coverage of events as they unfolded.

Democratic lawmakers fled the state to prevent a vote on the legislation from taking place. A diverse array of Wisconsinites turned out to protest day-in and day-out, from students and community supporters to unionized workers from the private and public sectors, including firefighters and police officers. Protesters eventually occupied the capitol building and the world began watching and cheering-on the movement. The protesters were fed by pizza ordered for them by supporters across the US, and from as far away as Egypt. Wisconsinites were not deterred by freezing temperatures and they fought against being locked out of their own capitol building.

On March 10th Republican state legislators defied their opponents and the bill was passed amid cries of “shame” from protestors. Governor Walker signed it into law on March 11th. Protesters brought a legal challenge against the bill and continued demonstrating against it for months, erecting a tent city outside the capitol building which they dubbed “Walkerville.” They remained active in their state’s budget negotiations, agitating against Walker’s extreme conservative agenda. In June 2011 activists changed their focus, mounting an effort to recall Walker and some state legislators. By mid January of this year, over 1 million signatures in support of a gubernatorial recall election were gathered. It is expected that the minimum number of 750,000 signatures will be certified as valid and that Walker will be forced to run for his office again this year. This week protests will be held daily in Madison Wisconsin to mark the movement’s one year anniversary.

Journalist John Nichols, associate editor of the Capitol Times in Madison, Wisconsin and a correspondent for The Nation magazine, chronicled his state’s transformation into the headquarters for the labor movement and the inspiration for protests around the country. Nichols’ surveys a year of popular action in the US in his new, highly anticipated book, aptly named Uprising: How Wisconsin Renewed the Politics of Protest, from Madison to Wall Street. John Nichols’ Uprising is more than a history. In his book he analyses how Wisconsin and Occupy Wall Street revived American dissent and changed our national discourse.

GUEST: John Nichols, associate editor of the Capitol Times in Madison, Wisconsin and a correspondent for The Nation magazine, author of many books including Uprising: How Wisconsin Renewed the Politics of Protest, from Madison to Wall Street

Sonali’s Subversive Thought for the Day

“The spirit of resistance not just to political power but to the corporations that pull the puppet strings of our politicians, the reoccupation of public space that had been co-opted by the elites, the reassertion of rights that had languished for too long: all of this and more [has] provided an outline for a new politics of protest.” — John Nichols, from Uprising: How Wisconsin Renewed the Politics of Protest, from Madison to Wall Street