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This week on Uprising:

* Understanding the Iran Uprising
* Empire Notes on Iran’s Green Revolution
* Environmentalists on Both Sides of the Climate Bill
* Black Agenda Report on Blacks and the Highway Stimulus Contracts
* Legislative Progress on Transgender Rights

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Understanding the Iran Uprising

In the wake of an admission by Iran’s Guardian council that there were some election irregularities, protests against the election results have continued and evolved. But the country’s elite Revolutionary Guard has warned that it will crack down violently on any future demonstrations. Dozens of people have been killed in what is being dubbed Iran’s Green Revolution – Green is the color favored by the opposition candidate Mir Hussein Mousavi who lost to the incumbent Mahmoud Ahmedinejad. Meanwhile the Iranian parliament announced this week that Ahmadinejad would be inaugurated for his second presidential term in August. Over the past week, a dramatic video of a young Iranian woman bleeding to death on the streets, has further outraged protesters. Twenty six year old Neda Agha Soltani, who apparently supported neither presidential candidate was shot in the chest by plain-clothes militia called the Basij. She, like tens of thousands of Iranians have been taking to the streets demanding what many are now calling a movement for civil rights. Images of teargas, and bullets being used against the demonstrators have spread across the globe like wildfire. Iranian expatriates have used social networking sites to spread cell-phone videos and images. Twitter.com even postponed its scheduled down-time for maintenance to allow for its service to be used by demonstrators and their supporters.

GUEST: Jack Bratich is an Assistant Professor of Journalism and Media Studies at Rutgers University whose latest article is called The Fog Machine: Iran, Social Media and the Rise of Genetically Modified Grassroots Organizations

Read Jack Bratich’s article here: http://www.counterpunch.org/bratich06222009.html

GUEST: Chris Hedges is a familiar voice on Uprising – he is a veteran journalist, having spent 15 years reporting for the New York Times, and has been a foreign correspondent in many countries including Iran. His latest article on Truthdig.com is called “Iran Had a Democracy Before We Took It Away.”

Read Chris Hedges’ article here: http://www.truthdig.com/report/print/20090622_iran_had_a_democracy_before_we_took_it_away/

Empire Notes on Iran’s Green Revolution

Empire Notes are weekly commentaries filed by Rahul Mahajan, author of Full Spectrum Dominance and The New Crusade. Today’s commentary is on Iran’s Green Revolution.

GUEST: Rahul Mahajan, author of Full Spectrum Dominance and The New Crusade.

Visit www.empirenotes.org for more information.

Environmentalists on Both Sides of the Climate Bill

A bill expected to come to the floor of the House of Representatives on Friday is already being hotly debated. While the original draft of the bill required a 20% greenhouse gas reduction from 2005 levels by 2020, the current version has been toned down to 17%, still higher than the 15% being sought by President Obama. The 1200 page bill mainly focuses on a so-called “cap-and-trade” program to curb greenhouse gases – it will be the first time that the House has a chance to vote on such a program. A coalition of environmental groups including Oxfam, Union of Concerned Scientists, and the National Wildlife Federation, wrote to House Representatives urging them to vote for the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 or HR 2454. The groups contend that the bill, flawed as it is, will be the first step toward energy transformation if it passes. But one environmental group opposes the bill outright: Friends of the Earth has launched a web-ad campaign claiming that the bill, introduced by Representatives Henry Waxman and Edward Markey, is based in part on a blue-print written by polluting corporations like Shell.

GUEST: Brent Blackwelder, President of Friends of the Earth

Visit www.foe.org for more information.

Black Agenda Report on Blacks and the Highway Stimulus Contracts

Glen Ford is a writer and radio commentator and the Executive Editor of The Black Agenda Report. This week’s commentary is on Blacks and the Highway Stimulus Contracts.

Visit www.blackagendareport.com for more information.

Legislative Progress on Transgender Rights

This Sunday is the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Inn Riots, which is considered a major starting point of the contemporary gay liberation movement. It is fitting then that Representative Barney Frank introduced the Employment Non-Discrimination Act or ENDA in Congress on Wednesday to end workplace discrimination against Gay, Lesbian, Bi-sexual, and Transgender persons. Currently federal discrimination laws do not cover LGBT Americans and it is legal in 37 states to fire someone based on their gender identity or sexual orientation. Congressman Frank had introduced the bill two years ago but was fiercely attacked by the LGBT community for excluding transgender people. Here is Barney Frank speaking at a press conference in October 2007 justifying the exclusion. The new “trans-clusive” version of ENDA, if passed, will protect against workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. Meanwhile, the New York Times is reporting that White House lawyers are “quietly drafting first-of-their kind guidelines barring workplace discrimination against transgender federal employees.” And, the Senate voted yesterday on the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act which would include sexual orientation, gender identity, gender, and disability to existing categories protected under federal hate crimes laws.

GUEST: Mara Kiesling, Executive Director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, Chris Anders, Senior Legislative Counsel of the ACLU

For more information, visit www.nctequality.org and www.aclu.org.

Sonali’s Subversive Thought for the Day

“The essence of democracy is its assurance that every human being should so respect himself and should be so respected in his own personality that he should have opportunity equal to that of every other human being to show what he was meant to become.” — Anna Garlin Spencer