Between The Lines - Steve Schnapp: Near Record Levels of Economic Inequality in U.S. Produced by Deliberate Government Policies (Week Ending Jan. 9, 2015)

Award-winning Investigative Journalist Robert Parry (1949-2018)

Award-winning investigative journalist and founder/editor of ConsortiumNews.com, Robert Parry has passed away. His ground-breaking work uncovering Reagan-era dirty wars in Central America and many other illegal and immoral policies conducted by successive administrations and U.S. intelligence agencies, stands as an inspiration to all in journalists working in the public interest.

Robert had been a regular guest on our Between The Lines and Counterpoint radio shows -- and many other progressive outlets across the U.S. over four decades.

His penetrating analysis of U.S. foreign policy and international conflicts will be sorely missed, and not easily replaced. His son Nat Parry writes a tribute to his father: Robert Parry’s Legacy and the Future of Consortiumnews.

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The Resistance Starts Now!

Between The Lines' coverage and resource compilation of the Resistance Movement

"The man who predicted Trump presidential win now says Trump impeachment could happen," AM Joy with Joy Reid, MSNBC, Jan. 21, 2018
"Sketchy Kazakh money finds its way into Trump dealings," The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC, Jan. 15, 2018
"Red flags seen in many Trump real estate deals," The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC, Jan. 15, 2018
"Secret Money: How Trump Made Millions Selling Condos To Unknown Buyers," BuzzFeed, Jan. 12, 2018
"The Scandals of Donald Trump: Presidential Edition," The Atlantic, May 15, 2017
"Here's what we know so far about Team Trump's ties to Russian interests," Washington Post's ongoing compilation
"What Comey Was Investigating, Explained," The Moscow Project, Center for American Progress

"Donald Trump's Financial Ties to Russian Oligarchs and Mobsters Detailed In Explosive New Documentary from the Netherlands," Dutch TV documentary, Alternet.org, May 12, 2017
Ongoing compilation of Trump's creeping authoritarianism," MotherJones.com
Full resource list ...

SPECIAL REPORT: "The Resistance - Women's March 2018 - Hartford, Connecticut" Jan. 20, 2018

Selected speeches from the Women's March in Hartford, Connecticut 2018, recorded and produced by Scott Harris

SPECIAL REPORT: "No Fracking Waste in CT!" Jan. 14, 2018

Jen Siskind Jennifer Siskind, local coordinator for Food and Water Watch, describes the campaign to stop fracking waste in Connecticut, which so far has led to fracking waste bans in 34 towns around the state. Interviewed by Richard Hill on Mic Check, WPKN Radio, Bridgeport, CT

SPECIAL REPORT: "Resistance Round Table: The Unraveling Continues..." Jan. 13, 2018

Lindsay Kanaly The panel discusses Trump's long history of racism and the Republican voter suppression juggernaut confronting Democrats leading up to the 2018 elections. Special guest: Lindsay Kanaly, a lead organizer of the Women's Marches planned for Jan. 20, 2018. Panel: Scott Harris, Ruthanne Baumgartner and Richard Hill on Resistance Roundtable, WPKN Radio, Bridgeport, CT.

SPECIAL REPORT: "Capitalism to the ash heap?" Richard Wolff, Jan. 2, 2018

Richard Wolff, Economics professor Richard Wolff declares U.S. capitalism to be beyond repair and suggests the need for a radical alternative. Interviewed by Richard Hill

SPECIAL REPORT: Maryn McKenna, author of "Big Chicken", Dec. 7, 2017

Maryn McKenna, investigative journalist and author of Big Chicken, talks about the widespread use and dangers of antibiotics in commercial poultry, beef and fruit production. Interview by Bill Duesing, Richard Hill and Guy Beardsly on WPKN's Organic Farm Stand.

SPECIAL REPORT: Nina Turner's address, Working Families Party Awards Banquet, Dec. 14, 2017

Nina Turner, president of Our Revolution, talks about the fight ahead for progressives as she receives the Working Families Organization Award for Exceptional Leadership Towards Advancing Progress. The event was held in Meriden, CT. Produced by Richard Hill.

SPECIAL REPORT: Mic Check, Dec. 12, 2017

Working Families Party of CT talks strategy and issues for 2018.
Lindsay Farrell, executive director of the Working Families Party of Connecticut, discusses the state's electoral landscape and lays out the issues and strategies that could lead to progressive victories in 2018. Interviewed by Richard Hill.

SPECIAL REPORT: Resistance Roundtable, Dec. 9, 2017

Disturbing developments in the Trump/Republican Agenda
Focus on the tax bill, destruction of our public lands, North Korea and Trump's private CIA. Panel: Scott Harris, Ruthanne Baumgartner and Richard Hill. Special guest: Jo Macallero of Rise and Resist.

SPECIAL REPORT: On Tyranny - one year later, Nov. 28, 2017

Professor Timothy Snyder, author of the highly acclaimed resistance manual On Tyranny, discusses his book and offers a fresh assessment of the state of our beleaguered republic. Timothy Snyder, history professor at Yale, is introduced by Stanley Heller, administrator of Promoting Enduring Peace, a Connecticut-based organization that sponsored this event at the United Church Parish House in New Haven on Nov. 28. A brief interview with Snyder conducted by WPKN radio producer, Richard Hill, follows his talk.

SPECIAL REPORT: Mic Check, Nov. 12, 2017

Lynne Ide, director of program and policy with the Universal Health Care Foundation of Connecticut, talks about the current state of health care coverage in Connecticut. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Resistance Roundtable, Nov. 11, 2017

Focus on the Republican tax plan, the just-released autopsy on the Democratic Party, and Internet censorship by Google, Facebook and Youtube. Including an interview with Hilary Grant, a lead organizer with Action Together Connecticut, who discusses the local results of the recent election, with hosts Richard Hill, Scott Harris and Ruth Baumgartner WPKN producers

SPECIAL REPORT: Rainy Day Radio, Nov. 7, 2017

Two leaders from Redneck Revolt, an anti-racist, anti-capitalist movement, talk about their work organizing with white working class people in Suffolk County, New York. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Rainy Day Radio, Nov. 7, 2017

Bruce Gagnon, coordinator for the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, describes the extent of -- and motives underlying -- the vast US network of military bases around the globe. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Resisting U.S. JeJu Island military base in South Korea, Oct. 24, 2017

Joyakol, South Korean peace activist and singer, discusses the crisis on the Korean peninsula and focuses on the resistance to the U.S. huge military base being constructed on Jeju Island. The event was sponsored by the Greater New Haven Peace Council and this audio was recorded by Richard Hill, WPKN producer.
Joyakol discusses Americans' biggest misconceptions about the conflict between North and South Korea and the U.S., Interview by Richard Hill, WPKN producer.

SPECIAL REPORT: John Allen, Out in New Haven

John Allen, founding director of the New Haven Pride Center, Connecticut, talks about his new LGBTQ television show, Out in New Haven, which presents a range of political and cultural issues to the community. Interviewed by Richard Hill on WPKN's Rainy Day Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2018.

2017 Gandhi Peace Awards

Promoting Enduring Peace presented its Gandhi Peace Award jointly to renowned consumer advocate Ralph Nader and BDS founder Omar Barghouti on April 23, 2017.

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THANK YOU TO EVERYONE...

who helped make our 25th anniversary with Jeremy Scahill a success!

For those who missed the event, or were there and really wanted to fully absorb its import, here it is in video

Jeremy Scahill keynote speech, part 1 from PROUDEYEMEDIA on Vimeo.

Jeremy Scahill keynote speech, part 2 from PROUDEYEMEDIA on Vimeo.

Between The Lines on Stitcher

Between The Lines Presentation at the Left Forum 2016

"How Do We Build A Mass Movement to Reverse Runaway Inequality?" with Les Leopold, author of "Runaway Inequality: An Activist's Guide to Economic Justice,"May 22, 2016, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, The City University of New York, 860 11th Ave. (Between 58th and 59th), New York City. Between The Lines' Scott Harris and Richard Hill moderated this workshop. Listen to the audio/slideshows and more from this workshop.

Listen to audio of the plenary sessions from the weekend.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker "Dirty Wars"

Listen to the full interview (30:33) with Jeremy Scahill, an award-winning investigative journalist with the Nation Magazine, correspondent for Democracy Now! and author of the bestselling book, "Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army," about America's outsourcing of its military. In an exclusive interview with Counterpoint's Scott Harris on Sept. 16, 2013, Scahill talks about his latest book, "Dirty Wars, The World is a Battlefield," also made into a documentary film under the same title, and was nominated Dec. 5, 2013 for an Academy Award in the Best Documentary Feature category.

Listen to Scott Harris Live on WPKN Radio

Between The Lines' Executive Producer Scott Harris hosts a live, weekly talk show, Counterpoint, from which some of Between The Lines' interviews are excerpted. Listen every Monday evening from 8 to 10 p.m. EDT at www.WPKN.org (Follows the 5-7 minute White Rose Calendar.)

Counterpoint in its entirety is archived after midnight ET Monday nights, and is available for at least a year following broadcast in WPKN Radio's Archives.

You can also listen to full unedited interview segments from Counterpoint, which are generally available some time the day following broadcast.

Subscribe to Counterpoint bulletins via our subscriptions page.

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Government Policy Produces Record Levels of Economic Inequality in U.S.

Posted Dec. 31, 2014

Interview with Steve Schnapp, senior education coordinator with United for a Fair Economy, conducted by Scott Harris

In September 2011, Occupy Wall Street activists pitched their tents in New York City’s Zuccotti Park, near lower Manhattan’s financial district, launching a nationwide protest movement focused on social and economic inequality. Occupy’s mantra, “We Are the 99%,” spoke to rising income inequality and the divide between the wealthiest one percent and the rest of the nation. After a coordinated move by government officials and police to evict protesters from dozens of encampments across the country, Occupy activists drifted away, many getting involved in other progressive causes. But among Occupy’s most important legacies was a new public awareness of inequality, which opened the door to an important societal debate on the issue that hasn’t been seen in many decades.

In 2013, French economist Thomas Piketty’s best-selling book, “Capital in the Twenty-First Century,” examined the economic policies that contribute to the concentration of wealth in industrial nations. He concluded that today’s increasing disparity in income and wealth threatens to generate extreme inequalities that stir discontent and undermine democratic values. Among other recommendations, Piketty proposed a redistribution of wealth through the imposition of a progressive global tax on capital.

Today, despite declining unemployment, record corporate profits and a booming stock market that’s breaking all records, many Americans see their own economic situation as moribund, where stagnating wages can’t keep up with the rising price of housing, education and other basics. Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Steve Schnapp, senior education coordinator with the group United for a Fair Economy. Here, he talks about the issues of economic inequality in the U.S., with the focus on a sobering recent study by professors Emmanuel Saez of the University of California at Berkeley and Gabriel Zucman of the London School of Economics.

STEVE SCHNAPP: The last time inequality was as dramatic as this was in the late 1920s. So if you look at the top 1 percent and what their share of the total wealth pie – all the privately held wealth in this country – their share was close to 50 percent in 1928. That was a peak for the top one percent since at least 1917, when(Gabriel) Zucman and (Emmanuel) Saez are looking at the data that dates as far back as 1917. It is not quite as high now, but it's moving in that direction. So about 42 percent of the wealth pie is now owned by the top 1 percent. That's in the year 2012, the year that Zucman and Saez's study stops. So we're approaching that all-time peak for the share of wealth owned by the top one percent.

At the same time, and I'm looking at a graph now, which is quite extraordinary based on their data. It compares the top one percent and the share of wealth that they own, with the bottom 90 percent. And in the 1920s, as I said, the top percent had close to 50 percent of the total wealth in the United States. The bottom 90 percent had less than 25 percent. It began to grow through the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. It grew to its peak, which was a little bit more than 35 percent. I think around 1986, '87, '88 and since that high point, in the mid-1980s, the share of wealth of the bottom 90 percent has gone down. Now it's around 20 percent, while the share of the top 1 percent has dramatically increased.

BETWEEN THE LINES: Could you summarize some of the policies that our federal government implements that affect this wealth inequality, that exacerbate this wealth inequality, and what kinds of policies could be changed, reformed, to reverse these trends of inequality?

STEVE SCHNAPP: Thomas Piketty in his book, "Capital and the Twenty-First Century," said you can't fix these problems in one country. You have to look at the situation globally. We have a global economy and so it's all inter-related, and so we need what he called a "global wealth tax." Right? Put a tax on wealth ownership. Taxes are very important rules that really drive income and wealth in one direction or another, depending on the kind of taxes you impose.

And what we've been doing over the last 30-35 years has been continuing to tax work at a considerable rate, but tax wealth much less than it's been taxed in the past. So, for example, the capital gains tax has been reduced in half over this period of time, so that people who make investments and then cash in on those investments are not taxed at the same rate as you or I would be, or even as they would be for their wages. So the more wealthy folks and investors can accumulate these investment vehicles and make money from them, the more wealth they can acquire, the more wealth they can then use to affect the political system and in turn to get more favorable tax laws and increase their wealth.

This is a vicious cycle that's been going high speed for the last 30-35 years. Trade policies, budgetary decisions, all sorts of policies that enable some folks to get on that wealth train, while the doors are closed for others.

BETWEEN THE LINES: If you were advising a grassroots movement that was trying to tackle the issue of income and wealth inequality, what would be the top agenda items you would advise such a movement to focus on in terms of demands and direct action?

STEVE SCHNAPP: Well, I'll answer your question. I don't think I'm in a position to give advice to these organizations. I'd rather hear what they have to say, to be honest. But I think organizations now need to develop a position of intersectionality. They need to see that economic justice issues relate to environmental justice issues. They relate to racial justice issues. They relate to gender justice issues. The more we can connect our struggles on particular issue areas to others, the more powerful we become.

These are really political issues. There are ways to make the economy more fair than it is today. Even under the capitalist system, we can make reforms. They've done it in other countries. Scandinavian countries, for example. So it's possible, but there needs to be a powerful movement that sees their particular interests interlocked with others who are also fighting for a variety of justice issues.

For more information on United for a Fair Economy, visit faireconomy.org.