Lead well get into the insurrection act of 1807 which trump said he wants to use to go to war with protesters but 1st heres my interview with eleanor goldfish eleanor thanks for journeying all the way from our podcast to my show i appreciate it. Thanks so much for having i want to get to the new film and a moment but lets start with the nationwide black lives matter protests youve been at some of them as have i but you were pepper sprayed and saw some harsh Police Action can you talk about that and how journalists have been treated so far in these protests. Yeah i think its an interesting thing that the folks kind of erupted in shock folks that arent already familiar with alternative journalists and and all of the things that we have to deal with but when c. N. N. Reporters were arrested during the minneapolis protests everyone lost their minds like this is so unamerican and when i went to the protest here in washington d. C. Roughly a week ago i remember connecting with a fellow journalist friend of mine and we both kind of chuckled at that like really thats unamerican because im pretty sure thats very american you know this is something that weve had to deal with both as activists but also journalists who try to report on these things from the front lines places that often times reporters from Corporate Media dont even go you know im thinking about like pipeline fights and things like that where journalists just like the activists that they were reporting on are routinely brutalized by the police and and other Law Enforcement agencies so the idea that this is somehow a new is really absurd its just because of the scale of these protests and because Corporate Media was actually paying attention and then got into the line of fire with other journalists this is suddenly coming to coming to the to the surface and folks are realizing that it is actually very american to target journalists in this way and its something that independent and alternative journalists have been dealing with for quite some time yeah youre absolutely right you know when c. N. N. Was arrested for those who dont know c. N. N. One of the reporters was arrested on camera live on air and the cops could clearly see he was a reporter and they arrested him anyway and then they walked back to governor apologize all this stuff but like youre saying independent journalist alternative journalists that have been generously their cattle theyre arrested theyre targeted with pepper balls and rubber bullets that cause can cause extreme injury not nothing new theyre trying to talk about the protests in a broad a broader way weve seen. You know black lives matter protest before nothing seems to really change besides maybe a little tinkering around the edges in a city here or there but this time around especially the democrats have acted like theyre taking action this is different. Loud here in d. C. To paint black lives matter on the streets outside the white house nancy pelosi and the democrats just the other day they kneel down i think it was in the maybe the Senate Office building or the senate or something with kneel down with african garb around their necks does any of this mean something do you think this means changes around the corner because nancy pelosi took a knee. Yeah i believe that was monday june 8th that this happened in the a man it was known as the emancipation hall and congress and i couldnt help myself i tweeted out that the next act will be nancy pelosi in blackface acting out scenes from the color purple i mean this is absolutely absurd and and it really speaks to the fact that congress isnt interested in acting any kind of policy changes they want these kind of performative these performative acts this theater of caring which has no parallel in actual policy or legislation that would make the lives of black and brown folks any better and you mentioned the the painting of the street here in washington d. C. If folks are familiar with 16th street that leads all the way up to the white house mayor browser commissioned black lives matter to be painted so you can see it from space on this on the bit of 16th street and renamed it was matter plaza well in response black lives matter d. C. Went on went on to the street this past this past weekend and painted equals defunds the police and several folks several organizers with black lives matter in washington d. C. Have noted that mayor bow there is a mayor of washington d. C. Doesnt like black folks in d. C. And has routinely stood in the way of any sort of accountability with regard to Police Brutality and Police Violence and even things like access to health care for black and brown neighborhoods in the district so the idea that by painting these words on a street and washington d. C. Means that black lives actually matter is ridiculous and black organizers in the district are not buying it. Yeah i think we have to wait and see whether theres any action and keep the protests have to keep going the politicians have to fear for their jobs in order to actually create any change so i want to move on to your documentary hard road of hope its a beautiful and powerful film why did you feel the story of West Virginias past and present needed to be told. Well to to put it bluntly i guess West Virginia is a micro cause im of the United StatesWest Virginia is considered to be the place where its just a bunch of trump voters its just a bunch of hillbillies and rednecks and it is a throw away state with throwaway people right and and what i wanted to show was that its this is really a microcosm of the United States because 1st off the brew going to talk about places being throwaway places because theyve been destroyed by industry going to be in the direction of any place in the United States that hasnt been destroyed by industry any state that can claim that is there any people that can claim that they havent been misused and oppressed by industry and by the corporate state no just the West Virginia is kind of known for that and for a lot of a lot of reasons its the 2nd most rural state in the nation its the 3rd poorest it has the un coveted 1st place of the Opioid Epidemic and thats largely because of isolation and trauma and stress and because West Virginia was in fact founded as a resource colony for the union for the union in the civil war for colon jumpers so you bring that up to explain a little more about the founding of West Virginia because i hadnt realized yeah so there are a lot of like nice flowery stories about how West Virginia was founded to be a slave free state during the civil war 963 but thats nonsense one as another example of this whitewashed us history that were all taught in schools in reality a bram lincoln went to the people who owned the railroads that was coal industry that was industry in those days coal in timber and said look i need to keep these supply lines open or for the union army and if you do that for me i will give you a state i will basically take this chunk out of virginia and give it to you and thats basically what happened and so was written it was legitimately founded as a resource colony for the for the interests of the union union army during the civil war. And dont have nothing to do with flame prey there were plenty of people in that part of what was then virginia that were happy to continue owning human beings so that really just speaks to that that whitewashed misrepresented history there. The film gets into some. Amazing historical. Historical events that have flies but also just like currently the way peoples lives are destroyed in West Virginia by the Coal Companies by the Fracking Companies it took me by surprise one thing that is that you get into is i mean they get so creative with how to screw people really and its truly just some sort of brilliant its like the einstein of people over to come up with the difference between the surface rights versus versus the minimal ramiro right now correct me if im wrong is it basically like someone thinks they own their land own their farm own their whatever and theyve owned it for you know a 100 years and then the coal company or the Fracking Company comes in and says oh you only own the surface your own own whats underneath we just bought that so now were just going to tear through your land and get whats ours underneath your house. Yeah and somebody that somebody mentioned it to me in this way says its as if the doctor said well when you own your skin your organs were just going to go ahead like root around in there and met you know maybe take a kidney you need both but its this is and for a country that is so obsessed with property right the pursuit of happiness being synonymous with the ability to own property you know this is this is everything from the libertarians to the liberals folks are really obsessed with this idea of owning your property but in reality you dont and we can talk about how Property Rights are just sort of a collision other colonialists manifestation but for those who are really proud of owning that property there is and West Virginia is just one example this is something that happens across the United States the division of the land so basically surface rights are are what you could plant you know its what you its molding your lawn its planting some. Agriculture and farming etc but the actual minerals the oil and gas the cold the you know anything that might be under there that you really have to dig for can be bought and sold and is bought and sold very frequently to the highest bidder and these in these areas and so for instance in West Virginia with the fracking boom what were seeing is a continuation of these tactics that originated with the coal industry the idea of separating the land based on whats profitable and what you can grow some tomatoes on and so the the whats whats happening in West Virginia and other parts of the country as i noted is you have Horizontal Boring for instance where Fracking Companies will set up a. Well pad on the neighboring lands to yours and then use Directional Drilling and go under your property and basically steal those mineral rights minerals right out from under you and of course this isnt just about like taking that quietly and moving along not only is it a horrendous lee lab its horrendously polluted. And folks are experiencing not just in their own personal body and sicknesses and illness but also in terms of their crop dying because of course this pushes all kinds of chemicals you know fracking chemicals methane gas in the surface trees are dying animals are dying without any explanation and then of course industry can turn around and say we didnt do it and believe once theyve extracted the the minerals from that land there are some connections between the current nationwide fight against our Police System against Police Brutality against. All of those things. And the connection between that and the corporate destruction of West Virginia which is seen in your film even though this film was was. Taped and filmed before these protests most recent ones have broken out you know the police are used as the fist of the fascist corporate state so when a corporation wants to destroy an area they use the police on that area to defend their violence to allow their violence to go forward against peoples lands and livelihood and against the Natural World and to fight back and use those police to fight back the actual citizens of that area we saw this in Standing Rock is probably the one people are most familiar with but its really every fight a pipeline fight ever so can you talk about the connections you see between the current protests sweeping the nation and what we see in your film. Sure and you make a brilliant point you know people we cannot fight single issues because people do not live single issue lives and then there are definitely parallels i mean the people that are are suffering in West Virginia which is where i focus my film have long histories of oppression and propagandize ation in the resource colony and of course what folks are experiencing now and drawing these connections to a past of police that were founded as slaves patrol thats the history of the United States police force and a police force that never let go of its racist foundation and so the parallels here are very very strong and its important that as you note that we recognize the role of police whether that be in protecting a coal mine or protecting a dirty Energy Project or indeed protecting an increasingly fascist state from the people who are demanding change these parallels are necessary and part of the film is also to make note that we as organizers particularly as white organizers have a job to reach out to the poor White Communities particularly in the south that are right for for racist organizing and connects them to their own radical history which is one of organizing with black brown and indigenous folks against the oppression of the state well its a beautiful film congratulations on it people can watch the film right now at a hard road of hope dot com and were going to find other work like your photo essay you just put out on the protest. That is up at art killing apathy dot com thank you so much. Thank you for if you go to a short break but check out the weekly podcast i do with eleanor goldfield its called common sense serve for you wherever you get your podcasts and then check out my new book at leaky amp book dot com ill be right back with more. Of the was a clip of she told you yesterday. But the way its always ok it was the story. Of the late. No you didnt see me that. They can put us in the mood to get the clue to the. National news if they do get one to. See they say yes. Yes. Join me every thursday on the alex salmond show and ill be speaking to guest of the world of politics sports business im showbusiness ill see you there. Has changed lives but pharmaceutical companies have a miraculous solution. Based drugs the people who are chronic pain patients believe that their opioid prescription is working for them on the remedy be sent to the price at the. Grocery dependency and addiction to opiates to long term use that really isnt scientifically just now study actually suggest that. The long term effects may not just be the absence of benefit but actually that they may be causing long term. Welcome back im still leave camp our police force here in America Police forces have gotten heavily militarized over the past 20 years weapons of war are regularly given to local Police Forces and it seems they dont hesitate to use them for more on this we go to redacted correspondent and we care about thankfully police are looking and acting more like soldiers on a combat mission to protect targets reasonably priced paper towels and Bluetooth Speakers and you might say that police look no different than an Occupying Army low. And for Osama Bin Laden when theyre attacking protesters armed with construction paper but in fact your average Police Officer in some ways is more powerful than your average soldier the police have Legal Protections that give them more freedom to do harm than an american soldier had fighting the taliban in afghanistan the rules of engagement sometimes were stricter than use of force rules for civilian police in america unlike the battlefield cops are encouraged to use force and sometimes punished when they show restraint one cop who didnt shoot unarmed black man was later fired for not shooting him turns out the good apples dont get spoiled they get thrown out the cops are going for more of an apple sauce anyways in 2016 and where its in West Virginia officer steven mater arrived at the scene and he didnt know that r. J. Williams gun was unloaded and he was trying to commit suicide with the help of a Police Officer a major didnt perceive him as a threat because for one he was aiming the gun at the ground and also williams said just shoot me and not in the sarcastic way. In former officer majors words. Draw my weapon. Jump the gun drop theres nothing i want to do that just shoot me and sometimes your brother just put the gun down 2 other officers showed up later and fatally shot williams and soon learned that the gun was unloaded matre was fired 10 days later according to police due to negligence on his part during the incident jeopardizing the safety of the victim as well as the other officers on the scene neglecting he assess the situation correctly he got it right meters lawyer said its the Blue Lives Matter more theory of policing when in doubt shoot then the officer fired by local police joined the National Guard meaning he was unfit to carry out his duties as a Police Officer but not unfit to carry a weapon with the military unfortunately statistics show military trained cops are more likely to shoot a weapon even though they were trained to have more restraint in a war zone because when vets become cops theyre probably one. W