Jon Wiener

We Steal Secrets: Alex Gibney talks about Wikileaks: The Nation 5/24

jwiener — Fri, 24 May 2013 03:38:19 +0000

It’s a classic David and Goliath story: one man with a computer against the world’s most powerful nation. But the real David in the Wikileaks story, according to filmmaker Alex Gibney, is not Julian Assange — it’s Bradley Manning. Q&A at TheNation.com, HERE.
Alex Gibney’s film “We Steal Secrets” The Story of Wikileaks” opens in LA and NYC on Friday May 24.

Jeremy Scahill: Dirty Wars: Q&A in LA Review of Books 5/23

jwiener — Thu, 23 May 2013 16:41:29 +0000

From the Center for the Study of Dirty Wars: my Q&A with JEREMY SCAHILL – he wrote about Obama’s secret wars in Yemen, Somalia and elsewhere in his new book DIRTY WARS: The World is a Battlefield. It entered the New York Times bestseller list at #5 last week.
At the LA Review of Books, HERE.

“We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks”: KPFK 5/22

jwiener — Wed, 22 May 2013 03:55:11 +0000

LISTEN online HERE— iTunes podcast HERE
On June 4 Bradley Manning goes on trial, charged with espionage and “aiding the enemy,” for releasing to Wikileaks, and the New York Times and The Guardian, hundreds of thousands of classified files documenting widespread civilian casualties, torture, and corruption in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere. Now an amazing new film explores the David and Goliath story of one man with a computer against the world’s most powerful nation: “We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks.”
We’ll speak with filmmaker ALEX GIBNEY—his other films include “Enron: Smartest Guys in the Room,” and “Taxi to the Dark Side,” which won the Oscar for best feature documentary.
“We Steal Secrets” opens in LA and New York Friday May 24. WATCH the trailer HERE.
Bradley Manning Support Network, with Daniel Ellsberg, Michael Moore, Noam Chomsky: HERE.

Ry Cooder Sings about the Koch Bros. & the LA Times: KPFK 5/15

jwiener — Thu, 16 May 2013 19:04:34 +0000

Live music from RY COODER: his new song protesting the Koch Bros. attempted take-over of the LA Times: broadcast from KPFK Wednesday. He sang it for the first time at the protest against the Koch Bros, downtown LA on Tuesday.
Streaming audio now at http://archive.kpfk.org/m3u.php?mp3fil=15177
“we don’t want your millions mister
we don’t want your watch and chain
All we want is our news-paper
give us back the Times again.”

Back from Baghdad: KPFK 5/15

jwiener — Tue, 14 May 2013 19:01:52 +0000

LISTEN online HERE— SUBSCRIBE to iTunes podcast HERE
Back from Baghdad: MARK LeVINE reports on Iraq ten years after the US invasion. Mark teaches the history of the modern Middle East at UC Irvine and writes for Al Jazeera English.

Also: “No Koch brothers hate in LA” – That was the slogan of a demonstration yesterday by labor unions, environmentalists and public interest advocates who rallied against the proposed takeover of the LA Times by David and Charles Koch.
Featured at the rally – a new song by our own RY COODER about the Koch Brothers and the LA Times. we will feature Ry’s brand new recording of the song.

Plus: A new book about Gore Vidal: I TOLD YOU SO: GORE VIDAL TALKS POLITICS—Interviews with Jon Wiener. It’s our featured thank-you gift in the KPFK fund drive this hour—please call and pledge during the show, 818-985-5735.

And we’ll also have Your Minnesota Moment: yesterday governor Mark Dayton signed a bill legalizing gay marriage.

The Harvard Ph.D. & the Hispanics’ IQ: TheNation 5/11

jwiener — Sun, 12 May 2013 00:28:56 +0000

He’s probably the first person ever to lose his job because of his Harvard Ph.D. dissertation–but why did Harvard give him a Ph.D. in the first place?
“The Harvard PhD and the Hispanics’ IQ: How Jason Richwine’s Dissertation Got Him Fired by the Heritage Foundation.” TheNation.com, May 11, 2013.
http://www.thenation.com/blog/174291/harvard-phd-and-hispanics-iq-how-jason-richwines-dissertation-got-him-fired-heritage-fou

FDR: Good for the Jews? LA Review of Books, 5/9

jwiener — Fri, 10 May 2013 23:12:15 +0000

WHEN GEORGE BUSH saw pictures of Auschwitz at Yad Vashem, Israel’s museum of the Holocaust, he said — with “tears in his eyes” — “we should have bombed it.” Could he have read The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust 1941–1945 by David Wyman? That’s the 1984 book that made the refusal to bomb Auschwitz the lasting symbol of FDR’s failure to help Jews in World War II Europe. . . .
Review of FDR and the Jews, at LA Review of Books, HERE.

Jeremy Scahill: Dirty Wars — KPFK 5/8

jwiener — Wed, 08 May 2013 01:53:17 +0000

LISTEN online HERE— SUBSCRIBE to iTunes podcast HERE
From the Center for the Study of Dirty Wars: our guest is JEREMY SCAHILL – he’s National Security correspondent for The Nation, and he wrote the bestseller Blackwater: Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army. And he’s appeared regularly on the Rachel Maddow show, Real Time with Bill Maher and Democracy Now! His new book is DIRTY WARS: The World is a Battlefield.. It enters the New York Times bestseller list at #5 this Sunday.

Also: our Washington political update with HAROLD MEYERSON – he writes a column for the Washington Post op-ed page, and he’s editor-at-large of The American Prospect.

Plus: The US is only the most recent power to invade Afghanistan—and fail. Of course the Soviets tried it from 1979 to 1989, and before that, the British tried – from 1839 to 1842. Is there a lesson here?
WILLIAM DALRYMPLE thinks so—he’s written a terrific new book about the British effort, and its striking parallels to our own: RETURN OF A KING: the Battle for Afghanistan, 1839-42.

May Day Special: KPFK 5/1

jwiener — Wed, 01 May 2013 02:55:52 +0000

LISTEN online HERE— SUBSCRIBE to iTunes podcast HERE
Today is May Day, international workers day, and we will celebrate with a special show: the biggest working class in the world is found in China – JEFF WASSERSTROM will review the situation there—he edited a special section of the new issue of Dissent on “China’s 99 Per Cent”, and his book China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know is coming out in a new edition.

–and American radicals have a new voice, a magazine and website called JACOBIN – editor and publisher BHASKAR SUNKARA will explain. He also writes for In These Times, the Guardian, and other mags.

Also: a new biography of Karl Marx focuses on his work as a political activist and his life as a journalist and as a political exile in England. We’ll speak with the author JONATHAN SPERBER – he teaches history at the University of Missouri.
He talked about his book Karl Marx: A 19th Century Life on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart: watch HERE.

UCI Humanities Author Series: May 14

jwiener — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 22:00:30 +0000

“How We Forgot the Cold War: A Historical Journey across America”
– UC Irvine School of Humanities Author Series, Tuesday, May 14, 2013:
Humanities Gateway 1010, 6:00pm.
Presented by the Office of the Dean, UC Irvine.
more info at http://www.humanities.uci.edu/SOH/calendar/detail.php?recid=4035&dept_code_val=all&file_name=events