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Obama in 2010: What Happened? KPFK 12/22

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 For our year-in-review show, we’ll ask HAROLD MEYERSON what happened to Obama in 2010? Why did he make so many concessions to Republicans?  Harold writes op-ed columns for the Washington Post and the L.A. Times, and he’s editor-at-large of The American Prospect.

Also: Islamophobia — the year in review: MAX BLUMENTHAL of The Nation will look back at the alarming rise in attacks on Muslims and Islam in the US, ten years after 9-11.  Max is the author  Republican Gomorrah; read his new piece “The Great Fear” at TomDispatch.com HERE .

Plus: BOB DYLAN’s Christmas album: is this a joke — or a tragedy? SEAN WILENTZ explains — he’s historian-in-residence at the official Bob Dylan website, and his new book is Bob Dylan in America.  READ Sean Wilentz on Dylan’s Xmas album HERE. LISTEN to samples HERE. PLAYLIST: “Here Comes Santa Claus”; “I’ll Be Home for Xmas”; “Must Be Santa,” “Winter Wonderland”; “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” (originally broadcast 11/11/09)

John Lennon: It was 30 Years Ago Today: KPFK 12/8

For the 30th anniversary of Lennon’s murder, we’ll do a one-hour special featuring excerpts from Lennon’s last interview, rare clips of different versions of “Give Peace a Chance” performed live at different shows; and a chat with GREG MITCHELL, former editor of Crawddaddy (and current blogger at TheNation.com) about his meetings with Lennon in New York in the 1970s.

The Diane Rehm Show: NPR 12/08

Remembering John Lennon on the Diane Rehm Show, along with Philip Norman, author of John Lennon: A Life, and Richard Harrington, former music critic for the Washington Post: Listen HERE.

Lennon’s Last Interview: What the 60s Showed Us: The Nation 12/8

It was 30 years ago today: Dec. 8, 1980, on what would turn out to be the last day of John Lennon’s life, he did an interview promoting his new album, “Double Fantasy.” He talked about the sixties: “The thing the sixties did was show us the possibility and the responsibility that we all had. It wasn’t the answer. It just gave us a glimpse of the possibility.”
. . . Continued at TheNation.com HERE.

‘Imagine’ and its Critics: LA Times 12/8

At a high school in Riverside in 1991, student Aaron Salinger wrote the lyrics to “Imagine” on the stripes of an American flag as an art project. It was Lennon’s birthday and the Persian Gulf War was underway, and Salinger and his friends carried the “Imagine” flag in an antiwar demonstration. Aaron’s mother, Sharon V. Salinger, now dean of undergraduate education at UC Irvine, remembers being summoned to the principal’s office after Aaron was suspended for “desecrating the flag.” . . . Continued at LATimes.com HERE.

It’s the Economy, Stupid: KPFK Wed. 12/1

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ROBERT REICH on Obama’s economy: the Senate has failed to pass unemployment extension, and is getting ready to approve tax cuts for the rich.  Robert Reich was secretary of labor under Bill Clinton; his new book is Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future.

Our Haiti update from AMY WILENTZ: elections last Sunday – no results yet.  And almost a year after the killer earthquake, a million people are still homeless. And now there’s a cholera epidemic.  Amy wrote about the elections for the New York Times op-ed page.

Lincoln and slavery: how our greatest president changed his mind about abolition, war, emancipation, and black voting rights, and why he gave up the idea that freed slaves would have to leave the US:  Columbia University  historian ERIC FONER explains — his new book is The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery.

Mike Davis & Daniel Ellsberg: KPFK Wed. 11-24

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MIKE DAVIS talks about CHALMERS JOHNSON, our most brilliant and acute critic of American empire, author of the award-winning Blowback and more recently The Sorrows of Empire and Dismantling the Empire. He died Saturday.  Also we’ll listen to my last interview with Chalmers.
READ Tom Engelhardt on Chalmers Johnson’s passing HERE.

Plus: DANIEL ELLSBERG has been arrested more than 60 times – but not for the Pentagon Papers.  In this interivew he recalls his anti-war activism in — and out — of jail.

Also: GREIL MARCUS has been writing about BOB DYLAN since the mid-sixties, working with “a fan’s intensity and a detective’s persistence.”   Greil’s new book, collecting 40 years of criticism — and ending with Dylan’s performance on election night in 2008 in Minneapolis, is Bob Dylan by Greil Marcus: Writings, 1968-2010.
Playlist: “With God on our Side,” Live 1964 at Philharmonic Hall (with Joan Baez); “Like a Rolling  Stone,” Best of the Original Mono Recordings.

How Sarah Palin Could Beat Obama: The Nation 11/22

Sarah Palin could win the presidency in 2012—that’s what Frank Rich [1] said in the New York Times on Sunday—but not in a two-person head-to-head race. For Palin to beat Obama, a third-party candidate would have to run, and take votes away from Obama.

And we have a potential third-party spoiler, Rich says: New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
. . . continued at TheNation.com HERE