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Crisis for Workers in Wisconsin: KPFK Wed 3/9

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 In Wisconsin tonight, Republicans voted to strip workers of collective bargain rights in a surprise coup.  JOHN NICHOLS reports live from Madison on a developing crisis. READ John’s latest piece at TheNation.com HERE.  WATCH Michael Moore’s speech in Madison HERE.  (Photo: Milwaukee workers attack scabs in 1946–NYTimes.)

Also: The legendary FATHER GREG BOYLE, Jesuit pastor of Dolores Mission in Boyle Heights starting in 1986, has made it his mission to help gang members who want to quit.  He founded Homeboy Industries in 1988.  Now his wonderful book: Tattoos on the Heart: Stories of Hope and Compassion is out in paperback. (first aired 5/12/10)

Plus:   How a generation of women came to realize their dissatisfaction with domestic life didn’t reflect a personal inadequacy but rather a social and political injustice:  STEPHANIE COONTZ talks about Betty Friedan’s book The Feminine Mystique, 50 years after its publication.  Stephanie’s new book is A Strange Stirring: The Feminine Mystique and American Women at the Dawn of the 1960s. Watch Stephanie on The Colbert Report HERE.

Profs Paid by Qaddafi: The Nation 3/5

Joseph Nye of Harvard’s Kennedy School wrote in the New Republic in 2007 that Muammar Qaddafi was interested in discussing “direct democracy.”
Anthony Giddens of the London School of Economics wrote in the Guardian the same year that Libya under Qaddafi could become “the Norway of North Africa.”
Benjamin Barber of Rutgers University wrote in the Washington Post, also in 2007, that Libya under Qaddafi could become “the first Arab state to transition peacefully and without overt Western intervention to a stable, non-autocratic government.”
Great minds think alike? Actually, no: all were being paid by Libyan money. . .
. . . continued at TheNation.com: HERE

Workers of Wisconsin, Unite! KPFK Wed. 2-23

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 The battle in Wisconsin, now spreading to other states, is not about cutting budgets — it’s about the fundamental right of public employees to engage in collective bargaining.  JOHN NICHOLS will report from Madison  as the unions fight for their lives against Republicans.  John of course is Washington Correspondent for The Nation and write s “The Beat” blog at TheNation.com — we saw him on “The Ed Show” on MSNBC on Friday.

Also: “LENNONYC” –– the new documentary on John Lennon’s life in New York City from his arrival in 1971 to his murder in 1980.  We’ll speak with MICHAEL EPSTEIN, director/producer/writer of the film, about Lennon’s music and politics in those crucial years when he stood up against the Vietnam War and fought Nixon’s attempt to deport him.

LENNONYC, which premiered at the New York Film Festival, is our featured premium in the KPFK Fund Drive this afternoon — please call 818-985-5735 and pledge your support — or pledge online HERE.

The Cruelest Month: KPFK Wed. 2/16

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 In Egypt, workers are having a revolutionary February.   In the United States, by contrast, February is shaping up as the cruelest month workers have known in decades, as Wisconsin Republicans go after the state’s public employee unions – that’s what HAROLD MEYERSON says — he’s a columnist for the Washington Post op-ed page and Editor-at-Large of The American Prospect.

ALSO: “NOT JUST A GAME”: DAVE ZIRIN, sports editor for The Nation, shows how sports have reflected, and at times shaped, the political battles and social struggles at the heart of American society.  “If there were an award for ‘Most Valuable Sportswriter,’ I would vote for Dave Zirin.”- Howard Zinn.
Dave’s documentary film, “Not Just a Game,” will be our featured fund drive premium this afternoon in the 4pm hour – please call and pledge, 818-985-5735.

Ramona Steps Down: The Nation 2/11

Ramona Ripston, who is stepping down as head of the ACLU of Southern California after almost forty years, is both a visionary who transformed the meaning of civil liberties and a dynamic and beloved figure on the LA left.  Her most significant achievement was expanding the practice of civil liberties law to include litigating for economic justice.
Continued at TheNation.com: HERE.

Live from Cairo: KPFK Wed. 2/9

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MARK LEVINE reports live from Cairo on the day’s events in Tahrir Square, where Tuesday’s demonstrations were the biggest ever, perhaps 200,000 people.  Mark, a historian at UC Irvine, is the author of Heavy Metal Islam: Religion, Popular Culture and Resistance in the Middle East. His new piece about Egypt is in the Huffington Post, HERE.

Also: Justice and health for girls in prison: LESLIE OCOCA heads the National Girls Health and Justice Foundation.  Today 1 in 5 of the nearly two million youth being held in detention nationally are girls, many of whom have serious physical and mental health needs that are not treated adequately.

Plus: Obama and Egypt: Why won’t our president speak out for democracy when the Egyptians are risking their lives for it?  ARI BERMAN comments: he’s an investigative journalism fellow at The Nation Institute and he wrote about Obama and the Egyptians for The Nation HERE.

Reagan’s Lesson for Obama: Invade Grenada. Nation 2/7

On what would have been Ronald Reagan’s hundredth birthday, we find the past offers lessons for the present: does the United States have to fight a war when it is attacked by a ruthless group of militant Islamic fundamentalists? Reagan’s response to attacks on US forces in Beirut in 1983 suggests a way out of the Afghan war for Obama: invade Grenada.
. . . . continued at TheNation.com HERE.