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Our War on Xmas: KPFK Wed 12/23

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 Our war on Xmas: BOB DYLAN has released a Christmas album! Is this a joke — or a tragedy? SEAN WILENTZ explains — he’s official historian at the official Bob Dylan website (he also teaches history at Princeton.)  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)

Plus: Obama’s year-in-review: JOHN NICHOLS of The Nation comments – and reviews the pros and cons of the health care bill, scheduled to pass the Senate Dec. 24 at 8am.

Also: KATHA POLLITT is best known for her political columns in The Nation and her personal essays in The New Yorker, but she’s also an award-winning poet – her poems are published in The New Yorker, Paris Review, The Atlantic, and many other places.  Now she has a new book of poetry out – The Mind-Body Problem. We’ll talk about poetry and politics, and she will read some of my favorites.  (originally broadcast 7/29/09)

Arguing about the Afghan War: The Nation 12/18

The Best Argument for the Afghan War — and What’s Wrong with It:

For those of us on the left, the best argument in favor of the Afghan war is not Obama’s claim that we need to stop Al Qaeda from returning to its bases in Afghanistan. . . . The best argument is that we have an obligation to the Afghan people – especially to the feminists, secular teachers, labor organizers, health workers, democrats, all those working to build a secular, civil society. We encouraged them to help create a real alternative to religious fundamentalism. It would be wrong now to abandon them to the Taliban.
. . . continued at TheNation.com

Bob Dylan’s Weird Christmas Album: Nation 12/13

Fans have been puzzled and troubled by Bob Dylan’s new Christmas album. To help figure out what Dylan is doing, we turned to Sean Wilentz — he’s the official historian at the official website BobDylan.com, and he also teaches American history at Princeton. He’s written many books, including “The Age of Reagan.”

Q. “Christmas in the Heart” opens with “Here Comes Santa Claus,” a Gene Autry song which, I have to say, is one of the most annoying holiday songs ever written, even before Bob Dylan sang it. “Hang your stockings, say your prayers” — is this a joke?

A. It’s not a joke at all. This is Bob Dylan looking back to his own childhood. He sings the songs that he heard as a kid in Hibbing. He’s recalling that time and those songs and that spirit.

The way Dylan sings “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” it sounds like a threat, a reason to lock your doors. . . .

. . . continued at TheNation.com.

Obama’s Jobs Program: KPFK Wed. 12/9

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 Obama’s jobs program: is the effort he announced yesterday big enough?  Is it good enough?  Does anyone feel good about the American economy right now–with the 2010 elections not so far away?  Also, the Senate Dems’ failure on the health care public option.   JOHN NICHOLS comments  — he writes “The Beat” blog at TheNation.com.

Also: DICK CHENEY won’t go away – he keeps giving interviews attacking Obama. BART GELLMAN comments – his award-winning book Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency is out now in paperback.  (originally broadcast 5/6/09)

Plus: LIES — AND TRUTH – ABOUT 9/11: JOHN FARMER says the official version of what happened that day is “almost entirely . . . untrue.” But he’s no conspiracy theorist; he says Bush and Cheney turned out to be “irrelevant” that day.  Farmer is dean of the Rutgers Law School and was senior counsel to the 9/11 commission.  His new book is THE GROUND TRUTH: The Untold Story of America Under Attack on 9/11.

Howard Zinn, “The People Speak”: Nation 12/8

The first time HOWARD ZINN”s now-classic book A People’s History of the United States appeared on TV was in “The Sopranos” on HBO, when Tony’s teenage son A.J. came home from school with a copy of the book and told his parents that, according to Zinn, Columbus was a slaveowner and murderer. Tony got mad, and replied, “In this house Columbus is a hero. End of story!”

That was 1999. This Sunday, Dec. 13, Zinn’s “The People Speak” – the documentary inspired by his books A People’s History and Voices of a People’s History — will be broadcast on the History channel at 8 PM/7 Central. . . .

More at TheNation.com

Obama and Afghanistan: KPFK Wed. 12/2

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 Obama and Afghanistan: the speech he should have given, starting “We have no partner in Afghanistan,” and ending “our troops will be brought home.”  TOM ENGELHARDT explains — he edits the indispensable blog TomDispatch.

Also – the rise, and fall, of democracy – SUSAN GRIFFIN will comment. Her book Wrestling with the Angel of Democracy: On Being an American Citizen is out now in paperback.   Susan will be in conversation with Louise Steinman at the LA Public Library ALOUD series Thurs at 700pm: reservations HERE.

Plus: KPFK Sports! Soviet sports, that is: BOB EDELMAN talks about soccer under Stalin and how it provided “a small way of saying no.” Bob teaches history at UCSD; his new book is Spartak Moscow: A History of the People’s Team in the Worker’s State.
WATCH Spartak playing in 1954 on rare video HERE

And: The great ELMORE LEONARD presents his rules for writing dialogue. He’ll be honored by PEN, the writers’ organization, tonight. (originally broadcast 2-5-2003).

From Grant Park to Afghanistan: The Nation 12/1

When Barack Obama gave his victory speech on election night last November, he picked Chicago’s Grant Park – the legendary site of the battle between anti-war demonstrators and Chicago cops during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968. According to campaign manager David Axelrod, Obama chose Grant Park to “symbolically overcome the damage done to American idealism forty years before.”

In 1968, Grant Park had dramatized the fratricidal split between Democrats over Vietnam. On the night of Nov. 4, 2008, Obama was suggesting all that had come to an end. The party was united and victorious.

But Obama’s speech tonight at West Point, announcing the escalation of the American war in Afghanistan, raised anew the specter of Grant Park in 1968. Once again a Democratic president is making a deeper commitment to an unwinnable war. . . .

Continued at TheNation.com

Glenn Beck, Savior of the Right: KPFK Wed. 11/25

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 “A serious critique of Glenn Beck is almost a waste of time,” TOM FRANK says. “After all, the man has referred to himself as a ‘rodeo clown’ and a ‘recovering scumbag.’”  And yet Beck today has become the most influential man on the right.  Tom Frank explain; he wrote about Glenn Beck for Playboy.
WATCH GLENN BECK “LOSE HIS MIND” on YouTube HERE

Also: GREIL MARCUS talks about the New Literary History of America:  his new co-edited thousand-page compendium, where “nothing remains of the boundaries that traditionally separated literature, history and popular culture” — from the Puritans to “Lolita” and Jackson Pollack – and of course Greil’s Moby Dick:  “Ahab is always out there.”

Plus: Americans in Cuba on the eve of Castro’s revolution: that’s the setting for RACHEL KUSHNER’s novel TELEX FROM CUBA. For the Americans, plantation society in Oriente was a paradise – until the rebels came down from the hills.  Rachel’s book is out now in paperback.  (first aired 8/27/08)

Gail Collins on American Women: KPFK Wed. 11/18

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New York Times op-ed columnist GAIL COLLINS traces women’s progress from the fifties to the present, from “My Little Margie” to Hillary for President — and Sarah Palin for Vice President.  Gail Collins was the first woman editor of the New York Times editorial page;  Her new book is When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present.

Also:  With Obama’s trip to Shanghai this week, HAROLD MEYERSON asks: who created that dysfunctional relationship with China?  The answer; not the Chinese, but rather American businesses and finance, above all WalMart and Wall Street.  Harold is an op-ed columnist for the Washington Post.

Plus: RICK HERTZBERG remembers the Obama campaign — and talks about Obama one year later.  Rick writes about politics for The New Yorker; once upon a time he was a speechwriter for Jimmy Carter.  His new book is Obamanos! The Birth of a New Political Era.
Rick will be in conversation with Marty Kaplan of USC Thursday at 7:3opm at WRITER’S BLOC at the ICM Theater, 10250 Constellation Blvd (MGM building) in Century City.  Tickets are $20.