jwiener

THE JOHN KERRY FBI FILE: back in 1971, J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI considered John Kerry a possible threat to national security because of his outspoken protests against the war.
John Glionna of the LA Times reports; plus Gerald Nicosia, author of Home to War: A History of the Vietnam Veterans Movement.

Plus: HAROLD MEYERSON of the LA Weekly and Washington Post, with political analysis of the storm around Richard Clarke’s argument that Bush ignored the threat of terrorism for months before 9-11.

— and MARC COOPER of The Nation talks about his new book, The Last Honest Place in America: Paradise and Perdition in the New Las Vegas. Marc will be reading and signing at Book Soup, 8818 Sunset Blvd. West Hollywood, Thursday at 7pm.

Web extras:
–The MoveOn.org TV ad featuring Richard Clarke
–The Billionaires for Bush TV ads— “you have nothing to lose except your job.”

SANDRA TSING LOH was fired by KCRW for a broadcast that included a forbidden word — she talks about timidity in public radio.
(She’s still doing commentaries on “Marketplace” — and moves to KPPC in June.)

ALSO: The Fountain at the Center of the World , by ROBERT NEWMAN — the New York Times called it “the Catch 22 of the anti-Globalization movement.”

and IAN WILLIAMS, UN correspondent for The Nation and contributor to the LA Weekly, will talk about Israel’s assassination of Hamas head Sheik Yassin.

WEB EXTRA: DENNIS MILLER‘s unbelievably condescending interview with ERIC ALTERMAN of The Nation about Bush’s lies– watch the video.

The first anniversary of the American invasion of Iraq :
— a report from UC Irvine historian MARK LeVINE of Occupation Watch live in Baghdad,
— and comment and analysis from HAROLD MEYERSON of the LA Weekly and the Washington Post.

Web extra: Sunday, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld got caught blatantly contradicting his past statements on the justifications for going to war, and we have the video clip. check it out at www.moveon.org/censure/caughtonvideo/

Web extra: 200 misleading statements on Iraq from the Bush Administration.

Also: WOODY GUTHRIE‘s music and politics: the definitive biography has just been published: Ramblin Man by Ed Cray: he’ll be live in-studio to talk about the man who wrote “This Land is Your Land.”

3 STRIKES/10 YEARS
This week is the 10th anniversary of California’s three strikes law — and the latest evidence is that it has NOT reduced crime, as its defenders claim. Today: comment and analysis from JOE DOMANICK of USC’s Annenberg Institute for Justice and Journalism — he’s just published Cruel Justice: Three Strikes and the Politics of Crime in America’s Golden State

the key facts: “Three Strikes Law has Little Effect, Study Finds”: L.A. Times

Plus Geri Silva of Families to Amend California’s Three Strikes, and Vince Schiraldi of the Justice Policy Institute; they call Three Strikes “A law that fails.”

Also: gay marriage is sweeping California; but will it help George Bush’s reelection campaign? State Senator SHEILA KUEHL comments; she’s been performing gay marriage ceremonies in San Francisco. And check out Lambda Legal on “Freedom to Marry”

SEYMOUR HERSH reported the My Lai Massacre; now in The New Yorker he shows that the Bush administration has tolerated a nightmarish nuclear weapons black market in Pakistan in return for permission for US troops to hunt Osama inside that country.

Also: our report on HAITI: AMY WILENTZ wrote the book The Rainy Season: Haiti Since Duvalier — in The Nation she says the coup d’etat in Haiti is the biggest event there since the revolution 200 years ago.

Plus political commentary on Kerry v. Bush from JOHN NICHOLS — he writes “The Online Beat” at www.TheNation.com.

4:00: Political update from HAROLD MEYERSON — after Kerry’s latest primary victories, we ask again: Can he beat Bush in November? Read Harold in the LA Weekly and the Washington Post .

4:20: INCOHERENT EMPIRE: that’s the title of Michael Mann‘s new book, where the UCLA sociologist argues that the US is better at devastating than pacifying countries — and unable to rule over foreign lands or control its own supposed client states. www.versobooks.com/books/klm/m-titles/mann_m_empire.shtml

4:40: ROBERT SCHEER talks about The Five Biggest Lies Bush Told Us About Iraq — read Bob in the LA Times: “War as an excuse for everything.”

WEB EXTRA: check out the Cost-of-War website: http://costofwar.com/

also : Bush’s Air National Guard records from 1972 show that he apparently blew off drills beginning in May 1972, failed to show up for his physical, and was then grounded and transferred as a disciplinary measure. www.calpundit.com/archives/003220.html

Nat Turner led the bloodiest slave rebellion in American history — now, award-winning L.A. filmmaker Charles Burnett has made a fascinating one-hour film about the meanings of the Nat Turner rebellion today — the film will be broadcast Tues., Feb. 10 at 10pm on KCET. www.pbs.org/natturner

Primary results: John Kerry beat the other Democrats on Tuesday; can he beat Bush in November? David Corn of The Nation comments — his new book is The Lies of George W. Bush. www.bushlies.com see also www.thenation.com/capitalgames/index.mhtml?bid=3&pid=1233

Also: Those worried that America might be slinking towards imperialism miss the point: America already has an empire. Chalmers Johnson explains — his new book is The Sorrows of Empire, and he will be reading and signing it on Sunday (Feb 8) at 3pm at Midnight Special on 2nd St. in Santa Monica. www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2004/01/01_200.html

web extra: the CNN poll published Monday has Kerry beating Bush 53-46. The poll showed Bush’s job approval rating at 49 percent among all the adults surveyed, the first time since he became president that his job approval has dipped below 50 percent. www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/02/02/elec04.poll.prez/index.html

ELMORE LEONARD, the mystery writer whose books include Get Shorty, which was made into that great film with John Travolta as a mobster who wants to become a Hollywood producer, live in-studio, talks about his latest, Mr. Paradise.

Also: KATHA POLLITT, columnist for The Nation, talks about the Democrats after New Hampshire: Katha says “I still like Dean.” www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040202&s=pollitt

And: Twilight of Empire: Responses to Occupation is a gorgeous book that includes essays by Mike Davis, Viggo Mortensen of “Lord of the Rings,” and Jodie Evans of Code Pink. co-editor MARK LEVINE talks about the book — and what?s happening in Iraq today.

Web extra: Bush is down in the polls: Newsweek reports that “a 52-percent majority of registered voters says it would not like to see him re-elected to a second term. Only 44 percent say they would like to see him re-elected, a four-point drop from the last Newsweek Poll.” And “A Kerry-Bush match-up would have Kerry up by 49 percent to Bush’s 46 percent.”

7:00am: After Iowa: Can John Kerry beat George W. Bush in November? And is Howard Dean finished? Marc Cooper reports from Des Moines. (originally broadcast Jan. 21)

7:15: Nation film critic Stuart Klawans talks about two movies that indirectly illuminate the war in Iraq: “The Battle of Algiers” — Pontecorvo?s unforgettable 1966 epic of terrorism and counterterrorism — and “The Fog of War,” Errol Morris?s fascinating and controversial interview with Robert MacNamara. (originally broadcast Jan. 14)

7:30: war and masculinity — what does it mean to be a man? The answer to that question has changed over time, but it?s always involved warfare. — and it’s the subject of a new book by Leo Braudy of USC: From Chivalry to Terrorism. (originally broadcast Dec. 3.)

7:45: two days in October 1967: in Madison, Wisconsin, anti-war demonstrators were marching against Dow Chemical, maker of napalm; in Vietnam, the US army Black Lions battalion was about to lose 61 men in a V-C ambush; and in Washington, LBJ asked his advisers, “How are we ever going to win?” Pulitzer-prize winner David Maraniss tells the story in They Marched into Sunlight: War and Peace: Vietnam and America: October 1967. Philip Caputo reviewed it for the New York Times. (originally broadcast Jan. 14).

Listen to this interview HERE
Joan Didion talks about her memoir Where I Was From.  It’s about California: Combining history and reportage, memoir and literary criticism, and explores California’s romances with land and water; its unacknowledged debts to railroads, aerospace, and big government; the disjunction between its code of individualism and its fetish for prisons—and about her family and their place in California history.
interview conducted at KPFK in LA Oct. 29, 2003.