Living in the USA

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Our politics commentary with Harold Meyerson starts with the House preparing to pass Biden’s Build Back Better bill, then to Glasgow for the climate summit, then Texas where Beto is running for governor.
Plus: We’ll talk about politics and pleasure with Rebecca Solnit –she’s probably best known as the author of “Men explain things to me.” Now she has a new book out – it’s called “Orwell’s Roses.”
Also: Your Minnesota moment, news from my home town of St Paul, where the city attorney has announced he’s not going to prosecute any cases involving broken taillights – he says he hasn’t been able to forget about Philando Castile.  11-18-2021

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The House will pass a Build Back Better bill next week, maybe–Harold Meyerson explains.
Plus: A comic novel about Ethel Rosenberg? Francine Prose has written one–“The Vixen”–and it’s terrific.
Also: EllaTaylor on “Passing,” the film about a Black woman passing for white in New York City in the 1920s – playing now on Netflix.  11-11-2021

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Tuesday was a dark day for Democrats: Republican Glenn Youngkin’s victory in Virginia was not particularly surprising. But how did he manage to present himself both as a Trump supporter and as a more moderate, less crazy kind of country club Republican? Harold Meyerson has our analysis.
Plus: how a small group of people challenged an unjust law and changed history: Eric Foner talks about the Underground Railroad and its challenge to the Fugitive Slave Act in the years leading up to the Civil War. His book is “Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad.” (first broadcast in January, 2015).  11-4-2021

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Obama spent months negotating with reluctant Dems over his health care bill. The result: massive losses in the midterms. Is Biden making the same mistake with Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema? Harold Meyerson comments.
Also: who really runs Haiti: the government, or the gangs? the kidnappings suggest it’s the gangs – and the leader of the gang that kidnapped 16 Americans has openly expressed political ambitions. Amy Wilentz will explain.
Plus: John Coltrane: of course he was the tenor player who started out with Miles Davis in the fifties and then, in the mid-sixties, set out to pursue music as a quest for spiritual enlightenment. His classic work was “A Love Supreme” — a single piece, 33 minutes long, it became the most popular record of his career. Now, a live performance from 1965 has been discovered and released – and Coltrane people are calling it “nothing short of a revelation.” Adam Shatz will comment.  10-28-2021

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The latest on the Democrats’ reconciliation bill: Harold Meyerson reports on the big cuts demanded by Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. Also: gubernatorial elections threaten Democratic power in Virginia, and Republican power in Texas.
Plus: The Nation’s sports editor Dave Zirin talks about what he calls
“The Kaepernick Effect” – how an NFL quarterback who had never been an activist made “Taking a knee” THE symbol of protest against racial injustice, & how hundreds, if not thousands, of young athletes followed his example. Many of them—often high school students, women as well as men—faced ostracism, condemnation, death threats, and more. Dave Zirin’s new book is “The Kaepernick Effect.”  10-21-2021

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What’s the best strategy for the Democrats for 2022, when the odds are against them for holding the House and Senate? Pundits say the Dems should stop talking about climate, immigration, and the police. Harold Meyerson disagrees.
Plus: draft resistance in the Vietnam era: there’s a new documentary, “The Boys Who Said NO!” with it’s online launch this weekend, and an online event Sunday at 5pm featuring Joan Baez, Daniel Ellsberg, and others–we’ll speak with one of the resisters featured in the film, Bruce Dancis, about his time in prison – he served 19 months.
Also: our TV and film critic Ella Taylor talks about the new documentary about Pauli Murray, one of the most fascinating, and little known, activists and strategists of the civil rights and feminist movements. It’s playing now on Amazon Prime Video.  10-14-2021

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Biden backed the Progressive Caucus in insisting that the bipartisan infrastructure bill not be voted separately from the reconciliation bill. But the question remains: What does Kyrsten Sinema want? Harold Meyerson comments.
Also: The co-founder of Black Lives Matter LA, Melina Abdullah, will talk about the LAPD showing up in force at her house twice in the week since she filed a lawsuit over last year’s similar incident – we call it ‘swatting,’ and we also call it retaliation.
plus: we’ll talk about the use of the concept of ‘freedom’ during the cold war – Louis Menand will explain – His book is ‘The Free World: Art and Thought in the Cold War’–has been longlisted for the National Book Award.  10-7-2021

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How to cut the cost of the Democrats’ “Reconciliation Bill” without eliminating programs? Harold Meyerson says make it a four-year bill program instead of ten. Also: reapportionment in California, and a new mayor for LA.
Plus: Civil rights attorney Carol Sobel talks about the LAPD’s dramatic increase in the use of dispersal orders in response to the protests of the last couple of years–declaring “this is an unlawful assembly” & “you are ordered to disperse.” Carol represents Black Lives Matter Los Angeles in a lawsuit against the LAPD.
And we’re still thinking about Occupy Wall Street,which began 10 years ago–Ruth Milkman and Stephanie Luce of the City University of New York have been studying, and thinking about, the achievements and limitations of the Occupy movement.  9-30-2021

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Our Washington political update starts with the Fox News report, “Democrats tee up filibuster reform by forcing issue on immigration, voting rights.” Harold Meyerson comments on that – and on reports that Dan Quayle saved American democracy on January 6.
Also: Amy Wilentz on Haitians and Haiti – and Joe Biden’s disastrous decision to deport those 15,000 Haitian refugees who crossed the border at Del Rio, Texas, sending them back to a country ravaged by assassination, earthquake, poverty, and gang violence.
And we have the story of a Black writer who moved to Paris in the fifties and discovered French racism – aimed at Algerians. Adam Shatz explains—he’s written the introduction to the new edition of a novel called “The Stone Face,” by William Gardner Smith, originally published in 1963 and now republished by New York Review Books.  9-24-2021

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Harold Meyerson on the sweeping Democratic victory in the California recall: its national significance for the 2022 midterms, and where it leaves California Republicans (with Larry Elder as their leader?). Also, our national politics update: today’s Reconciliation Report, and episode 15 of What Does Joe Manchin Want? Today: the Dems’ revised voting rights bill.
Later in the show: this week is the 10th anniversary of Occupy Wall Street and “we are the 99 per cent” – we’ll have an assessment of the achievements and limitations of that movement with Alan Minsky, now executive director of Progressive Democrats of America, and at the time an Occupy activist.  9-16-2021