Trump Watch

No show today — the KPFK Fund Drive continues!

The documentary “The U.S. vs. John Lennon” is playing this week in LA at the Beverly Center 13, in Pasadena at Laemmle’s One Colorado, in Irvine at the Edwards University Town Center, and also in Laguna Niguel, Temecula, La Jolla, Santa Cruz, Las Vegas, San Francisco, Sacramento, Portland, Denver, Salt Lake City, Seattle, Austin, Dallas, Houston, Memphis, New Orleans, and in New York City at the Sunshine Cinemas on Houston Street.

More stuff to read: “America, Through a Glass Darkly” – my piece about Richard Hofstadter from the new issue of The Nation, online at www.thenation.com.

No show today – preempted by the KPFK Fund Drive.

Your Minnesota Moment: The first Muslim is about to be elected to Congress – he’s Keith Ellison, he’s black, he’s a Democrat, and he’s from Minneapolis: read about him in the New York Times — more info at http://www.keithellison.org/

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The Republicans are the party of extremism – war without end, torture without law, and of course tax cuts for you-know-who. But the House is up for grabs– and now maybe the Senate too. Can the Democrats win? HAROLD MEYERSON has some answers: he writes for the American Prospect and the Washington Post op-ed page.

Also: Classroom politics and ‘Bias’ in our colleges and universities: Michael Bérubé is one of the 101 most dangerous academics in America, according to David Horowitz; Michael says universities are being targeted by the right because they’re the last fortress of liberalism. Michael teaches at Penn State; his book is What’s Liberal about the Liberal Arts? Classroom Politics and ‘Bias’ in Higher Education.

YOUR MINNESOTA MOMENT: Former Minneapolis FBI agent Coleen Rowley is running for Congress — as a Democrat. She’s the one who tried to warn higher-ups about the terrorists learning to fly passenger planes before 9-11.

Plus: GREIL MARCUS on the promise, and the betrayal, of America: he says “The promises America made it itself were so vast they could only be betrayed – and from that betrayal emerged the nation’s prophetic voice. It is this voice that calls America’s citizens to judgment: not the judgment of God, but a judgment they must render on themselves.” Greil’s new book is The Shape of Things to Come: Prophecy and the American Voice.

More stuff to read: “CIA-FBI Cooperation: The Case of John Lennon,” my new piece at the HuffingtonPost.com.

At the movies: “The U.S. vs. John Lennon” is now playing in 17 cities, including L.A., Irvine, Santa Barbara — and Minneapolis.

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The selling of Bush’s Iraq disaster is one of the key stories of the last half-century. DAVID CORN, Washington editor of The Nation, connects the dots between Bush’s hatred of Saddam, the bitter battles between the CIA and the White House, and the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame. David’s book, co-authored with Michael Isikoff, is Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War; it’s #8 on the best-seller list this week.
Web extra: David Corn debates Christopher Hitchens at Slate.com

Also: how JOHN LENNON joined the anti-war movement in Britain: TARIQ ALI explains; he was one of Lennon’s key friends in London’s New Left in the late sixties. Tariq is featured in the new documentary “The U.S. vs. John Lennon,” which will be playing citywide in Los Angeles starting Friday.
PLAYLIST: Beatles “Revolution” (fast version from single, Past Masters v2); Lennon “Power to the People”; Beatles “Revolution 1” (slow version from the White Album)

Plus: Corporate Greed in Iraq: billions of US taxpayer dollars have been stolen or wasted in Iraq by companies like Hallburton while Iraqis suffer and their country disintegrates. T. Christian Miller will tell that story; he’s an investigative reporter for the LA Times, and his new book is Blood Money: Wasted Billions, Lost Lives, and Corporate Greed in Iraq.

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“IRAQ FOR SALE: THE WAR PROFITEERS” is the powerful new documentary about what happens to ordinary Americans when corporations go to war. In the film, by Robert Greenwald, soldiers, truck drivers, widows and children talk about how their lives have been shattered by profiteering in the reconstruction of Iraq. RICK JACOBS will talk about the film – he’s co-executive producer. He’s also Chair of the Courage Campaign, and he chaired the presidential campaign of Howard Dean in California. He writes for The Huffington Post.
Watch the trailer for “Iraq for Sale” — Order the DVD

Also: THE POLITICS OF TORTURE: George Bush wants to torture – but some key Republican senators don’t: HAROLD MEYERSON talks about the Senate Armed Services Committee rejecting the President’s military detainee bill. One key issue: the accountability of high government officials for war crimes. Harold writes for the Washington Post op-ed page, the LA Weekly, and the American Prospect.

Plus: THE HIDDEN LIFE OF GARBAGE: Heather Rogers explores the underworld of garbage and the meaning of what we throw away. The U.S. is the planet’s number one producer of trash; the average American throws out 4.5 pounds daily. Heather Rogers is a filmmaker and journalist who has written for The Nation, Utne Reader, and Punk Planet. Her book is Gone Tomorrow: The Hidden Life of Garbage.

More Stuff to Read: “‘The U.S. vs. John Lennon‘: Politics and Music, Then and Now,” my new piece at TheNation.com — the film is playing now in LA and NYC.

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The fifth anniversary of 9-11 is coming up, which makes us wonder how safe we are: David Rosner and Gerald Markowitz ask ARE WE READY? They’ll talk about how 9-11 permanently altered the political, cultural, and organizational life of the country, and consider whether we are now better prepared to withstand another potentially devastating attack. Their new book is Are We Ready? Public Health since 9/11.

Plus: WHAT IS HEZBOLLAH? JUAN COLE explains that it’s not a terrorist network like Al Qaeda – he writes the key blog on the Mideast, “Informed Comment,” teaches history at the U. of Michigan, and is past president of the Middle East Studies Association.

Plus: AMY WILENTZ talks about what it’s like for a Jersey Girl who moves to L.A. – she analyzes the Schwarzenegger thing, and she ridicules the rich in her new book I Feel Earthquakes More Often than they Happen. Amy was Jerusalem corresponent for The New Yorker and is a contributing editor of The Nation. She will be reading and signing at Vromans Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, Thurs 9/7, 7pm.

Web extra: Your Minnesota Moment: “Once a Progressive State, Minnesota Is Now a Fief of the N.R.A.,” a great piece by Verlyn Klinkenborg in Tuesday’s New York Times.

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On the one-year anniversary of Katrina, we turn to ANDREI CODRESCU for comment. For two decades he’s been living in and writing about his adopted city. “Katrina was only a storm,” he said recently, “but what followed was so hideous that, one year later, we can only shake our heads — and vomit.” Andrei’s book New Orleans, Mon Amour is an epic love song, a clear-eyed elegy, a cultural celebration, and a thank-you note to New Orleans in its Golden Age.

PLUS: The ex-gay movement: Every year, hundreds of gay men and lesbians join ex-gay ministries in an attempt to convert to non-homosexual Christian lives. Tanya Erzen has followed the New Hope Ministry in Northern California, a Christian Right organization that insists that “change is possible.” Tanya teaches at Ohio State; her book is Straight to Jesus: Sexual and Christian Conversions in the Ex-Gay Movement.

ALSO: BOB DYLAN’s new CD Modern Times was released yesterday — “I am tryin’ to love my neighbor . . . but, oh mother, things ain’t going well.” SEAN WILENTZ will comment; he’s the official historian at BobDylan.com, and was nominated for a Grammy for his liner notes to Bob Dylan Live 1966. PLAYLIST: “Thunder on the Mountain.” “Workingman’s Blues #2,” “Ain’t Talkin’,” “The Levee’s Gonna Break”

More stuff to read: Jon Wiener on the LA Times op-ed page: “Iraq isn’t the Philippines”

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Anger in the Arab World: RASHID KHALIDI talks about the aftermath of Israel’s war in Lebanon. Rashid Khalidi is Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia; his new book, The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood, will be published in October. He wrote about “Anger in the Arab World” for The Nation.

ALSO: The Iraqi armed forces fiasco: President Bush often says, “As the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down.” DAVID J. MORRIS recently spent five days imbedded with an Iraqi armed forces unit and the American troops training them. He found US marines demoralized by bureaucratic mismanagement, inadequate training for the Iraqis, and an astonishing shortage of equipment and supplies. Dave is a former Marine officer and the author of Storm on the Horizon: Khafji — The Battle That Changed the Course of the Gulf War (Free Press). He teaches English at UC Irvine and wrote about “The Iraqi Forces Fiasco” for Salon.com.

PLUS: BARBARA EHRENREICH: her book Nickel and Dimed sold more than a million copies and was on the bestseller list for more than 100 weeks. Now her new book is out in paperback – Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream. It’s an undercover exploration of the shadowy world of the white collar unemployed. The story is alternately grim and hilarious.
(originally broadcast September 21, 2005.)

MORE TO READ: Jon Wiener on Barbara Ehrenreich’s Bait and Switch.
NEW: JON WIENER, “AN OPTIMISTIC VOICE IN ISRAEL”

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Tom Hamburger and Peter Wallsten of the LA Times lay out “The Republican Plan for Dominance in the 2lst Century” – how right-wing strategists are neutralizing the Democrats’ traditional advantages with Latinos, women, African-Americans and Jews — and even union members. Tom and Peter will be speaking and signing One Party Country Friday at 700pm at Dutton’s Brentwood, 11975 San Vicente Blvd. in L.A.

Also: IAN WILLIAMS says the winner in Lebanon is Hezbollah: Israel succeeded in destroying the infrastructure of Lebanon and killing hundreds of Lebanese civilians, but “Hezbollah now enjoys immense prestige across the Arab and Muslim world for standing against Israeli arms longer than any of the national armies of the region.”
Ian is UN Correspondent for The Nation and the Deadline Pundit at blogspot.com.

Plus: The Great Black Way: L.A.’s Central Avenue in the 1940s and the Lost African-American Renaissance: R. J. SMITH explores the world of rhythm and blues, black comics with socially-tinged humor, and the start of the popular civil rights movement in Los Angeles. R.J. is a senior editor at Los Angeles Magazine. He’s written for the Village Voice, Rolling Stone, and The New York Times Magazine.
PLAYLIST: Charles Brown, Joe Liggins, Big Jay McNeely.

WEB EXTRA: What is George Bush reading on his summer vacation in Crawford? Press Secretary Tony Snow said he just finished “The Stranger” by Albert Camus. Maureen Dowd asked what Bush thought about the book. “He liked it,” Snow replied.
READ Maureen Dowd, “Camus Comes to Crawford”