Trump Watch

Quagmire in Baghdad: Our Iraq war update with IAN WILLIAMS, UN Correspondent for The Nation and contributor to The Asia Times. His new book is Rum: A Social and Sociable History of the Real Spirit of 1776: “Rum was to the eighteenth century what oil is to the present.” He also details the showdown between the Bacardi family and Fidel Castro over the control of the lucrative rights to the Havana Club label.

Plus: Israel’s Gaza pullout plans: our Palestine-Israel update with AMY WILENTZ, contributing editor to The Nation, former Jerusalem correspondent for The New Yorker, and author of the award-winning novel about Palestinians and Israelis Martyrs’ Crossing.

Also: Take me to the river: poet and environmental visionary LEWIS MacADAMS, founder of Friends of the L.A. River, reads from “The River, Book Three,” a mini-epic about his life and work among the trash bags and red-wing blackbirds of the LA River.
Tues July 12,7 PM: Lewis premieres “The River, Book Three” at the downtown LA Public Library, 630 W. 5th St.: free but reservations recommended.
Also on the FoLAR calendar: Sunday, July 17, 4:30 PM: A Down by the River Walk, “Saunter In Studio City”: In the east San Fernando Valley, the River runs along many TV/movie studios, including Warner Bros, Disney, DreamWorks, Universal, and CBS. Historically the more-or-less natural River served as the back lot location for various studio productions, including Westerns. Meet at the Laurel Grove Footbridge (at the intersection of Laurel Grove and Valleyheart).
PLAYLIST: Talking Heads, “Take Me to the River” from Stop Making Sense Live CD

HAROLD MEYERSON comments on the Bush speech defending the war Tuesday night — and on Donald Rumsfeld’s remark on Fox News Sunday that the war may go on for “eight, 10, 12 years.” Harold writes for the LA Weekly, The American Prospect, and the Washington Post op-ed page.

Also: GARY INDIANA explains Arnold Schwarzenegger’s rise to power. His new book is The Schwarzenegger Syndrome — it’s a witty and biting travelogue through the intersection of celebrity culture and American political life. Gary has published six novels; his essays have appeared in the Village Voice, the London Review of Books, and the LA Times Book Review.

Plus: Art and power in L.A.: CHRISTOPHER KNIGHT of the LA Times talks about the scandal at the Getty, the world’s richest art institution, over the lavish pay and perks for its CEO Barry Munitz — and about LACMA‘s King Tut show, which is now going on a 24/7 schedule to accomodate the crowds.

more stuff to read: In The Nation this week, Jon Wiener asks why Alan Dershowitz, famed defender of the First Amendment, wrote Gov. Schwarzenegger asking him to intervene in the publication of a book criticizing Dershowitz. The book is Norman Finkelstein’s Beyond Chutzpah.

“Worse than Watergate“: that’s what JOHN DEAN says about the Bush White House practice of secrecy and deception. John Dean of course served as counsel to President Nixon at age 31, a job he did for a thousand days.

Plus: So far this month in the Iraq insurgency, more than 450 Iraqis and dozens of U.S. troops have been killed. We’ll have our update on what the New York Times calls “the mystery of the insurgency” from U. of Michigan historian JUAN COLE: he writes the famous “Informed Comment” blog about Iraq at www.JuanCole.com

Also: John Brown was the militant abolitionist who led an assault on the arsenal at Harper’s Ferry in the hope of inciting a slave insurrection. Some people call him a terrorist, but he was right about one thing: slavery was a system of violence that could not be ended in the US without war. Columbia University historian ERIC FONER comments. (There’s a new book on John Brown, written by David S. Reynolds.)

Finally: SARAH VOWELL is one of the great voices of public radio in America today for her work on This American Life. Now she’s gone on the road to find the locations of American political violence — and to ponder their lessons — in her new book Assassination Vacation.

LISTEN ONLINE: http://thenation.audioblog.com/deluge/37b3ba25-81e3-db2e-61d2-42efc9541ef4.mp3

War, politics, idealism, passion, deceit, and betrayal: they all come together in the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer, father of the a-bomb and accused communist, told by KAI BIRD and MARTIN H. SHERWIN. Their book is American Prometheus: The Triumph of Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer.

Plus: Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun, nominated by Nixon in 1970, was the rarest of men: a conservative Republican who became a liberal as he grew older. Blackmun wrote the decision in Roe v. Wade and eventually came out against the death penalty, declaring “I shall no longer tinker with the machinery of death.” LINDA GREENHOUSE is the New York Times Pulitzer-Prize winning Supreme Court reporter; her new book is Becoming Justice Blackmun.

Also: It’s time for utopian thinking: That’s what UCLA historian RUSSELL JACOBY says: “The choice we have is not between reasonable proposals and an unreasonable utopianism. Utopian thinking does not undermine or discount real reforms. Indeed, it is almost the opposite: practical reforms depend on utopian dreaming.”” His new book is Picture Imperfect: Utopian Thought for an Anti-Utopian Age. Terry Eagleton, writing in The Nation, calls it “a book to be treasured.”

LISTEN ONLINE TO THIS SHOW:

RY COODER has a new CD: “Chavez Ravine.” It’s a story about Latino L.A. after World War II, about “cool cats,” radio, J. Edgar Hoover, and baseball — Mike Davis calls it “a magical-realist street opera celebrating the life and death of the barrio that the Dodgers killed.” Ry is the guitar legend who produced the Grammy-winning international best-seller “Buena Vista Social Club.”

Plus: EVAN WRIGHT lived with a Marine battalion during the Iraq war — he describes young men trained to be ruthless killers, and he reports on their cynicism, their ambivalence, and their bitterness about a battlefield where they can’t tell the good guys from the bad. Evan Wright’s book Generation Kill: Devil Dogs, Capitain America and the New Face of American War won the J. Anthony Lukas book prize and the L.A. Times “Current Interest” Book Prize.

More stuff to read: Jon Wiener in The Nation says the British boycott of Israeli academics is a bad idea: http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050606&s=wiener

Web extra: listen to Victor Navasky talk about his new book A Matter of Opinion: http://www.thenation.com/blogs/audioblog?pid=2651

Antonio Villaraigosa will be L.A.’s first Latino mayor in modern times; meanwhile, back in Washington, the Republican effort to abolish the filibuster–and put lots more far-right-wing judges on the federal bench–begins today. HAROLD MEYERSON will provide comment and analysis; he writes for the LAWeekly, the American Prospect, and the Washington Post op-ed page.
READ Jon Wiener on Antonio’s victory: www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050530&s=wiener

Also: John Brown was the militant abolitionist who led an assault on the arsenal at Harper’s Ferry in the hope of inciting a slave insurrection. Some people call him a terrorist, but he was right about one thing: slavery was a system of violence that could not be ended in the US without war. Columbia University historian ERIC FONER comments. (There’s a new book on John Brown, written by David S. Reynolds.)

Plus: So far this month in the Iraq insurgency, more than 450 Iraqis and dozens of U.S. troops have been killed. We’ll have our update on what the New York Times calls “the mystery of the insurgency” from U. of Michigan historian JUAN COLE: he writes the famous “Informed Comment” blog about Iraq at www.JuanCole.com
Juan Cole is president-elect of the Middle East Studies Association, which opposes the British boycott of Israeli academics: Read the MESA statement
Sign the AAUP petition opposing the boycott of Israeli academics.

More stuff to read: Jon Wiener debates Diane Ravich online at Slate.com on how to teach history: http://slate.com/id/2118427/entry/2118441/

Quote without comment: “Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes that you can do these things. Among them are a few Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or businessman from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.”
–President Dwight D. Eisenhower in a letter to his brother Edgar, November 8, 1954. (thanks to Blanche Wiesen Cook for finding this item.)

From Starbucks to the sidewalk to surfing the web, we are being watched. The power and pervasiveness of surveillance technology in America today is unnerving. Robert O’Harrow Jr. will explain: he is a reporter for the Washington Post and author of No Place to Hide.

Plus: We’re still worrying about voting and vote-counting in presidential elections. Andrew Gumbel of The Independent points out that US vote-counting procedures don’t meet the standards we’ve applied to those beacons of democracy Ukraine, Georgia or Kyrgyzstan. His article “Failing the Electoral Standards” appeared at TheNation.com, and his book Steal This Vote will be published this spring.

Also: The most significant conquest of the 20th century may have been the triumph of America’s market empire over Europe. Columbia University historian Victoria de Grazia tells the story of “Americanization” — her new book is Irresistible Empire.

Web extra: May 4 is the 35th anniversary of the Kent State killings — four students killed by the National Guard, which was shooting at students demonstrating on campus against the war in Vietnam. President Nixon had told the media about “these bums, you know, blowin’ up the campuses.” Allison Kraus was one of those killed, shot through the chest 350 feet away from the guardsmen. The next day her father told the press, “my daughter was not a bum.” more info: http://kent.state.tripod.com/