Living in the USA

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Voting Rights Are Threatened Again Before the Supreme Court: ARI BERMAN reports on yesterday’s argument, where the same conservatives who gutted the Voting Rights Act are now challenging “one person, one vote.”  Ari’s new book, Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America, was named one of the best books of the year by the New York Times.

 Also: The New York Times coverage of Bernie Sanders has been condescending—remember the page one story, “Bernie won’t kiss your baby”? AMY WILENTZ reviews the record — she’s a longtime contributing editor at The Nation, and she teaches Literary Journalism at UC Irvine.

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On this week’s episode of “Start Making Sense,” progressive news without the boring parts, Naomi Klein reports from the streets of Paris that the French government has enlisted the Shock Doctrine to block street protests at the Paris Climate Summit.

Also: Katha Pollitt says the refugee crisis has shown the worst, and the best, of Europe; now, she says, we have a chance to do the right thing.

Plus: Historian Eric Foner argues that Princeton students are right that Woodrow Wilson was a racist, and that the university should remove his name from campus buildings.

And Joan Walsh reports on Republican anti-abortion politics after the killings at Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs.

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We open with breaking news at 4pm about the shootings in San Bernardino that left 14 dead and 17 injured: we start with a news update from ERNESTO ARCE, KPFK’s news director, on the scene in San Bernardino, and then go to President Obama’s statement about the shootings.

GREIL MARCUS talks about writing the “Real Life Rock Top Ten” column for thirty years – the column features brief items not only on songs but on all kinds of stuff that delighted or puzzled one of our greatest cultural critics that week. Now Yale University Press has published the first thirty years of the columns in a monumental 600 page book, Real Life Rock: The Complete Top Ten Columns, 1986-2014.
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And JOHN NICHOLS comments on today’s news about the mass shooting and on gun violence in America, and in American politics, today.
John of course is National Affairs correspondent for The Nation — read him at TheNation.com.

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When Bernie Sanders talked about democratic socialism in his major speech at Georgetown University last week, he used FDR to explain what socialism could do for the country today. But Eric Foner says there’s a much deeper and richer history of socialism in America, and Sanders should call on that when making his pitch to the American people.

Also: Republicans want to block refugees from Syria and Iraq: The Nation’s Julianne Hing has an update on their efforts and what happens next.

Plus: Football has America’s biggest TV audience, especially on Thanksgiving weekend: but Dave Zirin, sports editor of The Nation, asks why anyone even plays football anymore, given what we know about head injuries.

And Ari Berman discusses the latest in the long history of the battle for voting rights—his new book is Give Us the Ballot.

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Your Minnesota Moment, news from my home town of St. Paul: White supremacists in Minneapolis shot five people at a Black Lives Matter demonstration on Monday night: well get an update ANGILEE SHAH in Minneapolis—she’s a journalist and blogger and the social media manager at Public Radio International.

Also: HAROLD MEYERSON talks about Bernie and Socialism—Harold of course writes for the Washingon Post op-ed page and The American Prospect—

And we’ll have a music segment: the award-winning writer PETER GURALNICK will talk about Sam Phillips, the man who discovered Howlin Wolf, Ike Turner, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley. Peter’s new book is Sam Phillips: The Man who Invented Rock in Roll.

Today we’re featuring gems from the Pacifica Archives, and asking you to support the Archives: they are perserving our history, the sounds of our struggles and our dreams, and the voices of our heroes. Please call during the hour and pledge: 800-735-0230 – or online HERE .

This hour we’ll be featuring rare audio, the source for amazing animation from Blank on Blank: DUSTIN HOFFMAN in 1971, recalling living next door to the building in Greenwich Village blown up accidentally by the Weather Underground. He also says that, as a kid, “I carried a knife taped to my leg. I never used it but it was there.” Watch the animation from Blank on Blank HERE
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Plus: Novelist KURT VONNEGUT remembers “learning to walk around looking tough” growing up in Indianapolis. Watch HERE
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Also: JOHN COLTRANE in 1966 was living on Long Island. One afternoon, Frank Kofsky took the train out to interview him. Coltrane picked him up at the station. They drove around town. They stopped to talk. (Coltrane died less than a year later.) Watch HERE.

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The white working class is dying – literally. Their death rate in middle age is rising, while that of all other Americans continues to fall. It’s a shocking discovery, and a revealing one. We’ll have comment from HAROLD MEYERSON—he wrote about it for the Washington Post op-ed page.

Also: In 1692, Massachusetts executed 14 women, 5 men, and 2 dogs for witchcraft. We had another “witch-hunt” in the 1950s, with McCarthyism, and after 9-11, with the roundup of young Muslim men. STACY SCHIFF explains—her new book is The Witches: Salem 1692. (Our conversation was held at the L.A. Central Library as part of the Library Foundation’s ALOUD series; listen to the ALOUD podcast HERE.)

Plus: KPFK Sports! DAVE ZIRIN analyzes the campaign against racism at the U. of Missouri, where the football team led a startlingly successful movement—refusing to play until the president resigned.  Dave is sports editor of The Nation.

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JOHN DENSMORE, drummer for The Doors, talks about Bernie Sanders — and about the new film Window of Opportunity, a suspensful dark comedy thriller about corporate greed that he produced. It’s screening Oct 28 at 7:30 at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood—a benefit for Bernie. WATCH the trailer HERE.

Plus: The day that Dylan went electric: we’ll speak with ELIJAH WALD about the legendary moment in our history at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965—and listen to rare audio of Dylan playing “Maggie’s Farm” that day. Wald’s new book is Dylan Goes Electric!
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Also: Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief is documentary made by the award-winning filmmaker ALEX GIBNEY — is our featured thank-you gift this hour of the KPFK fund drive. We’ll be speaking with Alex Gibney about why people join Scientology—and what happens when they try to leave.

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MARGO JEFFERSON remembers what she calls “Negroland”—the world of the black elite in the fifties, the world in which she grew up. She won the Pulitzer Prize in Criticism for her work at the New York Times; now she’s professor of writing at Columbia University School of the Arts, and she has a new book out: Negroland: A Memoir.

Also: GREIL MARCUS has written many books, starting with the classic Mystery Train and including the unforgettable Lipstick Traces. Now he has several new books coming out, starting with Three Songs, Three Singers, Three Nations; then the monumental Real Life Rock, the complete collection of his columns over the last 30 years; and he’s found new way of talking about our past: The History of Rock ’n’ Roll in Ten Songs.

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Seven little words from MICHAEL POLLAN:  “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” His number one-bestseller, out now in paperback, is IN DEFENSE OF FOOD. Michael is a contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine and Knight Professor of Journalism at UC Berkeley.

Also: HENRY FORD’s Amazon colony — historian GREG GRANDIN tells the story of Ford’s biggest failure.  His book Fordlandia is out now in paperback.

Plus: Politics and modern music: Hitler and Stalin went to the opera, and Joe McCarthy subpoenaed composers. What was going on?  ALEX ROSS explains — he’s music critic for The New Yorker, where’s he’s written not only about classical music but also about Bjork, Bob Dylan and Radiohead.  His award-winning book, out now in paperback, is THE REST IS NOISE: Listening to the 20th Century, and his famous website is TheRestIsNoise.com.