Living in the USA

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Your Minnesota Moment: KEITH ELLISON, the first Muslim elected to Congress—a black Democrat from Minneapolis and chair of the Progressive Caucus in the House.  His new book is My Country ‘Tis of Thee: My Faith, My Family and Our Future.

 Also: JOSH BRAHINSKY on the TA strike at the University of California campuses today and tomorrow, and JOHN NICHOLS of The Nation magazine with today’s political update: Dollarocracy at the Supreme Court.

Plus: Cesar Chavez: What Happened?  MIRIAM PAWEL has written the definitive biography of the rise, and fall, of the charismatic leader of the farm workers. From the strike, to the fast, to the boycott, to the cult of personality . . . Her new book is The Crusades of Cesar Chavez.
READ Miriam Pawel on Cesar Chavez in the LA Times HERE.
SEE Miriam Pawel at the LA Times Festival of Books: HERE.

A story about music, politics and the U.S.A.: The song “The House I Live In” as sung by Frank Sinatra — from the Popular Front of the 1940s, to the HUAC investigations of Hollywood, to performances at Nixon and Reagan White House celebrations.   Aired on WNYC’s “Fishko Files” 3/27.

LISTEN at http://www.wnyc.org/story/house-i-live/

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MARK LEVINE  live from Ramallah: Mark teaches the history of the modern Middle East at UC Irvine and is a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Lund University. His most recent book is One Land, Two States: Israel and Palestine as Parallel States. 

Also: How to Raise Americans’ wages: HAROLD MEYERSON says we have to go beyond proposalsto raise the minimum wage—he’s got eight proposals.  Harold writes a column for the Washington Post op-ed page and he’s editor at large of The American Prospect.

Plus: AMY WILENTZ on Haiti—she won the autobiography prize of the National Book Critics Circle for her book Farewell Fred Voodoo: A Letter from Haiti – it’s out now in paperback.  She writes for The New Yorker, The Nation and other magazines, and she’s also professor of English at UC Irvine, where she teaches in the Literary Journalism program.
more on Dr. Megan Coffee and Ti Kay Haiti HERE

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The US is only the most recent power to invade Afghanistan —and fail.  Of course the Soviets tried it from 1979 to 1989, and before that, the British tried – from 1839 to 1842.  Is there a lesson here? WILLIAM DALRYMPLE thinks so—he’s written about the British effort, and its striking parallels to our own: RETURN OF A KING: the Battle for Afghanistan, 1839-42—it’s out now in paperback.

Also: The Irish novelist John Banville writes thrillers under the pen name Benjamin Black. His new one, set in LA in 1950, is The Black-Eyed Blonde: A Philip Marlowe Novel.

Plus: Edmund White, a member of the Stonewall generation, is the author of several award-winning memoirs and novels, including A Boy’s Own Story and City Boy.  His new memoir is Inside a Pearl: My Years in Paris.  “White is one of the most prominent gay writers in the United States, a position he occupies gleefully”–Jay Parini, New York Times.

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Stokely Carmichael from civil rights to black power: PENIEL JOSEPH has written the definitive biography of the 1960s black activist known for his radicalism and fearlessness.  The book is STOKELY: A LIFE.  PENIEL JOSEPH will be reading and signing at Esowon Books Sat 3/15 at 5pm: 4327 Degnan Blvd, Los Angeles in Liemert Park – and Monday at Occidental College.

Plus: Voting rights battles: where we stand now.  ARI BERMAN of The Nation will comment on the Moral Monday movement, a multiracial, multi-issue progressive coalition that is not only remobilizing in North Carolina;  its model of activism is now spreading all over the South.

Also: a story of protest and prison during the Vietnam war: BRUCE DANCIS was the principal organizer of the first mass draft card burning during the Vietnam War.  After he turned down a student deferment and refused induction, he spent 19 months in federal prison.  He’ll provide not only an insider’s account of the antiwar movement but also a rare look at the prison experiences of Vietnam-era draft resisters. His new book is RESISTER: A story of Protest and Prison during the Vietnam War.

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LA Sheriff Lee Baca ran some of the worst prisons in America, right here in LA; a year ago it seemed like there was no way to get rid of him.  Then last month he resigned.  CELESTE FREMON explains how we did it: she writes the indispensable WitnessLA blog, and reported on the sheriff for LA Magazine.

TOM FRANK: Why Democrats are scared of “class”: “’Inequality’ is what we say when we mean to describe the ruined downtown of your city, or your constant fear that the next round of layoffs will include you.”  Tom, author of the classic What’s the Matter with Kansas, recently moved his column from Harper’s to Salon.com, where it is free.

The politics of grapes in Chile and the US: after seizing power in 1973, Augusto Pinochet made Chile the world’s leading grape exporter. Fruit workers, mostly women, started to buy appliances, clothing, and cosmetics, and consumerism changed gender relations as well as pro-democracy movements.  Meanwhile, back in the US, the United Farm Workers and Chilean solidarity activists boycotted grapes. HEIDI TINSMAN will explain – she teaches history at UC Irvine; her new book is Buying into the Regime: Grapes and Consumption in Cold War Chile and the United States.

Today on KPFK we’ll speak with OLIVER STONE about the Untold History of the United States – it’s his 10-part documentary, analyzing the American empire especially after WWII.  It’s provocative, massively documented, and a necessary antidote to the mainstream media’s celebration of American triumphalism—and the DVD is our featured thank-you gift in the KPFK fund drive.  Please call and pledge during the show: 818-985-5735.
READ my piece from The Nation about Oliver Stone’s “Untold History” HERE.

 Also: JOHN NICHOLS with today’s political update: John is Washington Correspondent for The Nation, and he blogs at www.TheNation.com.

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LA and NYC: two new progressive mayors; two cities with a shrinking middle class and a vast low-wage service sector, and with an effective labor-liberal political alliance. So why are the agendas of the two cities’ mayors, Bill de Blasio and Eric Garcetti, shaping up so differently?  Analysis from HAROLD MEYERSON – he writes a column for the Washington Post op-ed page; he’s editor-at-large of The American Prospect, and he wrote about LA and NYC for the LA Times op-ed page.

Also: We’re still thinking about PETE SEEGER, who died last week.  We’ll talk about Pete with PETER DREIER – he says (in The Nation), “Every day, every minute, someone in the world is singing a Pete Seeger song.”  Peter’s new book is The 100 Greatest Americans of the 20th Century—of course Pete is one of them.

We’ll listen to my 1981 interview with Pete Seeger about the day he led half a million people singing “Give Peace a Chance” at the Vietnam Moratorium in 1969–Plus: “The Ballad of Pete Seeger”–the 2-hour Pacifica special, featuring Tim Robbins with Pete.  We’ll speak with the writer/producer MARK TORRES.  “The Ballad of Pete Seeger” is our featured thank-you gift in the KPFK fund drive: please call and pledge during the show: 818-985-5735.

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Art, revolution, and motorcycles—and a girl called “Reno”: they’re all in RACHEL KUSHNER’s glorious novel The Flamethrowers.  It was a finalist for the National Book Award and a New York Times bestseller, and it’s out now in paperback.

Plus: Edward Snowden: hero, or traitor?  DAVID COLE says “Consider what we have learned from Snowden’s leaks and the further government disclosures that they prompted.”  David wrote about Edward Snowden—and Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange – for the New York Review.

Also: JOHN NICHOLS on Obama’s State of the Union—right on wages, wrong on trade—and on our hero Pete Seeger, who died Monday.  John is Washington Correspondent for The Nation.

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President Obama has proposed “reforms” of the NSA, suggesting we need a plan to come up with a plan about bulk metadata gathering on civilians.  RICK PERLSTEIN compares Obama’s proposals with the Church Committee’s final report from 1976 on spying on Americans.  Short version: the Nixon administration was better.

Also: the My Lai massacre was not an isolated incident; millions of innocent Vietnamese civilians were killed and wounded by American forces—“a My Lai a month” is what award-winning reporter NICK TURSE calls it.  His decade of research in secret Pentagon archives and interviews with vets and Vietnamese are the basis of his important book, KILL ANYTHING THAT MOVES: The Real American War in  Vietnam–it’s out now in paperback.

Plus: Slavery, freedom, and Islamophobia: GREG GRANDIN uncovered the true story of a rebellion on a slave ship in 1805–by African Muslims– that inspired Herman Melville to rethink slavery and freedom 50 years later.  It’s a story with  echoes in our own time as Tea Party activists charge that Obama is a secret Muslim from Africa.   Greg teaches history at NYU; his magnificent new book is The Empire of Necessity: Slavery, Freedom, and Deception in the New World.  It is featured on the cover of The Nation this week.