Living in the USA

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Everybody has advice for the protesters at Occupy Wall Street –What do these people want, anyway?  They need to explain their demands!  BETSY REED, executive editor of The Nation, says progressives have plenty of policy ideas.  Occupy Wall Street provides something new: a spark.
Occupy L.A. : news HERE, live video feed HERE.

Also: RUSSELL BANKS is one of our best writers – in his new novel, Lost Memory of Skin, his protagonist, “The Kid,” is a registered sex offender forbidden to live within 2,500 feet of a school or park – and thus forced to join a homeless camp under a Florida freeway bridge.  Russell Banks will be appearing at Writers Bloc tomorrow/Thurs at 7:30pm in Century City at the MGM Building, 10250 Constellation Boulevard, tickets are $20.
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Plus: The rise of a new American security state: Pulitzer-Prize winner DANA PRIEST of the Washington Post reports on a world so vast no one knows how many people it employs, how much money taxpayers spend on it, or whether “counterterrorism” and “homeland security” accomplish anything worthwhile.  Dana is co-author of the new book Top Secret America.

and Your Minnesota Moment: remember the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul?  Remember how Amy Goodman and two DemocracyNow producers were arrested while reporting on protests outside the convention in downtown St. Paul?  Amy won a significant settlement: details on air.

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Ralph Nader, Cornel West, Jonathan Kozol and several others are looking for candidates to challenge Obama in the Democratic primaries next spring – JOHN NICHOLS of The Nation examines and evaluates their proposal.

Also: The US effort to “Rebuild Iraq”: how about a plant producing frozen chicken — in a country with no electricity for refrigeration?   PETER VAN BUREN worked for the State Department during the “surge,” and recounts the way billions of dollars were lost to waste and fraud.  His hew book is “We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People.” (Watch chicken plant  PR video HERE.)
And now Peter seems to be the only State Dept. official facing firing over Wikileaks—for posting a link to Wikileaks at his book website.

Plus: L.A.’s jails are the worst in the nation – that’s what the ACLU says in a report issued today that details “severe and pervasive abuse” of inmates by deputies.   PETER ELIASBERG, Legal Director of the ACLU/SC, says Sheriff Lee Baca “must step down.”   See coverage in the LA Times (page one) and the NY Times today.  SIGN THE PETITION HERE.

Georgia plans to execute Troy Davis Wed. at 4:00pm Pacific — despite impressive evidence that he is not guilty, and support for him from Jimmy Carter, the former head of the FBI under Reagan, and Pope Benedict XVI.  KPFK is preempting regular programming, including our show, for a Democracy Now! live broadcast from outside the state prison in Jackson, Ga.

Also: How movie stars shaped American politics: STEVEN J. ROSS will explain.  Steve teaches history at USC, he’s head of the Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities, and the author of the book Working Class Hollywood: Silent Film and the Shaping of Class in America. His new book is Hollywood Left and Right — it focuses on ten people including Charlie Chaplin,  Ronald Reagan, Jane Fonda and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

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RY COODER live in-studio talks about his new CD, “Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down.”  “There’s you, the citizen, running in circles like a headless chicken. And there they are, there they all are, herding you faster and faster through the circle maze of lies and distraction. Who will throw out the life line?  You need simple tools, and that’s what these songs are all about.” The Guardian gave the album five stars.  WATCH the video of  “Quicksand” HERE.

Plus: The lost decade after 9/11: RICK PERLSTEIN comments.  We’ll also talk about the Republican candidates’ debate at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley at 5pm.    Rick wrote about 9/11 for The American Prospect; his latest book is Nixonland. READ Rick Perlstein “How Democrats Win” at Time.com HERE.

Also: FRANCES MOORE LAPPE wants to change the way we think to create the world we want – her new book is EcoMind.  She is the author of 17 books and cofounder of Food First: The Institute for Food and Development Policy, the Small Planet Institute, and the Small Planet Fund.  She will be speaking Wed. nite, Sept 7, 7pm at All Saints Episcopal Church, 132 N. Euclid Ave. Pasadena.

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KAREN BASS started out as a community organizer in South L.A.; now she’s a member of Congress.  Today she’s at the Congressional Black Caucus Jobs Fair in L.A. — we’ll ask her about Obama and jobs, and why she voted in favor of the debt ceiling bill when so many of her colleagues in the Black Caucus voted No.

Also: HAROLD MEYERSON with our political update: he says “The Republicans will raise your taxes” — the payroll tax, a tax on working and middle class people.  Harold writes for the Washington Post op-ed page and he blogs for The American Prospect.

Plus: the Battle for COSTA MESA: the Republican city in deep Orange County is under attack from right-wing Republicans — TAD FRIEND says the battle there is “reminiscent of an earlier anti-union era, when the Pinkertons battered the Wobblies with fists and clubs.”  Tad Friend wrote about Costa Mesa politics for The New Yorker this week.

For the record: KPFK on Wed 8/24 & 8/17 pre-empted my show for special fund drive programming. Please pledge — call 818-985-5735, or online at kpfk.org.

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SKIP GATES is the Harvard professor of African American studies who had that “beer summit” at the White House with President Obama and the Cambridge cop who arrested him for breaking into his own house.  He talks about what it means to be “black” in Latin America — and about that White House meeting.  Skip’s new book is Black in Latin America.

We’ll also have a KPFK Sports report!  Views from left field — of pro football’s “concussion culture,” the way sex is used to sell women’s sports, and how NFL players beat owners in their latest battle – DAVE ZIRIN explains all — and all of these are stories in the Nation magazine’s new sports issue, and Dave is the guest editor.   He blogs at EdgeofSports.com.

Plus the media’s role in the fate of the world: MARIA ARMOUDIAN has the bad news about the media’s role in promoting genocide and war – and she also has some good news about places where the media contributed to reconciliation and justice.  Maria has written for the New York Times, the L.A. Times, Salon, and The Progressive .  And she’s the host and producer of Pacifica Radio programs The the Scholars’ Circle and the Insighters, heard here on KPFK Sundays at noon.  Her new book is KILL THE MESSENGER.

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Obama’s surrender to Republicans “savages programs for the lower and middle classes, while hedge fund managers and oil companies probably won’t sacrifice a cent.” JOHN NICHOLS will comment — he writes “The Beat” blog at TheNation.com.

Also: from the archives: our interview with TERRY GROSS of NPR’s “Fresh Air” — her show is heard by  4.5 million people on 450 stations.  Topics:  what went wrong in her interviews with Hillary Clinton, Nancy Reagan, and Bill O’Reilly. Also, I ask  “What is the deal with rumors that you are a lesbian?”  Her book, All I Did was Ask: Conversations with Writers, Actors, Musicians and Artists, is out now in paperback.  (Originally broadcast 11/17/04)

Plus: the L.A. Art scene in the 1960s: in 1960 L.A. had no museum showing contemporary art, and only a few galleries — which is exactly what Ed Ruscha, David Hockney, Judy Chicago and John Baldessari liked about it.  HUNTER DROHOJOWSKA -PHILP tells all – her new book is Rebels In Paradise: The Los Angeles Art Scene and the 1960s.  Hunter will be in conversation with Eve Babitz at the Hammer Museum, Westwood & Wilshire, tonight/Wed. at 7:00pm—the event is free.

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What Happens When Three Sputtering Economies Collide? MIKE DAVIS connects the dots between China’s bubble, the Euro’s trouble, and the unfolding disaster in Washington.  Mike wrote about it for TomDispatch.com; he teaches writing at UC Riverside.

Plus: The mess in Washington: HAROLD MEYERSON looks again at Obama’s concessions to the House Republicans, and their refusal to accept and claim victory.  Harold writes a column for the Washington Post op-ed page and is editor-at-large of The American Prospect.

Also: The Trouble with the Tomato: BARRY ESTABROOK reports on the winter tomato crop in Southern Florida – ground zero for slave labor.  Also, the tomatoes taste like cardboard.  Barry’s new book is Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed our Most Alluring Fruit. His article for Gourmet on labor abuses in Florida’s Tomato fields received the 2010 James Beard Award for magazine feature writing. Read it here.  And he blogs at PoliticsofthePlate.com.