Living in the USA

for the record, today’s show on KPFK was pre-empted by special fund drive programming.

LISTEN online HERE— SUBSCRIBE to iTunes podcast HERE
Who better to mobilize a lobby for gun control than former congresswoman and shooting survivor Gabrielle Giffords?  JOHN POWERS talked with her at home in Tucson recently, two years after she was shot in the head in a Tucson parking lot by a deranged misfit—an attack that killed six—as she and her husband, former astronaut Mark Kelly, announced the creation of Americans for Responsible Solutions.  John is critic at large for “Fresh Air with Terry Gross,” film critic for Vogue, and writes about culture and politics for The American Prospect.  WATCH Gabby Giffords’s first TV ad HERE.

Plus: The rarely seen film “King: A Filmed Record” traces MLK’s struggle from Montgomery to Memphis. In a Black History Month special, we air excerpts of a rarely seen Oscar-nominated documentary.  It was made from original newsreel footage and other original video footage shot of marches, rallies and church services. “King” was originally screened for one night only in 1970 in more than 600 theaters across the United States, but has rarely been seen since.  It’s our featured premium this hour of the KPFK Fund Drive – please call and pledge 818-985-5735 during the show.

for the record, today’s show on KPFK was pre-empted by special fund drive programming.

LISTEN online HERE— SUBSCRIBE to iTunes podcast HERE
The sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic church: That’s the subject of a documentary playing all this month on HBO – the filmmaker is ALEX GIBNEY—he won an Oscar for “Taxi to the Dark Side.”  This new documentary is “Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God.”

Also: HAROLD MEYERSON talks about Obama’s State of the Union speech last night – and the Republican response.  Harold is editor-at-large of The American Prospect and a columnist for the Washington Post op-ed page.

And for black history month, UCLA historian ROBIN KELLEY will look at the life and music of Thelonious Monk.  Robin’s book Thelonious Monk, The Life and Times of an American Original, is out now in paperback.    PLAYLIST: “‘Round Midnight,”  “Well You Needn’t,” “Straight No Chaser,” “Sweet and Lovely” – 1947 Blue Note sessions.  (originally broadcast 10-21-09)

LISTEN online HERE— SUBSCRIBE to iTunes podcast HERE
Is the party of old white men doomed by demography?  Will the young and the women and the people of color form a permanent ruling coalition?   RICK PERLSTEIN says history suggests it’s not going to happen.  He’s the author of the classics Before the Storm, on Goldwater, and Nixonland.  He blogs for TheNation.com.

Also: For black history month, historian IRA BERLIN analyzes four epic migrations of African-Americans.  Ira teaches at the University of Maryland; his book is The Making of African America: The Four Great Migrations is out now in paperback.

Plus: New Orleans between the Superbowl and Mardi Gras: 150,000 tourists came last weekend for football; a million more are coming next weekend to binge-drink during Mardi Gras.  The city lives off the restaurants and hotels.  NONA WILLIS ARONWITZ was there last week, thinking about the possibility of organizing those industries to make these jobs better.  Nona writes for The Nation and blogs at TheOtherNWA.com.

LISTEN online HERE— SUBSCRIBE to iTunes podcast HERE
Forty years after Roe v. Wade, for the first time since polling began on this issue, more people are telling Gallup they are pro-life than say they are pro-choice.  Does that mean we need to replace the term “pro-choice” with something else?  If so, what?  KATHA POLLITT comments; she’s a columnist for The Nation.

ALSO: Republicans and Randians – Ayn Rand, that is: JOHN NICHOLS talks about the strange ideas of our opposition party – especially those of Ron Johnson, the Wisconsin Republican who defeated Russ Feingold.  John is Washington correspondent for The Nation.

PLUS:  Another day older and deeper in debt: historian STEVE FRASER talks about the politics of debt in America, from debtor’s prison to our present debtor nation.  Steve is author of Wall Street: America’s Dream Palace.  He wrote about debt for TomDispatch and Jacobin.

LISTEN online HERE— SUBSCRIBE to iTunes podcast HERE
HAROLD MEYERSON on Obama’s majority—and the way he connected our struggles for equality today with the history of “Seneca Falls and Selma and Stonewall.”  But can Obama’s majority win the coming fights not just for social equality but for economic reforms?  Harold is editor at large of The American Prospect and columnist for the Washington Post op-ed page.

Plus: Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” has become one of the emost widely recorded songs in music history—ALAN LIGHT explains how that happened.  His new book is THE HOLY OR THE BROKEN: …The Unlikely Ascent of ‘Hallelujah’.  Playlist: “Hallelujah” by Jeff Buckley, K.D. Lang, Bob Dylan, Adam Sandler, and Leonard Cohen Live in London.

Also: The true story of a convicted murderer and the lawyers who fought for his freedom: BARRY SIEGEL, the Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist who heads the Literary Journalism program at UC Irvine, tells the story of Bill Macumber, who was released from prison in Arizona in November after spending 37 years in jail maintaining his innocence.  Barry’s new book is MANIFEST INJUSTICE.
Barry Siegel book talk at UCI Law School noon Thurs 1/24: info HERE.

LISTEN online HERE— SUBSCRIBE to iTunes podcast HERE
Haiti Since the Earthquake: AMY WILENTZ reports on life in the ruins, and on the failures (and occasional successes) of relief and recovery efforts.  Fact: most of the $379 million initially allocated by the US for aid to Haiti after the earthquake did not go to Haiti or Haitians; one-third went to the US military.  Amy’s magnificent new book is FAREWELL FRED VOODOO: A Letter from Haiti.  READ Amy’s new report from Haiti in The Nation HERE ;
SUPPORT Dr. Megan Coffee at TiKayHaiti.org.

Plus: TOM FRANK on the secret behind Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln: historian Doris Kearns Goodwyn—“uninspiring to the point of boredom.”  So how did her work come to define our era?  Tom wrote about Spielberg and Goodwyn for his Harper’s column this month, HERE.

Also: the My Lai massacre was not an isolated incident; millions of innocent Vietnamese civilians were killed and wonded 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 new book, KILL ANYTHING THAT MOVES: The Real American War in  Vietnam.

LISTEN online HERE— SUBSCRIBE to iTunes podcast HERE
Radicals use “liberal” as a synonym for all that is anemic, weak-kneed, and not really leftist at all. “I own it,” RICK PERLSTEIN says, because “liberalism, done right in this all-too-reactionary nation, is always already radical.”   Rick this week has started a thrice-weekly column for TheNation.com.

Also: Orange County Republicans: the doomsday scenario.  The white-hot heart of the GOP outside the South is Orange County, California; and yet it was in Orange County that Republicans lost the key state assembly seat that gave Democrats a supermajority in Sacramento.  GUSTAVO ARELLANO will explain — he’s editor-in-chief of the OC Weekly, where Scott Moxley’s cover story on the GOP appears this week.

Plus: the slave ship Amistad set sail from Havana in June, 1839 with a routine delivery of human cargo.  But the 53 Africans being held captive managed to take control of the ship and steer for freedom.  MARCUS REDIKER will tell that story—he is Distinguished Professor of Atlantic History at the U. of Pittsburgh and author of the wonderful new book, The Amistad Rebellion: An Atlantic Odyssey of Slavery and Freedom.