Living in the USA

Did the Republicans commit suicide with the budget they passed in the House last week?  ARI BERMAN of The Nation says Obama is clearly winning the debate on the debt and the deficit – but ignoring the problems of job creation … and the Afghan war.

Also: An insurance company insider speaks out on how corporate PR is killing healthcare and deceiving Americans: WENDELL POTTER walked away from a lucrative career to fight an industry that puts profits ahead of patient care.  His book is Deadly Spin.

Plus: Cold War Hollywood – film critic J. HOBERMAN talks about the 1950s, when the film industry purged the left and gave filmgoers a pageant of John Wayne cavalry Westerns, apocalyptic sci-fi flicks, and biblical spectaculars.  His new book is An Army of Phantoms: American Movies and the Making of the Cold War. “Cultural history doesn’t get any better—or scarier—than this.”—Mike Davis.

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Did Bob Dylan sell out when he sang in Beijing and Saigon this week?  Maureen Dowd says yes — what Bob did is “worse than Beyonce singing for Qaddafi.”  But SEAN WILENTZ says it’s not true — Bob did not bow to government demands that he not sing what Dowd calls “iconic songs of revolution like “The Times They Are a-Changin,’ ” and “Blowin’ in the Wind.””  Sean teaches history at Princeton; his new book is BOB DYLAN IN AMERICA, and he wrote a reply to Maureen Dowd at The New Yorker website.  We’ll listen to some of the songs Bob sang in Saigon and Beijing.   PLAYLIST: “Ballad of a Thin Man,” “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall,” “All Along the Watchtower,” “Highway 61 Revisited.”

ALSO:  Japanese officials now admit the radiation release from Fukushima is as bad as Chernobyl.  DAN HIRSCH will explain — he teaches at UC Santa Cruz and heads Committee to Bridge the Gap.

Plus:  In Obama’s deficit speech today he contrasted his vision of “the kind of future we want” with the Republicans’.  We’ll have commentary from HAROLD MEYERSON, he’s editor at large of The American Prospect and he writes a column for the Washington Post op-ed page.

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HAROLD MEYERSON of The American Prospect says the labor movement in L.A. is the great exception nationally – instead of fighting defensive battles, they are winning new jobs at decent wages—mostly, union jobs in government construction projects.  Harold wrote about L.A. labor for the L.A. Times op-ed page.

Plus: Women of Wal-Mart, Unite!  NELSON LICHTENSTEIN reports on the class-action suit of women workers at Wal-Mart – which would be the largest in the history of the world.  Nelson teaches labor history at UC Santa Barbara and is the author of The Retail Revolution, a history of Wal-Mart.

Also: Men, Women and Unions: Why cops and firemen change the picket line equation.  NATASHA VARGAS-COOPER worked as an SEIU organizer for five years; now she’s covering the Wisconsin story – and writing about it for The Atlantic the New York Times op-ed page.

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We’ve had very little reporting on what the worst human and environmental consequences might be following the nuclear disasters at Fukushima.  But, TOM ENGELHARDT says, we do have “the irradiated zone of the nuclear imagination,” where pulp fiction has dwelled on planetary disasters.  Tom edits TomDispatch.com, where his new piece, “The Worst That Could Happen,” is now posted.

Plus: The epic story of black migration out of the South –ISABEL WILKERSON tells that story in The Warmth of Other Suns. Her award-winning book is out now in paperback.  (originally broadcast 9/21/10)

Also: Haiti’s Aristide problem: Haitians voted for a new president on Sunday, just after former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide returned from seven years in exile.  AMY WILENTZ says that, as president, Aristide “changed nothing structurally.” Amy’s unforgettable book about Haiti is THE RAINY SEASON; her piece “The Haitian Lazarus” appeared in the New York Times op-ed page.

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In Wisconsin tonight, Republicans voted to strip workers of collective bargain rights in a surprise coup.  JOHN NICHOLS reports live from Madison on a developing crisis. READ John’s latest piece at TheNation.com HERE.  WATCH Michael Moore’s speech in Madison HERE.  (Photo: Milwaukee workers attack scabs in 1946–NYTimes.)

Also: The legendary FATHER GREG BOYLE, Jesuit pastor of Dolores Mission in Boyle Heights starting in 1986, has made it his mission to help gang members who want to quit.  He founded Homeboy Industries in 1988.  Now his wonderful book: Tattoos on the Heart: Stories of Hope and Compassion is out in paperback. (first aired 5/12/10)

Plus:   How a generation of women came to realize their dissatisfaction with domestic life didn’t reflect a personal inadequacy but rather a social and political injustice:  STEPHANIE COONTZ talks about Betty Friedan’s book The Feminine Mystique, 50 years after its publication.  Stephanie’s new book is A Strange Stirring: The Feminine Mystique and American Women at the Dawn of the 1960s. Watch Stephanie on The Colbert Report HERE.

Joseph Nye of Harvard’s Kennedy School wrote in the New Republic in 2007 that Muammar Qaddafi was interested in discussing “direct democracy.”
Anthony Giddens of the London School of Economics wrote in the Guardian the same year that Libya under Qaddafi could become “the Norway of North Africa.”
Benjamin Barber of Rutgers University wrote in the Washington Post, also in 2007, that Libya under Qaddafi could become “the first Arab state to transition peacefully and without overt Western intervention to a stable, non-autocratic government.”
Great minds think alike? Actually, no: all were being paid by Libyan money. . .
. . . continued at TheNation.com: HERE

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