Living in the USA

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AMY WILENTZ has returned from a week in Haiti. “the problem is this,” she writes: “will people care about Haiti the way they did about New Orleans?  for the next three or four years, until the job gets done?”   She’ll talk about lessons from the streets in the art of survival. Amy is the award-winning author of The Rainy Season: Haiti Since Duvalier.
READ Amy’s “Haiti and the Art of Survival: Lessons from the Streets”  HERE

Plus: The DANIEL ELLSBERG documentary “The Most Dangerous Man in America” has been nominated for an Academy Award! The film opens Friday at the Music Hall in Beverly Hills, and we’ll be featuring passes to the show as add-ons to our fund drive premiums.
WATCH the trailer to “The Most Dangerous Man” HERE.

Also: we remember HOWARD ZINN, who died on Jan. 27. His People’s History of the US has sold more than two million copies – and he’s been an inspiration to activists since the 1960s. We’ll play some of our interviews with Howard, and feature the DVD of his Voices of a People’s History as a fund drive premium.
WATCH Howard Zinn’s interview with Bill Moyers HERE

For the record: the KPFK fund drive will feature a guest host today at 4pm.

(Guest-hosted by Alan Minsky while I was on jury duty–thank you Alan!)  Our president gives his first State of the Union speech tonight at 600pm, and apparently Obama will call for an across-the-board three-year spending freeze to placate Republicans who say the deficit is a big problem.  Question: Do ordinary people really care about the deficit?  And don’t we need a much bigger deficit right now? JOHN NICHOLS will comment: he’s Washington correspondent for The Nation and writes “The Beat” blog at TheNation.com.

Plus: The Supremes’ Blow to Democracy: last week the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that it was okay for corporations to spend unlimited money to overwhelm elections.  ERWIN CHEMERINSKY will comment: he says the same 5-4 majority that said corporations must have “free speech” has drastically limited free speech for others.  Erwin is founding dean of the UCI law school.

Also: The Culture of Fear: BARRY GLASSNER explains why Americans are afraid of the wrong things: Terrorists, Criminals, Drugs, Minorities, Teen Moms, Killer Kids, Mutant Microbes, Plane Crashes, Road Rage, & Vaccines.  “The Culture of Fear will amaze you, make you upset, and give you a new resolve to do what’s best for this country.”—Michael Moore.  Barry teaches sociology at USC, and was featured in Bowling for Columbine.

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It’s the first anniversary of Obama’s taking the oath of office, and the day after Obama lost the contest to replace Ted Kennedy with a Democrat.  Losing that 40th vote in the Senate is a disaster for the healthcare bill, the Democrats, the White House, and a lot of the American people.  Obama’s errors are no secret: helping the banks instead of providing jobs for ordinary people, and failing to fight for — and explain — a  healthcare reform bill (now opposed by a majority).

Is it all over now?  Will Obama follow Bill Clinton’s example, and focus on doing a few things the Republicans don’t object to?  We’ll have historical perspective from ERIC FONER, political commentary from JOHN NICHOLS, and  strategic analysis from HAROLD MEYERSON.

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The constitutional challenge to Prop. 8, Calfiornia’s initiative banning gay marriage, went to trial on Monday in San Francisco.   STEPHEN ROHDE will comment, he’s a constitutional lawyer, lecturer, writer and political activist. and Chair the ACLU Foundation of Southern California.

Also: FDR provides the model of a liberal activist president against which Obama is being measured – historian ALAN BRINKLEY will talk about what FDR did—about the banks, unemployment, social security, and racial justice–and how he did it.  His new book is Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Plus: Palestinian life in Gaza – now, and in 1956, when Israelis killed 275 people in two forgotten massacres. JOE SACCO, the pioneering comics journalist, will tell that story—and explain why it matters now.  His new book is Footnotes in Gaza. He will be reading and signing next Tues., Jan. 19, 730pm, at Skylight Books, 1818 N. Vermont Av.
READ Patrick Cockburn’s review  in the New York Times HERE
SEE Joe Sacco’s drawings from Footnotes in Gaza HERE.

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In Afghanistan, a “chain of catastrophes”over the last two weeks is “raising significant questions about the viability of the Obama-McChrystal plan for the country,” JUAN COLE says – he teaches history at the U. of Michigan and writes the indispensable blog “Informed Comment.” WATCH Afghan video from Al Jazeera/English HERE.

Plus: It’s Elvis’s 75^th birthday on Friday!  PETER GURALNICK will take up the question of Elvis and cultural theft: did the king rip off black people’s music?  Peter wrote the definitive 2-volume biography, Last Train to Memphis and Careless Love. (originally broadcast 8/15/07)
PLAYLIST: Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup, “That’s All Right, Mama” (1946);  Elvis, “That’s All Right” (1954);  Little Junior Parker, “Mystery Train” (1953);  Elvis, “Mystery Train” (1955).

Also: GREIL MARCUS’s “secret history of the twentieth century”: it starts with the Sex Pistols and goes back to Dada and the Situationists.  The 20^th anniversary edition of his Lipstick Traces is out now.  “Today those old voices sound as touching and scary as they ever did, ” Greil writes — “partly because there is an irreducible quality in their demands–and partly because they are suspended in time.”
PLAYLIST:  Sex Pistols, “Anarchy in the UK” (1976); Elvis Costello, “Radio Radio” (1978).

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HAROLD MEYERSON on Obama in 2009: what happened to “Hope”? Escalation in Afghanistan, the bailout of Wall Street, and giving up on the public option, for a start.  And why isn’t he doing more to create jobs?  Harold writes for the Washington Post op-ed page and The American Prospect. READ Harold’s “Decade of Dread” column HERE

Also: RICKY JAY,  master of what he calls “deceptive practices,” does amazing things with a deck of cards.  He also appeared in the David Mamet film “The Spanish Prisoner” as well as “Magnolia” and “Boogie Nights.”  He’s the author of  “Jay’s Journal of Anomalies.”
Now he has a new live show, “A Rogue’s Gallery” — it’s running at the Geffen Playhouse in Westwood through Jan. 10.
WATCH Ricky Jay’s amazing card trick on YouTube  HERE.
(originally aired 9/26/2001)

Plus: “The Dark Side” – that’s where Dick Cheney said we would have to go to “achieve our objectives” in the White House’s war on terror. JANE MAYER of The New Yorker has been investigating what “the dark side” really means.  I spoke with her before a live audience at the LA Public Library ALOUD series recently; we have the tape.  Her book is out now in paperback.
(originally aired 7/29/09)

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Our war on Xmas: BOB DYLAN has released a Christmas album! Is this a joke — or a tragedy? SEAN WILENTZ explains — he’s official historian at the official Bob Dylan website (he also teaches history at Princeton.)  READ Sean Wilentz on Dylan’s Xmas album HERE. LISTEN TO SAMPLES HERE. PLAYLIST: “Here Comes Santa Claus”; “I’ll Be Home for Xmas”; “Must Be Santa,” “Winter Wonderland”; “O Little Town of Bethlehem”  (originally broadcast 11/11/09)

Plus: Obama’s year-in-review: JOHN NICHOLS of The Nation comments – and reviews the pros and cons of the health care bill, scheduled to pass the Senate Dec. 24 at 8am.

Also: KATHA POLLITT is best known for her political columns in The Nation and her personal essays in The New Yorker, but she’s also an award-winning poet – her poems are published in The New Yorker, Paris Review, The Atlantic, and many other places.  Now she has a new book of poetry out – The Mind-Body Problem. We’ll talk about poetry and politics, and she will read some of my favorites.  (originally broadcast 7/29/09)

For the record: today at 4 on KPFK the fund drive will feature a guest host.

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Obama’s jobs program: is the effort he announced yesterday big enough?  Is it good enough?  Does anyone feel good about the American economy right now–with the 2010 elections not so far away?  Also, the Senate Dems’ failure on the health care public option.   JOHN NICHOLS comments  — he writes “The Beat” blog at TheNation.com.

Also: DICK CHENEY won’t go away – he keeps giving interviews attacking Obama. BART GELLMAN comments – his award-winning book Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency is out now in paperback.  (originally broadcast 5/6/09)

Plus: LIES — AND TRUTH – ABOUT 9/11: JOHN FARMER says the official version of what happened that day is “almost entirely . . . untrue.” But he’s no conspiracy theorist; he says Bush and Cheney turned out to be “irrelevant” that day.  Farmer is dean of the Rutgers Law School and was senior counsel to the 9/11 commission.  His new book is THE GROUND TRUTH: The Untold Story of America Under Attack on 9/11.