Living in the USA

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Politicians tell us how smart the American people are. But the evidence is overwhelming: American voters are ignorant, shortsighted and swayed by meaningless rhetoric. A Washington Post poll in 2003 found that 70 per cent of Americans believed Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11. A majority continued to believe this even after the 9/11 Commission reported that the claim was groundless. RICK SHENKMAN, author of the new book JUST HOW STUPID ARE WE? says we can blame the president and the media, but we also have to face the truth about the American voter. Rick teaches history at George Mason U. and founded the History News Network website.

Also: BARBARA EHRENREICH tried living on low-wage work — she tells that story in her classic book Nickel and Dimed, out now in a new paperback edition (originally broadcast May 22, 2003.

Plus: The ‘State Secrets Privilege’ allows the president and the executive branch to conceal conduct, withhold documents and block civil litigation in the same of national security. It didn’t always exist — it was created in 1953. BARRY SIEGEL, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, has undercovered the facts that led the Supreme Court to create the privilege — a mysterious 1948 crash of an Air Force B-29 in Georgia, and the efforts of the families of the men who died in the crash to find out what happened. Barry�s new book is CLAIM OF PRIVILEGE: A Mysterious Plane Crash, a Landmark Supreme Court Case, and the Rise of State Secrets.

Okay, the primaries are over. How much damage did Hillary do to the Democrats — and to Obama? “The Clintons have behaved execrably,” Bob Herbert writes in the NYTimes, “But weak-willed party leaders showed neither the courage nor the inclination to stop them from fracturing the party along gender and ethnic lines.” HAROLD MEYERSON will comment: he’s executive editor of The American Prospect and writes for the Washington Post op-ed page.

Also: Ordinary Heroes in Extraordinary Times: AMY GOODMAN talks about grassroots activists who have taken politics out of the hands of politicians, ordinary citizens who have challenged injustice — and won. Amy of course is host of �Democracy Now� , which airs on KPFK and more than 600 radio and TV stations around the world and on Democracynow.org. Her new book, co-authored by her brother David Goodman, is Standing Up to the Madness.

We will be featuring Standing Up to the Madness today as a KPFK fund drive premium – Pledge Online.
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Plus: Leonardo DiCaprio’s documentary “The 11th Hour” argues that we’ve arrived at the last moment when change is still possible, when our impact on the earth’s ecosystem is not yet fatal. We’ll talk about the film and listen to clips featuring Minister Mikhail Gorbachev, scientist Stephen Hawking, R. James Woolsey (former head of the CIA) and sustainable design experts.
We will be featuring “The 11th Hour” as a KPFK fund drive premium–pledge online.

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The Age of Reagan: is it coming to an end? In 1964 the conservative movement seemed nearly dead. Then it manged to seize power and dominate American politics for the past 35 years. Historian SEAN WILENTZ will talk about Ronald Reagan – how his rise was hardly inevitable; how his successes had little to do with conservative ideology; and how the nearly forgotten Iran-Contra scandal was a fundamental challenge to the constitution and democracy. Sean teaches history at Princeton; his new book is The Age of Reagan: A History, 1974-2008.

Plus: Your Minnesota Moment: in preparation for the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, the local FBI is soliciting informants to keep tabs on local protest groups and their “vegan potlucks” — a report by Matt Snyders in CityPages.

Also: The “Frozen Chosen:” MICHAEL CHABON won the Pulitzer Prize for The Amazing Adventures of Cavalier and Clay – now after seven years he’s back with another one that’s dazzling fun: The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, out now in paperback. In the wake of WWII, the US permits immigrant Jews to settle in Sitka, Alaska (which was in fact proposed by FDR) after the defeat of the nascent state of Israel. Our hero is detective Meyer Landsman, “a crazy little Jew with a question and a gun.” (originally broadcast May 9, 2007)

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ARIANNA HUFFINGTON talks about Tuesday’s primaries, which finally gave Obama a majority of pledged delegates from primaries and caucuses. The big questions: Will Hillary’s white supporters vote for Obama in November? And how strong a candidate will John McCain be? Arianna of course is co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post; her new book is Right Is Wrong: How the Lunatic Fringe Hijacked America, Shredded the Constitution, and Made Us All Less Safe (and What You Need to Know to End the Madness).

Plus: BARBARA EHRENREICH talks about the politics of joy – her book Dancing in the Streets is out now in paperback. (originally broadcast Jan. 10, 2007)

Also: In the last Gilded Age, people stood up to greed – why don’t we? STEVE FRASER talks about irrational exhuberance and market panic; dreams of wealth and hatred of the power of money. He wrote about “The Two Gilded Ages” for TomDispatch.com, and his new book is Wall Street: America’s Dream Palace.

More stuff to read: “Nixonland, Then and Now” — my interview at TheNation.com with Rick Perlstein.

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After Goldwater’s defeat in 1964, all the pundits said the Republican right was dead. Eight years later, in 1972, Richard Nixon won 49 out of 50 states – exploiting the toxic resentments, cultural paranoia and racial hatreds of the era. Do we still live in Nixonland? RICK PERLSTEIN says “yes we do.” His new book is NIXONLAND: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America.
Rick will be reading Thursday, May 15, 7PM, at Pi on Sunset (next door to Book Soup), 8828 Sunset Blvd. in West Hollywood.

Plus: Politics and modern music: teenage Hitler went to the Strauss opera “Salome”; Stalin walked out on a Shostakovitch opera—a bad sign; and Joe McCarthy subpoenaed Aaron Copland (but missed the fact that in the 1930s he had spoken to communist farmers in Minnesota). ALEX ROSS will explain; he’s music critic for The New Yorker, his award-winning book is THE REST IS NOISE: Listening to the 20th Century, and his famous website is www.TheRestIsNoise.com.

News update: The new campaign slogan chosen by House Republicans — “Change You Deserve” — turns out to also be the trademarked slogan of the antidepressant Effexor.

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JOHN NICHOLS comments on Tuesday’s primaries in North Carolina and Indiana – and talks about Obama’s problem with Democrats. Among Clinton backers in Indiana, 33 percent say they would vote for McCain and 17 percent say they would not vote. Among Clinton supporters in North Carolina, it’s even worse: 38 percent say they would vote for McCain, and 12 percent say they would not vote. Obama, Nichols writes, “clearly has a November problem on his hands.” John is Washington correspondent for The Nation and writes “The Beat” blog at TheNation.com.

Also: PICO IYER talks about the DALAI LAMA and TIBETAN PROTEST against Chinese repression of their culture and religion. Pico Iyer first met the Dalai Lama 33 years ago and has travelled with him extensively in the last few years, writing about his work as a politician, religious leader and celebrity — while “the country he was born to rule is slipping ever closer to extinction.” Meanwhile many Tibetans criticize the Dalai Lama for not supporting Tibetan independence or militant protest. Pico Iyer’s new book is THE OPEN ROAD: The Global Journey of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama.

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Can Obama recover from the Rev. Wright’s latest statements? We’ll ask MICHAEL KINSLEY – he’s America’s leading liberal pundit – now a Time magazine columnist, he co-hosted “Crossfire,” wrote the TRB column for The New Republic, founded Slate.com, worked as Editorial Page Editor of the LA Times in 2004-2005, and had brain surgery for Parkinson’s Disease in 2006. His new collection is titled Please Don’t Remain Calm: Provocations and Commentaries. Kinsley is the one who said “A gaffe is when a politician tells the truth”;  and “Ambition can never be naked in a political campaign; it must be clothed in deceit.”
Michael Kinsley will be in conversation with Mickey Kaus Wed. nite at Town H all/Writers’ Bloc at UCLA’s Melnitz Hall, 7:30pm.

Also: it’s WILLIE NELSON’s 75^th birthday. From “Crazy” to “Georgia on My Mind,” he’s been a glorious voice of America. He’s also the founder of Willie Nelson Bio-diesel (“Bio-Willie”), marketing bio-fuel to truck stops; he’s co-chair of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) advisory board; he supported Dennis Kucinich in the 2004 and 2008 Democratic presidential primaries; and he’s called for the end of the war in Iraq. We’ll talk about his music and his life with JOE NICK PATOSKI, author of WILLIE NELSON: AN EPIC LIFE.
Playlist: “Crazy”; “Red-Headed Stranger”; “Mamas, Don’t Let Your Babies. . .”; “Georgia on My Mind”; “Help Me Make It Through the Night.” Visit the official Willie Nelson website

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The Pennsylvania primary and the presidency: HAROLD MEYERSON will answer the question, “when will it be over?” – he’s executive editor of The American Prospect and an op-ed columnist for the Washington Post.

Also: RICHARD PRICE has a new novel out: LUSH LIFE, about intersecting worlds on the Lower East Side: yuppies, Chinese immigrants, kids from the projects, old Jews, and of course the cops. “Richard Price’s ear for dialogue, his ability to caputre and reproduce the rhythm, tone, and vocabulary of urban life, cannot be overpraised” – that’s what Michael Chabon writes in the New York Review. “with all due respect to Elmore Leonard, Price is our best,” he says, “one of the best writers of dialogue in the history of American literature.”
Richard Price will be speaking Saturday at 1030 at the LA Times Festival of Books at UCLA, Fowler Museum Auditorium. Tickets free but required — at Ticketmaster.com.

Plus: GREIL MARCUS talks about Elvis. His classic 1975 book MYSTERY TRAIN: IMAGES OF AMERICA IN ROCK ‘N” ROLL MUSIC is out now in a fifth revised edition. Elvis, he writes, was “a great artist, a great rocker, a great purveyor of shlock, a great heart throb, a great bore, a great symbol of potency, a great ham, a great nice person, and, yes, a great American.”

Also at the Bookfest at UCLA this weekend: I’ll be on a panel with Amy Goodman and Tom Hayden — Saturday at noon at Ackerman Ballroom — tickets free but required, at TicketMaster.com.

More stuff to read: my new piece at the Huffington Post, “McCain’s Medical Records: Why the Delay?”

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Homeless in L.A: one man’s story: STEVE LOPEZ is the indispensable LA Times columnist who writes about life in the city. Now he tells the story of one homeless man on Skid Row who he discovered was a classical violinist, trained at Julliard. Now that story is not only a book but is soon to be a major motion picture: The Soloist.
Steve Lopez will be speaking Thursday, 4/17, 730pm: Town Hall Writer’s Bloc — Writer’s Guild Theatre, 135 S. Doheny Dr., Beverly Hills; Friday, 4/18, 8pm: Vroman’s Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena; Sunday, 4/27, 1130am: LA Times BookFest, UCLA.

Plus: This weekend is the 50^th anniversary of the Ash Grove, the legendary music club on Melrose that was burned in 1973 – Sandy Carter will explain–he wrote the music column “Slippin’ and Slidin'” for Z Magazine. This weekend will feature a series of glorious concerts at UCLA: Fri. night, 4/18, Royce Hall: Dave Alvin; Ramblin’ Jack Elliott; Mike Seeger, Roland White and Ry Cooder; plus Culture Clash; Sat. night, 4/19, Royce Hall: The Freedom Singers, John Hammond, Taj Mahal, The Watts Prophets; Sunday 4/20, 11AM, Schoenberg Hall: Gospel Concert, with The Eddie Kendricks Gospel Choir, Bernice Reagon and the Freedom Singers, Michelle Shocked.

Also: Osama Bin Laden is part of a generation of wealthy Saudis full of contradictions in their relationship to American popular culture—and American business. That story is told in The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century by STEVE COLL – he won the Pulitzer Prize for his last book, the bestseller Ghost Wars, on the secret history of the CIA, Afghanistan and Bin Laden.
Steve Coll will be speaking at 7pm in the ALOUD Series at the downtown LA Public Library, 5^th and Flower streets – the event is officially “Sold out—Standby Only.”

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Until now, BARBARA EHRENREICH says, “Americans seemed to have nothing to say about their ongoing economic ruin except, “Hit me! Please, hit me again!” then on April 1, truck drivers started standing up—in New Jersey, Ohio, and Illinois – challenging the high cost of diesel fuel.
READ the Truckers’ website; READ Barbara’s report at TheNation.com.

Also: the Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction was awarded yesterday to UCLA historian SAUL FRIEDLANDER for his book on the holocaust, The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945. He talks about the cooperation of “bystanders,” the passivity of elites in occupied Europe, and the victims’ initial blindness towards their fate, and then their willingness to follow orders. He also draws extensively on individual voices – perpetrators, collaborators, victims. (originally broadcast July 11, 2007.)
READ my Q&A with Saul Friedlander in Dissent.

PLUS: Israel, Palestine, and a tenure battle at Barnard College: a story about the campaign to block tenure for anthropologist Nadia Abu El-Haj, born in America of Palestinian parents.
She wrote Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society. In 2006, she came up for tenure at Barnard; JANE KRAMER of The New Yorker reports that “No one in her department doubted she would get it.” But in August 2007, a petition entitled “Deny Nadia Abu El-Haj tenure” was posted on the Internet.