Hard Hats and Hippies, Together at Last: Nation 10/14

After decades in which “hard hats” were described as enemies of the left, and four decades after construction workers in lower Manhattan attacked anti-war demonstrators on Wall Street, the AFL-CIO on Thursday called on its members to defend Occupy Wall Street from the NYPD as the city moved to arrest and evict protestors in Zuccotti Park.  Hard hats and hippies, together at last!….
. . . . Continued at TheNation.com HERE

Republicans Kill Jobs Bill: KPFK Wed. 10/12

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 Last night Senate Republicans blocked Obama’s jobs bill, which would have taxed millionaires to fund infrastructure construction, repair schools, and rehire cops, teachers, and firefighters who have been laid off.   Meanwhile,  Occupy Wall Street grows.  JOHN NICHOLS will comment–he writes “The Beat” blog at TheNation.com.

Big Bill Broonzy – he left the Mississippi Delta to become a leading Chicago bluesman of the 1930s, singing about racial injustice alongside Pete Seeger and Studs Terkel; then traveling to Europe to ignite the British blues-rock revival of the 1960s with Eric Clapton and Pete Townshend. BOB REISMAN explains – his new book is I Feel so Good: the Life and Times of Big Bill Broonzy.
Playlist: “Black, Brown, and White,” “This Train,” “I Feel So Good.”

Also: Whatever happened to the American left?  MICHAEL KAZIN says socialists. anarchists and communists never won much political power, but nevertheless their utopian spirit brought far-reaching cultural change.  And then there were the Abolitionists: we could learn a lot from them.  Michael’s new book is American Dreamers: How the Left Changed a Nation.

What Does Sarah Palin Want? Money. Nation 10/9

When Sarah Palin announced last week that she was not running for president, many wondered, what had she been trying to do during the last three years, when she seemed to be almost a candidate?  Now we know: she was trying to make money.
. . .  continued at TheNation.com HERE

Cold War Culture Workers: Dissent Fall 2011

From High Noon to The Ten Commandments, from low-budget horror films like Them! to noir melodramas like Panic in the Streets, Hollywood was a key arena for the giant U-turn in American politics that took place in the late 1940s and early 1950s.  (Review of  An Army of Phantoms: American Movies and the Making of the Cold War by J. Hoberman; Dissent, Fall 2011) . . . . continued HERE.

Occupy LA Endorsed by City Council: Nation 10/5

In a move that dramatizes the political differences between Los Angeles and New York, several members of the LA City Council today declared their support for Occupy LA and introduced a resolution that will put the city officially on record as endorsing the demonstrators camped at City Hall. City Council president Eric Garcetti, who is running for mayor, visited the encampment yesterday and said, “Stay as long as you need, we’re here to support you.” . . .
Continued at TheNation.com HERE

Occupy Wall Street: The Spark – KPFK Wed. 10/5

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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.

The Reconstruction of Iraq: That “Hearts and Minds Thing”: The Nation 9/29

They called it “rebuilding Iraq,” and Peter van Buren knows a lot about what went wrong — he’s a career State Department foreign service officer who spent a year there on a Provincial Reconstruction Team. I spoke with him recently on KPFK-FM in Los Angeles.

It says here you speak Japanese, Mandarin, and some Korean – why did the State Department send you to Iraq?

Along with the WMD’s, there was another misunderstanding . . .
. . . continued at TheNation.com HERE

A Primary Challenge to Obama? KPFK 9/28

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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.

KPFK Wed 9/21: Preempted: Troy Davis Execution

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.