Occupy Wall Street: The Promise – KPFK 8/22

LISTEN online HERE — SUBSCRIBE to iTunes podcast HERE
The roots, the spirit, and the promise of Occupy Wall Street: TODD GITLIN explains the most dynamic phenomenon in left politics in more than forty years.  “We are the 99 per cent!”  Todd is professor journalism and sociology at Columbia; his new book is OCCUPY NATION.

Plus: the new documentary film “We Women Warriors” follows three native women who are caught in the crossfire of Colombia’s warfare and who use nonviolent resistance to defend their people’s survival.  Filmmaker NICOLE KARSIN explains — the film is screening on LA August 24-30 at DocuWeeks at the Laemmle NoHo7.  WATCH the trailer HERE.

Also: Boom and bust in the new old west: RUBÉN MARTÍNEZ fled to the desert to escape his urban addictions.  What he found there was a world of devastating poverty and outrageous wealth, sublime beauty and ecological ruin.   His brutally honest new book is DESERT AMERICA.  “No book that I’ve read in the last 20 years has inspired so much genuine hope for the future of the West” -Mike Davis.

Remembering David Rakoff: The Nation, 8-11

David Rakoff, who died August 9 at age 47, was funny and smart about many things, including politics in America. “George W. Bush made me want to become an American,” he said in our radio interview in November, 2005. . . .

. . .  continued at TheNation.com HERE.

The Sikh Temple Shooting: KPFK 8/8

The man who killed six at the Sikh temple in Wisconsin was a prominent white-supremacist: JOHN NICHOLS explains.

Also: Gore Vidal on politics:  our conversation in September 2000, which covered Ronald Reagan as actor and politician, JFK as failed president, Gene McCarthy as truth-teller, and the 2000 Shadow Convention in LA, which the LAPD shut down Gore Vidal’s speech — the full 70-minute tape is our featured premium in the KPFK Fund Drive today.

Remembering Gore Vidal: The Nation, 8-1

Gore Vidal was a citizen of the republic and a critic of the empire.  “We are the United States of Amnesia,” he wrote in The Nation in 2004. “We learn nothing because we remember nothing.”
More at TheNation.com,HERE.

Blaming Poor Women: Katha Pollitt – KPFK 8/1

LISTEN online HERE — SUBSCRIBE to iTunes podcast HERE
Is poverty caused by bad choices made by women?  If poor women had better values,  would everything be better?  KATHA POLLITT comments – she’s a columnist for The Nation.
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Plus: LA prosecutors have been concealing evidence from defendants in criminal cases, evidence about misconduct by jail guards—that’s what the ACLU of Southern California says in a new lawsuit. MARK ROSENBAUM of the ACLU will explain – he says  “In Los Angeles County, we have a system of injustice for all criminal defendants.”

Also: What happens if Republican vote suppression tactics succeed in November, and Mitt Romney is elected because Democrats who are poor, young or minorities were prevented from voting?  What do we do then?  HAROLD MEYERSON has been thinking about that – he writes for The Washington Post op-ed page and The American Prospect.

Tom Frank: Our Rigged Colleges – KPFK 7/25

LISTEN online HERE — SUBSCRIBE to iTunes podcastHERE
TOM FRANK asks the question: “Given the rigged, rotten nature of the higher-ed game, why would people play by the rules?”  The answer: lots don’t.  Tom wrote about fake degrees and phony college credentials — and their larger social and cultural significance — for his column in the August issue of Harper’s.

Plus: the fight for MOCA, the Museum of Contemporary Art in LA — it’s not a battle between “populists” and “aesthetes”; it’s a takeover by the corporate mentality.  CHRISTOPHER KNIGHT explains — he’s art critic for the LA Times and he blogs at Culture Monster.

Also : PETER EDELMAN is one of my heroes — he resigned from the Clinton adminstration in protest against Clinton’s treatment of the poor in “the abolition of welfare as we know it.”   Today he talks about how we can end poverty in America now – and what’s stopping us. 
Peter’s new book is So Rich, So Poor: Why It’s Hard to End Poverty in America.


What Romney’s Hiding: The Nation 7/21

The news has been full of speculation about why Mitt Romney won’t release his tax returns before 2010. People say maybe it’s because he paid zero taxes one year, or maybe he made a truly stupendous amount of money one year, or maybe they show he stayed at Bain Capital longer than he’s said.

I have a different theory: Romney won’t release his tax returns because they show he’s actually a Muslim born in Kenya. . . . continued at TheNation.com, HERE

Bain Capital & Salvadoran Death Squads: Nation 7/19

Some of the first investors in Mitt Romney’s firm Bain Capital, according to a report on the Los Angeles Times, were Salvadoran families living in Miami with members accused by the US government of funding death squads in the brutal civil war in El Salvador. . . .
. . . continued at TheNation.com, HERE

Sarah Vowell: Hawaii and History – KPFK 7/18

LISTEN online HERE — SUBSCRIBE to iTunes podcast HERE
SARAH VOWELL talks about the “orgy of imperialism” that led to the Americanization of Hawaii.  She has one of the great American voices—first on “This American Life,” then in a series of wonderful books that became best-sellers. She’s been a frequent guest of Jon Stewart’s and David Letterman’s.  Now her newest book is out in paperback – it’s called Unfamiliar Fishes.

Plus: Islamophobia and its Discontents:  LAILA LALAMI talks about living with anti-Muslim bias.  Laila teaches creative writing at UC Riverside; her novel is  Secret Son,  and she wrote the recent cover story for The Nation on Islamophobia.

Also: “Mr. Satan Goes to Wall Street“: it’s a new street-theater musical comedy by the award-winning guerrilla-theater company the Imagination Liberation Front. Mr. Satan will perform this summer, for the Occupy Wall Street troops in Zuccotti Park – and in the streets outside of the Republican and Democratic national conventions.  Benefit Wed. 8pm at Sacret Fools Theater in E. Hollywood; info HERE; contribute HERE (to “Imagination Liberation Front”).