It’s the Economy, Stupid: KPFK Wed. 12/1

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ROBERT REICH on Obama’s economy: the Senate has failed to pass unemployment extension, and is getting ready to approve tax cuts for the rich.  Robert Reich was secretary of labor under Bill Clinton; his new book is Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future.

Our Haiti update from AMY WILENTZ: elections last Sunday – no results yet.  And almost a year after the killer earthquake, a million people are still homeless. And now there’s a cholera epidemic.  Amy wrote about the elections for the New York Times op-ed page.

Lincoln and slavery: how our greatest president changed his mind about abolition, war, emancipation, and black voting rights, and why he gave up the idea that freed slaves would have to leave the US:  Columbia University  historian ERIC FONER explains — his new book is The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery.

Mike Davis & Daniel Ellsberg: KPFK Wed. 11-24

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MIKE DAVIS talks about CHALMERS JOHNSON, our most brilliant and acute critic of American empire, author of the award-winning Blowback and more recently The Sorrows of Empire and Dismantling the Empire. He died Saturday.  Also we’ll listen to my last interview with Chalmers.
READ Tom Engelhardt on Chalmers Johnson’s passing HERE.

Plus: DANIEL ELLSBERG has been arrested more than 60 times – but not for the Pentagon Papers.  In this interivew he recalls his anti-war activism in — and out — of jail.

Also: GREIL MARCUS has been writing about BOB DYLAN since the mid-sixties, working with “a fan’s intensity and a detective’s persistence.”   Greil’s new book, collecting 40 years of criticism — and ending with Dylan’s performance on election night in 2008 in Minneapolis, is Bob Dylan by Greil Marcus: Writings, 1968-2010.
Playlist: “With God on our Side,” Live 1964 at Philharmonic Hall (with Joan Baez); “Like a Rolling  Stone,” Best of the Original Mono Recordings.

How Sarah Palin Could Beat Obama: The Nation 11/22

Sarah Palin could win the presidency in 2012—that’s what Frank Rich [1] said in the New York Times on Sunday—but not in a two-person head-to-head race. For Palin to beat Obama, a third-party candidate would have to run, and take votes away from Obama.

And we have a potential third-party spoiler, Rich says: New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
. . . continued at TheNation.com HERE

LENNONYC: PBS American Masters 11/22

“LENNONYC” tells the story of Lennon’s move to New York City in 1971 with Yoko Ono, his anti-war activism, the Nixon Administration’s effort to deport him, and the music he made in the last nine years of his life. It features interviews with musicians who worked with Lennon, plus immigration attorney Leon Wildes, photographer Bob Gruen, historian Jon Wiener, and Yoko Ono, who provided never-before-seen home movies. Director/writer: Michael Epstein.

Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon: KPFK Wed. 11/17

It’s the Pacifica Archives fund drive, and we’ll be featuring Pacifica audio documentaries on Jimi Hendrix and John Lennon:  for Jimi Hendrix, an amazing show featuring rare recordings and interviews with blues singer John Hammond (who befriended the young Hendrix in Greenwich Village in 1966), Chas Chandler from The Animals (who brought Hendrix to England and became his manager), as well as Hendrix biographer David Henderson.

The Pacifica Archives Campus Campaign places unique historical audio in college and school libraries: 180 hours of audio in two volumes from the vault:  Civil Rights, 1968, Women’s Studies, The Environment, Malcolm X, Noam Chomsky, and Studs Terkel, Black Power, and more.  Presented in mp3 format on 18 discs, this set requires a pledge of $250 — please call during the show — or pledge online HERE.

Bush Bombs on TV: KPFK Wed. 11-10

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George W. Bush’s book tour, interviews plugging his memoirs, has gotten low ratings on TV –– GREG MITCHELL reports on media and politics hits and misses — he writes the indispensable “Daybook” every morning at TheNation.com, and he’s the author of Campaign of the Century, the amazing story of Upton Sinclair’s run for governor in California in 1934.

Also: GAIL COLLINS, the New York Times op-ed columnist, traces women’s progress from the fifties to the present, from “My Little Margie” to Hillary for President — and Sarah Palin for Vice President.  Her book When Everything Changed is out now in paperback.  (originally broadcast 11/18/09)

Plus:  Survivors of the Gulag after Stalin:  STEPHEN COHEN has spent 30 years interviewing Stalin’s victims, and talks about how they survived and their long struggle to obtain justice in Russia today.  Steve’s new book is The Victims Return – he’ll be speaking and signing Friday Nov. 19 at 700pm at Book Soup on Sunset Strip.

More stuff to read: for the 40th anniversary of Doonesbury,  “My favorite Doonesbury character, Mr. Butts” – at TheNation.com, HERE.

My Doonesbury Favorite: Mr. Butts: The Nation 11/9

Of all the characters in the last 40 years of Doonesbury, my personal favorite is Mr. Butts—and not just because he appeared on the cover of The Nation (Jan. 1, 1996).  Garry Trudeau has had lots of more compelling characters, but Mr. Butts in his own way was perfect: the smiling cigarette-man who was unfailingly cheerful about how cool it was for kids to smoke.

Mr. Butts crossed over from the comics to real life in 1994, when University of California tobacco researcher Dr. Stanton Glantz received a big Fedex box with the return address “Mr. Butts.” The box, as I reported in The Nation . . .
. . .continued at TheNation.com HERE

Boxer Won More Votes than 10 Tea Party Candidates: Nation 11/3

California Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer defeated challenger Carly Fiorina by a ten-point margin on Tuesday, winning a total of 3.8 million votes, more than the combined vote total of ten Tea Party senate candidates.

The Tea Party Senate candidates made big news, but they ran mostly in small states. Also, several lost.

. . . continued at TheNation.com HERE.

The Morning After: KPFK 11/3

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Our election analysis the morning after: HAROLD MEYERSON of the Washington Post looks at the Democrats’ loss of working-class whites in key midwestern states; JOHN NICHOLS of The Nation says first-term presidents often suffer mid-term setbacks–the question is what Obama will learn from this one; and ARI BERMAN, author of Herding Donkeys: The Fight to Rebuild the Democratic Party, says it’s time to revive the 2008 grassroots Obama movement.  His essay “Boot the Blue Dogs” appeared on the New York Times op-ed page.