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2012 Program Archive
March 5 - Going to War For Israel; California's Students Occupy the Capitol; Recovering Art Stolen by the Nazis
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We begin with a discussion with one of the signatories of a letter in today’s Washington Post urging President Obama to say no to a war of choice with Iran. Paul Pillar, the former National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia joins us to explain why he and many senior military officials are concerned that what is being billed as an Iran problem, is an Israeli problem, and if there is a war with Iran, Israel will not be just a contributing factor, but the prime mover. |
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Then we speak with Bob Samuels, the President of the University Council who is in the Sacramento, at the state capitol along with thousands of others, demonstrating against tuition hikes and education cuts that are decimating what was once the country’s leader in public education, California, which now languishes near the bottom with Mississippi. |
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Then finally Anne Marie O’Connor joins us in the studio. She is the author of a new book “The Lady in Gold: The Extraordinary Tale of Gustav Klimt’s Masterpiece Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer”. Anne Marie writes for the Washington Post from Mexico City and we hear about her recent investigations into how the Mexican drug cartels are kidnapping immigrant women from Central America and forcing them into the sex trade, and also discuss the on-going struggle of returning art stolen by the Nazi’s to the rightful heirs of the original owners, most of whom were murdered by the Nazis. |
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| MUSIC: Elvis Costello - License to Kill (Bob Dylan cover); My Morning Jacket - The Day is Coming; Monsters of Folk - Goodway; Immortal Technique - Peruvian Cocaine |
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March 4 - Obama Bombs at AIPAC; Finally the Truth About the KGB Thug Who Rules Russia; A Founder of Occupy SEC on the Volker Rule
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We begin with the President’s address today to the annual AIPAC conference where the members of the Israel lobby were told the president has Israel’s back and he won’t hesitate to use force, although Obama warned, “there’s been too much loose talk about a war with Iran”. Professor of International Affairs at Harvard University, Stephen Walt joins us. He is the co-author of “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy.” |
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Then we speak with the Russian journalist Masha Gessen about today’s election in Moscow of Vladimir Putin, which comes as no surprise, but what is surprising is how long it has taken the West to wake up to who this small-minded KGB thug is, and how in such a short time, he has destroyed years of progress and has made Russia a threat to her own people and the world. Masha Gessen is the author of a new book, “The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin”. |
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Then finally we speak with one of the founding members of Occupy SEC, which is a working group within Occupy Wall Street of former finance professionals, lawyers and concerned citizens who are lobbying the SEC for stronger regulations and oversight of federally-backstopped banks, and the prohibition of risky activities within them. Caitlin Kline, a former credit derivatives trader, joins us. |
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March 1 - The Great Wall Street Gas Swindle; The Filmmakers of "Shadow of Afghanistan 1959 to 2012"; "Responsibility to Protect" Syrians?
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We begin with an entrepreneur and financial specialist Henry Schoenberger, the author of a new book “How We Got Swindled by Wall Street Godfathers, Greed and Financial Darwinism – The 30 Year War Against the American Dream”. We discuss the great swindle now going on in plain site every time you fill up at the gas pump, where in spite of a global oversupply of oil, prices are being driven up by Wall Street speculators while our Press and politicians distract us with rumors of war and lame excuses. |
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Then we be joined in the studio by the filmmakers of an epic documentary feature “Shadow of Afghanistan 1959 to 2012”, which tells the modern history of Afghanistan where we have been engaged in America’s longest war and still know little about this country and its people. The filmmakers spent more than 20 years capturing the Soviet occupation, the exile of millions of refugees maimed by Soviet mines, a violent civil war, the fatal alliance of the Taliban with al-Qaeda, the invasion by United States forces and people still determined to survive to this day. Producer/ Directors Jim Burroughs and Suzanne Bauman join us. |
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Then finally we discuss what more is at stake in Syria other than the fate of a dictator and the lives of its people trying to overthrow the Assad regime. And that is the fate of “Responsibility to Protect” or R2P at the United Nations where, under its Charter’s state sovereignty provision, nothing can be done to stop the Syrian government from killing its people. A former policy analyst in the Bureau of Politico-Military Affairs at the Department of State, Bennett Ramberg joins us. He has an article at Politico “The World Must Stop Syrian Slaughter”. |
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February 29 - Assessing Romney and Santorum's Chances; Religious Rights Versus Women's Rights; The Nukes-For-Food Deal With North Korea
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We begin with an analysis of how the two Republican front-runners will do in a match-up with President Obama. Allan Lichtman, the Distinguished Professor of History at American University joins us. He is the author of “The Keys to the White House: A Surefire Way of Predicting the Next President”, a system that has correctly predicted the outcomes of all U.S. presidential elections since 1984. |
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Then we look into the intense religiosity of Rick Santorum that pundits argue cost him the election in Michigan and make him unelectable in the general election. Meanwhile at the state level, much of Santorum’s extreme positions on social issues are being voted into law in legislatures in Virginia, Alabama and Oklahoma and will be voted on tomorrow in the U.S. Senate. Sarah Posner, Senior Editor at Religion Dispatches and author of “God’s Profits: Faith, Fraud and the Republican Crusade for Values” joins us. |
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Then finally we look into the new nukes-for-food deal with North Korea with John Feffer, the co-director of Foreign Policy in Focus. He was a PanTech Fellow in Korean Studies at Stanford University and taught at Sungkonghoe University in Seoul, South Korea and is the author of “North Korea/South Korea: U.S. Policy at a Time of Crisis.” |
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February 28 - Mitt's Michigan Moment; The Filmaker of "Valentino's Ghost"; Saudi Arabia's Hypocritical Stance With Syria
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We begin with an update on the make or break moment for Mitt Romney with the Michigan Republican primary where the polls have just closed and we announce results as they come in. A former long- serving executive with General Motors, Debbie Dingell joins us. She is the President of D2 Strategies and Chair of the Manufacturing Initiative of the American Automobile Policy Council and we discuss the fate of Michigan’s own Mitt who campaigned on his opposition to President Obama’s initiatives to rescue Chrysler and General Motors from bankruptcy. |
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Then we speak with Michael Singh, the filmmaker of a new PBS feature documentary “Valentino’s Ghost” that explores the ways images of Arabs and Muslims have been portrayed in movies starting with Rudolph Valentino’s “The Sheik”, up to the present where an Iranian film “The Separation” just won the Academy Award with its director, in accepting the Oscar, making an appeal for the medium of film to be used to generate greater cultural empathy and understanding at a time when rumors of war abound. |
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Then finally, we discuss the leading role Saudi Arabia is taking in trying to overthrow Syria’s brutal Assad regime on humanitarian grounds, which given the repressive nature of the absolute monarchy that rules Saudi Arabia, many see as hypocritical. Toby Jones, a professor of Middle East History at Rutgers University and author of “Desert Kingdom: How Oil and Water Forged Modern Saudi Arabia” joins us. |
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