Background Briefing has a new home at BackgroundBriefing.org.
Please visit and bookmark the new site. You can search show archives here.
2012 Program Archive
October 30 - On the Ground in Ohio; A Meteorologist on Global Warming Denial; "We Are All From New Orleans Now"
|
|
LISTEN TO FULL PROGRAM | |
|
|
We begin with what is happening in Ohio, the key swing state where the president cancelled last-minute rallies to deal with the devastation caused by the super storm Sandy. An expert on election law, Daniel Tokaji, a Professor of Law at Ohio State University’s College of Law joins us to discuss whether there will be a repeat of the close election in 2004 which many Democrats feel was stolen by the Republicans who remain in control of the state’s election apparatus. |
 |
|
|
Then we speak with meteorologist Michael Mann, the Director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State University and author of “The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines”. We discuss the politics of global warming denial in the present election environment and the reality of climate change that will impact the politics of the future. |
 |
|
|
Then finally we look into the staggering and growing cost of this latest storm with Mike Tidwell the Director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network and the author of “The Ravaging Tide”, a book about global warming and hurricanes. He has an article at The Nation “We Are All from New Orleans Now”. We discuss the extent to which insurance companies are recognizing the growing threat of climate change and whether they will weigh in against the global warming denial campaign financed by oil and coal companies who have the Republican Party and a lot of coal and oil-state Democrats in their pockets. |
 |
| MUSIC: M. Ward - Won't Happen Twice; The Doors - Riders on the Storm; Pete Seeger - Solartopia; Bob Dylan - Down in the Flood |
Tags:
October 29 - The Super Storm Makes Landfall; Romney's Hidden Ground Game; The Death Penalty and Wrongful Imprisonment
|
|
LISTEN TO FULL PROGRAM | |
|
|
First we go to New York and get an update on the super storm making landfall on the north east coast right now. Phil Aroneanu, the U.S. Campaign Director and Co-founder of 350.org joins us. On Sunday he, Bill McKibben and other activists unfurled a giant banner “END CLIMATE SILENCE” in Times Square. Also joining us is Joseph Nevins who teaches geography at Vasser College. He has an article at Al Jazeera “Ecological Crisis and the Need to Challenge the 20 per cent”. |
|
|
|
Then we speak with The Nation Institute investigative reporter Lee Fang about the dark money fueling the Romney Campaign and their massive phone banks targeting the swing states that could overcome the supposed advantage the Obama campaign has in terms of their ground game in Ohio and other critical races. We look into the hidden role of the oligarchs and corporations who do not have to reveal the extent or the means with which they are supporting the Romney campaign. |
 |
|
|
Then finally we speak about California’s Proposition 34 that will ban the death penalty and if passed, very likely have considerable national implications for ending capitol punishment. We speak with Bruce Lisker who at the age of 17, was wrongfully convicted of murdering his mother. Bruce spent 26 years in prison for a crime he did not commit and barely avoided the death penalty. Thanks to investigative journalism by the Los Angeles Times he was exonerated and is now suing the LAPD. |
 |
| MUSIC: Midnight Oil - Beds are Burning; DJ Shadow - Why Hip Hop Sucks in 96'; Bob Dylan - I Shall be Released |
Tags:
October 28 - Is the GOP "Full of Racists"?; AP Poll Show 51% of Americans Express Racist Attitudes; How Did Chinese Premier Wen's Family Accrue $2.7 Billion?
|
|
LISTEN TO FULL PROGRAM | |
|
|
We begin with the recent emergence of racist remarks from the Romney Campaign and assess the legacy of the GOP’s Southern Strategy and whether the overt and irrational hatred of President Obama often expressed by Tea Party Republicans is becoming more or less acceptable. Colin Powell’s former Chief of Staff Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson joins us to discuss Republican criticism of Colin Powell’s endorsement of President Obama that suggested Powell’s choice was based on race, not the reasons he enunciated. |
 |
|
|
Then, following a recent poll by the Associated Press that indicated racial attitudes have not improved since America elected its first black president, we continue to look into race as a factor in this election. Andra Gillespie, a Professor of Political Science at Emory University joins us to discuss how many Americans are hard-wired with racial resentment that politicians can exploit in a highly polarized society undergoing economic distress. |
 |
|
|
Then finally we examine the fallout from the New York Times investigation of the wealth accrued by the family of China’s out-going leader Wen Jiabao. China expert Perry Link joins us. He has been following the behind-the-scenes succession struggle going on within the Chinese Communist Party Politburo that indicates the normally bland leadership transition is deadlocked in intra-party wrangling over power, privilege and profit. |
 |
| MUSIC: Sam Cooke - A Change Is Gonna Come; Black Star - Thieves in the Night; My Morning Jacket - I'm Amazed; Shanghai Restoration Project - Nanking Road |
October 25 - Between Probability and Uncertainty, Pinning Down the Polls; "What's the Matter with White People?"
|
|
LISTEN TO FULL PROGRAM | |
|
|
We begin with Nate Silver who accurately predicted the winner in 49 of 50 states in the 2008 election. His blog FivethirtyEight.com is on the New York Times website and his articles also appear in the print edition of the New York Times. We discuss the wildly fluctuating polls as the election enters the home stretch and his new book “The Signal and the Noise: Why so Many Predictions Fail – But Some Don’t”. |
 |
|
|
Then Joan Walsh joins us. She is editor-at-large for Salon.com and an MSNBC political analyst and the author of a new book “What’s the Matter with White People: Why We Long for a Golden Age That Never Was”. We discuss the gender gap in our politics and what pits Americans against each other as the middle class shrinks, working families struggle and everyone falls behind except the wealthy. |
 |
| MUSIC: M. Ward - Rollercoaster; Greenday - American Idiot; Randy Newman - Rednecks; MGMT - The Youth |
October 24 - Standing up to Voter Intimidation, Trickery and Suppression; More Misogyny From Another Republican Senate Hopeful; Billy Graham's Deal With the Devil
|
|
LISTEN TO FULL PROGRAM | |
|
|
We begin with an update on an array of voter suppression and intimidation efforts underway that will culminate on Election Day. Eric Marshall, the co-leader of Election Protection joins us to discuss what voters can do to exercise their democratic rights in the face of organized intimidation, trickery and suppression. |
 |
|
|
Then we go to Indiana and speak with Margorie Hershey, who is a Professor of Political Science at Indiana University in Bloomington. We discuss the close Senate race and the likely impact of remarks by the Republican Tea Party candidate who defeated the Senate’s elder statesman Richard Lugar in the primary, who is now in trouble for views that he expressed in a debate yesterday on pregnancy as a result of rape being what God intended. |
 |
|
|
Then finally we take a broader look at the politics of abortion and how they are playing out in this election. Frank Schaeffer, the son of one of the founders of the religious right, joins us to discuss the evangelical world’s apparent determination to get Romney elected and Billy Graham’s surprise endorsement of a Mormon, in what appears to be a renouncement of the evangelist’s vow after Richard Nixon’s fall from grace, not to endorse any politicians. |
 |
| MUSIC: Bob Marley - Get Up Stand Up; Ben Harper - Mister; Jello Biafra - Plastic Jesus; Digable Planets - La Femme Fetal |
Tags:
RSS Latest Radio Programs
Pacifica App