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2013 Program Archive
September 17 - The Wrangling Underway at the U.N. Security Council; It's Easy to Get Guns but Not Mental Health Care; Poverty in America and The Republican House
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We begin with an examination of the diplomatic track towards disarming Syria of its chemical weapons underway at the United Nations Security Council. Ambassador Peter Galbraith who was America’s top diplomat at the United Nations mission in Afghanistan who negotiated the end of the war in Croatia and served with the U.N. in East Timor joins us to discuss the wrangling between Russia, who is opposed to Chapter Seven, and most of the permanent five plus the U.N. Secretary General who want to have the stick while offering the carrot.
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Then, following the latest gun massacre that followed a weekend in America in which 57 people were shot, we look into how difficult it is to get mental health care while it is increasingly easy to get guns. Carolyn Reinach Wolf, a partner in a law firm where she is the Director of the firm’s Mental Health Law practice, joins us to discuss the legal issues involved in protecting the rights of the mentally ill and how they can be balanced against the need to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill, given that the well-armed shooters behind the massacres at the Navy Yard, Virginia Tech, Aurora and Sandy Hook, all had mental health issues. |
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Then finally we examine the latest U.S. Census Bureau report on poverty in America with Stephen Pimpare, the author of “A People’s History of Poverty in America” who is a professor at the Columbia University School of Social Work. We discuss how unlike most advanced democracies who are funding programs to end poverty, the United States House of Representatives has cut funds and is planning on cutting more to further impoverish and deny food to the 22% of the nation’s children who go to bed hungry and the 15% of the population who live in poverty. |
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September 16 - How Will Russia Respond to the U.N. Report that Syria Used Sarin?; Holding Syria Accountable for a "Despicable War Crime"; The Second Anniversary of The Occupy Movement
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We begin with an analysis of how the Russians might respond to the U.N. report on the August 21 chemical weapons attack in Damascus that clearly indicates the Assad regime used Sarin gas fired in rockets with Cyrillic markings from regime-held territory. Nina Khruscheva, a professor in the Graduate Program at The New School and a Senior Fellow at the World Policy Institute joins us to discuss how Putin, who is riding high on the world stage, might dodge this bullet.
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Then we hear from veteran U.N. correspondent Ian Williams about U.N. Secretary- General Ban Ki-moon’s condemnation of the use of Sarin against civilians as despicable “war crime” for which “the international community has a responsibility to hold the perpetrators responsible”. We discuss whether holding Syria to account for a chemical weapons attack will get in the way of the Kerry/Lavrov deal and whether the U.S. could make a Chapter Seven case to the General Assembly after an expected Russian veto in the Security Council. |
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Then finally, on the second anniversary of the start of the Occupy Wall Street movement, we speak with Nathan Schneider, an editor of the news analysis website Waging Nonviolence and the first reporter who covered the planning meetings that led to Occupy Wall Street. We discuss what he sees as the surprising success and the disappointing failure of a movement that, in spite of America’s historical amnesia about its radical past, may emerge anew. |
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September 15 - Syria The Poisoned Chalice; Why We Support the Egyptian Revolutionaries But Not The Syrian; Will Syria Be Referred To The International Criminal Court?; New Statistics On The New Gilded Age
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We begin with the Kerry/Lavrov deal to disarm Syria’s chemical arsenal by mid 2014 and speak with Joshua Landis who writes a daily newsletter and blog on Syrian politics “Syria Comment”. We discuss how the Russian/American deal that Syria has not yet agreed to might be implemented, and how the U.S. can maintain a credible threat to strike when the president may not be able to get Congressional approval to do so since the majority of Americans have no stomach for another war. |  |
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Then we go to Beirut and speak with Lebanese-based journalist Thanassis Cambanis who writes ”The Internationalist” column for the Boston Globe and is writing a book about Egyptian revolutionaries after the fall of Mubarak. We will look into claims by the Syrian rebels that Assad is transferring his chemical arsenal to Iraq, Iran and Hezbollah and question why Americans who loved the revolutionaries in Tahrir Square in Egypt seem unenthusiastic about supporting Syrians who opposed their dictatorship. |
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Then we examine the humanitarian aspects of the continuing agony in Syria with Rebecca Hamilton who teaches at Columbia Law School and was a lawyer with the International Criminal Court in Darfur, Sudan. We discuss the forthcoming U.N. report on the use of chemical weapons in Syria and whether it will lead to a referral of the Assad regime to the International Criminal Court. |
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Then finally we discuss the new study by economists Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty that finds the rich got richer throughout the recovery from the 2008 Wall Street crash. David Ruccio, a professor of economics at the University of Notre Dame joins us to discuss the graphic evidence that we are in a new Gilded Age as the top ten percent took more than half of the country’s total income in 2012, the highest level recorded since the government began collecting statistics a century ago. |
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September 12 - Putin Skillfully Plays His Weak Hand Against Our Inept Strong Hand; The Task of Destroying Syria's Chemical Weapons Arsenals; The Legacy of the Colonial Divide-and-Rule Strategy in the Middle East
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We begin with Russian President Putin’s op-ed in the New York Times “A Plea For Caution From Russia” and speak with Fiona Hill a specialist on Russia at the Brookings Institution and co-author of the new book “Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin”. We discuss how Putin skillfully plays his weak hand while the U.S. clumsily plays its strong hand. |
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Then we speak with an expert on chemical weapons at the Stimson Center Brian Findlay, to find out in the event that the U.S. - Russian deal to disarm Syria’s chemical arsenal goes through, how this vast arsenal can be corralled and destroyed in the midst of a civil war when 16 years after signing onto the international ban, the U.S. still has not gotten rid of all of the world’s second largest chemical weapons arsenal. |
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Then finally we hear from the author of an article in The Atlantic “Stop Blaming Colonial Borders for the Middle East’s Problem” to get an alternative view on the roots of the current turmoil in Syria. Nick Danforth, the editor of the cartography blog, midafternoonmap.com joins us discuss how the pernicious policies of divide-and-rule that the British and French colonists used to sustain their power are more responsible for the post “Arab spring” chaos in the Middle East. |
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September 11 - The Just Declassified NSA Surveillance Documents; Why Colorado Voted to Recall Pro-Gun Control State Senators; The Author of "Lawrence In Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and The Making of the Modern Middle East
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We begin with the release of de-classified NSA surveillance documents that indicate the government went too far in collecting domestic phone data and mislead the FISA court prompting a rebuke of the NSA from a judge on the secret court that oversees the intelligence community’s secrets. Cindy Cohn, the Legal Director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which along with the ACLU sued to get the documents released, joins us. |
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Then we speak with Lynn Bartels, a journalist with the Denver Post who has been covering the recall elections in Colorado that resulted in the recall of two Democratic State Senators who voted for tighter gun control laws after the gun massacres in Aurora, Colorado and Newtown, Connecticut. We discuss the national political significance of this apparent victory for the NRA and the money race in which New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg made a personal contributions of $350,000 and Los Angeles philanthropist Eli Broad contributed $250,000. But since undeclared contributions from the billionaire Koch brothers were not counted, it is difficult to say which side spent the most. |
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Then finally, we look into the chaos in Syria and the broader the Middle East and the historical legacy of colonialism, Zionism and Western imperialism with the author of a new book “Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East”. Scott Anderson, a veteran war correspondent who has reported from Lebanon, Israel, Egypt, Northern Ireland, Chechnya, Sudan, Bosnia and El Salvador joins us to discuss the roots of the current turmoil in which he sees the Arab world continuing to be defined less by what it aspires to become, and more by what it is opposed to. |
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