Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the full page ad from the giant tech companies in Monday’s New York Times and Washington Post calling on the president and Congress to reign in the NSA. Marc Rotenberg, the President and Executive Director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), joins us to discuss the call for tighter controls on government surveillance in an open letter from AOL, Apple, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Twitter and Yahoo, and the international blowback from NSA spying that is hurting American business.  

Part 2

Then we look into the growing backlash against the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal and the latest internal memo leaked by someone in one of the 12 governments involved in the secret negotiations. Lori Wallach, the Founder and Director of Global Trade Watch at Public Citizen joins us to discuss leaks on trade standards that would grant unprecedented powers to corporations, increase the cost of medications and weaken banking regulations. We also look into whether an agreement on the TPP can be reached by the end of the year as international support for it appears to be waning.

Part 3

Then finally, with Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel in Pakistan threatening to cut military assistance if local officials continue to block supply routes extracting heavy equipment from Afghanistan, we speak with Michael Krepon, the co-founder of the Henry L. Stimson Center and director of its South Asia and Space Security Program. We discuss the role of the former cricket star turned party leader Imran Khan who is threatening to unleash mass protests to block the NATO supply routes in retaliation against U.S. drone strikes.

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with President Obama’s pledge to dedicate his remaining time in office to raising the minimum wage and reverse the “dangerous and growing inequality and lack of upward mobility” in America. Joining us from one of the many demonstrations across the country by fast food workers, union organizers and community supporters is Kendall Fells, the President and Organizing Director for Fast Food Forward, a movement of New York City fast food workers demanding living wages and worker’s rights. We  discuss the struggle of fast-food workers who the president mentioned “work their tails off and are still living at or barely above poverty”.

Part 2

Then we hear from Sylvia Allegretto, a labor economist and co-chair of the Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics at U.C. Berkeley who researches family budgets, low-wage labor markets, inequality and minimum wages. We discuss what the president calls “the defining challenge of our time”, the growing gap between the rich and poor, and look into the plight of bank tellers who do not make a living wage while banks are enjoying record profits, a sign that we are fast declining into what Warren Buffett warned we are in danger of becoming, “a plantation economy.”

Part 3

Then finally, although the death of Nelson Mandela should remind us of all of what he stood for in terms of racial justice, human rights and reconciliation, we are obliged to cover what is going on in the middle of Africa in the Central African Republic where a military coup installed a Muslim leader in a predominately Christian country, leading to sectarian massacres and counter- massacres, mostly against innocent civilians. The United Nations Director at Human Rights Watch, Phillipe Bolopion, who was recently in the Central African Republic, joins us to discuss the danger of one of the poorest nations on Earth becoming the latest killing fields and a haven for armed groups.