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August 4 - The Time Warner and CBS Spat Over How Much to Gouge the Public; Are We Living in "1984"?; The U.K. Guardian and the Snowden-Wikileaks Affair
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We begin with the spat between Time Warner and CBS Viacom and look into the extraordinary arrogance of these giant multi-billion dollar corporations who are punishing the consumer they clearly don’t care about while they play chicken with each other over how much they can gouge the public. Derek Turner, a research and policy analyst at Free Press and author of “Changing Media: Public Interest Policies for the Digital Age” joins us to discuss the absence of competition and choice in the market place the uselessness of the FCC and the Congress as advocates for American citizens and consumers. |  |
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Then we examine the extent to which today we are living in George Orwell’s classic novel “1984”. Lewis Beale, who writes on culture and film for the Los Angeles Times and Newsday joins us to discuss his article at CNN “We’re Living ‘1984’ Today”, and the similarities between the contemporary American surveillance state with the novel’s “doublethink”, “newspeak” and “endless war” of the dystopian future Orwell predicted in 1948. |
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Then finally one of the world’s leading analysts of popular culture and media, Toby Miller, joins us in the studio. He is the Chair of the Department of Media and Cultural Studies at the University of California Riverside and has just returned from teaching at the City University of London. We discuss the role of the U.K. Guardian in the Snowden-Wikileaks affair and how the American surveillance state is viewed from abroad. |
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August 1 - Yemen's President's White House Visit and Empty Words on Guantanamo; Snowden's Asylum and Obama's Russian Trip; "China's Long March to the 21st Century"
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We begin with today’s White House visit by Yemen’s President Hadi and discuss the fate of the 56 Yemeni detainees at Guantanamo who have been cleared for transfer with the lawyer for 14 of them, David Remes. Known for his litigation of human rights and civil liberties cases, including a First Amendment challenge to the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012, he just returned from Yemen. |  |
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Then we speak with an expert on post-communist Russia, UCLA professor of political science Daniel Treisman, the author of “Return: Russia’s Journey from Gorbachev to Medvedev”. We discuss growing tension between Russia and the U.S. over the decision to grant Edward Snowden one year’s political asylum in Russia and whether this will lead to a cancellation of President Obama’s planned trip to Moscow in early September to meet with Putin after the G-20 Summit in St. Petersburg. |
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Then finally, we speak with Orville Schell, the co-author of a new book “Wealth and Power: China’s Long March to the Twenty-first Century”. He is the former dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at U.C. Berkeley and is now the Director of the Asia Society’s Center on U.S.-China Relations. We discuss the leadership’s fear of political reform repeating what happened to the Soviet Union and the slowdown of China’s growth and efforts to move from an export economy to a domestic consumer economy, and how much corruption scares Chinese consumers from buying local products. |
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July 31- Sexting and Female Desires for Virtual Carnal Knowledge; "The Danger of American Apathy on NSA Surveillance"; Obama's "Grand Bargain" and the Dallas Fed Report
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We begin with the phenomenon of “sexting” and an analysis of the role of women in the Anthony Weiner affair who have been portrayed as victims when it is clear that they are active participants in what our first guest Susan Jacoby calls “a course and creepy Internet culture dedicated to male and female desires for virtual carnal knowledge”. She is the author of “The Last Men on Top” and has an article in Wednesday’s New York Times “Weiner’s Women” |  |
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Then we examine today declassification of secret NSA surveillance programs following the leaks by Edward Snowden. Former Counsel to Senator Russ Feingold, the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Elizabeth Goitein, the co-director of the Liberty and Justice Program at the Brennan Center for Justice joins us to discuss the incremental assault on our civil liberties since 9/11 and her article at The Christian Science Monitor “The Danger of American Apathy on NSA Surveillance”. |
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Then finally we discuss President Obama’s “Grand Bargain” to revive the economy and the report just out from the Dallas Fed “How Bad Was It? The Costs and Consequences of the 2008 Financial Crisis” which conservatively estimates the damage at 14 trillion, the equivalent of one year’s U.S. GDP. The author of “Age of Greed: the Triumph of Finance and the Decline of America, 1970 to the Present” Jeff Madrick, joins us. He contributes regularly to The New York Review of Books and writes a column on economics for Harpers. |
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July 30 - Bradley Manning's "Open Diplomacy" Meets the 1917 Espionage Act; A Witness for the Defense in the Bradley Manning Trial; Renewed Peace Talks with Half of Palestine
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We begin with the verdict in the Bradley Manning trial and speak with Adam Klasfeld, a reporter with Courthouse News Service who has covered the trial from the beginning and just wrote an article at Courthouse News Service “Open Diplomacy or Espionage?” We discuss the irony that President Woodrow Wilson who called for the kind of “open diplomacy” that motivated Bradley Manning to leak 250,000 diplomatic cables, is the same president who in 1917 signed the Espionage Act under which Bradley Manning was convicted. |  |
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Then we speak with Lauren McNamara who has produced YouTube videos that have received over 9 million views and caught the attention of Bradley Manning. She was a witness in the Bradley Manning trial, testifying in his defense about the many conversations she had with him before his leaks went public. She just wrote the article “The Humanity of Bradley Manning”. |
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Then finally we go to Ramallah in Palestine to speak with Khaled Elgingy, who served as an advisor to the Palestinian leadership on permanent status negotiations with Israel from 2004 to 2009. We discuss the renewed peace talks brokered by Secretary of State John Kerry between Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat and Israeli Justice Minister Tzipi Livni that have set a goal of nine months to reach a “final status” agreement. |
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July 29 - The Pope has Kind Words for Gays While Putin Cracks Down on Them; Will Congress Again Threaten the Full Faith and Credit of the USA?; Inside the Muslim Brotherhood
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We begin with Marianne Duddy-Burke, the executive director of Dignity USA, the leading organization for LGBT Catholics, and look into the Pope’s surprising remarks to reporters that “if a person is gay, and looks for the Lord and had goodwill, who am I to judge them?”. And we also speak with gay political activist Mike Rogers, the Managing Director of Raw Story, about Vladimir Putin’s moves in the opposite direction as his anti-gay crackdown takes on darker and sinister tones, and discuss growing calls of a boycott on Russian products and the Sochi Winter Olympics.
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Then we speak with economist James Galbraith about the coming showdown over raising the debt limit which the president has vowed is non-negotiable. We discuss the House Republican’s intention to tie a debt ceiling increase to spending cuts in the name of deficit reduction and the White House’s new focus on job creation to reverse income inequality and restore economic opportunity for working Americans. |
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Then finally, with more clashes in Egypt between supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Army, we speak with Carrie Wickham, a Professor of Political Science at Emory University and author of “The Muslim Brotherhood: Evolution of an Islamist Movement”. She has a recent article at the New York Times examining the inner working of |
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