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December 27 - Hagel the Least Worst Choice for the Pentagon; The Ideological Underpinnings of the Obstructionists; Is Gun Violence "Supposed" to Happen in America's Poorer Neighborhoods?
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We begin with the latest effort to scuttle the nomination of Senator Chuck Hagel to be the Secretary of Defense with a full page attack ad in Thursday’s New York Times by the Log Cabin Republicans. A long-time Pentagon insider and designer of the A-10 and F-16 fighters, Pierre Sprey joins us to discuss why he thinks Hagel would be a bad choice and Michelle Flournoy or Ashton Carter even worse. |
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Then with the Tea Party all but shutting down the Congress and the ship of state heading over the fiscal cliff, we speak with journalist and author Gary Weiss about the ideological underpinnings of the obstructionists and their billionaire backers. He is the author of “Ayn Rand Nation: The Hidden Struggle for America’s Soul” and we discuss the wealthy acolytes of Ayn Rand who have taken over the Cato Institute and Freedom Works. |
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Then finally we speak with Dina Rasor about her article at Truthout “Slow-Rolling Massacre Unfolds in the Shadow of Shocking High-Profile Shooting Sprees” which explores the contrast between the intense media focus on the recent killing of school children in an affluent Connecticut neighborhood and what happens almost every day in poorer neighborhoods across America where school kids are gunned down with barely a mention in the press. |
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December 26 - An Armed Coup Within the Tea Party; The "Day After" in Syria; Will Obama Cave on Hagel and Japan's Seventh P.M. in Six Years
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We begin with a bizarre attempted armed coup by the founder of the Tea Party organization Freedom Works Dick Army, in which he took back control only to later accept an eight million dollar payoff from a wealthy donor to go away. Kenneth Vogel, the chief investigative reporter for Politico joins us to discuss disarray inside the conservative movement since Obama’s reelection and Obama’s return to the White House from vacation in Hawaii to await a last-minute deal on the so-called fiscal cliff with only 5 days left before the U.S. hits the debt limit ceiling. |
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Then we speak with a member of the Syrian opposition and of the “day-after” group of prominent Syrians planning to take over when Assad falls. Murhaf Jouejati, a professor of Middle East Studies at the National Defense University joins us to discuss the latest high-level defection from the regime and reports that Iran is planning a guerrilla war inside Syria to destabilize any future government. |
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Then finally we discuss whether Obama will cave on the Hagel nomination and look into the once and future Prime Minister of Japan Shinzo Abe who unveiled his new cabinet today and vowed to enact “bold” economic policies to reverse stagnation and deflation. Steve Clemons, the Washington Editor-at-Large for The Atlantic and the co-founder with Chalmers Johnson of the Japan Policy Research Institute joins us to discuss Senator Hagel's fate and the comeback of the former Japanese PM, the seventh premier in six years, who served for a year in 2006 only to be ousted ignominiously on the grounds of ill health. |
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December 25 - What do we Know About What's in the Negotiations over our Economic Future?; Some Hopeful Signs and Grim Challenges Ahead
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We begin with an analysis of where the economic brinksmanship in Washington is likely to take us in the last few days before we are supposed to go over the so-called “fiscal cliff”. Economist Randall Wray, a Senior Scholar at the Levy Economics Institute at Bard College and author of “Modern Money Theory: a Primer on Macroeconomics for Sovereign Monetary Systems” joins us to discuss how little the American people actually know about these negotiations that could drastically effect our economic future. |
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Then we discuss some of the more hopeful signs that our future could improve, as well as some of the grim challenges we face as a society in which school children are routinely massacred and nothing appears to be politically possible to fix this intolerable situation. Stephen Schwartz, a Senior Fellow at the Samueli Institute joins us to discuss the new report issued by the CIA’s National Intelligence Council on how the world will look in 2030 as well as how our money-driven politics can be changed so that all Americans, not just the rich, have a stake in a better future. |
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December 24 - Who Didn't Vote and Why; Big Money was Decisive in the Last Election; The Reverend Billy and the "Shopture"
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We begin with a new report on how many Americans did not vote in the last election, which for all that was at stake, attracted fewer voters than the 2004 competition between John Kerry and George W. Bush. Aura Bogado, a writer for The Nation joins us to discuss her article at The Nation “Figuring out Why 93 Million People Didn’t Vote”. |
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The we speak with Thomas Ferguson, a professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts, Boston and author of an article at Alternet.org “Revealed: Why the Pundits Are Wrong About Big Money and the 2012 Elections”. We discuss his article and the extent to which big money is behind the Republican House members who humiliated their Speaker in refusing to raise taxes on the wealthy who they apparently so faithfully serve. |
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Then finally on Christmas Eve we speak with the Reverend Billy, an anti-corporatist activist who takes on the role of a revivalist minister. He led a demonstration in Times Square on Friday against rampant consumerism and Christmas shopping on the day that, according to the Mayan calendar, the world was supposed to end. We discuss the “Shopture” the Reverend staged in Times Square. |
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December 24 - Michael Lind on Rentier Capitalism; The AP Study that Finds 4 Out of 5 Americans Struggling with Joblessness and Near Poverty; The Executive Excess Report
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As this year comes to a close, we look back on some of the stories that dominated the news in 2013. Today we focus on the growing income inequality in America that may well become a theme in the 2014 election, assuming the Democrats find the courage of their conviction to broach a subject all too many of our fellow citizens are painfully aware of. We begin with a broadcast of “Background Briefing” from March 27, 2013 and speak with Michael Lind, the author of “Land of Promise: An Economic History of the United States” on the real nature of American capitalism that is no longer about creating wealth, but extracting it in a new form of rentier capitalism that rewards the real “takers”, as opposed to the industrial capitalists of old who were the “makers”. Michael Lind offered his arguments in a series of articles at Salon.com; “Private sector parasites”, “How rich ‘moochers’ hurt America”, and “Defeating useless rich people”.
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Then from July 28, 2013 we speak with Tom Hirschl, a Professor of Sociology at Cornell University and Director of the Population and Development Program. We discuss the new report that he worked on for the Associated Press that finds 4 out of 5 U.S. adults struggling with joblessness and near poverty in an economy in which President Obama says the income gap is fraying America’s social fabric. |
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Then finally from September 1, 2013, in contrast to the flat or falling wages for working Americans, we look into the scandal of CEO pay and how corporate heads who either preside over massive failures and losses, are engaged in fraud and deception, or are bailed out by the taxpayer - the bailed out – the booted – or the busted – are rewarded. Veteran labor journalist Sam Pizzigati joins us the discuss the new report released by the Institute for Policy Studies he co-authored “The 20th Anniversary Executive Excess Report” that examines the “performance” of 241 corporate chief executives. |
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