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September 9 - The Eurocrisis Postponed But Not Over; Corporate Capitalism's Long March; The Democrats Shy Away From Populism
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We begin with the intervention by the European Central Bank to buy Spanish and Italian bonds which gives the long and painful Eurocrisis a temporarily reprieve and is surely welcome news in the White House. Thomas Ferguson, a member of the advisory board for George Soros’s Institute for New Economic Thinking joins us to discuss this temporary fix that has left Germany’s Bundesbank and Bundestag fuming. |
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Then we speak with political economist and activist Gar Alperovitz about the recently concluded Republican and Democratic conventions and the homestretch the campaigns are now entering with the Romney campaign running the old Bill Clinton/James Carville 1992 campaign, “It’s the Economy Stupid”. We discuss this strategy and a possible counter-strategy as the latest dismal reports on jobs numbers appear to help Romney. |
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Then finally historian Jefferson Cowie joins us to critique the Democratic convention and its failure to draw a sufficiently clear distinction between the party of the oligarch’s represented by an exemplar of the 1%, Mitt Romney, and the party of the middle class and working Americans whose main legacy is a social safety net that is under attack. We discuss the reasoning behind appealing to a shrinking center while not arousing the downsized and outsourced 99%. |
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| MUSIC: Caberet - Money; Flaming Lips - Waiting For A Superman; Aaliyah - Try Again |
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September 6 - "The Big Things Obama Can Get Done At His Convention"; Can Obama Re-invent or Revive the Spirit of 2008?; Will Obama Take on Campaign Finance Reform?
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We begin and go to the Democratic Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina and speak with Stanley Greenberg, the former pollster for Bill Clinton and co-author with James Carville of the new book “It’s The Middle Class Stupid”. We discuss what President Obama needs to do tonight and the memo that Stan Greenberg and James Carville wrote to President Obama, ”The Big Things That Obama Can Get Done at His Convention”.
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Then we examine ways that President Obama might re-awaken the youth vote that put him over the top in 2008. Mike Lux, the co-founder and CEO of Progressive Strategies joins us. He was a Special Assistant to the President for Public Liaison in the White House and we discuss his article in the Huffington Post about the choices facing Americans in this election, “What Kind of People Will We Be?” |
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Then finally we speak with veteran journalist Peter Stone who has been tracking money in politics for decades. We discuss the many issues in the Democratic platform that will likely not be discussed on stage at the convention; gun control, raising the minimum wage, slowing and reversing climate change, and most of all, campaign finance reform. |
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| MUSIC: The Shins - No Way Down; Against Me! - Bitter Divisions; My Morning Jacket - I'm Amazed |
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September 5 - Former Speechwriter on Clinton's Speech Tonight; Jim Hightower on Progressive Patriotism; Syrian Refugees Swamp Jordan
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We first go to the Democratic convention in Charlotte, North Carolina and speak with President Clinton’s former speechwriter, Paul Glastris, to get a sense of what the still popular former President might deliver tonight in his keynote speech. |
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Then the popular, populist radio commentator Jim Hightower joins us. He along with 20 prominent Democrats wrote an open letter to the Democratic leadership, “How Democrats Can Get Back on Offense” and we discuss the letter and how it was received, as well as review the First Lady’s widely praised speech and what former President Bill Clinton will bring to the convention tonight. |
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Then finally, following the announcement by the UN that over 100,000 refugees fled Syria in the month of August, we speak with Jillian Schwedler, a specialist on Jordan where most of the Syria refugees are ending up in UNHCR tents in the blistering, hot desert. We get a sense of how the fragile kingdom is handling the on-going humanitarian disaster next door, and how Jordan is still coping with the massive influx of refugees from the last war in Iraq. |
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| MUSIC: Jim O' Rourke - Please Patronize our Sponsers; Bonnet - Let's Get Organized; Dirty Projectors - No More; Tom Petty - Refugee |
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September 4 - Can Obama Re-awaken the Youth Vote?; Does Obama's Foreign Policy Success Count?; The Black Money Behind the Reverend Moon's Cult
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We begin with David Halperin, a former White House speechwriter and senior policy advisor for Howard Dean who was counsel to the Senate Intelligence Committee. We discuss the challenge Obama faces in reviving and reawakening the youth vote and the extent to which trying to ease the growing burden of student loans and extending healthcare coverage will activate the dormant student movement. |
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Then we go to the Democratic convention in Charlotte and speak with Colin Kahl, a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense and advisor to the Barack Obama Presidential campaign about what role foreign policy, which was barely mentioned by Romney and Ryan in Tampa, will play at the Democratic convention. Since national security, which has traditionally been a Democratic weakness, is considered one of this president’s greatest strengths, we look into how much it counts when jobs and the economy are on most people’s minds. |
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Then finally, with Monday’s death of the right-wing Korean cult leader the Reverend Moon, we examine the shadowy connection of black money behind the Unification Church which was founded with the help of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency. Steven Hassan, a former member of the “Moonie” cult who is now the founder of the Freedom of the Mind Resource Center, joins us to discuss how Moon and his shadowy backers helped fund the Christian Right in this country. |
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| MUSIC: Arcade Fire - Wake Up; Lead Belly - Down By The Riverside; Wilco - Theologians; The Beatles - Think For Yourself |
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September 3 - Reclaiming The American Dream; The State of Working America; "A Bold New Call for a Maximum Wage"
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Today on Labor Day we examine the state of working and middle class Americans who for the last few decades have seen the American dream recede out of reach for many, while a few wealthy families like the Waltons, the heirs to the WalMart fortune, have seen their wealth grow to the extent that just one family has wealth equivalent to the combined total of the bottom 40% of all Americans. Dr Harley Shaiken, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley who studies labor, information technology, the organization of work, global economic integration, and trade joins us. |
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Then we speak with Lawrence Mishel, the president of the Economic Policy Institute and principal author of the authoritative text on the American workforce, “The State of Working America”. We will discuss his latest report “Unions, inequality, and faltering middle-class wages”. |
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Then finally veteran labor journalist Sam Pizzigati joins us. He is the editor of the online newsletter Too Much and his most recent article is “A Bold New Call for a Maximum Wage”. We discuss his proposal of tying the minimum wage to a maximum wage and how working and middle class Americans can reverse the erosion of their standard of living and their share of the American pie. |
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| MUSIC: Billy Bragg - Power in a Union; Against Me! - Those Anarcho Punks Are Mysterious; Pete Seeger - Union Maid; Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues |
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