Q&A: MIKE LUX, Author – THE PROGRESSIVE REVOLUTION: How the Best in America Came to Be
Written on May 7th, 2009 |
Aired 05/05/09
One of Ronald Reagan's most famous and successful quotes is from his 1980 debate with Jimmy Carter, "There you go again..." No one can remember what it was about or whether it was accurate, but it worked.
I bring it up because a new book makes clear that that same line applies all too well to the right in this country. "There you go again..." - bringing up the same old stereotypes, same old fears, same old prejudices...
Today's first guest MIKE LUX has a new book out -- THE PROGRESSIVE REVOLUTION: How the Best in America Came to Be -- in which he traces the role progressives have played in leading the US to so many of its best advances, battling every time the right's determination to keep progress at bay. Needless to say, we are at another of those moments today. After 30 years of dominance by the right, disaster is clear to all, and change is on the move. We'll talk about the history, the present moment, and what we all need to do to keep moving forward to a more progressive future.
Q&A: BEN SKINNER, Author – A CRIME SO MONSTROUS
Written on April 26th, 2009 |
Aired 04/21/09
Currently a fellow at the Carr Center for Human rights Policy at Harvard Kennedy School of Government, previously a Special Assistant to Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, BEN SKINNER has written for Newsweek, LA Times, Foreign Policy and others. He was named one of National Geographic's Adventurers of the Year 2008. His first book, now out in paperback, is A CRIME SO MONSTROUS: Face to Face with Modern Day Slavery.
Q&A: JOSEPH CIRINCIONE, President of PLOUGHSHARES FUND and Author
Written on April 16th, 2009 |
Aired 04/14/09
Joseph Cirincione joined Ploughshares Fund as president in March 2008. He is author of Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons and served previously as senior vice president for national security and international policy at the Center for American Progress and as director for nonproliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace for eight years. He worked for nine years in the U.S. House of Representatives as a professional staff member of the Committee on Armed Services and the Committee on Government Operations, and served as staff director of the bipartisan Military Reform Caucus. He teaches at the Georgetown University Graduate School of Foreign Service and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
His previous books include two editions of Deadly Arsenals: Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Threats, (2005 and 2002), and previous reports include Universal Compliance: A Strategy for Nuclear Security (co-author, March 2005) and WMD in Iraq (co-author, January 2004). He is the author of over 200 articles on defense issues, the producer of two DVDs on proliferation, the former publisher of the comprehensive proliferation website, Proliferation News, and is a frequent commentator in the media. In the past two years has delivered over 150 speeches around the world and appeared in the 2006 award-winning documentary, Why We Fight.
Cirincione is an expert adviser to the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States, chaired by former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry and former Secretary of Energy and Secretary of Defense James R. Schlesinger. He also serves as a member of the Advisory Committee to the Commission on the Prevention of WMD Proliferation and Terrorism, headed by former Senator Bob Graham (D-FL) and former Senator Jim Talent (R-MO).
Q&A: FRITJOF CAPRA, Author and Physicist
Written on April 9th, 2009 |
Aired 04/07/09
FRITJOF CAPRA is a founding director of the Center for Ecoliteracy in Berkeley, California, which promotes ecology and systems thinking in primary and secondary education, and he's is on the faculty of Schumacher College, an international center for ecological studies in England
CAPRA is the author also of The Tao of Physics, coauthor of Green Politics and coeditor of Steering Business Toward Sustainability. His most recent book is The Science of Leonardo.
I read a book a quarter century ago that greatly influenced my view not only of science, medicine, agriculture, energy, and even politics - it influenced my view of my worldview. That book was THE TURNING POINT by physicist Fritjof Capra. He's got a new book THE SCIENCE OF LEONARDO in which he holds that DaVinci saw the world with a lens that other scientists have only discovered in the last 100 years - and which society has yet to fully grasp.
Q&A: JANE D’ARISTA, Author – REBUILDING THE FRAMEWORK FOR FINANCIAL REGULATION
Written on April 2nd, 2009 |
Aired 03/31/09
JANE D'ARISTA writes and lectures on economics and finance and is a Research Associate at the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She served as a staff economist for the Banking and Commerce Committees of the U.S. House of Representatives, as a principal analyst in the international division of the Congressional Budget Office and has lectured in graduate programs at Boston University School of Law, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, the University of Utah and the New School University. Her publications include a two-volume history of U.S. monetary policy and financial regulation.
Author, REBUILDING THE FRAMEWORK FOR FINANCIAL REGULATION
"...barely known among exalted policy-makers, ...progressive economists recognize the originality of her thinking..."
-- William Greider in "Fixing the Fed" (see below)
By William Greider, March 11, 2009, Nation
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090330/greider/print?+nofollow
Congress and the Obama administration face an excruciating dilemma. To restore the crippled financial system, they are told, they must put up still more public money--hundreds of billions more--to rescue the largest banks and investment houses from failure. Even the dimmest politicians realize that this will further inflame the public's anger. People everywhere grasp that there is something morally wrong about bailing out the malefactors who caused this catastrophe. Yet we are told we have no choice. Unless taxpayers assume the losses for the largest financial institutions by buying their rotten assets, the banking industry will not resume normal lending and, therefore, the economy cannot recover.
