Show details for October 26th, 2008

This week’s guest:

– Katrina vanden Heuvel

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Katrina vanden Heuvel

Katrina vanden Heuvel has been The Nation’s editor since 1995 and publisher since 2005. We’ll talk with her about Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachmann’s recent comments, insinuating that Barack Obama and some unnamed members of Congress hold “antiAmerican views.”

After Bachmann’s comments, her previously underdog opponent, El Tinklenberg, got a tsunami of money from all over the country. As the Los Angeles Times reported: “Every time aides hit ‘refresh’ on their computers, hundreds more online donations appeared. Downstairs, the postal carrier spent 10 minutes trying to cram a two-foot stack of envelopes stuffed with checks into the mail slot. “It’s been raining money,” said Beth DeZiel, 39, Tinklenberg’s dazed deputy finance director. “There’s so much, we can barely keep up. It’s unbelievable.”

Katrina is a frequent commentator on American and international politics on MSNBC, CNN and PBS. Her articles have appeared in The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times and The Boston Globe, and she is the recipient of numerous awards. Her weblog for thenation.com is “Editor’s Cut.” She is a summa cum laude graduate of Princeton University, and she lives in New York City with her husband and daughter.

ARTICLE:
“After Hardball”
October 23, 2008
Editor’s Cut, The Nation

WEBSITE:
The Nation

BLOG:
Editor’s Cut

BOOKS:
co-editor of Taking Back America–And Taking Down The Radical Right, (NationBooks, 2004)

editor of The Dictionary of Republicanisms, (NationBooks, 2005)

co-editor of Voices of Glasnost: Interviews with Gorbachev’s Reformers, (Norton, 1989)

editor of The Nation: 1865-1990.

editor of the collection A Just Response: The Nation on Terrorism, Democracy and September 11, 2001.

Show Details for October 19th, 2008

 

 

 

This week’s guest:

– Prof. CHANDLER DAVIDSON reviews the history of minority vote suppression

 

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 –  Prof. CHANDLER DAVIDSON reviews the history of minority vote suppression

http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~soci/image/faculty/profiles/davidson.jpg

Our guest is Professor Emeritus CHANDLER DAVIDSON of Rice University.  We’ll ask him to review the history of minority vote suppression.  The first major nationwide GOP “ballot security program” was in 1964, named “Operation Eagle Eye.” He wrote in 2004 that Republican ballot security excesses continue to pose a threat to minority voters, some forty years after the Voting Rights Act was passed.

RECENT PUBLICATIONS:
–Republican Ballot Security Programs: Vote Protection or Minority Vote Suppression-or Both?, (co-author), A Report to the Center for Voting Rights and Protection, Washington, D.C. (2004).  http://www.votelaw.com/blog/blogdocs/GOP_Ballot_Security_Programs.pdf

–Protecting Minority Voters: The Voting Rights Act at Work 1982-2005, National Commission on the Voting Rights Act, Washington, D.C. ( 2006).

SELECTED BOOKS:
–Quiet Revolution in the South: The Impact of the Voting Rights Act, 1965-1990
–Race and Class in Texas Politics

 

QUOTE:

“Forays by white, affluent pollwatchers or challengers into minority neighborhoods that the same whites would almost
never go into otherwise, in the name of “ballot security,” has been a prominent feature of Republican political strategy for at least fifty years. On many occasions these forays on Election Day have also been accompanied by other measures, such as posting at the polls uniformed men, sometimes with badges or guns, who are intended to look like law
enforcement officers; posting off-duty police officers at the polls; photographing or videotaping voters; aggressive, hostile questioning of potential voters or polling officials in ways that can embarrass or humiliate; spreading false information about voting requirements, candidates, and the election date in the days before the election; challenging voters on the basis of inaccurate registration lists that disproportionately winnow out low-income people; or a combination of these tactics. When successful, these measures are a form of vote suppression, which is a polite term for the
disfranchisement of eligible minority voters. 

“Moreover, ballot-security programs gone bad are often not simply the work of a few renegades who are out of touch with the GOP leadership structure. On the contrary, as this Report will demonstrate, evidence indicates that some of the unsavory practices of ballot security efforts are approved or winked at by the top echelons of the party
hierarchy and conducted by well-educated professionals, particularly lawyers, and sometimes paid for by the Republican National Committee.”   –  Republican Ballot Security Programs: Vote Protection or Minority Vote Suppression-or Both?

 

 

 

 

 

 

WEBSITE:
http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~soci/faculty/profile/davidson.html

Show Details for October 12th, 2008

This week’s guests

– Investigative reporter GREG PALAST on stealing back your vote

– Philanthropy advisor TRACY GARY on unfreezing economically

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– Investigative reporter GREG PALAST on stealing back your vote

http://www.gregpalast.com/wp-content/sm9-28-08sbyvcoverimagetilted_jpg_tn.jpg

Investigative journalist GREG PALAST updates us on “stealing back your vote.” We’ll discuss his new project, working with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.. The BBC news story and the investigative comic book are now available.

Palast is best known in his native USA as the journalist who, for the Observer (UK), broke the story of how Jeb Bush purged thousands of black Florida citizens from voter rolls before the 2000 election, thereby handing the White House to Jeb’s brother George.

Greg’s bestseller “Armed Madhouse” has been called “at once scary, infuriating, fascinating and frustrating,” Palast himself has been dubbed “a fire-breathing investigative reporter.” His other recent bestseller is “The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.” Before becoming a journalist, he was an investigator of corporate fraud and racketeering.

TV CLIP from BBC:
“Set up to steal it again.” Is 2008 already fixed?
Available to watch at Greg’s site.

INVESTIGATIVE COMIC:
“Steal Back Your Vote”
Available for download at Greg’s site.

WEBSITE:
http://www.gregpalast.com

— Philanthropy advisor TRACY GARY on unfreezing economically

http://www.womensperspective.org/images/gary2.jpg

Sophisticated financial systems around the globe are under severe stress, and fear gripped Wall Street this week, as it lost roughly $2.4 trillion in market value.

Our guest, Tracy Gary, has spent her life connecting two groups: people with money, and people with great ideas about change. We’ll look at the paralyzed feeling many people are getting in the face of the economic turmoil, and get some ideas about moving forward. We’ll discuss with her some ideas about bolstering communities, and about the importance of nonprofit groups’ contribution to solutions even as governments and corporations spiral downward.

Tracy is a Houston-based donor activist, philanthropic and legacy advisor and nonprofit entrepreneur. She has been on over 30 boards of directors and has help to start 18 nonprofits and foundations including Resourceful Women and Changemakers. She currently heads Inspired Legacies, which will help to catalyze billions of dollars of the public good through linking of powerful dreamers, dreammakers and advisors.

Tracy is the co-author of Inspired Philanthropy: Your Step by Step Guide to Creating a Giving Plan. Among numerous awards she has won: the Stick Your Neck Out Award from the Giraffe Society, and 21 Leaders for the 21st Century, from Women’s eNews.

WEBSITE:
Inspired Legacies

BOOK:
Inspired Philanthropy: Your Step by Step Guide to Creating a Giving Plan

RELATED ARTICLE:

“Living Wealth: Better Than Money”
by David Korten
Yes Magazine
Fall 2007
http://www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?ID=1834
“If there is to be a human future, we must bring ourselves into balanced relationship with one another and the Earth. This requires building economies with heart.” — David Korten

Show details for October 5th, 2008

This week’s program:

– In the first segment of our program: Election news from around the country

– In the second segment of our program: Singer / songwriter Hank Woji

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Election news from around the country

Co-hosts Pokey and Mark look at current news on elections, including a clip from Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.

Also in our segment:

• Lawsuit proceeding in Ohio, alleging hi-tech tampering with the 2004 election
• NM ballot programming error found that would deprive straight-ticket voters of their 2008 Senate and presidential votes
• Michigan Republican operatives’ attempts to deny people their vote if their property has been foreclosed
• Fliers distributed in black neighborhoods in Philadelphia, attempting to suppress the vote using misinformation

Am I registered to vote?

CHECK YOUR OWN REGISTRATION! As millions of registered voters are being purged in states across the country, Texas voters (and our listeners from elsewhere) should immediately check their registrations to make sure they are on file. You can still register in Texas tomorrow, Monday. You want to avoid walking up to the polls and having a hassle, where the clerk tells you you’re not registered, and ends up giving you a provisional ballot. Provisional ballots may be counted, but may not be.

Check to see if you’re registered! Even if you’re sure. Here, for Harris County, and here, for anywhere in Texas.

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Hank Woji

Singer / songwriter Hank Woji was chosen in 2002 as one of the top 40 songwriters in the Kerrville Folk Festival’s New Folk Competition. His work on the recent album “Medallion” has gotten Hank nominated for the “Producer of the Year” award, by the Academy of Texas Music.

An experienced musician, Hank now lives in Houston after many years playing in the NY/NJ metro area. His music combines elements of Folk, Blues, and Rock with Brasilian, Cuban, African and Indian rhythms. All profits from the single release “Patriot Games” will go to United for Peace and Justice

Hank Woji returns to our KPFT studios to perform his music for us live. His new album, just released, is entitled “American Dreams.”

WEBSITE:
HankWoji.com

NEW ALBUM:
American Dreams