Month: August 2004

11 weeks and counting: HAROLD MEYERSON of the LA Weekly and the Washington Post explains how Kerry is doing in the swing states: especially Ohio. He’s got to win Ohio.

plus: ROBBIE CONAL‘s art attack: America’s foremost street artist talks about about politics, power, and posters. He called his new book Artburn.

And: Jews in American popular culture: historian PAUL BUHLE looks at film, music, and comics: his new book is From the Lower East Side to Hollywood.

Republicans: hands off Johnny Cash! Info at www.DefendJohnnyCash.org

support the key voter engagement group working in the battleground states: Americans Coming Together, www.actforvictory.org

Robert Greenwald’s terrific documentary “OutFoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism” is playing now in LA at the Laemmle Fairfax and other theaters.

“The dollars are green. The terror level is orange. And everybody’s seeing red. Welcome to Bush World.” That’s what JOHN POWERS, columnist for the LA Weekly, says. His his hilarious and brilliant new book is Sore Winners (and the Rest of Us) in George Bush’s America.

Also: the staggering trail of evasions and deceit behind the sex-abuse scandals in the Catholic church: JASON BERRY traces the problem up to the Vatican and Pope John Paul II. His new book is Vows of Silence.

Plus: the moving and surprising political odyssey of ROBERT MEEROPOL, son of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, and now executive director of the Rosenberg Fund for Children. He wrote An Execution in the Family: One Son’s Journey.

What’s the matter with Kansas? How come they vote Republican, even though that’s against their class interests? TOM FRANK explains the funny thing about the class war in America today: it’s about culture; it should be about economics. Tom’s new book is What’s the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America.

Plus: is Social Security in “crisis”? Are deficits always bad? What about the Bush deficit? MICHAEL MEEROPOL explains economic issues with refreshing clarity– he wrote the book Surrender: How the Clinton Administration Completed the Reagan Revolution.

Also: IAN WILLIAMS, UN correspondent for The Nation, with analysis of the fighting in Najaf and Baghdad. Ian’s new book is Deserter: George Bush’s War on Military Families, Veterans, and His Past.

web extra: watch the new attack ad from “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth” — www.swiftvets.com — claiming Kerry “lied” about his Vietnam record —
and see Joe Conason’s critique, “Smear Boat Veterans for Bush” at www.Salon.com: “The “swift boat” veterans attacking John Kerry’s war record are led by veteran right-wing operatives using the same vicious techniques they used against John McCain four years ago.”

What will it take for Kerry to beat Bush? HAROLD MEYERSON has some ideas; he writes for the LA Weekly and the Washington Post op-ed page.

State Senator SHEILA KUEHL of Santa Monica reports from Sacramento on the prison guards and the new budget, and Schwartzenegger and the girly men.

And SAUL LANDAU talks about his new book, The Business of America: how consumers have replaced citizens, and how we can reverse the trend.

Calendar note: Outfoxed, Robert Greenwald’s documentary about Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, opens in LA this weeked at Laemmle’s Fairfax theater on Beverly and Fairfax: view the trailer for “Outfoxed”

web extra: Will Ferrell as George Bush trying to tape a TV commercial: http://whitehousewest.com/