Bill talks with Andrew about Obama's "tax-deal" and its real and imagined potential for getting the economy moving again. Andrew Fieldhouse is a Policy Analyst and Fellow Economic Policy Institute. Prior to joining EPI, he worked as a research assistant and assistant budget analyst at the House Budget Committee.
Jan and Mike talk about Mohamed Mohamud, accused of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction. They consider the tactics used by the FBI to create the criminal scenario, whether Mohamed was really a sleeping terrorist and how entrapment fators into any of it.
"Flag-waving politicians like Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, Mike Pence, and Newt Gingrich use the concept of "exceptionalism" to prove how much they love America. Such hyper-nationalism, usually tied to a Christian God, denies our common humanity with the rest of the world, undercuts international cooperation, and promotes an arrogant disregard for world opinion."
Today's show featured excerpts from the songs listed and linked below. Bill talks with Brad Duncan about how these songs relate the experience of everyday peoples' struggles with economic forces.
On today's Old Mole, hosted by Joe Clement, we hear about net neutrality, Albert Einstein on socialism, the new movie Black Swann, and politically-charged 1990s hardcore-punk.
Bill talks with Joseph Torres about net neutrality, which as Joseph puts it is about making sure any internet user can access any content or application of their choice online. Joseph describes the way that net neutrality kills innovative competition, allows for a subtle form of censorship and, in monetizing the internet, ignores the successful models employed elsewhere in the world that preserve it as a public good.
Albert Einstein wrote "Why Socialism?" for the first issue of Monthly Review. In it he considers the possibility revealed by anthropological science for many different forms of social organization, and way socialism answers the crises of our time.
Wendy Webb and Dense Morris talk about Black Swan. Darren Aronofsky's film stars Natalie Portman as Nina Sayers, a dedicated but awkward ballerina who wins the lead in a "new version" of Swan Lake, but on the condition that she play a hybrid of the black swan and white swan. Described as a psycho-thriller for the anxious psychosis that plagues Nina, the Movie Moles deal with the militancy of ballet and the ambiguity of feminine desire.
Brad Duncan talks with Joe about how hardcore punk functioned to politicize many apathetic young people in the 1990s, but also faced a social contradiction with its anti-authoritarian message on the one hand and the realization of the need for solidarity with practical groups on other. Links to the music below appear in the order heard on the show.
Tom Becker hosts today's Old Mole, which features: US and Chinese Human Rights; a review of the film Marwencol; a profound and jarring disconnect between the will of the American people and their administration; and climate justice.