Forty-eight out of fifty economists now agree: the United States is in a recession. And who bears the brunt? It's you baby, American workers. Companies are already laying off people and slashing benefits for those who remain. Sounds like a job for a labor union? Indeeed....and many see the election of Barack Obama as a turning point for organized labor.

Bruce Raynor, General President of the union UNITE HERE, representing close to 1/2 million workers and over 400,000 retirees from the textile, hotel, casino, food services and industrial laundries joins us to tackle some of the questions ahead. A founding member of the Change to Win labor federation, UNITE HERE was the first union to endorse Barack Obama and deployed 500 full time workers into swing states this election.

While Barack Obama's website acknowledges that the US economy depends on millions of undocumented workers living in the shadows, the issue of immigration reform has remained there, in the shadows, glaring only in its absence from the Presidential debates and campaign coverage.

Read the rest of this entry »

What is the cost of bailing out the auto industry? Well, it may be more complicated than a simple yes or no vote. The real challenge may be coming up with an energy plan that stimulates the economy without destroying the environment. Congress is set to decide this week whether to extend a new $25 billion loan to the Big Three or apportion some of the $700 bailout money to save GM, Ford, and Chrysler. Some say these auto companies are dinosaurs bound for extinction - but if they fold, according to the Center for Automotive Research, as many as 2.5 million jobs could be lost.

On GRITtv Peter Lazes, Director of Programs for Economic Transition at the Cornell University School of Industrial & Labor Relations, Arun Gupta, writer and editor of The Indypendent, writer and filmmaker Mitchell Bard, Jonathan Cohn, Senior Editor at The New Republic, and Betsy Rosenberg, the creator and host of EcoTalk Radio weigh the costs of bailing out the auto industry.

"Morristown: In the Air and Sun," a film produced by Anne Lewis and Appalshop, tells the story of labor and immigration in Eastern Tennessee. To find out more about the film and to arrange a screening go to annelewis.org - it's available in both English and Spanish.  

Then, on Wednesday a ceremony in Astoria Queens will mark the naming of the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge. Formerly the Triborough Bridge it connects Manhattan to Harlem, the South Bronx, and Queens. Kennedy himself moved to the North Bronx when he was just a few months old and grew up in New York. RFK’s daughter Kerry says that even as a politician her father believed that strength came from working together as a community. And when he campaigned in 1968 Robert Kennedy stood alongside Caesar Chavez, traveled to the Mississippi Delta, to Indian Reservations, and toured Appalachia as a sign of the kind of community he hoped to build. On GRITtv Kerry Kennedy discusses her father’s legacy and the ongoing work of the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights.

Finally, Ellen Kuras on her long awaited film The Betrayal. Thavisouk Phrasavath, the film’s co-director and editor, met Kuras after he and his family fled the war-ravaged country of Laos. The Betrayal, recently shortlisted for an Academy Award, tells the story of Thavi, his family, and the impact of war on our collective memory and sense of history. And a commentary from Greg Denier of Change to Win. 

Thanks to the American News Project for video in tonight's show. 

Where do human rights begin? Many would say they begin right here at home. Closing Guantanamo is a start but the fight for Human Rights goes much deeper. Catherine Powell, the author of Human Rights at Home: A Domestic Policy Blueprint for the New Administration and an associate professor of Law at Fordham Law School says that human rights should include access to health care, equal opportunity for education, a living wage, and the elimination of racial and ethnic discrimination in U.S. prisons. And Barack Obama can initiate a process of human rights reform through his appointments to domestic agencies, the Justice Department and by reestablishing the Interagency Working Group on Human Rights created under Clinton and abolished by George W. Bush.

There are opportunities. Laura Whitehorn a political prisoner for fourteen years and the editor of POZ magazine says that the United States can no longer use the war on terror and the threat of terrorism to justify the abdication of human rights law. In essence, preventive detention has been legalized under the Bush administration.

Read the rest of this entry »

For the first time since 1935, Democrats in NY hit the trifecta - meaning Dems will control both legislative chambers and the governor's office. Parallel to the historic Presidential race and gains made by Democrats in the Congress, there's another electoral story with broad national consequences. Democrats won profound victories on the state level.

To give us a sense of the significance of this changing electoral landscape, here's Nathan Newman, Policy Director of Progressive States Network; New York State Senator Jeff Klein, representing the Bronx; Assembly Member Hakeem Jeffries, representing Central Brooklyn; Wisconsin State Senator Jon Erpenbach, Arizona State Representative Krysten Sinema; Montana House Representative Dave McAlpin.

A deliciously hopeful edition of the New York Times appeared around the country yesterday. From the banner headline IRAQ WAR ENDS to the weather report -- the paper was a spoof, but not in the Onion Sense, in the aspirational sense. "Court Indicts Bush on High Treason Charge", "Public Universities To Be Free." It's "All the News We Hope to Print " wrote the publishers.

1.2 million copies were passed out with an online sister website NYTimes-SE.com

By the end of the day, those responsible were identified, including the smart anti-consumerist satirists The Yes Men, known from their eponymous 2003 Movie where they took on -- and posed as -- among others -- WTO executives. Two of The Yes Men join us in studio.

GOT DOCS? this week is Baby Boomers versus Generation Y. What's the career trajectory for 20 somethings coming up, compared to their parents? That's the story Michelle Paster takes on in her new film, JOBS FOR RENT.

Kate Clinton files a report as she heads out the door to protest anti-same-sex marriage initiatives. The Church of the Latter Day Saints largely funded the Yes On 8 movement, and the LGBT community responds.

Just as Americans are told that there's only one kind of sexuality that's "normal " so too LGBT people in other countries are are told their sexuality's a function of colonialism. We take a global view of the culture wars with Fadzai Muparutza of Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe and Rauda Morcos of Aswat Palestinian Gay Women, in the U.S. on tour with the Astraea Lesbian Fund for Justice.

It's all right here, on GRITtv.

Labor unions were a big part of Barack Obama’s victory. What would they like to see from the president elect? Universal healthcare for one and a huge stimulus package might be starting points. There’s also the Employee Free Choice Act, which would make it easier for unions to organize. Perhaps as a measure of how ambitious the effort will be, the anti-union and pro-business Chamber of Commerce said: “This will be Armageddon.” But will Obama be able to turn around the decades long decline in union membership? And will unions have a role in reshaping American society?

Greg Denier, communications director of Change to Win says that there’s been a fundamental shift in the way voters are thinking about the economy and the role of government as outlined in their survey, The American Dream and the 2008 Election. The Reagan era is over. Ed Ott, Executive Director of the New York City Central Labor Council and Bhairavi Desai, Executive Director of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance say that there was an unprecedented response from union members and that Barack Obama represents an opportunity to move forward on the issues of immigration and the right to unionize. The victory is not only symbolic, says Desai, but could really change the tide in how race and immigration are discussed. So workers, union and non, will be watching the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) and the restructuring of the auto industry closely. Not to mention the bailout and Obama's choice for Labor Secretary.

The Real News asks will recession kill or renew labor unions, and looks at the future of the Employee Free Choice Act with economist John Schmitt.

We also have a report from the Mobile Broadcast News on Austin's Transit Union, which recently secured a tentative agreement after a three day walkout. Elizabeth Press of Streetfilms brings us a report of a different kind of modern and responsive surface transit, pioneered in Paris "Mobilien."

Finally, jazz saxophonist Dave Glasser says that sound is an extension of yourself, your life, your person. Glasser’s influences are many and he has performed with the Clark Terry Quintet, the Count Basie Orchestra, the Dizzy Gillespie All stars and others. His father, Ira Glasser, was head of the ACLU from 1978 to 2001 and Dave says that there is no better expression of freedom of speech than playing in a jazz band where everybody is listening to each other and to the whole thing. Glasser teaches Jazz at the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music and his most recent album is Above the Clouds.

Thanks to the SEIU for video in tonight's show.

Since August of this year a quarter million people have been forced to flee the Democratic Republic of Congo. Over the last decade an estimated five million lives have been lost. Sexual violence has been staggering. Yet the question of what the international community can do--there are already 17,000 UN peacekeepers in the Congo--and what the United States should do remain unanswered. Poet, playwright, and activist Eve Ensler who has traveled to the D.R.C. three times in the last 18 months says that one solution is to work with local grassroots organizations--movement building on the ground--and support them with the resources they need.

Benjamin Barber, a distinguished senior fellow at Demos and the author of Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole says that there is an inherent conflict between global rights of sovereignty and the principle of universal human rights. Can we invade a sovereign nation to defend human rights? Barber says in the end that it is a choice between doing nothing and doing something and that the Obama administration may be best equipped to rethink the issue of humanitarian intervention.    

Scott Ritter former UN weapons inspector in Iraq and the author of Target Iran: The Truth About the White House’s Plans for Regime Change, says that the United States is not equipped to deal with conflict in the Congo--a  place of enormous complexity. And that intervention would require convincing a family in Poughkeepsie that they should send their son to Africa. He says that the perils of humanitarian intervention are too great unless victory is certain. International human rights activists Witness and Ajedi-Ka document the lives of child soldiers in the Democratic Republic of Congo in their short film A Duty to Protect. Get involved here.

Another kind of peril. Being Muslim in America. The post 9/11 era has been a troubled one for American society and its treatment of Arab and Muslim Americans. They have been marginalized, maligned, and in some cases attacked. Even the presidential campaign was not immune from anti-Muslim bigotry. In fact, it became one of the contest's recurring themes. Barack Obama was said to be Muslim, a rumor that has circulated for nearly two years—a whisper campaign that took off through email and the Internet. At a McCain-Palin Rally in Columbus, Ohio, a woman told John McCain: "I don't trust Obama. I have read about him. He's an Arab." McCain shook his head and responded, "No, ma'am. He's a decent, family man," but left it at that. No one in a position of power, with the exception of Colin Powell, has defended Arab Americans and criticized the scapegoating of an entire people. 

Brooklyn has the largest Arab American population in the United States and Moustafa Bayoumi, a professor of English at Brooklyn College, has followed the lives of seven young men and women. He tells their stories in his new book, How Does it Feel to be a Problem?: Being Young and Arab in America.

Finally on tonight's GRITtv: excerpts of Bassam Haddad's Arabs and

Read the rest of this entry »

Barack Obama’s selection of Rahm Emanuel as Chief of Staff has many wondering what all the talk of change and charting a new course was all about. Emanuel, who as Chief of Staff arranges the president’s schedule and has a great deal of control over who has access and who does not, has butted heads with the progressive wing of the Democratic Party on everything from the 50 state strategy and grassroots organizing to NAFTA and the war in Iraq. He is also a former Israeli citizen whose father, Benjamin M. Emanuel, was a member of the Irgun, a militant Zionist group that launched attacks against Palestinians and the British in their effort to establish a Jewish State. Emaneul’s father recently told the Ma’ariv newspaper that, “Obviously he [Rahm] will influence the president to be pro-Israel… Why wouldn't he be [influential]? What is he, an Arab? He's not going to clean the floors of the White House."

But the rest of Obama’s cabinet is still open and it is unlikely that any announcements will be made until next week. Today on GRITtv we ask our guests and you what the most important positions are and who should fill them. Alexis McGill Executive Director of Citizen Change, Gloria Feldt founder of the Heartfeldt Politics blog and the author of The War on Choice: The Right-Wing Attack on Women’s Rights and How to Fight Back, Dan Gerstein former Senior Adviser for Senator Joe Lieberman’s Vice Presidential and Presidential campaigns, David Bender the host of Air America’s Politically Direct, and Christine Cegelis a Democratic Candidate for Congress in Illinois in 2004 weigh in on who they think should be in Obama’s cabinet.

Then, as the United States elected its first African-American president it also passed ballot initiatives in a number of states that ban gay marriage. According to Richard Kim, Associate Editor of The Nation Magazine, the no on 8 Campaign failed for three reasons. It was disorganized and slow to respond. It didn’t organize in communities of color soon enough. And it fundamentally misunderstood what the yes on 8 campaign was about. You can read Richard’s article on why prop 8 won at The Nation. Activist and author Jewelle Gomez, Rev. Osagyefo Uhuru Sekou author of the forthcoming book Gods, Gays, and Guns: Religion and the Future of Democracy, and Alexander Robinson CEO of the National Black Justice Coalition discuss the role of the black church in organizing around prop 8 and why activists were unable to defeat the measure. To find out more about upcoming protests against prop 8 visit join the impact.

Finally a tribute to South African singing legend Miriam Makeba who died this week at the age of 76 - she collapsed after a benefit concert in Italy. Makeba, known as "Mama Africa," spent much of her life in exile - she was a great supporter of the human equality struggle --namely the fight against apartheid.   

Thanks to In The MO.com, Adventists Against Prop 8, Sean Chapin, gayestever.com, and Dresden for video in tonight’s show.

Read the rest of this entry »

Americans heard more about socialism and the Weather Underground during the last part of the Presidential Election campaign than most of us had heard in years.

Today's show asks -- did '08 end an era - or revive one, politically speaking-- with former Weather Underground leader Bernadine Dohrn, Jamal Joseph, former Black Panther and Photographer turned PR guru David Fenton. We look at the power of the image to affect public opinion and the power of social movements to endure. Fenton has a photo show “Eye of the Revolution” opening in NYC this weekend at the Steven Kasher Gallery.

Bernadine Dohrn sticks around for a one-on-one interview, on movements, on message, on No Demobilizing Now! About the Ayers Thing: Bill Ayers is Bernardine Dohrn's husband. The McCain campaign tried to make Ayers a problem for Obama, but it didn't happen. She says the bigger message here has nothing to do with '60's history - the Republicans message is that whatever you do doesn't make a difference. Of course she rejects that idea, and revels in the victory of ground-up social movements.

Civil disobedience reframed as 'terrorism' - and quashed in '08 as it was in '68. The activists who rallied in Minneapolis/St. Paul outside the Republican National Convention were harrassed, gassed, and charged with "conspiracy to riot in furtherance of terrorism." The Glass Bead Collective, Twin Cities Indymedia, and other independent media activists have released a new film, 'Terrorizing Dissent',

Read the rest of this entry »

If you missed our two hour live election day show, you can see part of it tonight on GRITtv. We have in our studio Danny Schechter, the author of Plunder: Investigating our Economic Calamity and the Subprime Scandal, Roberto Lovato, Associate Editor with New America Media, and Esther Armah, the co-host of “Wake Up Call” on WBAI. And reports from Ari Melber of the Nation Magazine with the Obama campaign in Chicago and Anthony Shull Campaign Communications Specialist for Unite Here on the ground in Milwaukee.

In the summer of 1964 a quiet revolution began in Mississippi. It was Freedom Summer. Black and white women from Boston, New York, Philly and Chicago traveled to Mississippi on Tuesdays -- every week. “Wednesdays Women” were supplying cover and support to the local de-segregation movement, doing what Dorothy Height called, “women’s work…the work of making connections and building community.” The film being made about these courageous women, WEDNESDAYS IN MISSISSIPPI, is this week's GOT DOCS.

Then an interview with David Amram. He's lived more than nine lives in one lifetime and there's no stopping him now. In his musical career he has composed more than 100 works of music, two operas, written scores for Broadway and movies including the classic films, Splendor in the Grass and The Manchurian Candidate.

He is a virtuoso on the piano, plays the French horn, flute, whistles, percussion – you name it, he plays it. And he has collaborated with the greats he calls his friends from Leonard Bernstein, who chose David as the first composer in residence for the New York Philharmonic, Langston Hughes, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonius Monk, Tito Puente, Charlie Parker, and the list goes on and on. This year Amram was appointed as Composer-In-Residence for the Democratic National Convention.

Tonight on GRITtv, Barack Obama's historic candidacy. Manning Marable, a professor of history at Columbia University, says that Obama’s victory is a “mind-bending accomplishment.”

Marable, who at 58 remembers the days of Jim Crow well, says that by electing Barack Obama we have lived Black history and remade American history. Forty Seven Years after the Freedom Ride Campaign to register African-American voters in the Jim Crow South, the United States has elected its first African-American president.

Steve Cobble, a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, reminds us that five of the first seven U.S. presidents were slave-owners. Obama’s victory he notes was overwhelming. Not only did he win states that Democrats haven’t won since the 1960’s, but he also staked out new territory in the Southwest and brought young and Hispanic voters into the Party in dramatic numbers.

So what lies ahead?

Malia Lazu, Executive Director of The Gathering For Justice, Manning Marable, and Steve Cobble discuss why the formation of a center-left coalition is crucial to holding Obama accountable on foreign policy, health care, and the economy. Make activism a part of your daily life Cobble says. It all depends on what we do independently of mainstream Democratic Party politics.

Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor and publisher of The Nation Magazine, says that the progressive left must create a new mandate and that now is the time to be bold. There has been a generational and perhaps an ideological shift and the old order is dead. The grassroots, movement politics that helped to elect Barack Obama will be even more important now. Obama confessed in his speech last night that he needs our help. Holding his administration accountable and building a stronger small "d" democratic movement will be necessary in the days and weeks to follow.

Thanks to the American News Project, Sanford Lewis and Jonathan Mena of Video the Vote, Shane and Amy Bugby at a Year at the Wheel, and Dan Leong for videos in tonight's program.