Economist Brad DeLong noted on his blog that part of the productivity gain in the U.S. economy comes not from job production, but from squeezing more work out of employees scared to lose their jobs.  Job numbers are still dismal even when the Dow Jones average is up and the economy supposedly saw growth, and the stimulus bill was supposed to help. Months later, we wonder: was it enough?

Beyond just creating jobs, our panelists say, any real economic stimulus needs to make sure that the jobs created are good, with good benefits, living wages, and targeted to the people who need them the most. Max Fraad Wolff, professor of economics at The New School, Myles Lennon of the Laborers’ Union, Local #10, Bettina Damiani of Good Jobs First and Nathan Newman of the Progressive States Network debate whether the stimulus has stopped the bleeding or whether it’s more like a band-aid on a bullet wound.

Frank Schaeffer, the son of religious right icon Francis Schaeffer, grew up in the heart of the anti-choice movement and watched Christian conservatives take over the Republican party. He broke with nearly all of his father’s teachings, and has a  new book out, Patience with God: Faith for People Who Don’t Like Religion (or Atheism).  In it he takes on both the “incipient fascism” of the religious right and what he called “proselytizing” atheism of Richard Dawkins and others.  He joins GRITtv for a fascinating interview about his own journey, and how people, religious or irreligious, are all looking for answers to the same questions.

“Movies are about movement,” says documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman, and in his newest film, La Danse: The Paris Opera Ballet, he examines the movement of ballet. The film gets inside the workings of the ballet, from rehearsals to marketing sessions.

Kate Clinton gives us her thoughts about the LGBT equality measures that passed in Kalamazoo, Michigan and Washington State, and the marriage equality law that was overturned in Maine on Election Day, and we have video from Green for All and GOOD magazine on weatherization and green jobs.

“I’d like to celebrate the accomplishments and not the occasion,” says one New Yorker interviewed by GRITtv of the anniversary of Barack Obama’s historic election. One year ago today, November 4, Obama defeated John McCain with the support of new voters, young voters, and thousands upon thousands of small donors and volunteers who gave time and money that were in short supply. He’s already been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, but health care and other promised changes have been slower to come about, and the economy is still battered and struggling.

Election day 2009 was called a referendum on Obama’s presidency by many mainstream pundits, but things are a bit more complicated than that. Still, what has been achieved? What have we changed, and what do we still need to change? And most importantly, we saw so much talk of hope on the campaign trail. Do we still feel that hope, or did Republican victories in New Jersey and Virginia, coupled with a defeat for marriage equality in Maine, have us feeling more like our old cynical selves?

In a special one-hour show, we convene two panels of GRITtv regular guests to talk about these questions, the election results, and what progressives need to do better going forward into 2010. Joining us are Katrina vanden Heuvel and Chris Hayes of The Nation, Jehmu Greene of the Women’s Media Center and formerly of Rock the Vote, James Rucker of Color Of Change, Danny Schechter of News Dissector, Jane Hamsher of FireDogLake, Ron Reagan and Mark Green of Air America, and Esther Armah of WBAI.

We also took to the streets of New York City to find out what the word on the street is about Obama and the changes that have–and haven’t–happened in the past year.

It’s election day in the U.S. and with Democratic candidates facing tough races in several states, we take a look at what the left can learn from religious organizations, who manage to keep people coming back week after week. Does religion have a place in social justice movements, and does the right have a lock on religious motivation to act?

Joining us to debate the proper place of religion and spirituality on the Left are Michael De Dora of the Center for Inquiry, Reverend Osagyefo Sekou, Senior Minister of Lemuel Haynes Congregational Church, Kim Gandy, Fellow, Institute of Politics, Harvard Kennedy School and former president, National Organization for Women, and Rabbi Michael Feinberg, Executive Director of the Greater New York Labor-Religion Coalition.

One year ago today Americanswere gearing up for the presidential election, and many of the volunteers and organizers that put Barack Obama in the White House were young and working on a political campaign for the first time.  A year later, we round up a few of them and ask whether they’re still involved. Lana Wilson, founder of Obamaerobics, Mike Jones, NYU sophomore and Obama 2008 campaign volunteer, and Ebonie Johnson Cooper, campaign organizer in Ohio and Pennsylvania join Elizabeth Mendez Berry, who wrote about the Obama  youth organizers and what they’re up to now for an upcoming issue of The Nation, to talk about what they’ve done and how Obama changed their generation.

Senator Bernie Sanders is always willing to share his opinion, and this week’s Sanders Unfiltered clip finds him talking about green jobs, and how environmental policy and economic policy do indeed mix. Thanks to Brave New Films for the video.

We also have a profile of a young environmental activist, recently honored by the Earth Island Institute’s annual Brower Youth Awards, from Rikshaw Films, and from RH Reality Check, a look at the way abstinence education and the lack of public health funding have led to HIV/AIDS infections on the rise in South Carolina.

Clay Shirky, professor in New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications Program, is at the forefront of thought and discussion on the future of the Internet and communication technology. From the “Twitter revolution” in Iran and GitHub’s collaborative coding process to the death of newspapers and the rise of the Pirate Party in Europe, Shirky has traced the way new and social media have changed the way the world works. His book Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations and his subsequent work have focused on the way people can organize online for real-world effects without the need for more traditional institutions.

Shirky spoke with GRITtv about the way everyday citizens can use the same technology that brings us videos of a kitten on a treadmill to achieve results that strengthen and spread democracy and engagement around the world.

Fahad Hashmi is an American citizen being held in solitary confinement in Lower Manhattan, facing several years in prison for the crime of providing and conspiring to provide material support and making and conspiring to make a contribution of goods or services to Al Qaeda. The conditions under which he has been held, for two and a half years, are frightening: he is allowed only one visit every other week from one of his parents, and has been punished for shadowboxing alone in his cell.

Jeanne Theoharis, associate professor of political science at Brooklyn College, CUNY and Fahad’s former professor, wrote of the expansion of Guantanamo-like conditions in The Nation several months ago, and she joined us along with actor Kathleen Chalfant and actor, playwright and author Wallace Shawn of Theaters Against War, joins us to talk about Fahad’s case, free speech and why we need to speak up for people like Fahad.

Greenpeace brings us the latest from the global battle against climate change, and The Real News, supplied an analysis of the ongoing conflict in Honduras: will Zelaya return, and what will it change?

Rights, responsibilities; the health of the nation, the health of the people who live here… On all these issues and more, almost a year after the election of Barack Obama, we’re still having a hell of time taking that new direction so many voted for. Take health care: one of the biggest sticking points has been whether health care is a right or a responsibility. Barack Obama called it a right on the campaign trail; McCain said responsibility. The voters made their choice, yet we’re still having the argument.

Those  who believe that health care is a right say it’s something we actually want people to have and to use. Study after study shows that preventive care and early treatment keep people healthier and costs lower.

Private insurers say if you’re healthy, don’t file a claim; the more claims, the more cost: that’s the problem with covering sick people.

It’s kind of like our approach to voting. In other democracies, everyone who turns voting age receives a permit to vote. In the US, there are a mountain of hurdles to qualify.

Back in 1980, Republican leader Paul Weyrich of the Heritage Foundation said “I don’t want everybody to vote… our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.” What would the health insurers’ equivalent be? Something like: “I don’t want everyone to visit doctors because our leverage goes down as health increases?

Maybe thirty years from now someone will turn up the memo.

Meanwhile, there’s some good news.  Senator Russ Feingold and Representative Keith Ellison introduced legislation in the Senate and the House that would allow same day registration for all federal elections, making it easier for everyone to participate..

Heath care only for those who are rich and healthy enough? And voting only for those who are persistent enough?  The test based approach is about as good for our health as it is for our democracy.  So bravo to Feingold and Ellison.

The public option: is it dead? Is it alive? Who’s going to kill it this week? These are the headlines nearly every day, but the rest of the story is rarely told.  Joe Lieberman may have replaced Olympia Snowe in the news, but the story remains the same; left vs. right, government vs. private industry. Never mind checking facts, or looking at actual public opinion on the public option.

Is the media complicit in the failings of health care reform? Allison Kilkenny of Citizen Radio, Adam Green of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, Diane Archer of the Campaign for America’s Future, and Bob Fertik, President of Democrats.com join us to discuss the coverage, good and bad, and what it means for the fate of the public option.

Alia Malek, author of the new book A Country Called Amreeka: Arab Roots, American Stories, grew up in the U.S. the child of Syrian immigrant parents.  She noticed that Arab-Americans were either seen as incredibly foreign or invisible, and set out to tell the stories of generations of people who challenge the popular stereotype of Arabs in this country. “We keep seeing Arabs as only foreign but I wanted to place in the consciousness the idea of the Arab American,” she says.

Our Got Docs selection this week takes us from Sweden to Costa Rica in search of a swath of rainforest. Not just any rainforest, though–filmmaker Jacob Andrén bought a few acres of rainforest as a primary school child. The Forest is the story of Jacob’s journey to track down his patch of rainforest and to figure out, along the way, whether one person’s small contribution can make a difference.

Kate Clinton shares her thoughts on Bloomberg’s attempted third term, Hillary Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State, and why Democrats should make Republicans read the phone book, and Phyllis Bennis wants to remind politicians that far from being political suicide to criticize Israel, it might be political suicide not to.

Thanks to Media Matters for America and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee for video in today’s show.

Derivatives and credit default swaps might not sound as scary as death panels, but they’re responsible, at least in part, for our economic meltdown. The Dow might be back up, but most of the country is still suffering from the aftereffects of the bankers’ greed. The Showdown in Chicago protests this week attempted to attract attention to the conference, where bankers attended panels with titles like “Strategies for Acquiring Troubled Banks,” “NonInterest Income,” and “Unwinding Government Intervention,” along with a keynote speech by Newt Gingrich.

Joining us to discuss whether the American Dream should apply just to rich bankers or to the rest of us are Matt Taibbi, journalist with Rolling Stone and author of The Great Derangement: A Terrifying True Story of War, Politics, and Religion, George Goehl, executive director of National People’s Action, Christina Clausen, International Representative, United Food & Commercial Workers Union and Change to Win, and Rob Robertson of the Right To The City Alliance and Picture the Homeless.

The Obama administration might be dragging its heels on financial reform, but when it comes to military policies, it’s straight-up continuing certain Bush-era policies.  Journalist Brad Jacobson, with The Raw Story, tells us about a particularly scary development–Obama has retained the services of a key Bush administration figure who worked on a program using retired military analysts to produce positive wartime news coverage.

Kyria Abrahams was raised a Jehovah’s Witness, convinced that she was saved while people all around her were headed for Hell. In her new book, I’m Perfect, You’re Doomed: Tales from a Jehovah’s Witness Upbringing, she details her childhood, her marriage at 18, and her divorce and departure from the church, her family, and all her friends. She tells Laura all about it.

Finally, our friends at Brave New Films, bring us a video outlining some of the contributions of the much-maligned community organization ACORN, and questions the motivations of those who are trying to take away its funding.

The war in Afghanistan will soon surpass Vietnam as the U.S.’s longest conflict, and yet for much of the past eight years it was overshadowed by the war in Iraq. It was considered both “the Good War” and the “Forgotten War,” but lately has taken center stage in the news once again, as public support has dropped and Tuesday morning Matthew Hoh, a Foreign Service officer and former Marine, became the first U.S. official to resign in protest over the conduct of the war.

Just what is the purpose of the U.S. presence in Afghanistan? Are we really there to protect people from the Taliban and to fight Al-Qaeda? Joining us to discuss are Kristen L. Rouse, founder of Veterans for Afghanistan, Nasrine Gross, President of Roqia Center for Rights, Studies and Education, Yifat Susskind, communications director for MADRE, and Jodie Evans of CodePink, who just returned from Afghanistan.

Recently the war in Afghanistan has taken over the front pages from Iraq, with recent polls showing a majority of Americans think the war is no longer worth fighting.  This morning’s news that Matthew Hoh, a Foreign Service officer and former Marine, resigned in protest over the conduct of the war added another layer to the debate.  What does the U.S. really want in Afghanistan, and can it be better accomplished with a military presence or more humanitarian efforts?

Today on GRITtv we hear about Afghanistan from many different viewpoints. Kristen L. Rouse, founder of Veterans for Afghanistan, Nasrine Gross, President of Roqia Center for Rights, Studies and Education, Yifat Susskind, communications director for MADRE, and Jodie Evans of CodePink discuss the war and occupation, women’s rights, the recent elections (now headed for a runoff) and debate what the role of the U.S. should be going forward.

Malalai Joya, who was a delegate to the Loya Jirga at 25 and a member of Parliament at 27, joins us to talk about her new book, A Woman Among Warlords: The Extraordinary Story of an Afghan Who Dared to Raise Her Voice, and the future that she would like to see for her country: one without warlords and also without U.S. soldiers.

ColorLines, the the national magazine on race and politics, brings us a story of the unintended consequences of deportation. The U.S. citizen children of immigrant parents are often left stranded when those parents are deported, often for misdemeanor offenses.

Finally, as the Showdown in Chicago continues, we have video from the Huffington Post Investigative Fund detailing the opposition to the proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency. Some of its enemies might surprise you.

Corporations have edged into nearly every area of our lives, impacting decisions we make on a daily basis, from health care to the food we eat to the way we get our news and information. Today on GRITtv we take a look at a couple of places that corporate control is being challenged.

The Internet has fundamentally changed the media landscape, allowing everyday people to have their voices heard and connect with one another in new and exciting ways. So it really shouldn’t be surprising that corporations want to tighten their grip on the Web and our ability to disseminate information on it.  To explain the importance of Net Neutrality–maintaining a free and open Internet–we have Timothy Karr of Free Press, Gigi Sohn of Public Knowledge, and Karlos Schmieder of the Center for Media Justice.

We tend to assume that our physical bodies are free from intellectual property claims, but a recent lawsuit by the ACLU shows us just how wrong that is. Medical research companies are actually filing patents on genes that are thought to cause certain cancers. Is this providing incentive for medical research, or a frightening step forward in corporate control? David Koepsell, author of Who Owns You: The Corporate Gold Rush to Patent Your Genes, and Gene Quinn, patent attorney and founder of IPWatchdog.com, debate.

This weekend saw the biggest protests in history, coordinated around the world, on the issue of global warming. Rev. Lennox Yearwood, President of the Hip Hop Caucus and co-author with 350’s Bill McKibben of the article “People, Let’s Get Our Carbon Down” in The Nation, joins us to talk about Saturday’s actions, the hip-hop generation’s involvement in environmental activism, and his new initiative, Green the Block, with Van Jones and Majora Carter’s Green for All.

The 350 protests weren’t the only actions that took place this weekend. Activists kicked off the Showdown in Chicago by crashing the American Bankers Association party, and the public option was kept alive in part by some guerrilla musical theater at an AHIP event.

Thanks to SEIU, Billionaires for Wealthcare and the ACLU for video in tonight’s show.