We begin today’s program with Nation editor Katrina Vanden Heuvel. The Nation has joined with the ACLU and other plaintiffs in a warrantless wiretapping lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008.The new FISA Act will needlessly expand the government's ability to spy on Americans; gives retroactive immunity to the telecom companies who turned over records to the Bush administration; and ensures that the country never learns the full extent of Bush's unlawful wiretapping.
We then talk to Brian Ashley in South Africa. Brian has published an interview with Morgan Tsvangirai, who was cheated out of the presidency of Zimbabwe., The crisis has spilled over into South Africa as xenophobic attacks and violence have shaken the country. We’ll ask Brian if this is the outcome of South Africa’s policies with the Mugabe regime.
And then we go local: LA artist Victoria Delgadillo joins us in studio. She says “In the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Dollar—The Catholic Archdiocese [has sold] the Self Help Graphics & Art Building to Developers.†Self Help Graphics and Arts is a nationally recognized Chicano Arts Center in East LA, started by Sister Karen Boccalero more than 35 years ago to advance and nurture Chicano and Latino art and artists. It has become a model of community-based art making and art-based community making. The non profit was told that the building was not on the list of sites to be sold as part of the Archdiocese's attempt to raise funds to pay the settlement for the Church’s sexual abuse cases. Victoria will fill us in.
And finally, visionary educator Paul Cummins joins us to talk about a model education program in juvenile probation, one that maximize opportunities and results for incarcerated youth.
Read More for info on tonight's guests:
1. Katrina Vanden Heuvel has been The Nation's editor since 1995 and publisher since 2005. She is the co-editor of Taking Back America--And Taking Down The Radical Right (NationBooks, 2004) and, most recently, editor of The Dictionary of Republicanisms, (NationBooks, 2005). She is also co-editor (with Stephen F. Cohen) of Voices of Glasnost: Interviews with Gorbachev's Reformers (Norton, 1989) and editor of The Nation: 1865-1990, and the collection A Just Response: The Nation on Terrorism, Democracy and September 11, 2001. Her weblog for thenation.com is "Editor's Cut." Katrina is a member of The Council on Foreign Relations, and she also serves on the board of The Institute for Women's Policy Research, The Institute for Policy Studies, The World Policy Institute, The Correctional Association of New York and The Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute.
2. Brian Ashley has been an activist in the South African liberation struggle having gone into exile in Zimbabwe in 1984. He is the founder and director of the Alternative Information and Development Centre, AIDC, a radical advocacy NGO mobilizing against neoliberal globalization and its impact in South Africa and Southern Africa. He helped form the Jubilee 2000 anti-debt movement in South Africa and the global Jubilee South movement that fights against debt domination by the International Financial Institutions and the G8 countries. He is active in the World Social Forum representing AIDC on the WSF International Council and the African Social Forum Council. He is also a leading member of the Palestinian Solidarity Committee. Apart from being active in a number of social movements in SA he is a board member of the Congress of South African Trade Unions, COSATU led Working Partnerships Research and Education Agency. He is also a member of the editorial collective of Amandla (http://www.amandla.org.za).
3. Victoria Delgadillo is a Chicana artist and activist, and a graduate of the University of San Diego. She has lived in Los Angeles since 1976. Her work connects and relates to feminist and women’s themes. Delgadillo is best known for her consciousness-raising efforts around the murders taking place in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. She is a founding member of the Mexican Spitfires art movement. She blogs at laeastside.com
4. Paul Cummins is executive director of the New Visions Foundation, a non-profit organization that seeks to catalyze change in American public education. Cummins co-founded Crossroads School (Santa Monica, CA) in 1971, the Crossroads Community Foundation in 1991, New Roads School in 1995, and we a co-creator in launching Camino Neuvo Charter Academy. Cummins holds degrees from Stanford (B.A.), Harvard (M.A.T.), and the University of Southern California (M.A., Ph.D.). He taught English at Harvard School and the Oakwood School in California as well as at UCLA. He is the author of several books, most recently “Proceed with Passion: Engaging Students in Meaningful Education.†(Red Hen Press, 2004).
