Peter Vickery

Mason Tvert

Marijuana policy activist Mason Tvert talks with host Francesca Rheannon about the book he co-wrote, MARIJUANA IS SAFER: So Why Are We Driving People to Drink? It says marijuana should be treated legally no different than alcohol. And Peter Vickery tells us about his historical thriller, MADISON HOPPER AND THE AFRICAN AMERICAN BLOOD BROTHERHOOD. It’s the first in a mystery series about the struggle for civil rights in the early years of the 20th century.

Why Are We Driving People to Drink?

About 50% of Americans report using marijuana at least once — and the true figure is probably higher. When President Obama asked Americans to go on his Open Government Initiative web page to tell him what problems they thought he should address, legalizing marijuana was one of the top items on the list.

Mason Tvert is a warrior in the trenches of the marijuana legalization movement. In his new book, he says the war on pot is driving people to a much more dangerous drug — alcohol. Tvert says marijuana is not only safer than alcohol, it has real medical benefits. He asks the question: Why do we punish adults who make the safer choice to use marijuana instead of alcohol? And he says legalizing pot would help cash-strapped state budgets.

Tvert is cofounder and executive director of Safer Alternative for Enjoyable Recreation (SAFER) and the SAFER Voter Education Fund. His book, co-written with Steve Fox and Paul Armentano, is MARIJUANA IS SAFER: SO WHY ARE WE DRIVING PEOPLE TO DRINK?

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Peter Vickery

Peter Vickery is better known as a politician than a writer: He was elected to the Massachusetts Governor’s Council in 2004. He served a term as a progressive voice on the council. Politics is one love of Vickery’s; the law is another — he’s an attorney — and writing is a third. Putting the last two interests together, he’s taught legal writing at the University of Connecticut. But lately he’s turned his pen to another kind of writing: historical thrillers that bring together all his interests. He’s completed one of a series about the struggle for civil rights in the early years of the 20th century. It’s called MADISON HOPPER AND THE AFRICAN AMERICAN BLOOD BROTHERHOOD.

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SJ Parris

Mark Lamster

Mark Lamster talks with host Francesca Rheannon about the great Flemish Baroque painter Peter Paul Rubens’ career as an unofficial diplomat for the Spanish Crown. And mystery writer S.J. Parris tells us about Renaissance scientist Giordano Bruno’s visit to Oxford in 1583. She spins a murder mystery around the visit and around Bruno’s mission as a spy for the English Crown.

Mark Lamster

In his time, Peter Paul Rubens was the most sought after painter for the major and minor royalty of Europe. He was a shrewd businessman who levered his career as an artist into fabulous wealth. But he also had a hidden career as a secret diplomat for the Spanish Crown. His home town was Antwerp in Flanders. Along with Holland, it was part of the Low Countries, which at that time were colonies of Spain. And while Flanders was a docile colony, Holland was in the throes of a revolt against colonial rule. When the Dutch blockaded Antwerp, they choked off the vital artery of commerce that fed Flanders’ prosperity.

Rubens wanted peace and spent years trying to broker a peace deal for Spain with the European powers. He didn’t live to see it come to fruition, but the story of his efforts affords a fascinating window into the history of his time and the character of Rubens: a charismatic, pragmatic, artistic genius. Mark Lamster has written that story in a new book, MASTER OF SHADOWS: The Secret Diplomatic Career of Peter Paul Rubens.

Lamster writes on arts and culture for Design Observer and the Los Angeles Times, and is a member of the National Book Critics Circle. He’s also the author of SPALDING’S WORLD TOUR.

Web Extra: Mark Lamster reads an excerpt from MASTER OF SHADOWS.

S.J. Parris

In the previous segment, we traveled to the 17th century to talk about Peter Paul Rubens. Now we go a little further back in time with another story about an historical figure who also had a hidden career: Giordano Bruno. Sixteenth century Europe was a battleground between old ways of thought and new, between the narrow dogmas of the medieval period and the birth of science in the Renaissance. The great Renaissance thinker Giordano Bruno was an emblematic figure of that conflict, as well as one of its victims.

After being excommunicated by the Church for reading banned books, he wandered Europe teaching philosophy, mathematics, dabbling in magic, developing a philosophy of universal love, and writing a best seller how-to book on memory tricks. He also was a pioneer in astronomy, perhaps the first European to understand that the universe was infinite. He was ultimately burned at the stake for his heretical, free thinking views.

[sniplet amazon bookstore widget]

In 1583 Bruno landed in England, where Queen Elizabeth ruled over a Protestant land roiled by Catholic plots to bring England back into the Papal fold. There’s some indication that he worked as a spy for the Queen, reporting back on Catholic subversion. But he also went to Oxford in the hopes of getting a teaching job at the university. S.J. Parris has written a murder mystery built around Bruno’s visit to Oxford, HERESY.

S.J. Parris is also the author (under her real name, Stephanie Merritt), of the memoir, THE DEVIL WITHIN and the novels REAL and GAVESTON.

Richard Wilbur

In a subplot of HERESY, Giordano Bruno searches for the “lost volume” of the works of the mythical ancient Egyptian sage Hermes Trismegistus. He was said to have written 50,000 books, and to have been both a god and a mortal. We hear poet Richard Wilbur reading his poem about Trismegistus, recorded when we visited him at his home in Cummington, MA.

Read Wilbur’s poem, Hermes Trismegistus.

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Kim John Payne

Rafe Esquith

Celebrated elementary school teacher Rafe Esquith talks about his book, Lighting Their Fires: Raising Extraordinary Children in a Mixed-up World. And we talk with educator and therapist Kim John Payne about Simplicity Parenting: Using the Extraordinary Power of Less to Raise Calmer, Happier and More Secure Kids.

Raising Extraordinary Children in a Mixed-up World

At a time when charter schools are taking over public schools, and public schools in poor communities sink ever deeper into crisis, there’s at least one classroom in one school in central Los Angeles that’s bucking the tide.

The school is Hobart Elementary and the classroom belongs to teacher Rafe Esquith. His kids come from homes where English is not the native language; where parents struggle to put food on the table and pay the rent. But his students excel against the odds, not only on standardized tests, but also in their dedication to hard work and learning. And some great literature. Some of you may have seen the PBS documentary about Esquith and his school project, The Hobart Shakespeareans. But his work with kids goes far beyond putting on great plays. He uses music, literature, and sports to teach his kids the basics: not just reading and math, but character and decency.

Rafe Esquith is the author of several books, including the best sellers written for teachers,  and . His new book for parents is LIGHTING THEIR FIRES. Rafe Esquith is the only teacher ever awarded the National Medal of the Arts.

The Hobart Shakespeareans in Shakespeare’s A Merchant of Venice.

Simplicity Parenting

Kim John Payne says kids are being traumatized by what he calls the four pillars of too much: too much stuff, information, too many choices, and lives that are moving too fast. He says every kid has their quirks, but if you add constant and cumulative stress to a child’s life, their quirks become disorders. Disorders like ADHD or obsessive compulsive disorder. His book, , shows how parents can bring their kids back to a more balanced, less disordered way of being that honors their individual personalities.

Kim John Payne has been counseling teachers, parents and children for 24 years about behavior at home and school. He’s the Director of the Waldorf Collaborative Counseling program at Antioch University New England. www.antiochne.edu He’s also a founding member of the Alliance for Childhood.

Web-only extra: Listen to the full interview with Kim John Payne.

Kim John Payne on information overload:

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Raj Patel

Samba Gadjigo

Raj Patel talks about his best-seller, THE VALUE OF NOTHING. It’s about reshaping market society and redefining democracy. Mount Holyoke College film prof Samba Gadjigo tells us about his community-based learning project, Africa Through African Eyes. And we hear a clip from next week’s show: Kim John Payne on SIMPLICITY PARENTING.

Raj Patel

In an interview during the 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama declared: “I am a pro-growth, free market guy. I love the market. I think it is the best invention to allocate resources and produce enormous prosperity for America or the world that’s ever been designed.” Well, with over a year of double digit unemployment (give or take a percentage), the great sucking sound of US taxpayer dollars being allocated to the Wall Street banks who got us into this mess, maybe it’s time to take another look at the market. At least as we know it under modern U.S. style capitalism.

That’s what my guest Raj Patel does in his latest book, . He says we’re actually operating under a kind of anti-market now, where nothing is important beyond the short term bottom line of those who own and control society’s financial resources. He says our idea that the market turns individual greed and selfishness into social good is misplaced. Instead This distorted market is destroying the value of human capital, our democracy, our environment and our future.

But, Patel says there’s hope: reshaping the market into another mold that recognizes cooperation, more local control over resources, and the balancing of human needs with economic gain.

Raj Patel has worked for the World Bank and World Trade Organization — and protested against them around the world. He’s currently a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley’s Center for African Studies, an Honorary Research Fellow at the School of Development Studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and a fellow at Food First. His first book was . The Value of Nothing is on the New York Times best-seller list.

Hear an interview Francesca did with Raj Patel about Stuffed and Starved.

Samba Gadjigo

Samba Gadjigo is a filmmaker, an expert on African film, and a professor at Mt Holyoke College. He’s long been disturbed by the popular images of Africa we get in the American media: images dominated by disaster and suffering on a continent-wide scale. He says that while Africa has challenges, it also has everyday heros who are working to meet them. Heroes like the market women who join microfinance networks to build their small businesses, or other women who are working to end female genital mutilation in their communities.

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He’s spearheaded a what he calls a community based model of learning to show American Africa through Africa Eyes. It combines talks, films, music and art exhibits, all based at or near the Westfield State College campus in Massachusetts. The project is running through February and you can find out more by calling Dr. Elise Young of the history department at 413-572-8237.

Coming Attractions: Next week, we’ll talk about how parents can help their kids become happier, calmer and more moral human beings. Master teacher Rafe Esquith will tell us about his book for parents: LIGHTING THEIR FIRES: Raising Extraordinary Children in a Mixed-Up, Muddled-Up, Shook-Up World. He’s the force behind the world renowned Hobart Shakespeareans, a troupe of young actors from poor schools in Los Angeles. And Kim John Payne tells us about his book, SIMPLICITY PARENTING.

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Dom Sagolla

Dom Sagolla talks about how Twitter’s role during the antigovernment demonstrations in Iran started him thinking about how to protect one’s identity on Twitter.

You can listen to the full interview with Dom Sagolla.

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Chris Brogan

Dom Sagolla

Twitter founder Dom Sagolla talks about his style guide to Twitter, 140 CHARACTERS. And social media expert Chris Brogan tells us about his book, TRUST AGENTS. It’s about how to use the Web to build your influence, improve your reputation and create trust.

Dom Sagolla

Dom Sagolla (Twitter handle: @dom)was one of the moving forces behind the creation of social media: he was part of the team that invented Twitter. About 20% of Americans have twitter or Facebook accounts, with thousands adding new ones every day. Twitter is used for communicating just about anything to any one, from the cute thing your dog did this morning to telling the world that a young woman was just shot down by Iranian paramilitary forces during an antigovernment demonstration. You can even keep track on Twitter of the food you eat or exercise you’ve done during the week.

“Jack and the engineering team put a limit on there of 140 characters so they could allow space for the username. And there was an uproar and Jack, being the lead engineer sort of took charge and said. ‘Hey look, there’s actually a lot of space. You could change the world in a 140 characters’.”

But it didn’t start out to be like that. It started out when a software engineer named Jack Dorsey approached the podcasting company Odeo, the company Dom Sagolla worked at. Dorsey wanted Odeo’s help in creating a program that could send text messages between phones and computers so Dorsey could keep in touch with his friends.

Over the some six years since Twitter was invented, Sagolla’s been thinking a lot about how to use the 140 character platform — what he calls “the short form” — to communicate as effectively as possible. Now he’s written a style guide to Twitter: .

Web only extra: Dom Sagolla talks about how Twitter’s role during the antigovernment demonstrations in Iran started him thinking about how to protect one’s identity on Twitter.

Chris Brogan

On February 6, people in Western New England came together for a “PodCamp” held at Westfield State College. It was all about social media and podcasting. Back in 2006, Writer’s Voice webmaster Bill Weye and I went to PodCamp Boston, the first of its kind in the U.S.

One of its organizers was Chris Brogan (Twitter handle: @chrisbrogan). He’s gone on to become an expert in the area of social media. He says over 70% of people polled will trust an opinion that they read online whether or not they know the author of the opinion. He wants to make sure their trust isn’t misplaced. So he’s written the book, . Bill Weye and Francesca Rheannon interviewed Chris Brogan.

Web Only Extra: Chris Brogan talks about personal communication on the Web.

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Dr. James Hansen

Climate scientist Dr. James Hansen talks about STORMS OF MY GRANDCHILDREN. It’s about climate catastrophe and how we must — and can — prevent it. Richard Wilbur reads “Advice To A Prophet”. And we pay homage to Robert Parker and Howard Zinn, who both died in late January, 2010.

Dr. James Hansen

NASA recently reported that 2009 was the second warmest year on record, capping the warmest decade recorded. Dr. James Hansen is the head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. He taught Al Gore about climate change. The Bush administration tried to muzzle him when the then head of NASA tried to keep him from saying that humans were the cause behind global warming. And he was one of the first to sound the alarm that climate change is real, it’s happening, and threatens life as we know it on Planet Earth. One of the leading climatologists in the world today, Hansen was named in 2006 by Time Magazine as one of the world’s 100 most influential people.

His new book, , calls global warming a generational crime. Hansen says that we can get off fossil fuels and must phase out coal by 2020 lest the earth warm to a level it hasn’t seen for 55 million years, when the ice sheets were gone and crocodiles frolicked at the North Pole. And he says it could get even worse — runaway climate change could lead to an Earth as hot and lifeless as Venus. But, we can get off our fossil fuel addiction without breaking the bank for the average person if we can tax carbon and return the proceeds to you and me and to support renewable energy.

[sniplet amazon bookstore widget]

James Hansen received the Award for Scientific Freedom and Responsibility from the American Association for the Advancement of Science “for his quote courageous and steadfast advocacy in support of scientists’ responsibilities to communicate their scientific opinions and findings openly and honestly on matters of public importance.”

Richard Wilbur, Advice to A Prophet.

WV Interview with mystery novelist Robert Parker.

WV Interview with historian Howard Zinn.

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Howard Zinn

The great “people’s historian” Howard Zinn died January 27, 2010 at the age of 87. His book, A PEOPLE’S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, presented an alternative view to the one most are taught in school: instead of focusing on presidents and tycoons, it told the story of people’s movements, including those of workers, civil rights and antiwar activists, women and gays, lesbians and bisexuals.

Zinn spoke to Writers Voice host Francesca Rheannon in 2005 about his companion volume to A PEOPLE’S HISTORY, . It’s a collection of writings from the great protagonists of social justice: Frederick Douglass, George Jackson, Chief Joseph, Martin Luther King Jr., Sacco and Vanzetti, and Malcolm X, among many others. Zinn talks about hi perspective on history, war and peace, and the two sides of the American story — idealism and exploitation.

Go to Howard Zinn page on Amazon.com.

In this video Zinn discusses his experiences fighting during World War II and his being asked to bomb a small town in France.

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Anne C Heller

Anne C. Heller talks about her biography, AYN RAND AND THE WORLD SHE MADE and we play clips from our list of WV Best of 2009, including creative nonfiction writer Tracy Kidder, poet Richard Wilbur, novelist Nicholson Baker, psychologist Gail Hornstein and journalist David Grann.

Ayn Rand And the World She Made

Ayn Rand

Although Ayn Rand has been dead for almost thirty years, her books are still phenomenal best sellers. The two most famous, ATLAS SHRUGGED and THE FOUNTAINHEAD have sold more than 12 million copies in the US alone.

Rand has been the object of adulation by conservatives for her advocacy of limited government and unfettered individual rights. The reaction to her by progressives has been equally fierce: repulsion against her elevation of selfishness to the highest good. She was charismatic, controversial, idiosyncratic and egomaniacal.

Anne C. Heller has written a fascinating biography of this influential figure, . She doesn’t agree with her subject’s philosophy, but has been fascinated by her since working as an executive editor at Conde Nast Publications, with a special emphasis on money and finance.

Watch 1959 Mike Wallace interview with Ayn Rand: Part One

A Selection of Clips from the WV Best of 2009

It’s that time of year to reflect on all the great guests we had on WV this year and pick the Top Ten. This year on WV, it was really tough to choose, because there were so many show episodes I could have included. But we managed. We play some clips from the top five from that list:

1. Poet Richard Wilbur
2. Tracy Kidder, STRENGTH IN WHAT REMAINS
3. Nicholsen Baker, THE ANTHOLOGIST
4. Gail Hornstein, AGNES’ JACKET
5. David Grann, LOST CITY OF Z

Read about and listen to any or all of the WV Ten Best of 2009.

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Writers Voice Ten Best of 2009

1. Richard Wilbur
2. Tracy Kidder
3. Nicholson Baker
4. Gail Hornstein
5. David Grann
6. Tyler Boudreau
7. Les Leopold
8. Kenneth Turan
9. Abraham Verghese
10. James W. Douglass

Richard Wilbur

I first met poet Richard Wilburat the memorial service for his friend and fellow poet Peter Viereck. I was struck by his genuine warmth and resolved to ask him to talk some day with Writers Voice about his work. That day took two years, but finally, in the summer of 2009, he welcomed me and my friend Christian McEwen into his spacious writing studio in Cummington, Massachusetts to talk about his new poems and old, the art of translation, and his evolution as a poet. Wilbur also read his poetry out loud for us in his deep, melodious voice.

Tracy Kidder has twice been a guest on Writers Voice, and both interviews are among my favorites. His writing is infused with a deep humanity and personal humility. We first spoke to him about his only memoir, MY DETACHMENT, back in 2005. This year, we talked to him about his brilliant and wonderful book about Deo, a refugee of genocide and war in Rwanda and Burundi: STRENGTH IN WHAT REMAINS.

Nicholson Baker is another writer who has graced Writers Voice with several wonderful interviews. He writes both fiction and nonfiction; in 2008, we talked with him about his meditation on the consequences of war, HUMAN SMOKE. This year, we spoke to him in a lighter vein about his delightful novel, THE ANTHOLOGIST.

Gail Hornstein

I loved the interview Gail Hornstein gave us about her book, AGNES’ JACKET. I am a lapsed clinical social worker, who left the field in large part because of the disrespect toward clients I felt was rife in the profession. Hornstein’s book recounts her own evolution of profound respect for people who suffer from mental disorders, particularly schizophrenia. She shared that with us, as well as her impassioned plea for the world to listen to and honor what patients tell us.

David Grann’s LOST CITY OF Z was one of the most terrific reads I encountered this year. Part mystery, part history, part memoir, it’s a fascinating account of Victorian explorer Percy Fawcett’s ill-fated expedition to the Amazon in the 1920’s. And when Grann, a comfort-loving Manhattan urbanite, follows Fawcett’s footsteps into the Amazon himself, things get really interesting. He tells us the story in this marvelous interview.

Tyler Boudreau

When former Marine Captain Tyler Boudreau came into the WMUA studio to talk about his Iraq war memoir, PACKING INFERNO: The Unmaking of a Marine, he kept me spellbound. He brought the same passion and brilliance to the interview he shows in his book. His experience in Iraq “unmade” him as a Marine, but it deepened him as a person.

How many of us really understand what went wrong when Wall Street crashed in 2008 and brought Main Street with it? In clear simple language, Les Leopold unpacked the crisis and how it happened when he talked with us about his book, THE LOOTING OF AMERICA. His previous interview with WV was about his terrific biography of the American labor hero, Tony Mazzochi, THE MAN WHO HATED WORK AND LOVED LABOR.

And I played an excerpt from an interview I did with Sea Change Radio when co-host Bill Baue and I caught up with Barney Frank just as the Senate Finance Committee was about to consider the biggest bank bailout in the nation’s history. The Senator treated us to some of his famous barbed wit and testy temper.

I hugely enjoyed this interview guest host Chris Rohmann did with LA Times drama critic Kenneth Turan about the late theater producer Joe Papp. Turan’s book, FREE FOR ALL, is filled with wonderful anecdotes told to him by many of the actors Papp nurtured, like George C. Scott, Meryl Streep, Tommy Lee Jones and James Earl Jones. Rohmann got Turan going, as he shared the stories from the book in this fast-paced, free-wheeling interview.

Abraham Verghese

Early in 2009, we spoke with physician, novelist and memoirist Abraham Verghese about his semi-autobiographical novel, CUTTING FOR STONE. What I loved about the interview (and the book) was Verghese’s deeply compassionate — and passionate — view of the practice of medicine.

We also aired an archived interview with America’s holistic health guru, Dr. Andrew Weil, about his book, HEALTHY AGING.

The interview I did with James W. Douglass about his book JFK: Why He Died and Why It Matters, occasioned the only outraged listener response I have ever gotten (telling me “I should be ashamed” to “rehash much refuted arguments” about the assassination, the listener conclude, “Get this show off the air!”).

That listener is in the minority — 70% of Americans are convinced that JFK was murdered by a conspiracy, with the CIA as the most likely perpetrator. Nonetheless, airing such views usually brings down scorn and vituperation. Douglass gives a reasoned, sober and detailed analysis which deserves consideration if we are to take our commitment to democracy seriously. Far from a conspiracy “nut”, he’s been honored internationally for his work on behalf of peace and against nuclear weapons. It was that dedication to peace that drew Douglass into studying JFK’s own evolution toward peace — an evolution that may have led to his assassination. Listen and decide for yourself.

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Terry Tempest Williams

Tracy Kidder

Tracy Kidder talks about STRENGTH IN WHAT REMAINS. It’s the story of a young Tutsi refugee from the genocide in Rwanda & civil war in Burundi who comes to the US and creates a new life. He’s helped along the way by others — and eventually is able to bring his own considerable gifts and passion back to his homeland to help others. And Terry Tempest Williams talks about her visit to Rwanda in an excerpt from our interview with about her book, MOSAIC, in 2008.

Tracy Kidder

Deogratias Niyizonkiza’s life has spanned unimaginable extremes: from genocide in Rwanda to homelessness in New York, to Harvard University, and on to a dream job. He was helped all along the way by a remarkable series of benefactors: a Hutu mother in Rwanda, a baggage handler at JFK airport, a retired nun, and a couple in Soho.

As a young man, Deo was ripped from his life as a doctor in training by the civil war in Burundi. He escaped to Rwanda, only to find himself out of the frying pan and into the fire of the Rwandan genocide. Miraculously, he made it to New York — but condemned, it seemed, to life as a homeless refugee delivering groceries for fifteen dollars a day and sleeping in Central Park at night. How he went from that to graduating from Columbia, going to Harvard, and getting a job doing exactly what he always wanted — bringing health care to the poor — is a fascinating tale told by one of America’s best storytellers, Tracy Kidder.

[sniplet amazon bookstore widget]

Kidder’s last book was about Deo’s boss, Paul Farmer of Partners in Health, an organization bringing health care to poor people around the globe. That book was called . After joining Partners In Health, Deo founded Village Health Works, a project of PIH, which built a clinic in the village where his parents settled after the war. Although they are Tutsi, most of the village inhabitants are Hutu. The health clinic was built with the labor of villagers of both ethnicities.

Read an excerpt from Strength In What Remains

Terry Tempest Williams

Terry Tempest Williams has also written about Rwanda. Her book is about using art to heal the human soul after great trauma. She took a workshop to learn the art of mosaic as a way to deal with the horror of 9/11 and its aftermath. She put that learning to use later in Rwanda, working with survivors in a small village to build a memorial to victims of the genocide. Here’s an except from our conversation. You can listen to the entire interview here.

Terry Tempest Williams writes about nature and our place in it. In addition to Mosaic, her books include Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place, The Open Space of Democracy and Red: Passion and Patience in the Desert.

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JFK Cuban Missile Crisis address

James W. Douglass

Christian theologian and peace activist James W. Douglass tells us why he thinks JFK was assassinated. He says it was because Kennedy went up against the military-industrial complex and the national security state. His carefully researched book is JFK AND THE UNSPEAKABLE.

For many young Americans 9/11 was the defining moment of their generation, after which the world would never be the same. For older generations, the assassination of John F. Kennedy changed their world. Then, in short succession, came the murders of Malcom X, JFK’s brother Robert, and then Martin Luther King. All four assassinations happened within a period of five years.

James W. Douglass thinks the murders were connected by a common thread — the threat the victims had posed, while alive, to what Dwight Eisenhower called the Military-Industrial complex. In his meticulously researched book, , Douglass turns his attention to the first assassination of the four.

“This is the story…of a person who turned against a way that was destructive toward a way that is peaceful and just — and from that point on he and his enemy, Nikita Khrushchev, begin to work togetherm and that’s the beginning of the end of John Kennedy.”

The book explores the covert forces behind the assassination, including the CIA. But even more fascinating, it examines Kennedy’s turn toward peace, what he learned from the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis, his internal conflict over Vietnam, and his confrontation with the power of Big Steel over government military contracts. In doing so, Douglas gives not just the how of JFK’s murder, but the why: JFK’s growing determination to break up what he saw as the greatest threat to peace in the world and democracy at home: the national security state.

Oliver Stone, who made the film JFK, wrote the forward to James Douglass’ book. He says it’s “one of those rare books that, by helping us understand our history, has the power to change it.”

[sniplet amazon search]

James Douglass is a long time peace activist and Christian theologian. He co-founded the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action http://www.gzcenter.org/ in Washington state. In 1997 he and his wife received the Pacem in Terris Award for their work on behalf of peace.

Web Extra: James Douglass tells Writers Voice more about Lee Harvey Oswald.

Links

• JFK’s American University speech on peace
• YouTube video of JFK speech on Big Steel
• JFK movie excerpt with Dwight Eisenhower on the military-industrial complex

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Amira Hass

Francine Prose

Francine Prose talks about her terrific new book, ANNE FRANK: THE BOOK, THE LIFE, THE AFTERLIFE. It shines a writer’s lens on Frank’s diary and on its postwar reception in the U.S. and elsewhere. And Israeli journalist Amira Hass tells us about her mother’s DIARY OF BERGEN BELSEN, a searing account of moral courage in the face of unrelenting brutality.

Most years at this time I air a program commemorating the Night of Broken Glass, or Kristallnacht. That was the anti-Jewish pogrom in Nazi Germany and Austria that took place on November 9 and 10, 1938. For those Jews who had tried to convince themselves that the Nazis were more bark than bite, the pogrom was a wake-up call — but one that came too late for most. By 1938, it was difficult to get a visa to a safe country of refuge.

Otto Frank, the father of Anne Frank, was much more farsighted than most German Jews. Already by 1933, he had moved himself and his wife and two daughters to Holland. But in 1940, the Germans overran the Netherlands and Otto knew he had to once again plan for his family’s safety. The story of their move to the Annex – a hidden wing over Frank’s business on one of Amsterdam’s oldest canals – has come to us through the words of his gifted and doomed daughter, Anne. Otto was the only one of the four to survive deportation to the camps.

Francine Prose is a writer’s writer. In addition to fiction, she’s written about other writers, most notably in her book , which we interviewed her about on this show. Now she’s turned her attention to the diary of Anne Frank and how it has been seen since it was published. She says over the course of her time in the Annex, Anne became an extraordinarily accomplished writer, using literary devices like addressing the diary to an imaginary friend, Kitty, and reworking earlier passages to make them tighter and more compelling. Francine Prose’s new book is .

Listen to Francine Prose’s other interviews on Writer’s Voice:

• on READING LIKE A WRITER
• on her novel GOLDENGROVE

When Israeli journalist Amira Hass was growing up, there were a few stories her mother told her about her experience in the Nazi concentration camp Bergen Belsen — like the one about how her mother, Hannah Levy-Hass, helped organize the women in her barracks to demand an equal sharing out of the meager portions of watery soup they were allotted. Designed to break the grip of the kapos, or prisoner deputies of the Nazi authorities, the strike won its objective and no doubt saved the lives of some of the women inmates.

“When we speak about suffering…my parent’s experience made them very vulnerable to any suffering, very attentive to the suffering of the Palestinians.”

But Hass never learned the whole story of her mother’s internment until she read her Hannah Ley-Hass’s diary of Bergen Belsen. Published now in English, the book has a forward and afterword written by her daughter. It’s a searing tale of extreme deprivation, starvation and brutality. But also of the undaunted courage of one young woman who kept faith with her moral convictions in spite of soul-crushing circumstances.

Amira Hass is renowned for her newspaper columns on the conditions of Palestinians living under Israeli occupation. She works for the Israeli daily, Ha’aretz and lives in Gaza. Both her parents are Holocaust survivors – and both were longtime activists in opposing Israeli government policy toward Palestinians.

Amira Hass is the recipient of the International Women’s Media Foundation 2009 Lifetime Achievement Award for her bravery in being an Israeli citizen who lives and reports from Gaza.

Links

• Listen to and read Amira Hass’s acceptance speech
• Read Amira Hass on the Goldstone Report

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Wanda Urbanska

Terry Gould

Investigative journalist Terry Gould talks about his book, MARKED FOR DEATH: Dying for the Story in the World’s Most Dangerous Places. It explores the stories of seven journalists who exposed the truth — even though they knew they’d be killed for their work. And Wanda Urbanska of the TV show Simple Living tells us the secret of genuine happiness. She edited LESS IS MORE with Cecile Andrews.

Journalism As An Act of Courage

At least thirty two journalists were killed in 2009 while reporting dangerous stories in dangerous places. Since 1992, 758 journalists have been killed on the job. Contrary to common assumptions, most of them — 85% — were not foreigners working in country as war correspondents. Instead, they were local journalists exposing official corruption in their own communities.

Terry Gould says those communities are most often in countries where corruption is embedded in the formal structure of government — places like Russia, Colombia, the Philippines and Bangla Desh. There, lawlessness takes place within the law, the system of organized crime is locked into the business of the nation — and journalists are murdered with impunity. Ninety five per cent of the people who ordered their murders remain unpunished.

“While a lot of these journalists had been targeted beforehand, they persisted in their story, knowing they would almost certainly be killed for doing so. And I wondered who these amazing people were.”

The seven journalists Gould profiles in his new book, knew they would be killed. Yet they persisted. More than that, they were willing to give their lives defending the common people against the powerful interests that preyed on them.

Terry Gould wanted to know what made these journalists tick, what “psychology of sacrifice” drove them to persist in their investigations — people like Anna Politovskaya of Russia. She was murdered the very day Gould was on his way to interview her about the killings of two other Russian journalists. He found her and most of the other journalists he profiled to be deeply flawed, if incredibly courageous, individuals — all except the saintly Manik Saha of Bangla Desh, who was motivated by his own scientific theory of goodness.

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Gould has been following organized crime throughout his long career as an investigative journalist. He is also the author of as well as other books and numerous articles. He won the Singh Hayer Award for Bravery in Journalism, sponsored by the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression.

His book, MARKED FOR DEATH takes its title from a report by the Committee to Protect Journalists, a NY-based organization that keeps track of press freedom abuses around the world and lobbies on behalf of threatened journalists.

Read an except about Manik Saha from Terry Gould’s MARKED FOR DEATH

Watch a video clip of Gould talking about the book.

Less is More?

What makes us happy? That question is answered by a host of writers in a new book co-edited by guest Wanda Urbanska. She says genuine happiness comes from having more time and downshifting to a lower consumption, more satisfying lifestyle. The book she co-edited, , counts among its contributors Bill McKibben, author of DEEP ECONOMY, Ernst Callenbach who wrote the 1970’s classic ECOTOPIA, John de Graaf of AFFLUENZA, and Juliet Schor, author of THE OVERWORKED AMERICAN and its sequel, THE OVERSPENT AMERICAN.

Wanda Urbanska hosts the TV show Simple Living. Her co-editor, Cecile Andrews, wrote the book SLOW IS BEAUTIFUL and is co-founder of Phinney Ecovillage in Seattle.

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Last night I visited a local pub with an old friend I hadn’t seen in decades. He’s in town to talk to college students about his new film, What’s An Economy For, Anyway? It’s a good question. And John de Graaf, the filmmaker, comes up with a good answer. He says an economy is for “the greatest good for the greatest number over the long haul.”

De Graaf is best known for his film (and book) , one of the first popular works to point out that our obsessive quest to amass more stuff (and the money to buy it) is destroying our communities, our health, and our planet. It came out before the U.S. was confronted with a sudden, drastic cure to its “affluenza” in the shape of an economic meltdown that is seriously crimping the buying habits of the American consumer.

An upside to the downside of the recession?

Over a glass of Merlot, de Graaf told me there’s an upside to the downside of the recession (or “jobless recovery”, as it’s being termed now): health improves during recessions. As people spend less, they have more time for proven health boosters such as sleeping more, volunteering in their community, and getting together with friends and family. They drive less, smoke less, drink less, eat less artery-clogging rich foods – and of course, have less work-related stress. And that’s despite the fact that unemployment has often been associated with higher rates of suicide, domestic violence and chronic illness, not to speak of the potential consequences of losing one’s health insurance.

In other words, maybe “less is more”, at least after we are assured a basic package of goods and services to support our well being: decent health care, housing, education, a living wage job and a healthy environment. That’s what another new book of that title, edited by John de Graaf’s good buddies Cecile Andrews and Wanda Urbanska, says.

Schor is cofounder of The Center for the New American Dream, a non-profit dedicated to helping Americans “consume responsibly to protect the environment, enhance quality of life, and promote social justice.” Her chapter in Less Is More is called “Down-shifting To A Carbon-Friendly Economy.”

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She starts out with an idea she calls the “third rail in American politics”: that per capita consumption has to go down in the US “to achieve sustainable levels of greenhouse gas emissions”. To those who claim that sustainability can be achieved simply by increasing efficiency, she points to the paradox that as efficiency rises, so does consumption (e.g. more efficient cars = more miles driven). She also says those who put their faith in such greening methods as “Factor Four” and zero waste are overly optimistic.

But, Schor says, we can “downshift” to an economy that “meets people’s needs”, allows for a “healthy, well-functioning” private enterprise economy, and achieves carbon neutrality. She says that by workers trading money for time, consumer demand falls, thereby lowering the stress on the environment. Employment can actually rise, by decreasing per worker hours and spreading work among more people. Of course, per hour compensation would have to rise, or be compensated for by greater social provision of needs like health care, housing subsidies, and education. Countries such as the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark are all models of prosperous capitalist economies with fewer work hours and lower per capita consumption.

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Downshifting our economy to reach carbon neutrality is a must if we are to adapt our communities to the double whammy of climate chaos and resource depletion. So says a short but pithy book by David Holmgren, one of the originators of permaculture as an idea. lays out four options human societies face.

The “Brown-Tech” scenario happens with extreme climate change coupled with a slow decline in fossil fuel use. It involves “corporate fascism” imposing top down solutions to the crises, wringing every last drop out of fossil fuel resources, with authoritarian governments enforcing stability as living standards for the majority drastically decline.

The Green Tech scenario results if climate change turns out to be more benign. A “distributed powerdown” slowly reduces fossil fuel use while increasing conservation of resources and technological innovation. (For a fascinating – and optimistic — exploration of what this could look like, check out Harvey Wasserman’s book, .)

The Earth Steward scenario involves a rapid decline in fossil fuel use due more to economic collapse and the resulting political “stresses” (wars) than to climate change, which is mild also in this scenario. But the resulting collapse of society engenders a bottom-up renewal, with re-localized economies and a simplified technology base.

The final Lifeboat scenario is the most pessimistic. In it, climate catastrophe and fossil fuel depletion lead to widespread death through famine, wars and climate disasters, with a halving of global population. Human civilization is in triage mode, with oases of sustainable social organization, knowledge and technology preserving the possibility for some future recovery in the long term.

Faced with this dire prediction, perhaps the shocked reader will want to turn to Ralph Nader’s new book, . (He’s an upcoming guest on Writers Voice) Maybe the planet’s lifeboat will turn out to be – a yacht.

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Chris Pyle

Chris Hedges

Journalist Chris Hedges talks about EMPIRE OF ILLUSION: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle. He says Americans are in thrall to a culture of narcissism, revenge, and fake “happiness” that is destroying our democracy – and our power to connect genuinely with others. And former Army intelligence officer and constitutional scholar Chris Pyle says the Bush Administration is GETTING AWAY WITH TORTURE. He tells us about secret government, war crimes, and the rule of law.

Empire of Illusion

Are you pessimistic about the future? Are economic woes, climate chaos, the capture of Washington by special interests and a host of other nail-biting problems in the reality-based universe getting you down?

Well, rather than doing something about it, why don’t you just sit back and forgot your worries by watching World Wide Wrestling, Jerry Springer, a gonzo porn video, or, for that matter, a PBS marathon with Deepak Chopra on how we can all be happy if we just think happy thoughts?

Pulitzer prize-winner Chris Hedges examines America’s turn from reality to illusion in his new book, . He examines five areas of illusion: in literacy, love, wisdom, happiness and our idea of America. He says that the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves are a dangerous pablum that’s sapping our ability to solve real problems. And, meanwhile, while “Brand” Obama exhorts us that “Yes, We Can”, American democracy is crumbling under our feet. Driven by corporate greed and domination, the spectacle society Hedges explores is, he says, creating a kind of “inverted totalitarianism” that exploits violence, pornography, and the anodyne nostrums of “positive psychology” to numb or lull us into passivity.

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Listen to the extended interview with Hedges on threat and hope here.

A former Pulitzer Prize-winning war correspondent and divinity school graduate, Hedges is also the author of numerous books, including the bestseller, . He is a senior fellow at The Nation Institute and writes for Foreign Affairs, Harper’s, The New York Review of Books, and Mother Jones. He is also a columnist for Truthdig.com.

Getting Away With Torture

The U.S. used to be the refuge for people fleeing human rights threats from dictatorial regimes abroad. America held herself up as an example of respect for law and human rights. No more. Under the Bush Administration (although it started earlier) human rights crimes like kidnapping, torture, and imprisonment without charges spread their stain on American policy and reputation.

If you want to get a full picture of how the Bush torture policy was devised and executed, you need go no farther than Chris Pyle’s new book, . From George Bush and Dick Cheney to George Tenet and Albert Gonzales, the torture policy was created and promoted with obsessive attention to detail. The “bad apples” of Abu Ghraib reached into the highest levels of the U.S. government. Not only that, it didn’t work to make us safer; quite the opposite.

“This was not something that went on out in the field by angry soldiers who had lost comrades. It was so closely supervised, the lawyers were consulted to justify techniques that under American law had always been considered absolutely forbidden…”

Pyle knows a lot about how the US government violates the rule of law. A former Army intelligence officer, in 1970 he blew the whistle on the military’s domestic spying on civilians in the civil rights and antiwar movements. He served as an investigator on the Church Committee investigating the spying. That led to laws limiting domestic military surveillance; laws that were undermined under the Bush administration.

Pyle is a constitutional scholar, whose previous books include . We talked to him about the latter in 2006. He teaches constitutional law at Mount Holyoke College. In Getting Away With Torture, he brings all the evidence together to paint a fascinating portrait of how the war on terror – and the drive for revenge – has undermined our basic civil freedoms.

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John Pipkin

Nick Reding

We interview Nick Reding about how the methamphetamine epidemic is eating away at rural America. His book is METHLAND: The Death and Life of an American Small Town. And John Pipkin tells us about his debut novel WOODSBURNER. It’s about a very bad day in the life of Henry David Thoreau: when he started a forest fire that burned three hundred acres. Pipkin uses the fire as a starting point to examine the destruction human passions can cause.

Crystal Meth in the Heartland

Journalist Nick Reding grew up in the American heartland, then a place of small farms and good jobs in stable communities. In 2005 he went back to the heartland: to the town of Oelwein, Iowa — a place that used to be a lot like Reding’s own hometown. Now, it’s a community torn apart by the meth epidemic, with families destroyed, kids abused and neglected, broken lives and a poisoned environment.

An example of individual failings? No, Reding says. Oelwein’s tweakers and meth sellers are former hardworking Americans who were set adrift by a heartless corporate economy. It foreclosed on their farms, sent jobs abroad, and slashed wages by two thirds for the jobs that were left. Reding’s book is .

“… if you’re a guy who just lost your job, or whose father just lost his farm and now your wages just got cut two-thirds at the meatpacking plant, it’s not an unfair stretch to say that you’ve got big reasons to want to feel a little better about how poorly things are going. And meth is a cheap way to do that.”

Reding introduces us to some memorable people: meth dealer Laurie Arnold (sister of actor Tom Arnold), Nathan Lein, Oelwein’s county prosecutor and the town doctor, Dr. Halberg, eighty percent of whose practice is taken up with patients who are there because of meth.

Nick Reding is also author of .

Thoreau: burning down the woods

One fine April day in 1844 Henry David Thoreau was on an outing with a friend. They caught some fish, and Thoreau lit a match to start a cookfire. The woods were dry, the fire spread, and by day’s end three hundred acres of woodland had been destroyed.

The fire lies at the center of John Pipkin’s new novel, . The book’s action takes place over the course of that fateful day. Along the way, the reader meets an amazing cast of characters whose lives are forever changed by the fire Thoreau set. Thoreau’s life was also changed. He was working in the family pencil making business. He’d tried his hand at being a tutor, a teacher and a published writer. And he hadn’t yet had much success at all. After the fire — and possibly because of it — Ralph Waldo Emerson bought the land around Walden Pond and the rest is history…

From our interview with John Pipkin, author of WOODSBURNER:

“Thoreau [Frequently Asked Questions about Henry David Thoreau] really seems to have been at a crossroads of his life at this point. All of the great ambitions that he had for his life had yet to be fulfilled. And so, looking back now across the span of history we can see the things he’s going to do and the person he’s going to become, but he hasn’t quite gotten there yet…So in the Spring of 1844, Henry David Thoreau is essentially a pencil-maker. And he’s making a variety of innovations to the business, he’s perfecting the machines that were used for making pencils and it’s at this time that he decides to make a trip on the river with his friend as a break from his job and that’s when the fire starts…He begins by talking about how he felt shameful and guilty about bringing this destruction upon the natural world and then he stops and says, but the fire was a glorious spectacle and he was the only one there to enjoy it and that fire itself is part of the natural world and the fire was only eating its natural food, so he really hadn’t done anything unnatural.”

John Pipkin writes in Austin, TX. He’s taught writing and literature at Saint Louis University, Boston University, and elsewhere.

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David Lovelace

Andrew Levy

Andrew Levy talks about . Weaving his personal story together with reflections on science, art, history and spirituality, he gives us a surprising portrait of this malady. And David Lovelace tells us why he is “proud to be bipolar” despite the troubles the disorder has brought him. His memoir is .

More than 10 percent — 32 million — of Americans suffer from migraines — those debilitating headaches that make all sound and light intolerable for the victim. Emily Dickinson described the sensation as “a service like a drum” that “keeps beating, beating, till I thought my mind was going numb.”

Andrew Levy’s first migraine came when he was only six years old; three years ago, they got much worse. He was bedridden for months, racked by pain and nausea that came like clockwork every morning and retreated only in the late afternoon.

To cope, he started keeping a migraine diary. He began by detailing his own experience, and how it affected his family. But it soon led him to explore the history, science, art, and metaphysics of migraine. It’s a terrific book: eloquent, thoughtful and highly informative. It opens a way to healing, not the body, but the mind for suffers of any chronic pain, physical or mental.

Levy teaches English at Butler University and is the author of several previous books, including The First Emancipator, and Postmodern American Fiction: A Norton Anthology.

I felt a funeral in my brain,
And mourners, to and fro,
Kept treading, treading, till it seemed
That sense was breaking through.
And when they all were seated,
A service like a drum
Kept beating, beating, till I thought
My mind was going numb.
And then I heard them lift a box,
And creak across my soul
With those same boots of lead,
Then space began to toll
As all the heavens were a bell,
And Being but an ear,
And I and silence some strange race,
Wrecked, solitary, here.
And then a plank in reason, broke,
And I dropped down and down–
And hit a world at every plunge,
And finished knowing–then—
–Emily Dickinson

Bipolar disorder has carved a wide swath through the psyche of David Lovelace’s family. He, his father, his mother and his brother all suffer from the illness. But, as Lovelace writes in his powerful new memoir SCATTERSHOT, being bipolar is not all bad. If the extremes of the disorder are controlled through medication, it can bring great creativity and artistic gifts to those who are under its sway.

David Lovelace is a poet, and he brings a poet’s sensibility to the writing of his memoir. He’s also former owner of the Montague Book Mill, a much-loved establishment many of our listeners in western Massachusetts know.

David Lovelace writes and manages his bipolar disorder in Shutesbury, MA.

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Robin Wheeler

Sasha Abramsky

We talk with journalist Sasha Abramsky about his new book .  And sustainability expert Robin Wheeler talks about her book, .

Do you know where your next meal is coming from? For a staggering 25 million Americans the local food pantry is their source for putting food on the table. The general recession has hidden the ongoing  problem of hunger; while everyone might be feeling the money crunch, for too many there is no food to bite into. This year there was a more than 20% increase in the use of food stamps to 34.9 million Americans (one in nine), 14 million American children are in danger of going hungry everyday.

Sasha Abramsky’s new book Breadline USA chronicles this daily struggle to eat. the author reports from communities like Siskiyou, CA, where 50% of the population is on food stamps. He even put himself through an experiment of what it’s like to have to live on a paycheck that barely breaks the minimum wage. Abramsky exposes the surprising connections between such things as high gas prices with hunger. But the author hasn’t left his readers banging the refrigerator door in frustration, he offers down to earth solutions for this devastating problem.

Sasha Abramsky is a senior fellow with Demos, a progressive think tank in New York. His other books are CONNED andAMERICAN FURIES. His next book, Inside Obama’s Brain,  will be out this December. We’ll talk to him again when it’s published.

Read Abramsky on Breadline USA in the Huffington Post

While Sasha Abramsky’s book focuses on the food insecurity facing the poor, sustainability expert Robin Wheeler believes we all face the potential of being food insecure. In FOOD SECURITY FOR THE FAINT OF HEART, she points out that our global food supply chains are extremely vulnerable. Disasters like hurricanes or earthquakes can wipe out months of stored food when the power goes out, pandemic flu could shut down international trade, plant diseases could wipe out major food crops. And then there’s climate change: when we called Robin Wheeler at her home in British Columbia, she told us her community was facing a severe — and uncharacteristic — drought.

In her book, Wheeler helps the reader understand how to become more food secure in the face of these challenges. It covers preserving garden food,  saving freezer food during a power outage, managing through natural disasters, preparing quick herbal medicinals, and foraging for wild food.

Read an excerpt from FOOD SECURITY FOR THE FAINT AT HEART

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Les Leopold

Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA)

Everything you want to know about instruments of financial mass destruction — but were afraid to ask! Les Leopold explains the financial meltdown in plain English — and what we should do about it.  Also, Representative Representative Barney Frank talks about the TARP.

Les Leopold and THE LOOTING OF AMERICA

On July 16 the New York Times reported, “A new order is emerging on Wall Street after the worst crisis since the Great Depression.” The article pointed to soaring profits by Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase. A few days later, Bank of America exceeded earnings expectations. Altogether, Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup Inc., the three biggest U.S. lenders by assets, reported a total of $10.2 billion in profits for the second quarter.  Wall Street ate it up, with the Dow Jones now up more than 2000 points from its February low and the S&P 500 up 40%.

But something else is also going up—and that’s the unemployment rate, now at its highest level in a generation, with 25 million out of work. What’s going down is real wages—unless you’re a CEO. The banks, for example, are taking a hefty slice out of their huge profits for big payouts to their staff.

Is there a connection between big profits on Wall Street and continued suffering on Main Street? Les Leopold explores that question in his new book, . He argues that the meltdown was caused by an income distribution that’s wildly skewed. The ratio between the top CEO salaries and the bottom rung of workers wages went from 40:1 in 1970 to almost 1800:1 in 2006. That resulted in an excess of capital from the top hungrily seeking outsized profits from speculation (what Leopold calls instruments of financial mass destruction) instead of investing in the real economy. He says it’s something like fantasy baseball–and when the season players — the banks — went on strike, the whole house of cards came tumbling down.

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We first talked with Les Leopold in December of 2007 about his biography of labor leader Tony Mazzochi, The Man Who Hated Work and Loved Labor. He also directs the Labor Institute and the Public Health Institute.

Links

• Les Leopold on Huffington Post: Saving Obama from Political Suicide
• Articles by Les Leopold on Alternet

Barney Frank on Wall Street

In September of 2008 I interviewed Congressman Barney Frank for the other radio show I produce (with co-producer Bill Baue), Sea Change Radio. Bill and I talked with Frank just before the House Financial Services Committee, which he chairs, submitted the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) — otherwise known as the Bailout Bill — to the full House. It eventually became law, with some changes.

In our interview, Frank promised an oversight board for the TARP that would ensure liquidity in the mortgage markets. He also promised “significant” help for homeowners from foreclosures. And he said the TARP would include limits on executive pay. Ten months have passed since we talked to Frank, so let’s look at some of what actually has happened:

According to a report from the Treasury Dept, the Financial Stability Oversight Board, which was written into the TARP, has “overall helped mortgage borrowers by increasing liquidity in the mortgage market.” On the other hand, mortgage foreclosures continue to soar, spreading beyond the subprime mortgage sector as unemployment rises. So the significant foreclosure protection Barney Frank mentioned hasn’t worked out so well.

And what about limits on executive compensation? The TARP didn’t end up doing much to control executive pay, but the Stimulus Bill did put some limits on bonuses for firms that accepted bailout money. But they only apply before those firms have paid the US government back for the taxpayer funds they received. Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase paid back their bailout money to avoid having to conform to limits on pay, with Goldman Sachs giving out the biggest bonuses in the firm’s 140-year history. Citigroup and JP Morgan are raising salaries instead.

Finally, how much are the paybacks really worth? The US Treasury says the true value of the warrants being paid back can’t really be determined. That has raised concerns that the government is getting less than it’s owed.

Links

• Nomi Prins, “The Big Bank Bailout Payback Bamboozle“
• Peter DeFazio’s bill on the transaction tax

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