Free Forum with Terrence McNally

The final day to vote - what used to be Election Day - is just over a week away. Here’s my conversation with investigative journalist GREG PALAST recorded prior to election day 2020. He laid out voter suppression efforts - closing poll sites, purging voter rolls, manipulating voting machines, and putting obstacles in the way of voting by mail - that The Trump administration and many state governments used to keep Americans from voting. Yet turnout broke records. Sadly Republican tactics are the same this year and we assume they've learned from their mistakes. We won’t know how well till the votes are counted - and certified. 

In AMERICAN PSYCHOSIS, DAVID CORN reminds us that Trump and Trumpism is not a radical departure for the Grand Old Party. Picking up the story at the end of World War II, he traces a continuous, long, deep-rooted Republican practice of boosting and weaponizing the rage and derangement of the Right, nurturing and exploiting fear and loathing fueled by paranoia, grievance, and tribalism. John Birch to The Big Lie, Rush Limbaugh to Tucker Carlson and Alex Jones, The Religious Right to the Supreme Court. And a very real threat to democracy up and down the ballot in the mid-terms. We talk about that history as well as what’s at stake in these elections.

Recent headlines: Taiwan Politicians Dismiss Musk’s ‘ill-Informed and Belittling’ China Comments. In Global Slowdown, China Holds Sway Over Countries’ Fates. A Dilemma of US-Trained Chinese Scientists: Stay or Leave? US Tries to Hobble China Chip Industry with New Rules. How did we get here?  How do we navigate our relationship moving forward? I talk with JOANNA CHIU, a senior journalist for the Toronto Star, who served for years on the ground in China as a correspondent for European news agencies and the Associated Press, about her first book, CHINA UNBOUND: A New World Disorder. You can learn more at joannachiu.com

Here’s my 2019 conversation with GREG GRANDIN about his book, THE END OF THE MYTH: From the Frontier to the Border Wall. Grandin reminds us that patrolling the border has often brought out our worst, and writes, “The border wall is America’s new myth, a monument to the final closing of the frontier…a symbol of a nation that used to believe that it had escaped history, but now finds itself trapped by history, and of a people who used to think they were captains of the future, but now are prisoners of the past.”

STEVE LOPEZ, award-winning columnist at the LATimes and best-selling author (The Soloist), just won a prize from Harvard for political reporting, but I don’t think of him as a “Political Reporter”. He’s a story-teller and the leading characters in his stories are the unsung heroes of Los Angeles. We talk about how he sees his role at the Times and in the community, his current take on Southern California and the state of journalism, and his new book (out 11/1), INDEPENDENCE DAY: What I’ve Learned about Retirement from Some Who’ve Done It and Some Who Never Will

It’s Climate Week – the annual gathering of the climate community with the UN General Assembly and the City of New York – which seems a good time to share some good news. Here’s my August 2021 conversation with economist ROBERT POLLIN, and DAVE CAMPBELL, Secretary-Treasurer of Southern California’s United Steelworkers Local 675 (who represent oil-workers) about the California Climate Jobs Plan. Initiated by labor unions, written by Pollin and others, it pursues the state’s ambitious clean energy goals while creating a million new jobs through 2030. Learn more about their work at californiaclimatejobsplan.com 

Recent headlines: Temperatures in Europe Smash Historic Records. Lake Mead Plummets to New Low. Only ‘Rapid Action’ Can Prevent Worst Marine Extinction in 250M Years. UN’s Leading Climate Scientists Call Latest Climate Report Nothing Less Than “Code Red for Humanity.” Here’s my conversation with MARK HERTSGAARD, co-founder/Executive Director of Covering Climate Now. a global journalism initiative to help “news media cover the defining story of our time with the rigor and urgency it deserves.” Mark’s also the environment correspondent for The Nation and author of several books including HOT: Living Through the Next Fifty Years on Earth. We’ll get an update on the crisis as well as efforts to report it well enough to turn things around. 

BARBARA EHRENREICH, journalist, activist, and author of more than 20 books, died September 1st at 81. In her bestseller NICKEL AND DIMED, she explored the lives of low wage workers. Here’s my 2005 conversation with Barbara, in which we talk about her followup BAIT AND SWITCH, in which she examined the lives of white-collar unemployed. Learn more at barbaraehrenreich.com. In the second half you’ll hear my 2009 conversation with one of Latin America’s most beloved literary figures, EDUARDO GALEANO, who passed away in 2015. His many books include THE OPEN VEINS OF LATIN AMERICA and MIRRORS: STORIES OF ALMOST EVERYONE. 

The self-regulated market cannot respond effectively to the most critical challenges we face – inequality, climate change, an unhealthy relationship with rest of nature, pandemics and public health, social and racial division and tribalism, crippled government, and endangered democracy. So how did this notion dominate for 35+ years? And why is it crashing now? I talk with GARY GERSTLE, Professor of American History Emeritus at University of Cambridge, England, about his book, THE RISE AND FALL OF THE NEOLIBERAL ORDER: America and the World in the Free Market Era. You can learn more at garygerstle.com 

As schools open around the country, here’s my 2013 converation with RAFE ESQUITH, who for 30 years taught 5th grade at LA’s Hobart Elementary public school. In 2005, PBS aired the documentary, THE HOBART SHAKESPEARIANS, about the full folio Shakespeare productions that his students perform each year. “I don't want my students to be ordinary; I want them to be extraordinary because I know that they are. If a 10-year-old, who doesn't speak English at home, can step in front of you and do a scene from Shakespeare,” says Esquith, "then there is nothing that he cannot accomplish.” We talk about REAL TALK FOR REAL TEACHERS: Advice for Teachers, From Rookies to Veterans: No Retreat, No Surrender! You can learn more at hobartshakespeareans.org