Free Forum with Terrence McNally

Aired 06/17/12DAVID DeGRAW, who a year ago was among a handful who called for the 99% to rise up. On June 14th, Flag Day, last year, Anonymous and the 99% Movement launched a collaborative effort to announce the birth of a "decentralized non-violent resistance movement to end the system of political bribery and break up the big banks centered at the Federal Reserve." This morphed into Occupy Wall Street, and we will talk about one of the newest incarnations of that effort.DAVID DeGRAW. David is founder and editor of http://ampedstatus.com/, formerly editorial director of http://mediachannel.org/, and author of The Economic Elite Vs The People of the United States. He is one of the early leaders of the the Occupy/99% movement and one of the founders of http://moneyoutpack.org/

Aired 06/17/12This week's show will deal with the Occupy/99% movement from two different perspectives. For most of the hour I'll be joined by renowned scholar and activist, NOAM CHOMSKY. His newest book, a collection of interviews and speeches on the movement, is entitled simply OCCUPY. NOAM CHOMSKY is Professor of Linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where has taught for over 50 years. He is also a renowned political activist and writer. His scores of books on linguistics, human rights, economics and politics, include Manufacturing Consent, Necessary Illusions, Hegemony or Survival, 9/11, and his latest, OCCUPY.http://chomsky.info/about.htm

Aired 06/10/12PAUL GILDING says it's time to stop worrying about climate change. We need instead to brace for impact because global crisis is no longer avoidable. He believes this Great Disruption started in 2008, with spiking food and oil prices and melting ice caps. It is not simply about fossil fuels and carbon footprints. We have come to the end of Economic Growth, Version 1.0, a world economy based on consumption and waste, where we lived beyond the means of our planet's ecosystems and resourcesAccording to Gilding, the coming decades will see loss, suffering, and conflict as our planetary overdraft is paid; however, they will also bring out the best humanity can offer: compassion, innovation, resilience, and adaptability. Gilding says we must fight-and win-what he calls The One Degree War to prevent catastrophic warming of the earth. He believes the crisis offers us a chance to replace our addiction to growth with an ethic of sustainability, and an unmatched business opportunity as old industries collapse and new companies reshape our economy. In the aftermath of the Great Disruption, we will measure "growth" not by quantity of stuff but quality of life. PAUL GILDING is an independent writer, advisor and advocate for action on climate change and sustainability. He has been involved with and led activist campaigns on a wide variety of social and environmental issues and served as Executive Director, Greenpeace Australia and Greenpeace International. Gilding founded Ecos Corporation in 1995, consulting to some of the world's largest corporations on issues of sustainability until its sale in 2008. His first book is THE GREAT DISRUPTION: Why the Climate Crisis will Bring on the End of Shopping and the Birth of a New World. http://paulgilding.com

Aired 05/16/12Crazy though it may be, I assume many have accepted the fact that the Republican party has a problem with science and ultimately with evidence facts -- reality. It is now a matter of politics for them to deny science. Among their presidential primary candidates, only Jon Huntsman and Mitt Romney accept that warming is happening and humans are a contributing factor.CHRIS MOONEY has been on this trail for years. In 2005, he wrote the best-selling THE REPUBLICAN WAR ON SCIENCE. By the time their anti-science, anti-reality bias was established, MOONEY was asking a deeper question. Did science have anything to teach us about why? And it turns out, recently, science does. That brings us to Chris's new book, The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science and Reality. According to Mooney, from climate change to evolution, the rejection of mainstream science among Republicans is growing. Not only that, so is denial of expert consensus on the economy, American history, foreign policy, and much more. Why won't Republicans accept things that most experts agree on? Why do they fight facts? He writes that the political parties reflect personality traits and psychological needs -Republicans wedded to certainty, Democrats to novelty - and this is the root of our divide over reality. Hopefully, understanding how or why Republicans deny science and facts should suggest ways to interact and work with that "reality" differently in order to be more effective moving forward. http://scienceprogressaction.orgrepublicanbrain.com

Aired 05/06/12After 3.8 billion years of R&D on this planet, failures are fossils. What surrounds us in the natural world is what has succeeded and survived. So why not learn as much as we can from what works? Nature, imaginative by necessity, has already solved many of the problems we are grappling with. Animals, plants, and microbes are the consummate engineers. They have found what works, what is appropriate, and most important, what lasts here on Earth.In January 2009, Harvard received the largest philanthropic gift in its history -- $125M -- to create the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, and today's guest is its founding director, DON INGBER. I find this whole notion of imitating nature one of the most exciting developments in human activity and something that gives me great hope. The human body is an engineering marvel that maintains its balance while executing complicated movements, and senses and adapts to heat and cold. Every 20 seconds, it circulates blood through its extremities. Its cells are able to replace wounded tissue, find and destroy dangerous invaders, and interconnect to produce thoughts and emotions. Our bodies - and all living systems - accomplish tasks far more sophisticated and dynamic than any entity yet designed by humans. By emulating nature's principles for self-organizing and self-regulating, Wyss researchers develop innovative engineering solutions for healthcare, energy, architecture, robotics, and manufacturing. http://wyss.harvard.edu

Aired 04/29/12Should we pay children to get good grades? Is it ethical to pay people to test risky new drugs or donate their organs? What about hiring mercenaries to fight our wars, outsourcing inmates to for-profit prisons, auctioning admission to elite universities, or selling citizenship to immigrants able to pay?Phenomenally popular Harvard professor, Michael Sandel, notes that in recent decades, market values have crowded out non-market norms in almost every aspect of life-medicine, education, government, law, art, sports, even family life and personal relations. He argues that we have drifted from having a market economy to being a market society.In his new book, What Money Can't Buy, Sandel asks: Is there something wrong with a world in which everything is for sale? If so, how can we prevent market values from reaching into spheres of life where they don't belong? What are the moral limits of markets? http://www.justiceharvard.org

Aired 04/15/12For over thirty years, you and I have lived through a radical redistribution of wealth -- upward, to a tiny fraction of the population -- as though we're part of a bizarre experiment to see how much inequality a democratic society can tolerate. Finally this past year, as a result of the Great Recession that burst the mortgage/refi/credit card bubble that had allowed too many of us to deny reality, people have woken up and "We are the 99%," the rallying cry of the Occupy movement, has spread far and wide.CHUCK COLLINS has been on the case since at least 1995, when he co-founded United for a Fair Economy to raise the profile of the inequality issue and support efforts to address it. In fact, when he did so, he was one of my first guests on this show and we talked then about the same issues we will talk about today. Chuck's new book, 99 to 1: How Wealth Inequality is Wrecking the World and What We Can Do About It, paints a picture of how disparities in wealth and power play out in America and the world, and identifies the shifts in social values, political power, and economic policy that have led to our current era of extreme inequality. He lays out the destructive cost of inequality on virtually every aspect of society. But Collins believes there's hope and offers proposals for closing the gap, and a guide to many of the groups working toward a society that works for everybody. http://inequality.org/

Aired 04/08/12Do you consider yourself to be creative? Do you think of creativity as a gift, a talent, something you either have or you don't? Do you find creativity to be a bit mystical or magical, dependent on luck, the muses, or higher powers? Today's guest, JONAH LEHRER, has written a book in which he looks at the latest brain science and attempts, in his words, "to collapse the layers of description separating the nerve cell from the finished symphony, the cortical circuit from the successful product."In Imagine: How Creativity Works, Lehrer makes clear, "Creativity shouldn't seem like something otherworldly. It shouldn't seem like a process reserved for artists or inventors or other "creative types." After all, he points out, the human mind has the creative impulse built into its operating system, hard-wired into its most essential programming code." Creativity is a variety of distinct thought processes that we can all learn to use more effectively. In the book, Lehrer reveals the importance of embracing the rut, thinking like a child, and daydreaming productively. He also shows how we can use this knowledge to make our neighborhoods more vibrant, our companies more productive, and our schools more effective. http://jonahlehrer.com

Aired 04/01/12Too often problems are not solved, solutions are not found or implemented, and money, lives and moments of opportunity are wasted.CONNIE RICE has taken on school and bus systems, Death Row, the states of Mississippi and California, and the LAPD - and won. Not just in court but also on the streets and in prisons, where she has spearheaded campaigns to reduce gang violence. She has long been dedicated, in her words, to finishing what Martin Luther King Jr started, and she pursues that aim with a focused passion, intelligence, and commitment. Too often we oppose each other rather than looking for every opportunity to align to solve a problem. Rice sues a model of law enforcement that dominated Los Angeles for decades. In response, the model begins to shift. She then works with -- and finally -- within LA Law Enforcement. The model shifts some more. Such movement calls for the right sequence of opposition and cooperation, the strategic use of the tools available, and the ability of both sides to shift from litigation to collaboration. http://advancementproject.orghttp://powerconcedesnothing.com

Aired 03/25/12Recently the annual TED conference took place in Long Beach California. I have long recommended its famous 18 minute TED talks. Check out TED.com/talks, they cover a wide range of topics including science, technology, design, business, global issues and they have recurring themes of inspiration, challenge, and optimism. Not unlike what I try to do with this radio show.On opening day the recent conference scheduled two talks one after the other. The first by Paul Gilding entitled The Earth is Full asked questions like Have we used up all our resources? Have we filled up all the livable space on Earth? Gilding suggests we have with the possibility of devastating consequences. In a talk that's equal parts terrifying and oddly hopeful, he says "It takes a good crisis to get us going. When we feel fear and we fear loss we are capable of quite extraordinary things." That talk was followed by one by today's guest, PETER DIAMANDIS, entitled Abundance Is Our Future in which he makes the case for optimism -- that we'll invent, innovate and create ways to solve the challenges that loom over us. "I'm not saying we don't have our set of problems -- problems - climate crisis, species extinction, water and energy shortage - we surely do. But ultimately, we knock them down."Since the dawn of humanity, a privileged few have lived in stark contrast to the majority. Conventional wisdom says this gap cannot be closed. But, according to a new book by Diamandis and co-author Steven Kotler, it is closing-fast. In Abundance: The Future is Better Than You Think, they document how progress in artificial intelligence, robotics, infinite computing, ubiquitous broadband networks, digital manufacturing, nanomaterials, synthetic biology, and many other exponentially growing technologies will enable us to make greater gains in the next two decades than we have in the previous two hundred years. They believe we will soon have the ability to meet and exceed the basic needs of every man, woman, and child on the planet.http://diamandis.comhttp://www.abundancethebook.com