2008

In 2008, CNN and YouTube paired up to pose citizen questions to presidential candidates through YouTube videos. But, Daniel Teweles of the Personal Democracy Forum notes, the questions were still selected by journalists and presented in a typical debate format. This time around, the Personal Democracy Forum has a new project, 10Questions, where citizens can pose questions to candidates in their local races, and the candidates post video responses on the Web for all to see. Daniel joins Laura in studio to talk about the project, and ways that new media technology can improve our elections. They also check in with Dr. Martin Michaels, a physician from Georgia whose question about childhood health was answered by the candidates for governor of Georgia. Distributed by Tubemogul.

We keep hearing about the enthusiasm gap this election cycle--that Republicans, energized by the Tea Party, are ready to sweep into the polls and sweep out the Democratic majorities. Meanwhile the Obama administration seems perfectly willing to blame it all on their progressive critics--as if the economy wasn't actually bad, lefty bloggers are just making people think it's bad. Additionally, notes Baratunde Thurston, "Our politicians are assumed to be corrupt and not doing much to discourage that assumption." So where do we go from here? Baratunde joins guest host John Fugelsang in studio to discuss the enthusiasm gap, the ongoing problems for the administration, and the public attention now going toward the suicide of gay teens. Rebecca Traister didn't start out as a Hillary Clinton supporter, but by the end of the 2008 election cycle she was so frustrated and angered by the relentless sexism aimed at Clinton that she wound up not just supporting her, but continuing to analyze the entire election cycle through the lens of gender. Her new book, Big Girls Don't Cry: The Election that Changed Everything for American Women, is out now from Free Press, and she sat down with Laura in studio recently to discuss it, and how the ramifications from 2008 are still playing out in our politics today. It's no secret to GRITtv viewers that profound inequality is one of the biggest problems our schools face. For over three weeks, a group of mostly single Latina moms have been occupying a building at John Greenleaf Whittier Dual Language Elementary School in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago, demanding the school system account for misspent funds--and build their kids a library. Anne Elizabeth Moore has been covering the story from the beginning, and she brings us this report.

The FDA is holding public hearings this week on genetically modified "AquAdvantage" salmon, destined, if they make the cut, for your dinner plate. Meanwhile, congressional investigators are looking into an outbreak of salmonella that sickened over 1500 people. And nobody's talking about the superbug, MRSA, being found in pork. What's wrong with our food system? "We need better forms of production," notes David Kirby, author of Animal Factory: The Looming Threat of Industrial Pig, Dairy, and Poultry Farms to Humans and the Environment. He notes that the regulatory framework for the food system is broken, and the corporate agribusinesses aren't likely to police themselves. Who's guarding what we eat? Last fall, we spoke to a group of young hip-hop activists who were part of a groundbreaking trip to Palestine with Native American youth. The Narcicyst was one of those activists, and his new video is all about breaking borders. Created as a collaborative effort by 10 photographers from all over the world, the video shows the faces of people: DJs, MCs, poets, architects, teachers, doctors, parents and children. The song is "Hamdulillah" by The Narcicyst with Shadia Mansour, and the video was directed by Ridwan Adhami. The right wing is angry and mobilized this election season, with the Tea Party crowd energized after winning primaries and the left demoralized over the Obama administration's failings. Young people were a huge part of the movement that put Obama in the White House, but will they come out and vote again this year? And what will they be voting for? Billy Wimsatt, author of Please Don't Bomb the Suburbs and director of Vote Again 2010, and Rosa Clemente, former Green Party vice-presidential candidate, join Laura in studio to talk organizing, action, and motivation, within and without the Democratic Party. Finally, talking about the drug war over the weekend, Mark Danner noted the "thinning out" of politics toward the extremes in times of crisis. But why does it only seem like one extreme ever gets media play here in the U.S.?

President Obama is about to announce a troop escalation in Afghanistan. Though it's consistent with his campaign promises, public opinion has shifted and now, according to most polls, a majority of the American people oppose the war. We continue our discussion about how nothing seems to change in politics with David Swanson, founder of AfterDowningStreet, and Mark Winston Griffith, on leave from the Drum Major Institute. Jay Rosen, New York University professor and author of "What are Journalists For?," talks about how the media are at least partly to blame for the narrow scope of discussion in Washington.