al gore

Everywhere you look jobs are cut, programs are eliminated, and the fat is trimmed as closely as possible leaving only the bare bones of our society. Well, almost everywhere. It seems that for all the costs being cut surrounding education and employment benefits, a disproportionate amount of money has poured into intelligence, better known as the U.S. Military Industrial Complex. This imbalance in public spending and private contractors prompted the Washington Post to conduct a two-year long investigation into this hidden, growing world. The Nation's Media FIX Blogger Greg Mitchell joined us in the studio to discuss this phenomenon, along with the recent PBS documentary "Turmoil and Triumph"--an uncomfortably flattering three-part documentary on George Shultz's three years as Secretary of State. Normally, PBS would not air an apparently biased piece, but, as Mitchell implies, both the media and the government work together to keep their people sorely in the dark. "We're lying to our kids," says Diane Ravitch, professor and former charter school advocate and supporter of "No Child Left Behind." High-stakes testing and punishing teachers for low-scoring kids is failing, according to her research; moreover, charter schools are only successful, when they are, because they can select the best students from the failing districts in which they are located. In a new piece at The Nation, and in her new book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education, Ravitch lays out the case against the policies she once supported. She joins Laura in studio to discuss the problems with education--and how Obama and Arne Duncan might be making things worse, not better.
Finally, Jaclyn Friedman, Executive Director of Women, Action & the Media and editor of Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape, has some thoughts on the recent sexual assault allegations against Al Gore--and why we should accept that "nice guys" can do bad things.

It's the end of 2009. We're still in two wars, Guantanamo is not yet closed, and the jobless numbers are still sky-high. What happened to all the optimism we started the year with? There have been bright spots and not-so-bright spots, nasty political fights and moments of progress. Maya Wiley of the Center for Social Inclusion, Danny Schechter of News Dissector, and Max Blumenthal discuss the highs and lows of 2009, from the inauguration to the bank bailouts, health care reform to Sarah Palin.

It's the end of 2009. We're still in two wars, Guantanamo is not yet closed, and the jobless numbers are still sky-high. What happened to all the optimism we started the year with? We discuss the year that was and the decade that was with a roundtable of our favorite guests, including Katrina vanden Heuvel ofThe Nation, Mark Green of Air America, Danny Schechter of News Dissector, Max Blumenthal, author of Republican Gomorrah, Maya Wiley of the Center for Social Inclusion, Faye Wattleton of the Center for the Advancement of Women, and Nancy Giles of CBS News Sunday Morning. We also have an interview with Robert Greenwald of Brave New Films on progressive organizing through media--what works, what doesn't, and where to go from here.