feminist

"The working class and poor people are coming out, the middle and upper classes don't like that, they want to stop the revolution of the poor people. They accept the revolution of the middle class," says Nawal El Saadawi, pioneering Egyptian feminist thinker, author and professor. Meanwhile, she notes that the same old factors are moving to make sure that the revolution in Egypt doesn't rock the boat too much.Dr. Saadawi appeared on This Week with Christiane Amanpour this weekend, but she joins Laura in the GRITtv studio to tell us what she said that ABC wouldn't air.

"I feel reborn," says Egyptian feminist author and activist Nawal El Saadawi. "I am 80, but I feel young, I feel all my energy coming back, I feel my childhood dream coming back." The revolution in Egypt has inspired people across the world, and we talk to Nawal today to find out why she thinks the successful removal of the Mubarak regime is the culimation of a movement to change the entire structure of Egyptian capitalist, patriarchal politics. "The US has to go back to the drawing board," says legendary journalist Helen Thomas of US policy in the Middle East and North Africa. As Egypt throws off its regime and protests ripple across the region, she notes that the world is waking up to the fact that people under repressive dictatorships can and will fight back--and use nonviolence to achieve their aims rather than invasion. We check in with the longest-serving White House correspondent to discuss revolution, and why she's not done fighting. Meanwhile back at home, the Conservative Political Action Conference is a good place, says Sarah Posner, to "put your finger on the pulse of the conservative movement" in the US. From straw polls for president--Congressman Ron Paul won that one--to tiffs over gay conservatives and Islamophobia, this past weekend at CPAC saw a lot of action, and Sarah was there to report, for Religion Dispatches and The Nation. Sarah joins us via Skype to give us a rundown of the good, the bad, and the unintentionally hilarious--from Ann Coulter's declaration of support for GOProud to Dick Cheney's run-in with a heckler or two. And while people are drawing different lessons from the Egyptian revolution, Nicholas Kristof notes that one of the biggest is to listen to the powerless, not the powerful. And Laura looks at a few stories of the relatively powerless--the workers--being ignored right here at home. Distributed by Tubemogul.

"I want my kids to be proud of their country," says Raina Fahmy, of Egypt. "I don't want them feeling that living here is at best a compromise and at worst a sacrifice." Images of violence from today's protests were all over the news, but Raina, on the phone from Cairo, tells us that she felt very safe at the protests, and explains to us why it matters for her to go out and join them, and to bring her family along. "We've been playing defense too long," says Sady Doyle, founder of Tigerbeatdown.com and one of the architects of a new Twitter campaign to pressure Congress to shut down a new bill in the House that would further limit women's access to abortion. The #dearjohn campaign, along with other actions, helped convince Republican Chris Smith that he should take controversial language around "forcible" rape out of the bill, but the activists aren't backing down. Sady and health care advocate Eesha Pandit join Laura in studio to discuss H.R. 3, the Republicans' skewed sense of priorities, the Democrats who are complicit, and why it's time to go on the offensive over abortion. This week would have marked Ronald Reagan's 100th birthday, and the obsessive coverage is only just beginning. Some conservatives have even claimed that Reagan would've handled the situation in Egypt better than Obama has. While we have no idea what Reagan would do now, we know what he did do--in Iran-Contra, on women's right to choose, and most importantly, on planting the seeds of the hatred of government that we've now seen in full flower in the Tea Party movement. Thomas Frank joined Laura via Skype to talk revolution, recession, and Reagan, and also to tell us a little about an experiment he and Harper's conducted, asking real-life Mad Men in advertising to come up with an ad to sell government to Americans--during that most American of events, the Super Bowl. Distributed by Tubemogul.

"The new face of American racism is in the prison system," says Johanna Fernandez, producer of the film Justice On Trial, about Mumia Abu-Jamal and the American justice system. Adds reporter Linn Washington, "The issue is not hiding what has been hidden in plain sight. The issue is doing something about it." It's not just Abu-Jamal's case that showcases the inequality in the justice system. It's stories like that of the Scott sisters, discussed here earlier this week, and statistics that show that one in 10 people in prison worldwide is an African-American man. Fernandez and Washington join us in studio to discuss the ongoing questions around race and justice in America. Microlending hit the news this week, as the New York Times reported that many countries have seen mixed results with the small-dollar loans to people, often women, to start their own businesses. But many have seen success turning as little as $50 into a business to feed their families. Rachel Cook and her crew are working on a documentary about microlending, focusing on women in South America, Africa, and Asia who are using microloans to start businesses. John Boehner took up the gavel as Speaker of the House this week, and as usual for him, cried. Amanda Marcotte, author of Get Opinionated! and blogger at Pandagon.net, has some thoughts about why Boehner is always crying--and why Nancy Pelosi wasn't.