greg grandin

September 11 is not only an infamous date in the U.S.--in Chile, it marks the anniversary of the coup that overthrew Salvador Allende. This year, 33 miners will spend that anniversary trapped underground, and Greg Grandin notes that Chile is seeing what amounts to the "Shock doctrine with a human face" under its current regime--deregulation leading to safety issues like that in the mine. Meanwhile, Mexico continues to see ever-escalating violence from drug cartels, and the U.S. State Department is now calling it an "insurgency." Grandin joins Laura in studio to talk Mexico, Chile, Brazil's upcoming elections, and more in Latin America.

A massive workers’ struggle in Panama resulting in week-long strikes and fatal clashes with the police? Drug cartel wars leaving twenty-two dead in a single day in Mexico? Does any of this sound familiar? Most likely not, seeing as how it appears to be a complete mass media whiteout on these topics in America. Since the American media seems to think that omission means non-existence, we asked our Latin American correspondent Greg Grandin to enlighten us on the actual goings-on in Panama, Mexico, and the American media’s harsh critique of Oliver Stone’s recent exposé on South America and exploitation, South of the Border. Digital technology was touted as a huge saver on costs and solution for ills during the health care reform debate. That bill has passed, but is digital technology actually helping? In the Mississippi delta, there's a long history of low-income people suffering medical mistreatment. The Huffington Post Investigative Fund looked into it to see if the new tech was helping or hurting. Finally, Laura has some words about the Obama Adminsitration's once again rolling over on its own in fear of Glenn Beck--this time, over Agriculture Department official Shirley Sherrod.

Latin America is ahead of the curve when it comes to fighting resource-extracting corporations, says NYU professor Greg Grandin. While Obama makes nice with BP CEO Tony Hayward (and Glenn Beck claims that Obama is unfair to Hayward because he's white), Grandin notes, social movements across South and Central America have been fighting the companies that are after their resources for a while now--and dealing with the repercussions, often violent death squads, as well. Grandin joins us to keep us up to date on the coup in Honduras, the ongoing resource struggles in Latin America, and give us some insight on just why Glenn Beck has a "Tourettes-like" obsession with race. We also bring you footage from a new film that goes inside the Honduran coup from director Katia Lara, check out We Are Not Afraid: Inside the Coup in Honduras. Students graduating or looking for summer employment in 2010 are facing the worst labor market in at least a generation, according to Heidi Shierholz, a labor economist with the Economic Policy Institute. Young people are often the last hired and the first fired, and state budget crises have seen cuts to programs from MetroCards for students in New York to after-school programs and academic counseling. To discuss the ongoing effects of youth unemployment, both now and on the futures of those affected, we talk to Shierholz and Sharmin Hossain, a youth organizer here in New York City. President Obama's announcement that BP would set aside $20 billion in a fund for victims of the Gulf spill is a welcome relief to communities where businesses and homes have been destroyed. The total amount needed to compensate, however, is being estimated at closer to $60 billion. Obama swears the 20 is not a cap -- I guess we'll see. More to the point: Since the president had no legal basis to demand the set aside, on what basis did he extract those billions?

Greg Grandin, author of Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City and a professor of History at NYU, has spent the last few days in Honduras and reports on echoes of the 1980s and Latin America?s dirty wars as ousted leader Manuel Zelaya and his supporters camp out near the border in Nicaragua. Grandin says that according to international observer missions there have been at least eight deaths and disappearances and that some victims have shown signs of torture and strangulation.