organizing

"This is what's interesting in Wisconsin: I think that the Right may have picked a fight they can't win rhetorically," says Harper's columnist Thomas Frank, who visited Wisconsin during the heat of the union battles this winter. He notes that Wisconsin was historically one of the most liberal states in the country, and the labor-liberal base there is fired up and ready to fight back. Thomas joins Laura in studio to talk Wisconsin and the bigger picture for progressives in the country--is the time of the Tea Party fading? "Because of the separation of women, we have created societies where we are cut in the middle. And when women have gone into public life they are forced to go into public life like men," says Gioconda Belli, Nicaraguan poet and author and former Sandinista revolutionary and later government member. Gioconda and her female comrades formed "The Party of the Lusty Left" in response to continued sexism by the revolutionary party. Gioconda is in New York for the PEN World Voices festival, and joins Laura in studio for a conversation about what modern revolutionary movements need, how women are leaders in the fight for equality, and why media matters. Finally, as gas prices are going up, Obama's approval ratings waver--and Republicans, who never met an oil and gas subsidy they didn't like, are preparing to exploit that. Laura has some thoughts. Distributed by Tubemogul.

"Poor people thought that they could only enter politics through different sorts of tactics. They had to be noisy, they had to get people's attention, they had to make trouble. I've come to the conclusion that they're right, that lots of people only have real power when they make trouble," says Frances Fox Piven, the most dangerous woman in America according to Glenn Beck. Frances and renowned public intellectual Cornel West held a "Fight Back Teach-in" this week that was streamed online to the public and to over 200 college campuses around the country. Their aim was to provide more information to counter the lies about the need for "austerity" for working people, and to help sustain the growing movement around the country fighting back for working people. Laura sat down with Frances and Cornel after the teach-in to talk austerity, Obama, poor people's movements, and why it's time for progressives to make some trouble.

"We intend in this moment when diversity is increasing and prosperity is decreasing, to ensure that our country makes the right choice. There are indeed two choices. One choice is that you attack diversity and you distract people from the economy. Some folks have made that choice. The other is that you embrace diversity and you attack poverty," says Ben Jealous, president of the NAACP. Laura spoke with Ben at the We Are One rally in Newark, New Jersey and discussed the way conservative attacks on women, unions, immigrants, and more are all part of the same strategy, as well as the settlement of a lawsuit the NAACP filed against Wells Fargo. Distributed by Tubemogul.

April 4 is the anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who was in Memphis to support public sanitation workers, organizing with AFSCME. Today, public workers are under attack once again, but around the country workers and their allies are marching and rallying both to remember Dr. King's legacy and renew their commitment to his struggle. We speak with the Rev. Jesse Jackson today as he travels to Madison, Wisconsin to be with protesters there for this anniversary, about Dr. King's unfinished work, about today's actions, and the sad loss last week of scholar Manning Marable. Distributed by Tubemogul.