(no subject)

[unusualmusic_lj_archive]

What exactly does Obama's budget do? With 1,000 jobs being lost every hour and a tax system that favors the wealthy, our guests discuss what’s in the new budget and the limits to progressive reform.
David Cay Johnston former New York Times reporter and the author of Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense, Irasema Garza president of Legal Momentum, and Joel Berg Executive Director of New York City Coalition Against Hunger and the author of All You Can Eat: How Hungry is America? discuss the budget battle.
Chris Bowers of Open Left on the netroots and Obama’s budget. Did they make a difference? And why healthcare will be at the heart of upcoming deliberations.
A report from Warehouse Workers in California organizing for living wages and fair treatment. Finally, the senate race that may at last be coming to an end. Part II of the Uptake’s documentary on Franken v. Coleman.
Thanks to the Uptake for video in tonight’s show.

Obama’s War: Is It Any Different?

It's a persistent notion: we're not like them, we're better, we're different.

As you heard on this program, it's the insidious notion from which genocides are made.

It also lies at the heart of what the Rev. James Lawson called the plantation capitalism on which our economy's based. The idea that some are expendable, that some are less human, that we are simply different, is wrapped up in our Afghanistan policy too.

The US, for example, since 9-11, seems to have believed that lives lost here in 9-11 were worth avenging even at a cost many times that of other people's lives. Each year that the combat mission continues, more Afghan civilians are caught in the combat. The US tried a troop surge in 2007 -- the number of US and NATO troops was increased by 45 percent. More civilians were killed than in the previous four years combined. MORE

In his new book, Saviors and Survivors: Darfur, Politics, and the War on Terror, Columbia University Professor Mahmood Mamdani argues that the use of the word genocide is as political as ever and strategic ignorance about the history and current day politics of post-colonial Africa is just as great. Mamdani discusses the crisis in Darfur, the nature of Save Darfur advocacy, and what he sees as a dangerous collusion of colonialism and Anti-Terror rhetoric. Then, just in time for tax season, Robert Gates has reminded us just how much money we spend of foreign wars. Tax resisters, however, say that you don’t have to fund the imperial budget. Andy Heaslet of the Peace Economy Project, Ed Hedemann author of War Tax Resistance: A Guide To Withholding Your Support From the Military, and Robert Weissman editor of the Multinational Monitor and Co-Director of Essential Action discuss what you can do with your money and why it doesn’t have to end up as part of the defense budget.
Finally, part I of the Uptake’s documentary on the Al Franken/Norm Coleman senate race.