Free Forum with Terrence McNally

Here's my conversation with Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates on his 2004 television project America Behind the Color Line. Since the late 60's, two distinct classes emerged within Black America: a Black middle class and what some argue is a self-perpetuating Black underclass. One glaring example: the percentage of black children in poverty was about the same as the day Martin Luther King was assassinated. Gates asks, how can we bridge this class divide?

Here's my 2003 conversation with Nobel-prize winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman on his book The Great Unraveling: Losing Our Way in the New Century. He was one of few in the mainstream media to accuse George Bush of lying to to sell a tax cut and a war. He saw in the Bush-Cheney administration a radical group that rejects the legitimacy of key elements of the system itself. Sound familiar?

My 20-minute commentary calls for Millennials and Boomers with shared values to forge a movement large enough, creative enough, diverse enough, and powerful enough to successfully confront the critical problems we face. 60s.2.0 - 21st century tech in the service of the best of ‘60s values - meets OK Boomer - the impatience of the young with the failures of the old. “If the challenges we face are big enough to turn us against each other, then they must be big enough to bring us together.”

In his latest book, THEY DON’T REPRESENT US: Reclaiming Our Democracy, Harvard Law School professor LAWRENCE LESSIG points out big problems the U.S. is NOT solving, and adds, “The crisis in America is not its president. Its president is the consequence of a crisis much more fundamental…The core problem with our democracy today is that it is essentially unrepresentative. We should secure, finally, a representative democracy…let’s just try it for once… and see if things get better.” We talk about how democracy is broken and how we can fix it.

The impeachment hearings have started and we're a year away from the 2020 election. Who better to talk to about how to get impeachment right and how to beat Trump in the Rust Belt states next year than JOHN NICHOLS. He's National Affairs correspondent for The Nation and associate editor of The Capital Times in Madison, Wisconsin. Not only that, he also wrote the book, THE GENIUS OF IMPEACHMENT: The Founders' Cure for Royalism. Join us we talk about all this and more.

The documentary FOR SAMA - airing on PBS Tuesday 11/19 - takes us inside Aleppo during the brutal siege by al Assad and the Russians. Waad al-Kateab began shooting graffiti on university walls and a revolution rose around her - followed by an overwhelming response. Best Doc, Cannes Film Festival, Doc Grand Jury Prize, SXSW. I talk with directors Waad al-Kateab and Edward Watts, and with Dr. Hamza al-Kateab, who ran the last hospital in East Aleppo. Listen. You’ll get a unique feel for life - and death - in Syria. Learn more at forsamafilm.com

I talk with EMMANUEL SAEZ, UC Berkeley economist, about his newest book, THE TRIUMPH OF INJUSTICE: How the Rich Dodge Taxes and How to Make Them Pay - co-authored with Gabriel Zucman. The pair grabbed headlines when their book reported that in 2018, for the first time in history, America’s richest billionaires paid a lower effective tax rate than the working class. Their solutions include a wealth tax, and they’ve advised Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders on their proposals. You can learn more at taxjusticenow.org

I talk with JEREMY RIFKIN, advisor to China and the European Union, and author of 20 books about the impact of scientific and technological changes on the economy, society, and the environment. In his newest book, THE GREEN NEW DEAL: Why the Fossil Fuel Civilization Will Collapse by 2028, and the Bold Economic Plan to Save Life on Earth, he draws on successful lessons from bold initiatives in Europe and China to flesh out what it will take to pull it off in the US.

Whistleblowers are in the news. And Trump’s not the first to attack them. Here’s my 2013 show on the documentary, WAR ON WHISTLEBLOWERS: Free Press and the National Security State. I speak with producer/director, ROBERT GREENWALD, and with THOMAS TAMM and FRANZ GAYL, two of the four whistleblowers in the film, punished under Bush and Obama for standing up to demand accountability and defend the constitution.

In his documentary SEX, DRUGS & BICYCLES, high-tech entrepreneur JONATHAN BLANK asks, “How scary is life in a social democracy?” Beyond windmills, cannabis “coffeeshops”, and the red light district, Holland has one of the best economies in the world, is top 5 in almost every quality of life index, #1 for work-life balance. Dutch kids are the happiest in the world, the healthcare system is #3, and the government runs a budget surplus. Boo!