Free Forum with Terrence McNally

In The Patterning Instinct: A Cultural History of Humanity’s Search for Meaning, JEREMY LENT writes, “The right wing has not won on the issues, but by telling a grand story of America - a story that is false and based on a set of values that are driving civilization to a precipice. It’s been successful because there has been no coherent counter-narrative.” We look at that history and look ahead for a new story.

Donald Trump proudly admitted at a rally that he had made stuff up in his meeting with Canadian PM Trudeau. CHARLES LEWIS titled his 2014 book 935 Lies because that was the number of untruths the Bush-Cheney administration used to justify the US invasion of Iraq. Trump has taken lying to a unimaginable level (at least 2000 lies in his first year), but the book lays out the conditions that made Trump’s election possible. Lewis is a former 60 Minutes producer and founder of two Pulitzer Prize-winning organizations, the Center for Public Integrity and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.

ARLIE HOCHSCHILD asks why residents of the nation's second poorest state vote for candidates who resist federal help? Why, when corporations devastate their lives and their land, do they most hate the government? After five years talking with folks in Southern Louisiana, she sensed that a particular “deep story” they share holds their political contradictions together. We’ll talk about that story and wrestle with the challenge: What story can we offer them of a future more inviting than the past?Transcript Link: http://aworldthatjustmightwork.com/2018/04/qa-arlie-hochschild-strangers-in-their-own-land-anger-mourning-on-the-american-right-what-new-story-can-make-americans-yearn-for-the-future-more-than-the-past/

“We did not understand the country’s identity crisis…Consequently, we left in the hands of the opposition the hearts and minds of those we could have persuaded to support reform…Looking for an answer to their question of cultural identity, we gave them a political answer instead.” ALI NOORANI, Executive Director, National Immigration Forum, talks about successful responses to that challenge.

PETER SCHRAG, longtime editor of The Sacramento Bee, makes the case that “no party, no lobby, no organization has been as formidable an adversary to the Washington of Donald Trump, Paul Ryan, and Mitch McConnell as California has. None has both the will and the heft that California brings to this fight. None has been as determined.” And he reminds us that California has come a long way since 1994 and Prop 187.

DAVID CAY JOHNSTON, Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter and author of THE MAKING OF DONALD TRUMP, has been covering Trump since the late ‘80s. While most of the media focuses on tweets and White House intrigue, he co-founded DCReport.org to keep track of what they’re not telling you. Johnston joins me to talk about the revelations in his #2 NYTimes best-seller, IT’S EVEN WORSE THAN YOU THINK: What the Trump Administration Is Doing to America.

RAJ PATEL has a written a new book (with Jason Moore): A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things: A Guide to Capitalism, Nature, and the Future of the Planet. "Cheap" is the opposite of a bargain and the seven things are nature, money, work, care, food, energy, and lives. Linking the birth of capitalism to the separation of nature and society, telling stories from Christopher Columbus to ChickenMcNuggets, can an examination of the past help us re-imagine the future?

FRANCES MOORE LAPPE, (Diet For A Small Planet; Eco-Mind) whose work for decades has consistently updated the best the 60’s had to offer and ADAM EICHEN, who graduated from college in 2015, met on a pro-democracy march and have co-authored a book that brings their generations together - Daring Democracy—Igniting Power, Meaning, and Connection for the America We Want.

CHUCK COLLINS is a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies and author most recently of Born on Third Base: A One Percenter Makes the Case for Tackling Inequality, Bringing Wealth Home, and Committing to the Common Good. We talk about inequality in America and the GOP’s proposed 2017 tax bill that will only make things much worse.

I’ve known JODIE EVANS for over 20 years. And throughout that time, she’s been a tireless activist, advocate, and communicator for peace, justice and the planet. When I noticed that Code Pink, which started as a vigil by a few women in front of Bush's White House, has just turned 15, I thought it was a good time to catch up with her. What have we learned since then about the US and activism?