Free Forum with Terrence McNally

Aired: 7/21/13This week we'll spend the hour with RAFE ESQUITH, who's been teaching fifth graders in LA's Hobart Elementary public school for nearly thirty years. Now a teacher of teachers, he recently returned from doing that in China.I first learned of Rafe's work in 2005, when POV the PBS film series pitched me a documentary, THE HOBART SHAKESPEARIANS, about the full Shakespeare productions that his students - most from families where English is not the primary language - perform each year. The film was directed by MEL STUART, a wonderful director of at least two landmark films - the 1971 Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory with Gene Wilder and 1973's WATTSTAX concert film of funky music and Black Power. Mel Stuart passed away a little less than a year ago. And he is missed.In September 2005, introducing my interview with Rafe and Mel about the film , I said this: Documentaries may be giving us what we hunger for. March of the Penguins, Mad Hot Ballroom and The Hobart Shakespeareans are documentaries about goodness, dedication, and purpose, and whether penguins or fifth graders, they're about respect and treating others well. Each of these films made me giggle, and each brought me to tears. There's something joyfully and painfully touching when we see the life force in action with purpose. When so much is going wrong, from Iraq to New Orleans, I think we need to see these things. Eight years later, Rafe Esquith continues to leads fifth graders at one of the nation's largest inner-city grade schools through an uncompromising curriculum of English, mathematics, geography and literature. His classroom mottos are "Be nice. Work hard." and "There are no shortcuts." Despite language barriers and poverty, many attend outstanding colleges. Esquith expects the best from these kids no matter what their backgrounds, and he backs up that expectation by giving them the educational resources to defy the odds.

A friend tells the story of striking up a conversation with a hip looking man in his late 20s-early 30s in a movie line on the west side of LA shortly before the 2004 election between George Bush and John Kerry. He asked the young man who he planned to vote for, he answered that he hadn't made up his mind. My friend said to him, "Two words. Supreme Court." To which the young man replied, "Oh, are we voting for them too?"While we may be disappointed in his apparent lack of civics knowledge, in his own way, he spoke the truth. The most lasting actions a president takes may be his appointments to the Supreme Court. Supreme Court justices serve for as long as they wish or as long as they are able. Their decisions very often set precedents that can live forever. Bush had appointed John Roberts Chief Justice in his first term, but according to today's guest, it was his second term appointment of Samuel Alito to replace Sandra Day O'Connor that really solidified the Roberts Court. O'Connor had been a much more moderate conservative than Alito has proven to be. The center of the court shifted to the right, which may matter little in decisions with large majorities - more than 50% of cases each term are decided unanimously or by 8-1 or 7-2 votes -- but can be crucial in decisions decide 5-4.MARCIA COYLE has chosen to focus her book THE ROBERTS COURT: The Struggle for the Constitution on four such 5-4 decisions - Citizens United on campaign finance; District of Columbia v Heller on gun control; on race in school choice; and on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act.

What would you do? BLM is holding a oil and gas lease auction where pristine Utah land is up for bid. What would you do? You're asked if you're there for the auction? Asked if you are a bidder? What would you do? You end up with a paddle, you bid, you win 12 leases in a row before the auction is halted. You are arrested, charged with felonies, and offered plea deals if you will apologize? What would you do?On December 19, 2008 TIM DeCHRISTOPHER disrupted a highly disputed BLM auction, effectively safeguarding thousands of acres of land. Not content to merely protest outside, Tim entered the auction hall and registered as bidder #70. He outbid industry giants on land parcels (which, starting at $2 an acre, were adjacent to national treasures like Canyonlands National Park), winning 22,000 acres of land worth $1.7 million Two months later, incoming Interior Secretary Ken Salazar invalidated the auction. Yet DeChristopher was indicted and tried on two federal felonies and spent 21 months in prison.Released in April 2013, DeChristopher is the subject of documentary film, Bidder 70, which opened this weekend at the Music Hall in Beverly Hills and other theaters around the country. He joins me this week to tell his story. What led him to that auction? What went through his mind as he began bidding and winning? Why didn't he take a plea deal? What was his experience in prison? What message does he have for others?We'll also talk about the state of the movements to deal with energy, environment, and climate change, in light of Obama's recent speech and the eventual decision whether or not to build the KeystoneXL pipeline. "At this point of unimaginable threats on the horizon, this is what hope looks like. In these times of a morally bankrupt government that has sold out its principles, this is what patriotism looks like. With countless lives on the line, this is what love looks like, and it will only grow...-- From Tim DeChristopher's statement to the court at his sentencing hearing

This week, in the second of a two-part series (Part One with CARL HART author of HIGH PRICE: A Neuroscientist's Journey of Self-Discovery that Challenges Everything You Know about Drugs and Society) I'll be joined by DOUG FINE to talk about the accelerating movement to change the rules on marijuana. According to Fine, as the economy continues to limp along for most Americans and California cities declare bankruptcy, one action -- the legalization of marijuana -- would save government billions per year while raising huge sums in taxes. According to TIME, the legal medicinal cannabis economy already generates $200 million annually in taxable proceeds from a mere five hundred thousand registered medical users in just sixteen states. 51% of Americans support full legalization (cannabis regulated for adults like alcohol), and 80% support medicinal cannabis legalization. Fine's book, TOO HIGH TO FAIL: Cannabis and the New Green Economic Revolution, is just out in paperback. In a postscript added to the new edition, Fine writes," On November 6, 2012, Colorado and Washington voters ended the Drug War. That is to say, voters in both states overwhelmingly legalized adult social use of cannabis (Colorado's new law, vitally, also allows industrial cannabis cultivation). It is no stretch to say that the Berlin Wall of the Drug War fell." We'll talk about how quickly the landscape is changing and look ahead to the era of legal marijuana.

Aired: 06/16/13How many of you agree that the War on Drugs is one of the most irrational, wasteful, counterproductive, and harmful things our federal government does in our name? Long after anyone can pretend that it might ever be won, this war lumbers on bloated and clumsy and obscenely unjust -- a monument to the corruption of money from the prison industrial complex, BIg Pharma and others, and to the cowardice of elected officials. This week's guest, neuroscientist CARL HART grew up in one of Miami's toughest neighborhoods and, in his first book, HIGH PRICE, he explores how it is that he avoided becoming one of the crack addicts he now studies.Columbia University's first tenured African American professor in the sciences, Hart goes beyond disputing myths, falsehoods, and ignorance about drugs, drug users, and drug policy. He has been engaged in cutting edge research since the late 90s, testing individuals with actual drugs. His controversial work is redefining our understanding of addiction. He examines the relationships between drugs, pleasure, choice, and motivation, both in the brain and in society. Hart's findings shed new light on issues of race, poverty, and drugs, and help explain perhaps more clearly than ever why current policies are doomed to fail.

Aired 06/10/13GEORGE PACKER has written a remarkable book, THE UNWINDING: An Inner History of the New America. In it, he argues that seismic economic shifts during a single generation have created a country of winners and losers, leaving the social contract in pieces and setting citizens adrift to find new paths forward. Packer sees America as a superpower in danger of coming apart at the seams, its elites no longer elite, its institutions no longer relevant. We've covered a lot of this ground before on Free Forum, but the power of THE UNWINDING is in how Packer tells his truth. He begins - "No one can say when the unwinding began - when the coil that held Americans together in its secure and sometimes stifling grip first gave way. Like any great change, the unwinding began at countless times, in countless ways - and at some moment the country, always the same coun­try, crossed a line of history and became irretrievably different. If you were born around 1960 or afterward, you have spent your adult life in the vertigo of that unwinding."He follows the prologue with a series of newsreel headlines in the fateful year of 1978 and goes on to combine the intimate stories of several Americans--Dean Price, the son of tobacco farmers in the rural South who becomes an evangelist for a new economy in the rural South; Tammy Thomas, a factory worker in Youngstown trying to survive the collapse of her city; Jeff Connaughton, a Washington insider bouncing between political idealism and the lure of organized money; and Peter Thiel, a Silicon Valley billionaire with a radical vision of the future--with biographical sketches of this era's leading public figures, from Newt Gingrich to Jay-Z, and collages made from newspaper headlines, advertising slogans, and song lyrics, Packer captures the flow of events and undercurrents that have set America in decline.

Aired: 5/26/13How difficult is it to be a government whistleblower these days? A dozen years after 9/11, with a former constitutional law professor in the White House, the sad news is that to expose government negligence or illegality is to jeopardize one's career and life savings. The newest documentary from producer and director ROBERT GREENWALD and Brave New Films, WAR ON WHISTLEBLOWERS: Free Press and the National Security State highlights the stories of four individuals who felt compelled to reveal acts of government illegality and violations to the U.S. constitution in the military industrial complex in the years following 9/11. In the film, whistleblowers, journalist and experts share what happens when the government punishes those who stand up to demand accountability and defend the constitution. Such actions and the atmosphere they engender has a chilling effect on the speech rights of citizens and the free press. This week I speak about all of this with GREENWALD as well as with two of the courageous whistleblowers featured in the film, THOMAS TAMM and FRANZ GAYL.

Aired: 5/12/13Is there a revolution coming to your rooftop? While opponents claim solar is expensive, inefficient, and unreliable, in his book ROOFTOP REVOLUTION: How Solar Power Can Save Our Economy And Our Planet From Dirty Energy, DANNY KENNEDY makes clear solar can save money, create jobs, and protect the environment if only politics and perception will get out of the way.During the recent Presidential campaign, we heard a lot about Solyndra, the solar start-up that received a sizable government loan only to go belly up. Solar's detractors claim the collapse of Solyndra proves solar is just a hippie pipe dream, but Danny Kennedy, says the truth is quite the opposite. Solyndra failed because it wasn't able to compete in a red-hot industry, not because solar isn't ready for prime time. The industry employs 100,000 people in the United States, twice as many as in 2009 and twice the number of coal miners. In 2011, Warren Buffett invested $2 billion in a solar farm, and General Electric bought a start-up solar manufacturer, announcing, "By 2020 this is going to be at least a $1 billion product line." Production of solar-generated electricity rose by 45% in the first three quarters of 2010, while electricity from natural gas rose only 1.6% and coal declined by 4.2%. Kennedy argues for a rooftop revolution to break the entrenched power of the coal, oil, nuclear, and natural gas industries and their progress-denying allies.

Aired: 05/05/13In JEREMY SCAHILL'S new best-seller, DIRTY WARS, what begins as an investigation into a US night raid gone terribly wrong in a remote corner of Afghanistan quickly transforms into a high-stakes global investigation into the rise of Joint Special Operations Command, the most secret and elite fighting force in U.S. history. In military jargon, JSOC teams "find, fix and finish" their targets, who are selected through a secret process. No target is off limits for the "kill list," including U.S. citizens. It's the unbounded, unending War on Terror: all bets are off, and almost anything goes. We have fundamentally changed the rules of the game and the rules of engagement. Today drone strikes, night raids, and U.S. government-condoned torture occur, generating unprecedented civilian casualties.DIRTY WARS reveals covert operations unknown to the public and carried out across the globe by men who do not exist on paper and will never appear before Congress, raising questions about freedom and democracy, war and justice, morality and politics. No matter how little you know about these actions, they are being done in your name,DIRTY WARS is also a documentary which opens in theaters June 7th.

Aired: 04/28/13Are human beings monogamous by nature? While granting our tendency to slip, most commentators and scientists seem to believe we are. According to the conventional wisdom, it is in the interests of a woman to keep a male as a protector/provider, and in the interests of a man to provide only for his own children. In the best-selling book, SEX AT DAWN, CHRISTOPHER RYAN and co-author Cacilda Jethá aim to answer the question, "What is the essence of human sexuality and how did it get to be that way?" They contend that, "Cultural shifts that began about ten thousand years ago rendered the true story of human sexuality so subversive and threatening that for centuries it has been silenced by religious authorities, pathologized by physicians, studiously ignored by scientists, and covered up by moralizing therapists."What is that true story? According to Ryan and Jetha, first, "We didn't descend from apes. We are apes." They liken us most to bonobos. Further, "human beings evolved in intimate groups where almost everything was shared - food, shelter, protection, child care, even sexual pleasure."Needless to say, their attempt to overturn the accepted narrative on such a hot topic as sex has led to controversy. RYAN joins me this week to explore these questions.