Werner Sombart asked this embarrassing
question in the 1920s: “Why is there no left in the US?”
Now the need to answer this question successfully has become imperative
http://buildingapowerfulleft.org/about/ | [print_link]
LISTEN TO THE PROGRAM >>[ti_audio media=”12619″]
HOST: Alan Minsky
EVERY AFTERNOON at 4pm (PST) from Monday, January 31st through Friday, February 4th, KPFK Radio will feature a special series focusing on the questions: How can a powerful left-wing political movement take shape in the United States? What policies and programs would such a “left” promote? How would it articulate and spread its message, so that it gains a critical mass of support across the U S population?
Informing this series is the sense that three years into the gravest economic crisis since the Great Depression, the vast majority of Americans have no significant political movement that truly represents their interests.
The idea of the “left,” going back to the inception of term during the French Revolution, is that of a movement, or political force, that operates in the interest of the general population, as opposed to the “right,” which supports the cause of society’s elites. In the contemporary United States, this would mean standing up for middle class, working class and poor households (which represent 95% of all people) vs. interests that represent the wealthy plus powerful private institutions (primarily corporations). It certainly sounds like a winning formula in a democracy, and yet a meaningful left in the U S – one that truly exerts a positive, impactful political force – is virtually non-existent.
The people of the United States – and the world, due to the central geopolitical and economic role of the USA and the global nature of the economic crisis – desperately need such a movement to advocate on their behalf.
So, how do we build one?
This question will be addressed all next week at 4pm (PST) on KPFK.
The series will be featured on the KPFK website: www.kpfk.org – where there will also be a link to a page designated just for this series. Interviews and roundtable discussions that make up the series will be featured, along with comments from listeners.
In addition to the daily hour-long special at 4pm (PST), there will be many segments during the week on KPFK’s other political talk shows that will be a part of the series – these interviews will also be available on the series website.
The entire series will be available for syndication across the entire Pacifica network. Each 4pm (PST) show will be transmitted live via the Pacifica Satellite (channel right); and will be posted to Audioport by 5:45pm (PST) everyday.
The series will be “evergreen” for at least a few months – i.e. it will not be a series relating to the specific news of the day, though it will reflect on the political and economic situation in America in the first half of 2011.
This series brings together intellectuals, authors, and activists from across the left. Among those invited to participate in the series include: Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore, Cornel West, Dolores Huerta, Naomi Klein, Francis Fox Piven, Ralph Nader, Howard Dean, bell hooks, Robert Kennedy Jr., and many more.
