Writer's Voice with Francesca Rheannon

We talk with historian Douglas Boin about his fascinating biography, Alaric The Goth: An Outsider’s History of the Fall of Rome. It’s a cautionary tale about how xenophobia and anti-immigrant bigotry led to the Sack of Rome and the fall of the Roman Empire. Then we hear from Jim Walsh of Food and Water Watch about legislation proposed by AOC to ban fracking. Writer’s Voice — in depth progressive conversation with writers of all genres. On the air since 2004. Rate us on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts! Like us on Facebook at Writers Voice with Francesca Rheannon or find us on twitter @WritersVoice. Douglas Boin On August 24 in the year 410 CE, Alaric and his army of Visigoths mounted a sneak attack on Rome. They sacked the city and helped put an end to the Roman Empire. The Romans called the Goths barbarians. It was an ethnic slur and part of a xenophobic, anti-immigrant culture, one that had replaced Rome’s former promotion of multiculturalism. Distrusting the Roman narrative about Alaric, historian and classics scholar Douglas Boin set out to write his biography from his subject’s point of view, not that of his enemies. The tale he uncovered in his book Alaric The Goth has important lessons for us today. Douglas Boin is professor of history at St. Louis University and the author of several other books about late antiquity and the end of the Roman Empire. More Info on Alaric the Goth from Douglas Boin Jim Walsh on The Fracking Ban Bill Joe Biden’s climate plan has been hailed by activists as the most far-reaching policy proposal to tackle the climate crisis by a presidential nominee. It was developed by one of those joint Biden/Bernie Sanders task forces and included key members of the Sunrise Movement. But there is something important missing from it–a fracking ban. But a bill proposed in Congress by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders seeks to remedy that lack. We play an excerpt from our online-only July interview with Jim Walsh of Food and Water Watch about the bill. Read more here.

We talk with legal scholar Lawrence Douglas about his book, Will He Go? Trump and the Looming Election Meltdown in 2020. Then, how can we make sure that kids grow up understanding their right to freedom of speech? We talk with free speech attorney Jessica Bohrer about the children’s book she cowrote with her father Sandy Bohrer, also a free speech attorney, Your Voice is Your Superpower: A Beginner’s Guide to Freedom of Speech (and the First Amendment). Writers Voice—in-depth conversation with writers of all genres, on the air since 2004. Find us on Facebook at Writers Voice with Francesca Rheannon or Twitter @WritersVoice. And if you are listening to our podcast, give us some love on iTunes or whatever podcast app you use. Lawrence Douglas The upcoming election could very well see the death of American democracy. Donald Trump has essentially told the nation he will never accept electoral defeat. It doesn’t require a strong imagination to get a sense of the mayhem he will unleash if he loses a closely contested election. With millions of diehard supporters believing that their Dear Leader has been toppled by malignant forces of the Deep State, Trump could remain a force of constitutional chaos for years to come. Lawrence Douglas’ book Will He Go? explores how the constitutional crisis could play out in, for example, the case of a delayed vote count over absentee ballots, or Republican legislatures interfering with the electoral college, or with hacking of the vote by nefarious players, here and abroad. Douglas says a landslide for Biden is our best hope to stop an authoritarian takeover. Lawrence Douglas is professor of Law, Jurisprudence and Social Thought at Amherst College. In addition to Will He Go?, he’s the author of The Right Wrong Man: John Demjanjuk and the Last Great Nazi War Crimes Trial. Read an excerpt from Will He Go? Jessica Bohrer You can’t protect democracy, if you don’t know what it means. Civics used to be taught in elementary school, teaching students about the Constitution, the balance of power between the three branches of government and the First Amendment and the right of free speech. But how many kids get civics in school today or learn about free speech? Probably too few. Jessica Bohrer and her dad, both free speech lawyers, set out to right that wrong. Their book Your Voice is Your Superpower! A Beginner’s Guide to Freedom of Speech and the First Amendment is pitched to grade school kids. In a series of charming illustrations and text, it shows kids why our voice matters, how we can use it and also why we must protect everyone’s right to free speech. Jessica Bohrer is Vice President and Editorial Counsel in the newsroom at Forbes. She serves on the Leadership Council of the Committee to Protect Journalists. Read Jessica Bohrer on Teaching Children About Freedom of Speech Check Out The Current State of Press Freedom in the US

In this episode of Writer’s Voice, we continue our Election 2020 series with two looks back—one way back and the other more recent—to derive important lessons for this election season. First, we talk with John Nichols about his new book, The Fight For The Soul Of The Democratic Party: The Enduring Legacy of Henry Wallace’s Anti-Fascist, Anti-Racist Politics. Then Bernie2020 campaign strategist Chuck Rocha talks about his new book Tío Bernie: The Inside Story of How Bernie Sanders Brought Latinos Into the Political Revolution. Writer’s Voice — in depth progressive conversation with writers of all genres. On the air since 2004. Rate us on iTunes or whatever podcast app you use! Like us on Facebook at Writers Voice with Francesca Rheannon or find us on twitter @WritersVoice. John Nichols The Democratic Party is really two parties. There’s its largely progressive base with a small but growing representation. And then there’s its centrist to center-right corporate dominated leadership. Many think this split began with Bill Clinton and the Democratic Leadership Council. But according to John Nichols, it actually goes back much further, all the way to the 1944 Democratic convention when Henry Wallace was defeated as the choice for FDR’s VP. Wallace warned of an American fascism rooted in corporate domination and racial and gender oppression. No surprise: The wealthy and the racists in the party hated him for it. In his book The Fight For The Soul Of The Democratic Party, Nichols takes us from FDR through Truman and down to our times to describe the Party’s split between its left and right wings—and give us the urgent lessons that history has for us today. John Nichols is the political correspondent for the Nation magazine and the author of many books. Read the transcript from a clip from our interview with John Nichols. Read an excerpt from The Fight For The Soul Of The Democratic Party. [Henry Wallace “Common Man” speech] Chuck Rocha Chuck Rocha was a chief strategist for Bernie Sanders’ 2020 campaign for president and also worked on Sanders’ 2016 bid. While he worked broadly in the campaign, his special mission was to mobilize the Latino vote for the Senator. He succeeded beyond all expectations. Bernie basically won in Iowa with Latino support. And he crushed it in Nevada with the same. The Latino vote boosted Bernie’s win in California, and came out heavily for Bernie in Texas. But by Texas, all the other Democratic candidates had folded in favor of Joe Biden and Bernie’s campaign collapsed. In his book Tío Bernie, Chuck Rocha gives us the play-by-play of how the campaign won the Latino vote. He also tells us how a working class Latino kid from East Texas rose to become one of the most important Latino political strategists in the nation. Chuck Rocha is president of Solidarity Strategies and a co-founder of Nuestro PAC. Read Chuck Rocha’s NYT Op-Ed on the Biden campaign and the Latino vote []

A great debate is raging on the Left between those whose first priority is defeating Trump and those who say supporting Joe Biden means selling out to corrupt corporate Democrats. Today, we bring that debate to Writer’s Voice. First we talk with political cartoonist Ted Rall about his book, POLITICAL SUICIDE: The Fight for the Soul of the Democratic Party. Then, author and long-term socialist activist Max Elbaum asks “Should Anti-Capitalists Urge a Vote for Joe Biden to Defeat Donald Trump in 2020?” We talk with him about his article by that title in the second half of the show. Writer’s Voice — in depth conversation with writers of all genres, on the air since 2004. Rate us on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts! Like us on Facebook at Writers Voice with Francesca Rheannon or find us on twitter @WritersVoice. Ted Rall The base of the Democratic Party is overwhelmingly progressive, supporting such programs as Medicare for All (87% support) and the Green New Deal (89-96% support) by large margins and 72% calling for an overall progressive agenda. But centrists like Tom Perez still run the DNC party apparatus–and they are reluctant to compromise with the party base. Intraparty warfare exploded into the open in 2016 and political cartoonist Ted Rall says it’s even bigger now. In his new book Political Suicide, Rall argues that the civil war in the Democratic Party poses an existential threat to the two-party system. And it’s a system he personally is fed up with. Rall says it’s time for progressives to draw a line in the sand: if the Democratic Party continues to ignore and disparage its progressive base, that base should go elsewhere with its vote or stay home. Ted Rall is the the author of numerous books, many of which he’s discussed on this show. Max Elbaum Max Elbaum has been an anti-capitalist activist since the 1960s. He’s written extensively about the New Left, the Civil Rights Movement and anti-war movement, including in his book Revolution in the Air: Sixties Radicals turn to Lenin, Mao and Che. So when Elbaum wrote a recent post on the website Organizing Upgrade, “Should Anti-Capitalists Urge a Vote for Joe Biden to Defeat Donald Trump in 2020?”, he wasn’t coming from the centrist wing of the Democratic Party. Far from it. But his answer to the question — which is “yes” to voting for Biden — is coming from a strategic place: that defeating fascist or white supremacist authoritarian control of the executive branch and the Supreme Court is necessary to protect the growing Left movement. Moreover, Trump’s main targets, Black, Latinx and Muslim Americans as well as immigrants, have a credible fear of ever more brutal persecution if Trump gets another term. Solidarity with them, Elbaum says, requires working to defeat Trump.        

We talk with Pawan Dhingra about his book Hyper Education: Why Good Schools, Good Grades, and Good Behavior Are Not Enough. It’s an up-close look at the education arms race of after-school learning and academic competitions. Then, a remarkable journey to racial truth and reconciliation undertaken by two Americans—one black and one white. We talk with J. Chester Johnson about his book, Damaged Heritage: The Elaine Race Massacre and A Story of Reconciliation. Writer’s Voice — in depth progressive conversation with writers of all genres. On the air since 2004. Rate us on iTunes or whatever podcast app you use! Like us on Facebook at Writers Voice with Francesca Rheannon or find us on twitter @WritersVoice. Pawan Dhingra Beyond soccer leagues, music camps, and drama lessons, today’s youth are in an education arms race that begins in elementary school. In his book Hyper Education, Pawan Dhingra uncovers the growing world of high-achievement education and the after-school learning centers, spelling bees, and math competitions that it has spawned. Dhingra shows why good schools, good grades, and good behavior are seen as not enough for high-achieving students and their parents and why the education arms race is likely to continue to expand — and the high cost to kids, families and public education that means. Pawan Dhingra is Professor of American Studies at Amherst College. He is the author of many books and His work has been featured in the Boston Globe, the Washington Post, The New York Times, and elsewhere. J. Chester Johnson The 1919 Elaine Race Massacre saw between a hundred and two hundred Black Americans murdered. It was possibly the worst such massacre in our nation’s history. But history almost forgot it. For J. Chester Johnson, that history was also family history — something he discovered to his shock in 2008. He learned that his beloved grandfather, who raised him, had been a perpetrator in that massacre. As Johnson began researching the story more deeply, he met Sheila Walker, a descendant of Black victims of the Massacre. Together, she and Johnson committed themselves to a journey of racial reconciliation and an abiding friendship ensued. Johnson tells the story of the massacre and the journey of truth and reconciliation its descendants undertook in his book Damaged Heritage. J. Chester Johnson is a acclaimed poet, essayist, and translator. He also served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of the U. S. Treasury Department under Jimmy Carter.

We talk with Margot Livesy. Her new novel, The Boy In The Field, explores the limits of free will and how we respond to what happens to us. Then, an emergency room doctor evaluates the lessons of 25 years in emergency medicine and their relevance to life and writing. We talk with Frank Huyler about his memoir, White Hot Light: Twenty-Five Years in Emergency Medicine. We also ask him what it’s like to be an ER doc in the midst of covid. Finally, we talk with writer and English professor K.L. Cook about opening up the campus to in-person learning in the midst of the covid19 pandemic. Writer’s Voice — in depth conversation with writers of all genres, on the air since 2004. Rate us on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts! Like us on Facebook at Writers Voice with Francesca Rheannon or find us on twitter @WritersVoice. Margot Livesy One September afternoon in 1999, teenagers Matthew, Zoe, and Duncan Lang are walking home from school when they discover a boy lying in a field, bloody and unconscious. Thanks to their intervention, the boy’s life is saved. In the aftermath, all three siblings are irrevocably changed. That’s the premise of Margot Livesy’s terrific new novel The Boy In The Field. In language that is pared down to the essential, she creates a story that is compelling and deeply satisfying. Her characters are sympathetic and engrossing, including a remarkable dog of great wisdom and compassion. The Boy in the Field is Margot Livesy’s ninth novel. Originally from the UK, she lives in the US. Writers Voice has previously talked with Margot Livesy about her novels, Mercury, The Flight of Gemma Hardy, and The House on Fortune Street. Read an excerpt from The Boy In The Field Frank Huyler Frank Huyler is a poet and an author from Albuquerque New Mexico. He’s also been an ER doctor for 25 years. In 1999 he wrote The Blood of Strangers: True Stories from the Emergency Room, a much acclaimed collection of vignettes describing his experience as a new ER doctor. Now more than 20 years later, he’s come out with a new memoir reflecting on the long arc of his experiences in the ER, White Hot Light: Twenty-Five Years in Emergency Medicine. In it, he confronts the enduring challenge of remaining connected to his humanity and that of his patients when the unrelenting stress of crisis threatens to overwhelm compassion. In portraits that are visceral, haunting, and sometimes surreal, Huyler reveals the gritty reality of medicine practiced on the razor’s edge between life and death. Read an excerpt from White Hot Light  

We talk with Max Elbaum about the debate over whether the Left should support Joe Biden. He wrote a recent post, “Should Anti-Capitalists Urge a Vote for Joe Biden to Defeat Donald Trump in 2020?.” On the Left a great debate is raging between Progressives whose first priority is defeating Trump and those in the Never Biden camp. Writer’s Voice — in depth conversation with writers of all genres, on the air since 2004. Rate us on iTunes or whatever podcast app you use! Like us on Facebook at Writers Voice with Francesca Rheannon or find us on twitter @WritersVoice. The former say that defeating fascist or white supremacist authoritarian control of the executive branch and the Supreme Court are necessary to protect the growing progressive movement. The latter say there is little difference between corporate Democrats on the one hand and the GOP and Trump on the other — and besides, the Never Bidens claim, fighting Trump will strengthen the progressive movement. Meanwhile, Trump’s main targets, Black, Latinx and Muslim Americans as well as immigrants, have a credible fear of ever more brutal persecution if Trump gets another term. Those are the stakes my guest Max Elbaum lays out in his post on the website Organizing Upgrade, “Should Anti-Capitalists Urge a Vote for Joe Biden to Defeat Donald Trump in 2020 or not?” Max Elbaum is the author of the 2018 book Revolution in the Air: Sixties Radicals Turn to Lenin, Mao and Che. We’re airing this interview first on the Writers Voice website series, What You Need To Know. We’ll be airing it in the radio space later in the season.

We spend the hour with Phillip A. Neel talking about his book Hinterland: America’s New Landscape Of Class And Conflict. It’s about how America’s class structure is recomposing itself in new geographies of race, poverty, and production. Writer’s Voice — in depth conversation with writers of all genres, on the air since 2004. Rate us on iTunes or whatever podcast app you use! Like us on Facebook at Writers Voice with Francesca Rheannon or find us on twitter @WritersVoice. Phillip A. Neel Driven by an ever-expanding socioeconomic crisis (now exacerbated by the covid19 pandemic) America’s class structure is recomposing itself in new geographies of race, poverty, and production. Over the last forty years, the human landscape of the United States has been fundamentally transformed. The metamorphosis is partially visible in the ascendance of glittering, coastal hubs for finance, infotech, and the so-called creative class. But this is only the tip of an economic iceberg, the bulk of which lies in the darkness of the declining heartland or on the dimly lit fringe of sprawling cities. This is America’s hinterland, populated by towering grain threshers and hunched farmworkers, where laborers drawn from every corner of the world crowd into factories and “fulfillment centers” and where cold storage trailers are filled with fentanyl-bloated corpses when the morgues cannot contain the dead. By means of memoir, analysis of the political geography of class and sheer descriptive power, Philip Neel’s book Hinterland is a guidebook to America’s new heart of darkness. Neel teaches geography at the University of Washington. He was raised in a mobile home in the Siskiyou Mountains, on the border of California and Oregon. “Wageless Life”: Review of Hinterland by Sarah Brouillette By []

Is the 2020 Presidential election being rigged, like Donald Trump claims? Yes, says investigative reporter Greg Palast—it’s being rigged by Trump himself, in collusion with the GOP. We talk with Palast about his new book on protecting the vote, How Trump Stole 2020: The Hunt for America’s Vanished Voters. It’s about how Trump and the GOP are disenfranchising millions of voters and how to make sure your vote is counted. The book contains a 64-page graphic version, How To Steal An Election: Vote Thieves–The Art of the Steal, by cartoonist Ted Rall. (We’ll be talking with Rall about his new book Political Suicide later in the season.) Then we hear from election security attorney Robert Fitrakis and a poem by Maya Angelou. Writer’s Voice — in depth conversation with writers of all genres, on the air since 2004. Rate us on iTunes or whatever podcast app you use! Like us on Facebook at Writers Voice with Francesca Rheannon or find us on twitter @WritersVoice. Greg Palast 16.7 million. That’s the number of voters investigative reporter Greg Palast estimates have been lost to the voter registration rolls over the past two years as a result of overzealous purges of likely Democratic voters by Republicans. And that’s only one of a panoply of actions by Trump and Republicans to destroy the fundamentals of democracy: one person, one vote and making sure every vote is counted. In his new book How Trump Stole 2020, Palast lets us in on the nasty secrets of the assault on democracy by Trump and his GOP supporters. Palast is the author of several previous books on protecting the vote, including The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, which we spoke with him about in 2016. Useful Links To Protect Your Vote Vote.org Common Cause: Protecting the Right To Vote Lift Every Vote and finally, let’s #SaveTheUSPS Robert Fitrakis In our interview, Greg Palast mentioned attorney Robert Fitrakis. In 2016, Francesca went to a conference where Fitrakis was speaking about problems with so-called “black box” voting machines and aired a segment on Writers Voice. We play that segment again. Maya Angelou Kamala Harris is the first Black woman ever to be chosen as a vice presidential candidate. It’s an historic step forward on representation, whether or not she was your preferred choice for the job. In honor of that, we thought it would be nice to hear Maya Angelou recite her wonderful poem And Still I Rise.

Shaun King tells us about his life as a Black Lives Matter activist, what he’s learned about making change happen and how you can make change happen too. His book is Make Change: How to Fight Injustice, Dismantle Systemic Oppression, and Own Our Future. Then we have a sneak preview of our interview with investigative reporter Greg Palast about his new book How Trump Stole 2020: The Hunt for America’s Vanished Voters. We’ll play the whole interview next week. Shaun King It’s just over six years since Eric Garner was murdered by police in New York City. And we’re coming up on the sixth year anniversary of Michael Brown’s murder at the hands of the police in Ferguson, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri. On August 4, Cori Bush, a Black Lives Matter activist from St. Louis won her primary for election to a safely Democratic seat in the House of Representatives. Barring unforeseen circumstances, she’ll be in Congress in January. Cory Bush’s victory comes at a time when people all over the country are in the streets to support the BLM movement. She may owe part of her victory to that widening awareness. But that awareness did not spring up spontaneously. It is the fruit of six years of organizing. Of persistence in spite of failures, of hard lessons learned. One of the leaders of that movement is Shaun King. He became a Black Lives Matter activist when Eric Garner was murdered. King has just come out with his first book, Make Change. A terrific read, it combines gripping memoir with clear and cogent advice on, as the subtitle puts it, “How to Fight Injustice, Dismantle Systemic Oppression, and Own Our Future.” Shaun King is a civil rights activist and co-founder of Real Justice PAC. He uses social media to promote social justice causes, including the Black Lives Matter movement.   Greg Palast Greg Palast has been on the voter suppression beat for more than a decade. And over that time, things have just gotten worse. He’s out with a new book with a really scary title: How Trump Stole 2020: The Hunt for America’s Vanished Voters.  In it, he outlines the ways that Trump, the GOP and the Supreme Court are trying to rig the election for Trump — and how we can fight back and protect our vote. In this episode, we only have time for the first ten or so minutes of our interview, but we’ll play the whole conversation next week.

We spend the hour with writing teacher K.L. Cook, talking about about the art and craft of writing and his book, The Art Of Disobedience: Essays on Form, Fiction, and Influence. In the book’s essays, he explores why secrets are at the heart of every story; why point of view is perhaps the most important decision a fiction writer can make and why disobedience to the rules is the critical secret sauce to great writing. We also read a poem by Jessica Salfia about quarantine in the age of Covid19. Writer’s Voice — in depth progressive conversation with writers of all genres. On the air since 2004. Rate us on iTunes or whatever podcast app you use! Like us on Facebook at Writers Voice with Francesca Rheannon or find us on twitter @WritersVoice. K. L. Cook K. L. Cook has been teaching writing for a long time. An award-winning writer himself, He is Professor of English and Co-Coordinator of the MFA Program in Creative Writing & Environment at Iowa State University. He’s also a longtime faculty member of the low-residency MFA Program in Writing at Spalding University. Cook has distilled some of the most important lessons he’s learned about the art of writing fiction in his new book, The Art of Disobedience. In the book’s essays, he explores issues of aesthetics, craft, form, process, influence, and what it means to spend a life in letters. Among those explorations is why secrets are at the heart of every story; why point of view is perhaps the most important decision a fiction writer can make and why disobedience to the rules is the critical secret sauce to great writing. K. L. Cook is the author of six books of fiction, poetry, and essays, including Last Call, The Girl from Charnelle, and Love Songs for the Quarantined. In addition to The Art Of Disobedience, he’s out with two other recent books: Marrying Kind, a collection of short stories, and a collection of poetry, Lost Soliloquies. POEM: First Lines of emails I’ve received while quarantining by Jessica Salfia

With Trump’s paramilitary goon squads assaulting peaceful protestors in American cities, things are looking pretty grim for democracy in America. But Joe McCarthy biographer Larry Tye is optimistic. He says: “The lesson of Joe McCarthy and our other demagogues is that they fell even faster than they rose — once America saw through them and reclaimed its better self.“ We talk with Larry Tye about his acclaimed new book, Demagogue: The Life and Long Shadow of Senator Joe McCarthy. Then, a novel that asks the question: how do we balance the risks of political protest with the consequences, especially when those protests turn violent? Ellen Meeropol tells us about her new novel, Her Sister’s Tattoo. It’s about two sisters whose lives are marked by the choices they make during an antiwar demonstration in 1968. Meeropol uses history to explore the personal dimension of activism —and the thorny intersection of sibling loyalty and political beliefs. Writer’s Voice — in depth conversation with writers of all genres, on the air since 2004. Rate us on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts! Like us on Facebook at Writers Voice with Francesca Rheannon or find us on twitter @WritersVoice. Larry Tye In the long history of American demagogues, never has one man caused so much damage in such a short time as Senator Joseph McCarthy (at least until the current occupant of the White House, Donald Trump.) From 1950 to 1954, McCarthy destroyed many careers and even entire lives, whipping the nation into a frenzy of paranoia, accusation, loyalty oaths, and terror. Now, Larry Tye, bestselling biographer of Bobby Kennedy and Satchel Paige, has been able to take an exclusive look at the senator’s records to tell the full story of Joe McCarthy. In Demagogue: The Life and Long Shadow of Senator Joe McCarthy, Larry Tye draws a direct line from the Wisconsin Senator to Trump, showing how Trump not only uses the McCarthy playbook, but also how McCarthy’s right-hand man Roy Cohn became Donald Trump’s mentor. In his story lies a salient message for our current times. Larry Tye is the author of eight books, including Bobby Kennedy: The Making of A Liberal Icon, which we spoke with him about here. Read an excerpt from Demagogue. Ellen Meeropol Ellen Meeropol has carved out a very special genre for her fiction writing: she writes novels about leftist political protest and the establishment forces that try to crush it. We’ve spoken with her about two previous novels in this vein, Kinship of Clover and On Hurricane Island. Her newest novel, Her Sister’s Tattoo, continues the tradition. It tells the story of two sisters whose lives are marked by the choices they make during an antiwar demonstration in 1968. Meeropol uses history to explore the personal dimension of activism —and the thorny intersection of sibling loyalty and political beliefs. The great Marge Piercy, author of Woman on the Edge of Time, said, “Her Sister’s Tattoo is an honest and riveting portrait of anti-war activists and the price individuals and families pay for their actions, no matter how just.” Ellen Meeropol is the author of three previous novels.

America’s small businesses are facing hardship because of a dramatic, unexpected loss of business due to the COVID19 pandemic. But it’s come to light that the Trump administration has pushed to allow billions in CARES Act funds to pay off the debt of the fossil fuel industry—debt incurred way before the current pandemic. Some in Congress are working to prevent that, as well as other bailouts of Big Oil and Gas underway by the administration. It’s called the ReWind Act and those proposing it say it’s needed to keep the Trump administration from using the CARES Act to transfer enormous amounts of wealth from taxpayers to oil companies. They hope to include the ReWind Act in the new CARES Act package being worked on now. The Act has been referred to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. Francesca spoke with Jim Walsh of Food and Water Watch about the proposed legislation. He’s a Senior Energy Policy Analyst for Food & Water Watch.

We talk with Stephanie Kelton about her book, The Deficit Myth: Modern Monetary Theory and the Birth of the People’s Economy. We also have some summer reading picks that you can enjoy at the beach or poolside. And Francesca reads some poems by western Massachusetts poet Meg Fisher. We’ve all heard it a million times: we can’t have universal affordable health care because, “how are you gonna pay for that?” We can’t have free public college because “how are you gonna pay for that?” We can’t increase Social Security because “how are you gonna pay for that?” But when the pandemic happened and the Congress passed a $2 trillion budget, we didn’t hear those words. Nor did we hear them when Wall Street imploded in 2008 and the banks got a trillion dollar bailout. Nor do we ever hear those words when every single year, the Congress passes a record-breaking military budget—$780 billion this year. Ever since Ronald Reagan, we’ve been told by Democrats and Republicans that the richest society in the world can’t afford to take care of its citizens—that to do so would burden our descendants with crushing federal debt. But in the middle of a pandemic where the US is throwing money around like candy—mostly to those who need it least—that excuse is wearing thin. Stephanie Kelton’s book The Deficit Myth exposes the lie behind the “we can’t pay for it” mantra. She writes, “Deficits can be used for good or evil. They can enrich a small segment of the population, driving income and wealth inequality to new heights, while leaving millions behind. They can fund unjust wars that destabilize the world and cost millions their lives. Or they can be used to sustain life and build a more just economy that works for the many and not just the few.” Stephanie Kelton is a professor of economics and public policy at Stony Brook University. She is a leading expert on Modern Monetary Theory and a former Chief Economist on the U.S. Senate Budget Committee (Democratic staff). She was named by POLITICO as one of the 50 people most influencing the policy debate in America. Articles by Stephanie Kelton Summer Reading Picks If you want some smartly written distraction fiction, we’ve got two books to recommend: In the crime fiction field is The Distant Dead by Heather Young. It’s about the murder of a middle school teacher in a small Western town whose body is discovered by his favorite pupil. The characters are flawlessly drawn; the writing is taut and descriptive; the plot is satisfyingly twisty and compelling. It’s just as good as Heather Young’s first novel, The Lost Girls. Read them both for a treat. Then there’s Dean Koontz’ penultimate new book, Devoted. It features a super-intelligent Golden Retriever, a plot to transform humanity that goes very very wrong and a heroic young boy on the autism spectrum. Devoted is a really fun read with some wonderful writing–and a morality fable that plumbs the depths of human depravity to remind us of the heights of the human spirit. Rope of Sorrow by Meg Fisher I wring the water lukewarm from the washcloths so often that water, and bucket, and cloth and hands become one rope of sorrow tying me to task while all around me just out of reach spins the sun-filled birch light, sweet, sweet, sweet. And I see in that moment that I give my whole attention to sorrow, not to joy. What is this doting that I do on sorrow by life’s open window? Come. What’s here is here, and given. Is what is.

Today, we hear two stories about Appalachia, a region that’s long been subject to exploitation and prejudice. First, we talk with Emma Copley Eisenberg about her book The Third Rainbow Girl: The Long Life of a Double Murder in Appalachia. It’s about the killing of two young women in West Virginia in 1980, how cultural bigotry against the region kept the murders from being solved — and the trauma inflicted on the community as a result. Then, we re-air our 2004 interview with Diane Gilliam Fisher about her wonderful poetry volume Kettle Bottom. It’s about the West Virginia Mine Wars of the 1920s. Emma Copley Eisenberg In the early evening of June 25, 1980 in Pocahontas County, West Virginia, two outsiders—Vicki Durian, 26, and Nancy Santomero, 19—were murdered in an isolated clearing. They were hitchhiking to a festival known as the Rainbow Gathering but never arrived. For thirteen years, no one was prosecuted for the “Rainbow Murders,” though deep suspicion was cast on a succession of local residents in the community, depicted as poor, dangerous, and backward. In 1993, a local farmer was convicted, only to be released when a known serial killer and white supremacist named Joseph Paul Franklin claimed responsibility. With the passage of time, as the truth seemed to slip away, the investigation itself caused its own traumas, turning neighbor against neighbor and confirming a fear of the violence outsiders have done to this region for centuries. Journalist Emma Copley Eisenberg spent years living in Pocahontas County and re-investigating the murders. In her book The Third Rainbow Girl, Eisenberg shows how that violent act has cast its long shadow over all those affected, shaping their fears, their fates, and the stories they tell about themselves. Emma Copley Eisenberg’s fiction and nonfiction has appeared in McSweeney’s, The Paris Review, Granta, Tin House, The New Republic and others. The Third Rainbow Girl: The Long Life of a Double Murder in Appalachia was published in January by Hachette Books. Diane Gilliam Fisher Back in 2004, Writers Voice interviewed the wonderful poet of Appalachian origin, Diane Gilliam Fisher, about her poetry volume Kettle Bottom. In the collection, Fisher uses verse to tell the story of the West Virginia Mine Wars of 1920–21. That’s when the United Mine Workers union went up against the coal operators and their hired thugs. Many people died — mostly miners — and President Warren Harding sent in troops to quell the rebellion–something to remember when our current president contemplates the use of federal troops against protesters calling for justice.