KPFK - Beneath The Surface Suzi Weissman

Guest: Robert Brenner
Robert Brenner on politics and the state of the economy ''' matters of great confusion if you read the Business pages and hear the politicians, all touting how robust the economy is with record low unemployment, rising wages, the recovery of the stock market. But -- the Fed stopped raising interest rates, wages are stagnant, precarity and insecurity are the norm, homelessness has exploded, student debt is staggering and suffocating -- and teachers are striking to force states to reinvest (stop underinvesting) to save public education. So what is the real story, and if the economists and pundits are getting it wrong ''' why is that the case? Is it cheerleading for the status quo? We get Robert Brenner'''s analysis.

Guest: Jackie Goldberg, Eric Blanc
Jackie Goldberg, former teacher, member of the School Board, City Council and State Assembly is now running in the March 5th special election to the LAUSD School Board. If elected, Jackie will be an experienced and effective progressive voice for public education, opposing the charter allies elected with money from the '''bankrollers [who] have stacked the deck against district public schools.''' We talk to Jackie about the strike, the fight to save public education, and how the forces are aligned from Los Angeles to Sacramento to Washington. Eric Blanc, author of the just published "Red State Revolt: The Teachers Strike Wave and Working Class Politics." has been covering the strike for Jacobin magazine. He looks at the larger issues in the UTLA strike, the billionaires arrayed against the LA schools, the dilemma this strike poses for establishment Democrats, and why this fightback is historic. Eric maintains that at its core, the strike '''is a fight against a hostile takeover of public schools by the superrich.'''

Guest: Arlene Inouye, Simon Pirani
Arlene Inouye, Secretary of the United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) and Co-Chair of the Negotiations Team on how important the LAUSD strike, beginning January 14, is for public education, indeed, for the public. UTLA is demanding that LAUSD negotiate a fair agreement that addresses class size, funding for nurses, librarians, a halt to further privatization through charterization, and teacher pay -- or face teachers on picket lines. After the spectacular Red State teachers strikes of last year, the LAUSD strike has enormous potential in practical and inspirational terms ''' for labor and community as a whole.Simon Pirani, Senior Visiting Research Fellow at Oxford Institute for Energy Studies on his new book, "Burning Up: a global history of fossil fuel consumption," that traces the inexorable increase in oil, gas and coal use since the mid 20th century - and shows how consumption growth accelerated since the discovery of global warming in the 1980s. He argues that fuels are mainly consumed through technological systems, which are in turn embedded in social, economic and political systems - and that the transition away from fossil fuels will mean the transformation of all of these.

Suzi Weissman

Guest: Mike Davis, Meleiza Figueroa, Steve Breedlove
At year'''s end we look at the fires that ravaged California, and the aftermath ''' which as urban theorist Mike Davis reminds us, reinforces the socioeconomic inequalities that already characterize this nation-state of 40 million people. Mike Davis looks at the Paradise and Malibu conflagrations, the Tale of Two Fires first aired on November 18. Then UC Berkeley grad student and activist Meleiza Figueroa, who lives part time in Chico, near Paradise, and Steve Breedlove, social critic, veteran, and permaculturalist active in the Cleanup and Rebuild working group of North Valley Mutual Aid look at day to day survival and recovery since the disaster ''' as well as climate crisis and the role governments must play to avert complete disaster.