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Pinochet Under House Arrest for Tax Evasion
GUESTS: Saul Landau, Professor at Cal Poly Pomona, and a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, author of “Assassination on Embassy Row”

Former Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet has managed to avoid prosecution for the crimes of his military government’s seventeen year reign from 1973 to 1990. A Spanish Judge first issued an international arrest warrant for Pinochet in 1998. Pinochet’s lawyers have constantly argued that the aging former dictator is unfit to stand trial, claiming that he suffers from dementia. However, earlier this month doctors reversed that assement, declaring him in good enough health. Last September, it was also ruled that Pinochet could be stripped of his presidential immunity in the on-going case of Operation Colombo. This was the case where 119 members of the Revolutionary Leftist Movement or MIR were disappeared and later found dead in neighboring Latin American countries. Last Monday Pinochet was ordered by Judge Victor Montiglio to meet face to face with his former Secret Police Chief Manuel Contreras. Both men blame each other for human rights abuses. Perhaps now legal action may finally be brought against Pinochet for crimes committed during his dictatorship. But in breaking news this morning, Pinochet was indicted and put under house arrest just today on charges of tax evasion and corruption related to his multimillion-dollar overseas accounts, state television reported.

The Politics of Country Music
GUEST: Chris Willman, Senior Writer at Entertainment Weekly and author of “Rednecks and Bluenecks: The Politics of Country Music

After 9/11 country music star Toby Keith beat the drums of war against Afghanistan when he released a song called Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American). The song became an instant hit and reflected an existing sense of patriotic fervor in most mainstream country music. But in March 2003, country music favorites, the Dixie Chicks made huge political waves when one member of the trio said “we’re ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas.” In response, many country music radio stations stopped playing Dixie Chicks songs, and some groups burned their CDs in bonfires. Country music, intensely popular across middle America, has also tended to reflect the political values and ideals of many Americans. I spoke yesterday with Chris Willman, Senior Writer at Entertainment Weekly. He’s written a book called “Rednecks and Bluenecks: The Politics of Country Music.” According to Willman, while most mainstream country is reflective of Republican style politics, there is a hard core alternative country streak consisting of radical left-leaning figures like Steve Earle, Merle Hagard, and others, that refuse to go away.

Right Wing KFI Calls for Murder of Tookie
GUEST: Jasmyne Cannick, with the LA Urban Policy Round Table

Community activists plan to hold a protest today against KFI-AM (640) in response to the John and Ken Show’s declaration of the “Kill Tookie Hour” every day until Stanley Tookie Williams is executed by the state in December. Tookie Williams is the founder of the notorious Crips gang in LA who has been serving more than 2 decades on death row. He is the author of award winning childrens’ books, has also been nominated numerous times for the Nobel Peace Prize and the Nobel Literature Prize. In 1992, a judge recommended clemency rather than execution. Over the weekend, more than a 1,000 activists, religious leaders and rapper Snoop Dogg gathered at San Quentin State Prison to urge Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to grant Tookie clemency.

Jasmyne Cannick’s website is www.jasmynecannick.com

More information about Stanley “Tookie” Williams is available at www.tookie.com and www.savetookie.org.

There will be a press conference on Wednesday 11/23 at 11 a.m., at the Lucy Florence Coffee House, 3351 West 43rd Street, Leimert Park, Los Angeles, CA 90008. For more information, call 323-731-4955.

Sonali’s Subversive Thought for the Day:
Henry Ford
“Capital punishment is as fundamentally wrong as a cure for crime, as charity is wrong as a cure for poverty.”