October 18 - Will a Revived Left Create a New Center?; A Further Analysis of the 99% Movement; Bill Maher on Trying to Keep up With Political Absurdity

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Part 1	We begin with a political analysis of the likely effect the Occupy Wall Street movement will have on the future of progressive politics in America and the elections next year. Michael Lind joins us. He has an article at Salon.com “Occupation and Realignment; How a Real Leftist Movement Could Create a New Center in American Politics”, and we discuss the promise and pitfalls of a movement that now has a powerful and unifying economic message, which could be diffused by identity politics and other single-issue protests.
Part 2	Then we will examine the Occupy Wall Street movement further with Michael Heaney, who is a professor of Organizational Studies and Political Science at the University of Michigan. We will discuss what political agenda and strategy will eventually emerge from this movement that is an apparent counterweight to the right-wing Tea Party, and how much it is a response to an acute sense of threat on the political left which feels its political representatives have failed them.
Part 3	Then finally Bill Maher joins us. He is the host of HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” and we talk politics and humor, in a political environment where political candidates, many of whom are running for president, provide such a rich serving of comedic absurdity that it is difficult to tell whether life is imitating comedy or comedy is imitating life.