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Culture

CultureGunsPodcast

Fear leads to actions people often later regret.  Why are people who’ve been against guns now buying them up? The pandemic isolation and fear of shortages is part of the explanation for the current surge. Feeling safer beats actually being

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Covid 19CultureEducationHistory That Matters NowPodcastPresident Biden

In the Scopes Trial of 1925, William Jennings Bryan spoke against teaching evolution, saying “I have all the information I need to live and die by.” Today’s intense fight against teaching Critical Race Theory is more of the same. To

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CulturePodcast

Like many professionals, doctors and medical providers are uncomfortable with plowing new ground. But that’s what trans medicine is, and there is growing need for best treatment practices. There is very little research or precedent but the needs of trans

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CultureEducationFascism on the RisePodcastPopulismPresident BidenRacism

Is it the revenge of the “deplorables?” We’ve seen how a culture of resentment affected Germany in the early 30s, and it has brought us dangerous Trumpism today. On this show, professor of history emeritus Walter Moss looks at the

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CultureNational PolicyPodcastPresident BidenRacism

Fierce nationalism and the insistence that the US is indispensable to organize the world has played itself out. With awareness of climate change, worldwide opposition to racism, and the avoidable persistence of great poverty, could this be the time once

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CultureForeign AffairsPodcastPresident Biden

American presidents have assumed that our place is at the head of the table with our European counterparts. In his first (virtual) meeting as president with German and French leaders, Biden was met by, what KDA’s most popular guest Patrick

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CulturePodcastPresident Biden

The former president embodied what our guest calls confined masculinity: old cages locking men into highly limited macho roles. January 6th was a prime example of this. In the new book he co-authored Reinventing Masculinity: The Liberating Power of Compassion

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CultureHistory That Matters NowPodcast

Unlike other industrialized nations, America values celebrity over governing well. FDR was a rare exception,he became a celebrity because he served America so well. Then there was Reagan, who did great lasting damage to our country yet remains revered as

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CultureJusticeMilitary and Defence PolicyPodcastProtests & ResistanceTrump

The Trumpian mob attack on the Capitol shocked America. We thought “this is not who we are.” But maybe it actually is, more than we’d thought. If we dare to look at our history, it was not such an exception.

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CulturePodcastPopulism

Why should population density continue to determine Democrat or Republican wins? How is it that the Democratic Party seems to have given up on what used to be our working class farm/labor base? In his new book Rural Rebellion, our

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Covid 19CultureJusticePodcastRacismTrumpWomen

With his gleeful displays of cruelty, is it possible that Donald Trump performed the service of waking us all up to cruelty commonly in national and corporate policy?  In his new book, Cruelty or Humanity: Challenges, Opportunities, and Responsibilities Australian

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CultureFascism on the RisePodcastReligionTrump

The threat of deeply dedicated religious nationalists is not about to go away when Trump leaves office. An electoral defeat energizes them. The author of the important book “The Power Worshipers,” Katherine Stewart expounds on her recent NYTimes op-ed, titled

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CultureEconomic IssuesPodcastPopulismProtests & Resistance

The parties have flipped: It used to be that Republicans were for Wall Street, Democrats were for Main Street. Now the Democrats are seen as the party of the elitists, Republicans are for the common people. On this show Thomas

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CultureMilitary and Defence PolicyPodcastPopulismWomen

Former presidential candidate best selling author Marianne Williamson talks about why Trumpism arose, and what opportunities the Democratic Party now has. Will Biden be yet another neoliberal or will he listen to the very real causes of chronic despair which

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CultureFascism on the RisePodcast

Why the need for dominance and control? Why the huge draw of white working class men to Donald Trump? Does the appeal of violent police somehow make up for a sense of loss of male control over everybody else? On

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CultureJusticePodcastRacism

We know about voter suppression against African Americans but what about Indigenous Americans, Indians? The effort to disenfranchise the 2% of the national population is not a secret, yet nearly unknown. On this show author Jean Schroedel shares disturbing findings

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CultureEconomic IssuesFascism on the RisePodcastPopulismTrump

Populism is a legitimate form of anger at perceived elites dismissing everyday people. There are indeed real reasons for today’s populist anger. On this show Rutgers Law School professor Dennis M.Patterson explains why we need to take populism seriously. It

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CultureEconomyEnvironmentPodcastRacismWomen

How did we get in this mess in the first place? Will little tweaks allow America to effectively address climate change, racism, and the deadly pandemic? Author Northeastern University professor Jennie C. Stephens argues that there is a “polluter elite”

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CultureEconomic IssuesEnvironmentNational PolicyPodcast

FDR’s Civilian Conservation Corps achieved remarkable success in so many areas: Creating meaningful work for young men in a time of mass unemployment, planting forests, conserving our natural resources. It ended with the start of World War II. Perhaps now

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CulturePodcastPopulismReligion

The standard picture we northerners have of The South may no longer be accurate. Average working people are starting to see that the anti-union governments there are really just serving the rich. The long-thought-dormant left populist tradition of people like

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CulturePodcastRacismWomen

There’s a brand new Central Park monument of feminist leaders Stanton, Anthony, and Sojourner Truth. It was a hundred years ago that the 19th Amendment became law: women won the right to vote. But what kind of compromises did the

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CultureFreedomJusticePodcastReligionSexuality

The nuclear family, white hetero male dominance and control is not the only way it can be. Why can we can have firearms freedom but not sexual freedom? On this show, Janet Jakobsen professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

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Civil LibertiesCultureFascism on the RisePodcastPopulismReligion

As Trump kicks off his fall campaign, and we wonder who is behind it, who benefits from destroying our republic, here is the story. The religious nationalists see him as a fierce leader. They believe God sends such kings to

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CulturePodcastRacismSexualityWomen

She is exactly what Trumpists hate: a strong woman who is both black and Indian. Both groups were the subjects of white male dominance and control. American slavery and British rule over India both had their peak at the same

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CultureJusticePodcast

Many of us were taught to be wary of “mob psychology.” But according to history professor Peter Stearns who has studied the effects of crowds on political change, emotion is not necessarily in conflict with rationality. The protests of the

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CultureFascism on the RiseForeign AffairsPodcastPopulismTrump

Donald Trump IS the Republican Party of 2020. So what of the future of the party; is there one? According to David Smith, Washington Bureau chief for The Guardian, some party members quietly hope for a Democratic landslide so they

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CultureIsrael & PalestineJusticePodcastSocialism

How is it that Jewish liberals felt the State of Israel was exempt from criticism applied elsewhere? Our guest today Benjamin Balthaser, who teaches multi-ethnic literature at Indiana University, talks about a little known history: Most liberal and left Jewish

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CultureFascism on the RiseJusticePodcastTrump

Chaos and anarchy engulfing America. Won’t that be the result of “defunding the police?” A Trump ad (audio included herein) gins up that fear. But using war-fighting methods and equipment demonstrably feeds and exacerbates violence. Fighting crime after the fact

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CultureJusticePodcast

The current system clearly tends to worsen already bad situations. Forcing people to see who they are as “bad,” not just they they did bad things. Did you ever think about how we came up with the prison system in

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CultureFascism on the RiseHistory That Matters NowJusticePodcastRacism

With the killing of George Floyd and the resulting rage in the streets, this is a year like none other. Old reassuring myths are falling away. Statues are being ripped down. What is still worth preserving?  Can we use today’s

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