They sought a better life from the Jim Crow South and freedom, but what they found was something else. It may not be bricks and mortar prison, but black citizens have been intentionally limited to specific areas on the map

From the Dadaists through Abbie Hoffman to today, the art of transforming everyday life into theater, challenging and befuddling unjust authority, has unique power to make real change. The unique new book is Tactical Performance: The Theory and Practice of

They used to be on top of the world. Remember the mighty OPEC countries? With the fall of the price of oil, countries like Saudi Arabia, Russia, and Venezuela are reeling. Professor Michael Klare looks at the nightmares unfolding and

It’s not the fifties, the Cold War is over, yet neo-cons continue to push NATO expansion on Russia’s borders backing them into a wall. As Russia and Syria fight ISIS, American leaders like Hillary Clinton call for a No-Fly Zone

Since when is it a crime to report a crime? Before there was Edward Snowden there was Thomas Drake. You never heard of him, but he is a former high-up NSA official who saw abuses against the fourth amendment and

Girls of color make up 16% of female high school students, yet they make up more than a third of all girls with a school-related arrest. They are systematically pushed out of the education system, and that helps no one.

Of course the North beat the South but Southern Values also won. Northern collusion with slavery, annexing Cuba, the 1% vs the 99%, and the wisdom of Phineas T. Barnum are all entertainingly discussed in Ecstatic Nation: Confidence Crisis and

Our founders knew how essential education is to have a functioning democracy. Teachers today face challenges more than one might imagine: balancing community demands with needs of individual students. In their new book, Dilemmas of Educational Ethics, authors Meira Levinson

Are we watching a train wreck in progress? Journalist Robert Parry, who broke many of the Iran-Contra stories, offers his insight into how the 2016 Democratic Party may have ignored important lessons from the 1968 crack up. There will be

Adam Hochschild has written best selling books about a Belgian King’s holocaust in the Congo and another about the brave British women who fought against the insanity of the first world war. His new book is Spain in Our Hearts:

Hundreds of thousands of people in France and elsewhere in Europe gather nightly. It is huge, but you probably have never heard of it. The blackout has been intentional. It’s more than a protest, it’s a serious movement. As Sorbonne

And not just for Palestinians. With the ascent of the nationalistic right, even Jewish Israelis are feeling the sting of government assaults on democracy. Allan Brownfeld, editor of the magazine of The American Council for Judaism, explains how democracy is

To research for his new book, Thomas Frank specifically went to pro-Bill Clinton sources. Yet what he found left a profoundly negative impression of his presidency and what it did to the Democratic Party. Author of 2004’s What’s The Matter

It’s the year of the anti-establishment candidates: in both parties. Jim Rubens is certainly the underdog against incumbent Kelly Ayotte, a Washington favorite. While Rubens is no liberal, he does take on issues such as the power of money in

Q: When is a donation not a donation? A: When it’s an investment. It is a rare super wealthy philanthropist who gives without need of great public recognition? From feudal times, it has been in the interests of the baronial

A teenager kills another with his knife and is tried and sentenced as an adult. Is this the best we can do? Is justice served? In her new book: Boy with a Knife, activist, author and professor Jean Trounstine explores

American exceptionalism is a reality in terms of locking up almost 5 times as many citizens as all other advanced industrialized democracies. Over the last 40 years, the incarceration rate has skyrocketed by nearly 400 percent. How did we get

They’ve been the big boys ruling their neighborhood for half a century. They really don’t want to give it up, but with their war in Yemen hurting their standing (and America’s) and the dropping price of oil, they are being

Tremendous wealth is being sheltered from taxation. The rules for the rest of us apparently don’t apply to the super rich of the world. But think about how that now-hidden wealth might help millions throughout the world. This is the

America Aflame is a major new interpretation of the civil war era. In this interview with author David Goldfield, light is shed into important dark corners, such as the tragic role played by evangelicalsm on both sides, why a post-war

It’s not just the rapacious, perhaps truly pathological greed of the super rich. The Supreme Court has actively participated in the devastation of the formerly-large middle class. According to law professor Michel Gilman, the US Supreme Court has taken a

“Our mother was not a spy, and her execution was wrongful… The government cannot return our mother to her loving family. But it can admit this miscarriage of justice…exonerate our mother” These words from guest on this show Robert Meeropol

Politics is theater and yet the mainstream media is missing the real drama. It’s not on the Republican side: the genuinely close race is for the Democratic nomination. On this podcast, Robert Borosage, founder and president of Institute for America’s

Gregory Foster is a decorated Vietnam vet who teaches at National Defense University. He is dedicated to an efficient and effective defense of our country and argues what we most need to achieve that end is a demilitarization of the

How significant a change in policy toward Latin America does Obama’s trip to Havana mean? As Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy research explains, while the opening to Cuba is beneficial, it seems the American tradition

Between 1945 and the Reagan era, Americans understood that work benefited all and when productivity when up, all stakeholders shared in the rewards. Of course that all changed. But in his new book “Shaping the Future of Work: What Future

He’s a mirror of our culture, the question is: will America look in the mirror? Guest on this show is Erin Aubry Kaplan, author of the new book “I (heart) Obama,” and a long time writer about the black experience

How did a pink flower beat the world’s only superpower? After 15 years, 2200 Americans dead, more than a trillion dollars The US has not been able to pacify one of the worlds poorest nations. One of the worlds leading

http://media.blubrry.com/keeping_democracy_alive/dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/48358971/Brexit.mp3The European Union was supposed to mean a continent of nations united by democratic ideals. Instead power and decision making has become more concentrated and centralized. First it was Greece, then Spain threatening to pull out of the EU, now

She may not be trusted on many things, but at least she never claimed to be a peace candidate. If you liked the Bush/Cheney policy of selective “humanitarian intervention,” you’ll be fine with Hillary Clinton’s positions. Researcher and author Nicolas