Author Archive

Burt Cohen

A woman in a blue outfit stands between two men in traditional Middle Eastern attire.
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Through twelve administrations, the US has been tight with the Saudi government. On part one, Medea Benjamin talks about her new book: Kingdom of the Unjust: behind the US-Saudi Connections. She argues it’s time to cut the cord, they are

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Maps showing Palestinian land loss from 1946 to 2000.
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Is the dream over? The socialist democratic Israel our parents generation dreamed of is not the right wing Israel we see today.What’s happening with Jewish Americans who are under 70? Why does the right wing Israel lobby still have so

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Washington Post article quoting Keeping Democracy Alive s Burt Cohen &
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Washington Post Politics – Inside the exclusive events helping to fund Clinton and the Democratic Party Washington Post quotes KDA’s Burt Cohen on money in politics See Article: https://www.washingtonpost.com

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CultureEducationGunsNational PolicyPodcastTake ActionWar

http://media.blubrry.com/keeping_democracy_alive/dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/48358971/YoungWarComplete.mp3They call it “youth development programs.” Seven hundred million of our tax dollars are being used to lure kids into the schools-to-soldier pipeline. The mainly poor students are presented the image of exciting video games, which millions of kids love.

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Fallen GOP elephant with broken pieces labeled 'GOP'.
National PolicyPodcastPopulismReligionTake Action

We couldn’t get the simple Equal Rights Amendment passed, but with the support of Hillary Clinton and Republicans across America, Jeff Clements, president of American Promise, believes we can erase Citizens United and restore democracy to American politics. And on

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A large group of soldiers marching in formation.
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It’s been called the most progressive Democratic Party platform ever, but in terms of foreign policy, it’s pretty much as militaristic as ever. On this show, Phyllis Bennis, of the Institute for Policy Studies dissects the foreign policy aspects of

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A ballot box for the 2016 presidential election with patriotic stripes.
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With Trump as president, it would be a major effort to just move back to the center. With Hillary Clinton, and sustained  pressure from progressives, forward motion is possible, if difficult. This is for progressives thinking about the election. Michael

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Protesters holding a Palestinian flag and a sign advocating for Palestinian rights.
EconomyFiscal PolicyIsrael & PalestineJusticeNational PolicyPodcastPopulismSocialismTake Action

How do you like paying interest to use your own money? According to Mike Krauss of the Public Banking Institute, it doesn’t have to be that way. We can replace the privately held Federal Reserve system and use the treasury

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People holding a Turkish flag during a lively gathering.
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Seemingly out-of-the-way Turkey was central to a world war a hundred years ago, and after the July 15th attempted military coup, democracy looks to be quite thoroughly killed and President Erdogan is loving it. He’s a faithful American ally but

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Banner for the 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.
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The divide was deep going into the 2016 Democratic National Convention. How did it end up? Is there real unity now? Bernie Sanders campaign New Hampshire political director Kurt Ehrenberg (Bernie won by 22 points in NH) assesses the week

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Military personnel and armored vehicle in a public area during a tense situation.
National PolicyPodcastWar

Recently released emails reveal that then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton enabled the success of the military coup in Honduras in 2009 which overthrew a democratically elected president. Instead of “hope,” it was the same old American heavy-handedness which has created

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Shirley Chisholm 1972 presidential campaign logo with 'Unbought Unbossed'.
CultureEducationNational PolicyPodcastRacismWomen

How many women do you think have run for president? Of the 200 or so who have done it, there are three before Hillary who made a difference. In her new book, The Highest Glass Ceiling; Women’s Quest for the

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From ruthless cold warrior to taking on his nemesis LBJ over the war in Vietnam, was Bobby Kennedy an opportunist? Who was the “runt” of the Kennedy litter?  In this remarkable interview, bestselling author Larry Tye tells us how Bobby’s

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On the first half, candidate for NH executive council Joshua Bourdon. Beginning at about 28 minutes, Jared Beck lead lawyer for the class action lawsuit alleging the DNC failed to follow its own rules and tilted the nominating process toward

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Close-up of a worn American flag with visible texture and folds.
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Independence day: Many Americans see our freedom to choose as consumers as what independence is all about. But recovering corporate CEO and Huffington Post columnist Richard Eskow on this show shines a light on how far we’ve veered from what

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Close-up of a shattered glass surface with partial text 'REXI' behind it.
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This changes everything. “Britons may have made a short term tactical mistake, but the true error is Europe’s” according to Patrick Lawrence, Salon’s foreign affairs columnist. He adds that Bernie Sanders got it right in saying, “Let’s be clear. the

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Abandoned, unfinished large concrete building under gray sky.
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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

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Four men in suits huddle closely, one bending down with a briefcase.
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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

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Red Shell oil barrel among other barrels in storage.
EconomyEnergyPodcastReligionWar

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

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Soldiers marching along a beach in formation under cloudy skies.
National PolicyPodcastTake ActionWar

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

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JusticeNational PolicyPodcastTake Action

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

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Group of five women wearing matching green shirts and smiling indoors.
CultureEducationJusticeNational PolicyPodcastRacismWomen

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.

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Book cover titled 'The Nation' by Brenda Wineapple with a historical painting.
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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

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A signpost with arrows labeled Right, Wrong, and It Depends.
CultureEducationJusticeNational PolicyPodcast

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

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EconomyEducationFiscal PolicyNational PolicyPodcastPopulismRacismSocialismTake ActionWarWomen

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

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Cover of 'Spain in Our Hearts' by Adam Hochschild.
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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:

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Crowd gathered at night around a statue in a city square with lights and umbrellas.
CultureJusticeNational PolicyPodcastPopulismProtests & ResistanceSocialismTake Action

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

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CultureIsrael & PalestineJusticeNational PolicyPodcastRacismReligionTake Action

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

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A vintage poster with a pointing hand and text urging to listen to Thomas F.
CultureEconomyEducationJusticePodcastPopulismTake ActionWomen

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

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EconomyFiscal PolicyNational PolicyPodcastTake ActionWar

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

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