Author Archive

Burt Cohen

Podcast

Though American history is full of left-leaning populist movements, for the last few years, the only populism has been on the far right. That may be changing, so argues Elias Isquith, assistant editor at Salon.com.

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Podcast

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 the founders envisioned as t…

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Podcast

Peter Van Buren knows from personal experience. He told the truth about Iraq and was pushed out of his job at the State Department because of it. he sees three distinct eras in terms of a constitutional republic versus a police state. In the first era,…

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Podcast

A protest sign read: End Legal Bribery. As with lots of political change, it is starting in New Hampshire, home of the first presidential primary. The New Hampshire Rebellion is catching fire, as people fed up with the corruption of our system by vast …

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Podcast

Many saw it coming back in 2003: the US invasion of Iraq was an avoidable disaster. It was easy to see it could not work. Now as ISIS swarms Iraq, what can be learned? Can Iraq save itself? Is there really anything the US can do now that might actually…

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Podcast

Five hundred years may separate the reformation of Martin Luther and the nationalist/populist surge currently taking place in Western Europe, but there are strong connections between the two. On this show, John Feffer, co-director of Foreign Policy In …

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Podcast

Most of the world seems to think that the State of Israel and Judaism are one and the same. They are not. Where Judaism is thousands of years old and lived for peace with Muslims and Christians in what Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss calls The Holy Land, Zio…

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Podcast

Though it’s usually thought of as a good thing, the word “tolerance” really falls well short of full inclusion. Instead tolerance actually preserves prejudice and leaves intact inequality. Suzanna Danuta Walters’ just published book (right in time for …

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Podcast

If we rely on the mainstream media, the narrative about Ukraine is pretty clear. But investigative historian Eric Zuesse has instead simply used the internet to go to primary sources and found that we are being lied to. The alleged good guys Obama is b…

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Podcast

She looked inevitable in 2008, too. But Hillary Clinton as a presidential contender has some serious vulnerabilities. On this show Guy Saperstein, former civil rights attorney, past president of the Sierra Club Foundation, and board member of Brave New…

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Podcast

The fall of Qadaffi and instability in Libya. Boko Haram terrorists in Nigeria. The French war in Mali: all these hot spots influence the world and neighboring Niger, another former French colony. On this show NH resident Bess Palmisciano who has been …

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Podcast

In old East Germany or the Soviet Union, there was no question the government was watching. Everyone was a suspect. But this is the United States where we still have a fourth amendment in effect that is supposed to protect us from such intrusion into o…

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Podcast

On May 17, 1954 the US Supreme Court ruled unanimously against “separate but equal” in public schools, recognizing segregation meant inequality. The point was to improve education for impoverished minorities. But today’s guest Richard Rothstein argues …

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PodcastSexuality

On the first half, Chuck Collins, co-founder of Wealth for the Common Good, talks about the effects of extreme wealth on democracy and public health and what can be done about it. And on part two, journalist Amanda Marcotte discusses a recent home-scho…

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Podcast

A war on terror is, by definition, a war without end. On this show, Afghan correspondent for the Wall St Journal and Christian Science Monitor Anand Gopal talks about his new book: No Good Men Among The Living; America, the Taliban, and the War Through…

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Podcast

Andrew Hemingway is not the party favorite, but the 32 year old Republican is running for governor. On issues of privacy, the threat of a big casino, and the intransigence of our current governor on therapeutic cannabis, I suspect you will like what he…

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XL pipeline
Podcast

Thousands of people joined the farmers, ranchers, and tribal leaders of the Cowboy and Indian Alliance the week of April 22-26 in Washington DC. They were joined by actor Darryl Hannah and rocker Neil Young. We open with Neil’s words to those gathered …

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Podcast

There’s a new religion out there. Up on a pedestal are the new information monopolies, which many believe in as infallible, purely scientific mechanisms that fix humanity’s problems better than mere humans. Google and Comcast are the new all-powerful i…

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Podcast

Remember when we thought the internet, being “open,” might be a leveler of power, putting the tools of creation in everybody’s hands equally? The reality is our digital devices are new shackles chaining us to corporate America and to government surveil…

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Podcast

In the 1930s, 2800 American men and women, black and white fought fascism in the prelude to the second world war. The battle was in Spain. They were the legendary brave heroes of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. Now none of them are still alive but the spi…

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Podcast

Public education reform was kicked off in 1983 under Ronald Reagan. Not only has it not helped, according to our guest, the drive to put public education in the hands of for-profit interests has greatly weakened education and done real harm to thousand…

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Podcast

When asked what kind government we were to have, a monarchy or a republic, Benjamin Franklin answered: “A republic…if you can keep it.” Americans are wondering if we’ve already lost our republican form of government, first with Citizens United and no…

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Podcast

The past isn’t even the past: questions and debates remain fierce about such things as the locus of legitimate political power: should it be federal or state sovereignty? Did America really ever face up to the evils of slavery? In what ways was the whi…

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Podcast

You know it’s working when Netanyahu calls supporters of Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions “anti-Semites and bigots.” If so, then why do so many Jews across the world support this pressure to stop the occupation of Palestinian lands? On the first half…

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Podcast

Even President Obama had to talk about it, saying income inequality is the “defining challenge of our time.” What he’s doing about it remains a big question. Have we come to the point where many Americans really care about the new wealth gap? AlterNet …

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Oil Spill
Podcast

It was March 25, 1989 when the unprecedented oil spill from the Exxon Valdez tanker began polluting the Gulf of Alaska. What have we learned since then? Some call for “Drill Baby Drill,” and the political power of the petroleum industry has only increa…

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Podcast

A new progressive populist movement is gaining momentum. More and more every day, people are realizing that we are not powerless, that we can successfully take on the moneyed elite that has been manipulating the national economy for their own financial…

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Podcast

There are reasons why you probably never heard of  the TransPacific Partnership. It has been kept secret because the more Americans learn about it, the less we will like it. Some call the TPP the “Sneaky One Percenter Power Tool.” Listen in and le…

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Podcast

The conventional wisdom is that Hillary Clinton has the nomination. But can she win? How important is passion to the exceptional vast public momentum needed to achieve victory? Or is it best to stick rigidly to the safe middle? Vermont Senator Bernie S…

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Podcast

In 1966 it took real courage to publicly tear up one’s draft card. Bruce Dancis was just 18 when he did and he served time in a federal prison for it. He could have just used his student deferment to stay out of the war, but instead took a principled s…

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