Author Archive

Burt Cohen

Podcast

The Tea Party claims to carry the banner of the founders of the United States, but an examination of history demonstrates they are anything but patriotic. Award winning journalist Robert Parry (of Iran/Contra reporting fame) explains what’s really behi…

Read More
Podcast

On the first half, we look at some significant success young undocumented residents have begun to make in their fight against the fear of sudden deportation and the breaking up families by the government. United We Dream won a prestigious award, from t…

Read More
Podcast

The Department of Defense recently, and very quietly, changed regulatory rules regarding law enforcement in the US, giving itself broad new powers over and above state and local law enforcement. Using intentionally vague terms like “domestic disturbanc…

Read More
Podcast

In early May, former dictator Rios Montt was convicted in his own country, Guatemala, of genocide. Then three weeks later, apparently due to extrajudicial political pressures, that conviction was thrown out. Professor Colin Snyder provides some needed …

Read More
Podcast

Who says the age of worker militancy has passed? The world took notice when the suddenly out of work, former employees of Republic Windows and Doors occupied their factory in 2009. But that was only the beginning. Now The workers own it and manage what…

Read More
Podcast

Throughout history, humanist leaders have dreamed of finding a way to move humanity beyond poverty, prejudice, injustice, hate and war to a new era of equality, enlightenment and empowerment. All past efforts have fallen short, yet they have mo…

Read More
Podcast

Heroin and smoking addiction.The huge challenges of treating PTSD. The moral and spiritual impacts of psychedelics on humans and society. These are some of the topics addressed by nearly 2000 participants, including over 100 of the world’s lead…

Read More
Podcast

There are great opportunities in Mexico that can benefit both countries. Opportunities the presidentchooses to not see. On the first half of the show, Professor Robert Pastor, author of The North American Idea: A Vision of a Continental Future, tlaks a…

Read More
Podcast

Beginning in the 1930s, liberalism and Southern-style white supremacy worked well together. Today’s guest Jeremy Kessler argues that it is liberals themselves who shoulder the blame for accomdating racist Jim Crow policies. As a result, Southern values…

Read More
Podcast

Underlying a multitude of troubling issues is the matter of undue corporate power. The Supreme Court unloosed the dogs of this power with the Citizens United decision. This show looks at efforts to amend the Constitution to overturn this terrible decis…

Read More
Podcast

A major new report on the use of torture was recently released. It is an unquestionably non-partisan report that raises deeply troubling questions about the status of America itself in the wake of the approval of the use of torture at the highest level…

Read More
Podcast

Most Americans see money go from their pocket to…who knows where? Today’s guest is the National Priorities Projects’ Mattea Kramer, who leads their research program on the federal budget, spending and tax policy. From what she found, it turns out the…

Read More
Podcast

Judy Wicks’ new book is Good Morning Beautiful Business; The Unexpected Journey of an Activist Entrepreneur and Local Economy Pioneer. It’s a new 21st century way of doing business. And in this discussion she describes a model both left and right can a…

Read More
Podcast

It seems they exist in a world above everyone else. The big banks play by their own rules, which certainly appears to be greed pure and simple. Of course the rest of us pay the price. Dearly at that. Senior Fellow at the Campagin for America’s Future R…

Read More
Podcast

They were performers, not philosophers, and maybe that’s why the impact they had on the current identity of the American political left can hardly be overstated. Purdue University political science professor Harry Targ talks about the significant impac…

Read More
Podcast

There used to be momentum privatizing publuc utilities. But now it’s swinging back to public ownership and control. On part one, Slate columnist Matt Yglesias looks at what it means for the common good.And on part two, Ian Millhiser, Senior Constitutio…

Read More
Podcast

The wealthiest Americans in the country have disproportionate influence over our nation’s leaders. Problem is, as F Scott Fitzgerald noted, the rich are different. Today’s guest, Professor Benjamin Page, is co-author of a new study of th…

Read More
Podcast

America’s war on Iraq started ten years ago on March 19 Some four thousand Americans and well over a hundred thousand, possibly close to a million Iraqis died. On part one, journalist Greg Barrett talks about what he witnessed among Americans and Iraqi…

Read More
Podcast

The old powers-that-be don’t want the truth about the Kent State Massacre to ever see the light of day. Others are determined to have that truth known and justice to be done. On part one, Laurel Krause, whose then-19 year old sister Allison was killed …

Read More
Podcast

We all have images of the Ku Klux Klan as rabid terrorists. But the frightening reality is they were just average white men of the South. In his new book, Klansville USA, author and sociologist David Cunningham delves into the American cultural and poi…

Read More
Podcast

A bill to help business create jobs, tax carbon, and save billions on disaster relief has been introduced by Senators Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA). Here Darren Springer, Senator Sanders’ chief counsel, describes what it is and how it …

Read More
Podcast

The military industrial complex is well aware of the power of Hollywood, that’s why they spend gobs of money to influence those productions. But artists will be artists and not all Hollywood productions satisfy the desires of the militaristic plutocrat…

Read More
piggy bank
Podcast

It may sound fair, but in reality, “Fix the Debt” is the same folks as the bogus No Labels group. Depite the title, it’s not about cutting the deficit and reducing the debt, it’s really about rich people staying rich and siphoning all the public money …

Read More
Podcast

The Cold War and Red Baiting of the 50s. America’s war in Vietnam. Civil rights and women’s equality. All would have been far different had the Democratic machine not replaced FDR’s vice president Henry Wallace with their own choice Harry Truman at the…

Read More
Podcast

On the first half hour it’s Dan Kessler, spokesperson for the environmental group 350.org, discussing the upcoming Washington rally on February 17th to push Obama on the Keystone XL pipleine in specific and climate change in general. He needs the push!…

Read More
Podcast

No one would have thought it possible. Prosecution in an international court would have been stunning enough. But now the amazing has happened: President Reagan’s buddy, Guatemala’s dictator in the early 80s, General Efrain Rios Montt is on trial for g…

Read More
Podcast

On the first half, Marc Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research talks about a new report on how policies of the International Monetary Fund are affecting the people of Western Europe. Their policies are supposed to boost ec…

Read More
Podcast

It used to be that homeless women over 50 were blessedly rare. Now it’s become the norm. San Francisco radio host Rose Aguilar went out on the streets and what she found should disturb all Americans.

Read More
Podcast

And we thought the Libya war was tucked neatly away. It seems all those weapons, loosed from the old Qadaffi regime, are now set loose in the desert nation of Mali, a former French colony. French forces are on the ground and in the air, fighting agains…

Read More
Podcast

The belief that the Second Amendment guarantees every individual the right to possess and carry any sort of gun anywhere is exceptionally recent. Guest on this show is Alternet senior fellow Stephen Rosenfeld, who has written a series of articles revea…

Read More