From the bottom up. That’s the approach taken by Transition Towns; how to bring people together in hard hit towns and effectivley revitalize them. Burt’s guest today, Tina Clarke, talks about communities coming together, listening to one another, shair…

What the heck is going on with Yemen? Suddenly America seems quite interested in the few Al Qaeda operatives and Burt’s guest today, Conn Hallinan, of Foreign Policy in Focus, sheds a lot of light on the complex realities behind the snapshot image you …

Cracking down on undocumented immigrants may be a priority of the hard right, but Burt’s guest today, Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum insists comprehensive reform, now working its way through congress, can be of signif…

Today’s guest is author Michael Lind, policy director of the New America Foundation, who argues that Franklin Roosevelt’s 1944 State of the Union speech ranks right up there with King’s ” I Have a Dream” speech and Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. He call…

A national organization of 17,000 physicians are urging defeat of the Senate version. Burt’s guest on this show is Dr. Thomas Clairmont of PNHP who argues the current bill is worse than doing nothing.

In the greatest recession since the Great Depression, it seems much of FDR’s New Deal is applicable once again. On this Portside, Burt’s guest is Steven Herzenberg, executive director of the Keystone Research Center. How much of the New Deal is applica…

It’s quite different from the old Parti Quebecois. At a recent convention a new left-leaning independent Quebec begins to emerge. Burt’s guest is Richard Fidler who reported on the well-attended gathering. There may be much for us who live south of the…

Cash for clunkers worked well, helping people get more fuel efficient cars. Now there’s an idea called Cash for Caulkers, a new program to create jobs retrofitting homes and businesses, addressing global warming and helping to break our oil addiction. …

It’s been a decade after the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, the Depression-era safeguard that prohibited the commingling of commercial and investment banks. This repeal gave rise to all-in-one financial behemoths like Citi, ushered in the too-big-to…

Many Americans are angry at bigness and frustrated with their own sense of powerlessness. it would be logical for these sentiments to support progressive populism, but instead the hard right seems to own it. On this edition of Portside, Burt talks with…

The international community refused to recognize the coup of June 28th, which ousted the elected president of Honduras. On November 29th an election was held, but most nations do not recognize it as legitimate. On this Portside, Burt Cohen gets the low…

In the first half, Burt speaks with Mike Madden, Washington correspondent for Salon, about his observations of the mood at the recent meeting of the Republican Governors Association. In part two, Burt speaks with political consultant Robert Creamer who…

National security: What are our tax dollars buying? Are we really securing our nation? What about jobs for Americans? On this Portside, Burt talks with Heidi Garrett-Peltier, co-author of a new report on US employment effects of military and domestic p…

As part of the House-passed health care reform bill, an amendment was added which many say is the most serious erosion of reproductive rights since the Hyde Amendment back in 1976. On this Portside, Burt Cohen looks at what it really means for women, w…

If military victory in Afghanistan is impossible, what strategy might work in our favor there? Burt’s guest Ralph Lopez, director of the Afghan Marshall Plan Exit Strategy describes what he thinks will work and what’s being done to make it reality.

 So-called fiscal conservatives worry about the deficit. But on this Portside, Evan Pollack of the Economic Policy Institute argues deficit spending is exactly what our economy needs, for both short and long term recovery. And it can’t be nic…

All political analysts recognize the women of Afghanistan are the key to peace and stability in the region. Burt’s guest on this edition of Portside is Jodie Evans, co-founder of Code Pink, who personally presented a petition to President Obama from wo…

Could the tea party activists be the undoing of any Republican surge?
While seeming to breathe new life into the party, they’re also waging war on some party-picked candidates. On the first half of Portside, Burt Cohen analyzes this turn of events wit…

On this Portside, Burt Cohen talks with Eric Bohlert contributing editor to Rolling Stone and a senior fellow at Media Matters for America about something new in American politics: the press becoming the opposition political party. Of course we’re talk…

Pulitzer Prize winning author Jane Smiley is Burt’s guest on this edition. She recently wrote “Other Economists In The Room,” on the Huffington Post in response to a piece by Paul Krugman. Economists, she argues, are missing the point regarding genuine…

According to San francisco Professor Stehen Zunes, History demonstrates the power of active, non-violent resistance. On this Portside, Burt speaks with Zunes on it’s applicability today. What are the factors which lead to real power for resistance move…

Writing on Huffington Post, the New America Foundation’s Steven Hill suggests that Obama may lack the power to realize the change Americans voted for. Of course Obama is no LBJ, but on this Portside, it seems apparent that the structure of American gov…

Not all wealthy Americans are possessed by greed. On this Portside, Burt Cohen talks with Oscar Meyer heir Chuck Collins who is heading up a new organization called Wealth for the Common Good. They are pushing to repeal the Bush tax cuts on the wealthi…

The political and social divide in America is the greatest since Vietnam.
On this Portside, Burt Cohen interviews Daniel Miller, president of the Texas Nationalist Movement. “Sovereignty or Secession” is their chant.
Should the currently united states …

Huffington Post columnist Robert Creamer (author of How Progressives Can Win) talks with Burt about what the childishness of the current crop of fringe disruptors means for the GOP. Will this become their new identity, how much risk to Republicans, and…

Americans Who Tell the Truth is the name of Robert Shetterly’s portrait series. In this Portside, Burt Cohen and Shetterly look into what it means that neither President Obam nor the Democrats stood in the way of a 21st century lynching of Van Jones. w…

 Now that pro-choice Obama is president, the anti-choice movement is reeling. Jodi Jacobson, senior political editor of RH Reality Check talks about new realities, at the federal and state level on this issue.

Americans voted for real change last November. In this Portside  Peace Action’s National Director Kevin Martin talks with Burt about how much change there is or is not. Are the weapons contractors still setting policy, or have we begun to change c…

Most Americans were shocked the horrific images of Abu Ghraib, but Alfred McCoy was not.  He’s been following the Central Intelligence Agency since the early 1970s, when it tried to stop the publication of his book, The Politics of Heroin: C…