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…

On this Portside, Burt dicusses the roots of the health insurance reform debate with UMass economics professor Richard Wolff, who argues the trend has been our govenrment answering to big money interests more and more. Yet he believes the Blue Dogs mig…

Standing in the way of Obama’s health insurance reform are the Blue Dogs, a group of conservative Democrats in Congress. On this edition of portside, Burt talks with Donna Smith, legislative advocate for the California Nurses Association about who the …

Here  he comes to save the day!  Not Mighty Mouse, Dennis Kucinich. On the first part of this Portside, columnist Joshua Holland explains the Ohio congressman’s plan (with bipartisan support) to save single payer health care by enabling…

Is the American Clean Energy and Security Act a good first step or does it effectively lock pollution in place? On the first half of this edition of Portside, Burt Cohen talks with Jesse Jenkins of the Breakthrough Institute about the questionable good…

The House-passed Waxman-Markey Bill may do little to cut emmissions and create green jobs in America, but wall St stands to gain a lot. Burt Cohen talks with Teryn Norris of the Breaktrough Institute on the first half. In part two, Burt talks with Auth…

At last gay couples are gaining the right to marry. But given how often marriage is sexless and oppressive to the individuals involved, others are wondering: Is it time to rethink the whole institution?  On this edition of Portside Burt Cohen talk…

Have you had it with creeping centralization? Bugged that your tax dollars are being used to prop up bigness? Well there may be an answer. On this edition of Portside, Burt Cohen talks with author Paul Starobin, whose article “Divided We Stand” appeare…

With the political and cultural demise of America’s right wing evangelicals, what next for the Christian church? On this edition of  Portside, Burt Cohen speaks with Rev. Scot McKnight, internationally known speaker and professor of religious stud…

In the 1990s, the president and Democrats in Congress rubber stamped billions in aid for Israel, not matter what. On this Portside, Burt Cohen talks with Stephen Zunes, chair of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of San Francisco and senior polic…

Candidate Barack Obama made closing the prison camp at Guantanamo one of his first priorities. Now he and the Democrats seem to be dithering. On this edition of Portside, Burt Cohen talks with Rolling Stone columnist Mat Taibbi about Obama and the Demo…

Afraid to be called flip-floppers, many politicans act on beliefs instead of new realities. On today’s Portside, Burt Cohen talks with philosophy and logic professor John Kozy about the friction between old mindsets and new challenges, and how this end…

It looks like the US senate is about to make the global economic downturn worse…with your tax dollars. On this edition of Portside, Burt Cohen first talks with economist Mark Weisbrot about the plan to slip over a hundred billion of our dollars to th…

Ann Jones, author of Kabul in Winter, is Burt’s guest. She spent years in Afghanistan and reveals much about realities on the ground and what’s in store for what’s become Obama’s war.

Will Obama End the War on Drugs? On this edition of Portside, Burt’s guest is Peter Christ,  a twenty year police veteran of the drug war and now a spokesperson for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. What are the changes we can expect? Could the…