Philanthropies came into being to launder a plutocrat’s reputation. It’s become an industry today whose goal is preserving great wealth and maintaining dominance and control. According to our guest Edgar Villanueva, philanthropy has to be more than a wealth building

The prospect of losing the power of empire brings out fear which can lead to police states. Or it can be seen as an opportunity for significant improvement. On this show, Matt Wehmeier, who spent recent years in the former

Have we learned that the military is not necessarily the best tool for the job? On this show New Republic journalist Jordan Michael Smith talks about the self imposed failures, squandering America’s power.  Right after the attack, the world was

The assault on science and reason:we’ve seen it before. In the plagues of the 1300s and in 1918, as well as Covid-19, fear and uncertainty combine to draw out extremism. On this show professor of history at Messiah University (an

The dehumanized Amazon warehouse as pictured in the movie Nomadland is more benign than reality. There is an “existential bleakness” where every instant is being watched, humans serve robots, and one can be fired by algorithm. In his powerful new

With the pandemic throwing everything up in the air, there are new opportunities for us to shape the way it all lands. Going back to the old “normal” is not the only option. On this show Joe Ryle a leader

Anything but monolithic, the newly victorious Taliban have internal divisions and are desperately seeking stability. Many confuse the Taliban with Al Qaeda and even ISIS, but the truth is ISIS was the Taliban’s enemy, and the country of Afghanistan is

Let’s face it: the current Supreme Court is hostile to democracy. Even if Congress passes the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, the voter suppression right wing will take it to this Supreme Court which will decide voting rights. Does that

Here we are well into the 21st century and we’re stuck on imperialism, a 19th century western idea. Meanwhile a new non-western, non-American, nonaligned world is emerging. And perhaps it’s a very good thing. On this show international journalist Patrick

You may not have heard of Rich Trumka who passed away suddenly August 5th. From working in the mines of Pennsylvania he served as president of the AFL-CIO from 2009 to 2021. Our guest today is once and future president

They come to us as they were from millions of years ago and today they are vital to fighting Covid and other diseases. On part one, Author William Sargent talks about his new book Crab Wars. The demand is outstripping

Great stone monuments to the glory of war serve to silence the pain. Currently four times as many troops and veterans die by suicide as in combat. Our guest on today’s show is  Moravian University professor of religion Kelly Denton-Borhaug.

It’s the ideal fear generator; there’s nothing more awful than child abuse. Intentionally whipping up  such fear is a tried and true tool for crushing democracy. Cosmopolitan globalism, the prospect of losing white male hetero dominance has been effectively played

Regime change in Iraq was on Bush’s agenda since 1998, September 11 merely enabled it. On this show is historian Larry Hartenian whose new book is titled George W Bush Administration Propaganda for an Invasion of Iraq, subtitled Absence of

Everyone knows the tax code is there to serve the richest Americans. But when it was created, the tax code was actually intended to tax only the richest. The Progressive era was a way out of the last Gilded Age

We hold their debt, they hold ours. Yet both countries are openly preparing for all out high intensity war. Flashpoints in the South China Sea. Nationalism here and in China. But as US Foreign Policy historian Lawrence Wittner explains, though

Fear leads to actions people often later regret.  Why are people who’ve been against guns now buying them up? The pandemic isolation and fear of shortages is part of the explanation for the current surge. Feeling safer beats actually being

The most dangerous thing to be in Central America is a water defender. The transnational mining interests frighten regional governments with massive lawsuits if they don’t get their way. And they have killed. But as the new book The Water

Remember Nixon’s “law and order?” It was a clever way to get whites to buy into racist repression. On this show author historian Alfred McCoy (who revealed government heroin distribution to GIs in Vietnam) says the continuing “war on drugs”

President Biden is doing what presidents rarely do: seeing reality and making a change. At no small political risk. Are we abandoning the women to Taliban brutality? Doug Bandow, senior fellow at the conservative Cato Institute, former assistant to President

While there are major challenges, there is much to celebrate. We are the only country with the same form of government since our founding in 1787. But in light of Trumpism, religious nationalists, and January 6th, how strong is our

When VP Kamala Harris went to Central America, Honduras was not on the list of stops. She has reason to not want to appear with their right wing president. He is supported by the powerful global extractive industries, but there’s

There are signs of serious splits emerging in the very conservative Southern Baptist Convention, which  is the largest Protestant denomination in America. Fifteen thousand of them just completed their annual gathering to elect a new president. The least hard liner

In the Scopes Trial of 1925, William Jennings Bryan spoke against teaching evolution, saying “I have all the information I need to live and die by.” Today’s intense fight against teaching Critical Race Theory is more of the same. To

Like many professionals, doctors and medical providers are uncomfortable with plowing new ground. But that’s what trans medicine is, and there is growing need for best treatment practices. There is very little research or precedent but the needs of trans

It’s a rich country full of poor people. With his teaching pencil as a symbol, from the countryside Pedro Castillo is the winner of the very tight but certified free and fair June 6th presidential election. The candidate of the

Michael Winship writes: “Despite Joe Biden and Kamala Harris being in the White House, we remain in existential peril.” A big step toward tyranny is Senator Joe Manchin who announced he will not support an end to the filibuster which

Women in the military know they are more likely to be attacked by men of their own company than by an enemy. It’s been a long tradition that reports of sexual abuse are crushed. Commanders protecting their own reputation takes

Is it the revenge of the “deplorables?” We’ve seen how a culture of resentment affected Germany in the early 30s, and it has brought us dangerous Trumpism today. On this show, professor of history emeritus Walter Moss looks at the

When Roe v Wade was decided in 1973, many thought the matter was settled. Nearly 50 years later, the new Supreme Court agreed to hear a case that could overturn that landmark decision. On this show abortion law historian professor