Oscar Meyer was Chuck Collins’ great grandfather. At age 26, he turned aside his inherited fortune. Why would anybody do that? His new book is called Born on Third Base; A One Percenter Makes the Case for Tackling Inequality, Bringing

Far from the fears right wingers had that same sex marriage would be a threat to the institution, lawyer Elizabeth Schwartz who specializes in the field, argues same sex marriage may actually strengthen the institution. Too many people go into

Prisons are a very old concept and it’s time to ask: Do they still work? Do they accomplish the goals for which they were created? What can we do with dangerous people if we do away with prisons, how can

They mostly came from big cities on the coasts. But why did fourteen young men came from rural New Hampshire in the Fall of 1936 to risk their lives in a foreign war? It was illegal for them to go

Populism has been part of our country’s identity since before the Constitution. It looked like there was a great populist uprising this year. Now, with the scare of Bernie Sanders behind them the corporate-serving Democrats are back to their “happy

The right to organize is a basic human right. So says MIT professor and co-director of the Institute for Work and Employment Tom Kochan. In the face of decades of assaults against workers rights, this election year holds realistic hope

Is the dream over? The socialist democratic Israel our parents generation dreamed of is not the right wing Israel we see today.What’s happening with Jewish Americans who are under 70? Why does the right wing Israel lobby still have so

http://media.blubrry.com/keeping_democracy_alive/dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/48358971/YoungWarComplete.mp3They call it “youth development programs.” Seven hundred million of our tax dollars are being used to lure kids into the schools-to-soldier pipeline. The mainly poor students are presented the image of exciting video games, which millions of kids love.

With Trump as president, it would be a major effort to just move back to the center. With Hillary Clinton, and sustained  pressure from progressives, forward motion is possible, if difficult. This is for progressives thinking about the election. Michael

How many women do you think have run for president? Of the 200 or so who have done it, there are three before Hillary who made a difference. In her new book, The Highest Glass Ceiling; Women’s Quest for the

From ruthless cold warrior to taking on his nemesis LBJ over the war in Vietnam, was Bobby Kennedy an opportunist? Who was the “runt” of the Kennedy litter?  In this remarkable interview, bestselling author Larry Tye tells us how Bobby’s

On the first half, candidate for NH executive council Joshua Bourdon. Beginning at about 28 minutes, Jared Beck lead lawyer for the class action lawsuit alleging the DNC failed to follow its own rules and tilted the nominating process toward

Independence day: 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

This changes everything. “Britons may have made a short term tactical mistake, but the true error is Europe’s” according to Patrick Lawrence, Salon’s foreign affairs columnist. He adds that Bernie Sanders got it right in saying, “Let’s be clear. the

They sought a better life from the Jim Crow South and freedom, but what they found was something else. It may not be bricks and mortar prison, but black citizens have been intentionally limited to specific areas on the map

From the Dadaists through Abbie Hoffman to today, the art of transforming everyday life into theater, challenging and befuddling unjust authority, has unique power to make real change. The unique new book is Tactical Performance: The Theory and Practice of

Girls of color make up 16% of female high school students, yet they make up more than a third of all girls with a school-related arrest. They are systematically pushed out of the education system, and that helps no one.

Of course the North beat the South but Southern Values also won. Northern collusion with slavery, annexing Cuba, the 1% vs the 99%, and the wisdom of Phineas T. Barnum are all entertainingly discussed in Ecstatic Nation: Confidence Crisis and

Our founders knew how essential education is to have a functioning democracy. Teachers today face challenges more than one might imagine: balancing community demands with needs of individual students. In their new book, Dilemmas of Educational Ethics, authors Meira Levinson

Adam Hochschild has written best selling books about a Belgian King’s holocaust in the Congo and another about the brave British women who fought against the insanity of the first world war. His new book is Spain in Our Hearts:

Hundreds of thousands of people in France and elsewhere in Europe gather nightly. It is huge, but you probably have never heard of it. The blackout has been intentional. It’s more than a protest, it’s a serious movement. As Sorbonne

And not just for Palestinians. With the ascent of the nationalistic right, even Jewish Israelis are feeling the sting of government assaults on democracy. Allan Brownfeld, editor of the magazine of The American Council for Judaism, explains how democracy is

To research for his new book, Thomas Frank specifically went to pro-Bill Clinton sources. Yet what he found left a profoundly negative impression of his presidency and what it did to the Democratic Party. Author of 2004’s What’s The Matter

Q: When is a donation not a donation? A: When it’s an investment. It is a rare super wealthy philanthropist who gives without need of great public recognition? From feudal times, it has been in the interests of the baronial

A teenager kills another with his knife and is tried and sentenced as an adult. Is this the best we can do? Is justice served? In her new book: Boy with a Knife, activist, author and professor Jean Trounstine explores

American exceptionalism is a reality in terms of locking up almost 5 times as many citizens as all other advanced industrialized democracies. Over the last 40 years, the incarceration rate has skyrocketed by nearly 400 percent. How did we get

They’ve been the big boys ruling their neighborhood for half a century. They really don’t want to give it up, but with their war in Yemen hurting their standing (and America’s) and the dropping price of oil, they are being

Tremendous wealth is being sheltered from taxation. The rules for the rest of us apparently don’t apply to the super rich of the world. But think about how that now-hidden wealth might help millions throughout the world. This is the

America Aflame is a major new interpretation of the civil war era. In this interview with author David Goldfield, light is shed into important dark corners, such as the tragic role played by evangelicalsm on both sides, why a post-war

It’s not just the rapacious, perhaps truly pathological greed of the super rich. The Supreme Court has actively participated in the devastation of the formerly-large middle class. According to law professor Michel Gilman, the US Supreme Court has taken a