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 religion professor Kelly Denton-Borhaug whose new book is

Claiming the election was stolen, “angry loyalists storming the building while overwhelmed security guards gave way. The slavishly loyal vice-president who would, the president hoped, restore him to power.” Sound familiar? This was 1986 in Manila. Author and history professor

It’s been normalized. Americans who are neither Christian nor white may not necessarily feel open discrimination, but privilege underlies everyday life. The starting point is not neutral, as we’d prefer to believe. On this show Dr. Kyati Y Joshi talks

It’s not about education reform; Republicans like Florida’s DeSantis and others are actually out to end public education. On this show, New Republic editor Kathryn Joyce looks behind such appealing phrases as Parents Bill of Rights to reveal a long

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

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

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

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

Fossil fueled fascism is not limited to the west. The roots of India’s ruling party go back to Mussolini and Nazis. Repressing minorities as they increase wealth and power of the autocratic rulers. The US is tight with Prime Minister

The greedy hyper-wealthy cheer on their Republican advocates as they fight to crush democracy. But a lot of American millionaires are also patriots and recognize that more democracy is needed to build the common good. On this show, Morris Pearl,

The similarities are uncanny and deeply disturbing: Kaiser Wilhelm II and Donald Trump share an amazing number of attributes. Such as fascination with and envy of more powerful people, the need to belittle other heads of state, believing themselves physically

It didn’t start with Trump and it won’t end when he leaves office. There is an historic pattern to strongmen and he fit the playbook perfectly.  In her new book, Strongmen From Mussolini to the Present, historian of authoritarian governments

The threat of deeply dedicated religious nationalists is not about to go away when Trump leaves office. An electoral defeat energizes them. The author of the important book “The Power Worshipers,” Katherine Stewart expounds on her recent NYTimes op-ed, titled

The word treason has been thrown around a lot lately. By Trump against his detractors and also leveled at Trump for seeking to stage a coup against America. On this show one of the nations leading authorities on the law

Why the need for dominance and control? Why the huge draw of white working class men to Donald Trump? Does the appeal of violent police somehow make up for a sense of loss of male control over everybody else? On

They went from a tiny group at the fringe to the third largest political party in Greece. In the birthplace of democracy, after a five year trial, the most significant anti-fascist trial since Nuremberg, the Golden Dawn has been convicted.

Even in a minority, fighting back carries a number of positives. On issues that matter to average Americans, Democrats have been pushed off course. Some thought the way to attract independents was timidity. As our guest Eleanor Eagan of the

The often successful tactics and techniques of America’s crime syndicate have not gone unnoticed by Trump and his gangs. In his new article: “The Mobster in Chief: Will the November Election be Decided in the Streets?” returning guest John Feffer

He called our current history education in our schools “a form of child abuse.” Teaching critical thinking and the real history of America would be shut down in Trump’s “Patriotic Education.” The popular 1619 Project and Zinn’s Education Project which

Populism is a legitimate form of anger at perceived elites dismissing everyday people. There are indeed real reasons for today’s populist anger. On this show Rutgers Law School professor Dennis M.Patterson explains why we need to take populism seriously. It

In normal times, it’s the the military making war elsewhere in the world, allegedly to protect our peace at home. But with armed white gangs afraid their dominance of America may be slipping away, and with a president egging them

We’ve seen it on the nightly news: the police, the tear gas, the fires, and the wall of moms. Our guest today, David Rovics is there in Portland Oregon and he explains that the city’s police protected the far right

As Trump kicks off his fall campaign, and we wonder who is behind it, who benefits from destroying our republic, here is the story. The religious nationalists see him as a fierce leader. They believe God sends such kings to

Blurring the lines between law enforcement and vigilantism, why are off duty police at the polling stations mainly in black and brown neighborhoods? New Jersey in 1981 is a case study in what has happened and most likely will happen

Other countries, like those we defeated, use the paramilitary domestically, not America. Or so it was before the Department of Homeland Security was transformed into the ideal authoritarian tool. Former CIA analyst and professor of government at Johns Hopkins University

Donald Trump IS the Republican Party of 2020. So what of the future of the party; is there one? According to David Smith, Washington Bureau chief for The Guardian, some party members quietly hope for a Democratic landslide so they

Trump’s experiment failed. His TV ads trying to gin up fear of protesters backfired. According to George Lakey, long time activist, retired Swarthmore professor, and author of many books, the center is now even more likely to defend against invasions

The Covid 19 crisis is being used to bolster authoritarianism around the world: Trump, Orban, Bolsonaro, the list goes on. John Feffer, director of Foreign Policy in Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies explains how the coronavirus is being

Chaos and anarchy engulfing America. Won’t that be the result of “defunding the police?” A Trump ad (audio included herein) gins up that fear. But using war-fighting methods and equipment demonstrably feeds and exacerbates violence. Fighting crime after the fact