The right wing depends for its power on people not reading. Books have always been subversive. They lead to critical thinking. On the first part of this show, Ken Gloss,  proprietor of the internationally renowned Brattle Book Shop talks about

Violence at anti-Trump protests is a gift to the powers being protested. Just as the Weathermen in the late sixties were greatly appreciated by Nixon, so too the Bannon/Trump Right loves to label protestors as violent thugs. A veteran of

“Just following orders” is no defense. In a democracy we assume that individuals in society will take personal responsibility and disobey immoral commands. But as many experiments have shown, people rarely question orders from authorities. Our guest on this show

http://media.blubrry.com/keeping_democracy_alive/dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/48358971/LowerEd.mp3At for-profit universities, they’re not admission offices, they’re sales forces. It’s no accident that today for-profit colleges and universities are proliferating. They exist to turn a profit for investors, and that means maintaining a class of low income people. Instead

“Voting third party helps those you despise.” So argues Raymond Buckley, who recently ran for chair of the Democratic National Committee. The fact that the race was high in the news demonstrates the beginning success for necessary changes in the

Liberals were shocked by the outcome of the 2016 election. As they were in 1920 when Republicans put up Warren Harding, a big business Republican who campaigned and won on an America First message, stoking the public’s fear of immigrants

Asleep in her home the night of March 2, 2016, Berta Caceres was murdered. The military police of Honduras are suspected. But the government failed to stop her work: there are many more Berta Carcereses today. A government getting much

Telling the truth to power shouldn’t take courage, but it certainly does. On part one, Peter VanBuren, whistle-blower and author of We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People, describes

Imagine being a proud part of the military for decades, serving as strategist and then it lands on you: our policy is a failure. Major Danny Sjursen in his inaugural Tom Dispatch post writes from a unique perspective on what

Never motivated by serving the common good, powerful old-school Republican leaders such as James Baker, George Schultz, and Henry Paulson have put forward a proposal for a carbon emissions tax to fight climate change. You ask: why would they do

We’re all familiar with 1776. But before the actual separation from England, there was revolution across the land. The spirit of 1774 was focused on class-blind democracy and a lot of what happened then, with powerful actions from the grassroots

” They didn’t call it fascism. They painted it red, white, and blue, and called it Americanism.” That’s from a 1942 movie with Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy called Keeper of the Flame, which imagines a full fledged homegrown American

http://media.blubrry.com/keeping_democracy_alive/www.dropbox.com/s/f79eihtv7eu5zse/NeoSlaveryEverGreen1.mp3?dl=0Most of us believe what we were taught in elementary school: that enslaved blacks were freed by the Civil War. The truth is far grimmer. In this gripping discussion (recorded during Obama’s term) Douglas Blackmon, author of Slavery by Another

Do they really intend to destroy the economy and serve the short-term greed of billionaires, or do they just mouth simplistic phrases and really not know what they are doing? We deon’;t really know. The Bannon/Trump Administration is taking aim

Aside from the blatant racism, the shocking authoritarianism, and the disregard for the Constitution and laws, President Trump is unwittingly causing the end of a long period of unquestioned world dominance by the USA. According to our guest The Nation

Everyone knows Eleanor Roosevelt, but her other half was Lorena Hickock. They were as was said “intimate partners,” who greatly influenced FDR and the New Deal. A most unlikely couple: Eleanor from wealth and privilege, Hick from nothing of the

With the mainstream finally focusing on reducing carbon emissions, the highly capitalized nuclear industry is once again trying for a rebirth. This time as a carbon-free answer to help reduce climate change. But according to guest veteran investigative reporter Karl

She traveled 12,000 miles through 18 states and five Indian reservations to discover what local people are doing to address problems of racism, climate change, and economic inequality. Ordinary people doing extraordinary things in places you would not expect. Author

Sometimes citizens must break the law to uphold the law. History shows that sometimes patriotic resisting requires taking personal risks. But how to determine which risks are worth it and will yield the results we want? For a long time,

They were real conservatives. They worried that our republican form of government was at grave risk if America joined the first world war over there. Michael Kazin’s timely new book is “War Against War: The American Fight for Peace 1914-1918.”

Over 3,000 prominent scientists, musicians, religious leaders, intellectuals, artists, actors, and others signed on to a full page ad in the January 4 New York Times, with the bold letters, “NO! In the name of humanity, we REFUSE to accept

While some argue Christmas is really a religious Christian holiday, that’s just not the case. The holiday has been with us for hundreds of years before the birth of Jesus and only morphed into what we see today as Christmas

Is America merely a conduit for corporate wealth? Is the earth merely for exploiting without care? Trump’s designate to be secretary of state, Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson is all that an more. Though the job of SoS is about

People are asking: what can we do to fight the new authoritarianism? Our guest argues: “People  power need not be confined to a chant.” Keeping decision making close to home is something both right and left can agree on; municipalization

You’ve probably heard of the famous Christmas Truce of 1914 between the trenches of the British and German soldiers. These were indeed brave men. Today it seems anyone with a uniform is dubbed a hero, but what about the peacemakers?

75 years ago on December 8th, war came. What no one expected was the transformation of America from a nation which craved peace to one which thrived on militarism. On this show, military historian Christopher Kelly, author of “America Invades:

Indigenous Americans for over 300 years have been treated as invisible; treaties and promises routinely ignored. Mainstream media ignored it as long as they could for fear of upsetting advertisers but pressure kept building and, surprise: the water protectors put

Most of us thought Right to Work was a 20th century scheme to destroy collective bargaining rights. According to Cedric DeLeon, author of The Origins of Right To Work: AntiLabor Democracy in 19th Century Chicago, it started out as a

Trump won’t do it; time now to push Obama to bring justice to a grave injustice. When guest on this show Robert Meeropol was six his mother Ethel Rosenberg was put to death. Knowing she was innocent, our government held

The Vikings were brave explorers and they found wondrous new things. Today Scandinavia holds promise of how America can become happier and more free. George Lakey, author of the new book Viking Economics, talks about struggling toward something rather than