It’s been there since the very beginning of America: the struggle between ordinary people for economic democracy and the creditor class which fears and tamps down that democracy. In this hour, William Hogeland, author of two books: Declaration, and The…

Outspoken author of The Death of the Liberal Class, veteran journalist Chris Hedges says those young people at Occupy Wall Street are the real patriots, the real conservatives putting fears aside to take on what he calls “the criminal class.” On this s…

Truth-telling in the face of powerful and  fierce resistance; it’s part of our American identity. From Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle to unnecessarily vulnerable personnel carriers in Iraq, the average citizen depends on those brave enough to tell th…

Some say the fact that Hamas is against it means the proposed United Nations vote on recognizing Palestine as a state means it’s probablya good idea. On the other hand, many observers see it as a power play by Mahmoud Abbas. To analyze what’s at stake …

Fukushima. The NRC trying to ram through a 20 year extension for Seabrook. Entergy fighting Vermont’s legal power over the Vernon plant. Huge public relations campaigns to sell us on “safe clean nuclear.”  Presidential candidates talking about…

Aside from the nearly 3,000 lives lost, what lasting damage has been done to our cherished traditional American liberties? On the first segment, Burt’s guest is Marjorie Cohn, immediate past president of the National Lawyers Guild. She specifies reason…

Some progressives disenchanted with President Obama may be looking seriously at Republican Ron Paul. On this show, Alternet Washington Bureau Chief Adele Stan does just that: she takes a deeper look at who Ron Paul is and the actual positions he …

How different from the usual flock of Republican presidential wannabes is front-runner Texas Governor Rick Perry? All candidates since Reagan have sought the support of the Christian Right, but there is evidence suggesting he, and Micelle Bachmann, are…

The mainstream media have been so wary of Martin Luther King’s true message that when Glenn Beck claims to have inherited his mantle, millions actually believe him. Burt’s guest on this show, Huffington Post’s RJ Eskow takes a look at the real bra…

The Tea/Republican Party has been laregly successful in their spin that FDR failed. But beliefs once again do not match reality. Here two Roosevelt scholars, Drs. David Woolner and Thomas Ferguson,  discuss the real truth about the New Deal and it…

In 2009, the Koch Brothers’ Americans for Prosperity pushed a movement to re-instate segregation in Wake County North Carolina through a school board election. There’s a new video about the effort and AfP is threatening to sue the producers. On the fir…

The Tea Party these days looks with fondness to the 19th century as a time of rugged invidualism and unemcumbered free markets. As with so many mythic images, reality is exceedingly different. Like corporate personhood? Thank the railroads. Ever notice…

Even though the debt ceiling has been raised many times without flourish, the Republicans, with the support of the Obama White House, have effectively sucked the oxygen away from actual issues of economic security. On this show, economist James K. Galb…

Raymond Learsy is author of Oil and Finance: The Epic Corrpution 2006-2010 , and is a Reagan Republican who writes in the Huffington Post of the absolute necessity of a government which will serve small banks and their customers, instead of our new and…

In the first half hour, Democratic political strategist Rpbert Creamer says the cause of the destruction of the middle class also points to the best way out of the current Great Recession. And on the second half, investigative journalist Rick Rosoff sh…

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 belief in sc…

Many Americans see our freedom to choose as consumers as what independence is all about. But recovering corporate CEO and Huffington Post columnist Richarde Eskow on this show shines a light on how far we’ve veered from wha the founders envisioned as t…

Last year, Israel got a self-inflicted black eye by assaulting the flotilla of humanitarian aid meant for Gaza, killing 9, including one American. This year, Israel, clearly in concert with the US State Department, found other ways to stop the new flot…

Michelle Goldberg, author of Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism, and The Means of Reproduction: Sex, Power, and the Future of the World certainly knows her stuff. On this show, the columnist for The Daily Beast talks about what she’ know…

The president has ordered a partial withdrawal of combat troops from Vietnam Afghanistan. Of course popular sentiment figures into the decision, but what does it really mean for US presence in the region? Newseek/Daily Beast columnist Michael Tomasky o…

Greece is in crisis. Economist Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, looks at the causes and potential solutions. And on the second half, Christina Chauvenet, of Survival International, looks at what’s happenin…

What do former Reagan US Secretary of State George Schultz, Federal Reserve Chirman Paul Volker, the former presidents/prime ministers of Colombia, Mexico, Switzerland, and Brazil all have in common? They were all part of the just concluded Global Comm…

As the former secretary of state begins a book tour, he won’t be going to Spain or France, where there are warrants out for his arrest. More Americans are calling for his prosecution for crimes against humanity. Today’s guests are Debra Sweet, Director…

In opposing the four year extesnion of the so-called Patriot Act, Senator Mark Udall said, “Americans would be alarmed if they knew how this law is being acrried out,” and Sen. Ron Wyden said, “When the American people find out how their governmen…

Fixing elections was something from the old days of Tammany Hall and Mayor Daley, right? We’d all like to think election results can’t really be messed with anymore. But they can and are. Jonathan Simon is Executive Director of the Election Defense …

Compared to other western nations, Americans seem more accepting of our own powerlessness over institutions that run our lives. Psychologist Bruce Levine, author of Get Up, Stand Up: Uniting Populists, Energizing the Defeated, and Battling the Corpor…

At this historic crossroads for US-Israel policy, manyyoung Jews are looking at the age old problem with fresh vision. Risking being called “self-haters,” these Jewish Americans are stating their identity as proud Jews, while being critical of Is…

Our mythic history suggests America was created by God and is therefore unique among nations. We have a higher moral standing and it is right, therefore,  for us to share our benificence. Lately the term American Exceptionalism is being used by th…

The war against secession began in the spring of 1861. What was won and what was lost? Historian Kirkpatrick Sale takes an alternative look at what was changed by the victory of the North.

Up to now, the far right has suceesfully claimed the mantle of the values of America’s founders. Even Glenn Beck has stolen the title of Thomas Paine’s 1776 pamphlet Common Sense as the title of his own book. In this interview, Montana author and radio…