It’s African and Catholic. Caribbean and European. Our guest Jason Berry’s new book is called City of a Million Dreams: A History of New Orleans at Year 300. And talk about colorful. For cultural identity, Allen Toussaint clashes with Robert

Liberal-initiated efforts to eliminate poverty have been top down for about 50 years. But to be successful, development can’t be done to them from on high; it has to be done by the people most affected. We shouldn’t have low

After nearly 50 years, she’s back in the news, and she keeps on pushing.  Angela Davis gained fame/notoriety as the Afro-coiffed California professor/activist speciously charged with helping Jonathan Jackson trying to free his brother George, author of Soledad Brother, from

A wall isn’t going to work. What will work is addressing the reasons desperate Central Americans walk a thousand miles. Foreign Affairs columnist Patrick Lawrence suggests ways to alleviate the conditions causing the caravan. And on part two, why did

At its birth, American populism was about economic fairness: The average citizen demanding power over his or her own life against the un-American economic royalist political influence of the rich and powerful. But that was then. Populism today is cultural:

In an unprecedented power grab, Republicans in Wisconsin are doing all they can while they still have the power to shut out democracy itself. On part one, The Progressive’s Ruth Conniff in Wisconsin describes the brazen moves by the lame

When myths inform legislation, harm often results. So much of today’s welfare reform, based on myth, works to keep people in poverty. It’s been created from a top-down, men-dominant model and it brings not dignity but despair. In her new

America was not created as one nation. There were, and still are, eleven distinct nations in North America. The recent midterm elections show that we remain more and more like a set of different nations divided by geography. To gain

It may not be as blatant as cross-burning but redlining is racism. Federal lending rules encourage banks to discriminate against mortgages for black people moving into white neighborhoods. While it was technically made against the law with the Fair Housing

Who is in the caravan and why don’t they stay in Central America and try to make it better? Because those who do often end up dead. Journalist Peter Tinti reports that in Honduras “Corruption is the operating system and

It’s been said that “the tools that built the master’s house will never dismantle the master’s house.” Philanthropy today reaffirms the culture of colonialism: white saviors, white experts. Recipients are at-effect rather than at-cause of the well-meaning aid. In his

Ask today and everyone will tell you the American Dream is individuals becoming super rich. But the more traditional definition was one of equal opportunity and justice for all. Americans shared a belief in the social contract and a sense

No matter how hard the Trump Administration tries to keep America ruled by moneyed white men, new Americans are successfully invigorating the democratic process. Often more dedicated to America’s principles than those of us who were born here and take

Remember your not-so-great high school days? Remember wanting to be respected while being consistently treated as less-than? According to author Eric David Dawson, “the system is set up to be destructive of everybody.” His new book, Putting Peace First: Seven

Nearly every inch of Africa used to be owned and controlled by the colonial powers: British, French, German, Portuguese, Belgian, Spain. Mussolini’s Italy finally went after its share with a one sided assault on Ethiopia in 1936. Is the long

Blood in the streets. Chaos at the convention. The establishment Democrats won and then they lost. From the vantage point of 50 years later, it may surprise some how less has changed and been learned than we might have thought.

America’s prisons are where we warehouse and punish bad people. But how much injustice behind the walls and razor wire is acceptable? Is using inmates as slaves OK? Is it a good idea to maintain a system that reinforces people’s

Much like the toxic combination of angry racist populism with the power of the financial elite here in America, the European Union has been a brake on this dangerous combination in England. Today the British Right’s push for the UK

America is shocked at the sight of 2500 migrant kids in cages. But behind high walls are over 50,000 American kids.This is invisible for a reason. According to Professor Cara Drinan, expert on juvenile sentencing and criminal justice reform, if

It may be out in the open now, and it is disconcerting to see and feel the blatant racism and hatred across America now. But maybe the ugly spirit of white supremacy may have been hidden from white people before 

We need a photo ID to buy liquor or fly on an airplane, so what’s the big deal about needing one to vote? Don’t we need to stop voter fraud? Actually voter ID is a solution in search of a

There’s a basic and universal human need to feel like we belong. In this ever more isolating world of sharply divided news media and working alone, the opportunities to make connections are reduced. So in this need for tribal belonging,

How did Bobby Kennedy change from the Red Scare helper of Joe McCarthy to the liberal icon? According to a new book,it was visiting desperately poor families in the Mississippi Delta in April of 1967. In her Delta Epiphany: Robert

Stormy Daniels and the Russia investigation grab all the headlines about Trump, but his flagrant violation of the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution is the best chance to get him removed. “Emoluments?” Our first guest CommonDreams.org journalist Julia Conley explains

Immigrants under Trump are painted as the dangerous “Others.” Yet despite the successful campaign of fear, the reality is immigrants are more likely to be good hard working, law abiding citizens than Americans as a whole. Journalist Arnold “Skip”Isaacs, who

The pervasive myth of kids just needing “grit” and lifting themselves up by their own bootstraps is false and is doing real harm.Our guest today Linda Nathan spent fourteen years as founder and co-headmaster of Boston Arts Academy, Boston’s only

If you are a sixteen year old girl, standing up to the men of the Israeli military is highly risky. You may not have heard of Ahed Tamimi. She is being held in an Israeli jail for slapping an Israeli

Both parties in recent decades have bought into the idea that letting private business needs dictate the direction of public schools will help education. According to Noliwe Rooks, director of American Studies at Cornell University, de facto segregation in public

No side won, America lost. The so-called civil war (a civil war is a fight to take over the government; this was not) was America’s biggest failure, started by radical evangelicals on both sides. Lincoln was not the president of

It took a long time but Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions worked to end South African Apartheid. Now powerful forces are working in the US congress to penalize businesses and individuals who express support for BDS against the State of Israel.