It was the beginning of a 50 year split among liberals. Those in power, President Johnson in particular, wanted to relegate Dr. Martin Luther King to his safe civil rights leader role. But boldly, Dr. King spoke out against imperialism

It’s 2017 and no one would dispute that Germany is indeed “Europe’s pre-emininent power.” But on April 6, one hundred years ago America declared war for the explicit purpose of preventing this, though no one was really sure what the

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Instead of a foreign policy directed by civilian authority, we now have simply military policy. It’s like General MacArthur won against President Truman today. Foreign policy columnist at The Nation Patrick Lawrence describes our State Department bureaucracy as “sclerotic.” In

We’ve already seen the propensity of the angry, pumped up Trumpist mobs to violence. In his final debate performance, Donald Trump warned that his supporters might not abide by the results. Would the defeat of Trump be the end of

You think the Republicans are in a mess, look at Spain. They have been without a working government for years. The right is divided, the left is divided. Corruption is rampant. Catalonia wants to break off altogether. There are a

In addition to the three thousand lives, what else did we lose on 9/11? America’s founders wisdom carries well across a quarter millennium but the mission creep of the National Security State threatens that balance. Some see it as a

It just sounds so bad: wars for domination. The new and improved justification is “humanitarian intervention” or Responsibility to Protect (R2P). It’s prime advocate is US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power, likely to get a prime spot in a

We’ve all heard of ISIS, we know Iraqi forces flee from them. But have you heard of the Kurdish women warriors of Rojava? ISIS is scared of them. And nation/state powers like Turkey also fear them. Who are these new

It’s starting to fade. The unquestioned backing by Jewish Americans for the State of Israel is slipping.  As author Allan C Browfield discusses, Zionism actually has a short shelf life among Jewish Americans. Before 1948, it was condemned by most

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.

It’s been called the most progressive Democratic Party platform ever, but in terms of foreign policy, it’s pretty much as militaristic as ever. On this show, Phyllis Bennis, of the Institute for Policy Studies dissects the foreign policy aspects of

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

Seemingly out-of-the-way Turkey was central to a world war a hundred years ago, and after the July 15th attempted military coup, democracy looks to be quite thoroughly killed and President Erdogan is loving it. He’s a faithful American ally but

Recently released emails reveal that then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton enabled the success of the military coup in Honduras in 2009 which overthrew a democratically elected president. Instead of “hope,” it was the same old American heavy-handedness which has created