When Americans hear the word socialism, they feel frightened. Bernie Sanders has looked to the nations of Scandinavia for models, while Hillary Clinton runs away from that. What is reality? On this show, Ann Jones (author of Kabul in Winter

Of course our democratic system of government comes from Italy. So do chocolate, cigars, and hammocks. Instead of simple brute force, the Italian style of empire building relied on commerce and culture. Guest Christopher Kelly (Italian by marriage) talks about

On January 2, 2016, our great ally, the Saudi government, cut the heads off 47 prisoners, including the revered Shia cleric Nimr al-Nimr. Shiite Iran was none too pleased. Tensions between them are at an all time high. Guest on

In the Christmas Truce at the beginning of what was then The Great War, and other lesser know fraternizing between “enemies,” it took courage to question the madness. Still today, Christmas is the one day of peace, while we feel

All the presidential contenders and all of Washington’s top brains repeatedly call for the wealthy Arab states to lead the war on ISIS. Why aren’t they doing it? Former State Department whistle-blower Peter Van Buren explains why.

Of course President Roosevelt knew the Japanese would do something, their oil had been cut off, yet we can conclude he did not know about the specific attack. What no one expected was the transformation of America from a nation

The mainstream media paints a simple picture: Turkey was merely defending itself. But America’s ally, Turkey’s Erdogan, sees his greatest enemy as the Kurds as he works behind the scenes with ISIS. He doesn’t want Russia attacking ISIS and its

On the first half, international relations and military history professor Andrew Bacevich on why western belligerence can not be successful against ISIS, and suggests what can work. And on part two, there is a move to once again prohibit those

The horror of ISIS terrorism today grew from the “peace” imposed by the most powerful Western nations on the former Ottoman Empire at the finish of the first world war, a war that never ended. Many more civilians were killed

In their chilling and intense new novel Broken! , authors Michael Kearns (who taught “enhanced interrogation”) and Ronald Solomon, former TV producer and creator, paint a vivid picture of a world only slightly different from today, filled with swarms of

http://media.blubrry.com/keeping_democracy_alive/www.dropbox.com/s/6issbyw42inhgle/ArabSpringRedux.mp3?dl=0It started out so promising: peaceful revolutions for self-determination. From Tunisia through Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Yemen, and of course Syria. Now Tunisia is the only stable secular democracy, and on this show author and professor Rebecca Gordon sheds light on

It started out so promising: peaceful revolutions for self-determination. From Tunisia through Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Yemen, and of course Syria. Now Tunisia is the only stable secular democracy, and on this show author and professor Rebecca Gordon sheds light on

It started out so promising: peaceful revolutions for self-determination. From Tunisia through Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Yemen, and of course Syria. Now Tunisia is the only stable secular democracy, and on this show author and professor Rebecca Gordon sheds light on

Perpetual war is now widely accepted. Henry Kissinger’s unique apparently amoral approach to assertion of his and America’s power still casts a shadow on America, both domestically and across the world. This new book: Kissinger’s Shadow, The Long Reach of

A hundred were killed in a peaceful rally in Ankara: who did it and why? It seems to have been ISIS, which our ally, the Erdogan government of Turkey, is actually helping. meanwhile our enemy, Putin’s Russia is helping to

The truth is finally out: Put in power and protected by Henry Kissinger, it is just now revealed that Chile’s Dictator General Pinochet personally directed the assassination of two on Embassy Row in Washington DC. And while President George W

Despite the fact that the US inadvertently created ISIS and is still arming the wrong people, and despite the fact that the US and Russia seem to be on opposite sides, Ambassador Peter Galbraith argues the region is on a

American Exceptionalism: it’s beyond mere national pride, it is an insistence that we are above the normal rules and that we are God’s gift to the world. Of course if we know someone who feels this way about him or

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. Why should we care? It was the same old American heavy-handedness which creates

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

We’ve all seen the images: refugees crammed in rubber rafts, mobbed trains, young children drowned in the seas. Hundreds of thousands are leaving war zones in hopes of a better life. But in Europe there are those who want to

Republican presidential wannabes fall over themselves to see who can hate Iran the most. And of course, ISIS is despicable. Yet with all their state run beheadings and human rights abuses, somehow Saudi Arabia remains America’s best Arab ally. Guest

Just three days after Malaysian flight MH-17 was shot down near the Ukraine Russian border, Secretary of State Kerry had all the answers. Renowned former CIA analyst Ray McGovern is convinced the secretary of state did not so much inform

Would any other country have gotten away with it? It might be best called Israeli Exceptionalism. After a 51 day war on the Gaza Strip, more than 2,200 Palestinians died and the infrastructure was devastated. Seventy seven Israelis died, all

Trading land for peace. Overwhelming military force. Drawn out negotiations. Compromises on this or that. None of it has worked nor can it when it comes to creating a sustainable peace in the Israel/Palestine region. Viewing the decades long crisis

Most of the world seems to think that the State of Israel and Judaism are one and the same. They are not. Where Judaism is thousands of years old and lived for peace with Muslims and Christians in what Rabbi

On one hand, the turnout in last November’s elections was pitiful. On the other, there are huge numbers of a massive yet largely untapped political energy. Unfortunately, the only organized political reach-out to these justifiably angry citizens so far has