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“Be Bold America!” Sunday, December 15, 2024 at 5:00pm (PT)

“First they came for the journalists. We don’t know what happened after that.” – Maria Ressa

Every year, Project Censored highlights the vital stories that corporate media underreported, exposes rampant news abuse, and tracks emerging threats against the press from financial and political powers

“State of the Free press 2025” comes at a time when trust in the media is at an all-time low.  A 2024 Pew Research Poll found that a remarkable 73 percent of adult Americans believe a free press is either extremely or very important to the well-being of society—though only a third of those polled believe that US media are completely free to report news.

Half of those surveyed believe that US news organizations are influenced a great deal by corporate/financial or government/political interests. Reporters Without Borders gave the US a score of 66.59 out of a possible 100 points in their 2024 World Press Freedom Index—a drop of nearly five points from 2023.

Tragically, 2024 stands out as the year that the corporate media failed to adequately cover Israel’s ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people and the threat it poses to the whole world. With their gaze trained elsewhere, the powerful got a pass from the very institution that should hold them to account.

In 2023 Reporters Without Borders labeled US press freedom “satisfactory;” in 2024, they called it “problematic.”

Interview Guest:

SHEALEIGH VOITL is the digital and print editor at Project Censored. She first began her research with the Project at North Central College alongside Steve Macek, co-authoring the Déjá Vu News chapter in the State of the Free Press 2022 and 2023 yearbooks, and the Top 25 chapter in SFP 2023. 

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“Be Bold America!” Sunday,

December 1, 2024 at 5:00pm (PT)

“Severe problems of democracy are much in the news, but actually go way back to the beginning of the country. We now want to look at how both the deep state and American fascist forces played a key role from the very beginning of the United States.” – Charles Derber, Professor of Sociology at Boston College

The two “deep states” of cultural and ideological ideals, as well as their clashing trade and other economic interests, led, as in many marriages, to an increasingly troubled relationship, that led ultimately to a violent divorce and military destruction of the Confederate deep state. But it did not end the enduring legacy of both deep states that shapes our nation’s divisive politics today.

A MAGA conspiratorial concept is that there is a “deep state.” But could there be a very real “deeper state” that has been evident throughout history, back to the founding of American democracy?

Interview Guest:

Charles Derber is Professor of Sociology at Boston College and has written 26 books - on politics, democracy, fascism, corporations, capitalism, climate change, war, the culture wars, culture and conversation, and social change. His bestselling books include The Pursuit of Attention and the Wilding of America. He writes for and has been reviewed in the NY Times, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, Truthout, and other leading media. 

His books are translated into 14 languages including Chinese, Korean, Tamil, German, Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian and Polish- and he is a bestseller in South Korea, done extended book tours in German bookstores and blues coffee houses, and has lectured in Italy in June for seven years. Derber is a public intellectual - shortlisted in 2006 by the American Independent Booksellers Association for Hidden Power, the best book in current affairs - who believes that serious ideas should be written in an accessible and entertaining style. His most recent books include Dying for Capitalism(https://ksqd.org/are-we-dying-from-capitalism/), Welcome to the Revolution, Moving Beyond Fear, Sociopathic Society: A People's Sociology of the United States; Capitalism: Should You Buy It?

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“Be Bold America!” Sunday,

November 17, 2024 at 5:00pm (PT)

“Wishing that things worked one way or another is not the same as knowing how things work. It’s when we all know how things work that we can impact things, from democracy itself to a local development project in your neighborhood.” – Fred Keeley, the Mayor of Santa Cruz, California

How does the 5th largest economy in the world … work?

What are some true stories about how California is leading the world toward a better future, from protecting women’s and voter’s rights to building a sustainable energy infrastructure? These true stories are not naïve or full of starry-eyed optimism. 

The book “How California Works”, acknowledges that many Californians, well, lets’ face it … people the world over … are confronting a myriad of crises. Yet, individuals and organizations throughout California, maybe imperfectly, are making our state better, fairer, and a safer place.

How are they doing it? The word “citizen” is a verb.

Interview Guest:

Jonathan Vankin is a senior writer for California Local and an award-winning journalist whose writing has appeared in such publications as The New York Times Magazine, Wired, Salon, L.A. Weekly and many others. He is the author of four previous nonfiction books, including Conspiracies, Cover-Ups and Crimes—the first comprehensive, journalistic investigation of America's conspiracy-theory underground, foreshadowing the current state of sociopolitical affairs by two decades—and more recently Close to Zero, a full account of Donald Trump's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Jonathan Vankin has also written comic books, TV, screenplays, and even the "book" for a hit Off-Broadway musical, Forever Dusty, about the great British pop star Dusty Springfield. He has made numerous media appearances on such networks as CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, FOX, the BBC and the CBC, as well as numerous podcasts and hundreds of radio stations.

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"Be Bold America!" Sunday, November 3, 2024

“A vote for Trump is a vote for fascism and a betrayal of American democracy and for everything it stands.”  - Judge J. Michael Luttig (R), Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, retired

Listen to this fast-paced interview that covers Congress, Fox News, the Media, Mass Deportation, the Climate Crisis, Voting,  and Oligarchs as they relate to:

What will our lives be like in our country if Trump wins? 

What will our lives be like in our country if Harris wins? 

And, if Harris wins, what will life be like after the voters rejected the billionaire-funded Republican candidate and their rightwing Agenda 47 and Project 2025 plans? 

It has come to this.

After fifty years of implementing a velvet coup, Tuesday (election day) we have been forced into deciding between two very different Americas. Elect Harris/ Walz and we continue with a democracy and the Rule of Law our founders designed. Elect Trump/Vance and our original form of government is gone and an authoritarian regime supplants it as being Above the Law.

As Timothy Snyder, Professor of History at Yale University, recently stated: “If Trump wins; America ends.” 

INTERVIEW GUEST:

Bette Dangerous, also known as Heidi Siegmund Cuda, is an Emmy-award winning investigative reporter, filmmaker, and bestselling author. She writes about American politics, culture, and Russian active measures at her Bette Dangerous substack magazine and is a political columnist and US correspondent for Byline Supplement and Byline Times. Her column Hot Type appears weekly in Byline Supplement. She is the co-host and producer of RADICALIZED Truth Survives podcast, an investigative show about disinformation and radicalization.

https://www.bettedangerous.com

https://www.bylinesupplement.com

https://youtube.com/@radicalizedpod

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What does each political party mean by “The American Dream” when they invoke this touchstone of American success? 

Our comprehending the difference between the Democratic and Republican definitions of “The American Dream” provides us a clear understanding of each political party’s motivations and the future they would design for America and whether or not "The American Dream" could be renewed.

Before Ronald Reagan’s presidency the middle class was 66% of the country. Now, it is 43%.

Interview Guest:

Thom Hartmann is a New York Times bestselling author of over thirty books and has been America’s #1 progressive talk radio show host for more than a decade. His influential show is carried on SiriusXM and radio stations nationwide, and it is simulcast as a television program on Free Speech TV.

Hartmann's latest series of books, titled Hidden History, tackles critical subjects such as guns, healthcare, the Supreme Court, democracy, voting rights among others. His newest release, The Hidden History of the American Dream: The Demise of the Middle Class―and How to Rescue Our Future, explores the erosion of the American middle class and offers actionable solutions to restore economic opportunity and fairness. With his incisive commentary and well-researched insights, Thom Hartmann continues to be a trusted voice in progressive media, engaging audiences with his articulate analysis of today's most pressing issues.

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“Be Bold America!” Sunday, October 6, 2024 at 5:00pm (PT)

How do historic documents show that fire suppression was driven by explicit racist and colonial beliefs? Is there nothing in American history that isn’t based in racism in some way? Well, fire suppress in California is and learn how in this "BurnScars", KSQD podcast during interviews with Dr. Char Miller and Dr. Peter Hess. 

There have been efforts to suppress fire in California since the 18th century Spanish invasion continuing through the US Forest Service’s relentless nationwide campaign in the 20th century. The Forest Service argues that suppression is critical for good forest management especially, but not exclusively, in the American West. Yet, in recent years, suppression has come under increasing scrutiny as a contributing factor to our current climate crisis exacerbated era of mega-wildfires.

Interview Guest:

Dr. Char Miller is an award-winning teacher and writer. Dr. Miller is the W. M. Keck Professor of Environmental Analysis and History at Pomona College. His new book is “Burn Scars: A Documentary History of Fire Suppression, from Colonial Origins to the Resurgence of Cultural Burning.” Dr. Miller’s previous book was Natural Consequences: Intimate Essays for a Planet and Peril, and he also authored: West Side Rising: How San Antonio’s 1921 Flood Devastated a City and Sparked a Latino Environmental Justice Movement, and Theodore Roosevelt: Naturalist in the Arena. Dr. Miller is a senior fellow at the Pinchot Institute for Conservation, Corresponding Member of the Society of American Foresters and a Fellow of the Forest History Society.

Guest CoHost:

Dr. Peter M. J. Hess earned his M.A. in Oxford and his Ph.D. in History in Berkeley, and writes and lectures on the relationship between religion, culture and sciences.  A former Director of Outreach of the National Center for Science Education, Peter is the author of Catholicism and Science and of numerous articles and book chapters on religious and ethical aspects of climate disruption.  Dr. Hess is qualified as a Firefighter Type Two (FFT2) and is co-founder of the Lake County Prescribed Burn Association, a consortium of trained fire practitioners. Dr. Hess is currently writing a paper for the Sierra Club on the similarities and differences between ancient cultural burning practiced by indigenous tribes in California, and the prescribed burning increasingly practiced by forest agencies, municipalities, and private groups. Dr. Hess is also a contributing chapter author in “Climate Abandoned: We’re on the Endangered Species List.”

Produced by KSQD 90.7, 89.5 & 89.7FM 

“Be Bold America!” Sunday, Sept. 22, 2024 at 5:00pm (PT)

“The coast is never saved. It’s always being saved” - Rosanna Xia

Along California’s 1,200-mile coastline, the overheated Pacific Ocean is rising and pressing in, imperiling both wildlife and the maritime towns and cities that 27 million people call home. 

What are the impacts of engineered landscapes, the market pressures of development, and the ecological activism and political scrimmages that have carved up our contemporary coastline? Do they foretell even greater changes to our shores?

 Hear about the beaches from the Mexican border to the sheer-cliffed North Coast; from the voices of Indigenous leaders, community activists, small town mayors, urban engineers, and tenacious environmental scientists on the challenges and urgency of forging a climate-wise future.

Interview Guest:

Rosanna Xia is an environmental reporter for the Los Angeles Times, where she specializes in stories about the coast and ocean. She was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2020 for explanatory reporting, and her work has been anthologized in the Best American Science and Nature Writing series. Her award-winning book, California Against the Sea, has been praised as a beautiful and revelatory exploration of how we relate to the natural world.

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“Be Bold America!” Sunday, September 8, 2024 at 5:00pm (PT)

 “When somebody has taken the time to draw up a playbook, they are going to use it.” - Tim Walz, 2024 DNC Vice-Presidential Acceptance Speech (re: Project 2025)

Call it what you want. The Republican Party is nakedly zealous about turning America from a democratic republic into a kingdom and the right-wing billionaires and their corporations are doing everything they can to make it happen … led by The Heritage Foundation, that also flew the American flag upside down after the January 6 insurrection just as did Justice Alito’s wife.

Everyone must realize that the Project 2025 scheme to dismantle the American government is for any future Republican president. It might be beaten back this upcoming presidential election but these people, who are fighting for a dictatorship, will not go away.

The right wing is not hiding it. They say it out loud and have proudly written their manifesto; their painstakingly detailed, 922-page, step-by step instruction manual titled, “The Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise - Project 2025.”  This interview with Professor John Roth, cohosted by former KGO radio talk show host, John Rothmann, will peel back its pages with an emphasis on religion, health and education.

Yes, this is a detailed plot for a coup.

Interview Guest:

John Roth, PhD, is the Edward J. Sexton professor emeritus of philosophy at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, California. Dr. Roth was named the 1988 U. S. National Professor of the Year by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Dr. Roth's expertise in Holocaust and genocide studies, as well as in philosophy, ethics, American studies, and religious studies, has been advanced by postdoctoral appointments as a Graves Fellow in the Humanities, a Fulbright Lecturer in American Studies at the University of Innsbruck, Austria, and a fellow of the national Humanities Institute, Yale University. In addition to lecturing widely throughout the United States and around the world, Dr. Roth has authored, coauthored, or edited more than fifty books, and he has published hundreds of articles and reviews.  Dr. Roth graduated from Yale University with a Master of Arts and Doctorate of Philosophy degrees.

Guest CoHost:

John F. Rothmann is a renowned radio talk show host, formerly with KGO radio, and he is a popular lecturer and political and foreign policy consultant. John has also been involved in a broad variety of political campaigns on the national, state and local levels and Richard Norton Smith called John "a scholar of modern Republicanism.” John is the co-author of two highly acclaimed books and has been on the faculty of the Fromm Institute at the University of San Francisco since 2004. 

John’s personal library of 15,000 volumes is widely recognized as one of the finest libraries of American political history and biography in the United States. Scholars, graduate students and authors in the process of research frequently access his extensive collection. Currently, John hosts his own highly successful podcast titled, “Around the Political World with John Rothmann.” John lives in San Francisco with his wife Ellen and their two sons, Samuel and Joel.

Produced by KSQD 90.7, 89.5 & 89.7FM 

“Be Bold America!” Sunday, August 25, 2024 at 5:00pm (PT)

PART 1 Covers the following:

Editor's Note: Why "Citizen” is a Verb

Foreword: Truth vs. Cynicism (written by Fred Keeley, Mayor of Santa Cruz)

Introduction: Welcome to California, the Most American State

Prologue: Explanatory Journalism, Explained

Wishing that things worked one way or another is not the same as knowing how things work. It’s when we all know how things work that we can impact things, from democracy itself to a local development project in your neighborhood. – Fred Keeley, the Mayor of Santa Cruz, California

How does the 5th largest economy in the world … work?

What are some true stories about how California is leading the world toward a better future, from protecting women’s and voter’s rights to building a sustainable energy infrastructure? These true stories are not naïve or full of starry-eyed optimism. 

The book “How California Works”, acknowledges that many Californians, well, lets’ face it … people the world over … are confronting a myriad of crises. Yet, individuals and organizations throughout California, maybe imperfectly, are making our state better, fairer, and a safer place.

How are they doing it? The word “citizen” is a verb.

Interview Guest:

Jonathan Vankin is a senior writer for California Local and an award-winning journalist whose writing has appeared in such publications as The New York Times Magazine, Wired, Salon, L.A. Weekly and many others. He is the author of four previous nonfiction books, including Conspiracies, Cover-Ups and Crimes—the first comprehensive, journalistic investigation of America's conspiracy-theory underground, foreshadowing the current state of sociopolitical affairs by two decades—and more recently Close to Zero, a full account of Donald Trump's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Jonathan Vankin has also written comic books, TV, screenplays, and even the "book" for a hit Off-Broadway musical, Forever Dusty, about the great British pop star Dusty Springfield. He has made numerous media appearances on such networks as CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, FOX, the BBC and the CBC, as well as numerous podcasts and hundreds of radio stations.

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In the new book, “Winging It: Improv’s Power and Peril in the Time of Trump”, the author explores popular cultural and public affairs, ranging deftly from the unmediated experience in Fred Astaire’s tap dancing, Frans Hal’s brush strokes, hook-up culture, psychedelic trips, social media, and Hamilton’s hip-hop to, last, though not least, the performative and demagogic posturing of Donald Trump. 

The gesture all improvisations share is “I will create this on the fly,” or as Trump has stated, “my gut knows more than my brains” This defies rationality and elevates embodied emotions, instinct, and intuition that challenges our assumption that everything of value depends upon long study, tradition, and hard work. Claiming to be free of serious purpose … improvisation only pursues pleasure. Or so it says.

Interview Guest:

Randy Fertel, PhD, is a writer and philanthropist dedicated to the arts, education, New Orleans, and the environment. Randy holds a Ph.D. in English and American literature from Harvard University and is the author of A Taste for Chaos: The Art of Literary Improvisation and The Gorilla Man and the Empress of Steak: A New Orleans Family Memoir. 

Dr. Fertel has taught English at Harvard University, Tulane University, LeMoyne College, and the New School for Social Research. He specializes in the literature of the Vietnam War and the literature of exile. In addition to his writing, Randy is president of the Fertel Foundation and the Ruth U. Fertel Foundation, named for his mother Ruth Fertel, founder of Ruth’s Chris Steak House. He is co-founder of the Ridenhour Prizes for Courageous Truth-telling, now in its 20th year. He lives in New Orleans and New York.