Keeping Democracy Alive with Burt Cohen

The environmental movement is often derided as elitist. But as our guest Liza Featherstone of the New Republic and Jacobin magazines tells it, by planting wild miniforests there’s no such polarization. The ultra-rich may have their gated sanctuaries whereas miniforests

The post Miniforests as a Joyous Part of Class War appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.

Laws intended to fight mafia crime are being used to crush legitimate protest. We’ve all seen excessive police force on campuses, and many legislators are also doing their part to chill our treasured freedom of speech and assembly. In These

The post The War on Protest Escalates appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.

For many decades the Supreme Court was reliably on the side of voting rights. Incrementally, quite steadily, the justices have chipped away at our constitutional rights. On this show Professor Josh Douglas and I discuss his new book: The Court

The post The Court Versus the Voters: Who’da Thunk it?! appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.

Another Earth Day has come and gone, and how are we doing? The 19th and 20th century systems of control of the earth have failed; there’s a connection between famines, global warming  and empire. Especially in the face of climate

The post The Earth for Humanity: A How-To appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.

Listening to working people’s concerns is key. Democrats have almost always won this constituency. That is until recently. Biden’s shift to the economic left is connecting and can yield electoral success. The New Republic’s Timothy Noah says tangible gains like

The post Yes, Biden Can WIn the Working Class appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.

Democracy is itself largely improvisation. Pushing back against the powers that be; the mainstream. Our guest Randy Fertel, author of the new book Winging It; Improv’s Power and Peril in the Age of Trump, says rationality alone is not enough;

The post The Power of What Appears to be Improvisation appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.

Truman was down and nearly out. Then he did a campaign whistle stop tour of America and beat the odds. TV eye candy is one thing but seeing a president in the flesh connects far better, and connection is needed

The post Should Biden Whistle Stop Campaign Across America? appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.

The Right gets it; where are Democrats? In his new book What it Took to Win, author and history professor  Michael Kazin looks at the last hundred or so years and says it’s clear what has and still works.  Whether

The post Trumpism is a Movement; Movements Are How Democrats Have Won appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.

After decades in a coma, the nuclear industry is back. But the truth is nuclear power is not an acceptable stopgap measure, it’s a diversion from real, actually economic, safer solutions. On this show policy analyst Paul Gunter tells the

The post Nuclear Rebranding as “Green?” Mere Window Dressing. appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.

In the current American version of capitalism, all of us are “thingified:” our only value being as digits on the way to corporate profits. This reflects a core bias in the system toward serving the very richest. But it doesn’t

The post Wealth Supremacy is On Autopilot: That’s Not the Only Option appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.