Keeping Democracy Alive with Burt Cohen

Keeping Democracy Alive with Burt Cohen

By Burt CohenSociety & CultureNewsPolitics
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Keeping Democracy Alive with Burt Cohen episodes

  • Pack The Court!
    Let’s face it: the current Supreme Court is hostile to democracy. Even if Congress passes the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, the voter suppression right wing will take it to this Supreme Court which will decide voting rights. Does that not worry you? On this show Stephen M. Feldman, law professor and author of the just published Pack The Court! A Defense of Supreme Court Expansion, explains why Biden should push to pack the court. After all, the Constitution is not mechanical, it is interpreted by each justice. The number of justices has changed many times. The right is packing courts throughout the country; and look at what Mitch McConnell did, shifting the number to 8, and then quickly packing it with Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett. You may not favor the idea yet; but give it a listen!
    1 hr
  • The Emerging Post-American Non-West Order
    Here we are well into the 21st century and we’re stuck on imperialism, a 19th century western idea. Meanwhile a new non-western, non-American, nonaligned world is emerging. And perhaps it’s a very good thing. On this show international journalist Patrick Lawrence argues that this is a uniquely important moment in history. In many nations this notion of real independence, envisioned by many inspirational leaders of the mid twentieth century, is at last renewing itself. In Africa, Asia, South America, and elsewhere, new leaders look outside the Cold War definition.  The age of imperialism really is over, and as the world changes, it is important that we discern the new directions.
    1 hr
  • After Rich Trumka: Now What for Labor?
    You may not have heard of Rich Trumka who passed away suddenly August 5th. From working in the mines of Pennsylvania he served as president of the AFL-CIO from 2009 to 2021. Our guest today is once and future president of the Writers  Guild of America East (AFL-CIO), Michael Winship who knew Trumka personally. Winship talks about Trumka’s personal style, his significance in the labor movement, how he took on anti-union propaganda and intimidation, and connected with and inspired working class Americans, making a difference in millions of lives. On his death, Obama said of Trumka: “He never failed to remind us of who we can be.” With challenges and opportunities ahead, his work on behalf of working Americans continues.
    1 hr
  • Horseshoe Crabs and Covid//Biden’s Options for China Policy
    They come to us as they were from millions of years ago and today they are vital to fighting Covid and other diseases. On part one, Author William Sargent talks about his new book Crab Wars. The demand is outstripping the supply of these creatures; we citizens can help. And on part two, it seems the China hawks are still in power. As scholar Michael Klare explains, China replaces terrorism as the justification for big Pentagon spending. But with John Kerry taking the lead on cooperating with China on climate change there are great risks as well as opportunities.
    57 min
  • Veterans and Suicide: The “Moral Injury” We Don’t Want to See
    Great stone monuments to the glory of war serve to silence the pain. Currently four times as many troops and veterans die by suicide as in combat. Our guest on today’s show is  Moravian University professor of religion Kelly Denton-Borhaug. Her new book is titled And Then Your Soul is Gone: Moral Injury and US War Culture. She explains that when a person’s moral base collides with a culture that makes war sacred, great unremitting pain is driven deep inside. If we truly value these men and women, we are obligated to see the moral injury, to listen to them. And to look at and consider change in the overall culture which puts war on a pedestal.
    1 hr
  • The Global Right’s Bizarre Obsession with Pedophilia
    It’s the ideal fear generator; there’s nothing more awful than child abuse. Intentionally whipping up  such fear is a tried and true tool for crushing democracy. Cosmopolitan globalism, the prospect of losing white male hetero dominance has been effectively played by the cult of the far right in America and around the world. They use fear of pedophilia as the right wing defunds child care programs. They  conflate such child abuse with modern social change. On this show the Institute for Policy Studies’ John Feffer dissects this bizarre imaginary agenda, with QAnon and the Republican Party painting Democrats as the epitome of evil. Remember the DC pizza shop madness?
    1 hr
  • 9/11 At 20: So, Why Did We Attack Iraq?
    Regime change in Iraq was on Bush’s agenda since 1998, September 11 merely enabled it. On this show is historian Larry Hartenian whose new book is titled George W Bush Administration Propaganda for an Invasion of Iraq, subtitled Absence of Evidence. He explains that Cheney, Rumsfeld, and others rejected any evidentiary standards. Intelligence was tailored, politicized, and shaped to fit a narrative predetermined by the White House. They knew there was no evidence of connection to 9/11. So a precedent was set for Trump’s “reality.” Have any lessons been learned?
    59 min
  • America Will Be Lots Richer With No Billionaires
    Everyone knows the tax code is there to serve the richest Americans. But when it was created, the tax code was actually intended to tax only the richest. The Progressive era was a way out of the last Gilded Age (today’s is far worse). On this show historian and sociologist Josh Mound explains that while it is complicated, there are precedents for fair taxes. Republican Eisenhower had a top tax rate of 91%–on that portion of income over a certain amount. Taxing billionaires would yield plenty of money for desperately needed infrastructure improvements. And a tax on just the richest is not going to prevent anyone from becoming very rich. It can be done.
    1 hr
  • Does it Have to be Militaristic Competition With China?
    We hold their debt, they hold ours. Yet both countries are openly preparing for all out high intensity war. Flashpoints in the South China Sea. Nationalism here and in China. But as US Foreign Policy historian Lawrence Wittner explains, though there is mutual suspicion, both countries leaders see cooperation as possible. On such things as Covid 19, human rights, and climate change. Each country has human rights transgressions and public opinion in both countries does matter. The challenge is to tamp down nationalism in both countries.
    1 hr
  • Anti-Gun Americans Become a Wave of New Gun Owners: What?
    Fear leads to actions people often later regret.  Why are people who’ve been against guns now buying them up? The pandemic isolation and fear of shortages is part of the explanation for the current surge. Feeling safer beats actually being safer, it seems. On this show Washington Post senior editor Marc Fisher talks about the “fear on top of fear” driving this new phenomenon. The unwise phrase “defund the police” is another contributing factor. And the decline in trust in our basic institutions is another. Meanwhile gun dealers became amateur therapists for a frightened people. The flames of the politics of fear, resentment, grievance, and mistrust were of course fanned by certain interests. Where does this lead? Listen in.
    1 hr

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