Keeping Democracy Alive with Burt Cohen

Keeping Democracy Alive with Burt Cohen

By Burt CohenSociety & CultureNewsPolitics
Download on the App Store

Keeping Democracy Alive with Burt Cohen episodes

  • Poverty: Change the Structure of the Game
    Despite the myths, there is less opportunity to climb the ladder out of poverty in America than in other modern nations. Did you know a majority of Americans will experience poverty in their lifetimes? And that childhood poverty costs us about a trillion dollars a year? It’s in all of our economic interests to address poverty. In the new book Poorly Understood: What Americans Get Wrong About Poverty, author Mark Robert Rank reveals many surprising truths about being poor in America and changing the policies which keep people from getting ahead. It can be done, with our new president, now is a uniquely good time!
    1 hr
  • The Price of Mythologizing Former Presidents
    Unlike other industrialized nations, America values celebrity over governing well. FDR was a rare exception,he became a celebrity because he served America so well. Then there was Reagan, who did great lasting damage to our country yet remains revered as a near saint. On this show Anthony Pahnke talks about the mythologizing of so many former presidents; simple image above complex reality. For example, poor Herbert Hoover did a lot of good but all we know is “Hoovervilles.” And now for the myth of Trump!
    1 hr
  • Demilitarizing Our Democracy
    What is this powerful hold the Pentagon has over our “civilian” government? Since Clinton’s presidency both parties have felt a need to look tough on defense; Biden and Trump competed for military support. That may be changing as America sees new heroes, those fighting the pandemic. More of us realize pouring $6 trillion into a failed war on terrorism hasn’t made us safer. On this show William D Hartung Director of the Arms and Security Program at the Center for International Policy says how the military complex is selling China as the new threat du jour but has no real policy. Perhaps the tide is turning where we can build real national security.
    1 hr
  • January 6th: Not Who We Are?
    The Trumpian mob attack on the Capitol shocked America. We thought “this is not who we are.” But maybe it actually is, more than we’d thought. If we dare to look at our history, it was not such an exception. On this show Verena Erlenbusch-Anderson, author of Genealogies of Terrorism: Revolution, State Violence, Empire says the spectacle may not be who we want to be, but there’s a lot of it in our history. The Cheney/Bush “war on terrorism” used an intentionally amorphous definition of terrorism, creating opportunities for violent government action. What is the role of violence and political legitimacy? And what can we do about it?
    1 hr
  • Two-fer: Senate Trial Realities and Biden’s China Conundrum
    On part one: By strict legal standards, Donald Trump is obviously guilty. But the impeachment trial is a political not a legal proceeding, the Republican majority senate is the jury. And according to Marjorie Cohn, former president of the National Lawyers Guild, the 45 Republicans who pre-emptively declared the trial unconstitutional intentionally gave themselves cover to declare Trump innocent despite all evidence. But his troubles will hardly be over.  And on part two, it seems the China hawks are still in power. Biden’s team in State and Defense appear equally aggressive. As Michael Klare, professor emeritus of peace and world security studies, explains, China replaces terrorism as the reason 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.
    59 min
  • Broke In America: Policies Not People Are To Blame
    When one thinks of people in poverty, what judgements come up? Did you know that the vast majority are working often two or three jobs? When you go to a bank or a mortgage, do they ask you how much you drink or what drugs you take? In the new book Broke In America, Seeing, Understanding, and Ending U.S. Poverty, co-author Joanne Goldblum alerts readers to the lack of a level playing field to start on. Most of us take water, housing, and such things as access to diapers for granted. But counterproductive punitive policies are maintaining serious poverty when there’s no need to. Of course attitude is the biggest problem.
    1 hr
  • We Can Make the Popular Vote Rule
    The Electoral College was born in a hasty compromise in the 18th century. Could it finally be about to change and enable more democracy? Though you probably haven’t heard of it, the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is moving steadily through the states. When it reaches states yielding  270 electors, if becomes law. On this show proponent David Edward Burke talks what what it is and is not. For example though many believe without the Electoral College, large liberal states would steamroll over the more rural states voters. Not true, in fact the reverse would happen. The NPVIC would make each single vote equal in value to each other. Today’s swing states would shrink in importance. The plan is 2/3 of the way there. Grassroots support can get it all the way there, increasing democracy.
    58 min
  • One Nation Indivisible: Really? Forever?
    Sure, the south was defeated militarily, but their attitudes remained, as we saw in the January 6th insurrection. What we saw is not a fringe, in fact it has deep roots. Disunity is traditional in American history. People in the north talked of secession well before the south. As our population exceeds 330 million, is one government really still able to serve us all? Can we make democracy more effective? Some dismiss talk of breaking down into more governable entities as just nuts. But our guest Richard Kreitner, author of the timely Break It Up: Secession, Division, and the Secret History of America’s Imperfect Union says in the relatively near future, it may not be nuts at all. He points out that the term United States of America was more of an aspirational claim than a name, and was known to be untrue at its time. Can we have, as Lincoln hoped,”a more perfect union?” Time will tell.
    1 hr
  • Occupy Wall St. 2011 Was Just The Start
    From its birth in one block in New York City to more than a thousand town squares, the conversation began ten years ago. It was the first social media driven movement and as Heather McKee Hurwitz writes in her new book Are We the 99%?, The Occupy Movement, Feminism, and Intersectionality, an unintentional take-away was the question of how leadership functions and doesn’t. She looks at the roles of women, black people, queers, and the homeless as compared to white men. Hurwitz focuses on the concept of intersectionality, the potential for connection of all movements for justice. It may have begun ten years ago, but the movement continues in many new ways.
    1 hr
  • New President: New Better Mideast Policy?
    No one likes an outside power coming in and having control over them. But that’s exactly what has pervaded the Middle East for over a hundred years. Some of the effects of America’s recent wars there include epidemics of birth defects and cancer in children in Fallujah, Iraq perhaps from mercury, lead, and uranium in the ground. Not the best way to make friends. On this show Mandy Terc, executive director of the Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP.org) sheds light on realities in the various countries in the huge region. She argues America could gain much from a new policy where we listen to citizens and not just give carte blanche to the Saudis and other dictatorial oil-based regimes. For example we could work with them as allies to resolve the disastrous effects of climate change.
    1 hr

About Keeping Democracy Alive with Burt Cohen

From the publisher's feed

Keeping democracy alive

More shows like Keeping Democracy Alive with Burt Cohen

Ralph Nader Radio Hour by Ralph Nader

Ralph Nader Radio Hour

1,197 Listeners

The MeidasTouch Podcast by MeidasTouch Network

The MeidasTouch Podcast

50,417 Listeners