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

  • Which America Will Be Ours After the Pandemic?
    Is this possibly a time of reckoning? As with all significant change, those in most pain today are once again leading. With Covid 19 further squeezing already low income people, many are in desperation just to survive. America has been based on a belief in scarcity, but it’s a lie; there is certainly enough to go around. The only scarcity is political will; this according to our guest the Reverend Liz Theoharis, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign. People in the streets everywhere are enraged at the injustices, and the movement is winning hearts and minds. The demand is that our economy can and must be transformed from just serving the very richest to guaranteeing rights for all. Including FDR’s freedom from want and freedom from fear. Why not adequate income and housing, along with justice for all? Eighty million without health care, 140 million living in poverty: that’s not national security.
    1 hr
  • Are We The Enemy Now?
    For nearly 20 years, the goal of America’s perpetual war has been about dominating the world. It has been largely out of sight, but now it’s on our streets. Our president has turned the weapons on us; again the goal is domination of the streets. All decked out in combat gear, the line between police and the military is blurred. The police are hired by us to defend us, not attack us. On this show USAF retired Lieutenant Colonel and history professor William Astore gives his perspective on “warrior cops.” Astore says there’s a reason why we don’t have military parades in America.What we have here is a twisted version of security, but with millions witnessing the murder of George Floyd, and realizing that there are hundreds more like that we have not seen, perhaps this is a turning point.
    1 hr
  • Trump and the Puritans: Now We Understand
    How is it that so many Americans who consider themselves religious can be so deeply devoted to a president who consistently lies and displays immoral behavior? Because Reagan and the two Bush presidencies failed; Trump is the first president to actually deliver to the evangelical right. Millions believe he is anointed by God. A remarkable amount of this is explained by British historian and lay minister Martyn Whittock in his new book Trump and the Puritans. As the Puritans of the 1600s faced chaos and turbulence, Trump likewise clears the way for the racially and culturally superior white civilization. Wealth is seen as a measure of approval by God. It is right to conquer that which is not of God. The rule of law must be over ridden by the sense of being on a moral errand. And even Covid 19 serves to amp up the support for Trumpism. A worthy listen.
    1 hr
  • The New Social Distance Way of War
    If we don’t see Americans on the front lines killing and getting killed, is it still a war? Could the pandemic make our wars disappear? On this show, retired US Army Major Danny Sjursen looks at the new social distancing version of war, and the future of our seemingly endless wars. Sjursen, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan and has taught history at West Point, argues that our new strategy: machines, militia, and mercenaries is another way to fail. With people in Somalia, Iran, and Venezuela feeling the terror of not being able to social distance from the coronavirus, when there is the added threat of attacks funded and directed by the US, the result will be more support for even repressive local regimes. Sjursen says the Covid 19 crisis really is an opportunity for systemic critique and change.
    1 hr
  • When There is No Option But North
    What would make you leave your home and family and friends? And head to a country whose president hates you? Especially in a time of Covid 19, what would possibly motivate you to take this extreme step? In her new book No Option But North, The Migrant World and the Perilous Path Across the Border, author Kelsey Freeman explains why Trump’s cruel disincentives and the realities of likely suffering ahead are insufficient to stop the journey and squash the hope for the simple ability to live one’s life. Despite the new level of ferocity by Mexican kidnappers and US authorities, along with the threat of Covid 19, until conditions are improved, refugees will come. They want what our ancestors came for.
    1 hr
  • Unions Rising in the 21st Century
    Suffering in silence is no way to manage the crisis in democracy. Union membership may be down but this moment is an opportunity to create new ways for workers to assert the constitutional rights. In his new book, Tell The Bosses We’re Coming: A New Action Plan for Workers in the 21st Century, labor organizer Shaun Richman says that updating adjustments are needed to laws on the books since the 1930s. About 60 percent of workers want to be unionized but have  been frightened by many employers having seceded from the labor relations protocols. But there has been good solid news for collective bargaining in 2018-19 and Richman offers a new perspective on action plans, including the model of German Workers Councils.
    1 hr
  • Never Again? Denying The Crime Is Part of the Crime
    Denial is the final stage for a successful genocide. Since Nuremberg, we’ve heard the phrase “Never Again.” But that requires facing real history, hearing the voice of the victims not just the winners. Though the Turkish genocide of a million and a half Armenians occurred a hundred years ago, while the rest of the world acknowledges the fact, Turkey still will not. On this show Armenian genocide expert Peter Balakian and Karen Murphy director of International Strategy at Facinghistory.org talk about why this remains an important topic in the 2020s. The effort to wipe out cultural identity continues, grassroots action must never experience compassion fatigue. Future generations depend on us.
    1 hr
  • Trump May Yet Have to Answer to the Law
    Though President Trump openly tests the legal system and seems to flaunt the law, he may still have to answer and be held accountable. Yes, even though he’s made so many judicial appointments. Law professor and former general counsel to the House of Representatives Stan Brand says that the seeds of imperial presidency were planted long ago; Trump is a symptom not the cause. But Brand says there is a lack of legal precedent for direct confrontations between congress and the president so this is new territory. Legal processes take a long time and delays do help Trump. Brand explains that the apparent violation of the Constitutional Emoluments Clause is still in litigation. And we may yet see his tax records. The balance of power and whether we are a nation of laws remains at question.
    1 hr
  • Celebrated To Death: Afghan Vet on Memorial Day
    Memorial Day 2020. In 2009 at age 23 Erik Edstrom went to Afghanistan as an infantry officer, Army Ranger, and became a Bronze Star Medal recipient. In this Memorial Day of the Covid 19 era, he dug up his journal from the time and on this show shares his valuable insights on war and the real meaning of patriotism and national security. He describes much of the mission in Afghanistan as a “self licking ice cream cone,” and that Taliban “whack-a-mole” policy fails. He questions our current “fetishizing” of the military, not seeing the reality of wars but consuming the sanitized commodity. Veterans need more than a slap on the back, we really serve them and our national security by questioning policies and the expenditure of billions.
    1 hr
  • Industrial Strength Denial: Is the Truth Still Powerful?
    Ever since slave traders insisted the kidnapped people were enthusiastic about coming to America, many big businesses have thrived on lies. Remember doctors saying cigarettes were OK? Industrial Strength Denial is the name of a new book by former environmental attorney and Minnesota assistant attorney general. How is it that people can so easily lie when they are in a corporate tribe? What practices work to keep Americans believing lies? What role does our fractured information system play in believing lies? How effectively have they manufactured doubt? Freese addresses these questions and expresses optimism that we may be turning a corner, that possibly the Covid 19 has boosted the public demand for real science and reasonable protection and regulation.
    1 hr

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