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

  • Trump Provocateur Against Democrats//Weaponizing Coronavirus on Iran and Venezuela
    Whatever you say about Donald Trump, he is a skilled provocateur. The instant Bernie Sanders suspended his campaign, there was Trump, sowing divisions, insisting Bernie supporters “have a home” in the Trump campaign. Of course very few would ever fall for this but as guest Eion Higgins senior editor at Commondreams.org notes, not all Bernie people are Democrats. He also notes many Trump ’16 voters are disillusioned now but need to be sold on Joe Biden. The Democratic Party has long been divided of course between the right-leaning Hillary wing which controls the DNC, and the millions of traditional working people/liberals. The good news is likely that Trump, as usual has no plan. And Biden: will he pick up what Bernie has been laying down? And on part two, law professor emerita Marjorie Cohn sheds light on Trump and Pompeo’s use of coronavirus against Iran and Venezuela. We are not powerless, congress has a bill!
    58 min
  • Rebel Cinderella: A True Story You’ve Never Heard
    We’re all fascinated by Cinderella stories. This one happens to be true, with many twists. Extremely rich WASP man marries very poor Jewish immigrant in 1905. But she turns out to be the strong one. The new book by Adam Hochschild (King Leopold’s Ghost, To End All Wars, Spain in Our Hearts) is called Rebel Cinderella: From Rags to Riches  to Radical, The Epic Journey of Rose Pastor Stokes. Under Woodrow Wilson the anti-immigrant, clamp down on the free press, anti-war turned pro-war president, Rose Pastor Stokes became a huge lefty celebrity. There’s a lot that foreshadows the feminism and Trumpism of today.
    51 min
  • Realistic Optimism for Actual Democracy
    Sure the super rich and powerful want us to accept our powerlessness. But we are not! Since the rule of white male aristocrats, the struggle to tamp down voting has been consistent and largely successful. The are determined to hold power. But not only is that not supposed to be how it works n a republic, but there is ample reason for optimism going forward to the next election. In his new book, Vote for US, How to Take Back Our Elections and Change the Future of Voting, author and law professor Joshua A.Douglas gives examples of average people, “Democracy Champions,” making great strides at the local level to increase voting participation. Ranked choice voting and enabling 16 year olds to vote are just some of the ways to increase democracy.
    1 hr
  • When Political Parties Lose the Consent of the Governed: The Civil War and Donald Trump
    Why did so many Obama voters go for Trump in 2016? What happens when party elites don’t know how to react to changes of popular opinion at the ground level? While they may try to do both: keep the elite and powerful happy as well as absorb the populist movement, the two establishment parties often fail. Sometimes with most unpleasant results, such as the Civil War and the election of Trump. In his new book Crisis! When Political Parties Lose the Consent to Rule, author and labor organizer Cedric deLeon argues that the Clinton wing in 2009 intentionally crushed Obama’s “New New Deal” agenda, so social and economic inequalities were left to fester, leading directly to the ascension of Trump to the White House. And in discussing the crises that led to the Civil War, deLeon argues that the myth that slave owners caused southern secession is wrong, that these wealthy elites wanted to remain in the Union! DeLeon cites recent strikes in red states like Kentucky and West Virginia as examples of ways to force the parties back to serving the popular will.
    1 hr
  • “Conservatives” Not At All Conservative
    Pure individualism is not conservatism, much as though people who call themselves conservatives like to think it is. They’ll tell you the American Dream is individuals becoming super rich. But the more traditional definition is one of equal opportunity and justice for all. A shared belief in the social contract and a sense of society as a moral economy. So says historian Sarah Churchwell whose new book is “Behold, America: The Entangled History of ‘America First’ and ‘the American Dream.’” Her research revealed that the conservative American Dream was “opposed to economic inequality and laissez faire capitalism,” and that “a hundred years ago billionaires were considered un-American.” The phrase “America First” however has no similarly benign roots. It’s always been a fig leaf for racism. The KKK used it as a slogan, and it still means the same thing. Can we still recover the conservative American Dream? We need liberals to do that.
    1 hr
  • Railroaded: How We Got To Modern Corporate America
    From the pre-coronovirus archives:  Nostalgia looks with fondness to the 19th century as a time of rugged individualism and unemcumbered free markets. As with so many mythic images, reality is exceedingly different. If you like corporate personhood, thank the railroads. Ever notice how, in labor strife the gov’t generally takes the side against the workers? Curious about the decision making process for big polluters? Again, look to railroad history. That 19th century behemoth, the powerful machinations of the transcontinental railroads, gave us today’s corporate rule.
    59 min
  • Out of Disaster A Liberal Renaissance in the 1920s: House of Truth
    From the Covid stay-at-home greatest hits:  Patriotic Americans were shocked by the outcome of the 2016 election. As they were in 1920 when Republicans put up Warren Harding, a big business Republican who campaigned and won on an America First message, stoking the public’s fear of immigrants and clamping down hard on freedoms of the press and of speech. Then liberals came roaring back to a point where today, many decades later, Republicans are still fighting to destroy liberalism’s significant accomplishments. In his recent book, House of Truth: A Washington Political Salon and the Foundations of American Liberalism, author Brad Snyder shares the story of a townhouse near Dupont Circle which served as gathering place for such notables as Oliver Wendell Holmes, Felix Frankfurter, Walter Lippman, and Louis Brandeis, to name a few. Liberals ended up gaining power from being out of power. Can their success be replicated today? Absolutely, Snyder argues: Focus now on the system of justice and we can link populist concerns with liberal values.The story includes Sacco and Vanzetti, the creation of Mt Rushmore, and corruption affecting flyboys in WWI. One of the best books I have ever read.
    1 hr
  • The Rise of History Education:Vital for America’s Future
    Many, including Trump, reject science and embrace myth instead. But just as technological advance depends on knowledge gained through science, so the future of America relies on knowledge of our history. Until recently it has been tough times for History departments. While many parents still see STEM education (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) as the only worthy college investment, with the rise in robotics and Artificial Intelligence, humans will still be needed to supervise. And human direction and values are still vital.  Bizarre Trumpism has sparked a rise in interest in learning history. Our guest, author and journalist Knute Berger gives reasons why we need history majors to shape our future. Today’s challenges didn’t just pop up from nothing.
    1 hr
  • Is Smaller Better? Devolution Considered.
    Creeping centralization. Tax dollars are being used to prop up bigness. Well there may be an answer. While I’m on vacation, enjoy this 2009 show with author Paul Starobin whose article “Divided We Stand” appeared  in the Wall Street Journal. We’re talking about real devolution, America breaking up into more realistic groupings, new voluntary associations of states. Starobin suggests new regional governments may be inevitable with the collapse of the top heavy US economy. And perhaps it could united both left and right!
    58 min
  • Lincoln and his Antithesis in Today’s White House
    How far can democracy unravel? Republican Lincoln was determined to hold America together, Republican Trump is determined to us apart. Just ahead of his new book on Lincoln, Summoned To Glory, history professor Richard Striner sheds light on a Lincoln not well known: a fiery speaker who spoke with amazing prescience about a future where we find ourselves today. He foresaw a tyrannical madman. Lincoln’s then-new party is transformed into worshiping only power, period. Relying on the use of fear and hatred of others. The interests Lincoln fought, wealthy white supremacists with no interest indecency, are now in power. Under Lincoln, ethics had to remain in law; today they are irrelevant. History from which we can learn much, for our future.
    1 hr

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