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

  • Christmas/Hanukkah: Strength Through Generosity Not Domination
    It’s more than the similar time of year. According to guest Rabbi Michael Lerner, of Tikkun Magazine and chair of the Network of Spiritual Progressives, both holidays mark times in which people without power successfully took on the powers of tyranny and economic injustice. He argues that the real spirit of the holidays can be found in movements such as Resistance. Listen in!
    1 hr
  • The New Danger of Trump and Jerusalem
    As of Trump’s unilateral declaration of Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Israel, the threat of a wider war is now much greater than with North Korea. So says Patrick Lawrence foreign affairs columnist for salon.com and The Nation. The idea that the Palestinians would suddenly back down because of the increased pressure from Trump and Netanyahu is absurd. How much is Trump influenced by both the Israel lobby in Washington and the religious-political extremists who are determined to bring  The Rapture, Armageddon, the End Times, to Jerusalem the place of the prophesy in the Book of Revelations. How drastic is this change for America? And what is a nation, really? Is the traditional role of the US as neutral party and mediator totally gone now?
    1 hr
  • 28th Amendment to Restore Democracy? Vietnam Being Fought Again
    Millennials may think of democracy as something we older people remember. The infamous Supreme Court “Citizens United” decision took legitimate power from the average American and shifted it to big concentrated money. Some Americans have not given up. On the first part of today’s show, former Mass Assistant Attorney General Jeff Clements tells us about a booming new effort to pass a 28th Amendment to the Constitution, overturning that decision and restoring democracy in the USA. And on the second half, Terry Provance of the Vietnam Peace Commemoration Committee also is looking to the millennial generation. They have been fed a myth by the Pentagon and others about our war in Vietnam. The VPCC is focused on undoing the whitewash and sanitizing of the truth. They are working together to reach into high schools and tell the truth of that war.
    1 hr
  • Shaping the Future of Work After Trump
    FDR’s fixes of the 1930s were great for the time: bolstering unions, unemployment insurance, social security, and creation of new jobs rebuilding our infrastructure. Eighty years later, it’s time to adapt the New Deal to the 21st century and create a new revitalized, inclusive social contract. Employers, employees, and government; we all face a very different future with the rise of robotics, artificial intelligence, and globalization. Old industry is not coming back. According to our guest Tom Kochan, MIT professor of Work and Employment Relations at the Sloan School looks to the example of Market Basket in 2014, when all interested parties (other than the board members driven by short-term quick-bucks) stood together and created a model for labor history. Change then, as always, came from the bottom up. Now Professor Kochan has co-authored Shaping the Future of Work: a Handbook for Action and a New Social Contract. It’s a how-to for a new more sustainable and just economy after Trump. Good stuff. Reasons for optimism!
    1 hr
  • The Widening Gulf Between Judaism and Israel
    The notion of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state is more of a myth now. According to our guest Rabbi Lev Baesh, who has a unique resume, it’s not so much of a Jewish state anymore and it has become super nationalistic. He explains that for American Jews in the 1950s, it came to replace old ways of identifying as a Jew; like “Let Israel do the Jewishness for us.” And today although the Israel lobby in Washington (AIPAC) is united on the right and is exceptionally powerful, there is great volatility among Israelis. Lev Baesh addresses the new “Israel Anti-Boycott Act,” which makes some speech a crime. He’s concerned that “AIPAC controls our legislature which controls our voices.” He also talks about his work with the unique Circle of Health International (Cohintl.org).
    1 hr
  • Bernie Sanders: Not Just Rebuilding; Re-imagining Puerto Rico
    They’ve been forgotten in the face of so much other news. The millions of Americans of Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands are still largely without electricity three months after the hurricanes. They’ve been forgotten. But on November 28th, Bernie Sanders announced a plan to not just rebuild but build a better, more sustainable, more economically secure Puerto Rico. Backed by Senators Markey, Warren, Blumenthal, Harris, and Gillibrand, Bernie Sanders has taken the lead in presenting a plan for a revitalized newly vibrant Isla Del Sol, as Puerto Rico is called. And on part two, we look at the idea of erasing debt in general. The possibilities are real.
    1 hr
  • 400 Wealthy Americans: Don’t Cut Our Taxes
    The only reason for the Trump “tax reform” bill is that a handful of donors demand it; after all, they invested heavily in Trump and congress expecting a healthy return. But not all in the top five and one percent are on board. Four hundred wealthy Americans signed a letter to congress demanding that they do not cut their taxes. It’s not just do-gooderism, they realize that a strong economy depends on a solid middle class. They point out that good investment decisions are not based on tax rates. The campaign to congress was put together by the Responsible Wealth Project of United for a Fair Economy, and Voices for Progress. Mike Lapham, director of the project, explains clearly how the bill serves only the most short sighted and greedy.
    57 min
  • Teenage And Muslim in America
    You think being an American teenager was challenging, try being a good Muslim on top of it. It’s a tiny minority in our culture. Most Americans know very little about what life is like as a Muslim in our country. Our guest sociologist John O’Brien (a Muslim himself) lived for nearly  four years among typical teenagers and reports what he found in his new book: Keeping It Halal: The Everyday Lives of Muslim American Teenage Boys. They have all the difficulties and questions any other teen in America deals with: being cool, romantic confusion, pressures from home and school, plus the question of keeping alive one’s cultural identity in the face of widespread Islamophobia. And you know what? They’re doing just fine.
    1 hr
  • No Mercy: Long Term Effects of the Subjugation of the South after the War
    The union was “pinned together with bayonets.” In his new book The Long Road to Antietam, How the Civil War Became a Revolution, Professor Richard Slotkin traces the battle of egos between President Lincoln and his General George McClellan and how that may have been a factor in transforming the war from between armies of the south and north into an all out war on the entire Confederate population. Was this radical escalation necessary? What was the “role of God” in both sides’ leaders? What was the effect of subjugation of the southerners? Might it have been preferable to just let the south, as Jefferson Davis asked, to just be left alone? The discussion and arguments about that horrible conflict that left 800,000 dead goes on forever.
    58 min
  • The “Alt-Right” and Zionism//Kurd and Catalan Future?
    What is a nation? Richard Spencer’s “alt-right” looks to Zionism as a model for an exclusionary Aryan homeland in America. The white supremacist says he “turns to Israel for guidance.” Jewish Americans have a long history of inclusiveness. What is the effect of the exclusive Zionist model on anti-Semitism? On part one, author Mich Levy reflects on white zionism and the racist right. And on part two Columbia professor Judith Matloff discusses her article “Devolutionary Road: Lessons From Failed Independence Bids of the Kurds and Catalans.” She argues no amount of crackdown can end the demand for self-government.
    59 min

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