Leid Stories

On yesterday’s program, our guest, historian Gerald Horne, offered a comprehensive analysis of Election 2016 and the many reasons it is a watershed moment in U.S. social and political history.

He returns today to answer listeners’ questions.

Dr. Horne is the John J. and Rebecca Moores Chair of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston. He is the author of more than 30 books and 100 scholarly papers on struggles against imperialism, colonialism, fascism and racism.

Call 888-874-4888 to engage with Dr. Horne.

This year’s presidential election, we’re constantly told, is, and ever will be, “historic.” Thinking minds immediately should erect their best defenses, for U.S. history has a very peculiar history; it almost never tells the whole story, and its chief purpose is to secure and undergird the interests of the power elite.

The historicity of the political moment would suffer a similar fate, were it not for scholars—such as today’s guest, Dr. Gerald Horne—who boldly have been waging their own struggles against longstanding proscriptions against telling the whole story, lest America’s true nature be accurately documented and widely known.

Horne, the John J. and Rebecca Moores Chair of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston and prolific author of more than 30 books and 100 scholarly papers on struggles against imperialism, colonialism, fascism and racism, regularly decodes complex social, political and economic issues on Leid Stories. On today’s program he offers a radically different view of Election 2016.

All week this week, Leid Stories’ listeners are our political scientists deconstructing for us the Green Party and its impact (actual and/or possible) on the presidential election and on independent politics in particular.

On yesterday’s program, Dr. Jill Stein, officially nominated over the weekend at the party’s national convention in Houston, Texas, as the party’s standard-bearer in the general election, presented a laundry list of domestic and foreign policies comprising the Greens’ 2016 platform, many of those planks echoing the fighting points of Bernie Sanders’ self-thwarted “revolution” that are now part of Hillary Clinton’s arsenal.

Today’s question for consideration and debate: Is the Green Party being realistic about its capacity to deliver on its ambitious platform, or is it employing the old political trick of telling people what they want to hear in hopes of getting more votes (than the 0.36 percent share of the total it got in 2012) to truly launch itself in the realm of big-league politics?

The Green Party ended its four-day national convention in Houston, Texas, yesterday with resounding endorsements of their standard-bearers in the general election—physician Jill Stein for president, and human-rights activist Ajamu Baraka for vice president. The convention was one of the latest to be held in the current political season, just three months before Election Day. But the newly launched Stein-Baraka ticket has deep roots in nonmainstream activism and politics, Stein said; their nominations formally gave them permission to represent the party and its constituent base in an election in which an alternative to the duopoly is urgently needed.

The Greens are targeting 13 million voters who had supported Bernie Sanders’ “revolution” before he capitulated to the Democratic Party and endorsed Hillary Clinton. The Greens believe that the party’s stark contrast with mainstream politics—in ideology and practice—should give it the lift it needs to break from its also-ran, splinter-party label and earn its bona fides as a viable political contender.

Leid Stories looks at the impact of the Green Party on the 2016 presidential election, and especially on independent politics.

Soooo much to talk about—a week in which just about everything and everyone in politics went off the deep end. As survivors of the madness, it falls us to put things in [proper] perspective.

Help keep the insidious mind benders at bay. Tell us what we need to know about their shenanigans. It’s “Free Your Mind Friday” on Leid Stories. Call 888-874-4888 and let the chips fall where they may!

At its August 4-7 national convention in Houston, Texas, the Green Party of the United States officially will nominate its presidential candidate for the general election—all but certain to be physician Jill Stein—and tend to other vital election-year matters. Chief among them, no doubt, will be moving the party beyond its 0.36-percent share of the overall vote, when Stein headed the Green Party presidential ticket in 2012. Bernie Sanders’ full-throttled defection to Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party may be Stein’s good fortune, but even if that and widespread discontent with the political process were to bring new blood and interest to the party, is the Green Party prepared to do battle with the Duopoly? 

Just when we thought all hell did break loose in the presidential election, continuing waves of political mayhem, mischief and insanity remind us of that the end is nowhere in sight. We dare not even hope that Election Day will bring it to an end; we know it will be, like the B.C.-A.D. division of time, a dramatic new beginning. But what kind?

Leid Stories checks the political pulse today, in the midst of extraordinary developments in Election 2016—more so to measure our recognition of how the political landscape is changing, and our attitudes and choices along with it.

Leid Stories holds an open forum/debate on yesterday’s discussion, focusing on the impact of Bernie Sanders’ recently declared allegiance to Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party on his “revolution” and on progressive politics.

We can all mark the past week as the week we got a not-to-be-forgotten political education. Bernie Sanders ended his “political revolution” with an enthusiastic embrace of the party he decried as antithetical to the interests of America’s working class, and vowed to do everything in his power to elect Hillary Clinton, the symbol and embodiment of practically everything Sanders said was wrong with American politics. His stunning capitulation at the Democratic National Convention, it was understood, also would involve the conversion of a sizable chunk of the 13-million-plus votes that brought him into orbit during the primaries.

Fifteen weeks to the general election, Sanders’ “revolution” is all but dead—its leader, the guy who pulled the trigger and killed it.

“What now?” asks Leid Stories. 

This edition of “Free Your Mind Friday” focuses on significant outcomes of the Democratic National Convention and their likely impact on the presidential election generally, and on progressive politics in particular.

Call 888-874-4888 and share your unconventional wisdom and analysis!