Talk Cocktail

If I said that this conversation was about authoritarian politics, the religious right,  the rise of Christianist fundamentalism, a demographic crisis facing one political party, and the continued rise of military power, you would easily assume we would be talking about the US.  In fact, these same forces are at play in greater Israel, and they are constantly reinforced here, by perhaps the most powerful political lobby in the United States.

The complexity of Israeli politics, its relationship with the US, and its impact on our own politics are all issues that exist not just in the abstract world of policy wonks.  Each and every day they impact the lives of thousands of people on the ground in Israel, Gaza and the Middle East.

Max Blumenthal takes a brave and controversial look at this in Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel.

My conversation with Max Blumenthal:

We all know, or have heard about life in Silicon Valley.  The perks, the collegiality, the PowerPoint, the team ethos.  In fact, perhaps the most successful company to master the Internet is none of those things.  It engages in predatory pricing, it is fiercely competitive, it eschews both PowerPoint and perks.  Its leader was Time Magazine’s Person of the Year in 1999 and and yet, is just now 14 years later, reaching the zenith of his power.  The company is Amazon and its leader and founder Jeff Bezos.  Clearly the company is doing something different and doing it very, very well. Now we have the very best picture of Bezos and Amazon in Brad Stone's fascinating new book The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon.

My conversation with Brad Stone:

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Mark Helprin, whose novels include Winter's Tale, A Soldier of the Great War and Freddy and Fredericka, is a senior fellow of the Claremont Institute.

Helprin holds degrees from Harvard College and Harvard's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and did postgraduate work at the University of Oxford. He served in the British Merchant Navy, the Israeli infantry, and the Israeli Air Force.

In his latest novel, In Sunlight and in Shadow,  he take us to New York in the post war years.  Helprin, who wrote speeches for Bob Dole when he was a Presidential candidate, gives us what some might consider to be an idealize version of the times.

In a wide ranging conversation, Helprin and I discuss Mad Men,  The Greatest Generation, irony, sex in the workplace and the power of love and counter culture.

My conversation with Mark Helprin:

Higher education, like so much else in education is beginning to change.  While the American higher education system is the envy of the word, it still needs some modernization. 

Just like other form of education, it has remained pretty much the same throughout the 20th Century and into the 21st.   Think about it.  100+ years of creative destruction has impacted virtually every aspect of society, but University education has not fully adapted.

It has started to. First by addressing that we live in confusing times.  Our personal connections and our world is becoming both more bifurcated and more interdependent, both a the same time.  We need to understand each other better, but we also need to understand the wider world much better. So what kind of higher education do we need to try and square this circle?

Former US Senator and former head The New School, Bob Kerrey, is a key part of the new Minerva School at KGI.  

My conversation with Senator Bob Kerrey:

Back in the days of the former Soviet Union, we use to look to any public clue to try and understand what went on behind those Kremlin walls.  It gave rise to a whole group of people who were referred to as Kremlinologist.

Today, it seems we look at the Supreme Court in much the same way.  At a time when the other branches of government talk about transparency and are exposed by leaks, when we often know too much about Members of Congress and the White House, the court often remains that enigma wrapped in a mystery.

Harvard law professor Mark Tushnet helps us shed some light on the current court with, In the Balance: Law and Politics on the Roberts Court.

My conversation with Mark Tushnet:

This week marks the official start of candy season.  The bags of Halloween candy, followed by chocolate turkeys, chocolate gifts,  the Chanukah chocolate, endless Christmas candy, all portend to a season of secret consumption by adults, a watchful eyes on kids and endless candy guilt.  Plus the requisites articles about how sugar is more addictive than cocaine and seemingly every disease studied by the CDC, amplified by sugar.  

In fact, the story of candy is a story of American industrialization, sensuality, the beginnings of artificial food, the seduction and independence of children, as they first use candy to control their own pleasure. It’s a story told by Rutgers University professor Samira Kawash in Candy: A Century of Panic and Pleasure.

My conversation with Samira Kawash:

At the Harvard Business School, which George W. Bush attended, there are many case studies about business partnerships.  One of the recurring themes is that in tough times partnerships are easy. When everyone is struggling for a common goal, unity is always easier.  But when a business starts to succeed, the partnership is always a lot tougher.

Political partnerships are different, but still similar.  There is no bottom line to worry about, but when one partner starts to succeed politically,  ahead of the other, usually there is trouble and strain on the relationship. The Bush/Cheney partnership is a good example.

It seems that every modern Presidential aspirant, when he picks a Vice-Presidential nominee, says that it’s going to be a unique and special partnership.  The Bush /Cheney partnership was certainly true to that, especially given the events of 9/11 and the impact that the partnership had on the nation, in ways that we’ll be living with for decades to come.  

That’s why New York Times, Chief White House correspondent, Peter Baker's new book, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House is so important and so central to understanding the history of the Bush administration.

My conversation with Peter Baker:

The "one percent," "occupy," "income inequality," are all ideas and phrases that have become part of our national political conversation and all born of the movement that started in Zuccotti Park, in lower Manhattan, two years ago.  The degree to which politics, from President Obama to New York mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio are talking about these issues, should be a sign of success.  But is it? Does this two year old movement feel like it has succeeded and if not, what’s left to accomplish?

Recently Bill Ayers talked to me about how movements should eschew ordinary political success in favor of organizing in communities, in neighborhoods, in school and in the workplace.  So what’s the legacy of Occupy Wall Street?  Nathan Schneider was present at the creation and he takes us back in Thank You, Anarchy: Notes from the Occupy Apocalypse.

My conversation with Nathan Schneider:

Usually when we all have conversations about race and poverty, it's usually in a very abstract way. We often loose sight of how these realities impact peoples lives. Not in a political or policy sense, but simply with respect to what life is like in the poor and rural parts of the American South.

Few have a better ear or better understanding of this reality than National Book Award winner and Stegner Fellow Jesmyn Ward. Now she looks back at the loss of five men that she grew up with in her memoir, Men We Reaped:

My conversation with Jesmyn Ward:

During the government shut down, many commented that the radical elements of the Republican party were acting like terrorists.  Even if we might have disagreed with their goals, the Tea Party ideas of direct action, grassroots organizing and commitment to their ideas of social change, were very reminiscent, in the minds of some, to the efforts of many groups in the 1960’s. However, most didn't like the analogy. In fact Sarah Palin commented that the Tea Party groups were specifically not like Bill Ayers and the "terrorists" that the President "palled around with."

Well, Bill Ayers, who became Public Enemy number one in the eyes of Republicans in 2008, is still deeply committed to social change.  The President doesn't pal around with him or take his advice, anymore than he does with Ted Cruz.  But Bill Ayers has now written a  second memoir, picking up where his last, FUGITIVE DAYS, left off.

My conversation with Bill Ayers: