Scheer Intelligence: Recent Episodes
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Scheer Intelligence features thoughtful and provocative conversations with "American Originals" -- people who, through a lifetime of engagement with political issues, offer unique and often surprising perspectives on the day's most important issues.
At a time of book bans and the withholding of critically important struggles in our history, our education system has increasingly failed to provide our young with the tools to become engaged citizens in our much celebrated experiment in democracy. This miseducation of the young has been vastly accelerated by the shocking erosion of civic education in the standardized testing that separates winners and losers in the ranking of our meritocracy.
This reality has been made painfully obvious to Lindsey Cormack, a parent of two young children and a professor of political science at the prestigious Stevens Institute of Technology, teaching a generation of young engineering students in the diminished art of civics education. Sadly, Cormack tells host Robert Scheer that many of her students don’t understand the basics of our government: “They think they're going to do this big adult thing, participate in democracy, but then they're crestfallen and they're a little heartbroken because someone didn't explain the rules to them.”
Scheer responds that the failure to educate all students in civics is built into the design of national tests that omit the tools needed for participation in a vibrant democracy, and Cormack agrees: “You brought up ACT and SAT scores ... . When we have this obsession with making higher scores for all of our students and higher aggregate scores for our schools, neither one of these tests has a civics component. So in a compressed classroom day, you're going to have things that get squeezed out. And when we were interviewing teachers, we know that the things that get squeezed out are the things that aren't tested. So civics gets to the side.”
In her despair at the failure of our national education system at every level to fulfill the basic condition for an informed public, Professor Cormack turned to providing parents with a comprehensive and yet highly accessible civics primer: “How to Raise a Citizen (And Why It's Up to You to Do It).”
Scheer and Cormack agree that schools often gloss over topics like slavery, women’s right to vote, the Vietnam war and Native American genocide, among other topics. Cormack agrees that “governments are less accountable when their people do not understand what's happening.” She defends her book as encouragement for parents to fill the educational void.
Scheer praises the book as an important effort in civics education but questions it’s dependence on those parents who have the time and knowledge to perform this educational task that should be guaranteed to all children by a responsibly functioning public education system: “It's admirable that you would write this book and get parents to do the right thing by their children and by their society. But in order for a society to be healthy, its main structures, certainly of education, have to be healthy.
Cormack accepts that better parenting is not the full answer but defends her efforts as the beginning of a needed solution: “I think it is an injustice and a disservice to put a child through a K through 12 schooling environment, especially in a public taxpayer funded schooling environment and not let them know with certainty the government that they are graduating into and how they can influence it ... Do parents solve everything? No. But do enough parents ... see that there is a problem ... want schools to get involved ... have the power to lobby for school boards or to be in state legislatures to change this? I think the answer is yes. But it's not clear how we get that ball rolling unless we point out the problem, which is our kids are not learning this.”
In the midst of election season, conversations revolving around the levers of power become more frequent, and in the case of a U.S. presidential election, that often includes debates around the so-called “deep state”. Joining host Robert Scheer on this episode of Scheer Intelligence, Professors Charles Derber and Yale Magrass discuss their new book, “Who Owns Democracy?: The Real Deep State and the Struggle Over Class and Caste in America.”
There are many interpretations of what the 'deep state' actually represents in government, but Magrass offers a clear definition, breaking it down into two parts: the official state and the deep state. The official state, according to Magrass, consists of the elected officials people know very well, who are always in the media spotlight and soak in the blame for the issues that arise from their perceived rule. Meanwhile, the deep state operates largely unnoticed, with the official state serving as cover. “It gives free reign to corporations, free reign to the very rich, and they can more or less do whatever they want, with the official state carrying almost all the blame for what happens,” Magrass says.
The two professors dive into the history of the deep state concept, as Derber describes, “when you look carefully at American history, you see a whole evolution of American fascism, which came at the very beginning of the country and went through evolutionary stages.”
Derber and Magrass argue that the deep state has always been embedded in the power dynamics of the U.S., tracing its roots from the Magna Carta—which they contend was designed to expand the freedoms of the English noble elites. They also invoke the Civil War, which they see as a divorce between “northern capitalism, the capitalist Deep State and the southern proto-fascist deep state.” Today, each of the U.S. political parties represent a further expansion of this subversive ruling elite and Derber and Magrass argue that only an expanded public awareness of this hidden power structure will bring accountability to those who operate behind the scenes.
Scheer summarizes the importance of understanding how real power works in the U.S.: “There's a reason why we don't talk about class and caste in America, because the illusion of this egalitarian society is the main cover up of how the system works.”
The genocide in Gaza has brought the issue of Israel — and what it represents for Jewish people — into the forefront of Jewish communities worldwide. The powerful influence of the Israel lobby on Israel’s image in the United States makes this issue highly contentious and deeply complex.
In this episode of the Scheer Intelligence podcast, host Robert Scheer and Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace (FMEP), a nonprofit dedicated to fostering peace between Israel and Palestine, explain — as two Jewish individuals — how they navigate these complex issues, both in their professional work and personal lives.
Drawing on her experience working with the U.S. Foreign Service in Jerusalem around the time of the Oslo Accords, Friedman offers a complex view of the politics of the situation. Friedman discusses not only the evolving Jewish relationship to Israel but also the plight of the Palestinians who are often subjected to displacement, violence and death.
Friedman highlights a critical distinction when discussing the Oslo Accords: unlike most treaties, which are based on a balance of interests, the Israel-Palestine agreement is rooted in a balance of power. This dynamic, which heavily favors Israel, was recognized by Friedman: “I think that became very clear as the underlying dynamic of Oslo very, very quickly.”
When it comes to interpreting Israel, Friedman points out the difficulty in engaging with its defenders. “The entirety of Israel's existence has been grounded in a series of narratives, and it's almost a pick a long menu for which narrative best suits you at what moment,” she tells Scheer.
The narrative turning Hamas’ recent attack on Israel into a justification of the genocidal attack on Gaza has made it very difficult for anti-Zionist or non-Zionist Jews to express themselves. Friedman conveys her frustration:
“I'm now living in a world where it doesn't matter what your level of faith is, it doesn't matter what your genealogy is, it doesn't matter your self identification. If you're not deeply Zionist in your political outlook, then you're not really a Jew.”
Israel and its lobby today try to conflate the state with Jews around the world, that it speaks for Jews and encompasses the entire diaspora. Richard Silverstein, author and journalist of the Tikun Olam blog, says that this couldn’t be further from the truth. As the genocide in Gaza rages on, along with the killing of Israeli citizens and the mass torture of Palestinians, the support for Israel among Jews, particularly the younger generation, will continue to falter as the state itself plunges deeper into despair.
Silverstein speaks to host Robert Scheer on this episode of the Scheer Intelligence podcast to detail his relationship with Israel and Zionism and how his views have evolved over time, ultimately leading to a complete disconnection from the state, especially in light of the ongoing genocide, and now calling himself an anti-Zionist.
Being raised Jewish and earning degrees from Jewish Theological Seminary and Columbia University, as well as studying Hebrew literature at the Hebrew University in Israel, Silverstein makes clear: “[F]or you and for me and for most American Jews, Judaism is not genocide in Gaza, is not $20 billion or $80 billion in arms being sent by the US to Israel to kill Palestinians. That's not the kind of Judaism that I represent.”
Not only is the genocide a driving force behind the alienation of the Israel state but also the way it treats its own citizens, looking at them as expendable in its objective to kill Hamas operators. Silverstein refers to the Hannibal Directive, a procedure used by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) to prevent the capture of soldiers by killing them and their captors. “[Y]ou now have a code that is expanded to also killing your own civilians. And that's, I think, what is even more profoundly upsetting, disturbing about the way in which Hannibal is being used right now,” Silverstein tells Scheer.
Torture and rape of Palestinian prisoners is also something that has emerged from Israel’s onslaught on Gaza and the West Bank, according to Silverstein. “We have Palestinians in Gaza who were swept up in detention raids and brought to concentration camps, really, in Israel, and there they're tortured,” he states.
Silverstein insists that what is happening in Gaza does not represent Judaism worldwide like Israel claims, and that “American Judaism needs to stand on its own.” American Jews, Silverstein says, “really have to separate [themselves] from the hostility, the anger, the violence that Israel represents.”
The CIA’s destructive role in world politics since the end of World War II as a secret rogue spy agency controlled by unelected intelligence officers has become so ubiquitous that it can be joked about. But behind the jokes lies a far darker reality: the agency's imperial ambitions have fueled a legacy of death and destruction in the name of expanding American power. Hugh Wilford, author and professor of history at California State University Long Beach, joins host Robert Scheer on this episode of the Scheer Intelligence podcast to delve into the specifics of CIA operations and their impact on geopolitics from its inception to the present day.
Wilford’s book, “The CIA: An Imperial History,” emphasizes how the CIA is an unprecedented force in the world, advancing the goals of a global empire with a facade of spreading democracy. Although it makes for good Hollywood stories, the subversiveness of the agency alongside its brutal methods made it such an effective power that Scheer describes as capable of “destroying the right of people to make their own history.” The two mention the coup in Iran in 1953, choreographed by the CIA, and operations in Vietnam in the ‘60s and most odious examples.
The CIA’s bloody worldwide campaigns would leave populations dazed and confused, all under the pretense of acting in their best interest, while the rest of the world remained similarly in the dark. Wilford explains, “It's not just that America is trying to hide its imperial role from world audiences, from people in the post-colonial world in the Global South, it's also somewhat trying to hide what it's doing from U.S. citizens.”
These imperial ambitions, Wilford warns, inevitably have a way of backfiring, and the CIA’s history is proof of that. The CIA’s consistent meddling in the Middle East in the 20th century resulted, for instance, in the occupation of the Palestinian people, which has translated to the genocide today. “The growth of this massive secret state to carry out this globalist foreign policy has had baleful consequences, disastrous consequences, not just for people living overseas, but for people within the United States as well,” Wilford explains.
The CIA’s destructive role in world politics since the end of World War II as a secret rogue spy agency controlled by unelected intelligence officers has become so ubiquitous that it can be joked about. But behind the jokes lies a far darker reality: the agency's imperial ambitions have fueled a legacy of death and destruction in the name of expanding American power. Hugh Wilford, author and professor of history at California State University Long Beach, joins host Robert Scheer on this episode of the Scheer Intelligence podcast to delve into the specifics of CIA operations and their impact on geopolitics from its inception to the present day.
Wilford’s book, “The CIA: An Imperial History,” emphasizes how the CIA is an unprecedented force in the world, advancing the goals of a global empire with a facade of spreading democracy. Although it makes for good Hollywood stories, the subversiveness of the agency alongside its brutal methods made it such an effective power that Scheer describes as capable of “destroying the right of people to make their own history.” The two mention the coup in Iran in 1953, choreographed by the CIA, and operations in Vietnam in the ‘60s and most odious examples.
The CIA’s bloody worldwide campaigns would leave populations dazed and confused, all under the pretense of acting in their best interest, while the rest of the world remained similarly in the dark. Wilford explains, “It's not just that America is trying to hide its imperial role from world audiences, from people in the post-colonial world in the Global South, it's also somewhat trying to hide what it's doing from U.S. citizens.”
These imperial ambitions, Wilford warns, inevitably have a way of backfiring, and the CIA’s history is proof of that. The CIA’s consistent meddling in the Middle East in the 20th century resulted, for instance, in the occupation of the Palestinian people, which has translated to the genocide today. “The growth of this massive secret state to carry out this globalist foreign policy has had baleful consequences, disastrous consequences, not just for people living overseas, but for people within the United States as well,” Wilford explains.
The “big club” that “you ain’t in,” as George Carlin famously put it, is increasingly visible as the presidential election rolls on toward November. Politicians and the donor class that controls them have made it known to the public that they are not representatives of the majority but rather the small elite minority. Nomi Prins, financial historian, author and former Goldman Sachs managing director, joins host Robert Scheer on this episode of the Scheer Intelligence podcast to describe exactly how this process works as well as touch on the evolution of the world economy away from the U.S.
As a result of U.S. mishaps in 2008 with the financial crisis as well as the current geopolitical involvements in Ukraine and growing disruptions between the U.S. and China, Prins explains how the world is recognizing the ability to move past the U.S. as well as the dollar: “What's happened is the alliance of nations that needed the U.S. and needed the dollar to trade don't need it anymore.” China’s rise with the BRICS nations alongside has encouraged this, and the U.S.’s policies of supporting the financial system and allowing the banks to run things has led to the rest of the world to say, “We will compete, we'll do exactly what you're doing, but we're going to do it on our own terms.”
Back at home, when it comes to economic justice, the two party system, in short, is a farce, and the difference between how the internal system of each party works is hardly noticeable. “Everything kind of moves upward and gets smaller as it moves upward in terms of who has the power and who wants to retain the power,” Prins tells Scheer. That’s why, she asserts, “even if things get questioned on the surface, the idea of changing them doesn't really get pushed throughout party policy.”
As much as people try to push for or enact change, the questions fall on deaf ears, Prins says. People “can blame the other party, they can blame each other, but they don't get to blame the system, because they don't feel that there's any real connection or control that they could have over the system.”
It is around that time in an election year where the typical platitudes and ultimatums exclaiming it is “do or die,” “now or never” are being thrown around. The overarching narrative from the past two elections remains the same: the Democrats are not great: they bolster the military industrial complex, make empty promises to working people and maintain sometimes identical policies to their right wing counterparts on issues like immigration … but we must choose them or face the wrath of Donald Trump and the Republicans.
In this spirited debate on the Scheer Intelligence podcast, host Robert Scheer spars with Jeff Cohen—author, co-founder of RootsAction.org, founder of FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting), and retired journalism professor at Ithaca College. The two butt heads around the issue of lesser evilism, questioning whether this year will bring actual change from the Democrats in their support for Israel’s suppression of the Palestineans alongside a range of other pressing issues.
Cohen stresses that while the Biden administration’s actions involving Gaza, Ukraine and its saber-rattling of China and Russia are “inexcusable,” a Trump reelection will prove to be worse on all fronts. “Trump's second term will be very, very different than the first. He had no plan, it was chaotic. They [now] have a plan,” Cohen tells Scheer. “They're going to implement ‘Drill, baby, drill!’ which threatens the whole planet. And trust me, they have a plan to suppress progressive dissent.”
Scheer fires back, arguing that this is the exact same argument that has been heard not only in recent elections but for most of his long life. “What we do is we center most of our political discussion, knowledge in this country around the character of the president and these periodic elections: who are the virtuous, who are the evil?” Scheer retorts. “Whereas, in fact, we face very profound, systemic problems that the election tends to obscure.”
Those seeking systemic change often aim to radically overhaul the existing structure and directly challenge the rot they see within. Although history has shown this to be successful at times, it is usually extinguished by the powers that be and perhaps more pragmatic approaches could have brought about the sought change. This is the story told by Dr. Donna J. Nicol, an author and academic, about Dr. Claudia Hampton and her journey to preserve affirmative action. Nicol joins Scheer Intelligence host Robert Scheer to discuss her new book, “Black Woman on Board: Claudia Hampton, the California State University, and the Fight to Save Affirmative Action.”
Nicol sets the scene for her protagonist, introducing the time period in which Black radicalism is at a particular high following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. According to Nicol, Hampton chooses an approach that relies on the tedious path of making inroads with those in power. “[Hampton’s] working in the system not as a Black radical, but as someone who chooses a different way of operating, of a different way of leading, which I refer to in the book as ‘sly civility,’” Nicol tells Scheer.
Self-awareness led her down this path, Nicol said. “She understands that her race and her gender are things that can be held against her.”
The radicalism is still relevant, however, and Nicol describes how a person like Hampton is able to render that spirit into meaningful legislation. “We need that agitation on the outside, but we need somebody on the inside to translate this into policy, to translate this into resources for the community,” Nicol said.
Without Hampton, affirmative action wouldn’t have looked the way it ended up. Nicol tells Scheer about Hampton’s time on the California State University board of trustees from 1974 to 1994, including how “during her 20 years on the board, you see the highest increase of students of color, of faculty of color, and those numbers have not been replicated since then.”
Seventy-nine years ago, the Truman administration dropped atom bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, instantly killing approximately 100,000 innocent civilians. Host Robert Scheer calls these horrific incidents among the major instances of terror ever committed in human history.
Bill Hartung of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft joins Scheer Intelligence to discuss the history and legacy of nuclear weapons in relation to the military industrial complex, as a $2 trillion effort from the Pentagon to build “a new generation of nuclear-armed missiles, bombers, and submarines” takes place.
The central question underlying the conversation is asked by Scheer; “How could they, in good conscience, be talking about modernizing the devil's weapon?”
Hartung claims that the Pentagon and arms manufacturers are doing so under the guise of deterrence, but also because of false stories of controllable nuclear war and even the “evil” consideration that it may be necessary to use nuclear weapons on certain populations.
“I think some of the folks promoting this stuff would like to believe that they're not putting the future of humanity at risk. So they kind of tell themselves these stories, which they then tell to the public and hope they can persuade them.”
In the past, the horror of nuclear war was widely acknowledged to some extent by the public and the political class alike, as even Reagan said a nuclear war could never be won and should never be fought. Hartung claims that the belief that nuclear war could be winnable was previously “pushed off the agenda,” but it “seems to be back.”
Despite movies like Oppenheimer, which to some extent injected the issue of nuclear war into public discussion, citizens and the media remain largely uninterested and unaware of the dangers of nuclear war, especially with regard to the war in Ukraine.
This is reflected in the opinions of the American political class. Hartung points out that “if you go to Washington, there's this sort of atmosphere that, if you're for reducing these things, you know, you're the one who's unrealistic. The logic is flipped on its head ...”
Any threat to the status quo within the American empire has led to the censorship, jailing and escape of the dissidents brave enough to stand against it. One may think of Edward Snowden’s asylum in Russia or Julian Assange’s refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London as recent examples. However, the history of dissidents fleeing American persecution runs deep. Joining host Robert Scheer on this episode of the Scheer Intelligence podcast to discuss his new book, “Flights: Radicals on the Run,” is author and journalist Joel Whitney.
The book exemplifies this missing history of dissent in America through accounts of people such as Angela Davis, Paul Robeson, Graham Greene and Malcolm X. Also included are the accounts of Lorraine Hansberry and her mentor, W.E.B. Du Bois. Whitney refers to De Bois’ time starting an anti-nuclear peace movement and subsequently being persecuted by the U.S. government. “[Du Bois’] reputation took severe damage, so when Hansberry knew him, he could barely afford to buy groceries,” Whitney told Scheer.
“Flights” examines the stories of historic struggle of progressive thinkers and political activists who faced the onslaught of Cold War propaganda and McCarthyism, becoming refugees as a result of their political work. The book chronicles a counter-narrative of American history, where the bravest and most outspoken figures criticizing the system are crushed by it and their lives ruined.
The book title, according to Whitney, refers to “flights that are political persecution in some form or another. In a way, you could think of it as 50 or 60 years of counter revolution, massive amounts of funding to chase people … across borders, out of print and, in some cases, unfortunately, into an early grave.”
In the case of people like Graham Greene and his famous novel, “The Quiet American,” the blacklisting of himself and others for their exposure of American activities during the Vietnam War led to Americans “hav[ing] to wait about a decade or a little bit more to actually understand what carnage, what incredible, cynical violence the anti-communist Americans are overseeing in Vietnam as they're taking it over from the French.”
Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress proved to be a testimony of the U.S. government and its politicians’ stance on the genocide in Gaza. With standing ovations, smiling handshakes and overall warm welcome by a large number of Washington politicos, the strength of Israel’s influence in the U.S. is clear. Richard Silverstein, author and journalist of the Tikun Olam blog, which covers the Israeli national security state, joins host Robert Scheer on this episode of the Scheer Intelligence podcast to dive into Israeli history, its evolution and how its current stage fails to represent Judaism to the world.
For Silverstein, Netanyahu’s speech was nothing new as it was filled with the same ideas and tropes about the barbaric Arab and Muslim world against the civilized, Western, Judeo-Christian world. Silverstein said these thoughts, “exemplify a certain attitude and approach that has existed for decades in Israel.”
The current zeitgeist that exists in Israel today, whether it be through its government or settler population, does not represent any recognizable form of Judaism, Silverstein said. “This is why I've become an anti-Zionist, because I don't want to be associated with an Israel that sees its religion as destroying the Palestinian existence in Israel; that kind of Judaism is horrific.”
Silverstein noted, “Israel betrayed the values I had as a liberal Zionist … and I think the genocide in Gaza has really sealed then put the nail in the coffin of Zionism.”
Although Julian Assange is free and home in his native Australia, his story and decade-long suffering at the hands of the U.S. government must never be forgotten for the sake of the survival of the First Amendment. In this episode of the Scheer Intelligence podcast, host Robert Scheer is joined by Kevin Gosztola, who runs The Dissenter newsletter and has been reporting on the Assange case and whistleblowers in the U.S. for more than a decade. Together, they underscore the significance of the Assange case and delve into the details explored in Gosztola's recent book, "Guilty of Journalism."
Gosztola makes clear one of the main points of the whole ordeal, which is the inconsistency in the U.S.’s interpretation of its own laws. “The First Amendment and the Espionage Act are in conflict in this country. You can't reconcile the two, at least the way that the Justice Department wants to use the Espionage Act against people who aren't even just U.S. citizens. They're trying to apply U.S. law to international journalists,” Gosztola told Scheer.
The U.S. response to the internet age and the powerful journalistic revelations of Assange and WikiLeaks was to criminalize such actions, sending a clear message: anyone attempting to blow the whistle or expose the U.S. government's crimes would face severe punishment, including the use of the Espionage Act, which could imprison someone for life.
“Unlike Daniel Ellsberg, [Chelsea] Manning didn't have to sit there at a Xerox machine making copies. [She] just sent the copies of the documents to WikiLeaks, and then WikiLeaks had all these files that they could share with the world,” Gosztola said.
Despite the online journalism revolution, many in the media space still remained quiet throughout the Assange debacle both because of their ties to government officials and their lack of professional rigor. Gosztola posed several questions to them:
“Where were you? Why weren't you doing the investigations to uncover these details? Why did this WikiLeaks organization come along and reveal these details about Afghanistan, the Iraq War, the nature of US foreign policy? Why do you accept that all of this information that was classified should be classified?”
The 75th anniversary celebrating the creation of NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, creates an opportunity for those in the war machine to double down their commitment to war and for peace advocates to amplify their calls for non-violence. David Swanson, co-founder and executive director of World BEYOND War and long-time peace advocate, joins host Robert Scheer on this episode of Scheer Intelligence. Swanson talks about his new book with Medea Benjamin, “NATO: What You Need To Know,” and how it analyzes what NATO means today as a worldwide enforcer of U.S. led military power, having grown from a 12-member organization to 32 members and “partnerships” with more than 40 non-member countries and international organizations.
According to Swanson, NATO's original function as a defensive alliance against the Soviet Union has outlived the fall of the communist state and transformed the organization into a rapidly expanding extension of the U.S. war machine. “You don't have to ask informed historians or intelligent peace activists. The Secretary General of NATO says it; they now wage wars, not just in defense or what they call deterrence.”
What was once envisioned as an adjunct to the United Nations addressing war and peace has now evolved, with NATO extending its reach far beyond the Atlantic to forge partnerships with Asian countries in a militarized response to China's rise.
Swanson does not make light of what this will mean for the future: “It's the end of everything. It's the end of all life on earth. There's no small nuclear war. There's no tactical nuclear war, and yet this is where we're headed.”
The Supreme Court’s recent decision to allow cities to ban people from sleeping outdoors presents a major shift in the perception of poverty and homelessness in the U.S. and what the Eighth Amendment represents. Clare Pastore, a law professor at the University of Southern California, joins her faculty colleague Robert Scheer on this episode of the Scheer Intelligence podcast to break down what the decision means and expand on her article published in The Conversation.
Pastore explains that the legal precedent reversed by the conservative majority was that “it's cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment to criminalize sleeping outdoors for people who have no other option.” Now, Pastore tells Scheer, cities are not barred from enforcing this kind of criminalization.
“These are not laws to protect people. Homeless people are at greater danger than they are a danger to others. These are laws trying to get people to just move out of the jurisdiction and go somewhere else,” Pastore said.
Scheer argues that the problem has been around long before the recent SCOTUS decision and the elephant in the room for states like California, which Scheer points out is the fifth largest economy in the world, do not use their vast resources to address the problem but rather put the blame on decisions like this and continue their politics that ignore the central issue.
Pastore agrees, telling Scheer, “My biggest fear, in terms of a generation of people who are growing up thinking this is normal, is that this idea that this is intractable, is taking hold and it's not right.”
The greed in the U.S., where housing is regarded as a private good, strains the ability to attack the roots of the issue. “We have very few controls on how much [housing] can cost and we have very few incentives to make it cost less and we just don't put those kinds of legal mechanisms in place to preserve and create more affordable housing,” Pastore said.
Everyday the Washington Post’s “democracy dies in darkness” grows evermore ironic and detached from the reality of what the publication—and legacy media as a whole—has become. In the latest clash between independent and mainstream press, one of the country’s largest remaining newspapers accused—and then retracted—a claim that The Grayzone had received payments from the Iranian media.
Paralysis from the chest down as a result of serving in the U.S. military during the Vietnam War may sound like devastation beyond reconciliation, but for Ron Kovic, it became a transformative and politically enlightening experience. The two-tour veteran amplified his activism a few years after being discharged from the army with honest and insightful writing about what serving in this war was truly like. His best-selling memoir, “Born on the Fourth of July,” was published in 1976 and later was made into a film adaptation directed by Oliver Stone.
He continued his activism, most notably with his second book, “Hurricane Street,” following his nationwide organization of the American Veteran Movement, which fought for improved conditions in VA hospitals. Akashic Books recently published Kovic’s third book in his autobiographical trilogy— “A Dangerous Country: An American Elegy.”
Being a 140-pound 19 year old, who had not yet had to shave is a daunting time to enter an American prison with a life sentence, especially when the system has no interest in rehabilitating you or helping you reintegrate into society. The greed of the prison industrial complex squeezing slave profits out of imprisoned people through the exploitation of the 13th amendment and the brutal system set up to limit opportunity usually leaves most who walk through the gates hopeless and abandoned.
Dorsey Nunn, a formerly incarcerated individual, co-director of Legal Services for Prisoners with Children (LSPC) and co-founder of All of Us or None (AOUON), a grassroots movement of formerly incarcerated people working to secure their civil and human rights, explains to host Robert Scheer how his prison experience is rare but demonstrates that it is possible to make it out of San Quentin’s cells a changed person, with the hope of helping others.
In this episode of Scheer Intelligence, host Robert Scheer is joined by author Natalie Foster, president and co-founder of the Economic Security Project, a network dedicated to advancing a guaranteed income in America and reining in the unprecedented concentration of corporate power.
Jordan Elgrably reminds people of the crucial stories behind those being bombarded daily in Gaza.
The solution to Trump's exploitable border crisis is to end the US trafficking of guns for drugs that turns productive Mexicans into desperate refugees.
The recent missile exchanges between Iran and Israel stirred fears of World War III, and while the action has cooled down, the uncertain path still looms with tension. Esteemed author and Middle East scholar Trita Parsi joins host Robert Scheer on this episode of Scheer Intelligence to discuss what these attacks could mean going forward.
Ray McGovern, the 27-year CIA veteran who counseled seven presidents, joins host Robert Scheer in a "Theatre of the Absurd" reenactment of McGovern's historic role. Scheer plays a stern and uncompromising president receiving an uncomfortable briefing from McGovern on the most pressing issues of the day, from Ukraine to Israel to China.
On this episode of the Scheer Intelligence podcast, host Robert Scheer welcomes Maxwell L. Stearns, a constitutional lawyer and professor at the University of Maryland Carey School of Law, to discuss his book, “Parliamentary America: The Least Radical Means of Radically Repairing Our Broken Democracy.”
In light of recent developments in the Julian Assange extradition case, former CIA officer John Kiriakou joins host Robert Scheer on this episode of the Scheer Intelligence podcast, to delve deeper into the contradictions within the United States government and intelligence agencies regarding the disclosure of classified information and the veil of secrecy they maintain.
In this episode of the Scheer Intelligence podcast, host Robert Scheer and The Grayzone editor-in-chief Max Blumenthal contextualize the events of Oct. 7 and afterward in relation to the history of Israel and Palestine.
On this episode of Scheer Intelligence, David Greene, the Civil Liberties Director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, joins host Robert Scheer to discuss the new bill that would ban the massively popular online social media platform, TikTok, in the U.S. In their conversation, they point out the hypocrisy of singling out one Chinese company for mass data collection, when there’s no evidence that TikTok collects data in any different way, or for any other purpose, than other social media companies.
Author Marie Arana, former book editor and columnist for the Washington Post and the inaugural literary director of the Library of Congress, joins today’s episode of Scheer Intelligence with host Robert Scheer to discuss her new book, LatinoLand: A Portrait of America’s Largest and Least Understood Minority, to answer the question — what does it mean to be Latino? While many know that Latinos often come to America, many forget that they have, in fact, always been in America.
On this episode of Scheer Intelligence, host Robert Scheer and Les Leopold discuss Leopold’s new book, “Wall Street's War on Workers: How Mass Layoffs and Greed Are Destroying the Working Class and What to Do About It” that describes how both political parties created the economic suffering that Trump feeds on. The critical question the book asks is: Did the nightmare of the world economy have to go this way? Or is it really a failure of capitalism? Or is it a failure of people manipulating capitalism?
On this episode of the Scheer Intelligence podcast, Heyday Books publisher and former LA Times book editor Steve Wasserman and host Robert Scheer commit themselves to this conversation as Jews who have experienced these questions firsthand through their families in addition to having explored and reported on this topic throughout their careers.
Juan Cole, a renowned history professor at the University of Michigan and expert on the Middle East and South Asia, joins host Robert Scheer on this episode of the Scheer Intelligence podcast to tackle inconvenient truths ignored by the media in the history of Israel and Palestine. This includes the conflation that criticizing the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians is somehow a form of Holocaust denial.
Journalist and filmmaker David Lindorff explores the story of Ted Hall, who, at the age of 18 years old, leaked the secrets of the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union in an attempt to secure a balance in the world’s most dangerous arms race.
His book, “Spy for No Country: The Story of Ted Hall, the Teenage Atomic Spy Who May Have Saved the World,” makes the case that due to the courageous work of Hall and fellow Los Alamos scientist Klaus Fuchs, the idea of mutually assured destruction was born and the U.S. lost its monopoly on the deadliest weapon ever made.
One of the biggest stories of the twentieth century, big enough to displace Watergate from the front pages of newspapers nationwide, takes the form of a novel in an attempt to use fiction as a vehicle to expose the truth of this media spectacle. Journalist and author Roger D. Rapoport joins host Robert Scheer on this episode of the Scheer Intelligence podcast to discuss the case of Patty Hearst and how Rapoport's new book, “Searching for Patty Hearst,” ventures into fiction in order to reveal the true story of how Patty Hearst wasn’t a victim in the end but was made a revolutionary.
Israel’s current war on Gaza and the Palestinians draws pessimism and hopelessness, reminding two veterans of its origin in another such war in the region in 1967, The Six Day War, which resulted In Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern joins host Robert Scheer on this episode of Scheer Intelligence to dissect the relationship Israel has maintained and exploited ever since that imperial conquest with support of the United States, and how the future of American foreign policy appears to once again be led not by informed individuals but rather by selfish and dangerous impulses.
The 1960s represented a pivotal time in American history, one that embodied vast change and influence in shaping what the country has become. From the Civil Rights movement to the Vietnam War to the moon landing, society was in a period of steadfast innovation, self reflection and self determination. The specter of death, however, could not escape the memory of the time, including the deaths of the millions of civilians and soldiers in Southeast Asia and the thousands of victims of racial violence. The assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X and Robert Kennedy delivered a resounding blow to the trajectory of these movements and ultimately, the direction of the United States.
Apart from the death, destruction and suffering bestowed upon the Palestinian people in Gaza by the hands of the Israeli government, an ideological battle is taking place around the world, especially in the United States, where Jewish people face discrimination, prejudice and attacks on their identity by the hands of other Jews.
The revelations of people like Edward Snowden, Julian Assange and John Kiriakou have allowed the world to know about the sly and insidious turn Western governments took following 9/11. From torture programs to mass surveillance to extrajudicial captures and killings, it has become clear how far these governments have poured away their own values and beliefs.
Norman Lear, who died this week at the age of 101, visited the KCRW studio in Santa Monica, CA six years ago to sit down and talk with host Robert Scheer in this two-part interview about Lear’s life through his autobiography, “Even This I Get to Experience.” Scheer said of the book:
This week’s episode of Scheer Intelligence welcomes someone with extraordinary courage and experience not only in Palestine but the Middle East as a whole. Dr. Tarek Loubani, a Kuwait-born, Canada-based Palestinian doctor, who also serves as the medical director at Gila, a global humanitarian healthcare organization, provides an indispensable account of what he knows is Palestine.
American historian, writer, professor and activist Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz uses her studies on indigenous peoples’ history and her work with Palestinian diplomats and the United Nations to show how historic “settler colonialism” like in the United States relates to Gaza today. Dunbar-Ortiz makes the case, on this Thanksgiving edition of the Scheer Intelligence podcast, that inherent in that settler colonialism are the various definitions of genocide.
Amidst the carnage and political debacle surrounding Gaza and Israel, it can be easy to discuss the conflict with a macro view, where families, hospital workers, UN workers and journalists become statistics and political perspectives dominate. On this episode of the Scheer Intelligence, host Robert Scheer talks to the author of what Scheer claims are “arguably the two most important books that deal with the humanity of the Palestinian people.”
After Ohio’s recent vote to enshrine the right to have an abortion into the state’s constitution, host Robert Scheer dives deeper into one of the underappreciated and underreported aspects of the fight for abortion rights on this episode of the Scheer Intelligence podcast.
Historian Juan Cole minces no words in offering a grave and sobering account of the conflict in Palestine and Israel on this episode of the Scheer Intelligence podcast. In a comprehensive reflection of the history and current day situation in the Middle East, Cole uses his expertise as one of the leading historians of the region to paint a picture of the war. He asserts that in all definitions of the words, Israel is actively committing war crimes, like the United States in Iraq, a genocide and ethnic cleansing aimed at eliminating the Palestinian presence from their homeland.
“There's no room for complexity in the American media when it comes to Israel and Palestine,” said Robin Andersen, the award-winning author and professor emerita of communication and media studies at Fordham University, to host Robert Scheer on this episode of the Scheer Intelligence podcast.
In the almost three weeks since the October 7th attacks in Israel, the coverage around the war in the Middle East is as alert as ever, except only for one side, Andersen and Scheer discuss. The real and fabricated stories of Israeli devastation plastered mainstream outlets during the onset of the war, but since then, the bombing campaign on Gaza has yet to receive equal attention.
Palestinian American journalist Mnar Adley makes the case for one democratic nation with each Palestinian and Israeli having the equal right to vote on their governance on this episode of the Scheer Intelligence podcast.
The topic of feeding those in need doesn’t sound like it should be controversial but the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, in the United States is bizarrely under attack by Republicans in the current Congress. Joining host Robert Scheer on this episode of the Scheer Intelligence podcast is Christopher Bosso to discuss his newest book, “Why SNAP Works: A Political History—and Defense—of the Food Stamp Program.”
In Jonathan Taplin’s new book, “The End of Reality: How Four Billionaires are Selling a Fantasy Future of the Metaverse, Mars and Crypto," the internet innovation expert delves into activities of the gang-of-four powerful oligarchs: Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Mark Zuckerberg and Marc Andreesen, breaking down their increasing profits and infinite ambitions to control and influence domestic and global affairs while sending our technology innovation in a profit-driven, dystopian direction, corrupting both sides of the political aisle. Host Robert Scheer’s question: “Wait a minute, what else is new” in capitalism?”
The New York Times has revealed what the future could potentially look like in an impending war with China. Through conjecture and innuendo-filled reporting, America’s “paper of record” went out of its way to attack one of the country’s most fierce peace movement fighters — Code Pink co-founder Jodie Evans.
The University of California at Berkeley is widely considered one of the most progressive and historically transformative universities in not only the United States, but the world. This is printed all over pamphlets written for prospective students and talked about endlessly by tour guides giving people the privilege to walk through such a prestigious site. What isn’t discussed, however, is the other side of that history, the one mired by involvement with the military industrial complex, with the conquest of indigenous lands and with the creation of the greatest mass murder weapon of all time.
The perception of certain types of trial evidence as cutting-edge, foolproof, and reminiscent of Hollywood can inadvertently sway juries into assuming the guilt of countless individuals. Techniques such as bite marks, blood splatter analysis, ballistics evidence, and others appear to present irrefutable indications of involvement in criminal activities. However, concealed within this seemingly conclusive cache of evidence lies a substantial amount of what is known as junk science. This is why Chris Fabricant, the director of strategic litigation at the Innocence Project, wrote his latest book, “Junk Science and the American Criminal Justice System.”
A retired CIA expert on Russia and rare voice of reason coming from the bowels of the American deep state, Ray McGovern joins host Robert Scheer on another edition of the Scheer Intelligence podcast. With world peace, nuclear weapon prudence and film critique on the agenda, McGovern and Scheer delve into a host of relevant issues stemming from the war in Ukraine and the history behind it. From Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer,” to CNN's strange truthful broadcast on Ukraine’s counteroffensive, the old boys from the Bronx prod each other’s encyclopedic minds to try and make sense of the state of the world.
On this episode of Scheer Intelligence, host Robert Scheer is joined by Professor Julie C. Suk, an eminent expert in constitutional law and a professor of law at Fordham University. Together, they delve into the challenges women face in society, which stem from the Constitutional framework despite the century old passage of the 19th amendment that belatedly granted women the right to vote.
The world has somehow reached a moment where the use of nuclear weapons has possibly never been closer and the interest in nuclear weapons has possibly never been higher. With the release of Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer,” a compelling dialogue emerges concerning the utilization of nuclear weapons, as the biopic delves into the life of the father of the atomic bomb and his profound doubts about the barbaric weapon he unleashed on the world. An even more captivating narrative about dissent amongst the Los Alamos scientists who created the bomb is close to release, and its timing couldn't be more perfect. A Compassionate Spy, directed by two time Academy Award nominated Steve James, delves into the intriguing life of an unconventional hero within the world of nuclear development - a character whose history might be viewed with skepticism, yet is undeniably instrumental in shaping the post Cold War nuclear arms race.
There has been no journalist that has been more effective in penetrating the self-serving secrecy of the NSA and the security state than James Bamford, the Emmy-nominated filmmaker and best-selling author. He joins host Robert Scheer on this episode of Scheer Intelligence to discuss his latest book, Spyfail: Foreign Spies, Moles, Saboteurs, and the Collapse of America's Counterintelligence. While Bamford has engaged in his share of muckraking on the NSA in his previous works, his new book focuses on an even more pernicious aspect of the intelligence apparatus: their carelessness in allowing foreign governments access to some of our own government’s most treacherous cyberwar creations.
While the government often likes to claim people like Edward Snowden and Julian Assange are the dangerous actors in revealing the inner workings of the U.S. security state, Bamford’s journalism exposes the irony in shifting the blame. Nefarious surveillance and military equipment has been co-opted by foreign governments by way of the NSA yet not much has been done about it. “[T]here's all this effort to silence whistleblowers when there is no effort to really stop foreign countries from accessing the material that NSA has and then… use it against American citizens,” Bamford said.
Bamford specifically highlights Israel as one of those foreign powers and that might explain the limited mainstream attention given to this latest book. He explores the multi-faceted relationship Israel has to the U.S. with regard to lobbying, Hollywood and espionage. Bamford explained, “Israel has been spying in the United States for a long time and it's been not only not written about, but it hasn't been prosecuted and that's one of the problems.” Names like Arnon Milchan—the Hollywood producer, Israeli spy and Robert De Niro confidant—also came up as an example of someone who has engaged in committing espionage in the U.S. yet has faced no repercussions. Despite his hand in maintaining apartheid in South Africa, being an arms dealer and propagandizing it in the U.S., justice never seems to reach him, Bamford said.
The Doomsday Clock continues to tick toward nuclear war, but at its fastest pace ever. Professor Jackson Lears, a former naval officer serving on a U.S cruiser carrying tactical nuclear weapons, considers the current moment more frightening than at any time during the Cold War. Then, there was intense alarm for the fate of the earth and the survival of the human race. Today, rather than diplomacy or negotiation, talk revolves around new weapons shipments, disappointment in Ukraine’s counteroffensive failures, and even drone strikes in Moscow. But far less attention has been paid to the prospect of nuclear war between Russia and the U.S that threatens to end all life on this planet as we know it. That is the alarm sounded by cultural historian and author Jackson Lears who joins host Robert Scheer to discuss Lears’s essay for Harper’s Magazine, “Behind the Veil of Indifference.”
Lears’s piece warns that despite the public indifference, a “winnable nuclear war” has entered the minds of American strategists and politicians once again, undermining years of work towards nuclear disarmament. Lears tells Scheer that it is similar to the attitudes from the Cold War, yet this time, there is an eerie disinterest from the American side about even talking to someone like Vladimir Putin. “[T]his is, in a sense, a return to the worst kind of confrontations of the early 1960s but there's a big difference because even Kennedy and even Reagan, cold warriors that they were, were eager to create common ground ultimately between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. And that common ground no longer exists between the U.S. and Russia, and there is no interest in diplomacy at all,” Lears said.
Scheer and Lears also highlight a critical factor in shaping public perception: the Russiagate controversy and the media's role in complying with government demands for secrecy, beginning in the late 1970s, while also promoting narratives that fostered consent for war with Russia. Scheer said, “if you even dare suggest there's some complexity to this issue, or that the other side might have a point of view, or there's something even worth negotiating about, you're now considered unpatriotic.” Lears agreed: “We have former directors of the CIA who have perjured themselves before Congress, now posing as professional wise men and professional truth tellers on MSNBC and CNN.”
Wrapping up the discussion, Lears gives an insight into his latest book, Animal Spirits: The American Pursuit of Vitality from Camp Meeting to Wall Street. In it, Lears explores the history behind thinkers in America who honed in on vitalism rather than the restrictive nature of traditional cultures involving religion, science and commercialization.
Understanding foreign policy in Russia is complicated. Over the past weekend, the media said Russia was undergoing a coup and then they weren’t. The leader of the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, was a brutal military figure, then suddenly a liberator of Putin’s hold on Russia. These entanglements in narratives require an impartial judge, someone who can make sense of it for the way it is. After years of doing this on a daily basis for the president of the United States, Ray McGovern joins host Robert Scheer on this episode of Scheer Intelligence to do just that.
In War Made Invisible, journalist Norman Solomon explains that Biden is as guilty as Trump in ushering a potential nuclear holocaust.
Peter Singer knows it is difficult to make a lonely stand against the mega corporate food processing machine. To make meaningful changes to diet, to care more about where food comes from and to consider the vast laundry list of problems that comes with the international food industry requires a great deal of attention to detail and resourcefulness. Singer, through his persuasive and forgiving prose, makes it easier for folks to get in the know about what a trip to the supermarket really entails. Singer joins host Robert Scheer for this week’s Scheer Intelligence episode to talk about the renewed version of his classic book, Animal Liberation Now.
After nearly 50 years since the original publishing of Animal Liberation, Singer finds that there indeed has been change, although not as much as he would have liked. With a fresh perspective on the research regarding food production's impact on climate change, Singer reintroduces his classic with a modern angle. Scheer and Singer revisit the important points that made the book a hit for all these years. For one, despite improvements in regulations in Europe, the U.S. continues to be one of the worst violators of animal welfare. “There's no federal regulation that says you can't keep a chicken in a cage so small that she can't stretch her wings fully or you can't keep a pig in a crate that she can't even turn around in,” Singer says, adding “that's the influence of the lobbyists… the agri-business that is pouring money into Washington lobbyists and preventing any such legislation at the federal level.”
The nightmarish conditions of overcrowded food factories, where 20,000 animals are confined and deprived of natural light, while being force-fed subpar nutrition, depict the current state of affairs. Even if you have no sympathy for the animals, “they're under stress, their immune systems are weakened. It's a perfect recipe for creating new viruses… There will be humans who have to go into the sheds, who will pick up the viruses and spread them back to the community. So there's a serious pandemic risk with factory farming,” Singer adds.
Sympathy for these animals should be the goal, however, as Singer attempts to convey throughout the book. “Animals are other beings who are on this planet. They were not placed on this planet just for our benefit. They are living their own lives. And I don't believe that we—because we have power over them, because of our advanced technology—are justified in giving them miserable lives in order to produce their flesh, milk or eggs more cheaply,” he declares.
Often overlooked, ignored and damned, the cycle that throws people in the prison system and spits them out is a calamitous yet integral part of the American experience. People who find themselves at the short end of the stick—usually poor, uneducated and of a minority race—find themselves worse off, excommunicated from society and filled with more trauma and neglect. Keri Blakinger was not poor, was highly educated and white, yet found herself in the same spot and was treated in the same cold and dehumanized fashion. In prison, as Blakinger points out, “You become a number.”
The Western world, in the midst of being primed for a war with China, often has a limited understanding of who this supposed enemy is. Is it a communist force ready to challenge the U.S.’s capitalist and hegemonic structure? Is it an economic ally providing an indispensable factory floor for our corporate interests? Or is it somehow a combination of both? Joining host Robert Scheer this week on Scheer Intelligence is Suisheng Zhao, professor and director of Center for China-U.S. Cooperation at the University of Denver Josef Korbel School of International Studies, who hopes to provide clarity to these ever growing questions.
Over 100 years ago, the United States had corrupt politicians who could actually be prosecuted for their crimes in gaming the economy. As mythical as it may seem, the history of a small band of radical and gutsy senators who were willing to put it all on the line for justice can serve as inspiration for those who have only ever seen their political representatives bought and paid for. In Crooked: The Roaring '20s Tale of a Corrupt Attorney General, a Crusading Senator, and the Birth of the American Political Scandal, author, producer and Emmy winner Nathan Masters explores the remarkable time in American history.
It is so easy for people to throw trash on the floor, waste food and water and engage in endless consumerism without being truly connected with the Earth around them. Without witnessing a first hand account of the destruction to the natural environment from the persistently damaging habits of society, there is little incentive to change. The scary and all encompassing problems of climate change will devastate the planet indiscriminately regardless, and it is because of this that writer, editor and professor David Gessner decided to embark on a journey that details the need for this understanding amongst the masses.
It has been almost two years since the distressing scenes of packed airports, people chasing after departing U.S. aircraft and the Taliban emerging on top were witnessed with the withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Afghanistan. Amidst the commotion and confusion, what was certain was the fear within one type of Afghan citizen, the interpreters of the American military. Without them, U.S. forces would have been an army of the deaf, engaging in pivotal and deadly operations in a country thousands of miles away.
Alan MacLeod’s reporting on the influx of former government employees at TikTok, Meta, Twitter and other social media companies helps define the scope of the U.S. censorship regime.
A thorough dissection of America’s capitalist mythology reveals the sham to which lots of people continue to subscribe, despite growing nationwide suffering.
The story of a U.S. backed coup destabilizing a country for the benefit of Western capitalist interests is one so often repeated that each instance is a sort of classic novel in the dystopian series from the 20th century on. The tale of the Iranian coup in 1953 is indeed a classic, as it was the first of its kind. With its share of infamous characters—mainly the CIA and British MI6—as well as its lasting impact on the region, its citizenry and the world, the coup in ‘53 proved to be a monumental shift in world politics, one of great promise and prosperity for the West by means of exploitation and rapacity. For its victims, decades of occupation, terror and confusion flooded countries and created the hegemonic world we live in today.
Writer Dionne Ford dives deep into her ancestry and confronts the complexities of being a Black woman in America with the blood of both the enslaved and the enslaver.
The Federal Reserve is not working for the people but for wealthy individuals and corporations that can afford to have a say in the rules.
A major shift in global relations has recently transpired. To some in America, it may look like the second coming of the Evil Empire. To much of the rest of the world, it’s a welcome chance for a renewed multipolar order, where the sovereign desires of nations are respected and new collaborations can be established. The deal brokered between Iran and Saudi Arabia, brought together by China, to restore diplomatic relations, is a clear example of that. The 20-year anniversary of the Iraq War is bringing even more attention to the faltering era of U.S. global hegemony and bullying. To add to that, America’s thirst for war with China spells out its acknowledgement of its waning dominance in the world. The last two decades in the Middle East serve as the quintessential case study of U.S. foreign policy and how it served the interests of America’s biggest corporations and stakeholders.
University of Michigan Professor Juan Cole, a leading Middle East expert, joins host Robert Scheer this week on Scheer Intelligence to discuss the diminishing role of the U.S. in the world, the way its wars in the Middle East led to this point, and how China is emerging as a frontrunner in the new multipolar world. “The United States is not the only game in town anymore, and that's not been the case since the end of World War II, when the U.S. was 50% of the world economy. It's just becoming smaller, it has a smaller proportion of world wealth and power,” Cole said.
Despite the U.S.’s best efforts to thwart prosperity in Iran, countries like China have been circumventing their dollar dominance and now sit in the driver’s seat. “Most countries have been strong-armed by the United States—South Korea, Japan and the European countries—not to buy Iranian petroleum. China has defied the U.S. in this regard and can do so because it has a big, complex economy,” Cole said.
Renowned sports journalist Dave Zirin talks about his latest documentary, which explores the unjust, unfair and deeply racist history of the NFL coupled with its commitment to nationalism, militarism and corporatism.
The use of the century old Espionage Act in the Julian Assange case continues to set the chilling precedent of a bleak future in American journalism, a precedent that endangers even those outside US borders.
After a year of war and carnage in Ukraine, the fighting continues, and there are no signs of it slowing down. In fact, military budgets have increased, the weapons shipments have multiplied and the number of countries involved has reached world war levels. In a time of conflicting narratives, misinformation and rampant propaganda, history proves to be one of the few sources of wisdom left to predict and caution what the future holds.
Violent drug cartels often dominate headlines about Mexico but the Ayotzinapa case reveals a more sinister involvement from the US side of the border.
Cop City Atlanta is a privately funded, local community surveillance campus that has already taken the life of one protestor as a harbinger of the police state on the horizon.
Retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel William J. Astore who served in the nuclear missile command fears the end of human life through nuclear war is more likely than in the Cold War era.
Numbers and facts only tell half the story of some of the world’s most horrendous circumstances.
The FBI, CIA, NSA and other agencies have historically exploited their power but their limits appear boundless in the modern age.
Physician and anthropology scholar Dr. Warren Hern delves into some of the most upsetting aspects of human behavior as a fatal threat to all life on earth in the near future.
The Rev. Madison Shockley discusses the historical, political and controversial misconceptions of the Christmas story.
Larry Gross, author of the LGBTQ civil rights treatise, “Up From Invisibility,” honors the achievement of the new same-sex marriage law with only feint appreciation for the president who signed the bill.
Dr. Gabor Maté’s new book strips back the realities of the neoliberal system that has been plaguing the health of US and the world citizens.
How Democrats, their pro-war Republican cohorts and the media canceled the U.S. Senate campaign of ex Marine and US foreign policy official Matthew Hoh.
Esteemed physician Dr. Stephen Bezruchka explains why spending the most in the midst of inequality and flawed politics produces an unhealthy prognosis.
Historian Joel Beinin uses his personal experiences to paint a picture of Israel, past and present, as a country and an idea.
In this week's Scheer Intelligence interview, as in his New York Times bestselling book, “Solito: A Memoir,” celebrated poet Javier Zamora cuts through the nasty dehumanization about undocumented immigrants with the focused memory of his perilous journey as a child refugee attempting to join his family under the most vulnerable of circumstances. With their lives overturned by the U.S.-sponsored war in El Salvador, Zamora's parents had found refuge in California, but it took eight years and the risky efforts of a paid smuggler to open the possibility for their child to join them.
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) Legal Director Corynne McSherry discusses with host Robert Scheer the internet control issues raised by Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter and what may lie ahead for it and other social media giants.
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) Legal Director Corynne McSherry discusses with host Robert Scheer the internet control issues raised by Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter and what may lie ahead for it and other social media giants.
For 16 years the former Democrat congressman from Cleveland advocated for peaceful alternatives to the madness of war, but now members of his party in Congress are permitted only the voice of the warmonger.
For 16 years the former Democrat congressman from Cleveland advocated for peaceful alternatives to the madness of war, but now members of his party in Congress are permitted only the voice of the warmonger.
Former Goldman Sachs managing director Nomi Prins exposes the role of the Federal Reserve and other western central banks in creating a world economy for the superrich while enabling the impoverishment of much of the world’s population
Former Goldman Sachs managing director Nomi Prins exposes the role of the Federal Reserve and other western central banks in creating a world economy for the superrich while enabling the impoverishment of much of the world’s population
Indigenous Los Angeles psychology graduate student Eduardo Carreon analyzes the mindset of disgraced former LA City Council leader, a Latina whose racist bile scorned Black and gay colleagues and others, including indigenous members of her own Latinx community.
Indigenous Los Angeles psychology graduate student Eduardo Carreon analyzes the mindset of disgraced former LA City Council leader, a Latina whose racist bile scorned Black and gay colleagues and others, including indigenous members of her own Latinx community.
35-year teaching veteran Jim Mamer explores the uncomfortable areas of history most schools fail to teach and what it means about the state of the world today.
Author Zachary Karabell pleads that despite the militaristic noise, China and the U.S. share an economic dependency that would rupture the domestic economy of both nations if severed.
The U.S. withdrew its troops and with them all humanitarian aid while freezing Afghanistan’s foreign reserves, leading to mass deprivation for Afghanistan’s innocent civilian population.
The U.S. withdrew its troops and with them all humanitarian aid while freezing Afghanistan’s foreign reserves, leading to mass deprivation for Afghanistan’s innocent civilian population.
On this week’s Scheer Intelligence, Boyah Farah, a young refugee from Somalia’s hellish civil war describes his family’s narrow escape from death and their arrival in the placid suburbs of Boston. But life was more a nightmare than the dream he had imagined.
On this week’s Scheer Intelligence, Boyah Farah, a young refugee from Somalia’s hellish civil war describes his family’s narrow escape from death and their arrival in the placid suburbs of Boston. But life was more a nightmare than the dream he had imagined.
Katrina vanden Heuvel, editorial director and publisher of The Nation, remembers the Russian leader—whom she called a friend—as a committed pro-peace thinker, on this week’s “Scheer Intelligence.”
CODEPINK founders Medea Benjamin and Jodie Evans are rare voices of conscience confronting the bipartisan warmongers.
Climate scientist Alan Robock, one of the authors of a groundbreaking Nature Food paper on the little-discussed impacts of nuclear war, talks to Robert Scheer about his work.
Columbia Law School professor Kathryn Judge talks to Robert Scheer about the exploitation of monster behemoth retail companies revealed in her new book “Direct.”
Joel Whitney, the author of “Finks,” joins Robert Scheer to discuss a little-told episode in the socialist actor and singer’s life and why it’s seemingly been erased from our collective memory.
The comedian and host of two popular progressive podcasts offers her take on why the American left keeps getting things wrong.
Former Mideast CIA operative John Kiriakou discusses his recent trip covering Biden in Saudi Arabia and what he’s learned about America’s “special relationship” with the country.
Michelle Wilde Anderson speaks to Robert Scheer about how four working class towns struggling with poverty and broke governments still managed to progress.
At a time when the war that could end civilization escalates, peace activist Ron Kovic marks his July 4 birthday sounding the alarm about the true costs of war, a sentiment shared by his girlfriend of 16 years, TerriAnn Ferren.
The authors of “Let’s Agree to Disagree” offer a guide to fostering critical thinking and dialogue in a society that seems to have forgotten how to engage in either.
The author of “Because Our Fathers Lied” lays bare agonizing truths about America his father helped to shape.
The former presidential candidate speaks to “Scheer Intelligence” host Robert Scheer about the shreds of democracy left in America.
A veteran foreign correspondent returns from three decades covering the rise of the East to grapple with an America that is more dangerously parochial than ever.
A new book documents the extent to which American prosperity is founded on immigration—and raises questions about how we treat immigrants today.
Critics of the West’s role in the Ukraine war, such as CIA veterans Ray McGovern and John Kiriakou, are being ostracized from the American media landscape.
Veteran award-winning journalists Patrick Cockburn and Robert Scheer, who met in Moscow in 1987 when Mikhail Gorbachev optimistically promised peace, now fear a descent into nuclear war hell.
Lifelong journalist Joe Lauria joins Robert Scheer to discuss how companies like PayPal, YouTube and Facebook are quashing non-stream reporting and opinions on Ukraine.
Jorja Leap joins Robert Scheer to discuss the plight of women who have been incarcerated and their struggles to reenter society.
Pentagon whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg argues the Russian president may not be deploying his nukes but is using them effectively as a threat.
When it came to the Ukraine conflict, Professor Michael J. Brenner did what he’s done his whole life: question American foreign policy. This time the backlash was vitriolic.
Economic expert Ellen Brown talks to Robert Scheer about the financial revolution Vladimir Putin has started and what the global economic future could look like as a result.
CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou comments on the legal case of five Guantanamo Bay torture victims and what its outcome could say about the US.
For decades after the Cold War ended, the threat of nuclear war seemed to fade into the global background. Climate change took center stage as the existential crisis of our time, and it seemed for a few brief years that treaties and diplomacy, however flawed, had led nuclear powers to set aside the possibility of using nuclear weapons again. (To date, it is only the U.S. that has detonated nuclear weapons—both in Japan—and it continues to be the country with the largest nuclear arsenal by far.)
Mary Childs, the co-host of NPR’s “Planet Money,” joins Robert Scheer to discuss her new book, “The Bond King.”
As Russia’s attack on Ukraine wages on, and Ukrainian civilians die daily, the fog of war has seemingly been clouding more nuanced analysis in the United States, argues “Scheer Intelligence” host Robert Scheer. To get more perspective on the historical context of the current conflict, Scheer invites former CIA analyst Ray McGovern to discuss the role the U.S. and NATO have played in Ukraine. McGovern has long been an outspoken critic of what he’s coined as the American Military-Industrial-Congressional-Intelligence-Media-Academia-Think-Tank (MICIMATT) for leading the world ever closer to a nuclear war.
Greg Sarris, Tribal Chairman of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, explores the urgent need for an American future rooted in indigenous knowledge.
Journalist Matthew Cole joins Robert Scheer to discuss his hard-hitting book, “Code Over Country,” about SEAL Team 6, the most celebrated unit in the Navy SEALs elite special forces unit.
Leading privacy lawyer Neil Richards joins Robert Scheer to discuss his new book “Why Privacy Matters” and whether we can still claw back some control over our personal data.
Oliver Stone, creator of the Showtime documentary series “The Putin Diaries,” speaks to Robert Scheer about the escalating crisis in Ukraine.
Middle East expert Juan Cole talks about lesser known peaceful Muslim movements and how the U.S. maligns a Muslims at home and abroad.
The late human rights lawyer took on some of the most important cases of our time, including defending Guantanamo Bay detainees and representing WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
Peter Richardson joins Robert Scheer to discuss his latest book, “Savage Journey,” on the legendary Gonzo journalist.
On this week’s “Scheer Intelligence,” Wasserman joins host Robert Scheer to talk about the larger-than-life writer they both greatly admired, but also the flesh-and-bones woman they both knew personally: Joan Didion.
During another pandemic holiday season when everyone could use a little faith, the Pulitzer prize-winning journalist talks to Robert Scheer about putting Christ back into Christmas.
Joseph Carson has spent most of his career as a federal employee challenging everything from the country’s nuclear weapons program to its whistleblower adjudication infrastructure.
The Mexican-American author opens the wounds his father inflicted in a eulogistic debut that is as much about the U.S.-Mexico border as it is about healing.
The Native American activist’s attorney Kevin Sharp tells Robert Scheer why Peltier’s imprisonment is one of the worst miscarriages of justice this country has ever seen.
Tony Platt’s recently re-released book, “Grave Matters” digs into the Golden State’s dark history of not only massacring Indigenous Peoples, but later desecrating their graves and excavating their remains without their descendants' consent.
Aaron Maté joins Robert Scheer to discuss the damning new Justice Department evidence that the Hillary Clinton campaign conspired to finance and promote the totally fraudulent “Steele dossier.”
Torture victim Majid Khan’s lawyer J. Wells Dixon joins Robert Scheer to discuss his client’s shocking testimony about the CIA’s so-called “enhanced interrogation tactics.”
John Kiriakou joins Robert Scheer to discuss the plight of the whistleblower, sentenced to 45 months in prison for revealing how often drone strikes kill civilians.
Chris Hedges on his 10 years as a teacher and pupil creating theater in the U.S. prison plantation system.
Documentary filmmaker Judith Ehrlich joins Robert Scheer on this week’s “Scheer Intelligence” to discuss “The Boys Who Said No,” a documentary about the Vietnam War draft resisters.
Joseph Weisberg, a former CIA officer and the creator of the TV show “The Americans,” joins Robert Scheer to examine common misconceptions about the Cold War.
Andrew Cockburn brilliantly documents the motivations behind the U.S. military’s war lust in his new book, “Spoils of War.”
Journalist Stephen Davis documents in detail the lead up, cover up and aftermath of a 1990 hostage crisis that few recall.
In this week’s installment of Scheer Intelligence, host Robert Scheer hears from Kiriakou the inside story of how the the program started as part of a cynical power struggle between the CIA and FBI, why torture does not save lives or secure better intelligence, and how, while the program was started under Republican President George W. Bush, it was a top appointee of President Obama, himself a key architect of the torture program, who chose to prosecute him five years after his interviews with ABC which should have made him a national hero instead of a disgraced felon.
In this week's Scheer Intelligence podcast, host Robert Scheer discusses the paradoxical past, present and future of China's "socialist market" economic model with Nathan Gardels, author of "It Is No Longer Glorious to Get Rich in China," published this week by Noema, a magazine of the Berggruen Institute.
Maj. Danny Sjursen weighs in on the U.S. exit from Afghanistan and Gen. David Petraeus’ dangerously false narrative about our country’s longest war.
Peter Edelman examines how Americans are still tormented by the specter of President Bill Clinton’s worst domestic policy failure.
Prisoner-turned-journalist Eddie Conway talks about how the immorally cheap labor of those caught in the prison industrial complex is the shame of the U.S. economy.
Dr. Kelly Denton-Borhaug, a professor of religious studies, examines how Christian rhetoric is used to justify endless wars and the “moral injury” they inflict.
Activist Achal Prabhala speaks to Robert Scheer about the wealthy countries’ reluctance to end global vaccine apartheid.
Journalist Richard Silverstein has been sounding the alarm bells about the private surveillance spyware sold by Israel’s NSO for years.