Civil Liberties Archives - Keeping Democracy Alive: Recent Episodes
Burt Cohen
The Democratic establishment doesn’t get that people vote their morals. So says our guest David Fenton, successful public relations veteran of fifty years. Civil rights, wars, climate change: he says these are moral issues and people vote with their hearts
The post PR Professional of the Left: Win by Touching People’s Morals appeared first on KDA Keeping Democracy Alive Podcast & Radio Show.
The Constitution itself is divisive. There wasn’t much America’s Founders agreed on, but one thing they did agree on was no kings; legislative over any executive power. On this, the 250th birthday of the Declaration of Independence, historian Thomas Richards
The post The Unfinished Business of 1776: It Goes On. appeared first on KDA Keeping Democracy Alive Podcast & Radio Show.
After decades of having to look “Tough on Crime”by jailing teenagers, notably people of color, at last we’re seeing the end of adult prisons housing kids. Forty four states have dialed back the sequestering of kids in medieval fortresses where
The post Freer Kids and Safer Streets appeared first on KDA Keeping Democracy Alive Podcast & Radio Show.
At the nearly two hundred fifty year mark, we’ve already lasted longer than most great nations. As with others which declined and fell, a loss of confidence led to anxiety and the impulse for a strong man to protect us
The post Is America on an Irreversible Path to Decline and Fall? appeared first on KDA Keeping Democracy Alive Podcast & Radio Show.
Fear of the other. Fear of woke, of LGBTQ+, of Black liberation, and of course the old big fear: Communism. In the age of the Cold War, right after WWII, Americans believed the Soviet Union was bankrolling worldwide liberation movements,
The post Why is There So Much Fear in the Strongest Country in the World? appeared first on KDA Keeping Democracy Alive Podcast & Radio Show.
Remember when we could count on the Washington Post to boldly take the lead on political corruption? And can you imagine a newspaper turning down a really big ad buy? Welcome to Trumpworld 2.0. As Common Cause president and CEO
The post Washington Post Changes Bigly: Refuses $115,000 Ad appeared first on KDA Keeping Democracy Alive Podcast & Radio Show.
In being careful to avoid a monarchy or dictatorship, America’s founders adamantly insisted on each government agency being independent. The Federal Communications Commission act of 1934 was created to ensure that the public would have access to news without threat
The post Is Freedom of the Press Doomed? appeared first on KDA Keeping Democracy Alive Podcast & Radio Show.
What we’re seeing today is a far cry from justice. Today’s policy of cruelty toward immigrants is an abject failure, yet it’s impractical to have a totally open border with Mexico. As with most solutions, the answer has to involve
The post Immigration Justice: Is it Even Possible? appeared first on KDA Keeping Democracy Alive Podcast & Radio Show.
Just the threat of prosecution can be a violation of our First Amendment rights. Look for the fascistic right under Trump to try to impose by force what they failed to win in the culture war. On this show, investigative
The post Will There Be A Way to Stop Him? appeared first on KDA Keeping Democracy Alive Podcast & Radio Show.
From the proposed Department of Government Efficiency to possible invocation of the Insurrection Act of 1807 to the Espionage Act of 1917 to the proposal to take away the non-profit status of organizations alleged to have ties to terrorists, there
The post The Many All-American Tools Trump Can Use To Chill Freedom appeared first on KDA Keeping Democracy Alive Podcast & Radio Show.
You remember: “that’s not who we are,” related to January 6, 2021? Turns out, maybe it is who we are. Was this too an outlier: Greensboro North Carolina November 1979 when the KKK shot and killed five people demonstrating for
The post Greensboro ’79: “White Supremacy Done Correctly” appeared first on KDA Keeping Democracy Alive Podcast & Radio Show.
They love to say America has the strongest military of any nation ever. But boasting usually leads to disaster. On this show, we hear from William J. Astore, a retired lieutenant colonel of the US Air Force and professor of
The post A Military Security State and the Erosion of Freedom appeared first on KDA Keeping Democracy Alive Podcast & Radio Show.
As Trump heads into the 2024 campaign, you might wonder who is behind it, who benefits from destroying our republic. Here is the story. The religious nationalists see him as a fierce leader. They believe God sends such kings to
The post What’s Behind Trumpism: The Open Attack on Democracy appeared first on KDA Keeping Democracy Alive Podcast & Radio Show.
It’s not high on people’s reason to choose a president, but the power of pardons today is often corrupt and the promise of a pardon has been known to encourage crimes. In this discussion of her forthcoming book, Law Professor
The post The Power of Pardons and Democracy appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
What do we mean by the word “hero?” Is it not a person of extraordinary courage, putting the good of the country above his or her own safety? That’s Daniel Ellsberg, most famous for the Pentagon Papers which he released
The post Dan Ellsberg Died One Year Ago. Long May He Live. appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
The final chapter in our guest’s new book, Liberalism as a Way of Life asks the question: Requiem for a Liberal Way of Life? Well, is it really over? Reached in Sydney Australia where he’s professor of politics and philosophy
The post Under Attack the World Over, What Is Liberalism? appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
They wanted to stop abortions, instead there were more after the Dobbs decision than before. One the first segment, Mother Jones magazine writer Julianne McShane tells how women are maintaining their reproductive rights despite the attacks. And on the second
The post AntiChoice: In A Hole, Keeps Digging appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
Imagine a Supreme Court whose only agenda was “equal justice under law.” It was real. Unlike today’s court, which is openly an arm of the MAGA movement, when that court ended legal segregation 70 years ago, the Chief Justice was
The post When the Supreme Court Was About Fairness to All appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
It’s a systemic problem: what is “reasonable,” what is acting “in good faith” when America’s police violate citizens rights or even kill them? As of now, police are protected, enjoying unique immunity which no one else has. In this show
The post Shielded: How Did Police Become Untouchable? appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
It’s the bedrock of who we are today. But to believe there was agreement among the “Founding Fathers,” that they aimed to to replace plutocracy with democracy is just wrong. In this lively interview, historian Woody Holton reveals fascinating little-known
The post The Truth Behind the Myth of the American Revolution appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
When you’re in a hole, stop digging. The currently pervasive approach to abuse disorder is a total failure; it exacerbates the problem. Could it be time to stop doing that? On this show experts in the field with personal knowledge
The post Not Punishment: Treat Addicts as Full and Complete Humans? appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
Authoritarianism. Anti-Immigrant. White men fearful of losing control. Books banned, free press shut down. Widespread domestic spying. Dissent criminalized and many jailed tortured and killed. In his new book, American Midnight: The Great War, A Violent Peace, and Democracy’s
The post American Midnight: The Early 20th Century Model for Trump? appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
It was a crime to even be a member of the “One Big Union.” But even Helen Keller was a member of the IWW, the Industrial Workers of the World. On this show, Ahmed White talks about his new book
The post “Courage Unexcelled in US History” appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
It’s a systemic problem: what is “reasonable,” what is acting “in good faith” when America’s police violate citizens rights or even kill them? As of now, police are protected, enjoying expanded immunity which no one else has. In this show
The post Shielded: How The Police Became Untouchable appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
The Trumpist right today has had no small success erasing the productive history of liberalism. Today’s guest is author, lecturer, and journalist for The Washington Monthly David Masciotra who in this show talks about the renewed interest in Ted Kennedy,
The post How Ted Kennedy’s Liberalism Strengthened America, And Still Can appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
Authoritarianism. Anti-Immigrant. White men fearful of losing control. Books banned, free press shut down. Widespread domestic spying. Dissent criminalized and many jailed tortured and killed. In his new book, American Midnight: The Great War, A Violent Peace, and Democracy’s
The post American Midnight: Trumpism Before Trump appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
In our 300 year old system of an adversarial combative system of justice, there is no mechanism to prove and protect the innocent. In his soon to be published book, The Plea of Innocence, author Tim Bakken argues that prosecution
The post Restoring Truth to the American Justice System appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
It may appear to be a rogue court today but the truth is the Supreme Court has long led the fight against democracy. Our guest today historian Steve Fraser points out that the liberal Warren Court was the real aberration.
The post The Tyranny of the Supreme Court is Nothing New, It’s Tradition appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
Even in safe spaces for gay men, there is subtle racism and stratification if one is not white. On this show, Professor Anthony Ocampo talks about his new book Brown and Gay in LA, including pressures from Mexican and Filipino
The post Being Gay, Brown, and Immigrant appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
You may have thought it began after 9/11. But it really all started in 1947, as National Security Archive Scoville Fellow Rachel Santarsiero explains. The focus of our huge arsenal then quickly shifted from Germany and Japan to the perceived
The post 75 Years of National Security State: America? appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
The opposite of conservatism is a police state. Yet public figures who call themselves conservative are crushing many of our traditional civil liberties and our legal rights. This according to Jacob Hornberger founder and president of the Future of Freedom
The post “Conservatives” Are Disastrous to Civil Liberties appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
Justice Scalia claimed to be an Originalist: did he mean only propertied white Christian men have rights? Perhaps the actual intent is still consent of all the governed. In the 21st century, are we not all entitled to participate in
The post Today’s Supreme Court: Not All May Participate in Democracy appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
The attack on traditional rights is at the vanguard of the culture war, reproductive rights are the floor not the ceiling. Religious nationalists cherry pick what they mean by liberty. We can wish Samuel Alito was an outlier but he’s
The post The Real Intent of Alito’s Assault on Privacy appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
There used to be a long held American tradition of opposition to colonialism and that government served the common good. FDR’s vice president Henry A Wallace was an outstanding visionary. Then a corrupt political machine performed a bloodless coup at
The post A Successful Coup in 1944 America appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
The words seem so obviously neutral and just technical. In her new book “Does Skill Make US Human?” author Natasha Iskander reveals that the language of skill versus unskilled is being used to justify dehumanizing workers in Qatar, much the
The post “Skilled/Unskilled” New Political Categories appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
In his new book, The Privatization of Everything, author Donald Cohen directly takes on the myths which have led to intense concentration of power a an wealth and offers ways to reassert what America’s founders had in mind. Despite the
The post Why Privatization is the Wrong Tool for the Common Good appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
It was called the Gilded Age. In the late 19th and early 20th century, there was extreme wealth and everybody else (remind you of another time?). Wall Street bankers back then were getting robbed, someone had to protect them. In
The post Making the World Safe for Plutocracy: The History of American Policing appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
It’s not like displaying a large red cross protects doctors from attack anymore. Yesterday’s Covid heroes are today vilified by some. Across the globe, health care workers have become routinely targeted. For example in Myanmar, since it is not an
The post From Heroes to Targets: Medical Workers Under Attack appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
Let’s face it: the current Supreme Court is hostile to democracy. Even if Congress passes the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, the voter suppression right wing will take it to this Supreme Court which will decide voting rights. Does that
The post Pack The Court! appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
Remember Nixon’s “law and order?” It was a clever way to get whites to buy into racist repression. On this show author historian Alfred McCoy (who revealed government heroin distribution to GIs in Vietnam) says the continuing “war on drugs”
The post The Intent of the Drug War: Repress Black People appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
Thanks to January 6th, the word sedition is in our consciousness again. Trump is more likely guilty of treason than of mere sedition according to the former director of the CIA and our guest, history teacher and essayist William Pruden
The post Sedition and Democracy appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
Americans talk about the surge at the border, but the real point is everyone has a right to stay home. Today’s guest Avi Chomsky says that under Biden, Trump’s cement wall is instead outsourced to a militarized high-tech barrier. Do
The post Border Crisis? How About A Right to Stay Home appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
Fossil fueled fascism is not limited to the west. The roots of India’s ruling party go back to Mussolini and Nazis. Repressing minorities as they increase wealth and power of the autocratic rulers. The US is tight with Prime Minister
The post The Rise of Fascism: It’s India’s Turn appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
So much we have to learn from January 6th. On the first part of today’s show History Professor Robert Schneider calls it a “Populist Transgression,” without a legitimate grievance. Other uprisings and disruptions are purposeful. He likens Trump to Mao:
The post A Carnival of Breaking Stuff and Lynching: January 6th appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
It was either another civil war or ratify a backroom deal to choose the next president. In that deal, the rights of newly emancipated people were sacrificed. Moving on from abolition, white northerners figured locking in white supremacy and the
The post 2020 Not the Worst Election; 1876 Was appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
The word treason has been thrown around a lot lately. By Trump against his detractors and also leveled at Trump for seeking to stage a coup against America. On this show one of the nations leading authorities on the law
The post Treason: What Is It Really? appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
The framers of our Constitution intended the judicial system to be the “least dangerous branch” of government. They did not foresee today’s powerful national parties having the ability to short circuit democracy. As we see in action now, on this
The post Supreme Court: The Power to Obstruct Democracy appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
He called our current history education in our schools “a form of child abuse.” Teaching critical thinking and the real history of America would be shut down in Trump’s “Patriotic Education.” The popular 1619 Project and Zinn’s Education Project which
The post How Trump’s “Patriotic Education” is Anti-American appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
We’ve seen it on the nightly news: the police, the tear gas, the fires, and the wall of moms. Our guest today, David Rovics is there in Portland Oregon and he explains that the city’s police protected the far right
The post Unsafe to Protest? Realities Behind the Portland Picture appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
As Trump kicks off his fall campaign, and we wonder who is behind it, who benefits from destroying our republic, here is the story. The religious nationalists see him as a fierce leader. They believe God sends such kings to
The post The Attack on Democracy: What’s Behind Trumpism appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
Other countries, like those we defeated, use the paramilitary domestically, not America. Or so it was before the Department of Homeland Security was transformed into the ideal authoritarian tool. Former CIA analyst and professor of government at Johns Hopkins University
The post “Homeland Security:” Ideal Authoritarian Tool appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
By intentionally eroding the traditional wall of separation between church and state, the current Supreme Court is essentially overturning anti-discrimination laws. Under new rulings in the name of “religious liberty,” the right wing dominated court allows institutions receiving public money
The post Supreme Court Brings Back Legal Discrimination appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
It goes back to the 1300s actually and not just non-Christian people are affected; we all are. Often in subtle but meaningful ways. The understanding of the meaning of “patriotism” is involved. When one has this privilege, less exertion is
The post Deeper Than You Thought: White Christian Privilege appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
In 1980, candidate Ronald Reagan had the advisors and discipline to be subtle enough about racist messages. Southern white fundamentalists and the NAACP’s Ralph Abernathy all endorsed him for president. As our guest author Rick Perlstein says, Trump turned a
The post Reagan’s Dog Whistles Worked; Trump Missed That Lesson appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
For nearly 20 years, the goal of America’s perpetual war has been about dominating the world. It has been largely out of sight, but now it’s on our streets. Our president has turned the weapons on us; again the goal
The post Are We The Enemy Now? appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
What would make you leave your home and family and friends? And head to a country whose president hates you? Especially in a time of Covid 19, what would possibly motivate you to take this extreme step? In her new
The post When There is No Option But North appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
Myths are often more powerful than real history. Consider that for 200 years the meaning of the 2nd Amendment aroused no controversy. It was about both militias and individual rights for self defense. And there were limits. On this show,
The post You Don’t Understand The Second Amendment appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
Could the coronavirus-caused sudden disruption of the worldwide economy result in unforeseen exercise of harsh nationalism and extended government emergency powers? The people protesting with AR-15s are of course threatening the rest of us taking appropriate precautions. Meanwhile our guest
The post Danger of Covid 19 Government Over-Reach ? appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
We’re all fascinated by Cinderella stories. This one happens to be true, with many twists. Extremely rich WASP man marries very poor Jewish immigrant in 1905. But she turns out to be the strong one. The new book by Adam
The post Rebel Cinderella: A True Story You’ve Never Heard appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
Why did so many Obama voters go for Trump in 2016? What happens when party elites don’t know how to react to changes of popular opinion at the ground level? While they may try to do both: keep the elite
The post When Political Parties Lose the Consent of the Governed: The Civil War and Donald Trump appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
Pure individualism is not conservatism, much as though people who call themselves conservatives like to think it is. They’ll tell you the American Dream is individuals becoming super rich. But the more traditional definition is one of equal opportunity and
The post “Conservatives” Not At All Conservative appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
From the Covid stay-at-home greatest hits: Patriotic Americans were shocked by the outcome of the 2016 election. As they were in 1920 when Republicans put up Warren Harding, a big business Republican who campaigned and won on an America First
The post Out of Disaster A Liberal Renaissance in the 1920s: House of Truth appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
Many, including Trump, reject science and embrace myth instead. But just as technological advance depends on knowledge gained through science, so the future of America relies on knowledge of our history. Until recently it has been tough times for History
The post The Rise of History Education:Vital for America’s Future appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
Creeping centralization. Tax dollars are being used to prop up bigness. Well there may be an answer. While I’m on vacation, enjoy this 2009 show with author Paul Starobin whose article “Divided We Stand” appeared in the Wall Street Journal.
The post Is Smaller Better? Devolution Considered. appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
Populism is defined as “a political approach that strives to appeal to ordinary people who feel that their concerns are disregarded by established elite groups.” We never hear of the grassroots Tea Party any more because they won. The took
The post From The Bottom Up: Real Change, Right and Left appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
We were all startled by Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant frenzy launched in 2015. But there is solid precedent. In an article in The New Yorker, acclaimed author of many history books, Adam Hochschild tells the tale: When America Tried to Deport
The post Deport the Immigrants and Radicals: Trump’s Precedent 100 Years ago appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
Conventional Democratic Party wisdom is that McGovern lost to Nixon because he was too liberal, and as a result of that belief, ever since that loss party insiders have trended steadily to the right. But if today’s measuring tools had
The post Democrats Took The Wrong Lessons from McGovern 1972 appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
It’s not only Trump who is pushing cruelty. Since right wing Republicans have very successfully gained control over the third branch of government, the judicial branch, we should expect to see many examples of cruelty dictating decisions by the Supreme
The post Cruelty Steers the New Supreme Court Docket appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
It’s become “a nearly despotic branch of government.” But wasn’t the Supreme Court created to be a check on the powers of the executive and legislative, making certain they adhere to the Constitution? Author Thom Hartmann is a progressive national
The post Thom Hartmann: Hidden History of Supreme Court and the Betrayal of America appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
We take democracy for granted, but as author Richard C.Lyons tells it, democracy is a recessive gene. Tyranny is much more able to dominate. Tyranny? What does that ancient word even mean? In his new book: The DNA of Democracy,
The post The DNA of Democracy: It’s A Recessive Gene appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
Trump is not the first. Author of many history books Adam Hochschild writes: “The last time we had anything similar from Washington was almost exactly 100 years ago and it, too, involved a flood of angry rhetoric and a fear
The post Woodrow Wilson And Trump: Fanning the Flames of Hate appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
President Reagan’s former solicitor general and Harvard law professor Charles Fried calls it a “Day of Sorrow for American Democracy:” the day the US Supreme Court issued its 5 to 4 decision abandoning protection of one person one vote. In
The post Supreme Court Whittles Away Democracy appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
What do the new anti-choice laws and the old Fugitive Slave Laws have in common? They both strengthen the power of the state and white male rule over people deemed less-than. In the 1850s, northerners who thought slavery was not
The post New Anti-Abortion and Old Fugitive Slave Laws appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
“For the first time in the history of our country, the government has brought criminal charges against a publisher for the publication of truthful information.” The ACLU clearly recognizes the serious new threat to our First Amendment in the form
The post Crackdown on Press Freedom Has Begun appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
We take democracy for granted, but as author Richard C.Lyons tells it, democracy is a recessive gene. Tyranny is much more able to dominate. Tyranny? What does that ancient word even mean? In his new book: The DNA of Democracy,
The post DNA of Democracy: It’s a Recessive Gene appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.