AlternativeRadio

How Trump happened is a question a lot of people ask. From an aggressive foreign policy to an immigration crackdown to cutting Medicaid to tax breaks for the super-rich to undermining environmental regulations and much more. Where did these policies originate? A good place to start is Project 2025. It’s a detailed 900+ page agenda designed to reshape the government, specifically focusing on expanding executive power and implementing conservative policies across federal agencies. Organized by the right-wing Heritage Foundation, Project 2025 is a road map for this administration. Its policies have generated pushback. Recent polls show rising opposition. David Brooks, the noted PBS conservative commentator, says of Trump, “This is the most imperial presidency in American history.” Recorded at Macalester College.

For the first time since the Great Depression, most Americans do not believe that their children will be better off than they are. Jesse Jackson thinks the country’s slide can be halted and reversed. In this inspiring presentation, he offers a program of new priorities that he contends will realize greater economic and social justice. Recorded at the Kennedy School at Harvard.

The challenges humankind faces from the climate emergency to species extinction to terminal war may be difficult to comprehend, but we ignore them at our peril. Looking away is a lot easier than facing reality. Viewing the Earth as a giant shopping mall to be exploited is leading us to a literal dead end. The capitalist system solely cares about making money. Can a deep caring for the Earth emerge that is nourishing and sustaining rather than recklessly exploiting it? What creative steps can we undertake to reverse the dangerous course we are on? The clock is ticking as our precious planet takes one hit after another. Can global society wake up to implement policies that will avert catastrophe? If not, Joanna Macy says, “It’s curtains.”

The Lost Cause is rooted in the South’s search for justification and the need to find a substitute for victory in the Civil War. In attempting to deal with defeat, the South created an image of the war as a noble epic fought by brave men. The war, the mythology goes, wasn’t about preserving slavery it was about Southern values. Monuments to Confederate soldiers and the naming of military bases not only glorifies militarism but are everyday reminders of white supremacy. Slavery, free labor for centuries, created huge wealth for the plantation master class. To heal and repair we need an honest accounting of history. We can’t continue to mythologize the past.

Discussions about democracy probably started in Athens about 2500 years ago. A truism is that society is democratic to the extent that its citizens play a meaningful role in managing public affairs. Democracy is located within the capitalist economic system, infamous for producing colossal inequality. There's no level playing field, as great income and wealth translate into political power for the haves at the expense of the have-nots. We have procedural democracy: elections, broadcast debates, primaries, etc. Citizens are largely marginalized, overwhelmed by big money and powerful lobbies. Look at the widespread demand to ban assault weapons of war, for universal single-payer health care, to protect the environment, and for affordable housing. People want those things but elites have a simple message. Vote. Then go home and leave everything to us. Actual democracy is hollowed out. A Davos-type class rules. Recorded at the University of Colorado.