AlternativeRadio

As Jesse Jackson advised: “When we act out of fear, rather than hope, we get bitter, rather than better.” Nonviolent Civil Disobedience gives us hope. At a time when people protesting are taking to the streets in greater and greater numbers, civil disobedience is an effective tool of resistance. It was used by Gandhi, Dr. King, Bishop Tutu, and others. From India to South Africa to Alabama, civil disobedience worked. Unjust laws are challenged and rolled back. But it’s not easy. Resistors pay a price: imprisonment, financial penalties, beatings, even death, but all the while occupy the moral high ground and strive to build the Beloved Community. Recorded at the First Congregational Church.

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.