Progressive Commentary Hour

Progressive Commentary Hour - 09/09/13

Progressive Commentary Hour - 09/02/13

Part of a continuing series on fascism.

Progressive Commentary Hour - 08/26/13

A special investigation into the modern history and culture of Iran and its geopolitical standing in the Middle East

Fariba Amini is a freelance writer and journalist who writes regularly on Iranian history and human and women’s rights. Her father was the mayor of Tehran, a member of the ruling National Front party, and the personal attorney and close friend to the democratically elected prime minister Mohammad Mosaddeq, who was deposed by a US-British led coup in 1953. She has written and edited several books including “Faces of the Most Successful Iranian Americans” that was published by the U.S. State Department, “Letters from Ahmad Abad: Mossadeq’s Letters to Noss-rah-toll-lah Ah-meen-ee,”  and “Little Black Fish” -- a translation of children’s stories by one of Iran’s most famous story tellers, Samad Bay-rang-ee.  Fariba has degrees from George Mason University and a masters in history from Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences in Paris.

Prof. Tom Ricks is a retired and distinguished professor who is now an independent scholar in Modern Palestinian and Iranian society and cultural history.  In the past he has served on the faculties of the University of Pennsylvania, Villanova, Georgetown and Birzelt University in the West Bank, Palestine.  He has published and edited numerous, books, translations and peer reviewed articles during his teaching career starting in 1974.   In the 1960s he served in the Peace Corps in Iran and is an expert on the life and work of Howard Baskerville, an American teacher who died alongside the democratic Constitutionalists during the Iranian Constitutional Revolution in the beginning of the twentieth century. Dr. Ricks received his doctorate in Middle East History from Indian University and continues to travel to Palestine yearly to teach at Birzelt University.

Progressive Commentary Hour - Conversations with Remarkable Minds - 08/19/13

Dmitry Orlov is a Russian-American engineer and author writing on the potential economic, environmental and political decline and collapse of the US and modern industrial culture.  He was an eye witness to the collapse of the Soviet Union and has researched extensively its causes and the reasons for the failure of both the Soviets and the Americans to predict and understand it accurately. Dmirty is very popular among the Peak Oil community such as Richard Heinberg and frequently writes on the looming energy crisis.

He has written five books, notably Reinventing Collapse: The Soviety Experience and American Prospects, and now his most recent “The Five Stages of Collapse: Survivors Toolkit.”  He publishes weekly on his popular blog ClubOrolv.com and for the Energy Bulletin. Dmitry and his family currently live on a sailboat fitted with solar panels and the necessities to carry them through for many months.

Progressive Commentary Hour - Conversations with Remarkable Minds - 08/12/13

Progressive Commentary Hour - Conversations With Remarkable Minds - 08/04/13

Special Series on Fascism:  Defining fascism, the interpenetration of government and private industry, and the failures of democratic radicalism in preventing the US from descending into fascism Prof. Norman Pollack is a professor emeritus of history at Michigan State University in East Lansing Michigan. He has a long history of engaging civil rights and anti-war activities over the decades, beginning when he was 15 and campaigning for Henry Wallace and his Progressive Party in 1948.  Later he campaigned for Adlai Stevenson in the 50s and supported Martin Luther King. A two time Guggenheim fellow, Prof. Pollack was a major intellectual voice during the late 60s in giving an knowledgeable boost to the New Left and writing on American populism, which became an popular documentary "The Populist Mind".  After receiving his doctorate in American Civilization from Harvard, he taught at Yale and Wayne State before going to Michigan. In his later years he has focused on the history of civil disobedience, socio-political alienation, and the sociology of fascism. Prof. Pollack currently writes for Counterpunch, looking at the identifying characteristics of America's descent into a new form of neoliberal fascist state.

Progressive Commentary Hour - Conversations With Remarkable Minds - 07/29/13

Capitalism’sand neoliberal globalization’s structural violence and genocidal nature against human societies and the environment and looking forward toward alternative emergent economies Garry Leech is  the director of the Center for International Studies and a lecturer in the Department of Political Science at Cape Breton University in Nova Scotia, Canada.  As an independent journalist and author his research has focused upon the global struggle for social justice and on the U.S. intervention in Colombia under the “war on drugs” and the “war on terror.” Garry’s articles have appeared in numerous publications in the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia and Latin America. For eleven years he was the founding editor of the Columbia Journal, with over 350 scholarly articles. He is the author of seven books, dealing with Colombia, the drug trade, broader critiques of capitalist globalization and the influence of the fossil industry on global economics and politics. His most recent book is Capitalism: A Structural Genocide which takes a hard look at how contemporary capitalism’s inherent and fundamental structure generates inequality, violence, and increased human suffering and death. His website is GarryLeech.com

Progressive Commentary Hour - Conversations with Remarkable Minds - 07/22/13

Poverty in America and how Corporate America and the financial elites benefit from our ever-increasing inequality gap

Professor Frances Fox Piven is a professor of political science and sociology at the Graduate Center of the City University of new York where she has taught for 30 years.  She served as the president of the American Sociological Association until 2007.  Prior to her arrival at City University, she was on the faculty at Boston University with Howard Zinn and Murray LevinMuch of Frances’ career has been a commitment to addressing those conditions leading to poverty.  Her theory of ending  social reform, devised with her late husband Richard Cloward, became known as the Cloward-Piven Strategy – a plan to increase enrollment in social welfare programs designed to collapse the system that would force reforms leading to guaranteed annual income. A life long social activist and public advocate, Frances has received many honors and awards and has written important books dealing with America’s wars against  it own people – including, “Challenging Authority: How Ordinary People Change America” and “The War at Home: The domestic Costs of Bush’s Militarism.” Her last book published in 2011 is “Who’s Afraid of Frances Fox Piven: The Essential Writings of the Professor Glenn Beck Loves to Hate”

Progressive Commentary Hour - 07/15/13

Democratizing our economy from the ground to build community and strengthen local sustainable economies that allow people to be more locally self sufficient Prof. Gar Alperovitz is the Lionel Bauman Professor of Political Economy at the University of Maryland and the founder of the Democracy Collaborative. He is a former fellow of politics at Harvard and Cambridge Universities and has served as a legislative director for the House of Representatives, the US Senate, and as a special assistant to the State Department. Prof. Alperovitz has published numerous articles in peer reviewed journals and major media such as the New York Times and Washington Post. His focus has been on political economics that deal with class struggle and the conflict between government economic policies and democracy. His most recent book is What Then Must We Do?: Straight Talk about the Next American Revolution,” which has been praised by Richard Wolf, Daniel Ellsberg, Naomi Klein and others for offering bottom up solutions for systemic economic change. His website is GarAlperovitz.com AND DemocracyCollaborative.org Sarah van Gelder is co-founder and executive editor of YES! Magazine and YesMagazine.org, one of the few remaining progressive publications challenging current dominant paradigms and offering feature powerful ideas and practical solutions for building a more just and sustainable world. The magazine, which was founded in 1996, recently won the Utne Reader Media Award for General Excellence.  Sarah also sits on the board of the Positive Futures Network, and has founded and co-founded local community projects for low-incoming house, and building cooperative operations and ventures linking organic farmers to urban markets. She is also a board member of the Suquasmish Tribe and is part of the efforts to stop anti-Indian hostility and return lands where Chief Seattle once lived to the Suquamish people. She is the lead author of “This Changes Everything: Occupy Wall Street and the 99% Movement. The Website is YesMagazine.org

Progressive Commentary Hour - 07/08/13

How to prepare ourselves emotionally to take on the challenge  to oppose the threats from government, corpoations, media. Professor Robert Jensen is a professor of journalism at the University of Texas at Autism and a long time radical social activist. His writings cover radical feminist critiques of pornography, post-modern masculinity, race issues, and foreign policy and politics. Recently he conducted an online personalized survey to gather emotional actions from people around the nation about the particular economic, political, environmental and social challenges and crises that most people are facing. We will discuss some the most common responses together in his survey. He has written many books dealin\g with the media and postmodern American society. His most recent is Arguing for Our Lives: A User’s Guide to Constructive Dialogue Professor Robert Thurman holds the Jay Zong Kah-pa Robert Thurman Chair of Indo-Tibetan Studies at Columbia University. He is the President of Tibet House US – which is dedicated to preserving Tibetan civilization, and is President of the American Institute of Buddhist Studies. The New York Times has hailed Bob as the “leading American expert on Tibetan Buddhism.”   In 1962, Prof. Thurman was ordained as a Buddhist monk by the Dalai Lama, with whom he has remained a close colleague to this day.  He is a passionate advocate not only for the rights of Tibetans but for human rights and social justice globally. He has been sought by policy makers on the Tibetan holocaust, and has testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Prof. Thurman has written many books on Tibetan culture, art, politics and Buddhism. His earlier book Inner Revolution: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Real Happiness laid down the argument that individual happiness is interrelated with the happiness of all which can serve as a guide for social activism as well. His forthcoming book to released in September, and co-written with Sharon Salzberg, is Love Your Enemies: It will Drive Them Crazy