All Ears with Abigail Disney (Abigail Disney)

Abigail is back in front of the microphone! Season 4 of All Ears will kick off on Thursday, February 2, 2023 with a conversation with former Labor Secretary Robert Reich.

Abigail took a podcasting hiatus while out promoting her documentary, The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales, in which she examines the inequality crisis through the lens of the company her grandfather helped found, The Walt Disney Company. In the film, she asks how it is possible that so many workers at Disneyland, aka “the happiest place on earth,” can’t afford life's basic necessities, even when they work full time. For the fourth season of All Ears, Abigail poses that question to people who are doing the most Disney thing of all–using their imaginations–in this case to rethink capitalism. She talks with business leaders, union organizers, and economists to learn how to fix our broken economy. 

Join her every Thursday starting February 2nd!

Watch The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales on iTunes, Amazon, or Vudu. Find out more about the film at AmericanDreamDoc.Com.

Kicking off the fourth Season of All Ears, Abby gets on the line with one of her economic heroes, Robert Reich. Reich understands the issues at the heart of The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales, Abby’s new documentary, better than almost anyone, because he’s been speaking out about exploitative labor practices and corporate greed for decades. From within the halls of power, when Reich was Secretary of Labor under President Clinton, he was vocal about rising inequality, and he’s in no mood to stop now. In recent years, Reich has become one of the most powerful and effective voices explaining the inequality crisis in clear, unequivocal language. Over the course of their rousing conversation, Reich shares his vision for a bottom-up economics and provides some introspection on his own commitment to fighting inequality. He also clues Abby into the real cause of rising inflation last year (hint: it’s not labor!) and lets her know when he’ll believe corporations deserve the same rights as people (hint: something to do with Texas!)


EPISODE LINKS
Robert Reich on linkt.ree
Robert Reich's Substack
What Ownership Society? (The American Prospect)
Civil Right Workers Remembered 50 Years After Slaying (USA Today)
It’s A Wonderful Life Trailer
Republicans block bill requiring dark money groups to reveal donors (The Hill)
Meet The 24 Robber Barons Who Once Ruled America (Business Insider)
When Did Corporations Become People? (NPR)

If you’ve seen Abby’s documentary, The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales, you won’t forget the wisdom imparted by the formidable writer and policy analyst Heather McGee. In the film, Heather reminds us that the economy is not like the weather–it is actually something we can control. And, crucially, she tells a story about American history that’s not told often enough: how deep seated racism in the 20th Century helped unravel a whole host of government policies responsible for creating the largest middle class the world had ever seen. Because so much of their powerful and thought-provoking 2021 conversation never made it into the documentary, this week Abby goes into the vault to share an extended version. Too often, Heather tells Abby, American history gets “Disneyfied.” It's important,  she says, that people know the truth, because “when we don't know what the powerful will do in order to keep power, we are vulnerable to the powerful doing it again”. Heather’s insights, based on her groundbreaking book, The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together, help explain why so many Americans are working full time, yet unable to pay their bills.

Follow Heather @HeatherCMcGhee on Instagram and Facebook, @HMcGhee on Twitter.

EPISODE LINKS
Dumbo Crows (Disney Fandom)
How the Federal Government Built White Suburbia (Bloomberg)
Time to Fight: How the Powell memo convinced big business it was losing American hearts and minds (Slate)
How Slavery Inspired Modern Business Management (Boston Review)
Why Black workers still face a promotion and wage gap that’s costing the economy trillions (CNBC)
Insurance Policies on Slaves: New York Life’s Complicated Past (NY Times)

A week after President Joe Biden’s fiery State of the Union address focused on re-growing America’s middle class, Abby has a lively conversation with millionaire reformer Nick Hanauer about what Biden is doing and why it’s so important. Hanauer, a venture capitalist and activist, has long been sounding the alarm on our inequality crisis, warning that trouble is coming our way if nothing is done to address the problem. In fact, he argues that that trouble will likely involve angry people with pitchforks. We got a preview, he says, when President Donald Trump's supporters stormed the Capitol: “The toxic stew that is created when you make the tiniest sliver of us extremely wealthy, while everyone, even people in the 90th percentile feel like they're falling behind …It just makes people mad and it should make people mad. I’m very sympathetic to that anger.” According to Hanauer, President Biden’s “middle-out” economic policies make him America’s first “post-Reagan” president, and that gives him hope. But much more still needs to change the system which among other things, gives, “moral cover to shitbags.” It’s important to take power from the very rich, he says, because they won't give up power voluntarily. “Jeff Bezos,” for instance, “will never wake up and say ‘Hey, I should really run Amazon.com differently.’” There aren’t rewards for empathy at the very top, Hanauer tells Abby. For billionaires like Bezos, Zuckerberg, and Musk the rewards come from “ being cold-blooded and exploiting people”.

Follow Nick Hanauer on Twitter or Facebook. His podcast is Pitchfork Economics.


EPISODE LINKS
Minimum Wages and Employment: A Case Study of the Fast-Food Industry in New Jersey and Pennsylvania (American Economic Review, Vol. 84, No. 4, September, 1994)
Raising the Minimum Wage Doesn’t Kill Jobs; It Boosts Productivity, Says ITIF (ITIF)
2021 US GDP: $23.99 trillion (Bureau of Economic Analysis)
Data about the Capitol rioters serves another blow to the White, working-class Trump-supporter narrative (The Washington Post)
Power and Peril: 5 Takeaways on Amazon's Employment Machine (NY Times)

This week, as Congressional Democrats attempt to convince Republicans to impose taxes on the very wealthy, Abby talks “tax positivity” with the delightful Austrian activist Marlene Engelhorn. Engelhorn made headlines around the globe when she announced that she wanted the government to take away–through taxes–most of her multi-million dollar inheritance. Marlene, whose ancestors founded giant pharmaceutical and chemical companies, tells Abby about growing up in a family that consistently downplayed their wealth. As a child she thought she lived in a “big house.”  Later, she realized it was a huge mansion.  “I don't see why a person like me should have this power.” she tells Abby. You wouldn’t pick someone out of ‘the sperm lottery’ and give them a double-digit multimillion sum and say go play! But that's what happens when you inherit. And frankly, history has not proven this a good idea.”  Marlene says unfair tax laws worldwide are causing inequality to grow and threatening democracy.   Whether in the United States, or Austria, she says “Nobody gets asked whether or not they want to pay taxes other than wealthy people.” Abby, who herself has spent years advocating for higher tax rates on fellow plutocrats, points out that she and Marlene are members of a tiny demographic: “people who are questioning their disproportionate wealth and power, and working to end both.”

Marlene's organization is called taxmenow, and is based in Vienna. Similar groups include the Patriotic Millionaires  and Resource Generation in the US, Resource Justice in the UK, and Resource Movement in Canada.

EPISODE LINKS
Marlene Dietrich
She's Inheriting Millions. She Wants Her Wealth Taxed Away. (NY Times)
'Gobsmacked' and Other Astonishing Words (CS Monitor)
Hannah Arendt
Early BASF Historical Timeline
For context on BASF's role in WWII, see the 2008 Kirkus Review of Hell's Cartel
Iron Man Writer Says Elon Musk is Real-World Tony Stark Inspiration (Esquire)
Salt-N-Pepa's Let's Talk About Sex  

Settle in with Abby and labor organizer Erica Smiley for a free-wheeling conversation about unions, democracy, history, and so much more. Smiley is the Executive Director of Jobs with Justice, a national labor group working to change the meta-narrative about who the economy is for and what it should look like. She is also the author, along with Sarita Gupta, of The Future We Need: Organizing for a Better Democracy in the Twenty-First Century. The book focuses on where the labor movement has been, while also imagining a future in which working people fight to regain power, influence, and dignity not only in the workplace, but beyond. Abby calls the way Smiley frames the concept of collective bargaining “radically important.” According to Smiley, workers who are struggling to form unions at places like Starbucks and Amazon “are seeing their struggles in the workplace not simply as something that they need for themselves…But also as their way of contributing to the effort to save and expand democracy.” She points out that the civil rights movement was also about economic justice. Martin Luther King Jr’s March on Washington was for Jobs and Civil Rights. “Visibilizing” that connection is important, Smiley tells Abby. As they talk, Abby and Smiley travel through time and space, linking up slave labor management to practices still used in today’s service economy. They end by agreeing that it’s better to fight together than apart.

Follow Smiley on Twitter @SmileyJWJ. For more information on Erica Smiley, and her work at Jobs with Justice, go to https://www.jwj.org/.

EPISODE LINKS
The Future We Need: Organizing for a Better Democracy in the Twenty-First Century (Buy it here.)
Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union (ACTWU) (now Worker’s United)
Encyclopedia Britannica’s Definition of Taylorism
Book Review: “Accounting for Slavery” — Plantation Roots of Scientific Management (The Arts Fuse)
Poor People's Campaign (The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute)
The Last March of Martin Luther King Jr. (The Atlantic)
New Orleans Apologizes for 1891 Lynching of Italian-Americans (Smithsonian)
How Black washerwomen in the South became pioneers of American labor (The Washington Post)

Picture your favorite doughnut. Whether it’s chocolate glazed with sprinkles, vanilla pastry cream, red velvet, you’re inadvertently invoking one of the most important reimaginings of our economy of the last 20 years: Doughnut Economics. It posits that our economy should remain in balance with our communities and the planet, and visualizes that balance in the shape of the much beloved pastry. This theory is the brainchild of Abby’s guest this week, the brilliant, renegade economist, Professor Kate Raworth. Raworth initially set out to study economics because it is “the mother tongue of public policy.” But over time she became disillusioned with the field and its inability to see beyond markets and growth. It was working on projects to alleviate problems like poverty and climate change and also becoming a mother, that led her to find a new way to frame ideas about the very purpose of the economy and who it is meant to serve. That was 11 years ago. While Raworth has been dismissed outright by some of her more conservative colleagues, the ideas in her book, Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist, are not only shaking up conventional economic thought, they’re being put into practice. These days, communities and cities across the world—including Amsterdam, Brussels, Melbourne and Berlin—are trying to make their local economies look like a doughnut. 

You can see the Doughnut here, check out Kate’s fun economic animations here, and learn more about her work at the Doughnut Economics Action Lab. Follow Kate on Twitter @KateRaworth.

EPISODE LINKS
Kate Raworth: A healthy economy should be designed to thrive, not grow (TED Ideas)
Pulling yourself up by your bootstraps etymology
Exxon Valdez Oil Spill (NOAA)
Rational Economic Man (Investopedia)
The Economist by Xenophon (Gutenberg Project)
International Student Movement: Rethinking Economics
Exploring Economics
Amsterdam’s ‘doughnut economy’ puts climate ahead of GDP (PBS News Weekend)

If you've been paying attention, you've heard how unionization efforts are popping up all over the country, from Starbucks, Amazon and Apple; to airports, nursing homes and college campuses. Indeed, in numbers not seen in generations, American workers are fighting for higher wages, better benefits and, yes, a little more dignity on the job. This week, Abby talks about what all this portends with Mary Kay Henry, president of the nation’s second largest union, the Service Employees International Union. The SEIU currently represents about 2 million workers, including the custodians profiled in Abby’s documentary about economic inequality, The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales.

Mary Kay tells Abby that The SEIU is committed to eliminating the kind of poverty wages that have come to define service work, especially the jobs that predominantly go to women and minorities, jobs like child care and home health assistance. Mary Kay has been at this for a long time. She started organizing in 1980, just around the time former President Ronald Reagan advanced policies that crippled union power. What kept her going during those dark years, Mary Kay  says was “the incredible courage of individual people who were willing to risk their jobs, to make things better for themselves, their families, and their coworkers.” 

The fight is far from over. Despite some well-publicized victories for labor in recent years, and regardless of talk of how frontline workers were “essential” during the pandemic, Mary Kay tells Abby that corporate America is spending millions on union busting campaigns, vociferously fighting workers’ efforts to have a place at the bargaining table. These corporate campaigns are unacceptable, she says, and one of her goals is to change the public’s attitude toward the employers who keep unions out. Just like the Me Too Movement made sexual harassment unacceptable, Mary Kay declares: “we want to make it unacceptable to have anti-union behavior.”

Follow Mary Kay Henry, the SEIU, and the Fight for 15 on Twitter: @MaryKayHenry, @SEIU, @fightfor15

EPISODE LINKS:
FightFor15
The incredible decline of American unions, in one animated map (The Washington Post)
The New Deal devalued home care workers. Advocates hope new legislation can undo that. (The 19th)
‘Working People Want Real Change’: A Union Chief Sounds Off on the Crisis (NY Times)
Sectoral Bargaining: What It Is, How It Works, Pro and Con Debate (Investopedia)
Thinking Sectorally (The American Prospect)
Judge grants hold on California fast-food worker law AB 257 (Los Angeles Times)

This week, Abby talks with business writer Rick Wartzman about what he learned while reporting his latest book: Still Broke: Walmart's Remarkable Transformation and the Limits of Socially Conscious Capitalism. Rick spent nearly three years documenting how Walmart’s directors worked to significantly improve wages and conditions for employees — and how it wasn’t nearly enough.  The book is a fascinating look at how good intentions, even from a behemoth like Walmart, are ultimately not enough to overcome the demands of Wall Street, where keeping shareholders happy, even at the expense of workers and their communities, is the name of the game.

Rick takes Abby back to 1962, when Sam Walton, affectionately called “Mr. Sam” by his employees, opened his first store. As he grew an empire over the next several years and decades, he paid workers poorly and used cut-throat techniques, including hiring union-busting firms—the likes of which are still operating today. What was different back then, Rick explains, was that Mr. Sam not only made his workers feel like they were an important part of the enterprise, he also offered them profit sharing, which offset low wages for many.

Sam Walton died in 1992. Rick explains how,  and why, in the years that followed, the company became a hellscape for workers and one of the most vilified companies in the world, a veritable symbol of American capitalism gone wrong. Yet by the time Rick finds himself inside Walmart in 2018, he meets executives who genuinely want to pay workers a living wage, clean up Walmart’s sustainability record, and generally improve Walmart’s public and moral standing. While Walmart has seen some success, and taken great strides, at the end of the day, Rick tells Abby, the market will not allow a company to be socially responsible. “Voluntary efforts will only take corporate America so far,” Wartzman declares, saying that his research has led him to believe that the private market can’t address these challenges on its own. “It’s not fast enough,” he says. “We need a government solution to this.” 

Rick’s consulting company is Bendable Labs and his book is Still Broke: Walmart's Remarkable Transformation and the Limits of Socially Conscious Capitalism.

EPISODE LINKS:
Wal-Mart Memo Suggests Ways to Cut Employee Benefit Costs (NY Times)
Clinton Global Initiative Panel Discussion
Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility
Top CEO group Business Roundtable drops shareholder primacy (Fast Company)
Walmart raises minimum wage as retail labor market remains tight (CNBC)

Rick’s Recommendations:
For great data, head to the Economic Policy Institute
To understand how living wages are calculated in your region, check out Living Wage for US and MIT’s Living Wage Calculator
To learn more about frontline workers, visit United for Respect

In a recent New York Times op-ed, “America Is in a Disgraced Class of Its Own”, sociologist Matthew Desmond writes about the shameful amount of poverty in America, and our responsibility for it. He also writes about solutions. He points to B Corp as a beacon of light, a resource for people who want to support corporations that actually respect workers, their communities and the environment. Our guest this week, Jay Coen Gilbert, is one of B Corp’s founders. He’s also someone Abby consulted with while making her documentary, The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales. She says Jay helped her think through many complicated economic questions, especially around how to limit the power and influence of American corporations and their leaders.

According to Abby, “Jay is the rarest of creatures—a smart businessman who knows how to run a company—but he's also unashamed to say that values matter, principles matter, and that greed is—now, are you sitting down for this?—not good.”  Over the course of the conversation, Jay explains what a B Corp is and why it may hold the potential to fundamentally change the way corporations function in our culture and our economy. In most states, the law essentially requires companies to maximize financial returns to shareholders. Profit at all costs, Jay tells Abby, has become the “source code” for modern capitalism’s operating system. B Corps, he says, are attempting to rewrite that code: “they are changing the settings” he explains, so that other “stakeholders” can be included in a company’s mission. In other words, a company’s board can pay workers a living wage, for instance, or work towards a sustainable, equitable supply chain—and not be punished by shareholders for doing so, but instead encouraged to do it. Ultimately, Jay hopes that “the settings” that B Corps are pioneering will become mandatory for companies above a certain size: “at a certain point, if you're too big to fail, you're too big to not only fail your shareholders, you're too big to fail society.”

You can learn more about B Lab and B Corp at bcorporation.net, and you can learn more about Jay’s work to reset economic systems at imperative21.co.

EPISODE LINKS:
America Is in a Disgraced Class of Its Own (NY Times)
A Friedman doctrine‐- The Social Responsibility Of Business Is to Increase Its Profits (NY Times)
Free to Choose: A Personal Statement, by Milton Friedman and Rose D. Friedman (Goodreads)
Untold: The Rise and Fall of And1 | Official Trailer | Netflix (Youtube)
Patagonia 50: Purpose Over Profit (Patagonia)
On Nespresso Controversy: Are B Corps turning against B Lab? (Fast Company)
The legal requirement for Certified B Corporations (B Lab)

What if we thought of America’s economic inequality as design flaws of policy, rather than the result of personal failings? And what would our policies look like if we included everyone in the design process? These are the questions that drive the work of Abby’s guest this week, Dr. Michael McAfee, president and CEO of PolicyLink. PolicyLink is a venerable think tank that works to create a more inclusive economy and democracy by lifting up communities that have been purposely and systematically kept out of the American dream.

No question things are out of whack: today around 100 million Americans–one in three–are economically insecure. That, says Michael, is a threat to our very democracy. It’s also a “wonderful opportunity” to redesign our policies–from housing, to wages, to education, to clean water.

And though there are those in America who are working to sow seeds of division, Michael says, “there is nothing to be ashamed of in caring for everyone.” Americans, he says, “need to stop focusing on what’s wrong. We’ve overbuilt that part of our brain. What we need to do now is spend every cell that we have in our brain focused on real practical solutions that can bridge us to where we want to go.”

Listening to Michael, it becomes clear that pragmatic optimism is his calling card: “This is an awakening moment that is painful as hell. And it's messy. And it's hurtful. There's a lot of beauty in it as well.”

Follow Michael McAfee on Twitter @MikeMcAfee06, on Instagram @Michael.McAfee, and on LinkedIn.

EPISODE LINKS
The Leading Edge of Collective Impact: Designing a Just and Fair Nation for All (SSIR Magazine)
Zip Code Destiny w/ Raj Chetty (NPR Hidden Brain)
The Case for Reparations by Ta-Nehisi Coates (The Atlantic)
New Study Shows CA Cost-of-Living So High that $180k is New “Middle Class”
When Private Equity Becomes Your Landlord (ProPublica)
Twilight of the NIMBY (NY Times)
Camp Lejeune's poisoned water has spawned thousands of claims. But victims are still waiting for closure (CNN)
Wells Fargo to pay $3.7 billion for illegal conduct that harmed consumers (Reuters)
More than 10-hour wait and long lines as early voting starts in Georgia | US elections 2020 (The Guardian)

Jane Fonda is a towering figure and an American legend. From Barbarella, to Klute, to 9 to 5, to her workout videos, she’s been gracing our screens for more than 50 years. And, though she may be best known for her role as an artist, surprisingly Jane says that’s not how she thinks of herself: “I consider myself, first and foremost, an activist.” And she has for quite some time.

For the final episode of Season four, Abby talks with Jane about the power of activism– work that Jane  defines as building “people power in order to change systems that are wicked and evil.”

In recent years, to protest government inaction on climate change and the burning of fossil fuels, Jane launched Fire Drill Fridays. On select Fridays she can be found in Washington, DC  leading thousands in civil disobedience.  She’s also working to get “climate champions” elected to office via the Jane Fonda Climate Pac.

Jane reminds Abby that her activism started way back when she was a young actress who opposed the Vietnam War: “I was completely confused,” she admits, yet “it was hard to remain on the sidelines.” She describes the winding path she’s cut ever since.

As the conversation proceeds, Jane and Abby bond over how both find joy in activism. Jane describes the balm it has provided in her life. “One thousand percent activism saved me,” she declares. And, though there’s a lot to be angry, or to despair about, she ends with this rhetorical question: “Do you find–because I do–that when you take action, you get less depressed?”

You can follow Jane on Twitter @Janefonda, on Instagram @janefonda, and you can follow Jane’s climate activism on Twitter @janeclimatepac and @firedrillfridays, or you can go to janepac.com, or firedrillfridays.org.

EPISODE LINKS
The Village of Ben Suc (New Yorker)
Donald W. Duncan, 79, Ex-Green Beret and Early Critic of Vietnam War, Is Dead (NY Times)
Robert Kennedy Jr. (and Abigail Disney) Arrested While Protesting With Jane Fonda (The Hollywood Reporter)
On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal (Naomi Klein)
The evidence is clear: the time for action is now. We can halve emissions by 2030. (IPCC)
CO2 Emissions in 2022 (IEA)
Homeboy Industries (Homeboy Industries)

Each week on "ALL EARS" filmmaker Abigail Disney will call a bold thinker from the front lines of America’s inequality crisis to debate and explore the problems, perils and maybe even opportunities made possible by the global Covid 19 pandemic. She’ll look to some of the most dynamic and analytical minds to ask: What have we learned? What haven’t we seen yet? What’s around the corner, and how do we seize this moment to come together as a nation and reset economic opportunity for the 99%?

In the inaugural episode of All Ears, Abby is joined by Columbia University professor and human rights lawyer Terry McGovern to discuss how gender discrimination undermines job security, equal pay, and healthcare for women during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the startling parallels to the early days of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. 

EPISODE LINKS:

• Terry on Twitter: @TerryMMcGovern
• Fork Films on Twitter: @ForkFilms
• Link to Women and Girls Rising, co-edited by Terry 
• Link to Pray the Devil Back to Hell, produced by Abby, directed by Gini Reticker

On our new episode of All Ears, Gravity Payments CEO Dan Price joins Abby from Seattle to talk about his experience as a small business owner in Seattle. Five years ago, Dan made a radical decision to make the base salary $70,000 for every employee at his company, and took a pay cut to do it. It’s been a roller coaster ever since. Also, Dan and Abby discuss their conservative upbringings, how that influenced their work around inequality, and why caring for the well-being of low-wage workers is considered by some to be “un-American”.

EPISODE LINKS:

• Dan on Twitter: @danpriceseattle
• Abby on Twitter: @abigaildisney
• Fork Films on Twitter: @ForkFilms
• Link to “High income improves evaluation of life but not emotional well-being” by Daniel Kahneman and Angus Deaton, Center for Health and Well-being, Princeton University 
• Link to Jose Garcia’s Fatman to Batman blog

Join Abby and Ford Foundation President Darren Walker (@darrenwalker), as they discuss modern philanthropy: how it has evolved, how its success is measured, and who it benefits, on both sides of the ledger.

Links from this episode's conversation:

Darren Walker’s book, From Generosity to Justice: A New Gospel Of Wealth
The Gospel of Wealth by Andrew Carnegie
The Highlander Folk School
Monticello Is Done Avoiding Jefferson’s Relationship With Sally Hemings (New York Times)
NAACP Legal Defense Fund

This week on All Ears, Abby talks to U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren about the loss of her eldest brother to COVID-19, one of over 93,000 loved ones lost to the pandemic in this country (as of this episode’s release). As they dig deeper into the origins of the political divide raging between blue and red states, Senator Warren talks about her conservative upbringing and how to maintain relationships even as political viewpoints within families diverge. Both speaking from their own life experiences, Abby and Senator Warren share how family dynamics, work/life balance, and the act of listening can shift perspective across a lifetime.   

EPISODE LINKS

• Elizabeth Warren's Brother, Donald Reed Herring, Has Died From Coronavirus (CBS News)
• Margaret Thatcher: There’s No Such Thing As Society (Margaret Thatcher Foundation)
• Ronald Reagan, 8/12/86: "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help. " (Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation)
• 1984 Political Ad for Ronald Reagan “Morning in America” (aka “Prouder, Stronger, Better”) (YouTube)
• Why Fewer Americans Outearn Their Parents (The Atlantic)
• The Personal Is Political: The Journey Of A Feminist Slogan (openDemocracy)
• Elizabeth Warren Wants a Wealth Tax. How Would That Even Work? (New York Times)

This week on All Ears Abby is joined by Supermajority co-founder and former President of Planned Parenthood, Cecile Richards. Cecile and Abby discuss their shared experiences of having a famous parent, and how being middle school activists landed them in the principal’s office. Cecile also talks to Abby about why she’s never run for political office, how Planned Parent animated the Christian Right, the need right now for a women’s stimulus package, and how to organize a diverse coalition of  women to push for childcare- and healthcare-focused policies in response to COVID-19. 


EPISODE LINKS:

• Join Supermajority.com
• Supermajority: A New Home For Women's Activism (NPR)
• Former Texas Gov. Ann Richards dies at 73 (Houston Chronicle)
• Ann Richards’ 1988 Democratic National Convention Speech (YouTube)
• What a $15 Minimum Wage Means for Women and Workers of Color (National Employment Law Project)
• Cecile's book, "Make Trouble: Standing Up, Speaking Out, and Finding the Courage to Lead" (Bookshop.org)

All Ears is stepping back this week from our COVID-19 focus to turn our attention to the national anguish resulting from the murder of George Floyd by police on May 25th. At the forefront of Abby’s mind is sharing her platform with movement leaders, both as an opportunity to listen and learn. This week Abby talks to Rajasvini Bhansali, the Executive Director of Solidaire Network (a community of donors mobilizing resources to social justice movements), about why it’s hard to fund social movements, how white people need to sit with their own discomfort when confronting their own racism, and why profound personal transformation is impossible to do alone. 

Continuing our focus on activism around the murder of George Floyd by police on May 25th, Abby welcomes Reverend Dr. William J. Barber II, Co-Chair of The Poor People’s Campaign, and President of Repairers of the Breach. Both organizations focus on organizing and uplifting communities across the country using a moral framework of public concerns such as how society treats the poor, women, LGBTQ people, children, workers, immigrants, communities of color, and the sick. Abby, who calls herself a “militant agnostic” who has “faith in people of faith” discusses with Rev. Barber how politics and morality not only overlap, but also that a moral movement can be rooted in the deepest principles of our constitution. Rev. Barber talks about the brutal and arrogant indifference of George Floyd’s killer, and how racism is a form of violence that infiltrates healthcare, public policy, and employment opportunities, and the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.’s work in the current environment of protest and civil disobedience.

6/20 & 6/21: Mass Poor People’s Assembly & Moral March On Washington: A Digital Justice Gathering (Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call For Moral Revival)
Repairers of the Breach
We Are Called To Be A Movement, by Reverend Dr. William J. Barber II
Amos 5 (King James Bible)
“The interlocking evils of systemic racism” (The Poor People’s Campaign)

Rev. Barber on Twitter:
@RevDrBarber
@BRepairers
@UniteThePoor

This week on All Ears Abby welcomes CNN host and New York Times’ best-selling author Van Jones. Van talks about being a young civil rights lawyer in Oakland at the time of the Rodney King trial, and how it directly influenced his progressive activism of the last 30 years. Van says that having children made him come around to the belief that fixing the system is more productive than tearing it down, and that finding common ground is the key to systemic change. Van and Abby also discuss white fragility, Democrats’ past willingness to support “tough on crime” laws and mass incarceration, and the fact that Van is a 9th generation American, but the first person in his family to have all his rights fully recognized by the government. Learn more about Van’s extensive body of work in criminal justice reform though his organization REFORM Alliance.

Ella Baker Center for Human Rights
“Van Jones on a Trump win: This was a white lash” (CNN)
How the 1994 Crime Bill Fed the Mass Incarceration Crisis (ACLU)
The Redemption Project With Van Jones (CNN Original Series)

IG: @vanjones68
Twitter: @VanJones68

This week is a deep dive into how we can shed ingrained ideologies, question our identities, and form our intellectual selves. Abby is joined by UCLA and Columbia Law School professor Kimberlé Crenshaw for a lively conversation about critical race theory, the pitfalls of meritocracy, and how Kimberlé’s created the theoretical framework we call intersectionality. Having grown up in the same era, Abby and Kimberlé talk about how they internalized the same political touchstones, processed similar clues from their mothers about the importance of propping up the male ego, and how they both failed at absorbing patriarchal messaging.

Take a listen!

EPISODE LINKS:
Song Of The South: The Difficult Legacy Of Disney's Most Shocking Movie (The Guardian)
The African American Policy Forum
INTERSECTIONALITY MATTERS! (Podcast)
Under The Black Light (Web Series)
50 Years After Watts: The Causes of a Riot (Time Magazine)
Harvard Law School Torn by Race Issue (NY Times)
Higher Education and the Illusion of Meritocracy (Chronicle of Higher Education)
When Black Women Reclaimed Their Bodies (Slate)

Kimberlé Crenshaw on Twitter:
@SandyLocks
@AAPolicyForum

In this week’s episode, Abby talks to one of Joe Biden’s shortlisted VP candidates, Stacey Abrams. Recounting her upbringing in Mississippi, the former Georgia House of Representatives minority leader describes  the powerful example her parents set for their children as activists and citizens, even as they had struggled their whole lives for fair access to education, employment opportunities, and the voting booth. “Every election they would take us with them [to vote],” Abrams tells Abby. “And there's six of us. So we looked like Make Way For Ducklings as we followed them into the voting booth and we trailed out.”  Additionally, Abrams talks to Abby about her missions to create awareness about voting, the value of the census, and the authoritarian playbook that closely resembles President Trump’s reelection strategy. Oh, and when Abrams isn’t saving the world, she has a romance novel-writing side gig.

EPISODE LINKS
Stacey’s book: Our Time Is Now
Fair Fight 2020 
FairCount.org
The Cut On Tuesdays: Family Money (The Cut/Gimlet)
Make Way For Ducklings: The Art of Robert McCloskey (MFA Boston)
Stacey Abrams: I Know Voting Feels Inadequate Right Now (NY Times)
1,285 Proven Cases of Voter Fraud in America (Heritage Foundation)

Stacey Abrams on Twitter and Instagram: @staceyabrams

This week on All Ears Abby talks to author and commentator Heather McGhee. Heather is a distinguished senior fellow at the progressive think tank Demos, where she also served as president for four years. Heather argues that the economic, intellectual, and societal costs of racism affect not only its victims but also its perpetrators. She tells Abby that America’s White middle class grew after WW2, with help from Federal housing subsidies, education grants and other benefits that were largely denied to Black Americans. Once Black Americans began demanding equal treatment, many of those programs were simply dismantled. This kind of racism, McGee tells Abby, cost everyone. Abby and Heather also delve into the political theft of Reconstruction, whether American racism is unique, the misogyny of libertarianism, and if the Karen memes are a harbinger of a backlash on feminism.

Heather’s heavily anticipated book, The Sum of Us, is due out in early 2021.

EPISODE LINKS:
“A White Man Asked C-Span How to Stop Being Racist. Here’s the Fascinating Answer” (Fortune)
“Racism Has A Cost For Everyone” (TED Talk)
“Facebook Fails to Appease Organizers of Ad Boycott” (NY Times)
Color of Change
Demos

Heather on Twitter: @hmcghee
Heather on Instagram: @HeatherCMcGhee

This week on All Ears Abby welcomes Professor Rebecca Henderson, who teaches about innovation, corporate culture change, and ethics at Harvard Business School. Her class,  “Reimagining Capitalism”, is one of HBS’s most popular classes, and she says that the majority of her students tend to believe that capitalism is broken.  But Professor Henderson tells Abby that capitalism is a fundamentally moral enterprise, albeit one that needs to be held in delicate balance with a strong society and a democratically accountable government. They discuss the dramatic pivot point created by the charismatic economist Milton Friedman in the early 1970s. According to Professor Henderson, Friedman’s fervent free market beliefs created the moral, political, and legal arguments for abolishing ethical boundaries in business practices in the name of maximizing profits. Then, using their political clout, unchecked business leaders spend the next decades undermining protections for workers, healthcare, infrastructure and the environment. Professor Henderson urges listeners to lean into their power as consumers and voters as the engine of business cultural change.

Find Professor Rebecca Henderson on Twitter: @RebeccaReCap

EPISODE LINKS
Reimagining Capitalism In A World On Fire (Rebecca Henderson)
“The Business Case For Saving Democracy: Why Free Markets Need Free Politics” (Rebecca Henderson)
“A Friedman doctrine‐- The Social Responsibility Of Business Is to Increase Its Profits” (New York Times, 9/13/70)
“The Powell Memo: A Call-to-Arms for Corporations” (Moyers On Democracy)

This week All Ears brings you a special bonus episode: Abby couldn’t pass up the opportunity to talk to author Mary Trump about her new book, “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created The World’s Most Dangerous Man”. As like-minded mavericks, Abby and Mary discuss what it’s like to stand up to a wealthy American family empire from the inside, and the friction and drama that results. Mary brings a gimlet eye to the Trump family mythology, and deconstructs the brutal dynamics that destroyed her father, Fred Trump Jr. (Donald Trump’s elder brother). As Mary relates in vivid detail, the Trump family patriarch, Fred Sr., pitted the five Trump siblings against each other, and Donald emerged as the ruthless victor by emulating Fred Sr.’s narcissism and sociopathy, while Fred Jr. died at 42 from complications of alcoholism, broken by years of emotional abuse at the hands of his father. This is an interview you won’t want to miss!

EPISODE LINKS
Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man (Mary Trump)
The Inside Story of Why Mary Trump Wrote a Tell-All Memoir (New York Times)
Mary Trump's interview with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos (ABC News)
The Men Who Gave Trump His Brutal Worldview (Politico)

Mary Trump on Twitter: @MaryLTrump

“ALL EARS with Abigail Disney” is back for Season 2! With the 2020 election season and lame duck session - whatever it may bring - as our backdrop, Abby is excited to talk to people she considers "troublemakers". These are the folks whose work as writers, artists, politicians and activists push back with imagination and courage against the status quo. We'll be intertwining big ideas and personal stories about gender, class, and race, and how we can take action to make changes in our cultural and political landscape. However this chaotic political story shakes out, Abby will have some great thinkers to help us navigate.

All Ears is kicking off Season 2 with comedian Samantha Bee. As the host of Full Frontal on TBS since 2016, and as a correspondent on The Daily Show for 12 years prior, Sam has been skewering politicians, culture, and society’s sacred cows for the better part of two decades. And she’s really good at it! Abby talks to Sam about growing up in Canada with a Wiccan mom, an atheist dad, and a serious schoolgirl crush on Jesus. Sam describes her journey from pre-law student to comedian, and how the platform of late night news satire became the new face of journalism in modern American politics. Along the way Sam developed a spine of steel, her own show, and a sense of responsibility to tell underreported stories and collaborate with show staffers who represent diverse racial, economic, and gender viewpoints. Did we mention she’s funny? Yeah, that too!

Full Frontal with Samantha Bee airs on TBS on Wednesdays at 10:30 PM EST

Find Samantha Bee on Twitter @iamsambee and @FullFrontalSamBee

EPISODE LINKS
The Cut - Smirking in the Boys’ Room With Samantha Bee
NY Times Opinion - Ivanka Trump's Dangerous Fake Feminism
L.A. Times - Samantha Bee has the solution for Hollywood's diversity problem: 'Just hire people'
The Atlantic - How Shelby County v. Holder Broke America
TBS - Russian Thinkfluencers, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee
TBS - Help Floridians Vote! Full Frontal with Samantha Bee

This week on All Ears, Abby is joined by Emmy and Peabody-winning journalist Maria Hinojosa, whose work on issues that affect the Latinx community has brought her both acclaim and scrutiny. As an intrepid reporter at places like CNN and PBS, as well as the first Latina correspondent at NPR, Hinojosa has long challenged what she sees as the typically inequitable race, gender, and cultural narratives told by these venerable but monolithic institutions. And yet her spirit is unbroken! Hinojosa is a funny, warm, and engaging guest, and she and Abby banter and gossip as well as take on heady topics like immigration reform, overcoming imposter syndrome, and the agenda behind labeling women “angry”. Also, there’s an epic takedown of CNN’s Lou Dobbs you won’t want to miss.  

Follow Maria on Twitter: @Maria_Hinojosa

Listen to Maria:
Latino USA is on all podcast platforms and airs on 240 radio stations across the country
In The Thick podcast

EPISODE LINKS

1. Once I Was You: A Memoir Of Love And Hate In A Torn America
2. Inside the Former Walmart That Is Now a Shelter for Almost 1,500 Migrant Children (New York Times)
3. Fact Sheet: US Refugee Resettlement (National Immigration Forum)
4. The Easiest Loaf of Bread You’ll Ever Bake (Abby's King Arthur Flour recipe)

This week we have a very special episode of All Ears. Breaking from our usual format, we’re reacting in real time to the late night swearing in of the latest Supreme Court justice, Amy Coney Barrett. Abby’s guest this week is Reverend Robert Schenck, an evangelical minister and former prominent anti-abortion activist, who for decades was at the center of the conservative efforts to criminalize abortion and strike down Roe v. Wade. To his regret, those efforts came closer to fruition this week with the long-sought manipulation of the nation’s highest court to reflect an extreme conservative tilt. Describing himself now as a “menace” to vulnerable women during his years of activism, Rob has renounced his work as an anti-abortion crusader, admitting that he was part of a group that in 1995 paid Norma McCorvey (aka Jane Roe) to say that she had changed her mind to come out against abortion. For this All Ears, we air a previously unreleased interview from this past summer between Abby and Rob, where they discuss the origin of their unusual friendship five years ago, the process of setting aside political and religious differences, taking emotional risks to build trust, and how Abby’s experience of sharing her own abortion story shifted their friendship and played a part in Rob’s ideological reversal. Then Abby checks in with Rob by phone after Coney Barrett’s installation to the Supreme Court to react and reflect on the moment, and how they plan to move forward, both personally and politically, with hope and action.

Find Rob on Twitter @@RevRobSchenck1


EPISODE LINKS
Vote Common Good
The Armor Of Light (dirs. Abigail Disney and Kathleen Hughes)
Costly Grace: An Evangelical Minister's Rediscovery of Faith, Hope, and Love by Rob Schenck
AKA Jane Roe (FX)
Opinion | I Was an Anti-Abortion Crusader. Now I Support Roe v. Wade The New York Times 5/30/19
How a More Conservative Supreme Court Could Impact Environmental Laws Scientific American 9/28/20
The Effects of Stand-Your-Ground Laws RAND Corporation 4/22/20
People of Praise: Inside Group With Reported Ties to Amy Coney Barrett Rolling Stone  9/29/20

Join us this week for an All Ears rapid response to Election Day 2020! Awash in uncertainty the morning after election day, Abby talks with Anand Giridharadas, the journalist whose unsparing criticisms of the liberal establishment have themselves made headlines. Abby and Anand consider Trump’s popularity with voters and why it’s such a bitter pill for liberals to swallow. They talk about how neoliberalism has put mainstream Democratic leaders at risk of losing blue collar workers. Anand says Joe Biden’s two political personas help explain how the party has lost credibility. There is “Scranton Joe” (the small town, working class defender of the little guy) and “Delaware Joe” (the corporate-friendly elite catering to powerful donor constituents). And, although toxic masculinity as modeled by Trump still holds strong, Anand does express hope about how the needle has moved on race, leaving Abby a bit more optimistic than when the conversation started.

Find Anand on Twitter @anandwrites
Sign up Anand's newsletter, The.Ink 

EPISODE LINKS
The Sazerac (Cocktail recipe via Bon Appetit)
Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World, Anand Giridharadas
Democrats And Neoliberalism Vox 6/11/19
Clinton Says Era Of Big Government Is 'over' In 1996 State Of The Union The Washington Post 1/22/14
The Burden Of A 40-year Career: Some Of Joe Biden’s Record Doesn’t Age Well LA Times 3/18/19
How Delaware Thrives As A Corporate Tax Haven New York Times 7/7/12

On the heels of historic voter turnout in Georgia, Abby revisits her interview with Stacey Abrams back in July. In that conversation, Stacey outlined her bold strategy to fight voter suppression and educate communities about voting. And her work bore fruit, with Georgia flipping blue for the first time in a presidential race since 1992. Recounting her upbringing in Mississippi, the former Georgia House of Representatives minority leader describes the powerful example of citizenship and activism her parents set for their six children, as activists and citizens, even as they had struggled their whole lives for fair access to education, employment opportunities, and the voting booth. Oh, and when Abrams isn’t saving our democracy, she’s got a side hustle as a romance novelist.

EPISODE LINKS
Stacey’s book: Our Time Is Now
Fair Fight 2020
FairCount.org

Stacey Abrams Says Fighting Voter Suppression Changed "The Trajectory Of The Nation"
Make Way For Ducklings: The Art of Robert McCloskey (MFA Boston)
Stacey Abrams: I Know Voting Feels Inadequate Right Now (NY Times)
1,285 Proven Cases of Voter Fraud in America (Heritage Foundation)
Stacey Abrams, Georgia Candidate For Governor, Has Strong Mississippi Roots (Hattiesburg American)

Stacey Abrams on Twitter and Instagram: @staceyabrams

This week on All Ears Abby invites us all to take a break from ongoing election shenanigans and enjoy a lively interview with musician David Byrne, whose eccentric musical stylings as the former Talking Heads frontman catapulted him into a multi-faceted career as an artist across many modes of expression. He’s written books, designed art installations, created journalism projects, and last year adapted his acclaimed concert tour, American Utopia, for Broadway. He and Abby look back at his remarkable journey and talk about some of the ways art pushed him to grow as a person, giving him perspective on some of his youthful, broad critiques of middle class American values. These insights led him to some revelations about his earlier work that manifest with a kind of joyful, percussive melancholy in American Utopia. Spike Lee filmed the show right before COVID hit in March, preserving a mood that seems like a perfect fit for these times. Lee’s filmed adaption of American Utopia is currently screening on HBO Max.

Bonus All Ears David Byrne Playlist! David Byrne Hits and Hidden Gems (Spotify)
David Byrne's American Utopia (2020): Official Trailer (HBO)

EPISODE LINKS
American Utopia Returns to Broadway September 17, 2021 (Tickets)
Hell You Talmbout (Janelle Monae)
Ursonate (Kurt Schwitters, 1932)
David Byrne on ‘True Stories,’ His Tabloid-Inspired Vision of Eighties America (Rolling Stone)
Reasons to Be Cheerful
We Are Not Divided
David Byrne

David Byrne on Twitter: @DBtodomundo

This week on All Ears, Abby takes a trip through the underworld of internet culture with YouTuber Natalie Wynn, also known as ContraPoints. An ex-philosopher with a penchant for elaborate sets and costumes, Natalie got her start making response videos to right-wing YouTubers after finding herself alarmed at the increase in hate speech online. Her wildly popular YouTube videos are highly stylized essays, full of sharp, incisive commentary on topics ranging from gender pronouns to capitalism. Natalie and Abby’s conversation touches on the dangerous misogyny of incels, Natalie’s hijacking of YouTube's algorithm, and how alt-right ideologies hide in plain sight. Natalie also talks about the discomfort of transitioning in the public eye, and gives her surprising prediction about the next big schism on the platform.

The videos excerpted in the show include Gender Critical, Incels, and The Left.
For more of Natalie's work, All Ears recommends Opulence, Beauty, Men, and Canceling.

EPISODE LINKS
Strawberry Banana Pancakes (iHop)
The Making of a YouTube Radical (New York Times)
The Woman Who Accidentally Started the Incel Movement (Elle Magazine)
 Robespierre overthrown in France (History.com)
Contrapoints YouTube Channel
Contrapoints

Natalie Wynn on Twitter: @ContraPoints

This week on All Ears Abby talks about good government and the American Dream with Julián Castro, whose own journey in public service began in San Antonio, first as city councilman at age 26 and then as mayor at 35. In 2014, President Obama put him in charge of HUD: the sprawling federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. Last year, he spent most of his time away from home and family as he ran in the Democratic presidential primary. Since dropping out, he’s started a podcast and begun to think about how he can continue to be of service to his community. Julián and Abby grapple with how divided Democrats can find common ground within the party. Julián also tells Abby he believes government does have a role to play in helping people achieve the American Dream, particularly those who rely on housing and healthcare programs to create stability. He recounts his own experience growing up in Texas in a family that exemplifies that model, where his grandmother came to this country as an orphan from Mexico, and lived to see her grandsons go to Harvard Law School.

Find Julián Castro on Twitter: @JuliánCastro

Listen to Our America with Julián Castro

EPISODE LINKS
2012 Democratic National Convention keynote speech: Julián Castro (New York Times)
Everything Julián Castro Knows He Learned From His Mother (Texas Monthly)
Raza Unida Party (Texas State Historical Association)
Biden Says His And Obama's Immigration Record Was A ‘Mistake’ (Politico)
 Gini Coefficient by Country, 2020 (World Population Review)
The Marshall Plan (The George C. Marshall Foundation)

This week on All Ears, Abby goes deep with professor and long time activist Loretta Ross. As an outspoken critic of cancel culture, Loretta’s sharp insights have made her class “White Supremacy in the Age of Donald Trump,” one of Smith College’s most popular. Loretta tells Abby that social media shaming is counterproductive to her long-sought goal of building a human rights movement; while it can be an important tool for holding the powerful accountable, more often than not “we're spending our best bullets on each other.”  And besides, Loretta reminds Abby, the revolution should be fun! Instead of calling people out, Loretta describes the practice of "calling in." "It's not that deep," she tells Abby, "It's a call out done with love and respect." In her efforts to build a movement for all people, Loretta is always looking for ways she can partner with others, even her ideological opposites. Loretta also tells her own story of sexual assault and sterilization at a young age, experiences which helped propel her into a lifetime of activism.


EPISODE LINKS
Up From Hatred (LA Times)
What if Instead of Calling People Out, We Called Them In? (NY Times)
Loretta Ross Keynote Address - Hampshire College Commencement 2018
The Dalkon Shield Disaster (Washington Post)
Reproductive Justice (SisterSong)
LorettaRoss.com

Loretta Ross on Twitter: @LorettaJRoss

For All Ears this week, Abby hosts a rare and revealing interview with On Being host, Krista Tippett. Krista talks about growing up in Shawnee Oklahoma, and the enduring influence of her grandfather, a Southern Baptist minister, on her life’s work. Krista describes the experience of going from a sheltered, church-centric upbringing, to throwing herself into big, bold life experiences (Brown University, a Fulbright Scholarship in Bonn, a job at the US Embassy in Cold War Berlin) and the disorientation that unsettled her once she realized that powerful people in important jobs don’t necessarily have steadfast principles or rich emotional lives. Her subsequent path to divinity school and the creation of the On Being Project have been a process of defining what a “moral imagination” is, and why we, as a culture and as a country, need it. Krista and Abby also discuss how we can learn from one of the most trying and tragic years in our nation’s history, and where we can find hope, which Krista says, “is a muscle that keeps us moving and acting and doing.” It’s a fitting conversation to end the year on, and we wish you all the best for this holiday season. Our next episode drops on Thursday, January 7. See you in 2021!

Find Krista on Twitter: @kristatippett and @OnBeing

EPISODE LINKS
On Being with Krista Tippett
New York Times’ Stringer Reflects On Life In The East (The Berlin Observer, 12/13/85)
Choruses from “The Rock”, by T.S. Eliot (Poetrynook.com)

Like the rest of the country, All Ears is reeling from the disturbing events this week at the Capitol Building, so we decided to switch gears away from our planned programming to talk about the impact of this seemingly inevitable burst of political violence. Looking for some perspective from outside U.S. borders, Abby calls her good friend, 2011 Nobel Peace Laureate Leymah Gbowee, who lived through civil and military insurrection in her native Liberia and as an ordinary social worker and grass roots organizer helped to lead her country out of a very dark era. Leymah’s perceptive commentary on the race and gender dynamics at play this week in Washington offers insight into the ways men, white people, and people in power shield themselves from moral responsibility and solution building. Abby and Leymah also talk about the ways women can both perpetuate and break apart conservative coalitions. Leymah insists that faith in the goodness of all people is a necessary ballast to her work as a peace builder, and as someone who has lived through the brutal undoing of a Democracy, her words have resonance for Abby. We hope you find inspiration in Leymah’s words as well.

Leymah Gbowee on Twitter: @LeymahRGbowee

EPISODE LINKS
Pray the Devil Back to Hell (Fork Films)
Leymah Gbowee (Nobel Prize biography)
Gbowee Peace Foundation USA
The Washington Post Man who posed at Pelosi desk said in Facebook post that he is prepared for violent death (The Washington Post, 1/7/2021)
The Baltimore Sun What were Liberians thinking? How did Charles Taylor win last month's voting by such a large margin? (The Baltimore Sun, 8/3/1997)

This week on All Ears Abby talks to New York Times Magazine staff writer, Yale Law School scholar, and Slate Political Gabfest co-host Emily Bazelon on a host of legal and legislative changes on the horizon in the American judicial system. With the looming shift from Republican to Democratic control of the federal government on January 20th, the Supreme Court is on its own separate trajectory, set into motion by the addition of Amy Coney Barrett to the bench. Focusing primarily on women’s reproductive health and justice, Emily breaks down how Supreme Court could begin to dismantle the legal scaffolding around abortion rights, and how it could reverberate through states and communities. With an eye toward the Democrats’ newly-shifted but still razor-thin control of Congress, Abby and Emily game the potential outcomes and discuss what values and metaphorical baggage justices bring into a courtroom. With Emily’s smart takes and deep knowledge, this is an episode for the legal-savvy, the legal-curious, and even the legal-agnostic.  

Find Emily on Twitter @EmilyBazelon

EPISODE LINKS
Charged: The New Movement To Transform American Prosecution and End Mass Incarceration (Emily Bazelon)
Roe v. Wade (Oyez.com, 1971)
People Are Dying. Whom Do We Save First With the Vaccine? (Emily Bazelon, NYT 12/24/20)
Why Inmates Should Be at the Front of the Vaccination Lines (Emily Bazelon, NYT 12/3/20)
The Problem of Free Speech in an Age of Disinformation (Emily Bazelon, NYT 10/13/20)
Why Ruth Bader Ginsburg Refused To Step Down (Emily Bazelon, NYT 9/21/20)
Police Reform Is Necessary. But How Do We Do It? (NYT, A discussion about how to reform policing, moderated by Emily Bazelon)

What could be more a timely topic for inauguration week than the US Constitution? But this isn’t any old patriarchal take on our country’s founding document. This week on All Ears Abby talks to playwright and actor Heidi Schreck, creator of Tony-nominated Broadway hit, “What The Constitution Means To Me”. In the play, Heidi reflects back on her teenage experience as an award-winning orator, traveling the country to compete with other teens on the topic of the US Constitution. If anyone ever had a mad crush on a document, it was 15 year old Heidi. But she also looks at it as an adult woman, processing the generational trauma of domestic abuse in her family, and the impact of how our laws have been historically interpreted through the lens of the values and biases of the landowning white men who wrote it. Though Abby and Heidi grapple with our nation’s historical sins and its uncertain future, you will come out the other side of this lively conversation with a spark of optimism. Much like Inauguration 2021! 

Follow Heidi on Twitter @HeidiBSchreck


EPISODE LINKS

• What The Constitution Means To Me | Amazon Prime Video
• The American Legion Oratorical Contest (The American Legion)
• What The Constitution Means To Me's Heidi Schreck On Releasing The Movie During Another Supreme Court Battle (Slate)
• Coronavirus In New York: Some Women Must Face Childbirth Alone (LA Times)
• Griswold v. Connecticut (Oyez.com)
• Castle Rock v. Gonzalez (Oyez.com)

This week, as the Sundance Film Festival launches a virtual festival for the first time, Abby talks to the festival's director, Tabitha Jackson. After spending 25 years in non-fiction filmmaking, Tabitha moved from head of the Sundance Documentary Program into the festival chair, beating out 700 applicants and becoming the first woman, and first person of color, to hold the job. What came next was a year of tumult and challenge, in which she unexpectedly faced the task of transforming America’s premiere film festival, normally held in scenic Park City, Utah, into an almost entirely online event. Tabitha says it forced her and her team to "reconsider the value of everything we were doing and how we were doing it because it was all threatened." What emerged was a re-commitment to the original mission of Sundance: use the power of the Festival to direct attention to independent voices and work that may otherwise get lost in the noise. Also, Tabitha tells Abby about her traumatizing experience going to the cinema for the first time, how being British in an American institution can be to her advantage, and why she's skeptical of flattery. Plus, the laborious process of whittling down 13,000 submissions into a program of 71 features and 50 shorts.

Check out the Sundance Film Festival line-up & purchase tickets for virtual or in-person screenings in your area.

Tabitha Jackson on Twitter: @Tabula4
Sundance Film Festival on Twitter: @SundanceFilmFestival


FILMS MENTIONED
Varda, the Peregrine Falcon (Imdb)
Watership Down (Criterion Collection)
Grey Gardens (Criterion Collection)
Blackfish
The Truffle Hunters
Hale County This Morning, This Evening


OTHER LINKS
Sundance Film Festival Names Tabitha Jackson as Director (Variety)
Sundance Festival Opens Doors for Minority Filmmakers (CodeSwitch)
The Experimental High Notes of "Hale County This Morning, This Evening (The New Yorker)
Movie Theaters Survived A Century of Change. We Must Save Them From Covid 19. (The Washington Post)

This week on All Ears, Abby talks to Varshini Prakash, who co-founded the Sunrise Movement, a youth-centered activist organization created in 2017 to end climate change. Sunrise has mobilized two incredibly valuable resources for grassroots organizing: young people and the internet. As the 27 year-old Executive Director of Sunrise, Varshini talks to Abby about how she fell into organizing, and the event that put Sunrise on the map: a 2018 sit-in in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office that became a global sensation (they were joined by new-and-not-yet-sworn-in Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez). As a result of the viral event, Sunrise’s visibility ballooned, and in 6 months they grew from 20 local chapters nationally, to over 350. Varshini talks about the challenging task of converting energy and ideals into concrete policy wins, and how two years as a thorn in the side of the Democratic Party earned her a seat at the table in the halls of power. Also, Abby reflects on how Sunrise has overcome some of the miscalculations of past environmental movements and offers Varshini some unsolicited advice from a surprising source.


Varshini Prakash on Twitter: @VarshPrakash


SHOW LINKS:
The Sunrise Movement
Winning the Green New Deal: Why We Must, How We Can
Watch the sit-in at Nancy Pelosi's office in 2018
The Sunrise Movement Actually Changed the Democratic Conversation. So What Do You Do For a Sequel? (Politico)
How Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders joined forces to craft a bold, progressive agenda (Vox)

As the country struggles to reset from a global pandemic, why does it seem that so many women continue to bear the burden of this ongoing crisis? In Season 3 of All Ears, Abigail Disney interviews a slate of creative and courageous thinkers who are pushing back on old systems and reimagining what “normal” should look like for all people.

Season 3 of All Ears kicks off with a rich and varied conversation with Me Too Movement founder Tarana Burke. Thought you knew the Me Too story? Think again! Burke’s inspiring new memoir Unbound: My Story Of Liberation And The Birth Of The Me Too Movement is out this week. Burke has been in the trenches of movement work for the better part of two decades, transforming her own experience as a survivor into a vision for helping those in crisis to get help and those dealing with past trauma to heal. Working for so long at a grassroots level, primarily in communities of color, Burke tells Abby that her focus is for the benefit of all: “[My work] never, ever leaves anybody out. There’s not a single white woman who will not benefit from my work being grounded in or centering black women and girls.” Tune in for an inspiring conversation!

Find Tarana on Twitter: @TaranaBurke and @MeTooMVMT

Content Warning: This episode contains discussion of rape and sexual assault.

EPISODE LINKS
Unbound: My Story Of Liberation And The Birth Of The Me Too Movement (Tarana Burke)
Me Too Movement website
21st Century Leadership Movement
Before the Mayflower: A History of Black America (Lerone Bennett)
Maya Angelou book covers (Google)
You Are Your Best Thing: Vulnerability, Shame Resilience, and the Black Experience (Tarana Burke & Brené Brown, editors)

This week on All Ears, Abby is joined by Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA. Sara is a force to be reckoned with. As one of the most powerful labor leaders in the country she’s devoted her career as a flight attendant and union member to improving the conditions of working people. At the height of the pandemic, she helped assure that aviation workers got paid and kept their healthcare, by negotiating for some of the strongest protections in the CARES act. And during the 2018-2019 government shutdown her leadership played a significant role in then-President Trump finally agreeing to end the shutdown. In this week’s conversation with Abby, she talks about why, under capitalism, there must always be a struggle between workers and management, the power and necessity of unions, and why she loves to be called militant. Plus, her recollections from the United Airlines crisis room on September 11, 2001. Tune in for an exciting conversation about the power and potential of organized labor.

EPISODE LINKS
Association of Flight Attendants-CWA: Sara Nelson
Flight Attendants Tell Airlines: Don't Even Think About Concessions (Labor Notes)
How Labor Unions Won Historic Protections for Aviation Workers (Forbes)
The Shutdown Made Sara Nelson Into America's Most Powerful Flight Attendant (New York Times)
The Ascent of Labor Leader Sara Nelson, Workers' Great Hope (Fast Company)
Sara Nelson is the face of the militant modern labor movement (Fast Company)
The New Union Label: Female, Progressive, and Very Anti-Trump (Politico) 
CARES Act Payroll Support to Air Carriers and Contractors

Sara Nelson on Twitter: @flyingwithsara

This week on All Ears, Abby is joined by NYT bestselling author and New Yorker staff writer Jia Tolentino. Before working at the New Yorker, Jia was a writer and editor at Jezebel and The Hairpin. She’s devoted her career and her unique voice to writing about a wide variety of cultural and social issues, including America’s ever-changing relationship to feminism, abortion, Britney Spears’ conservatorship, and what it means to walk away from a religion. In this week’s conversation with Abby, she discusses what it’s like being a new mother,  the persistent failures of capitalism, and the urgent need for collective action on climate change. Tune in for a fun and stimulating conversation about what kind of world she hopes her daughter will get to grow up in.

EPISODE LINKS
The New Yorker Contributors: Jia Tolentino
Losing Religion and Finding Ecstasy in Houston (The New Yorker)
How To Blow Up A Pipeline by Andreas Malm
Trick Mirror: Reflections On Self-Delusion by Jia Tolentino
Why Andrea Dworkin Is The Radical Visionary Feminist We Need In Our Terrible (The Guardian)
Before #MeToo There Was Catherine A. MacKinnon (NYT)
The Daphne Foundation Website
Fight for $15 Website
Ask a Sane Person: Jia Tolentino on Practicing the Discipline of Hope (Interview Magazine)
Athleisure, Barre And Kale: The Tyranny Of The Ideal Woman (The Guardian)

This week on All Ears, Abby is joined by E. Jean Carroll. Carroll is a journalist, memoirist, and the author of America’s longest running advice column. She’s also one of the many, many women who have come forward with sexual assault allegations against former President Donald Trump. When Trump denied the allegation Carroll sued him for defamation, and oral arguments are set to begin on December 3rd. Here, Carroll tells Abby her side of the story in vivid and exacting detail. What follows is a personal narrative in the hands of a master storyteller: E. Jean spins a web of drama, dry wit, and boundless vivacity as she recounts her childhood in Indiana, her lawsuit, the road trip that makes up the contents of her memoir, and what exactly it is that we need men for.

EPISODE LINKS
E. Jean Carroll's Substack
Askejean.com
E. Jean Carroll v Trump
E. Jean Carroll on America's Talking (1995)
The Cut, Hideous Men by E. Jean Carroll, 2019
The Atlantic, 'I Moved On Her Very Heavily' The E. Jean Carroll Interviews, 2020
New York Times, Why E. Jean Carroll, the 'Anti-Victim,' Spoke Up About Trump, 2019
New York Times, What Happened Between E. Jean Carroll and Elle Magazine? 2020
The New Yorker, There's A Lot More to E. Jean Carroll's Book Than Trump, 2020
NPR, Biden DOJ Plans To Continue To Defend Trump, 2021
The Cheerleaders, by E. Jean Carroll
What Do We Need Men For? A Modest Proposal
Hunter: The Strange and Savage Life of Hunter S. Thompson 

This week on All Ears, Abby is joined by Ellen Pao. Pao made headlines in 2012 when she sued venture capital firm Kleiner-Perkins for gender discrimination. In 2015 she lost the lawsuit, but it sent shockwaves throughout Silicon Valley and got people talking about the rampant bro-culture, sexism and bad behaviors that had gone unchallenged there for so long. She went on to become the interim CEO of Reddit, where she banned revenge porn and shut down some of the worst subreddits. Now she runs Project Include, a non-profit that is focused on increasing diversity and inclusion in the tech industry. In this week’s conversation with Abby, she talks about the impact of her lawsuit, her brief but influential time at Reddit, Silicon Valley’s obsession with 26 year-old white, cis men in hoodies, and her hope for the future of the tech industry. Tune in for a thoughtful discussion on what can go right and what does go wrong in Silicon Valley.

EPISODE LINKS
Ellen Pao's Website
Project Include Website
Reset: My Fight For Inclusion and Lasting Change by Ellen Pao
The Pao v. Kleiner Perkins Gender Discrimination Lawsuit
The Guardian, 'They don't think it's important': Ellen Pao on why Facebook can't beat hate, 2020
New York Times, Ellen Pao Disrupts How Silicon Valley Does Business, 2015
New York Times, Ellen Pao Loses Silicon Valley Bias Case Against Kleiner Perkins, 2015
New York Times, Lawsuit Shakes Foundation of a Man’s World of Tech, 2012
VOX, A Who’s-Who of the Kleiner Perkins-Ellen Pao Trial, 2015
The Verge, Ellen Pao shifted hiring practices at Reddit to improve diversity, 2015
The Guardian, Reddit chief Ellen Pao resigns after receiving ‘sickening’ abuse from users, 2015
The Verge, Timnit Gebru was fired from Google–then the harassers arrived, 2021

This week on All Ears, Abby is joined by Imara Jones. Imara is an activist, journalist and the creator of TransLash Media, a cross-platform journalism, storytelling and narrative project. She’s also the host of the TransLash podcast, a show that centers trans narratives and experience. Imara’s and Abby’s conversation was so rich and varied, we decided to split it up into two episodes. In this week’s conversation, she discusses the love and acceptance she found in her family after transitioning, the immense and intractable power of storytelling, and what went wrong in Dave Chappelle’s most recent Netflix special, ‘The Closer.’ Tune in for a compelling and insightful conversation about why we should all be invested in the fight to protect black trans women.

TransLash Media
Translash, Episode 3: Family Matters
Time, Imara Jones: Why Black Trans Women Are Essential To Our Future
The Guardian, Trans black and loved: what happened when I returned to the deep south after transitioning
NPR, Amid Wave Of Anti-Trans Bills, Trans Reporters Say 'Telling Our Own Stories' Is Vital
New York Times, Dave Chappelle's Brittle Ego
IndieWire, Dave Chappelle’s Last Netflix Special Is a Season Finale With Nothing New to Say
New York Times, Netflix employee who criticized Dave Chappelle’s comedy special is among three suspended
New York Times, Netflix workers plan a walkout as fallout over Dave Chappelle continues

This week on All Ears it’s the second part of our two-part interview with journalist and activist Imara Jones. Abby and Imara talk in-depth about “The Anti-Trans Hate Machine”, a fantastic 4-part podcast by Imara and Translash Media. It’s an investigative series that looks into the political activities of powerful far-right wing Christians to advocate for and help create laws that discriminate against trans people. One of the most influential people in this sphere of influence is former Trump Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, whose family has reportedly donated over $200 million to Republicans and Republican causes. Imara walks Abby through the agenda of Dominionism, a theology that seeks to elect and install a Christian nationalist government based on biblical law. Sharing audio and details of her reporting, Imara paints a dramatic portrait of a coordinated, well-funded effort to influence democratic institutions by using anti-trans legislation as a cultural wedge. You won’t want to miss this one.

Last week in part one Imara and Abby covered the Netflix/Dave Chappelle controversy, Please take a listen if you haven’t had the chance!

EPISODE LINKS:

The Anti-Trans Hate Machine Podcast, on A-Cast
ACLU, Legislation Affecting LGBT Rights Across the Country
The Gathering Conference
Politico, Trump’s education pick says reform can ‘advance God’s kingdom’, 2016
Rolling Stone, Betsy DeVos' Holy War, 2017
Mother Jones, Betsy DeVos Wants to Use America's Schools to Build 'God's Kingdom', 2017
Vanity Fair, The Strange Ascent of Betsy DeVos and Erik Prince, 2018
Politico, A look at DeVos family philanthropic giving, 2018
The Daily Beast, The $1-Billion-a-Year Right-Wing Conspiracy You Haven’t Heard Of, 2014
Sludge, America’s Biggest Christian Charity Funnels Tens of Millions to Hate Groups, 2019
Political Research Associates, Christian Reconstructionism, 1994
The Texas Observer, The Radical Theology That Could Make Religious Freedom a Thing of The Past, 2016

With the United Nations’ 26th annual climate change conference–aka COP26–happening in Glasgow, Scotland this week, we thought it was the perfect time to re-air Abby’s conversation with environmental activist Varshini Prakash. Varshini is the executive director and co-founder of the Sunrise Movement, a youth-centered climate activist group that’s helped bring the climate crisis to the forefront of national politics in the United States. The organization has made a name for itself by coordinating confrontational climate protests, and working to popularize the Green New Deal. Back when Abby interviewed Varshini, nobody would have predicted that two Democrats (Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona) would bring down President Biden's plan to implement sweeping progressive policies nationwide. Still, Sunrise is not letting the President off the hook: on October 20, five Sunrise activists began staging a hunger strike outside the White House, demanding that he take executive action, in spite of legislative obstacles. After 14 days without food they ended the strike, when President Biden promised a 50% decrease in emissions by 2030. 

Tune in for an inspiring conversation about the determination of younger generations to lead,  and the power of grassroots movements to address the climate crisis.

Follow Varshini and The Sunrise Movement on Twitter: @varshprakash and @sunrisemvmt

EPISODE LINKS:

The Sunrise Movement Website
United Nations Climate Change, Glasgow Climate Change Conference
New York Times, Key to Biden's Climate Agenda Likely to Be Cut Because of Manchin Opposition, 2021
New York Times, Your Country Is Getting a Bad Deal, and You Can Do Better, 2021
The Guardian, Climate advocates who backed Sinema exasperated by blocking of Biden bill, 2021
Al Jazeera, Climate activists go on hunger strike near WH urging Biden to act, 2021
Huffington Post, 5 Young Activists On Hunger Strike Demand Democrats Not Cut Back On Climate in Bill, 2021 

This week on All Ears, Abby talks food and food policy with New York State Senator Jessica Ramos. Jessica burst onto the New York political scene in 2018 when she and several other progressive candidates ousted a powerful group of conservative New York Democrats who had been crossing party lines to caucus with Republicans. She represents District 13 in Queens, where more than 24,000 food workers live in just three square miles. In 2019 Jessica helped pass the Farm Workers Fair Labor Practices Act, which gave farmworkers in upstate New York long overdue rights, things like overtime pay and unemployment insurance. She also pushed hard to remove New York City’s cap on street vending permits.  In this week’s conversation with Abby, Jessica discusses her love of food, her love of Queens, the powerful influence of Julia Child’s unmitigated use of butter, and why our country is long overdue for comprehensive immigration reform.  And you won't want to miss the tasty story that kicks off the episode: All Ears Producer Christine Schomer profiles vendors who work in Corona Plaza, one of the most exciting and diverse outdoor food courts in the country--just blocks from Senator Ramos' office.

To learn more about The Street Vendor Project, visit https://svp.urbanjustice.org/

EPISODE LINKS
New York Times, Food Is Not a Prop For Senator Jessica Ramos, It’s a Platform, 2021
New York Times, No Papers, No Jobs: The New Street Vendors of Queens, 2020
City and State New York, Jessica Ramos isn’t sugarcoating anything, 2020
Grub Street, State Senator Jessica Ramos Likes Her Food Very Local, 2019
New York Focus, Unlicensed Street Vendors Fear Steep Fines as Enforcement Escalates, 2021
Eater, City Council Moves to Lift Street Vendor Permit Cap in Historic Vote, 2021
New York City Business Solutions, Street Vending
Institute for Justice, Groundbreaking Report Highlights Economic Impact of New York City Vendors, 2015

It’s our final episode of the season, and who better to finish it off with than feminist icon and Abby’s longtime friend, Gloria Steinem. Steinem has been a pioneer and leader in the feminist movement for more than half a century. Her political and cultural impact is truly immeasurable, but it’s undeniable that she, alongside women like Dorothy Pittman Hughes and Florynce Kennedy helped lay the foundation for the modern feminist movement. She’s spent much of her extraordinary life traveling the world: marching in solidarity, giving talks, introducing ideas, facilitating conversations, and most of all, listening. Now, in her 87th year, she says she’s enjoying being home for what may be the first time in her long life. In this week’s conversation with Abby, we learn about the time they ended up in Botswana on the back of an elephant named Cathy together, how families built on equality can temper political trends of authoritarianism, and what it is that gives her hope about the future of feminism. Tune in to our last episode of the season for a fun and thoughtful conversation between old friends, and we’ll be back soon.

Follow Gloria on Twitter: @GloriaSteinem

EPISODE LINKS

Elephants Without Borders
Abu Camp Elephant Conservation
Gloria Steinem's Website
Theosophical Society of America
New York Mag, After Black Power, Women’s Liberation, 1969
NPR's Fresh Air, Feminist Activist Gloria Steinem, 2020
National Geographic, How Gloria Steinem became 'the world's most famous feminist', 2019
 Ms. Magazine, The Story of Iconic Feminist Dorothy Pitman Hughes: “With Her Fist Raised”, 2021
New York Times, With Plan to Walk Across DMZ, Women Aim for Peace in Korea, 2015
New York Times, What I See: Gloria Steinem, Shoulder to Shoulder With Women of Color, 2018
New York Times, Gloria Steinem Is Nowhere Near Done With Being An Activist, 2020