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DateTitreDurée
24 Apr 2020Ending the Nuclear Era: Fred Pearce00:29:09

Legacy of Secrecy

Nuclear technology has a long history of secrecy, cover-up, and deceit from military officials and government leaders, starting with the creation of nuclear weapons. Secrecy has hampered scientists in conducting rigorous research and data collection. They are often faced with studying the effects of radiation after an accident, which means they lack baseline data for comparison. This is most notable in Chernobyl, where the surrounding exclusion zone is now teeming with wildlife. Scientists disagree whether the detected DNA changes in the animals are due to radiation or to natural evolution, and how harmful it is. A combination of disinformation, a lack of understanding, and fundamental disagreements about the danger posed by radiation feeds public skepticism of nuclear technology.

Dangerous Waste

Nuclear technology's longest-lasting legacy is radioactive waste. It produces plutonium, a highly radioactive isotope that takes thousands of years to decay. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute estimates that the world currently has about 550 tons of plutonium. Most of the waste sits in silos designed for temporary storage, which is expensive. We still need to find a way to treat, move, and bury it in a permanent storage space that is deep underground. The immense cost of waste management is one of the main reasons that nuclear reactors are being decommissioned. After deciding to abandon nuclear power, Germany is now struggling with its waste. Some of it is stored in salt mines that are not secure enough in the long term, and some is in the UK for treatment. It’s unclear if Germany will take back the nuclear waste that is overseas. How the world will eventually safely maintain nuclear waste is an open question.

Nuclear Disarmament

The heart of Pearce’s opposition to nuclear energy is the danger of nuclear proliferation. The creation of nuclear weapons is a Faustian pact that poses a vast and unnecessary risk to the world. The hydrogen bombs that were developed after WWII would kill millions of people instantly, which are now in silos all over the world, ready to be deployed. He argues that nuclear weapons are not a security measure, but instead create global insecurity. Every year they lie dormant, the chances they fall into the wrong hands increases. Nuclear weapons disarmament needs to be our highest priority, and should be achievable in the next 30 – 40 years. The only way to do so is by eliminating atomic technology, which also means eliminating nuclear power.

Find out more:

Fred Pearce is a freelance author and journalist based in London. He has reported on the environment, science, and development issues from 88 countries over the past 30 years. Trained as a geographer, he has been an environment consultant of New Scientist magazine since 1992. He writes regularly for The Guardian newspaper, including the weekly Greenwash column, and published a 12-part investigation of the 'Climategate' emails affair at the University of East Anglia. He is also a regular contributor to Yale University's prestigious e360 website.

Fred is the author of numerous books, including Fallout: Disasters, Lies, and the Legacy of the Nuclear Age, and The Last Generation: How Nature Will Take Her Revenge for Climate Change. His books have been translated into at least 14 languages.

19 May 2018Shafi Goldwasser00:33:22

Shafi Goldwasser is an award-winning mathematician and computer scientist and the Director of the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing at UC Berkeley. Her most notable work is in cryptography and zero knowledge proof. We discuss the promise of cryptography to make our society more secure. 

Data privacy and you: 

Cryptography is the field that deals with the privacy and correctness of how our information is used. It makes our data more secure, with a range of tools such as encryption, authentication, and verification. Every time we are online, we need to be vigilant about what private information we share and with whom. We should use the tools of cryptography and be careful about giving permissions for apps to access our data.  

Algorithmic Fairness and Data Bias: 

We have an idea that algorithms are fair because they are machine computations. However, algorithms do no account for actual individuals, so the data is trained with existing societal norms, which can perpetuate unfairness. Data can also be poisoned once people figure out what algorithms are used by tweaking the information in order to get the desired outcome. 

Demand accountability: 

We must demand that our personal information is only used in ways that can keep our identity private. There are already collaborative platforms using various encryption methods that are effective for governments and companies to use. “If companies get into trouble because of fiascos having to do with private data you don't just blindly continue supporting them.” 

Find out more:

Shafi Goldwasser is the Director of the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing at UC Berkeley, the world’s leading venue for collaborative research in theoretical computer science. She is also the Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT, and professor of computer science and applied mathematics at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. She is currently working on the project "Splinter: Practical Private Queries on Public Data"

13 Jul 2023The Power of Citizen Voice: Layla Law-Gisiko00:47:15

Thursday, July 13th, 2023

 

Layla Law-Gisiko serves on Manhattan’s Community Board 5 at the very center of New York City. She currently chairs the land use committee, which makes recommendations on the community’s built real estate environments. We discuss her community advocacy, the land use issues the Community Board considers, and the future of New York’s Penn Station.

 

The community board’s power is its voice. Community boards give people an opportunity to get involved and participate in democracy. When the community gets together, they can win. Although there are no real victory laps and it’s easy to get discouraged, it’s important to remember that it’s all about being in the fight. Talk to everyone, even if you disagree, and create opportunities for alliances. 



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Read the transcript here: 

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Credits: 

Host: Mila Atmos 

Guests: Layla Law-Gisiko

Executive Producer: Mila Atmos

Producer: Zack Travis

30 Jun 2022Financial Confessions: Imani Barbarin00:55:57

Thursday, June 30th, 2022

 

This week, Future Hindsight is sharing an episode of The Financial Confessions – a podcast by The Financial Diet. The Financial Diet is the largest personal finance platform for women on the internet. 

Money impacts everything we do, and talking about it can be scary. In each episode, host Chelsea Fagan sits down with a subject matter expert for an in-depth chat about their particular field of work with a financial-first lens. In this episode, she speaks with writer and disability advocate Imani Barbarin about navigating our broken healthcare system, how being disabled affects one's finances, and what everyone should know about living with a disability in America.

Listen to Financial Confessions Now:

https://thefinancialdiet.podbean.com/

 

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11 Jan 2024A Better Way to Vote: Deb Otis00:32:18

Deb Otis is the Director of Research & Policy at FairVote, a nonpartisan organization that researches and advances voting reforms that make democracy more functional and representative for every American. We discuss the benefits of ranked choice voting and the likelihood that it will become more popular after the 2024 presidential election.

 

Ranked choice voting addresses a variety of problems in “vote one” elections, such as vote splitting among similar candidates; ranking candidates in order of preference; proportional outcomes in multi winner races; more broad based support for the eventual winner; and more successful general election candidates if ranked choice voting is used in the primary. Maine is a state where ranked choice voting will be used in the presidential election. The Fair Representation Act is a bill that would implement ranked choice voting for members of Congress and also make redistricting more proportional and representative for voters.

 

Follow Deb on Twitter: 

https://twitter.com/DebTheOtis 

 

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Read the transcript here: 

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Credits: 

Host: Mila Atmos 

Guests: Deb Otis

Executive Producer: Mila Atmos

Producer: Zack Travis

03 Apr 2020A Nuclear Future: Joshua Goldstein00:29:07

Green Power

Nuclear energy offers large amounts of power, produces no carbon dioxide, uses a comparatively small amount of land, and runs around the clock. Although nuclear power produces hazardous waste, the amount of material and risk to civilians is small. The risk is hugely outweighed by the risk posed by climate change. According to Goldstein, nuclear power represents the best source of carbon-free energy available to us as we transition from fossil fuels. In the span of one decade, Sweden cut its emissions in half while also growing its economy, thanks to a large-scale nuclear program.

Nuclear Waste or Air Pollution?

Air pollution kills millions of people world-wide every year because of the particulate matter that coal-powered plants emit freely into the atmosphere. What people should be afraid of is coal, but what people are afraid of is nuclear power. The fear of radiation is exacerbated by disasters like Chernobyl and Fukushima, as well as generational trauma about the potential use of nuclear weapons in the 1950s to the 1970s. Although large amounts of radiation are fatal, we actually live safely with small, naturally occurring amounts every day. The stigma against nuclear power caused Germany to shutter its plants in favor of solar and wind. They replaced one green fuel source with another instead of replacing coal with a green fuel. Unfortunately, because Germany’s renewables are not meeting demands for electricity, they are now burning more fossil fuels to fulfill that need.

Small Modular Reactors

Instead of giant nuclear plants, which can take decades to build, the future lies in small modular reactors. These new, pre-fabricated, transportable, and scalable reactors are in current development by the US and China. They are projected to be operational in the middle of the coming decade. These smaller reactors can be mass-produced and distributed to high-need areas. In addition, small modular reactors carry less stigma because of their size. The Chinese model can sit on a barge, be towed to a location, and immediately begin producing power.

Find out more:

Joshua Goldstein is professor emeritus of international relations at American University and a research scholar at University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He researches, writes, and speaks about global trends including war and society, economic forces, and world energy trends and climate change. Goldstein co-authored A Bright Future, How Some Countries Have Solved Climate Change and the Rest Can Follow.

You can follow him on Twitter @GoldsteinJoshua.

12 Sep 2024People Power on the Ballot: Chris Melody Fields Figueredo00:41:30

We discuss how ballot measures give voters the opportunity to take power and agency. It is about citizens putting issues that are important to their communities, gathering signatures, and then putting them on the ballot directly to effect policy change.

 

Her civic action toolkit recommendations are:  

1. Voting is the starting line, not the finish line.

2. Hold your elected officials accountable after elections by reaching out to them about the issues that matter to you, and making sure they are keeping their promises.

 

Chris Melody Fields Figueredo is the Executive Director of The Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, which works to strengthen American democracy using ballot initiatives. 



Follow Chris on X: 

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Read the transcript here:  

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Credits: 

Host: Mila Atmos 

Guests: Chris Melody Fields Figueredo

Executive Producer: Mila Atmos

Producer: Zack Travis

10 Aug 2019Eradicating Cash Bail: Robin Steinberg00:28:51

The price of freedom

Cash bail was initially conceived as a way to incentivize the accused to come to court at their appointed court dates. As the criminal legal system expanded during the tough-on-crime years, cash bail was set at amounts that low income people could not afford. Even though they had yet to be convicted of a crime, they were forced to go to jail because they could not afford bail. One way to get out is to plead guilty to a small offense so that they can go home, but that adds significant complications down the road.

The cost to our society

Our society pays a steep price from allowing the current cash bail system to continue as it is. American taxpayers spend 14 billion dollars each year to hold people in jail cells who have not been convicted of a crime. The collateral consequences are estimated to be as high as 140 billion dollars per year. Most disturbing is that only 2 percent of the Bail Project’s clients actually receive a jail sentence. In fact, when people are fighting their cases from a position of freedom, judges and prosecutors are willing to engage in alternatives to incarceration as sentences.

A new system

A new system to ensure people appear at appointed court times must come from a perspective of humanity and respect. Over a decade’s worth of data in the Bronx shows that effective court reminders do work. Further, the needs of the accused have to be addressed, such as transportation fare or emergency child care, especially for low income people. Most importantly, any new system must involve a presumption of innocence, and can no longer be a two-tier system that favors those who can afford to pay for the price of their freedom.

Find out more:

Robin Steinberg is the founder and CEO of The Bail Project, an unprecedented national effort to combat mass incarceration by transforming the pretrial system in the U.S.

Over a 35-year career as a public defender, Robin represented thousands of low-income people in over-policed neighborhoods and founded three high-impact organizations: The Bronx Defenders, The Bronx Freedom Fund, and Still She Rises. Robin is a frequent commentator on criminal justice issues and has contributed opinion pieces to The New York Times, The Marshall Project, and USA Today. Her publications have appeared in leading law and policy journals, including NYU Review of Law & Social ChangeYale Law & Policy Review, and Harvard Journal of African-American Public Policy, and she has contributed book chapters to How Can You Represent Those People? (Palgrave 2013) and Decarcerating America (The New Press 2018). Robin is a Gilbert Foundation Senior Fellow of the Criminal Justice Program at UCLA School of Law.

Follow The Bail Project on Twitter @bailproject.

13 Apr 2019Season Round Up: Poverty00:08:50

Revisit some of the highlights of this season that gave us so much insight into poverty in America, added to our discourse, and helped us revise our thinking.

24 Feb 2022History of Black Thought: Chris Lebron00:41:29

Understanding Black Lives Matter

Black Lives Matter stands as a movement to demand and secure Black humanity. Being a leader-full movement makes it less susceptible to disruption and has de-centered Black patriarchy. Its broad and deep inclusivity has also widened our consciousness beyond historical notions of Blackness. However, the lack of a clear leader also poses challenges in national messaging about the movement.  

 

Love, Equality, and Fairness 

Looking back at the history of Black thought in America, we see the shortcomings in our understanding of racism. Simply knowing that racism is wrong is not enough to break away from the everyday segregation our society faces. This moral immaturity continues to exist today, especially in the form of performative activism and fickle support of social movements. Combatting this kind of immaturity requires building a stronger sense of filial love across different communities.  

 

Moral and Affective Ideas

Ideas can be powerful, but it’s the affective nature of an idea that determines its power. It’s clear that racial inequality results in an uneven distribution of wealth. Some would say that it is unfair. However, describing this reality as unfair removes the emotional punch that racial inequality actually results in the devastation of families, leading to anguish and despair. These two ideas are not interchangeable.

 

FIND OUT MORE:

Chris Lebron is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Johns Hopkins University. He specializes in political philosophy, social theory, the philosophy of race, and democratic ethics. His first book, The Color of Our Shame: Race and Justice In Our Time (OUP 2013) won the American Political Science Association Foundations of Political Theory First Book Prize. His second book The Making of Black Lives Matter: A Brief History of An Idea (OUP 2017) offers a brief intellectual history of the black lives matter social movement. 

Lebron is the winner of the 2018 Hiett Prize In The Humanities, which recognizes a “career devoted to the humanities and whose work shows extraordinary promise to have a significant impact on contemporary culture.” In addition to his scholarly publications, he has been an active public intellectual, writing numerous times for The New York Times's philosophy column, The Stone, Boston Review, The Nation, The Atlantic, and Billboard Magazine.

You can follow Chris on Twitter @lebron_chris

06 Oct 2022Gen Z for Change: Aidan Kohn-Murphy & Jack Petocz00:35:50

Thursday, October 6th, 2022

 

Aidan Kohn-Murphy is the founder and Executive Director of the organization Gen Z for Change, a youth-led nonprofit working to educate and create change on issues that affect young people. Jack Petocz is a political strategist who also mounted a campaign to recall his local school board in Florida to fight back against anti-LGBTQ board members. 

 

With the tool of social media, Gen Z for Change is reaching millions of youth across the country to mobilize them to be citizen changemakers. They’re leading school walkouts in the face of discriminatory laws, knocking on doors to turn out the vote, unseating anti LGBTQ school board members, raising money for abortion funds, voting themselves, and running for office.  

 

Follow Aidan on Twitter: 

https://twitter.com/aidankohnmurphy 

 

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https://twitter.com/Jack_Petocz 

 

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Credits: 

Host: Mila Atmos 

Guests: Aidan Kohn-Murphy and Jack Petocz

Executive Producer: Mila Atmos

Producers: Zack Travis and Sara Burningham

06 Nov 2020Lasting Civic Engagement: Maria Yuan00:30:09

Civic Engagement Online and In-Person

Technology can make participating in democracy easier than ever before because it’s scalable and makes it possible for everyone’s voices to be heard. However, civic engagement must also be done with human connection and in person, like in community conversations, town halls, and organizing. IssueVoter uses its online platform to motivate users to perform civic engagement in the real world. Thirty percent of IssueVoter users say the platform is the reason they voted, showing that the more information the user has, the more he or she is motivated to take action.

Fostering Accountability

IssueVoter fosters civic engagement in between elections by making it easier for users to know what bills are being proposed in Congress, and sending their opinions on those bills to their representatives. Then, users are informed how their representatives voted. It turns out that representatives aren’t always in alignment with their constituents. Knowing how your elected representatives voted is key to holding them accountable. In fact, 33% of users have changed their voting decisions based on IssueVoter information. IssueVoter stresses the importance of primary elections to vote for candidates in line with your values.

Policy Impacts Lives

We need to do a better job of connecting the dots between public policy and politics. Policies are created and enacted by the politicians we elect. All policies, ranging from healthcare to education, impact all of us, regardless of who we voted for or whether we voted at all. IssueVoter helps us understand how our elected politicians vote on policy matters and bills in Congress so that we know whether they are representing us and whether we should vote for them again.

Find out more:

Maria Yuan is the Founder of IssueVoter. an innovative non-profit and non-partisan platform that offers everyone a voice in our democracy by making civic engagement accessible, efficient, and impactful.

The time between elections is when the work that impacts our lives gets done. IssueVoter answers the question, “The election is over, now what?” Individuals use IssueVoter to get alerts about new bills related to issues they care about, send opinions to their Representative before Congress votes, and track how often s/he represents them. In partnership with companies, organizations, and candidates, IssueVoter encourages year-round civic engagement with their employees, customers, members, or constituents.

Maria’s political experience includes introducing and passing a bill as a constituent, working in a State Representative’s office in Texas, and managing and winning one of the most targeted races in Iowa – an open seat in a swing district. Maria earned degrees from The Wharton School at The University of Pennsylvania and The University of Texas at Austin. Maria’s writing has appeared in Huffington Post and The Hill, and she has spoken at SXSW, The Social Innovation Summit, Shearman & Sterling, UBS, NYU, and the University of Pennsylvania.

You can follow IssueVoter on Twitter @IssueVoter.

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18 May 2023People Power and AI: Chris Wiggins & Matt Jones00:41:51

Thursday, May 18th, 2023

 

Chris Wiggins and Matthew L. Jones are co-authors of How Data Happened: A History from the Age of Reason to the Age of Algorithms. Chris is an associate professor of applied mathematics at Columbia University and the New York Times’s chief data scientist and Matt is a professor of history at Columbia. Together, they taught a course called “Data: Past, Present, and Future," and their book is an extension thereof. We discuss the history of how data is made; the relationship between data and truth; and the unstable three-player game between corporate, state, and people power. 

 

We are currently in an unstable and unpredictable three-player game between state power, corporate power, and people power. In fact, we have a lot of collective influence via the way we construct norms. Our constant human activity is the grist of the mill for machine learning. Corporations do not have all the power. Still, the mix between advertising and data has created a lot of the most pressing concerns in the world’s algorithmically mediated reality.

 

Follow Chris on Twitter: 

https://twitter.com/chrishwiggins

 

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https://twitter.com/nescioquid

 

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Read the transcript here: 

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Credits: 

Host: Mila Atmos 

Guests: Chris Wiggins & Matt Jones

Executive Producer: Mila Atmos

Producer: Zack Travis

02 Nov 2023Shaping Collective Memory: Hajar Yazdiha00:37:45

Thursday, November 2nd, 2023

 

Hajar Yazdiha is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences and the author of The Struggle for the People’s King: How Politics Transforms the Memory of the Civil Rights Movement. We discuss the role of collective memory in the myth-making of American exceptionalism. 

 

Collective memory is the way that we remember history and that becomes central to our idea of who we are as a people. It’s a process of storytelling and the most central stories to who we are as a people. The civil rights movement has become one of the central collective memories in America's story of both who it is and who it wants to be. However, careful examination of the record reveals that the civil rights movement was a political project that was meant to actually dismantle multicultural democracy. Further, as the collective memory of Dr. King became sanitized and whitewashed, his legacy carried a lot of moral legitimacy, and his moral symbolic authority became ripe for manipulation.

 

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https://twitter.com/HajYazdiha 

 

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Read the transcript here: 

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Credits: 

Host: Mila Atmos 

Guests: Hajar Yazdiha

Executive Producer: Mila Atmos

Producer: Zack Travis

04 May 2020Civic Engagement, Social Distancing, and Democracy Reform00:37:29

Recently, Mila sat down with other podcast hosts from our podcast network The Democracy Group, to discuss the impact COVID-19 is having on our democracy, vulnerable populations, and more.

“COVID, the pandemic … has really brought to bear not just the inequities and the inequalities, but also the necessity to have a much more active sense of democracy as a verb — democracy as an action that we can all be part of.” — Juleyka Lantigua-Williams, 70 Million

Host: Richard Davies, Co-host, How Do We Fix It?
@DaviesNow

Guests:
Mila Atmos, Host, Future Hindsight
@milaatmos

Juleyka Lantigua-Williams, Founder and CEO of Lantigua-Williams and Co., Creator and Executive Producer, 70 Million
@JuleykaLantigua

Carah Ong-Whaley, Associate Director at James Madison Center for Civic Engagement at James Madison University, Co-host, Democracy Matters
@CarahOng

Lee Drutman, Senior Fellow at New America, Co-host, Politics in Question
@leedrutman

26 Sep 2020Civics Club: Adam Cohen00:06:18

Wondering what being a member of our Civics Club is like on Patreon? Well, here’s a free look at our bonus content from our talk this week with Adam Cohen! Each week we take time to ask our guests personal questions about their involvement with democracy, why they’re so engaged, and maybe even who inspired them. The questions change every week, so make sure to join The Civics Club so you never miss another round of bonus questions.

12 May 2022Patriot and Diplomat: Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch00:47:15
Thursday, May 12th, 2022

 

Marie Yovanovitch is the former Ambassador to Ukraine and best-selling author of her memoir, Lessons from the Edge. In a live event for Big Tent USA, we discuss the powers of diplomacy, the corrosive effects of corruption, and the war in Ukraine.

 

Her memoir details her illustrious career, her courage and integrity, and her patriotic dedication and service to the United States. She exemplifies how career diplomats – public servants – serve their country, Republican or Democratic administrations alike. US democracy is closely tied to its diplomacy. When the country is strong, our democracy is strong.

 

Find Lessons from the Edge: A Memoir:

https://bookshop.org/books/lessons-from-the-edge-a-memoir/9780358457541?aid=11259&listref=books-we-re-reading-in-2022-e85c5f86-2225-484e-a539-fc4836a82e53 

 

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Credits:

Host:

Mila Atmos

Guest:

Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch

Executive Producer:

Mila Atmos

Producers:

Zack Travis and Sara Burningham

31 Aug 2023America’s Raw Deal: Kurt Andersen00:47:56

Thursday, August 31st, 2023

 

Kurt Andersen is a prolific writer and author of Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America: A Recent History. We discuss the conservative playbook to move our society culturally, economically, and politically to the right, and why continuous civic engagement and investment in Americans can restore basic fairness.

 

Influential conservatives capitalized on a wave of cultural nostalgia after the turbulent 1960s to turn the American economy into a version of extreme capitalism. Together with neoliberalism from the left, the New Deal was replaced by the raw deal. The US government has provided funding for many of the greatest inventions of the last century, like in pharmaceuticals and in technology. If the government acted like a private investor, it would have more funds to invest in communities and also to support more innovation. 

 

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Credits: 

Host: Mila Atmos 

Guests: Kurt Andersen

Executive Producer: Mila Atmos

Producer: Zack Travis

03 Feb 2018Richard Betts00:29:49

Richard K. Betts, Ph.D, is the Director of the Saltzmann Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University. We talk about how we can be meaningful stakeholders in foreign policy by voting and supporting political movements.

Vote & Support

We must use our power to vote and support political movements in order to activate fundamental change in our world.

Be an active volunteer in an organization

Historically, the United States has been a country of joiners in various organizations to promote solutions to public policy programs. People joined organizations and devoted their volunteered time in large numbers because it is one of the basic ways in which people indirectly affect bigger issues that they don't feel much direct control over. Don’t take it for granted!

Demand and create a more peaceful future

It's very damaging to the political process when people participate irresponsibly. Make the effort to learn enough to make responsible decisions. Read newspapers, inform yourself, and stay curious about what is going on.  Then vote for the candidate that comes closest to your point of view.

Find out more

Richard Betts is the Director of the Saltzmann Institute of War and Peace Studies, and the Director of the International Security Policy Program at the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) at Columbia University in New York.

16 Jun 2022The Asian-American Vote: Sung Yeon Choimorrow00:40:55

Thursday, June 16th, 2022

 

Sung Yeon Choimorrow is the executive director of the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum, whose mission is to elevate AAPI women and girls to impact policy and drive systemic change in the United States. We discuss age-old and hardened stereotypes, changing the narrative about who Asian-Americans are, and activating Asian communities to take civic action.

 

The term model minority was coined by a white sociologist to pit Japanese Americans against Black Americans. Many Asian-Americans have used the model minority myth to protect them, though in the end it does not insulate them from discrimination and racism. In fact, the objectification of Asian women for entertainment persists, and Asian-Americans are perpetually seen as foreign. 

 

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Credits:

Host: Mila Atmos 

Guest: Sung Yeon Choimorrow 

Executive Producer: Mila Atmos 

Producers: Zack Travis and Sara Burningham 

02 Feb 2023Unions Represent the Voiceless: Ruth Milkman00:41:27

Thursday, February 2nd, 2023

 

Ruth Milkman is Distinguished Professor of Sociology and History at the CUNY Graduate Center and at the CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies, where she chairs the Labor Studies Department. Her most recent books are Immigration Matters and Immigrant Labor and the New Precariat.

 

Unions remain a voice for the voiceless, especially given that the playing field has been very strongly tilted in favor of employers for some time. Employers are very aggressively anti-union, even in settings where union is long established like at UPS. The current wave of workers trying to unionize are not the usual suspects of historically unionized workers. They're mostly college educated, instead of blue collar workers, and they seek to address the gap between their labor market expectations and the actual job quality and pay that is available to them.

 

Read more about Ruth: 

https://www.ruthmilkman.info/ 

 

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Credits: 

 

Host: Mila Atmos 

Guests: Ruth Milkman

Executive Producer: Mila Atmos

Producers: Zack Travis and Sara Burningham

28 Apr 2022Strategic Racism is a Divide and Conquer Scam: Ian Haney López00:48:50
Thursday, April 28th, 2022  

Ian Haney López is the Chief Justice Earl Warren Professor of Public Law at the University of California, Berkeley. He specializes in race and racism. His focus for the last decade has been on the use of racism in electoral politics, and how to respond. We discuss strategic racism and its antidote: race-class fusion politics. 

 

Strategic racism is a divide and conquer scam by elites that pushes us to hate each other while they rig the system for themselves. Race-class fusion politics is the antidote because it rejects the con and builds power with others across differences. Perhaps the real radicalism of race-class fusion politics today is the core radicalism of American democracy – a way of pushing power downward and outward to citizens.

 

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Credits:

Host:

Mila Atmos

Guest:

Ian Haney López

Executive Producer:

Mila Atmos

Producers:

Zack Travis and Sara Burningham

16 Nov 2019Protecting our Elections: Marcia Johnson-Blanco00:27:48

Protecting our Elections

Most Americans take for granted that our elections will be free and fair. However, this would not be the case without the rigorous efforts of dedicated non-profits, citizens, and volunteers. Organizations like the Lawyers’ Committee work year-round to protect our elections from internal interference using a variety of tools such as a voter hotline (866-OUR-VOTE), digital outreach, physical field programs, and litigation when states enact unfair or discriminatory voting practices. Legitimate elections are the result of passionate citizens and organized civic engagement.

Attacks on Democratic Infrastructure

The Lawyers’ Committee started its Election Protection program in 2002 in order to combat increasing attacks on election infrastructure at national and state levels. The most notable of these attacks was the 2013 Shelby County v. Holder Supreme Court Case, which struck down a key portion of the Voting Rights Act that had required districts with a history of voter discrimination to seek federal authorization for any changes in voting laws or procedures. Since then, 14 states have instituted new voting restrictions, and more than 1,000 polling locations have closed around the country. Restrictions like this make it harder for many to vote, alienating them and corroding the foundation of our democracy.

Restrictions and Interpretations

New laws—like Texas’s former voter ID law that banned student IDs, but allowed concealed carry permits—are not the only way states can suppress voting. Some states simply interpret existing laws in a new way. The National Voter Registration Act contains a list maintenance provision on how to remove voters who have moved or died, which some states have interpreted as a way to aggressively purge voters who still live in the jurisdiction. In Husted v. Philip Randolph Institute, the Supreme Court ruled that Ohio is allowed to purge voters who have not voted in two years and have not responded to a change of residence notice. Election protection challenges voter suppression in new laws as well as unfair interpretations of existing ones. 

Find out more:

Marcia Johnson-Blanco is the co-Director of the Lawyers’ Committee’s Voting Rights Project. She manages the Project’s programmatic and advocacy portfolios, and also leads the Election Protection Program. The program was started in 2002 to combat voter suppression and disenfranchisement, which includes tools such as the voter hotline (866-OUR-VOTE), on-site election protection services, and litigation against discriminatory laws and tactics.

Johnson-Blanco is a widely-recognized voting rights leader, and served as the deputy director of the National Commission on the Voting Rights Act in 2005. She holds degrees from Georgetown and Villanova, and serves as a taskforce co-chair at the US Human Rights Network.

You can follow her on Twitter @mfjblanco, and the Election Protection program @866OURVOTE.

27 Jun 2024How It Feels to Love America: Wajahat Ali00:58:57

Wajahat Ali is a Daily Beast columnist and the co-host of Democracy-ish. He's also the author of Go Back to Where You Came From: And Other Helpful Recommendations on How to Become American. Together, Mila and Waj discuss what it means to be American and to love a country that often doesn’t love them back.

 

Defense of democracy continues to resonate as a kitchen table issue for all Americans. Mainstream media is not properly serving the public, whether that’s about fully informing the public on the Trump indictments, truthfully reporting the reality in Gaza, or neglecting to report on the dangers of Project 2025. Project 2025 is a white Christian nationalist document that openly pushes for ideas such as the weaponization of the DOJ, eliminating the Department of Education, and the continued efforts to ban abortion. Democrats must also remind and inform voters on these issues instead of shaming the public into voting for them.



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Credits: 

Host: Mila Atmos 

Guests: Wajahat Ali

Executive Producer: Mila Atmos

Producer: Zack Travis

03 Aug 2023Asian Americans: Norman Chen00:40:22

Thursday, August 3rd, 2023

 

Norman Chen is the CEO of the Asian American Foundation or TAAF. We discuss racism against Asians and the pursuit of belonging through philanthropy, civic engagement, and education.

 

Deep misconceptions about Asian Americans persist. Narrative change is key for people to see Asian Americans as really being Americans. Only about 1.5% of schools offer a formal Asian American studies program, although Asian American history and Pacific Islander history is a critical part of American history. TAAF aims to build greater belonging and prosperity for AAPIs everywhere. 



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Credits: 

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Guests: Norman Chen

Executive Producer: Mila Atmos

Producer: Zack Travis

18 Aug 2022Economic Crimes of the Powerful: Jennifer Taub00:41:50

Thursday, August 18th, 2022

 

Jennifer Taub is a lawyer, advocate, and author of Big Dirty Money: The Shocking Injustice and Unseen Cost of White Collar Crime. We revisit our discussion on who gets a pass for committing such crimes, what the actual consequences are to our society, and how to hold the perpetrators accountable.

 

White collar crime, as originally defined by Edwin Sutherland in 1939, are offenses committed by someone of high social status and respectability in the course of their occupation. Today, we tend to define white collar crime by the nature of the offense, instead of the status of the offender. Precisely because of the high status of white collar criminals, very few are prosecuted and held accountable for their actions. White collar crime operates on a massive scale. Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, has pleaded guilty to federal crimes related to its opioid marketing scheme; over 200,000 people have died of prescription opioid overdoses. Embezzlement and fraud cost US citizens an estimated $800 billion per year. By contrast, property crimes like larceny and theft are heavily policed and account for only about $16 billion in costs per year.  

 

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Credits: 

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Guest: Jennifer Taub

Executive Producer: Mila Atmos

Producers: Zack Travis and Sara Burningham

15 Jun 2023The Power of Solidarity: Frank Guridy00:47:12

Thursday, June 15th, 2023

 

Frank Guridy is the Executive Director of the Eric H. Holder Initiative for Civil and Political Rights at Columbia University and the Dr. Kenneth and Kareitha Forde Professor of African American and African Diaspora Studies. We discuss social movements in the past, present, and future. 

 

Social movements consist of mass participation from outside of established political structures to address grievances or to pursue larger social goals. They are often long term endeavors that might not fully achieve their goals but nonetheless move the needle in social attitudes. Sometimes they achieve the unthinkable, like freedom from slavery or marriage equality.



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Credits: 

Host: Mila Atmos 

Guests: Frank Guridy

Executive Producer: Mila Atmos

Producer: Zack Travis

20 Mar 2020Climate Policy Failures: Leah Stokes00:32:32

Fighting for Climate Policy

Dismantling the energy system is crucial to breaking the energy crisis. Implementing clean energy policies is the most effective way to change our current energy system and undo the playbook of the fossil fuel and utility industries. Citizens need to demand legislators to support green policies because a policy problem can only be fought with policy solutions. Mass public pressure, such as the youth protests led by Greta Thunberg, can disrupt the status quo and compel lawmakers to act.

Policy Feedback

Policy feedback is the idea that once policies are enacted, they reshape the next generation of politics. In the case of clean energy, the implementation of policies would kick start new industries and create jobs. As these industries become entrenched, they would defend the policies that created them and promote additional policy aimed at more green energy. Once this path dependence is created, a totally clean and renewable energy future is the result.

Policy Retrenchment

Fossil fuel and utility companies have immense power in state legislatures to reverse clean energy policies. Utilities around the country know how to run profitable power plants that burns fossil fuels and thus do not have incentives to switch to renewables. They fight against decarbonization by resisting implementation; rolling back existing guidelines for retrenchment; and even challenging pro-renewable candidates in primary races.

Find out more:

Leah Stokes an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science and affiliated with the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management and the Environmental Studies Department at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). She is the author of the forthcoming book Short Circuiting Policy: Interest Groups and the Battle Over Clean Energy and Climate Policy in the American State.

She works on energy, climate and environmental politics. Within American Politics, her work focuses on representation and public opinion; voting behavior; and public policy, particularly at the state level. Within environmental politics, she researches climate change, renewable energy, water and chemicals policy.

She completed a PhD in Public Policy in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning’s Environmental Policy & Planning group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); received a masters from MIT's Political Science Department; and completed an MPA in Environmental Science & Policy at the School of International & Public Affairs (SIPA) and the Earth Institute at Columbia University.

You can follow her on Twitter @leahstokes

18 Mar 2021Equity in Healthcare: Georges Benjamin, MD00:34:08

Expanding Access

Health insurance is essential to accessing healthcare. The uninsured do not get routine preventive care and, therefore, experience lower health outcomes. We must have a system that includes everyone, whether through private or public sector options. The Affordable Care Act, which was just bolstered by the newly passed American Rescue Plan, goes a long way, but many states still need to expand Medicaid in order to close the insurance gap.

COVID in Minority Communities

COVID hit minority communities hardest. African-Americans were three times more likely to get COVID, and twice as likely to die from it, as their white counterparts. Structural discrimination means more minorities are in public-facing jobs, working in grocery stores or driving buses, increasing their exposure to the virus. Minorities also traditionally suffer from being in jobs that don’t offer health insurance, living in neighborhoods with no doctors, and facing discrimination within the healthcare system.

Representation in the Medical Profession

Diversity at all levels of our medical system, from the top down, is critical to building more equitable health infrastructure. Increasing diversity in healthcare professionals, such as doctors, would be a good place to start. Currently, the rate of African-American men going to medical school is lower than when Dr. Benjamin attended school. In addition, diverse health professionals should be groomed and trained, and given the opportunity to become leaders.

Find out more:

Dr. Georges Benjamin is known as one of the nation's most influential physician leaders because he speaks passionately and eloquently about the health issues having the most impact on our nation today. From his firsthand experience as a physician, he knows what happens when preventive care is not available and when the healthy choice is not the easy choice. As Executive Director of the American Public Health Association (APHA) since 2002, he is leading the Association's push to make America the healthiest nation in one generation.

Prior to APHA, Benjamin served as Secretary of the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. He became Secretary of Health in Maryland in April 1999, following four years as its deputy secretary for public health services. As Secretary, Benjamin oversaw the expansion and improvement of the state's Medicaid program.

Benjamin, of Gaithersburg, Maryland, is a graduate of the Illinois Institute of Technology and the University of Illinois College of Medicine. He is board-certified in internal medicine and a fellow of the American College of Physicians, a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, a fellow emeritus of the American College of Emergency Physicians and an honorary fellow of the Royal Society of Public Health.

You can follow the American Public Health Association @PublicHealth.

25 May 2019Bradford Fitch00:23:48

Meet your Member of Congress

If a lawmaker has not yet made a firm decision on an issue, an in-person meeting has a ninety-four percent efficacy rate as an advocacy strategy. It’s important for constituents to connect a personal story to pertinent information of how proposed legislation will impact the local community. This is what the lawmaker wants to know. Showing up at town hall meetings is also an effective way to share the needs and concerns of the community to the member of Congress.

Congress works for us

Most members of Congress are decent people trying to do the best they can for their constituents. Engaging with them in a polite manner can be the best way for them to truly hear and understand the concerns of the people they represent. Congressional staffers are the unsung patriots of our democracy, who are dedicated to make the world a better place even though they often take a lot of grief on behalf of their members of Congress.

Virtual protest and dialogue

Virtual protest is one of the most effective ways to interact with members of Congress. After the lawmaker has made remarks on a specific issue, posting comments on Facebook or Twitter that pertain to that issue will be seen. Email petitions also work as long as they are personalized so that they don’t end up in a junk folder. Moderated online town hall meetings and telephone town hall calls are also good ways to dialogue with the elected representative. 

Find out more:

Brad Fitch is the President & CEO of the Congressional Management Foundation. He has spent 25 years in Washington as a journalist, congressional aide, consultant, college instructor, Internet entrepreneur, and writer/researcher. He is the author of Citizen's Handbook to Influencing Elected Officials Opens a New Window. Click here to read CMF’s 2017 report, “Citizen Centric Advocacy: The Untapped Power of Constituent Engagement.” You can follow Brad on Twitter @bradfitch

22 Dec 2020Fixing Public Schools: Ted Dintersmith00:32:04

Innovation in the Classroom

Classroom innovation stems from teachers and students working together to pursue subjects that excite students to learn. Examples include allowing students to design robots and make documentaries about local landmarks. In the age of Zoom learning, keeping students engaged by letting them solve community problems or pursue independent learning goals will achieve much more than endless worksheets and standardized test prep.

Standards V. Standardized Tests

Implementing and upholding academic standards are not the same as demanding high scores on standardized tests. Engaging and exciting students about a topic should be the focus, like teaching students to think critically like scientists. Information retention rates are abysmal when the emphasis is to just regurgitate scientific facts for a test. Other basic standards should include knowing how democracy works, reading, writing, and thinking critically.

High School Education

A high school education should prepare all Americans for a life of civic and economic success. Our current education system fails to deliver this promise, which has resulted in many of our current social problems. Maintaining a functioning and thriving democracy requires high-quality education that equips students with pragmatic life and civic engagement skills.

Find out more:

Ted Dintersmith is one of America's leaders in innovation, entrepreneurship, and education.

Ted has become one of America's leading advocates for education policies that foster creativity, innovation, motivation, and purpose. He knows what skills are valuable in a world of innovation, and how we can transform our schools to prepare kids for their futures. His contributions span film, books, philanthropy, and the hard work of going all across America. He's funded and executive produced acclaimed education documentaries, including Most Likely To Succeed, (Sundance, AFI, and Tribeca). With co-author Tony Wagner, he wrote Most Likely To Succeed: Preparing Our Kids for the Innovation Era. During the 2015/16 school year, he went to all fifty U.S. states, meeting with governors, legislators, educators, parents, and students, and encouraging communities to work collectively to re-imagine school and its purpose. The culmination of that effort was his recent book What School Could Be: Insights and Inspiration from Teachers Across America. 

Ted's professional experience includes two decades in venture capital, including being ranked by Business 2.0 as the top-performing U.S. venture capitalist for 1995-1999. He chaired the Public Policy Committee of the Board of the National Venture Capital Association. In the public sector, he was a staff analyst in 1976-78 for the U.S. House of Representatives, and was appointed in 2012 by President Obama to represent the U.S. at the United Nations General Assembly. Ted earned a Ph.D. in Engineering from Stanford University and a B.A. from the College of William and Mary, with High Honors in Physics and English.

Learn more about his work from his website or by following him on Twitter @dintersmith.

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04 Jan 2020Bipartisan Civil Discourse: Michael Baranowski00:31:05

Agreeing on the basic fundamentals

The need for positive, bipartisan discourse is acute. In today’s politically charged environment, it's important to disagree in a constructive and civil way. The first step in good-faith dialogue is to start by finding fundamental policies or values you both agree on and build on them. In fact, most Americans hold the same ideals, but value them differently. Mike and his conservative co-host Jay both value justice and freedom, though to different degrees. Since they both agree justice and freedom are important, fair and rational debate becomes much easier. Equally important are the ability to keep an open mind, and to be able to see and understand other perspectives.

The System is Working

The Trump Administration is undeniably attacking institutions in a way that we’ve never seen from the executive branch before. While this is deeply worrying, the good news is that our system appears to be bearing the brunt of his attacks well. For instance, the election process worked in 2018, giving Democrats the House, which in turn led to renewed scrutiny and accountability in the form of impeachment. Many of Trump’s promises have not been enacted because parts of our governmental system have worked correctly and stopped them. Trump has been frustrated in many areas, just as his predecessors were. The fact that all presidents cannot achieve all of their goals is a sign that the system is working and continues to work.

Returning Debate to the Center

Our media landscape often showcases the two political extremes as the dominant modes of American political thought. While this helps ratings, it is not the case. Most Americans fall somewhere in the middle of the political spectrum, where there is much overlap and common ground to be found. They are not deeply ideological, and are not interested in big things, whether that’s a massive wall or a complete remaking of the American health care system. Healthy political discourse needs to keep in mind that policy options should serve the majority of the country, and not just the ten percent of extreme voters on either side. By elevating these center-oriented voices, bipartisan debate becomes easier, and solutions are easier to create.

Find out more:

Michael Baranowski is a political scientist with a Ph.D. from the University of Kentucky. His focus is on American political institutions, public policy, and media. He is a co-founder of the Politics Guys and serves as one of the show’s liberal hosts.

The Politics Guys is a podcast for bipartisan, rational, and civil debate on American politics and policy. It features independent and bipartisan political commentary, as well as interviews with liberal and conservative experts and policymakers. The Politics Guys strives to balance liberal and conservative voices equally.

You can follow the Politics Guys on Twitter @PoliticsGuys

11 Apr 2024Power Sharing Liberalism: Danielle Allen00:37:45

Danielle Allen is the author of Justice by Means of Democracy. She is also the James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University and Director of the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation at Harvard Kennedy School's Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation. We discuss power sharing liberalism as a new paradigm in the practice of democracy.

 

Whether it’s through ballot measures to introduce ranked choice voting or open primaries, we are experiencing great innovation in democratic practice that make it more possible for us to bring our whole selves and to share political power within US democracy. Power sharing liberalism centers around the lived human experience, which needs foundations for flourishing. To that end, the economy should serve the ends of human flourishing. Allen envisions a “dynamic economy that supports people in their lives and to support people in their lives requires supporting their empowerment politically as well as supporting them materially.” 

 

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Guests: Danielle Allen

Executive Producer: Mila Atmos

Producer: Zack Travis

30 Mar 2023Bail Reform’s Success: Alana Sivin00:37:09

Thursday, March 30th, 2023

 

Alana Sivin is the New York State Director of Criminal Justice Reform at FWD.us. We discuss the history of bail reform legislation, the subsequent roadblocks, and the truth behind the efficacy of this policy. 

 

Bail reform was passed to end a system of wealth-based detention of people who have not been convicted of a crime. Many of them are Black and brown. Verified public data shows that bail reform is not leading to a rise in re-arrest rates. It is also not contributing to a rise in crime. Alana says, “Bail reform has been an extremely successful policy that is not only good because it's the right thing to do for human beings, but it's also the right thing to do to create long-term public safety.” 



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Credits: 

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Guests: Alana Sivin

Executive Producer: Mila Atmos

Producers: Zack Travis and Sara Burningham

20 Apr 2019Beto O'Rourke (Rebroadcast)00:27:43

Rebuilding democracy from the ground up

We need representatives who truly represent the people by directly engaging with and listening to their constituents. Removing the power of political action committees (PACs), special interests, and corporations is vital to getting our democracy back and making sure that elected government is responsive to the interests and concerns of human beings.

Work together and set aside differences

Achieving bipartisan collaboration comes through putting the small differences, including parties, behind us. Compromise is key in being able to pass legislation that will benefit all Americans on issues as diverse as healthcare, the cost of higher education, and immigration.

Big Money corrodes our democracy

Our representatives are not corruptible on the issues that they really care about, but they often vote along with special interests when they are not experts, and don’t have a specific need to vote a certain way. It’s these little decisions in the aggregate that create dysfunction and disconnect between Congress and the people.

Find out more:

Beto O’Rourke is the former US Representative for El Paso, TX, and is running for President. He regularly shared his thoughts from his Senate campaign on Medium.

05 May 2018Beto O'Rourke00:27:13

Democratic Congressman Beto O’Rourke represents his hometown, El Paso, TX. Currently a Candidate for US Senate, he is running a people-powered campaign, visiting every single county in Texas and listening to the needs and concerns of the state’s constituents. We talk about how to rebuild our democracy, the necessity of bipartisanship, and how big money corrodes our political process.

Rebuilding democracy from the ground up:

We need representatives who truly represent the people by directly engaging with and listening to their constituents. Removing the power of political action committees (PACs), special interests, and corporations is vital to getting our democracy back and making sure that elected government is responsive to the interests and concerns of human beings.

Work together and set aside differences:

Achieving bipartisan collaboration comes through putting the small differences, including parties, behind us. Compromise is key in being able to pass legislation that will benefit all Americans on issues as diverse as healthcare, the cost of higher education, and immigration.

Big Money corrodes our democracy:

Our representatives are not corruptible on the issues that they really care about, but they often vote along with special interests when they are not experts, and don’t have a specific need to vote a certain way. It’s these little decisions in the aggregate that create dysfunction and disconnect between Congress and the people.

Find out more:
Beto O’Rourke is the US Representative for El Paso, TX, and is running for US Senate for Texas.

24 Feb 2018Joe Hartigan00:25:54

Joe Hartigan has cracked the code on how to effect change. He is a retired NYC Fire Department lieutenant and community activist since 1995. His passion, dedication, and consistency over many years brought about ferry service for the residents of Rockaway, Queens. Every community would benefit from a fervent advocate like Joe. We can become advocates for our communities by focusing on specific issues, joining forces, and staying persistent.

Show Up:

Showing up and pushing the point helps you to stay focused and keep going. Planning meetings, community board meetings, and conferences are excellent opportunities to speak to officials, share your priorities, and demand accountability.

Use Your Passion:

Pick something that is important to you because not everybody is going to be as committed as you to show up consistently. Be willing to dip into your own pocket. Do your research and become an expert. Learn how others have achieved their civic goals.

Make Your Cause a Political Issue:

Push your civic agenda by highlighting its importance for your community’s citizens. With attention in local elections, there is more likely success for your issue to be addressed.

Find out more:

Joe Hartigan was the driving force behind getting ferry service from Rockaway to Brooklyn Army Terminal and Wall Street, Pier 11. He is also been a tireless advocate for the revitalization of the Rockaway area after Superstorm Sandy in 2012 and the Jacob Riis Park in his community.

12 Jun 2020Fact-Checking for Truth: Jon Z. Greenberg00:29:01

Who Gets Fact-Checked?

PolitiFact finds statements of “fact” by American politicians that can be verified and are highly visible, or pertinent, to a current national conversation. This is the reason why high-ranking officials such as Members of Congress, Senators, Cabinet members, and the President are at the top of the list. The President gets checked a lot—and fails nearly 70% of the time! 

The Fact-Checking Process

PolitiFact looks for evidence to support that a statement is accurate or less than entirely accurate: scouring independently verifiable information from sources like the Bureaus of Labor Statistics or Economic Analysis; turning to experts in a given field; and also asking the person who made the statement to provide whatever information they used. Once all of the facts have been checked, the rating of the statement is determined on the Truth-O-Meter. It has six ratings in decreasing levels of truthfulness from true to pants on fire.

Speaking Truth to Power

PolitiFact’s reason to publish is to give citizens the information they need to govern themselves in a democracy. One of the most rewarding ways PolitiFact sees its work in action and check power is in the White House Press Room. Often reporters will confront the President or the White House Press Secretary with PolitiFact analysis. Challenging a person in power with the facts is an essential way to get the truth out and keep America more honest at the highest levels.

Find out more:

Jon Greenberg is a senior correspondent with PolitiFact. He was part of the PolitiFact team during the 2012 presidential election and was one of the fact-checkers who launched PunditFact in 2013. Prior to that, he was executive editor at New Hampshire Public Radio and a Washington reporter for National Public Radio. He has twice won awards from the Society of Professional Journalists for investigative reporting.

You can follow him on Twitter @JonZGreenberg.

13 Jun 2024Relational Organizing: Rachel Vindman00:53:27

Rachel Vindman is the co-host of the Suburban Women Problem podcast and she has her finger on the pulse on all things politics for American women. We discuss abortion, Trump's conviction, Ukraine, and relational organizing.

 

The goal in this year’s election is maintaining American democracy. Relational organizing is about talking to people about what's going on, making sure they know and understand. Being a reliable source of good information and then sharing it is very powerful — and should not be underestimated. We also need to remind people constantly that the ex-president is a convicted felon.

 

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Credits: 

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Guests: Rachel Vindman

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Producer: Zack Travis

12 Oct 2019The Three Dimensions of Freedom: Billy Bragg00:43:19

Loss of Agency

One of the most important factors in a healthy democracy is the sense of agency. When citizens in a democracy feel they have some agency over their lives, whether it is economic, social, or political, they will work together to create a better future for themselves, their families, and their society. When this sense is taken from them by outside variables such as market forces, they lose this sense of collectivism, and become less likely to work together. This division leaves an opening for bad-faith actors and aggressive populism to take hold in otherwise stable democracies.

The Three Dimensions of Freedom

There are three ideas that bind and define a successful democracy. They are liberty, equality, and accountability. While liberty is the end-goal of modern democracy, it needs to be acted upon and bolstered by equality and accountability. If a democracy has liberty but not equality, that liberty is little more than privilege. Further, if a democracy has liberty but not accountability, that liberty becomes impunity to act without consequences. Lack of accountability through the loss of individual agency is a major reason why bulwark democracies like the US and the UK are facing crises today.

Accountability is Paramount

Many of the problems facing Western democracies today are the result of a dearth of accountability on many levels. Market deregulation and the globalization of capital markets have undermined accountability for companies as well as governments from the local to the national level. Executives are now narrowly focused on shareholder return, primarily at the expense of the average worker. Politicians also increasingly represent and serve special interests, resulting in policies that favor a select few and discount average citizens. In order to return to an equitable financial system and democratic process, we must urgently address the lack of accountability.

Find out more:

Billy Bragg is a well-known songwriter, musician, author, and activist living in the UK. Beginning in the 1980s, Bragg released a series of socially-conscious folk-rock albums focusing on political and romantic themes. Bragg continues to release albums, including 2017’s Build Bridges Not Walls, and sells out tour dates around the world.

Staunchly progressive, Bragg is a self-proclaimed socialist whose musical career has been paralleled only by his decades of activism. Bragg has written several books, including The Three Dimensions of Freedom, which came out earlier this year.

You can follow Billy Bragg on Twitter @billybragg.

04 Mar 2021Implicit Teacher Bias: Dr. Walter Gilliam00:35:09

Implicit Bias in Preschool Teachers

In a study to detect implicit bias, preschool teachers were instructed to watch a video of four young children (black and white, boy and girl) and identify potential behavioral issues. By tracking their eyes, the study showed that the teachers watched the black children more closely for behavioral problems than white children. When asked, teachers said they thought they had a gender bias and watched the two boys more closely. In fact, the defining factor was race.

Preschool Expulsion

Preschool children, ages 3 and 4, are expelled at a rate more than three times that of K-12 combined. More shockingly, they are expelled for normal, age-appropriate behavior, such as running in hallways or being rambunctious. Preschool programs are supposed to prepare children how to behave in school; instead, they often punish children who don’t know the very rules they are meant to teach. Expulsion at such a young age can have wide-ranging negative impacts on a child.

Free, universal Pre-Kindergarten offers a way to mitigate implicit bias because it would provide access to underprivileged children and create diverse learning spaces. Many preschool and childcare options today are segregated because of de-facto housing segregation. Instead of teaching different groups of children differently – whether in expensive private preschools or in low-income neighborhood programs – all children would learn the same set of standards, rules, and preparatory practices, promoting equality at an early age.

Find out more:

Walter S. Gilliam is the Elizabeth Mears and House Jameson Professor of Child Psychiatry and Psychology at the Yale University Child Study Center, as well as the Director of The Edward Zigler Center in Child Development and Social Policy.

Dr. Gilliam is co-recipient of the prestigious 2008 Grawemeyer Award in Education for the coauthored book A Vision for Universal Preschool Education. His research involves early childhood education and intervention policy analysis (specifically how policies translate into effective services), ways to improve the quality of prekindergarten and child care services, the impact of early childhood education programs on children’s school readiness, and effective methods for reducing classroom behavior problems and preschool expulsion. His scholarly writing addresses early childhood care and education programs, school readiness, and developmental assessment of young children. He has led national analyses of state-funded prekindergarten policies and mandates, how prekindergarten programs are being implemented across the range of policy contexts, and the effectiveness of these programs at improving school readiness and educational achievement, as well as experimental and quasi-experimental studies on methods to improve early education quality.

Dr. Gilliam actively provides consultation to state and federal decision-makers in the U.S. and other countries and is frequently called to provide U.S. Congressional testimony and briefings on issues related to early care and education.

You can follow him on Twitter @WalterGilliam.

15 Sep 2022Fight for Democracy: Steve Pierson00:41:20

Thursday, September 15th, 2022

 

Steve Pierson is the host of the How We Win podcast. He’s an activist, community organizer, and trainer, who started as a “class of 2016” volunteer. He’s currently an elected California Democratic Party Delegate and chairs their Organizing Committee. We discuss the nitty gritty of Get Out the Vote, phone banking, and a whole host of other boots on the ground politics as we head toward the midterms.

 

According to a recent NBC poll, threats against democracy are perceived to be the number one issue facing voters. Help fight for our democracy! Before the midterms, check your voter registration status, be an influencer in your circle about voting, and–if possible–volunteer to knock on doors. And finally: VOTE on election day!



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Guest: Steve Pierson

Executive Producer: Mila Atmos

Producers: Zack Travis and Sara Burningham

31 Jan 2020The End of Welfare: Kathryn Edin (Rebroadcast)00:27:48

The end of welfare

Welfare ceased being guaranteed after reform in 1996. Although the safety net for the working class was strengthened through tax credits, the safety net for those who are jobless disappeared. In its current state, the welfare system is overwhelming and underfunded. States are given block grants that they can spend at their discretion. For example, Louisiana spends its money on anti-abortion clinics. As a result, over the course of a year, about 3.5 million children live in households with virtually no cash income for at least 3 months.

Cash is king

Cash has the ultimate function: it can be used to pay rent, utilities, food, school supplies, and more. Although food stamps (SNAP) and Medicaid help needy families, these cashless forms of assistance cannot address other necessities in life. Access to cash can be pivotal to keeping a job – to fill your car with gas so you can go to work – or a roof over your head while you look for a new job after being downsized.

The poor are true Americans

America’s poor are the very embodiment of American ideals. Living in poverty is incredibly complex, a daily challenge to which the poor rise. They take pride in their work and find purpose at the workplace. They are hard-working, resourceful, and enterprising. Poor families spend their money wisely to keep their children fed and sheltered, and they stretch every dollar to make ends meet.

Find out more:

Kathryn Edin is one of the nation’s leading poverty researchers, working in the domains of welfare and low-wage work, family, life, and neighborhood contexts through direct, in-depth observations of the lives of low-income populations. A qualitative and mixed-method researcher, she has taken on key mysteries about the urban poor that have not been fully answered by quantitative work, such as how do single mothers possibly survive on welfare? Why don’t more go to work?

She has authored 8 books and some 60 journal articles. $2 a Day: The Art of Living on Virtutally Nothing in America, co-authored with Luke Shaefer, was met with wide critical acclaim. It was included in the NYT 100 Notable Books of 2015, cited as “essential reporting about the rise in destitute families.”

You can follow Kathryn on Twitter @KathrynEdin

02 May 2024Fixing Immigration: Aaron Reichlin-Melnick00:45:04

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick is the Policy Director at the American Immigration Council, a non-profit organization that strives to strengthen the United States by shaping immigration policies and practices. We discuss how out-of-date immigration laws are and why the only cure is comprehensive immigration reform from Congress.

 

US immigration laws have not changed since the 1990s. The current border enforcement and asylum system dates back to 1996, and in fact, one of the reasons that asylum seekers are living in shelters is because Congress decided in 1996 to make it illegal for them to get a work permit until six months after they apply for asylum. The asylum system is severely underfunded and is a major reason for processing delays.  In addition, there are more than 4 million people who have already been approved for visas but the wait time to get the legal status is decades long. 



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Guests: Aaron Reichlin-Melnick

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Producer: Zack Travis

11 Jan 2020The Meritocracy Trap: Daniel Markovits00:39:07

The Cost of Human Capital

Meritocracy gives the illusion that we are all equally competing at a level playing field. The reality is that the elite is able to purchase better education, which means they are more qualified when it comes to college admissions and high-income jobs. By heavily investing in education and training, elites build human capital within themselves. They become superordinate workers who are paid enormous wages. The flip side is that human capital enslaves us because we have to yield intensive and alienated labor. In order to maintain status in the elite and reap the benefits of the capital invested in them, meritocrats must work continuously at the highest paying jobs they can find. A member of the elite works punishingly long hours under intense pressure. While meritocracy allows some to become extremely wealthy, they do so at the cost of their own freedom, and ultimately their own happiness.

Meritocracy Erodes Democracy

Meritocracy erodes democracy in two key ways. First, meritocracy frames the reality of systemic failure to provide economic opportunity as the failure of individuals to measure up in society. It tells the person who didn’t get into Harvard or get a job at Google that if only they worked harder or were smarter, they would have succeeded, when in fact they are victims of structural exclusion. This creates deep disaffection among those who are unfairly excluded, who then begin to question the underlying institutions that hold American society together. Populists and nativists are able to harness this sentiment, blame ‘the other,’ rise to power, and attack democratic norms. Second, meritocracy creates a massively wealthy elite minority who can legally buy influence in media, politics, and even reduce tax obligations. Between the alienation of the middle and lower classes, and the outsized power of the elite, meritocracy has been one of the leading causes of the erosion of democracy.

Solving the Meritocracy Trap

Meritocracy compounds inequality through unequal access to quality education. Expensive, elite schools prepare those who can afford them for the most selective universities and then high-paying jobs. In addition, because of the way social security tax works, employers now have a huge tax incentive to hire one superordinate worker and robots as opposed to more middle income workers. Markovits proposes two policies to address these problems: expanding elite education and extending the social security tax. Opening up elite institutions will make them less exclusive and more accessible, providing more opportunities to the middle class to higher income. Currently, the social security tax is capped at $137,700, which means that the person who makes $150,000 and the person who makes $2,000,000 pay the same amount in social security tax. Eliminating the cap would raise almost 1.5% of GDP in steady state, which could help fund expanded education.

Find out more:

Daniel Markovits is Guido Calabresi Professor of Law at Yale Law School and Founding Director of the Center for the Study of Private Law. Markovits works in the philosophical foundations of private law, moral and political philosophy, and behavioral economics.

The Meritocracy Trap is his latest book. It places meritocracy at the center of rising economic inequality and social and political dysfunction, and provides solutions to these problems.

You can follow Daniel on Twitter @DSMarkovits

16 Mar 2023Elect Women: Laphonza Butler00:43:11

Thursday, March 16th, 2023

 

Laphonza Butler is President of Emily’s List, an organization that aims to help elect pro-choice democratic women to office. We're inspired by the organization's motto to "reject apathy and the status quo. Repeat daily." We discuss how women bring the challenges and dreams of their community to the policymaking table. 

 

Running for office is perhaps the ultimate form of civic participation. Bringing more women to policy making discussions is crucial, but it takes women to be asked at least seven times before they choose to run for office. In addition, we have to pay extra attention to women as voters. We need to ask and answer the question of whether women will elect women to office.

 

 

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Credits: 

Host: Mila Atmos 

Guests: Laphonza Butler

Executive Producer: Mila Atmos

Producers: Zack Travis and Sara Burningham

08 Jun 2019Alan Yarborough and Bill Steverson00:25:44

Enhance understanding

The purpose of civil discourse is to enhance understanding, not to change minds. It’s always helpful to have a diversity of ideas, understand different perspectives, and potentially learn flaws in our own thinking. The pursuit of understanding is in and of itself a worthy endeavor.

Civil discourse curriculum

The five-week curriculum on civil discourse for the Episcopal Church is designed to facilitate productive conversations about society’s important issues. The curriculum focuses on creating dialogues in church communities where people can come together free from the constraints of political affiliations.

Sacred space for debate

Successful civil discourse creates a safe space for debate. Truly listening to another person’s thoughts and feelings is an important pathway towards finding common value. Coming to the table with respect and humility facilitates the sharing of ideas without judgement, and working through disagreement to unlock a way forward.

Find out more:

Alan Yarborough is the communications coordinator and office manager in the Office of Government Relations of the Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C. He is also the co-author of the Civil Discourse Curriculum, a five-week masterclass on how to communicate as a society even when disagreeing and treat each other with respect and dignity. Bill Steverson is a parishioner in the Episcopal Church in Signal Mountain, Tennessee where he organized and led the Civil Discourse Curriculum in his local community.

27 Jul 2023Open System for Democracy: Landon Mascareñaz & Doannie Tran00:45:42

Thursday, July 27th, 2023

 

Landon Mascareñaz and Doannie Tran are co-authors of The Open System: Redesigning Education and Reigniting Democracy. Education is our greatest democracy-building endeavor. We discuss rebuilding trust in public education and marshaling the public will to do something great together.

 

The democratic act is in the spark of everyday interactions with our community, such as in schools. Families and communities should be an integral part of the way that schools function. We need to practice new ways of making decisions together as a society, and education is a fertile place for this practice. Doannie reminds us that “If people can change, institutions can change, because they're nothing more than the people within them.”

 

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Credits: 

Host: Mila Atmos 

Guests: Landon Mascareñez & Doannie Tran

Executive Producer: Mila Atmos

Producer: Zack Travis

20 Jul 2023The Post-Roe Reality: Jenice Fountain00:37:53

Thursday, July 20th, 2023

 

Jenice Fountain is the Executive Director of the Yellowhammer Fund, a reproductive justice organization in Birmingham that serves Alabama, Mississippi, and the deep south. We discuss what the actual lived experience is in Alabama, a year after the Dobbs decision.

 

Since the Dobbs decision, pregnancies are less safe in states where abortion is prohibited. Exceptions to protect the life of the pregnant person do not work in reality because interventions are only offered at the last possible moment. Having conversations about abortion helps destigmatize, spread the word about what to do in the event of an unwanted pregnancy, and where to find resources. 

 

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Credits: 

Host: Mila Atmos 

Guests: Jenice Fountain

Executive Producer: Mila Atmos

Producer: Zack Travis

19 Sep 2024Everybody Benefits from Public Schools: Jennifer Berkshire & Jack Schneider00:52:58

We discuss the power and the promise of public schools, the universal rejection of book bans by parents across the country, and an inclusive vision for democracy.

 

Their civic action toolkit recommendations are: 

  1. Have a conversation with people with whom you disagree

  2. Remain open-minded.

 

Jennifer Berkshire and Jack Schneider are co-hosts of the education podcast Have You Heard. Their new book is The Education Wars: A Citizen’s Guide and Defense Manual. 

 

Follow Jennifer on X: 

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Credits: 

Host: Mila Atmos 

Guests: Jennifer Berkshire & Jack Schneider 

Executive Producer: Mila Atmos

Producer: Zack Travis

21 Apr 2022The Cure for Cheap Speech: Rick Hasen00:45:03
Thursday, April 21st, 2022 Richard Hasen is a nationally recognized expert in election law and campaign finance regulation, and his new book is Cheap Speech: How Disinformation Poisons Our Politics and How to Cure It. We discuss the long-term dangers of cheap speech and ways to improve our information sphere in keeping with the First Amendment.

Cheap speech is lower-value speech that finds a way to rise to the top of social media, news outlets, and everyday conversation. This overabundance of misinformation and disinformation is easy and inexpensive to produce. While the problem of cheap speech is worldwide and ubiquitous, we discuss a uniquely American approach to solving it through the prism of the First Amendment. Potential solutions include disclosure laws about tweaking algorithms, privacy protections to prevent micro-targeting, antitrust regulations, and public pressure to demand high standards from media platforms.

 

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Credits:

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Producers: Zack Travis and Sara Burningham

08 Feb 2024Leveling the Playing Field for Women: Cynthia Richie Terrell00:40:33

Cynthia Richie Terrell is the founder and executive director of RepresentWomen. We discuss institutional reforms that can reduce the barriers for women to run, win, and govern.

 

There are approximately 520,000 elected office holders in the U.S., but incumbency is the biggest barrier to electing more women. Term limits make more seats open to competition. In addition, ranked choice voting eliminates vote splitting if there is more than one woman on the ballot. In NYC, for example, the combination of term limits and ranked choice voting has resulted in a city council where 61% of the seats are held by women. Policy solutions that address the structural barriers do work.



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Credits: 

Host: Mila Atmos 

Guests: Cynthia Richie Terrell

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Producer: Zack Travis

08 May 2020Authoritarianism Under COVID-19: Thomas O. Melia00:24:15

COVID & Authoritarianism

COVID-19 has created an excuse for authoritarians around the world to consolidate power. Repressive regimes such as China have jailed political prisoners, and citizen journalists reporting on the pandemic have disappeared. Russia clamped down on free reporting to protect powerful warlords. Free speech is under attack in the U.S., as was the case when Captain Brett Crozier was fired for expressing concern about COVID-19 onboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt, a Navy nuclear powered aircraft carrier.

Long term danger of surveillance

Under the guise of public safety, governments are increasingly collecting our data, such as through contact tracing. It might make sense to share our personal information at this time. However, once these habits become established, they are hard to break. We could soon be subject to temperature or blood checks at border crossings, airports, or even public buildings. If governments obtain and track our medical histories, they will know much more about us than whether or not we have COVID-19.

Seeing Through Trump’s Response

The U.S. federal government’s response to COVID-19 utilizes the authoritarian playbook. Scientists like Dr. Fauci are muzzled while Trump spews angry rhetoric, total fabrications, and rewritten narratives to make himself look better. Trump can usually avoid repercussions for his lying, but a mounting virus death-toll is one fact-check he cannot shrug off. In time, the truth about his management of the crisis will come out thanks to media reporting, whistle-blowers, and congressional investigations.

Find out more:

Thomas O. Melia is Washington Director at PEN America. Previously, he served in the Obama Administration as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, responsible for Europe and Eurasia, south and central Asia, and the Middle East, and as Assistant Administrator for Europe and Eurasia in the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) until January 2017. Melia is a monthly columnist for The American Interest and chair of the board of the Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED). He was also a Fellow with the Human Freedom Initiative at the George W. Bush Institute, helping to lead a bipartisan initiative to reinvigorate American leadership in defense of human rights and democracy at home and abroad.

PEN America is a non-profit organization working at the crossroads between human rights and literature. They champion free speech around the world, celebrate creative expression, and defend the liberties that make it possible.

You can follow Tom on Twitter @thomasomelia and PEN America @penamerica.

22 Dec 2022Reform the Courts!: Chris Kang00:37:54

Thursday, December 22nd, 2022

 

Chris Kang is the Co-Founder and Chief Counsel of Demand Justice. He served in the White House for nearly seven years as Deputy Counsel to President Obama and Special Assistant to the President for Legislative Affairs. We talk about court reform from diversifying the bench of judges to expanding the Supreme Court.

 

The Supreme Court of the United States is actually the only court in the entire country that does not have a binding code of ethics. Congress has changed the size of the Supreme Court seven times before. It's very much within their power and ability to change the size of the court again now to restore balance. When you have a system of checks and balances set up in our constitution and one branch of government gets too powerful, the other two branches are expected and really need to step in.

 

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Producers: Zack Travis and Sara Burningham

06 Jul 2023Democracy Decoded: A Fight for the Right to Vote00:24:18

Thursday, July 6th, 2023

 

We’re sharing an episode from fellow Democracy Group podcast, Democracy Decoded, a show that examines our government and discusses innovative ideas that could lead to a stronger, more transparent, accountable, and inclusive democracy.

 

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many states took steps to make voting safer and more accessible, but afterward, we saw a backlash with some states erecting barriers to voting access. Democracy Decoded host Simone Leeper speaks with Trevor Potter about the 2020 and 2022 elections and what kinds of changes could help expand the freedom to vote and make our elections more accessible in the future. She also speaks with Aseem Mulji and Gilda Daniels about some of these changes, like state Voting Rights Acts, and how everyday citizens can get involved in the process.



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20 Jul 2019Trailer: Probable Futures00:04:40
29 Jul 2021Diverse Women in Politics: Kelly Dittmar00:35:23

Motivations and Perspectives

The goal of promoting women to run for office is not simply to achieve parity in Congress or in State legislatures. Rather, it should be to recognize that women offer a variety of perspectives and lived experiences that men lack. In addition, women have faced more barriers than men to be elected and are generally more motivated to get things done. 

Confronting Our Biases

Toughness, experience in national security, and negotiating tactics are often thought of as ideal leadership qualities, which are viewed as inherently male characteristics. Although female leaders do often possess these skills, championing women also means that we need to confront such biases and value traits like compassion, cooperation, and consensus building skills.

Women’s Interests

All women, like all men, are motivated by a large number of factors in forming political opinions. Our senses of identity are not solely based on gender, which is why there is no such thing as the “women’s agenda.” Women see the world through racial, social, and class identities, which often conflict with and supersede gender identity. However, these factors do intertwine with gender in public policy decisions.

FIND OUT MORE:

Kelly Dittmar is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University–Camden and Scholar at the Center for American Women and Politics at the Eagleton Institute of Politics. At CAWP, she manages national research projects, helps to develop and implement CAWP’s research agenda, and contributes to CAWP reports, publications, and analyses. She also works with CAWP’s programs for women’s public leadership and has been an expert source and commentator for media outlets including MSNBC, NPR, PBS, The New York Times, and The Washington Post

She is the co-author of A Seat at the Table: Congresswomen’s Perspectives on Why Their Representation Matters and author of Navigating Gendered Terrain: Stereotypes and Strategy in Political Campaigns. Dittmar’s research focuses on gender and American political institutions.

Dittmar was an American Political Science Association (APSA) Congressional Fellow from 2011 to 2012. Dittmar earned her B.A. from Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, MI and her Ph.D. from Rutgers University-New Brunswick.

You can follow her on Twitter@kdittmar.

14 Apr 2018Nick Ehrmann00:25:07

Nick Ehrmann is the founder and president of Blue Engine, which was borne from the discovery that the strongest predictor of college completion is sustained academic rigor in high school coursework. The organization re-imagines the classroom in order to teach students how to master core academic skills and be truly ready for college.

Prepare for success

College readiness is defined by the ability to persist and complete degrees. We need to equip students with skills and habits of mind that allow them to have true choice at the cusp of adulthood, whether it is in college, a technical trade school, or the work force.

Proximity matters

Education systems need to be designed with the students at the center. Strong, integral, human relationships between educators and students are directly correlated with high levels of academic rigor and success.

Taking action can take many different forms

Get out of your space, fight stereotypes, and challenge your assumptions. Do something where you are informed, proximate, and engaged.

Nick Ehrmann is the president and founder of The Blue Engine.

19 May 2022Primary Elections for All: John Opdycke00:39:39
Thursday, May 19th, 2022  

 

John Opdycke is the President of Open Primaries, an organization building a coalition of diverse Americans to enact open primaries in all 50 states. We discuss why it is time to shake up the closed-party primary system. 

 

In an open primary, all voters get to vote on the same ballot and all candidates get to run on the same ballot. The number one growing demographic among voters is independents, and yet, they’re often shut out. Primaries are publicly funded, so every voter no matter their political party affiliation or even without party affiliation–in line with the fundamental core of democracy–should have their vote included. Moreover, in an open system, room is created for new, emerging coalitions and conversations to take place.

 

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Guest: John Opdycke

 

Executive Producer: Mila Atmos

 

Producers: Zack Travis and Sara Burningham

14 Jul 2022City Life and Remote Work: Matthew E. Kahn00:47:25

Thursday, July 14th, 2022

 

Matthew E. Kahn is Provost Professor at the University of Southern California and the author of six previous books about environmental and urban economics issues. His latest book is Going Remote: How the Flexible Work Economy Can Improve Our Lives and Our Cities. We discuss the future of our cities and the future of work--whether that's remote or in person.

 

The pandemic revealed a new geography of economic opportunity. Some jobs that were only in person before are now possible remotely, which could be good for working mothers or for those who might want ready access to the outdoors. Cities could transform into places that are more attractive because of the lifestyle as opposed to the job opportunities. Matt also wonders if working from home will lead to more life satisfaction, less divisive politics, and more civic engagement.

 

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Producers: Zack Travis and Sara Burningham

31 Mar 2018Season 2 Trailer00:00:56

A sneak peek of our next episode: civic engagement requires no minimum age. Tyler Ruzich, 17-year old Kansan, shows us how.

14 Dec 2023Black Grief/White Grievance: Juliet Hooker00:36:51

Juliet Hooker is the author of Black Grief/White Grievance: The Politics of Loss and the Royce Family Professor of Teaching Excellence in Political Science at Brown University. We talk about how racism has narrowed the political imagination of both black and white citizens.

 

In American politics and democracy, neither side is supposed to win all the time. Losing is a fundamental part of democracy, and does not make the losers victims. In a multiracial democracy, having a president or any other elected representative who is not white should not be a big deal. Democratic cultures need to be inclusive, and the nuts and bolts work of “repairing” democracy should be equally distributed among the body politic.

 

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Credits: 

Host: Mila Atmos 

Guests: Dr. Juliet Hooker

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Producer: Zack Travis

13 Nov 2020A Keynesian Future: Zach Carter00:33:29

Keynes's Goals

Keynes concerned himself with his day's most significant problems: WWI and WWII, the rise of fascism and revolution, and the Great Depression in the United States. He believed that assuaging fears about an uncertain future was most important, and that a more equal society would also be more secure from deflation, deprivation, and dictatorship. He aimed for policies that would grapple with crisis and uncertainty.

Economics as Politics

Keynes firmly believed that economics was an extension of politics and government, not a separate entity that existed outside of the governmental sphere of influence. Governments needed to manage their economies to ensure success, by controlling wages and working conditions, as well as setting interest rates and fiscal policy. Economics and monetary policy were political tools to achieve healthy and stable societies.

A Keynesian Future

A Keynesian in the incoming Biden administration would prioritize solving the problems of climate change, COVID, and economic inequality through a large-scale project like FDR’s New Deal. Together with traditional infrastructure spending, decarbonizing our economy would require massive public works efforts similar to the New Deal’s WPA, creating millions of new jobs, buoying the working class, and mitigating income inequality.

Find out more:

Zachary D. Carter is a senior reporter at HuffPost, where he covers economic policy and American politics. He is a frequent guest on cable news and whose work has appeared in The New Republic, The Nation, and The American Prospect, among other outlets. He is also the author of The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy, and the Life of John Maynard Keynes, which was just selected as one of the Ten Best Books of the Year by Publishers Weekly.

Carter began his career at SNL Financial (now a division of S&P Global), where he was a banking reporter during the financial crisis of 2008. He wrote features about macroeconomic policy, regional economic instability, and the bank bailouts, but his passion was for the complex, arcane world of financial regulatory policy. He covered the accounting standards that both fed the crisis and shielded bank executives from its blowback, detailed the consumer protection abuses that consumed the mortgage business and exposed oversight failures at the Federal Reserve and other government agencies that allowed reckless debts to pile up around the world.

Carter graduated from the University of Virginia, where he studied philosophy and politics. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

You can follow him on Twitter @zachdcarter.

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14 Mar 2024A Real Right to Vote: Richard L. Hasen00:47:42

Richard L. Hasen is Professor of Law and Political Science at UCLA and director of UCLA Law’s Safeguarding Democracy Project. We discuss his most recent book, A Real Right to Vote: How a Constitutional Amendment Can Safeguard American Democracy.

 

A country that believes that its people are equal should ensure equal voting rights. However, the US Constitution does not currently protect the right to vote. All adult non-felon citizens should have a constitutional right to vote where they reside. That vote should be equally weighted and eligible voters should not face unnecessary burdens to voting. Furthermore, minority voters should have voter protection and Congress should have broad powers to protect voting rights. Even though the US has not enacted a constitutional amendment since the 1970s, Americans should start thinking about a movement towards passing a voting rights amendment with the expectation that it might take decades. Rich Hasen reminds us that “Nobody is coming to save American democracy. We have to do it ourselves, and people are stepping up.” 



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Credits: 

Host: Mila Atmos 

Guests: Richard L. Hasen

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Producer: Zack Travis

17 Nov 2018Ted Dintersmith00:24:16

Human Potential

Education should be a path for children to develop into self-directed, self-supporting, skill-equipped young adults. This may or may not include a college education, but will require high levels of critical thinking skills. Creativity and innovation will be an integral part of any job in the future.

Standardized Tests and College Readiness

The norm today is to teach what is easy to test, such as narrow arithmetic, instead of what’s important to learn. This turns the purpose of education on its head. Standardized tests and much of college ready content are not well retained by students and do not serve them to be ready for life.

Democracy

A healthy democracy thrives when citizens can think critically and independently. Education must make teaching citizenship skills a priority. Our collective humanity depends on a society of creative and conceptual thinkers who are committed to making positive contributions to their community.

Find out more:

Ted Dintersmith is an avid advocate and change agent focused on the impact of education and innovation on the future of civil society. He has produced several films and written two books on education. The most recent is What School Could Be: Insights and Inspiration from Teachers Across America.

30 Nov 2019Keeping Government Accountable: David Greising00:26:01

Investigations Get Results

Since 1957, BGA investigations have uncovered corruption and unfair practices throughout Chicago and the state of Illinois. A recent investigation of police shootings in predominantly African-American neighborhoods of Cook County found that of 113 shootings over seven years, none led to disciplinary action. After the findings were published, a state law was enacted requiring an investigation each time a police officer discharges their weapon. BGA also investigated and exposed the corruption of Alderman Burke in the 14th Ward of Chicago, who is now under federal indictment on multiple charges. When governments are faced with evidence of corruption they must — and usually do — act quickly to correct it.

Good governance

Advocacy for good governance goes well beyond exposing corruption. The BGA’s policy team recommends public policies for more transparency, accountability, and efficiency. Marie Dillon, the Policy Director, participated in the mayoral transition to help newly elected Mayor Lori Lightfoot transition into office and to help her staff develop ethics reform goals. The BGA is also tracking how the new mayor’s actions measure up against BGA’s agenda. The combination of advocacy for sound public policy and government oversight through investigative journalism makes it possible for BGA to push for effective government reform.

Getting People Engaged

Voting is still the ultimate tool of accountability. To that end, a big part of BGA’s civic engagement effort is to empower citizens to participate in their democracy. The way that government treats its citizens is one of the most important factors in the daily quality of life, from the safety of the roads to the quality of public schools. When citizens have little faith in their government, or see their government as unresponsive to their needs, the social contract breaks down. In the last city-wide election, BGA published stories and candidate profiles, as well as where to vote and how to vote. Good governance helps people see their investment in voting, in paying taxes, and participating in their communities as worthwhile, and become even more engaged.

Find out more:

David Greising is the President and CEO of the Better Government Association. Greising spent 25 years as a high-profile local and national journalist, and served as the Chicago Tribune’s business columnist for more than a decade. He also recently served as the Midwest bureau chief for Reuters.

The Better Government Association was founded in 1923 as a voter advocacy and election reform group. Their mission evolved in the 1950s to include investigative journalism. Since then, they have produced hundreds of investigative reports outlining corruption and other government shortcomings, resulting in lasting legislative change in the state of Illinois and city of Chicago.

You can follow David on Twitter @dgreising and the BGA @bettergov.

25 Feb 2021Unapologetically Indigenous: Sarah Pierce and Amy Sazue00:33:26

Achieving Education Equity

Championing Indigenous students to be successful in school systems starts with school curriculums – telling the accurate history of the United States – and leadership that represents the Indigenous Americans they serve. Schools need to create spaces where Indigenous students can be unapologetically Indigenous by building immersion units and hiring Indigenous teachers. Most importantly, Native leaders, educators, and students need to be involved in each step of the process.

Education Today

The US education system was built to eliminate the Indigenous, and curriculum choice continues to perpetuate the silencing and erasure of Indigenous history. As a result, Native students are often subjected to discrimination by white teachers and administrators, and suffer high disciplinary rates. Native students in South Dakota today have one of the lowest achievement rates, graduation rates, and even mobility rates. Though they add up to about 10% of South Dakota public school students, only 1.6% of staff is Indigenous.

History

Starting in 1868, Western education was imposed on Native Americans. Children were forcibly taken and put in boarding schools. Native elders refer to this now-abandoned practice as the "severing of the sacred loop." The goal was to "tolerate" or assimilate Indigenous students, removing them from their cultures and ways of life. Trauma has been the biggest repercussion of the boarding school movement, and the current education system has failed the Indigenous for generations.

Find out more:

Sarah Pierce, Director of Education Equity at NDN Collective, is Oglala Lakota from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Pierce has 8 years of experience working and advocating for Title VI Indian Education Programs, working at Rapid City Area Schools in South Dakota and at Omaha Public Schools in Nebraska. She holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, a master’s in education degree from Creighton University, and a PK-12 Administrator endorsement from the University of South Dakota. Pierce will lead NDN Collective’s education equity campaign work, expanding opportunities for Native American students to have access to culturally relevant and culturally responsive learning environments.

Amy Sazue, NDN Collective Organizer, is Sicangu and Oglala Lakota, and an enrolled member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe. She is a teacher and program coordinator, and also has experience working in development. She has associate degrees from Bay Mills Community College in Education, a bachelor’s degree in Early Childhood Education from Oglala Lakota College, and is currently working on a master’s degree in Nonprofit Management and Leadership through Arizona State University.

You can follow NDN Collective on Twitter @ndncollective.

26 Jun 2020The Roots of Conservative Media: Nicole Hemmer00:32:12

Conservative media activism

Beginning with the America First Movement, conservative political activists also became conservative media figures. In addition to writing conservative books and hosting radio or television programs, these activists also created civic organizations and worked on political campaigns from Eisenhower to Goldwater and Reagan. Media is an important part of their political activism, and not a separate, objective endeavor.

Politics of Ideas

Conservatives believe political change starts with ideas. They build political power through spreading and popularizing their ideas through their own media outlets where ideology trumps facts on the ground. Conservative audiences -- primed only to right-wing views -- believe that only their sources are right, both factually and ideologically. Hence, conservative voices became the only ones telling the truth.

Epistemological divide

We are experiencing an epistemological divide where liberals and conservatives have fundamentally different understandings of the truth. This divide is partly born out of the rise of conservative media, which is based on faith claims, or claims of personal authority and knowledge, rather than observable facts. Because many conservatives believe what conservative media and political personalities tell them, they are often impervious to fact-checking and the promotion of truth.

Find out more:

Nicole Hemmer is a professor and political historian specializing in media, conservatism, and the far-right. She is the author of Messengers of the Right: Conservative Media and the Transformation of American Politics.

In addition to being an associate research scholar with the Obama Presidency Oral History Project, she is also co-founder and co-editor of Made by History, the historical analysis section of the Washington Post, and co-host of the Past Present podcast.

Hemmer’s historical analysis has appeared in a number of national and international news outlets, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Atlantic, Politico, U.S. News & World Report, New Republic, PBS NewsHour, CNN, NPR, and NBC News.

You can follow her on Twitter @pastpunditry.

12 May 2018Jennifer March00:27:57

Jennifer March is the Executive Director of the Citizen’s Committee for Children of New York. This non-profit and nonpartisan child advocacy organization combines public policy research and data analysis with citizen action. We discuss family homelessness, juvenile justice, and the power of effective advocacy.

Growing up poor likely leads to long term damaging outcomes:

Every child should be guaranteed a prosperous environment with proper access to health care, housing, education, and safe living conditions. Children in poverty often face multiple risk factors such as poor quality housing and low-quality schools.

Effective child advocacy requires a coalition:

A virtuous circle of a large group of people with a common interest is the most effective in pushing for change. Everyone ranging from service providers and beneficiaries, advocates lobbying the government, volunteers writing letters and making phone calls, social media, as well as participants in visible rallies come together to be heard.

A holistic approach:

We need to focus on pragmatic solutions that we know will serve a holistic approach to help provide stability and promote wellbeing, such as a housing subsidy or affordable childcare. Universal systems of early education and healthcare are fundamental building blocks for children to evolve and develop into thriving adults.

Find out more:

Jennifer March is the Executive Director of the Citizen’s Committee for Children of New York (CCC), a non-profit advocacy organization that works to ensure that every child is healthy, housed, educated, and safe.

11 Nov 2021Our Public Health: Michele Goodwin00:38:04

The Social Contract and Our Bodies

The pandemic has given us a glimpse into the ways our health is woven into the social contract. The high number of deaths from COVID are the result of the government’s failure to collaborate with international organizations and with our own state lawmakers. We leaned on essential care workers, many of whom are people of color. And yet, they often lacked PPE, challenging what it really means to be “essential.”

The Inequality of Health

Racism is a preexisting health condition in the United States. COVID unveiled the institutional and infrastructural inequalities that have existed in our healthcare system for decades, which we see with the alarming rates of death among Black and Latino children. These inequalities and social stereotypes affect every corner of healthcare. For example, Black adults are 2 to 6 times more likely to suffer an amputation than a white adult, especially for common conditions like diabetes.

Women’s Health

Increasingly, aspects of women’s health, such as reproduction, pregnancy, abortion, birth, and motherhood have been criminalized in the United States. Criminalization especially affects Black and brown women so that medical care has become a weapon to turn health issues like a stillbirth into a criminal offense. However, in creating these sorts of precedents, all women—regardless of race—are then subject to suffering under this weaponization of healthcare, which we see happening across the country right now.

FIND OUT MORE:

Michele Goodwin is a Chancellor’s Professor at the University of California Irvine and founding director of the Center for Biotechnology and Global Health Policy. She is the recipient of the 2020-21 Distinguished Senior Faculty Award for Research, the highest honor bestowed by the University of California. She is an elected member of the American Law Institute, as well as an elected Fellow of the American Bar Foundation and the Hastings Center (the organization central to the founding of bioethics). She is an American Law Institute Adviser for the Restatement Third of Torts: Remedies.

Goodwin has won national awards for excellence in scholarship, outstanding teaching, and committed community service. Gov. Paul Patton of Kentucky commissioned her a Colonel, the state’s highest title of honor for her outstanding contributions to K-12 education. She’s the recipient of the Be The Change Award, the Sandra Day O’Connor Legacy Award by the Women’s Journey Foundation, and was named Teacher of the Year by the Thurgood Marshall Bar Association in 2018. Goodwin received a commendation from the United States House of Representatives for Outstanding Teaching

You can follow Michele Goodwin on Twitter at @michelebgoodwin

20 Jan 2018Bernard Harcourt00:22:49

Bernard Harcourt is an author, lawyer, and critical theorist. In our conversation, we discover that civic engagement is a learned skill, the power of collective action, and the importance of remembering our truths and values.

Voting is a learned skill 

A study showed that children who experienced the voting process or political conversations with their parents showed more civic engagement. It's a skill that can be learned and should be promoted. Children and young people should learn that they can, how, and where to participate. Civic engagement is a fun, interesting, and important activity.

Civic engagement is our daily bread 

Speak with others about political questions and social justice issues. Communicate with a representative or senator -- even if it’s not your own -- and share what we are thinking will influence the way they engage in debates. Writing reflections and thoughts about the political situation in local newspapers or online is another way to engage. And remember to vote. Every vote counts!

Take a step back and remember your truth 

Once a day, try to center yourself and go through your comments and thoughts of the day. "Did I say the things that i believe in?" Take a step back and determine what is important, what your values and ethical beliefs are. Then recalibrate life, work, and personal communications in order to reflect your values. It's an important, challenging, and time-consuming process.

Find out more

Bernard E. Harcourt is an author, justice advocate, and critical theorist specialized in social and political theory, the sociology of punishment, and penal law and procedure. He is the Executive Director of the Eric H. Holder Initiative for Civil and Political Rights, and the founding director of the Columbia Center for Contemporary Critical Thought at Columbia University.

 

24 Nov 2020The Precarity of Taxi Work: Veena Dubal00:36:44

Proposition 22

Prop 22, the most expensive California ballot initiative in history, carves out app-based gig economy workers as a new employee class that lacks the benefits and protections that other workers in California get. Prop 22 also makes it more difficult for drivers and delivery workers to unionize. Uber, Lyft, Doordash, and other app-based services threatened their workers with lack of flexibility and job loss. They also spent more than $200M to persuade voters. The passage of Prop 22 is a significant loss for labor law, and copycat legislation in other states is already following.

Taxi Unions

The San Francisco chauffeurs’ union was powerful and effective because it had 100% participation from taxi drivers and built a strong collective identity for drivers. It even had a union hall! Unions negotiated fair contracts – wages and hours – and prevented oversaturation in the taxi market. For most of the 20th century, US taxi drivers were unionized. Today, most app-based drivers are completely atomized, lack tools to communicate with each other, and don’t see driving as a craft identity.

Laws and Regulations

Since the 1930s, taxi work was considered a public utility. In San Francisco, the Taxi Commission regulated fares and worker supply in order to ensure a living wage. Although the San Francisco Taxi Commission is disbanded, the Municipal Transportation Agency could again take up regulation and supply management. In addition, employment protection should be strengthened by including proper unemployment and work place insurance.

Find out more:

Veena Dubal is a law professor at UC Hastings. Her research focuses on the intersection of law, technology, and precarious work. Within this broad frame, she uses empirical methodologies and critical theory to understand (1) the impact of digital technologies and emerging legal frameworks on the lives of workers, (2) the co-constitutive influences of law and work on identity, and (3) the role of law and lawyers in solidarity movements.

Professor Dubal has been cited by the California Supreme Court, and her scholarship has been published in top-tier law review and peer-reviewed journals, including the California Law Review, Wisconsin Law Review, Berkeley Journal of Empirical and Labor Law, and Perspectives on Politics. Based on over a decade of ethnographic and historical study, Professor Dubal is currently writing a manuscript on how five decades of shifting technologies and emergent regulatory regimes changed the everyday lives and work experiences of ride-hail drivers in San Francisco.

Professor Dubal joined the Hastings Faculty in 2015, after a post-doctoral fellowship at Stanford University (also her undergraduate alma mater). Prior to that, Professor Dubal received her J.D. and Ph.D. from UC Berkeley, where she conducted an ethnography of the San Francisco taxi industry. The subject of her doctoral research arose from her work as a public interest attorney and Berkeley Law Foundation fellow at the Asian Law Caucus where she founded a taxi worker project and represented Muslim Americans in civil rights cases.

You can follow her on Twitter @veenadubal

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09 Dec 2021Social Contract and Taxes: Sarah Christopherson00:33:58

Tax Policy is Where It Starts

What do our tax dollars really go towards? The truth is, so much of it is invisible. Tax dollars go towards helping homeowners through mortgage deductions or keeping prices low on your water bill. The money we spend on taxes has the power to shape our social contract, but it’s not always spent correctly. By focusing on tax policy first, we can control which programs and policies are funded and which are not. In this way, taxes are at the root of social change.

Tax Fairness

The topic of tax fairness is shrouded in the myth that America’s tax system is progressive. We tend to only talk about federal income taxes, which do in fact increase as you make more income. But we fail to recognize the unfairness of other taxes, like property and sales tax. For example, middle class families pay the same sales tax as the ultra-wealthy, and even renters end up paying property taxes at a rate equivalent to billionaires. When you look at the full scope of the tax burden, it really falls most heavily on middle- and lower-income families.

Taxing Billionaires

Billionaires don't have to pay taxes on their capital investments. They pay taxes when they sell their assets. However, billionaires are rarely in a position where they need to sell, thanks to loopholes in the system. For example, Jeff Bezos, who owns billions in Amazon stock, can take out huge loans at low interest rates, using his stock as collateral, avoiding any taxable event like selling stock. To effectively tax the ultra-wealthy, these loopholes can be closed by taxing annual gains of public stock whether they’ve been sold or not, much like a property tax assessment.

FIND OUT MORE:

Sarah Christopherson is the Legislative and Policy Director of Americans for Tax Fairness. She leads ATF’s advocacy efforts with Congress and coordinates the coalition’s policy work. Prior to joining ATF, she served as the Policy Advocacy Director for the National Women’s Health Network for five years, responsible for directing their advocacy efforts on federal health reform, among other issues. Christopherson also worked for Congress from 2005 to 2015, including serving as the Washington Director/Legislative Director to Congresswoman Niki Tsongas (D-MA). There she directed the Member’s legislative agenda and led her tax, financial services, consumer protection, and federal budget portfolio. Christopherson has bachelor’s degrees in political science and history from Arizona State University and a master’s degree in foreign policy from George Washington University.

You can follow Sarah on Twitter at @sarahcgchris.

13 Mar 2020Climate Justice: Julian Brave NoiseCat00:28:06

Climate Justice

Many low-income communities bear the brunt of industrial pollution or the harshest consequences of climate change. In order to address global warming in a meaningful way, we must also address systemic inequality. The Green New Deal offers a solution to both: transitioning to clean energy while also ensuring low-income communities get the funding they need, and blue-collar workers get good-paying jobs.

Promoting Policy

Climate Change is a global collective problem, and individual actions alone are not going to suffice to combat it. Currently, only the Democratic Party in the US is willing to acknowledge this reality and work towards enacting durable decarbonization policies. Therefore, voting for Democratic leaders is paramount in this year's election. Organizing, activism, and raising awareness should support and prioritize policy-making success.

Indigenous Wisdom

Indigenous peoples have deep insights as to how we can relate to the environment, such as in the management of fisheries and – more profoundly – in surviving a loss of their world. Colonization was an apocalyptic experience for them, yet many of these indigenous communities have endured, and some are even resurging today. As the climate crisis poses an existential threat, learning the history of First Nations people might help us understand what it means for humans to live through catastrophic destruction.

Find out more:

Julian Brave NoiseCat is Vice President of Policy & Strategy at Data for Progress; Change Director at The Natural History Museum; and a Fellow at Type Media Center & NDN Collective.

The belief that Indigenous peoples can contribute to understanding and solving the world's most pressing challenges inspires his work. In 2019, NoiseCat helped lead a grassroots effort to bring an Indigenous canoe journey to San Francisco Bay to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 1969 Alcatraz Occupation.

He has been published in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Harper’s, The Paris Review, The Guardian, and The Nation, among many others.  

Previously, he led 350.org’s US policy work and was an Urban Fellow in the Commissioner’s Office of the NYC Department of Housing Preservation & Development. He studied history at Columbia University and the University of Oxford, where he was a Clarendon scholar.

He is a proud member of the Canim Lake Band Tsq’escen and a descendant of the Lil’Wat Nation of Mount Currie.

You can follow him on Twitter @jnoisecat

27 Mar 2020Criminalizing Ecocide: Jojo Mehta00:30:13

What is Ecocide?

The crime of ecocide is the "extensive loss, damage, or destruction of ecosystems such that their inhabitants can no longer enjoy life peacefully." Ecocide happens on a large scale; examples include the ravaging of the Brazilian rainforest, the consequences of widespread fracking, and toxic erosion from strip-mining. Corporations perpetrate almost all ecocide and millions of people are devasted by ecocide's effects every year. Currently, there is no legal pathway to compel corporations to stop committing ecocide.

Criminalizing Ecocide

The International Criminal Court oversees the prosecution of four crimes: genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and crimes of aggression. During its inception, the crime of ecocide was proposed but never codified thanks to pushback from countries like the US, UK, France, and the Netherlands. All of them hold significant nuclear and fossil fuel interests. Since the ICC operates on a "one nation, one vote" policy, it is conceivable for small nations directly impacted by climate change to work together and criminalize ecocide, even if larger, fossil fuel burning countries oppose it. Criminalizing ecocide on an international level holds the world's worst polluters to account.

Shifting Public Opinion

Once something is outlawed, social stigma is quick to follow. Banning ecocide internationally, or even publicly considering doing so, leads to a shift in public opinion. As entire cultures become aware and fight against ecocide, many corporations will change their business models to meet public outcry. We already see this phenomenon around the world. Recently, the CEO of Siemens wrote a letter outlining the ways his company became greener but noted his legal duty was to his shareholders. Making ecologically devastating practices illegal will ensure that corporations change their polluting behavior.

Find out more:

Jojo Mehta is the co-founder and director of Earth Defense Integrity (EDI). EDI's international team is working with climate- and ecocide-vulnerable states which have the power to propose an Ecocide amendment to the Rome Statute, the governing document of The ICC. The International Criminal Court's annual Assembly in December is the critical forum for advancing this work. They have accompanied Small Island ("Great Ocean") Developing State representatives and helped amplify their voices and concerns there for four consecutive years, as the nations most impacted by climate emergency.

You can follow her on Twitter @Jojo_Mehta.

16 Nov 2023Unions and Democracy: Theda Skocpol00:46:28

Thursday, November 16th, 2023

 

Theda Skocpol is the Victor S. Thomas Professor of Government and Sociology at Harvard University and co-author of Rust Belt Union Blues: Why Working-Class Voters are Turning Away from the Democratic Party. We learn how unions are true laboratories of democracy and why their demise has eroded our democratic culture.

 

Unions were at the heart of local communities well beyond bargaining for contracts. They were part of recreational and social life, and even the churches were aligned with unions. There was a sense of solidarity for fellow union members, pride in their work, and a natural alignment on politics. If elections are about voting for who is on your side, then politics is partly about who we are — and who they are. American democracy is at an inflection point and the question is whether the news who are engaged are willing to practice and defend democracy.

 

 

Learn More About Theda: 

https://scholar.harvard.edu/thedaskocpol/home  

 

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Credits: 

Host: Mila Atmos 

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Producer: Zack Travis

22 Jun 2023Lawyers for Democracy: Anna Chu00:39:28

Thursday, June 22nd, 2023

 

Anna Chu is the executive director of We The Action, an organization that connects volunteer lawyers with nonprofits that require legal assistance. We discuss how lawyers play a unique and critical role in strengthening American democracy.

 

A strong democracy relies on everyone having the ability to have their voices heard at every level of the government, but in the US there is a huge gap between who is actually eligible to vote and who actually votes. In addition, there are lots of different rights currently being challenged at the federal level and at the state level. Lawyers can and do advance access to justice, as well as ensure that democracy can be accessible for everyone. 

 

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10 Jun 2021Abuse and Accountability: Martha Nussbaum00:37:18

Objectification

Pride and greed are vices of domination that are at the root of sexual harassment and assault. Narcissistic gender pride casts women as objects to be used, instead of full human beings. This objectification has made it acceptable to subjugate women. Greed prevents holding the rich and powerful members of society accountable, often making it easier for them to offend repeatedly with impunity.

Sexual Assault and Harassment

Sexual assault and harassment are abuses of power, most often of men over women. Sexual harassment is a federal offense, defined as unwanted sexual discrimination under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which includes hostile work environments, and a pattern of unwelcome discrimination by gender. It can be purely verbal and discriminatory. By contrast, sexual assault means any non-consensual sexual act that includes a wide range from touching to rape, and depends on each state. This is a crime, and thus is prosecuted at the state level.

Radical Love and Justice

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. advocated for purifying anger and discarding retributive punishment. Retribution and outrage do not create healing or overcome grief. Instead, he proposed combining outrage with a forward-looking faith and a love of humans that recognizes the root of goodness in everyone. Seeking justice through reconciliation and love is a radical way to construct new structures and new relationships, free of revenge and retribution.

FIND OUT MORE:

Martha C. Nussbaum is currently the Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago, appointed in both the Department of Philosophy and the Law School. In addition, she is an Associate in the Classics Department, the Divinity School, and the Political Science Department and a Member of the Committee on Southern Asian Studies. She received her BA from New York University and her MA and PhD from Harvard University. She has taught at Harvard, Brown, and Oxford Universities.

Professor Nussbaum is internationally renowned for her work in Ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, feminist philosophy, political philosophy, and philosophy and the arts and is actively engaged in teaching and advising students in these subjects. She has received numerous awards and honorary degrees and is the author of many books and articles. She has received honorary degrees from sixty-three colleges and universities in the US, Canada, Latin America, Asia, Africa, and Europe.

09 Nov 2020Season 12 Trailer00:02:59

This is a thought-provoking season of visionary and practical ideas to reimagine our future in a post pandemic and post trump world.

We cover everything from needing to be civically engaged all the time, which is to say in between elections, education, policing our communities, and having the courage to think big when it comes to rebuilding our economy.

23 Feb 2023Housing Justice: Leah Goodridge00:34:18

Thursday, February 23rd, 2023

 

Leah Goodridge has served on the New York City Planning Commission since 2021 and is the Managing Attorney for Housing Policy at Mobilization for Justice. She oversees a team that provides legal representation to tenants in eviction proceedings. We talk about housing in New York City, ranging from high rents and evictions to land use discussions.

 

Tenant unions have advocated for tenants’ rights in New York and Albany, which pushed for right to counsel and new rent laws. Developers and landlords have successfully shifted the media narrative to portray them as the little guy and the victim, and the tenant as the villain. Joining community boards is an effective way for everyday New Yorkers to have a voice; community boards vote on the housing proposals before the planning commission sees them. Private developers are being pushed to be at the forefront of building affordable housing, but the City can and does decide how much money it will allocate toward housing. It could decide to fund more affordable units.



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Credits: 

Host: Mila Atmos 

Guests: Leah Goodridge

Executive Producer: Mila Atmos

Producers: Zack Travis and Sara Burningham

14 Sep 2023Maximum Impact Volunteering: Yoni Landau00:41:25

Thursday, September 14th, 2023

 

Yoni Landau is the CEO and founder of Movement Labs, the founder of Contest Every Race, and a former White House Office of Management and Budget and Robert Reich staffer. We explore just how technology can empower our practice of democracy and enrich our civic action toolkit.

 

Think about your personal impact in terms of additionality – how much you’ve done that wouldn’t have otherwise been done. Movement Labs aims to make it easy for you to have an impactful volunteer experience. To be of more service would be to get involved at a very deeply local level. Down ballot, about 75% of elected offices go uncontested; when contested, 48% are winning their elections!

 

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Credits: 

Host: Mila Atmos 

Guests: Yoni Landau 

Executive Producer: Mila Atmos

Producer: Zack Travis

10 Apr 2020A Renewable Future: Mark Z. Jacobson00:27:04

Nuclear Power is Impractical

Building nuclear power plants is extremely costly and time-consuming; projects are often plagued by cost overruns and construction delays. Between permitting, planning, and construction, it takes 10-19 years for a plant to become operational. To meet our climate goals, we need to transition 80% of our energy to carbon-free solutions by 2030. From a logistical standpoint, nuclear cannot become our carbon-free energy source because it will arrive too late. In addition, aging nuclear power plants become more expensive to maintain and operate, which necessitate additional subsidies. Maintenance requirements shut down the whole plant and energy production goes to zero during that time.

Nuclear Technology Risks

In addition to the practical barriers of building a nuclear grid, nuclear technology has inherent risks. Some of the radioactive nuclear waste takes hundreds of thousands of years to decay, posing long term problems for safe maintenance. The technology can and has been used for weapons proliferation. The catastrophic risk of a nuclear reactor meltdown is currently at 1.5%, which is astronomical. In comparison, we would not accept a 1.5% chance of planes crashing. The cost of cleanup for the Fukushima disaster alone has exceeded $500 billion, or more than $1 billion per reactor worldwide, which makes nuclear much more costly than many acknowledge.

Electrifying our lives with renewable energy

Transitioning to clean renewable energy and electrifying all sectors of the economy can achieve a savings in energy demand of 57%. The heating and cooling of buildings can be achieved through heat pumps; electric cars can replace fossil fuel models; high-temperature electric processes can be used in heavy industry. Clean energy electricity can be generated through large concentrated solar farms, offshore wind power, geothermal, and hydroelectric power. Sources like solar and wind can come online much faster than nuclear, cutting emissions more quickly and stay clean forever. Once electrification is widespread, it becomes easier to store excess power with batteries, hydroelectric reservoirs, and gravitational storage.

Find out more:

Mark Z. Jacobson is Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Senior Fellow of the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, and Director of the Atmosphere/Energy Program at Stanford University.

His career has focused on better understanding air pollution and global warming problems and developing large-scale clean, renewable energy solutions to them. Toward that end, he has developed and applied three-dimensional atmosphere-biosphere-ocean computer models and solvers to simulate air pollution, weather, climate, and renewable energy. He has also developed roadmaps to transition countries, states, cities, and towns to 100% clean, renewable energy for all purposes and computer models to examine grid stability in the presence of high penetrations of renewable energy.

You can follow him on Twitter @mzjacobson.

09 Nov 2023Cooperation Democracy: Bernard Harcourt00:43:13

Thursday, November 9th, 2023

 

Bernard E. Harcourt is Isidor and Seville Sulzbacher Professor of Law and Professor of Political Science at Columbia University -- and he was also our very first guest on the podcast! Bernard's most recent book, Cooperation: A Political, Economic, and Social Theory, offers the blueprint for a society based on cooperation.

 

The idea of creating a space that benefits the stakeholders, rather than the shareholders, has a long history. Cooperatives offer a robust way of being. They practice self-governance among equals through democratic process. In fact, we could have democratic processes, democratic education, and democratic training in every aspect of our lives. We could even nurture a culture of democratic self-governance at work, which is traditionally one of the least democratic places in our daily lives. Cooperation democracy aims to extend the democratic culture to every facet of our lives. 

 

 

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Credits: 

Host: Mila Atmos 

Guests: Bernard Harcourt

Executive Producer: Mila Atmos

Producer: Zack Travis

21 Jul 2022Universal Civic Duty Voting: E.J. Dionne & Miles Rapoport00:45:21

Thursday, July 21st, 2022

 

Miles Rapoport and E.J. Dionne are the co-authors of 100% Democracy: The Case for Universal Voting. In a time when the erosion of democracy is real and undisputed, they argue that every adult American citizen should be made to vote. We discuss the big idea at the core of America: democracy!

 

Democracy itself needs to be on the ballot and the dangers of extremism need to be on the ballot. If we want something close to 100% democracy, we have to abandon the idea that including everyone in the electorate is a partisan effort. It's a myth that if more people vote, Democrats automatically win the election. We had one of the highest turnouts ever during the pandemic because Republican and Democratic officials all over the country made it easier for people to vote. Moreover, 61% of Americans think that voting is both a right and a duty. 



Read 100% Democracy:

https://bookshop.org/books/100-democracy-the-case-for-universal-voting/

 

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Credits:

Host: Mila Atmos 

Guest: E.J. Dionne & Miles Rapoport

Executive Producer: Mila Atmos

Producers: Zack Travis and Sara Burningham

25 Jan 2020Democracy and Freedom: Season Round Up00:28:48

Empowering citizens

Many Americans are unsure of how their government works. Civic education is the manual for democracy, which Civics 101 offers in the form of a popular podcast. Over the last hundred years, the United States became more democratic through the activism and litigation of concerned and well-educated citizens. Still, some unfairness in our system prevails. One important holdover from the institution of slavery is the Electoral College, which was originally designed to grant outsized electoral power to slaveholding states. The system continues to give about one third of American voters an advantage at the expense of the majority. Our responsibility is to understand the rules, participate, and empower ourselves to make this democracy work us.

Undermining the Press

The President is allowed to say whatever he wants about the press as a private citizen because of his First Amendment protections. However, the President cannot use the power of the federal government to exact reprisals against the press. For instance, when the White House revoked press passes earlier this year, it contravened the Constitution. Never before has a President undermined and used retributive action against the press like this, and other countries are taking note. Repressive measures like these come directly from an authoritarian playbook, and according to PEN America, the number of journalists jailed worldwide for “fake news” tripled last year because of it. America was once the moral leader on free speech issues around the world, but the current administration’s repressive tactics are withering that leadership.

Technology for Democracy

Democracy Works remedies some of the most pervasive and mundane reasons we don’t vote. TurboVote is a tool that enables online voter registration, sends out election day reminders, and even provides absentee ballots. Those mailed-in ballots are then tracked by the Ballot Scout initiative. The Voting Information Project produces the polling place and ballot data that is then used by Google and get-out-the-vote drives. By using current technology to take the hassle of voting out of our busy lives, the initiatives of Democracy Works are building a more engaged society.

Citizens’ forum

Deliberative mini publics innovate democracy by engaging citizens in constructive dialogue about the issues facing society. While many in parliament assumed citizens would always favor more spending and lower taxes, it turned out that voters who were presented with detailed information came to develop nuanced policy positions. After listening to presentations by experts, they actually favored higher taxes in certain areas and reached complex compromises about government spending. By doing so, they proved to lawmakers and skeptics that ordinary Irish citizens could be trusted with vital policy work.

Find out more:

Future Hindsight is a weekly podcast that aims to spark civic engagement through in-depth conversations with citizen changemakers. American democracy is a living, breathing mechanism whose well-being deserves to be cultivated and protected, and now more than ever, the need to be an engaged citizen is critical. We explore how each of us has the power to shape our society and fulfill our shared civic responsibility.

You can follow us on Twitter @futur_hindsight and our host Mila Atmos @milaatmos

06 Mar 2018Andrea Miller (Part 2)00:20:29

Andrea Miller is the president of the National Institute for Reproductive Health. We talk about the broad support among men for Roe vs. Wade, the Hyde Amendment, and the two most damaging misconceptions about abortions.

This interview belongs to a two-part episode in which we discuss the importance of reproductive rights and why we should engage with this issue for the general welfare of our communities. Listen to the first part here.

Men Are Supportive:

There is no huge gender gap in attitudes and opinions about support for Roe vs. Wade. Men are also outraged by laws that shame, pressure, and punish women who have decided to have an abortion. They care about health and safety, individual rights, and autonomy.

Hyde Amendment:

Federal government health coverage does not cover abortion care. This affects a wide range of women from those who work for the federal government or serve in the military to those who receive healthcare through Medicaid and Indian Health Services. The amendment is a rider, which means that it is attached to budget bills every year. We can demand that the rider not be put in.

Have a conversation and bust the myths:

In an environment where people don’t talk about abortions, damaging misconceptions and falsehoods are easy to spread and thus easy to believe. The real attitudes and public opinion are pro-choice. Access to abortion is important to the women who are a part of our daily lives.

Find out more:

Andrea Miller is the president of the National Institute for Reproductive Health and a nationally recognized expert in reproductive rights and women’s health for more than two decades.

28 Dec 2023Why Dissent is a Part of Democracy: Democracy-ish00:39:47

Over the last several years our politics has been pushed from a place of collaboration to bold faced loyalty tests. In his latest book: Differ We Must: How Lincoln Succeeded in a Divided America, our guest, author and NPR Morning Edition co-host, Steve Inskeep, discusses with Waj and Danielle why dissent necessary and is as American as apple pie! 



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Credits: 

Hosts: Danielle Moodie & Wajahat Ali 

Guests: Steve Inskeep

Executive Producer: Adell Coleman 

Senior Producer: Quinton Hill 

Distributor: DCP Entertainment

10 Feb 2022Winning Messages: Anat Shenker-Osorio00:43:37
Anat Shenker-Osorio is a renowned communications researcher and campaign advisor, the host of Words to Win By, and the Principal of ASO Communications. We discuss how to empower voters, the impact of repetition, and the importance of being clear on what you stand for.

Social Proof Is Real

The most telling sign that a message is reaching the masses effectively is if the public acts on it. For example, the last national election cycles in 2018 and 2020 saw a large increase in voter turnout. It is not productive to narrate the problems with voter turnout. Instead, we should encourage non-voters to grasp the potential their vote holds. The proof of that effective messaging is in the social movements that follow.

 

Vote Is a Verb

Voting behavior is one of the most studied aspects of political communications. Because of this, we know that voting behavior is best understood as a matter of habituation. Seeing voting as an action that we need to take rather than a belief that we need to hold will create a more effective approach to spurring voter turnout. In order to make voting a habit for more people, we have to talk about it consistently.

 

Say what you’re for: the Question of Negative Messaging

All candidates should repeatedly state what they stand for because repetition is an essential ingredient in making sure a message is heard. Negative messaging can often be counterproductive because when you’re negating the other side, you are actually reinforcing their argument. What’s more, by focusing on the opposition and not clearly stating your own position, you risk leaving your message unheard. It’s impossible to have a message resonate if no one hears it.

 

FIND OUT MORE:

Anat Shenker-Osorio is the host of the Words to Win By podcast and Principal of ASO Communications. Anat examines why certain messages falter where others deliver. She has led research for new messaging on issues ranging from freedom to join together in union to clean energy and from immigrant rights to reforming criminal justice. Anat's original approach through priming experiments, task-based testing, and online dial surveys has led to progressive electoral and policy victories across the globe.

Anat delivers her findings at venues such as the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Centre for Australian Progress, Irish Migrant Centre, Open Society Foundations, Ford Foundation, and LUSH International. Her writing and research is profiled in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Boston Globe, Salon, The Guardian, and Grist among others. She is the  author of Don't Buy It: The Trouble with Talking Nonsense About the Economy.

You can follow Anat on Twitter @anatosaurus

22 Feb 2024Rural Democrat: Jess Piper00:39:36

Jess Piper is the Executive Director of Blue Missouri and the host of the Dirt Road Democrats podcast. We discuss the reality of living in rural Missouri, the state of education, and the dearth of Democratic candidates across the state.

 

Rural candidates have little to no support from the state party, but Republicans enjoy the support of local churches. One-third of Missouri is rural, but there is not a single elected Democrat representing these areas. Uncontested races are bad for democracy and without Democrats in the race, there is no contest of ideas. In Missouri, for example, multiple school districts only have four days of school, but there have not been elected Democrats who are willing to push back and properly fund these public schools. 



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Producer: Zack Travis

17 Feb 2018Roland Augustine00:23:44

Roland Augustine is an art dealer, tireless activist, and active member at the Bard College Prison Initiative. We discuss the necessity of finding new ways of activism for social justice in our daily lives.

Be an Advocate:

Civic engagement means becoming an advocate for social equality and social justice. It can begin at the most basic level such as your town or school. You can give hands-on support and/or money to a cause that is important to you. Consistent and rigorous advocacy creates more knowledge and inspire change.

Art Matters:

The visual arts can effectively transform one’s thinking. There are many powerful works of art, from paintings to monuments, that serve as beautiful and potent reminders of inhumanity in our collective history.

Use your voice:

Our silence on the world’s humanitarian crises is deafening. Use your voice in your community to start a conversation about what we can do right now. Start with forwarding this podcast to your friends and family.

Find out more:

Roland Augustine is on the board of trustees at Bard College, where he is actively involved in the Bard Prison Initiative, as well as in supporting refugees at Bard College Berlin. He is also an active member of the Equal Justice Initiative in the US.

29 Sep 2018Esther de Rothschild and Aicha Cherif00:24:32

The power of love and relational organizing
When people realize that their vote matters personally to others, they are more likely to show up and exercise this right. Ineligible voters, such as teenagers or formerly incarcerated people, can make an impact on elections by drawing attention to how election results concern them and move their network of eligible voters to show up at the polls.

Amendment 4
There are over 1.4 million people who are disenfranchised for life in the US, most of them for a small felony conviction. Amendment 4 is an initiative in Florida that aims to restore the right to vote to former felons. If we believe in second chances and the capacity of people to change for the better, a more representative voter pool would include those who have paid their debts to society.

Understand the issues
The disenfranchised have a variety of policy issues that are often overlooked by those who do have the right to vote, such as on immigration or youth. “Movers” bring attention to the issues that affect them through their messaging. A wider perspective and a deeper understanding on the policy proposals of candidates on the ballot are additional reasons to turn out on Election Day.

Find out more:
Esther de Rothschild is the founder of The Love Vote, a platform where people who cannot vote use love to mobilize those who can. Aicha Cherif is the Outreach Director, as well as a mover.

09 Sep 2021The Power of Voting: Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez00:37:10

Youth Vote Power

Young people wield a lot of power when they vote. A whopping 73% of youth who were registered to vote by NextGen turned out to vote. This type of turnout can change the outcome of an election. Because voting is a habit, investing in youth leads to long-lasting change in the electorate. Letting young people know the power they have can make a tremendous difference.

Voting Rights and Immigrants

The current battle over immigrants is not just about immigration. It is also about race, power, and voting. Purging naturalized citizens, preventing DACA recipients from becoming citizens, and undercounting in the US census are all efforts to enact racist policies and to suppress votes.

Keep the Door Open

When Cristina first organized undocumented workers in Texas, she was met with hostility from pro-labor unions. Over time, they realized the work she was doing benefited everyone, and are now her allies. Leaving the door open for others to change their mind and work with you is a valuable tool that can yield positive results.

FIND OUT MORE:

Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez is a civil rights leader and former 2020 U.S. Senate candidate. She has spent the last twenty years taking on some of the most powerful special interests in her home state of Texas, organizing construction workers, immigrant mothers and young voters to build a government and economy that works for all of us.

Today, Cristina is the Executive Director of NextGen America, the nation’s largest youth voting rights organization. NextGen has registered and mobilized millions of young people to the polls, with the goal of harnessing the power of young people to reshape the political outcomes of our country – not for an election cycle but a generation.

Previously, Cristina founded two of Texas’ largest voting and civil rights organizations. She founded Jolt, a statewide organization focused on mobilizing the Latino vote, when she was six-months pregnant and in the wake of the 2016 election. Under her leadership, Jolt mobilized tens of thousands of young Latinos and developed some of the nation’s most creative strategies to engage young Latinos, like #Poderquince that supports young quinceañeras to use their sweet 15 birthdays as a platform to register and mobilize Latino voters.

You can follow her on Twitter @cristinafortx.

20 Oct 2022AI for Equality: Orly Lobel00:41:31

Thursday, October 20th, 2022

 

Orly Lobel is the Warren Distinguished Professor of Law and the Director of the Center for Employment and Labor Law. Her latest book is The Equality Machine: Harnessing Digital Technology for a Brighter, More Inclusive Future. We discuss reframing our public discourse around technology in order to proactively use it as a tool for equality. 

 

Lobel urges us to think about what our goals, social norms, and values are in a democratic society. Because we’re racing forward with integrating technology into our lives, we need a more balanced debate about how privacy ought to be offset by other values. In addition to talking about AI technology gone wrong, we should consider the comparative advantage of AI over a human decision maker, who has a lot of biases. 

 

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Producers: Zack Travis and Sara Burningham

02 Mar 2019Max Kenner00:22:24

Max Kenner is the founder and executive director of the Bard Prison Initiative, a college that is spread across six interconnected prisons in New York State. We discuss the enduring value of the liberal arts, the immense power of an education on reducing recidivism, and the critical importance of deep investments in human beings.

Education must be high quality

The students at BPI have a drive to learn that reflects their awareness of the stakes of their education for the future. Thanks to the high-quality education that BPI delivers, students are able to compete for coveted spots for graduate programs at universities like Columbia, Yale, and NYU, and successfully complete their degrees there. Many BPI alumni go on to careers in the public sector that affect their home communities.

Be Fearless

Despite the many naysayers and the persistent cynicism that Max faced, he marched on and did what was said to be impossible. He was so successful at convincing the United States that higher education should be returned to its prison systems, that the Bard Prison Initiative is now collaborating with the Consortium for the Liberal Arts in Prison to launch and sustain college-in-prison programs across the country.

Prisons are human institutions

The time that human beings spend incarcerated is as real and as relevant as any other time that is spent anywhere else, as opposed to lost or wasted time. Providing college education in prison is an opportunity to invest in the people who we know will eventually rejoin, and increase the likelihood that they enrich, our communities as fully participating members of our society.

Find out more:

Max Kenner is the founder and executive director of the Bard Prison Initiative, a college that is spread across six interconnected prisons in New York State. He is also co-founder of the Consortium for the Liberal Arts in Prison, and recipient of numerous awards, such as the Smithsonian American Ingenuity Award in Education.

 

18 Sep 2020Decolonizing America: Nick Tilsen00:31:52

Self-Determination

Self-determination empowers those who are most affected to be in the driver’s seat of policy-making decisions. For example, if an oil company wants to run a pipeline through Indigenous land, Indigenous communities themselves would decide based on their values and the impact on their families, water, air, and land. NDN collective works to restore self-determination through three pillars: defense, development, and decolonization.

Decolonization

European colonization was a system of white supremacy that annihilated complex Indigenous populations, cultures, languages, beliefs, land, and governing systems. The work of decolonization includes dismantling white supremacist systems of economic extraction and governance; education about the totality of colonial history; and the revitalization of Native languages and ways of being. Reclaiming Indigenous heritage is also an act of healing past traumas from colonization.

Land Back

A key tenet of self-determination and decolonization is the “land back” movement. Theft of Indigenous lands was one of the fundamental ways Europeans colonized America. Stealing land and extracting its resources decimated both the land and the people who lived on it. The land back movement aims to right this wrong by returning public lands, like National Parks and National Forests, to the care of Indigenous People. Land back does not mean removing Americans from their homes. Instead, it means returning the land to Native stewardship focusing on preservation and rejuvenation.

Find out more:

Nick Tilsen is the President & CEO of NDN Collective, and a citizen of the Oglala Lakota Nation. Tilsen has over 18 years of experience building place-based innovations that have the ability to inform systems change solutions around climate resiliency, sustainable housing, and equitable community development.

He founded NDN Collective to scale these place-based solutions while building needed philanthropic, social impact investment, capacity and advocacy infrastructure geared towards building the collective power of Indigenous Peoples. Tilsen has received numerous fellowships and awards from Ashoka, Rockefeller Foundation, Bush Foundation and the Social Impact Award from Claremont-Lincoln University. He has an honorary doctorate degree from Sinte Gleska University.

You can follow him on Twitter @NickTilsen
And you can follow NDN Collective on Twitter @ndncollective

14 Dec 2019Deliberative Democracy: Jane Suiter and David Farrell of the Irish Citizens’ Assembly00:30:14

Citizens’ forum

The Irish Citizens’ Assembly was formed in response to the severe social and economic crisis caused by the global financial meltdown of 2008. A group of political scientists, led by Jane Suiter and David Farrell, advocated for citizens to be included in debates about the necessary political reforms to address the failures of the executive. Deliberative mini publics innovate democracy by engaging citizens in constructive dialogue about the issues facing society. While many in parliament assumed citizens would always favor more spending and lower taxes, it turned out that voters who were presented with detailed information came to develop nuanced policy positions. After listening to presentations by experts, they actually favored higher taxes in certain areas and reached complex compromises about government spending. By doing so, they proved to lawmakers and skeptics that ordinary Irish citizens could be trusted with vital policy work.

The case of abortion rights

The first Citizens’ Assembly considered the issue of overturning the ban on abortion in the Irish constitution. Over the course of five weekend-long sessions, everyday citizens heard arguments from impartial experts, medical professionals, as well as activists on both sides. At the end of their deliberations, they produced a series of recommendations, which were sent to the Irish Parliament in June 2017. 64% of the Citizens’ Assembly participants recommended that abortion be legalized. In turn, Parliament put the question of legalizing abortion to the Irish public in a nationwide referendum in May 2018. It passed with 66% of the vote. The result indicates that the counsel of the Citizens’ Assembly was an accurate and meaningful representation of the Irish electorate. Since then the Assembly has given policy recommendations on issues such as how the state can make Ireland a leader in tackling climate change and how to respond to the challenges and opportunities of an aging population.

Ireland is a Beacon for Democracy

The Assembly has strengthened trust and communication on both sides of the democratic equation – citizens and politicians – and has bolstered the legitimacy of democracy at a time when democracies around the world are under attack. Through the innovation of using citizens’ assemblies, the Irish experience is showing a path to overcome the problems of democracy in decline. Politicians learned about the willingness and capacity of everyday people to make serious, nuanced policy choices for the good of the country. The Assembly has led many in Parliament to consider the advice of constituents in a new way, and to seek advice from their voters. Conversely, Irish citizens see the Assembly as a way to augment their democracy beyond voting. Other countries have noticed this. At the launch of Scotland’s Citizens’ Assembly earlier this year, the constitutional minister for the Scottish government praised Ireland’s success as an example to follow.

Find out more:

David Farrell and Jane Suiter have been collaborating in research focused on Irish citizens’ assemblies for over 10 years. During the economic crisis of 2008-2009, they led a group of political scientists who proposed that citizens should be brought into the heart of debates over constitutional and political reform. This culminated in the establishment of We the Citizens – Ireland’s first national citizens’ assembly. In 2012 the Irish government established the Convention on the Constitution: David and Jane led the academic advisory group. This was followed, in 2016, by the Irish Citizens’ Assembly: David and Jane secured Irish Research Council funding to provide research leadership.

David Farrell is Head of the School of Politics and International Relations at University College Dublin. He is also a member of the Royal Irish Academy. He is formerly the research leader of the Irish Citizens' Assembly and currently a member of the Stewarding Group of the Scottish Citizens’ Assembly.

Jane Suiter is Director of the Institute for Future Media and Journalism at Dublin City University as well as an Associate Professor in the School of Communications. She helped found the Irish Citizens’ Assembly (2016-2018) and the Irish Constitutional Convention (2012-2014). She is also a founding member of We the Citizens (2011), Ireland’s first deliberative experiment.

The Irish Citizens’ Assembly is an exercise in deliberative democracy, placing the citizen at the heart of important legal and policy issues facing Irish society. With the benefit of expert, impartial, and factual advice, 100 citizen members have considered the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution (on abortion); making Ireland a leader in tackling climate change; challenges and opportunities of an aging population; manner in which referenda are held; and fixed term parliaments.

US-based deliberative democracy projects mentioned in the episode are:

  1. James Fishkin, Center for Deliberative Democracy at Stanford University
  2. Kevin Esterling and his work with online town halls. He wrote Politics with the People, Building a Directly Representative Democracy.
  3. Citizens’ Initiative Review in Oregon

You can follow David on Twitter @dfarrell_ucd, Jane @JaneSuit, and The Citizens’ Assembly @CitizAssembly.

28 Feb 2020The Actual Cost of Fast Fashion: Jussara Lee00:27:09

Use Your Purchasing Power

Corporations only care about their bottom-line, so boycotting stores you don’t believe in does make a difference. Taking responsibility for your purchases is one of the most powerful non-violent tools available. Naysayers argue that individual actions have no effect, but these actions reverberate and impact the decisions of others. Recently, clothes giant H&M found itself with a $4.3B surplus, thanks in large part to changing consumer demands. As purchasers become more environmentally friendly, they moved away from fast fashion en masse, forcing the retail chain to change their behavior. H&M now operates clothing recycling centers in many of its store in a bid to appear more environmentally friendly. While this is only once instance, consumers can apply this action to a wide variety of stores and businesses and enact change in them.

The Impact of Fast Fashion

Fast fashion relies on the same business model as fast food: a high volume of cheap product for a low cost. Cheap textiles and materials as well as cheap labor come at the expense of exploited workers and the environment. To grow the cotton for one white t-shirt requires 713 gallons of water; leather tanneries use toxic metals like mercury and lead to dye their materials; cheap synthetic materials leech plastic microbeads into our water-system and food sources, eventually finding their way into our bodies. On top of this, the amount of oil used to create plastic hangers, bags, and other plastic accessories coupled with the carbon created during transportation creates a significant impact on the environment and climate. The actual cost of production, which should include pollution and other hidden costs, are not included in the price of fast fashion items.

Stay Small and Local

Unfortunately, there is no way to be entirely carbon neutral. Producing waste is inherent to life. The problem of pollution is essentially one of scale: the bigger you or your company are, the more pollution you produce, regardless of whether you use sustainable practices. Resource distribution is incredibly unequal throughout the world, so it’s important to use only what you need and not more. This way, we can ensure our resources do not go to waste and that others have access to what they need, as well. Staying local is also important to fighting climate change. A huge amount of carbon is produced in the transportation of goods. Consider using a local store to purchase new goods, instead of Amazon or eBay.

Find out more:

Jussara Lee has developed a small scale business operation in which luxury fashion and sustainable practices work in tandem. After graduating from the Fashion Institute of Technology, she launched her own label, which was embraced by prominent international retailers. For the past 18 years, she has worked to scale back the company to focus on making the best-fitting custom-made clothes with the gentlest impact on the environment. Hand-tailoring, local production, biodegradable materials, natural dyes form the core of her brand. The addition of mending services and a collection of transformed vintage clothes are part of her efforts to fit into a circular economic model, where the least amount of resources are consumed and waste is given a new purpose.

You can follow her on Twitter @JussaraLeeNYC

19 Oct 2021Season 16: The Social Contract00:03:58

Our all-new season is all about something that we most often hear about in terms of its brokenness: the social contract. We will be asking big questions about how we live together, what we owe each other, what we can ask of governments, and how we can repair what’s broken, renegotiate what never worked, or what’s not working anymore. 

07 Apr 2022Country First, Community First: Emily Cherniack00:35:39
Thursday, April 7th, 2022

 

Emily Cherniack is the founder of New Politics. She believes that politics has the power to change systems. Her organization works with military veterans and alumni of civilian service programs like Americorps with a goal of encouraging more people with civil and military service experience to run for office, all the way from school boards to Congress. We discuss how servant leadership is about doing something greater than yourself because it rests on the backbone of serving the community first. A service background helps leaders find the courage to tell the truth and do what's right, even if it's not popular. 

 

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29 Jun 2019Micah White00:25:35

The crisis of our time

People have very little political power beyond voting on election day. Current governing structures are incapable of changing the world and solving the big problems that we face, such as the climate crisis. The solution is to form a social movement – perhaps through revolution – that can make good decisions and achieve its goals, such as win elections, take sovereignty, and maintain power. A notable example is the Five Star Movement in Italy, which directs policy and takes control away from elected representatives when they violate the core principles of the movement.

The limitations of contemporary protest

Occupy Wall Street did not achieve its goals of ending the power of money over our democracies or give more power to the 99 percent. However, it did reveal that both the strategy of street protest as well as the way of protesting are broken. In addition, current activist culture is producing consensus-driven activism that is looking for incremental change and reform within the existing system. A true activist used to be someone who stands outside of the status quo and is not afraid to go against a movement’s consensus.

The nature of social change

A strong theory about how social change comes to fruition revolves around structural forces beyond human direct participation, like an economic crisis. This argues that it’s the combination of the crisis and people in the streets that achieves change. Two more ways of thinking about effecting change are subjectivism and theurgism. Subjectivism believes that change is a process that happens within us. When we change the way we are, then we transform how we see the world. Theurgism believes that social change and revolution are a process of divine intervention, by forces that are completely outside of our control.

Find out more:

Micah White is the lifelong activist who co-created Occupy Wall Street, a global social movement that spread to 82 countries, while he was working as an editor of Adbusters magazine. He is also the co-founder of Activist Graduate School, an online school taught by, and for, experienced activists.

His book, The End of Protest, A New Playbook for Revolution has been translated into German and Greek. His essays have been published in The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Guardian, and beyond. He has been profiled by The New Yorker, Esquire, and more.

Follow Micah White on Twitter @beingMicahWhite

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