Progressive Commentary Hour

JFK Assassination– the motives, means and opportunities for Lyndon Johnson to preserve his political career and reach his ambitionsRoger Stoneis a renowned political consultant, lobbyist, GOP campaign strategist and author who worked intimately as a senior staffer on eight national election campaigns including Presidents Nixon, Reagan and George Bush Senior.IN the past he has been regarded as the Republicans’ primary “hitman”. He was the keeper of the Nixon’s flame during Nixon’s post presidential years, serving as Nixon’s man in Washington. He has worked on many election campaigns and was instrumental in the bringing down of Elliott Spitzer’s governership.Recently he has aligned himself with the Libertarian Party and Gary Johnson.Rogerwrites articles for the Huffington Post and the Daily Caller and has been profiled in numerous television programs, newspapers and magazines.He is the author of the recently released “The Man Who Killed Kennedy: The Case Against LBJ”.His Website is LBJKilledJFK.co

Progressive Commentary Hour - Coleen Rowley - 10/28/13

Karen Hudes is a former attorney who worked in the Legal Department of the World Bank from 1986 to 2007. She was responsible for establishing the Non-Governmental Organization Committee of the International Law Section at the American Bar Association. During her term at the World Bank, Karen whistleblew on the Bank’s corruption at high levels and warned the US Treasury and Congress that the US could lose its right to appoint the Bank’s president if it didn’t play by the rules. She was subsequently fired based on forged documents suggesting she was contempt of Congress.  Since leaving the bank Karen has a private law practice in Bethseda Maryland. She received her law degree from Yale Law School and studied economics at the University of Amsterdam. Her website is KAHudes.ne

Progressive Radio Commentary Hour - 10/14/13

Progressive Commentary Hour - Series on Federal Bureaucracies - 10/07/13

Progressive Commentary Hour - 09/30/13

Progressive Commentary Hour - 09/23/13

Progressive Commentary Hour on Moving beyond Occupy -- the need to spiritualize political, social and environmental activism towards building a post-capitalist society. With guests David Korten, Matt Fox, Adam Bucko.

Progressive Commentary Hour - 09/09/13

Part of a continuing series on fascism.

A special investigation into the modern history and culture of Iran and its geopolitical standing in the Middle EastFariba Aminiis a freelance writer and journalist who writes regularly on Iranian history and human and women’s rights. Her father was the mayor of Tehran, a member of the ruling National Front party, and the personal attorney and close friend to the democratically elected prime minister Mohammad Mosaddeq, who was deposed by a US-British led coup in 1953. She has written and edited several books including “Faces of the Most Successful Iranian Americans” that was published by the U.S. State Department, “Letters from Ahmad Abad: Mossadeq’s Letters to Noss-rah-toll-lah Ah-meen-ee,” and “Little Black Fish” -- a translation of children’s stories by one of Iran’s most famous story tellers, Samad Bay-rang-ee. Fariba has degrees from George Mason University and a masters in history from Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences in Paris.Prof. Tom Ricksis a retired and distinguished professor who is now an independent scholar in Modern Palestinian and Iranian society and cultural history. In the past he has served on the faculties of the University of Pennsylvania, Villanova, Georgetown and Birzelt University in the West Bank, Palestine. He has published and edited numerous, books, translations and peer reviewed articles during his teaching career starting in 1974. In the 1960s he served in the Peace Corps in Iran and is an expert on the life and work of Howard Baskerville, an American teacher who died alongside the democratic Constitutionalists during the Iranian Constitutional Revolution in the beginning of the twentieth century. Dr. Ricks received his doctorate in Middle East History from Indian University and continues to travel to Palestine yearly to teach at Birzelt University

Dmitry Orlov is a Russian-American engineer and author writing on the potential economic, environmental and political decline and collapse of the US and modern industrial culture.  He was an eye witness to the collapse of the Soviet Union and has researched extensively its causes and the reasons for the failure of both the Soviets and the Americans to predict and understand it accurately. Dmirty is very popular among the Peak Oil community such as Richard Heinberg and frequently writes on the looming energy crisis.He has written five books, notably Reinventing Collapse: The Soviety Experience and American Prospects, and now his most recent “The Five Stages of Collapse: Survivors Toolkit.”  He publishes weekly on his popular blog ClubOrolv.com and for the Energy Bulletin. Dmitry and his family currently live on a sailboat fitted with solar panels and the necessities to carry them through for many months

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

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

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