Progressive Commentary Hour

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

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

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

TOPIC:  A look at America’s history of government and intelligent agency assassinations and lost persons who whistleblow on government corruption or interfere with politicians’ designs Michael Ruppert is a former LAPD narcotics investigator and whistleblower who later became an investigative reporter and an author focusing on America’s War on Drugs, the oil cartels, peak oil, and a post-oil society. Michael was best friends with Pulitzer prize winner Gary Webb, the journalist who exposed the Iran-Contra scandal and the CIA running cocaine into Los Angeles, resulting in his suicide. Michael has written several important books including “Confronting Collapse: The Crisis of Energy and Money in a Post Peak Oil World”, which explore the relationship between the forces of power and wealth behind oil and the 2008 financial collapse, and became the basis for Chris Smith’s award-winning documentary “Collapse” Daniel Hopsick is an investigative journalist, documentary film producer and director, publisher of the ezine Mad Cow Morning News. His investigations into the Saudi-Raytheon-911 connections, much which is described in his documentary Mohamed Atta and the Venice Flying Circus and a book entitled Welcome to Terrorland. He is also the author of “Barry and the Boys: The CIA, the Mob and America’s Secret History” and “The New American Drug Lords.”  Daniel has investigated many mysteries killings and activities conducted by American intelligence, including the US attempts to induce cancer in Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez with cancer-inducing technologies developed by a Dr. Ferris. His website is www.MadCowProd.co

Conversations with Remarkable Minds:  The State of the National and Global Economy, the future of US and China economic hegemony, gold and metal markets Dr. Steven Leeb is the founder, chairman and chief investment officer of Leeb Capital Management, an investment house managing large-cap growth portfolios.  He is also the founder of the Leeb Group, which has published extensive financial letters, including for the publications of The Complete Investor and Leeb’s Real World Investing, and has received multiple awards. For the past 30 years, Dr. Leeb has written many books on global economic trends and forecasts addressing oil and energy crises, future technologies and assets such as gold and metals. He is also the author of a 2011 book “Red Alert: How China’s Growing Prosperity Threatens the American Way of Life” which focuses in on the long-term strategies behind China’s present national push to be the preeminent country in renewable energy technologies

21st Century Globalization, the legacy of past free trade agreements and the future EU and Pacific trade partnerships Thea Lee is Deputy Chief of Staff at the AFL-CIO, where she has served as Policy Director and Chief International Economist. Previously, she worked as an international trade economist at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, and as an editor at Dollars Sense magazine in Boston. Her research projects include reports on the North American Free Trade Agreement, the impact of international trade on U.S. wage inequality, and on the domestic steel and textile industries. She has testified before several Congressional and Senate committees on a variety of economic policy issues. She also serves on the State Department Advisory Committee on International Economic Policy, where she co-chairs the Subcommittee on Investment and sits on the Board of Directors of the National Bureau of Economic Research. Ms Lee has appeared on numerous television and radio shows, including the PBS News Hour, CNN, Good Morning America, NPR’s All Things Considered and Marketplace. She is co-author of “A Field Guide to the Global Economy” (New Press), an easy guide explaining free trade, the institutions such as the World Bank, IMF and WTO and these treaty agreements adverse impact upon citizens and American workers. Timothy Wise is Director of the Research and Policy Program at the Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University in Medford Massachusetts, where he leads the Institute’s Globalization and Sustainable Development Program. Prof. Wise’s research focus has been on trade policies and treaties, global food security and rural development. He has written extensively on the impacts of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) on Mexico and what lessons the NAFTA experience offers regarding future U.S. trade agreements as well free trade impacts upon the global food crisis and commodity price speculation. Prior to joining the Institute in 1999, he was the Executive Director of the international aid agency Grassroots International. Tim has written and co-written several books agricultural trade liberalization and global food security, including “Resolving the Food Crisis: Assessing Global Policy Reforms Since 2007”, and many articles on US trade policy and food security. His articles can be found on the Triple Crisis Blog at TripleCrisis.co

Russ Baker is an award-winning investigative reporter and journalist in the alternative media and founder of the independent progressive news and analysis site, WhoWhatWhy.com. Over the past two decades, he has produced over a thousand stories on a broad range of topics, from political revolutions to revolutionary humor. Russ has covered the Hutu-Tutsi massacres in Central Africa, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the overthrow of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. He has received Society of Professional Journalists, the Mencken and the Common Cause awards, and has served on the adjunct faculty at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.  His research into the rise and election of George W Bush led to his bestseller, “Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, America’s Invisible Government and the Hidden History of the Last 50 Years.”  His website is www.WhoWhatWhy.com Mickey Huff is the director of Project Censored and is on the board of directors for the Media Freedom Foundation.  He is professor of social science and history at Diablo Valley College in the San Francisco Bay area, where he is co-chair of the history department.  He is also on the Advisory Committee for the History of Conflict programs at John F. Kennedy University. Mickey has appeared frequently on NPR, PBS, ABC, Pacifica, The New York Times Co., Al Jazeera English, Russia TV, the Progressive Radio Network, and many other commercial and independent media outlets. He lectures across the US on issues of censorship, propaganda and media literacy, with a special focus on suppressed historical narratives.  He has been a co-editor, editor, and/or contributor to the award-winning Project Censored book series since 2008 and appears in the new documentary Project Censored:  The Movie. Website is ProjectCensored.org and he hosts. He is the co-host of the broadcast Project Censored, heard every Monday at 11 am Eastern time on the Progressive Radio Network

The recent rise in pro-vaccination efforts to mandate vaccines, remove vaccine exemption and hold parents of unvaccinated children legally liable for lawsuits Dr. Toni Bark is a pediatric physician and a prestigious homeopathic and holistic doctor practicing in the Chicago area.  This year she was awarded the honor of vice president of the American Institute of Homeopathy. In addition to her medical degree from Rush Medical College and pediatric internship at NYU, she has degrees in psychology, a masters in Healthcare Emergency Management from Boston University Medical School, and was by Dr. Erica Fromm at the American Society for Clinical Hypnosis. Dr. Bark is a regular guest speaker at the University of Chicago and contributed to Mary Holland’s and Louise Habakus’ important book “Vaccine Epidemic” Her website and blog is www.Disease-Revesal.com Prof. Mary Holland is a Director of the Graduate Legal Skills Program at New York University School of Law, specializing in international human rights, public law and vaccine safety law and injury compensation. She has degrees  in Russian studies from Harvard, and graduate degrees in international relations and a JD from Columbia University, where she has also taught international law at its Law School. Mary is the co-author of “Vaccine Epidemic: How Corporate Greed, Biased Science and Coercive Government Threaten Our Human Rights, Our Health and Our Children.” BOOK:  “Vaccine Epidemic: How Corporate Greed, Biased Science and Coercive Government Threaten Our Human Rights, Our Health and Our Children.” WEBSITE www.VaccineEpidemic.com Robert Krakow is a New York City trial lawyer in private practice and one of the nation’s leading attorneys for vaccine damaged children through the government’s Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. He has handled almost every kind of civil and criminal case in all federal and state courts. Bob has been a trial lawyer for over 30 years and is a former Narcotics Bureau Chief in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. He has founded several not-for-profit organizations advocating for the rights of individuals with special needs and is a renown critic of the dominant medical belief that present vaccines are safe and effective.  He is a graduate of George Washington University Law School and served in the past the Director of the Consumer Protection Center. WEBSITE www.KrakowLawFirm.com Alan Phillips is an attorney practicing in Chapel Hill North Carolina.  He is one of the few American attorneys whose legal practice focuses on vaccine exemptions and vaccine waivers.  He is an Advisory Board member of the American Chiropractic Autism Board, the World Association for Vaccine Education, and is a co-founder of the North Carolina Citizens for Healthcare Freedom. Alan is the author of “The Authoritative Guide to Vaccine Legal Exemptions” and “Dispelling Vaccination Myths: An Introduction to the Contradictions Between Medical Science and Immunization Policy, which has been transated in serveral languages. Both can be found on his website WEBSITE www.VaccineRights.co

Progressive Commentary Hour - Conversations with Remarkable Minds - 05/27/13

Progressive Commentary Hour - 05/20/13

The New DSM5 Diagnostic Manual for Mental Disorders: Creating New Illnesses Dr. Charles Gant has practiced integrative,functional medicine and more recently genomics for over 35 years. He is best known for his work in treating mental and substance use disorders. He received his medical degree from the University of Virginia Medical School, and his Ph.D. in psychology from Columbia Pacific University. For two decades, Dr. Gant pioneered many nutritional, metabolic, neurotransmitter and hormonal balancing, and detoxification treatments for a variety of mental disorders. He currently practices functional medicine and mindfulness-based psychotherapy at the National Integrated Health Associates in Washington, DC and teaches these methodologies at the Academy of Functional Medicine, Dentistry and Psychology. Dr. Gary Greenberg, PhD is a practicing psychotherapist and medical journalist in Connecticut and the author of important works debunking modern psychiatry and the DSM diagnostic manual. He is a major contributor Mother Jones, a contributing editor for Harpers, and appears in The New Yorker, The Nation and Rolling Stone.  He is a recipient of the prestigious Erik Erikson Award for mental health reporting, and his recent book is “The Book of Woe: The DSM and the Unmaking of Psychiatry.”

Charles Eisenstein is an independent scholar who writes about civilization, economics, transpersonal psychology and the evolution of human cultures.  In the past he has taught at Goddard College, Penn State, and lived and worked as a translator in Mainland China for many years.  Charles has degrees in Mathematics and Philosophy from Yale and he has been active with other visionaries to develop progressive models of business and charity based upon a deeper ethical standard. His two most important books, “Sacred Economics:  Money, Gift and Society in the Age of Transition” which deals with the topic of the invention of money and abandonment of the barter and gift economies. His most recent book  is “The Ascent of Humanity: Civilization and the Human Sense of Self.” His websites are  CharlesEisenstein.net  AND  Sacred-Economics.org Michael “Mike” Konczal is a Fellow at the Roosevelt Institute, a non profit organization dedicated to the creation of a New Deal in the 21st century.  His work focuses on financial reform, unemployment, inequality and progressive solutions for restoring the economy. Mike’s blog, Rortybomb, was named among the top 25 financial blogs by Time Magazine.  His writings have appeared in the Boston Review, the American Prospect, the Nation, Slate and Dissent, and he has been guest on PBS Newshour, with Rachel Maddow, Marketplace and others. His website is RortyBomb.wordpress.com Andrew Ross is a Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis New York University where his research focuses on labor and urban studies, social and political theory, ecology and cultural studies.  He is a leading organizer of Strike Debt, a national organization that emerged from the Occupy movement in order to build resistance to all forms of debt imposed upon citizens by banks, and earlier help found the Occupy Student Debt Campaign.  And has been active in the anti-sweatshop effort since the mid-90s. Andrew has written or been the editor of over fifteen books, the most recent being “Bird on Fire: Lessons from the World’s Least Sustainable City” at Oxford University Press and “Nice Work If you Can Get It: Life and Labor in Precarious Times” published by NYU Press. His organization’s website is StrikeDebt.or

Dr. Robert McChesney is Gutgsell Endowed Professor of communications at the University of Illinois in Urbana.  He specializes in the political economy of communication, the history of 20th century media and communication policy. He is the co-founder of Free Press, a national media reform organization and was the host of the weekly radio program “Media Matters” until 2012. He has written extensively on the death of American journalism. He has received many rewards from progressive forums. Utne Reader listed him among the 50 visionaries changing the world in 2008.  Right wing pundits have listed him as among America’s most dangerous academics, which is an honor we commend on this program. He has authored over 15 books on communications and the media. Two released this year are “Digital Disconnect: How Capitalism is Turning the Internet Against Democracy” and  “Dollarocracy: How the Money-Media Election Complex is Destroying America” WEBSITE:  www.RobertMcChesney.com Robert Parry is one of our leading progressive investigative journalists best known for his uncovering Iran-Contra story and Oliver North’s involvement which earned him the George Polk Award for National Reporting in 1984.  He current writes for Consortium News, and has covered many important stories on domestic and foreign affairs issues including the Nicaragan contra-cocaine connection, right wing terrorism, the demise of American media, the Bush and Obama presidencies, the rise and influence of the Neocons and our wars overseas.  He has worked as a journalist for the Associated Press, Newsweek and PBS Frontline. He has written several books, his latest being “America’s Stolen Narrative: From Washington and Madison to Nixon, Reagan and the Bushes to Obama” WEBSITE:  www.ConsortiumNews.com Maria Armoudian is a fellow at the University of Southern California’s Center for International Studies and the host of The Scholars’ Circle and The Insighters heard on KPFK in Los Angeles and other stations as well as the Progressive Radio Network. She is the author of “Kill the Messenger: The Media’s Role in the Fate of the World” which details the power and influence of the media to shape the human condition.  For five years, Maria served as the environmental commissioner for the city of Los Angeles, working on civil rights issues, environmental protection and corporate reform.  Her writings have through the New York Times Syndicate, and on Alternet, The Progressive and other publications.  Her website is www.Armoudian.com BOOK:    “Kill the Messenger: The Media’s Role in the Fate of the World

Derrick Jensen has become one of the nation’s leading voices of cultural and environmental dissent, who writes on how civilization is devastating the environment and the natural world, and our society’s denial of that fact. In 2008, Utne Reader listed Derrick among the 50 visionaries changing the world. In sharp contrast to environmental optimists who believe working within the corporate system will offset the tenuous planetary balance threatened by climate change, Derrick has advocated for many years a “dismantling of civilization” which can include radical dissent as well as imparting wisdom to our children. “The Derrick Jensen Reader: Writings on Environmental Revolution”  was recently published by Seven Stories with a remarkable collection of his collected writings including his 2 volume best-seller Endgame,” “A Language Older Than Words”, “As The World Burns” and others.  His website is www.DerrickJensen.org Dr. Guy McPherson is a professor emeritus of Natural Resources, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Arizona.  He has specialized in forest resources, energy decline and climate change and their economic consequences, and has also taught at Texas AM and University of California at Berkeley. Having become disillusioned with the American university environment and education, after attempts to silent his outspokenness views on the human causes of climate change and environmental devastation, Guy abandoned his tenured position as a full professor for ethical reasons of conscience. His story is described in a memoir, “Walking Away from Empire” found on his website   www.GuyMcpherson.co

Larissa Walker is the Policy and Campaign Coordinator at the Center for Food Safety in Washington DC, a national non profit public interest and advocacy organization promoting the protection of human health, the environment, and to protect the public from harmful food technologies by promoting organic.  She did her post graduate work on a small organic farm and has been active in agricultural, energy and environmental issues at local and state levels. Larissa is currently a point person for the center in its litigation against the EPA for its negligence in addressing the evidence of neonic pesticides dangers on the nation’s bee population. Dr. Neil Carman is a chemist and biologist who is a scientific member of the Sierra Club’s Genetic Engineering Committee that researchers and assesses the evidence of genetic engineering’s impact upon the environment and animal and plant life. The Sierra Club has also joined forces with the Center for Food Safety in its lawsuit against the EPA t o suspend the use of neonic insecticides. Neil holds a doctorate in botany and has been active in environmental causes in Texas including air quality control. IN 1992 he started to work with the Sierra Club and is now a leading voice on issues of genetic engineering, industrial chemical agricultural practices and the role technology and toxic chemicals have on the environment. www.CenterForFoodSafety.org Steve Ellis is a commercial beekeeper and owner of the Old Mill Honey Company in Barrett, Minnesota. His operation has had over 2300 hives and this year he has witnessed a dramatic decline in his bees. He is among four major beekeepers who are plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the EPA for failing to protect America’s bee population. We are speaking to him while he is on his return trip home after taking his hives to California for pollinating the almond groves