Full Program

Part 1

Today we  look back at the story in the news that defined the struggle between the better angels of our nature and the emerging dark side of America that exploded into the open this year in Charlottesville, Virginia. We will begin with a broadcast of Background Briefing from August 21, 2017 in which we offered insight into a new radical movement Antifa that has become the nemesis of the alt-right who along with the Fox echo chamber have exaggerated the power and influence of a small group fighting back against well-funded right wing provocateurs on campus and Nazis attacking and murdering citizens as they did in Charlottesville, Virginia. Mark Bray, an historian of human rights, terrorism, and political radicalism in Modern Europe who was one of the organizers of Occupy Wall Street, joined us to discuss his latest book “Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook”. We examined the rise of white supremacy and neo-Nazism around the world following recent demonstrations in Warsaw, Poland and surveyed the history of anti-fascism from its origins to the present day. While critics say shutting down adversaries is anti-democratic, Antifa activists argue that the horrors of fascism must never be allowed to triumph again, especially with Donald Trump in the White House who is enacting his authoritarian tendencies at home while displaying affection and solidarity with despots abroad.

Part 2

Then we go to a broadcast of Background Briefing from August 24, 2017 analyzing the emergence of the alt-right in Trump’s America with Henry Giroux, a world renowned educator, author and public intellectual who currently holds the McMaster University Professor for Scholarship in the Public Interest about his latest book, “The Public in Peril: Trump and the Menace of American Authoritarianism”. We discuss Trump’s alarming response to the recent disgrace of neo-Nazi’s descending on Thomas Jefferson’s home town and Jefferson’s warning that “an ignorant people cannot remain a free people” in the context of a failing education system and growing civic ignorance compounded by social media that has given rise to our Kardashian culture.

Full Program

Part 1

Today we look back on the first year of the Trump Administration and search for some glimmers of hope amid the dark clouds at home from the destruction of our domestic tranquility and the diminution of America’s standing abroad as Trump undermines democratic values while encouraging authoritarianism and white nationalism. We will begin with Roger Morris, who served on the senior staff of the National Security Council under Presidents Johnson and Nixon until resigning with Anthony Lake over the bombing of Cambodia. He joins us to assess the extent to which Newton’s Law applies to our domestic and foreign policy in terms of every action having and equal and opposite reaction. We explore whether Trump’s avarice, amateurism, ignorance and cynicism will eventually catch up with him as the huckster who promises bigger and better things delivers less and less. We will look into how already there are impressive signs of opposition forming at the grassroots which is likely to build as more and more Americans recognize the hollow and fraudulent nature of the empty promises coming from the White House while the criminality and kleptocracy of this regime comes under increasing scrutiny from the special counsel, who Trump might well fire as Mueller gets close to indicting him.

Part 2

Then we speak with the director of a new film that takes on the issues of immigration and race relations roiling America and Europe and deals with the ugly re-emergence of white nationalism. Fatih Akin, the director of “In the Fade”, a feature film out of Germany starring Diane Kruger, joins us to discuss this drama about a German woman seeking justice for the terrorist attack that killed her Kurdish husband and son. Based on a real incident involving young German neo-Nazis who killed Turks living in Germany, the movie reflects the political tensions resulting from immigration in Germany today that Donald Trump has inflamed here at home and which emerged in Charlottesville.