Background Briefing has a new home at BackgroundBriefing.org.
Please visit and bookmark the new site. You can search show archives here.
November 24 - Which Presidential Candidate Will Deal With Washington's Systemic Corruption?; The 8 Laws of Change
|
|
LISTEN TO FULL PROGRAM | |
|
|
We begin with an assessment of who will be left standing in the presidential primaries as Donald Trump continues to dominate the crowded Republican field in spite of alienating a number of constituencies including American Muslims who he suggested might have to be registered in a database. David Halperin, a former senior policy advisor for Howard Dean's presidential campaign and White House speechwriter for President Clinton and counsel to the Senate Intelligence Committee, joins us to discuss the comparatively boring race on the Democratic side and which candidate might best deal with the systemic corruption and theft of taxpayer money in Washington exemplified by the $40 billion a year for-profit college racket in which one company EDMC, owned by Goldman Sachs, swindled federal taxpayers out of $11 billion. |
 |
|
|
Then we speak with Stephan Schwartz the editor of the daily web publication, Schwartzreport.net, about his new book "The 8 Laws of Change: How to be an Agent of Personal and Social Transformation" which shows how Margaret Mead's notion "never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has", can be put into action. We discuss how the ultimate challenge facing the planet, global warming, can be addressed following the examples of Martin Luther King Jr., Benjamin Franklin and Mahatma Gandhi who changed history by implementing the strategies and tactics of the 8 laws of change.
|
 |
mp3audio:
November 23 - Diplomatic Moves to End the Syrian Agony; Russia's Changing Role in the Syrian Civil War
|
|
LISTEN TO FULL PROGRAM | |
|
|
We begin with the upcoming visit of France's President Hollande to the White House on Tuesday who then goes on to Moscow to meet with President Putin, and discuss the possibility of a diplomatic solution to end the agony in Syria. James Gelvin, a Professor of History at UCLA whose research focuses on Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, joins us to look into both the military escalation against daesh, the self-declared Islamic State, and changes in the diplomatic landscape following a unanimous vote at the U.N. Security Council on Syria that Russia did not veto which condemned the Islamic State and called for a concerted effort by all nations to destroy it. |
 |
|
|
Then we look further into Russia's role in the Syrian civil war which has changed since the bombing of the Russian airliner from propping up the Assad regime to trying to forge an anti-IS coalition with France and others that may lead to a diplomatic solution assuming that daesh can be neutralized. Gordon Hahn, an Analyst and Advisory Board Member of Geostrategic Forecasting Corporation whose books include "Russia's Islamic Threat" and his latest "The Caucasus Emirate Mujahedin: Global Jihadism in Russia's North Caucasus and Beyond", joins us to discuss Putin's vow to exterminate those who blew up the airliner over the Sinai. We also discuss what Gordon Hahn sees as a corruption of scholarship amongst U.S. analysts of Russia who equate Putin with Stalin and ignore evidence of U.S. meddling in Georgia and Ukraine that led to wars that are solely blamed on Putin.
|
 |
mp3audio:
November 22 - Republicans Are Playing Into the Hands of ISIS; The Sanders Campaign as a Watershed for a New Progressive Politics; On the Campaign Trail with Bernie Sanders
|
|
LISTEN TO FULL PROGRAM | |
|
|
We begin with the disgraceful behavior of GOP governors, the Republican House of Representatives and most of the candidates running for the Republican presidential nomination, not to mentions a number of gutless Democrats in the House, all of whom are playing into the hands of daesh, the Islamic State by scapegoating and demonizing Muslims who are the victims of the terrorists responsible for the massacres in Paris. A former jihadi who renounced radical Islam and worked with Canadian Intelligence to break up al Qaeda terrorist plots, Mubin Shaikh, joins us to discuss the sick symbiosis between the Republican Right and the Islamic State terrorists who benefit immeasurably from Islamophobia in the West and the free publicity our media gives them.
|
 |
|
|
Then we speak with John Judis a senior writer at The National Journal where his latest article is "The Bern Supremacy: Does the future of the Democratic Party belong to Sanders?" We discuss the political phenomenon that Bernie Sanders represents calling for "revolution" while identifying himself a democratic socialist whose campaign may not win the presidency but will be a watershed in the development of a new progressive politics in America.
|
 |
|
|
Then finally we look into “the Bern”, the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign, with the award-winning senior writer for the Philadelphia Daily News, Will Bunch, who has been on the campaign trail with Bernie Sanders for the last several months writing a forthcoming E-book for Amazon “The Bern Identity”. We discuss Senator Sanders’ recent speech at Georgetown University on Democratic Socialism and his invocation of President Roosevelt’s Second Bill of Rights that FDR enunciated in his last State of the Union address in 1944. |
|
mp3audio:
November 19 - The House Votes to Shut Out Syrian Refugees; Hysterical Overreaction to an IS (Daesh) Video; Has Daesh Helped Unify the Anti-IS Coalition?
|
|
LISTEN TO FULL PROGRAM | |
|
|
We begin with the 289 to 137 vote in the House today on a GOP bill the American Security Against Foreign Enemies Act or SAFE act of 2015 aimed at pausing the admission of refugees from Syria which passed with the help of 47 Democrats joining the Republicans with enough votes to override a promised veto from the White House. Elise Foley, the Immigration and Politics Reporter with the Huffington Post who covered the vote today, joins us to assess the fate of the bill in the Senate and explain why so many Democrats ignored Obama’s admonition against victimizing the victims of ISIS, the Syrian refugees he described as “the most vulnerable people in the world”. |
 |
|
|
Then we speak with John Mueller, a political scientist at Ohio State University and the Cato Institute, about his new book “Chasing Ghosts: The Policing of Terrorism” and the reflexive tendency of America’s politicians and the press to overreact to provocations from terrorist groups like the Islamic State which just released a cheesy video threatening to blow up Times Square. We discuss how the free publicity given to this ludicrously amateurish bombast from ISIS trivializes real threats and undermines national security as recurring hysteria prompts the authorities to cry wolf too often. |
 |
|
|
Then finally, we examine whether the attacks in Paris that were designed by the Islamic State to show it had the power to influence if not dominate the G-20 summit in Turkey, may end up forcing a consensus amongst the powers involved to solidify an anti-IS coalition. Henri Barkey, the Director of the Middle East Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars joins us to discuss his latest article at The American Interest “From Sinjar to Paris and Back”, and whether recent events have put the U.S. in a stronger position to get cooperation from recalcitrant allies. |
 |
mp3audio:
November 18 - The Politico Reporter Who Exposed the Koch Brothers Intelligence Agency; US Nativism is Giving Daesh Exactly What They Want; Have European Attitudes Towards Syrian Refugees Changed Since The Paris Massacres?
|
|
LISTEN TO FULL PROGRAM | |
|
|
We begin with the creation of a new intelligence agency, not by the U.S. government but by Charles and David Koch of the Koch brothers, who have hired a competitive intelligence team of 25, including one former CIA analyst, to thwart liberal groups and activists. Kenneth Vogel, the Chief Investigative Reporter for Politico and author of “Big Money: 2.5 Billion Dollars, One Suspicious Vehicle, and a Pimp – On the Trail of the Ultra-Rich Hijacking American Politics” joins us. He broke the story in Politico and we discuss his latest article “The Koch Intelligence Agency” and the efforts by the billionaire brothers to spy on Democrats while rooting out moles within their own ranks. |
 |
|
|
Then we speak with Christopher Swift, a Professor of National Security Studies at Georgetown University and a Fellow at the University of Virginia’s Center for National Security Law. He is the author of “The Fighting Vanguard: Local Insurgencies in the Global Jihad” and we discuss whether the West is giving daesh, the Islamic State, exactly what they want with the nativist response to the Paris massacres by U.S. governors shutting the door on Syrian refugees, which reinforces the “clash of civilizations” model that daesh is trying to inflame. |
|
|
|
Then finally we go to Geneva, Switzerland and speak with Joel Millman, the press officer for the International Organization of Migration who previously worked as a Wall Street Journal reporter covering immigration and human trafficking. We discuss how much attitudes in Europe have changed towards the influx of refugees from Syria, since the massacres in Paris. |
|
mp3audio:
Tags:
RSS Latest Radio Programs
Pacifica App