Join us for our weekly podcast, featuring in-depth interviews with newsmakers and commentary from a progressive point of view. Regular panelists include Truthdig editor Robert Scheer and contributors James Harris and Josh Scheer. You can listen right on the page, or by subscribing with iTunes or another podcast-friendly program. Podcasts may be either audio or video format.
James Harris and Harry Edwards discuss President Obama and the myth of post-racial society, James Baldwin’s “The Fire Next Time” and why now is the time to repair the black community in urban cities such as Oakland.
If you missed Robert Scheer discussing with readers his latest column, “The Grinches Who Stole Summer,” on the Republicans’ image, or you just want to relive the excitement, you can listen to what was discussed here.
Newsweek senior editor and columnist Jonathan Alter talks about his new book, “The Promise: President Obama, Year One,” and why “Just by getting health care through ... [Barack Obama is] now standing alone with Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson in terms of domestic achievement.”
Danny Schechter’s new movie, “Plunder: The Crime of Our Time,” tells the story of the economic collapse as “a crime narrative as opposed to a mistakes narrative.”
Congressman Dennis Kucinich predicted Saturday that the health reform bill will win passage in the House on Sunday by just one vote. Kucinich likened the bill to “the political equivalent of castor oil” but said he has been working to get remaining holdout Democrats to vote for it. The Ohio Democrat, who earlier was a holdout himself, made the comments in an interview conducted by Truthdig Managing Editor Peter Z. Scheer and podcast producer Joshua Scheer.
In this podcast, Truthdig’s Associate Editor Kasia Anderson talks with Murray Horwitz and Jonathan Estrin, the playwrights of “RFK: The Journey to Justice,” about Bobby Kennedy’s evolution from political animal to true believer in his transformative relationship with the civil rights revolution.
Rep. Dennis Kucinich tells us why he isn’t buckling under pressure to vote for the president’s health care reform bill (“Every plan that’s put forth by our government ends up benefiting the health insurance industry”).
L.A. Times columnist and Truthdig contributor Mark Heisler explains why the NBA All-Star game is no fun anymore and why overreacting sportswriters can’t forgive Mark McGwire for breaking their hearts.
Nick Marroni says, “My goal is to make games that have social and political relevance.” To that end he has created a satirical iPhone game called “iBailout!!” You play as the “Fed,” a robot that eats money. Just don’t let the angry mob get you.
The other “peace candidate” in the 2008 Democratic primary isn’t thrilled with the president’s order to radically escalate the war in Afghanistan, no matter if there’s an exit strategy: “What are we going to learn in 18 months that we haven’t already learned in the last eight years?”
Is the war in Afghanistan worth the sacrifice of even one American life? Former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter says, “No! ... We are allowing the battle in Afghanistan to be defined by a domestic American political imperative. There is no urgency in Afghanistan, there is urgency in Washington, D.C.”
Peter Richardson’s new book about the groundbreaking Ramparts Magazine says the rag changed America. Truthdig arts and culture editor Kasia Anderson asks the author and former Ramparts Editor Robert Scheer, Truthdig’s editor-in-chief, why its impact isn’t better remembered, and what will take its place.
Georgetown University law professor David Cole’s new book, “The Torture Memos,” investigates how key members of the U.S. Office of Legal Counsel rewrote the law to make torture legal.