Monthly Archives: April 2016

Fixing Our Broken Election System

Can we get real democracy in the US? We talk with political scientist Patrick Barrett about his article, “Can We Change the Political System? Strategic Lessons of the Bernie Sanders Campaign”.

Then we re-air our 2008 interview with muckraking reporter Greg Palast about his bookÂ Steal Back Your Vote. We talk about how voters were disenfranchised by voter purging and other voter suppression methods in past elections — and what voters can do about it. Continue reading →

Web Extras

Fighting Fracking’s “Corporate Marauders” In Pennsylvania & New York

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Francesca Rheannon of Writer’s Voice speaks with journalist and fractivist Maura Stephens about:

Fracking’s environmental and public health impact in Pennsylvania and New York
Use of eminent domain to take private property for fracking operations
How the TPP could override local, state and national sovereignty on the issue
The fight against fracking
The precarious status of New York’s moratorium on fracking and
The Democratic candidates’ differing positions on the issue.

Maura Stephens is a founding member of theÂ Coalition to Protect New YorkÂ andÂ FrackBustersNY.org.

Read the story of the Holleran Farm, whose maple trees were cut down to make way for a natural gas pipeline.

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Podcast

Two Memoirs Celebrate Our Connection With The Earth & Its Creatures

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We talk with Elizabeth Marshall Thomas about her memoir, Dreaming of Lions: My Life In The Wild Places.Â She writes about her life with the Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert and other people of the Old Way.

And wildlife conservationist Dale Peterson discusses his latest book, Where Have All The Animals Gone? My Travels with Karl Ammann.Â It’s about his efforts to document the bushmeat trade and other human impacts threatening extinction for apes, elephants and giraffes.Â We also speak with him about another of his books, The Moral Lives of Animals. Continue reading →

Web Extras

Historian Donna Murch on The Clintons’ War On Drugs, Mass Incarceration & The Black Vote

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Rutgers University historian Donna Murch speaks with Francesca about the impact of the 1994 crime bill passed by President Clinton and its devastating impact on communities of color.

Murch’s essay, “The Clintons’ War on Drugs: When Black Lives Didn’t Matter” appeared in the New Republic and is re-printed in False Choices: The Faux Feminism of Hillary Rodham Clinton, a collection of essays by left feminists and edited by Liza Featherstone.Â Continue reading →