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Scheer Intelligence

242 episodes - English - Latest episode: 13 days ago - ★★★★★ - 352 ratings

Scheer Intelligence features thoughtful and provocative conversations with "American Originals" -- people who, through a lifetime of engagement with political issues, offer unique and often surprising perspectives on the day's most important issues.

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Episodes

It’s China’s Turn To Give Peace a Chance

March 17, 2023 07:00 - 44 minutes

A major shift in global relations has recently transpired. To some in America, it may look like the second coming of the Evil Empire. To much of the rest of the world, it’s a welcome chance for a renewed multipolar order, where the sovereign desires of nations are respected and new collaborations can be established. The deal brokered between Iran and Saudi Arabia, brought together by China, to restore diplomatic relations, is a clear example of that. The 20-year anniversary of the Iraq War i...

The Nightmare Espionage Act That is Killing Julian Assange and the First Amendment

March 03, 2023 08:00 - 57 minutes

The use of the century old Espionage Act in the Julian Assange case continues to set the chilling precedent of a bleak future in American journalism, a precedent that endangers even those outside US borders.

Ray McGovern: The Last Chance to Avoid World War III?

February 24, 2023 08:00 - 1 hour

After a year of war and carnage in Ukraine, the fighting continues, and there are no signs of it slowing down. In fact, military budgets have increased, the weapons shipments have multiplied and the number of countries involved has reached world war levels. In a time of conflicting narratives, misinformation and rampant propaganda, history proves to be one of the few sources of wisdom left to predict and caution what the future holds.

The US Is Sending Its Worst Down to Mexico

February 17, 2023 08:00 - 35 minutes

Violent drug cartels often dominate headlines about Mexico but the Ayotzinapa case reveals a more sinister involvement from the US side of the border.

The Birthplace of Dystopian America

February 10, 2023 08:00 - 1 hour

Cop City Atlanta is a privately funded, local community surveillance campus that has already taken the life of one protestor as a harbinger of the police state on the horizon.

Nuclear War Imminent?

February 03, 2023 08:00 - 51 minutes

Retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel William J. Astore who served in the nuclear missile command fears the end of human life through nuclear war is more likely than in the Cold War era. 

Jane Olson: Storytelling Exposes Humanity

January 27, 2023 08:00 - 40 minutes

Numbers and facts only tell half the story of some of the world’s most horrendous circumstances.

Ex-CIA Agent John Kiriakou: The Deep State’s Attack on Dissent Beginning With MLK

January 20, 2023 08:00 - 35 minutes

The FBI, CIA, NSA and other agencies have historically exploited their power but their limits appear boundless in the modern age.

Israel Fascist?

January 13, 2023 08:00 - 34 minutes

Israel’s sharp turn to the extreme right has startled American Jews.

Dr. Warren Hern: Humans are a metastasizing cancer terminating all life on the planet

January 06, 2023 08:00 - 44 minutes

Physician and anthropology scholar Dr. Warren Hern delves into some of the most upsetting aspects of human behavior as a fatal threat to all life on earth in the near future.

Fact-Checking Jesus

December 23, 2022 08:00 - 45 minutes

The Rev. Madison Shockley discusses the historical, political and controversial misconceptions of the Christmas story.

You know gay rights are mainstream when Biden picks up the Rainbow flag

December 16, 2022 08:00 - 34 minutes

Larry Gross, author of the LGBTQ civil rights treatise, “Up From Invisibility,” honors the achievement of the new same-sex marriage law with only feint appreciation for the president who signed the bill.

Who’s crazy, you or your nation?

December 09, 2022 08:00 - 44 minutes

Dr. Gabor Maté’s new book strips back the realities of the neoliberal system that has been plaguing the health of US and the world citizens.

Peace Candidate Matthew Hoh: War is a cancel culture

December 02, 2022 08:00 - 1 hour

How Democrats, their pro-war Republican cohorts and the media canceled the U.S. Senate campaign of ex Marine and US foreign policy official Matthew Hoh.

The US spends almost as much on healthcare as the rest of the world combined and has one of the worst outcomes

November 25, 2022 08:00 - 45 minutes

Esteemed physician Dr. Stephen Bezruchka explains why spending the most in the midst of inequality and flawed politics produces an unhealthy prognosis.

Joel Beinin: Israel’s Elections Spell More of the Same for the Country, Only With an Even Uglier Face

November 18, 2022 08:00 - 52 minutes

Historian Joel Beinin uses his personal experiences to paint a picture of Israel, past and present, as a country and an idea.

Highly regarded poet Javier Zamora tells the riveting story of his hellish nine-week journey as a nine-year old child

November 11, 2022 20:00 - 46 minutes

In this week's Scheer Intelligence interview, as in his New York Times bestselling book, ​“Solito: A Memoir,” ​celebrated poet ​Javier Zamora​ ​cuts through the nasty dehumanization about undocumented immigrants with the focused memory of his perilous journey as a child refugee attempting to join his family under the most vulnerable of circumstances. With their lives overturned by the U.S.-sponsored war in El Salvador, Zamora's parents had found refuge in California, but it took eight years ...

Is Elon Musk the best or the worst for Twitter?

November 04, 2022 07:00 - 37 minutes

Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) Legal Director Corynne McSherry discusses with host Robert Scheer the internet control issues raised by Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter and what may lie ahead for it and other social media giants.

Is Dennis Kucinich the last Democrat for peace?

October 28, 2022 07:00 - 33 minutes

For 16 years the former Democrat congressman from Cleveland advocated for peaceful alternatives to the madness of war, but now members of his party in Congress are permitted only the voice of the warmonger.

How the Federal Reserve and allied central bankers wrote the obituary for competitive capitalism

October 21, 2022 07:00 - 35 minutes

Former Goldman Sachs managing director Nomi Prins exposes the role of the Federal Reserve and other western central banks in creating a world economy for the superrich while enabling the impoverishment of much of the world’s population

Eduardo Carreon: Adopting the mindset of the oppressor

October 14, 2022 07:00 - 45 minutes

Indigenous Los Angeles psychology graduate student Eduardo Carreon analyzes the mindset of disgraced former LA City Council leader, a Latina whose racist bile scorned Black and gay colleagues and others, including indigenous members of her own Latinx community.

Fake journalism is only the first draft of fake history

October 07, 2022 07:00 - 43 minutes

35-year teaching veteran Jim Mamer explores the uncomfortable areas of history most schools fail to teach and what it means about the state of the world today.

Zachary Karabell: China Is not the enemy - it is America’s indispensable economic ally

September 30, 2022 07:00 - 38 minutes

Author Zachary Karabell pleads that despite the militaristic noise, China and the U.S. share an economic dependency that would rupture the domestic economy of both nations if severed.

Biden’s peace for Afghanistan is a humanitarian disaster

September 23, 2022 07:00 - 38 minutes

The U.S. withdrew its troops and with them all humanitarian aid while freezing Afghanistan’s foreign reserves, leading to mass deprivation for Afghanistan’s innocent civilian population.

A Somali boy’s escape from Somalia’s harrowing genocide leads him to his dream paradise—and the brutality of American racism.

September 16, 2022 19:00 - 45 minutes

On this week’s Scheer Intelligence, Boyah Farah, a young refugee from Somalia’s hellish civil war describes his family’s narrow escape from death and their arrival in the placid suburbs of Boston. But life was more a nightmare than the dream he had imagined.

Russian and western leaders squandered Mikhail Gorbachev’s legacy. Now we’re all paying the price.

September 09, 2022 07:00 - 41 minutes

Katrina vanden Heuvel, editorial director and publisher of The Nation, remembers the Russian leader—whom she called a friend—as a committed pro-peace thinker, on this week’s “Scheer Intelligence.”

What killed America’s peace movement?

September 02, 2022 07:00 - 39 minutes

CODEPINK founders Medea Benjamin and Jodie Evans are rare voices of conscience confronting the bipartisan warmongers. 

The terrifying research nuclear powers don’t want you to see

August 26, 2022 07:00 - 38 minutes

Climate scientist Alan Robock, one of the authors of a groundbreaking Nature Food paper on the little-discussed impacts of nuclear war, talks to Robert Scheer about his work. 

The menace that is Amazon and Walmart

August 19, 2022 07:00 - 32 minutes

Columbia Law School professor Kathryn Judge talks to Robert Scheer about the exploitation of monster behemoth retail companies revealed in her new book “Direct.”

That time the KKK tried to kill Paul Robeson

August 05, 2022 07:00 - 33 minutes

Joel Whitney, the author of “Finks,” joins Robert Scheer to discuss a little-told episode in the socialist actor and singer’s life and why it’s seemingly been erased from our collective memory.

Katie Halper: ‘Trump broke liberals’ brains’

July 29, 2022 07:00 - 38 minutes

The comedian and host of two popular progressive podcasts offers her take on why the American left keeps getting things wrong.

Fist bumping the dictator we pretend to love

July 22, 2022 07:00 - 46 minutes

Former Mideast CIA operative John Kiriakou discusses his recent trip covering Biden in Saudi Arabia and what he’s learned about America’s “special relationship” with the country. 

Saving broke and broken America, one town at a time.

July 15, 2022 07:00 - 39 minutes

Michelle Wilde Anderson speaks to Robert Scheer about how four working class towns struggling with poverty and broke governments still managed to progress. 

Vietnam War veteran Ron Kovic, author of “Born on the Fourth of July” and subject of Oliver Stone’s iconic Vietnam War film, will mark his 76 th birthday watching a war that portends the end of civilization

July 01, 2022 07:00 - 43 minutes

At a time when the war that could end civilization escalates, peace activist Ron Kovic marks his July 4 birthday sounding the alarm about the true costs of war, a sentiment shared by his girlfriend of 16 years, TerriAnn Ferren.

Has America lost the key to democracy?

June 24, 2022 07:00 - 35 minutes

The authors of “Let’s Agree to Disagree” offer a guide to fostering critical thinking and dialogue in a society that seems to have forgotten how to engage in either.

Craig McNamara reveals the truth behind the lies of his father, Robert McNamara

June 17, 2022 07:00 - 43 minutes

The author of “Because Our Fathers Lied” lays bare agonizing truths about America his father helped to shape. 

Ralph Nader: Is there any hope left for Democrats?

June 10, 2022 07:00 - 41 minutes

The former presidential candidate speaks to “Scheer Intelligence” host Robert Scheer about the shreds of democracy left in America. 

Can the U.S. handle a multi-polar world?

June 03, 2022 07:00 - 55 minutes

A veteran foreign correspondent returns from three decades covering the rise of the East to grapple with an America that is more dangerously parochial than ever.

Immigrants are still building America, no matter what our lawmakers say

May 27, 2022 07:00 - 32 minutes

A new book documents the extent to which American prosperity is founded on immigration—and raises questions about how we treat immigrants today.

It’s scoundrel time in the good ol’ USA

May 20, 2022 07:00 - 52 minutes

Critics of the West’s role in the Ukraine war, such as CIA veterans Ray McGovern and John Kiriakou, are being ostracized from the American media landscape. 

Will the Ukraine war end without destroying all life on the planet?

May 13, 2022 07:00 - 40 minutes

Veteran award-winning journalists Patrick Cockburn and Robert Scheer, who met in  Moscow in 1987 when Mikhail Gorbachev optimistically promised peace, now fear a descent into nuclear war hell.   

No such thing as dissent in the age of big tech

May 06, 2022 07:00 - 49 minutes

Lifelong journalist Joe Lauria joins Robert Scheer to discuss how companies like PayPal, YouTube and Facebook are quashing non-stream reporting and opinions on Ukraine. 

The American women and children we all conveniently forget

April 29, 2022 07:00 - 38 minutes

Jorja Leap joins Robert Scheer to discuss the plight of women who have been incarcerated and their struggles to reenter society. 

Putin is already using his nuclear weapons

April 22, 2022 07:00 - 1 hour

Pentagon whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg argues the Russian president may not be deploying his nukes but is using them effectively as a threat. 

American dissent on Ukraine is dying in darkness

April 15, 2022 07:00 - 58 minutes

When it came to the Ukraine conflict, Professor Michael J. Brenner did what he’s done his whole life: question American foreign policy. This time the backlash was vitriolic. 

Sanctions on Russia may overturn the world economy as we know it

April 08, 2022 07:00 - 37 minutes

Economic expert Ellen Brown talks to Robert Scheer about the financial revolution Vladimir Putin has started and what the global economic future could look like as a result.

Biden denies CIA torture victims their day in court

April 01, 2022 07:00 - 44 minutes

CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou comments on the legal case of five Guantanamo Bay torture victims and what its outcome could say about the US. 

What you really need to know about the threat of nuclear war

March 25, 2022 07:00 - 58 minutes

For decades after the Cold War ended, the threat of nuclear war seemed to fade into the global background. Climate change took center stage as the existential crisis of our time, and it seemed for a few brief years that treaties and diplomacy, however flawed, had led nuclear powers to set aside the possibility of using nuclear weapons again. (To date, it is only the U.S. that has detonated nuclear weapons—both in Japan—and it continues to be the country with the largest nuclear arsenal by fa...

The man who turned America’s economy into a literal casino

March 18, 2022 07:00 - 40 minutes

Mary Childs, the co-host of NPR’s “Planet Money,” joins Robert Scheer to discuss her new book, “The Bond King.” 

What role has the US played in the Ukraine crisis?

March 11, 2022 08:00 - 53 minutes

As Russia’s attack on Ukraine wages on, and Ukrainian civilians die daily, the fog of war has seemingly been clouding more nuanced analysis in the United States, argues “Scheer Intelligence” host Robert Scheer. To get more perspective on the historical context of the current conflict, Scheer invites former CIA analyst Ray McGovern to discuss the role the U.S. and NATO have played in Ukraine. McGovern has long been an outspoken critic of what he’s coined as the American Military-Industrial-Co...

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