Town Hall Seattle Civics Series artwork

Town Hall Seattle Civics Series

409 episodes - English - Latest episode: 16 days ago - ★★★★ - 11 ratings

The Civics series at Town Hall shines a light on the shifting issues, movements, and policies, that affect our society, both locally and globally. These events pose questions and ideas, big and small, that have the power to inform and impact our lives. Whether it be constitutional research from a scholar, a new take on history, or the birth of a movement, it's all about educating and empowering.

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Episodes

302. Anand Giridharadas with Naomi Ishisaka: Progressive Change Through the Art of Persuasion

November 09, 2022 23:23 - 1 hour - 93.6 MB

It can be said that the lifeblood of any free society is persuasion: changing other people’s minds in order to change things. But what happens when people increasingly write one another off instead of seeking to win one another over? Journalist and Town Hall alumni Anand Giridharadas contends that America is suffering a crisis of faith in persuasion that is putting its democracy and the planet itself at risk. Debates are framed in moralistic terms, with enemies battling the righteous. Mo...

301. Ruha Benjamin with Jazmyn Scott and Vivian Phillips: How We Grow the World We Want

November 03, 2022 18:32 - 1 hour - 79.7 MB

Can the choices you make on a daily basis transform society? Sociologist and Princeton professor Dr. Ruha Benjamin thinks so, and has the research to support the idea. Dr. Benjamin’s groundbreaking research on race, technology, and justice spanned years and focused primarily on larger, structural changes. But the scourges of COVID-19 and anti-Black police violence inspired Dr. Benjamin to rethink the importance of small, individual actions. Her new book Viral Justice offers a sweeping, dee...

300. Cody Keenan with Marcus Harrison Green: Putting Words in the President’s Mouth

October 27, 2022 19:13 - 1 hour - 70.6 MB

What is it like to be the mouthpiece for the President of the United States? You or I may have found ourselves stressed about writing an essay or sending a letter, but imagine having to craft sentences that the entire nation — and much of the world — will hear. Grace: President Obama and Ten Days in the Battle for America is the latest release by Cody Keenan, Barack Obama’s chief speechwriter. The book features an account of what were arguably the ten most dramatic days of the presidency: ...

299. Robin D.G. Kelley with Reagan Jackson - Freedom Dreams: The 20th Anniversary

October 19, 2022 17:45 - 1 hour - 80.2 MB

It was in 2002 that Robin D.G. Kelley published Freedom Dreams, a history of renegade intellectuals and artists of the African diaspora throughout the twentieth century. The book presented a premise that the catalyst for political engagement is not oppression or misery, but hope. From Aimé and Suzanne Césaire, to Paul Robeson and Malcolm X, to Jayne Cortez, the book unearthed histories of these and other Black radicals who dared to dream of a brighter future. It tackled topics such as surrea...

298. Peniel E. Joseph with Naomi Ishisaka - The Racial Reckoning of the Third Reconstruction

October 12, 2022 19:58 - 1 hour - 86.4 MB

One of the most profoundly human experiences that most of us share, at some point in our lives, is the feeling that we are living through a monumental shift; the feeling that something socially, culturally, or politically is changing, and we are participating in — and making — history. In his latest work, distinguished professor and historian Dr. Peniel E. Joseph asserts that the modern-day struggle to attain equality for Black Americans is as momentous as those of the post-Civil War and...

297. Margaret McKeown and Sally Jewell - The SCOTUS Steward: The Environmental Legacy of William O. Douglas

October 05, 2022 21:39 - 1 hour - 83.3 MB

Long before “going green” became a hashtag, people like William O. Douglas were on the front lines of the environmental justice movement. Despite being known for some notable accomplishments — for example, the fact that he was the longest serving U.S. Supreme Court justice, having sat from 1939-1975 — Douglas largely remained an unsung environmental advocate. Author and U.S. Court of Appeals Judge M. Margaret McKeown’s new book, Citizen Justice: The Environmental Legacy of William O. Dougl...

296. Michael Mandelbaum with Jacqueline Miller: How America Became the World’s Sole Hyperpower

August 10, 2022 23:17 - 1 hour - 85.1 MB

With its massive economy and military budget, America is the world’s most powerful country. How did the U.S. come to have so much power to affect nations and people around the globe? How did the country achieve this status over the past 250 years? Michael Mandelbaum helps us understand how the U.S. got here through the evolution of its foreign policy. In his latest book, The Four Ages of American Foreign Policy, he divides U.S. history into four distinct periods, each defined by a consiste...

295. M. Nolan Gray with Shaun Scott: How Zoning Broke the American City

July 13, 2022 21:38 - 1 hour - 57.4 MB

With exponential growth in the Seattle area, demand and costs for housing are high and availability is low. Affordable housing is difficult for so many to come by, and the region is feeling more than just growing pains; it’s in crisis. In Seattle, most residential areas are zoned for single-family homes, restricting the ability to increase housing density and provide more affordable housing options. Are there new housing solutions that can accommodate everyone? As regions across the countr...

294. Antong Lucky with Beverly Aarons: A Former Gang Founder’s Path to Peace

June 29, 2022 23:23 - 1 hour - 61.9 MB

The fight for racial justice within the U.S. criminal legal system — and the call for its reform — has intensified in recent years. Studies show that Black Americans are almost five times as likely to be incarcerated than whites. Can our society be transformed? The story of the formerly incarcerated gang founder and leader, Antong Lucky, reveals how peace, nonviolence, and societal change are possible. The child of an incarcerated father, Lucky grew up in a poor, crime-ridden neighborhood ...

293. Francis Fukuyama with Eric Liu: The Discontents of Liberalism

June 22, 2022 18:20 - 57 minutes - 54.1 MB

As a philosophy that means different things to different people and groups, it can be hard to know what liberalism stands for. Traditionally, liberalism is viewed as a political and moral philosophy based on individual rights, civil liberties, democracy, and free enterprise. In the 1990s and 2000s, democracy spread and markets prospered, and it seemed like the continuing expansion of liberal values was assured. But recent years have revealed major challenges to liberalism from both the right...

292. Levi Vonk with Courtney Hudak: Treachery, Trafficking, and Two Friends on the Run

June 15, 2022 10:00 - 59 minutes - 55.2 MB

In 2015, anthropologist and writer Levi Vonk found himself on a journey filled with twists, turns, and a chance meeting that would forever impact his life. With a desire to report on the dangerous realities faced by Guatemalans as they fled civil and economic instability in their home country, Vonk joined a migrant caravan making its way into Mexico. On the trip, he met Axel Kirschner, a man who grew up in New York but was deported to Guatemala after being identified as undocumented during a...

291. Monica De La Torre with Gabriel Teodros: Building Community Through Radio in the Yakima Valley

June 08, 2022 21:41 - 57 minutes - 53.6 MB

Beginning in the 1970s Chicana and Chicano organizers turned to community radio broadcasting to educate, entertain, and uplift Mexican American listeners across the United States. In rural areas, radio emerged as the most effective medium for reaching relatively isolated communities such as migrant farmworkers. And in Washington’s Yakima Valley, where the media landscape was dominated by perspectives favorable to agribusiness, community radio for and about farmworkers became a life-sustainin...

290. Erin L. Thompson with Sarah Mirk: The Turbulent History of American Monuments

June 01, 2022 21:54 - 57 minutes - 54 MB

Hundreds of public monuments have come down during the social and racial reckoning currently sweeping our country. And while Seattle has not been at the epicenter of the furor over public monuments, there have been heated discussions over the monument to Confederate soldiers in a Capitol Hill cemetery and a statue of Vladimir Lenin in Fremont. In the United States, the issue of what to do with public monuments has been very polarizing. Why do we care so much about these statues? In her boo...

289. Gish Jen with Daniel Tam-Claiborne: Thank You, Mr. Nixon

May 26, 2022 00:06 - 58 minutes - 54.7 MB

In 1972, Richard Nixon made a historic visit to China. The trip broke 25 years of silence between the U.S. and China, paving the way for the establishment of full diplomatic relations later in the decade. Around the same time, second-generation Chinese American Gish Jen started writing; she first visited China with her family in 1979, the experience undoubtedly shaping her identity as both a Chinese American and a writer. Jen’s latest book, Thank You, Mr. Nixon, collected 11 stories spann...

288. Lily Geismer with Margaret O’Mara: How Democrats Have Failed to Solve Income Inequality

May 18, 2022 22:47 - 55 minutes - 52.3 MB

It’s sometimes easy to forget that the U.S. has reached its present state over decades and centuries of political decision-making, not just a handful of years. Every move builds on the last, doing and undoing the work of former leadership while facing new crises on top of the old. Is it possible to call out poor policy choices of the past, understand how things went awry, and take meaningful steps forward without partisan finger-pointing? In her new book, Left Behind, political historian L...

287. Robert W. Gehl and Sean T. Lawson: Propaganda, Deception, and the Manipulation of Information

May 10, 2022 19:53 - 1 hour - 57.9 MB

The United States is awash in manipulated information about everything from election results to the effectiveness of medical treatments. Corporate social media is a particularly effective channel for manipulative communication — Facebook being a particularly willing vehicle for it, as evidenced by the increased use of warning labels on false or misleading posts. Not to mention the inconsistent, confusing, and controversy-stirring ways that comments and posts are moderated in social media s...

286. Mónica Guzmán with David Horsey: How to Stay Fearlessly Curious in Divided Times

May 04, 2022 20:44 - 1 hour - 60.9 MB

There’s no way around it — it’s a challenging time in America. Societies have lived through pandemics and political strife before, but never with powerful tools like social media and the Internet. It makes for a special brand of division that most of us have experienced in some way, from dinner table arguments with relatives to heated interactions at the grocery store. Have we forgotten how to interact and connect, despite our differences? Journalist Mónica Guzmán knows the struggle all ...

285. Howard Zehr and Barb Toews with Omari Amili and Freddie Nole: Stories and Portraits of Life Sentences in Prison

April 28, 2022 03:31 - 1 hour - 61 MB

Each night in the United States, more than 200,000 people incarcerated in state and federal prisons — 1 in 7 prisoners — will go to sleep facing the reality that they may die without ever returning home. In 1996, criminal justice activist and photographer Howard Zehr published Doing Life, a book of photo portraits of individuals serving life sentences without the possibility of parole at a prison in Pennsylvania. The book gave a voice to the human beings in front of the camera lens, reveal...

284. Patrick Sylvain, Jalene Tamerat, and Marie Lily Cerat with Danielle McKoy: Immigration, Race, and Identity in the Classroom

April 20, 2022 20:36 - 1 hour - 57.7 MB

Students today face a barrage of stressors that impact every corner of their lives, from academic and social stress to family dynamics and personal trauma. The added layers of non-inclusive school environments, along with the unique challenges of immigrant and first-generation students, only contribute to students’ stress and anxiety. In their new book, Education Across Borders, educators and co-authors Patrick Sylvain, Jalene Tamerat, and Marie Lily Cerat contended that the practices and ...

283. Thom Hartmann: The Hidden History of Big Brother in America

April 13, 2022 21:43 - 57 minutes - 53.9 MB

Most Americans are well aware that companies like Facebook are harvesting our data, but do we fully understand how their information is being used — and misused? In his new book, The Hidden History of Big Brother in America, radio host and bestselling author Thom Hartmann revealed exactly how the government and corporations track our online moves and use our data to buy elections, employ social control, and monetize our lives. Hartmann traced the history of surveillance and social control,...

282. Laura Shin with Steve Scher: The Making of the Cryptocurrency Craze

April 07, 2022 00:30 - 1 hour - 73.3 MB

Cryptocurrency has been making steady waves — no doubt because of its almost too-good-to-pass-up promise of fortune that isn’t consistently regulated or controlled by any single authority. And while Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have gone through booms and busts, they aren’t going anywhere: at the time of this writing, the value of all crypto assets is estimated at $3 trillion. In her new book, The Cryptonians, journalist Laura Shin described how cryptocurrency experienced a downturn ...

281. Elie Mystal with Shaun Scott: A Black Guy’s Guide to the Constitution

March 30, 2022 12:00 - 1 hour - 56.9 MB

Casual political discussions are anything but easy to navigate. Committing each of the 4,500+ words in the U.S. Constitution to memory and interpreting them effectively in conversation is a near-futile effort for the average American. To effectively engage in discussions — and often, arguments — about American politics, we might think we need a law degree; but perhaps what we need is a sharper, more accessible lens through which to interpret the U.S. Constitution. The Nation contributor an...

280. Nick Timiraos with David Wessel: How Jay Powell and the Fed Prevented Economic Disaster

March 24, 2022 01:35 - 57 minutes - 53.4 MB

The inner workings of the Federal Reserve System are an enigma to most of us. But as the early months of 2020 unfolded with a massive public health crisis, huge drops in the stock market, and millions of jobs lost, the actions of the Federal Reserve were critical in preventing sudden economic disaster. Nick Timiraos, chief economics correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, took readers behind the scenes of the Federal Reserve in his new book, Trillion Dollar Triage. Through extensive res...

279. Erik Larson with Mary Ann Gwinn—The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz

March 16, 2022 20:04 - 58 minutes - 54.9 MB

Bestselling author Erik Larson is widely known for masterful works of narrative nonfiction, and has a particular penchant for drawing a certain richness from historical snapshots — the kinds of topics typically relegated to the footnotes of conventional history books. In a 2020 interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Larson said, “My mission is to try to create as rich a historical experience as I can for the reader, so that when they’re done with the book, they come out of it feeling like ...

278. Tiffanie Drayton with Krystal A. Sital: Black Womanhood and the Toll of Racism

March 09, 2022 11:00 - 59 minutes - 55.9 MB

In the early ’90s, young Tiffanie Drayton and her siblings left Trinidad and Tobago to join their mother in New Jersey, where she’d been making her way as a domestic worker, eager to give her children a shot at the American Dream. At first, life in the U.S. was idyllic. But chasing good school districts with affordable housing left Tiffanie and her family constantly uprooted – moving from Texas to Florida then back to New Jersey. As Tiffanie came of age in the suburbs, she began to ask quest...

277. Jacob Mchangama with C.E. Bick: A History of Free Speech from Socrates to Social Media

March 02, 2022 11:00 - 57 minutes - 53.8 MB

Freedom of speech or expression is a fundamental element of democracy around the globe. Many countries have adopted constitutional laws that protect free speech; it’s also recognized as an international human rights law by the United Nations. But (and there’s always a but) free speech isn’t cut and dry, and interpretation of the not-so-simple right can vary from region to region and during times of social or political unrest. Danish lawyer and human rights advocate Jacob Mchangama has been...

276. Howard W. French with Drego Little: A Vital Reframing of World History

February 24, 2022 02:22 - 58 minutes - 54.4 MB

When we think about how the “modern world” came to be, history tends to focus on Eurocentric milestones: The Age of Discovery, which centered the expeditions of seafaring European explorers; the scientific contributions of great thinkers like Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton, Descartes, and Galileo; and countless other narratives centered on Western achievements. But despite attempts to push an entire continent to the outskirts of global history, as Howard W. French argued in his new book Born in...

275. Jules Boykoff with Bill Radke: A Critical Take on Sports and Capitalism

February 17, 2022 00:56 - 1 hour - 57.5 MB

The Olympic Games are no stranger to political controversy; a look back at over a century of modern Olympic history reveals countless boycotts, scandals, and international conflicts. Jules Boykoff, professor of political science, writer, and former professional and Olympic soccer player, is no stranger to writing about the Games through a critical lens. Bolstered by extensive research and first-hand experience, his latest book, NOlympians: Inside the Fight Against Capitalist Mega-Sports in L...

274. Diane C. Fujino and Robyn Magalit Rodriguez: A Contemporary Look at Asian American Activism

February 09, 2022 11:00 - 1 hour - 56.7 MB

Can we transform our society through unruly resistance, defiant love, and radical care? Two highly respected and widely-published scholars, Diane C. Fujino and Robyn Magalit Rodriguez, think it’s possible. In their new book, Contemporary Asian American Activism: Building Movements for Liberation, they brought together stories of lived experiences, lessons, and triumphs from grassroots Asian American organizers and scholar-activists fighting for transformative justice. In the struggles for...

273. David Cay Johnston with Sarah Reyneveld: How Donald Trump Fleeced America

February 02, 2022 22:55 - 57 minutes - 53.7 MB

It’s not uncommon for commentary about former president Trump’s spending habits to be met with raised eyebrows and stifled chuckles; soundbites about golf resorts and hotel empires induce a special kind of side-eye when they pop in and out of the news. But beyond anecdotes, most Americans probably don’t know the colossal extent of Trump’s spending. How bad was it? Bad, argued Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter David Cay Johnston. According to Johnston, Trump’s self-beneficial money machine s...

272. Jeffrey S. Sutton with Joe Nguyen—State v. Federal: Who Decides the Law?

January 28, 2022 11:00 - 1 hour - 56.5 MB

In September of 2021, Senate Bill 8 passed in the state of Texas. With it, some of the most restrictive abortion regulations in the country were enacted into law, going against the constitutional rights established in the landmark Supreme Court case of Roe v. Wade. Such a critical legal interpretation can prompt review of the perennial question: who should get to decide on major questions of public policy today — the federal government, or state courts and state constitutions? The Honorab...

271. Gregg Mitman with Kerri Arsenault: How Liberia Was Transformed Into America’s Rubber Empire

January 26, 2022 11:00 - 1 hour - 58.2 MB

Rubber is one of those things that goes unnoticed most days, even though our modern lives depend on it for building supplies, medical and industrial equipment, and so many things that help us get around. Despite its tendency to fade into the background, the story of rubber, particularly U.S. rubber, is one worth noticing. In the early 1920s, Americans owned 80 percent of the world’s automobiles and consumed 75 percent of the world’s rubber. At the same time, global demand for rubber skyrocke...

270. Timothy Frye with Michael Rawding: How Putin’s Russia Really Works

January 19, 2022 21:06 - 59 minutes - 55.6 MB

When it comes to Russian politics, public discussion tends to zero in on either Russia’s unique history and culture or the omnipotence of Vladimir Putin, who has held positions of power in the country since 1999. But based on over 30 years of research and first-hand experience, scholar Timothy Frye’s latest book, Weak Strongman, suggests that Russian politics extend far beyond the authority of Putin. Thanks to decades of experiences that offer a rare glimpse into the many complexities of R...

269. erin Khuê Ninh with Takeo Rivera: Model Minority Identity and the Pressure for Excellence

January 15, 2022 05:18 - 1 hour - 63.2 MB

In 2007, Azia Kim pretended to be a Stanford freshman and even lived in the school’s dormitory for several months. In 2010, Jennifer Pan hired a hitman to kill her parents after they found out she had been deceiving them about her educational successes. Why would someone make such an illogical choice? And how do they stage such convincing lies for so long? erin Khuê Ninh considered what drives people to such extreme lengths in her book, Passing for Perfect: College Impostors and Other ...

268. Keisha N. Blain with LaNesha DeBardelaben: What a New Generation of Activists Can Learn from Fannie Lou Hamer

January 12, 2022 21:21 - 1 hour - 58.4 MB

Fannie Lou Hamer was born in 1917, the youngest of 20 children in a family of Mississippi sharecroppers. Black, poor, disabled by polio, and forced to leave school early to support her family, she lived what seems like a lifetime of oppression by the time she reached young adulthood. As she continued to work and live in the south during the 1950s and 1960s, she became interested in — and later heavily involved in — the Civil Rights Movement. Despite the insurmountable challenges she faced (s...

267. Joshua Prager with Kiana Scott: The Family Roe

January 05, 2022 21:28 - 1 hour - 65.9 MB

In the 1973 landmark Roe v. Wade legal case, the United States Supreme Court voted 7-2 to affirm the right to get an abortion. Despite both the colossal impact of the case and her famous pseudonym, few know the full story of Norma McCorvey: the “Jane Roe” in Roe v. Wade. Joshua Prager, a journalist with a penchant for writing about historical secrets, shared over a decade of meticulous research about McCorvey and a complex cast of characters in his new book, The Family Roe. Prager traced ...

266. Ryan Busse with Bill Radke: A look into the U.S. gun industry with a former firearms executive

December 22, 2021 20:48 - 1 hour - 59.4 MB

Ryan Busse is an avid hunter, outdoorsman, conservationist, and gun owner. He built a successful career as a firearms executive and helped grow one of the biggest gun companies in the country. But he claims that something in the gun industry shifted — so much so that Busse walked away from his 30-year career to address the intolerance, internal policing, and secrecy that seemed to be steadily growing in the industry. In Gunfight: My Battle Against the Industry that Radicalized America, Bus...

265. Beth Simone Noveck with Eric Klinenberg: Solving Public Problems

December 15, 2021 11:00 - 59 minutes - 55.1 MB

Many of our current public institutions are trying to solve today’s problems by using outdated, cumbersome tools of the past. It’s no wonder that many of our public institutions are failing; the tools needed to tackle the complex societal challenges of today, from climate change to systemic racism, require a long-overdue upgrade. In Solving Public Problems, author Beth Simone Noveck offered a radical but practical rethinking of the tools that public servants, students, activists, and leade...

264. David Wessel—Only the Rich Can Play: How Washington Works in the New Gilded Age

December 08, 2021 21:18 - 52 minutes - 49.3 MB

The Trump-era Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) was passed in December of 2017; the tax code hadn’t seen such a massive overhaul in over 30 years. Bobbing along in a sea of sweeping changes sits the unassuming, pleasant-sounding “Opportunity Zone”— a type of investment with the potential to spur economic growth and job creation in “economically-distressed” communities, rewarding investors in those communities with substantial tax breaks. But, as David Wessel explained in his new book, Only the R...

263. Derecka Purnell with Nikkita Oliver and Darnell L. Moore: Becoming Abolitionists

December 01, 2021 22:10 - 1 hour - 56 MB

The police cannot be reformed. This is the assertion of human rights lawyer Derecka Purnell. Instead, she believes, new systems need to be created to address the root causes of violence. Since the police cannot be reformed, they should be abolished. In Becoming Abolitionists, Purnell highlighted social movements and activists through time and space, the lessons learned from them, and the elements of policing that no longer serve us. From South Africa to Ferguson, Missouri (where the Black ...

262. Todd Litman—New Mobilities: Planning for the Future of Transportation

November 18, 2021 00:04 - 59 minutes - 55.1 MB

Did you get to work on an e-bike? Go to meet your friends at the restaurant on a scooter? Go to your vacation get-away on an air taxi? There are more and more ways to get from point A to point B. But what impact do all these new technologies have? What are the benefits and the costs? Transportation expert Todd Litman tried to answer these questions in New Mobilities. Litman examined 12 emerging transportation modes and services that are likely to affect our lives: bike- and car-sharing, mi...

261. Claudia Goldin with Kiana Scott: The Century-Long Fight to Close the Gender Pay Gap

November 10, 2021 22:46 - 1 hour - 61.3 MB

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, women still make 82 cents for every dollar earned by a man. The gap is even wider for women of color. Black women were paid 63% of what non-Hispanic white men were paid in 2019. It takes a Black woman 19 months to earn what the average white man takes home in 12 months. In her new book, Career and Family, renowned economic historian Claudia Goldin traced women’s journey to close the gender wage gap and highlights today’s continued struggles for eq...

260. Keith Boykin: America’s Overdue Reckoning with Systemic Racism

November 03, 2021 08:00 - 57 minutes - 53.9 MB

Four crises have faced America in the recent past: the Covid-19 pandemic, the sweeping economic downturn because of it, the strengthening Black Lives Matter movement, and the shaky foundations of democracy under the Trump administration. All those crises came to a head in the murder of George Floyd. He was infected with Covid-19 at the time of his death. He had been laid off from the restaurant he worked at. He was a victim of racism in a time when the President all but tried to erase the wo...

259. Tom Standage with Mark Harris: A Brief History of Motion

October 27, 2021 21:48 - 1 hour - 60.5 MB

Horse poop propelled us into automobiles. In the early 20th century there were health concerns over all the manure taking up urban streets. That said, we shifted from an actual horse’s power to shifting into Fords and all sorts of other mechanical personal vehicles. By doing that, we reshaped cities and, further, human society. In A Brief History of Motion, journalist Tom Standage gave a brisk, entertaining look at how we got from point A to point B throughout history. From the origins of ...

258. Rob Reich, Mehran Sahami, and Jeremy M. Weinstein with Lauren Sato: How to Reboot Big Tech

October 21, 2021 00:05 - 1 hour - 69.1 MB

It took no time at all. In the beginning, we looked at computers and the internet with wide eyes and open arms. It was a technology of liberating potential for us all. Now, it is arguably a dystopia: a dark monolith of algorithms, surveillance, criminality, and job-displacing robots. Three Stanford professors with long careers in the tech industry, know of the shadows of these tangled webs—they shined a light on them, and offered some hope with System Error. It doesn’t have to be this way...

257. Evan Osnos and Eric M. Johnson: American Fury, from 9/11 to 1/6

October 13, 2021 22:27 - 59 minutes - 55.6 MB

We are all connected. We are all far apart. This is our American reality as we all become more and more polarized. Inequities of wealth, class, and culture are pulling us further away as we struggle to define what America is, was, and should be. In Wildland, Evan Osnos focuses on three places he’s lived in the United States: Greenwich, Connecticut, where Wall Street tycoons gut the heartland’s economy for their own profit; Clarksburg, West Virginia, where opioid abuse is rampant and white ...

256. Gene Slater with Jay Reich: How Realtors Conspired to Segregate America

October 06, 2021 22:49 - 1 hour - 56.8 MB

Fair housing has never been that fair. In fact, in California at one point, realtors successfully campaigned for a California constitutional amendment that would permanently prohibit fair housing. In the process, they created the script of color-blind freedom that polarizes America on issue after issue today. Realtors helped invent “the American Dream,” while systematically denying it to millions of Americans. Gene Slater’s Freedom to Discriminate makes note of racial deed restrictions, ho...

255. Suchitra Vijayan with Dr. Amrita Ghosh: Intimate stories from India’s disputed border

September 29, 2021 21:03 - 1 hour - 68.2 MB

India’s border meanders over 9,000 miles from Pakistan to Myanmar, crossing desert, fertile plains, rivers, and snow-capped mountains. India’s border is also the site of a massive crisis of statelessness, with hundreds of thousands of people stripped of their citizenship and entangled in the region’s ever-shifting— and often arbitrary— boundaries. Suchitra Vijayan took us to the thick of it in her book Midnight’s Borders: A People’s History of Modern India, detailing seven years of travel ...

254. Tracy Swinton Bailey: A True Story of Hope in the Fight for Child Literacy

September 22, 2021 18:09 - 42 minutes - 40 MB

Arguably the single most essential aspect of a good education is literacy. “To learn to read is to light a fire,” Victor Hugo wrote. By becoming literate, one develops a whole host of skills that allows one to develop potential and success in society; skills including critical thinking, self-discipline, curiosity, empathy, motivation, and leadership. The fire has been hard to come by for many of our nation’s vulnerable children. Tracy Swinton Bailey knows this all too well and has taken step...

253. Thom Hartmann: Replacing America’s “Sickness for Profit” Healthcare System

September 15, 2021 23:28 - 50 minutes - 46.9 MB

“For-profit health insurance is the largest con job ever perpetrated on the American people—one that has cost trillions of dollars and millions of lives since the 1940s,” says popular progressive radio host Thom Hartmann. The New York Times bestselling author returned to Town Hall with the latest installment of his “hidden history” series, The Hidden History of American Healthcare: Why Sickness Bankrupts You and Makes Others Insanely Rich. He explored how attempts to implement affordable u...

Guests

Eric Liu
2 Episodes
Naomi Klein
1 Episode
Shane Bauer
1 Episode

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