Nukes – How do we deal with North Korea, Iran, Russia, and Trump?
Remember 2015 when the big nuclear weapons news was the deal negotiated by the Obama administration with Iran? Why is the UN now voicing fears of catastrophe? What role is the new Trump administration playing in the escalation of provocation? Are the UN’s fears real and if so, what can we do about it? JOE CIRINCIONE is President of the Ploughshares Fund which supports people and organizations working to reduce and eventually eliminate the dangers posed by nuclear weapons.

NEW SHOW!
Prior to the Institute for New Economic Thinking, Rob Johnson served as Chief Economist of the US Senate Banking Committee and a DIrector at Soros Fund Management. He also worked in the music and film industries (Exec Producer, Oscar winning doc, Taxi to the Dark Side). “The concentration of wealth and power that created a twin crisis of representation – in politics and in expertise – set the stage for Donald Trump’s election victory, and has put America’s founding principles at risk.”

https://www.ineteconomics.org/research/experts/rjohnson

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, “The number of hate groups in the United States rose for a second year in a row in 2016 as the radical right was energized by the candidacy of Donald Trump.” Of a spike in reported incidents of “hate” violence, SPLC reports, “37% of them directly referenced either President Trump, his campaign slogans, or his infamous remarks about sexual assault.” CHIP BERLET has investigated hate groups, theocratic fundamentalism, civil liberties violations, police misconduct, surveillance abuse, other anti-democratic phenomena.

http://www.chipberlet.net/

Currently organizing where he grew up in Lancaster PA (as a Menonite), he was involved with Occupy Wall Street and has a lot to say about what worked and what we can learn from what didn’t. Example: The rituals of assembly ended up standing in for strategy, becoming an end rather than a means. Smucker questions the left’s tendency to identify as “the righteous few”, where purity can become an obstacle to amassing enough power to win. He doesn’t use the term “activist” because he believes that (self-)identification separates fighting for peace and justice from the rest of life, and creates an us which can leave out others. Insightful stuff.

https://jonathansmucker.org

Originally Aired April 2012
CHRIS MOONEY wrote the best-selling THE REPUBLICAN WAR ON SCIENCE in 2005. This book asks a deeper question. Does science have anything to teach us about why? And it turns out science does. Political parties reflect psychological needs – GOP wedded to certainty, Dems to novelty – and there lies at least one root of our divide.

http://chrismooneybooks.com