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Archive 11: 2018

Shows Available from Pirate Television

Pirate Television is a weekly 58 min television program nationally syndicated on Free Speech TV.  In addition it is broadcast on Seattle Community Media and several  Public Access stations in the US.  Pirate TV challenges the Media Blockade by bringing you alternative information and independent programming that is unavailable on the Corporate Sponsor-Ship.  The show features talks, interviews and documentaries.  The purpose of Pirate TV is to put back what corporate media filter out.

These links are to the online version of these programs which are usually longer than the broadcast versions. Some of the material seen on Pirate TV is obtained from other sources but most of it is locally produced and owned by us.  We are offering to sell copies of this material to support the operation.  If you would like to support the Pirate Television project you can obtain a copy of any of these discs for a $20 donation (includes postage) in advance.  To obtain videotapes or DVDs, contact us first by email:

PirateTVSeattle(at)gmail.com

We like to expand Pirate Television to other broadcast venues.  If you would like to get on the Pirate Television schedule notification list-serve, or if you have questions, drop us a line.

Shows are listed in reverse cronological order:

Randy Shaw: A Generation Priced Out, Monday 12/31, Thurs. 1pm, Sat. Morning 12am on SCM

Many real estate experts around the country warn us that trends of skyrocketing rents and home values are pricing the working and middle classes out of urban America. Randy Shaw, Director of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic, offers insight from his book Generation Priced Out: Who Gets to Live in the New Urban America. Shaw exposes how baby boomer homeowners restrict millennials’ access to housing in big cities and criticizes cities for advancing policies that increase economic and racial inequality. He meets with Seattle journalist and Evergrey co-founder Mónica Guzmán for a conversation about the factors faced by growing urban areas across the country. Shaw asserts that neighborhood gentrification is not inevitable and presents proven measures for cities to preserve and expand their working- and middle-class populations and achieve more equitable and inclusive outcomes. Join Shaw and Guzmán for an urgent conversation about reforming the places we live and building an equitable future for urban America.

Randy Shaw is the Director of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic, San Francisco’s leading provider of housing for homeless single adults. His previous books include The Activist’s Handbook: Winning Social Change in the 21st Century and The Tenderloin: Sex, Crime and Resistance in the Heart of San Francisco.

Mónica Guzmán is a Seattle journalist and co-founder of The Evergrey. Her work has appeared in numerous publications, including GeekWire, The Daily Beast, the Columbia Journalism Review, and The Seattle Times.

Thanks to Town Hall Seattle & Elliott Bay Books
Recorded 12/6/18

David Reich: Who We Are and How We Got Here, Monday 12/24, Thurs. 1pm, Sat. Morning 12am on SCM

The genomic revolution is transforming our understanding of modern humans. Geneticists like David Reich have made astounding advances in genomics, which is proving to be as important a field as archeology or linguistics for understanding our ancestry. Reich arrives at Town Hall to enlighten us with provocative research and unparalleled scientific studies that have yielded revolutionary findings—compiled in his book Who We Are and How We Got Here. He reveals the hidden story of our species, offering insight on DNA studies that reveal deep inequalities among different populations, between the sexes, and among individuals. Reich suggests that there might very well be biological differences among human populations—many of which are unlikely to conform to common stereotypes. Join Reich for a captivating glimpse into the origins of humankind, and a chance to apply the genetic findings of the past to our lives today.

David Reich is Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, with a reputation as one of the world’s leading pioneers in analyzing ancient human DNA. In a 2015 article in Nature, he was named one of ten people who matter in all of the sciences for his contribution to transforming ancient DNA data “from niche pursuit to industrial process.” Awards he has received include the Newcomb Cleveland Prize from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, as well as the Dan David Prize in the Archaeological and Natural Sciences for his computational discovery of intermixing between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens.

Thanks to Town Hall Seattle
Recorded 10/17/18

Shane Bauer: The Business of Punishment, Monday 12/17, Thurs. 1pm, Sat. Morning 12am on SCM

In 2014, Shane Bauer was hired for $9 an hour to work as an entry-level prison guard at a private prison in Winnfield, Louisiana. There was no meaningful background check, and he used his real name despite his notoriety as an award-winning investigative journalist. Four months later he had seen enough, and in short order he left to write an exposé that won a National Magazine Award and became the most-read feature in the history of the magazine Mother Jones. Bauer joins us with excerpts from his book American Prisons: A Reporter’s Undercover Journey into the Business of Punishment to weave a much deeper reckoning with his experiences. He shares his insider account of the private prison system, revealing how these establishments are not incentivized to tend to the health or safety of their inmates. Join Bauer for his blistering indictment of the private prison system and the powerful forces that drive it, and learn the sobering truth about the true face of justice in America.

Shane Bauer is a senior reporter for Mother Jones. He is the recipient of the National Magazine Award for Best Reporting, Harvard’s Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting, Atlantic Media’s Michael Kelly Award, the Hillman Prize for Magazine Journalism, and at least 20 others. Bauer is the co-author, along with Sarah Shourd and Joshua Fattal, of a memoir, A Sliver of Light, which details his time spent as a prisoner in Iran.

Thanks to Town Hall Seattle, & University Bookstore
Recorded 9/25/18

Dr. Tilman Ruff: Safeguarding Health and Banning Nuclear Weapons, Monday 12/10, Thurs. 1pm, Sat. Morning 12am on SCM

Unknown to many people in the US, in June 2017, the United Nations made history with the passage of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, an effort led by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN). ICAN's efforts won them the Nobel Peace Prize. Finally, over 70 years after the tragic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nuclear weapons are declared illegal under international law. 

WPSR is hosted Dr. Tilman Ruff to discuss this remarkable achievement, and the importance of the humanitarian and health perspective on nuclear weapons issues. Dr. Ruff is a co-founder of ICAN, and co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. His talk comes at a crucial moment, when our own unpredictable government reminds us of the urgency to prevent nuclear catastrophe. 

Dr. Ruff spent a considerable amount of time illuminating the latest science on the effects that even a small nuclear exchange such as between India & Pakistan would have on the climate which would be massively worse than previously thought.

Dr. Ruff is Co-President of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW, Nobel Peace Prize recipient in 1985) and co-founder of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN, Nobel Peace Prize recipient in 2017). He is also Associate Professor at the University of Melbourne’s Nossal Institute for Global Health.

Thanks to the Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility
Recorded 11/8/18

At Home in the World, Monday 12/3, Thurs. 1pm, Sat. Morning 12am on SCM

The housing crisis is a climate crisis is a housing crisis.

No decision has a bigger impact on our carbon pollution than where we live: a lack of abundant and affordable housing pushes people out of the city, where their emissions are 2-4x as high (due to a lack of good transit, and larger dwellings).

Seattle is already home to many climate migrants, and in coming decades, the Northwest is likely to be one of the most climate-stable regions; many more people will need to move here.

If we care about Seattle being a progressive, sustainable city, we need more housing citywide, so our most vulnerable communities aren’t the only ones asked to support newcomers. How can we plan for density that is equitable, and that makes our neighborhoods more vibrant, greener, and better able to support small business and frequent transit?

350Seattle.org hosted this discussion with some activists and policy makers on the cutting edge of the issues of housing and equity, in conversation about the options. How do we transform our cities to be more livable as we adapt to the realities of climate change?

Thanks to 350Seattle.org & Town Hall Seattle

Recorded 10/28/18


Steve Ellner: War on Venezuela, Monday 11/26, Thurs. 1pm, Sat. Morning 12am on SCM

The Venezuelan economy is being crippled by the sanctions the Western powers (US, Canada, European Union) have imposed on it. Sanctions impose heavy burdens on ordinary Venezuelans who are just trying to live their lives. Unilateral sanctions are illegal under international law.

Steve Ellner will discuss the impact of these sanctions and the impact of other factors (such as the drop in the price of oil, the reliance on oil exports, economic sabotage by the right-wing, mismanagement) on the Venezuelan people's lives.

Since 1977 Steve Ellner has taught economic history and political science at the Universidad de Oriente in Puerto La Cruz, Venezuela and for a ten year period taught in the graduate school of law and political science of the Universidad Central de Venezuela.

Thanks to US Women & Cuba Collaboration, Seattle Cuba Friendship Committee and LELO. Recorded 11/7/18

Teaching for Black Lives, Monday 11/19, Thurs. 1pm, Sat. Morning 12am on SCM

Slavery and the legacy of white supremacy has been called the “original sin” of the United States but the forces of the political right have long been striving to convince us that things are all better now as they systematically dismantle voting rights, affirmative action, equal opportunity, desegregation of public education, and all the hard fought gains of the civil rights era. Unfortunately lots of comfortable and not so comfortable white people believe it. After all, didn’t a black man win election to the highest office in the land? But the very nature of the far right backlash to President Obama and the open bigotry that Donald Trump has fanned to propel himself into office and uses to stir up his base demonstrate that racism and racial politics continues to be a fundamental force in the US. 

While all this may seem obvious, what about the more subtle aspects of structural and institutional racism that many white people are scarcely aware of at all -because it never happened to them? While “liberal” Seattle may not be the Deep South, this structural racism pervades every aspect of our society including our schools. This manifests in everything from the phony whitewashed history in textbooks called the “master narrative”, to stereotyping, to harsher punishment, to the school-to-prison pipeline. What if you were a young Black student growing up in this environment? What would that feel like and how would you react to it?

We’re going to hear the stories of some young high school seniors and then we are going to hear from cutting edge educators who are the editors of a new handbook they have created for teachers called Teaching for Black Lives to help propel sweeping reform of our education system and equitable teaching strategies for Black students. They call for educators everywhere to engage Black students in self-reflection and develop a curriculum that emphasizes community activism and social transformation.

Dyan Watson is a member of the Rethinking Schools executive board, as well as the social studies coordinator for the secondary program in teacher education at Lewis & Clark.

Jesse Hagopian teaches ethnic studies at Seattle’s Garfield High School where he is also co-adviser to the Black Student Union.

Wayne Au is a former public high school social studies and language arts teacher, as well as a professor in the School of Educational Studies at the University of Washington, Bothell campus.

Thanks to Town Hall Seattle & Elliott Bay Books
Recorded 10/24/18

Sayu Bhojwani: People Like Us, Monday 11/12, Thurs. 1pm, Sat. Morning 12am on SCM

America’s political leadership remains overwhelmingly white, male, moneyed, and Christian; even at the local and state levels, elected office is inaccessible to the people it aims to represent. But this trend is changing, says political scientist Sayu Bhojwani. She makes her way to Town Hall’s stage to share accounts of the diverse and persevering range of new politicians from across the country who are challenging the status quo, winning against all odds, and leaving a path for others to follow in their wake. She introduces us to these political newcomers with stories from her book People Like Us: The New Wave of Candidates Knocking at Democracy’s Door. Bhojwani meets with Sophia Jordán Wallace, professor of Political Science at the University of Washington. Together they shine a light on the political, systemic, and cultural roadblocks that have prevented government from effectively representing a rapidly changing America—and offer forward-thinking solutions on how to get rid of them. Join Bhojwani and Wallace for an inspiring story of the foreign-born, lower-income, and of-color Americans who are successfully taking on leadership roles to embody an inclusive and multiracial democracy that has been a long time in the making.

Sayu Bhojwani is an advocate, speaker, writer, and former Commissioner of Immigrant Affairs in New York City. She is the founder of South Asian Youth Action, and the founder and president of New American Leaders, the only national organization focused on preparing immigrant leaders to run for public office at the local and state levels.

Sophia Jordán Wallace is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Washington. She specializes in Latino Politics, representation, social movements, and immigration politics and policy. Her work has been published in the American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Politics, Political Research Quarterly, and many others.

Thanks to Town Hall Seattle & Third Place Books
Recorded 10/29/18

Vegas Tenold: Inside the Rebirth of White Nationalism in America, Monday 11/5, Thurs. 1pm, Sat. Morning 12am on SCM

A journalist born and raised in Norway, schooled in the U.S., with writing in such publications as the New York Times, Rolling Stone, New Republic, and Al Jazeera America, Vegas Tenold has long been covering the most ideologically extreme of the white nationalist groups. Tenold spent 7 years among these extremists interviewing skin heads, Nazis, and various Fascists and racist fringe groups, trying to find out what make them tick. His latest book, Everything You Love Will Burn: Inside the Rebirth of White Nationalism in America is a sobering, open-eyed look at these groups’ existence, and their growing emergence.

Thanks to Elliott Bay Books
Recorded 3/6/18

D.D. Guttenplan: The Rise of a New Radical Republic, Monday 10/29, Thurs. 1pm, Sat. Morning 12am on SCM

Who are the new progressive leaders emerging to lead the post-Trump return of democracy in America? National political correspondent and award-winning author D.D. Guttenplan steps up to introduce the next wave of successful activists who are changing the course of American history. With insight from his book The Next Republic: The Rise of a New Radical Majority he sheds light on the struggles faced by American democracy in recent years. Guttenplan highlights key moments in American history that remain relevant to current events, and profiles individuals working to preserve and embody a new and hopeful spirit for democracy in our country. Join Guttenplan for a thorough cross-examination of democracy—the magnitude of its problems and the new radical figures who are creating great possibilities for its resurgence.

D.D. Guttenplan served as the lead Nation election correspondent throughout the 2015-16 election season, traveling across the country throughout the primary season and attending the major speeches and rallies of all the candidates. His first book, The Holocaust on Trial, was highly praised in The New Yorker as well as other publications, and his biography of I.F. Stone, American Radical: The Life and Times of I.F. Stone won the Sperber Prize for Biography.

Thanks to Town Hall Seattle
Recorded 10/14/18

Chris Hedges: Corporate Totalitarianism: The End Game, Monday 10/22, Thurs. 1pm, Sat. Morning 12am on SCM

Pirate TV welcomes back Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges for the 6th time. In his current book, America: The Farewell Tour, Hedges, takes a close look at the array of pathologies that have arisen out of a profound malaise of hopelessness as the society disintegrates due to the "slow moving [corporate] Coup d'état" instituted by the ruling classes in the '70s in reaction to the activist movements and reforms of the '60s. This disintegration has resulted in an epidemic of diseases of despair and a civil society that has ceased to function. Hedges asserts that the opioid crisis, the rise of magical thinking, the celebration of sadism, and a host of other ills are the physical manifestations of a society ravaged by corporate pillage and a failed democracy. Join Hedges for a sobering discussion of the changing landscape of our country—and a poignant cry from communities across America that seeks to jolt us out of complacency while there is still time.

Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and former foreign correspondent for fifteen years for The New York Times where he served as the Middle East Bureau Chief and Balkan Bureau Chief. He previously worked overseas for The Dallas Morning News, The Christian Science Monitor, and NPR. He writes a weekly column for the online magazine Truthdig out of Los Angeles and is host of the Emmy Award­–winning RT America show “On Contact.” He is the author of the bestsellers American Fascists, Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt, and was a National Book Critics Circle finalist for War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning.

Thanks to Town Hall Seattle, Seattle University & Third Place Books
Recorded 10/8/18

Christopher Bollyn: Tricked Into War, Monday 10/15, Thurs. 1pm, Sat. Morning 12am on SCM

Investigative journalist and best selling author Chris Bollyn makes the case for why he believes the Israeli Zionist government was behind the 9/11 attack in order to trick the US into carrying out it’s agenda in the Middle East.

Recorded 9/22/18

Marcia Bjornerud: Timefulness, Geology for Saving the World, Monday 10/8, Thurs. 1pm, Sat. Morning 12am on SCM

As climate change rapidly accelerates into what long time Pirate TV guest, Dahr Jamail recently called the "end game", the amount of ignorance of this fact is nothing short of remarkable. This is not only testament to the power of propaganda generated by the richest and most powerful corporations in human history but of the dumbing down and general scientific illiteracy of the US public. Few people have any idea that the knowledge that enables scientists to generate the computer models that predict what is happening to the climate now comes from the study of mass extinction events that happened in Earth's ancient past. This knowledge comes from geology-- mostly the study of ice cores, rock cores, and sediment layers. This is not taught in schools unless you specifically take a geology class although it should be. It is also not something you are likely to encounter on your corporate brainwash tube.

Few of us have any conception of the enormous timescales of our planet’s long history. Geology professor and Fulbright Scholar Marcia Bjornerud outlines the ways in which our everyday lives are shaped by processes that vastly predate us—and in turn, how our habits will have consequences that will outlast us by generations. With insight from her book Timefulness: How Thinking Like a Geologist Can Help Save the World she reveals how knowing the rhythms of Earth’s deep past and conceiving of time as a geologist can give us the perspective we need for creating a more sustainable future. Join Bjornerud for a literal history of the world, and a treatise for building a more time-literate and ecologically considerate society.

See also: https://truthout.org/articles/brace-for-impact-as-the-climate-end-game-has-arrived/

Thanks to Seattle Town Hall and Third Place Books
Recorded 9/17/18

Cindy Domingo & Michael Withey: The Assassinations of Silme Domingo and Gene Viernes, Monday 10/1, Thurs. 1pm, Sat. Morning 12am on SCM

On June 1, 1981, two young Filipino activists - Silme Domingo and Gene Viernes - were murdered in Seattle in what was made to appear a gang slaying. The victims’ families and friends suspected they were considered a threat to Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos and his regime’s relationship to the United States and formed the Committee for Justice for Domingo and Viernes to investigate. As the investigation and court case wore on, it was exposed that the FBI, CIA, several other intelligence agencies, and the Reagan administration were involved in the assassinations at least by knowing in advance and ran the subsequent attempted cover-up.

Seattle human rights attorney and close friend to the slain men, Michael Withey, dropped out of law practice to pursue the case with the committee. His book, Summary Execution: The Seattle Assassinations of Silme Domingo and Gene Viernes, describes the ten-year struggle for justice and subsequent legal victory against the Marcos regime - the first time a foreign head of state has been held liable for a murder of U.S. citizens on U.S. soil.

Cindy Domingo, sister of Silme Domingo and co-founder of the Committee for Justice, speaks about the work of KDP, the only revolutionary organization that emerged in the Filipino American community during the politically turbulent 1970s and '80s. Her book, A Time to Rise: Collective Memoirs of the Union of Democratic Filipinos (KDP), is an intimate look into the workings of the KDP, which overcame cultural and class differences to band together in a single national organization to mobilize their community into civil rights and antiwar movements in the United States and to fight for democracy and national liberation in the Philippines and elsewhere.

Thanks to Elliott Bay Books
Recorded 9/13/18 

Peter Bohmer: Mexico at the Crossroads, Monday 9/24 8pm, Thurs. 1pm, Sat. 12am on SCM

Mexico at the Crossroads:
Indigenous social movements and the election of Andrés Manuel López Obrador

With the recent presidential election of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO), the potential for fundamental change is seen as a real possibility once again in Mexico.  Peter Bohmer, who just returned from a 3 month stay in southern Mexico with a class of students from the Evergreen Collage called Alternatives and Resistance to Global Capitalism, addressed current political, economic and indigenous struggles throughout Oaxaca and Chiapas and the meaning of the recent Mexican elections. Samuel Ramos a presenter from Cherán, Michoacán, spoke about autodefensas, community self-defense groups that have risen up against violent and repressive forces.  This event was presented by Economics for Everyone a community education project that has been running for 4 years in Olympia, WA.

Recorded 8/22/18
Thanks to Traditions Fair Trade Cafe & Economics for Everyone

Bill Moyer: Love Wins, Monday 9/10 8pm, Thurs. 1pm, Sat. 12am on SCM

This presentation, entitled “Love Wins - Grand Strategy in a Battle of Paradigms,” was recorded at the annual Ground Zero action commemorating the victims of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and all victims of war and violence. The talk weaves principles from Sun Tzu's "Art of War" and Col. John Boyd's "Grand Strategy Briefings" into lessons learned from 14 years of artful activism. Moyer’s discussion explores the protection of things that are beyond price, against forces that seek to commodify everything and everyone. Key concepts from Backbone's Theory of Change with case studies lay the foundation for growing a robust, vibrant, and sustainable social change that transcends “mere resistance to the profanities of corporatism, to deliver victories for our communities and future generations.”

Bill Moyer is a fourth-generation Washingtonian who lives with his wife and daughter in the woods of Vashon Island in the Salish Sea near Seattle. He co-founded the Backbone Campaign and has served as its executive director since 2004. A leader in the theory and practice of artful activism, Backbone combines lessons of the performing arts with grand strategic principles from the Art of War to invigorate nonviolent social change movements. Bill and his Backbone colleagues have designed and produced hundreds of creative protests and trained thousands of change agents. They have helped transform mundane demonstrations into cultural happenings with innovative tactics like spotlights to project messages onto buildings, and helped introduce the world to kayaktivism during the sHellNo! campaign to stop Arctic drilling.

Moyers directs the Solutionary Rail team, which he formed in order to plot a path for the United States to transform a broken and dangerous railroad business model into a catalyst for social and environmental solutions that can act as an integral component of a just transition to sustainable society. More on the Backbone Campaign can be found at its website, https://www.backbonecampaign.org/.

The Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action was founded in 1977. The Center sits on 3.8 acres adjoining the Trident submarine base at Bangor, Washington. The Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action offers the opportunity to explore the roots of violence and injustice in our world and to experience the transforming power of love through nonviolent direct action. They resist all nuclear weapons, especially the Trident ballistic missile system.

Thanks to the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action in Poulsbo, WA
Recorded 8/5/18

Dave Zirin: Last Man Standing, Monday 9/3 8pm, Thurs. 1pm, Sat. 12am on SCM

One of the most active, and activist-inclined individuals writing about sports relative to society, Dave Zirin is known to many for his co-authoring role in books that make big, vital statements. The most current being Michael Bennett’s Things That Make White People Uncomfortable but notably with others such as John Carlos. This talk is about his latest book, a fascinating account of the life and times of onetime iconic Cleveland Browns football star Jim Brown, Jim Brown: Last Man Standing.

“Jim Brown is heroic but no hero. Dave Zirin gives us an extraordinary life of fame, manhood and masculinity that is not always a compliment to its subject but is undeniably important. Last Man Standing confronts the three third rails of American Life—race, class and gender—through an American icon whose triumphs are matched only by his flaws.”—Howard Bryant.

Dave Zirin is also sports editor at The Nation and a columnist with The Progressive.

Thanks to Elliott Bay Books
Recorded 8/16/18

Ray McGovern: Miracle and Myth, Monday 8/27 8pm, Thurs. 1pm, Sat. 12am on SCM

This talk was recorded at the annual Hiroshima-Nagasaki commemoration at the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action next to the Trident submarine base in Poulsbo, WA. This event included nonviolent protest actions. On August 4, there was a flotilla of kayaks and small boats in the waters of Hood Canal, outside the perimeter of Naval Base Kitsap Bangor, protesting nuclear weapons and on August 6th, several people were arrested in a vigil and nonviolent civil resistance at the entrance of the base. 

Ray McGovern, a former CIA analyst and Army infantry/intelligence officer under seven presidents, works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. Prior to the US attack on Iraq, McGovern co-founded Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) to expose fraudulent intelligence used to justify the war on Iraq. 

McGovern’s presentation is entitled “Miracle and Myth: We Have Not Yet Blown Up Our Planet = Miracle. Our Luck Will Hold Indefinitely = Myth”.

He explains: “It is a myth that attacking Japanese cities with atomic bombs was needed to end WWII (though that’s what we were told). Six of the United States' seven five-star officers who received their final star in World War II -- Generals MacArthur, Eisenhower, and Arnold and Admirals Leahy, King, and Nimitz -- rejected the idea that nuclear bombs were needed to end the war. Sadly, though, there is little evidence that they pressed their case with then-President Truman before the fact. So why did Truman do it? How much had to do with the fact that he and Secretary of State Jimmy Byrnes were incorrigible bigots? Does white supremacy still play a role today?”

“In his masterful book, The Doomsday Machine, Dan Ellsberg offers this challenge: ‘Whether humans can eliminate the danger of near-term extinction [by nukes] remains to be seen. I choose to act as if that is still possible.’ It is possible. All we need are dashes of hope, flashes of ingenuity, and commitment to get our act together. Annie Dillard's dictum is encouraging -- if challenging -- news: ‘There is only us; there never has been any other.’ There are enough of us,” McGovern said.

McGovern added that he is looking forward “to being with those, whether in kayak or on shore, who are active in the shadow of the Tridents; with those paying the same ‘rent’ as author/poet Alice Walker (who was a shipmate of McGovern on the US Boat to Gaza in 2011) who said: “Activism is my rent for living on this planet.” More information on McGovern can be found on his website, raymcgovern.com

Thanks to the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action
Recorded 8/5/18

Steve Coll: Secret Wars, Monday 8/20 8pm, Thurs. 1pm, Sat. 12am on SCM

Prior to 9/11, the United States had been carrying out small-scale covert operations in Afghanistan, in cooperation (and sometimes opposition) with Pakistani intelligence agency I.S.I.. While the U.S. was trying to quell extremists, a highly secretive and compartmentalized wing of the I.S.I. known as “Directorate S” was covertly training, arming, and seeking to legitimize the Taliban. In his book Directorate S, journalist Steve Coll makes painfully clear that the United States doomed the war in Afghanistan—and set our country on a collision course with Pakistan—with of our failure to apprehend this faction’s motivations and intentions.

Coll joins us to discuss the history and impact of this swirling and shadowy struggle of historic proportions. He outlines how the conflict endured over a decade across the Bush and Obama administrations, involving multiple secret intelligence agencies, a litany of incongruous strategies and tactics, and dozens of prominent military and political figures. Coll excavates this grand battle, which took place away from the gaze of the American public. He offers us a definitive explanation of how America became ensnared in an elaborate, factional, and seemingly interminable conflict in South Asia. Join Coll for a forensic examination of the personal and political forces that shaped world history.

Steve Coll is the author of the Pulitzer-Prize-winning Ghost Wars and the dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University. He is a staff writer for The New Yorker and previously worked for 20 years at The Washington Post, where he received a Pulitzer Prize for explanatory journalism in 1990.

Thanks to Seattle University, Town Hall Seattle and Elliott Bay Books. Recorded 2/15/18

Jeremi Suri: The Impossible Presidency, Monday 8/13 8pm, Thurs. 1pm, Sat. 12am on SCM

With discussions of Presidential Approval Ratings surfacing in headlines, many to wonder why numbers across recent presidential terms have seemed lower than ever. In The Impossible Presidency: The Rise and Fall of America’s Highest Office, historian Jeremi Suri charts America’s disenchantment with the office of the presidency, from the limited role envisaged by the Founding Fathers to its current status as the most powerful job in the world. He argues that the presidency is a victim of its own success—the vastness of the job makes it almost impossible to fulfill expectations. As managers of the world’s largest economy and military, contemporary presidents must react to a truly globalized world in a twenty-four-hour news cycle. There is little room left for bold vision.

Suri is joined onstage by former Washington Post correspondent Rajiv Chandrasekaran. Together they trace the fall of the highest office to the inevitable mismatch between candidates’ promises and the structural limitations of the presidency. Join Suri and Chandrasekaran for an illuminating examination of our highest political office, and a discussion essential for anyone trying to understand America’s fraught political climate.

Jeremi Suri is a professor of history and holds the Mack Brown Distinguished Chair for Leadership in Global Affairs at the University of Texas. He is the author and editor of nine books on contemporary politics and foreign policy, including Henry Kissinger and the American Century and Liberty’s Surest Guardian: American Nation-Building from the Founders to Obama. Suri also writes for major newspapers and magazines including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Houston Chronicle, The Boston Globe, Foreign Affairs, and Wired.

Rajiv Chandrasekaran serves for two decades as a senior correspondent and associate editor of The Washington Post. During his newspaper career, he reported from more than three dozen countries and was bureau chief in Baghdad, Cairo, and Southeast Asia. In 2014, he co-wrote (with Howard Schultz) the bestselling book For Love of Country: What Our Veterans Can Teach Us About Citizenship, Heroism and Sacrifice.

Thanks to Seattle University, Town Hall Seattle and Elliott Bay Books. Recorded 2/15/18

Andrew Keen: How to Fix the Future, Monday 8/6 8pm, Thurs. 1pm, Sat. 12am on SCM

The Internet has morphed from a tool providing efficiencies for consumers and businesses to an elemental force that is profoundly reshaping our societies and our world. Former Internet entrepreneur Andrew Keen was among the earliest to write about the potential dangers that the Internet poses to our culture and society. Now he takes our stage with his new book How to Fix the Future, looking to the past to learn how we might change our future. Keen discusses how societies tamed the excesses of the Industrial Revolution, which—like its digital counterpart—demolished long-standing models of living, ruined harmonious environments, and altered the business world beyond recognition. Keen is joined onstage by Alex Stonehill, Head of Creative Strategy at University of Washington’s Communication and Leadership Program.

Together Keen and Stonehill identify five key tools: regulation, competitive innovation, social responsibility, worker and consumer choice, and education. They share how these tools have become global solutions for responsible digital practice: from digital-oriented Estonia, where every citizen can freely access any data the government possesses about them in an online database; to Singapore, where a large portion of the higher education sector consists in professional courses on coding and website design. Keen and Stonehill bring us together for an urgent conversation about individual and societal steps for preserving human values in an increasingly digital world.

Andrew Keen is an Internet entrepreneur who founded Audiocafe.com in 1995 and built it into a popular first generation Internet company. He is currently the executive director of the Silicon Valley salon FutureCast, a Senior Fellow at CALinnovates, the host of the Keen On Techonomy chat show, and a columnist for CNN. He is the author of Cult of the Amateur: How The Internet Is Killing Our Culture (2007), Digital Vertigo: How Today’s Social Revolution Is Dividing, Diminishing and Disorienting Us (2012) and Internet Is Not the Answer (2015).

Alex Stonehill is the co-founder of The Seattle Globalist, a hybrid media/education organization that trains and provides a platform for populations underrepresented in journalism and media production. He also co-founded The Common Language Project, an international journalism nonprofit that has taken Stonehill to Ethiopia cover communities impacted by climate change, Russia to report on consolidation of Putin’s power, and Syria and Iraq to interview conflict refugees. He recently joined the University of Washington Communication Leadership graduate program as Head of Creative Strategy, with an eye toward building community connections and elevating student opportunities beyond the classroom.

Thanks to Town Hall Seattle and Elliott Bay Books
Recorded 2/8/18

Katherine Reynolds Lewis: The Good News About Bad Behavior, Monday 7/30 8pm, Thurs. 1pm, Sat. 12am on SCM

Why don’t our kids do what we want them to do? In our modern highly-connected age it sometimes seems as though children have less self-control than ever. To offer us some behavioral insight, journalist and parenting expert Katherine Reynolds Lewis joins us with revelations from her book The Good News About Bad Behavior. She meets for a conversation with KIRO 7 News reporter Patranya Bhoolsuwan to explore the ways we can instill the values of independence, responsibility, and self-regulation in our kids without falling into old (and, she says, fallible) patterns of punishment and reward.

Lewis and Bhoolsuwan discuss the Apprenticeship Model—Lewis’ new theory of discipline that centers on the art of self-control. Blending new scientific research and powerful individual stories of change, Lewis asserts that if we trust our children to face consequences they will learn to adapt and moderate their own behavior. Lewis and Bhoolsuwan explore the successful accounts of this model—chaotic homes becoming peaceful, bewildered teachers seeing progress, and Lewis’ own family growing and evolving in light of these new ideas. Join Lewis and Bhoolsuwan for a journey down the path to developing more capable and kind behaviors for everyone in your home, including yourself.

Katherine Reynolds Lewis is an award-winning independent journalist based in the Washington D.C. area whose work has appeared in The Atlantic, Bloomberg Businessweek, Fortune, The New York Times, Parade, Slate, The Washington Post and Working Mother. Her 2015 story for Mother Jones magazine about school discipline was the site’s most-viewed piece. Before going solo in 2008, she worked as a national correspondent for Newhouse News Service writing about money, work and family, and as a national reporter for Bloomberg News covering everything from orange crop reports and media policy to presidential campaigns.

Patranya Bhoolsuwan is an Emmy award-winning reporter for Seattle’s KIRO 7 news, and former reporter and weekend anchor at KLAS-TV, the CBS affiliate in Las Vegas. It was there where she won the title of “Best Reporter” by the Nevada Association of Broadcasters. She has also worked as an anchor and reporter in Redding, Reno, and Washington DC, as well as working as a writer/producer for KRON-TV in San Francisco.

Thanks to Town Hall Seattle
Recorded 6/14/18

Kate Troll: 10 Points of Hope for Progress on Climate Change, Monday 7/23 8pm, Thurs. 1pm, Sat. Morning 12am on SCM

Kate Troll shares her stories, insights and experience in dealing with the political difficulties of advancing conservation initiatives in a state dominated by extractive resource industries at her fascinating talk, "10 Points of Hope for Progress on Climate Change."

In her new book, The Great Unconformity: Reflections on Hope in an Imperiled World, she uses the power of adventure storytelling to convey key policy insights and "hope spots" in dealing with the challenges of sustainability and climate change. To inspire and empower others, her talk highlights 10 points of hope for progress on climate change, leading to a robust discussion of the most practical ways to make a difference both personally and professionally.

Kate Troll, a long-time Alaskan, has more than 22 years' experience in climate and energy policy, coastal management, and fisheries. She's been elected to public office twice and is currently a regular columnist for the Alaska Dispatch News. In between, she climbs mountains, kayaks with the whales, runs wild rivers, and writes screenplays. The Great Unconformity draws in equal measure from her full career and adventurous life.

Thanks to University Bookstore
Recorded 10/18/17

Khaled Beydoun: American Islamophobia, Monday 7/16, Thurs. 1pm, Sat. Morning 12am on SCM

The term “Islamophobia” may be fairly new, but irrational fear and hatred of Islam and Muslims is anything but. Lending us perspective through his unique lens as a critical race theorist and law professor, Khaled A. Beydoun joins us to discuss the ways in which law, policy, and official state rhetoric have fueled the frightening resurgence of Islamophobia in the United States. With wisdom from his book American Islamophobia: Understanding the Roots and Rise of Fear, Beydoun takes us through history from the plight of enslaved African Muslims in the antebellum South, to the laws prohibiting Muslim immigrants from becoming citizens, to the ways the war on terror assigns blame for any terrorist act to Islam and the myriad trials Muslim Americans face in the Trump era.

He passionately argues that by failing to frame Islamophobia as a system of bigotry endorsed and emboldened by law and carried out by government actors, U.S. society ignores the injury it inflicts on both Muslims and non-Muslims. Through the stories of Muslim Americans who have experienced Islamophobia across various racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic lines, Beydoun shares how U.S. laws shatter lives, whether directly or inadvertently. And with an eye toward benefiting society as a whole, he recommends ways for Muslim Americans and their allies to build coalitions with other groups. Sit in with Beydoun for a robust and genuine portrait of Muslim America then and now, and an incisive look into the basis of fear and bigotry.

Khaled A. Beydoun is Associate Professor of Law at the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law and Senior Affiliated Faculty at the University of California–Berkeley Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project. A critical race theorist, he examines Islamophobia, the war on terror, and the salience of race and racism in American law. His scholarship has appeared in top law journals, including the California Law Review, Columbia Law Review, and Harvard Civil Rights–Civil Liberties Law Review. In addition, he is an active public intellectual and advocate whose commentary has been featured in the New York Times and Washington Post as well as on the BBC, Al Jazeera English, ESPN, and more. He was named the 2017 American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee Advocate of the Year and the Arab American Association of New York’s 2017 Community Champion of the Year.

Recorded 6/4/18
Thanks to Town Hall Seattle and Elliott Bay Books

Amy Chua: Political Tribes, Monday 7/9, Thurs. 1pm, Sat. Morning 12am on SCM

Humans are tribal; we need to belong to groups. But according to international law professor Amy Chua in her book Political Tribes: Group Instinct and the Fate of Nations, Americans are often spectacularly blind to the power of tribal politics—and that blind spot has continually undermined American foreign policy. Chua takes our stage to outline how Washington’s foreign policy establishment and American political elites alike remain oblivious to the group identities that matter most to ordinary Americans—identities that are tearing the United States apart.

Chua is joined onstage by KUOW host Bill Radke (of The Record and Week In Review) to explore the complex landscape of modern American identity politics—which Chua asserts have seized both the Left and Right in an especially dangerous, racially inflected way. Every group feels threatened: whites and blacks, Latinos and Asians, men and women, liberals and conservatives. Chua argues that America must rediscover a national identity that transcends our political tribes. She urges us to end the false slogans of unity, which are just another form of divisiveness. Join Chua and Radke for a conversation about the difficult unity Americans must construct, one that acknowledges the reality of group differences and fights the deep inequities that divide us.

Amy Chua is the John M. Duff, Jr. Professor at Yale Law School. She is a noted expert in the fields of ethnic conflict and globalization, and the author of the bestselling titles World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability, Day of Empire: How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance—and Why They Fall, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, and her most recent book, The Triple Package: How Three Unlikely Traits Explain the Rise and Fall of Cultural Groups in America, co-written with Jed Rubenfeld.

Bill Radke is the host of The Record and Week In Review on KUOW. He has been a host on American Public Media’s Weekend America and Marketplace Morning Report, and is the creator of past show Rewind, a news-satire show heard on KUOW and nationwide on NPR.

Recorded 3/8/18
Thanks to Town Hall Seattle

Police Violence Panel, Monday 7/2, Thurs. 1pm, Sat. Morning 12am on SCM

Recent years have seen an explosion of protest against police brutality and repression among activists, journalists, and politicians. To discuss new strategies for putting an end to police violence, the University of Washington’s Department of Global Health assembles a panel of community activists and experts—whose gathering commemorates the one-year anniversary of Charleena Lyles’ death at the hands of Seattle police. Join this critical conversation about the threat posed to public health and safety by police violence, and what we can do to stop it.

Panel members include: Nakeya Isabell, spoken word artist and cousin of Charleena Lyles; Katrina Johnson, member of Charleena Lyles’ family; ACLU Deputy Director Michele Storms; Black Lives Matter activist Jorge Torres; Seattle public school teacher Jesse Hagopian; former Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper; and authors Alex Vitale and David Correia. Their conversation is moderated by UW professor Clarence Spigner.

Recorded 5/24/18
Thanks to Town Hall Seattle and Red May

Barbara Ehrenreich: Natural Causes, Monday 6/25, Thurs. 1pm, Sat. Morning 12am on SCM

How to live well, even joyously, while accepting our mortality is a vitally important philosophical challenge. Author and cellular immunologist Barbara Ehrenreich shares insight from her latest book Natural Causes: An Epidemic of Wellness, the Certainty of Dying, and Killing Ourselves to Live Longer, and tackles the seemingly unsolvable problem of how we might better prepare ourselves for the end—while still reveling in the lives that remain to us.

We tend to believe we have agency over our bodies, our minds, and even over the manner of our deaths. But Ehrenreich shares the latest science which shows that the microscopic subunits of our bodies make their own “decisions,” and not always in our favor. Ehrenreich is joined onstage in conversation with KUOW’s Ross Reynolds. Together they delve into the cellular basis of aging and shows how little control we actually have over it, starting with the mysterious and seldom-acknowledged tendency of our own immune cells to promote deadly cancers. Ehrenreich describes how we over-prepare and worry way too much about what is inevitable. Join Ehrenreich and Reynolds for thoughtful considerations of the aging process (and our control over it) and the offer of an entirely new understanding of our bodies, ourselves, and our place in the universe.

Barbara Ehrenreich is the author of over a dozen books, including the New York Times bestseller Nickel and Dimed. She has a PhD in cellular immunology from Rockefeller University and writes frequently about health care and medical science, among many other subjects.

Ross Reynolds is the Executive Producer of Community Engagement at KUOW. He creates community conversations such as the Ask A events, and occasionally produces arts and news features. He is the former co-host of KUOW’s daily news magazine The Record and KUOW’s award–winning daily news–talk program The Conversation.

Thanks to Seattle Town Hall and Elliott Bay Books
Recorded 5/2/18

Yanis Varoufakis: How Capitalism Works--and How It Fails, Monday 6/18, Thurs. 1pm, Sat. Morning 12am on SCM

How should parents talk to their children about the economy: how it operates, where it came from, how it benefits some while impoverishing others? Former Finance Minister of Greece Yanis Varoufakis has appeared before heads of nations, assemblies of experts, and countless students around the world—and now he joins us to add Town Hall audiences to that list as he joins us to share wisdom from his book Talking to My Daughter About the Economy: A Brief History of Capitalism.

Varoufakis takes bankers and politicians to task, sharing letters to his young daughter explaining the historical origins of financial inequality among and within nations. He questions the pervasive notion that everything has its price and shows why economic instability is a chronic risk. Speaking as a parent who aims to instruct his daughter on the fundamental questions of our age, Varoufakis discusses the inability of market-driven policies to address the rapidly declining health of the planet his daughter’s generation stands to inherit. In a lesson for the benefit of all of us, Varoufakis invites us all to explore the failures and obfuscations of our current system and discuss how we can find our way toward a more democratic economic approach.

Yanis Varoufakis is a former finance minister of Greece and a cofounder of an international grassroots movement, DiEM25, that is campaigning for the revival of democracy in Europe. He is the author of the international bestseller Adults in the Room, And the Weak Suffer What They Must?, and The Global Minotaur. After teaching for many years in the United States, Great Britain, and Australia, he is currently a professor of economics at the University of Athens.

Thanks to Seattle Town Hall and University Bookstore
Recorded 5/15/18

Denise Fairchild: Energy Democracy, Monday 6/11, Thurs. 1pm, Sat. Morning 12am on SCM

Climate change advocates and social justice groups say that a global energy war is underway. It’s a struggle between an extractive economy and a regenerative economy, fossil fuel and clean energy—and even more fundamentally, between the haves and the have-nots. Denise Fairchild, President of Emerald Cities Collaborative and editor of the anthology Energy Democracy, highlights the magnified impact of this resource battle on low-income communities and communities of color. Fairchild invites us to a powerful discussion framing the international struggle of working people, low income communities, and communities of color. She offers us a chance to congregate and empower these communities to take control of energy resources economically and politically. As more and more activists confront shocking political realities in the U.S., this amplification of racial, cultural, and generational voices becomes more important than ever. Join Fairchild for a discussion of the global fight to conserve our natural resources, and how it starts with helping to build the energy democracy movement by inspiring our communities to show what an alternative, democratized energy future can look like.

Denise Fairchild is president/CEO of Emerald Cities Collaborative, a national nonprofit organization of business, labor, and community groups dedicated to climate resilience strategies that produce environmental, economic, and equity outcomes.
Recorded 1/17/18
Thanks to Seattle Town Hall

Ashley Dawson: Extreme Cities, Monday 6/4, Thurs. 1pm, Sat. Morning 12am on SCM

How will climate change affect our lives? Where will its impacts be most deeply felt? Are we doing enough to protect ourselves from the coming chaos? Professor of English and environmental organizer Ashley Dawson argues that highly developed urban cities are ground zero for climate change. In his book Extreme Cities: The Peril and Promise of Urban Life in the Age of Climate Change he highlights the elevated risk of dense metropolises, which contribute the lion’s share of carbon to the atmosphere while also lying on the frontlines of rising sea levels. Today, the majority of the world’s megacities are located in coastal zones, yet few of them are adequately prepared for the floods that will increasingly menace their shores. Instead, most continue to develop luxury waterfront condos for the elite and industrial facilities for corporations. These not only intensify carbon emissions, but also place coastal residents at greater risk when water levels rise. Dawson offers an alarming portrait of the future of our cities, and urges us to invest in our cities not with fortified sea walls but through support of urban movements already fighting to remake our cities in a more just and equitable way.

Ashley Dawson is Professor of English at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. His field of specialization is postcolonial studies, with areas of interest including the experience and literature of migration. He has also worked on contemporary discourses of U.S. imperialism and on emerging global discourses of environmental governance. Dawson is the author of Extinction: A Radical History, The Routledge Concise History of Twentieth-Century British Literature, and Mongrel Nation: Diasporic Culture and the Making of Postcolonial Britain.

Thanks to Town Hall Seattle, Third Place Books and Red May
Recorded 5/6/18

Annelise Orleck: We Are All Fast-Food Workers Now, Monday 5/28, Thurs. 1pm, Sat. Morning 12am on SCM

In May of 2014, thousands of fast food workers in 230 cities across the globe went on strike, protesting for a living wage, workplace protections, and the right to unionize. Today that fight persists in the form of the #FightFor15 movement, whose efforts have resulted in cities around the nation (including Seattle, New York City, and Los Angeles) instituting a rise to a $15 minimum wage. History professor and activist Annelise Orleck chronicles the fight for a living wage and the results of this worldwide working-class outcry in her book We Are All Fast-Food Workers Now: The Global Uprising Against Poverty Wages. She is joined onstage by Heidi Groover, a housing and labor journalist for The Stranger, to discuss Orleck’s interviews with activists in many US cities and countries around the world—including Bangladesh, Cambodia, Mexico, South Africa, and the Philippines. Together, Orleck and Groover trace this new labor movement sparked and sustained by low-wage workers from across the globe, and reflect on hope and change as it rises from the bottom up. Join Orleck and Groover for an urgent, illuminating look at globalization as seen through the eyes of fast-food servers, retail workers, hotel housekeepers, airport workers, and adjunct professors who are fighting for respect, safety, and a living wage.

Annelise Orleck is professor of history at Dartmouth College and the author of five books on the history of US women, politics, immigration, and activism, including Storming Caesars Palace: How Black Mothers Fought Their Own War on Poverty and Rethinking American Women’s Activism.

Heidi Groover is a staff writer at The Stranger who covers housing and labor. She has previously served as a writer for The Pacific Northwest Islander and as News Editor at the Montana Kaimin.

Thanks to Town Hall Seattle and Elliott Bay Books
Recorded 4/23/17
Special thanks to Don Arbor for his music video "Everyone Comes from Somewhere"

Nomi Prins: How Central Bankers Rigged the World, Monday 5/21, Thurs. 1pm, Sat. Morning 12am on SCM

The 2008 financial crisis unleashed a chain reaction that turbo-boosted the influence of central bankers and triggered a massive shift in the world order. Economic writer and journalist Nomi Prins joins us to illuminate the machinations at the core of this rising tide of financial instability, drawing on observations from her latest book Collusion: How Central Bankers Rigged the World. With signature verve and insight, Prins outlines how central banks and institutions like the IMF are overstepping the bounds of their mandates and directing the flow of money without any checks and balances. She takes us through the open door between private and central banking, and explores how this pathway insures endless manipulation against a backdrop of government support. Prins invites us to a critical economic discussion, sharing details about the power players who orchestrate international finance and casting an unflinching spotlight on the dark conspiracies and unsavory connections within the halls of power.

Nomi Prins is a renowned author, journalist and speaker. She is the author of the hard-hitting, It Takes a Pillage: Behind the Bonuses, Bailouts, and Backroom Deals from Washington to Wall Street. She is also the author of Jacked: How “Conservatives” are Picking your Pocket (Whether You Voted for Them or Not) and Other People’s Money: The Corporate Mugging of America, which predicted the recent financial crisis, and was chosen as a Best Book of 2004 by The Economist, Barron’s, and The Library Journal.

Thanks to Town Hall and Third Place Books
Recorded 5/7/18

Maria McFarland Sánchez-Moreno: There Are No Dead Here, Monday 5/14, Thurs. 1pm, Sat. Morning 12am on SCM

Starting in the late 1990s, paramilitary groups with close ties to drug cartels carried out a bloody expansion campaign throughout much of Colombia. Maria McFarland Sánchez-Moreno joins us with insight from her book "There Are No Dead Here: A Story of Murder and Denial in Colombia", sharing her account of massacres committed by paramilitary groups fueled by drug profits all in the name of defending the country from brutal Marxist guerrillas. She joins us to discuss details of grievous humanitarian abuses against thousands, committed with the complicity of much of Colombia’s military and political establishment—and outlines how the United States, more interested in the appearance of success in its “war on drugs” than in stopping the carnage, largely ignored them even as it poured billions of dollars into Colombia’s military.
Drawing on hundreds of hours of interviews and five years on the ground in Colombia, McFarland Sánchez-Moreno takes our stage to share three interconnected stories Colombians bound by their commitment to the truth—journalists and investigators who sent prophetic warnings of military complicity, spread groundbreaking revelations of congressional conspiracy, and published truths undermining a corrupt president’s propaganda. In a sobering yet urgent discussion of a nation’s institutionalized abuse of power, McFarland Sánchez-Moreno gives her account of the brutality and corruption that swept like a lethal virus through Columbia’s society and political system—and the slow but inexorable ways the country is breaking free from the paramilitaries’ grip.

Maria McFarland Sánchez-Moreno is the executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance. For thirteen years McFarland Sánchez-Moreno held several positions at Human Rights Watch, including as the organization’s senior Americas researcher, covering Colombia and Peru, and as the co-director of its US program. During her tenure at Human Rights Watch, McFarland Sánchez-Moreno lead teams advocating against racial discrimination in policing, excessive sentencing, and unfair deportation policies that tear families apart, all issues closely intertwined with the United States’ approach to drugs.

Thanks to Town Hall Seattle and Phinney Books
Recorded 3/27/18

Nancy MacLean: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America, Monday 5/7, Thurs. 1pm, Sat. Morning 12am on SCM

Disagreements between the American right and left have led many journalists and activists to investigate the factors at work deep within our political factions. Nancy MacLean, the William Chafe Professor of history and Public Policy at Duke University, joins us with a deep-delving interrogation of the American right and presents a decade of research and insight from her book Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America. MacLean shares her account of a relentless campaign by the radical rich to eliminate unions, suppress voting, stop action on climate change, alter the U.S. Constitution, and privatize everything from schools to Medicare and Social Security. She describes this game plan in terms of its key figures in the radical right—such as billionaire Charles Koch and the network of wealthy right-wing donors he has built, and Nobel Prize-winning political economist James McGill Buchanan and his attempts to preserve the white elite’s power in the wake of Brown v. Board of Education.

MacLean is joined onstage in conversation with Nick Licata, former Seattle City Councilmember and current activist and author. Together MacLean and Licata explore the genesis of the seemingly unexpected swing in our nation’s larger political dialogue towards populism and far-right rhetoric, from its beginnings in academia to its eventual embrace and financial backing by powerful and wealthy individuals and interest groups. Join MacLean and Licata for an incisive discussion of the roots of our nation’s growing political divide, and its potential to irrevocably alter the American government.

Nancy MacLean is the award-winning author of Behind the Mask of Chivalry (a New York Times “noteworthy” book of the year) and Freedom is Not Enough, which the Chicago Tribune called “contemporary history at its best.” She is the William Chafe Professor of history and Public Policy at Duke University, and the immediate past president of the Labor and Working Class History Association (LAWCHA).

Thanks to Seattle Town Hall & Third Place Books
Recorded 4/7/18

David Barsamian: Global Discontents, Monday 4/30, Thurs. 1pm, Sat. Morning 12am on SCM

David Barsamian, award-winning founder and director of Alternative Radio talks on the subject matter of his latest book with Noam Chomsky and identifies the "dry kindling" of discontent around the world that could soon catch fire.

Barsamian starts off harkening back to the very beginning, and recollects how he, as a young community radio apprentice in Boulder CO first contacted Noam Chomsky for an interview and had to call him back because he couldn’t figure out how to get the tape recorder to work. From this awkward beginning the ground-breaking nation wide radio program emerged. AR is now in it’s 3rd decade and heard on more than 270 radio stations. This collaboration has inspired 11 books in with Chomsky alone.

In wide-ranging discussions with David Barsamian, his longtime interlocutor, Noam Chomsky asks us to consider "the world we are leaving to our grandchildren" one imperiled by climate change and the growing potential for nuclear war. If the current system is incapable of dealing with these threats, he argues, it's up to us to radically change it.

The new book is “Global Discontents: Conversations on the Rising Threats to Democracy”. Order it from Elliott Bay Bookstore.

Thanks to Elliott Bay Books
Recorded 2/21/18

Zoltan Grossman: Unlikely Alliances, Monday 4/23, Thurs. 1pm, Sat. Morning 12am on SCM

A longtime community organizer and professor of geography and Native studies at The Evergreen State College, explores the evolution of conflict to cooperation among Native American nations in the Pacific Northwest, Great Basin, Northern Plains and Great Lakes regions and their neighboring communities in protecting environmental resources from outside threats.

Zoltan Grossman demonstrates that our ongoing fights for climate justice are not isolated struggles, but are founded upon a legacy of collaborative resistance.

Recorded 1/26/18 at Elliott Bay Books

Yasha Levine: Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet, Monday 4/8, Thurs. 1pm, Sat. Morning 12am on SCM

With each passing year the internet becomes more and more a part of modern life. Despite story after story of hacks, malware, government surveillance, and corporate corruption, we continue to rely on the web for ever more social functions. Investigative journalist Yasha Levine shares observations to help us gain perspective on this system we take for granted, revealing the for-profit surveillance businesses operated within Silicon Valley and the military origins of the platforms and tools we use every day. Levine offers findings from his book Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet, tracing the history of this modern commodity back to its beginnings as a Vietnam-era military computer networking project for spying on guerrilla fighters and anti-war protesters. His insight offers us an opportunity to reframe this multinational communication tool as a global system of surveillance and prediction. Levine explores how the same military objectives that drove the development of early internet technology are still at the heart of Silicon Valley today—and invites us to reconsider what we know about the most powerful, ubiquitous tool ever created.

Yasha Levine is an investigative journalist for Pando Daily, a San Francisco-based news magazine focused on covering the politics and power of big tech. He has been published in Wired Magazine, The Nation, Slate, The New York Observer, and many others. He has also appeared on network television, including MSNBC, and has had his work profiled by Vanity Fair and The Verge, among others.

Thanks to Town Hall Seattle and University Bookstore
Recorded 2/13/18

Charles Mann: The Wizard and the Prophet: Injustice, Monday 4/1, Thurs. 1pm, Sat. Morning 12am on SCM

In forty years, some scientists project that Earth’s population will reach ten billion. Can our world support that many people? What kind of world will it be? According to Charles Mann’s newest book The Wizard and the Prophet, the experts answering these questions generally fall into two deeply divided groups—Wizards and Prophets. The Prophets, he explains, follow William Vogt, a founding ecologist and environmentalist who believed that if we use more than our planet has to give, our prosperity will lead us to ruin. The Wizards are the heirs of agronomist and humanitarian Norman Borlaug, whose research effectively wrangled the world in service to our species to produce modern high-yield crops that then saved millions from starvation.

Mann, author of the seminal environmental histories 1491 and 1493, joins us to discuss the nuance of these diverging viewpoints and assess the four great challenges humanity’s growing population faces—food, water, energy, and climate change—grounding each in historical context and weighing the options for the future. He offers an insightful analysis about the outlook for our increasingly crowded Earth, and opens the conversation to lay groundwork for how the people of the twenty-first century will choose to live in tomorrow’s world.

Charles C. Mann is a correspondent for The Atlantic, Science, and Wired, and has written for Fortune, The New York Times, Smithsonian, Technology Review, Vanity Fair, The Washington Post, as well as the TV network HBO and the series Law & Order. A three-time National Magazine Award finalist, he is the recipient of writing awards from the American Bar Association, the American Institute of Physics, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and the Lannan Foundation.
Charles Mann will be joined in conversation by Edward Wolcher, Town Hall’s Curator of Lectures.

Recorded 1/25/18
Thanks to Town Hall Seattle, Seattle University & University Bookstore

Miko Peled: Injustice, Monday 3/26, Thurs. 1pm, Sat. Morning 12am on SCM

In July 2004, federal agents raided the homes of five Palestinian-American families, arresting the five dads. The first trial of the "Holy Land Foundation Five" ended in a hung jury. The second, marked by highly questionable procedures, resulted in very lengthy sentences--for "supporting terrorism" by donating to charities that the U.S. government itself and other respected international agencies had long worked with. In 2013, human rights activist and author Miko Peled started investigating this case. He discussed the miscarriages of justice with the men's lawyers and heard from the men's families about the devastating effects the case had on their lives. He also traveled to the remote federal prison complexes where the men were held to conduct deep interviews. Injustice traces the labyrinthine course of this case, presenting a terrifying picture of governmental over-reach in post-9/11 America.

Miko Peled is a writer and peace activist born and raised in Jerusalem. His first book The General's Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine (Just World Books, 2nd edition 2016) has been translated into eight other languages. Born into a prominent Zionist family, Peled emerged as a strong and outspoken advocate of justice and equality in Palestine. He currently speaks around the United States and internationally on the issue of Palestine/Israel.

Thanks to Seattle Pacific University and Just World Books
Recorded 2/24/18

Ramzy Baroud: The Last Earth: A Palestinian Story, Monday 3/19, Thurs. 1pm, Sat. Morning 12am on SCM

Palestinian journalist and historian Ramzy Baroud speaks on his new book The Last Earth: A Palestinian Story. At this critical juncture in Palestine’s history, with Trump’s recent declaration on Jerusalem and the Likud party vote to annex West Bank settlements, Dr. Baroud’s narrative of Palestinian dispossession, resistance, and resilience is important and timely.

THE LAST EARTH is a non-fictional narrative of modern Palestinian history. It is a unique rendition of people’s history – an account of how major historic events in Palestine and the greater Middle East impacted ordinary people, as well as how that mass of people, in their tenacity, and even in their dispossession, represent a force that determines history.

Dr. Ramzy Baroud is a US-Arab journalist, media consultant, an author, internationally-syndicated columnist, Editor of Palestine Chronicle (1999-present), former Managing Editor of London-based Middle East Eye (2014-15), and former Deputy Managing Editor of Al Jazeera online. He taught mass communication at Australia’s Curtin University of Technology, Malaysia Campus. Baroud is the author of three books and a contributor to many others; his last volume was My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story (Pluto Press, London, 2010). Baroud has a Ph.D. in Palestine Studies from the University of Exeter (2015) and is a Non-Resident Scholar at Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies, University of California Santa Barbara. He has been a guest speaker at many top universities around the world and conducted book tours in over twenty countries. 

Thanks to Kinder USA [kinderusa.org]
Recorded 2/24/18

Arlie Russell Hochschild: Anger and Mourning on the American Right, Monday 3/12, Thurs. 1pm, Sat. Morning 12am on SCM

Political scientists have outlined and explored a growing fundamental misunderstanding between the American Right and Left. Analysts reference this divide when addressing the widespread bewilderment of many Americans at Donald Trump’s election, citing difficulties from liberals in understanding what Trump voters were thinking when they cast their ballots.

For clarity we turn to Arlie Hochschild, one of the most influential sociologists of her generation, as she takes our stage to present her book Strangers in Their Own Land.

Hochschild shares findings from her five-year immersion in the community around Lake Charles, Louisiana—a region strongly associated with the Tea Party. Hochschild is joined onstage by Christopher Sebastian Parker, professor of political science at University of Washington, for a discussion of Hochschild’s findings. Together they’ll address how Hochschild scaled what she calls the “empathy wall” to reveal how “hidden beneath the right-wing hostility to almost all government intervention…lies an anguishing loss of honor, alienation and engagement in a hidden social class war.” Hochschild and Parker reveal an enlightening cross-section of an American microcosm—and how it represents an entrenched, epidemic, and utterly unique cultural perspective in our nation.

Thanks to Seattle Town Hall, Elliott Bay Books, and Seattle University Recorded 2/12/18

David Cay Johnston & Greg Palast: What the Trump Administration Is Doing to America Parts 1&2, Monday 2/26 & 3/5, Thurs. 1pm, Sat. Morning 12am on SCM

Full frontal exposure of the Trump Presidency by two New York Times bestselling investigative reporters — conversing, debating. 

This video contains both parts of a 2 part edited for TV version of the original sold out event broadcast live from LA Jan 31st. This is composed almost entirely of revelations on the Trump administration. The last half of part 2 contains the last 30 minutes of David Cay Johnston's talk from Seattle, recorded Jan 29th where he discussed at length what we need to be doing about it. As an added bonus, 20 minutes of Q&A from that talk was added to this web version only.

Johnston’s "It's Even Worse Than You Think: What the Trump Administration Is Doing to America", opened at #2 on the Times' bestseller list.

And Amazon and Amazon Prime have just released Palast's film of his investigation for Rolling Stone on how Trump’s cronies swiped 2016: "The Best Democracy Can Buy:The Case of the Stolen Election".

Watch Palast question Johnston about the accusations in his book, including Johnston’s revelation of Trump’s 2005 tax return — and his explanation why it reeks of criminality.

About David Cay Johnston
David Cay Johnston is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter and bestselling author of "The Making of Donald Trump". He is a former president of Investigative Reporters & Editors (IRE) and teaches at Syracuse University College of Law. For more on David visit: DavidCayJohnston.com

About Greg Palast
Known as the Guardian and BBC investigative reporter who exposed how Katherine Harris and Jeb Bush purged thousands of Black voters from Florida rolls to steal the 2000 election for George Bush, Palast has written four New York Times bestsellers, including "Armed Madhouse", "Billionaires & Ballot Bandits", and "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy", now a non-fiction movie. The post-election update of the movie, subtitled "The Case of the Stole Election", has just been released on Amazon — and can be streamed for FREE by Prime members!

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Stay informed, get the signed DVD of the updated, post-election edition of "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy: The Case of The Stolen Election", a signed copy of the companion book — or better still, get the Book & DVD combo.

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Emily Dufton: The Rise and Fall and Rise of Marijuana in America, Monday 2/19, Thurs. 1pm, Sat. Morning 12am on SCM

In the last five years, eight states have legalized recreational marijuana. To many, continued progress seems certain. But pot was on a similar trajectory forty years ago, only to encounter a fierce backlash. Historian Emily Dufton takes our stage to share a comprehensive history of marijuana—from its decriminalization in a dozen states during the 1970s to its transformation into a national scourge by concerned parents, a movement paving the way for an aggressive war on drugs. Chastened marijuana advocates retooled their message, promoting pot as a medical necessity and eventually declaring legalization a matter of racial justice. Dufton tells the remarkable story of marijuana’s crooked path from acceptance to demonization and back again, and of the thousands of grassroots activists who made changing marijuana laws their life’s work. She shows us how, for the moment, these activists are succeeding—but how marijuana’s history suggests that another counter-revolution could soon unfold.

Emily Dufton is a writer based near Washington D.C. She holds a PhD in American Studies from George Washington University, and has served as a commentator on the History Channel as well as NPR’s Back Story with the American History Guys. Her work has been featured in the Washington Post, Atlantic, History News Network, and Run Washington.

Recorded 1/31/18
Thanks to Seattle Town Hall, ACLU-WA, and University Bookstore

Alan Levine: Campus Protests and the Fight Against White Supremacy, Monday 2/12, Thurs. 1pm, Sat. Morning 12am on SCM

Campus Protests and the Fight against White Supremacy: How the Right Turned a Nationwide Movement Against Racism into a Debate about the First Amendment.

Alan Levine co-authored the book, The Rights of Students, 
and has litigated cases, including in the U.S. Supreme Court, involving a broad range of civil rights and civil liberties issues. He teaches constitutional litigation in NYC law schools and was named a “Champion of Justice” by the NYC Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild.

Recorded 1/22/18 at The Evergreen State Collage
Thanks to the Community Forward lecture series

Dr. John Vidale: The Big One: Cascadia’s Megaquake, Monday 2/4, Thurs. 1pm, Sat. Morning 12am on SCM

As residents of the Pacific Northwest, we are all familiar with stories of Seattle’s vulnerability to seismic activity. And we certainly recall the haunting 2015 New Yorker article asserting that our region is long-overdue for “the big one.” To help contextualize these fears and delve into the science beneath the threat of earthquakes, we present Dr. John Vidale—seismologist at UW’s College of the Environment and leader for several years of UW’s M9 Project. Dr. Vidale’s works lends insight on the likelihood of such a tremor, and offers a prognosis on the impact a giant coastal quake could have on Seattle’s downtown.

Vidale lends his rarefied expertise to assuage some of our fears while espousing the continued need for disaster-preparedness, as well as revealing his thoughts on implementing early warning technologies in the Pacific Northwest to grant us precious time to react before the shaking starts.

Thanks to IRIS/SSA Distinguished Lectures Series, Seattle Town Hall, and Phinney Neighborhood Association. Recorded 11/29/17

Daniel Ellsberg with Daniel Bessner: The Doomsday Machine, Monday 1/29, Thurs. 1pm, Sat. Morning 12am on SCM

With developing international discussions of nuclear conflict, it’s critical that we gather context for the policies and legacies of nuclear weapons. To help us gain perspective, we invite to the stage Daniel Ellsberg, former high level defense analyst and legendary whistle-blower who revealed the Pentagon Papers. In his book The Doomsday Machine Ellsberg offers us a first-hand account of America’s nuclear program in the 1960s, highlighting how our nation’s nuclear strategy has not fundamentally changed since the eras of late Eisenhower and early Kennedy. Ellsberg is joined in conversation with Daniel Bessner, professor of American Foreign Policy at the University of Washington’s Jackson School, to discuss the legacy of the most dangerous arms buildup in the history of civilization—and to analyze how its proposed renewal under the Trump administration threatens our very survival. Join us for a powerful and urgent conversation about feasible steps we can take to dismantle the existing “doomsday machine” and avoid nuclear catastrophe. 

In 1961 Daniel Ellsberg consulted for the Department of Defense and the White House and drafted Secretary Robert McNamara’s plans for nuclear war. A Senior Fellow of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Ellsberg is the author of Secrets and the subject of the Oscar-nominated documentary The Most Dangerous Man in America.

Daniel Bessner is the author of Democracy in Exile and co-editor of The Decisionist Imagination. He has published scholarly articles in several journals, including The Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, International Security, The Intellectual History Review, and others.

Thanks to Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility, Town Hall Seattle and University Bookstore

Recorded January 9, 2018

Cara Drinan: How the US Justice System Fails Children, Monday 1/22, Thurs. 1pm, Sat. Morning 12am on SCM

Eminent law professor Cara Drinan takes our stage to chronicle the shortcomings of juvenile justice. In The War on Kids: How American Juvenile Justice Lost Its Way, she draws us a timeline of how the United States went from being a pioneer to an international pariah in its juvenile sentencing practices.

Calling upon social science, legal precedent, and first-hand correspondence, Drinan examines the struggles of adolescents whose errors have cost them their lives—many of whom retain life sentences in prison. Academics and journalists have long criticized the flawed incarceration system in our country, and activists such as Seattle’s No New Youth Jail movement have brought the issue into local focus. According to Drinan, the Supreme Court may finally be enacting some much-needed reform. Drinan urges us to seize this moment of judicial recognition and support the idea that children should be different in the eyes of the law.

Recorded 11/8/17
Thanks to Seattle Town Hall and Third Place Books

Beverly Tatum: Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?, Monday 1/15, Thurs. 1pm, Sat. Morning 12am on SCM

Walk into any high school cafeteria and you will see Black, White, and Latino youth clustered into their own groups. Is this self-segregation a problem we should try to fix or a coping strategy we should support? Dr. Beverly Tatum, renowned authority on the psychology of race, helps us begin this dialogue with her classic book Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? And Other Conversations About Race. In its new 20th edition, Tatum argues that forthright discussion about our racial identities is essential if we are serious about enabling communication across racial and ethnic divides. Join us and Tatum to become a part of this critical discussion to help confront these and other questions about race.

Recorded 12/3/17
Thanks to Seattle Town Hall and Third Place Books

Pratap Chatterjee and Khalil: Who’s Watching Us?, Monday 1/8, Thurs. 1pm, Sat. Morning 12am on SCM

We are being watched, but who’s watching? Author Pratap Chatterjee joins forces with artist Khalil to illustrate the complex history of mass surveillance since 9/11 with VERAX: The True History of Whistleblowers, Drone Warfare, and Mass Surveillance, a striking work of investigative journalism presented in the form of a graphic novel. Journalist Chatterjee visually outlines a fact-finding expedition into programs that guide missiles for drone strikes, “deep packet inspection” data-mining techniques in e-mails, and mass-tracking of individuals’ locations through player data in popular games like “Angry Birds.” Alongside their vivid telling, Chatterjee and Khalil offer a prognosis for the future of electronic surveillance, and for the fortunes of those who resist it.

Pratap Chatterjee is an investigative reporter who focuses on U.S. warfare and technology, he has served as a commentator for BBC, CNN, Fox, MSNBC; produced segments for Democracy Now! and Channel Four, and hosted a weekly radio show for KPFA Pacifica radio.

Khalil Bendib is the co-author of the New York Times bestseller Zahra’s Paradise, which was published in 16 languages and nominated for two Eisner Awards. 

Recorded 11/29/17 Thanks to Town Hall Seattle and Third Place Books

Richard Feely and Brad Warren: The Consequences of Ocean Acidification, Monday 1/1, Thurs. 1pm, Sat. Morning 12am on SCM

Understand why oceans are a key tipping point for climate. Climate change is warming our oceans - and the oceans in turn, by melting polar caps, are increasing climate change. Since the industrial revolution over the past two centuries, atmospheric CO2 concentrations have increased by about 120 ppm and are now higher than ever experienced on Earth for at least the last 800,000 years. The global oceans are the largest natural long-term reservoir for this excess CO2, absorbing nearly 30% of the excess carbon released into the atmosphere. Recent studies have demonstrated that the increased concentrations of CO2 in the oceans can cause ocean acidification, leading to significant changes in marine organisms. We discuss the present and future implications of increased CO2 levels on the health of our ocean ecosystems, including a conversation about the role of spirituality in helping us sustain the work of dealing with such a dire problem.

Dr. Richard A. Feely is a NOAA Senior Fellow at the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle . He also teaches at the University of Washington School of Oceanography. He has authored more than 250 scientific research articles on carbon cycling in the oceans and ocean acidification. Dr. Brad Warren is Director of the Global Ocean Health Program and Exec Director of the National Fisheries Conservation Center . He proposed and served on the Washington ’s Panel on Ocean Acidification.

Thanks to the Faith and Climate Team
Recorded at the Love at the Crossroads: Climate and Social Justice Conference 10/28/17