In 2020, I talked about democracy with filmmaker/writer/organizer/activist, ASTRA TAYLOR. Four years later, following a pandemic, waves of protests, an insurrection, and a couple of ongoing wars, we revisit our fragile and threatened way of political life.  She’s been busy - working with the Debt Collective, a union of debtors she co-founded, and writing two new books, THE AGE OF INSECURITY and SOLIDARITY: The Past, Present, and Future of a World-Changing Idea.

Earth Day 2024 is April 22nd. Here’s my 2011 conversation with JANINE BENYUS, who coined a term and invented a field called Biomimicry. After 3.8 billion years of R&D on this planet, failures are fossils. What surrounds us in the natural world has succeeded and survived. So why not learn as much as we can from what works? Nature has already solved many of the problems we grapple with. Animals, plants, and microbes are the consummate engineers. They have found what works, what is appropriate, and most important, what lasts here on Earth.

Why does our society produce more poverty than other wealthy countries? Why don’t we or why can’t we change our incentives? I speak with MARK RANK, about his books, THE POVERTY PARADOX and POORLY UNDERSTOOD: What America Gets Wrong About Poverty, and his latest, THE RANDOM FACTOR: How Chance & Luck Profoundly Shape Our Lives & the World Around Us. Learn more at bit.ly/3JdYuWZ

I describe the goal of my engagement with what we call the environment as “a healthy relationship with the rest of nature.” In this 2019 conversation, CHARLES EISENSTEIN asks: Have we become too focused on climate change? and reminds us that holding rivers, forests, and creatures as sacred and valuable in their own right, not simply as carbon credits, can engage emotional and psychological connections deeper than any policy prescription. I say we need both. We’re engaged in an existential improv and the first rule of improv is “Yes, and-“

With social media and AI, bad actors weaponize information, stressing democracy. We have two options: stop the lies or stop people from believing them. The former is near impossible in a free society, but there’s solid evidence the latter is achievable. I talk with two founders of the Mental Immunity Project, ANDY NORMAN, author of MENTAL IMMUNITY, and MELANIE TRECEK-KING, creator of THINKING IS POWER, an online resource that teaches critical thinking to the general public.

As we fasten our seatbelts and plunge into the 2024 campaign, here are two conversations worth a re-listen. From 2007, I talk with DREW WESTEN about the ideas and advice in his influential book, THE POLITICAL BRAIN: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation. Westen: Democrats almost always present the best arguments but lose elections to Republicans who have mastered the art of emotion and story-telling. In the second half, my 2009 conversation with BERNIE HORN of the Leadership Training Institute about FRAMING THE FUTURE: How Progressive Values Can Win Elections and Influence People. Horn: Persuadable voters make choices depending on how political issues and questions are framed. Emotion, framing, narratives. Trump traffics in all three.

ROB JOHNSON is a plain-speaking and passionate critic of an economic, financial, and political system that leaves too many behind. He and I do post-election shows - and we’ll do another this November, but this week we talk about the State of the Union as well as the state of the union. We talk about Biden’s speech and about how the two of us see things - the economy, the election, the two parties, the nation’s mood, how we got here, and how we might move forward. Rob is President of the Institute for New Economic Thinking and host of the podcast Economics and Beyond. You can learn more about him and his work at ineteconomics.org

We know Republicans exercise minority rule in the states, the House, and the Supreme Court. Now Biden is arming Israel without meaningful or effective demands for humanitarian treatment of innocent civilians. Is it time for civil disobedience? Here’s my 2013 conversation with Tim DeChristopher. In a disputed auction of oil leases on pubic lands, Tim bid and won the rights to 22K acres, which he had no plan to pay for or exploit. He was tried on federal felony charges and served 21 months in prison. I offer this example to remind us of the personal courage it may take to offer real resistance to policies and actions being done in our names.

ANGUS DEATON won the Nobel prize in Economics for work accomplished before he and his wife, economist Ann Case, wrote DEATHS OF DESPAIR and the Future of Capitalism. Pre pandemic, life expectancy in the US was no longer rising, and already falling among adults without 4 years of college, due in large part to alcoholism, drug overdoses, and suicides. In his newest book, ECONOMICS IN AMERICA: An Immigrant Economist Explores the Land of Inequality, Deaton reflects on 25 years of his writings from the perspective of 2023. He’s takes a hard look at the field of economics, and its role in a society and an economy that leaves out so many. His last words in this conversation: “I made a lot of mistakes in my life, and it's good to be able to live long enough to be able to acknowledge them.” You can learn more at deaton.scholar.princeton.edu

This week the media offers Academy Award buzz as well as the horrors of Israel’s response to the horrors of October’s attack by Hamas. Here’s my 2013 conversation with Palestinian EMAD BURNAT and Israeli GUY DAVIDI, co-directors of the Oscar-nominated documentary, 5 BROKEN CAMERAS. The film tells the story of Burnat, a Palestinian West Bank farmer, his wife, and four small children. As we track the destruction of each of his cameras, we witness his village’s ancient olive trees bulldozed, protests intensify, and a son grow from a newborn to a young boy.

We all know the newspaper business is in trouble. A weekday edition of the LA Times - once a “national” newspaper, along with the NYTimes, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal - now might be 32 pages and another 100 were recently laid off in the newsroom. The culprit is assumed to be the internet, stealing both stories and ads. Not so fast. I talk with MARGOT SUSCA, a former reporter, now a professor of Journalism, about her first book, HEDGED: How Private Investment Funds Helped Destroy American Newspapers and Undermine Democracy. Her assessment: “What we have is not a crisis of profit. What we have is a crisis of greed and growing inequality.”

The last time a Democratic presidential candidate won a majority of White voters was in 1964. ROBERT P JONES, President and Founder of the Public Religion Research Insitute (PRRI) and author of THE HIDDEN ROOTS OF WHITE SUPREMACY and the Path to a Shared American Future, writes that “White Christian nationalism has become central to the…Republican Party, two thirds of whom identify as white and Christian.” To find the origins of white supremacy, he says we need to look beyond 1619 to 1493, when the Pope issued the Doctrine of Discovery - that all territory not already inhabited or controlled by Christians shall be claimed by Christians as their new promised land. Learn more at www.whitetoolong.net

In todays fractionalized & polarized world, facts and reality are too often less important than which narrative you embrace or which stories you believe. Here’s my 2012 conversation with JONAH SACHS, Co-Founder of Free Range Studios - the folks behindthe classic Story of Stuff - and author of WINNING THE STORY WARS. Learn how and why narrative works so well and how to use it to your advantage.

The market – using money in politics to write its own rules - cannot respond effectively to critical challenges we face . JOAN WALSH, formerly at Salon, CNN, and MSNBC and now national affairs correspondent for The Nation, authored CORPORATE BULLSH*T with Nick Hanauer (Pitchfork Economics; Civic Action) & Donald Cohen (The Public Interest). Digging into myths and strategies of the Right, they focus on six big lies used over and over again to hold onto power and hold back progress. To learn more, go to thenation.com - search for Joan Walsh.

American democracy is under attack in 2024. Last week I talked with SAM DALEY-HARRIS about the life-tested lessons in his book RECLAIMING OUR DEMOCRACY: Every Citizen’s Guide to Transformational Advocacy. I recommend the book and the episode. I follow this week with my 2017 conversation with FRANCES MOORE LAPPE and ADAM EICHEN. LAPPE, who published Diet For A Small Planet over 50 years ago and whose work since has consistently updated the best the 60’s had to offer, and EICHEN, who graduated from college in 2015, met on a pro-democracy march. They co-authored DARING DEMOCRACY: Igniting Power, Meaning, and Connection for the America We Want - their report on pro-democracy movements near the end of Trump’s first year in office.

We must up our game in 2024. We sign petitions and make donations, but how many meet with a Congressperson or write a letter to the editor? SAM DALEY-HARRIS, founder of anti-poverty lobby RESULTS and Civic Courage, has a new 2024 edition of RECLAIMING OUR DEMOCRACY: Every Citizen’s Guide to Transformational Advocacy. His message: Find and get involved this year with a group that offers a rich structure of support - that coaches you, empowers you, emboldens you, and educates you. To learn more go to civiccourage.org or reclaimingourdemocracy.com

Despite the conflicts and injustices in the news, during this season we’re reminded to love and care for our families and neighbors, as well as those we don’t even know. I wish health, happiness, and peace to you and your loved ones. Here’s my 2011 conversation with John Prendergast and Michael Mattocks. As an emotionally wounded 21-year-old, John formed a “Big Brother/Little Brother” relationship with 7-year-old Michael. We talk about the book they wrote together, UNLIKELY BROTHERS: Our Story of Adventure, Loss, and Redemption, in which they share their experiences over 25 years as their lives intertwine.

ZEV YAROSLAVSKY, who served on the Los Angeles City Council and LACounty’s Board of Supervisors for a total of 40 years, has written a political memoir, ZEV’S LOS ANGELES: From Boyle Heights to the Halls of Power. Our conversation deals more with the memoir than the politics. We talk about Zev’s early years, his family and heritage, his college activism advocating for Russian Jews, and his surprise election to the City Council at the age of 26. Please note, this conversation was recorded before the October 7th attack on Israel by Hamas and the Israeli military response. To learn more about Zev, go to luskin.ucla.edu

Whether trying to influence involvement in foreign wars, fight for social justice, or win an election, effective organizing is crucial. Here’s my 2012 conversation with MARSHALL GANZ, who dropped out of Harvard in 1964 to participate in Freedom Summer, worked for years as one of the lead organizers for United Farm Workers, and helped devise the grass-roots model for Obama’s 2008 campaign. Now a lecturer in public policy at Harvard, I can say without reservation, we need to learn from him. You can find more at marshallganz.com

I talk with NELSON LICHTENSTEIN, History professor at UC Santa Barbara, and the author of several books on labor in America including State of the Union: A Century of American Labor. First, about the resurgence of unions in America - highlighted by good new contracts at UPS, Kaiser Permanence, and Big Three automakers, as well as successful organizing at newer huge employers like Amazon, Starbucks, and Trader Joes; and second, about his latest book, co-authored with Judith Stein, A FABULOUS FAILURE: The Clinton Presidency and the Transformation of American Capitalism.