This is Democracy

In this episode, Jeremi and Zachary are joined by Dr. Nelson Lichtenstein to discuss the history of work and labor organization in the United States. Zachary sets the scene with his poem entitled "Soon to be But Not Yet" Nelson Lichtenstein is Distinguished Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Barbara. There he directs the Center for the Study of Work, Labor, and Democracy, which he founded in 2004 to train a new generation of labor intellectuals. A historian of labor, political economy, and ideology, he is the author or editor of 16 books, including a biography of the labor leader Walter Reuther and State of the Union: A Century of American Labor. His most recent books are Achieving Workers’ Rights in the Global Economy (2016); The Port Huron Statement: Sources and Legacies of the New Left’s Founding Manifesto (2015); The ILO From Geneva to the Pacific Rim (2015); A Contest of Ideas: Capital, Politics, and Labor (2013); The Right and Labor in America: Politics, Ideology, and Imagination (2012); The Retail Revolution: How Wal-Mart Created a Brave New World of Business (2009); and American Capitalism: Social Thought and Political Economy in the Twentieth Century (2006). Lichtenstein is currently writing a history of economic thought and policymaking in the administration of Bill Clinton. With Gary Gerstle and Alice O’Connor he has edited Beyond the New Deal Order: From the Great Depression to the Great Recession. He writes for Dissent, Jacobin, New Labor Forum, and American Prospect. Lichtenstein recently published an article in Dissent: "Is This A Strike Wave," (October 25, 2021). This episode of This is Democracy was mixed and mastered by Karoline Pfeil and Morgan Honaker.

In this episode, Jeremi and Zachary talk with special guest Dr. Mark Moffett about human biology and how it affects the development of societies. Zachary sets the scene with his poem entitled "You Don't Really Wish You Were on a Mountainside" Called “the Indiana Jones of entomology” by the National Geographic Society, Dr. Mark Moffett is a modern-day explorer with more than a little luck on his side, having accidentally sat on one of the world’s deadliest snakes, battled drug lords with dart guns, and scrambled up trees to escape elephants, all part of his mission to find new species and behaviors in remote places. Presently Mark is studying the stability of societies across animal species and in humans right up to the present day, an outgrowth of his research for his fourth book, The Human Swarm: How Our Societies Arise, Thrive, and Fall. He received a Lowell Thomas Medal from the Explorers Club for his studies climbing into forest canopies around the world. Mark is one of only a handful of people to earn a doctorate under the Harvard sociobiologist and conservationist Edward O. Wilson. This episode of This is Democracy was mix and mastered by Karoline Pfeil.

In this episode, Jeremi and Zachary talk with special guest Dr. Mark Atwood Lawrence about the Vietnam War and its continuing legacies in American society, global policy, as well as recent similar conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. Zachary sets the scene with his poem, “It is Hard to Build Utopias”. Mark Atwood Lawrence is Director of the LBJ Presidential Library and Museum in Austin, Texas. Until January 2020, he taught history at UT-Austin, where his classes focused on American and international history. Lawrence is author of Assuming the Burden: Europe and the American Commitment to War in Vietnam, The Vietnam War: A Concise International History, and, this fall, The End of Ambition: The United States and the Third World in the Vietnam Era, as well as several edited books and numerous articles, chapters, and reviews on various aspects of the history of U.S. foreign relations. Lawrence has held the Cassius Marcellus Clay Fellowship at Yale University (2006-2008) and the Stanley Kaplan Visiting Professorship in American Foreign Policy at Williams College (2011-2012). He earned his BA from Stanford University and his PhD from Yale University. This episode of This is Democracy was mixed and mastered by Ean Herrera.

In this episode, Jeremi and Zachary talk with special guests Dyana Limon-Mercado, and Sarah Wheat about how women are responding to the latest abortion restrictions in Texas. Zachary sets the scene with his poem, “About Freedom”. Dyana Limon-Mercado is Executive Director of Planned Parenthood Texas Votes. Sarah Wheat is Chief External Affairs Officer at Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas. This episode of This is Democracy was mixed and mastered by Isaiah Thomas and Ean Herrera.

In this episode, Jeremi and Zachary talk with special guest, Dr. Sheila Olmstead about climate change, the environment, and how the pandemic has exacerbated and changed our policies in handling it. Zachary sets the scene with his poem, “Fuelless”. Dr. Sheila Olmstead is a Professor at the University of Texas at Austin’s LBJ School of Public Affairs, a University Fellow at Resources for the Future (RFF), and a Senior Fellow at the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC). Professor Olmstead is a Charter Member of the Science Advisory Board at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. In 2016-2017 she served in the White House as Senior Economist for Energy and the Environment on the President’s Council of Economic Advisers. Professor Olmstead has published in leading journals such as the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the Journal of Economic Perspectives, the Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, the Journal of Urban Economics, Science, Water Resources Research, and Environmental Science and Technology. This episode of This is Democracy was mixed and mastered by Alejandra Arrazola and Ean Herrera.

In this episode, Jeremi and Zachary talk with special guests, Dr. James Goldgeier and Dr. Joshua Shifrinson, about NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), and discuss why the alliance exists, the roll it has played, and how we should think about the alliance's future. Zachary sets the scene with his poem, “Transatlantic Elegy”. James Goldgeier is a Professor of International Relations and served as Dean of the School of International Service at American University from 2011-17. He is also a Robert Bosch Senior Visiting Fellow at the Center on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution, and he serves as the chair of the State Department Historical Advisory Committee. He has authored or co-authored four books including: America Between the Wars: From 11/9 to 9/11 (co-authored with Derek Chollet); Power and Purpose: U.S. Policy toward Russia after the Cold War (co-authored with Michael McFaul); and Not Whether But When: The U.S. Decision to Enlarge NATO.  Joshua Shifrinson is an Associate Professor of International Relations in the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University. Shifrinson’s book, Rising Titans, Falling Giants: How Great Powers Exploit Power Shifts, explains why some rising states challenge and prey upon declining great powers, while others seek to support and cooperate with declining states. He has additional related projects on U.S. grand strategy, the durability of NATO, U.S. relations with its allies during and after the Cold War, and the rise of China. His work has appeared in International Security, the Journal of Strategic Studies, Foreign Affairs, and other venues.  This episode of This is Democracy was mixed and mastered by Ean Herrera.

In this episode, Jeremi and Zachary talk with special guest, Jeffrey Rathke, about the upcoming elections in Germany and what implications they could have for politics within Germany, the European Union, and the United States. Zachary sets the scene with his poem, “Something We Should Remember Having Done.” Jeffrey Rathke is the President of the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies at the Johns Hopkins University in Washington, DC. Prior to joining AICGS, Jeff was a senior fellow and deputy director of the Europe Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, where his work focused on transatlantic relations and U.S. security and defense policy. Jeff joined CSIS in 2015 from the State Department, after a 24-year career as a Foreign Service Officer, dedicated primarily to U.S. relations with Europe. He was director of the State Department Press Office from 2014 to 2015, briefing the State Department press corps and managing the Department’s engagement with U.S. print and electronic media. Jeff led the political section of the U.S. Embassy in Kuala Lumpur from 2011 to 2014. Prior to that, he was deputy chief of staff to the NATO Secretary-General in Brussels. He also served in Berlin as minister-counselor for political affairs (2006–2009), his second tour of duty in Germany. His Washington assignments have included the deputy director of the Office of European Security and Political Affairs and duty officer in the White House Situation Room and State Department Operations Center.

In today's episode, Jeremi and Zachary have the opportunity to talk with special guests Steven Nadler and Lawrence Sharpiro. They discuss their exciting new book: When Bad Thinking Happens to Good People as well as the topic of moving towards a more open, evidence based, and logical form of thinking in society. Zachary sets the scene with his poem, "The Apparition". Steven Nadler is Vilas Research Professor and the William H. Hay II Professor of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His books include Menasseh ben Israel: Rabbi of Amsterdam (Yale, “Jewish Lives” series, 2018); A Book Forged in Hell: Spinoza's Scandalous Treatise and the Birth of the Secular Age (Princeton, 2011); The Philosopher, the Priest and the Painter: A Portrait of Descartes (Princeton, 2013); Spinoza: A Life (Cambridge, 1999; 2nd ed. 2018); and Rembrandt's Jews (Chicago, 2003, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize). He is also the author, with his son Ben Nadler, of the graphic book Heretics! The Wondrous (and Dangerous) Beginnings of Modern Philosophy (Princeton, 2017). His most recent book is Think Least of Death: Spinoza on How to Live and How to Die (Princeton, 2020). He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Lawrence Shapiro is the Berent Enç Professor of Philosophy at University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research spans philosophy of mind and philosophy of psychology. Within philosophy of mind he has focused on issues related to reduction, especially concerning the thesis of multiple realization. His books include The Mind Incarnate (MIT, 2004) and The Multiple Realization Book (co-authored with Professor Thomas Polger.) His book, Embodied Cognition (Routledge Press), received the American Philosophical Association’s Joseph B. Gittler Award for best book in philosophy of the social sciences (2013). His recent interest in philosophy of religion resulted in The Miracle Myth: Why Belief in the Resurrection and the Supernatural is Unjustified (Columbia University Press, 2016). Drs. Nadler and Shapiro recently co-authored an exciting new book: When Bad Thinking Happens to Good People (Princeton University Press, 2021).  This episode of This is Democracy was mixed and mastered by Isaiah Thomas and Ean Herrera

Jeremi and Zachary, with special guest, Professor Stephen Vladeck, discuss the Shadow Docket in response to the recent controversial Texas Law that largely restricts access to Abortion. Zachary sets the scene with his poem, "The Right to Choose". Stephen I. Vladeck holds the Charles Alan Wright Chair in Federal Courts at the University of Texas School of Law and is a nationally recognized expert on the federal courts, constitutional law, national security law, and military justice. Professor Vladeck has argued before the U.S. Supreme Court, the Texas Supreme Court, and various lower federal civilian and military courts; has testified before numerous congressional committees and Executive Branch agencies and commissions; has served as an expert witness both in U.S. state and federal courts and in foreign tribunals; and has received numerous awards for his influential and widely cited legal scholarship, his prolific popular writing, his teaching, and his service to the legal profession.  Vladeck is the co-host, together with Professor Bobby Chesney, of the popular and award-winning “National Security Law Podcast.” He is CNN’s lead Supreme Court analyst and a co-author of Aspen Publishers’ leading national security law and counterterrorism law casebooks. And he is an executive editor of the Just Security blog and a senior editor of the Lawfare blog. This episode of This is Democracy was mixed and mastered by Ean Herrera

Jeremi and Zachary, with special guest, Prof. B. Venkat Mani, discuss the refugee crisis in reaction to recent events in Afghanistan Zachary sets the scene with his poem, "The Airplane With the City Clinging to its Wheels". B. Venkat Mani is a Professor of German and World Literature at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he is also a Senior Fellow in Race, Ethnicity, and Indigeneity. He was born and brought up in India and migrated to the US as for graduate education. He researches and teaches German literature, literature of migrants and refugees, and world literature. He is the author, among others of Cosmopolitical Claims(2007) and the multiple award winning Recoding World Literature (2017). He has co-edited a A Companion to World Literature (Wiley Blackwell 2020).  His work on racial, ethnic, and religious minorities with a focus on migration has also appeared in  The Wire (Hindi), Inside Higher Ed,Telos, and The Hindustan Times. His most recent article is: "Empires Slay, Publics Pay: The Global Refugee Crisis Unfolding in Afghanistan,” Hindustan Times (Aug 22, 2021): https://www.hindustantimes.com/opinion/empires-slay-publics-pay-the-global-refugee-crisis-unfolding-in-afghanistan-101629631940164.html.  This episode of This is Democracy was mixed and mastered by Morgan Honaker.