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Chuck Collins is an analyst and agitator around the grand canyon of inequality in American incomes and property. With Bill Gates Sr., the grandfather of Microsoft, so to speak, and father, till yesterday, of the richest man in the world, Chuck Collins wrote the book in favor of “death” taxes: Wealth and Our Commonwealth: [...]
Audio|Fri, 12 Sep 2008
|United Statesfound at18:35, 11:40
“…you ask a question of the rest of the world. In the United States when we were founded the rest of the country world was forecast societies. Where you were born is where you die you did. He didn't. Move up or down if you were just you stayed where you were. And the United States had this very different kind of Ito's and and now. The United States our -- our. We're having hardening of the arteries in terms of mobility and for the first time in the last 1015 years we're starting -- European countries being more mobile. Having more mobility within the society than the US so were trading places. And I think professor Wilson alluded to that that there's some. Ways in which the United States is becoming more like old Europe. Old caste society Europe and there's ways which Europe is becoming more. Of mobile society. …”
“…having today meaning if you think about theater Roosevelt. And Andrew Carnegie. Weighed in on you know that the dangers of inequality and but the populist -- agrarian rebellion the that urban reformers that early labor …”
Rory Stewart: the Post-Imperialist Poster Hero
Rory Stewart at full stride across Asia One young Scotsman’s dauntless walk across Afghanistan — at peril from bandits, wolves, dysentery, snow-blindness and Taliban thugs with Kalashnikovs — makes a crackling fine and best-selling adventure. But that can’t be the only reason Rory Stewart’s account of The Places In Between is the gift book and [...]
Audio|Fri, 5 Sep 2008
|Senator Obamafound at12:25, 10:12
“…is -- one and that its sales. What are the questions for Senator McCain uses. We've got to come out the first get a win. Well I didn't think that I can see on the bits of recent statements a very clear difference between the policy is Senator McCain Senator Obama. . In relation to Afghanistan. Fundamentally both of -- the scene. That each his within the power. Of the United States to build a nation and Afghanistan and the oldest lucky and is the resources all the trips. That victory is possible just a question making a bit more effort to putting -- more money or fewer soldiers on the ground. I think that's assumption is mistake I do not think it is with in the -- the United States to do that. And I think in trying to do that they're likely to make the situation was -- this. …”
“…What killed half the Coalition Provisional Authority. . The time I thought that -- the the project. Would prop -- the -- …”
What’s So Great About Us
Which words and ideas in the definition of exceptional America do you underline? Is is a bit odd for any nation to be deeply divided, witlessly vulgar, religiously orthodox, militarily aggressive, economically savage, and ungenerous to those in need, while maintaining a political stability, a standard of living, and a love of country that are the [...]
Audio|Thu, 4 Sep 2008
|Duke Ellingtonfound at27:30, 22:31
“…Well let me do you know 42 I remember. Louis Armstrong yes. At home and abroad and Duke Ellington I remember people. Talking even to this duty yeah on tour in the Soviet Union great -- and I think one more …”
“…the civil rights movement not counting -- mr. king but certainly counting Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton and others. Decided to advance their cause or their personal interest by saying America was always to blame. And …”
As Others See Us: Godfrey Hodgson on the Democrats
Click to listen to Chris’ conversation with Godfrey Hodgson (39 minutes, 18 mb mp3) Godfrey Hodgson: now When you’ve had enough of the dugout chatter from Denver on the cable networks, try Godfrey Hodgson from Oxford, 5000 miles from the convention scene. I wonder if anybody sees American politics more essentially than the co-author of a [...]
Audio|Fri, 29 Aug 2008
|Senator Obamafound at4:29, 7:21
“…the second thing is that. Everybody said they wanted change in particular. Senator Obama says he want to change. But this produced. A response. In it. The people you soul the people were being interviewed in …”
“…An cable television and in quick commercial I wonder. And it appeared Joe Biden ticking off rather impressive. Argument last night about issues on which McCain he said had been wrong Obama had been right. Who …”
Cass Sunstein: for the Homer Simpson in all of us
Click to listen to Chris’s conversation with Cass Sunstein (30 minutes, 14 mb mp3) Cass Sunstein of the gentle Nudge Cass Sunstein gives us the half-hour short course here on “the most exciting intellectual movement of the last thirty years” — behavioral economics, that is, of which we had a taste recently with George Lakoff and Dan [...]
Audio|Sun, 24 Aug 2008
|Senator Obamafound at22:17, 2:57
“…That's very Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. . I think what what I would focus on for Senator Obama is less looking good. The happens to him. Than and speaking to. Concerns that the nation now faces in a way that …”
“…your mind on politics and Gary Williams. The -- one of the best seller on predictably. Irrational. And all the hidden traps -- deception. Passions and prejudices that get in the way this stuff. But the …”
Hanging Out at Tanglewood
The Brecht-Weill opera masterpiece from 1930 -- "The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahoganny" -- plays like a raucous contemporary tragedy at Tanglewood.
Audio|Wed, 6 Aug 2008
|Charlie Chaplinfound at3:53, 0:14
“…I think you're listening thinking Charlie Chaplin gold rush but also important investment -- a -- crossroads here European and American. Nineteenth centuries when it first whatever it's a true an -- think about also. You know. Charlie Chaplin doing his version of Hitler. -- great dictator and and then according -- was actually totally influenced him. So wouldn't have been …”
“…this time. In the theater shed on the western edge of the Tanglewood lawn. I'm sitting in on the rehearsal of the court file Brecht -- Brecht masterpiece. Not the three penny opera. But the …”
The American Exception, Again
Barack Obama at the Victory Column in Berlin just now marks another stage of "rejoining the world" and "rebranding" the American voice out there on the globe. It's an astonishingly rapid transition in these dog days of July, 2008. Obama on tour is becoming "the cause of all mankind," as Thomas Paine once said of our country. What would it mean, or require, for Americans to see ourselves this way again? This is the puzzle Ted Widmer sets himself in Ark of the Liberties , whose title comes with express irony from lines that Herman Melville wrote with irony as well, in White Jacket : "And we Americans are the peculiar, chosen people -- the Israel of our time; we bear the ark of the liberties of the world... We are the pioneers of untried things, to break a new path in the New World that is ours." Click to listen to Chris's conversation with Ted Widmer (38 minutes, 17 mb p3) Ted Widmer     Ted Widmer, curator of the John Carter Brown Library at Brown, is a connoisseur of political rhetoric -- an American historian and, among other things, editor of the Library of America's compendium of great speeches. I put it to him in conversation: who thinks we're "the last best hope of earth" after the war in Iraq? Who looks at our pretty lowly rank in international measures of equality and life expectancy, and says: "lead on, America!" What is it that is still exceptional about this world nation of ours? Do we even want to be exceptional anymore? And would a President Obama make us feel more comfortable with the neighbors, more like them, or yet rarer, more blessedly peculiar? The world has become a lot more like us. We are more like the world and the world is more like us. Democracy is successful on every continent, immigration exists everywhere, most countries have constitutions and very few monarchies are left on earth. One hundred years ago, it was still a relatively rare thing to have a self-sustaining democracy with its own constitution. So our model has won. We won in a million ways in the 20th century and other countries are like us. I'm hopeful that if [Obama] is elected, it will lead to the latest American renaissance and that it will inspire people again in our capacity to lead. I think that was badly damaged, but I now object to a lot of books by liberals, even though I am a democrat. There's this huge wave of pessimism crashing over the marketplace and you can't walk into a bookstore without seeing 20 books about how we blew it... Ted Widmer in conversation with Chris Lydon at Brown University, July, 2008. I reminded Ted Widmer, and myself, that the great William James thought we'd blown it, and exposed the fraud of "exceptionalism," in the occupation of the Philippines a century ago. "God dam the U.S. for its vile conduct," James fulminated (anticipating Reverend Jeremiah Wright in the taking of prophetic liberties with his language). James went to the heart of the "exceptional" question: We used to believe... that we were of a different clay from other nations, that there was something deep in the American heart that answered to our happy birth, free from that hereditary burden which the nations of Europe bear, and which obliges them to grow by preying on their neighbors. Idle dream! pure Fourth of July fancy, scattered in five minutes by the first temptation. In every national soul there lie potentialities of the most barefaced piracy, and our own American soul is no exception to the rule. Angelic impulses and predatory lusts divide our heart exactly as they divide the hearts of other countries. It is good to rid ourselves of cant and humbug, and to know the truth about ourselves. Political virtue does not follow geographical divisions. It follows the eternal division inside of each country between the tory and the liberal tendencies, the jingoism and animal instinct that would run things by main force and brute possession, and the critical conscience that believes in educational methods and in rational rules of right. William James, "Address on the Philippine Question" in William James: Writings 1902 - 1910, Library of America. Ted Widmer remembered that Mark Twain, too, went volcanic about the Philippines and the imperial transformation of the American eagle. Twain's revision of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" began, "Mine eyes have seen the orgy of the launching of the Sword / He is searching out the hoardings where the stranger's wealth is stored..." Mark Twain was very angry about the Philippines. America's most beloved writer in many ways, and yet he had a most acute political conscience… He might have had to explain to a judge in 2008 why he was writing the anti-governmental things that he was writing around the time of the Philippines insurrection, which was the ugly aftermath to the Spanish American War. Those guys are brilliant and, I think, with William James you get something closer to what the Puritans would have said, which I find a more honest message, and it's what Lincoln was saying too, which is that if you believe that God is favoring you more highly, then you also have further to fall and you have a higher accountability. It seems to me that we're lacking the accountability. We're trying to take the good part of this and we're rejecting the other part that comes with it. Lincoln, many of the Puritans and William James all felt that if we're failing to live up to our incredible, special position in the world - we're so lucky, we live far from all these other wars, we have so many natural resources, we have this great system of government - if we're screwing it up, God's going to be very angry at us. And that I just find a more honest way of looking at it. There's a dark side of exceptionalism as well as a light side. Ted Widmer in conversation with Chris Lydon at Brown University, July, 2008.
Audio|Thu, 24 Jul 2008
|George W Bushfound at0:39, 5:58
“…Atlantis. The cause of all mankind Palestinians said the anointed people. Is John Murtha said in the seventeenth century George W. . Bush seems to say in the 21. That. The campaign here question that a lot of other people will have a crack at …”
“…regional lieutenant. Whether it's. Israeli settlers are Palestinians. Fighting against Israel or Saudi Arabia or. Uganda which signed a contract with god. At the beginning of -- this millennium or American sing everything we've done is …”
And now for something completely different…
John Maeda, the graphic artist and computer programmer who has just become president of the Rhode Island School of Design, embarks on a free-form conversational series with Chris Lydon
Audio|Fri, 18 Jul 2008
|high schoolfound at38:36, 2:33
“…was a great article in Boston Globe. About how. There is person high school where a teacher said in the high school class if you don't go to college or nothing. And his his dad was that truck driving company -- got very sacked …”
“…what process made it as always it's also like authors. Just people read books. . Because with a dropper -- the writing his heart. And oh you -- a book it's fantastic. -- make like a movie …”
George Lakoff: Obama in a Bind
Brain scientist George Lakoff is watching Barack Obama's body language and messaging skill as he maneuvers under pressure.
Audio|Fri, 11 Jul 2008
|John Kerryfound at10:58, 27:47
“…get taken by the conservatives or it's kind of a picture of John Kerry are among the car insurance and -- Obama is. -- a lot better on this but he still does not have -- …”
“…to changes. His own pledge to talk first -- pattern on the Iraq War and his profile as. Conciliator not a divider was it was you're gonna do here. …”
What would Roger Williams say… and do?
What would Roger Say? Williams, that is... the founder of the Rhode Island colony is one old measure of religious freedom and the menace of theocratic meddling in America.
Audio|Thu, 3 Jul 2008
|new bookfound at1:58, 2:30
“…power that are hidden in plain sight in Washington even now. His new book on the family. The Jesus network that he joined -- understand. Makes the case that we're already in the grips of zealots …”
“…love to do that because he's in real favorite of mine. Chris Reggie Williams grew up in England and he had the education of young classes and young Anglican clergyman. And actually he he was ordained …”