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October Programs

October 30, 2020

How We Got Here, Part 3: The Fight For Meaningful Work

Tens of millions of people in the US are either out of a job right now or still working without meaningful protections, benefits, or wage increases. And if something goes wrong, workers mostly have to figure it out on their own.

In the final installment, we explore the coping mechanisms workers use to survive, debt, false Utopian solutions, and look at those who are fighting for real social and economic change.

Pundits and reporters hailed gig companies as a flexible, desirable "future of work" after the recession. With the pandemic, we are seeing how precarious and dangerous these contingent work arrangements are for those who are doing them.

While the tech industry profits off all the disempowered and isolated workers in our economy, those who have been most oppressed have been fighting for true economic and racial equality.

October 24, 2020

How We Got Here, Part 2: The Road To Shareholder Capitalism

The second part of a 3-hour radio documentary about why Americans lives are so precarious and susceptible to crisis like the current pandemic.

Tens of millions of people in the US are either out of a job right now or still working without meaningful protections, benefits, or wage increases. And if something goes wrong, workers mostly have to figure it out on their own.

In part 2, we hear how workplaces were fissured, solidarity undermined, and how America went from a notion of welfare capitalism to a nation of shareholder capitalism.

The story of how we became a nation that prioritized shareholders over wage earners, is a story of backlash—backlash by the wealthy to the worker power of the New Deal, backlash by a group of economists to Keynesianism, and backlash by white Americans to the civil rights movement.

October 17, 2020

How We Got Here, Part 1: The Great Risk Shift

The first part of a 3-hour radio documentary about why Americans lives are so precarious and susceptible to crisis like the current pandemic.

Tens of millions of people in the US are either out of a job right now or still working without meaningful protections, benefits, or wage increases. And if something goes wrong, workers mostly have to figure it out on their own.

In part 1, we look at why the conventions of modern-day media have made it so hard for journalists to tell this story. Then we unpack how obscure laws have been used by managers and executives to weaken employee benefits like health insurance and retirement.

October 10, 2020

Unresolved Debate: Policing
from Intelligence Squared U.S.

Should we defund the police? Do police unions do more harm than good? And has policing become too militarized? Staged in our “Unresolved” format, this debate brings together five experts to tackle pressing questions on the history and future of U.S. policing. Historic protests calling for police reform have erupted across the nation. But just what could these reforms mean? And how should we see the criminal justice system today?

October 3, 2020

Judicial Independence
a Humankind Special

Have our courts – intended by America’s founders to be an independent arbiter of justice – turned into another political battlefield? Are today’s judges mere “politicians in robes”?

That question is all the more timely with the Supreme Court vacancy left by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in September 2020. This public radio documentary series looks at crucial flashpoints in recent decades: The bruising nomination hearings for new judges like Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas. The Supreme Court halting an election recount to decide by a one-vote margin who becomes president of the United States. Special interest groups on both sides of the political divide spending millions to influence which judges are selected.

In this episode, we reconstruct the wild history of how we got into this dilemma, which has left bitter feelings on all sides. What effect does this have on the functioning of our democracy? Vivid archival audio plus insights by veteran court-watchers: Carl Hulse (NY Times chief Washington correspondent), Leah Ward Sears (first African American woman to serve as a chief justice in the U.S., now retired from the Georgia Supreme Court), Robert Barnes (Washington Post Supreme Court reporter).


 


 

Brian is a Spokane native who has been interested in sound technology ever since playing with a reel-to-reel deck as a kid. He learned radio broadcasting on KSFC, before it was part of Spokane Public Radio but still was part of the broadcasting program at Spokane Falls Community College. Brian also studied radio at Clatsop Community College in Astoria, Oregon, where he featured new age and fusion jazz on his own show. He admits that at heart he is a news junkie, which fits in well with his work Saturday mornings as regional host for NPR's Morning Edition.
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