Progressive Commentary Hour – 06.20.17

You will die in a nuclear war, but the American elite will be saved — the 6 decades of planning for a nuclear confrontation and what this says about American democracy

Garrett Graff is a distinguished magazine journalist and historian who focuses on politics, national security and modern technology, especially the role of the internet in politics. His articles appear i Wired, Esquire, Bloomberg and many others.  Earlier he was the editor for two of Washington DC’s main magazines, The Washingtonian and Politico. He was Howard Dean’s webmaster when Dean served as governor of Vermont and he has taught social media and digital journalism at Georgetown University.  Garrett has lectured at Harvard Business School, the National Press Club and widely on other campuses, trade groups and international conferences and sits on the board of the National Conference on Citizenship, a congressional chartered nonprofit founded by Truman and Eisenhower to support public engagement and on the board of Vermont Public Radio. Aside from his early book about the history of the FBI, his most recent book is “Raven Rock: The Story of the US Government’s Secret Plan to Save Itself While the Rest of Us Die” which details the 60 year history of the US government’s doomsday plans in the event of a nuclear war.  His website is GarrettGraff.com

CONVERSATIONS WITH REMARKABLE MINDS

Why is there no unified progressive movement and what is necessary to build one

Rabbi Michael Lerner is clearly one the nation’s greatest Jewish intellectuals and spiritual political activists. As a teenager, Rabbi Lerner was a student of Abraham Joshua Heschel, a great socially responsible mystical thinker who marched with Martin Luther King. During the 60s, he was a chair of the Berkeley chapter of the Students for a Democratic Society and among the Seattle Seven while teaching at the University of Washington. Rabbi Lerner is the editor in chief of Tikkun Magazine—an award winning journal of interfaith and progressive critiques on American culture, politics, and religion – and is the founder of the interfaith, humanist organization the Network of Spiritual Progressives, which offers training in spiritual activism.  Rabbi Lerner’s work has been praised by the likes of Jimmy Carter, Israeli activist Uri Avnery, Desmond Tutu, Senator Keith Ellison and numerous others, especially for his insightful treatment and understanding of the roots of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  His websites are tikkun.org  and  SpiritualProgressives.org

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