Coming From Left Field (Video)

Walker Bragman is a journalist, JD, occasional cartoonist, and co-founder of OptOut Media Foundation. He writes for Salon, The Hill, Truth Out, Huffington Post and other publications. His recent reporting involves “Moms for Liberty,” an astroturf organization influenced by right-wing dark money that has been accused of using "parental rights" as a cover for strategically harassing public schools....

Sarah Augustine, a Pueblo (Tewa) descendant, is the founder and co-chair of the Coalition to Dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery, a legal principal that originated in the 15th and 16th centuries to justify colonial expansion and domination of indigenous land rights and tribal sovereignty.  We discuss impact of this doctrine, native boarding schools, combating the “extractive logic” of exploiting n...

William Z. Foster was one the most recognized and respected labor leaders in U.S. history. Chris Townsend is his prodigy. A long-time union organizer and, with the support of others, is instrumental in the unionization of Starbucks stores across the country.   Book: Working Class Giant by Arthur Zipser https://www.intpubnyc.com/browse/working-class-giant/ Links: The Undercover Organizers Behind Am...

The promise that you can “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” is central to the story of the American Dream. Not so fast…. Acclaimed journalist Alissa Quart argues that at the heart of our suffering is a do-it-yourself ethos, the misplaced belief in our independence, and the conviction that we must rely on ourselves alone.   Alissa Quart website: http://www.alissaquart.com/   Book: Bootstrapped:...

Carlos Garrido provides a comprehensive development of his concept of the purity fetish, tracing the outlook to the Eleatic school of Ancient Greek philosophy and showing how it has appeared in 20th and 21st  century Western Marxism and contemporary U.S. socialism. Book: "The Purity Fetish and the Crisis of Western Marxism" by Carlos Garrido https://www.midwesternmarx.com/books.html     Please sub...

Nathan Robinson is the editor of Current Affairs magazine and is a leading voice of millennial left politics. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Republic, The Nation, Salon, The Guardian, and elsewhere. We discuss his new book where he gives a detailed explanation of how conservative arguments work and why we need to resist them, then goes through twenty-five...

Our “friend of the show,” Bill Ehrhart returns to our podcast to discuss General Smedley D. Butler, one of the most colorful officers in the Marine Corps' long history; he was one of the two Marines who received two Medals of Honor for separate acts of outstanding heroism. Butler and Ehrhart are both cut from the same cloth, Marines, opinionated, and on the correct side of politics.   Supplemental...