Commonwealth Club Of California Podcast

No one doubts that there is some corruption in America, as there is in every other country. But in her latest book, Sarah Chayes contends that the United States is showing symptoms distressingly similar to those of the most corrupt countries in the world. Corruption, as Chayes defines it, is an operating system of sophisticated networks in which government officials, key private-sector interests, and out-and-out criminals interweave. Their main objective: to maximize returns for network members. Chayes shows how corrupt systems are organized, how they enforce the rules so their crimes are rarely punished, how they are overlooked and downplayed—shrugged off with a roll of the eyes—by the richer and better educated, and how they shape our government, affecting all levels of society. Chayes also reviews the historical trends involved, beginning with the titans of America's Gilded Age (Carnegie, Rockefeller, J. P. Morgan), the collapse of the stock market in 1929, the Great Depression and FDR's New Deal, and Joe

In late 1976, Ronald Reagan was dismissed as a man without a political future: defeated in his nomination bid against a sitting president of his own party, blamed for President Gerald Ford’s defeat, too old to make another run. Four years later, the former California governor would win the White House and expand a conservative revolution begun with Barry Goldwater that continues to impact the country’s politics today. Reagan’s comeback was fueled by an extraordinary confluence: fundamentalist preachers and former segregationists reinventing themselves as militant crusaders against gay rights and feminism; business executives uniting against regulation in an era of economic decline; a cadre of secretive “New Right” organizers deploying state-of-the-art technology, bending political norms to the breaking point—and Reagan’s own unbending optimism, his ability to convey unshakable confidence in America as the world’s “shining city on a hill.” Backed by a reenergized conservative Republican base, Reagan ran on the

Join us for a virtual conversation between Alan Mikhail and Adam Hochschild about Mikhail's new book, God's Shadow. Although long neglected in European-centric world histories, the Ottoman Empire was a hub of intellectual fervor, geopolitical power and enlightened pluralistic rule. At the height of their authority in the 16th century, the Ottomans, with military dominance and monopolies over trade routes, controlled more territory and ruled over more people than any other world power of the time, forcing Europeans out of the Mediterranean and to the New World. Mikhail recasts this Ottoman history by retelling it through the dramatic biography of Sultan Selim I (1470–1520). Born to a concubine, the fourth of his sultan father’s 10 sons, Selim's charisma and military prowess―as well as the guidance of his mother Gülbahar―allowed him to claim power in 1512 and then nearly triple the empire's territory, building a governing structure that lasted into the 20th century. Selim also fostered religious diversity, enco

What happens when wilderness meets wealth in the most iconic parts of the country? Teton County, Wyoming, is famous for pristine outdoors, recreation, ranching and land stewardship. It also leads the country in per capita income, with residents averaging a quarter of a million dollars annually. This massive accrual of wealth comes with far-reaching consequences for income inequality and the environment. How are public and private land interests competing in the American West? Can conservation and recreation coalesce in a way that is inclusive of all communities? Join us for a conversation with Justin Farrell, associate professor of sociology at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and author of Billionaire Wilderness: The Ultra-Wealthy and the Remaking of the American West; Dina Gilio-Whitaker, American Indian studies lecturer at California State University, San Marcos; and Diane Regas, president and CEO of The Trust for Public Land. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoi

As 2020 continues to challenge our way of life, young people are facing the brunt of this unrest. COVID-19 is quickly defining this era, but issues such as racial inequity, economic disparity, historic unemployment rates and the fast-approaching presidential election are also informing Generation Z’s worldview. How are young people processing the government’s role in this crisis? What is the current state of civics education in the United States and, most important, what can we do to make sure youth are civically engaged during this time of uncertainty and into the future? INFORUM and The Commonwealth Club's education initiative, Creating Citizens, have gathered a panel of experts in civics education and youth engagement to discuss how we can continue to educate young people on the structures that impact their lives, and how we can make sure they are an active part of political decision making. Join Generation Citizen’s Scott Warren, IGNITE National’s Sara Guillermo, Kidizenship's Amanda Little and iCivics’ A

Click. Share. Cyberwarfare. More than ever before, people are logging on, sharing posts, updating statuses, and posting picture after picture as social media offers a physically distant form of connection during the COVID-19 pandemic. But how is this rapid shift in media consumption and the information (and disinformation) that we share affecting democracy during an election year? For more than a decade, online platforms have provided people with much-needed virtual alternatives to in-person offices, classrooms, gyms, and now social activism. And yet with every check-in sent, story posted and account made comes a new bank of user information that can be hacked, data mined, and weaponized by both foreign and domestic threats. Alex Stamos has built his career on ensuring that internet users are safe and protected, especially as social media becomes more pervasive. As Facebook’s former chief security officer, Stamos is no stranger to the dangers of cybersecurity breaches and the widespread consequences of these

Join us for a virtual conversation with Susan Eisenhower, who describes in How Ike Led the ways in which her grandfather, President Dwight Eisenhower, led America through a transformational time using strategic, principled leadership. Few people have made major decisions as momentous or varied as Eisenhower did. From D-Day to Little Rock, from the Korean War to Cold War crises, from the Red Scare to the Missile Gap controversies, Ike relied on a core set of principles to give our country 8 years of peace and prosperity. These were informed by his heritage and upbringing, as well as his strong character and personal discipline. But he also avoided making himself the center of things. He was a man of judgment, and steadying force. He sought national unity by pursuing a course he called the "Middle Way" that tried to make winners on both sides of any issue. And he was a strategic leader who relied on a rigorous pursuit of the facts for decision-making. His talent for envisioning a whole, especially in the contex

Jason Valadão has overcome numerous challenges—serving in the U.S. Navy as a flight officer during Operations Iraqi and Enduring Freedom and currently as a doctor of family and sports medicine, teaching and mentoring at several universities, including in the Department of Naval Science at the University of California, Berkeley (where he also spent three years as a faculty fellow and volunteer with the football team's coaching staff and earned a master's degree in education), and surviving cancer. Since 2009, he has served as an adjunct professor for Concordia University Irvine's Master's degree program in coaching and athletic administration, and in 2017 he joined the faculty of the American Academy of Family Physicians Chief Resident Leadership Development Program, helping to develop the physician leaders of tomorrow. His passion for leadership and personal growth led Jason to become a certified coach, speaker and trainer, mentoring people on their journeys toward personal growth and development. In his book

NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, is the nation’s largest grassroots mental health organization dedicated to building better lives for the millions of Americans affected by mental illness. What started as a small group of families gathered around a kitchen table in 1979 has blossomed into the nation's leading voice on mental health. Today, it is an association of more than 500 local affiliates who work in communities to raise awareness and provide support and education that was not previously available to those in need. Offered in thousands of communities across the United States through NAMI state organizations and NAMI affiliates, its education programs ensure hundreds of thousands of families, individuals and educators get the support and information they need. NAMI shapes national public policy for people impacted by mental illness and their families and provides volunteer leaders with the tools, resources and skills necessary to reduce mental health stigma and discrimination across this coun

Students: This program is for you! What do you want to tell or ask adults who are making the decisions that have changed your lives so dramatically over the past few months? Please join us for this free program to share your thoughts, questions, concerns and suggestions. Ever since the coronavirus shut down schools last spring, the national conversation has swirled around questions of whether and how to reopen. And though the new school year is upon us, we seem to be no closer to a resolution. But amidst all of the controversy, one set of voices has been almost entirely left out of the conversation: that of the students themselves. Developed by and for students, this program will be an interactive conversation about issues that are on young people’s minds, such as: What do students think about going to school—or not—in the middle of a pandemic? How have they been managing remote learning? What thoughts or worries do they have about social distancing? How have protests and social unrest affected them? Adults a

Is there really a method to the seemingly chaotic behavior of Donald Trump? Are his outbursts calculated distractions or just involuntary tantrums? What does President Trump hold more precious—the integrity of the nation or his own television ratings? CNN’s Jim Sciutto, sets out to answer these questions. According to Sciutto, President Trump’s foreign policy has not only undermined American values and interests but also emboldened our enemies. Hear more about the changing landscape of our national security. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Immigration has been a hot-button issue for much of the past four years, but when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, major new restrictions on migration—legal and otherwise—came into force. Attorney Tammy Sumontha will discuss policy changes and their impacts on immigrants and their families. Sumontha, born and raised in Thailand, now practices law in San Diego, focusing on immigrants and U.S. immigration law. She has received several awards for her work, including the Judge Judith Keep Award and the Outstanding Community Service Award. She is the first Thai-born lawyer to be nominated and awarded those honors. Join us for a free program discussing immigration policies and what has changed in this time of global pandemic. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Few people know politics better than “Pod Save America” co-host and best-selling author Dan Pfeiffer. With the 2020 election fast approaching, Pfeiffer offers a candid look at the current state of our political landscape and explains how Democrats can dismantle Trumpist politics and take back the White House. According to Pfeiffer, conservatives have rigged American politics to drown out the voices of the people in favor of the powerful. He argues that without an aggressive response that recognizes who the Republicans are and what they have done, American democracy as we know it won't survive this moment, and a conservative, shrinking, mostly white minority will govern the country for decades. Pfeiffer was one of President Barack Obama’s longest-serving advisers, working on two presidential campaigns and spending six years as White House communications director and senior advisor to the president. Notes: This program contains EXPLICIT language. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Recent years have seen the incredibly rapid rise of Black rights movements that take a stand against police violence, a growing criminal justice system, and a widening racial wealth gap. As a journalist, civil rights activist, and co-founder of the Real Justice PAC, Shaun King is no stranger to activism in the face of opposition. King stands out for his long list of public service with past work in community service as an Oprah Winfrey Scholar and teaching in both Atlanta public schools and Atlanta’s juvenile justice system. More recently, he has focused on mobilizing internet campaigns to spread awareness and fundraising efforts around police brutality and criminal justice reform. He builds on the ideas of these movements in his new book, Make Change: How to Fight Injustice, Dismantle Systemic Oppression, and Own Our Future, by bridging the gap between problems that persist in our modern age with solutions that each one of us can help support. Join INFORUM for a special conversation with Shaun King, where he

Over the past couple of decades, corporations have increased their control of nearly aspect of American life. Big technology platform monopolists like Facebook and Google, and life science companies like Bayer have a greater concentration of wealth and power than we've seen in the United States since the Gilded Age. Critics say that massive, multinational companies are evolving into political entities that often have more influence than actual governments, bending state and federal legislatures to their wills and even creating courts that circumvent the U.S. justice system. The big question for many, of course, is: How can we recover our freedom from these giant companies? Anti-corruption scholar and activist Zephyr Teachout has one answer: Break up the monopolies that are increasingly in control of American democratic institutions and public life. In her new book, Break 'Em Up: Recovering Our Freedom from Big Ag, Big Tech, and Big Money, Teachout argues that monopolies are the root cause of many of the issue

The active presence of federal troops in Portland, Oregon sparked an increase in violence and protests just as the mayor said things had been calming down. Now President Donald Trump is promising to send troops to other large cities, ostensibly to put down the violence but critics say it is an election ploy designed to trigger reaction from protestors and increase support from the president's base. Join us for a conversation with journalist Robert Evans for an on-the-scene report from Portland on the ongoing confrontations in that city—and their implications nationwide. Robert Evans has worked as a conflict journalist in Iraq and Ukraine and reported extensively on far-right extremist groups in the United States. He's particularly interested in the ways terrorist groups recruit, radicalize and communicate through the Internet. This program contains some Explicit language. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“You’re fired!” was Donald Trump’s iconic catch phrase for years as a reality TV personality. Now, President Trump’s poor approval ratings have led to a 4-year conversation on how to defeat him in November. In his new book You’re Fired, popular political strategist Paul Begala has a reply to this pressing issue for Democrats. Begala picks apart Trump’s politics and outlines how liberals and progressives can unseat the president come November. Begala argues that distraction is President Trump’s superpower. For Democrats to win, Begala says they must make their case to America that President Trump has failed them while also implementing a strong strategy of progressive politics and party unity. Tune in for our conversation with Paul Begala that is sure to be filled with wit and political wisdom. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The New York Times bestseller Maybe You Should Talk to Someone takes readers into both Lori Gottlieb’s therapy office where she sees patients and her own therapist's office, where she lands after a crisis. But really the book is about the universal human condition. Gottlieb writes about topics that make people think differently about themselves and the world around them: love and loss, meaning and mortality, gender and culture, parents and children, female appearance, regret and redemption, hope and change. In any given year, 30 million Americans sit on a therapist's couch, but there's still stigma around mental health struggles. Gottlieb will talk about this cultural moment in mental health, which factors are contributing to the anxiety/depression/loneliness, what really goes on in a modern-day therapy room (from both sides—as patient and therapist), and what we can do in our daily lives to take control and feel better. MLF ORGANIZER Patty James NOTES This program contains some explicit language MLF: Health

With a pandemic raging, an economy in trouble, racial justice galvanizing protestors nationwide, it's not a bad time to have a political roundtable, right? We'll discuss the latest political news with civility and good humor, and we invite you to be a part of this virtual experience. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In May 1969, Freeman was an anti-war pacifist working in Chicago as a draft counselor for a Quaker social action committee. She and a group of fellow activists broke into a Southside Chicago draft board, dragged 40,000 draft records out into the parking lot, and set them ablaze. Her federal trial began in May 1970, only a few days after four Kent State protestors had been killed by the National Guard. During her trial, the jury was not permitted to hear any testimony about the defendants’ ideals or motivation and it became clear that the judge was seeking unprecedentedly long sentences. So a few days before the trial ended she fled with her friend and co-defendant, a radical Catholic priest. In Failure to Appear, Freeman recounts her precarious life as a fugitive for almost two decades, her struggle to find her true identity amid the lies she told about herself, the pain and confusion of being "hidden in a closet within a closet," and how she finally found a way back out of both closets with her values intact