Episodes
Sunday Sep 15, 2019
Charles and David Koch Are Not Who You Think They Are!
Sunday Sep 15, 2019
Sunday Sep 15, 2019
Silent Cal Coolidge is reported to have said “that the business of America is business.” Correct or not, it’s fair to say that by looking at only American business over the past 60 years, we can see the full arc of our contemporary history.
Think of all of the things that have been front and center in our politics and our culture that have sprung from business, going all the way back to the 60’s. Conglomerates, the free movement of money around the world, manufacturing changes, management and blue-collar workers, government control and union membership. Private equity, derivatives, lobbyists, corporate political contributions, climate change, think tanks and branding.
Each and every one of these things have been a part of the empire that is Koch Industries and has been touched and shaped by Charles and David Koch.
Whether you like their particular brand of politics or not, the company and the empire they built have to be respected. Whether Balzac was correct when he said that “behind every great fortune is a great crime,” is a question worth examining in the context the Koch industry.
That’s part of the deep dive into Koch that business journalist Christopher Leonard has given us in his new book Kochland: The Secret History of Koch Industries and Corporate Power in America.
My conversation with Christopher Leonard:
Tuesday Dec 11, 2018
Tuesday Dec 11, 2018
At a time when journalism is under siege when the attacks sometimes result in too much caution when the goal of politicians is to attack journalist like they are working the refs, it’s worth thinking about times when we’ve seen full-throated, muscular and sometimes participatory journalism. The kind practiced by the likes of Jimmy Breslin, or H.L. Menken, George Plimpton, Truman Capote, Norman Mailer or Hunter S. Thompson.
Thompson had the opportunity to be present for many world-changing moments. How he saw them, and how he reported them, may have shaped a generation of readers and it may still be in the very DNA of how we consume news today.
Timothy Denevi captures the zeitgeist of the Thompson moment in Freak Kingdom: Hunter S. Thompson's Manic Ten-Year Crusade Against American Fascism
My conversation with Tim Denevi:
Saturday Jul 02, 2016
Campaign 1776 - The War That We Almost Lost
Saturday Jul 02, 2016
Saturday Jul 02, 2016
Monday Dec 21, 2015
Imagine a non religious world? Imagine Peace
Monday Dec 21, 2015
Monday Dec 21, 2015
Friday Dec 06, 2013
After Mandela
Friday Dec 06, 2013
Friday Dec 06, 2013
Wednesday Dec 04, 2013
Glamour
Wednesday Dec 04, 2013
Wednesday Dec 04, 2013