Norm Diamond

For the final day of Black History Month, Norm Diamond examines Robert Paul Wolff’s Autobiography of an Ex-White Man, an extraordinary book by a distinguished activist professor who, late in his career, was invited to join an Afro-American Studies Program and began to reali... Read more

Today across the planet two familiar forces — corporate capital and the broad left — are furiously contesting for the resources and authority to direct the mobilization necessary to restore a habitable planet in the little time that remains. In part one of this two part int... Read more

Our music for today’s program compares powerful English-language versions of “Pirate Jenny” from the Three-Penny Opera by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht. Marianne Faithful stays faithful to the German original, while Nina Simone converts the song into a lament and revenge fa... Read more

Many of us look back at previous generations and wonder what they could possibly have been thinking – about slavery, or sexism, or environmental destruction, or many other issues. But what can we learn – today – from people who spoke out against injustices like that when th... Read more

There once was a time, a very long time, when large parts of the US population believed unquestioningly in the American Dream: that hard work sufficed to get ahead; that Democrat and Republican political parties represented the full range of political possibilities; that th... Read more

Did you know that Oregon has an official state song? And that the lyrics were only recently changed to remove their racial bias? Harold Johnson both reads and sings his poem “Down In the Valley” in response. Is he talking about the Willamette Valley or rather the Valley of ... Read more

Surprising all the experts, the German Social Democratic Party rose from the dead to win the German national election in September of last year, promising to deal with the capitalist crises of our time: pandemics, climate change, growing inequality, and the threat of right ... Read more

  Norm Diamond hosts this episode of the Old Mole, which includes the following segments: Social Democracy in Germany: Surprising all the experts, the German Social Democratic Party rose from the dead to win the German national election in September of last year, promisin... Read more

In a combination WRR and Another World Is Possible, Norm Diamond introduces and reads one of the lesser-known classics of American literature, a brilliantly ironic 1865 letter from a former slave, now living with his family in the North, to his former master. The master had... Read more

Bill Resnick talks to Jeremey Brecher who wrote the book Climate Insurgency, a Strategy for Survival. Brecher begins by noting that the economies of major nations continue to increase their greenhouse gas emissions with no credible plan to reduce them. Then Brecher delivers... Read more