Month: January 2022

Mounting Russian Military Preparation as Ukraine Disperses its Army in Readiness For Guerrilla War

We begin with mounting Russian preparations for war with Ukraine as Western diplomats and their families leave Kyiv and the stock market drops 1,000 points in anticipation of a war in Europe. Joining us is Anders Åslund, a senior fellow at the Stockholm Free World Forum, a professor at the Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies at Georgetown University and a former senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. A member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, he worked as a Swedish diplomat in Moscow and served as an economic advisor to the governments of Russia and Ukraine. His books include Ukraine: What Went Wrong and How to Fix It and Russia’s Crony Capitalism: The Path from Market Economy to Kleptocracy and we discuss how much Russia’s military industrial complex and hawkish generals are driving the march to war and the extent to which countervailing economic interests from the kleptocrats with their money stashed abroad could offset the hawks who would like a new Cold War which would make them relevant again.

The Supreme Court Targets Affirmative Action

Then with the right wing majority Supreme Court taking up a means to strike down affirmative action which lawyers who were former clerks of Justice Clarence Thomas are arguing in a case against Harvard and UNC brought by a right wing activist who was behind the Shelby County case in which the Roberts Court gutted voting rights, we speak with Kevin Carey, the vice president for Education Policy and knowledge management at the New America Foundation where he also directs the Education Policy program. He is a regular contributor to The Upshot at the New York Times and the author of The End of College: Creating the Future of Learning and the University of Everywhere.

How the Politics of White Grievance is Infecting American Education

Then finally we look into how the politics of white grievance is infecting education as Texas bans books and Florida’s Governor DeSantis pushes a bill aimed at the boogie man of Critical Race Theory that would prohibit Florida’s public schools and private businesses from making people feel “discomfort” or “guilt” based on their race, sex or national origin. Joining us is Martin Carnoy, a Professor of Education at Stanford University School of Education and a labor economist with a special interest in the relationship between the economy and the educational system.