Background Briefing: November 24, 2022
What We Can Be Thankful for in Spite of Hate-Filled Politics at Home and War Crimes Abroad
We begin on this Thanksgiving with an effort to explore what we can be thankful for in spite of the polarized and hate-filled politics at home and the grim war-torn landscapes abroad with Putin’s war on Ukraine bringing daily stories of looting, rape, torture and executions. Joining us to bridge the divide between hope and despair, malevolence and thankfulness is Kate Mackintosh, the Executive Director of the Promise Institute for Human Rights at UCLA School of Law. She was an administrator responsible as Deputy Registrar for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Previously she was a legal advisor to Doctors Without Borders, and was part of post conflict human rights field operations in Bosnia as well as Rwanda. She was also Deputy Chair of the independent expert panel for the legal definition of ecocide.
Making a Future We Can be Thankful For With Daunting Challenges Ahead
Then we look further into what we can be thankful for on this Thanksgiving as well as what we have to face as challenges to our democratic future in this country and on our planet as we address or fail to address the daunting global threats ahead. Joining us is Stephan Schwartz, a senior fellow at the BIAL foundation and a Distinguished Scholar at the California Institute of Human Sciences as well as editor of the daily web publication Schwartzreport.net and a columnist for the journal Explore. His latest book is The 8 Laws of Change. And his latest articles at Explore are “Driving out the carbon age,” “Healthcare after Roe: A saga of shortage, misery and death” and “Science slowly accepts the matrix of consciousness.”