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(LAST 7 DAYS)
1. Africa with Dambisa Moyo
During the past fifty years, more than $1 trillion in development-related aid has been transferred from rich countries to Africa. Moyo asserts, however, that this assistance has made African people no better off. “Africa’s real per capita income today is lower than in the 1970s, with over half of the 700 million Africans living on less than a dollar a day.” Eschewing the “glamour aid” of celebrities such as Bob Geldof and Bono, she argues that the key to transforming African countries is to make them less reliant on foreign aid and compel them to “enforce rules of prudence and not live beyond their means.” (34:36) Video transcript
2. Charles Kesler on the Grand Liberal Project
In a sweeping review of American political history, Kesler outlines the “grand liberal project” begun a century ago. It is a project, he asserts, that has expressed itself in three distinct waves: political liberalism, economic liberalism, and cultural liberalism. Kesler further maintains that Barack Obama seeks nothing less than to complete and perfect this project. Finally, he confronts the issues of how conservatism lost its way in the face of the liberal project and how it might regain its imitative. (37:13) Video transcript
3. The Politics of Hollywood with Andrew Breitbart
Identified as “one of the ten most important people in the media that nobody’s ever met,” Andrew Breitbart details why leftward-leaning Hollywood is dangerous for America and why the people who run it are “uninteresting,” “vitriolic,” and “vicious.” Segueing from Hollywood to the Internet, Breitbart explores why the right dominates talk radio and the left seems to do better on the Internet and how the decline of print media is changing the nature of the national political conversation.
(31:45) Video transcript
4. ROBERT'S RULES OF ORDER: A Conversation with Robert Bork
There are often said to be two competing schools for interpreting the meaning of the Constitution. On one side are those who believe that the meaning of the Constitution must evolve over time as society itself changes. On the other side are those who insist that the original intent of the framers of the Constitution—what they wrote and what their intent was in writing it—is all that matters. Robert Bork is firmly in the latter school. We asked him to explicate his understanding of the U.S. Constitution, using recent Supreme Court decisions as case studies.
5. REAGAN'S WAR: Who Won the Cold War
Did Ronald Reagan win the cold war? It's been a dozen years since its end—time enough to look back on the era with some historical perspective. And one question that historians continue to argue about is the role that Ronald Reagan, the man and his policies, played in bringing the cold war to an end. To what extent did Reagan's cold war strategy build on efforts of previous administrations and to what extent was it new? Did the Soviet Union collapse as a result of external pressure or internal weakness?
6. GEN X FILES
Kellyanne Fitzpatrick, founder and president, the Polling Company, and David Serrano-Sewell, special assistant to the mayor of San Francisco, discuss Generation X-- the 54 million Americans born between 1965 and 1978 and their attitudes toward government and politics.
7. The Environment with Steven Hayward
Hayward challenges the established narrative of environmentalism, beginning with the notion that the earth is fragile and that we have little time to save it from environmental catastrophe. He deconstructs the case for global warming (including “cap and trade” plans to limit greenhouse gas emissions and the new EPA “endangerment finding” on CO2 ) and speaks to the challenges faced by poor countries as they seek to modernize and at the same time reduce the pollution that has historically accompanied modernization. Finally, he offers his insights into the deep structure of environmentalism that substitutes a human apocalypse for a religious one.
(34:41) Video transcript
8. TAKE IT TO THE LIMITS: Milton Friedman on Libertarianism
What are the elements of the libertarian movement and how does one of its most illustrious proponents, Milton Friedman, apply its tenets to issues facing the United States today? Milton Friedman, Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences discusses how he balances the libertarians' desire for a small, less intrusive government with environmental, public safety, food and drug administration, and other issues.
9. HITCH-COCKED: A Conversation with Christopher Hitchens
Journalist Christopher Hitchens discusses neoconservatives and the left, his break with The Nation magazine over his support of the war in Iraq, and his tour of the three members of the "axis of evil."
10. Hitchens—The Morals of an Atheist
If there is no God—no ground of being—if human beings represent nothing more than temporary swarms of atoms, then what sense does it make even to speak of “right” and “wrong”? Where does morality come from? Reflecting on what he calls “the appalling insinuation that I would not know right from wrong if I was not supernaturally guided,….” Christopher Hitchens takes on the likes of Jonathan Swift, C.S. Lewis, and Charles Darwin in making his case for atheism. (20:53) Video transcript
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