Commonwealth Club Of California Podcast

How do we find our way to a society focused on the common good instead of greed and selfishness? Does our “socially responsible” corporation structure allow us to have other values besides profit? Our panel—Joel Bakan, Jennifer Abbot, Elizabeth Davis and Kevin McGarry—will guide us to examine these issues. Joel Bakan’s book “the New Corporation” and Jennifer Abbot and Joel’s film by the same name, calls out what they call the corporate takeover of society. From gatherings of corporate elites in Davos, to climate change and spiraling inequality, the rise of authoritarian leaders to COVID and racial injustice, our panel of media activists and academics looks at corporations’ devastating power and the systemic changes required. Countering this is a groundswell of resistance worldwide as people take to the streets in pursuit of justice and the planet’s future. The members of our panel examine how a “just recovery” means addressing the three crises: climate, COVID and capitalism. The panel will look beyond the old

Hopes and expectations are high for President Biden’s first weeks in office. His recovery plans promise to take on COVID-19, a battered economy, and a rapid clean energy transition in a way that doesn’t leave communities behind. But Navajo Nation, which until recently was home to the largest coal-fired power plant in the U.S., has been left out of economic and energy plans for a long time. “The community that has been the provider is the one that has the most homes that don't have access to electricity,” notes Wahleah Johns, Co-Founder and Director of Native Renewables. Can the incoming administration improve energy access for all Americans while phasing out fossil fuels? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Discover the political history behind the Apollo program. Ever since July 1969, Neil Armstrong's first step on the Moon has represented the pinnacle of American space exploration and a grand scientific achievement. Yet Teasel Muir-Harmony argues its primary purpose wasn't advancing science. Rather, it was part of a political strategy to build a global coalition of "freedom" against "tyranny." Starting with JFK's 1961 decision to send astronauts to the Moon, Project Apollo was central to American foreign policy. From that perspective, the critical event did not just take place on the lunar surface; it took place in homes, public squares, palaces, and schools around the world, as Apollo captured global attention like never before. In the Moon landing's afterglow, the Apollo astronauts and President Richard Nixon traveled the world to amplify the sense of participation and global unity shared by the billions who had followed the flight. Drawing on a rich array of untapped archives and firsthand interviews with A

As the president of the Democratic political action committee EMILY’s List since 2010, Stephanie Schriock has led the charge to elect female Democratic candidates across America. In the 2018 midterm elections, under Schriock’s leadership, EMILY’s List ran female candidates who flipped enough seats to win a Democratic majority in the House of Representatives. In her new book with Christina Reynolds, Run to Win: Lessons in Leadership for Women Changing the World, Schriock provides guidance for women looking to break into male-dominated spaces, whether that be in politics or otherwise. Join Schriock at INFORUM to learn more about how women can become changemakers in their communities, whether it's at the local, state or federal level. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn about the making of a timely new documentary that reveals a side of the coronavirus pandemic often unseen by most people. Pandemic19 is a short documentary film that captures the story of three doctors in the United States fighting COVID-19 from pre-to-post surge, told through their own reflective, humanizing voices, while the chaos of the pandemic spreads outside the frame of their video confessions. Pandemic19 sidesteps the salacious news headlines by focusing on the personal video journals of three doctors as they prepare for the “calm before the storm” and share their direct experiences with COVID-19 patients. As the days unfold, the doctors check-in and record their changing impressions: fears, hopes, challenges, and triumphs—laying bare their unfiltered and subjective feelings. Join us for a conversation with Dr. Virginia Brady and Pandemic19 directors Yung Chang and Annie Katsure Rollins. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Incoming President Biden faces an unimaginable set of challenges, including the COVID-19 pandemic, a gutted economy and a nation reeling from the recent capital attack. With all of that and more on his plate, what of Biden’s plans to fight climate change? “This President-elect has shown that he is absolutely committed to addressing the issue of climate,” says former EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman. “Because it affects everything.” Advancing a bipartisan climate agenda will be a hard sell. But in his nearly four decades in the Senate, Biden has made friends and earned respect from his Republican peers. “That isn’t gonna fix everything, of course not,” admits former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. But if you start with that...there are enough Republicans in the Senate who will respond to that.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rep. Jackie Speier has survived violence twice. Once in 1978, when she was a young aide to Rep. Leo Ryan and was shot and left for dead on the tarmac of an airport in Guyana after her boss was murdered trying to help members of the People’s Temple cult escape. And again last week, when she was in the House chamber in the U.S. Capitol when it was attacked. Join Rep. Speier and retired Santa Clara County Judge LaDoris Cordell for a timely and frank behind-the-scenes look at the attack on the U.S. Capitol and its implications. What is the state of the country and of American democracy following the events of the past week? What will America look like after January 20? Can the divisions in the country be healed? Congresswoman Speier has served in Congress since 2008. California’s 14th Congressional District stretches from San Francisco through San Mateo County to East Palo Alto. Representative Speier serves on the House Armed Services Committee, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the House C

Questioning science, funding vocal climate denial groups, and encouraging the focus on personal carbon footprints are corporate America’s preferred tools for shifting the responsibility for action on climate from industry to the individual. “Companies that are very much pro-climate action, that are acting in their own operations, are mostly silent on public policy,” says Bill Weihl, former Sustainability Director at Facebook. But with more workers holding their employers accountable and the start of a departure from shareholder-first capitalism, is the role of the corporation shifting? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Join us for a virtual conversation about the art of conversation with Fred Dust. Conversations are one of our most fundamental means of communicating with each other. At their best, they are unconstrained, authentic and open—two or more people sharing thoughts and ideas in ways that bridge our individual experiences to achieve a common goal. At their worst, they foster misunderstanding and frustration, and obscure our real intentions. How often do you walk away from a conversation feeling really heard? That it moved the people in it forward in some important way? If not very often, you’re not alone. After years of trying to broker communications between colleagues and clients, Dust redesigned his art of conversation by using intention and purpose, but remaining artful and playful. In this discussion, he codifies what he learned and outlines the commitment, creative listening, clarity, and context required to be more deliberate and purposeful in making conversations work. MLF ORGANIZER George Hammond NOTES MLF

In a time of racial reckoning, a new film looks at a very personal attempt to address racial injustices in this country. Ashes to Ashes is an endearing portrait of Winfred Rembert, an avid Star Wars fan and master leather-work artist who survived an attempted lynching in 1967. This moving short documentary showcases the incredible friendship he has forged with Dr. Shirley Jackson Whitaker, as she creates and establishes an interactive art exhibit to memorialize the more than 4,000 African Americans who were lynched during the Jim Crow era. Join us for a discussion with Dr. Whitaker, Winifred Rembert, and the film's director, Taylor Rees. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

To many observers, QAnon is, for lack of a better word, dangerous. They say it is dangerous to our political life, because it spreads disinformation which makes it more difficult for citizens to make informed decisions about who to vote for and what policies to support; it is also dangerous to the mental health of people who buy into the conspiracy theories, because it creates a cult-like environment, one in which people stop thinking for themselves and instead hero-worship President Donald Trump; finally, it is dangerous to the physical welfare of non-QAnon followers, because members of QAnon have been linked to violence. Matthew Rozsa is a staff writer at Salon, where he has covered everything from politics and economics to science and culture. Prior to his career at Salon, Mr. Rozsa worked for a number of media outlets, including Mic, Quartz, The Daily Dot, The Good Men Project and MSNBC. He graduated from Bard College with a B.A. in history and from Rutgers University-Newark with an M.A. in history. He is

Summers for the Tsegie-Samuelsson family were spent in Smögen, Sweden catching crayfish, lobsters and mackerel to serve with local and fresh ingredients at the dinner table. These meals were influenced by Ethiopian cuisine, creating an East African culinary experience with Swedish ingredients. These artistic and cultural influences continue to play a pivotal role in Marcus Samuelsson's cooking. Chef Marcus Samuelsson, author of the new book The Rise: Black Cooks and the Soul of American Food, takes us into a deeper journey of food, culture, and origin to appreciate the complexity of Black culinary arts. The deliciousness of modern Black cooking is only enhanced by chefs’ reclamation of Black culinary traditions, a collective desire to fight implicit bias, and an ability to energize young, creative cooks. Black meals are often categorized under the monolithic label of “soul food,” but Samuelsson reminds us that soul food flavors have influences tracing back to the African continent, the Caribbean, all over the

As the Trump presidency comes to an end, many questions have been raised about its impact and legacy on a range of policy issues and priorities for the country. The future of American history education, particularly for K–12 students, is one area where the impact could be felt for years. Responding to recent controversies such as The New York Times’s "1619 Project" and widespread calls to remove Confederate monuments, President Trump issued an executive order establishing a new “1776 Commission” to promote “patriotic education” in schools. Whether or not the Biden administration continues the commission, the focus on what should be taught about America’s founding and heritage, how constitutional issues and historical topics such as slavery should be conveyed to students, and how to teach the full and complex story of our constitutional democracy will remain a significant educational debate for years to come. This program will look at the state of this debate from a range of perspectives and discuss the future

Join us for the first Week to Week political roundtable of 2021, as we gather online for a program on the same day that Georgia holds its runoff election for two crucial U.S. Senate seats. We'll discuss the Georgia race, plus the incoming administration, the outgoing administration, the latest from Sacramento and elsewhere with our usual mix of expert insight and a dose of good-natured humor. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dr. Jessica Zitter is a national advocate for transforming the way people die in America. She is Harvard- and UCSF-trained to practice the unusual combination of critical and palliative care medicine and works as an attending physician at a public hospital in Oakland. Join us for a special one-hour program featuring "Caregiver: A Love Story," Dr. Zitter's new short documentary about the family caregiver burden. More than one in five Americans care for a loved one in need, and are facing serious physical, financial, and emotional consequences. The COVID-19 pandemic has given us all a window into this rising public health crisis, as increasing numbers of people suddenly became caregivers and those who were already doing this work become increasingly isolated and overwhelmed. After the 24-minute film, we will be joined by Dr. Zitter, co-director and producer of the film, for a discussion and Q&A facilitated by Mark Zitter. We will learn more about the issue of family caregiver burden, and get taken "behind-the-s

President-elect Joe Biden says he will infuse climate change into every corner of his agenda. That’s becoming evident looking at his emerging team. "You're already seeing signs from the nominees and the people they’re choosing that climate is going to be a part of every single agency," says Christy Goldfuss, Senior Vice President for Energy and Environment Policy at the Center for American Progress. But it will take more than staff buy-in to get the country to net-zero emissions. When he’s sworn in on January 20th, Biden will likely be facing a Republican-led Senate that opposes his climate goals. He’s announced an ambitious plan designed to achieve a one-hundred-percent clean economy and net-zero emissions by 2050, and is assembling a team of heavy hitters to get the job done. But he faces criticism from both sides. Republicans claim his plan is too expensive. Sunrise Movement and other progressives accuse him of not being ambitious enough. Join us for a discussion about the Biden climate agenda -- what he h

Mary Nichols is not a household name, but she arguably has done more than any other public official to reduce America's carbon pollution. As she puts it, “I took on the one topic that everybody agreed was really important, but they didn't know what to do about, and that was air pollution,” Nichols first served as chair of California's Air Resources Board, or the Air Board, from 1979 to 1983 in Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown's first term. When she returned to the job, almost 25 years later under a Republican governor, the board had evolved into a much more powerful and important player, in what had become an urgent struggle against climate change. The Board played a crucial role, for example, in exposing the Volkswagen “Dieselgate” scandal. “The Air Resources Board and our engineers are the ones who uncovered the fraud and figured out how it actually worked,” she recalls, “and we immediately brought in the Federal Environmental Protection Agency and in turn, the Department of Justice.” More recently, Nichols has

Join us virtually to discuss with Shin Ushijima, Japan’s best-selling legal thriller author and influential corporate counselor, the nuances of cultural shifts in Japan, the political ramifications of Japan’s response to COVID-19, the effects of China’s rising influence in Asia, the threat to Japan of North Korea’s military misadventurousness, and the institutional changes he would like to see in corporate governance in order to strengthen Japan’s international businesses. Ushijima will also share how he managed to write several novels, and non-fiction corporate advice books, while running one of Tokyo’s premier law firms. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Join us virtually for the kind of philosophical conversation Shankara would have enjoyed, the kind captured in the best of the Upanishads, as we explore with Sadhguru the ideas that have intrigued the yogis of India for millennia, and which have seeped into Western culture in bits and pieces through the curiosity of authors such as Emerson, Thoreau, Maugham and Hesse, and from a stream of famous Indian teachers who traveled to the West to share these ideas. We will start our conversation with Mark Twain, because in Hannibal, MO, during Sadhguru’s recent motorcycle tour of America, he said that when he was growing up “Moby Dick and Huck Finn kind of lived in my head for some time. Nobody else really occupied my mind much.” So we will discuss the ancient two-way literary and intellectual highway between India and the West, and then see how much more transcendental the conversation gets after that. MLF ORGANIZER George Hammond NOTES MLF: Humanities Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“Here is the great paradox of Cosmic Comic Consciousness: The world is in serious condition, and yet there is definitely something funny going on.” Swami Beyondananda, whose favorite yoga pose is tongue-in-cheek (and occasionally foot-in-mouth) is bringing his comedy disguised as wisdom—or is it wisdom disguised as comedy—to The Commonwealth Club. If you’ve never been to The Commonwealth Club, this is your opportunity to not be there again—this is a virtual event! Seriously and humorously, in these way-too-serious times, this is the perfect opportunity to take humor more seriously and seriousness more humorously. Noted author Marianne Williamson has called the Swami “the Mark Twain of our times,” and as such Swami has a “one-twack mind”—that’s the laugh twack. And he has one “loco motive”—to keep you laughing till the sacred cows come home. Now the Swami is not one of those gurus who expects people to accept his teachings without questioning. If you have an answerable question for the Swami, the Swami will ha