Best of the Left - Leftist Perspectives on Progressive Politics, News, Culture, Economics and Democracy

Best of the Left - Leftist Perspectives on Progressive Politics, News, Culture, Economics and Democracy

Expertly-curated progressive politics, news, and culture produced by leftist humans, not algorithms or AI. This is an award-winning podcast that dives deeply into a wide range of national and international issues facing society and governments. We draw from hundreds of sources of progressive news and commentary. Est. 2006. Save time by listening to a range of perspectives on a focused topic in each episode and be introduced to new sources you will not have come across on your own!

Episodes

November 8, 2024 85 mins

Air Date 11/8/2024

The Best of the Left team holds a special post-election discussion available to all listeners to present the initial takes on the election as well as our own reactions and suggestions for how to move forward.

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Air Date 11/5/2024

There's big money in politics, and then there's 2024. The role and influence of billionaires have taken on new shapes and patterns as the threat of fascism has made itself undeniably known. From the candidate and campaigners to those acquiescing to the mere threat of power, billionaires are everywhere you look at this election season.

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Air Date 11/2/2024

The cult of Trump isn't just about Trump, it's religion and patriarchy reacting to a moment of global economic and climactic instability. But those organizing the religious right aren't just reacting to their environment, they've also been planning for a very long time.

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Air Date: 10-31-24
Today, Jay!, Amanda, Deon and Erin discuss:
- How neoliberalism is fucking up renewable energy transitions
- Marketing and why the viral Stanley Cup never should have gone viral
- How big tech is heavily surveilling school kids without any oversight
- How the fossil fuel industry has infiltrated higher education 

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Air Date 10/29/2024

Trump has only come close to perfecting the grift of the American conservative, he certainly didn't invent the strategy. Today we look at some current and past grifts and explore why they work.

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Original Air Date: 2/14/20223

Today, we take a look at some origins, alternatives and misunderstandings of capitalism from the Dutch East India Company, to Adam Smith and up through the planned obsolescence and marketing that have tricked us all into working far harder than necessary while failing to make us happy.

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Air Date 10/22/2024

This is your one-stop reference guide to every issue that is being wrongly blamed on immigrants as the Trump campaign rhetoric turns evermore fascist and xenophobic.

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Air Date: 10-20-24
Today, Jay!, Amanda, Deon and Erin discuss:
- Yet another GOP animal abuse horror
- Why weather machine conspiracy theories took off so easily
- The questionable UAE organization trying to control rain with cloud seeding
- Why more extreme weather isn't swaying certain voters on climate change
-...

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Original Air Date: 5/27/2022

Today we take a look at the disruptions to society that can unfold in times of economic distress such as high inflation, price gouging, wage stagnation and income inequality as well as some policy ideas for turning things around.

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Air Date 10/15/2024

Just as COVID tended to expose the preexisting fractures and inequalities in our society causing undue harm, supercharged by disinformation, so do natural disasters. And the impact of disinformation and conspiracy has only grown in recent years.

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October 14, 2024 19 mins

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Air Date: 10-14-24
Today, Jay!, Amanda, Deon and Erin discuss:
- A member voicemail about autopilot cars 
- Some call backs, including JD Vance being unsurprisingly weird with his dog
- The frustrating shift in the Kamala Harris campaign
- Biden's continuous blundering of Israel's war on Gaza
- The historical prec...

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Air Date 10/11/2024

Humans insatiable need for increasing amounts of energy and our tendency to want to at least have the option to wipe entire populations off the map has led to a renewed age of risks related to nuclear power, nuclear weapons, nuclear waste, and nuclear fallout.

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October 10, 2024 31 mins

Presenting an episode of 'To See Each Other,' a show that complicates the narrative about small town Americans in our most misunderstood, and often abandoned, communities. This season, host George Goehl travels to Lincoln County, Wisconsin to follow a small town battle for the last remaining public nursing home in the community. It’s a heart-pounding roller coaster of a fight - in a swing state that c...

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Air Date 10/8/2024

Immigration dominates our politics in the worst way because one side benefits from lying about it and the other can't get their messaging together to create an effective rebuttal. Opposing immigration and stoking blatantly racist arguments doesn't just make the right bad or unsavory, it also makes them wrong on literally all of the facts.

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October 7, 2024 21 mins

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Air Date: 10-7-24
Today, Jay!, Amanda, Deon and Erin discuss:
- The Today Show's take on viral phenom Moo Deng
- The GOP's obsession with killing animals
- How the media made a mess of Rashida Tlaib's comments and missed the key point
- How some Nazi language is infiltrating left wing spaces & what to do about it
...

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Air Date 10/4/2024

When women's value is seen only in relation to their ability to bear and raise children, you get policies that strip them of the right to choose whether that is something they actually want for themselves - the lived consequences are devastating.

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Air Date 10/1/2024

There's still no end in sight to Israel's war on its neighbors and the US continues its toothless efforts to de-escalate while maintaining seemingly unconditional support in spite of standing laws that should prevent our sale of weapons to any country committing war crimes - which Israel certainly it.

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September 29, 2024 18 mins

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Air Date: 9-29-24
Today, Jay!, Amanda, Deon and Erin discuss:
- Why Cards Against Humanity is fighting Elon Musk
- How car-related deaths have soared in the US
- How partial automation tech in cars is making driving more dangerous
- Why truck bloat(or C.O.U.S.s, if you prefer)is deadly
- Surveillance CARpitalism t...

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Air Date 9/27/2024

Let's just say that it's not a coincidence that right-wing authoritarians are on the rise at the same time as people around the world are having a harder time than ever figuring out what's true. That said, society is beginning to fight back.

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Air Date 9/24/2024

The positive dad vibes of Tim Walz came onto the national scene in the middle of an ongoing crisis of masculinity that stretches from the youngest generations to the oldest. Both positive and negative aspects of masculinity tie in with the general election, basically divided right down the partisan line, and the next generation of voters (not to mention humans) are often feeling stuck ...

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