Supreme Oligarchy: How Billionaires and the Supreme Court are Betraying the Promise of America

In this episode, award-winning lawyer and climate justice organizer Colette Pichon Battle lays out a bold vision for a new organizing project designed to model bioregional democratic climate action. The aim is to transform the Gulf South and Appalachia away from the lethal matrix of fossil fuel extraction and extractive economics. Instead, the regional vision is for a regenerative future of clean energy democracy, and an equitable, inclusive economy. Featuring Colette Pichon Battle, a generational native of Bayou Liberty, Louisiana, is an award-winning lawyer and prominent climate justice organizer. After 17 years leading the Gulf Coast Center for Law and Policy, she co-founded Taproot Earth to create connections and power across issues, movements, and geographies. Credits Executive Producer: Kenny Ausubel Written by: Kenny Ausubel Senior Producer and Station Relations: Stephanie Welch Program Engineer and Music Supervisor: Emily Harris Producer: Teo Grossman Host and Consulting Producer: Neil Harvey Songs in this Episode: ‘Good Morning New Orleans’ by Kermit Ruffins; ‘What Goes Around Comes Around’ by Rebirth Brass Band, provided by Basin Street Records in New Orleans, Louisiana Colette Pichon Battle – Expanding Our Movements for Climate Justice | Bioneers 2024 Keynote “Let’s Get Behind the Frontlines” with Colette Pichon Battle | Audio Excerpt From Climate Crisis to Climate Justice | Bioneers Newsletter Taproot Earth This is an episode of the Bioneers: Revolution from the Heart of Nature series. Visit the radio and podcast homepage to learn more.

Author, broadcaster and scholar Thom Hartmann warns of the existential threat of a virulent new oligarchy: the third frontal assault by the ultra-wealthy in American history to use their concentrated economic power to seize maximum political power - and overthrow democracy once and for all. Featuring Thom Hartmann, a best-selling author of over 30 books in print and host of the #1 progressive talk show host in America for more than a decade, has co-written and been featured in 6 documentaries with Leonardo DiCaprio about climate change.  Credits Executive Producer: Kenny Ausubel Written by: Kenny Ausubel Senior Producer and Station Relations: Stephanie Welch Associate Producer: Emily Harris Producer: Teo Grossman Host and Consulting Producer: Neil Harvey Resources Thom Hartmann – Supreme Oligarchy at the Gates | Bioneers 2025 Keynote Thom Hartmann – All Life Is Organized Around Democracy | Bioneers 2020 Keynote Democracy v. Plutocracy: Behind Every Great Fortune Lies a Great Crime | Bioneers Podcast Kenny Ausubel – Hostile Takeover | Bioneers 2025 Keynote This is an episode of the Bioneers: Revolution from the Heart of Nature series. Visit the radio and podcast homepage to learn more.

History doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes. From the historic Indigenous occupation of Alcatraz Island in 1969 to the fossil fuel fights throughout Canada and the U.S. today, Indigenous resistance illuminates an activism founded in a spiritual connection with the web of life and the human community – with Julian Brave NoiseCat, Dr. LaNada War Jack and Clayton Thomas-Müller. Featuring ⁠Julian Brave NoiseCat⁠ is a polymath whose work spans journalism, public policy, research, art, activism and advocacy. He serves as Director of Green Strategy at ⁠Data for Progress⁠, as well as “Narrative Change Director” for the ⁠Natural History Museum⁠ artist and activist collective. Dr. LaNada War Jack is an enrolled member of the ⁠Shoshone Bannock Tribes⁠ of the Fort Hall Indian Reservation in Idaho. Clayton Thomas-Müller is a member of the ⁠Mathias Colomb Cree Nation⁠, also known as Pukatawagan, in Northern Manitoba. He serves as the “Stop it at the Source” campaigner with ⁠350.org⁠. This is an episode of the Bioneers: Revolution from the Heart of Nature series. Visit the ⁠radio and podcast homepage⁠ to learn more.

Labor organizer and Founder of One Fair Wage, Saru Jayaraman, takes us inside one of the fiercest labor struggles to challenge a mighty oligarchy: The food, beverage and restaurant industry. Workers are walking off the job and refusing historically low wages. She says if “we the people” stand with workers as they face this powerful lobby, they can win. Featuring Saru Jayaraman, President of ⁠One Fair Wage⁠ and Director of the ⁠Food Labor Research Center at UC Berkeley⁠, co-founded (after 9/11) the ⁠Restaurant Opportunities Center⁠ (ROC), which grew into a national movement of restaurant workers, employers and consumers. Saru has won many prestigious awards for her advocacy and is the author of four books including: ⁠One Fair Wage: Ending All Subminimum Pay in America⁠ and ⁠Bite Back: People Taking on Corporate Food and Winning⁠. Resources ⁠Saru Jayaraman – The Great Revolution: What A Worker Power Moment Can Mean for Climate Justice⁠ | Bioneers 2023 Keynote ⁠Saru Jayaraman – We the People: Workers Rising for Fair Wages⁠ | Bioneers 2017 Keynote ⁠Inside the Campaign to Abolish the Subminimum Wage in 25 States by 2026⁠ | Inequality.org This is an episode of the Bioneers: Revolution from the Heart of Nature series. Visit the ⁠radio and podcast homepage⁠ to learn more.

We plug into the real world Matrix – the digital Wild West of surveillance capitalism that dominates this Age of Information. Behind it is the unholy alliance between Big Tech and Big Brother. Privacy is the first casualty and democracy dies with it. Our guide is Cindy Cohn, director of Electronic Frontier Foundation, with her decades of experience challenging digital authoritarianism. Featuring Cindy Cohn, the Executive Director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation since 2015, served as EFF’s Legal Director as well as its General Counsel from 2000 to 2015. Among other honors, Ms. Cohn was named to The Non-Profit Times 2020 Power & Influence TOP 50 list, and in 2018, Forbes included Ms. Cohn as one of America’s Top 50 Women in Tech. Resources ⁠Cindy Cohn – The Climate Fight is Digital⁠ | Bioneers 2024 Keynote ⁠Tools from Electronic Frontier Foundation⁠ Credits Executive Producer: Kenny Ausubel Written by: Kenny Ausubel Additional production and writing: Leo Hornak Senior Producer and Station Relations: Stephanie Welch Program Engineer and Music Supervisor: Emily Harris Producer: Teo Grossman Host and Consulting Producer: Neil Harvey This is an episode of the Bioneers: Revolution from the Heart of Nature series. Visit the ⁠radio and podcast homepage⁠ to learn more.

Today, three to five giant corporations control up to 80% of almost every industry and marketplace. These monopolies depress wages, exploit workers, and decimate small businesses. Stacy Mitchell from the Institute for Local Self Reliance has been a leader in a growing anti-monopoly movement with a broad political base. Can this emerging movement – along with bold federal antitrust action –  create a force that can challenge corporate power for the first time in decades?  Featuring ⁠Stacy Mitchell⁠, a Maine-based writer, strategist, and policy advocate whose work focuses on dismantling concentrated corporate power and building thriving communities and a healthy democracy, has played a leading role in today’s growing anti-monopoly movement. She is Co-Executive Director of the ⁠Institute for Local Self-Reliance⁠ (ILSR) and the author of ⁠Big-Box Swindle: The True Cost of Mega-Retailers and the Fight for America’s Independent Businesses⁠, and co-author of the influential report: ⁠Amazon’s Stranglehold⁠. Resources ⁠Stacy Mitchell – Democracy vs. Big Tech: How We Can Win the Fight Against Monopoly Power | Bioneers 2024 Keynote⁠ ⁠Democracy v. Plutocracy: Behind Every Great Fortune Lies a Great Crime⁠ ⁠Our Economic Future: Achieving a More Equitable Society by Radically Rethinking Our Guiding Economic Ideas | Bioneers Reade⁠ Credits Executive Producer: Kenny Ausubel Written by: Kenny Ausubel Senior Producer and Station Relations: Stephanie Welch Program Engineer and Music Supervisor: Emily Harris Producer: Teo Grossman Host and Consulting Producer: Neil Harvey This is an episode of the Bioneers: Revolution from the Heart of Nature series. Visit the ⁠radio and podcast homepage⁠ to learn more.

From local communities and states to federal policy, antitrust movements to dismantle monopolies are challenging the system that can be summed up as: Make Feudalism Great Again. Although breaking up is hard to do, we’ve broken up monopolies before. In this second of our two-part program, we join Thom Hartmann, Stacy Mitchell and Maurice BP-Weeks to survey the landscape of rising antitrust movements to break the stranglehold of corporate power and level the playing field for a democratized economy. Featuring Thom Hartmann, the top progressive talk show host in America for over a decade, a four-time Project Censored Award-winning journalist, and bestselling author. Learn more at his website. Stacy Mitchell, Co-Director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, which produces research and develops policy to counter corporate control and build thriving, equitable communities. Maurice BP-Weeks, Co-Executive Director of ACRE (Action Center on Race and the Economy) where he works on campaigns to create equitable communities by dismantling systems of wealth extraction in Black and Brown communities. The Hidden History of Monopolies by Thom Hartmann Fighting Monopoly Power | Institute for Local Self-Reliance All Life Is Organized Around Democracy | Thom Hartmann’s keynote address to the Bioneers 2020 Conference Democracy vs. Plutocracy panel discussion (video) | Bioneers 2020 Conference Our Economic Future | Bioneers Reader eBook This is an episode of the Bioneers: Revolution from the Heart of Nature series. Visit the radio and podcast homepage to learn more.

In this first part of a two-part program, we travel back and forth in time to explore the battle between democracy and plutocracy that goes back to the very founding of the United States.  The extreme concentration of corporate power and the prevalence of monopoly are indeed inarguable. If the solution is once again to throw the tea in the harbor, what does that look like in the 21st century? In today’s new Gilded Age of rule by the wealthy, rising anti-trust movements are challenging the stranglehold of corporate monopoly. Featuring Thom Hartmann, the top progressive talk show host in America for over a decade, a four-time Project Censored Award-winning journalist, and bestselling author. Learn more at his website. Stacy Mitchell, Co-Director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, which produces research and develops policy to counter corporate control and build thriving, equitable communities. Maurice BP-Weeks, Co-Executive Director of ACRE (Action Center on Race and the Economy) where he works on campaigns to create equitable communities by dismantling systems of wealth extraction in Black and Brown communities. Resources The Hidden History of Monopolies by Thom Hartmann All Life Is Organized Around Democracy | Thom Hartmann’s keynote address to the Bioneers 2020 Conference Democracy vs. Plutocracy panel discussion (video) | Bioneers 2020 Conference Our Economic Future | Bioneers Reader eBook This is an episode of the Bioneers: Revolution from the Heart of Nature series. Visit the radio and podcast homepage to learn more.

By around 2044, the U.S. will become a majority-minority nation. This seismic demographic shift has triggered a cultural earthquake, provoking a radical spike in hate crimes. In times of massive disruption and economic stress, what Carl Jung called the “shadow side of the psyche” comes into play: the pronounced psychological tendency in the collective psyche is to project these shadow qualities with unusual potency onto whomever people see as “the other.” But is there also a deeper story? Perhaps the question to ask is: Who benefits? In this half hour, we hear from Heather McGhee of Demos. She sees a direct connection between today’s extreme inequality and this peak moment of racial panic and white anxiety. This is an episode of the Bioneers: Revolution from the Heart of Nature series. Visit the radio and podcast homepage to learn more.

Dive into a conversation between Bioneers senior producer J.P. Harpignies and David Rothenberg. David is a musician, composer, author, naturalist, philosopher, and an independent publisher. He’s been a unique and fascinating explorer of humanity’s connections to the natural world for more than four decades. ⁠Watch the video version of this conversation⁠ One of David’s unique forms of experimentation in his extensive travels has been not only his recordings of bird and whale and other animal songs, but his attempts to engage with other species in musical exchanges. Quite a few have been captured on film and discussed in his many books. David has released some 40 albums under his own name and collaborated with many prominent musicians. Someone recently said that David has “played with everyone from Peter Gabriel to Pauline Oliveros, Suzanne Vega, Scanner, cicadas, humpbacks, frogs, Estonian pond organisms” and many others.  JP invited David to recount some of the key episodes in his career trajectory, unpack some of his guiding ideals and passions, and regale us with anecdotes from an extremely full life. To learn more about the extraordinary intelligence of life inherent in fungi, plants and animals, check out Bioneers' Earthlings newsletter. Each issue delves into captivating stories and research that promise to reshape your perception of our fellow Earthlings – and point toward a profound shift in how we all inhabit this planet together. You can subscribe at bioneers.org/earthlings