Government Created Segregation The US government codified overt segregation in housing policy at the beginning of the 20 th century. The New Deal created the Federal Housing Administration, which required all new public or government-backed housing developments to be segregated. Zoning laws and plans around the country segregrated urban areas that were already integrated, and relegated African-Americans to less desirable areas. The government sought to solve the housing crisis after WWII by unde...
Feb 04, 2021•35 min•Ep 4•Transcript available on Metacast What is the Filibuster? In the Senate, a bill passes if it receives more than half of the vote. To bring a vote to the floor, the Majority Leader asks Senate members if anyone has any objections before moving to a simple majority vote. If any member objects, the filibuster comes into play. The filibuster forces a debate on the bill. A ‘cloture’ vote must be taken to end this debate and move forward with the original vote. This cloture vote requires 60 votes, significantly more than is needed to ...
Feb 02, 2021•54 min•Ep 3•Transcript available on Metacast Critical Race Theory Critical Race Theory is a theory of justice designed to respond to the endemic racism in America’s legal system. It places intersectional anti-racism at the center of analysis of law, politics, and power. It examines the origins of the idea of race and seeks to understand how institutions continue to perpetuate racism today. Although slavery and the genocide of Indigenous people have ceased, these past practices continue to inform our institutional systems and create injusti...
Jan 28, 2021•37 min•Ep 2•Transcript available on Metacast The Lost Cause Before and during the Civil War, Southern Baptist leaders argued that slavery was just and the slaveholding South represented the pinicle of human civilization. After the South lost, they began to espouse the idea of the Lost Cause—that the war on Earth may be lost, but God would ultimately redeem the South with the Second Coming. This idea became widespread throughout the South, and can still be seen today in Confederate Monuments like the one in Richmond, VA which reads “God Wil...
Jan 21, 2021•33 min•Ep 1•Transcript available on Metacast Surveillance Capitalism Surveillance Capitalism is the dominant economic logic in our world today. It claims private human experience for the marketplace and turns it into a commodity. Vast amounts of personal data are necessary -- often harvested without our knowledge or consent –- in order to predict future behavior. Surveillance capitalists create certainties for companies by modifying people's behavior. Instrumentarian Power Instrumentarianism seeks to modify, predict, monetize, and control ...
Jan 08, 2021•45 min•Ep 10•Transcript available on Metacast Innovation in the Classroom Classroom innovation stems from teachers and students working together to pursue subjects that excite students to learn. Examples include allowing students to design robots and make documentaries about local landmarks. In the age of Zoom learning, keeping students engaged by letting them solve community problems or pursue independent learning goals will achieve much more than endless worksheets and standardized test prep. Standards V. Standardized Tests Implementing a...
Dec 22, 2020•32 min•Ep 9•Transcript available on Metacast Democracy and Education Democracy and education are inextricably linked. A democracy can only work when voters have an open mind, the ability to think critically, and are tolerant of others and their beliefs. A good education should be designed to cultivate these instincts, and the result should be we well-rounded citizens who respect each other, engage in healthy public discourse, and are able to think critically to uncover lies and bad ideas. Education should prepare all citizens to properly p...
Dec 17, 2020•35 min•Ep 8•Transcript available on Metacast Counterrevolution Since 9/11 and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, US warfare has focused on counterinsurgency. America now uses this counterrevolutionary playbook to govern domestically. Counterrevolutionary theory identifies a passive majority in all populations and a small insurgency. The first step is to brutally eliminate the rebellion, and then win over the passive majority. Using counterrevolutionary measures necessitates creating an internal enemy—for instance, Muslims, immigrants, minor...
Dec 10, 2020•38 min•Ep 7•Transcript available on Metacast Community Policing The future of public safety is community police partnership. Stamper suggests a plebiscite in which neighborhoods elect representatives to work side by side with the police department. These citizens would be involved in every single aspect of modern policing from setting policy, crafting procedures, selecting new police officers, developing the curriculum for police academy training, and partnering with those best equipped to deal with substance abuse, homelessness, and menta...
Dec 03, 2020•38 min•Ep 6•Transcript available on Metacast Proposition 22 Prop 22, the most expensive California ballot initiative in history, carves out app-based gig economy workers as a new employee class that lacks the benefits and protections that other workers in California get. Prop 22 also makes it more difficult for drivers and delivery workers to unionize. Uber, Lyft, Doordash, and other app-based services threatened their workers with lack of flexibility and job loss. They also spent more than $200M to persuade voters. The passage of Prop 22 ...
Nov 24, 2020•37 min•Ep 5•Transcript available on Metacast Monopolies are Anti-Democratic A monopoly is a company that has the power to set the terms of interactions, from the pricing of consumer goods to interactions with suppliers and resolving disputes. The most insidious and anti-democratic example is private arbitration, a judicial system where the parties to the suit pay the judges. Large companies force employees and even customers to litigate all grievances through arbitration courts, making a mockery of justice and infringing upon our civil rig...
Nov 20, 2020•37 min•Ep 4•Transcript available on Metacast Keynes's Goals Keynes concerned himself with his day's most significant problems: WWI and WWII, the rise of fascism and revolution, and the Great Depression in the United States. He believed that assuaging fears about an uncertain future was most important, and that a more equal society would also be more secure from deflation, deprivation, and dictatorship. He aimed for policies that would grapple with crisis and uncertainty. Economics as Politics Keynes firmly believed that economics was an ex...
Nov 13, 2020•33 min•Ep 3•Transcript available on Metacast This is a thought-provoking season of visionary and practical ideas to reimagine our future in a post pandemic and post trump world. We cover everything from needing to be civically engaged all the time, which is to say in between elections, education, policing our communities, and having the courage to think big when it comes to rebuilding our economy.
Nov 09, 2020•3 min•Ep 1•Transcript available on Metacast Civic Engagement Online and In-Person Technology can make participating in democracy easier than ever before because it’s scalable and makes it possible for everyone’s voices to be heard. However, civic engagement must also be done with human connection and in person, like in community conversations, town halls, and organizing. IssueVoter uses its online platform to motivate users to perform civic engagement in the real world. Thirty percent of IssueVoter users say the platform is the reason the...
Nov 06, 2020•30 min•Ep 2•Transcript available on Metacast October Surprise The term ‘October Surprise’ refers to a type of dirty trick that comes so late in the election calendar that a candidate does not have the time or space to respond, and voters don’t have the time to consider what it might mean. Comey’s letter to Congress a mere 11 days before Election Day 2016, announcing a renewed investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails, is one of the most significant October Surprises on record. Trump contracting COVID-19 in October does not fit the descri...
Oct 30, 2020•39 min•Ep 1•Transcript available on Metacast Legitimacy Hitler is one of the early modern autocrats for whom legitimacy was crucial to his claim to power. He recognized the importance of including the people and representing himself as presenting the will of the people. Being legitimately elected provided Hitler with a mandate to propagate Nazi ideology within Germany and beyond, and build a popular mass movement. Hitler’s example continues to serve as a model in fascist politics today. Popularity Hitler enjoyed immense popularity, which h...
Oct 16, 2020•34 min•Ep 10•Transcript available on Metacast Hashtag Activism Black Lives Matter is the epitome of ‘hashtag activism.’ #BLM is a native social media activist movement that started on the internet and builds support for itself there. #BLM combines traditional protest with online activism, allowing people to express support on social media without necessarily going to a protest. This has proven to reveal wide-spread support for #BLM, amplifying and mainstreaming the group’s cause. Low overhead actions like retweets, Instagram stories, and Fa...
Oct 09, 2020•29 min•Ep 9•Transcript available on Metacast Democracy at Work Our work lives are an important place to practice democracy. Union members learn negotiation and problem solving skills to determine wages and working conditions. They have a voice when voting on a contract. The decline in union participation coincides with the decline in American civic life. Promoting more workplace democracy also increases civic engagement in America. Digital Labor Organizing Coworker.org offers digital tools to help non-union workers mobilize around the coun...
Oct 02, 2020•33 min•Ep 8•Transcript available on Metacast Wondering what being a member of our Civics Club is like on Patreon? Well, here’s a free look at our bonus content from our talk this week with Adam Cohen! Each week we take time to ask our guests personal questions about their involvement with democracy, why they’re so engaged, and maybe even who inspired them. The questions change every week, so make sure to join The Civics Club so you never miss another round of bonus questions.
Sep 26, 2020•6 min•Ep 8•Transcript available on Metacast Supreme Court’s Agenda Although we are taught to believe the Supreme Court is a neutral institution whose primary concern is justice, it is actually an extremely powerful legal body with its own agenda. For the last 50 years, that agenda has been staunchly conservative. Instead of functioning as a check on executive and legislative powers, it operates as its own power building machine, often making decisions that favor itself or the conservative lawmakers who put a majority of the justices in po...
Sep 25, 2020•33 min•Ep 7•Transcript available on Metacast Self-Determination Self-determination empowers those who are most affected to be in the driver’s seat of policy-making decisions. For example, if an oil company wants to run a pipeline through Indigenous land, Indigenous communities themselves would decide based on their values and the impact on their families, water, air, and land. NDN collective works to restore self-determination through three pillars: defense, development, and decolonization. Decolonization European colonization was a system...
Sep 18, 2020•32 min•Ep 6•Transcript available on Metacast Civic Power Civic power puts communities most impacted by legislative decisions in the drivers’ seat of making public policy. Community members get to have a say in areas like policing, zoning, education, taxation, voting rights, and more. Participatory budgeting creates a structure of representative decision making that is responsive and reflective of the affected communities. This form of civic power exists around the world and can be replicated in the United States on a large scale. Radical D...
Sep 11, 2020•27 min•Ep 5•Transcript available on Metacast Capturing State Legislatures State capture refers to the idea that a set of organizations, businesses, and movements can capture a political office and dictate its agenda, decisions, and resource allocation to benefit their interests. Capturing state legislatures is especially effective because state governments – as opposed to the federal government – have control over significant aspects of our daily lives: taxes, minimum wage, health insurance, and administering elections. The Troika Three po...
Sep 04, 2020•35 min•Ep 4•Transcript available on Metacast Political Learning In response to the elections of Obama and Trump, grassroots political movements sprung up on the right and the left. Members of these groups demonstrated an eagerness to learn about and understand local and state politics, which is where they are most actively engaged. After the 2016 election, Resist groups used many of the Tea Party movement’s tactics, like writing to law makers, running local candidates, and knocking on doors to get out the vote. Impact on Politics Grassroot...
Aug 28, 2020•34 min•Ep 3•Transcript available on Metacast Building Precincts Precincts are critical to building local and regional party power. Kromer started Davidson’s Democratic party precinct with only four other people. Once established, they gained political legitimacy as well as access to state and county voter databases. This allowed them to organize and knock on doors, inform their constituents about the candidates who are running, and get out the vote. As a result, Davidson had a higher voter turnout rate than other local towns. Politics Flow...
Aug 21, 2020•31 min•Ep 2•Transcript available on Metacast Politics Begins with Service Political power starts with service to others. For instance, Russian immigrant and Boston resident Naakh Vysoky began his political career by helping his fellow Russian immigrants gain citizenship and keep their government benefits. He also advocated on their behalf in Washington. Members of his community recognized his leadership and initiative, and began to follow his lead politically. They voted according to his recommendations. By building a voting bloc, Naakh cr...
Aug 14, 2020•31 min•Ep 1•Transcript available on Metacast Introducing the Civics Club! Signup at www.patreon.com/futurehindsight today! By supporting Future Hindsight, you're helping this independent podcast deliver the information you need every week to stay civically engaged. You'll also get bonus content, transcripts, early access to the show, and personal access Future Hindsight team—all for the price of a latte per month. We look forward to your support, and thanks again for listening!...
Aug 07, 2020•1 min•Ep 1•Transcript available on Metacast Sexual Citizenship The concept of sexual citizenship asserts that people have the right to sexual self-determination, including young people. Recognizing young people’s sexual citizenship prepares them to both say no and yes, as well as to be able to hear other people when they do or don’t want to have sex. It also recognizes their fundamental humanity. Establishing sexual citizenship and autonomy for young people is a critical step in preventing campus sexual assault and promoting relationships...
Jul 23, 2020•35 min•Ep 11•Transcript available on Metacast Surveillance Capitalism Surveillance Capitalism is the dominant economic logic in our world today. It claims private human experience for the marketplace and turns it into a commodity. Vast amounts of personal data are necessary -- often harvested without our knowledge or consent –- in order to predict future behavior. Surveillance capitalists create certainties for companies by modifying people's behavior. Instrumentarian Power Instrumentarianism seeks to modify, predict, monetize, and control ...
Jul 17, 2020•43 min•Ep 10•Transcript available on Metacast After listening to this episode, try deep canvassing yourself! Click HERE to read the step-by-step guide. We'd love to compare notes and see how you did. After you've canvassed, tell us about your experience by leaving a message at (929) 262-0752. Thank you! Deep Canvassing Deep canvassing was developed to better understand voters in response to California’s Prop 8 legislation, which outlawed gay marriage. Sharing personal stories and active listening techniques establish common ground, even amo...
Jul 10, 2020•30 min•Ep 9•Transcript available on Metacast 
