Frdh Podcast With Michael Goldfarb

If you want to know America, you have to understand the Mind of the South. If you want to understand the dynamics that drove events towards the Charlottesville Outrage, you have to understand the mind of the south, or specifically the "white" Southern mind. That mindset did not just pop up, the day Donald Trump took office. It has been the driving force in American politics … all the way back to the foundation of the Republic. White Southerners are a powerful force in American politics. Not a majority - but the largest single political bloc - in the country. In the century after the Civil War this bloc was attached to the Democrats - Lincoln was a Republican - and it acted as a drag anchor on the progressive forces that shaped the modern Democratic party. In response to the civil rights movement white Southerners shifted to the Republican party. Superiority is a key part of the white southern mindset, not just racial, but religious, as well. In the 18th and early 19th centuries the region saw a heavy influ

On the tenth anniversary of the start of the Financial Crash, MIchael Goldfarb looks at work and employment. Are they the same thing? We are told we will have to work longer - in Britain last week it was announced that the age at which Britons in their 40’s could collect their state pensions - social security - would be going up to 68. Work longer, but will we be employed longer? It is all well and good if people are living longer that they stay in the work force longer but it would be jolly nice if the government told that to employers, almost all of whom seem keen on getting rid of their employees once they get past 55. When you add in all the stories about robots doing most forms of work by the time those in their 40s are eligible for their pensions, there seems to be some contradictions that need to be resolved. The unemployment rate today - midsummer 2017 - is 4.3% in the US (4.5% in the uk) In the 1960’s the golden era of the American economy, 4.3% was full employment and economic contentment. Numbers

This Bible study for atheists looks at what Thomas Jefferson meant when he wrote about God in the Declaration of Independence. Many evangelical or political Christians argue that the US is a "Christian" country because Jefferson used the word. Michael Goldfarb challenges that idea which explores the Enlightenment use of God as Nature. Far from the scriptural understanding of the Judeo-Christian divinity. He traces Jefferson's ideas back to those of Enlightenment philosopher Benedict Spinoza. He uses Spinoza's own bible study as a way of explaining what the founding father's intentions were. Spinoza, who wrote in Latin, coined the phrase Deus sive natura, God or Nature. Nature for Spinoza is is all there is. YOu can call it God if you like but it does not cause itself, or create itself. It is not the creator God of the Bible, anthropomorphized, and directing the fate of human beings and particularly the Israelites, his chosen people. This was pretty revolutionary theory, for the late 17th century. By the la

The Republican Party has become the people James Madison warned us against: a Faction. In any country, the most dangerous thing that can happen is for a group and its political representatives to act as if their view alone represents the nation. That thinking leads to the view that they alone “are” the nation and that those who disagree with them are not of the nation - even if they are fellow citizens, born on the country’s soil. When this happens in a democratic republic, like the US, and the view takes over a political party, then the threat to the national fabric is mortal. And that is the heart of the crisis in America today: The Republicans are no longer a political party but a faction. The danger of factions was noted at the foundation of the United States. In Federalist paper #10 https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Federalist_(Dawson)/10 James Madison defined faction as, "a number of citizens, whether amounting to a minority or majority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse

In Mosul ISIS has been defeated but does it count as victory? America’s misadventure in Iraq show that defeating your enemy on the battlefield is not the same as victory. ISIS defeated in MOsul but that won’t mean victory in Iraq’s second city, any more than the overthrow of Saddam Hussein meant victory there, or the killing of his sons in Mosul a few months later, or the frequent attempts by the US to buy off the networks funding insurgents of various stripes that are headquarted there. How can you measure victory in Iraq? This FRDH podcast offers a personal definition of victory. Mosul is a city that is well-known even if you are not aware of it. The opening sequence of the, The Exorcist, was filmed there. Mosul was called the Pearl of the North, in the old days. It was the envy of all Iraq. With sounds of battle recorded on site this podcast traces Mosul's history since George W. Bush declared victory in 2003. This city was never pacified and now that ISIS has been defeated can it ever enjoy the bles

July 4, 2017. America is not a happy place. It is splitting apart rhetorically and if only a fraction of the threats posted in social networks are acted on it will split apart in other ways. In this FRDH podcast Michael Goldfarb looks at how Americans have forgotten Benjamin Franklin's words on hanging together versus hanging separately. How can Americans rediscover their links to one another? Extremely violent rhetoric amplified by broadcast media always precedes violent acts. Nations, particularly multi-ethnic nations like the US, can disintegrate in months with a concentrated campaign of angry words against a particular group in the society: Yugoslavia, Rwanda … it took less than six months to foment civil war. Hanging together, keeping the faith, solidarity ... unity has been challenged by this new epoch of economic instability. Liberals are concerned but don't risk their own security to help and Evangelicals go to Church but don't risk talking to those who won't pledge allegiance to their political fait

On the 50th anniversary of the Six-Day War, Michael Goldfarb has a meditation on how that event changed what it meant to be Jewish and Israeli. The Six-Day War was an epic victory for the young country of Israel and for Jews worldwide. Coming two decades after the Holocaust it restored a sense of pride but it also brought with it an onerous burden: the Occupation of Gaza and the West Bank and rule over 1 million Palestinians. Over the last 50 years this has fundamentally altered Israeli society. It has also changed the way Jews of the diaspora see themselves. At each stage of their modern history what it meant to be authenticallyJewish was analyzed again and again. After 1967 this questioning has grown more intense. Since 1967 Israel has replaced religion as the touchstone of Jewish identity.

Bible Study for Atheists is an occasional feature of FRDH podcast. Michael Goldfarb looks at Bible stories and the Bible's poetic books and talks about their history and their meaning in contemporary life. In this first Bible Study for Atheists podcast he looks at psalm 52, which he read just after watching President Trump on TV: "Why boastest thou thyself in mischief, O mighty man? Thy tongue deviseth mischiefs; like a sharp razor working deceitfully. Thou lovest evil more than good; and lying rather than to speak righeousness." He explains how the bible is is a draft of the history of our civilization, and how even Atheists need faith sometime.

Trump's First Hundred Days in office have been like no other presidents. There is no deep channel you can follow in trying to write the First Rough Draft of History for this man’s presidency you are constantly going this way and that on jagged currents. This FRDH podcast rambles looking at Trump as an avatar of a new society which emulates what it watches on TV unable to distinguish between reality and reality TV programs. “It’s a Kardashian world and he’s the Kardashian candidate.” It also analyzes the precedents for Trump and the resistance to him. Ronald Reagan was the first president to gain the presidency following a television career. It looks at what resistance to Reagan was able to achieve. It also criticizes the current practice of journalism via social networking sites, particularly Twitter. Do you think Woodward and Bernstein would have got to the bottom of Watergate if they had been tweeting every little twist and turn of the story. Give FRDH podcast 17 minutes and forty-five seconds and I will

President Trump's foreign and security policy: What is it? Does the military know? As American war ships steam towards the Korean peninsula and American diplomats argue with Russian leaders about Syria this FRDH podcast is a conversation with historian Robert Batement, Lt. Col (ret) of the US Army. Bateman, a veteran of Afghanistan and Iraq is currently a fellow at the New America think tank and a contributing columnist for Esquire magazine. He gives a nuanced analysis that non-specialists can understand explaining Trump's doctrine ... or lack of it. He also comes up with some surprising historical analogs for the chaos president.

Brexit: An apostate thought: the EU will be better off without UK. Churchill saw it clearly in a speech given on the 19th of September 1946 at the University of Zurich. The war had been over for just over a year. Continental Europe had been partitioned, Much of it was in ruins. Millions were displaced and homeless. There was a way out of the catastrophic conditions around the continent, Churchill told his audience, “It is to re-create the European Family, or as much of it as we can, and provide it with a structure under which it can dwell in peace, in safety and in freedom. We must build a kind of United States of Europe." He added, "The first step in the re-creation of the European family must be a partnership between France and Germany.” The United States of Europe is inevitable the questions are will it be created by war or peace? And can Britain be part of it?

Facts are the building blocks of journalism leading, hopefully, to the truth, and the FRDH, First Rough Draft of History. In a world overwhelmed by data and statistics facts are easy to come by, but can numbers alone tell a story? In 2016, the bulk of institutional journalism missed the rise of Donald Trump because the numbers said his victory wasn’t possible … then it was. In this FRDH podcast, Michael Goldfarb says journalism’s increasing reliance on data is behind this failure. Lies, damned lies and statistics have led reporters down a blind alley. He argues for a different approach to reporting the world, one that places a deeper reliance on the rational imagination. He borrows a word from the German enlightenment for this technique, “einfühlung.” It’s a word coined by philosopher, historian, and clergyman Johann Gottfried von Herder in the 18th century. Google translate says Einfühlung means empathy which is accurate up to a point but doesn’t quite get at Herder’s intention. Einfühling means “in feeli

Resistance is a beautiful word. It is a Romantic word. It is the word of the moment. But what does resistance really mean? Are you a resister if you simply say you are? Anyone can call themselves a resister and put a hashtag in front of it. Does that make them part of the “#resistance?” Real resistance has an objective and it comes at a price. This FRDH podcast tells several stories of resistance from recent history to see if they have something to teach those who want to resist President Trump. French resistance: Almost from the moment the German Army overran France in June 1940 there was resistance: acts of non-cooperation with German orders or scrawling anti-Nazi graffiti on walls. It was spontaneous and uncoordinated and it had little effect. The new administration of the country took shape: a zone of occupation run by the Germans in the north headquarted in Paris. A French run government based in Vichy oversaw the south. Very quickly this new normal became established fact. From the beginning, the

This is a meditation on PTSD and Donald Trump and does the shock from PTSD make it impossible to see Trump and his actions clearly. In this FRDH podcast, Michael Goldfarb analyzes whether his experience of war and reporting from societies that slipped from stability to civil war affect his judgment about the state of America in the Age of Trump. He asks whether committing journalism in Northern Ireland, Bosnia and Iraq has left him with PTSD. Does his knowledge of how quickly well-established societies can disintegrate into Civil War render it impossible to see the Trump effect clearly. What percentage of a society wanting to fight is necessary for a civil war to start? In Northern Ireland and Bosnia, Goldfarb learned that civil war is a minority occupation. How many people on each side are willing to fight - not metaphorically, but physically fight - for their vision of what their country should be? Is there a critical mass at which point violence becomes inevitable? There is no data set on this questi

President Trump's travel ban has now seen more than 100,000 people lose visas to travel to the US. In this FRDH special, Michael Goldfarb discusses the ban with Iranian, Syrian and Iraqi journalists who have long experience of living and working in the US. Today, thanks to the Executive Order issued January 27th by President Donald Trump: "PROTECTING THE UNITED STATES FROM FOREIGN TERRORIST ENTRY INTO THE UNITED STATES" these three journalists cannot visit the country because Iran, Syria and Iraq are among the seven countries from which travel is banned. In a wide ranging conversation, MIna al-Oraibi, columnist for Asharq al Awsat newspaper, Nazenin Ansari, managing editor of Kayhan London, the global Iranian newspaper, and Mustapha Kharkouti, columnist for Gulf New discuss frankly how the ban affects them and how it affects the people in their home countries. All are veteran journalists, authors of FRDH, the First Rough Draft of History. All have long experience of living and reporting from America and

America is undergoing historic political change as Donald Trump is sworn in as President. It is an "un President ed" break with history. No one, not even Ronald Reagan has represented such a dramatic break with the past since the days of Franklin Roosevelt and maybe ever. People are finding it hard to make sense of the impending new era and so is Michael Goldfarb, host of FRDH Podcast. In this episode he free associates his way through his own and America's history for the last half century looking for some pattern that might explain how Donald Trump was elected to the White House. He points out the difference between Trump and Reagan and wonders what the most effective way those opposed to the new President's policies can force him to change tack. Is protest marching enough?

2016 was by any measure an historic year. A different America revealed itself to its own people and to the rest of the world. Donald Trump was unlike any Presidential candidate in history and now is set to be President. This FRDH podcast special explores How America Got This Way. FRDH stands for First Rough Draft of History, which is what journalists like to say they are writing and in this FRDH special four London-based journalists with a cumulative century of reporting on America and the way America effects the world talk about their own rough drafts of American history. Robin Lustig, former presenter of Newshour on the BBC World Service, Mina al-Oraibi Iraqi-British journalist formerly of pan-Arab newspaper Asharq al-Awsat, and Ned Temko, former political editor of The Observer, join Michael Goldfarb to talk about America, isolationism, Iraq, Syria, Putin. They ask can American institutions - especially Congress - stand up to the surprising changes in American society and is 2016 as historic in comparis

Memoir as history. The paradigm in American politics has shifted since the election. It has many people racking their memories for a historical parallel, some source of guidance. This parable from the late 1970's in New York might help. It's a story about finding the courage to stand up when bad change happens in your society. Love, literature, torture and courage all figure in this story. It takes place in New York and Athens and in memory. Give me 15 minutes and I will give you the past as prologue to the present.

Donald Trump has reiterated his intention to deport millions of people who entered America illegally. The history of mass deportation indicates that's easier said than done

Social History: "Whoever wants to understand the heart and mind of America better know baseball" Jacques Barzun. Not really. They better know the South, the region that more than any other shapes US politics. This piece from 2004 foreshadows much of what shaped the election of Donald Trump + great music.