This week our guest is Reverend Graylan Scott Hagler, a Senior Pastor of Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ, born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland. Hagler received a Bachelor’s Degree in Religion from Oberlin College, Ohio, in 1976. Rev. Hagler is the Past National President of Ministers for Racial, Social and Economic Justice. He's a long-time social justice advocate throughout the District of Columbia and beyond.

Shadow Politics welcomes back a very special guest, Kathleen Gomez, who was the prior co-host on Shadow Politics. We will be catching up on what is going on in her current life away from the radio show! We have missed her!

Shadow Politics with Senator Michael D. Brown and Kathleen Gomez

Interview with Franklin Garcia, elected US Representative (Shadow) for the District of Columbia on November 4, 2014

In 2003, William Blum, former State Department worker turned historian and author, became famous when Osama bin Ladin, the supposed mastermind behind the attacks on 9-11, recommended Blum's book Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower, because Osama felt that it aptly described a horrible American foreign policy which engenders so much hate and fear of America.  As William says during this interview, it gained him a great deal of attention and many interviews with mainstream US television and print media.

Show Summary #28

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Topic:

“Democracy for Socialism”

The Chinese often say, “May you live in interesting times.” Our times are telling us that change is everywhere around us. From technology, political leadership, financial developments, health care and global configurations, to crime, family, schools, public morality, even how your next-door neighbor watches you. How do you fit in to our times?

Who’s getting the better bargain in this democracy of ours, the power brokers or the common folks like you and me?  Well let’s see.  On the one hand, it’s sad to know that you go to bed at night thinking that you sleep under the blanket of privileges a democracy promises, and rest under the constitutional protection that you think a bill of rights can give you.  Then you wake up the next morning to realize that much of what you once thought was true now turns out to be a compromised political illusion that remains ill-defined and lingers uncertain for many of us that once depended on those

Someone in the neighborhood has just come back from protecting you in a fight, and after having him take a couple of hard knocks for you, you then decide to ignore him and put him aside for a while, but only until you need him again to protect you, but by that time he’ll be too old to fight as hard as he use to, when he was young.  This is what veterans do.  And just as they looked out for you as soldiers, now you must look out for them as veterans.

It was only the other day when President Obama gave a speech on the current state of the union, so I thought I’d make a comment or two on the current state of democracy and as it turned out, it ended up becoming a whole entire show!  How ‘bout that?

Today, a call for democracy has become a fervent plea and a very frightened prayer; a prayer to know what to do; a supplication of faith in our resolve to temper the pangs and hollers of those who are misguided in using firearms. Controlling gun use, and now with assault weapons at our doorstep, requires advanced citizenship in knowing how to best represent a people with a long and proud tradition of individual liberties in protecting our interests and our property against any and all infringements. Owning an AR-15 today doesn’t make it easy.