Randi Weingarten, president of the AFT, spent Thanksgiving weekend in Israel; she reports on meetings with shared society groups and peace movement leaders, and on the role of the US in bringing not just peace but equality and justice to Palestinians.

Also: Who was Bayard Rustin before the 1963 March on Washington?  Gary Younge comments on the remarkable life of a gay Black pacifist and former communist, the subject of a new biopic on Netflix, ‘Rustin.’ Gary wrote “The Speech: The Story Behind Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Dream.”

People with very different visions of what a just peace between Israel and the Palestinians might look like must work together to stop the war. That’s what The Nation's editor, D.D. Guttenplan argues. He's on this episode of the podcast to discuss.

Also on this episode: John Powers joins the show to offer his review of Slow Horses, the British spy series based on the books by Mick Herron.

hat comes after Israel’s war on Hamas? The Israeli government seems incapable of thinking about that. Now, the ideas of Israel’s left-wing, pro-peace camp are needed more than ever. Dahlia Scheindlin, a political scientist based in Tel Aviv, is on the podcast to explain.

Also on this episode of Start Making Sense: “California has always been a place to write home about.” David Kipen reads letters and diary entries from Charles Mingus, Vita Sackville-West, Marilyn Monroe, Susan Sontag, Thomas Pynchon, and Mike Davis – David’s new book is “Dear California: The Golden State in Letters and Diaries.”

For this week’s Start Making Sense podcast we have two archival segments about Palestinians; neither is about the current war. 

In 2016, Rachel Kushner visited Shuafat, the only Palestinian refugee camp inside Jerusalem. She went alongside a community organizer as he tried to solve massive problems. Her report, published originally in the New York Times Magazine, appears in her 2021 book of nonfiction, The Hard Crowd.

Also on this episode, Adam Shatz talks about Edward Said, the leading voice of Palestinians in the US before he died in 2003. Said was also The Nation’s classical music critic, and Adam Shatz, now an editor for the London Review of Books, was The Nation‘s literary editor. His work included editing Edward Said’s pieces for the magazine.

(This show was first broadcast in May, 2021.)

Tuesday’s vote tested the potency of abortion rights as an issue for Democrats, with a referendum in Ohio and the election of a new state legislature in Virginia. John Nichols has our analysis of those elections, and some others.

Also on this episode: What is Israel’s endgame in its war with Hamas? Over the past 50 years they’ve tried two radically different strategies in Gaza, and neither succeeded. Fintan O'Toole explains that history. He teaches at Princeton and is an advising editor at the New York Review of Books, where he's been writing about Israel, Hamas, and Gaza.

A cease-fire in Gaza is only the beginning of what Israel and the Palestinians need. D.D. Guttenplan, The Nation’s editor, argues that “both peoples will have to find a way to share the land—in peace, yes, but also with justice.”

Also on this episode of Start Making Sense: victory for the United Auto Workers in their strike against the big three automakers, GM, Ford, and Stellantis. Harold Meyerson, editor-at-large of The American Prospect, explains what’s in the new contract, and what it took to get there.

In response to Hamas’s attack on Oct. 7, Adam Shatz says Israel’s disregard for Palestinian life has never been more callous or more flagrant. But Israel can’t extinguish Palestinian resistance by violence any more than the Palestinians can win an Algerian-style liberation war. 

The only thing that can save the people of Israel and Palestine is a political solution that recognizes both as equal citizens. Shatz is the former literary editor of The Nation and now US editor of the London Review of Books, where he wrote about Israel and Gaza.

Israel and Gaza, Hamas and the Palestinians, war crimes and mideast history: On this episode of the Start Making Sense podcast, we have comment and analysis from Amy Wilentz, Nation contributor and former Jerusalem correspondent of The New Yorker.

The UAW won a historic victory in their strike against GM—an agreement that EV workers will be covered by the union contract. Harold Meyerson joins the podcast to comment on that and on Israel’s war against Hamas.

Also on this episode: Elon Musk has been a leader in the transition to renewable energy, while making Twitter into a threat to democracy. He has become the face of 21st-century capitalism. David Nasaw comes on the show with an analysis.

Voters in Maine will decide next month whether to turn the state’s private utilities public. If that happens, it would be a huge step toward dealing with the climate crisis, and a model for other states. Bill McKibben explains -- of course he’s an author and environmentalist and co-founder of 350,org, currently working with the new environmental group Third Act, for people over 60.

Also: Our politics today is haunted by the failures of Bill Clinton—the “centrist” who “triangulated” with Republicans, lost on healthcare, and proclaimed that “The era of big government is over.”  Nelson Lichtenstein explains Clinton’s turn to the right, and the lessons for today’s Democrats – his new book on Clinton is “A Fabulous Failure.”

The right-wing supermajority on the Supreme Court has returned to a case about racial gerrymandering in Alabama, where Republicans have defied the Court’s order. Dahlia Lithwick will comment about that, and about her book Lady Justice: Women, the Law, and the Battle to Save America—it’s out now in paperback.

Also on this episode: Two girls grew up in the 1980s and ’90s in a small town in Arkansas. One made it out and became a successful journalist and writer; her best friend, who had been super smart as a kid, fell into drugs, getting pregnant too young, and petty crime. How did their lives turn out so different? Katha Pollitt is on the podcast to talk about the new memoir by Monica Potts, The Forgotten Girls.

Trump and the UAW strike, plus ‘manufactured insecurity’: Nelson Lichenstein plus Astra Taylor

The UAW strike against Detroit’s Big Three is rapidly becoming a major political battle as Donald Trump speaks to auto workers in Detroit, challenging Biden’s massive initiatives for America’s transition to electric vehicles. Nelson Lichtenstein provides historical perspective on what’s at stake.

Also: there are two kinds of insecurity in our lives today, Astra Taylor argues: existential insecurity, the unavoidable issues of life and death, and manufactured insecurity—intended to make workers more submissive to authority. Communal action can do a lot to reduce that. Her new book is “The Age of Insecurity: Coming Together As Things Fall Apart.”

Gary Younge, the award-winning former columnist for The Guardian, talks about Black writing and Black writers—and his own writing about Mandela, Obama, Travon Martin, and Claudette Colvin.

Also on this episode of Start Making Sense, the news from Haiti, where the UN, with US support, is authorizing a new security force. Made up of mostly Kenyan troops, it's supposed to restore “law and order” in Port-au-Prince. The Nation's Amy Wilentz is on the podcast to report.

Every night, more than a million people read Heather Cox Richardson’s newsletter about the day’s political events. Now she has a new book out, “Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America.” It’s about the history of Americans’ fight for equality—about which she remains optimistic, despite Trump’s current polling.

Also on this episode of Start Making Sense: September 11th is the 50th anniversary of the coup that overthrew Salvador Allende in Chile, ending 150 years of democracy there and putting the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet in Power. Marc Cooper wrote about Chile since the coup for Truthdig.com. He joins the show to discuss the legacy of that coup and the deep divisions in Chile today, both economic and political.

Our hot labor summer continues. Harold Meyerson, editor at large of The American Prospect, comes on the Start Making Sense podcast to discuss the coming auto strike, the continuing Hollywood strikes, the Teamsters’ big victory, and a historic action by the NLRB which will make union organizing possible again. 

Also on this episode: Melania and Ivanka Trump have been mostly absent from the former president’s side as he rages against the 91 felony charges brought against him in four different trials. Amy Wilentz comments on the news, the rumors, and the photos.

Drew Faust grew up in Virginia in the ’50’s, in the segregated south, in a family that was part of the white elite—and went on to make “necessary trouble” as a college student and activist in the ’60’s. The first woman to serve as president of Harvard University, Faust comes on the Start Making Sense podcast to talk about her memoir, “Necessary Trouble: Growing up at Midcentury.”

Also on this episode: If it was a good strategy for Special Prosecutor Jack Smith to charge Trump with four felonies, is it also a good idea for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to charge Trump and 18 other people with a total of 41 felonies? Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the law school at UC Berkeley, is on the show to discuss.

Public Libraries are often wonderful places, but they have become targets of right-wing attack in the culture war. On this episode of the Start Making Sense podcast, Sasha Abramsky talks about his reporting on the battle in one small town in Washington state. 

Also on this episode: Peter Mattheson’s exploration of suffering, impermanence, and beauty in his book “The Snow Leopard,” an account of his trek in the Himalayas. Pico Iyer, who wrote the introduction to the Penguin Classics paperback edition, is on the show to talk about the book. The conversation with Iyer was recorded in 2008.

Should Trump have been charged with incitement of insurrection, or at least violence? What’s the line between free speech and incitement? If Trump sincerely believed he’d won the election, can he still be prosecuted for conspiracy? Erwin Chemerinsky explains – he’s dean of the law school at UC Berkeley.

Also: What’s bad about Barbie the doll, and what’s good about “Barbie” the movie—Katha Pollitt comments.

This month, Donald Trump will be facing four indictments in four different jurisdictions at the same time, each for multiple felonies. Yet, Republicans still want him as their candidate. On this episode of the Start Making Sense podcast, Joan Walsh comments on the former President's latest legal developments, and the latest poll numbers.

Also on this episode: Barbie is one of the most feminist blockbuster films ever made, and it grossed $774 million worldwide in its first ten days. In the same period, Oppenheimer made $400 million worldwide. John Powers joins the podcast to discuss this summer’s two big Hollywood hits. He’s Critic at Large on NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross.

The Teamsters reached a historic agreement for UPS workers this week, protecting and rewarding more than 340,000 UPS Teamsters nationwide. We had been headed for the biggest strike in decades, scheduled to start next week, but now we have what looks like one of the biggest labor victories in decades. The Nation’s John Nichols is on the Start Making Sense podcast to report.

Also on this episode: Hollywood actors and writers have been on strike–the Writers Guild of America since May, and the Screen Actors Guild since July 14. The studios are showing no signs of settling. WGA member and Nation writer Ben Schwartz joins the show. He argues that the studios and streamers are likely to fracture before the unions do.