Behind the News, 4/25/24 - guests: Jodi Dean on her cancellation, Keri Leigh Merritt on the backward social structure of the South, Sam Bazzi on the Confederate diaspora - Doug HenwoodBy Doug Henwood

Jodi Dean talks about being suspended from teaching at Hobart and William Smith Colleges for writing an article the administration didn’t like • Keri Leigh Merritt on the lingering effects of antebellum Southern society (article here) • excerpts from an interview first broadcast in June 2023 with Samuel Bazzi, co-author of this paper, on the effect…

Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with Asif Siddiqi, Professor of History at Fordham University, about the arc of his career and his wide-ranging interests and work. The pair start by discussing Siddiqi's wonderful book, The Red Rockets' Glare: Spaceflight and the Russian Imagination, 1857-1957 (Cambridge University Press, 2014), a history o…

Behind the News, 4/18/24 - guest: Yanis Varoufakis, talking about being banned in Germany, and the new era of techno feudalism - Doug HenwoodBy Doug Henwood

Yanis Varoufakis talks about being banned in Germany for supporting the Palestinian cause, and then about the transformation he analyzes in his new book, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism The post Yanis Varoufakis on being banned in Germany, and on the new post-capitalist world of technofeudalism appeared first on KPFA.…

Behind the News, 4/11/24 - guests: Heidi Matthews on the World Court, Elijah Wald on Jelly Roll Morton - Doug HenwoodBy Doug Henwood

Heidi Matthews on the World Court and the cases against Israel pending there • Elijah Wald, author of Jelly Roll Blues, on Jelly Roll Morton and the hidden history of early blues The post The World Court, and the world of Jelly Roll Morton appeared first on KPFA.By KPFA

Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with historian and standup comedian, Sean Vanatta, lecturer in economic and social history at the University of Glasgow and senior fellow at the Wharton Initiative for Financial Policy and Regulation, about Vanatta’s cool new book, Plastic Capitalism: Banks, Credit Cards, and the End of Financial Control (Ya…

Behind the News, 4/4/24 - Trita Parsi on Israel's widening of its war; Natasha Lennard on Zionists' weaponization of "safety"; Stefan Yong on the shipping industry and the Baltimore disaster - Doug HenwoodBy Doug Henwood

Trita Parsi explains why Israel is trying to expand its war to Iran and Hezbollah • Natasha Lennard analyzes the Zionist appropriation of leftish “safe space” discourse • Stefan Yong explores the structure of the global shipping industry in light of the Baltimore bridge disaster The post Why Israel is expanding its war, Zionists’ appropriation of s…

Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with Guru Madhavan, Norman R. Augustine Senior Scholar and Senior Director of Programs at the National Academy of Engineering, about his recent book, Wicked Problems: How to Engineer a Better World (W. W. Norton & Company, 2024). In Wicked Problems, Madhavan draws on a rich body of literature from the humani…

Mother from Another…” is a story from Jess Clarke’s grand opus, “Imagining Liberation.” This episode takes place in Mendocino CA in 1970.

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"The Kingdom of Heaven in a Single Blade of Grass. An excerpt from The Earth Is the Only One Telling the Truth by Kelly Curry ...the apocalypse has already happened then that means that we are living in the beginning... THIS is the beginning. We are standing in the Garden of Eden... again...

Behind the News, 3/28/24 - guests: Pankaj Mishra on the Shoah after Gaza, Nancy Folbre on valuing care work - Doug HenwoodBy Doug Henwood

Pankaj Mishra, author of this article, on the propaganda-induced debasement of the Holocaust • Nancy Folbre, one of four authors of this report, on assigning a monetary value to care work The post The Shoah after Gaza, valuing care work appeared first on KPFA.By KPFA

Peoples & Things host Lee Vinsel talks with writer and editor John Warner, who taught writing at the college level for more than twenty years. Warner is the author of at least three - or four depending on whether you count a work of parody - books on writing and higher education, and today he is perhaps best known for his Substack, The Biblioracle …

Behind the News, 3/21/24 - guests: David Moore on AIPAC's spending, Meron Rapoport on Schumer and the ICJ in Israel, Jamieson Webster on social causes of youth mental distress - Doug HenwoodBy Doug Henwood

David Moore on how AIPAC is using Republican contributors’ money to go after progressive Dems • Meron Rapoport on how Schumer and the ICJ are being received in Israel • Jamieson Webster on the social aspects of mental disorder among the young The post AIPAC targets leftish Dems, how Schumer and the ICJ are playing in Israel, troubled youth as a sym…

Peoples & Things host Lee Vinsel talks with Xaq Frohlich, Associate Professor of History at Auburn University, about his new book, From Label to Table: Regulating Food in America in the Information Age (University of California Press, 2023). From Label to Table tells the fascinating history of the US Food and Drug Administration’s spreading authori…

Robert Fatton explains Haiti’s further descent into poverty and chaos • Steve Fraser, author of this article, analyzes and mourns the death of any sense of a better future The post Haitian chaos, the death of the future appeared first on KPFA.By KPFA

Are you into the end of the world? Well, have we got the guest for you. In this episode, Peoples & Things host Lee Vinsel interviews Zachary Loeb, assistant professor of history at Purdue University, about his work. On his faculty page, Loeb describes himself as “interested in the idea that humanity’s romance with technology has the species (and th…

Vijay Prashad on how the North American and European bourgeoisies are a spent force, with nothing to offer the world (article here) The post Global bourgeois rot appeared first on KPFA.By KPFA

In this episode, Peoples & Thing host Lee Vinsel interviews engineer, businessman, consultant, author, contributing editor at IEEE Magazine, and former P&T guest Bob Charette about his research method. Charette really excels at finding great and telling numbers for his pieces on technology, business, and public policy, including in his 12-part IEEE…

"We want to make visible not only the work that women do in the workplace but also outside--in the sphere of social reproduction."

Historian Donna Murch, author of Living for the City, takes on some myths about the Black Panther Party. The post Correcting the record on the Black Panthers appeared first on KPFA.By KPFA

After WAY too long a hiatus, Peoples & Things is back! GET EXCITED!! In this episode, host Lee Vinsel interviews Christy Spackman, Assistant Professor of Art/Science with a joint appointment in the School for the Future of Innovation in Society and the School of Arts, Media, and Engineering at Arizona State University, about her recent book, The Ta…

Jeet Heer on Indian Americans in politics and society (article here) • Stephen Maher and Scott Aquanno, authors of The Fall and Rise of American Finance, on the new finance capital The post Fundraising special: the Desi diaspora, the newest finance capital appeared first on KPFA.By KPFA

The post Behind the News 02-22-24 appeared first on KPFA.By KPFA

Gerald Epstein, author of Busting the Bankers’ Club, on the finance racket and how to transform it • Anna Kornbluh, author of Immediacy, on our sped-up, unmediated cultural eternal present The post The bankers’ club and how to bust it • the culture of immediacy appeared first on KPFA.By KPFA

Ajay Singh Chaudhary talks about his new book, The Exhausted of the Earth: Politics in a Burning World • Matt Notowidigdo, co-author of this paper, on how recessions increase life expectancy The post Exhaustion and the climate crisis • shocker: recessions increase life expectancy appeared first on KPFA.…

Sean Jacobs explores why South Africa brought the genocide case against Israel in the World Court • Eric Blanc (Substack post here) on organizing in a scattered and atomized society • Hassan El-Tayyab on the widening war in the Middle East The post Why did South Africa charge Israel at the ICJ? • organizing unions in the society of sprawl • the wid…

“Because of the white bias of the environmental movement, there was almost no talk about cities, even though 85 percent of the population of the United States lived in cities and metropolitan area.”

Shireen Al-Adeimi of Michigan State and the Quincy Institute, on the Houthis • political scientist Aurélie Daher with another view of Hezbollah The post Who are the Houthis? • more on Hezbollah appeared first on KPFA.By KPFA

Wanda Bertram of the Prison Policy Initiative on electronic monitoring (the ankle bracelet kind) • Joseph Daher, author of Hezbollah: The Political Economy of the Party of God, on that demonized organization The post Electronic monitoring, and who is Hezbollah? appeared first on KPFA.By KPFA

political scientist Jacqueline Behrend on Argentina’s new president, Javier Milei • Benjamin Fong, author of Quick Fixes, on Americans’ love/hate relationship with drugs The post More on Argentina, and Americans’ complicated relationship with psychoactive drugs appeared first on KPFA.By KPFA

Samuel Moyn, law prof and historian, on the political and legal dubiousness of excluding Trump from the presidential ballot • labor journalist Alex Press on the year in labor (articles on that topic here and here) The post Perils of striking Trump from the ballot and the year in organized labor appeared first on KPFA.…

. "There are never any guarantees, but it is important to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world." Subscribe link

“We need folks to value our difference and to value our uniqueness and to say that there just might be something as innovative as jazz to come out and solve this climate change problem.”

slaying sacred cows: M.E. O’Brien, author of Family Abolition, on doing that and “communizing care” • Jane Chung, author of this article, on what’s wrong with our cult of homeownership [holiday encore presentation of a show first broadcast in June] The post transcending the family, questioning homeownership appeared first on KPFA.…

environmental journalist Tina Gerhardt on the recently concluded COP28 environmental summit, where limited good intentions were uttered and oil contracts were signed • historian Forrest Hylton on Javier Milei, the new libertarian/authoritarian president of Argentina The post COP28 and Argentina’s new president appeared first on KPFA.…

Amy Schiller, author of The Price of Humanity, on what’s wrong with philanthropy and how to fix it • Joel Schalit, editor of The Battleground, on what it is in Israeli politics and society that’s behind the carnage in Gaza The post Fundraising special: problems of philanthropy, and what in Israel is producing the carnage in Gaza? appeared first on …

Fundraising special featuring a speech from a November 1 teach-in on Gaza by Angela Davis. The post Fundraising special, featuring Angela Davis appeared first on KPFA.By KPFA

Leigh Claire La Berge, author of Marx for Cats, on political economy and the human–feline relationship • Michael Zweig, author of Class, Race, and Gender, on understanding capitalism in order to transform it The post Cats and capitalism, understanding capitalism in order to fight it appeared first on KPFA.…