Urbanist Mona Fawaz of the American University of Beirut talks about Lebanon's political and economic crises. And cultural critic Mark Dery explores the allure of conspiracy theories, using former media critic Mark Crispin Miller as a case study. photo: Markus Winkler [1] via Unsplash [1] https://unsplash.com/@markuswinkler

KPFA - Behind the News

Lebanon’s Troubles, and the Allure of Conspiracism

Historian Nancy MacLean, author of this paper [1], on how Milton Friedman gave segregationists libertarian cover in their efforts to resist Brown v. Board of Education: they weren't bigots, they were defending freedom! And geophysicist Klaus Jacob on how we can adapt our cities to live with rising seas and heavier rains. photo: Wikimedia Commons [1] https://www.ineteconomics.org/research/research-papers/how-milton-friedman-exploited-white-supremacy-to-privatize-education

Milton Friedman and segregation, and preparing our cities for the climate crisis

Dave Zirin talks about his book, The Kaepernick Effect. This is a reprise of an interview that first aired on September 16, with the added bonus of fundraising. Support KPFA! [1] Get the book for a contribution of $120. [2] [1] https://secure.kpfa.org/support/ [2] https://secure.kpfa.org/support/

The Politics of Sports

Historian Patrick Wyman, author of this Atlantic article [1] (and the original version [2] on his Substack), talks about the elite of his hometown, Yakima, Washington, as an example of a portion of our upper class that's usually eclipsed by metropolitan swells. Plus some fundraising. Support KPFA! [3] photo: Anastase Maragos [4] via Unsplash [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/09/trump-american-gentry-wyman-elites/620151/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share [2] https://patrickwyman.substack.com/p/american-gentry [3] https://secure.kpfa.org/support/ [4] https://unsplash.com/@visualsbyroyalz

A Look at Local Gentry, a Neglected Part of the Elite

Sociologist Algernon Austin [1] lays out the details of and reasons for black men’s miserable experiences in the job market. And sex pundit Susie Bright [2] delves into the meaning of model Cara Delevigne’s “Peg the Patriarchy” vest at last week’s Met Gala. Plus lots of irrefutable reasons why you should support KFPA. Cytonn Photography [3] via Unsplash [1] https://cepr.net/staff-member/algernon-austin/ [2] https://twitter.com/susiebright?lang=en [3] https://unsplash.com/@cytonn_photography

Black men in the job market, and the meaning of Cara Delevigne’s “Peg the Patriarchy” outfit. Plus fundraising.

Dave Zirin [1], author of The Kaepernick Effect, [2] on how taking a knee launched a movement. And cloud data architect Dwayne Monroe (author of this article [3]) deflates the endlessly recurring hype around artificial intelligence. photo: Fredrick Lee [4] via Unsplash [1] http://www.davezirin.com [2] https://thenewpress.com/books/kaepernick-effect [3] https://monroelab.net/projects/impacts/2021/09/06/attack-mannequins-ai-as-propaganda/ [4] https://unsplash.com/@mkaine17

The Kaepernick effect and the politics of sports, and deflating the hype around AI.

Texas is a highly diverse and urbanized state, but it's run by a bunch of would-be cowboys. How is this possible? Political scientist Clyde Barrow [1] has some answers. The Blob—the pejorative nickname for the foreign policy establishment—wants us to worry more about China than the climate crisis, and to see the withdrawal from Afghanistan as a disaster and not a welcome end to a bloody disaster. Foreign policy analyst Anatol Lieven [2] corrects those errors. [1] https://webapps.utrgv.edu/aa/dm/index.cfm?action=profile&user=clyde.barrow [2] https://quincyinst.org/author/alieven/

How reactionaries maintain control in Texas, and the Blob’s worries about China and Afghanistan.

Paul Passavant, author of Policing Protest [1], explains how cops came to police protest so viciously. And Marisol Cantu and Shiva Mishek analyze the campaign [2] to shift money out of policing and into social services in Richmond, California. (It helps to avoid the word “defund.”) photo: Jesse Young [3] via Unsplash [1] https://www.dukeupress.edu/policing-protest [2] https://jacobinmag.com/2021/08/richmond-california-police-rpd-defund-budget-social-services-progressive-alliance-city-council [3] https://unsplash.com/@jesseyoungofficial

Cops: how’d they come to repress protest so, and how can they be defunded (without using the word)

Helen Yaffe [1], author of We Are Cuba! [2], talks about the long sweep of Cuban economic history since the 1959 revolution, and also about those recent “pro-democracy” protests. [1] https://twitter.com/HelenYaffe [2] https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300230031/we-are-cuba

Cuba: economic history and those recent protests

A time-tunnel trip back to January: Jodi Dean [1] on Trump and American fascism, and Quinn Slobodian [2], co-author of this article [3], on Querdenken, the eclectic German anti-mask movement that joins hippies and petty capitalists (vacation-induced rebroadcast of a show that first ran in January) photo: Jon Tyson [4] via Unsplash [1] https://www.hws.edu/academics/polisci/facultyProfile.aspx?facultyID=95 [2] https://www.wellesley.edu/history/faculty/slobodian [3] https://bostonreview.net/politics/william-callison-quinn-slobodian-coronapolitics-reichstag-capitol [4] https://unsplash.com/@jontyson

Trump and fascism, German anti-vaxxers. A backward glance.

Mia Jankowicz [1] of the London office of Business Insider reports on Sherri Tenpenny, the antivaxxer who claimed before the Ohio legislature that covid shots make you magnetic. And business and economic historian Sanford Jacoby, author of Labor in the Age of Finance [2], looks back on labor's alliance with Wall Street in mounting the shareholder revolution. photo: Joshua Hoehne [3] via Unsplash [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/author/mia-jankowicz [2] https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691217208/labor-in-the-age-of-finance [3] https://unsplash.com/@mrthetrain

Antivaxxers’ outlandish claims and labor’s strange alliance with shareholders

Sean Jacobs and Will Shoki of Africa Is a Country [1] explain why South Africans rioted last month and what’s happened to the African National Congress over the decades. And the political economist Max Krahé, author of this report [2], explains why market mechanisms aren’t up to the climate crisis and some kind of central planning is necessary. [1] https://africasacountry.com [2] https://www.academieroyale.be/Academie/documents/Opinio_SFPI_numerique31253.pdf

Why did South Africans riot? And here’s a finance economist calling for central planning!

A fundraiser, featuring Rupa Marya and Raj Patel, authors of Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice, an examination of how environmental ruin and social tension makes people sick.

How colonial capitalism makes you sick.

Robert Fatton, professor of politics at the University of Virginia, discusses the July 7 assassination of Jovenel Moïse, the president of Haiti, under extremely murky circumstances, and the long history that led up to it. Plus fundraising.

A look at the assassination in Haiti, and the long history leading up to it. Plus fundraising.

Christian Parenti looks at carbon dioxide removal, an underappreciated technology that could stave off climate collapse. And the anthropologist Kareem Rabie [1] talks explores a new town development on the West Bank—has real estate development become the neoliberal substitute for nation building in Palestine? photo: Chris LeBoutillier [2] via Unsplash [1] https://kareemrabie.com [2] https://unsplash.com/@chrisleboutillier

Sucking CO2 out of the air, and has real estate development become the Palestinian national project?

Host Doug Henwood covers the worlds of economics and politics and their complex interactions, from the local to the global.

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KPFA - Behind the News

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