Gaza Genocide Divides the Organization of American States / Francesca Emanuele

Welcome to the Moment of Truth: the thirst that is the drink.

"Some men are intimidated by strong women." This has been a glib, empty, un-self- aware dose of pabulum on the left for at least the last thirty years. A moment's reflection reveals its nonsensical nature. A moment's reflection is something frowned upon on the left, unless it's reflection of an acceptable dogma or bland agreement. Yes, strong people intimidate weaker people. But you're not being woke or clever or anything remotely laudable by pointing it out. Capitalism exacerbates that dynamic, incidentally. Your strength is both increased and rendered more intimidating by capitalism. Consider that, if you can.

Yes, I'm intimidated by strong women. Why shouldn't I be? Like strong men, they can reject me socially, hurt me physically, humiliate me, or merely exert power over me to my detriment. I'm supposed to feel ashamed of being intimidated? Blow me. I've got enough negative feelings just being intimidated, I'm not going to judge myself for it. Especially not by your criteria.

Yes, I've intimidated others, and I'm not proud of it. There are ways to defuse the intimidation dynamic, if you want to, if it's important to you, but it takes work, and some humility on your part. You have to be secure in yourself. And yet humble at the same time. That's the burden of the strong. That's how you see beyond your privilege.

Don't worry, I'm not very good at it either.

This is the duty, in my opinion, of everyone with privilege, whether white, male, rich, beautiful, or otherwise gifted, exalted, or accomplished. The people who understand this are incredible, you know them when they reach out from their strengths and lift you up simply through the act of reaching. Not everyone has the ability, and even fewer want to have it. It's a singular strength, the ability to be humble and open about one's strengths, because we live in a culture that rewards bullying and egoism and not caring. Winning. We're all about winning, and we have a very narrow definition of victory.

But in some ways, that's the kind of animals we are. We jockey for prestige, we cultivate the best people as friends, we learn the tricks of making ourselves useful and helpful, or trusted, or admired, or highly regarded. And if we fail at these things, we lose. We become poor or lonely. In short, as a species, we are cliquish a-holes.

We also congratulate ourselves on not being the types that are... read more

Listen live from 9AM - 1:00PM Central on WNUR 89.3FM / stream at www.thisishell.com / subscribe to the podcast

9:20 - Writer John Pat Leary translates the new language of capitalism in the 21st century.

John is the author of the forthcoming book Keywords: The New Language of Capitalism from Haymarket Books.

10:00 - Live from São Paulo, Brian Mier explains what Jacobin got wrong about pre-coup Brazil.

Brian is a co-author of the article How the US Left Failed Brazil for Brasilwire.

10:35 - Sociologist Dylan Riley explains what Donald Trump is  - if he's not a fascist.

Dylan wrote the article What Is Trump? for the New Left Review.

11:05 - Writer Tony Wood explores Russian politics beyond the shadow of Vladimir Putin.

Tony is author of Russia Without Putin: Money, Power and the Myths of the New Cold War from Verso Books.

12:05 - The Hopleaf's Michael Roper reviews a down year in the craft beer industry.

Michael will dig into brewery closings, the hops bubble and a general decline in beer drinking - Chuck isn't contributing to that last thing.

12:45 - In a Moment of Truth, Jeff Dorchen can't win for losing, can't lose for winning.

Chuck picks his 18 favorite books from the 100+ he read for the show this year:

Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression - and the Unexpected Solutions

Johann Hari / Interview

Why Liberalism Failed

Patrick J. Deneen / Interview

Neoliberalism

Julie A. Wilson / Interview

Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race

Reni Eddo-Lodge / Interview

What’s Wrong with Rights?: Social Movements, Law and Liberal Imaginations

Radha D'Souza / Interview

The Apocalypse of Settler Colonialism: The Roots of Slavery, White Supremacy, and Capitalism in Seventeenth-Century North America and the Caribbean

Gerald Horne / Interview

Not Enough: Human Rights in an Unequal World

Samuel Moyn / Interview

Bullshit Jobs: A Theory

David Graeber / Interview

Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor

Virginia Eubanks / Interview

The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions

Jason Hickel / Interview

Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore

Elizabeth Rush / Interview

The Bone and Sinew of the Land: America's Forgotten Black Pioneers and the Struggle for Equality

Anna-Lisa Cox / Interview

Mistaken Identity: Race and Class in the Age of Trump

Asad Haider / Interview

The Heritage: Black Athletes, a Divided America, and the Politics of Patriotism

Howard Bryant / Interview

The World Come of Age: An Intellectual History of Liberation Theology

Lilian Calles Barger / Interview

Resisting Illegitimate Authority: A Thinking Person’s Guide to Being an Anti-Authoritarian - Strategies, Tools, and Models

Bruce E. Levine / Interview

A Happy Future Is a Thing of the Past: The Greek Crisis and Other Disasters

Pavlos Roufos / Interview

Behold, America: The Entangled History of ‘America First’ and ‘the American Dream’

Sarah Churchwell / Interview

Chuck's Favorite Books of 2018 Interview Playlist

Welcome to the Moment of Truth: the thirst that is the drink.

You all remember Leonard Cohen? He was alive not long ago. He wrote many songs including "Hallelujah," which has been covered by many singers, including, most famously, the tragically late Jeff Buckley.

Leonard sings about a secret chord that David played and it pleased the Lord. I've always wondered why it was secret and not sacred. "I've heard there was a sacred chord." Even sung that way, it still sounds like a secret, so you don't lose that concept. "I've heard there was this chord." Oh, it's a rumor? A secret? Illicit or elusive knowledge?

And what kind of secret is it, anyway? "It starts like this, the fourth the fifth the minor fall the major lift..." What kind of secret is that? He knows every interval in this chord he's only heard about and it's a secret? How does he know every interval in the secret chord? A chord a baffled king used at least 3000 years ago? Well, he's a kabbalist, we know that about Leonard Cohen. He got the knowledge somehow.

Ancient Jewish secret, huh?

"The baffled king composing Hallelujah." David, like Leonard, was a songwriter. Why baffled? Well, I've heard there's a secret doctrine, a pretty damn sacred secret doctrine about King David being insane.

Baffled king, mad king, the cosmos and the lord filled him. He was full of the lord. And he was insane with his love of God and his openness in song to God.

David, in his madness and love, decided he needed to sin in order to help God have a relationship of sin and redemption with him. Because he was too perfect a servant of God, he was too open to God, he was too full of God like as if to become one unto God!

David was too good. God couldn't handle it. And so David resolved to debase himself with sin, and take Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite, and bed her in a sinful bed. So he could sin in the eyes God, and by penance be redeemed by God. God likes that. It makes him feel useful.

Talk about creating drama. But that's the kind of relationship they had. God and David. Symbiotically dysfunctional. David's 23d Psalm, you'll remember it if I start, A song of David: The lord is my shepherd, I shall not want, he maketh me etc etc, blah blah blah green pastures, blah blah blah still waters, blah blah blah valley of the shadow of death, blah blah blah fear no evil, rod and staff, set a table, anoint with oil, ah, "My cup runneth over." That's the King James translation.

... read more

Listen live from 9AM - 1:00PM Central on WNUR 89.3FM / stream at www.thisishell.com / subscribe to the podcast

9:20 - Live from Paris, journalist Cole Stangler traces the class lines running through France's Yellow Vest movement.

Cole wrote the articles What’s Really Behind France’s Yellow Vest Protest? for The Nation and “Yellow Vests” Against the “President of the Rich” for Jacobin.

10:05 - Writer Sohaila Abdulali talks about what we do (and don't) talk about when we talk about rape.

Sohaila is author of What We Talk About When We Talk About Rape from The New Press.

11:05 - Political scientist Neta C. Crawford examines the brutal, ongoing human cost of America's wars.

Neta is author of the paper Human Cost of the Post-9/11 Wars: Lethality and the Need for Transparency for Brown University's Watson Institute.

11:35 - Investigative journalist Yasha Levine exposes the greedy, vampiric heart of California's pistachio industry.

Yasha's documentary, Pistachio Wars: Killing California for a Snack Food is raising funds for post-production at Kickstarter right now. Help em out!

12:05 - Writer Jesse Bering explains what happens in the brain (and life) of the suicidal person.

Jesse is author of the book Suicidal: Why We Kill Ourselves from University of Chicago Press.

12:45 - In a Moment of Truth, Jeff Dorchen sees the glass as entirely full.

Guess those Wellbutrins are kicking in.

Welcome to the Moment of Truth: the thirst that is the drink.

A hundred and one Welbutrins. That's how many I have today. And here is why:

I get my depression meds from Canada. I order them as I need them. When one batch of 90 pills is three weeks from running out, which is three month's worth of pills, I order another batch. Sometimes I order the generics made in India. You get a hundred of those, whereas with the Canadian ones you only get 90. The problem with the Indian ones is that they come in foil blister packs, which is wasteful. But I forget that they come that way. If I remembered I wouldn't order the Indian generics. I don't like wasteful packaging.

Last time I placed my order, some events conspired to delay the delivery of my pills. The Canadian pharmacy called me to say that they no longer accepted payment by Visa card. The problem was, I'd missed the voicemail they'd sent me, and only stumbled upon it two days after they'd left it. Then it took a few days for me to figure out how to pay them by voided check sent by email, because the only card I have is a Visa debit card. The first person I talked to about it actually gave me the wrong information, and it sounded so wrong to me that I spent a couple days fretting over it in my mentally-ill fashion before calling back and straightening it out.

What I had attempted to do when I first ordered was give them plenty of time to send the pills before I left for Chicago for a week. Because I would need the pills in Chicago. I was going to be performing, and it was essential that I be in as fit a mental state as psychopharmacologically possible. What I had to do two weeks before leaving for Chicago, because of this delay created by their no longer taking payment by Visa and my missing the message and then my neurotic stalling over the situation, was to only take a pill every other day. The way older people cut their pills in half to save money, except instead halving the number of pills I took each day, I doubled the number of days per which I took each pill. I said "per which," yes. It's a grammatical figure I've just invented.

What happens when I stop taking Welbutrin is, first, I feel a weird sensation of squishiness when turning my head, as if my head were passing through a squishy volume of spacetime. As if spacetime were pudding, sandy pudding made of broadcast static, and the movie I'm in is missing a few frames that have been eaten by this static.... read more