Episode 871
Disopticon
Oct 24 2015
There's a now a whole generation of college students who are learning a lesson about empowerment. When you when you see the institutions you're involved in complicit with really atrocious activities, you have to stand up, you have to make people mad, cause discomfort. I think that that's a lesson that is going to stick with students they leave Harvard.
Historian Erik Baker on his Boston Review article, "The Real Scandal of Campus Protest: It’s not that there has been too much student protest. It’s that there has not been much, much more of it." Jeff Dorchen joins us with "The Moment of Truth" after the interview.
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Helen Benedict
May 7
Columbia Professor Corrects Distorted Media Coverage of Campus Protests / Helen Benedict
Natasha Lennard
May 6
Weaponized Safety and Unhinged Police Crackdowns on American Campus Protests / Natasha Lennard
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Oct 23 2015
Posted by Alexander Jerri
After a football-induced hiatus, This is Hell! is back with a one hour show. Listen 9AM - 10AM US Central. Four hours next week!
9:05AM - Civil rights attorney Flint Taylor challenges police torture and state secrecy at Chicago's Homan Square.
Flint's law firm, the People's Law Office, filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the City of Chicago and six Chicago police officers.
9:30AM - Writer Sarah Kendzior explores the ties and tensions between Ferguson's Jewish and Palestinian activists.
Sarah wrote The Jewish and Palestinian Activists of the Ferguson Movement for Medium.
Oct 12 2015
Posted by Alexander Jerri
Atention citizens of Grand Rapids and West Michigan:
This is Hell! Monday nights at 11PM Eastern on Public Reality Radio!
Starting tonight, This is Hell! will be airing Monday nights at 11PM Eastern on WPRR Public Reality Radio. We're sending them a one hour version of the show each week (the first hit is always free) with the reminder that there's four hours of interview Hell each week at www.thisishell.com
If you know a radical / lefty with a radio in Grand Rapids or West Michigan, let em know that we're coming to their town / subdivision / squat. And if you want to hear This is Hell! in your community, get in touch with us and we'll bug that station together.
Oct 10 2015
Posted by Alexander Jerri
This day in rancid, ugly, horrible, putrid, rotten history...
On this day in 1780 – [235 years ago] – an enormous hurricane swept through the Caribbean with winds of up to two hundred miles per hour, devastating colonial towns and sinking scores of British and French ships. The storm later zigagged northeast, up the Eastern Seaboard, wreaking havoc as far as Newfoundland and Bermuda, and killing more than twenty thousand people. It remains the deadliest Atlantic hurricane on record, worse even then Hurricane Mitch of 1998.
On this day in 1871 – [144 years ago] – the Great Chicago Fire burned itself out after having raged through the city center for three days. It killed some three hundred people, destroyed a third of the city’s real estate, and left more than one hundred thousand people homeless. To this day, the fire’s original cause remains unknown, despite many theories advanced by historians. The popular myth of Mrs. O’Leary’s cow kicking over the lantern was debunked long ago. One of the more sketchy but intriguing conjectures is that the fire in Chicago -- along with others occurring on the same day in Peshtigo, Wisconsin, and in Holland, Michigan -- may have been ignited by red-hot meteorite fragments fallen through earth’s atmosphere from an exploding comet.
On this day in 1957 – [58 years ago] – the world’s first major nuclear accident occurred when a fire broke out at the Windscale facility in Cumbria on the northwest coast of England, releasing streams of airborne radioactive particles across the UK and Europe. Operators worked frantically all night and into the following day before finding a way to extinguish the reactor’s burning uranium cores. Once they did so, they were able to seal the reactor tank -- which remains sealed today, with fifteen tons of uranium fuel still inside. The Windscale reactor is now being decommissioned, a process expected to be complete in the year 2038.
On this day in 1973 – [42 years ago] – Spiro T. Agnew, vice president of the United States under President Richard Nixon, was forced to resign from office as a condition of a plea deal on an income tax evasion charge. Agnew had also been charged by a federal district attorney with extortion, conspiracy, and accepting more than one hundred thousand dollars in bribes while holding political office. His resignation came amid... read more
Oct 9 2015
Posted by Alexander Jerri
Listen live tomorrow 9AM - 1PM Central on WNUR 89.3FM or stream here at thisishell.com
9:10 - Economist Morten Jerven explains why the West misunderstands economic growth in Africa.
Morten's latest book is Africa: Why Economists Get it Wrong from Zed Books.
10:05 - Live from Sao Paulo, Brian Mier reports on anti-austerity marches across Brazil.
Brian wrote the Brasil Wire article Against Austerity: World Habitat Day.
10:35 - Our Man in London, David Skalinder translates Jeremy Corbyn to American ears.
According to Dave, "UK politics has just become properly interesting for the first time in maybe fifteen years."
11:05 - Historian Greg Grandin explores Henry Kissinger's imperial architecture.
Greg is author of the new book Kissinger's Shadow: The Long Reach of America's Most Controversial Statesman from Macmillan.
12:05 - Writer Rick Perlstein checks out of Obama Presidential Library politics.
Rick wrote the There Goes the Neighborhood:The Obama Library Lands on Chicago for The Baffler.
12:45 - Jeff Dorchen admits that we are in denial about our situation and cannot put a toupee on it.
Jeff will be delivering his first Moment of Truth via an actual microphone we just bought him. No more audio fudge!
Oct 8 2015
Posted by Alexander Jerri
Here is what Chuck is reading to prepare for Saturday's show:
Morten Jerven - Africa: Why Economists Get it Wrong [Zed Books]
Brian Mier - Against Austerity: World Habitat Day [Brasil Wire]
John Cassidy - Five Things Jeremy Corbyn Has Right [New Yorker]
Greg Grandin - Kissinger's Shadow [Macmillan]
Rick Perlstein - There Goes the Neighborhood [The Baffler]