Famine Denial's Past and Present

On This Day in Rotten History...

In 1349 – (667 years ago) – as the Black Plague ravaged Europe, killing millions, the panicky citizens of Basel, Switzerland, rounded up the city’s Jewish population, whom they noticed were suffering much less from the pestilence, and whom they accused of having created it by poisoning wells. After separating the Jewish children from their parents and forcing them to convert to Christianity, the townspeople locked the adults—some six hundred in number—inside a specially constructed building on an island in the Rhine and burned them alive by setting the building on fire. Historians now say that Jewish people suffered less from the plague due to their tradition of sweeping and cleaning houses before Passover, which reduced infestation by rats, now believed to have been plague carriers. About a month after the Basel massacre, a similar one occurred in nearby Strasbourg, where some two thousand Jewish people were burned alive. 

On this day in 1858 – (158 years ago) – Anson Jones—a failed doctor, failed pharmacist, and failed businessman who had served as the fourth and last president of Texas during its brief existence as an independent republic, and who then had failed in his attempt to become a US senator after Texas joined the Union—finally gave up, checked into Houston’s Capitol Hotel, had dinner, went up to his room alone, and shot himself. He was fifty-nine years old.

On this day in 1927 – (89 years ago) – during a Sunday matinee at the Laurier Palace movie theater in Montreal, with about eight hundred children in attendance, someone tossed a still-burning cigarette butt onto the floor. The cigarette rolled into an inaccessible area and started a fire that provoked a stampede toward the exits, some of which were locked. A total of seventy-eight children were crushed to death, killed by smoke inhalation, or killed directly by the flames. The disaster provoked the Montreal citizenry and the Catholic Church to call for a law that would ban children under sixteen from movie theaters. The law was soon passed, and would remain in effect until 1961.

 Rotten History is written by Renaldo Migaldi.

Listen live from 9AM - 1PM Central on WNUR 89.3FM or stream at www.thisishell.com

9:10 - Sociologist Linsey McGoey explains how capitalism profits from corporate philanthropy.

Linsey is author of No Such Thing as a Free Gift: The Gates Foundation and the Price of Philanthropy from Verso Books.

10:05 - Journalist Steve Horn reports on the details of a joint Obama-Exxon pipeline bill.

Steve posted the DeSmog Blog article During Paris Climate Summit, Obama Signed Exxon-, Koch-Backed Bill Expediting Pipeline Permits.

10:35 - The Radical Pessimist, Kevan Harris examines the domestic politics behind the Iran-Saudi Arabia feud.

Kevin will be working from his own research, plus that of several Middle East scholars he's boozed with.

11:05 - Cultural critic Henry Giroux explores the fear and violence at the heart of current American politics.

Henry is author of the new book America’s Addiction to Terrorism from Monthly Review.

12:05 - Journalist Shubhanga Pandey profiles the conflicts and contradictions facing Nepal's left.

Shubhanga wrote the Jacobin article The Next Nepali Revolution.

12:45 - Jeff Dorchen visits the Oregon militia standoff and finds something much dumber than white privilege.

Jeff will actually be responding to the lack of response, which we've all responded about enough already.

Here is what Chuck is reading to prepare for Saturday's show:

No Such Thing as a Free Gift: The Gates Foundation and the Price of Philanthropy - Linsey McGoey [Verso]

Saudi Arabia’s Dangerous Sectarian Game - Toby Jones [New York Times Op-Ed]

During Paris Climate Summit, Obama Signed Exxon-, Koch-Backed Bill Expediting Pipeline Permits - Steve Horn [DeSmog Blog]

America’s Addiction to Terrorism - Henry Giroux [Monthly Review]

The Next Nepali Revolution - Shubhanga Pandey [Jacobin]

Listen live from 9AM - 1PM Central on WNUR 89.3FM or stream at www.thisishell.com

Chuck celebrates a new year of Hell by looking back at his favorite interviews of 2015

Hello This is Hell! weirdos,

Zurich correspondent Ed here with an important message about autonomous solidarity efforts along the Balkanroute in Europe.

As many of you may have seen in my Truthout piece about conditions for refugees in the Balkans (haha shameless plug), in the absence of any positive action among European governments or international NGOs, self-organized citizen initiatives have sprung up across the continent and have been scrambling to pick up the slack and prevent a humanitarian disaster the likes of which hasn't been seen on European soil since World War Two.

Though conditions along the route vary from country to country and from day to day, one thing has been constant so far: Serbia sucks. They haven't made the big headlines for their suckiness the way Hungary or Macedonia have, because they haven't put up big barbed-wire border fences (the Greek-Macedonian border was recently described to me by a well-traveled border security expert as the tightest and most aggressively patrolled he had ever seen).

But the Serbian authorities have played a much subtler game, the logic of which isn't entirely clear unless they are simply trying to wish away the refugees bottlenecked in their country by ignoring them out of existence meanwhile hiding them from public view. Because border controls on relief supplies coming into the country from the northwest have been so maddeningly strict, the improvised, extra-institutional solidarity organizations most active in the Balkans so far have all almost entirely given up. There are, after all, plenty of refugees in dire need elsewhere.

The organization I am working with in Switzerland, Stand Up For Refugees (SUFR), has worked some magic through fervent organizing and using the presence of citizens of the former Yugoslavia here to our advantage. We have scraped together the credentials necessary to transport relief supplies into Serbia and distribute them, and have the infrastructure necessary to house activists in the border town of Sid (pronounced "Shid," sorry FCC) and to warehouse regularly arriving shipments of donated winter clothing and camping equipment there as well.

Aid and solidarity will be delivered daily from there to the completely unattended, cold and desperate camp in Adasevci (pronounced a-DAH-shev-tsy) where thousands of Syrians, Afghans, Iraqis, Pakistanis, and sub-Saharan Africans are waiting for buses or trains over the border into... read more

Listen live from 9AM - 1PM Central on WNUR 89.3FM or stream at www.thisishell.com

9:10 - Ecologist Andreas Malm explores the links between fossil fuels and capitalism's 19th century explosion.

Andreas is author of Fossil Capital: The Rise of Steam Power and the Roots of Global Warming from Verso Books.

10:05 - Writer Ayesha Siddiqi explains why the West wants a Malala without the war.

Ayesha wrote the VICE essay Does America Deserve Malala?

10:35 - Attorney Vanessa Lucas reports on US complicity and profit from violence in the Philippines.

Vanessa co-wrote the Foreign Policy in Focus article The Philippine People Are Under Attack from Washington - and Their Own Government

11:05 - Journalist Michael Griffin rewrites a long history of Islamic State's short rise to power.

Michael is author of Islamic State: Rewriting History from Pluto Press.

12:05 - The Hopleaf's Michael Roper explain why industry mergers could mean less shelf space for craft beer.

Michael's 2015 Beer in Review will focus takeovers, fake breweries, craft bubbles and private equity.

12:45 - In 2015's last Moment of Truth, Jeff Dorchen torments the soul of a dead atheist.

Jeff's been mining the spirit world to end the year. Spooooky!

Here is what Chuck is reading to prepare for Saturday's show:

Fossil Capital: The Rise of Steam Power and the Roots of Global Warming - Andreas Malm [Verso Books]

Does America Deserve Malala? - Ayesha Siddiqi [Vice]

The Philippine People Are Under Attack from Washington - and Their Own Government - Vanessa Lucas / Azadeh Shahshahani [Foreign Policy in Focus]

Islamic State: Rewriting History - Michael Griffin [Pluto Press]