Eastern Premises
Don't believe the Russia hype: Who profits from the new Red Scare?
Journalist Andrew Cockburn examines the recent hype around Russia as existential threat to world security and American democracy, and finds dubious intelligence and a servile media pushing conflict in service of a failed political campaign in need of a scapegoat, and a bloated military in need of a target to justify its budget.
Andrew wrote the cover story The New Red Scare in the December issue of Harper's.
No return: An ex-pat radical comes home to a house on fire.
Live from Switzerland, Ed Sutton talks about coming back home to the US in a time of mass migration, imminent environmental disaster and collapsing order - and finding purpose in the physical resistance against a rising tide of nationalist authoritarianism sweeping across the globe and coming to a home near you, real soon.
After 9 years in Europe, Ed is moving back to Minneapolis. Get ready!
How centrists handed Donald Trump a massive deportation machine.
Reporter Daniel Denvir examines how Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama built the mechanisms for mass deportation - from expanding local police presence into the lives of immigrants, to legitimizing nativist narratives for political gain - and explains why cities will be the battleground for resisting Trump's promised immigrant crackdown.
Dan wrote the recent article How Centrists Failed Immigrants for Jacobin.
On the limitations of memory and the persistence of war.
Writer Viet Thanh Nguyen explores the ways war wins itself in the minds of the American public - from the erasure of conflict's economic roots and civilian victims alike, to the coercive power of the US memory industry to commodify and alter historical perspective - and warns that unless we radically revisit our understanding of wars past, they'll push us towards wars future.
Viet is author of the book Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War from Harvard University Press.
US beer spills overseas: A 2016 craft beer year in review.
The Hopleaf's Michael Roper stops by to discuss the year in beer - America's 5,000+ breweries, US craft beer's expansion into Europe and Asia, new developments across Chicago (both tiny and big,) the militancy of "real ale" people, the impact of the SABMiller / AB InBev merger, lower prices on the horizon and his picks for Christmas beers that still taste like beers.
Michael's Libation of the Week is St. Bernardus Christmas Ale.
Finding strength through failure at the end of the universe.
In a Moment of Truth 14 billion years in the making, Jeff Dorchen considers conflict as something maybe baked into the whole cosmic deal of existence, from the Big Bang onwards - or maybe it's not and we should value all the W.B. Yeatses and flavors of gelato we have on this 1/10ˆ24 of the universe we have to call home.
