Behind the News – October 21, 2021
Host Doug Henwood covers the worlds of economics and politics and their complex interactions, from the local to the global.
Upcoming Episode
Behind the News
12:00 PM (Noon) Pacific Time: Thursdays
Host Doug Henwood covers the worlds of economics and politics and their complex interactions, from the local to the global.
Historian Nancy MacLean, author of this paper, 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
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! Get the book for a contribution of $120.
Historian Patrick Wyman, author of this Atlantic article (and the original version 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! photo: Anastase Maragos via Unsplash
Sociologist Algernon Austin lays out the details of and reasons for black men’s miserable experiences in the job market. And sex pundit Susie Bright 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 via Unsplash
Dave Zirin, author of The Kaepernick Effect, on how taking a knee launched a movement. And cloud data architect Dwayne Monroe (author of this article) deflates the endlessly recurring hype around artificial intelligence. photo: Fredrick Lee via Unsplash
How reactionaries maintain control in Texas, and the Blob’s worries about China and Afghanistan.
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 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 … Continued
Paul Passavant, author of Policing Protest, explains how cops came to police protest so viciously. And Marisol Cantu and Shiva Mishek analyze the campaign to shift money out of policing and into social services in Richmond, California. (It helps to avoid the word “defund.”) photo: Jesse Young via Unsplash
Cuba: economic history and those recent protests
Helen Yaffe, author of We Are Cuba!, talks about the long sweep of Cuban economic history since the 1959 revolution, and also about those recent “pro-democracy” protests.
A time-tunnel trip back to January: Jodi Dean on Trump and American fascism, and Quinn Slobodian, co-author of this article, 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 via Unsplash
Mia Jankowicz 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, looks back on labor’s alliance with Wall Street in mounting the shareholder revolution. photo: Joshua … Continued