Behind the News – September 1, 2022
Host Doug Henwood covers the worlds of economics and politics and their complex interactions, from the local to the global.
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.
Mark Fisher and hauntology; a critique of climate austerity
Matt Colquhoun talks about Mark Fisher on the reissue of his essay collection Ghosts of My Life, and Matt Huber, author of this review, criticizes the climate austerity camp.
The politics of Stanford and its infamous alum, Peter Thiel, and the political/economic crisis in Sri Lanka
David Palumbo-Liu on the politics of Stanford University and its infamous alum, Peter Thiel. And the political and economic crisis in Sri Lanka, analyzed by the writer Indrajit Samarajiva.
Why we need nuclear power, and the ruling class dynamics of the war in Ukraine
Science journalist Leigh Phillips explains why nuclear power has to be part of any serious decarbonization program. And Volodymyr Ishchenko, a research associate at the Institute of East European Studies at the Free University of Berlin, explores Putin’s invasion of Ukraine as part of a bid to consolidate power, and how the ruling classes of … Continued
British politics: Johnson’s caste and Labour’s mush
Two views of British politics: Simon Kuper, Financial Times columnist and author of Chums, on the upper-class caste that’s been ruling Britain for a decade. And James Meadway, director of the Progressive Economy Forum, on the dismal politics of the drab leader of the Labour Party, Kier Starmer.
Ellora Derenoncourt, co-author of this paper, on the racial wealth gap, 1860–2020, and David Roediger, author of The Sinking Middle Class, on the uses of that term in US politics. Image by Claudio Bianchi from Pixabay
Fundraising special: the latest fronts in the right’s war on public education, and the political economy of Ukraine.
Education journalist Jennifer Berkshire on Peter Hegseth, Christopher Rufo, and the right’s latest fronts in their war on public education. And Peter Korotaev looks at the political economy of Ukraine, before, during, and after the war.
Erik Baker, a lecture in history at Harvard and author of this piece, takes another look at a recent BtN obsession: post-leftism. And José Sanchez, author of this critique of Afropessimism, looks at the school of thought and its contradictions. photo: via Pixabay
Jenny Brown of National Women’s Liberation (and author of Without Apology and Birth Strike) on the early struggle for abortion rights that led to Roe and what we can learn from it for today. And journalist David De Jong, author of Nazi Billionaires, on how respectable German businessmen became loyal Nazis. photo: Gayatri Malhotra via Unsplash
Reining in cops and the limits to managing money sensitively
Back after three weeks of pre-emption: George Maher, author of A World Without Police, on the movement to defund and eventually abolish the cops. And Tariq Fancy, author of this series of articles, on the (severe) limits to using finance to fix the climate.