Behind the News – December 26, 2024
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.
Syria and the failures of COP29
Trita Parsi and Joshua Landis analyze what’s been going on in Syria • Tina Gerhardt reviews the annual UN climate conference, COP29, where little happened
Fundraising special: Gaza, the Constitution
Fundraising reprise of two interviews from May: Annelle Sheline, who resigned from the State Department as a protest of the war on Gaza, on what’s driving US support for that genocide • Aziz Rana on the awfulness of the US Constitution
Fundraising special: what’s driving the populist right?
Political scientist Larry Bartels, author of this article, on how it’s politicians, not public opinion, that’s driving the right-populist upsurge
Stashing money offshore, a new government in Sri Lanka
Brooke Harrington, author of Offshore, on how and where the mega-rich stash their cash • Mahendran Thiruvarangan on a new leftish government in Sri Lanka
Ethel Rosenberg’s innocence, problems of masculinity
Michael Meeropol, son of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, on how the government executed his mother despite knowing her innocence (docs here) • Ruth Whippman, author of BOYMOM: Reimagining Boyhood in the Age of Impossible Masculinity, on the challenges of raising boys
Trump prognostications: foreign policy, criminal justice
Anatol Lieven tries to divine a Trump foreign policy out of unreliable rhetoric and early appointments • Alex Vitale tries similar on Trump and criminal justice
Comments on Trump • Israeli public opinion • the role of Ukraine in Western politics
DH comments on the Trump victory, especially the role of inflation • Dahlia Scheindlin on Israeli public opinion • James Foley and Vladimir Unkovski-Korica, authors of this article, on the role of Ukraine in the Western political imagination
The right’s war on higher ed • What Israel’s wars are all about
Laura Jedeed, author of this article, on the right’s war on North Idaho College • Mouin Rabbani on what’s driving Israel’s multiple wars, and on the state of the Axis of Resistance
How much US aid goes to Israel? • people actually like their jobs, a study shows
William Hartung, co-author of this paper, on how much aid the US has given to Israel over the last year (plus some wacky stuff on AI weapons) • sociologist Scott Schieman on his surprising research showing that people actually like their jobs