10:00 AM Pacific Time: Monday - Thursday
Letters & Politics seeks to explore the history behind today’s major global and national news stories. Hosted by Mitch Jeserich.
As teachers take to the streets especially in red states and in Oklahoma they began their second week of the strike, we talk about the economics of teaching with Sylvia Allegretto. She is a labor economist and co-chair of the Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics at the University of California, Berkeley. Then we talk to Elizabeth Gillespie … Continued
President Trump signed a proclamation to deploy National Guard troops the US southern border in an apparent retaliation to a caravan of about a thousand people moving through Mexico. According to some reports, about 80% of the people on the caravan Pueblo Sin Fronteras are women and children fleeing violence from their country of Honduras. … Continued
Commemorating the 50 anniversary of the death of Martin Luther King, Jr., Mitch Jeserich is in conversation with Gary Dorrien to talk about the early history of the black social gospel tradition that included socialism and humanism and that heavily influenced Martin Luther King Jr. views of Christianity. Gary Dorrien is the Reinhold Niebuhr Professor of Social Ethics at Union Theological Seminary and … Continued
We talk about the potential trade war between the Trump administration and China as well as the history of US trade wars and policies with Douglas A. Irwin. He is the John Sloan Dickey Third Century Professor in the Social Sciences Department of Economics at Dartmouth College. He is a research associate of the National Bureau of … Continued
The History of marijuana in America is, to quote its chroniclers the Grateful Dead, a long, strange trip, involving tens of thousands of ordinary individuals who, along with corporations, federal officials, presidents, and first ladies, felt a personal stake in determining the future of pot. To talk about the history of Marijuana in America, Mitch Jeserich … Continued
Mitch Jeserich talks to Norman G. Finkelstein about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the humanitarian disaster created after Israel’s invasion of Gaza and the military operations and illegal blockade against the Palestinian population. Filkenstein is the author of ten books including The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the exploitation of Jewish suffering and, his most recent, GAZA: An inquest into its martyrdom. … Continued
Mitch Jeserich talks to Amy Chua about her latest book Political Tribes: Group Instinct and the Fate of Nations. Amy Chua is the John M. Duff Professor of Law at Yale Law School. About the book: In Political Tribes, Chua argues that humans are tribal and that we need to belong to groups. In many parts … Continued
Today we are in conversation with professor Christian Fuchs to examine the right-wing authoritarian use of social media and the capitalist models that allow growing such issues as the one concerning Cambridge Analitica. Christian Fuchs is a professor of social media at the University of Westminster, Director of the Westminster Institute for Advanced Studies & Communication and Media Research … Continued
Today, Mitch Jeserich talks to historian Andrew Bacevich about John Bolton, Trump’s choice for National Security Advisor. Bolton, who was one of the architects of the Iraq war and played a major role in pushing the allegation that Saddam Hussein was connected to Al Qaeda and that Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction. Our guest, Andrew Bacevich specializes in … Continued
Marking the fifteen year anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq this week we continue with our series. Today we are in conversation with professor Edmund Ghareeb to talk about how future historians might look back upon this war. Edmund Ghareeb is the first Mustafa Barzani Distinguished Scholar in Global Kurdish Studies at the American University in Washington, D.C. … Continued
