This Is Hell!

Miliaku Nwabueze talks with Chuck about her Scaliwag essay, "How to Build the End of the World: In Defense of the Chaotic Protester."

Micah Herskind discusses his Scalawag article, "This is the Atlanta Way: A Primer on Cop City," and his MSNBC post, “If those supporting ‘Cop City’ prevail in Atlanta, your city could be next.” Micah Herskind is an Atlanta-based organizer and writer. Find more of his writing on his website, micahherskind.com and follow him on Twitter at: micahinATL Read Micah’s article here: https://scalawagmagazine.org/2023/05/cop-city-atlanta-history-timeline/ #StopCopCity

Historian Jo Guldi joins us to discuss her Boston Review article, "The Earth for Man: Redistributing land was once central to global development efforts---and it should be today." This article is adapted from her 2022 book from Yale University Press, "The Long Land War: The Global Struggle for Occupancy Rights." You can find the article here: https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/the-earth-for-man/ And the book here: https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300256680/the-long-land-war/ Jeff Dorchen delivers the first installment of a two-part "Moment of Truth." This week's Question from Hell! winner is announced. The competition this week was fierce.

McMansion Hell's Kate Wagner returns to discuss her new Baffler article, “Bad Manors: The McMansion as harbinger of the American apocalypse.”

Matt Mazewski joins This is Hell! to discuss his new article, "The Pandemic Isn't Over." Matt Mazewski is a contributing writer and book critic at Commonweal, where he writes on economics and public policy. He is a former research analyst in the research and statistics group at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Matt teaches courses on economics and labor studies for high school students at Columbia University's pre-college programs, as well as being an economics tutor. He's an independent researcher working on several projects related to labor economics, including the measurement of union membership over time at a fine geographic level, the impacts of collective bargaining on retirement outcomes, and the dynamics of monopsony power in labor markets. Read Matt’s article "The Pandemic Isn’t Over" at commonwealmagazine.org

Writer, speaker, and ecofeminist Jennifer Lunden joins This is Hell! to discuss her new book "American Breakdown, Our Ailing Nation, My Body's Revolt, and the Nineteenth-Century Woman Who Brought Me Back to Life," out now from Harper Collins: https://www.harpercollins.com/products/american-breakdown-jennifer-lunden You can learn more about Lunden and her work at her website: https://jenniferlunden.com/ Jeff Dorchen is back with another "Moment of Truth," in which he cleans up after the dogman.

American journalist Nick Terse joins This is Hell to discuss his recent Intercept piece, "Kissinger's Killing Fields." Interviews with more than 75 witnesses and survivors of U.S. military attacks and an exclusive archive of documents show that Henry Kissinger is responsible for even more civilian deaths in Cambodia than was previously known. You can find the article here: https://theintercept.com/series/henry-kissinger-killing-fields/

Economic historian Trevor Jackson joins This is Hell! to discuss two recent pieces: "Overproduction and Its Discontents: Capitalism's inherent predilection for excess" in Baffler Magazine and "The Price of Crypto: Despite its boosters' frequent references to democracy and freedom, cryptocurrency reflects a radical marketization of politics in which major players can rewrite the rules as needed" in the New York Review of Books. You can find the Baffler article here: https://thebaffler.com/latest/overproduction-and-its-discontents-jackson You can find the New York Review of Books article here: https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2023/06/08/the-price-of-crypto-the-cryptopians-laura-shin/

Lindsay Koshgarian and Ashik Siddique, co-authors of the National Priorities Project at the Institute for Policy Studies report, “The Warfare State: How Funding for Militarism Compromises Our Welfare. You can check out there report here: https://www.nationalpriorities.org/analysis/2023/warfare-state-how-funding-militarism-compromises-our-welfare/ LIndsay Koshgarian is Lindsay's work and commentary on the federal budget and military spending has appeared on NPR, the BBC, CNN, The Nation, U.S. News and World Report, and others. At NPP, her work is at the intersection of military and domestic federal spending. Ashik Siddique is a research analyst for the National Priorities Project, working on analysis of the federal budget and military spending. After the interview, Jeff fills us in on the codplast boom. Finally, Chuck and Will's favorite answer to this week's Question from Hell is revealed!

Writer and editor Benjamin Schwarz and international affairs scholar Christopher Layne join Chuck to discuss their recent Harper's article, "Why are We in Ukraine? On the dangers of American hubris." You can find their article here: https://harpers.org/archive/2023/06/why-are-we-in-ukraine/ Benjamin Schwarz was formerly the national and literary editor of The Atlantic and the executive editor of World Policy Journal. Christopher Layne is the University Distinguished Professor of International Affairs and the Robert M. Gates Chair in National Security at Texas A&M University.