This Is Hell!

Theologian, ordained minister, and anti-poverty activist Liz Theoharis is on to discuss her TomDispatch articles "Poverty Amid Plenty' and "Making it in a Poor World". Liz is Co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival and director of the Kairos Center for Religions, Rights and Social Justice at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. She is the author of, "Always With Us? What Jesus Really Said About the Poor," and, "We Cry Justice: Reading the Bible with the Poor People’s Campaign." https://tomdispatch.com/poverty-amid-plenty/ This episode also features this week's Hangover Cure and a Past Inside the Present from Sebastian Wuepper, PhD.

Journalist Kari Lydersen returns to talk about her In These Times article, "The Case for Nationalizing the Railroads." Plus, and all-new Moment of Truth and the Question from Hell reaches it's electrifying terminus.

Journalist Prem Thakker speaks with host Chuck Mertz about his articles in the New Republic about the the hellish Norfolk Southern train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, where residents have been told it is safe to return to the site of an intentional burn of 1.1 million pounds of vinyl chloride, a class 1 carcinogen, despite lack of comprehensive testing and many test results remaining inconclusive. This episode was produced by Lindsey Gorry and features this week in Rotten History written by Renaldo Migaldi Prem Thakker is an associate writer for breaking news at The New Republic. His work has appeared in The American Prospect, Washington Monthly, CNN podcasts, and his newsletter Better World. Find Prem's writing on the East Palestine here: https://newrepublic.com/authors/prem-thakker

Journalist Asawin Suebsaeng discusses his Rolling Stones articles "Twitter Kept Entire 'Database’ of Republican Requests to Censor Posts " and "Trump Plans to Bring Back Firing Squads, Group Executions if He Retakes White House". This episode also features this week's Hangover Cure, new Question from Hell!, and a Past Inside the Present about Jim Crow Laws from historian Sebastion Wuepper. https://www.rollingstone.com/author/asawin-suebsaeng/

We have on Elizabeth Samet, author of, "Looking for the Good War: American Amnesia and the Violent Pursuit of Happiness." Elizabeth is a professor of English at West Point.

Boyce Upholt returns to This is Hell! to discuss his piece recently published by the New Republic, "The Frightening Cost of Cheap Eggs: Why paying more for eggs could save us from another pandemic". This episode also features this week in Rotten History and new responses to the Question from Hell. Boyce Upholt is an award-winning freelance writer focused on the way we use and imagine the non-human world. He covers, among other subjects, public lands, exploration, biodiversity, foodways, infrastructure, and the cultural history of ”wilderness.” His work has appeared in The Atlantic, National Geographic, the Oxford American, and many other publications, and has been noted in the Best American Science and Nature series. Boyce won the 2019 award for investigative journalism from the James Beard Foundation. He is currently working on a book about the Mississippi River—a history of what’s been done to it and travelogue showing the results.

Dr. Clarence Lusane joins This is Hell! to discuss his series of Tom Dispatch articles, explaining how MAGA fascists found inspiration in suppressing the black vote to storm the US Capitol on Jan. 6th 2021. This episode also features this week's Hangover Cure and a Past Inside the Present from Dr. Sebastian Wuepper. This Week's Question from Hell! If you could spy on anyone or anything in the United States, who or what would it be? https://truthout.org/articles/january-6-report-obscured-the-role-of-racism-in-the-stop-the-steal-movement/ https://tomdispatch.com/authors/clarencelusane/ Dr. Clarence Lusane is a full Professor, former Chairman of Howard University’s Department of Political Science, and current Director of the International Affairs program. He is an author, activist, scholar, lecturer, and journalist. For more than 40 years, he has written about and been active in national and international human rights, anti-racism politics, Diaspora engagements, U.S. foreign policy, democracy building, and social justice issues such as education, criminal justice, and voting rights. He earned his B.A. from Wayne State University, and both his Masters and Ph.D. from Howard University in Political Science. His most recent book is The Black History of the White House.

We welcome human rights attorney Noura Erakat who wrote the Boston Review article, "Designing the Future in Palestine: Palestinian women and feminist organizations are reimagining what liberation can look like beyond national independence." Noura is Associate Professor at Rutgers University, New Brunswick in the Department of Africana Studies and the Program in Criminal Justice, and author of, "Justice for Some: Law and in the Question of Palestine."

Writer, professor and musician Sheila Liming joins us in Hell! to talk about her recently published book, "Hanging Out: The Radical Power of Killing Time". This episode also features a Past inside the Present from Dr. Sebastian Wuepper and new responses to this week's Question from Hell! Which is "When we take over the means of production, what can we produce once in a while as a treat?" https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/717263/hanging-out-by-sheila-liming/ Sheila Liming is an associate professor at Champlain College in Burlington, Vermont, where she teaches classes on literature, media, and writing. She is the author of two books, What a Library Means to a Woman and Office. Sheila also plays the accordion and bagpipes. http://sheilaliming.com/ Twitter: @seeshespeak

Agroecologist and epidemiologist Rob Wallace returns to This is Hell! to discuss his new book, "The Fault in our SARS, COVID-19 in the Biden Era". Also featuring this week's Hangover cure and Rotten History. Rob Wallace is an evolutionary epidemiologist with the Agroecology and Rural Economics Research Corps. He is author of Big Farms Make Big Flu and coauthor of Clear-Cutting Disease Control: Capital-Led Deforestation, Public Health Austerity, and Vector-Borne Infection. He has consulted with the Food and Agriculture Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.