This Is Hell!

Simon Waxman talks about his Baffler article, "Worst Laid Plans: Foreign Politics is politics." Waxman is a senior editor with the Harvard University Press and his writing has been published by the Washington Post, Boston Globe, New Republic, LA Review of Books, Democracy Journal, the Baffler, and others.

Alissa Quart joins This is Hell! to discuss her new book, Bootstrapped: Liberating Ourselves from the American Dream. Alissa Quart is a journalist and executive director of the Economic Hardship Reporting Project.

Historian Kevin A. Young joins us to discuss the challenges of capital strikes, institutional resistance, and potential allies and foes Chicago's Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson will face when he takes office on May 15. He recently published the Jacobin article, "Brandon Johnson Won in Chicago. Now His Movement Will Have to Beat Capital Strikes." Kevin is Associate Professor of History at University of Massachusetts Amherst where he teaches Latin American History. You can find his recent Jacobin article here: https://jacobin.com/2023/04/brandon-johnson-mayor-chicago-capital-strikes-movements

We have on Malcolm Harris to talk about his recent book Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World. Malcolm Harris is a freelance writer and an editor at The New Inquiry. And an all-new mind expanding Moment of Truth from our own Jeff Dorchen.

Returning to This is Hell! is the Intercept's Alleen Brown. Her work focuses on environmental justice issues. Her most recent article, co-written with Naveen Sadasivan is titled, "Oil and Water: After Spying on Standing Rock, TigerSwan Shopped Anti-Protest 'Counterinsurgency' to Other Oil Companies." The investigation is based on more than 50,000 pages of documents that were recently made public after the company behind the Dakota Access pipeline lost a court case to keep them secret. You can find the article, "Oil and Water," here: https://theintercept.com/2023/04/13/standing-rock-tigerswan-protests/

Katherine Yon Ebright joins Chuck to discuss her report, "Secret War: How the U.S. Uses Partnerships and Proxy Forces Wage War Under the Radar." She explains how security cooperation programs have led U.S. forces into unauthorized hostilities alongside foreign partners. Ebright serves as counsel with the Brennan Center's Liberty and National Security Program. You can read Katherine Ebright's report, "Secret War: How the U.S. Uses Partnerships and Proxy Forces Wage War Under the Radar," here: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/secret-war

We're joined by Dr. Naa Oyo A. Kwate who is on to discuss her recent book "White Burgers, Black Cash," about the affect of the Fast Food industry on Black America. Dr. Kwate is an Associate Professor of Africana Studies as well as an Associate Professor of Human Ecology at Rutgers University. Moreover we've got Rotten History and an all-new Moment of Truth from Jeff Dorchen! It's stacked!

After a tongue-twister of a Danish hangover cure, Chuck interviews Rasha Al Aqeedi about her New Lines Magazine article, "Living — and Reliving — the US Invasion of Iraq." Rasha Al Aqeedi, formerly a 2018-2019 Robert A. Fox Fellow in FPRI’s Middle East Program, is Managing Editor of Irfaa Sawtak (Raise Your Voice) and a researcher and analyst of contemporary Iraqi politics and political Islam. She is also a non-resident fellow of George Washington University’s Program on Extremism. Previously, Rasha was a researcher at the Al Mesbar Studies and Research Center in Dubai, and an analyst at Inside Iraqi Politics. Her work on Mosul and Sunni politics is frequently cited by The New York Times, Washington Post, AP and Buzzfeed. Rasha received an M.A. in Translation, a B.A. in Translation, and a B.A. in Computer Engineering from Mosul University. Check out Rasha's New Line Magazine article here: https://newlinesmag.com/first-person/living-and-reliving-the-us-invasion-of-iraq/

Our mystical foray into the This Is Hell vaults, retrieving never-before-aired interviews from early covid times, has reached its satisfying conclusion. Today we play an interview with Malcolm Harris, who in April of 2020 was talking about his then-recent book "Shit Is Fucked Up and Bullshit: History Since the End of History." As though that wasn't enough, we also provide ALL NEW answers to this weeks Question From Hell, and ask you to join our Patreon several times. (please do it's cold in this studio)

Our series of lost pandemic tapes continues: an interview from early covid times that was never aired on our home station WNUR: Helen Yaffe explains the ideological threat that Cuban's healthcare system poses to free market capitalism. And all-new Rotten History and your answers to the Question From Hell!