KPFA - Letters and Politics

Part 1 – Joe Biden’s Foreign Policy and National Security Picks Guest: Jonathan Guyer is Managing Editor at The American Prospect. He has written for the New Yorker, NYT, and Paris Review, and reported from the Middle East for six years. His latest piece is The Lucrative Afterlife of a Trump Official: Trump’s former appointees are profiting from their time in the White House—H.R. McMaster most of all. Part 2 – The Historical Obstacles on Reaching Peace Between Iran-US-Israel and the Meaning of the Assassination of a Top Iranian Scientist Guest: Mansour Farhang is a retired professor of international relations at Bennington College. He was revolutionary Iran’s first ambassador to the United Nations, resigning in protest when the Khomeini regime refused to accept the U.N. Commission of Inquiry’s recommendation to release American hostages in Teheran. He is the author of U.S. Imperialism: From the Spanish-American War to the Iranian Revolution; and, with William Dorman, The U.S. Press and Iran: Foreign Policy and the Journalism of Deference. photo: Samuel Penn  The post Obstacles to US-Iranian Peace & The Biden’s Foreign Policy Picks appeared first on KPFA.

Part 1: Covid-19 and the Growing Inequality of Wealth Guest: David Dayen, Executive Editor of The American Prospect where he’s been writing the column Unsanitized: The COVID-19 Daily Report.  He is the author of the book, Chain of Title: How Three Ordinary Americans Uncovered Wall Street’s Great Foreclosure Fraud. Part II: Former Labor Secretary on Biden’s Cabinet Picks Guest: Robert Reich is Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations and is the author of several books, his latest, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It. photo: Nick Fewings The post COVID-19, Wealth Inequality and Biden’s Economic Team appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: David Carballo, specialist in Mesoamerican archaeology, focusing particularly on the prehispanic civilizations of central Mexico at Boston University and author of Collision of Worlds: A Deep History of the Fall of Aztec Mexico and the Forging of New Spain  The post The Fall of the Aztec Empire appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: David Treuer is Ojibwe from the Leech Lake Reservation in northern Minnesota. He teaches literature and creative writing at the University of Southern California. And is author of several novels and non-fiction books including his latest, The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present. The post A Counter Narrative of Native American History appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Sonia Shah is a science journalist and prizewinning author. She is the author of The Fever that was long-listed for the Royal Society’s Winton Prize for Science Books, Pandemic was named a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice. Her latest is The Next Great Migration: The Beauty and Terror of Life on the Move.     The post Migration, Environmental Disruption, and Survival of Life appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Emily L. Quint Freeman, author of Failure to Appear: Resistance, Identity and Loss.  In 1969 in Chicago Emily L Quint Freemen broke into a military draft board office and destroyed 40 thousand draft records–potentially saving the lives of many men who would may have otherwise been drafted to serve in Vietnam. The act forced her an underground life as a fugitive for two decades. It’s a remarkable story full of danger, love, freedom and loss. The post Failure to Appear: Resistance, Identity and Loss appeared first on KPFA.

Part 1: The Economic Challenges for the Biden Presidency Guest: Robert Pollin, Distinguished University Professor of Economics and Co-Director of the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. He is the co-author of the book Climate Crisis and the Global Green New Deal.   Part II: The Suppression of Speech in WWI and Why It Matters Today Guest: Eric Chester, taught economics at the University of Massachusetts in Boston and San Francisco State University. A committed activist for more than fifty years, he was vice-presidential candidate for the Socialist Party in 1996.  His latest book is Free Speech and the Suppression of Dissent During World War I The post The Suppression of Speech in WWI & Economic Challenges for A Biden Presidency appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Andrew Bacevich, retired Armey Colonel, Professor Emeritus of International Relations and History at Boston University, and President of The Quincy Institute.  He is the author of many books and his latest is The Age of Illusions: How America Squandered Its Cold War Victory. The post The Failure of the War on Terrorism appeared first on KPFA.

Part 1. The Electoral College and Its Challenges Guest: Robert M. Alexander is a professor of political science and founding director of the Institute for Civics and Public Policy at Ohio Northern University.  He is the author of Representation and the Electoral College.  His latest political Op-ed on CNN is The Electoral College is not going to give Trump a second term.   Part 2. The Radical Republican History of the Civil War  Guest: LeeAnna Keith teaches history at the Collegiate School for Boys in New York City. She is the author of The Colfax Massacre: The Untold Story of Black Power, White Terror, and the Death of Reconstruction. And her latest, When It Was Grand: The Radical Republican History of the Civil War. The post The Electoral College and Its Challenges & The Radical Republicans appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Robert W. McChesney, professor emeritus of Communication at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  Former host of Media Matters and co-founder of Free Press. photo: Bruno Figueiredo   The post Propaganda & The Election appeared first on KPFA.