KPFA - Letters and Politics

How the Disability Rights Movement Created an Inclusive World

Guest: Bess Williamson is Associate Professor of Art History, Theory and Criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is the author of the new book Accessible America: A History of Disability and Design. Click Here for Transcript The post How the Disability Rights Movement Created an Inclusive World appeared first on KPFA.

Journalism From Below: Poor News Network & A Radical Bay Area Tradition

Guest: Tiny Lisa Gray Garcia, co-founder of Poor News Magazine, poverty scholar and co-editor of The Po’ People’s Survival Guide thru COVID-19 (coronavirus) and the Virus of Poverty.   Guest: Leroy Moore, po’ poet, founder of Krip Hop Nation and co-editor of The Po’ People’s Survival Guide thru COVID-19 (coronavirus) and the Virus of Poverty. The post Journalism From Below: Poor News Network & A Radical Bay Area Tradition appeared first on KPFA.

Mike Davis on Covid-19, Street Uprisings & the Failure of Government

Guest: Mike Davis, renown radical scholar and writer.  He is the author of The Monster Enters: Covid-19, Avian Flu and the Plagues of Capitalism (The book is available exclusively from www.orbooks.com). Mike Davis is also co-author with Jon Wiener of Set the Night on Fire: L.A. in the Sixties. The post Mike Davis on Covid-19, Street Uprisings & the Failure of Government appeared first on KPFA.

When Washington (Almost) Went Socialist: Seattle’s General Strike of 1919

Guest: Cal Winslow, a labor activist and educator, is Director of the Mendocino Institute and a retired fellow in environmental history at U.C. Berkeley.  Author of Radical Seattle: The General Strike of 1919. The post When Washington (Almost) Went Socialist: Seattle’s General Strike of 1919 appeared first on KPFA.

Letters and Politics – June 30, 2020

Malcolm & Martin: Rivals and Allies

Guest: Peniel E. Joseph, historian of the Black Power Movement and author of The Sword and the Shield: The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.  He is the Barbara Jordan Chair in Ethics and Political Values at the LBJ School of Public Affairs and professor of history and the founding director of the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy at the University of Texas at Austin. The post Malcolm & Martin: Rivals and Allies appeared first on KPFA.

Renowned Sociologist James Loewen on Statues and History

Guest: James W. Loewen, renowned sociologist who has been working on removing Confederate statues for more than 20 years.  He is the author of the best seller Lies My Teacher Told Me.  His latest book is a memoir Up the Creek, with a Paddle: Tales of Canoeing and Life.   The post Renowned Sociologist James Loewen on Statues and History appeared first on KPFA.

Indigenous History, Statues and Monuments

Guest: Nick Estes is a citizen of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe. He is an Assistant Professor in the American Studies Department at the University of New Mexico. Host of the The Red Nation Podcast. Author of the book Our History Is the Future: Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance.   Photo by Mitch Jeserich The post Indigenous History, Statues and Monuments appeared first on KPFA.

Special Broadcast of the Hearing on Oversight of the Trump Administration’s Response to The COVID-19 Pandemic

Guest: John Nichols is the Washington Correspondent for the Nation Magazine. His latest book is The Fight for the Soul of the Democratic Party: The Enduring Legacy of Henry Wallace’s Anti-Fascist, Anti-Racist Politics. Maureen Ferran is Associate Professor of Molecular Biology and Viral Researcher at Rochester Institute of Technology.   The post Special Broadcast of the Hearing on Oversight of the Trump Administration’s Response to The COVID-19 Pandemic appeared first on KPFA.

Letters and Politics – June 22, 2020

The Life and Ideas of John Maynard Keynes

Guest: Zachary D. Carter is a senior reporter at HuffPost, where he covers Congress, the White House, and economic policy. He is the author of the book The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy, and the Life of John Maynard Keynes. The post The Life and Ideas of John Maynard Keynes appeared first on KPFA.

The Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921

Guest: Tim Madigan is veteran journalist an award-winning writer. For many years he covered the history of the Greenwood Massacre for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. He is the author of The Burning: Massacre, Destruction, and the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921. To find more about Tim Madigan’s writings visit his website: timmadigan.net     Photo Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tulsa_race_riot_inflames-1921.jpg us.macmillan.com/books/9780312302474 The post The Tulsa Race Massacre of 19...

The Fall of the Statues and the Fight for the Soul of America

Guest: Heather Cox Richardson is Professor of History at Boston College. She is the author of West from Appomattox, and To Make Men Free. Her latest is How the South Won the Civil War: Oligarchy, Democracy, and the Continuing Fight for the Soul of America. She writes Letters from an American, daily newsletter about the history behind today’s politics.    The post The Fall of the Statues and the Fight for the Soul of America appeared first on KPFA.

The History of the Texas Rangers

Guest: Doug J. Swanson is a veteran reporter and editor, he spent much of his carrier at the Dallas Morning News. Currently he is a research assistant professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh. He is the author of several books including Blood Aces: The Wild Ride of Benny Binion, The Texas Gangster who Created Vegas Poker. His new book is Cult Of Glory: The Bold And Brutal History Of The Texas Rangers. The post The History of the Texas Rangers appeared first on KPFA.

Letters and Politics – June 15, 2020

A History of Corporate Looting 1787 to Now

Guest: Michael Powelson, author of Swindlers All: A Brief History of Government/Business Frauds from Alexander Hamilton to AIG. He is a history professor who teaches at CSU Channel Islands in Camarillo and L.A. Valley College in Van Nuys. Dr. Powelson has a Ph.D. from Columbia University in New York, and master’s and bachelor degrees from Tulane University in New Orleans. The post A History of Corporate Looting 1787 to Now appeared first on KPFA.

What Defunding the Police May Mean

Guest: W. David Ball, professor of law at the Santa Clara University School of Law. His work focuses primarily in the fields of criminal justice, criminal procedure, sentencing and corrections. The post What Defunding the Police May Mean appeared first on KPFA.

Liberation Movements Past, Present & Future

Guest: Clayborne Carson is The Martin Luther King Jr. Centennial Professor at Stanford University.   In 1985, Carson had been specifically chosen by Coretta Scott King to pull together Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s papers and archives into a comprehensive and official collection (which ran seven volumes). The post Liberation Movements Past, Present & Future appeared first on KPFA.

Letters and Politics – June 9, 2020

Pacifica’s Special – Funeral for George Floyd

Funeral held for George Floyd The post Pacifica’s Special – Funeral for George Floyd appeared first on KPFA.

Antifa & The Latest Unemployment Data

Guests: Sylvia Allegretto is a labor economist and co-chair of the Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics at the University of California, Berkeley.   Mark Bray is a historian of human rights, terrorism, and politics in Modern Europe. He is the author of Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook, Translating Anarchy: The Anarchism of Occupy Wall Street, and his upcoming The Anarchist Inquisition: Terrorism and Human Rights in Spain and France, 1890-1910.     The post Antifa & The Latest Unemployment ...

The History of Tear Gas

Guest: Anna Feigenbaum, author of Tear Gas: From the Battlefields of WWI to the Streets of Today (Rebroadcast) The post The History of Tear Gas appeared first on KPFA.

The Lessons of James Baldwin & The Kerner Commission

Guests: Eddie S. Glaude Jr. is the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor and chair of African American Studies at Princeton University.  Professor Glaude is the author of several books including Democracy in Black: How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul; his most recent, Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own will be out in August.  His latest piece on the Time magazine is George Floyd’s Murder Shows Once More That We Cannot Wait For White A...

Explaining the Insurrection Act of 1807 & Looking Back on Nixon’s Law and Order Campaign

President Trump has threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807 to use military forces in order to quell civil disturbances. To learn about the legality and use of this Insurrection Act we talk to Constitutional lawyer and Presidential powers specialist Neil Kinkopf. Guest: Neil Kinkopf is Professor of Law at the Georgia State University College of Law. He is co-author with Peter Shane and Harold Bruff of the book Separation of Powers Law: Cases and Materials. Professor Kinkopf was Coun...

Kimberlé Crenshaw on Racism, Intersectionality, and the Death of George Floyd in the Times of Covid-19

Guest: Kimberlé Crenshaw, Professor of Law at UCLA and Columbia Law School, Executive Director of the African American Policy Forum, and host of the series Under The Blacklight: The Intersectional Failures that COVID Lays Bare.  Professor Crenshaw is a leading authority on Civil Rights, Black feminist legal theory, and Critical Race Theory. She is known for the development of intersectionality, the theory of how overlapping or intersecting social identities, particularly minority identities, ...

Fund Drive Special – Richard Wolff on Unemployment and the Pandemia

Fund Drive Special – Richard Wolff on Unemployment, the Economic Crash, and the Pandemic

Guest: Richard Wolff is Professor of Economics Emeritus at University of Massachusetts, Amherst and a Visiting Professor at the New School University in New York. His latest books is Understanding Socialism. Richard Wolff is the founder of the non-profit: Democracy at Work. He’s also the host of the TV and Radio show Economic Update that airs on KPFA every Friday at 10:00 am. The post Fund Drive Special – Richard Wolff on Unemployment, the Economic Crash, and the Pandemic appeared first on KP...

Fund Drive Special – Kyle Harper on The History of Civilization, Science, and the Coronavirus

Today we talk about how history can also teach us about the causes of the COVID-19 pandemic and its possible consequences. Guest: Kyle Harper is professor of classics and letters and senior vice president and provost at the University of Oklahoma. He is the author of The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire. He is writing a new history of infectious disease. The post Fund Drive Special – Kyle Harper on The History of Civilization, Science, and the Coronavirus appeared firs...

Fund Drive Special – Kyle Harper on The History of Civilization, Pandemics, and the Coronavirus

Fund Drive Special – Theodore Roosevelt, J.P. Morgan, and the Battle to Transform American Capitalism.

Guest: Susan Berfield, award-winning investigative reporter for Bloomberg Businessweek and Bloomberg News. She is the author of the book The Hour of Fate: Theodore Roosevelt, J.P. Morgan, and the Battle to Transform American Capitalism. The post Fund Drive Special – Theodore Roosevelt, J.P. Morgan, and the Battle to Transform American Capitalism. appeared first on KPFA.

Fund Drive Special – Bart Ehrman on the Religious History of Afterlife and the Plagues

Guest: Bart D. Ehrman is a Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Professor Ehrman is a leading authority on the New Testament and the history of early Christianity, and the author of several books, including Misquoting Jesus, How Jesus Became God, The Triumph of Christianity, and his latest Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife.  The post Fund Drive Special – Bart Ehrman on the Religious History of Afterlife and the Plagues appe...

Fund Drive Special: Chris Hedges on Covid-19 and the Collapse of American Capitalism

Guest: Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, West Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and the Balkans.  He is host of the Emmy Award–winning RT America show On Contact. Chris Hedges is the author of several bestseller books such as American Fascists, Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt. His latest is America: The Farewell Tour.  The post Fund Drive Special: Chris Hedges on Covid-19 and the Collapse of America...

Fund Drive Special: Vijay Prashad on Covid-19 and the Global South

Guest: Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian and journalist. He is the author of thirty books, including Washington Bullets, Red Star Over the Third World, The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World and The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South.  He is the Executive Director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, Chief Correspondent for Globetrotter, a Columnist for Frontline (India) and the Chief Editor of LeftWord Books (New Delhi). The post Fund Dr...

Fund Drive Special: Raj Patel on Global Food Systems and Covid-19

Fund Drive Special: Raj Patel on Covid-19 and the Global Food Systems

Guest: Raj Patel is an award-winning writer, activist, and academic. He is Research Professor in the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, Austin and Senior Research Associate at the Unit for the Humanities at Rhodes University. He is the author of Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System, The Value of Nothing: How to Reshape Market Society and Redefine Democracy, and and co-author with Jason W. Moore of A History of the World in Seven ...

Letters and Politics – May 19, 2020

Fund Drive Special: Stiglitz on Covid-19 and Tomorrow’s Economy

Guest: Nobel Prize winning Economist, Joseph Stiglitz is University Professor at Columbia University, and chief economist of the Roosevelt Institute. He is a former senior vice president and chief economist of the World Bank and is a former member and chairman of the (US president’s) Council of Economic Advisers. His most recent book is People, Power, and Profits: Progressive Capitalism for an Age of Discontent.   The post Fund Drive Special: Stiglitz on Covid-19 and Tomorrow’s Economy appea...

Special Broadcast – U.S. House Hearing on Protecting Scientific Integrity in the COVID-19 Response

Live Broadcast of the U.S. Health Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing: “Protecting Scientific Integrity in the COVID-19 Response (Panel I). Witnesses Richard A. Bright, Ph.D. Senior Advisor National Institutes of Health –Testimony Hosts: Mitch Jeserich, Cat Brooks, and Brian Edwards-Tiekert.  Guests: Zain Rizvi, Law and Policy Researcher with Public Citizen.  He is an expert on drug pricing, access to medicines and global health. Tom Devine is the Legal Director of...

Fund Drive Special – A Conversation With Religious Scholar Karen Armstrong

Guest: Karen Armstrong is a religious scholar and a former catholic nun. She wrote several books on the history of religion. Her last book is The Lost Art of Scripture. The post Fund Drive Special – A Conversation With Religious Scholar Karen Armstrong appeared first on KPFA.

Special Broadcast – US Senate Hearing COVID-19: Safely Getting Back to Work and Back to School

Live broadcast of the US Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions hearing on COVID-19: Safely Getting Back to Work and Back to School. Witnesses: Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health; Dr. Robert Redfield, Director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; ADM Brett Giroir MD, Assistant Secretary For Health US Department of Health and Human Services;  Dr. Stephen Hahn, Commissioner Of Food ...

Letters and Politics – May 11, 2020

Theodore Roosevelt and the Battle to Transform Capitalism in America

When President Theodore Roosevelt took on the biggest corporate interest of the day with Guest: Susan Berfield, award-winning investigative reporter for Bloomberg Businessweek and Bloomberg News. She is the author of the book The Hour of Fate: Theodore Roosevelt, J.P. Morgan, and the Battle to Transform American Capitalism. The post Theodore Roosevelt and the Battle to Transform Capitalism in America appeared first on KPFA.

The Inspiring Life of Henry David Thoreau

Guest: Laura Dassow Walls, author of the book Henry David Thoreau: A Life, a biography of the naturalist, inventor and activist. He left behind a monumental legacy in addition to his essay Civil Disobedience, a paean to human freedom. Two hundred years after his birth, Walls restores Henry David Thoreau to us in all his profound, inspiring complexity.   Image Source:  Replica of Thoreau’s cabin near Walden Pond. RhythmicQuietude at en.wikipedia The post The Inspiring Life of Henry David Thore...

Volatile Times: The Political History of the Civil War – Part II

Part II: Abraham Lincoln, the Radical Republicans & Andrew Johnson. Guest: Eric Foner, DeWitt Clinton Professor Emeritus of History at Columbia University. His book The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery won the Pulitzer. His latest book is called The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution. The post Volatile Times: The Political History of the Civil War – Part II appeared first on KPFA.

Letters and Politics – May 5, 2020

Volatile Times: The Political History of the Civil War – Part I

Part I: The 1850s. Guest: Eric Foner, DeWitt Clinton Professor Emeritus of History at Columbia University. His book The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery won the Pulitzer. His latest book is called The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution.   The post Volatile Times: The Political History of the Civil War – Part I appeared first on KPFA.

When The Battle Between Capital and Labor Was at its Fiercest

Guest: Robert Ovetz is a lecturer in Political Science and Public Administration at San José State University. He writes about the politics of the labor movement, work, and the crisis of capitalism at the turn of the 20th century. He is the author of the book When Workers Shot Back: Class Conflict from 1877 to 1921.  The post When The Battle Between Capital and Labor Was at its Fiercest appeared first on KPFA.

The Biology Behind Testing for Coronavirus

Guest: Maureen Ferran is Associate Professor of Molecular Biology and Viral Researcher at Rochester Institute of Technology. New York State.     The post The Biology Behind Testing for Coronavirus appeared first on KPFA.

How the Pandemia is Affecting Immigrant Workers in the U.S. & Voting at Home

Guests: Catherine Tactaquin is a long time immigrant rights activist and policy expert. She is the former director of the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights.   Phil Keisling is Board Chair of National Vote at Home Institute. He is former Secretary of State in Oregon from 1991 to 1999. The post How the Pandemia is Affecting Immigrant Workers in the U.S. & Voting at Home appeared first on KPFA.

The Nature of Democracy In the Times of Crisis

Guest: A. C. Grayling is Professor of Philosophy and Master of New College of the Humanities, London. Among his many books are Liberty in the Age of Terror,  Democracy and Its Crisis, The History of Philosophy, and his latest, The Good State: On the Principles of Democracy.     The post The Nature of Democracy In the Times of Crisis appeared first on KPFA.