KPFA - Letters and Politics

Letters and Politics – April 23, 2020

The Constitution During The Time Of Coronavirus

Checks and Balances During the Times of the Coronavirus Pandemic

Guest: Neil Kinkopf is a 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 is a constitutional lawyer who specializes on separation of powers with emphasis on presidential power. The post Checks and Balances During the Times of the Coronavirus Pandemic appeared first on KPFA.

Letters and Politics – April 22, 2020

Saving The Media Industry & Using Massive Testing For Covid-19

Guest: Craig Aaron created Free Press and Free Press action almost 20 years ago. Free Press is an advocacy organization that aims at safeguarding Net Neutrality, stop media consolidation, defend public media and sustain quality journalism. He is the editor of two books, Appeal to Reason: 25 Years of In These Times and Changing Media: Public Interest Policies for the Digital Age.   Guest: Gregg Gonsalves is the codirector of the Global Health Justice Partnership and an assistant professor of e...

The HIV/AIDS Pandemic & the novel Coronavirus

Guest: Chris Beyrer MD, MPH, is the Desmond M. Tutu Professor of Public Health and Human Rights at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland. He is a Professor of Epidemiology, International Health, Health, Behavior and Society, Nursing and medicine. He serves as Director of Johns Hopkins Training Program in HIV Epidemiology and Prevention Science and as Founding Director of the Center for Public Health and Human Rights. 2014-2016 President of The Internationa...

What Rising Unemployment Means for the Economy. Then, Racial Disparities and Coronavirus with Ibram X. Kendi

Guests: Sylvia Allegretto is a labor economist and co-chair of the Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics at the University of California, Berkeley.   Ibram X. Kendi is a professor of history and international relations and the founding director of the Antiracist Research and Policy Center at American University.  He is the author of Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, which won the National Book Award for Nonfiction. His latest book is How to Be an ...

The 14th Century Plague and the Transformation of Medieval Society

Guest: Miri Rubin, Professor of Medieval and Early Modern History at Queen Mary University of London. Happy Birthday KPFA!! We want you and thank you for all you have done!! The post The 14th Century Plague and the Transformation of Medieval Society appeared first on KPFA.

What’s Next After Bernie

Guest: Micah Uetricht is the Managing Editor of Jacobin Magazine, host of the Jacobin Radio podcast The Vast Majority. He is the author of Strike for America: Chicago Teachers Against Austerity.  Most recently, he co-authored with Meagan Day the book Bigger than Bernie: How We Go from the Sanders Campaign to Democratic Socialism. He is a former labor organizer and a member of the Democratic Socialists of America in Chicago. The post What’s Next After Bernie appeared first on KPFA.

Democracy, Public Policy, and Covid-19

Guest: Ganesh Sitaraman is chancellor’s faculty fellow, professor of law, and director of the Program in Law and Government at Vanderbilt Law School. He is co-founder of The Great Democracy Initiative and the author of several books including The Crisis of the Middle-Class Constitution, and most recently, The Great Democracy: How to Fix Our Politics, Unrig the Economy, and Unite America.  The post Democracy, Public Policy, and Covid-19 appeared first on KPFA.

Letters and Politics – April 9, 2020

A Religious History of Heaven, Hell, and The Plague

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 A Religious History of Heaven, Hell, and The Plague appeared first on KPFA.

The End Of Bernie’s Campaign & Wisconsin Voting Issues

Guest: Richard Wolff is Professor of Economics Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and a Visiting Professor at the New School University in New York. His latest book 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.   Then, Wisconsin voting issues and ruling Guest: Ruth Conniff is Editor-at-Large for The Progressive Magazine and ...

Letters and Politics – April 8, 2020

The End Of Bernie’s Campaign

Coronavirus Economics and the Eurozone

Guest: Yanis Varoufakis is the former finance minister of Greece and the co-founder of the international grassroots movement, DiEM25, that is campaigning for the revival of democracy in Europe. He is the author of And the Weak Suffer What They Must? and The Global Minotaur. Currently, he is a professor of economics at the University of Athens. The post Coronavirus Economics and the Eurozone appeared first on KPFA.

Special – Coronavirus, Unemployment And Healthcare

Guest: Sylvia Allegretto is a labor economist and co-chair of the Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics, which is housed at UC Berkeley’s Institute for Research on Labor and Employment.   Guest: John Nichols is the Washington Correspondent for the Nation Magazine. He is the author of several books including Horsemen of the Trumpocalypse and The Genius of Impeachment. He is also the host of The Nation’s podcast The Next Left. His latest piece in The Nation is On the Need for Dissent and Debat...

Special – The Corporate Side Of The Stimulus Package

Guest: Aaron Glantz is a Peabody Award-winning radio, print and television journalist. He is a senior reporter at Reveal and the author of several books including his latest, Homewreckers: How a Gang of Wall Street Kingpins, Hedge Fund Magnates, Crooked Banks, and Vulture Capitalists Suckered Millions Out of Their Homes and Demolished the American Dream. The post Special – The Corporate Side Of The Stimulus Package appeared first on KPFA.

Special – Coronavirus: The Situation in NY and LA

Guest: John Tarleton is a graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism. He is the current editor of the newspaper The Indypendent in New-York.   Guest: Ernesto Arce is an award-winning, independent journalist from Los Angeles. He currently serves as the news producer and Los Angeles Bureau Chief for KPFK, part of the national Pacifica Radio network. The post Special – Coronavirus: The Situation in NY and LA appeared first on KPFA.

How to Elect a President in the Time of Corona

Guest: Constitutional scholar Alan Hirsch is an instructor in the Humanities and Chair of the Justice and Law Studies program at Williams College.  He is the author of a number of books including Impeaching the President: Past, Present, and Future and For the People: What the Constitution Really Says About Your Rights. His latest is A Short History of Presidential Election Crises: (And How to Prevent the Next One) [City Lights Open Media, February 27, 2020]   The post How to Elect a Presiden...

Special – The Coronavirus Relief Bill

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, including The Work of Nations, The Common Good, Saving Capitalism, Supercapitalism, and Locked in the Cabinet. His new book The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It was released earlier this week. The post Special – The Coronavirus Relief Bill appeared first on KPFA.

Special – Comparing the Coronavirus Stimulus Package to the New Deal

Guest: Richard Walker is professor emeritus of geography at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the founder of the Living New Deal — a research project in Geography at the University of California, Berkeley. Professor Walker is the author or co-author of several books including The Capitalist Imperative, The New Social Economy, The Conquest of Bread, The Country in the City, and The Atlas of California. The post Special – Comparing the Coronavirus Stimulus Package to the New Deal ap...

Special – Coronavirus Economic Measures: Stimulus Package & Unemployment Benefits

Guest: Congressman Ro Khanna represents California’s 17th Congressional District, located in the heart of Silicon Valley.  Rep. Khanna sits on the House Budget, Armed Services, and Oversight and Reform committees and is the first vice-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. He also serves as an Assistant Whip in the Democratic Caucus Guest: Sylvia Allegretto is a labor economist and co-chair of the Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics at the University of California, Berkeley.  The p...

Special – Coronavirus Economic Measures : Stimulus Package & Unemployment Benefits

The History of Pandemics

Guest: Christian McMillen is a Professor of History and Associate Dean at the University of Virginia. He is specialized in the history of diseases and Native Americans. He wrote the book Pandemics: A Very Short Introduction in which he describes history’s major pandemics and discusses state responses to those pandemics.  The post The History of Pandemics appeared first on KPFA.

Special – Coronavirus and Human Morality

Guest: Dr Molly Crockett is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Yale University and a Distinguished Research Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Neuroethics. She studies human morality, altruism and decision making. In 2018, she wrote a piece about “Pandemics and the psychology of uncertainty”. The post Special – Coronavirus and Human Morality appeared first on KPFA.

Special – Government Response to the Coronavirus

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 recent work has concentrated on analyzing the causes and alternative solutions to the global economic crisis. 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 ...

Special – Coronavirus and Food Security

Guest: Marion Nestle is Paulette Goddard Professor, of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health, Emerita, at New York University. She is also a Visiting Professor of Nutritional Sciences at Cornell University and the author of several books including Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health.  Her most recent is Unsavory Truth: How Food Companies Skew the Science of What We Eat. The post Special – Coronavirus and Food Security appeared first on KPFA.

Government and Public Policy in Times of Crisis

Guest: Professor Linda Bilmes is Daniel Patrick Moynihan Senior Lecturer in Public Policy and Public Finance at Harvard Kennedy School. She was Assistant Secretary and Chief Financial Officer of the US Department of Commerce during the Clinton administration. She has co-authored multiple books, including The Three Trillion Dollar War (with Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz).   Guest: David Dayen is the executive editor of The American Prospect where he’s been writing the column Unsanitized: The ...

How To Handle The Coronavirus ?

How To Handle The Coronavirus

Guest: Dr Eric Feigl Ding (@DrEricDing) is an award winning epidemiologist, health economist and nutrition scientist at the Harvard School of Public Health. He is also an advocate for public health and health justice. His public policy work focuses on the intersection of epidemiology and behavioral economics, and has influenced many government guidelines. Guest: Dean Baker, Economist and Visiting Professor at the University of Utah. Co-founder of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. T...

The State of the Bernie Sanders Campaign

Guest: David A. Hopkins is Associate Professor of Political Science at Boston College who specializes in the study of American political parties, elections, Congress, and voting behavior. He is the author of Red Fighting Blue: How Geography and Electoral Rules Polarize American Politics.   Guest: Norman Solomon is a journalist, media critic and progressive activist who is co-founder and national coordinator of RootsAction.org.  He was a Bernie Sanders delegate to the 2016 Democratic National ...

The Legal and Economics Aspects of the Coronavirus Epidemic

Guest: Karen Greenberg is the Director of the Center on National Security at Fordham University School of Law. Author of several books, her latest is Reimagining the National Security State: Liberalism on the Brink. Guest: Robert Pollin is Distinguished Professor of Economics and Co-Director of the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.       The post The Legal and Economics Aspects of the Coronavirus Epidemic appeared first on KPFA.

The History of the 1918 Spanish Flu

Guest:  Dr. Jeremy Brown is an emergency physician and the author of Influenza: The Hundred-Year Hunt to Cure the Deadliest Disease in History. He is the director of the Office of Emergency Care Research at the National Institutes of Health. He has a recent piece in the Atlantic called The Coronavirus Is No 1918 Pandemic. The post The History of the 1918 Spanish Flu appeared first on KPFA.

Feminists on the Warren Campaign

Guest: Adele Stan is a columnist for the American Prospect and the editor of Right Wing Watch. Guest: Nayomi Munaweera, award winning writer of the novel Island of a Thousand Mirrors and What Lies Between Us. She writes mostly about the perils of living in a female body in the midst of misogynistic patriarchy. She is finishing her third novel, psycho sexual literary thriller. The post Feminists on the Warren Campaign appeared first on KPFA.

Understanding the Delegate Math & the State of Bernie’s Campaign

Guest: Matt Grossmann is a Professor of Political Science and Director of the Institute for Public Policy and Social Research at Michigan State University. He is author of several books including Asymmetric Politics and his latest Red State Blues: How the Conservative Revolution Stalled in the States. Guest: DD Guttenplan, Editor of the Nation magazine. Author of The Next Republic: The Rise of the New Radical Majority. The post Understanding the Delegate Math & the State of Bernie’s Campaign ...

The History of Primaries

Guest: Geoffrey Cowan, Professor at the University of Southern California and author of the book Let the People Rule: Theodore Roosevelt and the Birth of the Presidential Primary The post The History of Primaries appeared first on KPFA.

Richard Wolff on Socialism’s Rise into the Public Discourse

Mitch Jeserich has a long conversation with economist Richard Wolff. The post Richard Wolff on Socialism’s Rise into the Public Discourse appeared first on KPFA.

Fund Drive Special – Witches and Pagans: Women in European Folk Religion, 700-1100

In her compelling exploration of language, archaeology, and early medieval literature, Max Dashu illuminates hidden cultural heritages. She shows that the old ethnic names for “witch” signify ‘wise woman, ‘ ‘prophetess, ‘ ‘diviner, ‘ ‘chanter, ‘ ‘herbalist, ‘ and ‘healer.’  Today we talk to Max Dashu about her book Witches and Pagans: Women in European Folk Religion, 700-1100. Support KPFA!! Click Here to Pledge Online!! BOOK Witches and Pagans: Women in European Folk Religion, 700-1100 by Ma...

Machine-Breaking, Romanticism, and the Several Commons of 1811-12

A conversation on the Luddites with Peter Linebaugh author of Ned Ludd & Queen Mab: Machine-Breaking, Romanticism, and the Several Commons of 1811-12. The book tells us about the anonymous and scorned 19th-century loom-breakers of the English midlands into the front ranks of an international, polyglot, many-colored crew of commoners resisting dispossession in the dawn of capitalist modernity. Donate to KPFA today!! To Pledge Online Click Here  BOOK Ned Ludd & Queen Mab: Machine-Breaking, Rom...

Debunking the Myths that Shroud The Russian Revolution

A conversation with archaeologist and Marxist historian Neil Faulkner about the Russian Revolution. He is the author of the book A People’s History of the Russian Revolution. About the Book Faulkner debunks the myths that continues to shroud the Russian revolution, showing how a mass movement of millions, organized in democratic assemblies, mobilized for militant action and destroyed a regime of landlords, profiteers and warmongers, and rejecting caricatures notions of Lenin and the Bolshevik...

How Genghis Khan Inspired Thomas Jefferson on Religious Freedom

A conversation with Jack Weatherford, a renowned scholar on Genghis Khan. He argues in his book, Genghis Khan and the Quest for God, that Genghis Khan inspired Thomas Jefferson for the Freedom of Religion principle.   Support KPFA!! Click Here to Donate!!! BOOK: Genghis Khan and the Quest for God $100 L&P Ancient History Pack (40 interviews) $150 Combo: Book + Ancient History Pack $200 The post How Genghis Khan Inspired Thomas Jefferson on Religious Freedom appeared first on KPFA.

Fund Drive Special – The Anatomy of Fascism

Robert Paxton talks about the history of fascism and why it is relevant in contemporary America. Paxton is a political scientist and historian specializing in the World War II era. He is a professor emeritus at Columbia University. Support KPFA!! Click Here to Donate!!! BOOK: Anatomy of Fascism $100 Book: Tyrant: Shakespeare on Politics by Stephen Greenblatt $100 Book: Barracoon: The Story of the Last Black Cargo Edited by Deborah Plant $100 COMBO: All three books $250 Letters and Politic “T...

Fund Drive Special – What Can Trump Learn from Shakespeare’s Tyrannical Leaders

A conversation with Stephen Greenblatt talking about the psychological roots, and the twisted consequences of tyranny from the study of Shakespeare’s tyrannical leaders: Richard III, Macbeth, Lear, Coriolanus, and the societies they rule over. Guest: Stephen Greenblatt is a Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University, a world-renowned Shakespeare scholar, and the author of several books including his latest Tyrant: Shakespeare on Politics. About the book: Stephen Greenblatt illuminates ...

Fund Drive Special – Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo”

Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” by Zora Neale Hurston tells the tragic story of the last survivor of the slave trade transported from Africa to America. This important book offers insight into the pernicious legacy of slavery in the U.S. and an invaluable contribution to the history and culture of this country. The book wasn’t published for decades until scholar and writer Deborah G. Plant edited Zora Neale Hurston’s work. Deborah G. Plant is an African American literature and ...

Fund Drive Special – Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo”

Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” by Zora Neale Hurston tells the tragic story of the last survivor of the slave trade transported from Africa to America. This important book offers insight into the pernicious legacy of slavery in the U.S. and an invaluable contribution to the history and culture of this country. The book wasn’t published for decades until scholar and writer Deborah G. Plant edited Zora Neale Hurston’s work. Deborah G. Plant is an African American literature and ...

Fund Drive Special – The Great Migration and the Black American Dream

Today we are in conversation with Blair Imani. She is a writer, mental health advocate, and historian living at the intersections of Black, queer, and Muslim identity, and the author of the new book Making Our Way Home: The Great Migration and the Black American Dream.  Support KPFA! Donate Today!!! BOOK Making Our Way Home: The Great Migration and the Black American Dream by Blair Imani $100 MP3 CD, DOWNLOAD, or DVD – KPFA Event – Blair Imani “Making Our Way Home: The Great Migration and The...

Fund Drive Special – The Odyssey and Why Does it Matter Today

The Odyssey is a poem about violence and the aftermath of war; about wealth, poverty, and power; about marriage and family; about travelers, hospitality, and the yearning for a home. It is about how we find community, how we find who gets to be in a particular community, and what does it mean that some people belong and other people don’t belong. It’s a poem that resonates with current issues we have in our culture such as immigration, or what to do about veterans returning from war. Guest: E...

Fund Drive Special – Ancient Rome: From Republic to Empire Series (Part 2)

Today, we hear part two of Ancient Rome: From Republic to Empire series. In this episode, we continue our conversation with Edward J. Watts diving into what tore the ancient Roman Republic apart.  We talk about what happened in the more than one hundred years in which the Roman republic descended into chaos caused by factional fighting that at first was very political but then turned violent. Guest: Edward J. Watts holds the Alkiviadis Vassiliadis Endowed Chair and is a professor of history a...

Fund Drive Special – Ancient Rome: From Republic to Empire Series (Part 2)

Today, we hear part two of Ancient Rome: From Republic to Empire series. In this episode, we continue our conversation with Edward J. Watts diving into what tore the ancient Roman Republic apart.  We talk about what happened in the more than one hundred years in which the Roman republic descended into chaos caused by factional fighting that at first was very political but then turned violent. Guest: Edward J. Watts holds the Alkiviadis Vassiliadis Endowed Chair and is a professor of history a...