KPFA - Letters and Politics
1,116 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 1 month ago - ★★★★★ - 232 ratingsLetters & Politics seeks to explore the history behind today’s major global and national news stories. Hosted by Mitch Jeserich.
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Episodes
19th-Century Eugenics Movement and its Relation to Immigration in America
July 18, 2019 10:00 - 59 minutes - 68.6 MBEugenics is the science of improving the human species by selectively mating people with specific desirable hereditary traits. It aims to reduce human suffering by “breeding out” disease, disabilities and so-called undesirable characteristics from the human population. Early supporters of eugenics believed people inherited mental illness, criminal tendencies and even poverty, and that these conditions could be bred out of the gene pool. In the 19th century there was a great deal of support fo...
Theory of Poverty and the Illegal Changes to the Asylum Process and Regulations
July 17, 2019 10:00 - 59 minutes - 68.6 MBThe Trump administration moved to dramatically limit Central American migrants’ ability to seek asylum at the U.S. border with Mexico, an escalation of the president’s push to stem the flood of border crossers that are severely straining the U.S. immigration system. Under the rule published online on Monday, with limited exceptions, migrants who pass through another country first must seek asylum there rather than at the U.S. border, where they will be ineligible to do so. The vast majority o...
The Apartheid System in South Africa and the Debate Between Communism and Capitalism
July 16, 2019 10:00 - 59 minutes - 68.6 MBAfter the National Party gained power in South Africa in 1948, its all-white government immediately began enforcing existing policies of racial segregation under a system of legislation that it called apartheid. The apartheid system made laws forced the different racial groups to live separately and develop separately, and grossly unequally. It tried to stop all inter-marriage and social integration between racial groups. It was a social system which severely disadvantaged the majority of th...
The Racial Dynamic and Reporting of the Chicago Defender
July 15, 2019 10:00 - 59 minutes - 68.6 MBThe Chicago Defender is an African-American owned and operated newspaper founded in 1905 by Robert S. Abbott. It brought publicity to race riots in 1919 and reported on the lynching of black citizens. The paper would also rewrite stories pertaining to its readers with an African-American point of view. Abbott also hired the first female newspaper editor to work at the Defender. When Abbott died, in 1942, his nephew, John Sengstacke, succeeded him as the proprietor of the paper. Its later arti...
The Political Economy of Abortion and the Fight Over Women’s Work
July 11, 2019 10:00 - 59 minutes - 68.6 MBStates with conservative governments are moving quickly in bringing bills to restrict when a woman can have an abortion. Currently there are about 20 cases concerning abortion restrictions in courts across the country and about 300 bills throughout the state legislatures with similar restrictions. Bringing all these cases to the Supreme Court is part of the constitutionality issue at play in the abortion issue. In the end what is at stake with all these cases is to undo the landmark 1973 case...
The Military Dictatorship in El Salvador and a Witness to the Civil War
July 10, 2019 10:00 - 59 minutes - 68.6 MBThe Farabundo Marti Liberation Front was formed when five politically different organizations joined forces to overthrow the Salvadoran military government. This was preceded by 50 years of military dictatorship supported by the U.S. government and the national oligarchy that kept a vast majority of Salvadoreans in extreme poverty and squalid working and living conditions. The dictatorship became far more brutal during the ’60s and ’70s when a strong social movement mobilized against economic...
The First Clash Over the New Deal
July 09, 2019 10:00 - 59 minutes - 68.6 MBIn 1933, Franklin Roosevelt signed the New Deal, which was meant to save the U.S. economy and give the federal government a bigger role in civilian life and local government. The program was implemented from 1933 to 1939 and was broken down into three goals: relief, recovery, and reform. It all started with what become known as the First 100 Days, the period when Congress passed an unprecedented amount of legislation. The stricter regulations placed on banks, meant to reinstill the citizen’s ...
The Community of Grace: The Bay Area’s Unhoused Communities
July 08, 2019 10:00 - 59 minutes - 68.6 MBTake a look inside one of the new symbols of the San Fransisco Bay Area; a tent village where many unhoused people live in the middle of our cities, in one of the wealthiest regions in the world. We will explore this encampment using the interviews and recordings of its own residents. Since 2015 there has been a 25% increase in the homeless population just in Oakland, which has recently brought camps like the one in this documentary to the city administration’s attention. Today, we talk to Lu...
The Life of Denis Diderot
July 04, 2019 10:00 - 59 minutes - 68.6 MBDenis Diderot was an 18th-century French philosopher, art critic, and writer, best known for serving as co-founder, chief editor, and contributor to the Encyclopédia along with Jean le Rond d’Alembert. He was an important member of the Age of Enlightenment, who claims the Encyclopédia as its crowning achievement. Diderot used his influence in society to bring to light the unfair treatment of the working class caused by his contemporaries in power. However, his work brought the wrath of the go...
The Uncivilized Nature of Civilization
July 03, 2019 10:00 - 59 minutes - 68.6 MBThe common notion of the beginnings of civilization is that it was remarkably better than a nomadic hunter and gatherer type of existence. It is in fact the opposite; early cities and city-states throughout history were so miserable that these early states went to war in order to capture slaves to keep the city operating, and that’s one reason why slavery was endemic to the so-called civilized world. Today, renowned anthropologist and political scientist James C. Scott of Yale University give...
What is Democracy? How Do We Get It?
July 02, 2019 10:00 - 59 minutes - 68.6 MBDemocracy is meant to be ruled by the voice of the poor, and yet our current system is built to protect and amplify the voices of the already rich and powerful. What many consider to be a democracy is not so. What is democracy really? What do we mean when we use the term? And can it ever truly exist? Today, these questions are thoroughly explored in a discussion with Astra Taylor. Guest: Astra Taylor is a Canadian-American activist, filmmaker, and author. She has made such documentary films ...
The Origins of the Black Power Movement and the Life of Stokely Carmichael
July 01, 2019 10:00 - 59 minutes - 68.6 MBStokely Carmichael, the charismatic, controversial black activist, stepped into the pages of history when he called for “Black Power” during a speech in Greenwood, Mississippi in June 1966. The Black Power term became a slogan for militant activist ever since. Today, we bring a conversation with historian Peniel E. Joseph to talk about the history of the Black Power Movement and the life and times of Stokely Carmichael. Guest: Peniel E. Joseph is professor of Public Affairs and the History i...
A History of Slavery in San Francisco’s Chinatown and the Abolitionist Movement
June 27, 2019 10:00 - 47 minutes - 53.9 MBFor 5 years after the adoption of 13th amendment to the US Constitution abolishing slavery in 1865, women and girls from China were bought and sold out in the open in the city of San Francisco. Eventually this slave trade went underground but would continue up until the 1930s. Today we are joined by author and historian Julia Flynn Siler to talk about this history and the abolitionist movement against it. She is the author of the new book The White Devil’s Daughters: The Women Who Fought Agai...
A History of Slavery in San Francisco’s Chinatown and the Abolitionist Movement
June 27, 2019 10:00 - 47 minutes - 53.9 MBFor 5 years after the adoption of 13th amendment to the US Constitution abolishing slavery in 1865, women and girls from China were bought and sold out in the open in the city of San Francisco. Eventually this slave trade went underground but would continue up until the 1930s. Today we are joined by author and historian Julia Flynn Siler to talk about this history and the abolitionist movement against it. She is the author of the new book The White Devil’s Daughters: The Women Who Fought Agai...
The 1990’s, A Democratic President and the War Against Immigrants
June 25, 2019 10:00 - 59 minutes - 68.6 MBToday we are in conversation with investigative reporter and documentary filmmaker John Carlos Frey. He grew up at the US-Mexico border witnessing how the border has been militarized in a non-declared war in the last 30 years. He has dedicated his award-winning journalistic carer to covering border issues. We discuss the history about how we have got to where we are now concerning immigration issues and the role a Democratic president played in it during the 1990’s. John Carlos Frey is the a...
The Current US-Iran Tensions And the Divisions in Congress Over this Issue
June 20, 2019 10:00 - 59 minutes - 68.6 MBIran is saying that it has shot down a U.S. surveillance drone over the Strait of Hormuz. President Trump is saying that Iran has committed a major mistake. This comes as some members of Congress have scored some recent victories in their attempt to rein in presidential war powers. And just moments ago, the Senate voted to block arm sales to Saudi Arabia. We start the program with an interview with Democratic representative Barbara Lee and then we’ll be talking to John Nichols for more analy...
A History of Reparations and On Behalf of All Muslims: A Comedy Special
June 19, 2019 10:00 - 59 minutes - 68.6 MBFor the first time in over a decade. Today, Congress held a hearing on reparations for slavery. We talk to Professor Daina Ramey Berry about the history of reparations. Professor Berry is the Oliver H. Radkey Regents Professor of History and associate dean of the Graduate School at the University of Texas at Austin. She is the author of several books, her latest is The Price for Their Pound of Flesh: The Value of the Enslaved from Womb to Grave, in the Building of a Nation, which has been awa...
The Global Struggle to Govern the Internet
June 18, 2019 10:00 - 59 minutes - 68.6 MBThe internet was designed to be a kind of free-speech paradise, but a lot of the material on it turned out to incite violence, spread untruth, and promote hate. Over the years, three American behemoths—Facebook, YouTube and Twitter—became the way most of the world experiences the internet, and therefore the conveyors of much of its disturbing material. Should the giant social media platforms police the content themselves, as is the norm in the U.S., or should governments and international org...
We’ve Got People: From Jesse Jackson to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
June 17, 2019 10:00 - 59 minutes - 68.6 MBA conversation with political analyst Ryan Grim on how big money took over the Democratic party and the struggle against it. The last thirty years has seen the building of a movement, which first exploded into public view with the largely forgotten presidential run of the Rev. Jesse Jackson, a campaign that came dangerously close to winning. This movement is the one that propelled Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez into office. Guest: Ryan Grim Ryan is The Intercept’s D.C. Bureau Chief. He was previo...
A History of The Ideas That Made America
June 13, 2019 10:00 - 59 minutes - 68.6 MBWe are in conversation on the intellectual history of ideas in America and how they have been pass down and reuse. We explore the intellectual transformation America, from the Enlightenment, transcendentalism, and Social Darwinism to progressivism, conservatism, and postmodernism. Guest: Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen is the Merle Curti Associate Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin–Madison where she teaches US intellectual and cultural history. She is the author of American Nietzs...
Outsiders: Five Women Writers Who Changed the World
June 12, 2019 10:00 - 59 minutes - 68.6 MBToday we are in conversation about the life of English novelist Mary Shelley, who wrote the book Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. A book that is considered in part a Gothic novel and in part, a philosophical novel. We discuss Mary Shelley’s work and her relationship to her mother, the highly influential eighteenth century feminist, Mary Wollstonecraft who died ten days after Mary Shelley’s birth. Guest: Lyndall Gordon is a senior research fellow at St Hilda’s College, Oxford and an ...
A History of Democratic Socialism in Europe and The U.S.
June 11, 2019 10:00 - 59 minutes - 68.6 MBToday we are in conversation with professor Gary Dorrien about the history of social democracy both in Europe and the United States. He discusses how the fallout from twenty years of neoliberal economic globalism has sparked a surge of interest in the old idea of democratic socialism -a democracy in which the people control the economy and government, no group dominates any other, and every citizen is free, equal, and included. Christian socialism, he explains, paved the way for all liberatio...
The Role of Climate Change in The Collapse of an Empire
June 10, 2019 10:00 - 59 minutes - 68.6 MBA conversation with Kyle Harper about one of the most consequential chapters of human history: the fall of the Roman Empire. Central to this issue are question such as how does an empire fall? What was the role of climate change and pandemic diseases in the collapse of Rome’s power. Guest: Kyle Harper is a historian of the classical world and the Senior Vice President and Provost at his alma mater, the University of Oklahoma. He is the author of The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End...
The Gay Revolution: The Story of the Struggle
June 06, 2019 10:00 - 59 minutes - 68.6 MBWe are in conversation with Lillian Faderman about her book The Gay Revolution. It begins in the 1950s, when law classified gays and lesbians as criminals, the psychiatric profession saw them as mentally ill, the churches saw them as sinners, and society victimized them with irrational hatred. Against this dark backdrop, a few brave people began to fight back, paving the way for the revolutionary changes of the 1960s and beyond. Faderman discusses the protests in the 1960s; the counter-reacti...
A History of the Roe v. Wade Decision
June 05, 2019 10:00 - 59 minutes - 68.6 MBA conversation on the history of the Roe v Wade decision and on the man considered a legal jurist at one time who will right the majority opinion Harry Blackmun. Guest: Linda Greenhouse is Joseph Goldstein Lecturer in Law at Yale Law School and a Pulitzer Prize–winning Supreme Court journalist who is a contributing Op-Ed writer for The New York Times. She is author of several books including Becoming Justice Blackmun: Harry Blackmun’s Supreme Court Journey The post A History of the Roe v. Wa...
We Gon’ Be Alright: Notes on Race and Resegregation
June 04, 2019 10:00 - 59 minutes - 68.6 MBA conversation on re-segregation in American life today. According to author Jeff Chang “resegragation is one of the most under-thought and under-recognized issues of our times. It is a fact that the U.S. is moving towards becoming a “majority-minority” country. In California is already happening. And in the Bay Area we are racially re-segregating at a shocking rate, especially in the form of gentrification and displacement”. Guest: Jeff Chang is a Hip Hop journalist and writer. His latest ...
A History of the Espionage Act and the Case of Julian Assange
June 03, 2019 10:00 - 59 minutes - 68.6 MBAs the United States charges Julian Assange under the Espionage Act of 1917 today we dive into the history of this act and even go further back to 1798 and the first Sedition Act in which the political times resemble those of our own. Guest: Geoffrey R. Stone is the Edward H. Levi Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago. Stone was appointed by President Obama to serve on the President’s Review Group which was charged with evaluating our nation’s foreign intelligence surve...
Spying on the South: An Odyssey Across The American Divide
May 30, 2019 10:00 - 51 minutes - 58.6 MBToday, we air a conversation with Pulitzer Prize author and reporter Tony Horowitz in an interview conducted about a week and a half ago talking about a sojourn into the deep South. Tony Horowitz unexpectedly died last Sunday potentially of a heart attack. He wrote extensively throughout his career about the Civil War, and the South relationship to today. His latest book Spying on the South: An Odyssey Across The American Divide is the main topic of our conversation today. Guest: Tony was a...
What Robert Mueller Meant to Say in His First Statement
May 29, 2019 10:00 - 59 minutes - 68.6 MBSpecial counsel Robert Mueller made his first remarks since his report has came out into the 2016 election. And then, he resigned from his appointment as Special Counsel. Today, we bring you his full statement and then we’ll get reaction with guest John Nichols, Washington correspondent of the Nation Magazine. The post What Robert Mueller Meant to Say in His First Statement appeared first on KPFA.
American Founders: How People of African Descent Established Freedom in the New World
May 28, 2019 10:00 - 59 minutes - 68.6 MBA conversation with scholar Christina Proenza-Coles about the role that people of African ancestry have played in the formation of the Americas; and not just in the United States but the entire continent. Guest: Christina Proenza-Coles is author of the book American Founders: How People of African Descent Established Freedom in the New World. The post American Founders: How People of African Descent Established Freedom in the New World appeared first on KPFA.
Fund Drive Special – The Map of Knowledge
May 23, 2019 10:00 - 59 minutes - 68.6 MBIn concluding our series of conversations on the ancient world, today, we look at the Caliphates of the eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries in Baghdad and Cordoba. Guest: Violet Moller is a historian and writer who specializes in intellectual history. She is the author of the book The Map of Knowledge: A Thousand-Year History of How Classical Ideas Were Lost and Found. Support KPFA, Please DonateToday! Book – The Map of Knowledge $100. USB Letters & Politics: The Ancient History Pack (Ove...
Fund Drive Special – The Swerve: How the World Became Modern
May 22, 2019 10:00 - 59 minutes - 68.6 MBMore than two thousand years ago, in ancient Rome lived a poet named Lucrecious whose work on the nature of things revolutionized the way people understood the universe. Lucrecious thought that the universe functioned without the aid of gods, that religious fear was damaging to human life, and that matter was made up of very small particles in eternal motion, colliding and swerving in new directions. This idea fueled the Renaissance, inspiring artists such as Botticelli and thinkers such as G...
Fund Drive Special – Cyrus: The Persian Conqueror Astride the Ancient World
May 21, 2019 10:00 - 59 minutes - 68.6 MBWe continue our series of conversations on the ancient world by looking East and the first global empire of Persia. The first ruler Cyrus the Great, brought by conquest or gentler mean a dominion stretching from the Aegean Sea to the Hindu Kush and encompassing some tens of millions of people. Acclaimed for ruling with a light hand in an efficient and benign fashion and introducing chivalry to warfare. It is believed that Cyrus the Great produced the “Cyrus Cylinder”, the first human rights ...
Fund Drive Special – The Odyssey, Why It Still Matters Today
May 20, 2019 10:00 - 59 minutes - 68.6 MBThe 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 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 do we do about veterans returning from war. Guest: ...
Fund Drive Special – Democracy’s Prisoner: Eugene V. Debs, the Great War, and the Right to Dissent
May 16, 2019 10:00 - 59 minutes - 68.6 MBHistorians frequently see the late 1900 and earliest century as a period of time that represents the fiercest battle between labor and capital. Today we examine this period to the times of Eugene V. Debs, the perennial socialist candidate who in 1920 ran for president while serving a ten-year jail term for speaking against America’s role in World War I. He garnered six million votes in that election. Debs case illuminates our own struggle to define the boundaries of permissible dissent as we...
Fund Drive Special – History of Socialism (Part 3/3)
May 15, 2019 10:00 - 59 minutes - 68.6 MBWe continue our series of conversations on the history of socialism, this time with Professor and author Gary Dorrien. In this episode, we discuss the American religious tradition of the social gospel and the black social gospel. These traditions would provide the intellectual underpinnings for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Guest: Gary Dorrien is Reinhold Niebuhr Professor of Social Ethics at Union Theological Seminary and Professor of Religion at Columbia University in New York City. An Episco...
Fund Drive Special – History of Socialism Series (Part 2 of 3)
May 14, 2019 10:00 - 59 minutes - 68.6 MBToday we continue our series of conversations on the history of socialism. In this episode we talk about the raise of socialism and socialist politics, both in Europe and in the United States with Gary Dorrien. Guest: Gary Dorrien is the Reinhold Niebuhr Professor of Social Ethics at Union Theological Seminary and professor of religion at Columbia University. His latest book is Social Democracy in the Making: Political and Religious Roots of European Socialism. Keep KPFA on the Air, Go KPFA!!...
Fund Drive Special – History of Socialism Series (Part 1 of 3)
May 13, 2019 10:00 - 59 minutes - 68.6 MBToday we begin a series of conversations on socialism. We are join by Bhaskar Sunkara who discusses what exactly socialism is, why America needs socialism, and what would a socialist system in the U.S. look like. Guest: Bhaskar Sunkara, founder and editor of the Jacobin Magazine, the most successful American ideological magazine launched in the past decade. He launched the socialist quarterly in 2010 when he still was an undergraduate at George Washington University. His latest book is The So...
Fund Drive Special – Ancient Rome: From Republic to Empire Series (Part 3 of 3)
May 09, 2019 10:00 - 19 minutes - 22.1 MBToday, we hear part three of the part series of Ancient Rome: From Republic to Empire. In this episode, we focus on the rise of the ancient empire that came out of the destruction of the republic with a leading expert on ancient military history Barry Strauss. Guest: Barry Strauss is a professor of history and classics at Cornell University. He has written or edited several books, including The Battle of Salamis, The Trojan War, The Spartacus War, Masters of Command, The Death of Caesar and h...
Fund Drive Special – Ancient Rome: From Republic to Empire Series (Part 2 of 3)
May 08, 2019 10:00 - 59 minutes - 68.6 MBToday, we hear part two of Ancient Rome: From Republic to Empire series. In this episode we continue our conversation with Edward J. Watts diving in to 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 professor of history at ...
Fund Drive Special – Ancient Rome: From Republic to Empire Series (Part 1 of 3)
May 07, 2019 10:00 - 59 minutes - 68.6 MBToday we begin our three part series Ancient Rome: From Republic to Empire, in which we explore the nature of the Roman Republic compared and contrasted to our own. We also look at how the Roman Republic evolved into an empire. Guest: Edward J. Watts holds the Alkiviadis Vassiliadis endowed Chair and is professor of history at the University of California, San Diego. The author and editor of several prize-winning books, including The Final Pagan Generation. His latest is Mortal Republic: How...
Diving Into the Mueller Report. Then, Immigrant Girl, Radical Woman
May 06, 2019 10:00 - 59 minutes - 68.6 MBThe Democratic chair of the House Judiciary Committee, Jerrold Nadler scheduled a vote for Wednesday, May 8 to hold Attorney General William Barr in Contempt to Congress for not providing the Committee the entire unredacted Mueller report on the 2016 presidential election. Nadler also is trying to get Robert Mueller to testify before the House next week To find out more about this issue we talk to Hadar Aviram. Guest: Hadar Aviram is Professor of Law at University of California, Hastings C...
Attorney General Refused to Testify Before The House Judiciary Committee, What’s Next?
May 02, 2019 10:00 - 59 minutes - 68.6 MBAttorney General William Barr did not show up to testify today before the House Judiciary Committee. The hearing was scheduled to question him about his handling the Robert Mueller report. The House didn’t go on to Subpoena Barr, nor to condemned him, though it could do so in the coming days. The Attorney General is refusing to testify to the House because he refuses to take questions from staff attorneys. He has also refuses to testify in a close session in which they will be able to talk ab...
William Barr Testifies Before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Then, The Latest Attempted Coup in Venezuela
May 01, 2019 10:00 - 59 minutes - 68.6 MBAttorney General William Barr Testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee today. This comes hours after a letter from special prosecutor Robert Mueller is released. In the letter Mueller criticizes AG William Barr for how he originally described the Mueller report. For analysis on this issue, we talk to William Yeomans. Guest: William Yeomans is Senior Fellow at the Alliance for Justice and Lecturer at Columbia Law School. Previously, he served 26 years at the U.S. Department of Justice, inc...
The Separation of Powers and a Potential Constitutional Crisis in the U.S.
April 30, 2019 10:00 - 59 minutes - 68.6 MBAs a standoff between Congress and the White House potentially brings upon a constitutional crisis in this country we talk to political scientist Thomas E. Mann. Guest: Thomas E. Mann is Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution and Resident Scholar at the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley. He is the author and co-author of several books, his latest is One Nation After Trump: A Guide for the Perplexed, the Disillusioned, the Desperate, and the Not-Yet Dep...
The Poway Synagogue Shooting And The White Power Movement
April 29, 2019 10:00 - 59 minutes - 68.7 MBAnother mass shooting at a place of worship occurred this weekend. This time in Poway, California, just twenty miles north of San Diego at a local synagogue. Today we are in conversation about the ideology behind the transnational groups that these killers are claiming to, who are they? Guest: Kathleen Belew is Professor of History at the University of Chicago. She is the author of Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America. The post The Poway Synagogue Shooting An...
The Origins of Fascism in the U.S. and Its Connection to Corporate America
April 25, 2019 10:00 - 59 minutes - 68.6 MBWe are in conversation with historian Michael Joseph Roberto about the history of fascism in the United States during the New Deal era and its connection to corporate America. Guest: Michael Joseph Roberto retired professor of history at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, the largest historically black educational institution in the United States. He is also a longtime political activist and journalist. Professor Roberto is the author of The Coming of the American Beh...
Hoover, Roosevelt, and the First Clash Over the New Deal
April 24, 2019 10:00 - 59 minutes - 68.6 MBWhen Franklin Roosevelt defeated Herbert Hoover in the 1932 election, they represented not only different political parties but vastly different approaches to the question of the day: How could the nation recover from the Great Depression? Professor Eric Rauchway join us to talk about the months before the hundred days, FDR and Hoover battled over ideas and how the divisive politics of the twentieth century were shaped. Guest: Eric Rauchway is a distinguished historian and expert on the Prog...
American Overdose: The Opioid Tragedy in Three Acts
April 23, 2019 10:00 - 59 minutes - 68.6 MBWe are in conversation with Chris McGreal about the history of the opioid epidemic in the U.S. We discuss the careless over-prescription of opioids that has lead to addiction, heroin use and overdose in a context where illegal drug cartels have brutally exploited the situation. McGreal argues that the opioid epidemic was born of congressional neglect, amplified by the greed and corruption of the pharmaceutical companies and the failure of the government (DEA and FDA) to regulate the drug in...
Earth Day – Finding Meaning in the Path of Climate Change
April 22, 2019 10:00 - 59 minutes - 68.6 MBOn Earth Day, we bring a conversation with acclaimed journalist and former war correspondent Dahr Jamail who has traveled the world for the past few years to cover the effects of climate change. He is author of the book The End of Ice: Bearing Witness and Finding Meaning in the Path of Climate Disruption. The post Earth Day – Finding Meaning in the Path of Climate Change appeared first on KPFA.