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Doug Henwood's radio archives
(through December 2016)

LBO editor Doug Henwood does a radio show on WBAI, New York, covering economics and politics. It's on most Thursdays, 5-6 PM NYC time. WBAI is at 99.5 on the FM dial - and also, via RealPlayer, on the web. Here are some archived shows, as well as some individual interviews.

Note the dates of the shows are links. If you want to direct someone right to a specific show, copy that link.

A number of people have asked about the theme music. It's the Kronos Quartet performing "Wawshishijay (Our Beginning)," written by Obo Addy, from the album Pieces of Africa. I inherited it from Samori Marksman, pciture of an old radio the late and severely missed former program director of WBAI, who bequeathed me the time slot, and decided to keep the theme in his memory.

TECHNICAL NOTES The files are available in two flavors of MP3 - streaming and downloadable. (Streaming means you listen to it online in real time without transferring a file to your computer; downloadable means you transfer the file to your computer and listen offline. In either case, you'll need a program that can play MP3-format files.) Initially, only 48kbps versions were posted, but many people don't have the bandwidth to handle it. So, as of September 2002, shows were also made available is 16kbps as well, which offers lower sound quality, but should be well within the capacity of most dialups. And starting with the November 14, 2002, show, hi-fi files are encoded at 64kbps (rather than 48kbps), for superior sound quality.

Shows are about 56 minutes long; the 64kbps versions are around 26 megabytes; 48kbps versions, around 20 megabytes; and the 16kbps versions, around 7 mb.

Thanks to Jordan Hayes of thinkbank.com for hosting the archives.

For shows from January 2017 onwards, click here.

FULL SHOWS

In some early cases, the original introductions to the shows were lost, and were re-recorded. Otherwise, the programs are as originally broadcast, without any editing, except to shorten the opening theme and to balance volume between segments.

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December 29, 2016 Zahra Billoo on Donald Trump, the Muslim registry, and how to resist it • Andrew Cockburn on Russophobia
December 22, 2016 Rania Khalek on Syria (new material) • George Joseph, author of this article, on Teach for America going global (rebroadcast of an interview that first ran in July)
December 15, 2016 Shannon Monnat on the miserable health indicators in Trump-voting rural counties (paper here) • Mark Ames, co-host of the Radio War Nerd podcast, on the Putin-did-it mania
December 8, 2016 Kerry Brown on China in the Trump era • David Broder on the defeat of the Italian constitutional referendum (article here)
December 1, 2016 Sean Jacobs on Fidel Castro and Africa (article here) • Cinzia Arruzza on Berlusconi and Trump (article here)
November 17, 2016 Alan Finlayson on the similarities between Brexit and Trump • Larry Cohen, chair of Our Revolution (the successor to the Sanders campaign) on their plans
November 10, 2016 Reactions to the election of the horrid Donald Trump, from Jodi Dean, Glen Ford, and Alex Gourevitch
November 3, 2016 Dmitri Holtzman on the turmoil on South African university campuses • Oddný Helgadóttir, author of this article, on Icelandic politics
October 27, 2016 Gareth Porter on who’s who in Syria • Jerry Davis on changes in the U.S. corporate elite (popular summary here)
October 20, 2016 Josh White on Scottish independence and Brexit • Valerie Wilson on the expanding black-white wage gap
October 13, 2016 Rania Khalek on just how much of a lesser evil Hillary is • David Golumbia, author of The Politics of Bitcoin, on libertarianism as money
October 6, 2016 Alex Nunns, author of The Candidate, on the Jeremy Corbyn phenomenon • Greg Grandin on Colombian voters’ rejection of the peace deal
September 29, 2016 Elise Gould on the latest income & poverty numbers • Joel Beinin on Shimon Peres
September 1, 2016 Alfredo Saad Filho on the impeachment of Dilma Roussef in Brazil • Dibyesh Anand on how and why India is brutalizing Kashmir
August 18, 2016 Dvora Meyers, author of The End of the Perfect 10, on the transformations of women’s gymnastics • Arun Gupta on Fight for 15 organizers who are making $9 an hour
August 11, 2016 Sharon Higgins on the mysterious Turkish imam, Fethullah Gulen • Bob Pollin on Trump-o-nomics
July 21, 2016 Jodi Dean on her book Crowds and Party
July 14, 2016 Lester Spence, author of this article, on police shootings • Aaron Bastani on anarchy in the UK
July 7, 2016 George Joseph, author of this article, on Teach for America going global • Adolph Reed on politics after Bernie
June 30, 2016 Alan Finlayson and Priyamvada Gopal on Brexit
June 23, 2016C.J. Chanco, author of this article, on the trigger-happy president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte • Jonah Birch, author of this article, on popular protest in France
June 16, 2016 Richard Seymour, author of Corbyn: The Strange Rebirth of Radical Politics, on Brexit • Virginia Heffernan, author of Magic and Loss, on why the internet is a work of art
June 9, 2016 Sarah Leonard, author of this article, on the gender issues around Hillary Clinton • Harry Franqui-Rivera on the Puerto Rican debt crisis
June 2, 2016 Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, author of From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation, on how BLM might become a transformative movement
April 28, 2016 Greg Grandin on the recession of the Pink Tide in Latin America • Ashton Applewhite, author of This Chair Rocks, on aging and ageism
April 21, 2016 Bruce Dixon, managing editor of the Black Agenda Report, on black voters’ mysterious lingering romance with the Clintons • Alfredo Saad Filho on the vote to impeach Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff
April 14, 2016 Ann Neumann, author of The Good Death, on how we spend our final days in the USA • Richard Florida on class and urban space
April 7, 2016 David Howell on the increase of the minimum wage to $15 in California and New York • Vidar Thorsteinsson, author of this article, on the political crisis in Iceland unleashed by the Panama Papers
March 31, 2016 Nikil Saval, author of this article, on the hippie-inspired new architecture of the Silicon Valley • Alfredo Saad Filho on the ongoing political and economic crisis of Brazil
March 24, 2016 Rachel Price, author of Planet/Cuba, on the art scene in that country as Obama visits • Sam Stein, author of this article, on neoliberal housing programs, de Blasio style
March 17, 2016 Ben Zachariah on the activities of India’s fascist BJP government at home and abroad • David Rieff, author of The Reproach of Hunger, on the economic development racket
March 10, 2016 Anne Balay, co-author of this article, on the tough but romantic life of the truck driver • Lester Spence, author of Knocking the Hustle, on neoliberalism and black politics [Back after KPFA fundraising break. If you like these shows and want to keep them coming, please support KPFA. If you do, be sure to mention Behind the News.]
February 11, 2016 Tim Shorrock on panic over North Korea (Nation author page) • Robert Fatton on the mess in Haiti on the departure of Sweet Micky from the presidency
February 4, 2016 Matt Karp on the demographics of Sanders’ support (Jacobin author page) • Jasson Perez on the Black Youth Project 100 (full agenda here)
January 28, 2016 Shane Bauer on his imprisonment in Iran and how Hillary Clinton made it worse (with some remarks about solitary in the U.S.) • Jennifer Mittelstadt, author of The Rise of the Military Welfare State, on that, and its privatization from Clinton onwards
January 21, 2016 Adolph Reed on reparations to black Americans (a reaction to this Ta-Nehisi Coates piece; Reed’s 2000 piece on reparations is here) • Steffie Woolhandler of Physicians for a National Health Program on single-payer, Sanders, and Clinton Inc.’s lies
January 14, 2016 Isabel Hilton on the Chinese financial melodrama • Chris Maisano (author of this article) on legal challenges to public sector unions
January 7, 2016 Jason Wilson reports from Oregon on the rancher occupation • Toby Jones on Saudi Arabia
December 3, 2015 Benjamin Page, co-author of this paper, on the politics of the top 1% • Alfredo Saad Filho on the political and economic crisis in Brazil
November 26, 2015 Jason Moore, author of Capitalism in the Web of Life,criticizes the idea that humans and nature are separate entities • Jennifer Doyle, author of Campus Sex/Campus Security, talks about security, paranoia, sex, and the large public university
November 19, 2015 Yezid Sayigh on ISIS • Kali Akuno of Cooperation Jackson on efforts to bring sustainability and worker power to the Mississippi economy
November 12, 2015 Raquel Varela updates her report of two weeks ago, as the right-wing Portuguese government is replaced by a center-left one • Mark Oppenheimer, author of this article, on the culture of Yale and its impact on campus racial politics • Max Geller on why Renoir Sucks at Painting
November 5, 2015 Sungur Savran, editor of Red Med, on the Turkish election • Christian Parenti, author of this article, on what the climate movement can learn from the developmental state
October 29, 2015 William “Sandy” Darity on the racial wealth gap (links to papers here) • Raquel Varela on the Portuguese elections
October 22, 2015 Leo Panitch on the Canadian election • Megan Erickson, author of Class War: The Privatization of Childhood, on class and schools
October 15, 2015 Greg Grandin, author of Kissinger's Shadow, on the ghoulish diplomat’s five-decade rampage
October 8, 2015 David Bloomfield talks edu-policy as Arne Duncan leaves • Elizabeth Bruenig, both journalist and Catholic (and author of this), on papal politics
September 10, 2015 Megan Marcelin, author of this and this, puts the post-Katrina gentrification of New Orleans into historical and theoretical perspective • Josh Bivens, co-author of this, on the gap between productivity and pay
August 27, 2015 DH on the China gyrations • Roger Lancaster on mass incarceration in the U.S.
August 20, 2015 Steve Horn on how Hillary Clinton’s State Department worked to open up the Mexican oil industry to U.S. interests • Isabel Hilton gives the rundown on law, politics, and economics in China
August 13, 2015 William Darity on discrimination, a job guarantee, and baby bonds • R.L. Stephens II, founding editor of Orchestrated Pulse and author of this essay, talks about Black Lives Matter and the creation of a leadership class
August 6, 2015 [vacation encore] Ian Bone, author of Bash the Rich, on anarchism (first broadcast March 2007) • Bethany Moreton, author of To Serve God and Wal-Mart, on Christian free enterprise and the Behemoth of Bentonville
July 23, 2015 James Galbraith and Leo Panitch (the article that launched a thousand righteous polemics) on Greece
July 16, 2015 Jane McAlevey, author of Raising Expectations (and Raising Hell), on Alinsky, power, and organizing (her article on the topic in Politics and Society is behind a paywall, breachable by many with university connections)
July 9, 2015 Nantina Vgontzas on the domestic politics of the Greek crisis (see her Jacobin pieces here) • Mark Blyth on why it’s wrong to blame Greece for its crisis (Foreign Affairs article here)
July 2, 2015 Alyssa Katz, author of The Influence Machine, on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce • Rafael Bernabe and César Ayala on Puerto Rico’s debt crisis
June 25, 2015 Bruce Bartlett on the relationship between the GOP and the Confederacy • Alex Gourevitch cautions against pushing for tighter gun laws (article here) • Saqib Bhatti on the modern engineered urban fiscal crisis, with emphasis on Chicago
June 18, 2015 Trudy Lieberman, author of this article (behind a paywall, but subscribe to Harper's, it’s excellent & cheap), on the pitfalls of Obamacare • Leah Gordon, author of From Power to Prejudice, on the transformation of the study of race in the U.S. from the structural/systemic to the individual/psychological
June 11, 2015 Adolph Reed on the state of the left • Sungur Savran, editor of Red Med, on the Turkish election and challenges to the AKP’s rule
June 4, 2015 Lee Drutman, author of The Business of America Is Lobbying, on the growth and power of lobbying in DC • Josh Bivens on the Fed’s vast asset-purchasing program [video of the Brookings presentation is here]
May 28, 2015Katha Pollitt, author of Pro, on the importance of legal abortion that’s actually available • Raquel Varela about the dimensions of Portugal’s economic crisis back after fundraising break—if you like these shows and want to keep them coming, please support KPFA (and mention BtN)
April 30, 2015 Bruce Dixon on Loretta Lynch and the black misleadership class • Sean Jacobs on anti-immigrant violence in South Africa
April 23, 2015 Micah Uetricht on the consequences of the recent Chicago mayoral election for independent politics over the longer term (article here) • Bill Frelick on the refugee crisis in the Mediterranean
April 16, 2015 Bruce Bartlett talks about supply-side economics yesterday and today (papers here) • Ken Jacobs, author of this article, on public subsidies to low-wage work • Kevin Alexander Gray, co-editor of Killing Trayvons, on racist police violence [April 9 was a rerun of a show from October]
April 2, 2015 Stacy Philbrick Yadav (lots of articles at that link; also see article here) briefs us on why Yemen is dissolving into violent chaos • Elizabeth Economy on what’s up with the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and U.S.–China relations
March 26, 2015 Sam Stein on the reality behind New York City mayor Bill de Blasio’s progressive image • Jodi Dean (review here) on climate politics and the problems with Naomi Klein’s book, This Changes Everything
March 19, 2015 Ryan Grim on the Chicago Housing Authority’s strange cash hoard (article here) • Joel Schalit on the Israeli election
March 12, 2015 Gene Nichol on North Carolina’s war on poor people and on academic freedom • Eilyanna Kaiser and Brendan Michael Conner, respectively co-editor and contributor to $pread: The Best of the Magazine that Illuminated the Sex Industry and Started a Media Revolution, on the perils and delights of running a magazine by and for sex workers
March 5, 2015 Mark Ames, author of this article, tells us who Boris Nemtsov, the dissident shot on the streets of Moscow last week, was • David Kotz, author of The Rise and Fall of Neoliberal Capitalism, talks about the history and structure of the beast
February 26, 2015 James Galbraith on Greece's deal with its Euromasters • Kenzo Shibata of the Campaign for An Elected, Representative School Board on Rahm Emanuel and Chicago politics
February 19, 2015 Jane McAlevey, author of this article (and this book) on Bruce Rauner’s attack on public sector unions in Illinois and on how labor and the left need a theory of power back after fundraising break—if you like these shows, and want to keep them coming, please support KPFA
January 29, 2015 Yanis Varoufakis, the Greek economist who’s appeared on this show 16 times since 2008 discussing mainly the Eurocrisis, is now the finance minister of Greece. Here are excerpts from 5 of those interviews. At the very end of this episode, he discusses what Greece’s strategy towards its creditors should be.
January 22, 2015 Priyamvada Gopal, author of this article, on the curious relationship of freedom and unfreedom in Western words and deeds • Maya Schenwar, author of Locked Down, Locked Out, on imprisonment.
January 15, 2015 Lily Geismer, author of Don’t Blame Us, discusses the evolution of suburban liberalism • Art Goldhammer on French satire and politics in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo massacre
January 8, 2015 Stan Collender on the budget melodramas facing us in Washington this year • David Kotz, author of this article, on about the Russian economic crisis
January 1, 2015 (partial return after fundraising and holiday hiatus) encore presentation of two interviews on policing and prisons: Alex Vitale on broken windows and the militarization of policing • Naomi Murakawa, author of The First Civil Right, on the underestimated contributions of liberals to mass incarceration (both first broadcast in August)
December 4, 2014 Anatol Lieven of Georgetown U–Qatar (and author of this) on Hillary the Hawk • Alex Vitale, author of City of Disorder, on Ferguson in the context of American policing
November 27, 2014 Lucia Green-Weiskel on the U.S.–China climate quasi-deal • Steven Teles talks about Hillary, kludgeocracy, and neoliberalism.
November 20, 2014 Yanis Varoufakis on the eurocrisis • Howie Hawkins, Green candidate for NYS governor, on the party’s future
November 13, 2014 Detroit bankruptcy exit special: Shea Howell of Detroiters Resisting Emergency Management, offers an activist perspective, and Wallace Turbeville (see writings here) runs the numbers
November 6, 2014 Heather Boushey, director of the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, on inequality • George Joseph, author of this article, on Teach for America
October 30, 2014 Kevin Alexander Gray, co-editor of Killing Trayvons, on racist police and vigilante violence • Trudy Lieberman on the snares of Obamacare
October 23, 2014 [back after fundraising hiatus] Ryan Grim (author of this article) on Gary Webb, crack, and the CIA • Jake Blumgart (author of this article) on a mini-Detroit on the outskirts of Philadelphia If you like these shows and want to keep them coming, please contribute to KPFA—and mention Behind the News if you do.
September 25, 2014Mark Blyth on the Scottish independence referendum • Laleh Khalili on the theory and practice of counterinsurgency.
September 18, 2014 Gilbert Achcar on the Middle Eastern landscape
September 11, 2014 Dana Goldstein, author of Teacher Wars, on the history of education politics in the U.S. • Christian Parenti, author of this article, reclaims Hamilton for the left (and for climate politics)
September 4, 2014 Rebecca Tiger, sociologist and author of Judging Addicts, on the history of punishment in the U.S., drug courts, and the marriage of the therapeutic culture to the carceral state
August 28, 2014 Naomi Murakawa, author of The First Civil Right, on the underestimated contributions of liberals to mass incarceration • Amy Binder, author of this article, on why Harvard grads flock to Wall Street
August 21, 2014 Chase Madar, author of this article, on overpolicing/overcriminalization in the USA • Jeff Smith, author of this article, on Ferguson, St Louis, and political science
August 14, 2014 [back after vacation and fundraising hiatus] Mark Ames on Silicon Valley wage-fixing and their selective libertarianism • Alex Vitale on broken windows and the militarization of policing If you like this show, please support KPFA, without which it wouldn’t be possible. If you contribute—and there’s no reason you shouldn’t if you’re not broke—please mention Behind the News.
July 10, 2014 Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute discusses the flabby, unsatisfying state of the job market • Sean Jacobs (one of the founders of Africa Is A Country) talks about the political economy of soccer.
July 3, 2014 Esther Kaplan, author of this article, on a plant closure in Tennessee and the dubious economic logic of offshoring • Alex Kane on what Israel is up to in the wake of the West Bank kidnappings
June 26, 2014 Sarah Stillman, author of this article, on the for-profit probation racket and “offender-funded justice” • Bruce Bartlett on the state of the Republican party after the Tea Party’s series of electoral defeats
June 19, 2014 Jennifer Taub, author of Other People’s Houses, on the deep history of the mortgage crisis • Margaret Gray, author of Labor and the Locavore, on the exploited workers behind the local food movement
June 12, 2014 Suzanna Danuta Walters, author of The Tolerance Trap, argues against queer embourgeoisement • Tony Samara, lead author of The Rise of Renter Nation, on the affordability crisis for people who rent their dwellings
June 5, 2014 Art Goldhammer on European politics, with an accent on France • Nikil Saval, author of Cubed, on the history and sociology of the office
May 29, 2014 Yanis Varoufakis on the European elections • Mohamad Elmasry on Egypt
May 22, 2014 Matt Taibbi, author of The Divide, on criminalizing the poor (and dissenters) and letting bankers run free BtN has been fundraising for KPFA all month. This is the first show with original content since April 24—this interview only, less the fundraising. So it’s short. But please contribute to KPFA if you want to keep these shows coming. Be sure to mention BtN when you do.
April 24, 2014Heidi Shierholz on the plight of young adults in the job market • Kshama Sawant, socialist member of the Seattle city council, talks about a $15 minimum wage and how to make revolutionary politics practical
April 17, 2014 Trudy Lieberman on how much you'll have to pay for health care even if you're insured • Priyamvada Gopal on the fascist threat in India
April 10, 2014 Keith Gessen on Ukraine and Russia (article here) • Martin Gilens on how the rich rule and the people have no say (paper here)
April 3, 2014 Jane McAlevey, author of Raising Expectations (and Raising Hell), on the UAW in Tennessee, etc. • Doug Henwood reviews Thomas Piketty (text version here)
March 27, 2014 Philip Shelley on firing tenured faculty in Maine (for more search this Twitter hashtag) • César Ayala (UCLA) and Rafael Bernabe (University of Puerto Rico), authors of Puerto Rico in the American Century: A History since 1898, on the Puerto Rican economic mess
March 20, 2014 Anatol Lieven on Ukraine • Micah Uetricht, author of Strike for America, on the Chicago Teachers Union
March 13, 2014 Andrew Ross, author of Creditocracy, on debt and resistance • Evelyn McDonnell, author of Queens of Noise, on The Runaways
March 6, 2014 Greg Grandin, author of Empire of Necessity, on the real history behind Melville's Benito Cereno •Melissa Gira Grant, author of Playing the Whore, on sex work as work
February 27, 2014 George Ciccariello-Maher, author of We Created Chavez, on the unrest in Venezuela • Adolph Reed, author of this article, on the long, sad decline of the American left
February 20, 2014 Richard Walker, co-author with Suresh Lodha of The Atlas of California, on the Golden State’s physical and social geography, history, economy, ecology
January 30, 2014 Laura Newland, author of Chasing Zeroes, on how Wall Street is messing up college life • excerpts from Kshama Sawant’s response to the State of the Union • Tom Philpott on GMOs and ag tech
January 23, 2014 Christian Parenti on nature, capital, and the state • Anne Elizabeth Moore on political unrest in Cambodia
January 16, 2014 Stephanie Coontz on why men need feminism • Branko Milanovic on the world income distribution (paper here)
January 9, 2014 (back after holiday reruns) two interviews recorded on a visit to Lisbon: economist Ricardo Paes Mamede and labor historian Raquel Varela on Portugal and the eurocrisis
December 19, 2013 (back after fundraising hiatus) Sam Gindin, former advisor to the Canadian Auto Workers Union, on why unions need a left • Christy Thornton, grad student organizer at NYU, on unions and the corporate university
December 5, 2013 Mark Fisher, author of “Exiting the Vampire Castle” and Capitalist Realism, on Russell Brand, identitarianism, and depressive hedonia • George Scialabba, author of For The Republic, on democracy & plutocracy
November 21, 2013 Jennifer Silva, author of Coming Up Short, on the consciousness of younger working-class adults • Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute on what has and hasn’t been driving wage inequality (paper here)
November 14, 2013 Richard Seymour on the politics of austerity in the UK (here’s the pic of David Cameron preaching austerity from a gold lectern) • Arun Gupta looks behind the fast food workers organizing campagin (article here)
November 7, 2013 Max Blumenthal, author of Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel, on repression and daily life in that country
October 31, 2013 Michelle Chen, author of this article, on how drug companies use patents to screw the sick • Mark Ames on libertarianism and the Koch Bros. network
October 24, 2013 Bruce Bartlett, former Republican, on the lunacy of his former party • Isaac William Martin, author of Rich People’s Movements, on the history of popular mobilizations to untax elites (i.e., the Tea Party is nothing new)
October 17, 2013 Jodi Dean, professor of political science at Hobart & William Smith and author of The Communist Horizon, on the need for a left party • Kshama Sawant on her campaign as an open socialist for the Seattle city council [This program was a return after KPFA fundraising hiatus—if you want to keep these shows coming, please support KPFA and mention Behind the News.]
September 19, 2013 Daniel Denvir on the crisis in Philadelphia public schools • Jonathan Crary, author of 24/7, on the ill effects of always-on culture
September 12, 2013 Sanjay Reddy on the Indian economy • Jesse Walker, author of The United States of Paranoia, on conspiracism
Sepember 5, 2013 Greg Shupak, author of this article, on the bad effects of NATO’s Libyan adventure • Monica Potts on the declining life expectancy of poor white women • Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak on Gramsci (excerpts from an August 24 talk at the Gramsci Monument)
August 29, 2013 Mariana Mazzucato, author of The Entrepreneurial State, on the vastly unacknowledged role of the state in supporting technological breakthroughs • Anna Allanbrook, principal of the Brooklyn New School, on education, progressive and otherwise
August 22, 2013 Darius Charney of the Center for Constitutional Rights on the NYPD’s odious stop & frisk strategy • Philip Mirowski, author of Never Let A Serious Crisis Go To Waste, on the durable ideology of neoliberalism
August 15, 2013 Thomas Sugrue, author of The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit, on the long history behind that city’s bankruptcy filing • Alfred Blumstein on crime and punishment stats
August 8, 2013 Penny Lewis, author of Hardhats, Hippies, and Hakws: The Vietnam Antiwar Movement as Myth and Memory, on how elites didn’t oppose that war and the working class didn’t support it, and what that means today
July 18, 2013 Kathi Weeks, author of The Problem With Work, on less work, more money • Steve Horn, author of this article, on the Obama-linked liberal foundation at the heart of public school privatization
July 11, 2013Gilbert Achcar of SOAS on the uprising and coup in Egypt • Adolph Reed on the new generation of (neoliberal) black politicians (with a coda on how poverty came dominate American discourse on inequality)
June 27, 2013 Rachel Kushner on art, politics, and her novel The Flamethrowers • Mark Mizruchi, author of The Fracturing of the Corporate Elite, on the rot of the managerial class
June 20, 2013 Chase Madar, author of The Passion of Bradley Manning (out in this new edition) on Manning & Edward Snowden • Mark Dery, author of All The Young Dudes, on glam rock & straight male sexuality
June 13, 2013 Alan Finlayson on the ideology of Bonoism (which is the ideology of hip capitalists) • Betsy Hartmann on the durable toxic appeal of Thomas Malthus
June 6, 2013 Sungur Savran on the Turkish uprisings • Slavoj Zizek on the limits of spontaneity (excerpt from a conference talk—full video here) • Lee Badgett on LGB poverty (paper here)
May 30, 2013 Harry Browne, author of Frontman: Bono (In the Name of Power), on the dreadfulness that is Paul Hewson • Eamonn Fingleton on how Japan isn’t as bad off as they’d like you to think
May 23, 2013 David Cay Johnston, columnist for Tax Analysts, on the IRS scandal • Richard Katz, editor of The Oriental Economist Report, on the long Japanese slump and the prospects for Abenomics
May 16, 2013 Barbara Garson, author of Down the Up Escalator, on how people are coping with the Great Recession, its aftermath, and 40 years of general decline (updates to the book here)
May 9, 2013 Corey Robin, political scientist at Brooklyn College and author of The Reactionary Mind, on how the right thinks (with additional discussion of this essay on Nietzsche, Hayek, etc.)
May 2, 2013 Mark Blyth, author of Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea, on just that
April 25, 2013 Alex Vitale on the militarization of police forces • Josh Eidelson on spreading worker actions against Walmart and fast food
April 18, 2013 Minqi Li on the Chinese economy • George Ciccariello-Maher, author of We Created Chavez, on the social movements that allowed for Hugo Chavez’ emergence and he in turn stimulated
April 11, 2013 Tom Mills (author of this article) and Richard Seymour (author of this one) on the dreadful Margaret Thatcher
April 4, 2013 Kate Losse, who spent five years at Facebook and wrote about it in The Boy Kings, on Sheryl Sandberg’s “lean-in” corporate feminism (which she reviewed here) • Ahmad Shokr, historian and journalist, on Egypt’s economic troubles
March 28, 2013 Terry Kupers on the psychological effects of prison • Haley Sweetland Edwards, author of this article, how Wall Street took over Dodd-Frank
March 21, 2013 Yanis Varoufakis on the economies of Australia, Cyprus, and Greece • Jonathan Westin of Fast Food Forward on organizing fast food workers in NYC
March 14, 2013 Özgür Orhangazi, author of this paper, on the economics of Venezuela under Hugo Chávez • George Ciccariello-Maher, author of the imminently forthcoming We Created Chavez, on the politics of Venezuela under Hugo Chávez
March 7, 2013 Robert Gordon on the end of growth (paper here) • Adolph Reed, author this review essay, on some recent “race” movies (Django Unchained, etc.)
February 14, 2013 Barbara Fields, professor of history of Columbia and co-author (with her sister Karen Fields) of Racecraft, on the ideology of race in the U.S. and its relation to material practice The KPFA version of this show was a fundraiser for the station. If you like these podcasts, please contribute to KPFA. No KPFA, no “Behind the News.”
February 7, 2013 Diana Furchtgott-Roth of the Manhattan Institute makes the corporate libertarian case for immigration (paper here) • Joel Schalit on the complexities of a cultural boycott of Israel, and the rise of theo-fascism there
January 31, 2013 Helaine Olen, author of Pound Foolish, on the personal financial advice racket • Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute, co-author of this paper, on what’s driving wage polarization
January 24, 2013 Natasha Lennard, author of this article, on the Aaron Swartz case and prosecutorial abuse of power • Nikihil Goyal, fresh out of high school, on the education “reform” agenda
January 17, 2013 Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin, authors of The Making of Global Capitalism, on U.S. imperial power, etc. [rerun of September 27, 2012, show, with some music added]
January 10, 2013 Sarah Jaffe, author of this article, class angles feminism • Greg Grandin, professor of Latin American history at NYU, on Chavez, Venezuela, and social democracy in Latin America
January 3, 2013 Brad DeLong on fiscal follies (apologies for the wretched audio quality—damn cell phones) • Seth Ackerman, author of this article, on a possible socialism
December 27, 2012 Michael Dorsey on the Doha climate conference • Yanis Varoufakis on the perpetual Eurocrisis, with an emphasis on Greece
December 20, 2012 Sasha Lilley, editor of Catastrophism, on why basing politics on disaster scenarios isn’t such a good idea • Mark Ames, author of Going Postal and co-editor of NSFWCorp, on rampage shootings, the politics of gun control, and the reactionary worldview of the NRA
December 13, 2012 Jamie Webster of PFC Energy on the U.S. oil boom • Yasmin Nair of Against Equality on Gay Inc. and what’s wrong with same-sex marriage, DADT, and hate crimes legislation
December 6, 2012 Jane McAlevey, author of Raising Expectations (And Raising Hell), on how to revive the U.S. labor movement The KPFA version of this show was a fundraiser. If you like these shows and want to keep them coming, please consider contributing to KPFA. If you do, mention “Behind the News”!
November 29, 2012 Frank Bardacke, author of Trampling Out the Vintage, on Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers
November 22, 2012 James Galbraith on the fiscal cliff • Walter Benn Michaels, author of this and this and this, on the election and the victory of left neoliberalism
November 8, 2012 [return after being blown off course by Hurricane Sandy] Sarah Jaffe on Occupy Sandy • Anne Elizabeth Moore, author of Hip Hop Apsara, on Cambodia
October 25, 2012 Jodi Dean, professor of political science at Hobart & William Smith and author of The Communist Horizon, on how we need to reclaim that cuss-word and stop fetishizing “democracy”
October 18, 2012 Josh Eidelson on the Walmart strikes (his Salon stories are here) • Ethan Pollack of the Economic Policy Institute on green jobs
October 11, 2012 David Cay Johnston, author of The Fine Print, on how Corporate America rips us off [This show was a fundraiser for KPFA; this is an edited version for the web, without the pitching. Please support KPFA if you want to keep these coming.]
October 4, 2012 Matt Kennard, author of Irregular Army, on the neo-Nazis, gangbangers, and sad/broken people who populate our military, and the damage they’ve done and will do. [This show was a fundraiser for KPFA; this is an edited version for the web, without the pitching. Please support KPFA if you want to keep these coming.]
September 27, 2012 Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin, authors of The Making of Global Capitalism, on U.S. imperial power, etc. [This show was a fundraiser for KPFA; this is an edited version for the web, without the pitching. Please support KPFA if you want to keep these coming.]
September 20, 2012 Bruce Bartlett on his scary former GOP comrades • Jared Bernstein on income, poverty, and the 47%
September 13, 2012 Josh Bivens of the Economic Policy Institute on the State of Working America • Melissa Gira Grant, author of this fine piece, on sex workers and their self-appointed saviors
September 6, 2012 Christian Parenti talks about the politics of climate change on the occasion of the publication of the paperback version of Tropic of Chaos
August 30, 2012 Joel Schalit on a militarized, post-democratic Israel • David Cay Johnston on Romney's taxes
August 23, 2012 Keith Hampton on Facebook etc. is not turning us into alienated oddballs • Hugo Bonin of CLASSE (the union of provincial student unions) on the Québec student strikes
August 16, 2012 Michelle Goldberg on Paul Ryan • Charles Juntikka, Manhattan’s leading personal insolvency attorney, on bankruptcy (and why it makes sense to file)
August 9, 2012 Partial conservative renegade and former Bush speechwriter David Frum on the right, and his roman à clef about Washington, Patriots. [The text of the intro, in which I recount my history on the right in condensed form, is here. The headnote includes links to longer versions of the story.]
July 19, 2012 Art Goldhammer of Harvard’s Center for European Studies on the political economy of Hollande’s France • Liza Featherstone, Report Card columnist for the Brooklyn Rail, on neoliberal school reform
July 12, 2012 Enrique Diaz-Alvarez of Ebury Partners on the Spanish crisis (and the German mind) • Michael Dorsey, professor of environmental studies at Dartmouth, on Rio+20
July 5, 2012 Adolph Reed, author of one of the pieces on this Nation thread, on the crisis in labor • Yanis Varoufakis, now economist in residence at Valve Software, talks about the economics of gaming, and the anarcho-syndicalist organization of the firm
June 21, 2012 Yanis Varoufakis, now economist in residence at Valve Software, on the Greek elections and the reasons for German Sturheit • Amber Hollibaugh, co-director of Queers for Economic Justice, and Kenyon Farrow, former director of QEJ, on the New Queer Agenda
June 14, 2012 Glen Ford of the Black Agenda Report on the right-wing roots of Newark mayor Cory Booker • John Nichols of The Nation (and author of Uprising: How Wisconsin Renewed the Politics of Protest) on how the Wisconsin uprising got turned into an electoral campaign • Sam Gindin, now of York U but once of the Canadian Auto Workers, on the crisis in labor (transcript here; another great interview with Sam here)
June 9, 2012 Adam Davidson, host of NPR’s Planet Money and columnist for the New York Times Magazine, on finance, innovation, bourgeois ideology, journalism, and being mean on the Internet (a conversation that was prompted by this piece of mine) [Davidson columns discussed include: Wall Street, Bain dude, Honduras] • full conversation (unedited, except to remove some patter at the beginning and to suppress several volume spikes) is here
June 2, 2012 DH on Bob Fitch (an abbreviated aural rendition of this) • Ben Jacobs on the Wisconsin recall • Stan Collender on the fiscal cliff
May 26, 2012 Vijay Prashad, author of Arab Spring, Libyan Winter, on the topics implied by the book title • Mark Dery, author of I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts, on pop culture, beheading, David Bowie
May 19, 2012 Chase Madar, author of The Passion of Bradley Manning, on Manning, WikiLeaks, secrecy, and mass solitary confinement (truncated fundraiser edition: please contribute to KPFA and keep these shows coming!)
May 5, 2012 James Galbraith, author of Inequality and Instability, talks about inequality and instability
April 28, 2012 James Livingston, author of Against Thrift, speaks up in favor of the consumer culture as a liberatory thing
April 21, 2012 Gar Lipow, author of Solving the Climate Crisis through Social Change, on the politics of averting climate change • Edward Luce, author of Time To Start Thinking, on American decline
April 7, 2012 Joel Schalit, co-editor of Souricant, on anti-minority violence in Europe 8 Saadia Toor, author of The State of Islam, on the history and politics of Pakistan
March 31, 2012 Dan Lazare on the awfulness of the Supreme Court (excerpt from a 2005 interview) • Jamie Webster of PFC Energy, on the state of the oil market • Peter Frase, author of this, on the problem with sex work: work
March 24, 2012 Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research on the Argentine model of default • Madhusree Mukerjee, author of Churchill’s Secret War, on Churchill, Britain, India, and famine during World War II
March 17, 2012 Alan Beattie, international economics editor of the Financial Times and author of the Kindle-only Who’s in Charge Here?, on botched policy responses to the crisis • Steingrímur Sigfússon, former finance minister and current Minister of Economic Affairs of Iceland, on that country’s unorthodox strategy towards the crisis
March 10, 2012 Vijay Prashad on Syria, Libya, and why not to give up hope on the Arab Spring • Sean Jacobs on that Kony nonsense, African reality, and imperial designs
March 3, 2012 Trudy Lieberman on health care reform so far • Yanis Varoufakis on the Greek debt deal and economic collapse
February 25, 2012 back after KPFA fundraising hiatus—if you like this show, please support the station now!and mention Behind the News if you do—there's a best of BtN premium, consisting of 26 of my best interviews of the last decade, available for a pledge of $75 Gary Weiss, author of Ayn Rand Nation, on her cult and influence • Adolph Reed on Black History Month, the return of the ghoulish Charles Murray, and politics in gloomy times
January 28, 2012 Kevin Gray on South Carolina • Catherine Liu, author of American Idyll, on education, testing, anti-intellectualism, and the bogus politics of “anti-elitism”
January 21, 2012 Erin Siegal, author of Finding Fernanda, on adoption tragedies • David Cay Johnston on why Mitt is lightly taxed
January 14, 2012 Lane Kenworthy, author of this paper (PDF), on just how much economic growth trickles down, and why (spoiler: U.S. does very badly) • Enrique Diaz-Alvarez, chief strategist for Ebury Partners, on the eurocrisis, with an emphasis on Spain
January 7, 2012 Michael Taft on the Irish depression • Jodi Dean, co-author of this, on the vexing question of OWS & “demands”
December 31, 2011 Christopher Jencks on inequality
December 24, 2011Christine Ahn & Tim Shorrock on North Korea • Aaron "Zunguzungu" Bady on Occupy Oakland
December 17, 2011 Christopher Hitchens (from 2002) on Orwell • Andrew Ross on student debt repudiation (sign up or endorse here!) • Phil Mattera on job subsidies
December 3, 2011 Michael Dorsey, professor of environmental studies at Dartmouth, on the Durban climate summit • Bélen Fernández, author of The Imperial Messenger, on that egregious blowhard Thomas Friedman
November 26, 2011 Greg Graffin, lead singer of Bad Religion and author of Anarchy Evolution, on evolution and punk rock • Jeffrey Sachs, the economist formerly known as Dr Shock, on the mess that is the USA, a topic he explores in The Price of Civilization (see my review of his last book here)
November 19, 2011 Frances Fox Piven of the CUNY grad center—whose greatest hits are collected in Who’s Afraid of Frances Fox Piven?—on the history of social movements and Occupy Wall Street
November 12, 2011 Yanis Varoufakis on the latest developments in the Eurocrisis • Ramsey Kanaan, co-founder of PM Press, on the theory and practice of anarchism
November 5, 2011 Erica Seifert of Greenberg Quinlan Rossner Research on the public mood: pissed off about Wall Street and inequality • Dorian Warren of Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs on Occupy Wall Street as politics and social movement
October 28, 2011 back after three-week fundraising hiatus! sociologist Alex Vitale on cops and protest • journalist Sarah Jaffe on OWS, mostly
October 1, 2011 Corey Robin, political scientist at Brooklyn College and author of The Reactionary Mind, on how the right thinks
September 24, 2011 I visit the Occupy Wall Street demos (my report in words and pictures is here) • Rohit Malpani, Oxfam advisor, on land grabs (see here for report) • Steve Keen, author of Debunking Economics, debunks economics
September 17, 2011 DH on the income, poverty, and health insurance numbers • Margaret Flowers of PNHP on the health insurance mess and the state of single-payer • Maria Armoudian, author of Kill the Messenger, on the media and its relation to armed chaos
September 10, 2011 Mike Lofgren, former Congressional staffer and author of this spirited farewell to his long-time party, describes the furious insanity of the GOP • Jonathan Kay, author of Among the Truthers, and Kathy Olmsted, UC–Davis prof and author of Real Enemies: Conspiracy Theories and American Democracy, on conspiriacism, esp the 9/11 kind
September 3, 2011 David Cay Johnston on how corps and the megarich get away with paying almost no taxes (his Reuters column on GE is here) • Adolph Reed on the Dems, the inflated threat of the Tea Party, and the diminishing usefulness of race as a political cateogry
August 27, 2011 Mark Brenner, director of Labor Notes, reflects on the state of labor as Labor Day approaches • Alexander Cockburn, occasional Nation columnist and co-editor of Counterpunch, on the media and the media criticism racket
August 20, 2011 Max Ajl, the Jewbonics blogger, on why Israelis are in the streets and how talk of the Occupation is not welcome • Yanis Varoufakis updates the eurocrisis as it spreads westwards
August 13, 2011 Dacher Keltner of UC–Berkeley on the psychology of class and social interactions • David Graeber, author of Debt: The First 5,000 Years, provides an anthropologist’s POV on money and debt
July 30, 2011 Joel Schalit on Brevik, the European right, its attitude towards Israel, and Israel’s own right • Brad DeLong on the political economy of austerity
July 23, 2011 James Galbraith on deficit hysteria and the single-volume collection of four books by his father, John Kenneth Galbraith, published by the Library of Amerca
July 16, 2011 Amber Hollibaugh, interim director of Queers for Economic Justice, on the limits of same-sex marriage (see here for more) • Jeff Madrick, author of The Age of Greed, on the emergence of today’s icky economic order
July 2, 2011 Christian Parenti, author of Tropic of Chaos, talks about the effects of climate change amidst state collapse, plentiful weaponry, and neoliberalism
June 25, 2011 Abe Sauer, writer for The Awl, on what’s been going on in Wisconsin since the great February upsurge • Abby Rapoport of The Texas Observer on Texas gov Rick Perry • Jon Bakija, co-author of this paper, on how and why the rich have gotten richer
June 18, 2011 Ken Morris, co-author of Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin, on that overexposed curiosity • Julia Ott, author of When Wall Street Met Main Street, on big finance’s attempts to appear democratic
June 11, 2011 Vincent Reinhart at the Council on Foreign Relations on Greece and the political trick of austerity (thanks to the CFR for allowing broadcast; full event here) • Greg Grandin, author of Fordlandia, on all the great political developments in South America
June 4, 2011 Another Hoover interview: Morris Fiorina on American public opinion and the nonexistence of the “culture war” • And in non-Hoover content, Yanis Varoufakis updates the Greek and EU crises
May 28, 2011 Hoover Institution special. Two interviews from my week as a Hoover media fellow. Paul Gregory on Russian politics (Putin vs. Medvedev) • Terry Moe on school “reform” (i.e., charters, testing, unionbusting, etc.)
May 14, 2011 Deepa Kumar, author of this article, on political Islam [The last 20 minutes of the broadcast version of this show was devoted to fundraising for KPFA. This has been excised for the web version. But if you like what you hear, please donate.]
April 23, 2011 James Galbraith on deficit hysteria • Matt Taibbi, author of this article (and this one too), on where all that Fed bailout money went, and how no one went to jail for the financial meltdown
April 16, 2011 Joel Schalit, author of this piece, on Israeli identity and the problems with saying that the country may be turning “fascist” • Michael Heaney, co-author of this paper, on how Obama demobilized the antiwar movement • Roger Lowenstein, author of The End of Wall Street, on the financial crisis and its aftermath
April 9, 2011 Carrie Lane, author of A Company of One, on how unemployed tech workers see themselves (as heroic, self-reliant questers, mostly) • Adolph Reed on the uselessness of TV liberals, the limits of spontaneity in politics, and the sponginess of race as a politlcal and analytical category
March 26, 2011 Gilbert Achcar of SOAS (and author of this article, and this one too) on Libya • Joel Beinin on the labor roots of Egypt’s uprising, and the modern political economy of the country since Nasser (see his report on the subject here)
March 19, 2011 Abe Sauer, who’s been covering Wisconsin for The Awl, on Walker, the protests, privatization • Steve Early, author of The Civil Wars in U.S. Labor, on the fights in & around Andy Stern’s SEIU
March 12, 2011 Seth Mnookin, author of The Panic Virus, on the spurious and destructive fantasy of a link between vaccines and autism • reprise of a 2006 interview with the splendid Robert Fitch, who died on March 4, about his book Solidarity for Sale and the role of corruption in the sad decline of American unions (and a brief memoir of his work)
March 5, 2011 Jodi Dean, keeper of the I Cite blog and author of Blog Theory, interviewed in December on what digital culture is doing to us, returns to tell us how events in Cairo and Madison may have changed her mind • Joel Rogers of the University of Wisconsin on that state and its labor uprising
February 5, 2011 Lance Lochner, author of this NBER paper, on the social returns to education (lower crime, better health) • Vijay Prashad of Trinity College on the Egyptian revolution
January 29, 2011 Mark LeVine of the University of California–Irvine (and author of Heavy Metal Islam) and Gilbert Achcar of SOAS (and author of The Arabs and the Holocaust) talk (separately) about the popular uprisings in the Middle East • Bhaskar Sunkara on the new magazine he edits, Jacobin
January 22, 2011 Nicholas Carr, author of The Shallows, on what the web is doing to our brains and minds • Robert Fatton, author of Haiti’s Predatory Republic, on Baby Doc’s return, the failure to recover from earthquake, the horrid class system
January 15, 2011 Mark Ames, author of Going Postal and editor of The Exiled, on Tucson and how the U.S. is like a decaying Russia • Jefferson Cowie, author of Stayin' Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class, on the politics of that unfairly maligned decade
January 8, 2011 (return after holiday reruns) Tyson Slocum of Public Citizen on the state of energy and climate politics in DC • Lucia Green-Weiskel, author of this Nation piece, on Cancún and Chinese energy and climate politics
December 18, 2010 Lucas Zeise, columnist with Financial Times Deutschland, on why Germany is taking such a hard line on the eurocrisis • Jodi Dean, keeper of the I Cite blog and author of Blog Theory, on what digital culture is doing to our minds, our politics, and our society
December 11, 2010 Elizabeth Currid-Halkett, author of Starstruck, on celebrity today • Joshua Holland, author of The Fifteen Biggest Lies About the Economy, talks about several of those lies (for the rest, buy the book)
December 4, 2010 Rebecca Thiess of the Economic Policy Institute on “progressive” deficit reduction (see her issue brief here) • Kyle Ash of Greenpeace on the climate negotiations in Cancún
November 27, 2010 Paul Street on the Tea Party, the dismalness of the Dems, and Obama’s elegant personal fit with that dismalness • Cordelia Fine, author of Delusions of Gender, on how all those claims of biological roots to differences between men & women are nonsense
November 20, 2010 Monica Potts, author of this article, on (the lack of) green jobs • Yanis Varoufakis, author of this article, on a better way to do a eurozone bailout
November 13, 2010 Leonie Haimson of Class Size Matters on the nomination of Cathie Black to run NYC’s public schools, and the whole education reform scam • Richard Walker on California’s crises
October 30, 2010 David Cay Johnston on the dismal state of incomes in the USA (see important update here) • Michael Hudson, author of The Monster, on the subprime beast
October 23, 2010 (KPFA only) Michael Taft on the Irish crisis • Yanis Varoufakis on the Greek and broader eurozone crises
September 30, 2010 Robert Paul Wolff on Harvard’s honoring of the odious Martin Peretz (and Harvard itself) • Antonia Juhasz, director of the energy program at Global Exchange, on the filth of oil, with an emphasis on Chevron
September 23, 2010 Eric Garris, founder of Antiwar.com, on the antiwar movement, the libertarian perspective on it, and the effort to unite opponents across the spectrum • Gary Shteyngart, author of Super Sad True Love Story, on life amidst anxious imperial decline
September 16, 2010 Stephen Mihm, co-author of Crisis Economics, on The Crisis in historical perspective • Two segments on Cuba: Julia Sweig in an excerpt from a Council of Foreign Relations conference call (full audio here) about her conversation with Fidel, and consultant Kirby Jones on the Cuban economy and U.S. companies doing business there
September 9, 2010 Liz McNichol of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities on the fiscal crisis of the states • Yanis Varoufakis of the University of Athens fact-checks Michael Lewis Vanity Fair article on Greece
September 4, 2010 (KPFA version) Jesse Eisinger talks about how banks flipped CDOs to each other, made billions, stuck us with the bill (article here) • Michael Yates talks about the miserable mood out there in the Real America
August 26, 2010 (back after long fundraising break) Paul Street, author of The Empire’s New Clothes, on the sorrows of Brand Obama • Christian Parenti, author of this article, on how the gov can kickstart the adoption of green technologies by the way it buys
July 29, 2010 Michael Lind on infrastructure, who’s behind the parties, and the USA’s evolution into an oligarchy • Astra Taylor on digital serfdom
July 22, 2010 Yves Smith, keeper of the Naked Capitalism blog and author of Econned, on the contribution of the dismal science to the financial crisis, and how Wall Street is worse than ever (rerun of March interview) • Rob Weissman, president of Public Citizen, on the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill
July 15, 2010 Corey Robin on Ayn Rand (see his review here) • Alyssa Katz, author of Our Lot (just out in paperback!), on the state of the housing market
July 8, 2010 Sean Keenan, proprietor of the indie label Blanco Music and author of this great rant, on how music is faring in the Internet era • Ruy Teixeira, author of this paper, on how demographics favor the Dems (for what that’s worth) • Bill Hartung on military spending today
July 1, 2010 Cynthia Enloe, splendid analyst of gender and the militarization, on the McChyrstal affair • Richard Seymour, author of The Meaning of David Cameron, on the new British government
June 24, 2010 Matthew Lasar on Pacifica governance • Max Fraser, author of this Nation article, on Andy Stern & SEIU • Keith Gessen and Hedge Fund Man, collaborators on Diary of a Very Bad Year, talk about the wacky bubble days
June 17, 2010Gary Rivlin, author of Broke USA, on how sleazy businesses make bundles by lending to the poor • Sarah Ellison, author of War At the Wall Street Journal, on Rupert Murdoch’s takeover of Dow Jones
May 29, 2010 (KPFA only) Norman Finkelstein, author of This Time We Went Too Far, talks about Israel’s invasion of Gaza in late 2009, and about changing U.S. public opinion towards that country
May 8, 2010(KPFA version) DH on conspiracism (cont.) • Emily Gould, blogger and author of The Heart Says Whatever, on the new media world, kids today, etc. • Rob Weissman, president of Public Citizen, on how Wall Street gets its way in DC
April 29, 2010 DH on conspiracism • Enrique Diaz-Alvarez, hedge fund trader, on the Eurocrisis • Kert Davies, research director of Greenpeace USA, on climate politics and the oil spill
April 22, 2010 Mark Weisbrot of CEPR on Latin America • Steve Early on the departure of Andy Stern from SEIU
April 15, 2010Robert Scott of the Economic Policy Institute on how China’s currency manipulation kills American jobs (paper here) • Matt Taibbi on how Wall Street ripped off Jefferson County, Alabama, and the U.S. government
April 8, 2010Diane Ravitch, former conservative educational reformer turned critic of the privatization agenda and author of The Death and Life of the Great American School System, on the awfulness of the now-bipartisan scheme of testing, charters, union-busting, etc.
April 3, 2010(KPFA version) Ann Harrison, labor economist at Berkeley, on the effects of the anti-sweatshop campaign on Indonesian footwear workers (paper here) • Steven Hill, author of Europe’s Promise, on the Old World as an economic model for the U.S.
March 25, 2010Tom Athanasiou of EcoEquity on the science and politics of climate change • Steffie Woolhandler of Physicians for a National Health Program on the health care abomination
March 18, 2010Greg Albo, Sam Gindin, and Leo Panitch of York University, authors of In and Out of Crisis, on the current economic mess: origins, consequences, possibilities
March 13, 2010 Yves Smith, keeper of the Naked Capitalism blog and author of Econned, on the contribution of the dismal science to the financial crisis, and how Wall Street is worse than ever • Robert Pollin of UMass on how to create 18 million new jobs (see article here)
March 4, 2010David Cay Johnston on the Austin IRS suicide pilot and how the rich have largely given up on paying taxes • Yanis Varoufakis on the Greek economic crisis (and Germany’s designs)
February 6, 2010(KPFA version) Mark Brenner, director of Labor Notes, on the state of the working class today (not so great, actually) • Bill Fletcher, executive editor of The Black Commentator, on the need for the left to “get serious”
January 28, 2010Dan La Botz on what happened to the working class • Stephanie Coontz, professor of history at Evergreen State and director of research and education for the Council on Contemporary Families, on the state of the family and gender relations today
January 21, 2010 Robert Fatton on the history and social structure of Haiti, and how it's compounded the misery of natural disaster
January 14, 2010 Robert Fatton on the history and social structure of Haiti (excerpts from 2004 interviews—originals here and here) • Tom Geoghegan on the evil thing known as the Senate filibuster • Alyssa Katz, author of this piece (and the excellent book of Our Lot) on the state of the housing market and what good things we can do with all the see-through condos left over from the bubble
January 9, 2010 (KPFA version) Michael Rose of the Bureau of National Affairs on the BNA’s survey of economists’ projections for 2010 • Cyrus Bina of the University of Minnesota–Morris on Iran
December 31, 2009 David Himmelstein on the emerging Democratic health reform schemes • Dennis Brutus on South Africa (repeat of July 2008 interview in memory of the great poet and activist who died on December 26)
December 24, 2009 Sam Gindin, former economic advisor to the Canadian Auto Workers union, on bringing the working class back into politics (see his article here) • Lucia Green-Weiskel of the Beijing-based NGO Innovation Center for Energy and Transportation on the Copenhagen climate conference and China’s role in climate politics
December 17, 2009Gar Lipow on the Copenhagen climate conference and the technological path to a post-carbon future (download his book and other stuff here) • Kevin Alexander Gray on South Carolina, white supremacy, and Obama and black America
December 10, 2009Greg Grandin, author of Fordlandia, on Honduras and other Latin American hotspots • Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Bright-Sided, on enforced good cheer in the USA
December 5, 2009(KPFA version) Letitia James of the New York City Council and Dana Berliner of the Institute for Justice on the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn and the depredations of eminent domain across the U.S. • Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute on EPI's jobs program
November 28, 2009 (KPFA only) DH on financial regulation • Bob Meister, professor of political science at the UC–Santa Cruz, on the crisis in the University of California system (his articles on the topic are here and here)
November 19, 2009 Curt Ellis, co-producer of Big River (and King Corn), on the toxic evils of agribusiness • Joel Schalit, author of Israel vs. Utopia, on the Israeli politics and identity, and the country's relations with the U.S.
November 14, 2009 (KPFA version) David Arkush and Tyson Slocum of Public Citizen on what's going on with financial regulation (for LBO’s take, see here) • Monty Neill of FairTest on education policy, testing, charter schools, etc.
October 31, 2009 (KPFA only) Former Reagan advisor Bruce Bartlett, author of The New American Economy, pronounces supply-side economics dead and embraces a VAT • Lauren Weber, author of In Cheap We Trust, praises tightfistedness
October 8, 2009 Yanis Varoufakis on the Greek elections and the economy’s troubles • Greg Grandin on the coup in Honduras
October 3, 2009(KPFA version) Susan Marks, author of Aqua Shock, on the water crises • Walter Benn Michaels, author of this and this and this, on neoliberalism’s use of “diversity”
September 17, 2009Kari Lydersen, author of Revolt on Goose Island, on the Republic Doors and Windows worker takeover • Lee Badgett, author of When Gay People Get Married, on what happens to people and societies when same-sexers tie the knot
September 10, 2009Max Blumenthal, author of Republican Gomorrah, on the takeover of the GOP by the fundie nuts • Michael Yates, author of In and Out of the Working Class, on the working class, teaching economics, and the UFW (see his LBO piece on César Chávez here)
September 5, 2009 (KPFA version) Wallace Shawn, just out with this collection of Essays, on bourgeois guilt and the contradictions of privilege • Bruce Dixon, managing editor of the Black Agenda Report, on black and liberal confusion over that corporate shill Obama
August 27, 2009 Ned Sublette, author of The Year Before the Floodand The World That Made New Orleans, on that city, its culture and music, and the aftermath of Katrina (plus the radio premiere of his song, “Between Piety and Desire”) • Adolph Reed on the dismal state of the left and the waning usefulness of “race” as a category
August 20, 2009 Tariq Ali on Pakistan and the ridiculous election in Afghanistan • Astra Taylor, director of the documentary Examined Life (and editor of the book made from the interviews for the film) on talking with contemporary philosophers (with some sound from Slavoj Zizek, Judith Butler, and Sunny Taylor)
August 15, 2009(KPFA version) Drawn from the original programming material in a WBAI fundraiser (please contribute if you like what you get here—don’t be a free-rider!): Sandy Cioffi, director of the documentary Sweet Crude, talks about oil and resistance in Nigeria • Christian Parenti, journalist, talks about Fixer: The Taking of Ajmal Naqshbandi, a film about his friend and colleague who was kidnapped and killed by the Taliban
August 1, 2009(KPFA version) Josh Bivens of the Economic Policy Instute on the weak expansion and killer recession • labor journalist Steve Early, author of Embedded With Organized Labor, on covering the union movement (program contains ten minutes of musical and other filler because Bivens didn’t answer his phone at the appointed time)
July 23, 2009 Ervand Abrahamian on the Iranian elections and their aftermath • Michael Thomas, author of Love and Money, on money and love (and Goldman Sachs)
July 16, 2009 Katha Pollitt on her new book of poetry, The Mind–Body Problem• Len Rodberg of PNHP and Queens College on the awfulness of health care reform, DC-style
July 9, 2009 Matthew Lasar, author of Uneasy Listening, on Pacifica governance (all Pacifica producers were required to do a 15-minute segment on the network elections) • Sam Gindin, now of York University and formerly of the Canadian Auto Workers, on the crisis in auto (more in this piece) • Matt Taibbi, author of this hit piece, on the crafty bloodsuckers at Goldman Sachs
July 2, 2009 Leo Panitch, author of this cover story in Foreign Policy, on why the bourgeoisie is interested in Marx (and, of course, why they should be) • Jackson Lears, author of Rebirth of a Nation: The Making of Modern America, 1877-1920, on American regeneration (mainly through violence) after the Civil War
June 25, 2009 Alyssa Katz, author of Our Lot, on the homeownership fetish and the housing bubble/bust • Liza Featherstone (author of this article, and, it should be disclosed, wife/beloved of the host) and Adolph Reed on the burdens of college tuition and how the problem can be solved by making it free
June 18, 2009Dan Fleshler, author of Transforming America's Israel Lobby, on the exaggerated power of the lobby and what can be done about it • Hamid Dabashi of Columbia University on the Iranian election and its aftermath
June 11, 2009 Alfredo Corchado, Mexico bureau chief of the Dallas Morning News, on Mexican drug gangs on both sides of the border • Justin Fox, author of The Myth of the Rational Market, on the loopy notion of market efficiency and its toxic political effects
June 6, 2009(KPFA version) Steffie Woolhandler on the (very high) contribution of medical costs to personal bankruptcy (article here) • Bethany Moreton, author of To Serve God and Wal-Mart, on Christian free enterprise and the Behemoth of Bentonville
May 30, 2009 (KPFA only) Daniel Geary, author Radical Ambition, on the life and thought of C. Wright Mills • Claudia Goldin on the labor market penalty suffered by women who have a kid
May 23, 2009 (KPFA only) Vijay Prashad of Trinity College on the Indian elections (see his Counterpunch article here) • David Skeel of the University of Pennsylvania Law School on how bankruptcy (rather than trillion dollar checks) could be used to deal with the financial crisis
April 30, 2009 Andrew Ross, author of Nice Work If You Can Get It, on life and labor in precarious times • Michael Yates, author of Why Unions Matter, just out in a second edition, on just that topic
April 23, 2009William Robinson, UCSB sociology prof under attack by the Zionist lobby, on his case (more, with links, here and here) • Richard Seymour, keeper of the Lenin's Tomb blog and author of The Liberal Defense of Murder, on the U.S. left, and imperialism under Obama • Paul Mason, author of Meltdown, on The Crisis
April 16, 2009 Deborah Meier, progressive educator, on the awfulness of Bush's No Child Left Behind, which Obama is likely to retain • Adolph Reed on genes and politics, and politics without politics
April 9, 2009Kat Long, author of The Forbidden Apple, on the history of sex in NYC • Misha Glenny, author of McMafia, on the global criminal underground
April 4, 2009 (KPFA version) David Skeel of the University of Pennsylvania Law School on a possible GM bankruptcy • Kim Phillips-Fein, author of Invisible Hands, on business opposition to the New Deal and the long recovery of the right
March 26, 2009 Max Fraad Woolf and Nomi Prins on The Crisis, The Bailout, etc. • Steve Early on the weird SEIU–CNA reconciliation
March 19, 2009 Caitlin Macy, author of Spoiled, on life in & around the American upper class • Teresa Ghilarducci, author of When I'm Sixty-Four(as well as this paper) on pensions
March 12, 2009 Joel Magnuson, author of Mindful Economics, on the economics of capitalism and beyond • Aurora Meneghello and Serge Bakalian, who are making Default, a doc about student debt
March 7, 2009 (KPFA version) Rob Weissman (author of this report) on Wall Street's political contributions & the disastrous dereg agenda they bought • James Horney of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities on Obama's budget
February 28, 2009 (KPFA only) Jeff Madrick on The Crisis • David Himmelstein on Obama's health plans and the awfulness of the Massachusetts model
February 21, 2009 (KPFA only) Pratap Chatterjee, author of Halliburton's Army, on how Pentagon contracting makes it easier to go to war • Susie Bright, editor of X: The Erotic Treasury, on sex and politics
January 29, 2009 James Howard Kunstler, author most recently of World Made By Hand, on the decline of oil-based civilization, the horrors of suburbia, and the sickness of tattooing • Jeffrey Perry, biographer of Hubert Harrison, on the forgotten black radical who should be remembered
January 22, 2009Stephen Mihm, author of A Nation of Counterfeiters, on the giant role of fakery and fraud in American financial history • Sean Jacobs (his blog is here) on South Africa and the ANC's fall from grace
January 15, 2009Michael Lighty of the California Nurses Association on the economic impact of health care and a wished-for transition to single-payer (report here) • Nomi Prins and Max Fraad Wolff on the economic crisis
January 10, 2009David Bacon, author of Illegal People, and Michelle Wucker, author of Lockout (and director of WPI) on immigration • Sara Roy on the horrors of Gaza (KPFA version, includes commentary on December employment)
2008
December 11, 2008Charlie Komanoff on a plan to make NYC transit nearly free (by soaking cars) • Yanis Varoufakis on the Greek riots and Greek neoliberalism (This show was patched together from a two-hour WBAI fundraiser. Please contribute.)
December 4, 2008Preston Smith on "racial democracy" vs. social democracy, in 1940s Chicago and Obama's America • Anthony D'Costa on the Mumbai bombings and Indian neoliberalism
November 27, 2008Richard Seymour, keeper of the Lenin's Tomb blog and author of The Liberal Defense of Murder, on liberal imperialism • Bill Ayers, author of Fugitive Days and Barack Obama's old pal, on revolution, education, and social change
November 20, 2008Dan La Botz (author of this article) on the crisis in the auto industry - and the UAW • Reihan Salam, co-author of Grand New Party, great hope of the right, on the conservative movement's future
November 13, 2008Forrest Hylton on Obama's likely Latin American policy (and his top advisor on the area, Dan Restrepo) • Kate Gordon, co-director of the Apollo Alliance, on green jobs
November 6, 2008 Adolph Reed on Obama's election • Maliha Safri on immigrants in the U.S. labor market - especially one that's shrinking
October 30, 2008Bryant Welch, author of State of Confusion, puts American politics on the couch • Glenn Hurowitz of Greenpeace USA on financial crisis and climate change
October 23, 2008 Richard Portes of the London Business School on the Icelandic crisis • Patrick Cockburn, Iraq correspondent for The Independent and author of Muqtada (just out in an expanded paperback edition), on the Muqtada al-Sadr, the surge, and the future of the U.S. in Iraq
October 16, 2008 Ögmundur Jónasson, head of the Left Green delegation in the Icelandic parliament, on that country's financial crisis • Martin Wolf, Financial Times columnist and author of Fixing Global Finance, on The Crisis
October 9, 2008 David Smick, economic consultant and author of The World Is Curved, on The Crisis • Sarah Ludwig of NEDAP on foreclosures
October 4, 2008 (KPFA only) Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin on the financial crisis, neoliberalism, and the American empire - the end of what, if anything, exactly? (Their paper on the topic is here.)
September 18, 2008 This program was devoted to fundraising for WBAI and KPFA. The content was this interview with Tariq Ali. If you like Behind the News, please consider a contribution to WBAI and/or KPFA.
September 13, 2008(KPFA only) Robin Mills, author of The Myth of the Oil Crisis, on why peak oil is a crock • Bracken Hendricks of the Center for American Progress (and co-author of Apollo's Fire), on a green jobs program
August 28, 2008Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute on The State of Working America • Mark Ames on Russia, the closure of The eXile, and his depressing return to the USA
August 21, 2008 Dennis Perrin, author of Savage Mules, on the Dems as bloodthirsty imperialists • John Gulick on Russia, China, and the new configuration of imperial power
August 14, 2008 Moustafa Bayoumi, author of How Does It Feel To Be A Problem?, on being young and Arab in paranoid America • Christian Parenti, author of this Nation piece, on capitalism and class struggle in China
August 7, 2008 John Talbott, author of The Coming Crash in the Housing Market and Obamanomics, on the housing bust and Obamanomics • Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, contributor to Red State Rebels, on radicals in the heartland and the snobbery of the coastal left
July 17, 2008Sue Sturgis of the Institute for Southern Studies on the myth of clean coal • Adolph Reed (author of this from the BAR) on Obama, etc.
July 10, 2008 The outrageous case of Fahad Hashmi: in deep confinement for having allegedly transferred rainwear to somone who passed it on to al Qaeda: Sean Maher (his laywer), Faisal Hashmi (his brother), and Jeanne Theoharis (former professor of his, and activist on his behalf) • Dennis Brutus, South African activist and poet, on the suit for apartheid reparations, the state of SA, and the bizarre joining of Nelson Mandela and Cecil Rhodes (interview includes two poems)
July 3, 2008 Danielle Allen on those "Obama is a Muslim" emails, and the effects of the Internet on political discourse • Patrick McCully of International Rivers on carbon offsets and other climate issues (his evisceration of Sebastian Mallaby is here) • Vicki Smith, co-author of The Good Temp, on contingency today
June 26, 2008 Greg Smith of the Pew Forum on religious fluidity in the USA • Gary Gates of the Williams Institute on same-sex coupling, some of it married • David Kirsch of PFC Energy on the oil market
June 19, 2008 Corey Robin (of Brooklyn College) and Reihan Salam (of The American Scene and The New American Foundation) on the state of the right: power-napping or on the ropes? • Thomas Mackell, chair of the Richmond Fed and author of When Good Pensions Go Away, on how most of us aren't ready for retirement
June 12, 2008 Yuval Elmelech, author of Transmitting Inequality, on the transmission of inequality across generations • Larry Bartels, author of Unequal Democracy, on inequality and politics (mainly of the partisan kind)
June 7, 2008 David Holben on food security and hunger in the USA • Adolph Reed on the creation of a homeowners' republic in New Orleans (KPFA version; includes DH analysis of May U.S. employment report, released on June 6)
May 24, 2008 Rick Perlstein, author of Nixonland, on the life and times of Tricky Dick, and how he's still with us (originally broadcast on KPFA only)
May 3, 2008 Joel Kovel, editor of Capitalism Nature Socialism and author of The Enemy of Nature, talks about why capitalism will destroy the earth unless we destroy capitalism. (This show was broadcast on KPFA only. Though the show usually originates on WBAI on Thursday evenings and is re-broadcast on KPFA the following Saturday, the May 1 edition was pre-empted because station management thought that only Ken Nash and Mimi Rosenberg could handle the complex issue of Mayday. Here's what they did with the hour.)
April 24, 2008Tony Hendra, editor in chief of My Wall Street Journal, on the parody of the Murdochized daily • Kevin Phillips, author of Bad Money, on the gloomy future of the USA
April 10, 2008 Aaron Woolf, director, and Ian Cheney, born-again farmer, on their movie King Corn, and the grotesqueries of big agribiz • Anatol Lieven on NATO expansion, Russia, McCain, etc.
April 3, 2008 Patrick Cockburn, author of Muqtada, on the Mahdi Army, its leader, and Iraqi politics (apologies for the poor audio quality) • Miriam Greenberg, author of Branding New York, on the reinvention of NYC as the neoliberal city
March 27, 2008 Jerry Lembcke on conspiracism • John Bogle, founder of the Vanguard Group of mutual funds, on the credit crisis and the money management business as a "giant scam" • Dean Baker on the housing bust, and an exchange with DH on whether Northern Rock is a model of anything but disaster
March 20, 2008 Jim Ledbetter on the collection of Marx's journalism that he edited • Nomi Prins on Bear Stearns
March 13, 2008 Adolfo Gilly on Latin America and his revolutionary pessimism • NYU's Elayne Tobin on the political economy of celebrity (like, who's making money off Britney?)
March 6, 2008Joseph Stiglitz, co-author of The Three Trillion Dollar War, on the costs of the invasion of Iraq - and the gloomy prospects for the U.S. economy
February 7, 2008The bulk of this show was devoted to fundraising for WBAI (and if you can, please drop some cash in their jar). The substantive content was an interview with Noam Chomsky, which is what the files to the right are. Chomsky talks about how Bush is alike and different from his predecessors, and the general state of the empire.
January 31, 2008Martin Wolf of the Financial Times on the credit crisis, and the financial system's propensity for disaster • Peter Linebaugh, author of The Magna Carta Manifesto, recaptures the radicalism of that venerable document
January 24, 2008A broad and splendid discussion of the current financial and housing crisis with economist/writer Max Fraad Wolff; former investment banker/journalist Nomi Prins, and mortgage analyst/activist Josh Zinner
January 17, 2008 Thomas Schaller, author of Whistling Past Dixie, on winning the presidency without the South • Phoebe Damrosch, author of Service Included, on luxury cuisine at Per Se
January 10, 2008 Tariq Ali on Pakistan • Lize Mogel and Trevor Paglen on their atlas and radical cartography
January 3, 2008Glen Ford of the Black Agenda Report on the particular awfulness of Barack Obama • Max Fraad Wolff on wreckage in the housing market and its broader meaning
December 27, 2007 David Graeber, author of Lost People and Possibilities, on Yale, imperialism, and anthropology • Forrest Hylton, co-author of Revolutionary Horizons, on Bolivia and the roots of the Evo Morales revolution
December 20, 2007Charlie Komanoff on a radical reworking of Bloomberg's congestion pricing plan: soak cars for free transit • Adolph Reed, author of this article, on why he's sitting out this election
December 13, 2007Tom Geoghegan, author of See You In Court, on how the right is responsible for litigiousness • Greg Grandin on the constitutional referendum in Venezuela and the state of Hugo Chavez
December 6, 2007Peter Lavelle on Putin and the state of political play in Russia • Patrick Cockburn, correspondent for The Independent and author of The Occupation, on whether The Surge is really working
November 15, 2007Julia Isaacs on inequality (big) and economic mobility (not so big) in the U.S. • Kevin Gallagher, author of The Enclave Economy, on Mexico's crummy experience with foreign investment • Laura Agustín, author of Sex at the Margins, on migration, trafficking, desire, and fundamentalism
November 8, 2007 Devah Pager, author of Marked, talks about race and the stigma of a criminal record when applying for a job • Tariq Ali on Pakistan, Iraq, and Latin America
October 4, 2007 Katha Pollitt, author of Learning to Drive, deftly mixes the personal & the political • Greg Grandin, NYU prof and author of Empire's Workshop, talks about the spreading neoliberal rebellion in Latin America
September 27, 2007 Elizabeth Currid, author of The Warhol Economy, on the urban economics of art, fashion, and nightlife • John Bowe, author of Nobodies, a good book about slave labor today, was supposed to be on but didn't show up, so I took listener calls instead
September 20, 2007 David Himmelstein, co-founder of PNHP, on Hillary Clinton's health care scheme (and what she told him almost 15 years ago) • Bret Benjamin, author of Invested Interests, does a cultural angle on the World Bank
September 13, 2007 Bart Jones, author of Hugo!: The Hugo Chavez Story from Mud Hut to Perpetual Revolution, on Chavez and his 21st century socialism • Ervand Abrahamian on Iranian politics
September 6, 2007 James Parrott of the Fiscal Policy Institute on The State of Working New York • Desmond Lachman of AEI on why Wall Street needs a bailout
August 30, 2007 Arloc Sherman & Leighton Ku of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities on the Census income, poverty, and health insurance figures for 2006 • Nikitra Bailey and Sarah Ludwig on how subprime scamsters have been conning people out of their houses
August 23, 2007DH on the financial crisis (an audio version of this article) • Eleanor Huffines, Alaska director for the Wilderness Society, on the Arctic oil rush • Clive Thompson (author of this article) on why New Yorkers are living longer than other Americans
August 16, 2007Sungur Savran on Turkey (read a good piece of his here) • Dean Baker on the housing bust (latest take here)
August 9, 2007Peter Spiegelman, editor of Wall Street Noir, and Lawrence Light, one of the contributors, on finance & crime fiction • Andrew Beveridge on women earning more than men in NYC, and other demographic curiosities (like who can afford all that luxury housing?)
July 5, 2007 Audacia Ray, author of Naked on the Internet, on women, the net, and sex • Len Rodberg rebuts the attacks on Michael Moore's tremendous movie, SiCKO
June 28, 2007 Robert Frank, author of Richistan, on today's neo-Gilded Age rich • Camilo Mejia, author of Road from ar Ramadi, on the army, Iraq, and deserting from the army in Iraq
June 21, 2007 Tara McKelvey, author of Monstering, on the stories behind the infamous Abu Ghraib photos • Lee Badgett on the economics of same-sex marriage and adoption, and on workplace discrimination against LGBTs
June 14, 2007 Joel Kovel, author of Overcoming Zionism, on the psychopolitics of Zionism and the possibilites of a single-state solution in Israel/Palestine • Christian Parenti on Afghanistan
June 7, 2007 Adolph Reed on Obama, the toxic grip of foundations, and how presidential campaigns are like running for Prince of the Fourth Grade • Anatol Lieven on Putin's Russia and U.S.-Russian relations
May 31, 2007 Raj Nayak of the Brennan Center and Rajani Adhikary of the Restaurant Opportunities Center on restaurant work in NYC • Saadia Toor and Kourosh Shemirani on how Western leftists should think about the abuse of women and same-sexers in Iran and other Muslim countries (and for Toor's critique of Arundhati Roy et al, see here)
May 3, 2007 Joel Schalit on Israeli politics and the (weakening?) hold of the Zionists in the U.S. • Fiona Harvey, environment correspondent of the Financial Times, and Kevin Smith, author of The Carbon Neutral Myth, on carbon offsets: something promising, or a dangerous racket?
April 26, 2007 Rachel Sherman, author of Class Acts, on the production of class and consciousness in luxury hotels • Elizabeth Economy on China's contribution to climate change • Christian Parenti, guest editor of The Nation's special issue on climate change, on green power • Doug Henwood, contributor to that issue, on elite attitudes
April 19, 2007 Nicholas Stern, lead author of the 700-page Stern Review, talks more concisely about the economics of climate change (highlights from a panel held at Columbia University, April 11, 2007, organized by the Committee on Global Thought)
April 12, 2007 Hamid Dabashi, professor in the Middle Eastern studies department at Columbia and author of Iran: A People Interrupted, on the history of that complex, consequential country
April 5, 2007Peter Eisner, co-author of The Italian Letter, on how the Bush administration used a forged letter to push the war in Iraq • Julia Vitullo-Martin on eminent domain and Columbia University's push into Harlem
March 29, 2007 Mark Levitan on work and poverty in New York (report here) • Dean Baker on the housing bust
March 22, 2007 Michael Yates, author of Cheap Motels and a Hot Plate, on his travels across the U.S., and their daily evidence of polarization and environmental ruin • Chris Fox of Ceres, on Investors and Business for US Climate Action, a $4 trillion consortium
March 15, 2007Doug Henwood on the American ruling class today, whoever that is • Ian Bone, author of Bash the Rich, on anarchy in the UK (not the debased Sex Pistols kind, either)
March 1, 2007Evelyn McDonnell, author of Mamarama, on music and motherhood • Omar Lizardo (paper here) on how globalization is not homogenizing culture
February 22, 2007 Aimee Liu, author of Gaining, on the biology and politics of eating disorders • Sam Gindin, author of this article in MRZine, on why the US is not a sinking ship
February 15, 2007 Eric Klinenberg, author of Fighting For Air, on the new media landscape and fighting back against it • Steve Duncombe, author of Dream, on fantasy in politics, and how "progressives" should learn to work with it
January 11, 2007 Steffie Woolhandler on Schwarzenegger's fraudulent health scheme • Amiri Baraka, author of Tales of the Out & the Gone, on Newark, being a Marxist in the U.S., and the ambiguous, complex value of bourgeois art (concludes with excerpts from this 1978 program at Naropa, with Baraka reading "Against Bourgeois Art," intro'd by a choked-up Allen Ginsberg)
January 4, 2007 Gilbert Achcar on Israel's defeat in Lebanon and the gathering defeat of the U.S. in Iraq • Charles Komanoff on carbon taxes (and check out the new Carbon Tax Center that Charlie & his colleagues have started)
2006
December 21, 2006 Ian Williams talks about the Kofi Annan-Ban Ki-moon transition at the UN, and the political economy of rum (with some tasting advice too) • Robin Blackburn, author of Age Shock, talks about the pensions crisis and a backdoor route to the socializing the means of production
December 14, 2006 Nomi Prins (briefly) on those eye-popping Goldman Sachs numbers • Patrick Cockburn, author of The Occupation, on the disaster that is Iraq • Hamid Dabashi on Iran
December 7, 2006 Julia Sweig of the Council on Foreign Relations on how the Cuban regime will live on beyond Fidel • Ken Sherrill, co-author of an NGLTF analysis of the recent election, on how same-sex marriage initiatives don't skew the results (and how demographics run against the Christian right)
November 30, 2006Kert Davies, research director of Greenpeace, on the suit against the EPA over global warming • Melissa Hope Ditmore, editor of The Encyclopedia of Prostitution, along with two contributors, Jo Weldon and Jeffrey Escoffier, on sex work [if this two-book set is too expensive, ask your library to get one!]
November 16, 2006 (added out of sequence) Algernon Austin, author of Getting It Wrong, on how black public intellectuals are missing the point(s) • Jim Gerstein of the Democracy Corps on the midterm elections
November 9, 2006 Lewis Lapham, author of Pretensions to Empire, on the criminal folly of the Bush administration • Caitlin Zaloom, author of Out of the Pits, on the anthropology of the futures markets
November 2, 2006 Tariq Ali, author most recently of Pirates of the Caribbean: Axis of Hope, on Iraq, Israel's defeat in Lebanon, and Hugo Chavez and his challenge to neoliberal economics and U.S. domination
October 5, 2006 George McGovern and William Polk, authors of Out of Iraq, on how to accomplish that quickly. Most of this show, part of WBAI's fall marathon, was taken up with pleas for contributions; this interview was the substantive content. If you like these shows, and want to keep them coming, please pledge to WBAI.
September 28, 2006 Todd Tucker, research director of Public Citizen, on the misuses of Chile as a neoliberal model (his paper is here) • Sylvia Allegretto of the Economic Policy Institute, co-author of the State of Working America, in a return appearance to talk about U.S. inequality and poverty in comparison to other countries
September 21, 2006 Lisa Jervis & Andi Zeisler, founding editors of Bitch, on Bitchfest, the anthology of articles gathered from that magazine • Nomi Prins, author of Jacked, on how the right-wing has ripped us off
September 14, 2006 Tony Judt, professor of history at NYU, on wimpy liberals • Moazzam Begg, author of Enemy Combatant, on his three years as an unwilling guest of the U.S. government in Gitmo and elsewhere
September 7, 2006 David Dunbar, co-editor of Debunking 9/11 Myths, on how the conspiracists are wrong • George Galloway comments briefly on the same topic • Sylvia Allegretto of the Economic Policy Institute on the State of Working America (apologies for the technical glitch that resulted in 7 minutes of live on-air confusion which were mercifully excised from this archived version)
August 31, 2006 Betsy Reed, editor of Unnatural Disaster: The Nation on Hurricane Katrina, and Gary Younge, a contributor to that volume, on the politics of the storm one year later • John Mueller on how the terrorism threat is vastly overblown (the title of his forthcoming book)
August 17, 2006 Afshin Rattansi on Middle Eastern crises and Britain's Muslims • Val Moghadam on politics and gender relations in Iran
August 10, 2006 Rasha Salti from Beirut on war, politics, and daily life • Anne-christine d'Adesky, author of Moving Mountainsand co-creator of the film Pills Profits Protest, on AIDS and the movement around AIDS
August 3, 2006 Harold Meyerson on the disappointments of Change to Win • Judith Kipper of the CFR on the Middle East wars, and a cramped vision of a Palestinian state • Jonathan Nitzan on the political economy of Israel, oil, and war
July 27, 2006 Joel Schalit on Israel's motives for going to war • Adolph Reed on Katrina, race, class
July 6, 2006 James Howard Kunstler on oil, waste, ugliness, death • Katha Pollitt, author of Virginity or Death, on feminism and politics
June 29, 2006 Laura Rozen of Warandpiece and author of this on mysterious doings in Rome over Iran • David Feige, author of Indefensible, on his career as a public defender and the horrors of the criminal justice system
June 22, 2006 Economist Julio Huato on immigration as well as the Mexican presidential election • to observe Pride Week, Hunter poli sci prof Ken Sherrill on same-sex marriage and other aspects of gay politics (plus some lesbian bands, too!)
June 15, 2006 Gary Younge, Guardian correspondent and author of Stranger in a Strange Land, on being a black Brit writing about the USA • Michele Wucker, author of Lockdown, on immigration
June 8, 2006 Ned Sublette, musician and music historian, on New York, Cuba, New Orleans, and politics in music (plus a lot of music too)
June 1, 2006 Ervand Abrahamian on Iran • Michelle Goldberg, author of Kingdom Coming, on the Christian right's lust for theocracy
May 11, 2006 MARATHON SPECIAL This was a two-hour fundraising edition of Behind the News. Much of the program was devoted to fundraising; the substantive content was excerpts from the soundtrack of the excellent film Occupation: Dreamland and an interview with its co-director, Ian Olds. The film is the product of embedding with the 82nd Airborne in Fallujah in the winter of 2004; it's a brilliant and complex view of why people join the army, how they think and feel, and the forces compelling their loyalty. This is only the interview with Olds. Additionally, everyone should pledge to WBAI and also buy a copy of the DVD of O:D.
May 4, 2006 Tom Hertz, author of this paper, on economic mobility in the U.S. • Matthew Lasar, author of Uneasy Listening, on the recent history of Pacifica radio ("corporatization," "coup," restoration, and current governance)
April 27, 2006 Pratap Chatterjee, director of CorpWatch and author of Iraq Inc., on who's making money on the war, and why reconstruction is such a disaster • Andrew Ross, professor of American Studies at NYU and author of Fast Boat to China, on his year studying the IT industry in Shanghai
April 20, 2006 Nadxieli Mannello & Ellen Moynihan on the NYC counter-recruitment guide • Jose Vasquez of Iraq Veterans Against the War • Kevin Phillips on his new book, American Theocracy: The Peril & Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century
April 13, 2006 Elizabeth Economy of the Council on Foreign Relations on the downside of China's boom (like massive inequality and pollution) • Sociologist Douglas Massey on Mexican immigration to the US
April 6, 2006 Steffie Woolhandler of Physicians for a National Health Program, on the hoax of universal coverage in Massachusetts • Jeff Faux, founder and ex-president of the Economic Policy Institute, on The Global Class War
March 30, 2006 Robin Hahnel, author Economic Justice and Democracy, on imagining life after capitalism • Peter Kwong, co-author of Chinese America, on our oldest "new" minority
March 23, 2006 Judith Levine, author of Not Buying It, on giving up overconsumption for a year • Marie Trigona, author of this article, on worker-run businesses in Argentina (and check out her collective's new video site)
March 16, 2006 Ruy Teixera on Bush's dismal poll numbers • Christian Parenti on Afghanistan (with some additional material on Iraq and the contradictions of empire)
February 9, 2006 Truncated fundraiser edition. About a third of the broadcast show was taken up with begging for money to support WBAI (and please consider making a pledge here!). Here's the substance minus the pleas: an interview with Robert Fitch about his book Solidarity for Sale, about the role of corruption in the sad decline of American unions.
February 2, 2006 Isaac Shapiro of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities on the U.S. wealth distribution and Bush fiscal policy • Steve Kretzman of Oil Change International on Bush's surreal comments on getting over our oil addiction
January 26, 2006 Stephenie Hendricks, author of Divine Destruction, on the anti-environmentalist Wise Use movement and the Christian right • Ron Arnold, Wise Use guru and a prime target of Hendricks' book, responds • Alex Gourevitch and Aziz Rana of the Against the War on Terror blog, on problems with both the WoT and its critics
January 19, 2006 Dan Lazare, author most recently of The Velvet Coup, on the Supreme Court and our dysfunctional "democracy" (partial rebroadcast of September 8 interview) • Dean Baker of the Center for Economic & Policy Research on the housing bubble.

2006
December 21, 2006 Ian Williams talks about the Kofi Annan-Ban Ki-moon transition at the UN, and the political economy of rum (with some tasting advice too) * Robin Blackburn, author of Age Shock, talks about the pensions crisis and a backdoor route to the socializing the means of production
December 14, 2006 Nomi Prins (briefly) on those eye-popping Goldman Sachs numbers * Patrick Cockburn, author of The Occupation, on the disaster that is Iraq * Hamid Dabashi on Iran
December 7, 2006 Julia Sweig of the Council on Foreign Relations on how the Cuban regime will live on beyond Fidel * Ken Sherrill, co-author of an NGLTF analysis of the recent election, on how same-sex marriage initiatives don't skew the results (and how demographics run against the Christian right)
November 30, 2006 Kert Davies, research director of Greenpeace, on the suit against the EPA over global warming * Melissa Hope Ditmore, editor of The Encyclopedia of Prostitution, along with two contributors, Jo Weldon and Jeffrey Escoffier, on sex work [if this two-book set is too expensive, ask your library to get one!]
November 16, 2006 (added out of sequence) Algernon Austin, author of Getting It Wrong, on how black public intellectuals are missing the point(s) * Jim Gerstein of the Democracy Corps on the midterm elections
November 9, 2006 Lewis Lapham, author of Pretensions to Empire, on the criminal folly of the Bush administration * Caitlin Zaloom, author of Out of the Pits, on the anthropology of the futures markets
November 2, 2006 Tariq Ali, author most recently of Pirates of the Caribbean: Axis of Hope, on Iraq, Israel's defeat in Lebanon, and Hugo Chavez and his challenge to neoliberal economics and U.S. domination
October 5, 2006 George McGovern and William Polk, authors of Out of Iraq, on how to accomplish that quickly. Most of this show, part of WBAI's fall marathon, was taken up with pleas for contributions; this interview was the substantive content. If you like these shows, and want to keep them coming, please pledge to WBAI.
September 28, 2006 Todd Tucker, research director of Public Citizen, on the misuses of Chile as a neoliberal model (his paper is here) * Sylvia Allegretto of the Economic Policy Institute, co-author of the State of Working America, in a return appearance to talk about U.S. inequality and poverty in comparison to other countries
September 21, 2006 Lisa Jervis & Andi Zeisler, founding editors of Bitch, on Bitchfest, the anthology of articles gathered from that magazine * Nomi Prins, author of Jacked, on how the right-wing has ripped us off
September 14, 2006 Tony Judt, professor of history at NYU, on wimpy liberals * Moazzam Begg, author of Enemy Combatant, on his three years as an unwilling guest of the U.S. government in Gitmo and elsewhere
September 7, 2006 David Dunbar, co-editor of Debunking 9/11 Myths, on how the conspiracists are wrong * George Galloway comments briefly on the same topic * Sylvia Allegretto of the Economic Policy Institute on the State of Working America (apologies for the technical glitch that resulted in 7 minutes of live on-air confusion which were mercifully excised from this archived version)
August 31, 2006 Betsy Reed, editor of Unnatural Disaster: The Nation on Hurricane Katrina, and Gary Younge, a contributor to that volume, on the politics of the storm one year later * John Mueller on how the terrorism threat is vastly overblown (the title of his forthcoming book)
August 17, 2006 Afshin Rattansi on Middle Eastern crises and Britain's Muslims * Val Moghadam on politics and gender relations in Iran
August 10, 2006 Rasha Salti from Beirut on war, politics, and daily life * Anne-christine d'Adesky, author of Moving Mountains and co-creator of the film Pills Profits Protest, on AIDS and the movement around AIDS
August 3, 2006 Harold Meyerson on the disappointments of Change to Win * Judith Kipper of the CFR on the Middle East wars, and a cramped vision of a Palestinian state * Jonathan Nitzan on the political economy of Israel, oil, and war
July 27, 2006 Joel Schalit on Israel's motives for going to war * Adolph Reed on Katrina, race, class
July 6, 2006 James Howard Kunstler on oil, waste, ugliness, death * Katha Pollitt, author of Virginity or Death, on feminism and politics
June 29, 2006 Laura Rozen of Warandpiece and author of this on mysterious doings in Rome over Iran * David Feige, author of Indefensible, on his career as a public defender and the horrors of the criminal justice system
June 22, 2006 Economist Julio Huato on immigration as well as the Mexican presidential election * to observe Pride Week, Hunter poli sci prof Ken Sherrill on same-sex marriage and other aspects of gay politics (plus some lesbian bands, too!)
June 15, 2006 Gary Younge, Guardian correspondent and author of Stranger in a Strange Land, on being a black Brit writing about the USA * Michele Wucker, author of Lockout, on immigration
June 8, 2006 Ned Sublette, musician and music historian, on New York, Cuba, New Orleans, and politics in music (plus a lot of music too)
June 1, 2006 Ervand Abrahamian on Iran * Michelle Goldberg, author of Kingdom Coming, on the Christian right's lust for theocracy
May 11, 2006 MARATHON SPECIAL This was a two-hour fundraising edition of Behind the News. Much of the program was devoted to fundraising; the substantive content was excerpts from the soundtrack of the excellent film Occupation: Dreamland and an interview with its co-director, Ian Olds. The film is the product of embedding with the 82nd Airborne in Fallujah in the winter of 2004; it's a brilliant and complex view of why people join the army, how they think and feel, and the forces compelling their loyalty. This is only the interview with Olds. Additionally, everyone should pledge to WBAI and also buy a copy of the DVD of O:D.
May 4, 2006 Tom Hertz, author of this paper, on economic mobility in the U.S. * Matthew Lasar, author of Uneasy Listening, on the recent history of Pacifica radio ("corporatization," "coup," restoration, and current governance)
April 27, 2006 Pratap Chatterjee, director of CorpWatch and author of Iraq Inc., on who's making money on the war, and why reconstruction is such a disaster * Andrew Ross, professor of American Studies at NYU and author of Fast Boat to China, on his year studying the IT industry in Shanghai
April 20, 2006 Nadxieli Mannello & Ellen Moynihan on the NYC counter-recruitment guide * Jose Vasquez of Iraq Veterans Against the War * Kevin Phillips on his new book, American Theocracy: The Peril & Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century
April 13, 2006 Elizabeth Economy of the Council on Foreign Relations on the downside of China's boom (like massive inequality and pollution) * Sociologist Douglas Massey on Mexican immigration to the US
April 6, 2006 Steffie Woolhandler of Physicians for a National Health Program, on the hoax of universal coverage in Massachusetts * Jeff Faux, founder and ex-president of the Economic Policy Institute, on The Global Class War
March 30, 2006 Robin Hahnel, author Economic Justice and Democracy, on imagining life after capitalism * Peter Kwong, co-author of Chinese America, on our oldest "new" minority
March 23, 2006 Judith Levine, author of Not Buying It, on giving up overconsumption for a year * Marie Trigona, author of this article, on worker-run businesses in Argentina (and check out her collective's new video site)
March 16, 2006 Ruy Teixera on Bush's dismal poll numbers * Christian Parenti on Afghanistan (with some additional material on Iraq and the contradictions of empire)
February 9, 2006 Truncated fundraiser edition. About a third of the broadcast show was taken up with begging for money to support WBAI (and please consider making a pledge here!). Here's the substance minus the pleas: an interview with Robert Fitch about his book Solidarity for Sale, about the role of corruption in the sad decline of American unions.
February 2, 2006 Isaac Shapiro of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities on the U.S. wealth distribution and Bush fiscal policy * Steve Kretzman of Oil Change International on Bush's surreal comments on getting over our oil addiction
January 26, 2006 Stephenie Hendricks, author of Divine Destruction, on the anti-environmentalist Wise Use movement and the Christian right * Ron Arnold, Wise Use guru and a prime target of Hendricks' book, responds * Alex Gourevitch and Aziz Rana of the Against the War on Terror blog, on problems with both the WoT and its critics
January 19, 2006 Dan Lazare, author most recently of The Velvet Coup, on the Supreme Court and our dysfunctional "democracy" (partial rebroadcast of September 8 interview) * Dean Baker of the Center for Economic & Policy Research on the housing bubble.
2005
December 15, 2005 truncated 27-minute mini-marathon semi-special Much of this hour was taken up with begging and a rebroadcast of excerpts from an August interview with David Roediger. Fresh content was mainly an interview with Leslie Harris, co-editor of Slavery in New York. Bonus audio: classic WBAI clips from Julius Lester and Samori Marksman. For the full Roediger interview, click here. Contribute to WBAI here.
December 8, 2005 Heather Boushey of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, on how women are not opting out of employment * Jonathan Tasini on his primary challenge to Sen. Hillary Clinton
December 1, 2005 Anatol Lieven on why decadent America must renounce its empire * Heather Rogers, author of Gone Tomorrow, on garbage and capitalism
November 17, 2005 Historian Bethany Moreton, contributor to Wal-Mart: The Face of 21st Century Capitalism, on the role of Ozark culture in the emergence of Wal-Mart (and The Nation's amazing switch on chain stores over the last 70 years) * Bruce Lawrence, editor of Messages to the World, a collection of Osama bin Laden's writings, on the ogre's thinking and prose style
November 10, 2005 Sarah Stillman of Manifesta, a feminist magazine published at Yale, on feminism among the young * Sam Gindin, long-time Canadian Auto Workers economic advisor, on the crises at GM and Delphi
November 3, 2005 Ashaki Binta & Raymond Sanders of United Electrical Workers local 150 on the ban on collective bargaining for North Carolina public sector workers * Leo Panitch on the state of the American empire
October 13, 2005 MARATHON SPECIAL: Broadcast as a three-hour special, part of WBAI's fundraising marathon, half the show was taken up by begging for money, something web listeners wouldn't want to endure. Here are the three interviews that accounted for the show's content (listed in order of broadcast). Robert Greenstein of the Center on Budget & Policy Priorities on post-hurricane finances (cut spending for the poor, cut taxes for the rich) * Beverly Wright, director of the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice, on the social structure of New Orleans & race and the distribution of floodwater and toxins * George Galloway, MP, author of Mr Galloway Goes to Washington and scourge of Norm Coleman in a "very serious conversation" about Iraq, imperialism, Saddam's Anglophilia, and the "preposterous rubbish" of 9/11 conspiracism If you've got the cash and the inclination, please visit the WBAI website and make a pledge.	Greenstein stream (hi/low) download (hi/low) Wright stream (hi/low) download (hi/low) Galloway stream (hi/low) download (hi/low).
September 29, 2005 Kurt Davies, research director at Greenpeace, on climate change and the insurance industry's "response" * Larry Bartels, professor of political science at Princeton, on how the white working class isn't moving right, how social issues aren't getting it to vote against its economic interests, and how there may be nothing the matter with Kansas after all (full paper here)
September 22, 2005 George Galloway on postcolonial self-hatred and conspiracism (teaser from an interview to be broadcast in full on October 13) * Ariel Levy, author of Female Chauvinist Pigs, on the raunch culture * Richard Gott, author of Hugo Chavez and the Bolivarian Revolution, on where Chavez came from and what he's up to
September 8, 2005 Dan Lazare, author most recently of The Velvet Coup, on the Supreme Court and our dysfunctional "democracy" * Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Bait and Switch, on the insecurities and indignities of the white-collar world
September 1, 2005 Heather Boushey on the latest Census numbers on income and poverty in 2004 (not so good), and the fate of women in the current economy (not so good either) * Tom Athanasiou, co-author of Dead Heat and a principal of EcoEquity, on Hurricane Katrina, climate change, and class
August 25, 2005 Seth Kleinman on the oil market * Jennifer Gordon, author of Suburban Sweatshops, on organizing immigrant workers on Long Island (rebroadcast of March 17, 2005, interview)
August 18, 2005 Barbara Ehrenreich on the state of organized labor * Iain Boal, one of the posse known as Retort that wrote Afflicted Powers: Capital & Spectacle in a New Age of War, on Iraq, 9/11, and the imperial conjuncture
August 11, 2005 David Roediger, author of the classic Wages of Whiteness discusses his latest, Working Towards Whiteness, the story of the whitening of "new immigrants" of the late 19th and early 20th centuries
August 4, 2005 Periel Aschenbrand, proprietor of BodyAsBillboard and author of The Only Bush I Trust Is My Own, on fashion, advertising, sex * Michael Yates, author of Why Unions Matter and associate editor of Monthly Review, on MR, MR's new webzine, and his post-retirement travels across the USA
July 28 2005 highly truncated emergency fundraiser edition Most of this show was taken up with begging, since WBAI is in dire financial straits. This week's content was devoted to an interview with Chip Berlet of Politlcal Research Associates on 9/11 conspiracy theories, and conspiracism in general.
July 14, 2005 Gary Indiana, author of Schwarzenegger Syndrome, on the strangeness that is Arnie * Susan Willis, author of Portents of the Real, on the cultural politics of post-9/11 America
July 7, 2005 Laura Carlsen of IRC (and frequent Counterpunch contributor) on the Zapatista's new tack * Bill Fletcher of TransAfrica on Bush and aid and Africa in the world (and a bit about the AFL-CIO)
June 30, 2005 Devah Pager, a sociologist at Princeton, reports on experiments showing a white ex-con has an easier time in the job market than a black who's never done time * Jonathan Tasini, keeper of the Working Life blog, on the possible split in the AFL-CIO
June 23, 2005 Michael Eric Dyson, author of Is Bill Cosby Right?, on class tensions among black Americans * Christian Parenti on Bolivia and the state of the empire
June 9, 2005 Moustafa Bayoumi on the misunderstood, misnamed "cedar revolution" in Lebanon (which he wrote about in the LRB) * Joel Kovel, editor of Capitalism Nature Socialism, on the psychology and politics of Israel and Zionism
May 19, 2005 MARATHON SPECIAL: Broadcast as a two-hour special, part of WBAI's fundraising marathon, a third of the show was taken up by begging for money, something web listeners wouldn't want to endure. Here are the two interviews that accounted for the show's content (listed in order of broadcast). Rock & roll sociologist Donna Gaines and "Athena" on the campaign to save CBGBs * Biju Mathew, author of Taxi!, and Rizwan Raja, on organizing cabbies in NYC. If you've got the cash and the inclination, please visit the WBAI website and make a pledge.	CBGBs stream (hi/low) download (hi/low) Mathew & Raja stream (hi/low) download (hi/low).
May 5, 2005 Eesha Pandit of the Civil Liberties and Public Policy Program, Hampshire College, on broadening the reproductive rights debate beyond "choice" * journalist Ian Williams on the UN (and the British election)
April 28, 2005 Rahul Mahajan, author and blogger, on the U.S. empire * Stephanie Thayer and Ward Dennis on Brooklyn redevelopment (with an introductory piece produced by LBO reporter/researcher Laura Starecheski)
April 14, 2005 Tariq Ali (latest book: a set of interviews done by David Barsamian) on empire, U.S. power, Israel, and the bellicose, pious, and ill-read Tony Blair * Matt Taibbi, author of Spanking the Donkey, on covering the 2004 campaign, and the dismal state of American politics and media
April 7, 2005 Laura Flanders, author of Bushwomen (just out in paperback) on masculinity, femininity, identity politics, and the Bush administration * Christian Parenti, author of The Freedom: Shadows & Hallucinations in Occupied Iraq, on Chavez and his revolution in Venezuela (see his Nation article on the topic here)
March 31, 2005 Carlos Mejia, who deserted from his unit in Iraq, on war, resistance, and his year in jail * Nicola Kraus & Emma McLaughlin, authors of Citizen Girl and The Nanny Diaries, on gender, work, and the satiric novel
March 17, 2005 Anatol Lieven, author of America Right or Wrong, on Wolfowitz, "democracy," and Bush II * Jennifer Gordon, author of Suburban Sweatshops, on organizing immigrant workers on Long Island
March 10, 2005 Artist and writer Sunny Taylor on art, disability, and being censored by NPR * Naila Kabeer, author of The Power to Choose, on women, development, and the unwisdom of labor standards in trade agreements [Musical note: about halfway into the show is an excerpt from "Democracy Suspends Relevance," by "Jed Whitaker," a piece that includes samples from the interview with Slavoj Zizek broadcast in April 2003. Music here; original interview here; print version of interview here.]
March 3, 2005 Tamara Draut of Demos on debt * Steve Fraser, author of Every Man a Speculator, on the cultural and political history of Wall Street in American life
February 24, 2005 Michael Perelman, author of The Perverse Economy, on how markets misvalue everything * Elizabeth Warren of Harvard Law School on bankruptcy (especially the medical contribution - paper here)
February 17, 2005 Jennifer Washburn, author of University Inc., on the corporatization of higher ed * Jon Wiener, author of Historians in Trouble, on academic scandals (and Ward Churchill)
February 10, 2005 MARATHON SPECIAL: Broadcast as a two-hour special, part of WBAI's fundraising marathon, a third of the show was taken up by begging for money, something web listeners wouldn't want to endure. Here are the three interviews that accounted for the show's content (listed in order of broadcast). Each is about 30 minutes long. Esther Kaplan, author of With God on Their Side, on the Christian right * Tariq Ali, author of Bush in Babylon, on the Iraq election and Bush's re-election * Noam Chomsky on the state of things If you've got the cash and the inclination, please visit the WBAI website and make a pledge.	Kaplan stream (hi/low) download (hi/low). Ali stream (hi/low) download (hi/low). Chomsky stream (hi/low) download (hi/low).
January 13, 2005 Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert of Karmabanque on their new hedge fund, which will target especially nasty companies with overvalued stocks * Lew Rockwell of the Mises Institute: a libertarian view of red-state fascism

2004

December 30, 2004 Leslie McCall, professor of sociology & women's studies at Rutgers, on inequality in the U.S. (Her papers for Demos are here and here; her book is Complex Inequality.)
December 23, 2004 Maya Rockeymoore of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, on Social Security privatization's risk to black Americans (her piece for The Black Commentator is here) * Merrill Goozner, author of The $800 Million Pill, on the Vioxx recall and related matters
December 9, 2004 Bertha Lewis, co-chair of the Working Families Party, on their major role in raising the New York State minimum wage and lowering maximum drug sentences * Jamie Galbraith on the U.S. dollar and such (his TomPaine.com piece is here)
November 18, 2004 Nomi Prins, author of Other People's Money, on Wall Street & corporate American in the 1990s * Anatol LIeven, author of America Right or Wrong, on American nationalism
November 11, 2004 Christian Parenti, author of The Freedom: Shadows & Hallucinations in Occupied Iraq, on his reporting in Afghanistan and Iraq
October 28, 2004 MARATHON SPECIAL: War at home, war abroad Broadcast as a two-hour special, part of WBAI's fundraising marathon, a third of the show was taken up by begging for money, something web listeners wouldn't want to endure. Here are the two interviews that accounted for the show's content (listed in order of broadcast). Each is about 30 minutes long. Frances Fox Piven, author of The War at Home, on Bush's domestic agenda: repression, fundamentalism, and freeing capital from taxation * Tariq Ali, author of Bush in Babylon on Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, and the U.S. election I you've got the cash and the inclination, please visit the WBAI website and make a pledge.	Piven stream (hi/low) download (hi/low). Ali stream (hi/low) download (hi/low).
October 14, 2004 Sebastian Mallaby, author of The World's Banker, on James Wolfensohn and the institution he heads, The World Bank * Patrick McCully of the International Rivers Network responds to Mallaby's claims about IRN and NGOs in general
October 7, 2004 Njoki Njehu of the 50 Years is Enough campaign on the World Bank/IMF meeting and the state of the global justice movement * Corey Robin, author of Fear, on the political uses of anxiety
September 30, 2004 Seth Kleinman of PFC Energy on $50 oil and the production peak a decade or two in the future * DH on presidential economics and an early version of this piece on Gallup's Republican bias * Glen Ford of The Black Commentator on the importance of beating Bush even though the Dems are awful
September 23, 2004 Michael Hardt, co-author with Antonio Negri of Multitude, on their follow-up to the international smash hit Empire
September 16, 2004 Mark Levitan of the Community Service Society on poverty in New York City * Carol Brightman, author of Total Insecurity, on war, empire, and the myth of American omnipotence
September 9, 2004 Anatol Lieven on the Beslan massacre and the Chechen crisis * DH on green GDP accounting in China & Bloomberg's smoking ban * Sylvia Allegretto of EPI on The State of Working America
August 19, 2004 CEPR's Heather Boushey on next week's income & poverty numbers, and her own research on jobs & earnings * DH on green GDP accounting in China & Bloomberg's smoking ban * Dennis Loy Johnson, co-publisher at Melville House Publishing, on his own The Big Chill: The Great Unreported Story of the Bush Inaugration Protest, and also on two other MHP books, Mark Danner's on the Florida vote, and Renata Adler's on the Supreme Court decision that gave us Pres W
August 12, 2004 Deborah James, director of the Venezuela Information Office, on Chavez and the August 15 referendum * Robert McChesney, author of The Problem of the Media and one of the founders of freepress.net, on the corporate media and alternatives to it
August 5, 2004 Frank Newport, editor-in-chief of Gallup and author of Polling Matters, on the public opinion trade and the 2004 election polls * Tariq Ali, author most recently of Bush in Babylon, on the importance to the whole world of defeating Bush, and the maddening wrongness of the "no difference" position
July 22, 2004 Judith Levine, author of Do You Remember Me? , on her father's Alzheimer's, and the social meanings of the disease * Ian Williams, author of Deserter!, on George W's military career
July 15, 2004 Nomi Prins, investment banker turned journalist and t-shirt designer, on Martha's sentencing, Ken Lay's indictment, and sex discrimination on Wall Street * Charlie Komanoff, car-hater, on why we use so much oil, and how we could use less of it
July 8, 2004 Lakshman Achuthan of the Economic Cycles Research Institute and co-author of Beating the Business Cycle, on cycles in general, this odd one specifically, and the likely slowdown by yearend * Norman Kelley, author of The Head Negro In Charge Syndrome on the crisis in black politics
July 1, 2004 Phyllis Bennis, lead author of Paying the Price, on the human, economic, and environmental costs of the war on Iraq * Joe Garden, Mike Loew (both of The Onion), and Randy Ostrow, authors of Citizen You!, a manual of patriotic duty (some of the original audio was lost - details at the top of the show)
June 24, 2004 Michael Hardt, co-author of Empire, on the state of the empire in the light of the Iraq war * Stonewall segment: Julie Abraham, professor of LGBT studies at Sarah Lawrence, on why she's no fan of same-sex marriage
June 17, 2004 Jomo, the Malaysian economist, on the Asian economies and their recoveries from the 1997 crisis * Seth Kleinman of PFC Energy on the state of the oil market
June 10, 2004 DH on the demise of Reagan * Rick Perlstein, historian of conservatism and author of a bio of Goldwater, on the emergence of the right & the role of Ronnie * Ralph Nader, talking to the ruling class at the Council on Foreign Relations (20 minutes out of a one-hour appearance), about foreign policy, globalization, and his contribution to electing George Bush (full transcript at the CFR)
May 20, 2004 MARATHON SPECIAL: State of the Empire Broadcast as a two-hour special, part of WBAI's fundraising marathon, a third of the show was taken up by begging for money, something web listeners wouldn't want to endure. Here are the three interviews that accounted for the show's content (listed in order of broadcast). Gary Younge, New York correspondent of The Guardian, on U.S. reactions to the torture photos, comparisons with British and other European imperialisms, and race in the U.S. vs. the UK * Cynthia Enloe of Clark University, famous for her feminist analyses of the military (see her book Maneuvers) talks about masculinity in the Bush administration, the oil industry, and military prisons * George Monbiot, author of Manifesto for a New World Order, on offshoring as reparations, the WTO, the limits of localism, and the democratization of global governance I you've got the cash and the inclination, please visit the WBAI website and make a pledge.	Younge stream (hi/low) download (hi/low). Enloe stream (hi/low) download (hi/low). Monbiot stream (hi/low) download (hi/low).
May 6, 2004 Heather Boushey talks about child care, in anticipation of Mother's Day * Merrill Goozner, author of The $800 Million Pill, talks about drug development, and why medicines are so damned expensive
April 29, 2004 Sean Jacobs, one of the organizers of the Ten Years of Freedom film festival, talks about the festival and South African politics * Richard Burkholder, Gallup's director of international operations, talks about the firm's polling in Iraq * Aimee Liu, author of the novel Flash House, talks about the CIA in Asia and trafficking in women
April 15, 2004 Jagdish Bhagwati, professor of economics at Columbia and author of In Defense of Globalization, talks about trade, capital flows, poverty, and development
April 8, 2004 Chalmers Johnson, author of The Sorrows of Empire, talks first about the political economy of Japan (recovery for real? rightward move among the elite?) and then the evil effects of the U.S. empire on the outside world and on our democracy
April 1, 2004 Carlos Mejia, who left his national guard unit in Iraq to protest the war, and who faces desertion charges, talks about the war and his prospects * In a return engagement, Robert Fatton, author of Haiti's Predatory Republic, talking about the social structure of Haiti and the forces behind Aristide's rise, fall, rise, and fall
March 25, 2004 DH on outsourcing - as big a deal as they say? * Leo Panitch, co-editor of The Socialist Register 2004, on the American empire
March 18, 2004 Luciana Castellina on Italian politics - government, parties, popular movements * Ruth O'Brien, editor of Voices from the Edge: Narratives About the Americans With Disabilities Act, on the ADA, the workplace, and the courts, and Leonard Kriegel, one of the contributors to the collection, on getting around NYC in a wheelchair
March 11, 2004 Robert Fatton, author of Haiti's Predatory Republic, on the roots of Haiti's current predicament * Hilary Wainwright, editor of Red Pepper and author of Reclaim the State, on how popular movements can engage with state power without losing their innocence
March 4, 2004 Corey Robin on the militarized worldview of the neocons (article available here) * Laura Flanders on her new book on the women of the Bush administration, Bushwomen
February 26, 2004 Susie Bright on sex, politics, and her new book, Mommy's Little Girl * Frida Berrigan on who's making money from the war in Iraq (report available here * Mark Levitan on the crisis of employment in New York City (report available here)
February 19, 2004 Sara Roy, senior research scholar at the Harvard Center for Middle Eastern Studies, on the social crisis among Palestinians in the occupied territories and Israel's intentions behind building the wall * George Soros, speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations, on the Bush administration and the Bubble of American Supremacy * Christian Parenti on his January in Iraq, spent with the 82nd airborne and members of the resistance, which he wrote up in The Nation
February 12, 2004 Keith Bradsher, author of High and Mighty: The Dangerous Rise of the SUV, on the ravages of that vehicle and the mindset of its buyers * Michael Mann, author of Incoherent Empire, on the Bush administration's lust for domination [apologies, but the first five minutes or so of the original broadcast were lost, so a shorter approximation of the intro was recorded after the fact]
January 22, 2004 MARATHON SPECIAL Broadcast as a three-hour special, part of WBAI's fundraising marathon. a third of the show was taken up by begging for money, something web listeners wouldn't want to endure. Here are just the four interviews that accounted for almost all the show's content. Noam Chomsky, author most recently of Hegemony or Surival, on Bush & Empire, andwhether the facts are enough * Barbara Ehrenreich, co-editor of Global Woman, on the reception of Nickel and Dimed and the feminization of imperialism * Naomi Klein, author of No Logo, on the economic transformation of Iraq and the global peace movment and the occupation * Alexandra Robbins, author of Secrets of the Tomb, an investigation into Yale's Skull & Bones, on the possibility of a Bones vs. Bones election (both Bush & Kerry are members) [opens with an excerpt from her full November 2002 interview (see below)] I you've got the cash and the inclination, please visit the WBAI website and make a pledge.	Chomsky stream (hi/low) download (hi/low). Ehrenreich stream (hi/low) download (hi/low). Klein stream (hi/low) download (hi/low). Robbins stream (hi/low) download (hi/low).
January 15, 2004 Archi Piyati of Human Rights First (formerly LCHR) on the barbaric U.S. treatment of refugees * Satya Gabriel on the Chinese economy
January 8, 2004 Anthony D'Costa on the Indian economy * Anatol Lieven on Afghanistan's new constitution * Joan Roelofs, author of Foundations and Public Policy, on foundations' influence on politics and culture
2003
December 18, 2003 Larry Birns, director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, on the Central America Free Trade Agreement * Simon Head, author of The New Ruthless Economy, on working in the era of surveillance, restructuring, and speedup
December 11, 2003 Steffie Woolhandler of Physicians for a National Health Program on the Medicare reform bill * Robert Pollin, author of Countours of Descent, on the 1990s boom and after
December 4, 2003 Psephologist Ruy Teixeira on Bush's poll numbers * Michael Dawson, author of The Consumer Trap, on marketing
November 27, 2003 Thanksgiving Bigotry & Discrimination Special: Joel Schalit, author of Jerusalem Calling, on the Counterpunch collection, The Politics of Anti-Semitism * Patrick Mason on the economics of race (rebroadcast of June 19, 2003, interview)
November 13, 2003 Tim McCarthy & John McMillan, editors of The Radical Reader, on the history of American radicalism * Christian Parenti, author of The Soft Cage, on surveillance in America from slavery to the Patriot Act
November 6, 2003 Richard Burkholder, directior of international polling for Gallup, on that firm's survey of Baghdad: how do Iraqis feel about the war, occupation, their future * Ivo Daalder, author of America Unbound, on the Bush administration's foreign policy revolution
October 16, 2003 MARATHON SPECIAL Special program for the WBAI quarterly fundraising marathon. Hugh Hamilton, host of Talkback, interviews Doug Henwood about his new book, After the New Economy. Includes some begging, alas (some was edited out). Please contribute here and mention where you heard the show. Program length: 1:39 (64kbps file is 45 megs; 16kpbs, 11 megs.)
October 9, 2003 Loretta Napoleoni, author of Modern Jihad, on Saudi Arabia and the finance of the jihadists * Bernard Henri-Levy, author of Who Killed Daniel Pearl?, on the murder of the WSJ reporter, and the culpability of Pakistan in jihadism
October 2, 2003 Ursula Huws, author of The Making of a Cybertariat, on work in the electronic age, domestic labor, offshoring, etc. * Ana Malinow, a doc in Houston affiliated with Physicians for a National Health Program, on the uninusred
September 25, 2003 stop whining about the corporate media and support excellent independent publications! Tom Frank, editor of The Baffler, on Boob Jubilee, a collection of essays from the journal * Lisa Jervis, co-editor of Bitch, on the magazine, feminism, and pop culture
September 18, 2003 Larry Siedentop of Oxford on EU enlargement and Sweden's rejection of the euro * Anatol Lieven on Iraq and Afghanistan (apologies for the missing opening and the poor audio quality of the first 10 minutes of this show)
September 11, 2003 9/11 show, sorta: Ruy Teixeira on George Bush's poll numbers two years after the WTC went down * Nicole Speulda of the Pew Center on foreign attitudes towards the U.S. * Leslie Kauffman of UFPJ on Cancun and the state of activism today
September 4, 2003 Yale prof Michael Denning on the strike against the university (ignore promise of Laura Smith at beginning of show - she didn't answer her phone) * Heather Boushey on the disappearance of the jobs that ex-welfare recipients were supposed to fill * Sharon Beder, author of Power Play, on the worldwide privatization and deregulation of electricity
August 28, 2003 return after vacation, blackout, and fundraising pre-emptions: Michael Albert on Parecon (participatory economics) * Christian Parenti on his visit to Iraq
July 31, 2003 Ken Sherrill of the Hunter College poli sci department, on the perils of nonpartisan elections * nurse-practitioner Helen Ruddy-Brachman on the perils of Medicare reform
July 24, 2003 labor law professor Marc Linder on work hours and the lack of pee breaks * Chris Carlsson on the bicycle anarcho-activists of Critical Mass
July 17, 2003 DH on economic news * Faye Wattleton, director of the Center for the Advancement of women, on a poll of American women * Anatol Lieven on postwar Iraq * Michael Shifter of Inter-American Dialogue on Bush & Latin America
July 10, 2003 DH on economic news * George Monbiot on global governance * author and activist Marta Russell on the UN conference on disability
July 3, 2003 DH on economic news * Berkeley geographer Richard Walker on the geography of the boom and bust * DH on the mess we're in with some listener phone calls on the topic
June 19, 2003 DH on economic news * Patrick Mason on the economics of racial discrimination * Isabel Cole on dissident Americans abroad (click here for the website) * Kim Schaffer on housing affordability
June 12, 2003 DH on economic news * Michael Hudson, author of a report on the sleazy world of "subprime" finance [ignore the promises of listener phone calls - they're not included in the archive versions]
June 5, 2003 DH on economic news * Hilary Wainwright, editor of Red Pepper, on Blair's political troubles * Hamid Dabashi on Iran
May 22, 2003 MARATHON SPECIAL MAKING THE CONNECTIONS Broadcast as a two-hour special, part of WBAI's fundraising marathon. a third of the show was taken up by begging for money, something web listeners wouldn't want to endure. Here are just the three interviews that accounted for almost all the show's content. Bill Fletcher, of United for Peace and Justice and the Trans-Africa Forum, on the connections between imperial war and domestic austerity and organizing agaisnt both * Michael Hardt, co-author of Empire, on Bush & Empire, and the global justice movement(s) * Greg Palast, author of The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, on election 2004, the reconstruction of Iraq, and the media But if you've got the cash and the inclination, please visit the WBAI website and make a pledge.	Fletcher stream (hi/low) download (hi/low). Hardt stream (hi/low) download (hi/low). Palast stream (hi/low) download (hi/low).
May 8, 2003 DH on economic news * Howard Wachtel, author of Street of Dreams, on the history of Wall Street * Heather Boushey of the Center for Economic & Policy Research, on child care arrangements, and the general state of the job market
May 1, 2003 DH on economic news (more on jobs, confidence, Greenspan) * Nina Revoyr, on the social history of Los Angeles, its charms as a subject, and her novel Southland * Robin Hahnel, author of The ABCs of Political Economy, on mainstream theory, its faults, and a better way
April 24, 2003 DH on economic news (jobs, confidence, Greenspan) * Anatol Lieven on postwar Iraq and the gang of American provincials running it * Ruy Teixeira, public opinion expert at The Century Foundation and co-author of The Emerging Democratic Majority, on Bush's poll numbers
April 17, 2003 Cultural theorist and philosopher Slavoj Zizek on the Iraq war, American imperialism, the role of fantasy in politics, etc. Among his many books: Welcome to the Desert of the Real, The Plauge of Fantasies, Tarrying With the Negative,The Sublime Object of Ideology - and, for a sampler, The Zizek Reader.
April 10, 2003 Bill Fletcher, one of the principal organizers of United for Peace and Justice, in a return engagement on the antiwar movement after the war ends * Gilberto Buenaño, professor of planning and former minister in the Venezuelan government, on what's going on in that belaguered country * former investment banker (and LBO author) Nomi Prins on the contracting bonanza in Iraq
April 3, 2003 Bill Fletcher, one of the principal organizers of United for Peace and Justice, on the future of the antiwar movement * Raad AlKadiri of PFC Energy on Iraq & oil * Bathsheeba Crocker of CSIS on postwar Iraq (click here for a report she co-authored)
March 27, 2003 DH on politics and economics of war * contributors to Implicating Empire, on war, globalization, fundamentalism, and legitimacy: Heather Gautney (co-editor), Pete Bratsis, Michael Hardt, Ellen Willis
March 13, 2003 DH on why a show mostly not about war * Tom Athanasiou and Paul Baer, authors of Dead Heat, on global warming * Mickey Z, editor of The Murdering of My Years, on how artists & activist make ends meet without selling out
March 6, 2003 Ahmet Tonak on the political economy of Turkey & the war * Susie Bright, editor of The Best American Erotica 2003 [ignore promises at the top of the show that Ed Vulliamy would be on; he had quietly skipped off to DC to cover Bush's press conference]
February 13, 2003 MARATHON SPECIAL IF A BETTER WORLD IS POSSIBLE, WHAT MIGHT IT LOOK LIKE? Broadcast as a two-hour special, part of WBAI's fundraising marathon. a third of the show was taken up by begging for money, something web listeners wouldn't want to endure. Here are just the three interviews that accounted for almost all the show's content. Walden Bello on the World Social Forum (WSF) and rural development * Naomi Klein, author of No Logo and Fences and Windows, on how Argentines are taking governance and businesses into their own hands and the arrested adolescence of the globalization movement * Njoki Njehu, director of the U.S. 50 Years Is Enough campaign, on the global justice movement and peace But if you've got the cash and the inclination, please visit the WBAI website and make a pledge.	Bello stream (hi/low) download (hi/low). Klein stream (hi/low) download (hi/low). Njehu stream (hi/low) download (hi/low).
February 6, 2003 DH on big bond manager Bill Gross on the end of American hegemony * Ellen Frank (of Emmanuel College and Dollars & Sense) on Bush's capital-friendly tax plans * Lenni Brenner on his latest book, a collection of 51 documents on Zionist-fascist links
January 30, 2003 Joel Schalit, editor of The Anti-Capitalism Reader, on the theory and practice of radical agitation today * Christian Weller of the Economic Policy Institute, on the state of the U.S. economy and the historical pattern of postwar recessions
January 23, 2003 William Pepper, author of An Act of State: The Execution of Martin Luther King, on the assassination as a joint venture of the U.S. government and the mafia * listener phonecalls
January 9, 2003 Ellen Frank (of Emmanuel College and Dollars & Sense) and Max Sawicky (of EPI and Maxspeak.org) on the Bush tax package * journalist Tim Shorrock on the Korean crisis (apologies for the muddy sound quality for the first 4 minutes of the show)
2002
December 19, 2002 Mark Hertsgaard, author of The Eagle's Shadow, on how the U.S. is seen abroad * Thomas Burke, author of Lawyers, Lawsuits, and Legal Rights, on the litigation explosion
December 12, 2002 Sara Roy (contributor to The New Intifada) on the Palestinian economy * Geisa Maria Rocha on Brazil and the situation facing Lula (read her New Left Review article here)
December 5, 2002 Jonathan Nitzan, co-author of The Global Political Economy of Israel, talks about just that (and download the chapter [in Acrobat] on the weapondollar-petrodollar coalition here) * Ghada Karmi, author of In Search of Fatima, talks about her childhood in Palestine and exile in England
November 21, 2002 Alexandra Robbins, author of Secrets of the Tomb, an investigation into Yale's Skull & Bones, talks about the world's most famous secret society * Linda Greuen, ex-Wal-Mart worker turned union organizer, talks about the UFCW's National day of Action against the world's largest corporation * Amy Caiazza, director of the Institute for Women's Policy Resarch survey of the status of women in the 50 U.S. states, talks about the newly released reports
November 14, 2002 Ruy Teixeira, public opinion expert at The Century Foundation and co-author of The Emerging Democratic Majority on why that majority failed to emerge on November 5 * Bonnie Brower, of The City Project, on the dire budget situation in New York City
November 7, 2002 Christopher Hitchens, author of Why Orwell Matters, talks about his book, his bellicose turn, and what Orwell might think of the phrase "non-imperial occupation." Anatol Lieven talks about what Bush really wants in Iraq.
October 17, 2002 MARATHON SPECIAL: THE WORLD ACCORDING TO W Broadcast as a two-hour special, part of WBAI's fundraising marathon. a third of the show was taken up by begging for money, something web listeners wouldn't want to endure. Here are just the three interviews that accounted for almost all the show's content. But if you've got the cash and the inclination, please visit the WBAI website and make a pledge. These interviews were conducted in response to the mobilization against Iraq. Tariq Ali is a Pakistani-born, London-based political analyst and novelist whose most recent book is The Clash of Fundamentalisms (from Verso). Cynthia Enloe teaches in the government department of Clark University; her work that's most relevant to this interview is Maneuvers (from the Unviersity of California Press). And Noam Chomsky teaches linguistics at MIT; his most recent book is 9/11 (from Seven Stories Press). Ali and Chomsky put the impending war on Iraq in historical and strategic context - what Bush is after, how it relates to long-standing U.S. policies, relations between the U.S. and its allies, and what might be next on the agenda. Ali also talks about the gains by religious parties in the Pakistani elections, and Chomsky talks about the reasonably good prospects for an antiwar movement in a country that's "incomparably more civilized" than it was 40 years ago. Enloe offers a feminist analysis of the militarization of our society - what its symptoms are, how sometimes people out of uniform are more militarized than those wearing it, and ways to demobilize our minds and our culture. You can download or stream the whole show by clicking on one of the links to the right. For individual interviews, click appropriately. Complete set is about 1:15; individual interviews about 0:25. Ali stream (hi/low) download (hi/low). Chomsky stream (hi/low) download (hi/low). Enloe stream (hi/low) download (hi/low).
October 3, 2002 Linda Peeno, MD and former medical director of several managed care companies, where she was supposed to deny care to sick people to boost corporate profits * listener call-ins
September 19, 2002 Campus Watch, the right-wing Zionist "rat on your professor" scheme * Eyal Weizman, one of the organizers of a banned exibit, The Politics of Israeli Architecture, and Dan Monk, author, The Architecture of Occupation, on how Israeli domination of Palestinians is manifested in the built environment * Hamid Dabashi, professor of Iranian studies at Columbia (and one of the targets of Campus Watch), on internal Iranian politics, what it's like belonging to the axis of evil, and the effects of a war on Iraq
September 12, 2002 Mohau Pheko looks back at the World Summit for Sustainable Development and forward with the movement that was energized by protesting it * two pundits from the hyperestablishment Council on Foreign Relations, Rachel Bronson and David Phillips, sing intellectual backup to Bush's war beat
September 5, 2002 political economist Sungur Savran reports from Instanbul on the state of Turkey * Heather Boushey, co-author of The State of Working America, on the material welfare of the U.S. population
August 29, 2002 Patrick Bond and Dennis Brutus report from Johannesburg on the World Summit for Sustainable Development, and the huge and repressed protests against it * Marc Linder, radical scholar of labor law at the University of Iowa, on U.S. wage and hour law and practice [because of a technical glitch, the hi-fi version isn't available]
August 22, 2002 DH on Jack Grubman & the telecoms bubble * Michael Sorkin and Sharon Zukin, editors, After the World Trade Center, talking about where those buildings came from and what might take their place
August 15, 2002 DH on economic news Fed holds fire, manufacturing sags * Joseph Stiglitz, co-winner 2001 Nobel Prize in economics; professor of economics, Columbia University; former chief economist, World Bank; author, Globalization and Its Discontents, on the U.S. economy, the effects of the stock market scandals, and how the IMF really works. In this interview, Stiglitz, who'd previously called for the reform of the IMF, says he's changing his mind, and it might well be time to scrap it and start all over. Click here for just that passage.
August 1, 2002 DH on economic news at the cusp of a vicious cycle? * Ruy Teixeira (The Century Foundation, co-author, The Emerging Democratic Majority) on the impact of the scandals and bear market on public opinion * Michael Hardt, co-author of Empire, on the book's reception and the impact of the Bush regime on his and Toni Negri's thinking
July 25, 2002 DH on the bear market * Ken Silverstein on the idiocy of hydrocarbon-based explanations for the war in Afghanistan * Ron Hayduk and Ben Shepard, editors of From ACT-UP to the WTO, on political activism today
July 18, 2002 DH on economic and scandal news * Pratap Chatterjee (freelance investigative journalist) on Cheney, Halliburton, and Brown and Root * Heather Boushey (Economic Policy Institute) on life after welfare
July 11, 2002 DH on scandals * Charles Komanoff (economist and energy analyst) on the proposal to put tolls on the East River bridges in New York City * Steffie Woolhandler (physician, author, prominent member of Physicians for a National Health Program) on U.S. health care finance: public money, private control * Michael Perelman (economist and author, Steal This Idea) on intellectual property rights
June 13, 2002 Robert Brenner, author of The Boom and the Bubble , talking about the 1990s boom, the subsequent bust, and the prognosis for the U.S. and world economies. And Gilberto Buenaño, Vice Minister of Planning and Regional Development in the government of Venezuela, talks about the coup attempt against the Chavez government, and what they're trying to do that's so annoyed Washington and the local elite.
May 30, 2002 Bill Wolman and Anne Colamosca, talking about their book, The Great 401(k) Hoax how the new pension system screws workers and lets employers off the hook. Judith Levine, author of Harmful to Minors , talks about kids, sex, and the national panic over their connections.
April 4, 2002 Greg Palast, authorThe Best Democracy Money Can Buy , on the Florida election scandal, the World Bank, and the journalism racket. * Norman Finkelstein, author of The Holocaust Industry and Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict, on the most recent round of crisis.

INDIVIDUAL INTERVIEWS (all 48kbps files except as noted)

Ashraf Ghani (October 4, 2001, 18:20; hi-fi file is 64kbps and 8.5 mb; low-fi is 16kbps and 2.2 mb ). Ghani is an anthropologist who'd taught at Johns Hopkins and consulted with the World Bank; he is now the finance minister of Afghanistan. He talks about Afghan society on the eve of the war.

Michael Hardt (December 7, 2000, 19:56, 6.9 mb) Co-author, with Antonio Negri, of Empire, in an interview done before the book became a phenom.

Chris Kraus and Sylvere Lotringer (March 28, 2002, 21:16, 7.4 mb) Editors, Hatred of Capitalism, a collection of pieces, many of which first appeared in Semiotext(e), talking about economics, culture, and the hatred of capitalism, of which we're all a part.

Bill Robinson (March 14, 2002, 15:05, 5.2 mb) This interview was recorded at the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam, February 2002, and broadcast on March 14, 2002. He talks about the evolution of a global ruling class. Robinson teaches sociology at the University of CaliforniaSanta Barbara and is the author of Promoting Polyarchy. An essay by Robinson and Jerry Harris, "Towards A Global Ruling Class?," publishedScience and Society, is available here. Apologies for the poor sound quality.

Gore Vidal (May 16, 2002) Vidal talks about George W. Bush, the war on terror, and his book, Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace. The interview was broken into three parts for broadcast, and that's the way it appears here. Because of an editing error, half a syllable was chopped off at the beginning of part 2; GV's question to himself is "Who governs?" If you'd rather read it, here's a transcript.

GORE VIDAL
streaming	downloadable
part 1 (14:20)	part 1 (4.9 mb)
part 2 (9:55)	part 2 (3.4 mb)
part 3 (8:54)	part 3 (3.0 mb)
transcript

Michael Zweig (June 7, 2002, 29:25, 10.2 mb) Zweig teaches economics at SUNYStony Brook and is the author of The Working Class Majority: America's Best-Kept Secret. He was the lead organizer of a conference held at Stony Brook in June 2002 called "How Class Works." In this interview, he talks about class in the U.S., and its relation to other categories like race and gender.

TRANSCRIPT ONLY

Kathie Sarachild and Amy Coenen of the Redstockings (January 24, 2002) on the organization, feminism, and its relation to health care.

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Doug Henwood's radio archives (through December 2016)

Doug Henwood's radio archives
(through December 2016)