India-Israel Worker Deal Looks like Indentured Servitude / Michelle Buckley & Paula Chakravartty

Listen live from 9AM - 10AM Central on WNUR 89.3FM / stream at www.thisishell.com / subscribe to the podcast

9:10 - Walter Mosley explores the mysteries of life beyond the demands of capitalism and socialism.

Walter is author of Folding The Red Into The Black: Or, Developing A Viable Untopia For Human Survival In The 21st Century from OR Books.

On This Date in Rotten History...

On this date in 1846 – (170 years ago) – After several days of bloody urban warfare in which some nine hundred combatants on both sides were killed or wounded, a US army of occupation led by General Zachary Taylor defeated Mexican forces in battle at Monterrey, northern Mexico. Taylor then negotiated a truce with Mexican General Pedro Ampudia that allowed the Mexican soldiers to give up the city and march away with their weapons. US President James K. Polk was infuriated when he learned of the deal, fuming that he had authorized no such agreement, and had simply ordered Taylor to kill Mexicans and take their territory. But Polk’s war was opposed by many in the United States—not only by such luminaries as Frederick Douglass and Ralph Waldo Emerson, but even by many of the soldiers and officers who fought in it. Ulysses S. Grant, who served as a second lieutenant under Taylor, later called the war “one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation... an instance of a republic following the bad example of European monarchies, in not considering justice in their desire to acquire additional territory.” As for Taylor, he later succeeded Polk to the US presidency, only to die after sixteen months in office.         

Rotten History is written by Renaldo Migaldi

Listen live from 9AM - 1PM Central on WNUR 89.3FM / stream at www.thisishell.com / subscribe to the podcast

9:10 - Historian Alan Taylor traces faultlines in the modern US to the limits of the American revolution.

Alan is author of the book American Revolutions: A Continental History, 1750-1804 from W.W. Norton.

10:00 - Valerie Bergeron explores the case of missing and murdered indigenous women across Canada.

Valérie is a public defender working the North of Quebec.

10:35 - Sarah Jumping Eagle reports from the front lines of the No Dakota Access Pipeline protest.

Sarah is a pediatrician, and one of the first pipeline resisters arrested in August.

11:05 - Sociologist Peter Ikeler discusses the politics of work and resistance in 21st century retail chains.

Peter is author of Hard Sell: Work and Resistance in Retail Chains from ILR Press.

12:05 - Attorney Thomas Durkin examines the national security secrecy creeping into the judiciary system.

Thomas wrote "Permanent States of Exception: A Two-Tiered System of Criminal Justice Courtesy of the Double Government Wars on Crime, Drugs, & Terror" in Valparaiso University Law Review.

12:40 - In a Moment of Truth, Jeff Dorchen compares the One Percent Doctrine and the Skittles Analogy.

Not sure if he means the Ron Suskind book, or just a general doctrine of the One Percent. Probably the later. Understand the Skittles thing though.

Here's what Chuck is reading to prepare for Saturday's show:

American Revolutions: A Continental History, 1750-1804 - Alan Taylor [W.W. Norton]

National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls - Government of Canada

Hard Sell: Work and Resistance in Retail Chains - Peter Ikeler [ILR Press]

Permanent States of Exception: A Two-Tiered System of Criminal Justice Courtesy of the Double Government Wars on Crime, Drugs, & Terror. - Thomas Durkin [Valparaiso University Law Review]

On This Day in Rotten History...

On this day in 456 – (1,560 years ago) – in the ancient Italian city of Ravenna, the army general Remistus, who had become one of the most powerful political figures in the Western Roman Empire under the emperor Avitus, was captured and assassinated by agents of his own subordinate, a lieutenant named Ricimer, who coveted his high position. It was just one of the many brutal power struggles so common in the late years of the empire. Only a month later, the emperor Avitus himself was also killed. 

On this day in 1862 – (154 years ago) – more than 3,600 soldiers died in the Battle of Antietam, the bloodiest single day of fighting in the American Civil War. Another 17,000 were wounded. Meanwhile, on that same afternoon — just outside Pittsburgh, about 140 miles away — more than 150 young women in the main building of the Allegheny Arsenal were working at top speed, hand-manufacturing rifle cartridges for Union troops. As a horse-drawn cart arrived at the arsenal with a new shipment of gunpowder, one of the horses apparently scratched its iron horseshoe against a curbstone or a metal wagon wheel. It created a spark that ignited loose gunpowder in the road, which in turn detonated the barrels of powder on the cart, creating a series of explosions that could be heard miles away. The blast and fire destroyed the arsenal building and killed seventy-eight women workers, many of whom were recent Irish immigrants. Today, the area is a public park that hosts 10K runs and outdoor movies. The actual site of the explosion is now a softball diamond.

On this day in 1908 – (108 years ago) – at Fort Myer, Virginia, a twenty-six-year-old US Army lieutenant named Thomas Selfridge became the first person in the world to die in an airplane accident. Selfridge was an aviation enthusiast who had flown dirigibles, human-carrying kites, and early experimental airplanes, so when Orville Wright came to Fort Myer to demonstrate his newest plane for the Army Signal Corps, Selfridge agreed to be his passenger. Wright and Selfridge were passing over the army post at an altitude of 150 feet when the right-hand propeller suddenly broke. Wright lost control; the plane went into a nosedive and crashed. While Wright was seriously injured with numerous broken bones, Selfridge suffered a broken skull and died a few hours later. Doctors concluded that he could have... read more