Manufacturing Dissent Since 1996
New interviews throughout the week
Ut austin april 29 2024 protest ut tower image

The US is not favorable to democracy in the Middle East. I think that this issue has become such a red line for American elites, that even if the American public were to be very vocally anti Israel, I think they would not be allowed to. I think that we'd see more of what we saw in recent weeks, which is really quite shocking, of the violent suppression of peaceful protests. They did not agree with the protests, they didn't like them, and that's their right to disagree with them. But to see American citizens who were not being violent, beaten, arrested, and brutalized by American police just for expressing their views about a foreign policy subject. It's very eyeopening. I think that Americans would very quickly find themselves in a similar situation to people in the Middle East.

Murtaza Hussein returns to This Is Hell! to discuss his recent Intercept piece, "They Used to Say Arabs Can’t Have Democracy Because It’d Be Bad for Israel. Now the U.S. Can’t Have It Either." "Rotten History" follows the interview.

Help keep This Is Hell! completely listener supported and access weekly bonus episodes by subscribing to our Patreon.

 


Posted by Alexander Jerri
872lineup

Listen live from 9AM - 1PM Central on WNUR 89.3FM or stream at www.thisishell.com

 

9:10 - Anthropologist Flagg Miller examines al-Qaeda's psychology via Osama bin Laden's cassette collection.

Flagg is author of The Audacious Ascetic: What the Bin Laden Tapes Reveal About Al-Qa'ida from Oxford University Press.

 

10:05 - Live from Mumbai, Valérie Bergeron reports on repression in Egypt and the first days of the Knife Intifada.

Valérie is in the middle of a trip across the Middle East and Asia.

 

10:35 - Antidote Zine's Ed Sutton explores the effects of refugees and right-wingers on direct democracy in Switzerland.

Ed will be doing the reporting himself, but Antidote has been transcribing and publishing stories on Switzerland and the refugee crisis all year.

 

11:05 - Anthropologist Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing finds a matsutake mushroom growing beyond endstage capitalism.

Anna is author of The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins from Princeton University Press

 

12:05 - Sociologist Margee Kerr explores the science and psychology behind fear itself.

Margee's new book is Scream: Chilling Adventures in the Science of Fear from PublicAffairs Books.

 

12:45 - Jeff Dorchen turns off his phone and focuses just long enough to write about distraction.

OK now he just wrote me on Facebook, he must be done writing his new Moment of Truth.

Posted by Alexander Jerri
Readinglistskull

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

The Audacious Ascetic: What the Bin Laden Tapes Reveal About Al-Qa'ida - Flagg Miller [Oxford University Press]

Head them off at the pass: Fear of refugees swings Switzerland even farther right - The Economist

The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins - A.L.Tsing [Princeton University Press]

Scream: Chilling Adventures in the Science of Fear - Margee Kerr [PublicAffairs]

Episode 871

Disopticon

Oct 24 2015
Posted by Alexander Jerri

After a football-induced hiatus, This is Hell! is back with a one hour show. Listen 9AM - 10AM US Central. Four hours next week!

9:05AM - Civil rights attorney Flint Taylor challenges police torture and state secrecy at Chicago's Homan Square.

Flint's law firm, the People's Law Office, filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the City of Chicago and six Chicago police officers.

9:30AM - Writer Sarah Kendzior explores the ties and tensions between Ferguson's Jewish and Palestinian activists.

Sarah wrote The Jewish and Palestinian Activists of the Ferguson Movement for Medium.

Episode 829

Supply Chains

Dec 20 2014
Episode 830

Click Show

Dec 27 2014
Posted by Alexander Jerri

Atention citizens of Grand Rapids and West Michigan:

This is Hell! Monday nights at 11PM Eastern on Public Reality Radio!

Starting tonight, This is Hell! will be airing Monday nights at 11PM Eastern on WPRR Public Reality Radio. We're sending them a one hour version of the show each week (the first hit is always free) with the reminder that there's four hours of interview Hell each week at www.thisishell.com

If you know a radical / lefty with a radio in Grand Rapids or West Michigan, let em know that we're coming to their town / subdivision / squat. And if you want to hear This is Hell! in your community, get in touch with us and we'll bug that station together.

 

Episode 870

Leadershipwreck

Oct 10 2015
Posted by Alexander Jerri

This day in rancid, ugly, horrible, putrid, rotten history...

On this day in 1780 – [235 years ago] – an enormous hurricane swept through the Caribbean with winds of up to two hundred miles per hour, devastating colonial towns and sinking scores of British and French ships. The storm later zigagged northeast, up the Eastern Seaboard, wreaking havoc as far as Newfoundland and Bermuda, and killing more than twenty thousand people. It remains the deadliest Atlantic hurricane on record, worse even then Hurricane Mitch of 1998. 

On this day in 1871 – [144 years ago] – the Great Chicago Fire burned itself out after having raged through the city center for three days. It killed some three hundred people, destroyed a third of the city’s real estate, and left more than one hundred thousand people homeless. To this day, the fire’s original cause remains unknown, despite many theories advanced by historians. The popular myth of Mrs. O’Leary’s cow kicking over the lantern was debunked long ago. One of the more sketchy but intriguing conjectures is that the fire in Chicago -- along with others occurring on the same day in Peshtigo, Wisconsin, and in Holland, Michigan -- may have been ignited by red-hot meteorite fragments fallen through earth’s atmosphere from an exploding comet.

On this day in 1957 – [58 years ago] –  the world’s first major nuclear accident occurred when a fire broke out at the Windscale facility in Cumbria on the northwest coast of England, releasing streams of airborne radioactive particles across the UK and Europe. Operators worked frantically all night and into the following day before finding a way to extinguish the reactor’s burning uranium cores. Once they did so, they were able to seal the reactor tank -- which remains sealed today, with fifteen tons of uranium fuel still inside. The Windscale reactor is now being decommissioned, a process expected to be complete in the year 2038.

On this day in 1973 – [42 years ago] – Spiro T. Agnew, vice president of the United States under President Richard Nixon, was forced to resign from office as a condition of a plea deal on an income tax evasion charge. Agnew had also been charged by a federal district attorney with extortion, conspiracy, and accepting more than one hundred thousand dollars in bribes while holding political office. His resignation came amid... read more

Posted by Alexander Jerri

Listen live tomorrow 9AM - 1PM Central on WNUR 89.3FM or stream here at thisishell.com

 

9:10 - Economist Morten Jerven explains why the West misunderstands economic growth in Africa.

Morten's latest book is Africa: Why Economists Get it Wrong from Zed Books.


10:05 - Live from Sao Paulo, Brian Mier reports on anti-austerity marches across Brazil.

Brian wrote the Brasil Wire article Against Austerity: World Habitat Day.

 

10:35 - Our Man in London, David Skalinder translates Jeremy Corbyn to American ears.

According to Dave, "UK politics has just become properly interesting for the first time in maybe fifteen years."

 

11:05 - Historian Greg Grandin explores Henry Kissinger's imperial architecture.

Greg is author of the new book Kissinger's Shadow: The Long Reach of America's Most Controversial Statesman from Macmillan.

 

12:05 - Writer Rick Perlstein checks out of Obama Presidential Library politics.

Rick wrote the There Goes the Neighborhood:The Obama Library Lands on Chicago for The Baffler.

 

12:45 - Jeff Dorchen admits that we are in denial about our situation and cannot put a toupee on it.

Jeff will be delivering his first Moment of Truth via an actual microphone we just bought him. No more audio fudge!