Natasha Lennard on "I’ve Covered Violent Crackdowns on Protests for 15 Years. This Police Overreaction Was Unhinged."
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Here is what Chuck is reading to prepare for Saturday's show:
How a Democrat Killed Welfare - Premilla Nadasen [Jacobin - login required]
How to kill the demos: the water struggle in Italy - Andrea Muehlebach [ROAR Magazine]
Inventing the Future: Postcapitalism and a World Without Work - Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams [Verso Books]
Nicole Phillips Breaks Down Haiti Electoral Crisis [audio interview] - Africa Now
On This Day in Rotten History...
On this day in 1607 – (409 years ago) – the Bristol Channel, between England and Wales on the British west coast, was hit by an enormous flood that swept across two hundred square miles of coastal land and killed an estimated two thousand people. Contemporary accounts describe how the sea first mysteriously receded from the beach, then rose in waves that shot bright sparks, which were quickly followed by “huge and mighty hills of water” moving “faster than a greyhound could run.” Though the exact cause of the disaster remains unknown, many experts studying the written accounts, as well as physical evidence in the area’s soil, contend today that the flood was probably caused by a tsunami. They also warn that the area around the Bristol Channel is vulnerable to being similarly flooded again.
On this day in 1956 – (60 years ago) – the home of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King in Montgomery, Alabama, was bombed while he was away at a meeting with organizers of the Montgomery bus boycott. The bomb destroyed the front porch and blew out the facade and front windows. Dr. King’s wife, Coretta, and his first child, Yolanda, both of whom were inside the house when the bomb went off, were uninjured. Three days earlier, an anonymous telephone caller had threatened to kill King and destroy his home if he did not call off the boycott. After the bombing, Dr. King urged his supporters not to respond with violence. Montgomery city officials, meanwhile, expressed outrage and vowed to catch the perpetrators — but no arrests were ever made.
On this day in 1968 – (48 years ago) – the North Vietnamese army and the Vietcong launched the Tet Offensive, a campaign of coordinated attacks that caught by surprise the forces of South Vietnam and the United States, who had expected a lull in hostilities during the traditional holiday of Tet, or lunar New Year. Within days, the surprise offensive swept more than a hundred South Vietnamese towns and cities, including Saigon, the southern capital — and it continued for months, with massive casualties on both sides. The Tet Offensive was a shock to the US government, which had previously believed Vietnamese nationalist forces incapable of such strong resistance. Public sentiment in the United States soon turned strongly against the war in Vietnam, and against US president... read more
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David is author of Base Nation: How U.S. Military Bases Abroad Harm America and the World from Metropolitan Books.
The story involves venomous spiders and a botched terror attempt, but I think the Guinness thing was the hardest for Will to handle.
Curt posted the article Gov. Snyder Tainted by Flint Water Crisis for the Michigan ACLU's Democracy Watch blog.
Kathryn wrote the book Right Out of California: The 1930s and the Big Business Roots of Modern Conservatism.
Salma recently posted The Egyptian revolution #Jan25: Important Readings and What you must know about the Egyptian military industrial complex at her blog In Quest For Justice.
I think you might find he actually isn't relieved to find that out. Might be an ironic statement. Jeff's a real trickster.
Here is what Chuck is reading to prepare for Saturday's show:
Base Nation: How U.S. Military Bases Abroad Harm America and the World - David Vine [Metropolitan Books]
Right Out of California The 1930s and the Big Business Roots of Modern Conservatism - Kathryn Olmsted [The New Press]
What you must know about the Egyptian military industrial complex - Salma Hussein [In Quest For Justice]
On this day in Rotten History...
On this day in 1556 – (460 years ago) – a powerful earthquake hit the Shaanxi province of northern China — altering the course of rivers, causing massive floods, igniting fires, and causing landslides that destroyed countless hillside villages of traditional stone houses, known as yaodongs. In an affected area more than five hundred miles across, the Shaanxi earthquake killed an estimated 60 percent of the population, or some 830,000 people. It’s now believed to have been the deadliest earthquake in recorded history.
On this day in 1968 – (48 years ago) – the USS Pueblo, a US Navy spy ship wth eighty-three crewmen aboard, was captured off the coast of North Korea by warships of that country in an attack that killed one Pueblo crew member and ended with the other eighty-two sailors being taken prisoner. The North Korean government, arguing that the American vessel had violated its territorial waters, kept the Pueblo crew in captivity for the next eleven months, using torture and starvation to extract forced confessions. Meanwhile, the administration of US President Lyndon Johnson struggled to work out a diplomatic solution, while secretly
preparing contingency plans for war. In the end, the Pueblo crew was released after North Korea and the US worked out a complex face-saving solution in which the Pueblo commander, Lloyd Bucher, signed an apology immediately after repudiating it. Upon Bucher’s return to the United States, the Navy began a court-martial against him, but it soon backed down in the face of public outcry. As for the Pueblo itself, it’s now on permanent display at the Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum in Pyongyang, North Korea.
On this day in 1978 – (38 years ago) – Terry Kath, lead guitarist and founding member of the rock band Chicago, who for some time had been struggling with alcohol and drug abuse, was fascinated by handguns, which he collected and enjoyed playing with. At a party in Los Angeles, Kath showed a roadie his unloaded .38, which he repeatedly held to his head, pulling the trigger. Kath then picked up a nine-millimeter semiautomatic and began to do the same. The roadie warned the guitarist to be careful, but to reassure him,. Kath showed him that the gun’s ammo clip was empty. He then held the gun to his head, smiled, and pulled the trigger.
Unfortunately for Kath, the gun had a... read more
Listen live from 9AM - 10:45AM Central on WNUR 89.3FM or stream at www.thisishell.com
Jodi is author of Crowds and Party from Verso Books.
Lisa's new book is The War on Alcohol Prohibition and the Rise of the American State from Norton.
Here is what Chuck is reading to prepare for Saturday's show:
Crowds and Party - Jodi Dean [Verso Books]
The War on Alcohol Prohibition and the Rise of the American State - Lisa McGirr [Norton]
