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This idea that the mark of how civilized the country is is based on its free speech rights is rooted in the Cold War. It's funny that you mentioned this because one of the most popular old school respected journalists in Brazil recently wrote a column about Glenn Greenwald down here, saying Glenn Greenwald has to stop acting like he's down here to convert the natives to his free speech absolutism. I think you should judge a nation about how democratic it is by how it treats its poor people, by how it guarantees the basic human rights like food, water, education, and housing. That should be the real gauge of judging how civilized the country is, not how free Nazis are to goose step around threatening people.

Correspondent Brian Mier on the Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting article, “‘I Knew They Had Fabricated a False Narrative’: An Interview with Estela Aranha on 'Twitter Files Brazil.'” Estela Aranha is former secretary of digital rights in the Brazilian Justice Ministry. "The Moment of Truth" with Jeff Dorchen follows the interview. We also announce this week's best answer to the Question from Hell!

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

 


Oct 23 2017
Posted by Alexander Jerri
975lineup

Listen live from 9AM - 10:15AM Central on WNUR 89.3FM / stream at www.thisishell.com / subscribe to the podcast

 

9:10 - Historian Bradley Simpson examines US complicity in the murder of 500,000 Indonesian leftists.

Bradley wrote the brief U.S. Embassy Tracked Indonesia Mass Murder 1965 for the National Security Archive.

 

9:45 - Writer Max Haiven finds financialization at the heart of capitalism's authoritarian logic.

Max wrote the article Financialization, precarity and reactionary authoritarianism for ROAR Magazine.

Episode 974

Nigh Tide

Oct 15 2017
Posted by Alexander Jerri
974lineup

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

 

9:15 - Author Ashley Dawson explores the future of cities, and the life in them, as climate change comes home.

Ashley is author of Extreme Cities: The Peril and Promise of Urban Life in the Age of Climate Change from Verso.

 

10:00 - Seoul correspondent Marc Flury takes minutes at the DPRK's Central Committee plenary meeting.

You might remember Marc from dropping the hottest video game of 2016, the rhythm violence nightmare THUMPER.

 

10:35 - Charlie Hebdo's Jacob Hamburger reports back on the strange, foreign world of the American Left.

Jacob conducted the interviews for Charlie Hebdo's 4-part, English language series Feeling the Burn: The Left Under Trump.

 

11:05 - Game developer Zoe Quinn explains how to fight online harassement, from Gamer Gate and beyond.

Zoe is author of Crash Override: How Gamergate (Nearly) Destroyed My Life, and How We Can Win the Fight Against Online Hate from PublicAffairs. Zoe is on a book tour right now, she'll be at Chicago Ideas Week next Friday.

 

12:00 - Journalist Julianne Tveten tours the company towns of Silicon Valley's vampire over/land-lords.

Julianne wrote the recent articles Zucktown, USA for The Baffler and How the "Fake News" Scare is Marginalizing the Left for In These Times.

 

12:35 - Writer Becquer Seguin examines the present state, and future stakes of Catalan independence.

Becquer wrote the articles Have Spain and Catalonia Reached a Point of No Return? and The Spanish Government Just Energized Catalonia’s Independence Movement for The Nation.

 

1:05 - Our Man in San Juan, Dave Buchen (phones willing) checks in from sunny, apocalyptic Puerto Rico.

Dave reported back two weeks ago that he was fine, and screwed.

 

1:25 - In a Moment of Truth, Jeff Dorchen beats his money into ploughshares.

 

Episode 973

Reaction Times

Oct 7 2017
Posted by Alexander Jerri
973lineup

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

 

9:15 - Writer Corey Robin explores the inconsistency and fear at the heart of the conservative mind.

Corey is author of The Reactionary Mind: Conservative from Edmund Burke to Donald Trump for Oxford University Press.

Episode 972

Collapsism

Oct 1 2017
Posted by Alexander Jerri
972lineup

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

 

9:10 - Cultural critic Henry Giroux examines the rise of American authoritarianism, before and after Trump.

Henry is the author of the new book The Public in Peril: Trump and the Menace of American Authoritarianism from Routledge.

Episode 971

City/State

Sep 23 2017
Posted by Alexander Jerri

To Be Or Not To Be A Job

Welcome to the Moment of Truth: the thirst that is the drink.

Last week a friend of mine from El Salvador became a US citizen. Of course, to commemorate her joining the great red, white and blue horde, we celebrated with sushi. It's unprecedented that so many millions of people are now scrambling to get ahead of being deported in anticipation of a crazy President's actions. Traditionally the government comes and puts you and your family in concentration camps without much warning. Thank goodness Dump and the GOP Congress are so incompetent. It gives people time to worry and, if they're lucky, get themselves situated. Of course, even as a citizen, there's no guarantee Latins or any people of color won't suffer some kind of surprise new-fangled persecution under the nation's first white president.

My Salvadoran friend cleans houses and sells insurance. I remember how excited she was when she became certified to sell health insurance. Of course, I couldn't celebrate that. Back then she was taking not one, but two jobs from an American. Now that she is an American, those two jobs can now go to an American. As it should be.

One of the main perks of being a US citizen is that you can feel just about as entitled as a white person does. Not that you have the same racial privileges, but you can get as self- righteous as if you do. Just that simple designation, citizen, can give you an entirely new list of grievances. My friend got so outraged over immigrants coming up from Latin America, not learning the language, and stealing jobs from US citizens, she considered turning her mother over to ICE. But then she decided it would be too hard to find a new drug mule. And she couldn't in good conscience send her mother back to El Salvador, which the US prison system and deportation policies have turned into a gang-ruled land of violence of the type our white president likes to make out Chicago is.

As a citizen of a constitutional oligarchy like we have here in the States, my friend understands that she has certain responsibilities. It's not all just entitlements, free education, adequate housing, affordable health care, respectful, restrained police, no, it's none of those. Not even close. But even a government which has abrogated every social contract between itself and its citizens demands a duty from them. I forget what it is. It can't be the duty to be an informed voter. That doesn't help. It just... read more