This Is Hell!

Today's episode features our second-most played interview of 2023, according to SoundCloud's data. Reporter, public records requester, researcher Julia Rock joins us to discuss her article at The Lever, "How Big Pharma Actually Spends Its Massive Profits: New research shows that pharmaceutical companies have spent more on enriching shareholders than drug research and development over the past deca...

Back by popular demand in our Best of 2023 series: Journalist Christopher Ketcham who co-wrote The Intercept piece, "The Shutdown of “Luxury Emissions” Should Be at the Center of Climate Revolt." After that, Sebastian Wuepper returns with a new The Past Inside the Present. Check out Christopher's article here: https://theintercept.com/2022/12/13/climate-protest-private-jets-schiphol-airport/ Help...

Brian Mier returns to This Is Hell! to discuss his recent publication, "Anticorruption and Imperialist Blind Spots: The Role of the United States in Brazil’s Long Coup," in Latin American Perspectives. This is the first peer-reviewed study confirming that the United States played a crucial role in Brazil's long coup, which threw the left out of power in 2016 and brought about far-right rule in 201...

Olivia Riggio on her Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting article, “Blaming Mass Shootings on Mental Illness Doesn’t Address Either Issue: Rationalizing the horrors of a mass shooting by emphasizing the perpetrator’s mental state does little to address the larger issue,” followed by Rotten History. Check out Olivia's article here: https://fair.org/home/blaming-mass-shootings-on-mental-illness-doesnt-a...

Christopher Ketcham on his Harper's Magazine article, "The Machine Breaker: Inside the mind of an ‘ecoterrorist’." Then a Past Inside the Present with Sebastian Wuepper. Check out Christopher's article here: https://harpers.org/archive/2023/11/the-machine-breaker/ Help keep This Is Hell! completely listener supported and access weekly bonus episodes by subscribing to our Patreon: https://www.patre...

Kay Gabriel on her n+1 magazine article, "The Anti-Trans Panic and the Crusade Against Teachers: The goal is to crumble popular support for public education." Plus, a Moment of Truth from Jeff Dorchen and Rotten History from Renaldo Migaldi. Check out Kay's article here: https://www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/the-anti-trans-panic-and-the-crusade-against-teachers/ Help keep This Is Hel...

Susan Neiman on her The New York Review of Books essay, "Germany on Edge: In recent weeks, Germany’s reflexive defenses of Israel and suppression of its critics have assumed a fevered pitch." Then another installment of The Past Inside the Present with Sebastian Wuepper. Check out Susan's article here: https://www.nybooks.com/online/2023/11/03/germany-on-edge-israel-palestine/ Help keep This Is He...

Pooja Bhatia Agarwal joins This Is Hell! to discuss her recent Baffler article, "Deadly Strain: How the UN sought to deny its role in Haiti’s cholera epidemic." Plus, another dose of Rotten History from Renaldo Migaldi. Check out Pooja's article here: https://thebaffler.com/outbursts/deadly-strain-bhatia Help keep This Is Hell! completely listener supported and access weekly bonus episodes by subs...

The Intercept's Nick Turse joins This Is Hell! to discuss his just-published report, "Civilian Harm Secret Pentagon Investigation Found No One at Fault in Drone Strike That Killed Woman and 4-Year-Old." In the undeclared drone war, nobody is accountable. Check out Nick's report here: https://theintercept.com/2023/11/12/somalia-drone-strike-civilian-deaths/ Help keep This Is Hell! completely listen...

Saree Makdisi returns to discuss his n+1 article, "No Human Being Can Exist: How can a person make up for seven decades of misrepresentation and willful distortion in the time allotted to a sound bite?” Then, Sebastian Wuepper returns with a new The Past Inside the Present. Check out Saree's article: https://www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/no-human-being-can-exist/ Help keep This Is He...

Bloomberg's Faye Flam on her Noema Magazine article, “The 'Man the Hunter' Myth Won't Go Away: Persistent myths about strictly defined social roles for humans in the past only limit what it means to be part of society today.” Also, a 'Moment of Truth' from Jeffrey Dorchen. Check out Faye's article here: https://www.noemamag.com/the-man-the-hunter-myth-wont-go-away/ Help keep This Is Hell! complete...

Shane Burley on his writing at Waging Nonviolence on white nationalists manipulating the Gaza crisis. Plus 'Rotten History.' Check out Shane's article, "How the far right is trying to manipulate the crisis in Gaza": https://wagingnonviolence.org/2023/11/far-right-try-manipulate-gaza-crisis/ Help keep This Is Hell! completely listener supported and access weekly bonus episodes by subscribing to our...

We had to reschedule today's guest, Nick Turse, whose article on American drone strikes and civilian casualties in Somalia remains to be published. We will let you know when that interview will take place as soon as we know. Today's episode features a timely interview from our archives. On February 15, 2015, just months after Israel's last invasion of Gaza, Middle East scholar Norman Finkelstein j...

George Monbiot returns to This Is Hell! to discuss his recent article, "The Cruel Fantasies of Well-Fed People: The astonishing story of how a movement’s quest for rural simplicity drifted into a formula for mass death." Check out George's article here: https://www.monbiot.com/2023/10/04/the-cruel-fantasies-of-well-fed-people/ Jeff Dorchen plays the Jew card in his latest Moment of Truth. Help kee...

Sophia Goodfriend discusses her Baffler article, "Blunt Force: 'Precision' warfare does not exist," on the war in #Gaza. Also, 'The Past Inside the Present" with Seb Wüpper on Money.

Center for Economic and Policy Research's Mark Weisbrot on his article, "Ecuador’s Election Could Have Lasting Consequences," which was originally posted at Common Dreams: https://www.cepr.net/ecuadors-election-could-have-lasting-consequences/ Also, Jeffrey Dorchen with a 'Moment of Truth,' and we are announcing this week's Question from Hell! winner. Help keep This Is Hell! completely listener su...

Institute for Policy Studies' Phyllis Bennis on her recent writing, “As Israel and Gaza erupt, the US must commit to ending the violence — all the violence,” at The Hill and, “Both Israelis and Palestinians Are Victims of Israel’s Apartheid System," at InsideSources. We will also have this week's Hangover Cure, Question from Hell, and Rotten History. Help keep This Is Hell! completely listener sup...

Karen Greenberg, Director of the Center on National Security at Fordham Law, joins This is Hell! to discuss her latest article, "Closing Guantánamo?: Yes, at a Snail's Pace...but a Pace," published in TomDispatch. Seb returns with another installment of The Past Inside the Present. Check out her article here: https://tomdispatch.com/closing-guantanamo/ Check out the United Nations 2023 special rep...

openDemocracy's Chrissy Stroop on Twitter's death and what it means for the 2024 presidential election, and anti-trans activists taking a page from the anti-abortion movement's winning playbook. Also, a note about Gaza and Chuck's adventures with media polls.

Jewish Currents editor-in-chief Arielle Angel joins This Is Hell! to discuss her essay on current state of the Palestinian liberation movement, "'We Cannot Cross Until We Carry Each Other.'" Check out Arielle's article here: https://jewishcurrents.org/we-cannot-cross-until-we-carry-each-other Help keep This Is Hell! completely listener supported and access bonus episodes by subscribing to our Patr...

Hadas Thier returns to talk about her Jacobin article, "The Rot of the Crypto Economy Goes Deeper Than Sam Bankman-Fried." Check out the article here: https://jacobin.com/2023/08/crypto-economy-sam-bankman-fried-bitcoin-ftx-scam After the interview, Jeff Dorchen returns with a new Moment of Truth Help keep This Is Hell! completely listener supported and access bonus episodes by subscribing to our...

Agricultural journalist Alan Guebert joins This is Hell! to discuss the historical roots, current state, and future of the United States' food production system. Check out Alan's Baffler article, "Farmed Out: American Agriculture Is About Business, Not Food": https://thebaffler.com/salvos/farmed-out-guebert Help keep This Is Hell! completely listener supported and access bonus episodes by subscrib...

Writer Jessa Crispin rejects today's mainstreamed, neoliberal feminism, and calls for a return to feminism's radical promise: as a sharp-edged, outsider's social critique, as a challenge to the supremacy of capitalism, and as a path towards a radically reorganized society. Jessa wrote the book Why I Am Not a Feminist: A Feminist Manifesto from Melville House.

Journalist Sarah Sunshine Manning discusses the politics of indigenous feminism - both inside today's Women's movement, and as a longer historical force in resistance to settler colonialism and environmental destruction - and calls on social movements to recognize, respect and listen to the voices of Native American women. Sarah wrote the article No Indigenous Women, No Women's Movement for Truthd...

Law scholar Aya Gruber examines the intersection of gender crime and criminal law in the mass incarceration era - and explains how 'tough on crime' policies towards domestic violence expanded the policing, surveillance and punishment of marginalized communities, amplifying the harm faced by victims and their families. Aya is author of the book The Feminist War on Crime: The Unexpected Role of Wome...