This Is Hell!

Keri Leigh Merritt returns to discuss her Aeon article, "The southern gap: In the American South, an oligarchy of planters enriched itself through slavery. Pervasive underdevelopment is their legacy." "Rotten History" follows the interview. Check out Keri's article here: https://aeon.co/essays/capitalism-and-underdevelopment-in-the-american-south Help keep This Is Hell! completely listener support...

This Is Hell! returns from Spring Break! Alec Karakatsanis and Hamid Khan join Chuck to discuss consulting and biometrics giant Accenture's quiet takeover of police reform in Los Angeles County, California. Check out Akela Lacy's article on that process: https://theintercept.com/2024/03/12/los-angeles-jail-accenture-measure-j/ Help keep This Is Hell! completely listener supported and access weekly...

MIT Program in Science, Technology, and Society's Cloud Anthropologist Steven Gonzalez Monserrate on his article, "The Cloud Is Material: On the Environmental Impacts of Computation and Data Storage." "Rotten History" and some correspondence from listeners follow the interview. Check out Steven's article here: https://sts-program.mit.edu/news/mit-serc-case-study-the-cloud-is-material-on-the-enviro...

Lisa Heinzerling on her Boston Review article, “The Judicial War on Government: The Supreme Court’s latest bid to control agencies like the EPA—and Congress itself." Check out Lisa's article here: https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/the-judicial-war-on-government/ Help keep This Is Hell! completely listener supported and access weekly bonus episodes by subscribing to our Patreon: https://www.pat...

We wrap up the week with Assaf Kfoury who wrote the Cosmonaut article, "Hamas From Candidate Enforcer to Implacable Foe." Check out Assaf's article here: https://cosmonautmag.com/2024/03/hamas-from-candidate-enforcer-to-implacable-foe/ Help keep This Is Hell! completely listener supported and access weekly bonus episodes by subscribing to our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thisishell

Gaby Del Valle on The Baffler Magazine article, “Lost at CPAC: The paranoid style in conservative politics.” "Rotten History" follows the interview. Check out Gaby's article here: https://thebaffler.com/latest/lost-at-cpac-del-valle Help keep This Is Hell! completely listener supported and access weekly bonus episodes by subscribing to our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thisishell

Pankaj Mishra discusses his London Review of Books article, "The Shoah After Gaza." Check out Pankaj's article here: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n06/pankaj-mishra/the-shoah-after-gaza Help keep This Is Hell! completely listener supported and access weekly bonus episodes by subscribing to our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thisishell

We wrap up the week with the return of writer, theorist, and recovering academic Sophie Lewis to talk about her new writing at Salvage Magazine, "Some of my best enemies are feminists: on Zionist feminism." This will be Sophie's fourth appearance on This is Hell! and her interviews have repeatedly been selected by listeners as their favorites of the year each time she has appeared. Following the i...

Deborah Brown and Rasha Younes of Human Rights Watch join This Is Hell! to discuss their report, "Meta’s Broken Promises: Systemic Censorship of Palestine Content on Instagram and Facebook." "Rotten History" follows the interview. Check out Deborah and Rasha's report here: https://www.hrw.org/report/2023/12/21/metas-broken-promises/systemic-censorship-palestine-content-instagram-and Help keep This...

Oded Na'aman joins This Is Hell! to discuss his Boston Review article, "A Menacing Silence: Why is the reality of Palestinian suffering denied in the Israeli consciousness?" After the interview, we hear share some feedback from our dear listeners. Check out Oded's article here: https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/a-menacing-silence/ Help keep This Is Hell! completely listener supported and acces...

We wrap up the week with lecturer in philosophy at Gonzaga University, Joan Braune who will speak with us about her book, "Understanding and Countering Fascist Movements: From Void to Hope." "The Moment of Truth" with Jeff Dorchen follows the interview. Check out Joan's book here: https://www.routledge.com/Understanding-and-Countering-Fascist-Movements-From-Void-to-Hope/Braune/p/book/9780367696986...

Garrison Lovely on his Jacobin article, "Can Humanity Survive AI?: With the development of artificial intelligence racing forward at warp speed, some of the richest men in the world may be deciding the fate of humanity right now." Check out Garrison's article here: https://jacobin.com/2024/01/can-humanity-survive-ai Help keep This Is Hell! completely listener supported and access weekly bonus epis...

Historian Kristen du Mez on her bestselling cultural history, "Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation." Check out Kristin's book here: https://wwnorton.com/books/9781631499050 Help keep This Is Hell! completely listener supported and access weekly bonus episodes by subscribing to our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thisishell

Hamza Ali Shah discusses his Jacobin article, “Western Governments Share Responsibility for Israel’s Crimes," and his Declassified UK writing, "‘Beheaded Babies' – How UK media Reported Israel’s Fake News as Fact." "The Moment of Truth" with Jeff Dorchen follows the interview. Check out Hamza's Jacobin article here: https://jacobin.com/2024/02/western-governments-israel-war-crimes and his Declassi...

Wendy Pearlman discusses her New Lines Magazine article, "The Erasure of Palestinian Society." Seb's final (at least for a while, we hope) "The Past Inside the Present" follows the interview. Check out Wendy's article here: https://newlinesmag.com/argument/the-erasure-of-palestinian-society/ Help keep This Is Hell! completely listener supported and access weekly bonus episodes by subscribing to ou...

Indian American Muslim Council's Safa Ahmed on her Jacobin Magazine article, "The US Hindu Right Is Still Whitewashing the Gujarat Pogrom." "Rotten History" follows the interview. Check out Safa's article here: https://jacobin.com/2024/03/hindutva-us-right-gujarat-pogrom-modi Help keep This Is Hell! completely listener supported and access weekly bonus episodes by subscribing to our Patreon: https...

The American Prospect's Rick Perlstein on Israel's neglected history of revisionism, and a belated obit for Henry Kissinger. Also, we're announcing the winner of this week's Question from Hell!, a QFH! suggested by Rick. Check out Rick's article here: https://prospect.org/world/2024-02-21-neglected-history-state-of-israel/ and here: https://prospect.org/politics/2024-02-28-kissinger-revisited/ Hel...

Harper's Andrew Cockburn returns to This Is Hell! to talk about his March cover story, "The Pentagon’s Silicon Valley Problem: How Big Tech is losing the wars of the future." "The Moment of Truth" with Jeff Dorchen follows the interview. Check out Andrew's article here: https://harpers.org/archive/2024/03/the-pentagons-silicon-valley-problem-andrew-cockburn/ Help keep This Is Hell! completely list...

Sociologist Amy Cooter joins This Is Hell! to discuss her new book from Routledge, "Nostalgia, Nationalism, and the US Militia Movement." After the interview, we announce this week's best answer to the Question from Hell! Check out Amy's book here: https://www.routledge.com/Nostalgia-Nationalism-and-the-US-Militia-Movement/Cooter/p/book/9781032421971 Help keep This Is Hell! completely listener sup...

Emine Fidan Elcioglu on her Social Problems journal article, “Armed Citizens on the Border: How Guns Fuel Anti-Immigration Politics in America." "The Moment of Truth" with Jeff Dorchen follows the interview. Check out Emine's article here: https://academic.oup.com/socpro/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/socpro/spad034/7222583 Help keep This Is Hell! completely listener supported and access wee...

Cory Doctorow on his Financial Times article, "‘Enshittification’ is coming for absolutely everything: The term describes the slow decay of online platforms such as Facebook. But what if we’ve entered the ‘enshittocene’?" "Rotten History" follows the interview. Check out Cory's article here: https://www.ft.com/content/6fb1602d-a08b-4a8c-bac0-047b7d64aba5 Cory also has a new novel, "The Bezzle." ht...

Joining This Is Hell! today are Jacob Kang-Brown and James Gilgore to discuss the uses, abuses, and inequities of the use of wearable electronic monitoring devices in the US criminal legal system. Jacob co-authored the Vera Institute report, "People on Electronic Monitoring," with Jessica Zhang and Ari Kotler. James co-wrote the book, "Understanding E-Carcertation: Electronic Monitoring, the Surve...

Returning to This is Hell!, Jake Johnston is author of the new book, "Aid State: Elite Panic, Disaster Capitalism, and the Battle to Control Haiti." Jake is a Senior Research Associate at the Center for Economic and Policy Research. "The Moment of Truth" with Jeff Dorchen follows the interview. Check out Jake's book here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250284679/aidstate Help keep This Is Hell...

Dr. Jasmine L. Harris joins This Is Hell! to discuss her new book from Broadleaf Books, "Black Women, Ivory Tower: Revealing the Lies of White Supremacy in American Education." "Rotten History" follows the interview, as do your first batch of responses to this week's Question from Hell! Check out Dr. Harris's book here: https://www.broadleafbooks.com/store/product/9781506489834/Black-Women-Ivory-T...

Bruce E. Levine on his CounterPunch article, "Scientific Misconduct and Fraud: The Final Nail in Psychiatry’s Antidepressant Coffin." Also, Jeff Dorchen and the 'Moment of Truth.' Check out Bruce's article here: https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/01/17/scientific-misconduct-and-fraud-the-final-nail-in-psychiatrys-antidepressant-coffin/ Help keep This Is Hell! completely listener supported and acces...