Fresh audio product

Newly posted to my radio archives: February 14, 2013 Barbara Fields, professor of history of Columbia and co-author (with her sister Karen Fields) of Racecraft, on the ideology of race in the U.S. and its relation to material practice February 7, 2013 Diana Furchtgott-Roth of the Manhattan Institute makes the corporate libertarian case for immigration (paper here) • Joel Schalit on the complexities of a cultural boycott of Israel, and the rise of theo-fascism there Note that the KPFA version of the February 14 show was a fundraiser for the station. If you like these podcasts, please contribute to KPFA. Without the… Read More

The State of the Union: an old fartish complaint

[From my radio commentary this week.] A few words on the State of the Union address. What a plodding, tedious affair—enlivened only by its unresolved contradictions. Obama spoke against austerity—“we can’t just cut our way to prosperity,” the qualifier “just” being a tipoff that a confidence trick was being perpetrated—but quickly made it clear he wanted to cut Medicare and Social Security, lest, as he put it, “our retirement programs…crowd out the investments we need for our children, and jeopardize the promise of a secure retirement for future generations.” In the euphemistic language… Read More