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Just added to my radio archive (click on date for link): September 2, 2021 Paul Passavant, author of Policing Protest, on the change in how cops treat protesters since the 1960s • Marisol Cantú and Shiva Mishek (co-author of this article) on how activists won a shift of public funding from cops to social services in Richmond, California
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Just added to my radio archive (click on date for link): September 3, 2020 Mike German on cops and white supremacists (Guardian article; Brennan paper) • Hadas Thier, author of A People’s Guide to Capitalism, on Marx’s economics
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Just added to my radio archive (click on date for link): June 25, 2020 Nikhil Pal Singh on race, class, policing, protest • Michael Kinnucan of Brooklyn DSA’s electoral committee on left victories in the NYC primary elections
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Just added to my radio archive (click on date for link): June 4, 2020 Alex Vitale, author of The End of Policing, on why cops are being so brutal and what should be done with them • Ben Tarnoff, co-founder of Logic magazine, on tech worker organizing (essay here)
NYC has way too many cops
As do many other cities, but since I’m a New Yorker, I’m leading with the hometown news. US cities vary widely in the number of cops they have relative to their population, as the graph below (drawn from data assembled by Governing magazine). Among big cities, DC, Chicago, New York, Baltimore, and Philadelphia top the list, with over 40 officers per 10,000 people. These are well above the national average of just under 28 per 10,000. Cities toward the bottom of the list have 20 or fewer. If New York had an average… Read More
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Just added to my radio archive (click on date for link): November 8, 2018 Natasha Lennard, author of this article, on cops & white supremacists • Forrest Hylton on Colombian university protests and a potential alliance with Brazil to topple Maduro
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Just added to my radio archive (click on date for link): March 29, 2018 Sean Guillory, host of the Sean’s Russia Blog Podcast, on Putin and Russophobia • Alex Vitale, author of The End of Policing, on school shootings and what (not) to do about them (and why it’s bad to label school shooters as terrorists)
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Just added to my radio archive (click on date for link): January 11, 2018 Kaveh Ehsani on the reasons behind the protests in Iran • Franklin Zimring, author of The City That Became Safe, on the reasons behind the record-breaking decline in crime in NYC
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Just added to my radio archive (click on date for link): October 19, 2017 Isabel Hilton on the Chinese Communist Party Congress • Alex Vitale, author of The End of Policing, on how to cure ourselves of the cop sickness
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Just added to my radio archive: December 4, 2014 Anatol Lieven of Georgetown U–Qatar (and author of this) on Hillary the Hawk • Alex Vitale, author of City of Disorder, on Ferguson in the context of American policing November 27, 2014 Lucia Green-Weiskel on the U.S.–China climate quasi-deal • Steven Teles talks about Hillary, kludgeocracy, and neoliberalism. November 20, 2014 Yanis Varoufakis on the eurocrisis • Howie Hawkins, Green candidate for NYS governor, on the party’s future November 13, 2014 Detroit bankruptcy exit special: Shea Howell of Detroiters Resisting Emergency Management, offers an activist perspective, and Wallace Turbeville (see writings here) runs the numbers
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Just posted to my radio archives: May 22, 2014 Matt Taibbi, author of The Divide, on criminalizing the poor (and dissenters) and letting bankers run free BtN has been fundraising for KPFA all month. This is the first show with original content since April 24—this interview only, less the fundraising. So it’s short. But please contribute to KPFA if you want to keep these shows coming. Be sure to mention BtN when you do.
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Just posted to my radio archives: May 9, 2013 Corey Robin, political scientist at Brooklyn College and author of The Reactionary Mind, on how the right thinks (with additional discussion of this essay on Nietzsche, Hayek, etc.) May 2, 2013 Mark Blyth, author of Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea, on just that April 25, 2013 Alex Vitale on the militarization of police forces • Josh Eidelson on spreading worker actions against Walmart and fast food
Shaking a fist at the NYPD
There was a demonstration this afternoon organized by my friends Penny Lewis and Alex Vitale, among others, in front of NYPD headquarters to object to the nasty treatment of the Occupy Wall Street protesters and years of repression of dissent in what was once a rambunctious city. (Here’s the event’s Facebook page.) Since Giuliani and continuing through Bloomberg, the cops have used “quality of life” pretexts—keep the traffic moving!—to limit marches. And they’ve spied on organizers, arrested protesters en masse, and generally made peaceful dissent very difficult. The fact that a senior cop was… Read More
