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Doug Henwood's radio archives
(since January 2006)

LBO editor Doug Henwood does a radio show on WBAI, New York, covering economics and politics. It's on most Thursdays, 5-6 PM NYC time. WBAI is at 99.5 on the FM dial - and also on the web. And, since January 26, 2008, it's being rebroadcast on KPFA, 94.1 FM Berkeley, Saturday mornings at 10. Here are the archived shows.

Note that the dates of the shows are links. If you want to direct someone right to a specific show, copy that link.

Text of the opening commentaries from October 30, 2008, onward posted to LBO News. And the show has a Facebook group here.

TECHNICAL NOTES The files are available in two flavors of MP3 - streaming and downloadable. (Streaming means you listen to it online in real time without transferring a file to your computer; downloadable means you transfer the file to your computer and listen offline. In either case, you'll need a program that can play MP3-format files.) Shows are also available in two levels of fidelity - high (FM radio quality), at 64kbps, and low (telephone quality), 16kbps. Streaming hi-fi requires a broadband connection; low-fi is within the capacity of a dialup. Shows are about 56 minutes long; the 64kbps versions are around 25 megabytes, and the 16kbps versions, around 6 mb.

Thanks to Jordan Hayes of Bitway for hosting the archives.

For shows earlier than January 2006, click here.

To subscribe to the podcast, copy the URL from the appropriate icon below and paste it into your podcasting software. Or click here to go to the show's iTunes page.

FULL SHOWS

August 26, 2010 (back after long fundraising break) Paul Street, author of The Empire’s New Clothes, on the sorrows of Brand Obama • Christian Parenti, author of this article, on how the gov can kickstart the adoption of green technologies by the way it buys
July 29, 2010 Michael Lind on infrastructure, who’s behind the parties, and the USA’s evolution into an oligarchy • Astra Taylor on digital serfdom
July 22, 2010 Yves Smith, keeper of the Naked Capitalism blog and author of Econned, on the contribution of the dismal science to the financial crisis, and how Wall Street is worse than ever (rerun of March interview) • Rob Weissman, president of Public Citizen, on the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill
July 15, 2010 Corey Robin on Ayn Rand (see his review here) • Alyssa Katz, author of Our Lot (just out in paperback!), on the state of the housing market
July 8, 2010 Sean Keenan, proprietor of the indie label Blanco Music and author of this great rant, on how music is faring in the Internet era • Ruy Teixeira, author of this paper, on how demographics favor the Dems (for what that’s worth) • Bill Hartung on military spending today
July 1, 2010 Cynthia Enloe, splendid analyst of gender and the militarization, on the McChyrstal affair • Richard Seymour, author of The Meaning of David Cameron, on the new British government
June 24, 2010 Matthew Lasar on Pacifica governance • Max Fraser, author of this Nation article, on Andy Stern & SEIU • Keith Gessen and Hedge Fund Man, collaborators on Diary of a Very Bad Year, talk about the wacky bubble days
June 17, 2010 Gary Rivlin, author of Broke USA, on how sleazy businesses make bundles by lending to the poor • Sarah Ellison, author of War At the Wall Street Journal, on Rupert Murdoch’s takeover of Dow Jones
May 29, 2010 (KPFA only) Norman Finkelstein, author of This Time We Went Too Far, talks about Israel’s invasion of Gaza in late 2009, and about changing U.S. public opinion towards that country
May 8, 2010 (KPFA version) DH on conspiracism (cont.) • Emily Gould, blogger and author of The Heart Says Whatever, on the new media world, kids today, etc. • Rob Weissman, president of Public Citizen, on how Wall Street gets its way in DC
April 29, 2010 DH on conspiracism • Enrique Diaz-Alvarez, hedge fund trader, on the Eurocrisis • Kert Davies, research director of Greenpeace USA, on climate politics and the oil spill
April 22, 2010 Mark Weisbrot of CEPR on Latin America • Steve Early on the departure of Andy Stern from SEIU
April 15, 2010 Robert Scott of the Economic Policy Institute on how China’s currency manipulation kills American jobs (paper here) • Matt Taibbi on how Wall Street ripped off Jefferson County, Alabama, and the U.S. government
April 8, 2010 Diane Ravitch, former conservative educational reformer turned critic of the privatization agenda and author of The Death and Life of the Great American School System, on the awfulness of the now-bipartisan scheme of testing, charters, union-busting, etc.
April 3, 2010 (KPFA version) Ann Harrison, labor economist at Berkeley, on the effects of the anti-sweatshop campaign on Indonesian footwear workers (paper here) • Steven Hill, author of Europe’s Promise, on the Old World as an economic model for the U.S.
March 25, 2010 Tom Athanasiou of EcoEquity on the science and politics of climate change • Steffie Woolhandler of Physicians for a National Health Program on the health care abomination
March 18, 2010 Greg Albo, Sam Gindin, and Leo Panitch of York University, authors of In and Out of Crisis, on the current economic mess: origins, consequences, possibilities
March 13, 2010 Yves Smith, keeper of the Naked Capitalism blog and author of Econned, on the contribution of the dismal science to the financial crisis, and how Wall Street is worse than ever • Robert Pollin of UMass on how to create 18 million new jobs (see article here)
March 4, 2010 David Cay Johnston on the Austin IRS suicide pilot and how the rich have largely given up on paying taxes • Yanis Varoufakis on the Greek economic crisis (and Germany’s designs)
February 6, 2010 (KPFA version) Mark Brenner, director of Labor Notes, on the state of the working class today (not so great, actually) • Bill Fletcher, executive editor of The Black Commentator, on the need for the left to “get serious”
January 28, 2010 Dan La Botz on what happened to the working class • Stephanie Coontz, professor of history at Evergreen State and director of research and education for the Council on Contemporary Families, on the state of the family and gender relations today
January 21, 2010 Robert Fatton on the history and social structure of Haiti, and how it's compounded the misery of natural disaster
January 14, 2010 Robert Fatton on the history and social structure of Haiti (excerpts from 2004 interviews—originals here and here) • Tom Geoghegan on the evil thing known as the Senate filibuster • Alyssa Katz, author of this piece (and the excellent book of Our Lot) on the state of the housing market and what good things we can do with all the see-through condos left over from the bubble
January 9, 2010 (KPFA version) Michael Rose of the Bureau of National Affairs on the BNA’s survey of economists’ projections for 2010 • Cyrus Bina of the University of Minnesota–Morris on Iran
December 31, 2009 David Himmelstein on the emerging Democratic health reform schemes • Dennis Brutus on South Africa (repeat of July 2008 interview in memory of the great poet and activist who died on December 26)
December 24, 2009 Sam Gindin, former economic advisor to the Canadian Auto Workers union, on bringing the working class back into politics (see his article here) • Lucia Green-Weiskel of the Beijing-based NGO Innovation Center for Energy and Transportation on the Copenhagen climate conference and China’s role in climate politics
December 17, 2009 Gar Lipow on the Copenhagen climate conference and the technological path to a post-carbon future (download his book and other stuff here) • Kevin Alexander Gray on South Carolina, white supremacy, and Obama and black America
December 10, 2009 Greg Grandin, author of Fordlandia, on Honduras and other Latin American hotspots • Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Bright-Sided, on enforced good cheer in the USA
December 5, 2009 (KPFA version) Letitia James of the New York City Council and Dana Berliner of the Institute for Justice on the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn and the depredations of eminent domain across the U.S. • Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute on EPI's jobs program
November 28, 2009 (KPFA only) DH on financial regulation • Bob Meister, professor of political science at the UC–Santa Cruz, on the crisis in the University of California system (his articles on the topic are here and here)
November 19, 2009 Curt Ellis, co-producer of Big River (and King Corn), on the toxic evils of agribusiness • Joel Schalit, author of Israel vs. Utopia, on the Israeli politics and identity, and the country's relations with the U.S.
November 14, 2009 (KPFA version) David Arkush and Tyson Slocum of Public Citizen on what's going on with financial regulation (for LBO’s take, see here) • Monty Neill of FairTest on education policy, testing, charter schools, etc.
October 31, 2009 (KPFA only) Former Reagan advisor Bruce Bartlett, author of The New American Economy, pronounces supply-side economics dead and embraces a VAT • Lauren Weber, author of In Cheap We Trust, praises tightfistedness
October 8, 2009 Yanis Varoufakis on the Greek elections and the economy’s troubles • Greg Grandin on the coup in Honduras
October 3, 2009 (KPFA version) Susan Marks, author of Aqua Shock, on the water crises • Walter Benn Michaels, author of this and this and this, on neoliberalism’s use of “diversity”
September 17, 2009 Kari Lydersen, author of Revolt on Goose Island, on the Republic Doors and Windows worker takeover • Lee Badgett, author of When Gay People Get Married, on what happens to people and societies when same-sexers tie the knot
September 10, 2009 Max Blumenthal, author of Republican Gomorrah, on the takeover of the GOP by the fundie nuts • Michael Yates, author of In and Out of the Working Class, on the working class, teaching economics, and the UFW (see his LBO piece on César Chávez here)
September 5, 2009 (KPFA version) Wallace Shawn, just out with this collection of Essays, on bourgeois guilt and the contradictions of privilege • Bruce Dixon, managing editor of the Black Agenda Report, on black and liberal confusion over that corporate shill Obama
August 27, 2009 Ned Sublette, author of The Year Before the Flood and The World That Made New Orleans, on that city, its culture and music, and the aftermath of Katrina (plus the radio premiere of his song, “Between Piety and Desire”) • Adolph Reed on the dismal state of the left and the waning usefulness of “race” as a category
August 20, 2009 Tariq Ali on Pakistan and the ridiculous election in Afghanistan • Astra Taylor, director of the documentary Examined Life (and editor of the book made from the interviews for the film) on talking with contemporary philosophers (with some sound from Slavoj Zizek, Judith Butler, and Sunny Taylor)
August 15, 2009 (KPFA version) Drawn from the original programming material in a WBAI fundraiser (please contribute if you like what you get here—don’t be a free-rider!): Sandy Cioffi, director of the documentary Sweet Crude, talks about oil and resistance in Nigeria • Christian Parenti, journalist, talks about Fixer: The Taking of Ajmal Naqshbandi, a film about his friend and colleague who was kidnapped and killed by the Taliban
August 1, 2009 (KPFA version) Josh Bivens of the Economic Policy Instute on the weak expansion and killer recession • labor journalist Steve Early, author of Embedded With Organized Labor, on covering the union movement (program contains ten minutes of musical and other filler because Bivens didn’t answer his phone at the appointed time)
July 23, 2009 Ervand Abrahamian on the Iranian elections and their aftermath • Michael Thomas, author of Love and Money, on money and love (and Goldman Sachs)
July 16, 2009 Katha Pollitt on her new book of poetry, The Mind–Body Problem • Len Rodberg of PNHP and Queens College on the awfulness of health care reform, DC-style
July 9, 2009 Matthew Lasar, author of Uneasy Listening, on Pacifica governance (all Pacifica producers were required to do a 15-minute segment on the network elections) • Sam Gindin, now of York University and formerly of the Canadian Auto Workers, on the crisis in auto (more in this piece) • Matt Taibbi, author of this hit piece, on the crafty bloodsuckers at Goldman Sachs
July 2, 2009 Leo Panitch, author of this cover story in Foreign Policy, on why the bourgeoisie is interested in Marx (and, of course, why they should be) • Jackson Lears, author of Rebirth of a Nation: The Making of Modern America, 1877-1920, on American regeneration (mainly through violence) after the Civil War
June 25, 2009 Alyssa Katz, author of Our Lot, on the homeownership fetish and the housing bubble/bust • Liza Featherstone (author of this article, and, it should be disclosed, wife/beloved of the host) and Adolph Reed on the burdens of college tuition and how the problem can be solved by making it free
June 18, 2009 Dan Fleshler, author of Transforming America's Israel Lobby, on the exaggerated power of the lobby and what can be done about it • Hamid Dabashi of Columbia University on the Iranian election and its aftermath
June 11, 2009 Alfredo Corchado, Mexico bureau chief of the Dallas Morning News, on Mexican drug gangs on both sides of the border • Justin Fox, author of The Myth of the Rational Market, on the loopy notion of market efficiency and its toxic political effects
June 6, 2009 (KPFA version) Steffie Woolhandler on the (very high) contribution of medical costs to personal bankruptcy (article here) • Bethany Moreton, author of To Serve God and Wal-Mart, on Christian free enterprise and the Behemoth of Bentonville
May 30, 2009 (KPFA only) Daniel Geary, author Radical Ambition, on the life and thought of C. Wright Mills • Claudia Goldin on the labor market penalty suffered by women who have a kid
May 23, 2009 (KPFA only) Vijay Prashad of Trinity College on the Indian elections (see his Counterpunch article here) • David Skeel of the University of Pennsylvania Law School on how bankruptcy (rather than trillion dollar checks) could be used to deal with the financial crisis
April 30, 2009 Andrew Ross, author of Nice Work If You Can Get It, on life and labor in precarious times • Michael Yates, author of Why Unions Matter, just out in a second edition, on just that topic
April 23, 2009 William Robinson, UCSB sociology prof under attack by the Zionist lobby, on his case (more, with links, here and here) • Richard Seymour, keeper of the Lenin's Tomb blog and author of The Liberal Defense of Murder, on the U.S. left, and imperialism under Obama • Paul Mason, author of Meltdown, on The Crisis
April 16, 2009 Deborah Meier, progressive educator, on the awfulness of Bush's No Child Left Behind, which Obama is likely to retain • Adolph Reed on genes and politics, and politics without politics
April 9, 2009 Kat Long, author of The Forbidden Apple, on the history of sex in NYC • Misha Glenny, author of McMafia, on the global criminal underground
April 4, 2009 (KPFA version) David Skeel of the University of Pennsylvania Law School on a possible GM bankruptcy • Kim Phillips-Fein, author of Invisible Hands, on business opposition to the New Deal and the long recovery of the right
March 26, 2009 Max Fraad Woolf and Nomi Prins on The Crisis, The Bailout, etc. • Steve Early on the weird SEIU–CNA reconciliation
March 19, 2009 Caitlin Macy, author of Spoiled, on life in & around the American upper class • Teresa Ghilarducci, author of When I'm Sixty-Four (as well as this paper) on pensions
March 12, 2009 Joel Magnuson, author of Mindful Economics, on the economics of capitalism and beyond • Aurora Meneghello and Serge Bakalian, who are making Default, a doc about student debt
March 7, 2009 (KPFA version) Rob Weissman (author of this report) on Wall Street's political contributions & the disastrous dereg agenda they bought • James Horney of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities on Obama's budget
February 28, 2009 (KPFA only) Jeff Madrick on The Crisis • David Himmelstein on Obama's health plans and the awfulness of the Massachusetts model
February 21, 2009 (KPFA only) Pratap Chatterjee, author of Halliburton's Army, on how Pentagon contracting makes it easier to go to war • Susie Bright, editor of X: The Erotic Treasury, on sex and politics
January 29, 2009 James Howard Kunstler, author most recently of World Made By Hand, on the decline of oil-based civilization, the horrors of suburbia, and the sickness of tattooing • Jeffrey Perry, biographer of Hubert Harrison, on the forgotten black radical who should be remembered
January 22, 2009 Stephen Mihm, author of A Nation of Counterfeiters, on the giant role of fakery and fraud in American financial history • Sean Jacobs (his blog is here) on South Africa and the ANC's fall from grace
January 15, 2009 Michael Lighty of the California Nurses Association on the economic impact of health care and a wished-for transition to single-payer (report here) • Nomi Prins and Max Fraad Wolff on the economic crisis
January 10, 2009 David Bacon, author of Illegal People, and Michelle Wucker, author of Lockout (and director of WPI) on immigration • Sara Roy on the horrors of Gaza (KPFA version, includes commentary on December employment)
2008
December 11, 2008 Charlie Komanoff on a plan to make NYC transit nearly free (by soaking cars) • Yanis Varoufakis on the Greek riots and Greek neoliberalism (This show was patched together from a two-hour WBAI fundraiser. Please contribute.)
December 4, 2008 Preston Smith on "racial democracy" vs. social democracy, in 1940s Chicago and Obama's America • Anthony D'Costa on the Mumbai bombings and Indian neoliberalism
November 27, 2008 Richard Seymour, keeper of the Lenin's Tomb blog and author of The Liberal Defense of Murder, on liberal imperialism • Bill Ayers, author of Fugitive Days and Barack Obama's old pal, on revolution, education, and social change
November 20, 2008 Dan La Botz (author of this article) on the crisis in the auto industry - and the UAW • Reihan Salam, co-author of Grand New Party, great hope of the right, on the conservative movement's future
November 13, 2008 Forrest Hylton on Obama's likely Latin American policy (and his top advisor on the area, Dan Restrepo) • Kate Gordon, co-director of the Apollo Alliance, on green jobs
November 6, 2008 Adolph Reed on Obama's election • Maliha Safri on immigrants in the U.S. labor market - especially one that's shrinking
October 30, 2008 Bryant Welch, author of State of Confusion, puts American politics on the couch • Glenn Hurowitz of Greenpeace USA on financial crisis and climate change
October 23, 2008 Richard Portes of the London Business School on the Icelandic crisis • Patrick Cockburn, Iraq correspondent for The Independent and author of Muqtada (just out in an expanded paperback edition), on the Muqtada al-Sadr, the surge, and the future of the U.S. in Iraq
October 16, 2008 Ögmundur Jónasson, head of the Left Green delegation in the Icelandic parliament, on that country's financial crisis • Martin Wolf, Financial Times columnist and author of Fixing Global Finance, on The Crisis
October 9, 2008 David Smick, economic consultant and author of The World Is Curved, on The Crisis • Sarah Ludwig of NEDAP on foreclosures
October 4, 2008 (KPFA only) Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin on the financial crisis, neoliberalism, and the American empire - the end of what, if anything, exactly? (Their paper on the topic is here.)
September 18, 2008 This program was devoted to fundraising for WBAI and KPFA. The content was this interview with Tariq Ali. If you like Behind the News, please consider a contribution to WBAI and/or KPFA.
September 13, 2008 (KPFA only) Robin Mills, author of The Myth of the Oil Crisis, on why peak oil is a crock • Bracken Hendricks of the Center for American Progress (and co-author of Apollo's Fire), on a green jobs program
August 28, 2008 Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute on The State of Working America • Mark Ames on Russia, the closure of The eXile, and his depressing return to the USA
August 21, 2008 Dennis Perrin, author of Savage Mules, on the Dems as bloodthirsty imperialists • John Gulick on Russia, China, and the new configuration of imperial power
August 14, 2008 Moustafa Bayoumi, author of How Does It Feel To Be A Problem?, on being young and Arab in paranoid America • Christian Parenti, author of this Nation piece, on capitalism and class struggle in China
August 7, 2008 John Talbott, author of The Coming Crash in the Housing Market and Obamanomics, on the housing bust and Obamanomics • Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, contributor to Red State Rebels, on radicals in the heartland and the snobbery of the coastal left
July 17, 2008 Sue Sturgis of the Institute for Southern Studies on the myth of clean coal • Adolph Reed (author of this from the BAR) on Obama, etc.
July 10, 2008 The outrageous case of Fahad Hashmi: in deep confinement for having allegedly transferred rainwear to somone who passed it on to al Qaeda: Sean Maher (his laywer), Faisal Hashmi (his brother), and Jeanne Theoharis (former professor of his, and activist on his behalf) • Dennis Brutus, South African activist and poet, on the suit for apartheid reparations, the state of SA, and the bizarre joining of Nelson Mandela and Cecil Rhodes (interview includes two poems)
July 3, 2008 Danielle Allen on those "Obama is a Muslim" emails, and the effects of the Internet on political discourse • Patrick McCully of International Rivers on carbon offsets and other climate issues (his evisceration of Sebastian Mallaby is here) • Vicki Smith, co-author of The Good Temp, on contingency today
June 26, 2008 Greg Smith of the Pew Forum on religious fluidity in the USA • Gary Gates of the Williams Institute on same-sex coupling, some of it married • David Kirsch of PFC Energy on the oil market
June 19, 2008 Corey Robin (of Brooklyn College) and Reihan Salam (of The American Scene and The New American Foundation) on the state of the right: power-napping or on the ropes? • Thomas Mackell, chair of the Richmond Fed and author of When Good Pensions Go Away, on how most of us aren't ready for retirement
June 12, 2008 Yuval Elmelech, author of Transmitting Inequality, on the transmission of inequality across generations • Larry Bartels, author of Unequal Democracy, on inequality and politics (mainly of the partisan kind)
June 7, 2008 David Holben on food security and hunger in the USA • Adolph Reed on the creation of a homeowners' republic in New Orleans (KPFA version; includes DH analysis of May U.S. employment report, released on June 6)
May 24, 2008 Rick Perlstein, author of Nixonland, on the life and times of Tricky Dick, and how he's still with us (originally broadcast on KPFA only)
May 3, 2008 Joel Kovel, editor of Capitalism Nature Socialism and author of The Enemy of Nature, talks about why capitalism will destroy the earth unless we destroy capitalism. (This show was broadcast on KPFA only. Though the show usually originates on WBAI on Thursday evenings and is re-broadcast on KPFA the following Saturday, the May 1 edition was pre-empted because station management thought that only Ken Nash and Mimi Rosenberg could handle the complex issue of Mayday. Here's what they did with the hour.)
April 24, 2008 Tony Hendra, editor in chief of My Wall Street Journal, on the parody of the Murdochized daily • Kevin Phillips, author of Bad Money, on the gloomy future of the USA
April 10, 2008 Aaron Woolf, director, and Ian Cheney, born-again farmer, on their movie King Corn, and the grotesqueries of big agribiz • Anatol Lieven on NATO expansion, Russia, McCain, etc.
April 3, 2008 Patrick Cockburn, author of Muqtada, on the Mahdi Army, its leader, and Iraqi politics (apologies for the poor audio quality) • Miriam Greenberg, author of Branding New York, on the reinvention of NYC as the neoliberal city
March 27, 2008 Jerry Lembcke on conspiracism • John Bogle, founder of the Vanguard Group of mutual funds, on the credit crisis and the money management business as a "giant scam" • Dean Baker on the housing bust, and an exchange with DH on whether Northern Rock is a model of anything but disaster
March 20, 2008 Jim Ledbetter on the collection of Marx's journalism that he edited • Nomi Prins on Bear Stearns
March 13, 2008 Adolfo Gilly on Latin America and his revolutionary pessimism • NYU's Elayne Tobin on the political economy of celebrity (like, who's making money off Britney?)
March 6, 2008 Joseph Stiglitz, co-author of The Three Trillion Dollar War, on the costs of the invasion of Iraq - and the gloomy prospects for the U.S. economy
February 7, 2008 The bulk of this show was devoted to fundraising for WBAI (and if you can, please drop some cash in their jar). The substantive content was an interview with Noam Chomsky, which is what the files to the right are. Chomsky talks about how Bush is alike and different from his predecessors, and the general state of the empire.
January 31, 2008 Martin Wolf of the Financial Times on the credit crisis, and the financial system's propensity for disaster • Peter Linebaugh, author of The Magna Carta Manifesto, recaptures the radicalism of that venerable document
January 24, 2008 A broad and splendid discussion of the current financial and housing crisis with economist/writer Max Fraad Wolff; former investment banker/journalist Nomi Prins, and mortgage analyst/activist Josh Zinner
January 17, 2008 Thomas Schaller, author of Whistling Past Dixie, on winning the presidency without the South • Phoebe Damrosch, author of Service Included, on luxury cuisine at Per Se
January 10, 2008 Tariq Ali on Pakistan • Lize Mogel and Trevor Paglen on their atlas and radical cartography
January 3, 2008 Glen Ford of the Black Agenda Report on the particular awfulness of Barack Obama • Max Fraad Wolff on wreckage in the housing market and its broader meaning
December 27, 2007 David Graeber, author of Lost People and Possibilities, on Yale, imperialism, and anthropology • Forrest Hylton, co-author of Revolutionary Horizons, on Bolivia and the roots of the Evo Morales revolution
December 20, 2007 Charlie Komanoff on a radical reworking of Bloomberg's congestion pricing plan: soak cars for free transit • Adolph Reed, author of this article, on why he's sitting out this election
December 13, 2007 Tom Geoghegan, author of See You In Court, on how the right is responsible for litigiousness • Greg Grandin on the constitutional referendum in Venezuela and the state of Hugo Chavez
December 6, 2007 Peter Lavelle on Putin and the state of political play in Russia • Patrick Cockburn, correspondent for The Independent and author of The Occupation, on whether The Surge is really working
November 15, 2007 Julia Isaacs on inequality (big) and economic mobility (not so big) in the U.S. • Kevin Gallagher, author of The Enclave Economy, on Mexico's crummy experience with foreign investment • Laura Agustín, author of Sex at the Margins, on migration, trafficking, desire, and fundamentalism
November 8, 2007 Devah Pager, author of Marked, talks about race and the stigma of a criminal record when applying for a job • Tariq Ali on Pakistan, Iraq, and Latin America
October 4, 2007 Katha Pollitt, author of Learning to Drive, deftly mixes the personal & the political • Greg Grandin, NYU prof and author of Empire's Workshop, talks about the spreading neoliberal rebellion in Latin America
September 27, 2007 Elizabeth Currid, author of The Warhol Economy, on the urban economics of art, fashion, and nightlife • John Bowe, author of Nobodies, a good book about slave labor today, was supposed to be on but didn't show up, so I took listener calls instead
September 20, 2007 David Himmelstein, co-founder of PNHP, on Hillary Clinton's health care scheme (and what she told him almost 15 years ago) • Bret Benjamin, author of Invested Interests, does a cultural angle on the World Bank
September 13, 2007 Bart Jones, author of Hugo!: The Hugo Chavez Story from Mud Hut to Perpetual Revolution, on Chavez and his 21st century socialism • Ervand Abrahamian on Iranian politics
September 6, 2007 James Parrott of the Fiscal Policy Institute on The State of Working New York • Desmond Lachman of AEI on why Wall Street needs a bailout
August 30, 2007 Arloc Sherman & Leighton Ku of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities on the Census income, poverty, and health insurance figures for 2006 • Nikitra Bailey and Sarah Ludwig on how subprime scamsters have been conning people out of their houses
August 23, 2007 DH on the financial crisis (an audio version of this article) • Eleanor Huffines, Alaska director for the Wilderness Society, on the Arctic oil rush • Clive Thompson (author of this article) on why New Yorkers are living longer than other Americans
August 16, 2007 Sungur Savran on Turkey (read a good piece of his here) • Dean Baker on the housing bust (latest take here)
August 9, 2007 Peter Spiegelman, editor of Wall Street Noir, and Lawrence Light, one of the contributors, on finance & crime fiction • Andrew Beveridge on women earning more than men in NYC, and other demographic curiosities (like who can afford all that luxury housing?)
July 5, 2007 Audacia Ray, author of Naked on the Internet, on women, the net, and sex • Len Rodberg rebuts the attacks on Michael Moore's tremendous movie, SiCKO
June 28, 2007 Robert Frank, author of Richistan, on today's neo-Gilded Age rich • Camilo Mejia, author of Road from ar Ramadi, on the army, Iraq, and deserting from the army in Iraq
June 21, 2007 Tara McKelvey, author of Monstering, on the stories behind the infamous Abu Ghraib photos • Lee Badgett on the economics of same-sex marriage and adoption, and on workplace discrimination against LGBTs
June 14, 2007 Joel Kovel, author of Overcoming Zionism, on the psychopolitics of Zionism and the possibilites of a single-state solution in Israel/Palestine • Christian Parenti on Afghanistan
June 7, 2007 Adolph Reed on Obama, the toxic grip of foundations, and how presidential campaigns are like running for Prince of the Fourth Grade • Anatol Lieven on Putin's Russia and U.S.-Russian relations
May 31, 2007 Raj Nayak of the Brennan Center and Rajani Adhikary of the Restaurant Opportunities Center on restaurant work in NYC • Saadia Toor and Kourosh Shemirani on how Western leftists should think about the abuse of women and same-sexers in Iran and other Muslim countries (and for Toor's critique of Arundhati Roy et al, see here)
May 3, 2007 Joel Schalit on Israeli politics and the (weakening?) hold of the Zionists in the U.S. • Fiona Harvey, environment correspondent of the Financial Times, and Kevin Smith, author of The Carbon Neutral Myth, on carbon offsets: something promising, or a dangerous racket?
April 26, 2007 Rachel Sherman, author of Class Acts, on the production of class and consciousness in luxury hotels • Elizabeth Economy on China's contribution to climate change • Christian Parenti, guest editor of The Nation's special issue on climate change, on green power • Doug Henwood, contributor to that issue, on elite attitudes
April 19, 2007 Nicholas Stern, lead author of the 700-page Stern Review, talks more concisely about the economics of climate change (highlights from a panel held at Columbia University, April 11, 2007, organized by the Committee on Global Thought)
April 12, 2007 Hamid Dabashi, professor in the Middle Eastern studies department at Columbia and author of Iran: A People Interrupted, on the history of that complex, consequential country
April 5, 2007 Peter Eisner, co-author of The Italian Letter, on how the Bush administration used a forged letter to push the war in Iraq • Julia Vitullo-Martin on eminent domain and Columbia University's push into Harlem
March 29, 2007 Mark Levitan on work and poverty in New York (report here) • Dean Baker on the housing bust
March 22, 2007 Michael Yates, author of Cheap Motels and a Hot Plate, on his travels across the U.S., and their daily evidence of polarization and environmental ruin • Chris Fox of Ceres, on Investors and Business for US Climate Action, a $4 trillion consortium
March 15, 2007 Doug Henwood on the American ruling class today, whoever that is • Ian Bone, author of Bash the Rich, on anarchy in the UK (not the debased Sex Pistols kind, either)
March 1, 2007 Evelyn McDonnell, author of Mamarama, on music and motherhood • Omar Lizardo (paper here) on how globalization is not homogenizing culture
February 22, 2007 Aimee Liu, author of Gaining, on the biology and politics of eating disorders • Sam Gindin, author of this article in MRZine, on why the US is not a sinking ship
February 15, 2007 Eric Klinenberg, author of Fighting For Air, on the new media landscape and fighting back against it • Steve Duncombe, author of Dream, on fantasy in politics, and how "progressives" should learn to work with it
January 11, 2007 Steffie Woolhandler on Schwarzenegger's fraudulent health scheme • Amiri Baraka, author of Tales of the Out & the Gone, on Newark, being a Marxist in the U.S., and the ambiguous, complex value of bourgeois art (concludes with excerpts from this 1978 program at Naropa, with Baraka reading "Against Bourgeois Art," intro'd by a choked-up Allen Ginsberg)
January 4, 2007 Gilbert Achcar on Israel's defeat in Lebanon and the gathering defeat of the U.S. in Iraq • Charles Komanoff on carbon taxes (and check out the new Carbon Tax Center that Charlie & his colleagues have started)
2006
December 21, 2006 Ian Williams talks about the Kofi Annan-Ban Ki-moon transition at the UN, and the political economy of rum (with some tasting advice too) • Robin Blackburn, author of Age Shock, talks about the pensions crisis and a backdoor route to the socializing the means of production
December 14, 2006 Nomi Prins (briefly) on those eye-popping Goldman Sachs numbers • Patrick Cockburn, author of The Occupation, on the disaster that is Iraq • Hamid Dabashi on Iran
December 7, 2006 Julia Sweig of the Council on Foreign Relations on how the Cuban regime will live on beyond Fidel • Ken Sherrill, co-author of an NGLTF analysis of the recent election, on how same-sex marriage initiatives don't skew the results (and how demographics run against the Christian right)
November 30, 2006 Kert Davies, research director of Greenpeace, on the suit against the EPA over global warming • Melissa Hope Ditmore, editor of The Encyclopedia of Prostitution, along with two contributors, Jo Weldon and Jeffrey Escoffier, on sex work [if this two-book set is too expensive, ask your library to get one!]
November 16, 2006 (added out of sequence) Algernon Austin, author of Getting It Wrong, on how black public intellectuals are missing the point(s) • Jim Gerstein of the Democracy Corps on the midterm elections
November 9, 2006 Lewis Lapham, author of Pretensions to Empire, on the criminal folly of the Bush administration • Caitlin Zaloom, author of Out of the Pits, on the anthropology of the futures markets
November 2, 2006 Tariq Ali, author most recently of Pirates of the Caribbean: Axis of Hope, on Iraq, Israel's defeat in Lebanon, and Hugo Chavez and his challenge to neoliberal economics and U.S. domination
October 5, 2006 George McGovern and William Polk, authors of Out of Iraq, on how to accomplish that quickly. Most of this show, part of WBAI's fall marathon, was taken up with pleas for contributions; this interview was the substantive content. If you like these shows, and want to keep them coming, please pledge to WBAI.
September 28, 2006 Todd Tucker, research director of Public Citizen, on the misuses of Chile as a neoliberal model (his paper is here) • Sylvia Allegretto of the Economic Policy Institute, co-author of the State of Working America, in a return appearance to talk about U.S. inequality and poverty in comparison to other countries
September 21, 2006 Lisa Jervis & Andi Zeisler, founding editors of Bitch, on Bitchfest, the anthology of articles gathered from that magazine • Nomi Prins, author of Jacked, on how the right-wing has ripped us off
September 14, 2006 Tony Judt, professor of history at NYU, on wimpy liberals • Moazzam Begg, author of Enemy Combatant, on his three years as an unwilling guest of the U.S. government in Gitmo and elsewhere
September 7, 2006 David Dunbar, co-editor of Debunking 9/11 Myths, on how the conspiracists are wrong • George Galloway comments briefly on the same topic • Sylvia Allegretto of the Economic Policy Institute on the State of Working America (apologies for the technical glitch that resulted in 7 minutes of live on-air confusion which were mercifully excised from this archived version)
August 31, 2006 Betsy Reed, editor of Unnatural Disaster: The Nation on Hurricane Katrina, and Gary Younge, a contributor to that volume, on the politics of the storm one year later • John Mueller on how the terrorism threat is vastly overblown (the title of his forthcoming book)
August 17, 2006 Afshin Rattansi on Middle Eastern crises and Britain's Muslims • Val Moghadam on politics and gender relations in Iran
August 10, 2006 Rasha Salti from Beirut on war, politics, and daily life • Anne-christine d'Adesky, author of Moving Mountains and co-creator of the film Pills Profits Protest, on AIDS and the movement around AIDS
August 3, 2006 Harold Meyerson on the disappointments of Change to Win • Judith Kipper of the CFR on the Middle East wars, and a cramped vision of a Palestinian state • Jonathan Nitzan on the political economy of Israel, oil, and war
July 27, 2006 Joel Schalit on Israel's motives for going to war • Adolph Reed on Katrina, race, class
July 6, 2006 James Howard Kunstler on oil, waste, ugliness, death • Katha Pollitt, author of Virginity or Death, on feminism and politics
June 29, 2006 Laura Rozen of Warandpiece and author of this on mysterious doings in Rome over Iran • David Feige, author of Indefensible, on his career as a public defender and the horrors of the criminal justice system
June 22, 2006 Economist Julio Huato on immigration as well as the Mexican presidential election • to observe Pride Week, Hunter poli sci prof Ken Sherrill on same-sex marriage and other aspects of gay politics (plus some lesbian bands, too!)
June 15, 2006 Gary Younge, Guardian correspondent and author of Stranger in a Strange Land, on being a black Brit writing about the USA • Michele Wucker, author of Lockdown, on immigration
June 8, 2006 Ned Sublette, musician and music historian, on New York, Cuba, New Orleans, and politics in music (plus a lot of music too)
June 1, 2006 Ervand Abrahamian on Iran • Michelle Goldberg, author of Kingdom Coming, on the Christian right's lust for theocracy
May 11, 2006 MARATHON SPECIAL This was a two-hour fundraising edition of Behind the News. Much of the program was devoted to fundraising; the substantive content was excerpts from the soundtrack of the excellent film Occupation: Dreamland and an interview with its co-director, Ian Olds. The film is the product of embedding with the 82nd Airborne in Fallujah in the winter of 2004; it's a brilliant and complex view of why people join the army, how they think and feel, and the forces compelling their loyalty. This is only the interview with Olds. Additionally, everyone should pledge to WBAI and also buy a copy of the DVD of O:D.
May 4, 2006 Tom Hertz, author of this paper, on economic mobility in the U.S. • Matthew Lasar, author of Uneasy Listening, on the recent history of Pacifica radio ("corporatization," "coup," restoration, and current governance)
April 27, 2006 Pratap Chatterjee, director of CorpWatch and author of Iraq Inc., on who's making money on the war, and why reconstruction is such a disaster • Andrew Ross, professor of American Studies at NYU and author of Fast Boat to China, on his year studying the IT industry in Shanghai
April 20, 2006 Nadxieli Mannello & Ellen Moynihan on the NYC counter-recruitment guide • Jose Vasquez of Iraq Veterans Against the War • Kevin Phillips on his new book, American Theocracy: The Peril & Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century
April 13, 2006 Elizabeth Economy of the Council on Foreign Relations on the downside of China's boom (like massive inequality and pollution) • Sociologist Douglas Massey on Mexican immigration to the US
April 6, 2006 Steffie Woolhandler of Physicians for a National Health Program, on the hoax of universal coverage in Massachusetts • Jeff Faux, founder and ex-president of the Economic Policy Institute, on The Global Class War
March 30, 2006 Robin Hahnel, author Economic Justice and Democracy, on imagining life after capitalism • Peter Kwong, co-author of Chinese America, on our oldest "new" minority
March 23, 2006 Judith Levine, author of Not Buying It, on giving up overconsumption for a year • Marie Trigona, author of this article, on worker-run businesses in Argentina (and check out her collective's new video site)
March 16, 2006 Ruy Teixera on Bush's dismal poll numbers • Christian Parenti on Afghanistan (with some additional material on Iraq and the contradictions of empire)
February 9, 2006 Truncated fundraiser edition. About a third of the broadcast show was taken up with begging for money to support WBAI (and please consider making a pledge here!). Here's the substance minus the pleas: an interview with Robert Fitch about his book Solidarity for Sale, about the role of corruption in the sad decline of American unions.
February 2, 2006 Isaac Shapiro of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities on the U.S. wealth distribution and Bush fiscal policy • Steve Kretzman of Oil Change International on Bush's surreal comments on getting over our oil addiction
January 26, 2006 Stephenie Hendricks, author of Divine Destruction, on the anti-environmentalist Wise Use movement and the Christian right • Ron Arnold, Wise Use guru and a prime target of Hendricks' book, responds • Alex Gourevitch and Aziz Rana of the Against the War on Terror blog, on problems with both the WoT and its critics
January 19, 2006 Dan Lazare, author most recently of The Velvet Coup, on the Supreme Court and our dysfunctional "democracy" (partial rebroadcast of September 8 interview) • Dean Baker of the Center for Economic & Policy Research on the housing bubble.

For shows earlier than January 2005, click here.

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