This is Hell!

Interviews broadcast without the virtue of money or the vice of political agenda. www.thisishell.com

[thisishellradio]

How mainstream journalists created fake news from a Julian Assange interview.

Italian journalist Stefania Maurizi explains how her recent interview with Julian Assange was distorted by the Guardian, Washington Post and across social media to manufacture a pro-Trump agenda from the Wikileaks founder, and reflects on the political realities faced by Assange under detention and his organization under attack by the establishment press. Stefania's interview with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange was distorted by the Guardian's Ben Jacobs, as covered by Glenn Greenwald for the Intercept.

[thisishellradio]

A report from the wrong side of the fake news scare.

Naked Capitalism's Yves Smith talks about ending up on a bizarre list of Russian propagandists posted by the anonymous website PropOrNot - a inept group being legitimized by the Washington Post - and explores the larger context of misinformation as a tool wielded by political interests and media organizations to their own ends. Yves wrote the recent blog posts We're Under Attack and We Demand That The Washington Post Retract Its Propaganda Story Defaming Naked Capitalism and Other Sites and Issue an Apology.

[thisishellradio]

Fuck work: The case against full employment, and for guaranteed income.

Historian James Livingston examines the deep problem with employment in the 21st century - the broken relationship between work and income, and explains why we must look beyond capitalism's intellectual decrepitude, and to the rising rate of transfer payments, if we are to reclaim our labor, our happiness and our time from the demands of capitalism. James is the author of the new book No More Work: Why Full Employment Is a Bad Idea from UNC Press and the Aeon essay Fuck Work.

[thisishellradio]

How the left can build (and control) a truly democratic party.

Jacobin's Seth Ackerman explains why the Democratic Party is neither of those two things, and sketches the blueprints for a working class political party - from the need for the left to organize and exert power beyond the constraints of restrictive ballot laws, to the surprising new opportunities to influence politics and elections in the wake of Citizen's United. Seth wrote the article A Blueprint for a New Party in the latest issue of Jacobin.

[thisishellradio]

For water, for our children's future, for the land: A report from Standing Rock.

Dr. Sarah Jumping Eagle reports from the frontlines of the #NoDAPL fight at Standing Rock - a struggle against overwhelming state violence and police misinformation parroted by uncritical mainstream news sources - and explains why the worldwide fight for water, land and a healthy future is only just beginning. Sarah will be updating us on the struggle for water and land she last talked about with us in September.

[thisishellradio]

The city provides a frame: Radical municipality in the age of Trump.

Kate Shea Baird and Steve Hughes examine the revolutionary potential of a reclaimed municipal politics - as a tool to resist the rightward slide of nationalism happening across the US and Europe, and as a path to recapturing the radical potential of horizontal, inclusive democratic action across the globe. Kate and Steve wrote the article America needs a network of rebel cities to stand up to Trump at Medium.

[thisishellradio]

History is not decided: Understanding the legacy of the Attica prison uprising.

Historian Heather Ann Thompson examines the 1971 Attica prison uprising - from the movement's democratic origins, to the government's brutal response - and explains how Attica shaped decades of public opinion and political decisions on civil rights, mass incarceration and state violence against organized citizens. Heather is author of the book Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy from Pantheon.

[thisishellradio]

The big takeover: Why the left must capture power, not just protest it.

Occupy Wall Street co-founder Micah White explains why political power will not be captured in street protests, but in the synthesis of social movements with political parties, and how the left must ditch palliative progressivism and re-engage with the mechanisms of power on the local level if it hopes to become a revolutionary force. Micah wrote the essay Two Paths Forward at his website, and the op-ed Protests won't stop Trump. We need a movement that transforms into a party for the Guardian.

[thisishellradio]

On the possibilities of President Trump's inherited surveillance state and war machine.

Journalist Trevor Timm explains why the most catastrophic mistake of the Obama administration was to strengthen and expand the worst crimes of the Bush regime, and then hand them over to Donald Trump - from CIA torture and NSA mass surveillance, to a weaponized drone program hovering across the globe and outside democratic control. Trevor's most recent Guardian op-eds are Obama has handed a surveillance state and war machine to a maniac and If Donald Trump gets his way, his administration will be disastrous.

[thisishellradio]

Power for the last time: Trump devours American politics.

Writer Richard Seymour surveys the wrecked landscape of American politics after Trump's victory - from the collapsed neoliberal center, to the abandonment of politics from the top and bottom of American society - and calls for the left to embrace militant disruption - as resistance in the face of Trumpism, and uniting factor in forging a new political class. Richard and his fellow editors at Salvage wrote the essay Saturn devours his young: President Trump.

[thisishellradio]

Bern after reading: Why the beltway press wrote off the possibility of Bernie Sanders.

Writer Thomas Frank examines the DC media's coverage of the Sanders campaign, and finds an antagonism driven by the same elitist politics and beltway solipsism that power both the Clinton campaign and Democratic Party leadership, and a shared ideological blindspot towards the possibilities of politics and the worth of stale (often disastrous) Beltway consensus. Tom wrote the Harper's cover story Swat Team: The media’s extermination of Bernie Sanders, and real reform

[thisishellradio]

The code of silence, narrative control and the Chicago Police Department.

Journalist Jamie Kalven examines the mechanisms of silence within the Chicago Police Department, and explains how an investigation into a drug protection racket within the CPD reveals massive flaws in the structures of law enforcement and the news media, as well as class relations across American society. Jamie wrote the stunning, four-part series Code of Silence for The Intercept.

[thisishellradio]

A government against itself: The state of radical democracy in Venezuela.

Political theorist George Ciccariello-Maher explores the political and economic history of the Venezuelan commune, from its pre-Chavez roots in a popular uprising against the neoliberal order, to the challenges of sustaining direct democracy and socialist principles in the face of vast demographic changes, oil market fluctuations and capitalist resistance. George's new book Building the Commune: Radical Democracy in Venezuela is part of the Jacobin series from Verso Books.

[thisishellradio]

On climate change, automation, and the possibilities of life beyond capitalism.

Jacobin editor Peter Frase examines the future beyond climate change, capitalism and other disasters, and finds tomorrow's fights for survival, prosperity and stability rooted in the same conflict - historical class struggle for production and power. Peter is author of the new book Four Futures: Life After Capitalism, part of the Jacobin series from Verso Books.

Robots can have our jobs. The work of the future is overcoming climate change and overthrowing capitalism. Jacobin Magazine editor Peter Frase looks to the futures of life and labor on planet Earth.

[thisishellradio]

The pushout: How racism and sexism collide to criminalize Black girls.

Social justice scholar Monique Morris explores the ways implicit biases in our society - around class, sex and race - combine to push Black girls out of schools and towards the criminal legal system, and explains why educational institutions must re-examine their misunderstandings around the thoughts and actions of Black girls, and their reliance on an exclusionary discipline framework that amplifies the mistreatment of an already vulnerable group of children.

[thisishellradio]

The dogma of economic growth ensures that any of the time saved through productive development gets reinvested in the production of more consumer goods, which gives us more commercialization and more stuff, but not really more of the things people really value - more time, more friendship, more leisure.

Sociologist David Frayne explores the revolutionary potential of work resistance - where people reject the pressures of constant consumption, and reclaim the free time capitalism seized from increased productivity and technology - working instead towards alternative systems of income distribution and personal identity, and a life filled with more art, more politics and more knowledge.

David is author of The Refusal of Work: The Theory and Practice of Resistance to Work from Zed Books.

[thisishellradio]

We're ready to have a financial sector that basically serves the interest of people in the financial sector, rather than, in the way all other businesses in competitive markets have to do, judge their success by how good they are at meeting the needs of their users.

Economist John Kay explains how the financial sector turned from the economy's servant to its master, who writes government reformers out of their own policies, and why the key to reclaiming economic wellbeing for the majority of people is to refocus the financial sector on meeting the needs of the economy at large.

John is author of the new book Other People's Money: The Real Business of Finance from Public Affairs.