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Beneath The Surface

Guests:

Mike Davis, Jon Wiener

Topics

Set the Night on Fire: LA in the 60s

Historians Mike Davis and Jon Wiener bring some of the intersecting stories they tell in their long awaited and absolutely compelling history, "Set the Night on Fire: Los Angeles in the Sixties." Here we see Los Angeles as a hotbed of political, social and cultural upheaval -- from the Watts rebellion to the Chicano Blowouts, the anti-war movement, youth protests and strikes, the women’s and gay movements, the cultural flowering and media expressions, including KPFK and the Los Angeles Free Press – as well as the ferocious, racist and violent police response at every turn. Their account of the ever increasing mass protests and the movements behind them convey that “special excitement that occurs when a group of people can see and visibly measure their potential power for the first time.” We are offering the book as a thank-you gift for subscribing to KPFK.

Sunday, May 24, 2020 10:00 am

1:00:12

Beneath The Surface

Guests:

Michael Seltzer, Michael Goldfield

Topics

Coronavirus in Scandinavia; The Southern Key

Michael Seltzer, cultural anthropologist and Professor Emeritus has lived in Norway for decades. There is a sharp contrast in dealing with the Coronavirus pandemic between Norway, Finland and Denmark, where isolation and quarantine are in effect, as compared to Sweden, where the economy is open, and the death rate is much higher. Mike says learning from the experience of Scandinavia is instructive for the US as, for example, Georgia opens for business, while others stay locked down. We ask Mike to look at the history and politics behind these different approaches.
Michael Goldfield, Professor Emeritus at Wayne State University on his new book, "The Southern Key: Class Race & Radicalism in the 1930s and 1940s." Mike argues that the political economic evolution of the South has been the key to determining the peculiar nature of American politics. Today the South is the center of reaction, leading the fight against choice, women and LGBTQ rights, the right to unionize -- and even in the fight against the lockdown and quarantine necessary to halt the spread of Coronavirus. It didn’t have to be this way and Mike holds that the experience (and failure) of organizing the working class in the South explains the origins of the current state of the US and the world; and that the defeats from that time closed off the possibilities for meaningful class and anti-racist politics -- as well as for a successful labor movement for decades to come.

Sunday, April 26, 2020 10:00 am

1:00:12

Beneath The Surface

Guests:

Irv Weissman, Sheheryar Kaoosji

Topics

Coronavirus science & politics; Amazon workers safety

Irv Weissman, Director of Stanford University's Institute of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine on why the coronavirus is so devastating, how our immune system has responded, and why it is more dangerous for those who are older. We also talk about the fragility of our public health infrastructure, what safe practices are needed to protect the population now, as well as the political impediments facing scientific research when it is so critically needed to protect the population and save lives. Disclosure: he is my brother.
Sheheryar Kaoosji, Executive Director of the Warehouse Workers Resource Center reports on the Amazon workers who are protesting here in the Inland Empire, as well as those around the country staging walkouts over the lack of safety equipment and practices in their places of work.

Sunday, April 19, 2020 10:00 am

1:00:12

Beneath The Surface

Guests:

Alan Minsky, Emil Draitser

Topics

The end of Bernie’s campaign; "Farewell Mama Odessa"

Alan Minsky, Executive Director of PDA looks at where we are now that Bernie Sanders has left the Democratic Primary Presidential race. Bernie’s candidacy for President ends just as the issue he raised – of a left social democracy, or democratic socialism — could not be more pertinent and necessary in this time of the coronavirus pandemic. We get Alans’ perspective.

Emil Draitser, author, journalist, satirist and Professor Emeritus of Hunter College, in conversation about his new book, "Farewell Mama Odessa" -- a barely fictionalized memoir of his own exodus from the Soviet Union and particularly Odessa to America in the mid 1970s. It is a perfect journey to consider as we commemorate Passover and Easter in a time of pandemic.

Sunday, April 12, 2020 10:00 am

1:00:12

Beneath The Surface

Guests:

James K. Galbraith, Aaron Benanav

Topics

The economic policies we need; Crisis of Unemployment

James Galbraith responds to the multiple crises and challenges brought by the Coronavirus pandemic, laying out the economic policy we need now, and the mobilization necessary to get it. He proposes concrete measures, like a Health Finance Corporation, that could be an efficient one-stop shop for all the resources needed. We ask why the economy as currently organized has been unable to deal with the challenges of the pandemic. Galbraith's watchwords: solidarity, organization, and determination.
Aaron Benanav writes about employment, especially the irregular, informal and precarious forms of employment – the ones that fall through the large holes in the shredded safety net. His article, “Crisis and Recovery” looks at the cataclysmic economic crisis unfolding in tandem with the public health crisis. We get his findings.

Sunday, April 5, 2020 10:00 am

1:00:12

Beneath The Surface

Guests:

Matt Stoller, Alan Minsky

Topics

Bailout package; politics and the pandemic

Matt Stoller, American Economic Liberties Project, on his analysis & critique of the Coronavirus bailout package to rescue the American economy. Stoller thinks it is an ugly deal negotiated without any sunlight, one that amounts to a massive slush fund for corporations with little oversight and preserves the old ways of doing things – in the guise of a rescue in a public health emergency. He also sees no heroes in this package. Matt has started a newsletter called BIG, about the politics of monopoly, subscribe here: https://mattstoller.substack.com/welcome

Alan Minsky, Executive Director of PDA with his reflection on Bergamo -- the epicenter of Italy’s corona pandemic – where Alan spends a good deal of his time. We also get his take on the Presidential race in the wake of the pandemic – looking at both the Biden and Bernie campaigns, as well as the Democratic Party’s possible antics leading to the convention.

Sunday, March 29, 2020 10:00 am

1:00:11

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