KPFA - Letters and Politics

I. First Amendment in Question, Censorship and the Jimmy Kimmel's Suspension.  Guest: Craig Aaron is the president and co-CEO of Free Press and Free Press Action.   II. Free Speech at Universities: UC Berkeley Sharing Information with the Trump Administration in Students and Staff Allegations of Anti-Semitism.   Guest: Dr. Hatem Baziam is a professor of Islamic law and theology at Zaytuna College. He is also a lecturer in the departments of Near Eastern and Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.  He is the author of several books, including his latest, Erasing The Human: Collapse of The Postcolonial World and Refugee Immigration Crisis. The post FCC Censorship and Kimmel's First Amendment Rights. Then, Free Speech at Universities: The UC Berkeley Case appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Ben Burgis is a philosophy professor at Rutgers University, a columnist for Jacobin magazine, the host of the YouTube show and podcast Give Them An Argument, and the author of several books, most recently Christopher Hitchens: What He Got Right, How He Went Wrong, and Why He Still Matters.   Photo credit: Wikimedia The post The Killing of Charlie Kirk and the Crackdown on the Left appeared first on KPFA.

A look at burning political issues and debates and their historical context within the US and worldwide, hosted by Mitch Jeserich. The post Letters and Politics – September 16, 2025 appeared first on KPFA.

Guest:  Hilary Holladay is a biographer, novelist, poet, and scholar of modern and contemporary American literature. She is a former director of the Jack and Stella Kerouac Center for American Studies and professor of English at the University of Massachusetts in Lowell.  Holladay is the author of several books, her most recent is The Power of Adrienne Rich: A Biography. The post The Power of Adrienne Rich appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Natalie Lawrence, author of Enchanted Creatures: Our Monsters and Their Meaning. The post What Monsters Tell Us About Us appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Caroline Fraser is the author of Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder, which won the Pulitzer Prize as well as the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Heartland Prize, and the Plutarch Award for best biography of the year.  She is also the author of God's Perfect Child: Living and Dying in the Christian Science Church, and her latest Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers. The post Serial Killers & Toxins: The Correlation appeared first on KPFA.

A look at burning political issues and debates and their historical context within the US and worldwide, hosted by Mitch Jeserich. The post Letters and Politics – September 9, 2025 appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Zinga A. Fraser is Assistant Professor of Africana Studies and Women's and Gender Studies at Brooklyn College and Director of the Shirley Chisholm Project on Brooklyn Women's Activism. She is the author of Shirley Chisholm in Her Own Words: Speeches and Writings. Photo credit: Wikimedia The post Shirley Chisholm, A Revolutionary Thinker appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Clarence Lusane is an author, activist, scholar, and journalist. He is a Professor of Political Science at Howard University and is the author of many books including his latest Twenty Dollars and Change: Harriet Tubman and the Ongoing Fight for Racial Justice and Democracy.   Photo credit: Airmen from the D.C. National Guard were deployed in response to protests and riots after the death of George Floyd. (U.S. Army photo by Kevin Valentine) The post Federal Takeover of D.C. appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: John Nichols is the executive editor of The Nation. He previously served as the magazine's national affairs correspondent and Washington correspondent. He has written, co-written, or edited over a dozen books on topics ranging from histories of American socialism and the Democratic Party to analyses of US and global media systems. His latest, co-written with Senator Bernie Sanders, is the New York Times bestseller It's OK to Be Angry About Capitalism.   Credit: Wikipedia by Elkanah Tisdale (1771-1835).  Originally published in the Boston Centinel, 1812., Public Domain, The post Understanding the Redistricting Issue and the Midterm Elections with John Nichols appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Dr. Terry A. Kupers is a psychiatrist and professor emeritus at The Wright Institute in Berkeley, California. He is an expert on the intersection of mental health and incarceration and is the author of several books including Prison Madness: The Mental Health Crisis Behind Bars, Solitary: The Inside Story of Supermax Isolation, and most lately, Ending Isolation: The Case Against Solitary Confinement co-authored with Christopher William Blackwell (Autor), Deborah Zalesne (Autor), and Kwaneta Harris.   The post Ending Isolation with Dr. Terry Kupers appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Peter Cole is a professor of history at Western Illinois University in Macomb and a research associate in the Society, Work and Development Institute at the University of the Vitvatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. Cole is the author of the award-winning Dockworker Power: Race and Activism in Durban and the San Francisco Bay Area and Wobblies on the Waterfront: Interracial Unionism in Progressive-Era Philadelphia. He coedited Wobblies of the World: A Global History of the IWW. He is the founder and codirector of the Chicago Race Riot of 1919 Commemoration Project. The post The Black Wobbly: Ben Fletcher appeared first on KPFA.

  Guest: Claudio Saunt, author of Unworthy Republic:The Dispossession of Native Americans and the Road to Indian Territory. Claudio Saunt is the Richard B. Russell Professor in American History at the University of Georgia.     The post Dispossession: The Indian Removal Act of 1830 appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Angela C. Sutton is an Assistant research professor at Vanderbilt University, where she has taught Seapower in History, the Golden Age of Piracy, and Comparative Slavery. She is the author of Pirates of the Slave Trade: The Battle of Cape Lopez and the Birth of an American Institution. The post The Pirates That Halted The Slave Trade appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Haim Bresheeth-Zabner is a Professor of film studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London. He is the author of An Army Like No Other: How the Israeli Defense Force Made a Nation. The post IDF: A History of Israel's Army of Occupation appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Dr Reza Shaghaghi Zarghamee is a Post-doctoral Fellow in Ancient History at the University of St. Andrews.  He is the author of Discovering Cyrus: The Persian Conqueror Astride the Ancient World (Mage: 2013), and his latest Myth and History in Ancient Persia: The Achaemenids in the Iranian Tradition The post The Shahnameh & Iran's Ancient Past appeared first on KPFA.

A look at burning political issues and debates and their historical context within the US and worldwide, hosted by Mitch Jeserich. The post Letters and Politics – August 21, 2025 appeared first on KPFA.

A look at burning political issues and debates and their historical context within the US and worldwide, hosted by Mitch Jeserich. The post Letters and Politics – August 20, 2025 appeared first on KPFA.

A look at burning political issues and debates and their historical context within the US and worldwide, hosted by Mitch Jeserich. The post Letters and Politics – August 19, 2025 appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Guest: Lisa Duggan is a journalist, historian, activist and Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University. She is a journalist, historian, activist and Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University. She is the author of the new book Mean Girl: Ayn Rand and the Culture of Greed The post Ayn Rand and the Culture of Greed appeared first on KPFA.

Haley Cohen Gilliland is a journalist and the director of the Yale Journalism Initiative. She is the author of the book A Flower Traveled in my Blood: The Incredible True Story of the Grandmothers Who Fought to Find a Stolen Generation of Children. The post THE GRANDMOTHERS OF THE DISAPPEARED appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Howard W. French is a professor of journalism at Columbia University and former New York Times bureau chief in the Caribbean and Central America, West and Central Africa, Tokyo, and Shanghai. He is the author of the book Born in Blackness: Africa, Africans, and the Making of the Modern World, 1471 to the Second World War. The post Africa and the Making of the Modern World appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Bart D. Ehrman is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the author of Journeys to Heaven and Hell: Tours of the Afterlife in the Early Christian Tradition The post Early Christianity & The Making of Hell appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Karen Hao is an award-winning journalist covering the impacts of artificial intelligence on society. She writes for publications including The Atlantic and leads the Pulitzer Center's AI Spotlight Series.  She is the author of Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI. The post The Empire of Artificial Intelligence appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Lyndal Roper is Regius Professor of History at the University of Oxford.  She is the author of several books including, Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet; Witch Craze, and her latest, Summer of Fire and Blood: The German Peasants' War. The post The German Peasants' Revolt appeared first on KPFA.

A look at burning political issues and debates and their historical context within the US and worldwide, hosted by Mitch Jeserich. The post Letters and Politics – August 6, 2025 appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: H. W. Brands is the Jack S. Blanton Sr. Chair in History at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of many books, including American Colossus, The General vs. the President, The First American and Traitor to His Class, and his latest, America First: Roosevelt vs. Lindbergh in the Shadow of War. The post The America First Committee: A History appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Dr. Frank Tallis is a writer and clinical psychologist and author of Mortal Secrets: Freud, Vienna, and the Birth of the Modern Mind. The post The Life & Times of Sigmund Freud appeared first on KPFA.

A look at burning political issues and debates and their historical context within the US and worldwide, hosted by Mitch Jeserich. The post Letters and Politics – July 31, 2025 appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Ann Schmiesing is professor of German and Scandinavian studies at the University of Colorado Boulder. She is the author of Disability, Deformity, and Disease in the Grimms' Fairy Tales and most lately, The Brothers Grimm: A Biography. The post The Story Behind the Grimm Brothers' Tales appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Emily Hauser is a senior lecturer in classics and ancient history at the University of Exeter, UK. She is the author of three novels reimagining the women of Greek myth: For the Most Beautiful, For the Winner, and For the Immortal. She is also the author of How Women Became Poets, and most recently, of Penelope's Bones: A New History of Homer's World through the Women Written Out of It. The post Women in Ancient History: Penelope's Bones appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Laura Spinney is a science journalist and the author of Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How It Changed the World and most recently, Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global. The post The Origins of the Proto-Indo-Europeans appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Laurence Rees is an award-winning English historian and documentary filmmaker. He has authored several books including The Holocaust: A New History, Hitler and Stalin,  Auschwitz: A New History, and his latest, The Nazi Mind: Twelve Warnings from History.   The post Understanding the Psychology of Nazis appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Andrew Hartman is professor of history at Illinois State University. He is the author of A War for the Soul of America: A History of the Culture Wars, Education and the Cold War: The Battle for the American School, and his latest, Karl Marx in America. The post Karl Marx in America appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Clay Risen is a historian and a reporter and editor at The New York Times.  He is the author of several books including The Crowded Hour, a New York Times Notable Book of 2019, and his latest, Red Scare: Blacklists, McCarthyism, and the Making of Modern America. The post Red Scare: The Early Years appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Kelsy Burke is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She is the author of The Pornography Wars: The Past, Present, and Future of America's Obscene Obsession. The post The Pornography Wars appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Naomi Oreskes is professor of the history of science at Harvard University.  Her books include, The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View from the Future, Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming, and her latest with historian of science and technology Erik Conway, The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market. The post The Century Long PR Campaign Linking Capitalism to Democracy appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: George Monbiot is an author, journalist, and environmental campaigner. His books include Feral, Heat, Regenesis, and his latest,  Invisible Doctrine: The Secret History of Neoliberalism co-authored with Peter Hutchison. George Monbiot and Peter Hutchison also co-produced the film Invisible Doctrine. The post George Monbiot on The Secret History of Neoliberalism appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Michael Hudson is President of The Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trends (ISLET) and a Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City.  He is the author of several books including Super-Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire,   ...and forgive them their debts,  and The Collapse of Antiquity. The post The Fall of Roman Societies appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Andrew Delbanco author of The War Before the War: Fugitive Slaves and the Struggle for America's Soul from the Revolution to the Civil War. The post The Fugitive Slave Act appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Will Potter is an award-winning investigative journalist who focuses on social justice and environmental movements, and attacks on civil liberties post-9/11.  He is the author of Green Is the New Red: An Insider's Account of a Social Movement Under Siege and his latest, Little Red Barns: Hiding the Truth, from Farm to Fable.     The post The Power of Agricultural Industry appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Laura Spinney is a science journalist and the author of Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How It Changed the World and most recently, Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global.   The post The Proto-Indo-Europeans appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Yaacov Yadgar is the Stanley Lewis Professor of Israel Studies at the University of Oxford and the author of several books including Israel's Jewish Identity Crisis: State and Politics in the Middle East, and his latest To Be a Jewish State: Zionism as the New Judaism.     The post What it Means for Israel To Be a Jewish State appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Mary Beard is a renown classist and the author of the best-selling The Fires of Vesuvius, SPQR, and most lately, Emperor of Rome: Ruling the Ancient Roman World.   The post The Nature of Imperial Power with Mary Beard appeared first on KPFA.

A look at burning political issues and debates and their historical context within the US and worldwide, hosted by Mitch Jeserich. The post Letters and Politics – July 3, 2025 appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: John Nichols is the national affairs correspondent for The Nation Magazine. He is the author of several books including his latest co-written with Senator Bernie Sanders “It's OK to Be Angry About Capitalism.”  His latest article in the Nation is: Thom Tillis Figured Out How to Tell the Truth in Trump's GOP Cult: Quit.   Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash The post Analysis of the Latest Version of Trump's Megabill appeared first on KPFA.

I. A Perspective on Zohran Mamdani's Campaign  Guest: India Walton is former Democratic candidate for mayor in Buffalo who won the Democratic primary 2021 but the party turned against her and helped re-elect the incumbent mayor through a write in campaign.  She is now the senior strategist for the national activist group Roots Action in Buffalo. II. Capitalism's Critics Guest: John Cassidy is a journalist at The New Yorker and a frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books. He is the author of Capitalism and Its Critics: A History: From the Industrial Revolution to AI.   Photo by Bingjiefu He on Wikimedia The post A Perspective on Zohran Mamdani's Campaign appeared first on KPFA.

I. The Big Beautiful Bill in the Senate Host Mitch Jeserich gives his opinion of the so called “Big Beautiful Bill” currently in the Senate II. Supreme Court's Undoing Universal Injunctions Guest: Erwin Chemerinsky is the dean of the law school at the University of California, Berkeley.  He is the author of many books on constitutional law including his latest, No Democracy Lasts Forever: How the Constitution Threatens the United States.    Photo credit: Ron Cogswell on Wikimedia The post Erwin Chemerinsky on the Implications of Undoing Universal Injunctions. And, Analysis on the so called “Big Beautiful Bill” appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Stephen Greenblatt is the John Cogan University Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University.  His numerous books include The Swerve: How the World Became Modern, which won a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award. His latest is Second Chances: Shakespeare and Freud co authored with Adam Phillips.  He is also the general editor of The Norton Shakespeare. The post Stephen Greenblatt on Shakespeare and Freud appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: Writer, historian, and activist, Rebecca Solnit is the author of more than twenty books, including Orwell's Roses, and most lately No Straight Road Takes You There: Essays for Uneven Terrain. She cofounded the organization Not Too Late and coauthored the book Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility with Thelma Young Lutunatabua.  She also launched Meditations in an Emergency, an independent publication. The post Rebecca Solnit on No Straight Road Takes You There appeared first on KPFA.

Guest: D.D. Guttenplan is editor of The Nation magazine.  He is the author of several books including American Radical: The Life and Times of I. F. Stone,  The Nation: A Biography, and The Next Republic: The Rise of a New Radical Majority. The post D.D. Guttenplan on the History of the Nation Magazine and the Politics of Today appeared first on KPFA.