Americans as a population have an unusually large appetite for psychoactive drugs, whether legal or illegal. And American history has been marked by periodic moral panics over drug use and normalization or legalization, as we’re experiencing right now. Why is that? What is it about US society that makes drug use simultaneously so appealing and reviled? Writer and scholar Benjamin Fong weighs in.

Resources:

Benjamin Yen-Yi Fong, Quick Fixes: Drugs in America from Prohibition to the 21st Century Binge Verso, 2023

The post America’s Drug Binge appeared first on KPFA.

Reclaiming the commons sounds good in the abstract, but what’s being done on a practical level? Gaye Chan and Nandita Sharma, the Hawai‘i-based co-founders of Eating in Public, describe projects like Free Gardens and Free Stores. Also: Wren Awry discusses the volume to which Chan and Sharma contributed an essay.

Eating in Public

Wren Awry, ed., Nourishing Resistance: Stories of Food, Protest, and Mutual Aid PM Press, 2023

The post Food & Freedom appeared first on KPFA.

Following the mass George Floyd demonstrations, it appeared as if a racial reckoning was taking place in the United States, although of a puzzling nature. Amazon, Walmart, and other prominent corporations declared that Black Lives Mattered and dedicated funds to ostensibly address systemic racism. In cities across America, individuals denounced white silence and took on the task of scrutinizing interpersonal relationships for implicit racism. Arun Kundnani argues that such efforts are part of a tradition of liberal anti-racism, which he contrasts with the lineage of radical anti-racism forged against colonialism and capitalism.

Resources:

Arun Kundnani, What Is Antiracism? And Why It Means Anticapitalism Verso, 2023

The post Radical vs Liberal Antiracism appeared first on KPFA.

Microwork involves the performing of short, discrete tasks on digital platforms, usually at the worker’s home and often after dark. Paul Apostolidis applies his analysis of nocturnal labor under capitalism, and its impact on worker’s lives, to microwork, for which people in many countries are paid miniscule wages. (Encore presentation.)

James Muldoon and Paul Apostolidis, “‘Neither work nor leisure’: Motivations of microworkers in the United Kingdom on three digital platforms” New Media & Society

The post Microwork’s Impact appeared first on KPFA.

As the world rushes headlong into the climate emergency, what might a liberatory approach look like, that would avert ecological disaster while making another world possible? Drew Pendergrass and Troy Vettese have laid out one vision for eco-socialism that takes on the difficult question of how to plan society in a radically different way. (Encore presentation.)

Resources:

Drew Pendergrass and Troy Vettese, Half-Earth Socialism: A Plan to Save the Future from Extinction, Climate Change and Pandemics Verso, 2022

Half-Earth Socialism: A Planetary Planning Game

The post Half-Earth Socialism appeared first on KPFA.

What accounts for the militarization of the police in the U.S., and how long has it been going on? Julian Go links police militarization with colonial conquest, imperial control, and the racialization of crime and disorder. The domestic effects and implications of the so-called imperial boomerang, Go reveals, have been momentous and longstanding. (Encore presentation.)

Julian Go, Policing Empires: Militarization, Race, and the Imperial Boomerang in Britain and the U.S. Oxford University Press, 2023

The post Police Militarization & Empire appeared first on KPFA.

Gene-guided healthcare has taken U.S. medicine by storm, promising precision, targeted treatments to myriad illnesses. It has also proved very profitable. James Tabery traces how genetic medicine vied within the federal government with another approach to healthcare — one emphasizing the social and environmental determinants of health, such as whether you live in a polluted neighborhood — and triumphed over it. He argues that private industry has benefited, while public health has suffered. (Encore presentation.)

Resources:

James Tabery, Tyranny of the Gene: Personalized Medicine and Its Threat to Public Health Knopf, 2023

Photo credit: Dave Titensor

The post The Price of Gene-Based Medicine appeared first on KPFA.

What insights into Israel/Palestine, and what visions for the region, were articulated by Edward Said? Under what conditions did the Palestinian-American scholar, critic, and activist believe reconciliation and a just coexistence are possible? Jonathan Graubart considers a number of Said’s assertions; he also brings up Ella Shohat’s claims about Zionism’s impact on Mizrahi Jews.

Jonathan Graubart, Jewish Self-Determination beyond Zionism: Lessons from Hannah Arendt and Other Pariahs Temple University Press, 2023

The post Edward Said’s Vision appeared first on KPFA.

Why has the term complicity become so ubiquitous in recent years? Are we all complicit in the system that we live under? What use, or uses, does the notion serve? These are questions that legal scholar Francine Banner poses. She makes the argument that the term bears different meanings, sometimes holding the powerful to account and other times looking for someone to blame, rather than focusing on systemic change. She considers the shifting modern use of complicity — shaped in part by problematic scholarship on the uncaring bystander — and sees parallels in how the legal system severely penalizes those for even peripheral involvement in crimes.

Resources:

Francine Banner, Beyond Complicity: Why We Blame Each Other Instead of Systems UC Press, 2024

The post Interrogating Complicity appeared first on KPFA.

Nico Slate shared a white mother with his brother Peter, but Nico’s father was white, whereas Peter’s was black. What did that matter? To whom did it matter? Slate has written a book remembering his older brother, recalling their relationship, and examining the charged sociopolitical context of their private and public lives.

Nico Slate, Brothers: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Race Temple University Press, 2023

The post White Brother, Black Brother appeared first on KPFA.