WhoWhatWhy's Podcasts

To understand the plundering of Iraq's oil wealth, we have to look first at the original sin of the invasion itself. Blueprints showing how oil could help rebuild the country were drawn up post Desert Storm in the 1990s and resurrected in 2003. It never happened.

Journalist Erin Banco explains why, as she talks to Jeff Schechtman in this week's WhoWhatWhy podcast. She laments the dashed hopes of the Kurds and the Iraqi people. She explains the hapless actions of the Bush and Obama administrations, the real role of big oil and the damage done by tribal rivalries in Iraq.

She tells the story of the Talibani and the Barzani families, and how they got rich — along with oil company executives, government staffers and political parties. Meanwhile, the Iraqi people, who knew very little about what was happening, ended up with virtually nothing.

Banco says that for years Iraqi journalists have been killed in Iraq for even trying to report this story. Today, with entirely different players, the corruption and mismanagement goes on, and may be the keys to the Iraq elections scheduled for May.

Erin Banco is the author of Pipe Dreams:The Plundering of Iraq's Oil Wealth (Columbia Global Reports, January 2018).

To understand the plundering of Iraq’s oil wealth, we have to look first at the original sin of the invasion itself. Blueprints showing how oil could help rebuild the country were drawn up post Desert Storm in the 1990s and resurrected in 2003. It never happened.  

Journalist Erin Banco explains why, as she talks to Jeff Schechtman in this week’s WhoWhatWhy podcast. She laments the dashed hopes of the Kurds and the Iraqi people. She explains the hapless actions of the Bush and Obama administrations, the real role of big oil and the damage done by tribal rivalries in Iraq.

She tells the story of the Talibani and the Barzani families, and how they got rich — along with oil company executives, government staffers and political parties. Meanwhile, the Iraqi people, who knew very little about what was happening, ended up with virtually nothing.

Banco says that for years Iraqi journalists have been killed in Iraq for even trying to report this story. Today, with entirely different players, the corruption and mismanagement goes on, and may be the keys to the Iraq elections scheduled for May.

Erin Banco is the author of Pipe Dreams:The Plundering of Iraq’s Oil Wealth (Columbia Global Reports, January 2018).

Andrew Keen is the Anthony Bourdain of technology. The author, entrepreneur and futurist has traveled the far corners of the world to see what works and what doesn't. He has seen the internet reflecting both the best and the worst of us, and concluded that we and our technology need to grow up.

In this week's WhoWhatWhy podcast, Keen talks to Jeff Schechtman about the next chapters in the digital revolution.

Keen reminds us that we've been here before. The digital revolution is not that dissimilar from revolutions and changes that preceded it. But "history is not an algorithm."

To shape technology — before it shapes us — will take human agency to make the kind of changes that will allow us to define ourselves in contrast to our machines.

Keen outlines five tools to fix our digital future. Among them, we need to address inequality, jobs and education, he says, and we need to bring humanity back into the sciences. He admonishes us that, while our technological future may be global, Silicon Valley is not the center of the world. Important trends are happening elsewhere.

He also talks extensively about how consumers have been turned into a digital product, in what he calls "Surveillance Capitalism." He argues that this business model cannot continue to work: we need to stop thinking of the digital world as free, and start paying for everything from the internet itself — just as we pay for food, clothing and cars. We need to take responsibility for our digital future and not leave it to others. Finally, we're left with the reminder that, as far as technology goes, the really important stuff is yet to come.

Andrew Keen is the author of How To Fix the Future (Atlantic Monthly Press, February 2018), The Internet Is Not the Answer (Grove Press, January 2016), and The Cult of the Amateur: How blogs, MySpace, YouTube, and the rest of today's user-generated media are destroying our economy, our culture, and our values (Doubleday, August 2008).

Andrew Keen is the Anthony Bourdain of technology. The author, entrepreneur and futurist has traveled the far corners of the world to see what works and what doesn't. He has seen the internet reflecting both the best and the worst of us, and concluded that we and our technology need to grow up.

In this week’s WhoWhatWhy podcast, Keen talks to Jeff Schechtman about the next chapters in the digital revolution.

Keen reminds us that we’ve been here before. The digital revolution is not that dissimilar from revolutions and changes that preceded it. But “history is not an algorithm.”

To shape technology — before it shapes us — will take human agency to make the kind of changes that will allow us to define ourselves in contrast to our machines.

Keen outlines five tools to fix our digital future. Among them, we need to address inequality, jobs and education, he says, and we need to bring humanity back into the sciences. He admonishes us that, while our technological future may be global, Silicon Valley is not the center of the world. Important trends are happening elsewhere.

He also talks extensively about how consumers have been turned into a digital product, in what he calls “Surveillance Capitalism.” He argues that this business model cannot continue to work: we need to stop thinking of the digital world as free, and start paying for everything from the internet itself — just as we pay for food, clothing and cars. We need to take responsibility for our digital future and not leave it to others. Finally, we’re left with the reminder that, as far as technology goes, the really important stuff is yet to come.

Andrew Keen is the author of How To Fix the Future (Atlantic Monthly Press, February 2018), The Internet Is Not the Answer (Grove Press, January 2016), and The Cult of the Amateur: How blogs, MySpace, YouTube, and the rest of today’s user-generated media are destroying our economy, our culture, and our values (Doubleday, August 2008).

The shrinking role of facts and evidence-based analysis in American public life poses a threat to democracy, to policy making, and to the very notion of civic discourse.

This is the alarming conclusion spelled out in the RAND Corporation's recently released 300+ page report provocatively titled "Truth Decay." The co-author of this report, RAND political scientist Jennifer Kavanagh, is Jeff Schechtman's guest on this week's WhoWhatWhy podcast.

The report's authors compare what's happening now in the public arena to four other historical periods when truth was under siege: the era of "yellow journalism," the rise of tabloids and talk radio, the impact of television on news media, and even the advent of so-called New Journalism.

What the authors found, Kavanaugh says, is that disagreements over objective facts have never been so wide and so deep.

The RAND report examines the growing lack of trust in institutions, the erosion of civil discourse, the ever-worsening political paralysis and lack of policy discussion, and the disengagement of citizens from the political process.

While "Truth Decay"makes many recommendations about how we might unwind all of this, the report also constitutes a warning about the possible end of democracy as we know it.

The shrinking role of facts and evidence-based analysis in American public life poses a threat to democracy, to policy making, and to the very notion of civic discourse.

This is the alarming conclusion spelled out in the RAND Corporation’s recently released 300+ page report provocatively titled “Truth Decay.” The co-author of this report, RAND political scientist Jennifer Kavanagh, is Jeff Schechtman’s guest on this week’s WhoWhatWhy podcast.

The report’s authors compare what’s happening now in the public arena to four other historical periods when truth was under siege: the era of “yellow journalism,” the rise of tabloids and talk radio, the impact of television on news media, and even the advent of so-called New Journalism.

What the authors found, Kavanaugh says, is that disagreements over objective facts have never been so wide and so deep.

The RAND report examines the growing lack of trust in institutions, the erosion of civil discourse, the ever-worsening political paralysis and lack of policy discussion, and the disengagement of citizens from the political process.

While “Truth Decay”makes many recommendations about how we might unwind all of this, the report also constitutes a warning about the possible end of democracy as we know it.

Are undercover FBI agents responsible for pushing some of the terrorism suspects it arrests toward acts of violence?

That is the question Peter B. Collins tackles in his brand new WhoWhatWhy podcast. In this premiere episode he talks with investigative journalist Darwin BondGraham of the East Bay Express in Oakland, CA, about his recent report "Terror or Entrapment?" (https://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/terror-or-entrapment/Content?oid=12242075)

BondGraham looked into five recent cases of "domestic terrorism" in the San Francisco Bay Area that seem to follow a predictable script, involving social media surveillance, paid FBI informants and the "pre-crime" strategy used by the Bureau.

Collins says these five cases are among hundreds that represent a national trend. The investigations often seem to be tainted by undercover agents posing as terrorists, and by "recruitment" methods that verge on entrapment.

All of these cases appear driven by a deep-seated Islamophobia, and arguably siphon off FBI resources that might better be used for more worthwhile counterterrorism investigations.

At a time when the FBI is under the microscope, it's a must-listen.

Are undercover FBI agents responsible for pushing some of the terrorism suspects it arrests toward acts of violence?

That is the question Peter B. Collins tackles in his brand new WhoWhatWhy podcast. In this premiere episode he talks with investigative journalist Darwin BondGraham of the East Bay Express in Oakland, CA, about his recent report “Terror or Entrapment?” (https://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/terror-or-entrapment/Content?oid=12242075)

BondGraham looked into five recent cases of “domestic terrorism” in the San Francisco Bay Area that seem to follow a predictable script, involving social media surveillance, paid FBI informants and the “pre-crime” strategy used by the Bureau.

Collins says these five cases are among hundreds that represent a national trend. The investigations often seem to be tainted by undercover agents posing as terrorists, and by “recruitment” methods that verge on entrapment.

All of these cases appear driven by a deep-seated Islamophobia, and arguably siphon off FBI resources that might better be used for more worthwhile counterterrorism investigations.

At a time when the FBI is under the microscope, it’s a must-listen.