This Is Hell!

Due to an unexpected rescheduling of a guest, we present a rare mailbag episode that delves into our esteemed listeners' questions and insights. "The Moment of Truth" with Jeff Dorchen follows the interview. No producers were harmed in the making of this episode. Help keep This Is Hell! completely listener supported and access bonus episodes by subscribing to our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thisishell Please rate and review This Is Hell! wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps the show ascend the algorithm to reach new listeners.

Jennifer C. Pan joins This Is Hell! to talk about her new book “Selling Social Justice: Why The Rich Love Antiracism” published by Verso Books. (https://www.versobooks.com/products/2919-selling-social-justice) Jennifer C. Pan is a writer in Los Angeles whose work has appeared in the Nation, the Atlantic, Dissent, Damage, and elsewhere. She was formerly a host of the Jacobin Show and a staff writer at the New Republic. A new installment of “This Week In Rotten History” from Renaldo Migaldi follows the interview. Help keep This Is Hell! completely listener supported and access bonus episodes by subscribing to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thisishell Help keep This Is Hell! completely listener supported and access bonus episodes by subscribing to our Patreon.

Alana Lentin joins us to discuss her new book from Pluto Press, The New Racial Regime: Recalibrations of White Supremacy. "The Moment of Truth" with Jeff Dorchen follows the interview. Check out Alana's book here: https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745347967/the-new-racial-regime/ Help keep This Is Hell! completely listener supported and access bonus episodes by subscribing to our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thisishell Please rate and review This Is Hell! wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps the show ascend the algorithm to reach new listeners.

Journalist Megan Greenwell joins This Is Hell! to about her new book "Bad Company: Private Equity and the Death of the American Dream" published by Harper Collins. (https://www.megangreenwell.com/book) Megan Greenwell is a writer, editor, and newsroom leader. Megan worked as the editor of Wired.com and, for four months, the interim editor-in-chief of WIRED, overseeing the publication’s transition to a global newsroom. Megan has written or edited for publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, New York Magazine, WIRED, and ESPN. She is also the deputy director of the Princeton Summer Journalism Program, a workshop and college access initiative for students from low-income backgrounds. A new installment of “This Week In Rotten History” from Renaldo Migaldi follows the interview. Help keep This Is Hell! completely listener supported and access bonus episodes by subscribing to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thisishell Help keep This Is Hell! completely listener supported and access bonus epi

Gilbert Achcar joins us to discuss his recent book, "Gaza Catastrophe: The Genocide in World-Historical Perspective" (University of California Press). "This Day in Rotten History" from Renaldo Migaldi follows the interview. Check out Gilbert's book here: https://www.ucpress.edu/books/the-gaza-catastrophe/paper Help keep This Is Hell! completely listener supported and access bonus episodes by subscribing to our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thisishell Please rate and review This Is Hell! wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps the show ascend the algorithm to reach new listeners.

Mark Weisbrot and Francisco Rodríguez join us to discuss their Lancet article, co-authored with Silvio Rendón, "Effects of international sanctions on age-specific mortality: a cross-national panel data analysis," and their articles based on that research, "Sanctions can kill as many people as wars" (Financial Times), and "Rethink sanctions. They’re killing as many people as war does" (LA Times). "The Moment of Truth" with Jeff Dorchen follows the interview. Check out Mark and Francisco's study, co-authored with Silvio Rendón: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-109X(25)00189-5/fulltext Check out Mark's article in the LA Times: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2025-07-24/united-states-sanctions-deaths Check out Francisco's article at Financial Times: https://www.ft.com/content/99206b73-92c4-41f1-9677-d4a1e6fc78b1?accessToken=zwAGO8yGY2UgkdOZIGtzksRB8dOWd9Sh5vx4sQ.MEQCIFP6yeUhZIJ4mPS1-GjgdlEcQAaHOOh8YjxiUWaqlMAJAiB5JbhVt6_de4NuKcvk8TCwva2ZtyzJMBscOiQnyHKTiA&sharetype=gift&token=4d21

Rob Wallace and Rita Valenti join us to discuss their recent articles at Truthout that cover the Trump administration's dismantling of public health in the United States. These include "Trump Is Trying to Dismantle Public Health — and Replace It With a Police State," "'Make America Healthy Again' Aims to Make Public Health Your Responsibility," and "Labor Was Crucial in Building Public Health Institutions Trump Wants to Destroy." "This Day in Rotten History" from Renaldo Migaldi follows the interview. Check out Rob and Rita's writing here: https://truthout.org/articles/trump-is-trying-to-dismantle-public-health-and-replace-it-with-a-police-state/ here: https://truthout.org/articles/make-america-healthy-again-aims-to-make-public-health-your-responsibility/ and here: https://truthout.org/articles/labor-was-crucial-in-building-public-health-institutions-trump-wants-to-destroy/ Help keep This Is Hell! completely listener supported and access bonus episodes by subscribing to our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com

All-new longform interview Hell returns at last! Mikaela Loach joins us to discuss her new book, "It’s Not That Radical: Climate Action to Transform Our World" (Haymarket Books). "The Moment of Truth" with Jeff Dorchen follows the interview. Check out Mikaela's book here: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/2583-it-s-not-that-radical Help keep This Is Hell! completely listener supported and access bonus episodes by subscribing to our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thisishell Please rate and review This Is Hell! wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps the show ascend the algorithm to reach new listeners.

We wrap up our three-part series on "No Cop City, No Cop World," by speaking with co-editor and contributor Kamau Franklin, founder of Community Movement Builders, a Black member-based collective of community residents and activists serving Black working-class and poor Black communities. Kamau's essay in the collection is titled, "Is This Enough Black Folks for You, Andre Dickens?," which is a reference to the current Atlanta mayor. "The Moment of Truth" with Jeff Dorchen follows the interview. Check out "No Cop City, No Cop World" here: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/2541-no-cop-city-no-cop-world Help keep This Is Hell! completely listener supported and access bonus episodes by subscribing to our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thisishell

Journalist and author Suzy Hansen will returns to This Is Hell! To talk about her New York Magazine article, "Crimes of the Century: How Israel, with the help of the U.S., broke not only Gaza but the foundations of humanitarian law." Suzy is the author of, "Notes on a Foreign Country: An American Abroad in a Post-American World," which was a finalist for the 2018 Pulitzer Prize. Her new book, "From Life Itself: Turkey, Istanbul, and a Neighborhood in the Age of Erdoğan," will be published in April by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/israel-palestine-gaza-war-crimes-genocide.html A new installment of “This Week In Rotten History” from Renaldo Migaldi follows the interview. Help keep This Is Hell! completely listener supported and access bonus episodes by subscribing to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thisishell

John Washington joins us to discuss his recent piece in the New York Review of Books, "The Roots of Bukele’s Gulag." An all new "Rotten History" and "The Moment of Truth" segments follow the interview. Check out John's article here: https://www.nybooks.com/online/2025/06/01/the-roots-of-bukeles-gulag/ Help keep This Is Hell! completely listener supported and access bonus episodes by subscribing to our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thisishell

While Chuck is out this week, we revisit our first interview from 2020. Theorist Albena Azmanova examines the dynamics of post-2008 precarity capitalism, the left's long failure to strike through capitalism's competitive production of profit, and explains why radical change for the precarious multitude is possible without a revolutionary break - but through subversive pragmatism. Albena is author of Capitalism on Edge: How Fighting Precarity Can Achieve Radical Change Without Crisis or Utopia from Columbia University Press.

Micah Herskind returns to This Is Hell! to discuss his contribution to the new edited volume, "No Cop City, No Cop World: Lessons from the Movement" from Haymarket Books. After the interview, Jeff Dorchen delivers a live, in-studio "Moment of Truth." Check out Micah's book here: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/2541-no-cop-city-no-cop-world Help keep This Is Hell! completely listener supported and access bonus episodes by subscribing to our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thisishell

Paisley Currah joins us to discuss his New Yorker piece, "Donald Trump's War on Gender Is Also a War on Government." "Rotten History" by Renaldo Migaldi follows the interview. Check out Paisley's article here: https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-lede/donald-trumps-war-on-gender-is-also-a-war-on-government Help keep This Is Hell! completely listener supported and access bonus episodes by subscribing to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thisishell

Leigh Claire La Berge joins us to discuss her new book published today by Haymarket, "Fake Work: How I Began to Suspect Capitalism is a Joke." "Rotten History" by Renaldo Migaldi follows the interview. Check out Leigh's book here: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/2534-fake-work Help keep This Is Hell! completely listener supported and access bonus episodes by subscribing to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thisishell

ProPublica's Molly Redden joins us to discuss her article, "The “Invasion” Invention: The Far Right’s Long Legal Battle to Make Immigrants the Enemy." A new "Moment of Truth" with Jeff Dorchen follows the interview. Check out Molly's article here: https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-administration-immigration-invasion-rhetoric-courts Help keep This Is Hell! completely listener supported and access bonus episodes by subscribing to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thisishell

Mariah Parker joins us to discuss her chapter in the new co-authored book, "No Cop City, No Cop World: Lessons from the Movement." A classic "Moment of Truth" with Jeff Dorchen follows the interview. Check out Mariah's new book here: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/events/717-no-cop-city-no-cop-world Help keep This Is Hell! completely listener supported and access bonus episodes by subscribing to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thisishell

Dr. Emily M. Bender and Dr. Alex Hanna come on the show to talk about their new book “The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want” published but LitHub. The book tackles the pitfalls of AI and why it’s so crucial to understand the capitalist greed that is manipulating AI behind the scenes. https://thecon.ai/ A new installment of “This Week In Rotten History” from Renaldo Migaldi follows the interview. Help keep This Is Hell! completely listener supported and access bonus episodes by subscribing to our Patreon: www.patreon.com/thisishell

Candice Bernd returns to This Is Hell! to discuss her recent writing at The American Prospect, "The Crypto Racket." After the interview, we hear a classic "Moment of Truth" from Jeff Dorchen. Check out Candice's article here: https://prospect.org/power/2025-05-09-crypto-racket-texas-bitcoin-mining/

Lihi Yona and Itamar Mann join us to discuss their recent UCLA Law Review piece, "Defending Jews From the Definition of Antisemitism." A special 10th anniversary installment of "This Week in Rotten History" from Renaldo Migaldi follows the interview. Check out Lihi and Itamar's piece here: https://www.uclalawreview.org/defending-jews-from-the-definition-of-antisemitism/ Help keep This Is Hell! completely listener supported and access bonus episodes by subscribing to our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thisishell