Donald Trump was surrounded by billionaires during his inauguration. It became glaringly obvious who bought the election. But the influence of the uber wealthy goes far beyond that one election. They are picking our pockets and causing societal instability in many ways. Chuck Collins looks at their impact in his book Burned by Billionaires: How Concentrated Wealth and Power are Ruining Our Lives and Planet.  

When Donald Trump took a wrecking ball to the East Wing of the White house it was both real and symbolic. Much of what we took for granted, the rule of law, the constitution and due process have also been demolished. All of this happening as the planet is reaching irreversible tipping points. A recent report found that 84% of world’s coral has been bleached. Heat waves, wildfires, floods and droughts driven by burning fossil fuels are transforming our world and have devastating consequences for life on the planet.  Faced with the intellectual, moral, and spiritual abyss created by these intersecting crises, despair can seem like a reasonable response. But this isn’t the first time it appeared as if the world might come to a crashing halt. After two catastrophic world wars, the rise of fascism and the threat of nuclear annihilation mid 20th-century thinkers like Hannah Arendt, Albert Camus and Simone Weil found meaning and hope. Wen Stephenson explores their legacy and examines what it will take to find the resolve to keep going in his book Learning to Live in the Dark: Essays in a Time of Catastrophe.

In the spirit of upcoming Halloween, the new interview is about a horror graphic novel trilogy. Tim Mulligan adds supernatural forces to the most radioactive site in the United States, the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Richland Washington. In this interview we talk about the real horrors of radioactive releases and the fictional horrors of witches, ghosts and radioactive bats.

Charlie Kirk’s organization, Turning Point, started out as secular, promoting capitalism, free markets and the separation of church and state. All of that changed in 2020 when he embraced  the “Seven Mountains Mandate”,  a theology promoting a Christian takeover of government, education, media, family, business, arts, and religion. It’s so reactionary that only a small minority of evangelicals agree with its principles.  Many of the key players in Donald Trump’s regime are part of this movement and are working to dismantle democracy and replace it with theocracy.

As political events in the United States wobble towards an authoritarian takeover it’s easy to lose sight of the larger picture. The price of food is going nowhere but up as climate disruption, soil depletion and water scarcity take hold. Scientists warn that changes to the earth’s life support systems could trigger irreversible changes to the biosphere. In his book How to Fix a Broken Planet, Julian Cribb describes the interrelated problems and remedial actions that could lead to meaningful change.

As a human rights investigator Michael Shaikh shared many meals with people fleeing war and political persecution. One of the overlooked casualties of this violence is cuisine and hospitality traditions. His book is part history, part travelog and part cookbook where you learn about the world and then re-create the aromas and tastes of other times and places.

As we watch climate chaos and the rise of fascism fundamentally change our world we need to find new ways of structuring society. In her book 'Practicing Social Ecology' Eleanor Finley uses examples of grassroots movements that are rethinking our relationship to the natural world and each other.

PFAS is a group of chemicals that didn't exist in the world until humans created them in the 1940's. They're highly toxic endocrine disruptors that affect the thyroid, liver, kidney and reproductive organs. Now they are everywhere. They're found in the bloodstreams of polar bears and the rain falling on the Tibetan plateau. How did this happen? In her book They Poisoned the World Mariah Blake traces PFAS from the Manhattan Project to the Trump regime. 

In Eiren Caffall's memoir she pairs her private grief over learning she has a genetic disease that will end her life prematurely with the collective grief for the collapsing ecosystem. 

Before the last election Lee McIntyre published his book On Disinformation: How to Fight for Truth and Protect Democracy. Now that we are dealing with Constitutional collapse his message is even more crucial.

As the environment heats up and authoritarianism is on the rise, dgivide and conquer has been a very effective technique to keep people from organizing for political or economic change. In her book Common Ground Eileen Flanagan explores how we can come together in spite of difference in race, class and religion.  

Homelessness is visible in every city in the United States but the number of people on the streets is just the tip of the iceberg according to journalist and anthropologist Brian Goldstone. In his new book, There Is No Place For Us: Working and Homeless in America , he follows families in Atlanta as they struggle to stay housed.  The combination of low wages, skyrocketing housing costs and lax government regulations bear down on working families. Goldstone looks at the causes, magnitude and consequences of the problem with portraits of families who are left off the official statistics because they sleep in cars or squalid extended stay hotels.

Universal education was envisioned as a great equalizer that would fuel a meritocracy. But like so many American ideals it has been tainted by slavery and the Native genocide. Native boarding schools were founded with the goal of eradicating Native culture.  Schools set up during Reconstruction taught the newly freed slaves that obedience would be rewarded and any attempts at retribution were forbidden.   In her book Original Sins: The Miseducation of Black and Native Children and the Construction of American Racism Eve L. Ewing looks at how the current education system has been shaped by its history.

The unacknowledged truth about the capitalistic machine we all live in is that it relies on our compliance. When companies freely exploit workers without effective restraint from the government there is still power in grass roots organizing. In their book Get on the Job and Organize: Standing up for a Better Workplace and a Better World Jaz Brisack details the ins and outs of organizing Starbucks workers one coffee shop at a time.

How safe and effective are the drugs we take? Why do Americans pay more for prescription drugs than people in other high-income countries? Jerry Avorn, a researcher at Harvard Medical School, explains why ineffective, dangerous and overpriced drugs make it through the FDA approval process in his new book Rethinking Medications.