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Anti-genocide encampments in the U.S. have shined a spotlight on academic institutions and their complicity in militarism. Israeli universities have been heralded in the West for their liberalism and diversity, but critics assert that they are a crucial part of Israel’s war making machine. Israeli Jewish academic Maya Wind argues that even before the formation of the state of Israel, universities played a key role in the project of Zionism. And Noam Chomsky discusses why the U.S. supports Israel.
Photo: Al Araby/Wikimedia Commons
The post Fund Drive Special: Israeli Universities and the State appeared first on KPFA.

Award-winning artist/cartoonist Nate Powell discusses his graphic adaptation of James Loewen’s classic text “Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong.”
The post Fund Drive Special: A New “Lies My Teacher Told Me” appeared first on KPFA.

The banks and financiers are a common target of the left — and often the right — purportedly sucking the lifeblood out of the real industrial economy. Stephen Maher argues that while the financialization of the economy has intensified under neoliberalism, finance has played a central role in the growth of capitalism — and the disciplining of labor — from at least the Gilded Age. He discusses the recent rise of asset management companies Vanguard, State Street, and BlackRock, which have concentrated ownership at a level unprecedented in the history of capitalism.
Resources:
Scott Aquanno and Stephen Maher, The Fall and Rise of American Finance: From J.P. Morgan to BlackRock Verso, 2024
Photo credit: Lee De Cola
The post The Fall and Rise of U.S. Finance appeared first on KPFA.

What does May Day, as an anarchist and socialist political project, commemorate? Nicolas Lampert and Paul Buhle share historical background; Cindy Milstein reviews anarchist principles; Richard Lichtman considers what Marx called alienation; and Paul C. Gray discusses the importance of identifying workers’ issues of concern and creating democratic structures. (Encore presentation.)
(Image on main page by Washington Area Spark.)
The post May Day Meanings appeared first on KPFA.

What did the abrupt transition from socialism to capitalism in the former Soviet Bloc mean for residents, radicals, and the social order? Helena Sheehan, a Marxist thinker, educator, and activist, devotes a portion of her latest book to the impact and legacy of the momentous events of 1989 and 1990.
Helena Sheehan, Until We Fall: Long Distance Life on the Left Monthly Review Press, 2023
The post Socialism to Capitalism appeared first on KPFA.

Over the last forty years, bottled water consumption has exploded. Once a rarefied item, global sales of bottled water dwarf every other beverage — totaling $300 billion a year. Environmental sociologist Daniel Jaffee argues that packaged water doesn’t only imperil our oceans and bodies with plastic waste, but undermines safe public water even more than water privatization. (Encore presentation.)
Resources:
Daniel Jaffee, Unbottled: The Fight against Plastic Water and for Water Justice UC Press, 2023
The post Commodifying Water appeared first on KPFA.