Current Affairs8 Nov 2024

Why America Perceives a "World of Enemies" (w/ Osamah Khalil)

This episode originally aired on October 10, 2024. Get new episodes early at patreon.com/CurrentAffairs!

Osamah Khalil of Syracuse University is the author of A World of Enemies: America’s Wars at Home and Abroad from Kennedy to Biden, a vital history of the wars of the last 50 years. Prof. Khalil shows how, from the Vietnam war to the present day, American leaders (and American pop culture) conjured a "world of enemies" in which force was preferable to diplomacy. A cast of rotating villains (from Ho Chi Minh to Saddam Hussein to Hamas) are treated as existential threats to freedom and democracy, and because they are monstrous they cannot be negotiated with and can only be destroyed. Prof. Khalil joins today to discuss his work, which argues that our militaristic attitude toward the rest of the world has also come to characterize domestic political discourse.

"American militarism has not been limited to foreign battlefields. Politicians and policymakers have insisted that Americans are engaged in an existential struggle against foes seen and unseen, foreign and domestic. Thus, militarism has seeped into everyday American life as the United States has not settled for defeat or victory but for war as a permanent state." - Osamah F. Khalil

Those who value this conversation will also probably want to check out The Myth of American Idealism, out now from Penguin Random House.

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(600)

Before Bernie and Mamdani, There Was Eugene Debs

🌹 Use the code "15OFF" for a discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membershipShawn Gude is the former editor of Jacobin and author of American Socialist: The Life and Legacy of ...

9 Okt 43min

The Consultants Will Kill You

🌹 Use the code "15OFF" for a discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membershipIn Michigan and Maine, a tale of two campaigns.🌹 Full article by Nathan J. Robinson: https://www.cu...

8 Okt 19min

In Praise of Suit Socialism

🌹 Use the code "15OFF" for a discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membershipIf there’s a visual language that connotes credibility and authority, why not take advantage of it?�...

5 Okt 17min

Democrats Paved the Way for Fascism — Jennifer Welch on MAGA, Socialism, and Political Revolution

🌹 Use the code "15OFF" for a discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membership Jennifer Welch, co-host of I’ve Had It and author of Not Today, Fascists, joins Current Affairs ed...

29 Sep 43min

Israel Is Stealing the West Bank in Plain Sight (w/ Jasper Nathaniel)

🌹 Use the code "15OFF" for a discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membershipJasper Nathaniel is an independent journalist who recently returned from reporting in the occupied W...

19 Sep 36min

How 9/11 Normalized Endless War

🌹 Use the code "15OFF" for a discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membership CODEPINK co-founders Medea Benjamin and Jodie Evans, along with national co-director Danaka Katovi...

15 Sep 45min

How Trump Made a Broken DOJ Even Worse

🌹 Use the code "15OFF" for a discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membership Rachel Cohen is an attorney and organizer who previously resigned from the law firm Skadden Arps a...

9 Sep 31min

MAGA Stole Animal Rights from the Left

🌹 Use the code "15OFF" for a discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membership Astra Taylor is a writer, activist, and co-author of End Times Fascism, and Aaron Regunberg is a cl...

2 Sep 49min