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In late June, the Pacific Northwest experienced extreme weather by way of a heat dome that settled over the region, driving up temperatures, and setting heat records. In Portland, the temperature reached 112F (44C) while Lytton, B.C. broke Canada’s heat record three days in a row before burning to the ground on the fourth day. More common and extreme heat like this is an effect of climate change. This week, Darts and Letters talks about what that extreme weather means for some of the most marginalized among us — those experiencing homelessness — and digs into what is being done, and not done, to tackle the climate crisis.

• First (@7:12), Sandra Fairbank is a community advocate, volunteer with Cultivate Initiatives, and a person experiencing homelessness. She runs a shower truck in Portland, Oregon that serves the homeless in her community. She talks about that service, what it means to people, and a day in her life during the heatwave.  
• Then (@25:27), Daniel Aldana Cohen is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley where he directs the Socio-Spatial Climate Collective. He discusses the impacts of extreme weather, the social costs of climate change, and why we need a Green New Deal

——————-FURTHER READING AND LISTENING——————-

• Visit Cultivate Initiatives’ home page and, if you can, donate to them here electronically or by check.
• If you’re looking to learn more about or support an organization in Canada, visit Vancouver’s Pivot and the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty.
• Check out Daniel Aldana Cohen’s website including his books (including his co-written latest A Planet to Win: Why We Need a Green New Deal), articles, and media work. Then, dive into his podcast Hot & Bothered with Dissent.

—————————-CONTACT US————————-

To stay up to date, follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. If you’d like to write to us, email darts@citedmedia.ca or tweet Gordon directly. And if you haven’t already, subscribe to our show wherever you get your podcasts.

—————————PRODUCTION UPDATE—————————

Now we are going to take a brief reprieve. Next week we’ve got a re-run. And then until September we’re moving to a lighter one-interview episode format. Still the same good stuff, just, not quite as ambitious from a production standpoint. We’ll be back with full, multi-interview episodes in September.

——————-SUPPORT THE SHOW——————-

We need your support. If you like what you hear, chip in. You can find us on patreon.com/dartsandletters.

—————————-CREDITS—————————-

Darts and Letters is hosted and edited by Gordon Katic. Our lead producer is Jay Cockburn. Our managing producer is Marc Apollonio. David Moscrop provided research assistance and wrote the show notes. Our marketing assistant is Ian Snowden. Our theme song was created by Mike Barber. Our graphic design was created by Dakota Koop.

This is a production of Cited Media backed by academic grants that support mobilizing research and democratizing the concept of public intellectualism This episode received support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. The lead academic advisor is Allen Sens.

Darts and Letters is produced in Toronto, which is on the traditional land of Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat Peoples. It is also produced in Vancouver, BC, which is on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations.

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This week, Darts and Letters looks to Peru and the election victory of peasant school teacher and socialist Pedro Castillo. He won a close race against Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of former president Alberto Fujimori. His campaign slogan was simple and powerful: “No more poor people in a rich country.” Of course, the right is now crying foul and seeking to invalidate the election — like Trump’s sad attempt in the United States, it won’t work. We dig into the neoliberal, right-wing populist agenda in Peru and across Latin America and explore the rising socialist alternative.

• First (@11:50) , Natalia Sobrevilla Perea is Professor of Latin American History at the University of Kent. She’s also Peruvian. She takes us through Peru’s contemporary political history and puts Castillo’s election win in context. She starts with Alberto Fujimori, former president of Peru and father of Keiko Fujimori, a presidential contender defeated by Castillo.
• Then (@39:28), Aldo Madariaga is a professor at the School of Political Science, Diego Portales University, and Associate Researcher at the centre for Social Conflict and Cohesion Studies (COES) in Santiago, Chile. He expands on the concept of neoliberalism and its history as an intellectual movement, and analyzes its relationship with the current surge of right-wing populism.

——————-FURTHER READING AND LISTENING——————-

• Check out Aldo Madariaga’s site and his book Neoliberal Resilience: Lessons in Democracy and Development from Latin America and Eastern Europe. And have a look at his co-edited series for Palgrave on Latin American political economy.
• Plus, read Madariaga’s Jacobin piece on neoliberalism as a threat to democracy.
• Visit Natalia Sobrevilla Perea’s site and review her publications.
• Read more about Castillo, including his push to make mining companies pay their fair share, Jacobin’s run-down of the man in his own words, and Counter Punch’s story of his win and the challenges that followed.
• Watch Katie Halper interview Ollie Varga on Peru’s election: “Dictator’s Daughter vs. Teacher.”

—————————-CONTACT US————————-

To stay up to date, follow us on Twitter and Facebook. If you’d like to write to us, email darts@citedmedia.ca or tweet Gordon directly.

 ——————-SUPPORT THE SHOW——————-

We need your support. If you like what you hear, chip in. You can find us on patreon.com/dartsandletters. 

—————————-CREDITS—————————-

Darts and Letters is hosted and edited by Gordon Katic. Our lead producer is Jay Cockburn. Our managing producer is Marc Apollonio. David Moscrop provided research assistance and wrote the show notes. Our marketing assistant is Ian Snowden. Our theme song was created by Mike Barber. Our graphic design was created by Dakota Koop.

This is a production of Cited Media backed by academic grants that support mobilizing research and democratizing the concept of public intellectualism This episode received support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. The lead academic advisor is Allen Sens.

Darts and Letters is produced in Toronto, which is on the traditional land of Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat Peoples. It is also produced in Vancouver, BC, which is on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations.

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It’s time to go war! Culture war, that is. This time, over critical race theory. Conservatives have mobilized an attack on CRT, and Democrats have defended a defanged version of these radical ideas. Even the military, by way of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Milley, has weighed in. He’s all for reading and understanding “white rage” — for strategic reasons, of course. This week, Darts and Letters tries to understand a powerful set of ideas dragged into the popular imagination through cynical politicking. But we also lodge left-wing critiques, and ask: is CRT good for the left, or should we embrace a universalist politics?

• First (@13:49), Robert Greene II is an intellectual historian at Claflin. He points out that until recently, few people outside of academia had even heard of critical race theory. He explores the origins and motivations of attacks on CRT, explains the historical and contemporary context, and argues that CRT should be embraced (at least partly) in the leftist theoretical toolkit.
• Then (@54:06), Nick Cruse is a Fred Hampton Leftist, co-founder of Ten Demands, and board member of National RCV. He calls out the faux radicalism of the center-left in general, and Democrats in particular, arguing they weaponize black identity in the service of dividing and conquering the working class — that is, in service of neoliberalism.

——————-FURTHER READING AND LISTENING——————-

• Read Robert Greene II’s piece on critical race theory in Jacobin and visit his page at Claflin University. Have a look at more of his work for The Nation. He’s on Twitter, too.
• Check out Nick Cruse’s work, and that of his colleagues, through the Fred Hampton Leftist page; be sure to check out his Twitter account, too.
• There are plenty of other important pieces to read and listen to as well. Those include a New Yorker take on how a conservative activist “invented the conflict over critical race theory,” historian Matt Karp’s piece in Harper’s on “History as End,” Freddie deBoer’s and Iram Osei-Frimpong’s take on CRT and the American dream on Bad Faith podcast, the Boston Review’s deep dive into “The war on critical race theory,” and Nathalie Baptiste’s assessment of the CRT “panic” in Mother Jones.
• Plus, for a critique of Robin DiAngelo’s work, check out this piece in the Conversation.
• For more from Matt Karp, listen to him talk CRT on Chapo.

—————————-CONTACT US————————-

To stay up to date, follow us on Twitter and Facebook. If you’d like to write to us, email darts@citedmedia.ca or tweet Gordon directly.

 ——————-SUPPORT THE SHOW——————-

We need your support. If you like what you hear, chip in. You can find us on patreon.com/dartsandletters. 

—————————-CREDITS—————————-

Darts and Letters is hosted and edited by Gordon Katic. Our lead producer is Jay Cockburn. Our managing producer is Marc Apollonio. David Moscrop provided research assistance and wrote the show notes. Our marketing assistant is Ian Snowden. Our theme song was created by Mike Barber. Our graphic design was created by Dakota Koop.

This is a production of Cited Media backed by academic grants that support mobilizing research and democratizing the concept of public intellectualism This episode received support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. The lead academic advisor is Allen Sens.

Darts and Letters is produced in Toronto, which is on the traditional land of Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat Peoples. It is also produced in Vancouver, BC, which is on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations.

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Happy Canada Day to our Canadian listeners! But actually, we are not celebrating here. Instead, we lament our country’s decay. In particular, our intellectual decay. We were a nation known for such pre-eminent intellectuals like Erving Goffman, Marshall McLuhan, and Charles Taylor. Now, we’re known for a decidedly more right-wing bunch of scholars and online influencers, including: Jordan Peterson, Stefan Molyneux, Lauren Southern, Gavin McInnes, and others. Their ideas and their organizing has inspired a new Canadian export: far-right politics, and sometimes far right extremist groups. One such group, the Proud Boys, were designated as a terrorist entity earlier this year. This week, we look at the far-right in Canada and ask: what should we do about them? And also: what shouldn’t we do about them?

• First (@11:13), Leigh Phillips is a journalist, writer, and author. He’s also a contributor to Jacobin. After the Proud Boys were designated a terrorist entity, he took to the magazine to make the case against that approach to managing them. He argues that protecting civil liberties is essential to opposing the far-right and defending the left from state overreach and repression.
• Next (@30:19), Samantha Kutner is an independent research and subject matter expert on the Proud Boys – as she puts it, a “Proud Boys whisperer” whose work is focused on “helping people leave violent extremism and white supremacy.” She takes us through that process and inside the heads of members of the far-right.
• Finally (@57:04), Barbara Perry is a professor, an expert on the far-right in Canada, and the director of the Centre on Hate, Bias and Extremism at Ontario Tech University. She explores the far-right ecosystem in Canada with us and explains why the country punches above its weight when it comes to producing these organizations and individuals.

——————-FURTHER READING AND LISTENING——————-

• Check out Leigh Phillips’ website, his political journalism – including his piece on the Proud Boys – and his books, Austerity Ecology & the Collapse-porn Addicts and The People’s Republic of Walmart.
• Listen to Samatha Kutner’s podcast Glitterpod and visit her website to learn more about her work, including her Proud Boys incident map.
• Have a look at Barbara Perry’s scholarly website, her books In the Name of Hate and Hate and Bias Crime, and visit the Centre on Hate, Bias and Extremism.
• Read about what it means to be designated a terrorist entity.

—————————-CONTACT US————————-

To stay up to date, follow us on Twitter and Facebook. If you’d like to write to us, email darts@citedmedia.ca or tweet Gordon directly.

 ——————-SUPPORT THE SHOW——————-

We need your support. If you like what you hear, chip in. You can find us on patreon.com/dartsandletters. 

—————————-CREDITS—————————-

Darts and Letters is hosted and edited by Gordon Katic. Our lead producer is Jay Cockburn. Our managing producer is Marc Apollonio. Our lead research assistant on this episode was Isabelle Lemelin. David Moscrop provided research assistance and wrote the show notes. Our marketing assistant is Ian Snowden. Our theme song was created by Mike Barber. Our graphic design was created by Dakota Koop.

This episode received support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research. This episode was part of a project looking at the right of right wing political philosophies. The advisors on that project are: Andre Gagne, Ronald Beiner, and A. James McAdams. The lead research assistants are Tim Berk & Isabelle Lemelin.

Darts and Letters is produced in Toronto, which is on the traditional land of Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat Peoples. It is also produced in Vancouver, BC, which is on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations.