Citations Needed, Episode 32: Attack of the PC College Kids!

Students at Middlebury College disrupt speaker Charles Murray.

The horror stories are ubiquitous: a theater group at Wesleyan won’t perform The Vagina Monologues because it’s offensive to trans women! Oberlin is banning classes featuring white authors! Rich, sheltered college students, increasingly indoctrinated by radical Marxist professors, are asking for safe spaces!

But how much merit is there to the popular trope that college kids are hypersensitive and coddled? Is there really a free speech crisis America's campuses? What are the origins of this evergreen complaint? Who does the constant harping on the threat of "political correctness" and anti-free speech undergrads actually hurt? And more importantly, whom does it benefit?

Today's guest is David Palumbo-Liu, professor of Comparative Literature at Stanford University.

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The Show

Episode transcript available here.

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The Guest

David Palumbo-Liu is a professor of Comparative Literature at Stanford University. He is the author of The Deliverance of Others: Reading Literature in a Global Age and Asian/American: Historical Crossings of a Racial Frontier, founding editor of the e-journal, Occasion: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Humanities, and a Contributing Editor for The Los Angeles Review of Books. His writing can also be found in The Nation, The Guardian, Truthout and Salon.

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Citations Needed is available on iTunes, Soundcloud and LibSyn (here’s the RSS feed). You can also check us out on Twitter and Facebook.

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Want More?

For further reading, show notes, a periodic newsletter, and more exclusive content, please visit our Patreon page and sign up to support the show!

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Citations Needed is a media criticism podcast, hosted by Adam Johnson and Nima Shirazi, political commentators and media analysts working to call bullshit on (usually corporate) media’s ubiquitous reliance on and regurgitation of false and destructive narratives, tropes and stereotypes.

Citations Needed is produced by Florence Barrau-Adams. Our Production Consultant is Josh Kross. Our research assistant is Sophia Steinert-Evoy. The theme is ‘Nonphenomenal Lineage’ by Grandaddy.

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Citations Needed, Episode 31: Fake ISIS Plots and the Selling of Forever War

We’ve seen the headlines hundreds of times: "ISIS plot foiled," "ISIS in Brooklyn," "Woman Stopped At Airport on Way to Join ISIS." These stories strike fear into the hearts of Americans everywhere, especially in the build-up to the war effort against ISIS in Summer 2014.

The terror group was everywhere, recruiting our teenagers and attempting to strike in every major city––seemingly all at once. But what do these headlines mean exactly? What is an "ISIS plot" anyway? What is the gap between the image the media provides versus the reality of what's occurring?

On this week's episode we dive into the 17-year-long phenomenon of the US media assisting the government's war on terror by parroting dubious claims of al-Qaeda and ISIS plots when the vast majority of the time––no al-Qaeda or ISIS are involved.

With guest Pardiss Kebriaei, Senior Staff Attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights.

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The Show

Episode transcript available here.

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The Guest

Pardiss Kebriaei is a Senior Staff Attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights. She was lead counsel for CCR in Al-Aulaqi v. Panetta, which challenged the killings of three American citizens in U.S. drone strikes in Yemen, and Al-Aulaqi v. Obama, which challenged the authorization for the targeting of an American citizen added to secret government “kill lists.” She represents current and former Guantanamo detainees, as well as the families of two detainees who died in Guantanamo in 2006. Her writing has appeared in Harper's Magazine, The Nation, and the Yale Law & Policy Review.

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Citations Needed is available on iTunes, Soundcloud and LibSyn (here’s the RSS feed). You can also check us out on Twitter and Facebook.

***

Want More?

For further reading, show notes, a periodic newsletter, and more exclusive content, please visit our Patreon page and sign up to support the show!

***

Citations Needed is a media criticism podcast, hosted by Adam Johnson and Nima Shirazi, political commentators and media analysts working to call bullshit on (usually corporate) media’s ubiquitous reliance on and regurgitation of false and destructive narratives, tropes and stereotypes.

Citations Needed is produced by Florence Barrau-Adams. Our Production Consultant is Josh Kross. Our research assistant is Sophia Steinert-Evoy. The theme is ‘Nonphenomenal Lineage’ by Grandaddy.

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Citations Needed, Episode 30: Liberal Media’s Myopic Military Worship

Fighting against the far right forces of the Republican Party and their auxiliary white supremacist media makes attempts to appropriate notions of nationalism into a liberal mold a compelling short cut for Democrats looking for easy clapbacks and viral RTs. The temptation to promote a kinder, gentler, "woke" patriotism is understandable.

But what is the collateral damage of this approach? From the justifiably horrified response to mass shootings to the jingoistic worship of all things military, what is the long-term downside of lifting up #VetsForGunControl and retired military brass as a counter to the vulgarity of Trumpism? Can the Left – including liberals – embrace a more holistic and anti-imperialist moral grammar that avoids short cuts and rejects the idea of nationalism altogether?

 
We are joined by Maggie Martin, co-director of About Face.

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The Show

Episode transcript available here.

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The Guest

Maggie Martin is co-director of About Face (formerly Iraq Veterans Against the War). During her time in the U.S. Army from 2001-2006, she was deployed three times to Kuwait and Iraq. Martin left the army as a Sergeant in 2006.

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Citations Needed is available on iTunes, Soundcloud and LibSyn (here’s the RSS feed). You can also check us out on Twitter and Facebook.

***

Want More?

For further reading, show notes, a periodic newsletter, and more exclusive content, please visit our Patreon page and sign up to support the show!

***

Citations Needed is a media criticism podcast, hosted by Adam Johnson and Nima Shirazi, political commentators and media analysts working to call bullshit on (usually corporate) media’s ubiquitous reliance on and regurgitation of false and destructive narratives, tropes and stereotypes.

Citations Needed is produced by Florence Barrau-Adams. Our Production Consultant is Josh Kross. Our research assistant is Sophia Steinert-Evoy. The theme is ‘Nonphenomenal Lineage’ by Grandaddy.

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Citations Needed, Episode 29: The Asymptotic 'Two-State Solution' (Part II)

NOTE: If you haven't yet listened to last week's Part I of this episode, please do that first.

We continue our discussion of the always just-out-of-reach "two state solution" and the perpetual-by-design "peace process." Covering topics like BDS, the tedious toxicity of liberal Zionism, and pro-Israel media bias with Rebecca Vilkomerson of Jewish Voice for Peace.

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The Show

Episode transcript available here.

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The Guest

Rebecca Vilkomerson is the Executive Director of Jewish Voice for Peace, a national, grassroots organization inspired by Jewish tradition to work for a just and lasting peace according to principles of human rights, equality, and international law for all the people of Israel and Palestine. In 2010 she was named one of the 50 most influential Jewish American leaders by the Forward, and was named one of 14 Women to Watch in 2014.

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Citations Needed is available on iTunes, Soundcloud and LibSyn (here’s the RSS feed). You can also check us out on Twitter and Facebook.

***

Want More?

For further reading, show notes, a periodic newsletter, and more exclusive content, please visit our Patreon page and sign up to support the show!

***

Citations Needed is a media criticism podcast, hosted by Adam Johnson and Nima Shirazi, political commentators and media analysts working to call bullshit on (usually corporate) media’s ubiquitous reliance on and regurgitation of false and destructive narratives, tropes and stereotypes.

Citations Needed is produced by Florence Barrau-Adams. Our Production Consultant is Josh Kross. The theme is ‘Nonphenomenal Lineage’ by Grandaddy.

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