Latest Content for Old Mole Variety Hour

Joe Clement and Denise Morris review the conspiratorial and at times surreal science fiction film, Branded, written and directed by Jamie Bradshaw and Alexsandr Dulerayn. Set in mostly present day post-soviet Russia, Branded is about how Misha Galkin (played by Ed Stoppa... Read more

 Iven Hale hosts this show and we hear about the Chicago Teachers Strike, Cuban reform and policies, a book review of Barbara King Solver's "Lacuna" and a movie-review of Branded. Bill Resnick talks with Samuel Farber about top-down and bottom-up socialism in Cuba ... Read more

Bill Resnick talks with Samuel Farber about Cuba and assessing its achievements, failures and status as a socialist country.  Samuel Farber is a native of Cuba and a scholar about Cuba's history and politics. He's teaches at Brooklyn College in New York and is the author o... Read more

 Larry Bowlden reviews Barbara Kingsolver's widely acclaimed "The Lacuna: a novel". Part thought-experiment and part historical fiction, Kingsolver writes a story set in 1930s Mexico City about the struggle of artists during war-time and under the pressure of revolution ... Read more

  Tom Becker hosts this Old Mole and we hear: Bill Resnick talks with Leo Panitch about why European elites are pumping money into the finance industry and enforcing austerity on the poor. They also consider long term strategies for building working class power. Leo ... Read more

 Old Mole Jan Haaken talks with Alan Wieder about the film "Searching for Sugar Man", now playing in Portland.  The film tells two stories: one about the US rock singer known as Rodriguez who became popular and politically influential in South Africa but forgotten in his... Read more

Leo Panitch is a Distinguished Research Professor at York University, renowned political economist, Marxist theorist and editor of the Socialist Register.   He is the co-author, along with Sam Gindin who appeared on last week's Old Mole,  of The Making of Global Capitali... Read more

 Should we heap scorn on people who try to live on public assistance like food stamps while making art?  A recent article on Salon, and especially the readers' comments, indicated how strongly many working-class people feel about living well on the dole.  Here Old Mole J... Read more

 The death of historian and novelist Alexander Saxton led Old Mole Tom Becker to reflections on Saxton's long life as a radical activist and historian of race and labor.  Saxton is the author of The Indispensable Enemy: Labor and the Anti-Chinese Movement in Californi... Read more

  Tom Becker hosts this show about the search for a vanished but popular musician, living shamelessly on public assistance, the demise of the European welfare state, and remembering a radical historian and activist.  To hear the whole show, use the play button below.  To h... Read more