Why 2021 needs more direct action

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BOSTON, MA: June 3, 2020: Thousands take part in a Black Lives Matter march and rally on the Boston Common in Boston, Massachusetts. (Staff photo by Nicolaus Czarnecki/MediaNews Group/Boston Herald)

cross-posted from Medium

by Scott Parkin

Back in the first week of June, 2020, soon after the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis policeman Derek Chauvin, I found myself once again in the streets marching in the streets of Oakland, CA and taking action for black lives. I’d been here many times before after the murders of Michael Brown, Philandro Castile and Alton Sterling. Beyond that, I’ve been organized and partaken in campaigns, direct actions and mass protests on a myriad of issues from the war in Iraq to knocking Wall Street banks for their financing of fossil fuels to the Indigenous uprising around Standing Rock for decades.

Andrew Bacevich on the Military and Trump, the current crisis, and what to expect from Biden’s foreign policy

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In  this episode, Bob interviews Professor Andrew Bacevich (@AndrewBacevich) about the extraordinary involvement in electoral  politics by Trump and the military, the military public repudiation of  the president, racial and hate group problems in the armed forces,  civil-military relations, the appoint of General Lloyd Austin as Defense  Secretary, what to expect from Biden’s foreign policy team–essentially  putting the Obama band back together–the nuclear deal with Iran, the  insane attacks on Cuba, and a new Cold War between the U.S. and China.

Listen in: https://bit.ly/MilitaryTrumpGandR

Andrew Bacevich is an emeritus  professor at Boston University and President of the Quincy Institute for  Responsible Statecraft.  He’s also the author of several books on U.S.  foreign policy and one of the foremost critics of America’s war and  interventionism for decades now.  He is also a retired colonel in the  U.S. Army, armored cavalry.  And he’s a frequent columnist in The  Nation, as well as many other publications.

Video: An Air Force Vet and a Teenager Walk Into a Podcast….

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We talked with Jeremy Sayers and Chesney Sayers briefly about their impressions of the riot in the Capitol on January 6th. Jeremy’s also my nephew, and he’s an Air Force vet and we talked about right-wing extremism in the military and his thoughts on the events of last Wednesday and views of military veterans about Trump and the right wing he incites. Chesney’s his daughter and she told us what she and her friends, an increasingly politicized generation, thought of Trump and mobs who attacked the Capitol.

Capitol Hill Riots and The Ruling Class

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And we thought 2020 was bumpy. In this fresh episode, we talk about the shocks happening in the liberal democratic capitalist system–How the ruling class is destabilized by Trump and the far right actions at Capitol Hill this week, and how they are responding to maintain order and their own power as quickly as possible.  It’s an analysis you won’t find in many other place, if anywhere.

Listen: https://bit.ly/RiotsRulingClassGandR

This Is Not a Coup

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cross-posted from Afflict the Comfortable

The Treachery of (Words and) Images

Wednesday’s events were horrible, dangerous, infuriating, and predictable.  People with weapons easily breached the Capitol, gallows were hung (perhaps performative, perhaps not), and people were attacked and some died.  The country was stunned, and both establishment and social media have been deeming this Trump’s “coup” or an “insurrection” from the first.  It’s hard to talk about this. Trump is horrid, detestable, and dangerous, and any time you try to reel the rhetoric back, you can be accused of being an apologist for a cruel, racist, inhuman bigot who happens to be president—which all makes sense. But doing awful things doesn’t mean we have fascism, and vandals and thugs breaking into a sacred public building doesn’t mean we’ve had a coup. There’s no saving grace to any of this, but it needs to be viewed clearheaded and coldblooded.

Swipe Left on the Democrats and Electoral Politics

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cross-posted from Afflict the Comfortable

They’re Just Not That Into You

*****

There are currently two feuds dominating the Left—Jimmy Dore vs. AOC  in “The Brawl Over Medicare-for-All” and various segments of the Left vs. The Squad on its vote to re-elect Pelosi as Speaker of the House.

If you want/need better evidence of the futility of the Left, it would be hard to find.  There’s a huge ongoing dispute over whether “The Squad,” a group of about 6 elected officials (hell, throw Sanders and Markey in there and make it 8) out of 535, should force Congress to have a vote on socialized medicine to put everyone on the record, and another argument over whether to vote against the incumbent (and politically inept) speaker of the house.  Social media is still in in an uproar over these issues with “support AOC” and “The Squad is dead to me” opinions seeming to alternate in frequency and intensity.

Marx on the immiseration of humanity

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Prof. Bob Buzzanco with Karl Marx on “the immiseration of humanity,” from the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, 1844.

Video below text of the quote.

“By reducing the worker’s need to the barest and most miserable level of physical subsistence, and by reducing his activity to the most abstract mechanical movement; thus he says: Man has no other need either of activity or of enjoyment. For he declares that this life, too, is human life and existence.

Hope Among the Ruins of 2020

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Happy New Year, Tender Comrades! In our last episode of 2020, we talk about the past year.

Listen in: http://bit.ly/HopeRuins2020GandR

We discuss what we’ve learned, the worsening precarity, the absence of community and a rewarding life, the barriers posed by the Professional Left (NGO Industrial Complex, labor leadership, etc), the often-unhinged, conspiratorial left, but also the inspiring moral courage and bold action we saw in the streets, the role of organizers and activists, and what we can do moving forward.

The Myths of JFK!

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In this episode, we go myth busting. Our target is “Camelot” itself.

It’s the 60th anniversary of the election of John F. Kennedy and since his untimely death in 1963, he has been elevated to liberal sainthood by all parts of the establishment. We discuss JFK’s legacy, and debunk the many enduring lies that people–from Oliver Stone to QAnon to today’s liberal scholars and media– still believe about John Kennedy’s saintly acts, whose politics have lived on in Clinton, Obama, and now Joe Biden.

Listen in: https://bit.ly/MythsofJFKGandR

We get into John and Robert Kennedy’s relationship with the red-baiting Joe McCarthy; and JFK’s role as a  civil rights “hero” (while simultaneously wire-tapping Martin Luther King).  We also pierce the myth, perpetuated by Oliver Stone’s film “JFK”,  that Kennedy wanted to withdraw troops from Vietnam and end the Cold  War.

December 20th is also the 29th anniversary of the release of Oliver Stone’s film and we take particular aim at its falsehoods.