Andrew Bacevich on Ukraine, China and Our Perilous Future
We had a really great conversation with Andrew Bacevich, one of the most astute, if not the preeminent, critics of American foreign policy today. We talked about the ongoing bloodshed…
Noam Chomsky on Why the Democrats Suck..
The past 50 years have seen a dramatic shift to the far-right in American politics. On the heels of the 1972 McGovern debacle, the Democrats all but abandoned their New Deal heritage and moved swiftly to a stronger pro-business position and embraced Neo-Liberalism. They abandoned class politics and giving priority to workers and the poor and instead have embraced ID politics and wokeness. As the Republicans stole elections and Supreme Court seats, gerrymandered congressional districts, packed the courts, and ran scorched-earth campaigns at every level, the Democrats have offered a timid resistance at best.
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In this fantastic interview, Noam Chomsky gives us a history and analysis of the evolution of the Democrats from the party of FDR to a party that’s Republican-Lite. We discussed the Carter campaign, the Trilateral Commission, the DLC and the Clintons, Obama, Democratic hawkishness, and other factors in the Democratic retreat from progressive ideas, all while the GOP waged an open and ruthless war on workers, non-whites, women, and others.
Don’t miss this important interview with the world’s greatest living intellectual.
Top 9 reasons to become a silky smooth Patron of Green and Red
Top 9 reasons to become a silky smooth Patron of Green and Red. Interviews with the biggest thinkers on the left including Noam Chomsky, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Richard Wolfe and Alex…
Watergate turns 50. Inside the White House Plumbers w/ author Matt Krogh
June 17th is the 50th anniversary of the Watergate break in. In 1972, five men were arrested breaking into the Democratic National Committee HQ at the Watergate Hotel in Washington D.C. They were part of a group that operated out of the Nixon White House called the “Plumbers.” Their job was to investigate leaks in the White House and conduct other surveillance and sabotage against Nixon’s political enemies.
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One of the heads of the White House Plumbers was Egil “Bud” Krogh. Krogh passed away in 2020, but before his death, he co-wrote a memoir of his experience in the Nixon Administration’s secret espionage unit with his son Matt Krogh.
Bob Dylan’s Birthday Bash–Green & Red Celebrates the legacy and meaning of Dylan. w/ Prof. Michael Foley
Bob Dylan is the most important political singer/songwriter of the 20th Century, and he turns 81 on May 24th, so we had a fantastic discussion with Michael Stewart Foley, one of the preeminent scholars of music and politics and author of “Fresh Fruit and Rotting Vegetables,” about the Dead Kennedys, and “Citizen Cash: The Political Life of Johnny Cash.”
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Ukraine and the Fog of War ft. Jodie Evans w/ Code Pink
As the head of NATO says that the allies are prepared to support the Ukraine war effort for years to come, and Biden asks Congress for another $33 billion in war aid, we take a look at the anti-war movement over the past decades. From Bush’s invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, to Obama’s drone wars to military build-ups in Asia and eastern Europe, the U.S. public has been lost in a fog of never ending war with critical voices for peace being the only light.
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In our latest episode, we talk with long time peace activist and co-founder of the anti-war group Code Pink, Jodie Evans. We discuss the recent history of anti-war movements and the state of them today. Campaigns against war mongering politicians and arms manufacturers waged by Code Pink. The connection between the military industrial complex and the climate crisis, and the recent silencing of anti-war voices like Chris Hedges, Abby Martin and Lee Camp.
The Importance of Karl Marx w/ Prof. David McNally
David McNally is one of the more important Marxist scholars in the world, and we talked to him today on the anniversary of Karl Marx’s birth–May 5th, 1818. McNally discussed a wide array of topics, including his introduction to Marxist thought, important texts to use to discover Marx’s writings, the importance of Marx’s concept of “alienated labor,” his formulation of class struggle, and why democracy is essential to socialism.
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We also discussed the history of Marx’s influence in European politics and how Americans came to discover Marx in the late 19th Century. And we finished with a discussion of why Marx remains relevant today and why Marxism is seeing a resurgence.
Climate and Punishment w/ journalist Alleen Brown
The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world. It’s about 25% of the world’s incarcerated population with over 2 million people held in federal, state and local jails. We’re also seeing unprecedented extreme climate disasters in the form of wildfires, heatwaves, drought, super-storms and more.
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The aging infrastructure and failing logistics systems of many prisons are unprepared for the emerging climate crisis. The intersection of these two crises have created a pattern of human rights abuses across the country, and elected officials and their “regimes of cruelty” from California to Texas to Florida are only making matters worse.
From Environmentalist to “Domestic Terrorist” with former Earth Liberation member Daniel McGowan
In the past ten years, we’ve also seen state repression of movements coming out of Occupy Wall Street, the Ferguson uprising, Standing Rock, Line 3 and various anti-Trump movements. Green and Red has had numerous episodes on radical movements and state repression of political movements from antifascists in Portland and Austin to water protectors at Line 3 to DAPL saboteur Jessica Reznicek.
Listen to our latest episode: apple.co/3nvkrqk
But, before that, we had the era known as the “Green Scare,” where radical environmental and animal rights activists were targeted by the “state” (corporations, politicians, law enforcement) for its anti-capitalist politics and escalating tactics that included sabotage, animal liberation, property destruction and arson. The FBI called their operation to stop these radical movements “Operation Backfire.” After 911, they labeled people taking action “domestic terrorists.” Congress passed corporate lobbyist written legislation, such as the Animal Enterprise Terror Act and the Patriot Act, to stop them.
Making a Killing: Corporate Arms Makers and Ukraine with William Hartung
In December, the Pentagon got a $768 billion budget approved, despite the withdrawal from Afghanistan, with the aim to counter China and build Ukraine’s military strength. This has been a bonanza for arms makers like Raytheon, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin and Northrup Gruman.
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Raytheon CEO Greg Hayes popped the champagne open when saying “…[W]e are seeing, I would say, opportunities for international sales. We just have to look to last week where we saw the drone attack in the UAE, which have attacked some of their other facilities. And of course, the tensions in Eastern Europe, the tensions in the South China Sea, all of those things are putting pressure on some of the defense spending over there. So I fully expect we’re going to see some benefit from it.”
After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, we saw a spike in these companies’ stock prices.
In our latest episode, we talk about arms manufacturers with William Hartung of the Quincy Institute. We discuss how the war in Ukraine, potential conflict in the South China Sea and wars in Yemen and other parts of the world are critical to their business model. We also talk about how the bureaucracy of the Pentagon and Washington D.C. gives these companies so much influence.