Similar Posts
“The Democratic Party Can’t Just Whisper Sweet Nothings Anymore” – Nina Turner on RAI (pt 1/4)
This is an episode of Reality Asserts Itself, produced on January 17, 2017. On Reality Asserts Itself, Nina Turner, former Ohio State Senator and leading Bernie Sanders surrogate during the primary, tells host Paul Jay that she grew up poor, believing in the Democratic Party and the Clintons, but she came to understand the failure of the Party to serve the needs of the African-American community and poor white workers.
If a Tree Falls – RAI with Bruce Cockburn (8/9)
This interview was originally published on May 28, 2019. Bruce Cockburn and Paul Jay discuss the existential threat of climate change, and how the song False River was written in protest of pipeline development in Canada.
I Refused to be Treated Like an Animal – Eddie Conway on RAI (8/12)
Mr. Conway says after 44 years in prison, he considered people to be of value and to be respected and refused to be dehumanized himself. This is an episode of Reality Asserts Itself produced on September 16, 2014.
We Need to Talk About These Floods – Sue Higginson
Giordano Nanni from Juice Media Podcasts interviews Sue Higginson, a ‘kickass’ environmental lawyer on the devastating floods in Australia.
COP28: Hypocrisy and Climate Appeasement – Bruce Robertson
Bruce Robertson, independent energy analyst, exposes the hypocrisies and lobbying taking place at COP28 and how talk of investing in a green transition is belied by increasing fossil fuel subsidies worldwide. He explains how the industry employs terms such as net zero and carbon capture and storage (CCS) to appease social opinion and pretend that emissions are being cut, while CCS technology has largely been a failure. Lastly, he tears into deceptive emissions accounting frameworks, which purport to reduce domestic emissions by exporting gas to other countries but, in fact, contribute to higher emissions globally.
Who Owns America’s Debt? – Bob Pollin Pt. 2/2
In part 2, Bob Pollin, economist and Co-Director of the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI), lays out policies to increase workers’ wages and bargaining power and bring down the price of food items such as eggs. He tackles the issue of U.S. government debt, as well as fiscal conservative and MAGA Republican claims that China owns most of this debt. These falsehoods deflect from Trump’s massive tax cuts for the rich and his high military expenditure, which ran up U.S. debt far more than under the Biden administration. Pollin asserts the best way to reduce high-interest payments on U.S. debt and support social services is to increase government revenue via capital gains and income taxes.
Mr. Jay –
I used to read, and comment on, TRNN on a regular basis, until, that is, you treated Jill Stein of the GP with such dismissive disrespect – with the same “rationale” you do here. The fact is she was the best candidate, certainly in ’16 and, I would argue, in ’12, for anyone of a progressive bent with regard to both domestic and foreign policy. Hers was the only platform, actually ON THE BALLOT, that was, in fact, a more robust version of all the things Sanders purportedly stood for, things that, along with his supporters, he turned his back on and betrayed when he backed first Clinton and then Biden in order to do “the most important thing – beat Trump!” And that turned out sooo well, didn’t it.
The arguments are DP memes I have heard since ’00 when Nader got his 3% and the DP knew it had to nip that in the bud lickety-split, hence “spoiler” – as if the DP (and the RP) hadn’t been in the process of “spoiling” so much of our lives for so long, “Nader gave us Bush” – nonsense, the SC gave us Bush (and has been primed to give us Trump), and, le piece de resistance, “3rd parties can’t win” – more nonsense, anyone on a ballot can win if enough folks vote for ’em – all designed to shame those of us who voted for what we wanted and needed, things you yourself seem to favor, into voting LOTE for another lousy Dem, over and over, and to convince us that “we had nowhere else to go” – when in fact we did, and have had, for at least a quarter of a century.
And, to our shame, we bought it, and still do – we have earned the sobriquet “snowflake” because we melt every time and chicken out when someone waves “that awful Rep!” in our faces – if, instead, we had “screwed our courage to the sticking place” and voted in ever greater numbers for that 3rd party Prog each time – the DP, no doubt kicking and screaming, with many epithets, would have gotten the message by now – “we better do what the people want or we are toast” – in the end what a politician needs at election time, more than money, is VOTES. Votes are our ONLY leverage, and we refuse to use them. We have lost decades doing this – time we could not afford to lose.
For years I have heard, as now, “we need a third party!” – well we have had one for years, and we don’t vote for ’em – each time it’s, “well we gotta vote LOTE this time, but then we’ll ‘organize’, and next time ….” – but “next time” never seems to come” …. the DP is pleased as punch …
When I listened to you here now, I heard an echo from years ago, more respectful and less dismissive, perhaps, than then – but, I am sorry, sir, IMO, it is just as destructive now, as when I heard it then …..
It feels too much to me like staying with an abusive spouse to vote Blue. I won’t swallow. Maybe Trump will make things so bad, the nation will go the way of the Soviet Union and we might have a chance to create a real democracy from one of the pieces. I don’t see any change if Golden Leghairs wins- he is already seeking advice from Larry Summers about how to handle the Covid-19 crisis. We are truly on our own. The U.S. is too corrupt, violent, and powerful to be reformed. It needs to die. Trump will get us to the breaking point far faster than the senile sexual abuser from MBNM.
May be this is all correct. However the moment I heard that Bernie was back on the stage I saw the policy of the democrats concentrating around two points:
A. As happened the last time, Bernie needs to be “taken out”. Including all the Progressives circling around him. Most of them will simply abstain from voting.
B. Biden needs to loose the election for the Democrats which he will most likely manage. Why? The USA will shortly fall into the abyss – it is falling already. That ist to happen unter Trump and he is needed for that.
AFTERWARDS the Democrats will come in as knights in shining armour and save the day.
…… well, that is what it looks like to me from afar and I don’t pretend to really know all that much about the US.
I hope you are right;
I fear you are not.
Very good discussion. It galls this Sanders supporter to even consider voting for the DNC’s puppet, but Jay’s point about emboldened right-wingers seems on point.
Paul Jay obviously has given a considerable amount of thought for his argument of voting for Joe Biden in the light of a reelection of Donald Trump.
Unfortunately, when one scrapes away the rhetoric of voting for Biden it is a tacit vote of confidence for a member of the criminal and illegitimate US government and its lickspittles in the Democratic Party.
Voting for either of the two corporate parties is voicing support for opposition of real change in the US government.
Nobody points out that we got Trump because of Democratic administrations like Obama’s. I can’t see much difference between blue or red neoliberals. Both parties are warmongers and feed the military-industrial-congressional-(high tech?) complex. Neither party cares if we die. Besides, the huge discrepancies between exit polls and voter results in Super Tuesday primary states showed that vote tampering is a real thing, and next to no one speaks about that. Desire for change without hope looks like another Trump administration.