Loud & Clear DIscussion of Diversionary Personalization of Coronavirus Debate (4/22/2020)

Beyond Republican vs. Democrat: The need for systemic change in U.S. healthcare

The U.S. government at all levels is consumed by infighting over how to respond to the Coronavirus pandemic. A right wing mobilization supported by President Trump is demanding that the economy reopen against the guidance of public health experts, but is the Democratic Party’s single-minded focus on the personality of Donald Trump drawing attention away from the systemic changes needed to save lives? Jim Kavanagh, the editor of thepolemicist.net, whose latest article in The Polemicist and forthcoming on CounterPunch is “Joe or No,” joins the show.

Listen to "Beyond Republican vs. Democrat: The need for systemic change in U.S. healthcare" on Spreaker.

Loud & Clear is a daily program of news, commentary, and political analysis on Radio Sputnik, hosted by Brian Becker and John Kiriakou, featuring independent experts, activists, and political writers. (Introduction above is theirs, with related articles of mine referenced in brackets.)

Joe or No?

Elise Amendola / AP

Here we go again. Now that Bernie Sanders has completed his predictable circuit of loss and capitulation, leftists—those who stand for socialist and anti-imperialist, or even serious social-democratic and antiwar, politics—again confront the quadrennial quandary: Must one vote for the thoroughly neo-liberal and imperialist Democratic presidential nominee?

“The lesser evil is still evil.” “Don’t make the perfect the enemy of the good.” “Trump!“ The Supreme Court!”  ‘Round and ‘round we go. It is a frustrating, enervating, and, in the U.S. electoral duopoly, inescapable ritual.

Not just because Bernie—and, more importantly, Bernie’s agenda—is out of the picture, but because of the way he was taken out of the picture by the Democrats, the situation of extraordinary crisis in which it happened, and the horrible-on-every-level leading man the party settled on, 2020 has given us a gloriously clear version of a Hobson’s choice.

I won’t be voting for Joe Biden. Here’s why, and here’s what I make of the arguments why I should vote Biden no matter what, a corollary of Vote Blue No Matter Who (VBNMW).

What's Next for the Left? Interview with Charles Dunaway on Wider View Radio (4/18/2020)

What's next for the Left?

April 18, 2020

Half an hour of wide-ranging discussion with Charles Dunaway on his Wider View Radio Podcast about the reaction of the left to the end of the Bernie Sanders campaign and what options are left open for real change in the United States.

Mass Action Livestream (4/13//2020) Jails, Racism & Coronavirus; Bernie's Out, What Now?

Mass Action Livestream Forum: 
Jails, Racism & Coronavirus; Bernie's Out, What Now?; Venezuela Resists Imperialism and Coronavirus

Speakers
Lashawn Yvonne Littrice, BLM Women of Faith
Jesus Rodriguez Espinoza, Orinoco Tribune
Jim Kavanagh, The Polemicist
John Beacham, MASS ACTION
April 13, 2020

Critical Hour Discussion of Trump's Call for Payroll Tax Cut (4/8/2020)

The Bernie Train Stops, but Will the Senator Continue to Fight From Outside?

US Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) announced Wednesday that he is dropping out of the Democratic race for the White House, following weeks of pursuing an increasingly unlikely path to defeating the moderate front-runner for the nomination, former US Vice President Joe Biden, in a race now overcome by the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. What will be the impact of this on the race going forward? Also, will what took place in Wisconsin this week be the start of the 2020 election wars?

"President Donald Trump on Tuesday once again voiced his support for slashing the payroll tax — the primary funding mechanism for Social Security and Medicare — and said he would be calling for such a cut even if the US were not currently in the midst of a nationwide public health and economic emergency," Common Dreams reported Wednesday. Is this "code for gutting Social Security's dedicated funding," as progressive organization Social Security Works called it?
[Related articles: “Taxpayer Money” Threatens Medicare-for-All (And Every Other Social Program), Behind the Money Curtain: A Left Take on Taxes, Spending, and Modern Monetary Theory]