Archive for the ‘Podcasts’ Category

Show #42 Sandy Davies is back from Guatemala

Posted: 2013/07/23 by Punkonomics (@dearbalak) in Podcasts
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Punkonomics2013-7-22

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Nicolas Sandy Davies was with us last month. Check out that show as well as his most recent article and assorted links: https://punkonomics.org/2013/06/18/show-37-war-crimes-as-policy-with-nicolas-sandy-davies/

The interview questions were:

> Tell us about your trip to Guatemala

>> What of the recent war crimes trial?

>> Historical context

>> not Bolivarian… but concessions were made after popular indigenous uprising… any hope?

Sandy mentioned Jonathan Schell’s The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People

> have you written anything new? working on something?

See Investing in Weapons, War, and Obama (Nicolas J.S. Davies, Z Magazine, May 2012)

***Update article coming soon***

> You tell a very ugly truth in your work.

>> I share this difficulty in my classes

>> talk about facts vs. ideologies

… but most sources with facts are somewhat left-wing or at least anti-imperial… my bias or do empires always tell lies?

> How can we bring about change?

>> Paraphrasing Sandy’s important comment: voting your conscious/3rd parties is NOT a waste of your vote (except in key states perhaps) but 99% of people vote for the DemRep party. Like in East Germany under communism, we really have a one party system and 99% of the people vote for it!

>> Sandy expressed skepticism about my idea of a party of the real left and real right (Socialist/Libertarian) that will only act to reform the political system and only enact policies by consensus. I hope this would allow taking power from the DemRep party and creating a functioning democracy but Sandy points out just how difficult this would be…

Show #41: 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East–Florida

Posted: 2013/07/16 by Punkonomics (@dearbalak) in Podcasts, Uncategorized
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[audio https://punkonomics.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/punkonomics2013-7-15-1199seiu-final.mp3]

Punkonomics2013-7-15 1199SEIU final

My guests were Coyuca Jones and Vera Nelson from the Florida local of the 1199 Service Employees International Union

It was great to talk with representatives of this legendary union with an amazing history that has recently started working in Florida (a very hostile terrain to say the least).

Here’s some background info on the 1199SEIU. Make sure you watch the short video to get an idea of who they are and how important they were and continue to be. MLK called them his “favorite union.” http://www.1199seiu.org/florida ,  https://www.facebook.com/1199SEIUFlorida

1199 50th Anniversary Video from 1199SEIU on Vimeo.

Here are some of the things we discussed on the air:

    • Important role in the civil rights struggle: MLK called them his “favorite union.”
      • Successful recent history in both: Confrontation and Cooperation with employers.
      • The 1199 nationally and in Florida over the past 10 years.
    • What actions is the 1199 taking locally and nationally right now:
      • Campaign for Medicaid Expansion
      • Struggle for worker’s rights in healthcare industry workers contracts
    • More generally Coy and Vera talked about:the difficulties they encounter in advocating unions in a hostile environment
      • solidarity between many organizations with different agendas
      • how the union is helping in communities
      • seeking dialogue with employers and government and trying to reach reasonable agreements by persuading them to represent their constituents
      • the Trayvon Martin verdict
    • Finally, I asked about how they themselves found their way to doing what you do
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left: Coy; right: Vera

Note: we closed the show with Which Side Are You On? a song written by Florence Reece the wife of Sam Reece, a union organizer for the United Mine Workers in Harlan County, Kentucky in 1931. The song was made famous in the late 60s by Pete Seeger and we played a recent cover by the political hip hop trio Rebel Diaz

    .

Show #40: George Ciccariello-Maher on the people’s history of the Venezuelan revolution

Posted: 2013/07/09 by Punkonomics (@dearbalak) in Podcasts
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George Ciccariello-Maher is the author of We Created Chávez: A People’s History of the Venezuelan Revolution (2013)

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There’s a complete bio on my prior post announcing the show here, and more info as well as a wealth of other writing on George’s website.

Directly below is an outline of the main questions we asked in the interview but you’ll have to listen to the podcast for his fascinating answers. And then you should read the book too. We hope very much to have the opportunity to talk to him again about the developments in this dynamic and part of the world. At a time when most of the globe is going from bad to worse, the Bolivarian republics of Latin America seem to be a beacon of hope–not perfect but showing clear measurable improvement in the standard of living of the majority of their population. This is more than almost all other countries can say for themselves…

Question outline:

> We had a show defending Chavez’s political and economic record right after he died in March

> You have a special point of view:

>> You see Chavez as a chapter in a larger story

>> The book displaces the debate from the man himself to looking at the Venezuelan people instead of their leaders: A people’s history like Howard Zinn‘s A people’s History of the US.

> Where did your personal interest come from?

> Book starts from fall of dictatorship in 58 and the beginning of “democracy”  Why?

> Chavez is not the focus: What then IS his contribution/importance?

> Is Venezuela special in S. America? in the world? How so?

> Jesse Velez asked about the recent developments now that Chavez is dead?

> Explain the structure of the opposition to Chavez and now Maduro:

>> from the radical left

>> from the right

>> how did they get so many votes in the last election?

> Any lessons for the US in all this?

  • Foreign policy (vis-a-vis global people’s movements)
  • Domestic: horizontal/vertical reforms
  • #occupy?

> Jesse Velez asked about popular movements in his native Puerto Rico.

> Finally: On a different local issue we touched upon the Zimmerman trial and the critical importance of understanding the historical context behind such divisive painful issues in order to develop empathy which is what makes us human.

Show #39: Brook Hines, Director of the Community Business Association of Central Florida – Main Street Alliance

Posted: 2013/07/02 by Punkonomics (@dearbalak) in Podcasts
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Audio fixed–sorry :(
We discussed what the CBA does advocating for the interests of small local businesses and especially recent actions on:
  • Immigration reform and the Dream Act
  • Sick Leave
  • Medical marijuana

We also learned about the web of political influence wielded by Disney in this area!

Check this out: Follow Money 11

Community Business Association

The Community Business Association of Central Florida promotes socially responsible economic development, public policy and community investment by creating opportunities for small business owners to advocate for themselves with decision makers, media and other influencers.
Brook Hines, Director
Community Business Association of Central Florida
Main Street Alliance
Click here for Facebook page

Show #38: Catching up with current events

Posted: 2013/06/30 by Punkonomics (@dearbalak) in Podcasts
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Punkonomics2013-6-24

Jesse and I chatted about some of the exciting things happening lately. Here are the notes i mentioned having on the show… which we didn’t exactly follow of course ;)

  • I mentioned my post (June 21st) where I spewed the following witticism in response to this whole drug tests for welfare recipients BS which is so pathetically petty, hateful, and beside the point that it makes me very angry! …well, i admit that lots of things make me angry ;)

If bankers had to take a drug test before getting THEIR welfare (bailouts, tax cuts and loopholes, etc etc) we would not be in a deficit >:/

    • The good old American tradition of hating on the poor
    • 25% of children in the US today live in poverty (currently $23,050 total yearly income for a family of four!)
    • This also has a racist dimension: what people like Paula Dean and several Supreme Court justices would call “lazy poor n___”. man this shite makes me even angrier!
  • Latest salvo from the class-wars: Student loans are set to double next month to 6%
    • Hurrah! Fear not! Conservatives have a wonderful solution to the cost of education and opportunity that hearkens back to those good-old-days of the 18th and 19th centuries: Rich people (the 1%) will pay the educational expenses of selected regular people (the %99) in exchange for owning a share of their future income! YES YOU HEARD RIGHT! Indentured slavery is back!
  • On the bright side:
    • Some people are NOT taking this shite like we do (taking our happy pills and watching mind-numbing TV and superhero movies), THEY are out on the streets raising hell by the millions against socially-conservative corporate kleptocratic crony-capitalism in Turkey, Brazil, Egypt, and other places.
    • They are rallying against the destructive class-war fake economic idea of budget cutting when the economy is down and millions are unemployed with little or no economic opportunities: aka austerity that has already destroyed the Greek economy (even the IMF all but admitted it).
    • This is especially criminal when vast amounts have been transferred from the public to the %1 since they crashed the economy in 2008. The total numbers are many times larger than the budget deficit all the fake hysteria is about: $6-12,000,000,000,000 that’s $6-12 trillion.
  • Finally: Edward Snowden the young america hero who sacrificed his ticket to joining the 1% and became a political refugee in order to tell the American people what their government is really doing in the digital frontier. This is critical since too few people realize how in a big data world, control over information is tantamount to control over our bodies: slavery!

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