October 22
GUEST: Joe Allen, author of "The Package King: A Rank and File History of UPS" and writer of numerous articles published in Jacobin Magazine, talks about unions, workers' rights and the key issues that the socialist movement faces in the United States.A threshold has been crossed – Tempest
We are waiting around for what could be our last election in a while. It has happened in so many countries. What makes us think it won't happen in ours? And we have all the trappings: armed rightest groups supported by much of the nation's police forces; an assault on voting rights to deny people of color access to the ballot; special militaried forces like ICE that are controlled by the president; and finally an obscene gap between the very richest and the rest of this nation's working people.
Joe Allen takes us through how we got here, and I think it takes a socialist like Joe to reveal the underlying problems of our supposed democracy. For the last forty years the very wealthy have used every trick in the book to strip wealth from the vast majority. Now that we are at the peak of deprivation and anger, the elites need a demagogue like Trump to blame our economic malaise on immigrants and minority groups. Of course, we have seen it all before as fascist leaders took over Europe in the 1930s.
In fact we have seen it in so many empires that have started out with some form of democracy. With wars in numerous countries and our national treasure spent on weaponry, our empire may be making that same transition itself. Will this election be the crossing the Rubicon, when Caesar brought his Roman armies into the homeland? Perhaps the "die is cast," as Caesar is supposed to have said as he watched his army cross this famous river.
