RevolutionZ
RevolutionZ
Ep 326 Stephen Shalom Offense, Defense, and Trump
Ep 326 of RevolutionZ discusses Trump's unique role in contemporary politics, the problems of a purely defensive strategy, and enlarging resistance activism including reaching Trump voters. It proposes seeking a wealth tax, living wage, labor reforms, free quality education, day care, and health care, positive immigration reform, and various electoral, social, and environmental reforms as positive program to augment defending against Trumpian reactionary attacks. It highlights the role of media and communication--their's and our's-- and emphasizes throughout the need to get beyond just preventing calamity.
Hello, my name is Michael Albert and I am the host of the podcast that's titled Revolution Z. My guest this time is Stephen Shalom. Steve is a retired professor of political science and a longtime left activist. He is on the editorial board of New Politics and is a member of Jewish Voice for Peace and the Ukraine Solidarity Network. His books include the United States and the Philippines, A Study of Neocolonialism, the Edited Collection Socialist Visions and which Side Are you On, An Introduction to Politics, and I should perhaps acknowledge that Steve isn't an unfamiliar guest. We went to school together and have been close ever since. We talk all the time, so this is another time, but hopefully with a few extra people listening. So how about to start, Steve, could you tell us what you see as the threat that Trump represents?
Speaker 2:Thanks, michael, it's good to be here. Well, there have been lots of bad presidents, there have been lots of terrible presidents, but Trump is unique in certain respects. I don't want to get into the debate about whether the term fascist specifically applies or not. I'm not sure that's very productive is. He is trying as hard as possible to pursue a reactionary agenda and to concentrate as much power as possible in his own hands, and that's why, when you look at all of his appointments, it's clear that competence, even reactionary competence, is not the key consideration for him. The key consideration is will you give him absolute authority? Will you fail to be a check in any way upon him? So this is a tremendous threat. But there's an additional threat, which is that he had a lot of people voting for him and we can't just treat him as though he seized power and the whole population is against him. So that's our challenge to prevent him from doing his worst, but also to move as many people from the MAGA camp to progressive politics.
Speaker 1:So we all agree at least I hope we all agree not just you and I, but the listeners about defending against Trump's horrible policies. But why is that perhaps insufficient? Why do you say we need to also and why do I say we need to also offer a positive program? What would you say to someone who suggests that that would dilute our defensive efforts of?
Speaker 2:efforts. Well, I think there are several reasons we need to offer a positive program. One is that a positive program is the morally right thing and we should always keep that in mind. Second, we need to keep alive certain ideas, even if this is not the right moment for them to come into fruition. We've got to keep the ideas alive because we certainly hope that at some future point hopefully not too long in the future we'll be able to pursue that positive program.
Speaker 2:But the third reason is when we think about these Trump voters, to some extent they're responding to the fact that the status quo pre-Trump didn't address their real needs to belittle people and discriminate against not those kinds of needs, but they had real needs, given the growing inequality and the growing alienation and all the other problems that the status quo has not been able to address. So when Trump comes on the scene and says look at the terrible things in your lives, I'm going to address it. If we just leave it to the old status quo to be the only alternative to Trump, there are going to be lots of those Trump voters who are not swayed by our arguments about his terrible dangers. We need to offer them something that says look, we understand that inequality is a problem and there is actually a program to address that. That doesn't require the craziness and the horrors of Donald Trump.
Speaker 2:We understand about the way you've been denied access to power in so many ways. You don't need Trump for that. There are alternatives and we have a positive program. That is that alternative. Now you raise the point will we be diluting our efforts to block Trump? If we're talking about positive program? You know, presumably we have a finite amount of time and so whatever you're doing in one realm you're not directly doing in the other realm, so it's a careful balance we've got to be thinking of.
Speaker 1:When there are dangerous moves, we need to respond, and we need to respond with all sorts of allies who may not be our allies in terms of longer vision, but we need to include as well as much as we can afford to some of that positive vision. I think maybe there's another reason. I mean, we agree, obviously, but I wonder, you know, there's the phrase the best defense is a good offense, and it partly has to do with the notion that if we're defending so Trump acts, we defend, trump acts, we defend Musk acts we defend they are constantly choosing the terrain, deciding whether to persist or not persist, because if they run up against some significant opposition, they just change issues, whereas if we also have and obviously we do have to defend often, but if we also have positive program that we can pursue positive aims along with stopping them, then they have to relate to what we're doing, they have to try and, in essence, stop our program. So I think it actually doesn't delete, but it can and needs to augment defense.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's right.
Speaker 1:Well, okay, what about the concern that some might feel that there's a danger that by going on the offensive, by putting forward positive program not a vision for a whole new society, but immediate aims that can be fought for and that we would be fighting for, that can be fought for and that we would be fighting for that at least move in the right direction instead of only preventing him from moving in the wrong direction? We could alienate some potential allies. They might be put off by our positive demand where they would have supported or at least gone along with, or at least not opposed our you know, defensive posture Stop cutting this or that, stop jailing those people, and so on. They might support that, but not our positive program. Is that a danger that should worry us, or that's just a price of doing what needs to be done?
Speaker 2:worry us, or that's just the price of doing what needs to be done. Oh no, I think it's something that we should keep foremost in our minds, that is, we should be trying to advance our program in a way that doesn't needlessly alienate potential allies. When I say needlessly, I mean there are some issues that, no, we can't just say we're going to throw this group or that group under the bus because we don't want to choose any issue that might offend somebody, but a lot of what the left and for this or that is, and so you use it and you berate those who don't. That's an example of needless antagonism needless antagonism, and it would be important to always check our tendency in that direction. But you know, there are complicated issues like affirmative action, right, and so there are some people who say we should drop affirmative action entirely, everything should be class-focused, and there are others who say no, given, you know, white-skin privilege. What we should be talking about is exclusively affirmative action about is exclusively affirmative action, I think and you can't always do this neatly, but I think our goal should be let's see if we can bring together constituencies in a healthy way.
Speaker 2:So it's important to have race-based affirmative action, because there are ways in which, historically, the Black working class has been harmed in comparison to the white working class.
Speaker 2:So, simply, a class-based program will not address that problem. On the other hand, if we say we're going to, and if you don't include some race-based programs to address the specific harms that people have suffered on the basis of race, there are going to be a lot of people in various racial and ethnic minority groups who will say you know, there's nothing for us here, we're not being treated with respect, and their allegiance to our broader project will wane broader project will wane. On the other hand, we're not going to be able to address all the problems of inequality if we say we should be looking to replace a working class white person in this college admissions class and we should bring in an upper class black person. That too is counterproductive. So we've got to be able to say no, you need both kinds of programs. Both of them have a purpose, both of them have a moral justification, and one without the other risks alienating people.
Speaker 1:We shouldn't be alienating that we think is that, yes, we're trying to stop Trump's. I guess you would say, at our turn I would say, fascist, doesn't much matter Trump's agenda, but we're trying to do it with our eyes on the particular program that we're opposing but simultaneously with our eyes on the need to assemble, organize, be able to manifest in demonstrations and so on, a broad constituency. So we have to take into account the consequences immediately and the consequences down the road, a ways. And if that's right, and if there's something to be said, as we both seem to think, for having an element of positive agenda on our side as well as blocking Trump's agenda, then maybe we can try and figure out what some of that positive agenda might need to be. So, for example, if you were going to try and propose something that the resistance let's call us the resistance if you were going to try and propose something that the resistance was going to advocate not stopping Trump but going forward for the economy, what might it be?
Speaker 2:You said, not stopping Trump, not only stopping Trump, that is we would hope that this yeah, not only stopping Trump right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So the key characteristic of our economy is its undemocratic nature and the immense inequality that has grown over time, and so a good way to challenge that inequality and to say something very clear that people can understand this will address inequality is a wealth tax.
Speaker 2:An income tax is subject to all kinds of loopholes.
Speaker 2:But, in addition, someone who makes a million dollars a year and someone who makes $100,000 a year, there's a 10 to 1 ratio, and if you say we're going to tax all the millionaires but we're not going to tax people under that, it's not clear that you'll generate either that you'll generate enough money or you won't end up hurting a lot of people that you don't want to hurt.
Speaker 2:On the other hand, the wealth gap is so much broader, so much wider than the income gap, that you could tax people who make a thousand times as much as others and say anybody below a huge amount will not be subject to the wealth tax at all, and that would indeed generate tremendous amounts of money. Now, of course, there's always the danger of loopholes on a wealth tax, just as there is on an income do audits of rich people, and Trump is trying to carry that to a new extreme. So obviously, as part of calling for a wealth tax, we'll have to say no loopholes and no With lots of IRS auditors. That should be the first thing we pay for out of this wealth tax is more IRS auditors, so we can actually get the money that is needed.
Speaker 1:Okay, so that's one plank, one demand, one aspect of a possible positive approach to add to defending against Trumpism. What about, for the economy, stipulating a much higher minimum wage and having that be a second part? What about perhaps even stipulating a shorter work week and more workers' rights? It's the things that Trump is attacking, but instead of just trying to stop the attack and get back to where we were, we posit something that's moving forward, that's better, and we seek that.
Speaker 2:Moving forward. That's better and we seek that. So at the same time, I think a wealth tax has the flavor that we want. It can be backed by pretty much everybody. Who would be in a resistance? Is that true as well for, you know, a new minimum wage of $20 an?
Speaker 1:hour.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean so a living wage campaign was something we were talking about not so many years ago, and this is one of the reasons why you and I, among others, said it makes sense to vote for the lesser evil, because if Harris wins, because if Harris wins, we can continue the struggles we were building for a living wage in place of a minimum wage, meaning you figure out what people need to live a decent life and that becomes your minimum, rather than some arbitrary but totally unrealistic amount arbitrary but totally unrealistic amount. With Trump, though, it's hard to devote all our attention to those kinds of positive programs, because there is so much reactionary, regressive stuff going on. But, yes, so minimum wage turning the minimum wage into a living wage is an important part, or should be an important part, and labor rights more generally. So there is, there has been a piece of legislation that generally Democrats have supported and Republicans have not, and, in fact, when JD Vance was asked why he didn't support it, he said well, this was during the campaign.
Speaker 2:He said he doesn't support it because Democrats like it and unions like it and unions like it, and there is a problem that the PRO Act, which has a lot of pro-union stuff in it, also has a lot of stuff that union officialdom likes. That's not a bad thing, but it's not enough. So you want to have labor reforms, both of the sort that enable labor unions to be formed and to build, because we are now at the lowest point in American history in terms of the number, the percentage of the labor force in labor unions, so that's got to be turned around. But we also want labor unions to be democratic instruments of workers' control, and so that requires additional clauses to what is now in the PRO Act clauses to what is now in the PRO Act.
Speaker 1:For another, I don't know axis dimension of a possible positive program, not for way in the future, but that can resonate with people now. I think Bernie Sanders would say universal, free healthcare. So maybe that should be an additional point.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So there are a number of things that we on the left consider basic human rights and we want to get that message out there. One of them is health care. Health care shouldn't be a privilege. It shouldn't be something reserved for the rich. It is a basic right and everybody, by virtue of being human, is entitled to it. A second thing is housing. Housing the number of housing units per person in the United States has been in requires incentivizing the building of low and medium income housing. It means incentivizing that when multifamily luxury units are built, they're required to build a number of a certain percentage of moderate income housing, and it requires public housing to make up the gap. That is, it should be a guarantee that there will be as many housing at least as many housing units in the country as there are people needing to live in there. We shouldn't have homeless people in a first world country.
Speaker 1:Obviously, each one of these possibilities can be extended further.
Speaker 1:What we're trying to do, or at least it seems like what we're trying to do to me, is come up with things which the resistance which is going to do sanctuaries against deportations and which is going to protect people who are being attacked on sexual grounds or on freedom of speech, on and on In addition to that, is positive and will attract all those who are upset about any single element, to the extent that we can.
Speaker 1:And if that's on our mind, then consider what about gender? I mean, obviously, one of the things that's going on is an across-the-board, not just assault on women's control of their own bodies, not just an assault on the human right to engage in sexuality as they choose, but some kind of an assault on how the public sees relations among people. Compassion is out, empathy is out, greed is in, hostility is in. Can we think of some kind of proposal that could be part of an overarching positive program that can attract not just lefties and long-term activists but people who are becoming steadily more and more upset with the way things are going that bears on gender and on sexuality? Is there a positive stance we could take or demand we could advocate?
Speaker 2:And we could advocate In this realm the fact that a 50-year-old abortion rights Supreme Court ruling was overturned. Trump has declared by fiat, probably without any legal basis, that there are officially two genders. You know, and you must identify with the gender into which you were born. Gender into which you were born. That seems like one of the areas where defense is going to be a much larger part of our program for a while than in some of the other areas.
Speaker 1:Well, I think that's true. That's evidently true. But on the other hand, what about adding parental leave across the board or daycare issues? You know, the sector of the population that would be opposed to these kinds of positive programs is relatively small. Right and it's a hard time seeing it in public.
Speaker 2:You know we need to declare that health care and housing are human rights. I got sidetracked and didn't get to listing some others. So education is a human right and parenting is a human right and that means that, as a prerequisite to being able to be a parent, that means child care, that means parental leave. You know both the things that you just mentioned. It's part of our broader agenda of expanding our understanding of human rights. It's not just not being tortured, but everyone has a right to have the means to raise a family, If they want, or the means to not, if they choose not to.
Speaker 1:Agreed, obviously. But there's a difference between a small number of progressives or leftists taking an intellectual stance on what's good, what's desirable, what's moral and very explicitly saying we're fighting for this concretely, like a wealth tax. You could just say you know the country should have a much narrower spread of wealth. Or you could say we want, you know we're fighting for a wealth tax. As soon as you say we're fighting for a wealth tax and you say what it is and you say how to implement it, now Trump, for his constituency, has to relate to our, has to try and stop us. Same thing around other aspects of life. I think it's going on, it's defending, but also going on the offense, seeking better. And I'm not sure that you know, I don't know, and it might change it a little. So take education. It's not enough to say, well, people should have a good education, but that doesn't tell normal people anything. Much is going to change change?
Speaker 2:No, no. So you've got to be more specific. I can be more specific about what you want to say about education. So in education, there's been over the last 30 years or so, under both Republican and Democratic administrations, though carried furthest under Trump a move to move resources from public education into private education, and this is what the school voucher program is all about. And this began as a way to allow parents who wanted segregated schools to keep them after Brown versus Board of Education, and it's now meant looting the resources that go into public education and moving them into the private sector and into religious schools.
Speaker 2:And the data of numerous studies and Diane Ravitch just wrote a very persuasive review on the evidence in the New York Review of Books this week the evidence shows that public schools perform better for poor kids than do all these private voucher charter schools, private voucher charter schools and every time a private voucher charter school is set up, resources are drained from public schools, and so part of what we've got to be pushing for is support public education, put resources. Don't loot public education in order to support an agenda favored by several billionaires but not by the public at all. On vouchers, and every time there's been a referendum. Voucher programs have lost. They've been pushed through by legislators responding to outside billionaire money and not to public wishes. So education is another right that we need to make real People talk about it, but it doesn't have the resources to actually accomplish what it should be.
Speaker 1:Positive formulation. I think that would be heard by the public, as compared to them thinking, oh, it's not going to go anywhere, would be. Perhaps I mean, I don't know but perhaps education should be funded in such a way that every public school has the following resources, that every student in every school has this following level of support and not more. There isn't more funding, more resources for suburban schools and wealthy neighborhoods. We have to change the funding mechanism so that that doesn't exist. That might be something. Another thing, that might be something that seems to me. I think, look, a lot of Trump's support is premised on people feeling robbed of dignity, robbed of respect, robbed of you know, dissed, treated as second class or eighth class, denied stuff, et cetera. And it isn't just what Trump might take now, it's been that way for ages. I mean, for example, it comes up with housing, also With schooling. There are I don't know how many thousands of schools that are empty at night, of schools that are empty at night that do nothing. There are I don't know how many, I guess again thousands of motels and hotels that are half full and make huge profits but waste gargantuan resources.
Speaker 1:Maybe a formulation that includes adult education and that includes community sociality, so schools being used as centers of communication and social engagement and celebration, etc.
Speaker 1:It's a little like what they did with the large churches when the government ripped out interactive relations among the population and then the large churches came along and said you know, well, we've got public, we've got basketball courts in our backyard and we've got food, you know, for when you're in trouble. And we've got this and we've got that. All you got to do is sign on to the fact that homosexuals shouldn't get any of this, and so on. I wonder whether there couldn't be some degree of positive program that just goes forward, expands education, makes it something other than learning how to take orders and endure boredom, increases the support for the people who teach, and on and on. Now somehow you have to boil that down to the kind of thing that Sanders does when he talks about health care. He just says this is what we want, this is what we're fighting for, and the whole thinking behind it is there and you want to spread that, but you want support for the demands.
Speaker 2:I mean, I'm not sure this makes any sense, but so the idea of using school resources as community support centers, with adult education and all kinds of other things going on, has taken place in isolated schools and isolated communities, and in part that's because of the very decentralized kinds of education system we have in the country. So you know, even within a single state you know, I'm in New Jersey there are more than 600 separate school boards and school systems, each with their own approach, and they've got to follow some overarching state guidelines, and states have to follow some overarching federal guidelines, and so one could talk about here are some things that ought to be promoted from a Department of Education. So it's not. We don't just want to prevent Trump from closing down the Department of Education, so we don't just want to prevent Trump from closing down the Department of Education, but we'd like to see the Department of Education model and promote some of the most progressive things that are going on in schools around the country.
Speaker 1:But it has to be made concrete for the audience, for the parents of students to know what it is we're talking about for their school Sure.
Speaker 2:What it?
Speaker 1:is the resistance is talking about for their school.
Speaker 2:Right, but the challenge also is that different schools in different communities face different challenges, and so it would be hard to have a one-size-fits-all kind of program, and so it would be a little complicated to explain what it is we're calling for.
Speaker 1:Maybe I'm not so sure. You know, perfection can wipe out excellence, and perfection is not available.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, no, I have no disagreement with your suggestions. I'm just saying it'll be challenging to be able to get very specific in that, given the course the different communities in which schools are located.
Speaker 1:What might we positively assert as resistance goals, as compared to just asserting that the government shouldn't be demolished and the like, and, you know, protecting people against being fired and so on? What positive political changes could a resistance adopt?
Speaker 2:Well so, since our definition of a decent democratic society is one in which people's power is relatively equal, that doesn't happen when you have billionaires who are able to leverage that money in the political system. One of the advantages of the wealth tax is, yes, if that can change the distribution of income, that will not just be good for the economy but that will be tremendously valuable for the political system. But in addition, we need measures to take the money out of politics, and so this means reversing that Supreme Court decision. Citizens United that essentially said those with money it's their free speech right to use that money to control other people's lives. We need to challenge that, we need to fight against it. Push for if the court won't change, push for a constitutional amendment. That's obviously a very tough thing to do, but it as much political influence as anybody else. You know that just doesn't strike anybody as fair, and we've got to put that front and center.
Speaker 1:What about the Electoral College?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Then there are certain institutions in the United States governmental system that lead to unjust outcomes. One of them is the Electoral College, because its effect is well. There are various effects, but most dramatically we saw this in 2016. Trump won the election in the Electoral College and lost the election in the popular vote. That doesn't seem very democratic and democracy would require that that kind of system be changed. While that's important, it's not always going to be the case that that will help the more reactionary candidate reactionary candidate. There was some talk that in this election this election just passed that it was possible that Harris would get a majority in the Electoral College and not in the popular vote. It didn't happen. Trump won both very narrowly, despite his calling it a landslide and a mandate, but it's basically an unfair system and, on those grounds alone, should be changed. In some cases, that will actually have a big impact. It would certainly have the impact of making people feel more involved in politics.
Speaker 1:Because Changes the the campaign too.
Speaker 2:Right. That's why people feel more involved in politics, because the candidates are campaigning in front of you, not just in seven swing states. So you know, that's a reason, even if it never changed the electoral outcomes. It's good to involve people in politics.
Speaker 1:Ignoring for a minute fraud or graft. Publicly funding elections would be a big change. Ranked choice voting would be a big change. These are positive steps that if you were in the room with Musk and Trump, they would you. They would have an embolism over them. So these are things they would not want, but they're things that we would be for, because we're for them, because they're moving us in the right direction, and I think they could have very widespread support. Widespread support so that we don't have a situation of the people who are concerned about immigration fighting against deportations, and the people who are concerned about peace fighting against, you know, warmongering, and the people who are concerned about, or most concerned about in each case, most concerned about, abortion fighting against Trump on that front, but not aligned, not part of a large resistance in which everybody's supporting everybody else. And that seems like the step that would greatly enhance prospects for some real change.
Speaker 2:But so there's one piece we skipped over here, which is that a lot of times our very reasonable and powerful messages don't get through, and this is something about the media environment. So here's a Supreme Court decision that in some states, puts IVF under threat. Trump says oh yeah, I'm thinking of making that free. You know, total, total bullshit and so many things. He says total bullshit, but so many people don't see it as bullshit. So, and it's a real challenge.
Speaker 2:I mean, in part, this is the new media environment with social media, where people only hear their own side and the siloed messages means that solid, rational counter arguments don't get heard. I'm not sure the left or anybody has figured that out. Well, I mean, musk has to some degree. I'll just buy Twitter and, you know, use all their algorithms to promote my own messages For someone that doesn't have that. And you know, in Germany, in the face of quite awful election results, the one bright spot was that the left D-Linker got its largest vote ever, in part, according to the press reports, from clever use of TikTok, you know.
Speaker 1:So there's something going on and that needs to be needs to be figured out, a media demand just like an education demand or a health demand or a wealth demand. The left hasn't always sort of seen it in that light, that it's that significant. But now I think people realize well, yes, it is that significant. The control of media, the use of media, the structure of media are devastating and demands that would take us in a good direction would be positive and therefore part of a positive program and ought to be part of a revelatory study at the time.
Speaker 2:But now you could probably give a list of a thousand things that people who watch Fox News believe, like what happened on January 6th, you know, and so on and so forth. So you know that's a real challenge.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a part of trying to change society, and we also haven't really, honestly, said much about foreign policy. It isn't totally obvious what is going on now, in other words, what has to be resisted, what has to be, what is the defensive posture that we have to take to prevent Trump from pursuing I don't know what, but a positive step you could imagine would be to say we have I don't know how many 800 bases overseas, and other countries have two to 10. I wonder whether it would be time for, and possible to, say something about military bases and the use to which they're put. To go back to your housing proposal, which involves a whole lot of construction, a whole lot of housing, well, there's a whole lot of soldiers who have a whole lot of capacity and to whom a whole lot of resources are already being delivered, who are doing nothing constructive, nothing that helps society. It's not their fault, it's the structure of the military. One wonders whether how would people relate to that? I mean, all of these things sound impossible. But imagine a discussion, I don't know, 15 years ago among right-wingers, in which they talked about getting as far as they've now gotten. All of it would sound impossible. It would sound like it's beyond the pale, except to a few of them who pursued it. I feel the same way about the left. We often take off the table as unattainable things that maybe we ought to be seeking and that ought to be defining us to a degree. Anyway, that's what I have in mind for this issue of going offense instead of only defense. Of course, we have to defend and we have to ward off what he's doing. There are still people and we have to ward off what he's doing. There are still people. I don't know whether, see, if you agree with me. I don't understand how, when he replaces the Joint Chiefs of Staff, when he replaces the FBI and when he's trying to replace the judicial system, by simply ignoring it and saying it's beside the point, unless it agrees with me. And I think he just did another one of his executive things in which he basically said look, from now on, the law is what I say it is. If I disagree with the courts, I'm right and they're wrong.
Speaker 1:How can we describe this? To me, the word fascist. I don't care what it is in the encyclopedia, right? I don't care what it is in. You know the academic environment of precision in language. This is a case where the word connotes something which is what's happening in the minds of the public. If you'd ask the public, well, what's a fascist trend right? What would it mean for the United States to become fascistic, to become fascist? What does that convey? I think it conveys what in fact is happening. So that's the only thing that you've said in this whole talk that I had some difference with.
Speaker 2:Okay, but I wasn't saying it's not fascist. I was saying that there were certain debates that people expend a tremendous amount of energy on.
Speaker 1:And we shouldn't.
Speaker 2:So, for example, in Gaza, is it genocide or not? If someone will agree with me that horrendous crimes against humanity have been taking place, I don't need to argue about whether it's genocide Right, because any decent human being will oppose crimes against humanity. Likewise, there are some who say this is fascism. There are others who say we are moving towards fascism, but it lacks this or that characteristic and as long as we agree on the scene— you don't need to debate it.
Speaker 1:I don't see much point in spending a whole lot of time debating it either. But I see a reason when I write or choose words to use the word because it seems to like we use the word socialism no-transcript.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean the danger is and it's the same kind of danger with genocide. If this is genocide then there's nothing worse we have to worry about. So you know you drew my attention Right lot of his positive programs. So he's not a leftist but it was a pretty progressive Democratic Party program. But he also talked about when the Nazis marched in Skokie. He felt ambivalent about it. Should they be stopped or not? But what's clear is that people came out in the streets when they moved to Chicago and overwhelmed them and that's the way we've got to treat the new growing fascist movement. You know that was good and it came from a billionaire Right.
Speaker 1:So that that actually came out of. What do they say? Out of the mouths of babes? Yeah, Out of the mouths of, well, one billionaire. I don't think it's common but, nonetheless, it was quite, quite striking.
Speaker 1:Anyway, we've covered a lot of ground, nothing particularly definitive. There's a lot of thinking that has to go on while we're defending. The defense, I don't think, requires all that much thought. They're coming at us with clubs. We have to ward off the clubs, but, and banning books and saying what can and can't be taught, and eliminating the employees who would have their eyes on measles or bird flu. I mean, it's what's going on is truly incredible. And is there something else that you want to bring?
Speaker 2:up before we stop. Yeah, I would just say maybe one other thing, which is defense, does require some thought, that is, we need to figure out how do we best defend ourselves without providing an excuse for martial law or repression, et cetera.
Speaker 1:And how do? We do it without alienating constituencies that we need to reach.
Speaker 2:Right, right, so we always need to be thinking about that careful balance.
Speaker 1:The word consequences, I guess should resonate a little more loudly in progressive communities. Perhaps it does. All right, we're 18 seconds from one hour.
Speaker 2:Okay, so now that we've got a two-person agreement, we can see if we can get it any further.
Speaker 1:That would be nice. Okay, all that said. This is Mike Albert signing off until next time for Revolution Z.