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artsy america brings you stories of world wide significance news the proper media refuses to show you from social movements to civil wars to tech breakthroughs to epidemics because our journalists and audience ally dare to question more. welcome to on contact today we're going to discuss why joe biden is not f.d.r. with the historian and author paul street we look back at the thirty's and the new deal and how they happen they happen because it was under on the left there was dissent in the streets right before the social security. and the langer and probably the 2 progressive minge in measured far from perfect in the school of much

of the minority black population from their coverage is now and should not romanticize the new deal but they were breakthrough pieces of legislation for much of the working class population of old age pensions in the legalization of you know we're going to be black and martin the year before those happened there was there was a huge. gigantic longshoreman strike all across the western coast there was a general strike led by trask yes teamsters in the twin cities there was a national textile strike there were hunger marx's from coast to coast and every major city in this country had a resurgent left. up in the in the twin cities it was often syndicalist i don't you w. it's rights used in chicago and detroit it was communist probably to be dominant in this it was communist party out of issues of the communist party but also a lot of great organized. don't be fooled by joe biden he knows

his infrastructure and education bills have as much chance of becoming law as the $15.00 minimum wage or the $2000.00 stimulus checks he promised as a candidate he knows his american jobs plan will never create as he says millions of good paying jobs jobs americans can raise their families on any more than nafta which he supported would. as was also promised create millions of good paying jobs his mantra of buy american is worthless he knows the vast majority of our consumer electronics apparel furniture and industrial supplies are made in china by workers who on an average of one or $2.00 an hour and lack unions and basic labor rights he knows his call to lower deductibles and prescription drug costs in the affordable care act will never be permitted by the corporations that profit from health care he knows the corporate donors that fund the democratic party will ensure their

lobbyists will continue to write the laws that guarantee they pay little or no taxes he knows that corporate subsidies and tax incentives he proposes as a solution to a lemonade the crime prices or deal with it will do nothing to hold all in gas fracking shut down coal fired plants or hole the construction of new pipelines for gas fired power plants his promises of reform have no more weight than those peddled by bill clinton and barack obama biden slavish lee served and who also promised social equality while the train working men and women joining me to discuss the biden administration and its continuity with the democratic and republican administrations that preceded it is history professor and author paul street so paul i know you like i have been stunned at the response

by liberals and progressive endowing biden with a kind of radical agenda that's just not there explain to me what this is about and why it's happening. so what it's about is brandon. nothing new you may recall when our bob was elected in 2008 there were all kinds of. frankly absurd and naledge he said f.d.r. and deals being made i came to new york to sell my book barack obama in the future of american politics and just received all kinds of pushback from progress as not just from liberals who want to very badly to believe that this was a new deal moment this is kind of a rip current. name. christopher hitchens once described the essence of american politics is the minute the elation of populism by elites of the middle of the word is populism in a big fake progressivism in the claim that there are all these things happening or

that might happen that really aren't happening and i'm going to happen and they're certainly not the kinds of things you new deal progressivism that one would have any reason to expect from biden and the basis of is very long term political career in washington d.c. they used to call this guy the senator from mastercard he rolled back bankruptcy protections he backed corporate price fixing as a senator he helped coca-cola avoid anti-trust prosecution he was a champion of the north american free trade agreement he helped champion financial deregulation in the 1990 s. and one high end of the the so called welfare reform in other words the elimination of family basic family cash assistance for very poor families and and i could go on and it's it's all rather silly but it's part of the sales job right and if

it made to some extent also expressed a desire on the part of certain commentators and others for something like that we are after all in in a period of just absurd. income and wealth inequality which is intimately related back to. rampant insecurity and and problems of ego side in excessive corporate control and only garcon and all those things so perhaps are some wishful thinking involved in all of this is well. let's talk about his address to the nation because he acknowledges that social inequality he acknowledges the climate crisis and then you have a response nicholas kristoff in the new york times jonathan alter and others but let's look as i know you have let's look at that speech itself because there are in fact are some very disturbing i think trends within that speech or especially in

terms of foreign policy but let's let's go through the talk well you know i do instead a couple times and one thing that really unless you. was the embrace of the notion of competitiveness american competitiveness unique and american competition also jobs but i actually wrote down america is rising in no he said maybe to take on the move again and then of course these ivy who else china so this embrace of competition which is really the embrace of the court anarky and insecurity of capitalism competition means insecurity in the lives of most american in a most global people but everything when you're speaking the language of competition and competitiveness which to me is also following marx's analysis the language of anarchy and chaos you are sort of saying that everything's going to be

supported the profit be subordinated to profit rates and to international imperial competition in reality politics and that means that all the other things that you purport to be for rolling back inequality and increasing labor rights and social justice and all that are probably going to go by we sigh because it's all about making america great again when you think about it you wouldn't you stepha language they'd be afraid of a you know how different is america is rising a new america is ready to take off again it's just a sort of a more sophisticated neo liberal democratic way yes they are and make america great again and it's how different is it in of and in fact in some ways on the foreign policy level it's actually more aggressive and more imperial sounding than the truck who was no isolationist there's a there's a bit of a myth a mythology about that but. for whatever reasons have

a kind of. you less imperial take particularly on russia. and yeah some of that language was a was heard. herman to say the least what's your response to the people who are trumpeting biden as the new f.d.r. people like crist of all turn others i'm just kind of amazed by it and yet i'm not surprised by it it's just sort of stunningly inappropriate i mean f.d.r. got to the point by them by the mid thirty's when he was going for reelection that he would repeatedly say he would denounce the economic royalists you know it's right to do it and equally nothing 136 with the 2nd election the parkas he did because that's how americans and he actually said i i welcome their hatred i welcome the hatred of the economically of course he was from the economic staff he was just part of why he could get away with it as much as if my dentist said to manhattan donors and 29 t.

he said i have no interest in demonizing millionaires and billionaires i don't think you're the problem and nothing will fundamentally change when i'm elected president no one standard of living. will ever change f.d.r. to some extensive push some very real public sector job creating interventions in the economy the c.c.c. the public works administration the tennessee valley authority i don't want to exaggerate how much of that there really well but there was some of that i regularly use parks that were built by the c.c.c. and you know in the upper midwest in truly need there's no there's no actual job creating direct public sector infrastructure building bines agenda that i can see it's all this infrastructure plan if it gets through course is going to be watered down by joe manchin and republicans. does not involve direct you know public

public job. biden even in his in his speech claiming to be sort of progressive his only talking about bringing tax progressivity back to the era of george w. bush he wants i think what 40 percent tax on the upper income brackets george w. bush before reagan it was in the 70s it tapped out of the top tax bracket and under f.d.r. and then during world war 2 was in the 90th percentile nothing remotely close to that probably the most remarkable thing we came out of the new deal from my perspective in a previous life time i was a labor historian and this is really critical piece of legislation called the national labor relations act wegner act in many ways is the magna carta of the emerging industrial workers mass production industrial union movement and i didn't hear one reference maybe i missed it to this to a bill that would essentially relieve the lies union organizer in this bill passed

by the house the pro act. and then he's passed by the senate i mean if he was really if we were talking about joe biden as being a nation of the new media that would have been highlighted front and center in his speech. and you know it has problems in the senate but he doesn't have to if he would go energetically and aggressively after filibuster the filibuster has to go he hides behind these archaic. 18th century senate rules in this ridiculous body the upper chamber of the u.s. congress where wyoming has as many representatives as california even though wyoming has less than 600000 people california has almost 100 only if it's an open rejection of the core democratic principle one person one vote and anyone who is

serious about moving forward on a progressive a can in a new deal kind of way is anything like jonathan alter and nick kristoff of the new york i'm want to thank you as he be going after the filibuster he be pushing for washington d.c. statehood quite frankly if i was in the white house had been raising the issue of the apportionment of the senate was absolutely ridiculous he would be doing something that f.d.r. did f.d.r. wielded the threat of expanding the supreme court that is how the way agner act was well some of the ruled constitutional in 1937 the magna carta of the labor movement and all and by my hands have some rhetoric about expanding supreme court which you know is absurdly to the right of american public opinion $63.00 majority super majority right wing supreme court in a majority progressive nations preposterous and you have expanded he recently just appointed a blue ribbon commission to you know do a study of nadya's sometime we ought to. expanded this current me sort of no

fascistic far right supreme court which has to be positioned to invalidate roe v wade so i mean these are the kinds of things are real progress there would do now the other thing they leave out and if they won't if they don't seem to be capable one to say is that it isn't just about who the president it isn't just about who's sitting in the white house it's who sitting in the streets and sitting on the shop floor engaging in that we're going to come back about paul we're going to come what we're going to come back exactly that point when we come back we'll continue our conversation about the proposed reforms of the biden ministration but history professor and author paul street.

something for you your sports h.q. . guys i made a professional is powerpoint to show you how artsy america gets into the greater media landscape our team is not after all right but we are a solid alternative to the. liberal or conservative and as you can as margaret we know it's you the facts either talking ad lefties talking at righties oh there you go above it all look at world art see america is in the spotlight now every really i have no idea how to classify it as it actually took me way more time and i care to admit. welcome back on contact we continue our conversation about the proposed reforms of the biden ministration with

history professor and author paul street so before the break you mentioned quite correctly that it matters far more who's in the streets and this was true for the new deal and for f.d.r. as well so proclaiming that the biden is going to somehow deliver the new deal is as false as the notion historically that f.d.r. didn't deliver the new deal without serious kind of pressure sit down strikes in flint to find farmers revulse but lay out that historical period because it shows how progressive legislation actually comes about yeah well so. in his new york times piece jonathan alter actually has this mine it is a piece in mid april and jonathan alter liberal by no obama allergists actually has this line that what we're going to find out if biden you know if it were if we're really going to get the new deal at all he thinks that biden wants to do this

suppose a transformative break with neo liberalism whether we're going to find a bike and do it as and find out if he has the edge that that's what he said you know to to bend the people's arms in congress because that's how stuff gets done we were looking back at the thirty's and then indio and how they happen they happen because it was thunder on the left there was dissent in the streets right before the social security act and the wagner act probably the 2 key progressive linchpin measure far from perfect in the excluded much of the minority in black population from their coverage incidentally we should not romanticize the new deal but they were breakthrough pieces of legislation for much of the working class population old age pensions and the legalisation of union organizing and collecting martin here before those happened there was there was a. gigantic longshoreman strike all across western coast there was

a general strike led by trotsky is teams through in the twin cities there was a national textile strike there were hunger marches from coast to coast and every major city in this country had a resurgent left. up in the in the twin cities it was often syndicalist i'd argue w. and trotskyist in chicago and detroit it was communist probably the big government and as it was the communist party lot of issues of the communist party but also a lot of great organized and they were on the ground and they were present and when there were issues in a city like chicago and people that are victims because they couldn't pay their rent because they had lost their jobs and the cops would come in a. then a black woman on the south side would say quick go get the reds and people knew where they were and they went and got him and the reds came with loudspeakers and organized mass resistance and this was true all over america and this thunder on the left shows up in the congressional debates. that lead to the

passage of a lot of progressive legislation in the mid thirty's if we don't do this then we're going to get revolution and course there's a soviet union at that time and there's fear of revolution elsewhere in the country and so there's a global kind of sense of threat of a left and that's not happening that's always been one sort of kind of thing missing you know another piece that's missing historically to is what the latest political kind of giovanni ribisi called workplace pardon power there were of these remarkable capital intensive industries they could be shut down they could be crippled by a static in a body plant in michigan or in or in the chicago packing houses in armor or swith land a bunch of left militant workers could stop the killing and huge whole gigantic $10000.00 worker plan would go down the whole continuous flow of production the foundries of

the river move plants in for all that kind of ability this capacity to disrupt. capital intensive industry was a really big part and it's in its ability to potentially undo a recovery from the great depression was a big part of what happened in the 1930 stoppages direct actions and why the sense that time a lot of jobs have left is country production has been off shored that kind of capacity doesn't exist it doesn't mean direct action is irrelevant but anyone who is really serious about calling for progressive changes would be this is something even bernie sanders fairly do this i sliced the number of things on the left and including noam chomsky who have a lot of respect for extensively claiming that bernie sanders was a strong advocate of social movements beneath and beyond electoral politics it's we need you know this isn't what would have been a cloud wrote about in the book or people's movements as this continues this isn't

just the thirty's as a true in the sixty's it was during the progressive ages during the 1000 century stuff happens when you have social movements in neat and beyond these quadrennial candidates and their major party electoral extravaganzas that are so to us as the only thing that about politics in bernie at the end of the day was really ultimately about. the squadron i was traveling in says and you know it's a o.c. and him say things that sound different every once and it's really they're really in mash in this corporate captive realm of electoral i don't think so if you are serious about or if you become playing it with a call for people in the streets i thought under tried it if democrats were serious about getting troops out of there and i thought trump deserved mass movements in the street i'm glad the trump is on your important me the trump is on he's not gone the way i think he should have been he should have been forced out i'm mass action

and the democrats never called me a they did it just their job is to he is the one my jokes is always one of their top jobs is to keep people off the streets. when people occupied all over this country in the fall of 2011 obama made sure to subtly work with democrats in cities coast to coast infiltrate in dismantle the occupy wall street which was an actual populist rebellion for a while i want to talk about the consequences so most of this money that biden has proposed will go either to corporations or to the states with just a tiny minuscule amount $1.00 time tax of 4 $100.00 of unemployment benefits which are about to expire a tax credit for children but really just you know the doesn't in any way deal with the structural a fault right on the working class. what are the consequences most of my going to

run out by the end of the year what are the consequences of that politically. well i think there's a very you know they say there's a tendency almost always one thing 34 and roosevelt was an exception. for the up the party out of power to lose the house of representatives that the the party of presidential power usually wins is the mid term elections are rare exception when it doesn't 1934 was one because of the total discrediting of the g.o.p. by the great depression and herbert hoover and f.d.r. as pretty sophisticated public relations and promises in the oh and george w. bush because of $911.00 and all the sympathy he got in the general energized that typically the other party comes in i would still i would think that that's native to happen again in a strong possibility also given the fact of the credible job right we're

gerrymandering of our house districts in entre there is a bell that came out of the house it's an election reforms you know that targets gerrymandering who's to undo them and also targets all these racist voter republican voter suppression that's going on in the states but he can't get past the senate until we get past the filibuster and. and. sleepy joe biden and king joe mansion we just have certainly powerful mouth of the nation have a voice their opposition to getting rid of the filibuster so we look at past so tips are going to the rats is the standard democratic party in authentic opposition party demobilization of their own they say opening the door for a lacto world triumph of the. of a of a republican party that isn't just my grandfather's republican party sort of might

nationalist a neo fascist who has been for a while. this happened in 2010 i mean this is the story of george meant in many ways along with the absurdity of the electoral college obvious stories of george bush's all of 2 elections dishonest and the story of have been some big part of a stir that the democrats demobilization him and that they's a big part of trump's initial election from 16 it's a part of the tea party midterms in 22 and i think i'm not a prognosticator or or an electoral 538 you know i have my sense is that the experts are giving a very strong chance of the g.o.p. yet in the house and i imagine that could involve some revenge impeachments. you know the the as show deepens you know. and if it could potentially bring a republican back. god forbid maybe even trump himself in

24 unless biden and the dems were to get really serious and to get serious would mean among other things in bracing structural and institutional change and in the policy system itself they're scared to get rid of the for all of us are very republican. at him and then there are all of us well guess what we don't have we can't move forward without things like remove my for real federal minimum wage with a real eagle ization of union organizing don't be scared you know that i'm going to do this and i might try to goto mindset and see if i was a progressive democrat but i'll do that for a 2nd don't be scared dan jam the stuff through that has majority support in such a way to guarantee that the republicans can't come back this is a but republicans are power that should our party they needs to be swept into the

dustbin of history anyway do it but they won't actually want to they're caught up in a codependent. mutually reinforcing relationship with an increasingly white nationalist neo fascist g.o.p. is a very sick game and is being played on all of us and the rich get richer the poor get poorer it's happed one percent had 90 percent of the wealth before trouble is even elected god knows what the maldistribution is now after coding i did hear biden say something to the effect that $643.00 rich people became a trillion dollars more wealthy. during how that you were going to about their job . probably not well the democratic party works for goldman sachs and citibank and that is who they work for and that's who biden has always worked for and that is the the fundamental structural problem with american politics thanks that was

history professor and author paul straight on how joe biden is not f.d.r. .

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