welcome to on contact day we're going to discuss why joe biden is not f.d.r. with a historian and author paul 3 we were look back at the thirty's and the new deal and how they happen they happen because it was thunder on the left there was dissent in the streets right before the social security. and the ragnor act probably the 2 key progressive lynch in measured far from perfect in the excluded much of the minority black population from their coverage incident and 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 legalization of the organized and black market here before those happen there was there was a. gigantic longshoreman strike all across the western coast there was a general strike led by trotskyists teams in the twin cities there was a national sex style 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 don't you w. it's rats used in chicago and detroit it was communist probably the the dominant and it was the communist party i did issues with the communist party that also a lot of great organized. don't be fooled by joe biden in knows his infrastructure and education bills have as much chance of becoming law as the $15.00 minimum why. age 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 the corporate subsidies and tax incentives he proposes as a solution to a lemonade a crime crisis or deal with it will do nothing to hold oil and 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 betraying 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 st so paul i know you like i have been stunned at the response by liberals and progressives 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. well some of what it's about is branding. nothing new you may recall when alabama was elected in 2008 there were all kinds of. frankly absurd and naledge g.'s to f.d.r. and the new deal 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 progressive not just from liberals who want to very badly to believe that this was a new deal moments this is kind of a rip current. name. christopher hitchens once described the essence of american politics is the minute the elation the populism by elisa's and i don't know where it is populism here but think progressivism and the claim that their own are all these things happening or that might happen they really aren't happening and i'm

going to happen and they're certainly not the kinds of things you knew 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 white antitrust prosecution he was a champion of the north american free trade agreement he helped champion financial deregulation in the 1990 s. and got behind the the so-called welfare reform in other words the elimination of family basic family cash assistance very poor families and and i could go on and it's it's it's all rather silly but it's part of the sales job right and it did 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. ramp it insecurity and and the problems of the eco side and excessive corporate control and oligarchies 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 go into

a couple times and one thing that really unless you count it. was the embrace of the notion of competitiveness american competitiveness in american competition also jobs but i mean i actually wrote down america is rising and no he said maybe to take on the move again and then of course visa v. who else china so this embrace of competition which is really the embrace of the ct 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 reale politics and that means that all the other things that you purport to be for rolling back inequality in 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 he wouldn't use the f. a 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 but but. you know for whatever reasons have a kind of. less imperial take particularly on russia. and yeah some of that

language was a was heard. sermon 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 i think that 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 that it would be equally nothing $136.00 with the 2nd election the bike as he did because that's how americans and he and he actually said i i welcome their hatred i welcome the hatred of the economically or he was from the economic staff he was just sort of like he could get away with it as much as if biden 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 extent the 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 neat 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 the 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 wants i think what 40 percent tax on the upper income brackets george w. bush or for reagan it was in the 70s it tapped at the top tax bracket and under f.d.r. and during world war 2 was in the 90th percentile so it's nothing remotely close to that probably the most remarkable thing that came out of the new deal from my perspective in a previous lifetime i was a labor historian and this is really critical piece of legislation called the national labor relations act wegner 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 allies union organizing of it's been 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 in center in his speech. and you know it has problems in the senate but it 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 almost 100 only able to open rejection of the core democratic principle of one person one vote and anyone who is serious about moving forward on a progressive agenda 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'd be pushing for washington d.c. statehood quite frankly if i was in the white house have 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. real did the threat of expanding the supreme court that is how the way your act was ultimately ruled constitutional in 1937 the magna carta of the labor movement and all and by many hands have some rhetoric about a standing supreme court which you know is it's certainly to the right of american public opinion to 63 majority supermajority right wing supreme court in a majority progressive nations preposterous and you have expanded he recently just a point of a blue ribbon commission so you know do a study of media sometime we ought to. expand this currently sort of no fascistic far right supreme court which has to be positioned to invalidate roe v ready so i mean these are the kinds of things are real progress there would do it not the other thing they leave and if they won't if they don't seem to be capable

of saying one. is that it isn't just about who the president is 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 directing 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 with history professor and author paul 3. i'm holland cook i invite you to climb with me of the mainstream media and from that higher fat age to glimpse the big picture question more questions birth new questions numbers as stark and endless as

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a river that causes cancer and other illnesses they put all the health risk all the dangers out to the american public those are stories that we tell every week and you know what they're working. welcome back on contact we continue our conversation about the proposed reforms of abidin 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 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 find farmers revolt 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 this is a piece in mid april and jonathan alter liberal by no bamma allergists actually has this line that what we're going to find out if biden you know if we're if we're really going to get the new deal at alter things that biden wants to do this suppose a transformative break with neo liberalism i want to find out by can do because when find out if he has the edge that that's what he said you know to to ban the people's arms in congress because that's how stuff gets done we can look back at the thirty's and the new deal 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 way interact probably the 2 key progressive linchpin measures

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 appalachian old age pensions and the legalization of union organizing and collective martin the year before those happened there was there was a. gigantic longshoreman strike of all across western coast there was a general strike led by tracts he is teamsters 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. in the in the twin cities it was often syndicalist i'd of u.w. entraps in chicago and detroit it was communist probably the big damage in tennis it was the communist party out 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 of it. then a black woman in 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 thirty's if we don't do this then we're going to get revolution and of course there's a soviet union at that time and there's fear of revolution elsewhere in a country that so there's a global kind of sense of the threat of a left and that's not happening that's always been one sort of kind of the missi you know another piece that's missing historically too is what the late political economist giovanni ribisi called workplace bargain power there were 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 a slew of land a bunch of left militant who act workers could stop the killing and huge whole gigantic and 1000 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 its country production has been off shored that kind of capacity doesn't exist that 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 barely do this i slice the number of things on the left and including noam chomsky who have a lot of respect for a ski excessively claiming that bernie sanders was a strong advocate of social movements beneath and beyond electoral college since we need you know this is what heaven and cloud wrote about in the book or people movements as this continues this isn't just the thirty's the situ in the sixty's was during the progressive ages during the 1000 century stuff happens when you have social movements in neat and beyond these quadrennial candidates entered major party electoral it's gravity answers that are so to us as the only thing that about politics in burnie at the end of the day was really ultimately about. he's quadrennial strength again says and you know it's a o.c.n. him say things that sound different every once of it's really they're really in mash in this corporate captive realm of electoral politics so if you are serious

about or if you become playing it with a call for people in the streets i thought under trump if democrats were serious about getting trump out of there and i thought trump deserved mass movements in the street i'm glad the trump is gone to report to me that trump is not he's not gone the way i think he should have been he should have been forced out i'm nass action and the democrats never called him if they did it's just their job is to he is the one my child has always one of their top jobs is to keep people off the streets. when people have occupied all over this country in the fall of 2011 obama made sure to subtly work with democrats in cities coast to coast infiltrate dismantle the occupy wall street which was the 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 14 $100.00 of unemployment benefits which are about to expire a tax credit for children but really just you know that doesn't in any way deal with the structural athol right on the working class. what are the consequences most of all you've got 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 134 and roosevelt was an exception. for the up the party out of power to lose the house of representatives that the the party in presidential power usually wins is the mid term elections are rare exception when it doesn't 1934 was won because of the total discrediting of the g.o.p. by the great depression and herbert hoover and f.d.r.

is. pretty sophisticated public relations and promises in the us and george w. bush because of 911 and all the sympathy not in the general energized but typically the other party comes in i would think 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 has to undo them and also targets all these racist voter republican voter suppression that's going on in the states but it can't get passed in the senate until we get past the filibuster and. and. so if you joe biden and king joe mansion it's just it's certainly powerful mouth of the nation have voice their opposition to getting rid of the filibuster so

we'll get past some tips so we're going to go with the rats is the i'm over the standard democratic party in authentic opposition party demobilization of their own they say opening the door for a lacto roll triumph of the. of a of a republican party that isn't just my grandfather's republican party sort of white 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 of sort of if the electoral college of the a stories of george bush is all up to elections just on a simple story of how it's a big part of the store the democrats demobilization want to raise the big part of trump's initial election from 16 it's a part of the tea party midterms in 22 and i don't i'm not

a prognosticator or or an electoral 538 i but my sense is that the experts are giving a very strong chance of the g.o.p. uniting the house and i magine i 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 from himself in 24 unless i didn't and the dems were to get really serious and to get serious would mean among other things embrace in structural and institutional change and in the policy system itself they're scared to get rid of the feel of us of a public. and and and then there are all of us well guess what we don't have we can't move forward without things like remove the young like a real federal minimum wage with

a real legal ization of union organizing don't be scared you know that i'm going to do this and i'm not trying 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 the republicans or power that should our party that 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 it is being played on all of us and the rich get richer the poor get poorer it's up to 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 they were going to have either joe. 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. .