← Economic Update with Richard D. Wolff
Economic Update with Richard D. Wolff
Economic Update: When US govt destroyed a political party
00:58:14
Loading summary
Transcript36 lines
- [00:00]
A
Sam saint gonna change one welcome friends to another edition of economic update a weekly program devoted to the economic dimensions of our lives our jobs our incomes our debts those looming down the road and those confronting our children as they stare at an economy that must give them sleepless nights i'm your host richard wolff i've been a professor of economics all my adult life and currently i teach at the new school university in new york city before jumping into today's program which i think you will find exceptionally interesting i wanted to mention that we are now available in video form in other words you may be listening to this program but others may prefer or even you may prefer to watch it as a television program as a video program and so i want to tell you because we're proud of it that we are now available in that format and i want to give you the two websites where you can go and see us that way if you wish the first is patreon dot com patreon is spelled p a t r e o n patreon dot com economic update that's economic update as one word that website will give you the video version of this program and of course the other place to go is the inimitable youtube where you can likewise find this program in video form if you are interested as well as always i need to remind you that we have two websites that we also maintain directly where we add material that extends and expands on what we do on this program that provide you with ways to communicate your pleasures and displeasures with this program to us provide you ways to follow us on facebook twitter instagram and so on and finally allow you to partner with us in terms of helping us find new radio or television stations that might be interested in the program and to perhaps arrange for a visit where i can come out and meet some of you which i enjoy doing a great deal these two websites are democracy at work that's all one word democracyatwork dot in fo i n f o and finally the other website is rdwolff with two f's com okay let's jump into our economic updates for today and i starting with the state of oklahoma why well oklahoma is a leader if that's the term you can describe for something you wouldn't want to be a leader of it's a leader in destroying there's really no nice way to say this it's public schools let me give you an idea of the dimensions of this there's been no increase i'll start with the statistics that i find the most amazing oklahoma has not raised teachers salaries since two thousand eight okay that's nearly a decade in which prices rose every year but the salaries of those teachers did not oklahoma ranks forty ninth in the nation we have fifty states let's remember forty ninth in the average salary of its teachers teachers are leaving the state in droves for better paying jobs across the state line and the number of positions filled by what are called and you gotta love this term is emergency certified teachers emergency dash certified teachers these are people who have no education training they are now thirty five times as high in their use in oklahoma schools as they were as recently as twenty eleven but i'm just beginning to tell you why what years of republican domination of the governors and the state legislature and what has happened in the rest of the united states what it has done to the public schools of oklahoma they now lead the country in the number of schools that have gone from a five day school week to a four day school week over twenty percent of the school public schools in oklahoma are now on a four day a week schedule why are they doing this the answer is very clear and there's no one hiding it they don't have any money and they can save money this way and when i inquired how exactly do you save money since you're paying the teacher the same the teachers get paid the same we learned that since two thousand eight the teachers are paid the same well you don't have to heat the building on friday you don't have to feed the children at least that portion of the children that qualify for food assistance and so you can save money by keeping the kids out of the school building that that seems to be the biggest saving so let's take a look at that if you have teachers that are increasingly unqualified if you have a shorter length of the work week what is happening to the kids what is happening to their education and what is happening to their families well let's see the poorer you are the more you rely for your children's meals on breakfast and lunch at school if you go from five to four days that's one more day that your kids don't get breakfast or lunch at school it's also four days when they are required to stay longer than the regular number of hours and that puts an extra strain if you are poor with both members adults in the household working what are you going to do with your children on friday there isn't daycare and even if there were you can't afford it to try to deal with this oklahoma offers daycare at least in some of these schools where they've cut it to four days and they charge thirty dollars a day for the kids to come to school and do nothing whereas before they came to school and did their schoolwork so it costs parents more to have the kid in school on friday it's just they don't get any teaching done you got to scratch your head in stunned disbelief that this is called public education anymore when i looked into it further i discovered that one of the great benefits that the folks in oklahoma describe to me was that it's easier to recruit teachers which you can understand is difficult for oklahoma if you rank forty ninth out of fifty as being the second lowest paying state in the union for public school teachers we can get teachers now because we offer them a very low salary but only four days a week that they have to be in school and so they can have presumably other jobs to make up for the low salary something that will have them focused elsewhere low on energy depleted who knows in oklahoma elementary class sizes now hover between twenty six and twenty seven try to have a first grade class with one teacher and twenty six or twenty seven it's far higher than the twenty student limit set in a nineteen ninety oklahoma state law which apparently is simply ignored in twenty sixteen schools started charging to participate in sports and extracurricular activities let me say that your child wants to learn a musical instrument and play in the school band your child wants to be on a sports team you have to pay extra as a citizen and why did all this happen because oklahoma believes like many states with republican governments that their number one priority is to cut taxes and if you cut taxes you see you're supposed to believe everything gets better the the economy zooms jobs appear out of nowhere and everybody's better off but if you talk to the students and the parents and the teachers you will find a huge number of them understand that they're the fall guys they're the victims of this policy and now let me weigh in as an economist by the way before i do let me give credit where it's due the story of oklahoma schools can be found in the washington post dated may twenty seventh in a really fine detailed article by emma brown washington post may twenty seventh here's the economics the united states is now part of a world economy we're more integrated into the world economy than we ever have been as a nation throughout our history that means we depend for our future economic future on how well this economy functions and that in turn depends more than on anything else on the quality and the quantity of our labor force the people who have to do the work and the single most important institution in developing the skills and training and productivity of our workers is our public education system that's what educates the vast majority of our students all the way through college and university since most college and university students attend public institutions to cut back on the number of teachers on the quality of the teachers on the number of days in school on the number of programs available to students that those are all ways to undermine our economic future and all that is in the name of cutting taxes mostly on business and wealthy folks yes they become richer yes the gap between rich and poor gets worse but in terms of a strategy for economic development it's the worst imaginable failure and the victims first and foremost children remarkable the next economic update i want to talk to you about was amazing to me to discover here again let me give you the source some of you are interested in pursuing it if you go to a place called market watch that's all one word marketwatch dot com it's a very good source of economic analysis that i make use of from time to time and this is a story dated march may twenty eighth excuse me may twenty eighth twenty seventeen by quentin fautrell the personal finance editor he writes a story that i found astonishing maybe you all know about it but if not maybe i can astonish you too here's the blunt the average us employee who receives a paid vacation as part of his or her job only takes half of it per year this was the result of a survey of two thousand two hundred workers by the career website glassdoor all one word glassdoor and this website glassdoor has been doing these surveys for a few years now and the number hovers around fifty percent fifty percent of american workers don't take the paid vacation days they have coming to them that are part of their job wow let's look into this a little bit the united states is very unusual in advanced industrial countries in not having laws that mandate that require paid vacations to give you an idea the united states leaves the question of a paid vacation up to the private sector mostly companies have no obligation to keep a person hired they can fire at will it's called and that has to be kept in mind as we go through this story only if you if the worker can prove discrimination or if there's a written contract about the job or if there's a contract with a trade union that covers the job only then are workers protected but in most cases workers keep their jobs if and only if the employer wishes them to keep the job why is this important because this country again doesn't require paid vacations at all there's no law that mandates or requires an employer in the european union in those many countries that have combined in the european union workers are legally guaranteed twenty paid vacation days per year twenty days folks that's four weeks twenty workdays monday to friday four weeks so let me say it again but because i suspect many of you have never heard this or have not pondered what it means you must as an employer whether there's a union or not whether there's a written contract or not you must give every employee a minimum of twenty paid vacation days in some european countries in some it's twenty five or even thirty paid vacation days americans have no such thing they're not even close and it's the law in europe not here and americans therefore depend mostly on the employer and whatever generosity that employer may or may not have in regard to paid vacations so glassdoor and other researchers have begun to ask the american worker given that you have fewer paid vacation days than other workers why in the world do you not take half of them and by the way a good portion of that paid vacation day that isn't taken is forever lost sometimes you can roll it over into the next year sometimes you can take compensation of some kind but in many many cases you just lose it gone forever and the answer is to my mind sad sadder than i can convey because the answer based on a number of questionnaires and interestingly the questionnaires were developed by the us travel association and you can see why because the more workers don't take their paid vacation the less travel to a motel or travel to a resort and a travel association is unhappy that workers are not taking their paid vacation because that's their income from workers becoming at least for a week or two tourists here's this sadness i'll break down the survey that was done by glassdoor thirty four percent of respondents to the questionnaire say they don't take all their vacation days because they fear getting behind on their work thirty percent believe no one else at the company can do the work while they're away twenty two percent simply answer the that they are completely dedicated to their company it's fear it's fear that if you are away from your company even for your paid vacation days you will somehow jeopardize your job and since american employers are free to fire in a way that people in other countries are not this fear is rational this fear makes sense but of course if the employer agreed to pay you for say a week that you didn't take that you went to work you don't get paid any extra you would have gotten paid for that week whether you were working or not you choose to work you're giving your employer hundreds and depending on how productive you are thousands of dollars worth of labor for no extra pay at all it's a gift you're making your employer more profitable and here's the saddest questionnaire result of eighty percent of employees asked said that if they felt fully supported and encouraged by their boss they would take more time americans don't take half their paid vacation no one has done the research that i know of to ask what portion of the profits earned by american corporations are attributable to the fact that their employees don't take off paid vacation time it's extraordinary it means that the level of exploitation of american workers is is higher than we already knew it was because of this anxiety because of the labor reforms that make it possible for an employer to fire you at will that makes workers so anxious they don't even take the paid vacation that is really part of their pay package the last short item we'll have time for is again a comment on the so called free market this fantasy utopia that has never existed doesn't exist now but is something that conservative folks seem to want to believe is there or to want to believe we're on the way there or we're moving there it's sad it's sad such fantasies govern people's consciousness well how does that become important right now in recent years the united states government has recognized as have governments around the world that there are very severe costs to having an energy situation where we rely on oil coal and things which when you burn them have horrible consequences for for our health for our climate and so forth and that therefore it's important to look for new and different sources of energy that will not have these bad effects no rocket science here and two of the most important have emerged solar energy from the sun using the sun's rays and wind power using the natural movement of air to generate electricity many of you have seen the huge windmills that are now appearing across the countryside around the world in order to get those new forms of energy up to speed the government has provided various kinds of subsidies tax breaks and so on throughout the history of the united states when things were necessary in the minds of the people who run the country they would give tax breaks and subsidies that's how our railroads got built that's how our canals got built that's how ouri mean you name it that's how it was done our computers were invented at universities subsidized by the united states government to carry out this research in those days it was in order to fight world war two but it had all kinds of secondary consequences so supporting what is important in a society with tax breaks and subsidies in is as old as the united states and it's been done for solar and wind this however not so surprisingly has made the oil companies and the coal companies upset and because they are very big and very rich they know how to translate their political upset into political and economic cash so they go to work on political parties and politicians and people running for office and promise them big bucks if they will come up with an argument any argument we'll do as long as it flies to stop the subsidies and to stop the tax breaks for solar and wind so that we will go back to being reliant on coal and oil the koch brothers and many others whose fortunes depend on oil or coal or both are of course leading the charge and now they have two champions one is donald trump and the other one is rick perry who used to be the governor of texas where he hobnobbed with oil companies for obvious reasons and and who's now the energy czar and he's now being worked on by the oil and coal companies to take away the subsidies and the tax breaks for solar and wind so that we can go back to what they make money on and not help take the country in a new energy direction the outcome will be whatever the political strength of these two sides are the companies that want to make their future money on solar and wind one way or another will fight and buy politicians and the coal and oil companies and we all we the public the mass the democratic majority we will have to live with the health or not health that results from however this fight shapes up the market for energy in this country is this a free market the answer is you must be kidding this market is anything but free it is the playground of massive amounts of bribery the crude kind the more sophisticated kind full of arguments that expensive economists like me have to invent to justify what these two money making groups fighting over we will live with the consequences of what these tiny groups of wealthy capitalists what they do not a way to run a society wouldn't you say okay we've come to the end of the first half of this program i want to thank you for being here with me i want to remind you to make use of those democracyatwork dot in fo and rdwolfwith two f's com if you're interested in the video version again patreon dot com economicupdate or youtube will provide you with the visuals that go with what we do but most important partner with us work with us share what you do share what we do it's a way to change things for the better stay with us we'll be right back i.
- [27:58]
B
Was done at sixteen showing up for class i was out there in the brain learning how to kick some ass i was done at sixteen using my mama's key it was all on was all i need were no free rides weren't allow you i bought my way yes i paid my dues and i showed up to enlist on the first.
- [28:35]
A
Day of recruitment welcome back friends to the second half of economic update today i am very happy to welcome a person whom i've known for years and who has recently written a book that led me to say come and join us and give us the benefit of your long life and wonderful stories to tell so before i introduce her formally let me welcome lisa davis a friend to our program thank you very much for coming lisa okay let me tell you about lisa e davis she got a phd in comparative literature some years ago she taught hispanic language and literature at the state university of new york in stony brook and at york college of the city university of new york she also collaborated with the center for puerto rican studies at hunter college which is also a part of the city university of new york and areito correct me if i'm wrong about this a publication of the new york based circolo di cultura cubada her novel under the mink published in two thousand one recreates the nineteen forties world of mafia owned village nightclubs that featured drag shows and strip acts and her recent nonfiction book and that's the one that caught my eye is called undercover girl published in twenty seventeen it chronicles the career of a lesbian fbi informant and and prosecution witness at the nineteen forty nine smith act trial of the national board of the communist party usa okay lisa you're a novelist you're a specialist in comparative literature i know you're fluent in if not all than many romance languages so you have a lot to bring to this but my first question is about your book by the way i want to hold it up so everybody can see it undercover girl lisa davis subtitle the lesbian informant who helped the fbi bring down the communist party so here it is many years later the stuff in this book happens mostly in the late nineteen forties is that right yes yes yes and what the book documents is the concerted effort of the united states government mostly through the fbi to destroy the communist party a political party functioning in the united states as it had for years committed to a variety of political objectives one of which was changing the economic system which from capitalism to socialism in one form or another it destroyed that political party quite effectively as it turns out and your book talks about unknown aspects of that process of destruction so i have to ask you even before we get into it why are you now entranced you as an author by this story about something that happened long ago what is it that made you write a book about.
- [31:59]
C
It well as you can well imagine i've been entranced for a long time because it takes a long time to do this kind of thing however that it emerges from the mist in twenty seventeen seems terrifically timely because we're facing numerous crises among them economic and the roots of all this of course lie deep in the past as part of getting rid of franklin roosevelt's new deal getting rid of those pesky labor unions that had flourished in the nineteen thirties and forties breaking up our partnership with the russians that had helped defeat the nazi army of course russia seems to come up in our history periodically yes.
- [32:53]
A
These days too because it's a big.
- [32:54]
C
Country and we don't like big countries we don't know what to do but you have to deal with them so it's turned out to be quite timely hasn't it and there's stories that the young people particularly need to help them understand what is going on here if possible if this helps yeah it helps.
- [33:15]
A
A great deal blessings let me pick up on one theme in what you just said the nineteen thirties was the great depression and the mass of the american people reacted to that depression by mobilizing they joined the cio in record numbers they joined two socialist parties and the communist party and the communist party and the two socialist parties and the cio the labor union worked together in most cases to create an enormous powerful left in america that is largely responsible for putting the pressure on fdr to create the new deal there have been people who have said that when the war was over when the originator of the new deal president roosevelt was dead that the people who hated all that who had to pay the taxes and who had to see the money that they didn't have anymore be used for social security and unemployment benefits and public jobs they wanted to erase what had happened to get rid of it and to make sure it never happened again and so the argument was they had to break up that powerful alliance of communist socialist and labor unions and that they picked as the weak link in there the communist party the one they could go after first and destroy it does your research support undercut modify the story i just told or does it give it strength how would you react.
- [34:49]
C
As soon as they buried franklin roosevelt they started they've been trying ever since to get rid of social security as we know any benefits the labor unions that were very strong of course truman is elected president henry wallace is eliminated as a progressive communist linked figure we have to change our attitude toward the soviet union from being our ally during world war two they have to become the bad guys this is all handled very well through tremendous propaganda campaigns and inculcating fear in the population so that the word communism becomes anathema and probably still is recently the word socialism has crept back into the vocabulary without anyone running away terrified i don't know if i've covered all of that you have.
- [35:51]
A
But that would imply pretty clearly that this political effort of the fbi to destroy the communist party was a clearly understood part of this process oh sure.
- [36:05]
C
Well they'd been after of course since the palmer raids in the nineteen twenties after world war one world wars always stir things up world war one stirred things up also we had tremendous immigration which is also returning to the vocabulary tremendous immigration from from europe of people who were accustomed to labor organizations coming out of europe as we try to separate ourselves once again from the european phenomenon part of the separation is to avoid all those benefits that i believe you were speaking about that have been part of european civilization for a long time we will have no socialism here from world war one with the palmer raids and deporting people who were labor organizers out of this country one of those involved of course was j edgar hoover who enters the who enters what was not then called the fbi but called something that rapidly becomes the fbi he was the longest serving bureaucrat in the us government from nineteen twenty four to nineteen seventy two he did not intend to step down resign or show weakness in nineteen thirty nine he sits down with franklin roosevelt and doubtless other folks and makes a deal that he can now surveil political enemies as well as criminal elements like all those gangsters they will begin surveillance of political enemies like the communists socialists fascists all these are the same thing and in forty two it picks up a bit more because we're at war in nineteen forty we have the smith act in parentheses the alien registration act which should also begin to sound very familiar to a contemporary public to make sure that these people from outside our country who don't understand the american way of life who are in fact un american because socialism is un american so you have all these things coming together as war breaks out in europe and as war breaks out in the pacific but business is very good in wartime because you're making lots of money making all those guns and employment is fabulous people who were unemployed for decades of course you had the wpa also the works project administration coming out of the depression the government did something they set up work programs to keep people employed even artists and writers got a couple of bucks but by that time by the nineteen forties of course people are getting jobs because they're working for the war effort and there's a tremendous boom people are very happy they're making lots of money when the war comes to an end oh this is not good for business not good for business tremendous cutbacks tremendous lots of strikes people are very unhappy because they're losing their jobs what shall we do well what you have to do is shut them up basically and that.
- [39:27]
A
Means coming down on the communist socialist parties and the unions oh yes particularly.
- [39:33]
C
As you can see in this trial the communists were active in labor union.
- [39:39]
A
Organizing yes i get the impression that the communists were chosen because they were the most militant the most out there the willing to take the risks of starting a union in a factory moving as i know many of them did to the south and other parts of midwest and getting jobs in factories they were kind of advance militants you would call them in other countries so that it wouldn't be so surprising that the fbi would surveil them but then actively apparently move and let's talk about that moving to a much more aggressive position where you're not just following them or looking at them or eavesdropping on them but you're actively mobilizing to destroy them tell us a little bit about how that worked in terms of your book.
- [40:29]
C
And what you found after the war they can put them out of business and the nineteen forty nine j edgar hoover had been wanting to do this for a long time in nineteen forty eight they get a subpoena for the national board of the american communist party under the smith act for the the accusation is or whatever they call it in the legal field not too good in the legal field except i've read this entire trial which is a million plus words and let me tell you it's a really strange thing to read however they put them on the charge is conspiracy to advocate the overthrow of the us government by force and violence i repeat conspiracy to advocate to advocate the rosenberg trial was also a conspiracy trial conspiracy is good because it probably means you didn't do anything and advocating means you didn't do anything but you were talking and reading books which was a no no and the book the texts that were taught in communist groups books they read you know they had little book groups and they talked about what was in the books these books the text are read into the transcript of this trial at great length my particular witness there are about eight pages of the transcript they go on and on prosecution lawyer is reading from something like lenin's history of something because if they had a revolution in the soviet union they could have a revolution here and that's to show how dangerous that notion would be so if you're reading.
- [42:14]
A
A book by somebody who was active over there this lenin fellow that implied that you might be getting ready to.
- [42:24]
C
Throw a bomb overthrow the us government by force and violence because they got.
- [42:30]
A
Rid of the czar amazing that you could be accused of a conspiracy to advocate i always thought growing up in the united states that advocating something was something guaranteed to you by the constitution let's continue.
- [42:46]
C
You don't want to talk about clear and present danger no all right some other time some other time.
- [42:51]
A
Exactly let's go let's work on this book yes your focus in this book is on a woman who if i understand you correctly and please correct me if i remember the details wrongly this is a woman who is paid by the fbi for a long period of time even though my understanding is that that was not revealed and not made public they found this woman because she has certain let's call them vulnerabilities and so she could be induced i'm trying to be polite to do something for the money that the federal bureau of investigation gives her tell us about this and tell us how you understand what.
- [43:39]
C
Happened here well this is the lady in question this picture is from the library of congress collection of the world telegram went out of business in nineteen sixty three it was pulitzer's new york world along with other folks this is off the front page you did very well if you were an informant witness this is sort of what she looked like we did a photo insert for this book that let me say cost me years of my young life and they did not do an index unfortunately but i could not fight any longer this woman her name was angela calomedes calomares as we say she was the child of greek immigrants they had nothing of course they lived on the lower east side and to top it all off her father dropped dead when she was seven years old he was brought over to as a scab basically for the fur and leather workers union which was a strong leftist union very strong so they needed scabs the industry needed somebody when they were on strike but he didn't last too long mister kalomides she was sent to an orphanage in the bronx she was forever addled however not part of her addling but just generally speaking she was a lesbian they did not it was not that they recruited her as a punishment or because they could use that against her because they didn't care everybody knew she was dating the sister in law of her fbi recruiter everybody knew then there's j edgar hoover then there's stories about whitaker chambers if anybody remembers alger hiss that whitaker was really in love with alger and that was the basic problem which is what alger hiss kid said in some conference at nyu years ago so it's not quite as simple as it would appear she did it basically for the money she was in the new york photo league she took pictures taking pictures as we have noticed also lately in the question of the media is very important and they don't want you to take pictures of certain things so the new york photo league which runs from nineteen thirty six to nineteen fifty one and is shut down by mccarthyism because they do take pictures of poor people even poor black people one of their big projects was something called the harlem document which angela says in her book would have caused a riot anywhere because of course one of the main themes of this book is race in america which is the theme of course in america that's what it's all about so i don't know if i answered your question but anyway this is angela angela calamaris and she worked for seven.
- [46:37]
A
Years how long was she paid from.
- [46:40]
C
What you're researching she was paid from day one march nineteen forty two she was recruited i can only do this and people can only do this sort of thing thanks to the freedom of information act of nineteen sixty seven which i'm sure that they regret wholeheartedly and a lot of the files you get of course are full of black marks where they're hiding the good stuff but there's enough stuff and people share these people have shared with me angela's file which runs from nineteen forty two to the early sixties and various photographers whose names people would recognize who had extensive fbi files because they took pictures it's about control if they could control the people fine if they couldn't control them then they had to find a way to control them but angie was fine because they paid her they started paying her twenty five dollars a week doesn't sound like much to us but if you go to the bureau of labor statistics inflation calculator you will find that twenty five dollars and today's money is at least ten to fifteen times twenty five so she was doing all right rents on christopher street she was living in the village which is where all the girls went the village really belonged to the gay girls since the suffragettes had been there many of whom were of course who else has time to do politics besides single women otherwise you have to look after your husband and the children and the cats and the dogs so the village belonged to the gay girls much more than the gay men who were uptown somewhere here and there that's where they all lived and that's where angie lived on jane street for years and years and years and years and she always kept an apartment.
- [48:32]
A
In the village she testified at the trial was she a member of the communist party did she oh yes she was paid by the fbi to be a member of the communist party and she informed on them for the years that she did it seven that was all secret but when the trial happens she testifies against the party well of.
- [49:02]
C
Course she's undercover she's undercover she's a spy for the fbi she got into the party through nefarious channels they didn't really want to take her but they did because people helped her out helped her get in the party oh regret oh regret when she got up on the witness stand people just didn't believe it did not believe that this person was sitting there saying these things she worked undercover for seven years she testified nineteen forty nine about april of nineteen forty nine in the middle of the trial she was the only woman to testify for the prosecution along with lots of working class guys belonging to the united auto workers mostly because the main target of this trial was really the united auto workers labor unions and the communist influence there in you remember detroit right well they were after it for a long time it took them a.
- [50:06]
A
Long time were these white or black.
- [50:08]
C
Auto workers there were some white guys but basically black guys and the whole story about black individuals being recruited or forced into service by the fbi as undercover people in the american communist party has yet to be told but a lot of people have hinted at it and there are lots of names floating around and they're the names for this.
- [50:32]
A
Trial what happened to the what was the outcome of the trial the outcome.
- [50:37]
C
Of the trial was everybody the eleven defendants were convicted they went to prison for federal prison for five years and they paid a ten thousand dollars fine each that was ten thousand dollars in nineteen forty nine money multiply that by ten or fifteen and you will find that that was a lot of money that was a lot of money it bankrupted the communist party if you were going to get rid of it we never outlawed the communist party mainly because the germans had done it and the italian fascists had done it and we didn't want to look like that because we are democratic but they were bankrupted.
- [51:14]
A
By this of course their leadership was put in prison and their money was taken basically from them that was the national board so your research demonstrates in the case of this woman that the united states government and you have to assume at the highest levels understood and pursued the systematic destruction of a political party financially in every way paying informants not telling the public since obviously her testimony and that of others would have been handled differently by a jury one can suppose if the jury knew that they had been paid for years to do this that this is a government that's destroying a political party that is critical of capitalism and that they associate as some agent of a foreign power in the way that today we read the leadership in turkey or a dozen other countries is doing much the same sort of thing thing is that the conclusion that we draw from this as.
- [52:23]
C
J edgar hoover himself said i maintained the communist party because i paid the informants who were paying their dues and i kept everything kept everything going what they knew up the chain i'm sure of course they knew but j edgar hoover had all the facts and all the money and all the you know they kept very careful records of who was doing what to whom when it came time for the trials there was not only one trial there were fifteen trials all across the country of the leadership of the american communist party from honolulu to baltimore from cleveland to philadelphia and it basically destroyed the industrial midwest if you wonder what happened to the midwest this is the beginning of what happened to the midwest which is why people can go into the midwest and promise the return of jobs that are not returning because they went away a.
- [53:19]
A
Long time ago and they killed off the communists then the socialists and then the unions if you look at the last fifty years as soon as they finished with the communists they went around the country telling people that socialism is more or less the same thing they just spell it differently and then there was the unions which have been in atrophy ever since it's hard not to come away from reading your book without the fearful notion of what a government that decides to destroy a political opposition what it's able to do and what in this country it has shown its willingness to do i mean the constitutional protections were out the window many of the civil liberties were out the window they just went to destroy this organization.
- [54:06]
C
Well it's important to say that she perjured herself on the witness stand when she said she was not paid because she wanted to look like the great patriot she was paid all the other witnesses came on the stand and said they weren't paid and they weren't paid the only one who says he got dollar sixty a week was some nice black guy from tennessee or somewhere who had come north to work in the war industries all these people disappeared of course yes they can do anything they want to there will be no socialism in america this is america there will be no socialism here no matter what it takes no matter what it takes there will be no socialism here so.
- [54:51]
A
This is a cautionary tale for people who want to make change now to be aware of what they may be.
- [54:58]
C
Up against we don't know of course what they're using for surveillance these days whether they still need to hire people they were sending people into mosque and things of course back a few years ago they can probably just plug into your iphone and see how you're doing you know so we don't really know but we know that we are surveilled constantly if you don't know that you're not paying attention you're not paying attention.
- [55:26]
A
All right lisa we've run out of time this is very very important it's a wonderful look folks this book undercover girl lisa davis at the nitty gritty of how the government works on a day to day with an individual to build up this destruction of a political party a party that was critical of capitalism it's old reason to be was about that and it suffered the consequences it's hard also for me as an observer who didn't participate not to also fault the party just a touch for having been as naive as i suspect all of us are about what they were up against and what they had to face and what ruthlessness would be deployed against them you even come away sometimes thinking that what the fbi concocted as the horrors of the communist party were something they understood real well because they were perpetrating those horrors that they were attributing to others who didn't have the power or the money to equal it thank you very much for coming and let me say to everybody again undercover girl a remarkable story about a remarkable page of american history thank you all for joining us we've come to the end of this session of economic update please remember to take a look at truthout dot org comma that remarkable independent source of news and analysis that's been partnering with us for a long time and please partner with us yourself through the websites and in any way you want communicate with us find ways that we can work together with you i look forward to speaking with you again next week gonna be my time my time babe gonna change yes.
- [58:02]
C
Sam.