Transcript
A (0:00)
Welcome, friends, to Economic Update extra. This is where for our Patreon community, we continue the interview from the regular part of the program to allow you to get more of the interactions and insights of our guests. It is partly done to get the benefit of all that they have to offer us, but it is also our way of thanking you for the support through Patreon that you provide to us. It makes us grateful. It allows us to do this kind of work. And so it's of special importance to us. So, Reva, I want to pick up on asking you a question about Dennis Bernstein, the person whose interviews you've collected in the book. Would you say his approach was global or national? We're always in a bit of a tension about being in the United States, that we focus on this country, but we don't want to create or support, I should say, the notion that what happens here is the beginning and end of everything. We are part of a larger world, even though America likes to forget that from time to time. So how would you characterize his approach more global, more national?
B (1:19)
I would think both. But you're right that he is the exception that he talks global as much as he does. So, for example, the shootings in in the United States are terrible, but in the meantime, we have to worry about the children in Yemen who are dying of starvation because of US Foreign policy. One of the things that I mention in my introduction is the two quotes that most people believe got Martin Luther King killed a year after saying them. And one is the US Is the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today. And the other is you can't talk domestic policy if you don't talk foreign policy. And we are a greater purveyor of violence today than we were then. And there's more money in the military than there was then.
A (2:02)
Much more.
B (2:03)
Much more. And of course, Congress voted Trump more money for the military than he asked for. So it's Dennis is the exception in that he brings in the global, but he's certainly concerned with the domestic because we have people who don't have food in this country either.
A (2:20)
Tell me, I want to go back to this Follow the money. This is an old idea, but that really needs to be refreshed and applied today. It used to be in the formulation who benefits. In other words, ask who's getting the benefit out of something. That'll give you the clue to why it's happening. Were there some examples in these essays and in these interviews that you think capture the follow the money theme in a Particular way.
B (2:53)
Sure. Although one of the things that I think if there was one theme that I repeat most often with the book, and it's in the interview, is that if war is good for business, then we need to change the paradigm. There's a problem that our economy is based on this military paradigm. So that I think is an overview. If war is good for business, then we need to change the paradigm. But I'll give you some other examples in terms of money. So for example, the Flint water crisis. Okay, let's get a context of where that all happened. Okay, so this interview was written, was done by Marcia Coleman Adebayo, who is fired because she was a whistleblower with the epa. Again, under Obama, she says sacrifice zones are essentially primarily African American Hispanic communities and low income white communities. Flint, Michigan used to be an area where many African Americans moved to were escaping from state sponsored violence in the south from the Ku Klux Klan, the White Knights and all the organizations that were dedicated to killing black people. In the early 20s, 30s and 40s, they went to Flint seeking economic value, jobs in the auto industry. Lead poisoning is irreversible. It's an intergenerational poisoning. So the children of the fetuses who have been poisoned through their mother's womb, their grandchildren will most likely be lead poisoned. And one of the things that I was reminded by reading Marsha's interview again is that the auto industry, General Motors, they ended up getting a subsidy to get water that was less toxic for their machines. So in terms of money, and follow the money, there was a subsidy to the auto industry so they could make cars by not using this poisoned water. But under Obama, the EPA let these children get poisoned for generations. So if you follow the money, you find the root of the rot. It's always about business. And at this point it's so much a war economy that we just have to stop there. If I would say talk about one thing, the shooting in the synagogue, it's like, what are military grade weapons doing on the street? Why are we still sending them overseas to people who end up being the bad guys? So everything from again, who is on death row, it's poor people, it's not the rich people. There's one about the black prostitutes in LA and the guy who is just killing them all. It's like poor people are suffering and as you well know and say often, the rich are just getting richer and there's more and more of a stranglehold. And the other thing I say more and more frequently these days is it's not sustainable. You know this. It's not sustainable. Something's going to break.