Austerity
Show Details for the week of August 1st, 2016
On The Monitor this week:
- The DNC from the inside, and the outside, with Lenny Siegel
- The Freak out over Brexit in the context of Interventions and Austerity, with Robin Hahnel
More about this week’s guests:
Lenny Siegel is a member of the Mountain View (CA) City Council and was a Bernie Sanders delegate at the Democratic National Convention. Siegel was a leader of the anti-war student movement at Stanford University from 1966 to 1975. He founded Mountain View Voices for Peace for both Iraq Wars. Since 1989, he’s become a national leader in the effort to clean up contaminated military bases. He ran for office three times before eventually winning. His term expires in 2019.
Quote: “The highlight of the evening for me came when former CIA Director Leon Panetta spoke. Other than honoring veterans, few speakers at the convention have addressed foreign policy. But Panetta was assigned to defend the Obama-Clinton policies of regime change and the war on terror, two terms they don’t use because they were associated with George W. Bush. To be honest, given what happened, I don’t remember exactly what he said, other than claiming credit for killing Osama bin Laden. I sat there quietly and sadly, holding up a hand-made sign I got from the fellow sitting next to me. It read, ‘End the drone wars.’ Democrats are quick to criticize Republican wars, but most are reluctant to challenge Democratic Commanders in Chief. I am not looking forward to four or eight more years of endless war. To my surprise, across the hall the Oregon delegation started chanting ‘No more war!’ Or maybe it was ‘wars.’ Our larger group quickly echoed them. I couldn’t tell if other delegates joined in. Before long, the masters of the house dimmed the lights shining on the Oregon delegation. We shouted ‘Lights, Lights …’ The Oregonians pulled out their smartphones and turned on their flashlight apps. It looked like a cosmic constellation. We shone ours, and I believe others were shining elsewhere in the arena.”
Robin Hahnel is professor emeritus at the American University. He is best known as a radical economist and co-creator of a post-capitalist economic model known as “participatory economics.” His ten books include The Political Economy of Participatory Economics (Princeton University Press). He just wrote the piece “Brexit: Establishment Freak Out,” which states: “It is comical to watch the establishment on both sides of the Atlantic panic over short-run economic damage due to market ‘over reaction,’ because any danger of this is due to their own negligence. Only because the establishment has hitched our economic destinies to the whims of financial markets is there any need to worry that Brexit might trigger yet another global meltdown. Only because the establishment failed to implement prudent, financial regulation in the seven years since the last financial crisis crashed the global economy is there any danger today. Only because the Cameron government and the European Commission responded to the Great Recession with counterproductive fiscal austerity is a return to deeper recession in Europe quite probable. But we can be sure of one thing: All negative economic trends will now be blamed on Brexit and the populist ‘mob’ who brought it on, rather than on the establishment’s neoliberal policies which are actually responsible.” You can follow him on Twitter here: @RobinHahnel and you can read more examples of his work here:
Economic Growth, Climate Change, and Capitalism
Brexit: Establishment Freak Out
Show Details for the week of July 11th, 2016
On The Monitor this week:
- The cyclical cries for Police “reforms”and the ongoing Militarization of the Police, with Pete Kraska
The Freak out over Brexit in the context of Interventions and Austerity, with Robin Hahnel
More about this week’s guests:
Dr. Pete Kraska is Professor and chair of Graduate Studies and Research in the School of Justice Studies Eastern Kentucky University. He has distinguished himself as a leading scholar in the areas of police and criminal justice militarization, criminal justice theory, and mixed methods research. He has published seven books including Criminal Justice and Criminology Research Methods, Theorizing Criminal Justice: Eight Essential Orientations, and Militarizing The American Criminal Justice System: The Changing Roles of the Armed Forces and Police. Dr. Kraska’s research has also been published in a number of leading journals, including the British Journal of Criminology, Social Problems, Justice Quarterly, and Policing and Society. Dr. Kraska’s work has received national and international recognition. He is frequently asked to present his research and findings to academic and policy audiences, including most recently testifying for the U.S. Senate on police militarization. His work has also been featured in media outlets such as 60 Minutes, The Economist, Washington Post, BBC, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post, National Public Radio, and PBS News Hour. Follow him on Twitter here @Peterkraska and read an interview on this topic from 2014 here: “White House Commission May End Up Training More Cops to Use Military Weapons.”
Robin Hahnel is professor emeritus at the American University. He is best known as a radical economist and co-creator of a post-capitalist economic model known as “participatory economics.” His ten books include The Political Economy of Participatory Economics (Princeton University Press). He just wrote the piece “Brexit: Establishment Freak Out,” which states: “It is comical to watch the establishment on both sides of the Atlantic panic over short-run economic damage due to market ‘over reaction,’ because any danger of this is due to their own negligence. Only because the establishment has hitched our economic destinies to the whims of financial markets is there any need to worry that Brexit might trigger yet another global meltdown. Only because the establishment failed to implement prudent, financial regulation in the seven years since the last financial crisis crashed the global economy is there any danger today. Only because the Cameron government and the European Commission responded to the Great Recession with counterproductive fiscal austerity is a return to deeper recession in Europe quite probable. But we can be sure of one thing: All negative economic trends will now be blamed on Brexit and the populist ‘mob’ who brought it on, rather than on the establishment’s neoliberal policies which are actually responsible.” You can follow him on Twitter here: @RobinHahnel and you can read more examples of his work here:
Economic Growth, Climate Change, and Capitalism
Brexit: Establishment Freak Out
An Open Letter to the Climate Justice Movement
Show Details for the week of January 26th, 2015
This is the final week of KPFT’s pledge drive. The Monitor has a goal of $1,250. Please call the station during the show and pledge your support for The Monitor. The number is 713.526.5738 (713.JAM.KPFT). You can also pledge online at www.kpft.org
We have one guest this week – Costas Panayotakis and we will be talking with him about the recent election results in Greece.
Costas Panayotakis is professor of sociology at the New York City College of Technology of the City University of New York and author of Remaking Scarcity: From Capitalist Inefficiency to Economic Democracy. He has written extensively on Greece and has appeared on dozens of TV and radio shows around the world
Quote:
“The result of the Greek election is a resounding rejection of the austerity policies that have had devastating economic and social consequences. Having received over 35 percent of the vote, Syriza, Greece’s leading party of the anti-austerity left, is poised to form a government in coalition with a smaller party of the anti-austerity right and to challenge the austerity policies imposed throughout the eurozone. In so doing, the Greek election could prove an important turning point, further fueling the rise of anti-austerity forces of the left in Spain, Ireland and beyond.”
See prior article “The Eurozone Fiasco” and Democracy Imperiled: The Greek Political Crisis by Costas Panayotakis.
During this pledge drive, You can still pick up a copy of Worth Fighting For: An Army Ranger’s Journey Out of the Military and Across America for a pledge of $120 ($10 per month).
About the book:
Rory Fanning – a TomDispatch regular, walked across the United States for the Pat Tillman Foundation in 2008-2009, following two deployments to Afghanistan with the 2nd Army Ranger Battalion. Fanning became a conscientious objector after his second tour.
Pat Tillman’s death by friendly fire was covered up just days before his comrade Rory Fanning—who served in the same unit as Tillman—left the Army Rangers as a conscientious objector. Disquieted by his tours in Afghanistan, Fanning sets out to honor Tillman’s legacy by crossing the United States on foot.
Told with page-turning style, humor, and warmth, Worth Fighting For explores the emotional and social consequences of rejecting the mission of one of the most elite fighting forces in the world. It is only through the generous, and colorful people Fanning meets and the history he discovers that he learns to live again.
Show Details for Monday April 11th, 2011
Secret US-Saudi deal and Unnecessary Austerity – Tonight’s guests are Pepe Escobar and Chuck Collins.
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Pepe Escobar
Pepe Escobar is a journalist based in Sao Paulo, Brazil. He writes a column entitled The Roving Eye for Asia Times Online and is analyst and correspondent for The Real News Network. His prescient article, ‘Get Osama! Now! Or else…’, was published by Asia Times Online two weeks before the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001.
During the opening of last week’s show I mentioned a story by Pepe Escobar about a deal made between the US and Saudi. He joins us on the phone from Brazil to talk about that article and some of his other recent writings.
Exposed: The US-Saudi Libya deal
A link to his other recent work:
Asia Times Online :: the best of Pepe Escobar
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Chuck Collins
Chuck Collins is a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) and directs IPS’s Program on Inequality and the Common Good. He is an expert on U.S. inequality and author of several books, including Economic Apartheid in America: A Primer on Economic Inequality and Insecurity, co-authored with Felice Yeskel. (New Press, 2005). He co-authored with Bill Gates Sr. Wealth and Our Commonwealth, (Beacon Press, 2003), a case for taxing inherited fortunes. He is co-author with Mary Wright of The Moral Measure of the Economy, a book about Christian ethics and economic life.
He is co-founder of Wealth for the Common Good, a network of business leaders, high-income households and partners working together to promote shared prosperity and fair taxation.
Recent Work
Op-Ed
We Don’t Need to Shut Down the Government: Tax the Wealthy and Deadbeat Corporations to Close Budget Gaps
April 8 – If corporations and households with $1 million income paid at the same levels they did in 1961, the Treasury would collect an additional $716 billion a year. Published in Daily Kos.
Report
Unnecessary Austerity, Unnecessary Shutdown
April 7 – Reversing tax giveaways to the super-rich and the nation’s largest corporations could raise $4 trillion within a decade and avert possible government closures. Published in San Diego Union-Tribune and Blog Critics and CBS Business Network.
The Monitor 