Green & Red: Podcasts for Scrappy Radicals

G&R Episode 81: Baseball and Bosses vs. the Georgia GOP (Ruling Class Resistance Redux)

Apr 6, 2021

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**Just a few hours after recording this, there were media reports that Major League Baseball is pulling this year's All-Star Game out of Atlanta to protest its "new" Jim Crow voting laws, which would heavily and negatively impact Black communities. Once again, Green and Red Podcast was ahead of the loop.

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Scott and Bob have another discussion about the ruling class, this time emphasizing its role in opposing the "new" Jim Crow voting laws just passed in Georgia. Corporations based in Georgia--especially Delta and Coca Cola, and the Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank--have been vigorously critical of these overt attempts to suppress Black votes, in a campaign organized by African American business leaders.

We analyze the campaign waged by ruling class representatives in Georgia, and American Airlines in Texas, and how "fissures" in that ruling class create openings for top-down reform. The Neo-Liberal regime is clearly in crisis, so more "corporate liberal" positions and programs are emerging. Corporations can be "forces of movement" too.

We again explain how the ruling class is structured, how it prizes stability and hence can appear to be "woke" on major issues like these voting restrictions and LGBTQ rights.

And, as always, we point out that the ruling class often has presented more resistance to Trump and the Republicans than the Democratic Party or protest movements. While the Georgia Democrats have conducted impressive registration campaigns, they have not engaged in direct actions, sit-ins, or other types of mass demonstrations to more aggressively send a message to the Georgia Republicans about their attempts to suppress minority votes.

We also share some brief, yet witty, thoughts on the passing of G. Gordon Liddy and what Easter means to us.