The Real News Podcast

Last month marked the grim anniversary of one of the darkest days in American labor history. Forty years ago, President Ronald Regan crushed a strike by the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO), fired over 11,000 federal workers, and declared “open season” on the labor movement. In the years that followed, replacing striking workers became a commonplace practice in the private sector, union membership declined to historic lows, the wealth and power of the 1% exploded while real wages for most workers have remained stagnant, despite workers in the US being more productive than ever. The breaking of the PATCO strike was an event that played an outsized role in shaping the world we are living in today—a world in which a once-strong labor movement had its back broken, leaving working people to be systematically stripped of their individual will to exercise their rights in the workplace and their collective ability to protect themselves from being crushed into subservience by the profit-seeking prerogatives of the business class.As part of a special collaboration with Jacobin magazine, TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez joined hosts of The Jacobin Show Jen Pan and Paul Prescod for an extended episode examining the past, present, and future of the American labor movement. In this segment from the show, Alvarez breaks down the historical significance and political legacy of Reagan breaking the PATCO strike. We are sharing this segment with our TRNN audience with permission from Jacobin.Subscribe to the Jacobin YouTube channel and tune in every week for new episodes of The Jacobin Show: https://www.youtube.com/c/JacobinMagAnd, of course, become a monthly sustainer of our work at TRNN: https://therealnews.com/donateBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!

The pharmaceutical industry is pushing back dramatically on a recent move from Congress that would allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices. TRNN examines a controversial ad that features a diabetic senior citizen fearful she will lose access to insulin if the measure is passed, and shows why the misleading video is just a small example of how Big Pharma uses propaganda and money to bend the political system, protecting a price structure that leaves Americans rationing medication.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!

As the 20-year war in Afghanistan officially came to an end, President Joe Biden justified US military withdrawal in an address to the nation on Aug. 31: “This decision about Afghanistan is not just about Afghanistan. It’s about ending an era of major military operations to remake other countries.” While these remarks suggest a potential reckoning with the longstanding US policy of imperialist intervention around the world, increased US sanctions on Cuba demonstrate that such intervention persists in the form of economic warfare. From the dire strain US sanctions have put on the Cuban economy to the corporate media frenzy that exploited protests in Cuba this summer as a justification for interventionist “regime change,” it is clear that efforts by the US to “remake other countries” are not ending anytime soon.TRNN contributor Radhika Desai is joined by Arnold August to discuss the protests in Cuba, the media narratives about the protests, and the prospects that the Biden administration will succeed in exploiting Cuba’s current troubles to achieve its interventionist ends. August is a Montreal-based author, journalist, lecturer, and the author of multiple books on Cuba, including Democracy in Cuba and the 1997–98 Elections, Cuba and Its Neighbours: Democracy in Motion, and Cuba–U.S. Relations: Obama and Beyond.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!

Hy Thurman is one of the founding members of the Young Patriots, a radical group of mostly white working-class Appalachians who, together with the Black Panthers and the Young Lords, formed the first Rainbow Coalition in Chicago. Fifty years later, and 100 years after the Battle of Blair Mountain, how can we revive the revolutionary spirit of radical Appalachia and carry on its legacy today? In this installment of The Marc Steiner Show, Marc chats with Thurman about his book Revolutionary Hillbilly: Notes from the Struggle on the Edge of the Rainbow, how the Young Patriots formed, and the enduring lessons of the Rainbow Coalition. Along with being a lifetime community organizer and co-founder of the Young Patriot Organization, Thurman is the founder and president of the North Alabama School for Organizers.Tune in for new segments of The Marc Steiner Show every Tuesday and Friday on TRNN.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!

TRNN Executive Producer and former Black Panther Eddie Conway talks to author and activist Dominque Conway about Gloria Richardson, a fierce activist who led a multi-year campaign against segregation in Cambridge, Md. Richardson, who died July 15, 2021, was not as widely known as other civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. or Fannie Lou Hamer. Nevertheless, she was an important figure in the story of the struggle for civil rights both in the United States and all over the globe.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!

On Aug. 15, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called for a snap election, which is set to take place later next month on Sept. 20. According to Trudeau, the rationale behind this move is to secure a new mandate for his Liberal government's plan to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, but many fear the move is a big political risk that could backfire. And early polls already show that the race is tighter than Trudea and the Liberal party would have liked.This week on the TRNN podcast, Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez and Dimitri Lascaris break down what's happening, what the possible outcomes are, and what implications this election could have for working people and progressives in Canada. Lascaris is a lawyer, journalist, activist, and he was a candidate in the federal Green Party leadership race in Canada, finishing second with just over 10,000 votes. He is also a longtime contributor and current board member at The Real News.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!

A disturbing Buzzfeed report revealed that the FBI played a leading role in orchestrating the same far-right terrorist plot against Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer that it was praised for foiling. Moreover, the incident has been used as a pretext to give the FBI even more power than it had before—power that it has used and will continue to use to crack down on the left. In the second installment of this week’s Marc Steiner Show, as part of our monthly collaboration with Jacobin magazine, we talk with Branko Marcetic about his recent Jacobin piece “The FBI’s Domestic ‘War on Terror’ Is an Authoritarian Power Grab.” Marcetic is a Jacobin staff writer based in Toronto, Canada, and the author of Yesterday's Man: The Case Against Joe Biden. Tune in for new segments of The Marc Steiner Show every Tuesday and Friday on TRNN.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!

Over 1,100 union coal miners in Brookwood, Alabama, have been on an unfair labor practices strike against Warrior Met Coal for over five months. And for five months, the mainstream media has barely made a peep about the strike. Instead, a small collection of independent journalists and local and progressive media outlets have been working overtime to cover this important story, including Jacob Morrison, David Story, and Adam Keller at The Valley Labor Report (Alabama's only weekly labor radio talk show). There is one person, however, who has done more than anyone to lift the strike at Warrior Met into public consciousness for over five months straight, and that is independent journalist Kim Kelly. In Part II of our special Working People update on the miners' strike at Warrior Met, Jacob Morrison from The Valley Labor Report guest hosts a wide-ranging conversation with Kelly about her labor and writing background, her experience covering the Amazon union drive and the Warrior Met strike in Alabama, and what it means to truly be invested in the people and struggles we cover in labor media.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!

When it comes to the extremist violence and anti-democratic, even fascistic, designs of the far right, the threat goes much deeper than visible groups like the Proud Boys. Out of fear and a desire to protect those who are most vulnerable to these threats, some well-meaning allies have shown a troubling willingness to align themselves with repressive institutions like the FBI. But history has shown time and again that such institutions are not on the side of the progressive left or the working class, author and activist Shane Burley argues. In the first installment of this week’s Marc Steiner Show, Marc and Burley discuss the inner workings of the far right today and the need to counteract the reactionary threats it poses by organizing at the grassroots level and building robust community protection networks. Shane Burley is the author of Why We Fight: Essays on Fascism, Resistance, and Surviving the Apocalypse (AK Press, 2021) and Fascism Today: What It Is and How to End It (AK Press, 2017). His work has appeared in a range of outlets including NBC News, Jacobin, Al Jazeera, The Baffler, The Daily Beast, Truthout, In These Times, and Protean magazine.Tune in for new segments of The Marc Steiner Show every Tuesday and Friday on TRNN.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!

In recent episodes of Rattling the Bars, TRNN’s weekly show on the violence and victims of the prison-industrial complex, legendary Black Panther and longtime political prisoner Eddie Conway and his guests have examined the 13th Amendment, the exploitation of prisoner slave labor in the US today, and the people who are fighting to put an end to this barbaric practice for good. As a crucial follow-up to this important coverage, Conway was recently interviewed by Robert Scheer on his syndicated podcast Scheer Intelligence, which features “thoughtful and provocative conversations with ‘American Originals’—people who, through a lifetime of engagement with political issues, offer unique and often surprising perspectives on the day's most important issues.” For this week’s installment of Rattling the Bars, we are sharing the full conversation between Conway and Scheer on the TRNN podcast feed, in which they discuss the role slave labor has played in constructing the modern capitalist economy, even up to our present day. (This conversation was originally published on Scheer Intelligence on August 13, 2021, and is republished here with permission.)Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!