Time To Say Goodbye

Pod squad assemble!0:00 – Tammy catches us up on the latest in Asian Americana aka “Shang-Chi.” Jay and Andy remain skeptical of all things MCU. 12:30 – We talk about the new vaccine mandate and the current discourse around “the unvaccinated.” Are we too un/sympathetic to the material constraints of poor and working-class people who haven’t been vaccinated? Is vaccine skepticism a reflection of the US’s unique political polarization? And what to make of demographic trends by race, education, political party, and class? 43:50 – We mull Gideon Lewis-Kraus’s recent piece, “Can Progressives Be Convinced That Genetics Matters?” Should the left stake out a position on behavioral genetics, which the right has already done? Is all “genetics” talk doomed to slip into “race science”? Is race an inescapable way to think about the world?Please share, contact us, and subscribe!* Email: timetosaygoodbyepod@gmail.com* Twitter + DM: https://twitter.com/ttsgpod* Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ttsgpod* Substack:  This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

(Audio fixed and updated Sept. 7 afternoon. Thanks for your patience!)Hola from the Inland Empire!This week, we bring you Tammy’s IRL interview with Andrea Vidaurre, a policy analyst with the People’s Collective for Environmental Justice, in San Bernardino, California. Andrea talks about the meaning of “environmental justice,” local manifestations of global warming, working-class immigrant life in the desert, labor violations at Amazon, organizing outside the nonprofit industrial complex, and green futures in logistics. Some recs from Andrea: * Support PC4EJ’s work! * Read The Cost of Free Shipping: Amazon in the Global Economy, edited by Jake Alimahomed-Wilson and Ellen Reese.* Jam to Milpa, a musical collective in the Inland Empire, and oldies by The Chosen Few and Los Mirlos.* Read Gonzalez and Daughter Trucking Co., a novel by María Amparo Escandon.The pod squad will reunite ASAP. Until then, thanks for listening and supporting us via Patreon and Substack! Stay in touch by email (timetosaygoodbyepod@gmail.com) or Twitter. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Hello from the West Coast!It’s just Jay and Tammy this week, on everything from backyard farming to Barbara Ehrenreich. * Jay advises Tammy on late-season tomato growing. 🍅* What to make of SCOTUS’s awful (but anticipated) decision to end the COVID eviction moratorium? Where will it hit worst? * Why are so many more people (nearly triple!) identifying as mixed-race in the US Census? Does it have anything to do with 23andMe? * Tammy asks Jay about the latest installment of his NYT newsletter: on what we might learn from the media misfires of 1968. * Who is teen TikToker Charli D’Amelio, and why does her whole family now have a Hulu reality show? Is it too late to get in on this hustle?Andy will be back soon. Until then, thanks for listening and supporting us via Patreon and Substack! Stay in touch by email (timetosaygoodbyepod@gmail.com) or Twitter. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Hello from a reunited pod squad!This week, we gab about a welcome court ruling on California’s Proposition 22 gig-work law, the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, and Sandra Oh’s new Netflix show. (0:00): Tammy on why Prop 22 was ruled unconstitutional and what it means for workers’ rights across the US(7:10): How to understand what’s happening in Afghanistan in the context of our long wars in the region(44:45): What “The Chair” says about Asian American TV, austerity politics in higher ed, race and generational divides, and the (cancel) culture wars. Thanks for listening and supporting us via Patreon and Substack! Stay in touch by email (timetosaygoodbyepod@gmail.com) or Twitter. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Hello from a Chinese ghost city!It’s just Andy this week, speaking with my friend academic-activist Jake Werner (@jwdwerner) on how to make sense of the current ideological shift in US and global politics and especially the hostile rhetoric between US and Chinese elites. (0:00) We talk about the recent spate of “big spending” bills pushed by Biden and the Democrats, supporting infrastructure (“hard” and “soft”) and industrial policy. Is this a break from “neoliberal” ideology? And also, what was “neoliberalism” about anyway? (17:40) Some of the biggest proponents for new, big-government programs are also the loudest critics of China and Chinese competition. What’s going on with purported leftists who supported Bernie but are hawkish on China? And is that really so bad?(45:40) We discuss a different way of thinking about China today on its own terms, reviewing its tumultuous 40-year encounter with a US-centered global system and what changed in 2008. How can we eschew approaches centered “national” and “cultural essence” and instead look at shared global dynamics between China, the US, and the rest of the world? (Jake outlined these ideas recently in this talk). (1:13:20) Finally, Jake’s pitch for “progressive globalization,” something he is fighting for through his organization Justice is Global (along with friend of the show Tobita Chow!). Why is the US-China relationship so crucial for the next phase in world history, from climate change to Covid to equitable growth? What’s the response in DC? How can listeners become more active? (also: tankies catching strays)Some pieces by Jake:“Only the Left can Save Globalization Now,” with Eric Levitz, New York Magazine (2021)“U.S.-China: Progressive Internationalist Strategy Under Biden” Rosa-Luxemburg Stiftung with Tobita Chow (2021)“Why Confrontation With China Threatens the Progressive Agenda,” The Nation (2019)“China is cheating at a rigged game,” Foreign Affairs (2018)And recommended reading from Jake: “The US-China Rivalry Is About Capitalist Competition” by Ho-Fung Hung, Jacobin (2020)note: I tried to edit out the sounds of sickness throughout, but some had to be left in, sorry! It’s not Covid, I swear!Please share, contact us, and subscribe!* Email: timetosaygoodbyepod@gmail.com* Twitter + DM: https://twitter.com/ttsgpod* Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ttsgpod* Substack:  This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Hello from back in July, when Tammy recorded this special live episode in Portland, Oregon! The occasion was the new album, “1975,” by No-No Boy. No-No Boy is Julian Saporiti, a folk and rock musician from Nashville whose PhD dissertation has taken the form of an extended song cycle about Asian America. Julian and his partner, Emilia Halvorsen, an aspiring lawyer who co-produced and sings on “1975,” talked with Tammy about the folk tradition, US empire, travels in the Mountain West, ethnomusicology, the struggle for immigrants’ rights, Asian-American and mixed-race identities, John Okada, and Jens Lekman. They also performed two brand-new tunes.The songs you’ll hear in this episode:* “Imperial Twist,” No-No Boy, 1975 (Smithsonian Folkways, 2021)* “St. Denis or Bangkok, From a Hotel Balcony,” 1975* “Yuiyo Bon Odori,” Nobuko Miyamoto, 120,000 Stories (Smithsonian Folkways, 2021)* “The Best God Damn Band in Wyoming,” 1975* “No No Boy,” The Spiders (Philips, 1966)* “Disposable Youth,” No-No Boy, 1942 (2018)* “Pilgrims,” 1975* “St. Michael,” Little Monk Panda Scout aka Julian and Emilia* “Panda Scout,” Little Monk Panda ScoutThanks for listening and supporting the pod through Patreon and Substack! Get in touch by email (timetosaygoodbyepod@gmail.com) or Twitter, and props to all the Angelenos who came to our recent Discord-goes-IRL picnic! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Hello from Tammy’s DIY SUV camper! This week, we bring you talk of Korean archery, feminism, and misogyny. Plus, the terrifying end of the US eviction moratorium and what politicians and activists are doing about it. * An San, South Korea’s triple gold medalist in archery, has been attacked by men’s rights activists for… having short hair. Why are so many young men so misogynistic? So mixed up in right-wing politics? What is the character of new Korean feminism and its homegrown #MeToo movement? * US politics, a case study: Cori Bush and The Squad (who actually seem to care about tenants’ rights) vs. Nancy Pelosi (who just found out that the eviction moratorium was about to end). Thanks for supporting the pod through Patreon and Substack! Please be in touch via email (timetosaygoodbyepod@gmail.com) and Twitter. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Hello from Philly, Berkeley, and Pasadena!This week, we talk about the Tokyo Olympics, food appropriation in Oregon, and Raoul Peck’s film The Young Karl Marx (2017). * What are people protesting in Tokyo? In this pandemic moment, who are the Olympics for? Plus: props to young women weightlifters and skateboarders.* Why are Asian Americans so mad about congee? (And why are white restaurateurs in Oregon so prone to getting in race trouble?)* What did “The Communist Manifesto” mean in the time and place it was written? Does its analysis apply today? Why did Peck make this movie? (good film review here). Bonus: brief comparison to another origin-story biopic Amadeus (1984). (For more on the women’s work around these famous men, Tammy recommends biographies of Eleanor Marx, Karl’s daughter, and the French film Mozart’s Sister.)(And Andy laoshi suggests reading the original Marx from the film: Engels’s Conditions of the Working Class in England (1845), Marx and Engels’s The Holy Family (1844) and The German Ideology (1846) on the “young Hegelians”; The Poverty of Philosophy (1847) against Proudhon; and ofc what we simply call “The Manifesto” (1848)). We were stoked to meet so many of you at our recent IRL in Berkeley. If you want to take part in such events and our raging Discord, join our membership club at Substack or Patreon. And please get in touch via Twitter or email (timetosaygoodbyepod@gmail.com).Thank you! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Hello!This week: two pressing topics from the news and listener questions.First, we talk about the political crises in Haiti and Cuba and questions of U.S. empire and intervention. Though military invasions have become less savory, on Monday, U.S. officials still informally dictated Haiti’s choice for interim president. We place the news in geographic and historical context and draw connections to East Asia. Also: the hallowed place of the Haitian and Cuban revolutions for leftists (and academics), the logic of anti-imperialist and “decolonial” politics (think Latin American tankie-ism), and how best to understand the Caribbean today.Second, we discuss the spiraling numbers of Covid infections and hospitalizations among unvaccinated people in the U.S., especially in Black and Latino communities. How do these numbers square with mainstream media coverage of the unvaccinated? Is race the best framing? How bad will things get in the next few months? Not to mention how horribly things are going in the Global South, thanks to vaccine apartheid. Finally, some listener questions:* Brinda asks for reading recommendations. (Andy’s is a follow-up on the CRT episode: a feature on Chris Rufo in The New Yorker). * Daffodilly asks about “the academy” and “academia.”* And So Long, Lillian asks about intra-Asian (inter-Asian?) matrimony. (There are some studies!)Please share, contact us, and subscribe!* Email: timetosaygoodbyepod@gmail.com* Twitter + DM: https://twitter.com/ttsgpod* Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ttsgpod* Substack: https://goodbye.substack.com/p/support-the-show-through-substack This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe

Hello!A guest episode today: Andy talks with U Chicago historian Gabriel Winant (@gabrielwinant) about his new book, The Next Shift: The Fall of Industry and the Rise of Health Care in Rust Belt America. We discuss capitalism and neoliberalism, what’s going on with the U.S. socialist movement, and class fissures within the professional ranks. Check out Gabe’s other writing in many places, including Dissent, n+1, The Nation, and Jacobin!  0:00 – Pittsburgh, discussions of class, Gabe’s journey, Marxism, and the rumored “history of capitalism” trend in the academy.20:00 – We dig into The Next Shift: steel in non-nostalgic terms, the difference between steel and healthcare (or manufacturing versus service), how nursing homes became so marginalized, and the strategic sectors for struggle today (healthcare? education?). 1:04:50 – Gabe’s 2019 essay on the “professional-managerial class”: revisiting Barbara and John Ehrenreich’s invention of the term in 1977, how it applies today, and why the only people who talk about the PMC are themselves the PMCest of PMCs? Watch out for bonus content later this week! The podsquad will be back again soon.Please share, contact us, and subscribe!* Email: timetosaygoodbyepod@gmail.com* Twitter + DM: https://twitter.com/ttsgpod* Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ttsgpod* Substack: https://goodbye.substack.com/p/support-the-show-through-substack This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe