Paul Jay is back to speak about the war in Ukraine, the irrevocable effects of climate change, and the ever-present but often downplayed danger of nuclear warfare. He explains how the transnational capitalist elite continue to benefit from the war at the expense of the average Ukrainian and Russian worker. He also speaks about his new documentary film project on nuclear winter and his recent trip to visit political activist Daniel Ellsberg, whose insights on the Cuban Missile Crisis and potential human error leading to nuclear confrontation are heavily featured in the film. This is part one of a three-part series.

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• Transcript

Hi, I’m Talia Baroncelli, and you’re watching theAnalysis.news. I’ll shortly be joined by Paul Jay for a three-part series on the war in Ukraine, the prosecution of Donald J. Trump, as well as global oligarchy and capitalism. But first, please do go to our website, theAnalysis.news, and hit the donate button at the top right corner of the screen. Most importantly, get on our mailing list; that way, you’ll be emailed every time a new episode is released. You can also go to our YouTube channel, theAnalysis-news, and hit the subscribe button as well as the bell. The bell ensures that you’ll be informed every time a new episode drops. See you in a bit for part one of our three-part series with Paul Jay.

Joining me now is Paul Jay, your favorite host at theAnalysis.news. It’s really good–

Oh, not anymore.

It’s great to see you, Paul. How are you doing?

I’m doing good, thanks.

So you’ve been really busy lately, and we haven’t seen you. What have you been up to?

I’ve been up to my eyeballs in a documentary film I’m working on called How to Stop a Nuclear War, which is based on Daniel Ellsberg’s book, The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner. So I was out twice in the last few months in Berkeley, where Dan is, filming more interviews with him. I’ve actually been interviewing Dan on and off for the last three years, but we’re getting much more into the thick of the production now. When I came back last time, I had COVID, and I was out of it with that. The cough is a residual of that.

Yeah, we can see that, unfortunately.

Yeah, I apologize if I’m coughing during this interview. But the work’s going very well. Dan, a lot of people may know, is ill. He’s 92 years old and diagnosed recently with pancreatic cancer. He sent an email or a message out letting all his friends and everyone know about it. It went viral. Apparently, two or three million people have seen his note. He’s been interviewed many times now on mainstream media. Right now, he’s doing pretty well. But sadly, he probably won’t be for long, but he’s still quite energetic.

Well, in all your recent interviews with Dan, and you’ve known him for so many years, what has his core message been recently, especially with regard to climate change and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine?

Well, he’s feeling frustrated, I guess. He was hoping all the work he had been doing would have had more effect than it had. Although I think it has had more than he thinks it has. But he thinks the danger of nuclear war is as great now as it’s ever been, and perhaps even more dangerous now– and obviously, climate change.

One of the things he said, if people watched his interview, which I thought was quite profound and important, was comparing the Cuban Missile Crisis to what’s going on in Ukraine. The Russian Foreign Minister [Sergey] Lavrov compared the American blockade of Cuba to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The United States was threatened by Soviet missiles in Cuba and had a blockade against Cuba. Russia, threatened by the expansion of NATO and even possibly nuclear weapons in Ukraine, had a right to what they’re calling the “special military operation,” which is– they use those words because to say war opens it up to a question of whether this is a legal or unjust war, illegal war. So they come up with this terminology of “special military occupation,” which is nonsense.

When I asked Ellsberg about comparing the Cuban Missile Crisis to Ukraine, he said, “Well, there is a comparison, but it’s not the one Lavrov is making.” In fact, the Soviet missiles in Cuba were no additional threat to the United States, even though there were nuclear weapons in Cuba. It didn’t actually alter the geopolitical equation at all because the Soviet Union already had submarines that could fire on Washington or New York. So nothing was added to the threat. In fact, the blockade that [John F.] Kennedy put up around Cuba, while it was better than an invasion, which is what the Joint Chiefs of Staff wanted, and it seems Bobby Kennedy wanted, and Jack Kennedy and maybe Adlai Stevenson were almost the only ones that really didn’t want the invasion and risk where that would