The Socialist Program

Tensions remain sky high in Ukraine and across Europe but do they have to remain so? There is a path to peace — and solution to the crisis — but it requires recognizing the neutrality of Ukraine, which has long been internally divided.

Brian is joined by Eugene Puryear, author and activist, host of the BreakThrough News podcast The Punch Out, and co-host of the BT live video show The Freedom Side.

Watch the video edition of “The Real Story” on BreakThrough News!

Please make an urgently-needed contribution to The Socialist Program by joining our Patreon community at patreon.com/thesocialistprogram.  We rely on the generous support of our listeners to keep bringing you  consistent, high-quality shows. All Patreon donors of $5 a month or more  are invited to join the monthly Q&A seminar with Brian.

On today's episode Walter Smolarek and Prof. Richard Wolff discuss the wave of organizing exploding across Starbucks locations nationwide, and how the company is desperately trying to thwart the union by illegally firing employees who are involved. As the class struggle continues to heat up nationwide, corporations are attempting to trample on the right to organize at the  workplace.

Professor Richard Wolff is an author & co-founder of the organization Democracy at Work. You can find his work at rdwolff.com.

Please make an urgently-needed contribution to The Socialist Program by joining our Patreon community at patreon.com/thesocialistprogram. We rely on the generous support of our listeners to keep bringing you  consistent, high-quality shows. All Patreon donors of $5 a month or more are invited to join the monthly Q&A seminar with Brian.

On today's In the News roundtable, Brian Becker, Esther Iverem, Nicole Roussell and Walter Smolarek discuss how war mongering propaganda against Russia has reached a fever pitch as the United States pushes the crisis in Ukraine to the brink. They also discuss Johnson & Johnson’s decision to halt vaccine production, the attempted lynching of a Black FedEx driver, more racist disenfranchisement, and other stories showing the hollow nature of  so-called democracy under U.S. capitalism. Plus, this episode covers the far-right “trucker protest” in Canada.

Please make an urgently-needed contribution to The Socialist Program by joining our Patreon community at patreon.com/thesocialistprogram. We rely on the generous support of our listeners to keep bringing you consistent, high-quality shows. All Patreon donors of $5 a month or more are invited to join the monthly Q&A seminar with Brian.

After the triumph of the Soviet Union over fascism in World War Two, world politics was completely transformed. No longer allies in the war against the Axis states, the “democratic” capitalist countries turned on the USSR and formed a global bloc of all the imperialist powers to confront the rising tide of socialist revolution.

In Part 4 of The Socialist Program’s multi-part series on the history of the Soviet Union, we discuss the emergence of the global class war known as “the Cold War” and key milestones in its early years. This includes the advent of nuclear weapons; the revolutions in China, Korea and Vietnam; the formation of NATO, and more.

Watch the video edition of “The Real Story” on BreakThrough News!

Brian is joined by Carlos Martinez, author of “The End of the Beginning: Lessons of the Soviet Collapse,” co-founder of the No Cold War Campaign, and editor of the political analysis site Invent-The-Future.org.

Please make an urgently-needed contribution to The Socialist Program by joining our Patreon community at patreon.com/thesocialistprogram.  We rely on the generous support of our listeners to keep bringing you  consistent, high-quality shows. All Patreon donors of $5 a month or more  are invited to join the monthly Q&A seminar with Brian.

On today's episode Brian Becker and Prof. Richard Wolff  discuss the newly released New York Times internal communications about  the unionization efforts going on at the newspaper. U.S. politicians and  officials loudly  and frequently   declare the United States to have "free press" -- but how does  capitalism and for-profit, union-busting, private press operate freely?

Professor  Richard Wolff is an author & co-founder of the organization  Democracy at Work. You can check out his work at rdwolff.com.

Please make an urgently-needed contribution to The Socialist Program by joining our Patreon community at patreon.com/thesocialistprogram.  We rely on the generous support of our listeners to keep bringing you  consistent, high-quality shows. All Patreon donors of $5 a month or more  are invited to join the monthly Q&A seminar with Brian.

On today's In the News roundtable, Brian Becker, Esther Iverem, Nicole Roussell and Walter Smolarek discuss how the U.S. corporate media subjected viewers to wall-to-wall war mongering propaganda targeting the  government and people of China as the Olympics opened in Beijing. They also discuss how pro-Trump forces consolidate their control of the  Republican Party, a new report on Israeli apartheid against Palestinians protesters demanding justice for Amir Locke, and more.

Please make an urgently-needed contribution to The Socialist Program by joining our Patreon community at patreon.com/thesocialistprogram. We rely on the generous support of our listeners to keep bringing you consistent, high-quality shows. All Patreon donors of $5 a month or more are invited to join the monthly Q&A seminar with Brian.

NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, is moving ever closer to Russia’s border. Russia views this as an existential threat – and a historic betrayal of key guarantees it was given by the west as the Soviet Union disintegrated. As Biden sends thousands of additional troops to Eastern Europe, the threat of war is growing by the day.

Brian is joined by Eugene Puryear, author and activist, host of the BreakThrough News podcast The Punch Out, and co-host of the BT live video show The Freedom Side.

Watch the video edition of “The Real Story” on BreakThrough News!

Please make an urgently-needed contribution to The Socialist Program by joining our Patreon community at patreon.com/thesocialistprogram.  We rely on the generous support of our listeners to keep bringing you  consistent, high-quality shows. All Patreon donors of $5 a month or more are invited to join the monthly Q&A seminar with Brian.

On today's episode Brian Becker and Prof. Richard Wolff  discuss the increasingly unstable political environment, as Dr. Wolff  writes about in his newest article. He argues that some politicians are  denying there are any problems while some find a scapegoat where they  can direct people's anger--and both of which are symptoms of the  political elite desperately trying to protect the capitalist system.

Professor  Richard Wolff is an author & co-founder of the organization  Democracy at Work. You can check out his work at rdwolff.com, and read the article here: https://www.alternet.org/2022/01/capitalism.

Please make an urgently-needed contribution to The Socialist Program by joining our Patreon community at patreon.com/thesocialistprogram.  We rely on the generous support of our listeners to keep bringing you  consistent, high-quality shows. All Patreon donors of $5 a month or more  are invited to join the monthly Q&A seminar with Brian.

On today's In the News roundtable, Brian Becker, Esther Iverem and Nicole Roussell discuss the political period twenty years ago when George W Bush laid out “the axis of evil” – Iraq, Iran, and North Korea – and escalated the “war on terror,” which was really just a campaign of imperialist war and intervention.

They also analyze the escalating war against Russia, the Washington Post’s Sunday lead editorial with an alarming message, the newest thing named after Jeff Bezos (it’s a library!), dark money in elections, the plea deals for the murderers of Ahmaud Arbery, the new angle that the U.S. press is taking against China’s incredible record against Covid, and the campaign to transfer political prisoner Leonard Peltier to a hospital to treat his Covid infection.

Please make an urgently-needed contribution to The Socialist Program by joining our Patreon community at patreon.com/thesocialistprogram. We rely on the generous support of our listeners to keep bringing you consistent, high-quality shows. All Patreon donors of $5 a month or more are invited to join the monthly Q&A seminar with Brian.

In this January 2022 patrons-only seminar, Brian and the crew discuss the Ukraine conflict at length, including a deep dive into the historical and geopolitical context of the region, the legacy of World Wars and the Cold War, the class character of the Russian state today, and more. We also discuss a Marxist analysis of class stratification in the U.S. today. Check out the preview now and subscribe at patreon.com/thesocialistprogram to hear the rest!