Prabhat Patnaik reflects on the COVID-19 shock that has worsened the crisis triggered by globalized finance. Only two possibilities emerge: restructure capitalism by controlling finance, or let the tendencies towards very coercive forms of fascism grow.

Prabhat Patnaik reflects on the COVID-19 shock that has worsened the crisis triggered by globalized finance. Only two possibilities emerge: restructure capitalism by controlling finance, or let the tendencies towards very coercive forms of fascism grow.

Prabhat Patnaik reflects on the COVID-19 shock that has worsened the crisis triggered by globalized finance. Only two possibilities emerge: restructure capitalism by controlling finance, or let the tendencies towards very coercive forms of fascism grow.

Phyllis Bennis and Stephen Zunes join Paul Jay to analyze the record of Susan Rice, and what it means to progressive voters if she is Biden's VP pick - on theAnalysis.news podcast.

https://vimeo.com/445747292

WASHINGTON, DC - APRIL 16: Former National Security Advisor Susan Rice (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Phyllis Bennis and Stephen Zunes join Paul Jay to analyze the record of Susan Rice, and what it means to progressive voters if she is Biden's VP pick - on theAnalysis.news podcast.

Transcript

Paul JayHi, my name is Paul Jay, and welcome to theAnalysis.news podcast.Susan Rice, who's considered a front runner as Joe Biden's vice president, is a multi-millionaire investor in the fossil fuel industry, Las Vegas casinos, and much more. And according to many progressive commentators, as a national security adviser to President Obama and before that, an undersecretary of state, someone who seems to have never considered a war, she didn't want to wage. She's considered firmly aligned with the hawks of the Democratic Party, although it's been reported that she was at odds with Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel and took Obama's side during their disputes.Now joining us to assess what Susan Rice might mean as Biden's VP and perhaps someday president is Phyllis Bennis. She's director of the New Internationalism Project at the Institute for Policy Studies. Also joining us is Stephen Zunes. He's a professor of politics and coordinator of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of San Francisco. Thank you both for joining us.

Phyllis BennisGood to be with you.

Stephen ZunesThank you.

Paul JaySo, Phyllis, kick us off. What's the big picture take on Rice and what would it also tell us about Biden if that's his choice?

Phyllis BennisYou know, Paul, there's a theory running around, which I think is actually pretty accurate, that the reason that the very high visibility teams that were put together between Biden and the Bernie Sanders campaign to come up with unity positions between essentially the left and the center of the Democratic Party, that they had one on immigration, one on health care, one on the environment. And they were pretty impressive in terms of bringing in activists, bringing in progressives, as well as bringing in people from the Biden campaign.

They didn't have one on foreign policy, and it was disturbing from a number of vantage points. But one of them was the sense that Biden believes that foreign policy, absent all evidence to the contrary, is actually his strong suit in the election. And because he's very experienced in foreign policy, which he is, he knows a lot of foreign leaders around the world, that somehow he doesn't have to worry about his credentials, his bona fide credentials, as a foreign policy leader. And the problem is, of course, that he is, in fact, an experienced foreign policy operative, and has always been on the side of the war, ranging from the Iraq war to a wide range of other positions. He's never been on the anti-war wing of the party. Susan Rice, even more than Biden in some ways, has emerged from the beginning of her sort of high visibility positions in the Democratic Party as very much a leader of the, “We should definitely go to war side of things”.So with all the conversations that are out there about she's a potential liability to Biden because of Benghazi, Benghazi becomes this sort of watchword of being linked to Hillary Clinton being linked to the crisis around Benghazi. While nobody talks about the fact that the real criminal aspect, in my view of her activities in the US and NATO war against Libya, was not the crisis in Benghazi that ended up with the unfortunate death of four US soldiers and contractors. But was the decision to go to war in the first place. It was a little triad of Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice, and Samantha Power, who persuaded Obama when he was president to go to war in Libya rather reluctant...

Phyllis Bennis and Stephen Zunes join Paul Jay to analyze the record of Susan Rice, and what it means to progressive voters if she is Biden's VP pick - on theAnalysis.news podcast.

China and the U.S. must work together to solve the climate crisis, but the power of the militaries and national security states on both sides is making that impossible. Col. Lawrence Wilkerson joins Paul Jay on theAnalysis.news podcast.

https://vimeo.com/445448032

China and the U.S. must work together to solve the climate crisis, but the power of the militaries and national security states on both sides is making that impossible. Col. Lawrence Wilkerson joins Paul Jay on theAnalysis.news podcast.

Transcript

Paul Jay

Hi, I'm Paul Jay and welcome to theAnalysis.news podcast. 

Recently, a past Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, said that war between the US and China is possible before the November elections. The current Australian Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, says that's overstated, but said that a conflict is no longer inconceivable. In a recent document from BlackRock, the massive financial services firm that is massively influential in making government policy almost everywhere, said in a research document, quote, "The pandemic added fuel to the geopolitical dynamics already underway. The post coronavirus world is likely to be characterized by four key themes. First, the world is increasingly becoming bifurcated with the U.S. and China at opposite poles, intense rivalry looks set to affect nearly every dimension of the US-China relationship. Regardless of the US election outcome, other countries will increasingly be pushed to choose sides. Decoupling is focused on, but not limited to the technology sector. This means investors need exposure to both markets, as the center of gravity of global growth is moving to Asia. Second, the pandemic is poised to accelerate de-globalization as it magnifies nationalist and protectionist trends. The crisis adds to existing pressures such as global trade tensions and populism. This threatens to disrupt the web of global supply chains at the expense of efficiency. It may lead to on-shoring the production of strategic goods," that's from BlackRock. That's advice to their investors. One thing is certain, as the US-China relationship deteriorates if the U.S. and China don't cooperate in fighting the pandemic and the climate crisis, we're pretty much doomed, even if by some miracle we avoid nuclear war as inherent to the geopolitical and economic realities, the rivalry is we must find a way to overcome it.

Now joining us is Lawrence Wilkerson. He's a retired United States Army colonel and former chief of staff to United States Secretary of State Colin Powell. Larry is a distinguished adjunct professor of government and public policy at the College of William and Mary. Thanks for joining us, Larry.

Larry Wilkerson

Good to be with you, Paul. 

Paul Jay

So, first of all, what do you make of what the two Australian, former and current prime ministers are saying about Australia? One saying it's really dangerous, and the other one says, yeah, maybe not that dangerous, but dangerous. And I'm talking about actual conflict, armed conflict, between the United States and China.

Larry Wilkerson

Kevin Rudd is a Mandarin speaker and in many respects an expert on China. I don't happen to agree, full-throatily, with what he said, but I do think that, like my conversation not too long ago with John Mearsheimer, where John said it's inevitable that we go to war with China, China goes to war with us, that it's getting closer to that possibility and it's extremely dangerous, as you intimated, that that possibility is closer. It's extremely dangerous that it's anywhere out there in our future if it is.

As for the sitting prime minister, I'm not aware of his intellectual bona fides or his predisposition toward China one way or the other, so I can't really comment. I am aware of a lot of my Australian friends who don't think he's a very good prime minister.

China and the U.S. must work together to solve the climate crisis, but the power of the militaries and national security states on both sides is making that impossible. Col. Lawrence Wilkerson joins Paul Jay on theAnalysis.news podcast.

Will Joe Biden cast aside decades of conservative political wisdom and lead us to an FDR style presidency he's talked about, or is this another case of Biden telling voters exactly what he thinks they want to hear? Branco Marcetic author of 'Yesterday's Man: The Case Against Joe Biden', joins Paul Jay on theAnalysis.news podcast.