The Real News Podcast

Read the transcript of this podcast: https://therealnews.com/after-26-years-in-prison-cambodian-refugee-phoeun-you-was-supposed-to-be-paroled-ice-deported-him-insteadWhen Phoeun You's family left Cambodia as refugees, he was only one year old. After spending a number of years in a refugee camp in Thailand, You's family was resettled in the US. At the age of 20, You was convicted of murder and incarcerated in San Quentin. During his incarceration, You became a certified crisis counselor, and established ROOTS (Restoring Our Original True Selves)—a restorative justice program for Asian American and Pacific Islander prisoners. After 26 years behind bars and a remarkable personal transformation, the California Board of Parole Hearings recommended You for release in August 2021. On his release date, You was handed over to ICE. Activists rallied to demand an urgent pardon from California Governor Gavin Newsom which could have stopped You's deportation, but to no avail. Calling in from Cambodia, Phoeun You joins Rattling the Bars to tell his story.Studio/Post-Production: Cameron GranadinoHelp us continue producing Rattling the Bars by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer: Donate: https://therealnews.com/donate-pod-rtbSign up for our newsletter: https://therealnews.com/nl-pod-rtbGet Rattling the Bars updates: https://therealnews.com/up-pod-rtbLike us on Facebook: https://facebook.com/therealnewsFollow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/therealnewsBecome 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!

Last month, the world watched with bated breath as Brazilians voted in two rounds of high-stakes elections that pitted far-right President Jair Bolsonaro against former president, leftist hero, and leader of the Workers Party Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. After being elected president in 2018, Bolsonaro and his far-right movement have unleashed a darkness upon Brazil that has had wide-ranging implications for the country, the hemisphere, and the world. From burning the Amazon and overseeing a disastrous response to the COVID-19 pandemic to stoking fascistic violence, conspiracy theories, and a fervor for religious war among his supporters, Bolsonaro and Bolsonarism have been a political wrecking ball slamming against a world already teetering on the edge of disaster. And that is why so many around Brazil and around the world celebrated when Lula defeated Bolsonaro at the end of October.What role did workers and working-class voters play in this critical election? What does Lula’s victory mean for working people and for the labor movement in Brazil? How have the lives of working-class people, and the shape of working-class politics, changed in Brazil in recent years and decades? And what can we all do to build international solidarity with our fellow workers in Brazil and beyond? We talk about all of this and more with Fabio Bosco, a retired subway operator in São Paulo, a trade unionist, and an organizer with the labor federation CSP-CONLUTAS.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer: Donate: https://therealnews.com/donate-podSign up for our newsletter: https://therealnews.com/newsletter-podLike us on Facebook: https://facebook.com/therealnewsFollow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/therealnewsBecome 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!

Brazil has a new president-elect.Former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva won the Brazilian presidency on October 30th. He defeated far-right president Jair Bolsonaro by just over 2 million votes. Tens of thousands of Lula supporters descended on Sao Paulo’s Paulista Avenue for huge celebrations. Brazil on Fire host Michael Fox was there and he takes us to the streets.But Bolsonaro supporters were also mobilizing. They shut down highways and called for the military to intervene.In this second update to Brazil on Fire, we look at Lula’s victory, Bolsonaro’s disinformation campaign that is keeping Bolsonaro’s supporters in the streets, Bolsonaro’s ties to Donald Trump’s former White House strategist Steve Bannon, and how Bannon is trying to spread a fake news fraud narrative to bolster Bolsonaro and divide Brazil, like the United States after Trump’s 2020 defeat. We hear from UFSC International Relations professor Camila Feix Vidal about the shared tactics of the international far-right and University of Virginia Media Studies professor David Nemer about Bolsonaro's unprecedented use of fake news and disinformation in the election.This is Brazil on Fire, a podcast about Brazil’s descent toward fascism under President Jair Bolsonaro. We look at Bolsonaro’s far-right government that has set the country ablaze, and how the United States helped him do it. We visit the birthplace of Brazilian Nazism, evangelical churches, and Indigenous villages in the Amazon.Hosted by Latin America-based journalist Michael Fox.This podcast is produced in partnership between The Real News Network and NACLA.Edited by Heather Gies.Sound design by Gustavo Türck.Theme music by Monte PerdidoFollow Brazil on Fire at The Real News Network: https://therealnews.com/brazil-on-fire-podHelp The Real News Network continue producing stories like Brazil on Fire by following us and making a small donation:Donate to TRNN: https://www.therealnews.com/donate-pod-brazil-on-fireSign up for our newsletter: https://www.therealnews.com/signup-brazil-on-fireLike us on Facebook: https://facebook.com/therealnewsFollow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/therealnewsSubscribe to updates from NACLA: https://nacla.org/subscribeBecome 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!

Read the transcript of this episode: https://therealnews.com/william-robinson-how-covid-19-will-lead-to-a-global-capitalist-police-stateCapitalism was in crisis before the COVID-19 pandemic, and existing conditions of inequality, dispossession, and ecological ruin set the stage for the deadly success of the coronavirus. But how has COVID-19 changed capitalism, and where is the system headed now? The system shock of the pandemic has provoked growing resistance from the working class. At the same time, the wealthiest fraction of society has exploited the crisis of COVID-19 to accelerate their accumulation of wealth and violent dispossession of the world's majority. Professor William I. Robinson argues that humanity is now on a path towards the election of a "global police state," unless it can be stopped by organized resistance from below. TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez speaks with Robinson about his new book, Global Civil War: Capitalism Post-Pandemic, in the first of a multi-part interview.William I. Robinson is Distinguished Professor of Sociology, Global Studies, and Latin American Studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara. Among his many books are Global Capitalism and the Crisis of Humanity; Into the Tempest: Essays on the New Global Capitalism; The Global Police State; Global Civil War: Capitalism Post-Pandemic; and Can Global Capitalism Endure?Post-Production: Jules TaylorHelp us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer: Donate: https://therealnews.com/donate-podSign up for our newsletter: https://therealnews.com/newsletter-podLike us on Facebook: https://facebook.com/therealnewsFollow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/therealnewsBecome 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 largest strike in the US since 2019 is currently underway across University of California campuses. 48,000 teaching assistants, postdocs, researchers and graders on the front lines of teaching and research at California’s prestigious public university system are seeking a minimum annual salary of $54,000 and increased child-care benefits, saying they do not earn enough to live in the state. They also accuse the university of breaking the law and not bargaining in good faith with their union, the United Auto Workers. UAW Local 2865 president and UCLA English PhD candidate Rafael Jamie joins TRNN editor-in-chief Maximillian Alvarez to discuss the historic strike. This interview was recorded on Monday, Nov. 12.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!

Read the transcript of this podcast: https://therealnews.com/scott-ritter-dont-believe-the-hype-ukraine-cant-win-this-warReports of Ukrainian triumph and imminent Russian defeat have flooded the West since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began in February. Yet how much merit is there to this narrative? Former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and UN weapons inspector William Scott Ritter Jr. speaks with Dimitri Lascaris in a special interview for The Real News. Despite taking some ground in September’s counteroffensive, the Ukrainian military has taken heavy losses and is totally dependent on external support. Moreover, Ritter argues that Ukraine’s objectives in this war are unachievable, whereas Russia’s can be met through a negotiated settlement. While the war rages on and attempts to sanction Russia continue to backfire, more damage is being done to the people of Europe and Ukraine than to Russia. Ultimately, what must come out of this conflict is an admission from Europe that NATO is an anachronism and a new security paradigm is needed to promote international peace and cooperation. This interview was recorded Nov. 4, 2022.William Scott Ritter Jr. is an author and pundit and a former United States Marine Corps intelligence officer and United Nations weapons inspector.Dimitri Lascaris is a lawyer, journalist and activist from Montreal, Quebec. In 2020, Dimitri ran for the leadership of the Green Party of Canada.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer: Donate: https://therealnews.com/donate-podSign up for our newsletter: https://therealnews.com/newsletter-podLike us on Facebook: https://facebook.com/therealnewsFollow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/therealnewsBecome 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!

Anti-migrant political rhetoric often focuses on the spectacles of border crossings, criminal organizations, and poverty in the Global South. But where do these phenomena come from? A closer look at the history of El Salvador and the Salvadoran diaspora in the US offers a lesson in the links between the so-called "migration crisis" and US imperialism and policing. In his new memoir and first book, Unforgetting: A Memoir of Family, Migration, Gangs, and Revolution in the Americas, journalist Roberto Lovato traces the long history of colonial violence in El Salvador through the story of his family. Lovato joins Rattling the Bars to discuss his book and the lessons El Salvador's revolutionary history can offer the world in a time of ecological and demographic upheaval caused by the cascading crises of capitalism.Roberto Lovato is an educator, journalist and writer based at The Writers Grotto. He’s also the author of Unforgetting: A Memoir of Family, Migration, Gangs and Revolution in the Americas (Harper Collins). A recipient of a reporting grant from the Pulitzer Center, Lovato has reported on the drug war, violence, terrorism in Mexico, Venezuela, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, Haiti, France and the United States.Help us continue producing Rattling the Bars by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer: Donate: https://therealnews.com/donate-pod-rtbSign up for our newsletter: https://therealnews.com/nl-pod-rtbGet Rattling the Bars updates: https://therealnews.com/up-pod-rtbLike us on Facebook: https://facebook.com/therealnewsFollow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/therealnewsBecome 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 recent HBO documentary entitled The Slow Hustle has brought renewed attention to the mysterious death of Baltimore homicide detective Sean Suiter in 2017. Police initially claimed Suiter was the victim of a lone assailant after his body was found in a West Baltimore alley with a gunshot wound to the head. But as details began to emerge regarding Suiter’s involvement with some of Baltimore’s most corrupt cops, the case took a turn that raised serious questions about what actually happened and if his death was part of a broader cover-up.Shortly after Suiter died, Police Accountability Report hosts Taya Graham and Stephen Janis produced a podcast series that looked behind the scenes and examined how Suiter’s death told a more complex story about police corruption in Baltimore. In Part IV of this podcast series, Graham and Janis return to the case five years after Suiter's death with Baltimore veteran reporter Jayne Miller to review a previously unreleased investigation conducted by the Maryland State Police.Jayne Miller was a reporter with local Baltimore tv station WBAL-TV for over 40 years.Studio/Post-Production: Stephen JanisHelp us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer: Donate: https://therealnews.com/donate-podSign up for our newsletter: https://therealnews.com/newsletter-podLike us on Facebook: https://facebook.com/therealnewsFollow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/therealnewsBecome 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!

Debates over the proper approach to the Russo-Ukrainian War have dominated much of the year. Yet discussions within the western left have not always featured the perspectives of Ukrainians and Russians themselves. The Real News Network board member Bill Fletcher, in partnership with Haymarket Books, hosts a panel with Ukrainian and Russian academics.Yuliya Yurchenko is a senior lecturer and researcher in political economy at the Political Economy, Governance, Finance and Accountability Institute and the Economics and International Business Department, the University of Greenwich (UK). She is the author of Ukraine and the Empire of Capital: From Marketisation to Armed Conflict (London: Pluto Press, 2018) and many other publications, including in Capital and Class and New Political Economy. She is vice-chair of the Critical Political Economy Research Network Board (European Sociological Association), co-coordinator of the World Economy working group, IIPPE, and an editor for Capital and Class.Alona Liasheva is a PhD candidate in Urban Studies (URBEUR) at University of Milan-Bicocca focusing on housing in Eastern Europe. She is a co-editor of Commons: Journal for Social Criticism.Ilya Budraitskis writes regularly on politics, art, film and philosophy for e-flux journal, openDemocracy, LeftEast, Colta.ru and other outlets, and teaches at the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences and the Institute of Contemporary Art Moscow. The Russian edition of his essay collection Dissidents among Dissidents was awarded the prestigious Andrei Bely prize in 2017.Studio: Dwayne GladdenHelp us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer: Donate: https://therealnews.com/donate-podSign up for our newsletter: https://therealnews.com/newsletter-podLike us on Facebook: https://facebook.com/therealnewsFollow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/therealnewsBecome 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!

Call center workers employed by Maximus went on strike at four locations—in Louisiana, Mississippi, Kentucky, and Virginia—this Tuesday, November 1. Maximus is a federal contractor, and during the open enrollment period workers there handle a non-stop stream of high-stakes calls from people trying to navigate the Affordable Care Act, Medicare, and Medicaid systems, but they have been pushed to their limit. As stated in a Twitter thread posted by Call Center Workers United, "We’ve been saying for years: during ACA open enrollment, we’re dealing with constant back-to-back calls. Some frustrated callers become abusive and subject us to racist and sexist slurs. We’re paid wages so low it’s nearly impossible to support a family. We’ve had enough. We’re striking for THREE SIMPLE DEMANDS: 1) $25/hr starting wage, 2) Time to breathe between calls, 3) Meaningful protection from abusive callers." In this urgent mini-cast, we talk to Tiffany Murray, a worker at the Maximus call center in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, about the conditions that have pushed her and her coworkers to hit the picket line, and about what others around the country can do to help.Post-Production: Jules TaylorHelp us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer: Donate: https://therealnews.com/donate-podSign up for our newsletter: https://therealnews.com/newsletter-podLike us on Facebook: https://facebook.com/therealnewsFollow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/therealnewsBecome 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!