In Run-Up to Election, Both Parties Blame China And Offer Little
In this episode of By Any Means Necessary hosts Sean Blackmon and Jacquie Luqman are joined by Greg Shupak, media studies teacher at the University of Guelph-Humber in Toronto and author of the book, “The Wrong Story: Palestine, Israel and the Media,” to talk about his new article on FAIR, "Corporate Media Setting Stage for New Cold War With China," the ongoing attempt by the Trump administration to shift the blame for the pandemic to China and the World Health Organization, and where Mitt Romney's recent op-ed painting China as "uniquely predatory" fits into the centuries-long history of 'yellow peril' racism in the US.
In the second segment, Sean and Jacquie are joined by technologist Chris Garaffa to talk about the revelation that law enforcement agencies are using a new software to crack Americans' iPhones by recording their passwords, what this means for Apple's reputation in terms of privacy rights, and how the software's developers and police departments used non-disclosure agreements to hide the technology from the public.
In the third segment, Sean and Jacquie are joined by Dr. Jack Rasmus, economist, radio show host, & author of 'The Scourge of Neoliberalism,' to talk about Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell's comments during his recent appearance on 60 Minutes, how the rush to reopen even as the pandemic rages means a second wave of the virus is all but guaranteed, and why addressing the economic crisis is impossible until we address the ongoing public health—and healthcare—crisis.
Later in the show, Sean and Jacquie are joined by Brandon Sutton, host of The Discourse podcast, to talk about where the new Instagram "battle" videos fit into the wave of nostalgia many are experiencing during the outbreak, how Obama is weaponizing this unique cultural moment as many Americans—weary of Trump's catastrophic handling of the national epidemic—want to look back on better days, and how the "outsourcing" of our political history to a capitalist mass media apparatus has left so many of us vulnerable to the mythology of imperialism.