Solidarity is Key to Combating The Ravages of Capitalism

Published: Oct. 27, 2021, 8:18 p.m.

In this episode of By Any Means Necessary, hosts Sean Blackmon and Jacquie Luqman discuss the injustice of the imprisonment of Steven Donziger and the protection of wealthy interests over people under capitalism, how the brutality and inhumanity of the courts and the police are integral to the maintenance of capitalism, and how the capitalist state exercises its power to threaten those that challenge it with political imprisonment.


In the second segment, Sean and Jacquie are joined by Chris Smalls, President of the Amazon Labor Union, founder of The Congress Of Essential Workers, and host of the podcast “It’s a Smalls World,” to discuss an impending union vote among the Staten Island Amazon warehouse workers, the gap between the conditions that workers experience and Jeff Bezos’ obscene wealth, Amazon’s efforts to repress the union drive, and this struggle’s place in the broader context of striketober.


In the third segment, Sean and Jacquie are joined by Dr. Adrienne Pine, retired Associate Professor of Anthropology at American University and co-editor of the upcoming book Asylum for Sale: Profit and Protest in the Migration Industry to discuss upcoming elections in Honduras and the historical context of the 2009 coup driving conditions in the country, the influence of the narco-state and drug money on the election, the electoral repression and red-baiting tactics the ruling party is using against the opposition, and the US government’s targeting of Honduras as a strategic military point for imperialism in Latin America.


Later in the show, Sean and Jacquie are joined by Rachel Hu, co-host of the podcast It’s Not You, It’s Capitalism to discuss a recent uptick in school violence and how the instability in society caused by the capitalist system has contributed to violence, the community programs that have sprung up in response to this violence and how they demonstrate the true purpose of police and school resource officers, the documented rise in anti-Asian hate crimes and the Biden administration’s misdirected efforts to counteract these hate crimes by providing more funding to the police, attempts to scapegoat Black people for the rise in anti-Asian hate crimes and the need for solidarity, and Andrew Yang’s ridiculous new political party.