"It’s Time for a Domestic Terrorism Law," blares a Washington Monthly headline. "Tucson Police Helping Homeless with New Outreach Program," reports Tucson, Arizona’s ABC affiliate KGUN9. "Programs that monitor students' social media are seen as a means of heading off the next tragic shooting," says an article in GovTech. "How the Department of Defense could help win the war on climate change," explains Politico.

In the United States, it seems no matter what crisis emerges - the planet warming due to fossil extraction, QAnon white nationalists storm Capitol, mass shooting, substance abuse crisis, a surge in homelessness - the response from our pundit, think tank, and political classes is always, almost without exception, to frame the response in terms that empower, embolden and - most importantly - fund preexisting carceral and militaristic responses.

To fight the scourge of white nationalism under Trump and show we are serious about our anti-racism, the solution is apparently to give more money and surveillance powers to the FBI, an organization itself drenched in white supremacy and anti-Muslim violence. To show we are serious about climate change, we must give the reins of crisis management to the Pentagon. To show we care deeply about ending homelessness and poverty or addressing mental health crises and drug abuse, we must always ensure the police remain equipped, resourced and well-funded in order to monitor and target vulnerable populations.

This "House Always Wins" ecosystem is no coincidence; it is fueled by a patchwork of perverse incentives: security state and weapons contractor-funded “bipartisan” think tanks and media outlets ready with turn-key "solutions" to every social problem that further pad the budgets of those already in power: the FBI, Pentagon, ICE, NSA, police forces, large corporations all with their own power-serving "security" and "extremist" experts ready to jump on every crises to explain why those already in power deserve even more of it.

If the most basic environmental protections are to pass, they must relate to US military preparedness." If Mars is to be explored, it's to ensure the United States’s primacy over China and Russia. If there's an outcry for mental health services for unhoused people, police budgets surge to cover "training" and community outreach.

On this episode, we explore how, under our regime of austerity, the house always wins; namely, how the security state is, by design, enriched at the expense of much needed programs and infrastructure like education, housing, and healthcare - with media all too eager to convince us the solution is to instead simply further bloat the budgets of police departments, border patrol, federal surveillance and law enforcement.

Our guest is University of Illinois-Chicago professor Nicole Nguyen.

Episode 132: The House Always Wins  -  How Crisis Narratives Enrich the Security & Carceral State

We’re joined by Dr. Jemima Pierre from the Black Alliance for Peace to talk about upheavals in Haiti and the long history of foreign interference there. 

blackagendareport.com/haiti-black-despots-and-white-rulers

blackallianceforpeace.com/haiti

Episode 143: Haiti

On this episode we're taking a trip to Camelot to attend the court of America's favorite Irish family, the Kennedys. For part 1 of an upcoming 4 part series we examine the rise of Joe Kennedy and the war adventures of a young disease-riddled Jack Fitzgerald. So far it looks like nothing but smooth sailing for this rugged band of papists.

Grubstakers Podcast

Episode 227: The Kennedys Part 1

In this public News Brief, we break down the PR campaign against activists who want intellectual property rules suspended so that poor countries can manufacture their own generic vaccines. With guest Peter Maybarduk of Public Citizen.

News Brief: Big Pharma, Bill Gates Spin Against Generic Vaccines for Global South as Biden a No Show

This week we talk about a new form of psychiatric therapy: coal gasification and sequestration. We also talk about Chuck Schumer's newfound progressivism, and the conviction of Derek Chauvin.

Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/trillbillyworkersparty

Episode 195: Clean Coal Therapy

In this episode we explore the imminent armed conflict between introverts and extroverts.

Support future scientific research like this at our Patreon: patreon.com/trillbillyworkersparty

Episode 196: Battle Of The Bores

In this public News Brief, we dissect recent news that the Biden administration backs a TRIPS waiver at the WTO and why the terms of their upcoming TRIPS waiver matter more than the splashy headlines.

News Brief: On Biden's TRIPS Waiver Support, Substance Matters More than Headlines

In this public News Brief we breakdown the most common anti-Palestinian tropes and why they're based on sophistry, ignorance, racism, or some combination of all three.

Debunking the 5 Most Common Anti-Palestinian Talking Points

We have Private Detective & radio host Ed Opperman (twitter.com/oppermanreport) on the program to talk about the connection between JonBenet Ramsey’s murder and a DEA raid to snatch Hunter Biden’s laptop—plus stuff on OJ, Giuliani, and a ton of other crooks.

patreon.com/oppermanreport

UNLOCKED! Episode 124: Pills And Women

"Elon Musk sent a thank-you note to Tesla's workers returning to work," Business Insider squeals. Walmart teams up with UPS to air an ad "thanking essential workers." "Jeff Bezos Just Posted an Open Letter to Amazon Employees About the Coronavirus. Every Smart Business Leader Needs to Read It," insists an article in Inc.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, corporate leaders, politicians and celebrities have been quick to paint "essential workers," and those often described as "frontline" workers, as heroes — laborers conscripted, presumably against their will, into a wartime-like scenario of heroism and sacrifice as our country battles the ongoing coronavirus scourge.

The sentiment behind this rhetoric is understandable, especially from everyday people simply trying to express their deep appreciation for the underpaid labor doing the work to feed, house, care for and treat everyone else. But when deployed by powerful politicians and CEOs, the "essential workers as heroes" discourse serves a more sinister purpose: to curb efforts to unionize, preemptively justify mass death of a largely black and brown workforce, protect corporate profits and ultimately discipline labor that for a brief moment in spring of last year, had unprecedented leverage to extract concessions from capital.

As Wall Street booms and America’s billionaires see an increase of $1.1 trillion in wealth since March 2020 — a 40% increase — while the average worker suffers from unemployment, depression, drug abuse and a loss of healthcare, it’s become increasingly clear that “essential” never meant essential to helping society at large or essential to human care or essential to keeping the bottom from falling out, but essential to keeping the top one percent of the one percent’s wealth and power intact and as it turned out to be the case, massively expanded.

Indeed, 2020 saw the largest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in decades, a transfer largely made possible by the essential worker as hero narrative, with little discussion or debate. In March 2020 everyone agreed in this wartime framing that was going to send off millions of poor people to their deaths for a vague, undecided greater good of the quote-unquote "economy," when really it was for the seamless maintenance of Wall Street profits.

On this episode, we explore the origins of the concept of "essential work" and those deemed "essential workers"; how it's been used in the past to discipline labor during wartime; how hero narratives provide an empty, head-patting verbal tip in lieu of worker protection and higher pay; and why so few in our media ask the more urgent question of all: whether or not low wage retail, food, farming, and healthcare workers ever wanted to be heroes in the first place.

Our guest in Ronald Jackson, a worker and organizer with Warehouse Workers For Justice.

Episode 131: The "Essential Worker" Racket - How 'COVID Hero' Discourse Is Used To Discipline Labor

We are again joined by Professor Finkelstein, discussing his decades-long relationship with Professor Chomsky, the accusations of holocaust denialism and of course, Alan Dershowitz.

Finkelstein vs. Dershowitz on Democracy Now: youtube.com/watch?v=GzqTWpPI5Qw

Noah Kulwin on Patreon: patreon.com/nkultra

UNLOCKED! Episode 132: Norman Finkelstein Pt. 2

Citations Needed is a podcast about the media, power, PR, and the history of bullshit. It is hosted by Nima Shirazi and Adam Johnson, and produced by Florence Barrau-Adams.

Debunking the 5 Most Common Anti-Palestinian Talking Points

Citations Needed Podcast