Two US veterans, Matthew Hoh and Daniel Sjursen, explain how the war in Afghanistan was lost, Afghans suffered, and military contractors profited -- all while the American public was kept in the dark.

Guests:

Danny Sjursen. Retired US Army officer, senior fellow at the Center for International Policy. He served combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and later taught history at West Point. His latest book is "A True History of the United States." 

Matthew Hoh. Former Marine and State Department official who resigned in protest from his post in Afghanistan over U.S. policy in September 2009. Now a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy. 

Support Pushback at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/aaronmate

Anti-war veterans explain how US lost Afghanistan while leaders lied, profited

Three times Nobel Peace Prize nominated peace activist Kathy Kelly and anti war veteran and author Danny Sjursen discuss Afghanistan, what the war was about, what the war was not about, why Biden's statements on the terrorist "threats" in other countries & on the Kabul blast were troubling. And they debunk the disingenuous media narrative about women's rights and human rights.

Kathy Kelly, a peace activist and author, made over two dozen trips to Afghanistan from 2010 – 2019, living with Afghan Peace Volunteers in a working class neighborhood in Kabul. She and her companions in various peace team delegations believe that where you stand determines what you see. Kelly lived with families in Baghdad throughout the 2003 Shock and Awe invasion and during the first weeks of the U.S. occupation. Kelly is now campaigning for an international treaty to ban weaponized drones.

Danny Sjursen is an anti-war veteran; the director of @mediaeisenhower (EMN); Senior Fellow at @CIPolicy; contributing editor at @Antiwarcom. He was recently selected as the 2019 Lannan Foundation cultural freedom fellow. He is the author of a memoir and critical analysis of the Iraq War, Ghostriders of Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge; Patriotic Dissent: America in the Age of Endless War; and A True History of the United States: Indigenous Genocide, Racialized Slavery, Hyper-Capitalism, Militarist Imperialism and Other Overlooked Aspects of American Exceptionalism He is a member of several activist organizations, including Veterans for Peace and About Face: Veterans against the War. Follow him on Twitter at @SkepticalVet.

The Militarized Media Coverage Of Afghanistan With Vet & Nobel Peace Prize Nom

Marxist ideology is one of the most potent weapons the working and oppressed classes have, a weapon that our class can and has used to not only win reforms but to build revolutionary societies where the people, and not profits, are in control. As the PSL identified at our 3rd Party Congress in 2016, one of our primary tasks is to mend the “break in ideological continuity” that emerged after the overthrow of the Soviet Union by reestablishing “the theory of revolutionary Marxism and the entire vision of workers’ power” as a dominant guiding pole in people’s struggles [1].
To correct for the ideological break, it’s helpful to have a concrete understanding of ideology and the different forms it takes. Although the word ideology is used frequently, it’s commonly used in a pejorative sense to refer to something that’s not factual, that’s unscientific, or that’s devoid of substance. It’s also used by those hostile to socialism to present a distorted view of Marxism. What exactly is ideology? What is the difference between bourgeois and Marxist ideology? What significance does this have for organizing today?
To address these questions and help repair the break in the ideological continuity of revolutionary socialism in U.S. social movements, this article outlines Marx’s understanding of ideology. It traces his historical-materialist approach to investigating the relationship between ideas, material reality, and modes of production through several of his works. This allows us to take in the theory’s nuances about life and consciousness, as well as to draw out examples that are still relevant and applicable today. In particular, we focus on the theory of commodity fetishism and the function of the wage in producing the bourgeois ideological conception of the atomized individual. Proposing a move from “true/false” to “correct/incorrect,” the end of the article returns to the importance of popularizing and promoting Marxist ideology to understand and transform the world today, as revolutionaries have done throughout the socialist struggle to break the chains of exploitation and oppression.

Read the full article:
www.liberationschool.org/what-is-ideology

What is ideology? An introduction to the Marxist theory of ideology

(Patreon-only Rose McGowan interview here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/rose-mcgowan-57953217)
Labor journalists Alex Press (https://twitter.com/alexnpress) & Jonah Furman (https://twitter.com/JonahFurman) discuss the labor movement, strikes, John Deere and what it has to do with Alec Baldwin's deadly shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.

Alex Press is a writer and editor at Jacobin Magazine, whose latest article is "Halyna Hutchins’s Death on the Set of Rust Was 'Not a Freak Accident'."Jonah Furman is a labor movement organizer and writer for Labor Notes (https://twitter.com/labornotes), the media and organizing project that since 1979 has amplified the voice of workers and labor militants. He is also a frequent contributor to The Intercept.

Alec Baldwin Shooting 'NOT a Freak Accident' With Alex Press & Jonah Furman

In the suffering of the Global South, the brutality of capitalism lies bare. In a footnote toward the end of Capital, Marx wrote that the colonized subject reveals “what the bourgeois makes of itself and of the labourer, wherever it can, without restraint, model the world after its own image”. The forms of primary accumulation he articulates there were in their most naked form in the colonies. Contrary to liberal and academic misreadings, Marx paid great attention to the relationship between colonialism and capitalism. Marx came to argue that colonialism was the backbone of capitalism, and that anti-colonial movements could even be the key to global capitalism’s overthrow. This is why anti-colonial struggles have long been guided to victory by Marxist theory.

Read the full article here: https://liberationschool.org/09-what-is-imperialism-html/

What is imperialism? An introduction

The Party for Socialism and Liberation joins with millions of people across the country in expressing our complete outrage at the acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse on all charges. Once again, the U.S. court system has functioned to protect a racist murderer, who went out into the streets of Kenosha on August 25, 2020 to wage war on people protesting the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man. The verdict is an infuriating reminder of the fundamentally white supremacist nature of the capitalist legal system in the United States. 

The acquittal of Rittenhouse has tremendously dangerous ramifications. It effectively hands a license to kill to right wing vigilantes, who will now feel even more empowered to terrorize people in the name of “law and order”. There is a long and deadly tradition of far right militia-type violence in the United States, and this threat has now been given a huge boost by the state. 

The kangaroo court presided over by Judge Bruce Schroeder was a disgrace, and greatly enhanced Rittenhouse’s chances of acquittal by the nearly all-white jury. The process was rigged from the start, and grew more and more absurd with each passing day. 

Read the full statement here:
https://www.liberationnews.org/psl-statement-rittenhouse-acquittal-hands-racist-vigilantes-a-license-to-kill/

PSL Statement: Rittenhouse Acquittal Hands Racist Vigilantes a License to Kill

On today's In the News roundtable, Esther Iverem, Nicole Roussell and Walter Smolarek discuss how the menace of racist vigilante violence received a dramatic boost by the U.S. court system with the acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse on all charges. They also discuss how protesters took to the streets in outraged response to the verdict, the victory of pro-Revolution candidates in the Venezuelan election, the latest Jan. 6 attack court developments, demonstrations worldwide against U.S. intervention in Ethiopia, resistance to the coup in Sudan, and more.

Please make an urgently-needed contribution to The Socialist Program by joining our Patreon community at patreon.com/thesocialistprogram. We rely on the generous support of our listeners to keep bringing you consistent, high-quality shows. All Patreon donors of $5 a month or more are invited to join the monthly Q&A seminar with Brian.

"Justice" in America: Rittenhouse Acquitted, Racist Vigilantes Can Kill with Impunity

On today's In the News roundtable, Brian Becker, Esther Iverem, Nicole Roussell and Walter Smolarek discuss how the three men who murdered Ahmaud Arbery have been convicted of murder in a major victory for the struggle against racism, but at the same time the Rittenhouse verdict reveals a grave danger. They also discuss the emergence of the Omicron variant of COVID due to global vaccine apartheid, efforts to rig the U.S. electoral map, the historic victory of the left in the Honduran presidential election, and more.

Please make an urgently-needed contribution to The Socialist Program by joining our Patreon community at patreon.com/thesocialistprogram. We rely on the generous support of our listeners to keep bringing you consistent, high-quality shows. All Patreon donors of $5 a month or more are invited to join the monthly Q&A seminar with Brian.

Two Verdicts: Racist Violence & American Capitalism

Continuing our coverage of the Red Hill disaster we are joined by Wayne Tanaka, head of Hawaii Sierra Club and leading legal actions against the Navy facility, to give the urgent updates about this unfolding catastrophe.

Support our ad-free work and get EXCLUSIVE content by supporting us at www.patreon.com/empirefiles or donate at www.paypal.com/paypalme/empirefilesinc

FOLLOW // twitter.com/EmpireFiles

Interview with Red Hill Frontline Fighter: Navy Imperiling Life on O'ahu

On today's In the News roundtable, Brian Becker, Esther Iverem, Nicole Roussell and Walter Smolarek discuss how workers are bearing the deadly  brunt of the devastating tornadoes that ripped across the country. They also cover new revelations about US war crimes in Syria, a military coverup on the Jan. 6 attack, an extradition ruling against heroic journalist Julian Assange, the courageous hunger strike of women in ICE detention in Louisiana, and more.

The following articles are referenced in today's episode:

Tornado Left Deadly Path of Destruction up to 250 Miles Long in Kentucky, Five Other States
https://www.wsj.com/articles/rescuers-search-for-those-missing-after-destructive-tornadoes-in-kentucky-illinois-11639325118

Civilian Deaths Mounted as Secret Unit Pounded ISIS
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/12/us/civilian-deaths-war-isis.html

Starbucks workers win historic first union: “If we can do this here, you can do this too”
https://www.liberationnews.org/starbucks-workers-win-historic-first-union-if-we-can-do-this-here-you-can-do-this-too/

Please make an urgently-needed contribution to The Socialist Program by joining our Patreon community at patreon.com/thesocialistprogram. We rely on the generous support of our listeners to keep bringing you consistent, high-quality shows. All Patreon donors of $5 a month or more are invited to join the monthly Q&A seminar with Brian.

Capitalism and Imperialism: A Global System of Death

The US Navy has poisoned the largest water supply in O'ahu, Hawaii. Nobody knows how long residents have been drinking toxic water, how big the chemical leak is, or how many it will impact. But instead of urgent action to save lives, the Navy is engaging in a cover up. 

For more details on this case listen to our hour-long podcast on this #RedHill disaster here or any streaming platform: https://soundcloud.com/empire-files/redhill

Support our work covering US military pollution at https://earthsgreatestenemy.com

#SHUTDOWNREDHILL

Hawaii Emergency: Navy Poisons Drinking Water

Socialist news and analysis from the front lines of struggle. Project of the Party for Socialism and Liberation.

What is imperialism? An introduction

Liberation Audio

Related tracks