Almost every wealthy country in the world has some type of universal healthcare system--except for the United States. With over 170 million of its citizens left to fend for themselves in a sprawling and complex maze of Medicare, Medicaid, private insurance, tax credits, child care subsidies, co-pays, deductibles and cost-sharing, the U.S. has not only the largest uninsured population, but also the most expensive system on Earth per capita.

Why America doesn’t have a universal healthcare system has historically been explained away with a reductionist mix of pathologizing and circular reasoning. "America hates big government," "we love choice," "Americans distrust anything that reeks of socialism." And while this is true in some limited sense, it avoids the bigger question of why has American so-called "democracy" rejected the numerous proposals to enact a single payer or other forms of universal healthcare?

While there may be some innate Protestant work ethic or rugged individualistic mentality at work here, there’s also been a decades-long multimillion dollar campaign funded by big business, doctor, pharmaceutical and hospital industry interests, and the insurance industry to convince the public to reject universal public healthcare. Indeed, if Americans were somehow intractably opposed to the notion––if they were hardwired to reject socialized medicine––these forces would never have had to spend so much money in the first place.

On this episode, we explore the 80-year long campaign by capital to convince you to not support universal health programs, how these campaigns have historically fear-mongered against Communists, immigrants and African Americans, who benefits from a precarious, employer-controlled healthcare insurance system, and how this propaganda war on the American mind is anything but over.

Our guest is Ben Palmquist, Director of the Health Care and Economic Democracy Program at Partners for Dignity and Rights.

Episode 134: The 80-Year PR Campaign that Killed Universal Healthcare

And introducing WE POD ECONO: an Our Band Could Be Your Life miniseries! We are taking a journey through Michael Azerrad’s chronicle of the 1980’s American underground rock scene, continuing today with Chapter Seven: Sonic Youth! We’re joined by Texas Monthly’s Paula Mejia to take a look at the original NYC cool kids of 80’s rock, as well as come up with some great ideas of our own.

Check out Texas Monthly’s series on the singer Selena: https://www.texasmonthly.com/arts-entertainment/celebrating-selena/

SONGS
Glenn Branca - Lesson #1 for Electric Guitar
Sonic Youth - Burning Spear
Sonic Youth - (She’s In A) Bad Mood
Sonic Youth - Death Valley ‘69
Sonic Youth - Expressway to yr. Skull
Sonic Youth - Schizophrenia
Sonic Youth - Teen Age Riot

And Introducing

#92 SONIC YOUTH! (ft. Paula Mejia)

We’re joined by parapolitical scholar Aaron Good, who explains his theory of the tripartite state, how the deep state operates, and what the hell it is

Democratic State vs. Deep State by Ola Tunander: wikispooks.com/wiki/Document:Dem…tate_v_Deep_State

American Exception: Hegemony and the Dissimulation of the State by Aaron Good: journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.117…95399715581042

UNLOCKED! Episode 135: Deep State 101

In this News Brief we break down the entirely predictable media coverage of Israel's ethnic cleansing of Palestinians--liberal handwringing, vague "progressive" outrage--and make the case for why the most recent "clashes" should compel nominal progressive leaders like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to formally support BDS.

On Palestine, It's Time for Progressives to Stop Reading From the Same Outrage Script & Support BDS

IF YOU'RE READING THIS, THANK YOU FOR BEING YOU 
 
My name is Phillip Jason Dade, and I'm a sinner, but also forgiven.
 
I am an evangelical Christian, the owner of a secondhand boat store, and yes, that was me in the news report about bathroom encounters.
 
I started talking to the boys at Chapo Trap House after I heard them mock and deride men like me, followers of Christ who have fallen but gotten back up. I did not reach out to them out of spite.
 
I wanted them to understand.
 
You see, I sell rudders and motorboards during the day, but I have passions outside of work. Obviously, God is number one. But passion number two is my awesome wife Klyeelissa and my kick butt little guy Mason Jesse James Treibart (the best 4 year old in the world ;) ),  Passion the third is, you guessed it, Evangelical EDM.
 
So I decided to send the boys in "The Trap" my newest song, "You Give Me Energy." I could try explaining my life, my journey, my triumphs, and my pain to get these guys to understand who they're mocking when they mock evangelicals, but they wouldn't understand it. 

the universal language of music is how neighbors can see eye to eye, though. It's been like that since the Book of Genesis, and it's like that now. so without further ado, I hope you can begin to start to think about considering who I really am, and who you could be.
 
Blessing throughout you, your family, and the world.

U Give Me 3nergy

Liz and Brace chat with Guardian journalist Jason Wilson about his explosive new piece exposing the identity of the leader of far-right extremist group The Base, get weird with some conspiricizing and talk about the strange history of the HoneyPot

twitter.com/jason_a_w

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/23/revealed-the-true-identity-of-the-leader-of-americas-neo-nazi-terror-group

Episode 39: Based And Fedpilled

We talk to author Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) about the rise of SmartCities, covid-19 surveillance states and finally answer the burning question: what is 5G?

https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/too-smart
https://reallifemag.com/contributors/jathan-sadowski

Episode 65: Tower Of Terror

Robbie Martin's long-awaited QAnon episode of Media Roots Radio is finally here! This episode is in 2-parts, the 2nd part titled 'WWG1WGA Along with a Psyop, QAnon’s Grasp on the ‘Woke’ Empire Baby Mind & Weaponizing Satanic Panic' is now unlocked: https://bit.ly/3xiAWcx

Part 1: The Origins of QAnon, Follow the White Rabbit Into a Deeper Layer of the MAGA cult delves into the chronology of how the Podesta e-mail leaks eventually led to what we now as the anonymous self labeled 'patriot' Qanon. Robbie also delves extensively into what QAnon is and what purpose it might serve and also speculates about who or what groups may be behind it. Figures like Alex Jones, Jerome Corsi, Roger Stone, Erik Prince & Steve Pieczenik are examined as potential participants in the QAnon psyop and the idea of it being connected to Trump's administration is taken seriously as a possibility.

Intro Song: Fluorescent Grey 'Making the Sand Glow'

This episode was patron-only but we feel strongly about releasing it to the public. Please consider donating to us! http://www.patreon.com/mediarootsradio

Media Roots Radio 

The Origins of #QAnon, Follow the White Rabbit Into a Deeper Layer of the MAGA Cult Pt 1 of 2

Waiting tables. Bartending. Hospitality, food delivery, beauty salons, rideshare driving. The service industry, as anyone who has worked in it knows all too well, is notorious for relying on tipping to undercut employee wages and deputize individual customers to determine how much money a worker should be able to take home. Amid increasing recognition of these injustices, a number of campaigns and new laws surfaced, pre-pandemic, to abolish or meaningfully reduce the practice of tipping.

But despite the best efforts of these campaigns, tipping remains the industry - and American society - standard. Indeed, the perverse logic of tipping has broadened into an ever-present 'snitch economy' - an ecosystem of tactics like mystery shoppers and Uber and Yelp rating systems designed to police the behavior of workers while outsourcing the costs of said supervision to customers and other workers. 

In the process, our snitch economy pits those being surveilled against those doing the watching, and the judging. Through a ubiquitous public-facing network of rating and reviewing other people’s labor - and often the behavioral disposition they exhibit while working - people with otherwise very little power are elevated to temporary positions of authority over others, fostering a culture of surveillance rather than one of solidarity. The snitch economy serves the dual purpose of not only giving working people a false sense of power when they’re the ones being served, but also reducing millions of human interactions to opportunities for not only snap judgments, but subjective rewards and retribution.

In this episode, we detail how businesses in the service industry, bolstered by friendly media, use tactics like tipping, mystery shoppers, and ubiquitous ratings systems in order to turn us all into petty, mean, busybodies carrying out the agenda of capital with nothing to show for it but a fleeting sense of self-satisfaction. 

Our guest is writer, editor and agitator Vicky Osterweil.

Ep. 118 - The Snitch Economy: How Rating Apps and Tipping Pit Working People Against Each Other

With the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the ascension of Amy Coney Barrett, a 6-3 right-wing majority appears locked in at the Supreme Court potentially for decades. To comfort grieving progressives, Andy, Tarik, and Tim take you on a mind journey to an alternate Earth where Hillary won and a plucky Dartmouth lad named Neal Katyal achieved his greatest dream: Supreme Court Justice Neal Katyal.

Episode 18: These Things I See and More

where we record a really long episode that's really hard to edit and then we post the first half on here, and the second half on our patreon

intro/// Сато - Пять четвертей (Take Five) (1981)
outro/// Carol Cool - Upside Down (1980)

SD 51 - trying something new out (with Sarah Squirm)

Since 2010, siblings and journalists Abby Martin and Robbie Martin have been doing Media Roots Radio, a political podcast with a critical eye on US foreign policy, political partisanship and what people can do to fight back. Conversational, controversial, passionate and explicit, Media Roots stands apart from the majority of podcasts coming from a similar point of view.

Listen to all previous episodes on soundcloud, itunes, spotify and stitcher. 

All $5 and up patrons get an exclusive bonus episode every month!