US Losing Grip on Its Rules-Based Order as It Challenges Russia and China

In this episode of By Any Means Necessary, hosts Sean Blackmon and Jacquie Luqman are joined by Nick Stender, a member of the Chicago Teachers Union and an activist with Reds in Ed to discuss how the pandemic and the inadequate response to it has caused a rapid increase in teacher burnout, threatening bigger labor shortages in a profession that already faced large shortages before the pandemic, how the pandemic has exposed the broad roles teachers have filled under the capitalist education system and how that diminishes the quality of education that children receive, how the politicization of teaching, most often seen in battles over book bans, has also contributed to burnout and demoralization, and the role teachers have to play in fighting for resources to protect students from the pandemic.

In the second segment, Sean and Jacquie are joined by Pascal Robert, commentator with Black Agenda Report and Co-Host of the This Is Revolution Podcast to discuss the selection of Fritz Alphonse Jean as Haiti’s interim president by the National Transition Council, how this selection is another attempt by Haitian elites at maintaining the colonial status of Haiti, the anniversary of the Ottawa Initiative on Haiti, which was the precursor to the 2004 coup and occupation of the country, and Canada's role in exacting imperialist violence on Haiti and the rest of the world.

In the third segment, Sean and Jacquie are joined by Tina Landis, organizer and author of the book, ‘Climate Solutions: Beyond Capitalism’ to discuss the nihilistic focus of mainstream media on climate disasters and failures by the Biden administration to secure piecemeal reforms instead of solutions to climate challenges in China and Cuba, how that nihilism can deflate and demobilize the movement around climate justice and the importance of hope, and the need to shift the focus of climate activism from individual consumption to the corporations and capitalist system responsible for the degeneration of the climate.

Later in the show, Sean and Jacquie are joined by Dr. Gerald Horne, Moores Professor of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston, and author of dozens of books, most recently “The Bittersweet Science: Racism, Racketeering, and the Political Economy of Boxing” to discuss the attempted coup in Guinea-Bissau and the interests of France and the United States, what underlying economic and geopolitical aspects might be behind the recent spate in coup attempts in west Africa, Ted Cruz’s comments on Joe Biden’s promise to nominate a Black woman to the Supreme Court and the political theater of the nomination meant to continue an unsustainable status quo, and the US’s desperate attempts to hold onto its arbitrary rules-based order as it challenges Russia and China.