In this episode of By Any Means Necessary, hosts Sean Blackmon and Jacquie Luqman are joined by Walter Smolarek, a journalist, organizer and editor of Liberation newspaper, and managing editor of LiberationNews.org to discuss Joe Biden’s State of the Union address and why so many of the accomplishments he touted are really examples of his selling out of poor and working people, why Biden should not be left off the hook for his inaction in the face of right-wing attacks on issues like abortion, and what Joe Biden’s failure to live up to many of his campaign promises means for the future of the US.
In the second segment, Sean and Jacquie are joined by Martín Varese, social media manager with People’s Dispatch, sociologist, and frequent collaborator with the independent Ecuadorian media outlet Revista Crisis to discuss recent local elections in Ecuador and the victories of progressives in those elections, how the rejection of questions regarding a constitutional referendum promoted by President Guilermo Lasso reflects the diminishing power of the conservative government in the country, and how we should understand these results in the context of the resurgence of progressive politics in Latin America and as Ecuador heads to presidential elections in 2025.
In the third segment, Sean and Jacquie are joined by Brian Mier, co-editor of Brasil Wire and author of Year of Lead: Washington, Wall Street and the New Imperialism in Brazil to discuss the use of lawfare as a strategy to destabilize governments in Latin America, how the US Department of Justice uses the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act to intervene in Latin America, how lawfare is situated in the use of hybrid warfare in the pursuit of regime change.
Later in the show, Sean and Jacquie discuss an explosive report from renowned journalist Seymour Hersh accusing the US of being behind the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines, how Washington has continued to escalate the conflict in Ukraine over the last year and long before last year, China’s foreign ministry assessing claims made against the country in Joe Biden’s State of the Union address as smears and what that demonstrates about the US relationship with the rest of the world, and a poll finding that half of its respondents believe they are financially worse off today than they were a year ago.
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