Ep. 50: Homeless Bill of Rights, Pfizer’s Vaccine Profiteering, Israel/ Palestine, and more

We start with some local updates, including some good news about how the work of houseless folks and their advocates is paying off in potential legislation over in Lansing.

In the Saginaw area a man pleads "insane" after making violent threats towards Governor Whitmer, the FBI, and LGBTQ+ people on social media. We trace the stochastic terrorism of right-wing corporate media that radicalizes men like him and the structure and motivation behind it.

Local pharmaceutical company Pfizer is making access to the newest COVID-19 booster more difficult via the privatization of the process. We tie this into a longer standing critique of the company that has engaged in vaccine profiteering.

We give you some quick updates about the struggle of autoworkers at UAW and its expansion to workers at Mack Trucks.

We then spend most of the hour deconstructing the western media narrative about the recent incursion of Hamas fighters in Israeli settlements. Lacking any historical context or nuance, most outlets are painting Israel as the one sided victim of these recent hostilities. They are purposefully leaving out the oppression of the people of Gaza, who have been living in conditions referred to as an open-air prison, and the people of Palestine more generally living under apartheid. With Israeli and Palestinian citizens caught in the middle, the ongoing settler-colonial violence perpetrated by the Israeli government has come home to roost- a government that is responding to the Hamas attack by promising and delivering a laundry list of its own war crimes against the people of Gaza.

We close with a story from TruthOut that asks deeper questions about Indigenous People's Day, and the importance of discontinuing our culture's more vile legacies in the form of "green colonialism."

 

1:55- 13:30 Homeless Bill of Rights Introduced in Michigan House

 

13:40- 21:00 Saginaw Man Pleads Insanity After Threatening Whitmer, FBI, LGBTQ+ People

 

21:20- 32:00 Pfizer's Vaccine Profiteering Gets in the Way of Booster Access

 

33:35- 38:30 UAW and Autoworkers Update

 

38:30- 1:22:00 From Kzoo to the Sea: Speaking Out on the Latest in the Israel/ Palestine Conflict

 

1:22:45- 1:28:00 To Honor Indigenous People's Day We Cannot Usher in "Green Colonialism"

 

SOURCES/ FURTHER READING

 

‘Homeless bill of rights’ would protect against theft, arrest in public spaces
https://www.mlive.com/public-interest/2023/10/homeless-bill-of-rights-would-protect-against-theft-arrest-in-public-spaces.html

 

Michigan man accused of threatening Whitmer, LGBTQ+ people on YouTube to pursue insanity defense
https://www.mlive.com/news/saginaw-bay-city/2023/10/michigan-man-accused-of-threatening-whitmer-lgbtq-people-on-youtube-to-pursue-insanity-defense.html

 

Commercialization Is Making Access to the New COVID Vaccine More Difficult
https://truthout.org/articles/commercialization-is-making-access-to-the-new-covid-vaccine-more-difficult/

 

UAW strike 2023 update: Walkout spreads to Kentucky Truck, Ford's most profitable factory
https://www.bridgemi.com/business-watch/uaw-strike-2023-update-autoworkers-strike-date-contract-expiration-demands

 

Historian Rashid Khalidi: Palestinians “Living Under Incredible Oppression, … It Had to Explode”
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/9/rashid_khalidi_palestine_israel_explosion

 

Netanyahu and the U.S. Prepare Bloody Counterattack Against Gaza Strip
https://www.leftvoice.org/netanyahu-and-the-u-s-prepare-bloody-counterattack-against-gaza-strip/

 

Plowshares into Swords: From Zionism to Israel
By Arno Mayer
https://www.versobooks.com/products/2053-plowshares-into-swords

 

From the River to the Sea: The Palestinian Liberation Struggle
From Revolutionary Left Radio
https://revolutionaryleftradio.libsyn.com/best-of-from-the-river-to-the-sea-the-palestinian-liberation-struggle

 

Dismantling Columbus’s Legacy Requires More Than Changing a Holiday’s Name
https://truthout.org/articles/dismantling-columbuss-legacy-requires-more-than-changing-a-holidays-name/